Meg Cabot - Shadowland

I stuck out the hand I'd just knocked Heather senseless with. "How do you do, Mr. Walden?"

"Just fine, Miss Simon. Just fine." Mr. Walden's enormous hand engulfed mine. He didn't look much like a teacher to me. He looked more like a lumberjack. In fact, he practically had to flatten himself against the wall to give me room to slip past him into his classroom. "Nice to have you with us," he said, in his big, booming voice. "Thanks, Dom, for bringing her over."

"Not a problem," Father Dominic said. "We were just having a little difficulty with her locker. You probably heard it. Didn't mean to disturb you. I'll have the custodian look into it. In the meantime, Susannah, I'll expect you back in my office at three, to, um, fill out the rest of those forms."

I smiled at him sweetly. "Oh, no can do, Father. My ride leaves at three."

Father Dominic scowled at me. "Then I'll send you a pass. Expect one around two."

"Okay," I said, and waggled my fingers at him. "Buh-bye."

I guess on the West Coast you aren't supposed to say buh-bye to the principal, or waggle your fingers at him, since when I turned around to face my new classmates, they were all staring at me with their mouths hanging open.

Maybe it was my outfit. I had worn a little bit more black than usual, due to nerves. When in doubt, I always say, wear black. You can never go wrong with black.

Or maybe you can. Because as I looked around at the gaping faces, I didn't see a single black garment in the lot. A lot of white, a few browns, and a heck of a lot of khaki, but no black.

Oops.

Mr. Walden didn't seem to notice my discomfort. He introduced me to the class, and made me tell them where I came from. I told them, and they all stared at me blankly. I began to feel sweat pricking the back of my neck. I have to tell you, sometimes I prefer the company of the undead to the company of my peers. Sixteen-year-olds can be really scary.

But Mr. Walden was a good guy. He only made me stand there a minute, under all those stares, and then he told me to take a seat.

This sounds like a simple thing, right? Just go and take a seat. But you see, there were two seats. One was next to this really pretty tanned girl, with thick, curly honey-blond hair. The other was way in the back, behind a girl with hair so white, and skin so pink, she could only be an albino.

No, I am not kidding. An albino .

Two things influenced my decision. One was that when I saw the seat in the back, I also happened to see that the windows, directly behind that seat, looked out across the school parking lot.

Okay, not such an inspiring view, you might say. But beyond the parking lot was the sea.

I am not kidding. This school, my new school, had a view of the Pacific that was even better than the one in my bedroom since the school was so much closer to the beach. You could actually see the waves from my homeroom's windows. I wanted to sit as close to the window as possible.

The second reason I sat there was simple: I didn't want to take the seat by the tan girl and have the albino girl think I'd done it because I didn't want to sit near anyone as weird looking as she was. Stupid, right? Like she'd even care what I did. But I didn't even hesitate. I saw the sea, I saw the albino, and I went for it.

As soon as I sat down, of course, this girl a few seats away snickered and went, under her breath, but perfectly audibly, "God, sit by the freak, why don't you."

I looked at her. She had perfectly curled hair and perfectly made-up eyes. I said, not talking under my breath at all, "Excuse me, do you have Tourette's?"

Mr. Walden had turned around to write something on the board, but the sound of my voice stopped him. Everybody turned around to look at me, including the girl who'd spoken. She blinked at me, startled. "What?"

"Tourette's Syndrome," I said. "It's a neurological disorder that causes people to say things they don't really mean. Do you have it?"

The girl's cheeks had slowly started turning scarlet. "No."

"Oh," I said. "So you were being purposefully rude."

"I wasn't calling you a freak," the girl said, quickly.

"I'm aware of that," I said. "That's why I'm only going to break one of your fingers after school, instead of all of them."

She spun around real fast to face the front of the classroom. I settled back into my chair. I don't know what everybody started buzzing about after that, but I did see the albino's scalp – which was plainly visible beneath the white of her hair – turn a deep magenta with embarrassment. Mr. Walden had to call everyone to order, and when people ignored him, he slammed his fist down on his desk and told us that if we had so damned much to say, we could say it in a thousand word essay on the battle at Bladensburg during the War of 1812, double-spaced, and due on his desk first thing tomorrow morning.

Oh well. Good thing I wasn't in school to make friends.

CHAPTER 7

And yet I did. Make friends, I mean.

I didn't try to. I didn't even really want to. I mean, I have enough friends back in Brooklyn. I have Gina, the best friend anybody could have. I didn't need any more friends than that.

And I really didn't think anybody here was going to like me – not after having been assigned a thousand word essay because of what happened when I sat down. And especially not after what happened when we were informed that it was time for second period – there was no bell system at the Mission School, we changed class on the hour, and had five minutes to get to where we were going. No sooner had Mr. Walden dismissed us than the albino girl turned around in her seat and asked, her purple eyes glowing furiously behind the tinted lenses of her glasses, "Am I supposed to be grateful to you, or something, for what you said to Debbie?"

"You," I said, standing up, "aren't supposed to be anything, as far as I'm concerned."

She stood up, too. "But that's why you did it, right? Defended the albino? Because you felt sorry for me?"

"I did it," I said, folding my coat over my arm, "because Debbie is a troll."

I saw the corners of her lips twitch. Debbie had swept up her books and practically run for the door the minute Mr. Walden had dismissed us. She and a bunch of other girls, including the pretty tanned one who'd had the empty seat next to her, were whispering amongst themselves and casting me dirty looks over their Ralph Lauren sweater-draped shoulders.

I could tell the albino girl wanted to laugh at my calling Debbie a troll, but she wouldn't let herself. She said, fiercely, "I can fight my own battles, you know. I don't need your help, New York."

I shrugged. "Fine with me, Carmel."

She couldn't help smiling then. When she did, she revealed a mouthful of braces that winked as brightly as the sea outside the window. "It's Cee Cee," she said.

"What's Cee Cee?"

"My name. I'm Cee Cee." She stuck out a milky-white hand, the nails of which were painted a violent orange. "Welcome to the Mission Academy."

At nine o'clock, Mr. Walden had dismissed us. By nine-oh-two, Cee Cee had introduced me to twenty other people, most of whom trotted after me as we moved to our next class, wanting to know what it was like to have lived in New York City.

"Is it really," one horsey-looking girl asked, wistfully, "as... as... " She struggled to think of the word she was looking for. "As... metropolitan as they all say?"

These girls, I probably don't have to add, were not the class lookers. They were not, I saw at once, on speaking terms with the pretty tanned girl and the one whose fingers I'd threatened to break after school, who were the ones so well-turned out in their sweater sets and khaki skirts. Oh, no. The girls who came up to me were a motley bunch, some acned, some overweight, or way, way too skinny. I was horrified to see that one was wearing open-toe shoes with reinforced toe pantyhose. Beige pantyhose, too. And white shoes. In January!