Unearthly

Chapter 3 I Survived the Black Plague

The first thing that catches my eye as I drive into the parking lot of Jackson Hole High School is a large silver truck parked in the back of the lot. I squint to see the license plate.

“Whoa!” yells Jeffrey as I nearly rear-end another, much-older, much-rustier blue truck in front of me. “Learn to drive already!”

“Sorry.” I try to wave apologetically to the guy driving the blue truck, but he yells something out his window that I’m pretty sure I don’t want to understand and screeches away across the parking lot. I park the Prius carefully in an empty space and sit for a minute, trying to get myself together.

Jackson Hole High doesn’t resemble a school so much as a resort, a large brick building framed by a series of huge log beams along the front, kind of like pillars but with a more rustic feel. Like everything else in our new hometown, it’s postcard perfect, all shining windows and perfectly spaced, white-trunked trees that are beautiful even without leaves, not to mention the gorgeous towering mountains in the background on three sides. Even the fluffy white clouds in the sky look deliberately placed.

“Later,” says Jeffrey, jumping out of the car. He grabs his backpack and swaggers toward the front door of the school like he owns the place. A few girls in the parking lot turn to check him out. He flashes them an easy smile, which immediately starts up the whisper/giggle thing that always trailed him at our old school.

“So much for not calling attention to ourselves,” I mutter. I apply another coat of lip gloss and inspect my reflection in the rearview mirror, cringing at my humiliating hair color. In spite of my mom’s and my best efforts over the past week, it’s still orange.

We’ve tried everything, re-dyed it like five times, even tried to dye it jet black, but the color always washes out to the same horrendous, eye-stabbing orange. It’s like some kind of cruel cosmic joke.

“You can’t always rely on your looks, Clara,” Mom said after failed-attempt number five. Like she’s one to talk. Like she’s ever looked less than gorgeous a day in her life.

“I’ve never relied on my looks, Mom.”

“Sure you have,” she said a bit too cheerfully. “You aren’t vain about it, but still. You knew that when the other students at Mountain View High looked at you, they saw this pretty strawberry blonde.”

“Yeah, so now I’m not strawberry blonde or pretty,” I said miserably. Yes, I was wallowing. But the hair is just so horrifically orange.

Mom put a finger under my chin and forced my head up to look at her.

“You could have neon green hair, and it wouldn’t take away how beautiful you are,”

she said.

“You’re my mother. You’re legally required to say that.”

“Let’s try to remember that you’re not here to win a beauty pageant. You’re here for your purpose. Maybe this hair problem means that things aren’t going to be as easy for you here as they were in California. And maybe there’s a reason for that.”

“Right. A very good reason, I’m sure.”

“At least the dye will cover the bright stuff. So you won’t have to worry about keeping your hair covered.”

“Yay for me.”

“You’ll have to make the best of it, Clara,” she said.

So here I am, making the best of it, like I really have a choice. I get out of the car and sneak to the back of the parking lot to inspect the silver truck. AVALANCHE, it reads in silver letters across the back fender. License plate 99CX.

He’s here. I force myself to breathe. He’s really here.

Now there’s nothing left to do but walk into the school with my crazy, unruly, insanely bright-orange hair. I watch the other students stream into the building in their little groups, laughing and talking and goofing around. All total strangers, every single one of them. Except one. Although I’m a stranger to him. My hands are simultaneously sweaty and clammy. A flock of butterflies flaps around in my stomach. I’ve never been more nervous in my life.

You’ve got this, Clara, I think. Next to your purpose, this school thing should be a snap.

So I straighten my shoulders, trying for Jeffrey’s confidence, and head for the door.

My first mistake, I realize almost immediately, was assuming that even with the designer exterior, this high school would be essentially like any other. Boy, was I ever wrong. The school is as high-end on the inside as it appears on the outside.

