Annabeth Neverending (15 page)

15

A
humbled, broken Billy nods and turns away, along with the rest of the teammates, the goons. My body grows stiff, my face long. Being disgraced in this way seems more than I can take. But having C. J. stand up for me somehow negates it.

When C. J. is finished posturing, he looks at me apologetically. “Sorry, I couldn’t help it.”

“No need to apologize. After that…Well, I can’t believe you’re still standing here,” I say with a meek smile.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

I find myself growing quiet, falling into my thoughts. Seeing C. J. run to my aid just like Sethe would’ve done is making me melt. And I don’t want to feel so very weak. So very vulnerable.

“Let’s forget about Billy. After all, he’s got enough to deal with…like that ear. Just make sure you wear your headgear when you wrestle. I don’t want you getting all cauliflowered!” I say as I playfully tug on C. J.’s lobe.

“I swear,” he says with a slow and convincing nod.

“Where are you headed now?” I ask, hopeful.

He glances at the schedule in his hand, his teeth sparkling even in the glare of the overhead fluorescent bulbs.

“Algebra II with Albertson?”

“We’re in the same class. Why am I not surprised?”

I try to keep my eyes averted. I tell myself that I cannot stare at C. J. for the entirety of class, even though he’s sitting in the half desk next to me. I’m not allowed to look at the manly curve of his jaw or the way his broad shoulders fill out his shirt…even though he just stood up for me
—
against his own teammates
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and probably caused some trouble for himself in the process. But somehow, already I matter that much to him.

Before, he was impossibly far away. But now he’s distractingly close. I don’t see how I’ll be able to concentrate. And I have a hard enough time with that already. The thing is, I was doing all right in math before letters got involved.

I watch Mr. Albertson, the faculty’s youngest but most uptight teacher, write some problems on the dry
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erase board. I flip around the cover of my spiral
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bound notebook and set it on my desk. I write down the problems, but this quickly evolves into drawing. I fill the page with hieroglyphics, and I glance up and notice C. J. watching me with interest.

At first, I work at a leisurely pace, drawing slowly and meticulously, but in no time the hieroglyphics force themselves into existence with considerable speed. I feel as though another hand has overtaken mine. It reminds me of using the Ouija board with Kerry and Bernadette. Only this time, there isn’t another person to blame for what’s happening. It’s all me.

While the process seems a little bizarre at first, in time it becomes downright disturbing. I gasp as I spill the ancient symbols onto the college
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ruled pages. It’s like somebody’s turned on a faucet and the handle’s broken off. The images are cascading from my hands with such momentum. As my scribbling grows faster, it also grows louder. I gaze around and find that all eyes in the classroom are now upon me
—
including C. J.’s. Especially C. J.’s.

I have to swallow my building fright, my looming distress. Don’t cry, even though you know you want to, because this new habit is especially weird, especially disruptive. I never should’ve assumed I’d avoided the side effects altogether. I suppose that because I wasn’t exposed directly to the ankh itself, my reaction was delayed.

“What’s going on?” C. J. asks. I try to look up and can tell that his face is lined with worry, even though I can scarcely tear my eyes away from my notebook.

“Not much,” I say while drawing some hieroglyphs on top of others.

I fill my notebook in no time and start attacking my desk, when C. J. gently puts his notebook under my hand to catch the overflow. I quickly lay waste to that one as well. As the images appear, I can read every sign, every symbol. Leopards, elephants, owls. Feathers, leaves, stars. Gods, pharaohs, slaves. All forming pictures of historic events, family occasions.

“Could you please stop doodling, Ms. Prescott?” asks Mr. Anderson rather sternly.

I try to come up with a good excuse for my behavior.

“They’re hieroglyphics. They’re almost equations of a sort, you know, picture plus symbol plus letter equals word, so this relates to your lecture.”

Mr. Anderson purses his lips in disbelief. I can’t blame him for not buying it. It’s a bit of a stretch.

The only thing I can figure is that having gone through yet more sensory overload, my body is looking to expel unnecessary information. It’s like I’m ridding myself of all the hieroglyphics I viewed in my memory to make more space in my brain. A mental spring cleaning or something.

I have to make this stop. I must learn to control it, or my mom will put me on lockdown again. I sit on my hands to still them. The urge dissipates for the most part, though they do twitch interminably.

“Are you possessed or something?” asks a male classmate, though I’m not sure which one.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I reply with annoyance.

“Seriously? She’s speaking in tongues!”

Did I just say that in Late Egyptian? It’s bad enough that I did that in my sleep, but now I’m doing it when I’m awake!

Mr. Anderson grumbles, probably unsure of how to handle my untimely distraction.

“Annabeth, given your history, I think you need to see the school nurse.”

