Two Schools Out - Forever

44

"Now, does anyone remember this area's name?"

Angel raised her hand. She figured it was time to sound smart.

"Yes, Ariel?"

"It's the Yucatan. Part of Mexico."

"Very good. Do you know anything about the Yucatan?" Ms. Solowski asked.

"It has Cancun, a popular vacation spot," said Angel. "And Mayan ruins. And it's close to Belize. Its ports are some of the closest to America. So it's convenient for drug runners to siphon drugs up from South America, through the ports, and then on into Texas, Louisiana, and Florida."

Her teacher blinked. Her mouth opened and then closed again. "Ah, yes," she said faintly, stepping back to the world map hanging in front of the whiteboard. She cleared her throat. "Let's talk about the Mayan ruins."

"Tiffany."

"Tiffany?" The teacher looked confused. "I thought your name was Krystal."

"Uh-huh. Tiffany-Krystal." Nudge made a hyphen in the air with one finger.

"Okay, Tiffany-Krystal. In language arts we've been working on some cross-media spelling words." The teacher pointed to a list written on the whiteboard at the front of the class. "Those were last week's. This morning I'm going to give a pop quiz about this week's words, just to see where everyone is and where we need to focus."

"Well, all right," said Nudge agreeably. She waved a hand. "Bring it on. But just so you know, I can't spell worth crap."

"Do you know where the dictionary is?"

Fang looked at the girl who had spoken. "What?"

"Our reference materials are over here," the girl said, pointing. "When we have free study time, you can walk around and do homework. If you need to look up stuff, the computers and other references are over here."

"Oh. Okay. Thanks."

"No problem." The girl swallowed and stepped closer. She was shorter than Max and had long, dark red hair. Her eyes were bright green, and her nose had freckles.

"I'm Lissa," she said. "And you're Nick, right?"

What did she want? He looked at her. "Uh-huh," he said warily.

"I'm glad you're in our class."

"What? Why?"

She stepped still closer, and he could smell the lavender scent of soap. Giving him a flirtatious smile, she said, "Why do you think?"

"Watch this! I'm gonna fly!"

The Gasman looked up with interest. Some spud from his class was balanced precariously on the top of the metal jungle gym, holding out his arms like wings.

I hope he's got more than arms, the Gasman thought. Well, maybe he did have wings. After all, maybe there were more kids like them out in the world. No way to tell. That was one of the mysteries to be solved.

"Yeah?" he said, shielding his eyes from the sun. "Let's see it."

The kid looked a bit taken aback, then set his jaw. He crouched down a bit and jumped off the top of the play structure.

He couldn't fly worth a nickel, hitting the ground almost instantly, landing in an awkward, crumpled heap. There was a stunned silence, and then he started wailing. "My arm!" he sobbed.

Immediately the playground supervisor hurried over, gathered up the kid, and rushed him toward the nurse's office. Gazzy went back to making a nice collection of hefty rocks. Weapons, if he needed them.

"What'd you do that for?" someone asked belligerently.

Gazzy looked up. "What?"

A larger kid was leaning over him angrily. "Listen, spaz, when some wingnut says he's gonna fly off of something, you tell 'im, 'Get the heck down from there!' You don't say, 'Let's see it!' What's the matter with you?"

The Gasman shrugged, but he was actually a little hurt inside. "I didn't know."

The kid stared at him. "What, you grow up under a rock?"

"No," said Gazzy, frowning. "I just didn't know."

The kid made a disgusted face and walked away. Gazzy heard him saying, "Yeah, he didn't know. 'Cause he's from the planet Dumbass."

Gazzy's eyes narrowed, and his hands formed into lethal little fists.

"Where did you get your hair done?" someone asked.

I turned to see a pale, skinny girl smiling at me. I pushed my lunch tray farther down the line. "Um, my bathroom?" Was she speaking in code? I had no clue what she meant. A recurring theme in my life.

She laughed and put a green apple on her tray. "No, I meant the blond streaks. They're awesome. Did you have it done in DC?"

Oh. My hair had blond streaks? Right. "I guess the sun did it," I said lamely.

"Lucky. Oh, look-banana pudding. I recommend it."

"Thanks." I took some, to be nice.

"My name's J.J.," she said, seeming completely comfortable with this social interaction. My palms were sweating. "It's short for Jennifer Joy. I mean, what were my parents thinking?"

I laughed, surprised that she would confide in me like that.

"Max is a cool name," J.J. said. "Sporty. Sophisticated."

"Yeah, that's me," I said, and she laughed some more, her eyes crinkling.

"Here's a couple spots," J.J. said, pointing to an empty lunch table. "Otherwise we'll have to sit next to Chari and her gang." She lowered her voice. "Don't mess with them."

I was halfway through lunch before I realized that J.J. and I had been talking for half an hour, and I apparently had not seemed so freakish that she'd run away screaming.

I had made a friend. My second one in fourteen years. I was on a roll.