Almost all of the classrooms have tall ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows with mountain views. The cafeteria is a cross between the inside of a ski lodge and an art museum. There are paintings, murals, and collages in practically every nook and cranny of the place. It even smells better than regular schools: pine and chalk and a fragrant mix of expensive perfumes. My old cinder-block school in California seems like a prison in comparison.

I’ve stumbled into the land of pretty people. And here I thought I’d come from the land of pretty people. You know how sometimes on TV they’ll show you a picture of a celebrity from high school, and that person looks perfectly normal, not really any more attractive than anyone else? And you think, what happened? Why is Jennifer Garner so hot now? I’ll tell you: money happened. Facials, fancy haircuts, designer clothes, and personal trainers happened. And the kids at Jackson High had that celebrity polish, except for the few here and there who looked like genuine cowboys, complete with Stetsons, pearl buttons on their western-style plaid shirts, too-tight Wranglers, and scuffed cowboy boots.

Plus, the curriculum is fancy. Sure, you can take an art class, if you feel like learning to draw, but you can also take AP Studio Art, which prepares you to enter Jackson Hole’s lively art scene. There’s a class called Power Sports, which teaches you how to tune up your motorcycle, ATV, or snowmobile. You can learn how to start your own business, draft your dream house, develop your passion for French cuisine, or take your first steps toward becoming an engineer. Just in case you want to get your pilot’s license, the school offers a couple courses in aerodynamics. The world is your oyster at Jackson Hole High.

It’s definitely going to take some getting used to.

I thought the other students would be excited to see me, or curious at the very least.

I’m fresh meat, after all, and from California, and maybe I have some big-city wisdom to offer the natives. Wrong again. For the most part, they completely ignore me. After I make it through three periods (trigonometry, French III, College Prep Chemistry) where nobody even bothers with a simple howdy, I’m ready to dash for my car and drive straight back to California, where I’ve known everybody for forever and they’ve known me, where right this minute my friends and I would be dishing about our holidays and comparing schedules, and I’d be pretty and popular. Where life is ordinary.

But then I see him.

He’s standing with his back to me near my locker. A surge of electricity zings through me as I recognize his shoulders, his hair, the shape of his head. In a flash I’m in the vision, seeing him both in the black fleece jacket among the trees and for real, just down the hall simultaneously, like the vision is a thin veil laid on top of reality.

I take a step toward him, my mouth opening to call his name. Then I remember that I don’t know it. Like always, it’s as if he hears me anyway and starts to turn, and my heart skips a beat when I don’t wake up but see his face now, his mouth curling up in a half smile as he jokes with the guy next to him.

He glances up and his eyes meet mine. The hallway melts away. It’s only him and me now, in the forest. The vision comes from behind him, the fire on the hillside roaring toward us, faster than it could ever possibly happen.

I have to save him, I think.

That’s when I faint.

I wake to a girl with long, golden brown hair sitting on the floor next to me, her hand on my forehead, talking in a low voice like she’s trying to calm an animal.

“What happened?” I look around for the boy, but he’s gone. Something hard pokes into my back, and I realize I’m lying on my chemistry book.

“You fell,” says the girl, as if that isn’t obvious. “Do you have epilepsy or something?

It looked like you were having some kind of seizure.”

People are staring. I feel the heat rising in my cheeks.

“I’m okay,” I say, sitting up.

“Easy.” The girl jumps up and reaches down to help me. I take her hand and let her haul me to my feet.

“I’m kind of a klutz,” I say, like that explains it.

“She’s okay. Go to class,” the girl says to the kids who are still gawking. “Did you eat this morning?” she asks me.

“What?”

“Could be a blood sugar thing.” She puts her arm around me and steers me down the hallway. “What’s your name?”

“Clara.”

“Wendy,” she says in response.

“Where are we going?”

“The nurse.”

“No,” I object, breaking free of her arm. I straighten and attempt to smile. “I’m fine, really.”

