Cara Shultz: The Dark World

“Ah, Miss Kelly, did you take the scenic route?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at me over her glasses. Everything about Mrs. Clifton was severe—she was all hard lines and angles. Her eyebrows were perfectly symmetrical, inverted Vs that peaked just underneath blunt, razor-perfect gray bangs so sharp, they could cut salami.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, sliding into my seat and wondering if I’d have detention for the first time in my life or if Mrs. Clifton would give me a break.

“She probably stopped to have a chat with the fire extinguisher,” Pepper stage-whispered from the rear of the classroom, eliciting laughter from the back row. I gritted my teeth. But the whisper in the back of my head got louder. Maybe Pepper is right about you. Maybe you really are insane. You had the bracelet on the entire time, and you forgot about it. Blacking out—isn’t that a sign of mental illness?

I stared at my bracelet, wondering how it had fallen off my wrist. There was no other explanation. It’s not like Logan had gone into the girls’ locker room and stolen my bracelet. And my lock hadn’t been open... I must have forgotten to take it off. Or I put it on after gym and forgot about it. The clasp must be broken. It is an antique, after all. I’m just lucky Logan saw it fall off my wrist.

I inspected the clasp—it looked fine to me—but I didn’t want to risk losing the bracelet again. I unfastened it and slid it into the left pocket on my uniform shirt. I would ask my mom to look at it when I got home. She’d been saying she needed to have a new battery put in her watch. Maybe we could get a new clasp put on my bracelet, so I wouldn’t lose it. I was so caught up in my thoughts that I didn’t even realize Mrs. Clifton was standing over me, handing me a detention slip, a hard smile on her prim face.

I folded the pink scrap of paper and slipped it into the pocket along with my bracelet. At least you finally have plans on a Friday for once. The bitter thought bounced around in my head.

“Check in with Vice Principal Miller after school,” Mrs. Clifton ordered, shaking her head at me with a disappointed look on her face.

“Now, class, as I was saying, we have three new students today,” she said as she strolled to the front of the classroom to stand next to them. “Please welcome Blaise, Della and Aiden. They’ll be in your classes, so, please, help them find their way around the school. Preferably on time,” she added, casting a look in my direction. C’mon, lady. It’s the day after midterms, cut me a break. I almost scowled before I realized that would do nothing except earn me more time in detention.

Of course, the three new students were now staring directly at me, thanks to Mrs. Clifton. Blaise was tall and lean, with pin-straight red hair that hung to her waist, and pale, thin legs that stuck out from underneath her skirt. She was bare-legged—and it was twenty degrees outside! I checked out Della’s legs, and noticed that she had the good sense to wear tights—but her skirt was so short it was practically a belt. Where Blaise was plain—the only remarkable thing about her being the look of sheer disdain on her face as her dark eyes flitted around the classroom—Della was stunning. She was short and ridiculously gorgeous—and all curves, I noticed a little jealously. I self-consciously folded my arms in front of my own chest, which was only impressive when I was retaining water.

Della cocked an eyebrow and gave Pepper’s boyfriend, Matt Vogel, a lusty smile before mouthing “hi” to him. I didn’t know whether it was impressive, or tacky, that she managed to zero in on the best-looking guy in school before homeroom was over. I snuck a quick look behind me to see Pepper’s reaction, and she was glaring at Della with the “die-die-die” stare she normally reserved for me. I sighed in relief. Finally, someone new for Pepper to hate. I briefly wondered what had happened to the fourth student I had seen—a blonde girl, I think—then turned my attention to the last new student, the one who had given me the Captain Creepy smile yesterday.

Remember when I said Matt was the best-looking guy in school? Now that I had a closer look at Aiden, I knew that Matt’s reign was over. Aiden was, without a doubt, beautiful. Tall, angular and black-haired, with eyes that looked violet. I smiled to myself, flattered that someone who looked like that had thrown me such a flirty look yesterday. Hmm...maybe he’s not so creepy. You’re just used to people treating you like you’re a pariah.

And then I realized Aiden was looking right at me, noticing that I was, essentially, gawking at him in the middle of the classroom. If he’s Captain Creepy, you’re the General. I dropped my eyes immediately, positive that I’d just confirmed whatever Aiden would eventually hear about me being a weirdo.

I kept my eyes on my notebook for the rest of homeroom and hunched down low in my desk, managing to avoid being called on in all my morning classes. Good thing—I had at least one of the new kids in each of my classes, and they were already staring at me curiously, probably waiting for me to talk to my pencil. Usually Dottie would show up in math—she particularly liked standing behind my teacher, Dr. Walsh, and mimicking the way she waved the ruler around. Walsh looked like she was conducting an orchestra, the way she wielded that thing. But Dottie had been suspiciously absent all morning. Maybe she was giving me a break, since her last words to me were instructions to not embarrass myself, and she was often the unwitting source of my humiliation— usually by making me laugh.

I headed to Dottie’s third-floor bathroom during lunch, anxious to talk things over with my best friend. It wasn’t like me to be so forgetful—or to not even notice that my bracelet was on my wrist. I played with it enough.

I patted the bracelet in my front pocket, feeling the reassuring weight of the platinum swirls against my fingertips as I entered the bathroom. It was empty as usual, since most of the students were in the basement cafeteria. I hopped up on my usual perch on the barely warm radiator and pulled the tomato-and-cheese sandwich I’d made the night before out of my backpack, banging my heels on the metal coils as I waited for Dottie to appear.

Finally, she shimmered into existence in front of me and gave me a big, relieved smile as she jumped up and down on the white tile floor.

“Finally made it,” she said breathily—an impressive feat, since Dottie didn’t exactly need to breathe.

“About time!” I agreed, after I swallowed a mouthful of sandwich. “Where have you been?”

“I’ve been trying to see you all day, but I couldn’t find you,” she said, her brow creased with concern. “I was starting to get worried that I couldn’t come to this side anymore.”

“Well, you’re here now,” I reassured her—even though my stomach began to churn with worry. Why hadn’t Dottie been able to break through? She usually just followed my “energy,” she said. It’s not like we had maps or directions for crossing between her dark world and mine.

“But it took me long enough,” Dottie said, pretending to wipe her forehead with the back of her hand. “And I’ve been dying to talk to you about Logan.”

At the mention of his name, my brow creased—and then I blushed furiously.

“What? Did something happen? Ooh, tell me!” Dottie squealed. I quickly explained about the bracelet—purposefully leaving out when I’d misunderstood what “get it on” meant—and I thought Dottie might faint.

“That is just so romantic!” She sighed, folding her hands against her cheek and smiling sweetly. “Like Prince Charming returning Cinderella’s slipper.”

“More like a classmate returning a bracelet he saw fall off a girl’s wrist,” I corrected her, trying to stem Dottie’s swoony tidal wave that threatened to knock me right off the radiator.