The notion that the part
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time nurse, who’s really a glorified momunteer, could help is patently absurd, but I nod, anxious for an excuse to exit. I get out of my seat; when I sit up and remove the pressure off my problem anew, my hands resemble a pair of freshly caught, flopping fish.

Mr. Anderson scribbles away and hands me a hall pass, which swishes this way and that as I hold it. I look over to C. J. and struggle to wave good
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bye before hurrying out the door.

I lie on my bed, my digits moving so fast it feels like I’m typing but without a keyboard. My hands are still yearning to draw out more hieroglyphics, even though by now I must’ve exhausted every combination possible. I’m hoping I work through this side effect soon, because I’ve already written hieroglyphics in every notebook, every book I own.

I stare at my bedroom ceiling. A corner of my wallpaper is curling over on itself. I get up on my vanity and pull at it. It gives way easily, and the paper tears off in several large pieces. Obviously the glue was losing its strength. That’ll be my defense.

I look over my room, formulating, plotting. It’s going to get an ancient Egyptian makeover. It’s due for a revamp anyway. Surely my parents won’t complain when they see all the effort I put into transforming it, which is the new plan. But I know I’m just fooling myself. They’re going to be pissed. And probably worried that I’m going off the deep end. Though I think I’ve already taken the dive.

I grab a magic marker and get to work. I plaster the space with tightly packed hieroglyphics, losing myself while Mew Mew looks on, her pointy face resting on her paws, acting as though this is the most natural thing in the world. I peel off what’s left of the wallpaper to free up more space.

“Bet this seems like no big deal to you. You probably saw artisans around the palace applying hieroglyphics to the walls in ancient Egypt all the time.”

I swear that Mew Mew nods her head in response. Those slanted eyes do seem to harbor wisdom, and at times, cynicism. Though it could be my imagination.

“If only I had a larger canvas,” I think aloud. Then it occurs to me that there is a larger one at my disposal.

I soon have a battered aluminum ladder pushed up against the side of the house, and I’m standing on the faintly unstable top rung. I use a round brush to paint outlines in black with some paint I found in the garage. The walls are now completely blanketed in symbols and two
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dimensional figures. And my hands haven’t stopped moving. Maybe if I wait a few minutes, the stinging restlessness will subside.

While I’m scared of how possessed my hands are, it’s impossible to fully fear the consequences because I’m so consumed by the act of painting. I typically enjoy pursuing my love of art, but this time, it seems to be pursuing me.

The sides of the house shake as the garage door opens. In a second there’s going to be hell to pay. I steel myself. Mew Mew, however, knows enough to get lost.

“Annabeth, what have you done?” asks my mother. I can tell she’s trying her damndest to refrain from screaming because her voice is raspy and uneven.

“Yeah! What the hell?” shouts Howie, who goes ahead and shouts his loudest.

“Surprise?” I say with a shrug.

“You’ve ruined the outside of the house!” my father snaps.

“In her defense, it’s not like she had to try very hard,” adds Howie.

“I wasn’t trying to destroy anything. I was…I don’t know. Trying to make it better, I guess.”

My parents share a look. I envision my father pulling me off the ladder if he has to
—
after all, I didn’t discuss this with them. I just jumped in. In retrospect, I guess they had the right to know.

“Should we be worried, Annabeth?”

“No. I just thought it was…time to work on my art.”

“The neighbors’ll kill us,” moans my father wearily.

“It’s like she took out a billboard for her weirdness,” Howie groans.

I’m finally able to tear my attention from my work, which bodes well for its diminishing hold, and turn to look at them.

“What now?” I ask.

My mother and father whisper to each before finally reaching a decision: “The damage is done. You might as well finish up.”

Mom and Dad drag a sputtering Howie into the house with them, leaving me to complete my ambitious artistic endeavor. While their semisupport of my project raises suspicion, I try not to overthink it and leap back into my work.

Day gives way to dusk, and now that the sun is seeking refuge behind the horizon line, I’m having a hard time seeing, though my eyes aren’t what’s guiding me. I press on and am pleased when C. J. arrives, carrying Mew Mew with him. This side effect is finally waning, because I’m able to give him my undivided attention.

“I think this belongs to you,” C. J. says while holding up Mew Mew. He strokes her ticked fur, and she closes her eyes in pleasure.

“She really likes you,” I say with admiration.

“I have a way with animals, I guess,” he says with shrug. This a good sign. Animals have a sixth sense about things like earthquakes and such, so they must be especially attuned to people. If Mew Mew likes C. J.…Well, it just shows he’s as good a guy now as he was then.

He scratches his forehead while examining my efforts.

“Still on the hieroglyphics?”

“Sometimes the passion moves me a little too much,” I admit.

“Like what happened in school today?” he asks.

“Yep. And this is not going to help my social status.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t care about what other people think.”

He’s right. I’ve spent far too long worrying about everyone else. Why should their judgment trump my own? Funny how it took the most popular boy in school to make me see that.