The bell rings. Suddenly the hallway’s deserted. Then from around the corner bustles a plump, yellow-haired woman wearing blue nursing scrubs, walking fast.

Behind her is the boy. My boy.

“There she goes again,” Wendy says as I wobble into her.

“Christian,” orders the nurse quickly as they rush toward me.

Christian. His name.

His arm comes under my knees, and he lifts me. My arm is around his shoulder, my fingers inches away from the spot where his neck meets his hair. His smell, a mixture of Ivory soap and some wonderful, spicy cologne, washes over me. I look up into his green eyes, so close that I can see flecks of gold in them.

“Hi,” he says.

Heaven help me, I think as he smiles. It’s just too much.

“Hi,” I murmur, looking away, flushing to the roots of my loose, very-orange hair.

“Hold on to me,” he says, and then he’s carrying me down the hall. Over his shoulder I see Wendy watching me, before she turns and walks the other way.

When we reach the nurse’s office he puts me down gently onto a cot. I do my best not to gape at him.

“Thank you,” I stammer.

“No problem.” He smiles again in a way that makes me glad I’m sitting down. “You’re pretty light.”

My jumbled brain tries to make sense of these three words and put them in order, with little success.

“Thank you,” I say again, lamely.

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Prescott,” says the nurse. “Now get to class.”

Christian Prescott. His name is Christian Prescott.

“See ya,” he says, and just like that, he’s walking away.

I wave as he rounds the corner, then feel like an idiot.

“Now,” says the nurse, turning to me.

“Really,” I say. “I’m fine.”

She looks unconvinced.

“I could do jumping jacks — that’s how fine I am,” I say, and I can’t wipe the stupid smile off my face.

Thus I arrive at Honors English late. The students have pulled their chairs into a circle. The teacher, an older man with a short, white beard, motions for me to come in.

“Pull up a chair. Miss Gardner, I presume?”

“Yes.” I feel the whole class staring directly at me as I grab a desk from the back of the room and drag it toward the circle. I recognize Wendy, the girl who helped me in the hall. She scoots her desk over to make room for me.

“I’m Mr. Phibbs,” says the teacher. “We’re in the middle of an exercise that’s largely for your benefit, so I’m glad you could join us. Everyone must give three unique facts about themselves. If anyone else in the circle has one in common, they raise their hand, and the person whose turn it is has to choose something else. We’re currently on Shawn, who was finishing up by claiming that he has the most. rocking snowboard in Teton County. ” Mr. Phibbs raises his bushy eyebrows. “Which Jason here contested.”

“I ride the beautiful pink lady,” brags the boy who I assume is Shawn.

“No one can argue that’s unique,” says Mr. Phibbs with a cough. “So now we’re on to Kay. And say your name, please, for the new girl.”

Everyone looks to a petite brunette with large brown eyes. She smiles as if it’s the most natural thing in the world for her to be the center of attention.

“I’m Kay Patterson,” she says. “My parents own the oldest fudge shop in Jackson.”

“I’ve met Harrison Ford lots of times,” she adds as her second thing, “because our fudge is his favorite. He said that I look like Carrie Fisher from Star Wars.”

So she’s vain, I think. Although if you dressed her up in a white gown and put the cinnamon-roll buns on either side of her head, she really could pass for Princess Leia. She’s very attractive, definitely one of the pretty people, with a peaches-and-cream complexion and brown hair that falls past her shoulders in perfect curls, so shiny that it almost doesn’t look like hair.

“And,” Kay adds as her final touch, “Christian Prescott is my boyfriend.”

I dislike her already.

“Very good, Kay,” said Mr. Phibbs.

Next is Wendy. She’s blushing, obviously mortified to be speaking in front of the entire class about herself.

“I’m Wendy Avery,” she says with a shrug. “My family manages a ranch outside Wilson. I don’t know what else is that unique about me. I want to be a veterinarian, not a big surprise because I love horses. And I’ve made my own clothes since I was six years old.”

“Thank you, Wendy,” said Mr. Phibbs. She rocks back with a small sigh of relief.

From the desk next to hers, Kay stifles a yawn. It’s a small, ladylike gesture, but it makes me dislike her even more.

Silence.

Oh crap, I realize, they’re waiting for me.

All the things I’ve been considering fly out of my brain. Instead I think of all the things I can’t tell them, like I can speak any language on Earth fluently. I have wings that appear when I ask them to, and I’m supposed to be able to fly, but I suck at it. I’m a natural blonde. I have an impeccable sense of direction, which I think is supposed to help with the flying thing, but it doesn’t. Oh, and I’m here on a mission to save Kay’s boyfriend.

I clear my throat. “So I’m Clara Gardner, and I moved here from California.”

The other students snicker as a guy across the circle raises his hand.

“That’s one of Mr. Lovett’s unique facts,” said Mr. Phibbs, “only you weren’t here when he said it. You’ll find that there are quite a few students here who have migrated from the Golden State.”

“Okay, well, let me try again.” Specificity is obviously the key here. “I moved here from California about a week ago, because I heard such great things about the fudge.”

The class laughs, even Kay, who seems pleased. I suddenly feel like a stand-up comedian who’s just told the opening bit. But anything’s better than being known as the redheaded dorkina who passed out in the middle of the hall after third period. So jokes it will be.

“Birds are weirdly attracted to me,” I continue. “They kind of stalk me wherever I go.”

This is true. My current theory about this is because they smell my feathers, although it’s impossible to know for sure.

“Are you raising your hand, Angela?” asks Mr. Phibbs.

Startled, I glance to my right, where a raven-haired girl in a violet-colored tunic dress over black leggings is quickly lowering her hand.

“No, just stretching,” she says casually, looking at me with grave amber eyes. “I like the bird thing, though. That’s funny.”

But nobody’s laughing this time. They’re staring at me. I swallow.

“Okay, one more, right?” I say a little desperately. “My mom is a computer programmer, and my dad is a physics professor at NYU, which probably means that I should be good at math.” I make a pained face. The idea that I can’t do math is bogus of course. I’m good at math. It’s a language after all, which is why Mom understands the way computers talk to one another without having to work at it. And probably why she was attracted to Dad to begin with, who’s like a human calculator even without a drop of angel blood running through his veins. Jeffrey and I both find it ridiculously easy.

This doesn’t get a laugh, either, just a pity chuckle from Wendy. I’m apparently not cut out to be a stand-up comedian.

“Thank you, Clara,” says Mr. Phibbs.

The last student to name her three things is the black-haired girl who looked at me so attentively when I mentioned the weird thing with the birds. Her name, she says, is Angela Zerbino. She tucks her side-swept bangs behind her ear and lists her three unique things quickly.

“My mother owns the Pink Garter. I’ve never met my father. And I’m a poet.”

Another awkward silence. She looks around the circle like she’s daring someone to challenge her. Nobody meets her eyes.

“Good,” says Mr. Phibbs, clearing his throat. He peruses his notes. “Now we know each other better. But how do people really get to know each other? Is it with facts, the specifics about ourselves that distinguish us from the other six and a half billion people on this planet? Is it our brains that make us different, the way each person is like a computer programmed with a different mix of software, memories, habits, and genetic makeup? Is it what we do, the actions we take? What would your three things have been, I wonder, if I’d told you to name the most defining actions you have taken in your life?”

I see a flash of the fire in my mind’s eye.

“This spring we’ll be spending a lot of time discussing what it is to be unique,”

continues Mr. Phibbs. He stands and hobbles over to the small table at the back of the room, where he picks up a stack of books and begins to pass them out.

“Our first book of the semester,” he says.

Frankenstein.

“It’s alive!” yells the guy with the pink lady on his snowboard, holding up his book as if he expects it to be struck by lightning. Kay Patterson rolls her eyes

“Ah, you’re channeling Dr. Frankenstein already.” Mr. Phibbs turns to the whiteboard and writes the name Mary Shelley in black marker, along with the year 1817. “This book was written by a woman not much older than you are now, who was reflecting on the battle between science and the natural world.”

He launches into a lecture about Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the impact his ideas had on art and literature at the time that Mary Shelley was writing. I try not to stare at Kay Patterson. I wonder what kind of girl she is, to snag a guy like Christian. And then, since I don’t know anything about him other than what the back of his head looks like, and that he likes to rescue girls who pass out in the hall, I wonder what kind of guy Christian is.

I realize that I’m chewing on my pencil eraser. I put my pencil down.

“Mary Shelley wanted to explore what it is that makes us human,” Mr. Phibbs concludes. He glances over at me, meets my eyes like he knows I haven’t been listening to a thing he’s said for the past ten minutes, then looks away.

“I guess we’ll find out,” he says as he holds up the book, and then the bell rings.

“You can sit at my table for lunch, if you want,” Wendy offers as we’re leaving the classroom. “Did you pack your lunch? Or were you planning to go off campus?”

“No, I thought I’d get something here.”

“Well, I think today it’s chicken-fried steak.” I make a face. “But you can always get pizza, or a peanut butter sandwich. Those are the JHHS staples.”

“Healthy.”

I shuffle through the line to get my food and follow Wendy over to her table, where a bunch of nearly identical-looking girls peer up at me expectantly. Wendy rattles off their names: Lindsey, Emma, and Audrey. They seem friendly enough. Definitely not pretty people, all wearing T-shirts and jeans, braids and ponytails, not a lot of makeup. But nice. Normal.

“So, you’re like a group?” I ask as I sit down.

Wendy laughs.

“We call ourselves the Invisibles.”

“Oh.,” I said, unsure of whether she’s joking or how to respond.

“We’re not freaks or geeks,” says Lindsey, Emma, or Audrey, I can’t tell which.

“We’re just, well, you know, invisible.”

“Invisible to—”

“The popular people,” says Wendy. “They don’t see us.”

Great. I fit right in with the Invisibles.

Across the cafeteria I catch a glimpse of Jeffrey sitting with a bunch of guys in letterman jackets. A little blond girl is gazing up at him adoringly. He says something.

Everybody at his table laughs.

Unbelievable. In less than one day, he’s Mr. Popular.

Someone pulls a chair up next to me. I turn. There is Christian, straddling the chair.

For a moment all I can focus on is his green eyes. Maybe I’m not so invisible after all.

“So I hear you’re from California,” he says.

“Yes,” I murmur, hurrying to chew and swallow a bite of peanut butter sandwich. The room is quieter now. The girls at the Invisibles table are gazing at him with wide eyes, as if he’s never crossed into their territory before. As a matter of fact, pretty much everyone in the cafeteria is looking at us, a curious and almost predatory stare.

I take a quick sip of milk and give him what I hope is a food-free smile.

“We moved here from Mountain View. That’s south of San Francisco,” I manage.

“I was born in L.A. We lived there until I was five, although I don’t really remember much.”

“Nice.” My mind races for the right response to this information, some way to acknowledge this amazing thing we have in common. But I’ve got nothing. Nothing.

The most I can come up with is a nervous giggle. A giggle, for crying out loud.

“I’m Christian,” he says suavely. “I didn’t get the chance to introduce myself before.”

“I’m Clara.” I put my hand out to shake, a gesture he seems to find charming. He takes my hand, and it’s like my vision and the real world clap together at this moment. He smiles this stunning, lopsided smile. He’s real. His hand around mine is warm and confident, just the right amount of pressure. I’m instantly dizzy.

“Nice to meet you, Clara,” he says, shaking my hand.

“Totally.”

He smiles again. Hot is really not an adequate enough word for this guy. He is crazy beautiful. And it’s more than his looks — the intentionally messy waves of his dark hair; the strong eyebrows that make his expression a bit serious, even when he smiles; his eyes, which I notice can look emerald in one light and hazel in another; the sweetly sculpted angles of his face; the curve of his full lips. I’ve been seeing him from the front for all of ten minutes total and already I’m obsessing about his lips.

“Thank you for before,” I say.

“You’re very welcome.”

“Hey, ready to go?” Kay walks up and puts her hand on the back of his neck in a decidedly possessive gesture, spearing her fingers through his hair. Her expression is so carefully neutral it could have been sprayed on, like she couldn’t care less who her boyfriend’s talking to. Christian turns to look up at her, his face practically even with her breasts. Around her neck dangles a shiny silver half-heart with the initials C.P. stamped into it. He smiles.

Spell effectively broken.

“Yeah, just a sec,” he says. “Kay, this is—”

“Clara Gardner,” she says, nodding. “She’s in my English class. Moved here from California. Doesn’t like birds. No good at math.”

“Yeah, that’s me in a nutshell,” I say.

“What? Did I miss something?” asks Christian, confused.

“Nothing. Just a stupid exercise we did in Phibbs’s class. We better go if we want to get back before next period,” she says, then turns to me and smiles, a flash of perfect white teeth. I’d bet money that she wore braces at some point. “There’s this great Chinese place we like to hit for lunch about a mile from here. You’ll have to try it sometime with your friends.” Translation: You and I will never be friends.

“I like Chinese,” I say.

Christian hops up from the chair. Kay tucks her arm in his and smiles at him from under her lashes and starts to lead him out of the cafeteria.

“Nice to meet you,” he calls back to me. “Again.”

And then he’s gone.

“Wow,” remarks Wendy, who’s been sitting right next to me the entire time without making a sound. “Impressive attempt at flirtation.”

“I guess I was inspired,” I say a bit dazedly.

“Well, I don’t think there are many girls here who aren’t inspired by Christian Prescott,” she says, which makes the other girls titter.

“Freshman year I had this fantasy that he asked me to the prom and I’d be crowned queen,” sighs the one I think is Emma, who then flushes bright red. “I’m over it now.”

“I’d put money on Christian being prom king this year.” Wendy scrunches up her nose. “But Kay’s the queen. You’d better watch your back.”

“Is she that bad?”

Wendy laughs, then shrugs.

“She and I were good friends in grade school, had sleep-overs and tea parties with our dolls and all of that, but when we hit junior high, it was like. ” Wendy shakes her head sadly. “She’s spoiled. But she’s nice enough when you get to know her, I guess. She can be really sweet. But don’t get on her bad side.”

I’m pretty sure I’m already on Kay Patterson’s bad side. I could tell by the way she’d kept her voice light, friendly, but beneath it was an undercurrent of contempt.

I glance around the cafeteria. I notice the black-haired girl from English, Angela Zerbino. She’s sitting by herself, her lunch untouched in front of her, reading a thick black book. She looks up. She nods, just the tiniest bob of her head, like she wants to acknowledge me. I hold her gaze for a moment, then look away. She goes back to reading her book.

“What about her?” I ask Wendy, tilting my head to indicate Angela.

“Angela? She’s not a social reject or anything. It’s like she prefers to be alone. She’s sort of intense. Focused. She’s always been that way.”

“What’s the Pink Garter? It sounds like a. you know, a place where. you know.. ”

Wendy laughs. “A whorehouse?”

“Yeah,” I say, embarrassed.

“It’s a dinner theater in town,” said Wendy, still laughing. “Cowboy melodramas, a few musicals.”

“Oh,” I say, finally getting it. “I thought it was strange when she said in class that her mother owned a whorehouse and she didn’t know her father. A little TMI, if you know what I mean.”

Now everyone at the table is laughing. I look again at Angela, who has turned a bit so I can’t see her face.

“She seems nice,” I backpedal.

Wendy nods.

“She is. My brother had a crush on her for a while.”

“You have a brother?”

She snorts like she wishes she could give a different answer.

“Yes. He’s my twin, actually. He’s also a pain.”

“I know the feeling.” I gaze over at Jeffrey in his circle of new friends.

“And speak of the devil,” says Wendy, grabbing the sleeve of a boy who’s passing by our table.

“Hey,” he protests. “What?”

“Nothing. I was just telling the new girl about my awesome brother and now here you are.” She flashes a huge smile at him, the kind that says she might not be telling the whole truth.

“Behold, Tucker Avery,” she says to me, gesturing up at him.

Her brother resembles her in nearly every way: same hazy blue eyes, same tan, same golden brown hair, except his hair is short and spiky and he’s about a foot taller. He is definitely part of the cowboy group, although toned down from some of the others, wearing a simple gray tee, jeans, and cowboy boots. Also hot, but in a completely different way than Christian, less refined, more tan and muscle and the hint of stubble along his jaw. He looks like he’s been working under the sun his whole life.

“This is Clara,” says Wendy.

“You’re the girl with the Prius who almost rear-ended my truck this morning,” he says.

“Oh, sorry about that.”

He looks me up and down. I feel myself blush for probably the hundredth time that day.

“From California, right?” The word California seems like an insult coming from him.

“Tucker,” Wendy warns, pulling at his arm.

“Well, I doubt that I would have done any damage to your truck if I’d hit you,” I retort.

“It looks like the back end is about to rust off.”

Wendy’s eyes widen. She seems genuinely alarmed.

Tucker scoffs. “That rusty truck will probably be towing you out of a snowbank next time there’s a storm.”

“Tucker!” exclaims Wendy. “Don’t you have a rodeo team meeting or something?”

I’m busy trying to think of a comeback involving the incredible amount of money I will save this year driving my Prius as opposed to his gasguzzling truck, but the right words aren’t forming.

“You’re the one who wanted to chat,” he says to Wendy.

“I didn’t know you were going to act like a pig.”

“Fine.” He smirks at me. “Nice to meet you, Carrots,” he says, looking directly at my hair. “Oh, I mean Clara.”

My face flames.

“Same to you, Rusty,” I shoot back, but he’s already striding away.

Great. I’ve been at this school for less than five hours and I’ve already made two enemies simply by existing.

“Told you he was a pain,” says Wendy.

“I think that might have been an understatement,” I say, and we both laugh.

The first person I see when I come into my next class is Angela Zerbino. She’s sitting in the front row, already bent over her notebook. I take a seat a few rows back, looking around the classroom at all the portraits of the British monarchy that are stapled to the top of the walls. A large table at the front of the room displays a Popsicle-stick model of the Tower of London and a papier mâché replica of Stonehenge. In one corner is a mannequin wearing a suit of chain mail, in another, a large wooden board with three holes in it: real stockades.

This looks like it could be interesting.

The other students trickle in. When the bell rings, the teacher ambles out from a back room. He’s a scrawny guy with long hair pulled back in a ponytail and thick glasses, but he somehow comes off as cool, wearing his dress shirt and tie over black jeans and cowboy boots.

“Hi, I’m Mr. Erikson. Welcome to spring semester of British History,” he says. He grabs a jar off the table and shakes the papers inside. “First I thought we’d start by dividing up. In this canister are ten pieces of paper with the word serf on it. If you draw one of those, you’re basically a slave. Deal with it. There are three pieces of paper with the word cleric; if you draw those, you’re part of the church, a nun or a priest, whichever is appropriate.”

He glances toward the back of the room where a stu-dent has just slipped in the door. “Christian, nice of you to join us.”

It takes all of my willpower not to turn around.

“Sorry,” I hear Christian say. “Won’t happen again.”

“If it does you’ll spend five minutes in the stocks.”

“It definitely won’t happen again.”

“Excellent,” says Mr. Erikson. “Now where was I? Oh yes. Five pieces of paper have the words lord/lady. If you draw one of these, congratulations, you own land, maybe even a serf or two. Three say knight—you get the idea. And there is one, and only one, paper with the word king, and if you draw that one, you rule us all.”

He holds the jar out to Angela.

“I’m going to be queen,” she says.

“We shall see,” says Mr. Erikson.

Angela draws a paper from the jar and reads it. Her smile fades. “Lady.”

“I wouldn’t whine about it,” Mr. Erikson tells her. “It’s a good life, relatively speaking.”

“Of course, if I want to be sold off to the richest man who offers to marry me.”

“Touché,” said Mr. Erikson. “Lady Angela, everybody.”

He makes his way around the room. He already knows the students and calls them by name.

“Hmmm, red hair,” he says when he gets to me. “Could be a witch.”

Someone snickers behind me. I steal a quick look over my shoulder to see Wendy’s obnoxious brother, Tucker, sitting in the seat behind mine. He flashes me a devilish grin.

I draw a paper. Cleric.

“Very good, Sister Clara. Now you, Mr. Avery.”

I turn to watch Tucker draw from the jar.

“A knight,” he reads, looking pleased with himself.

“Sir Tucker.”

The role of king goes to a guy I don’t know, Brady, who is, judging by the muscles and the way he accepts his rule like he deserves it instead of drawing it by chance, a football player.

Christian goes last.

“Ah,” he says faux mournfully, reading his paper. “I’m a serf.”

Mr. Erikson follows this up by going around the room with a pair of dice and making us roll to see if we survive the Black Plague. The odds of surviving are not good for serfs, or clerics, since they tended the sick, but miraculously I survive. Mr. Erikson rewards me with a laminated badge that reads, I SURVIVED THE BLACK PLAGUE.

Mom will be so proud.

Christian doesn’t make it. He receives a badge decorated with a skull and crossbones, which reads, I PERISHED IN THE BLACK PLAGUE. Mr. Erikson marks his death down in a notebook he has to keep track of our new lives. He assures us that the usual rules of life and death don’t apply as far as this exercise is concerned.

Still, I can’t help but take Christian’s immediate demise as a bad sign.

Mom is waiting for us at the front door when we get home.

“Tell me everything,” she commands as soon as I cross the threshold. “I want to know all the details. Does he go to your school? Did you see him?”

“Oh, she saw him,” Jeffrey says before I can answer. “She saw him and she passed out in the middle of the hallway. The whole school was talking about it.”

Her eyes widen. She turns to me. I shrug.

“I told you she’d pass out,” says Jeffrey.

“You’re a genius.” Mom moves to ruffle his hair but he dodges her and says, “Too fast for you,” before her hand lands. “I put some chips and salsa out for you in the kitchen,” she says.

“What happened?” she asks after Jeffrey goes to stuff his face.

“Pretty much what Jeffrey said. Just keeled over in front of everybody.”

“Oh, honey.” She offers me a sympathetic pout.

“When I woke up, there was this girl who helped me. I think she could be a friend.

And then. ” I swallow. “He came back with the nurse and carried me to the nurse’s office.”

Her mouth drops open. I’ve never seen her look so astonished. “He carried you?”

“Yes, like some lame damsel in distress.”

She laughs. I sigh.

“Did you tell her his name yet?” comes Jeffrey’s voice from the kitchen.

“Shut up,” I call.

“His name is Christian,” he calls back. “Can you believe that? We came all this way so Clara could save a guy named Christian.”

“I’m aware of the irony.”

“But you know his name now,” Mom says softly.

“Yes.” I’m unable to hold back a smile. “I know his name.”

“And it’s all happening. The pieces are coming together.” She looks more serious now. “Are you ready for this, kiddo?”

It’s all I’ve thought about for weeks, and I’ve known for the past two years that my time would come. But still, am I ready?

“I think so?” I say.

I hope.