Glass Girl (A Young Adult Novel) (6 page)

“Um, sure, if that’s what you normally do.” I wished for the millionth time that I had a backbone and didn’t find it so difficult to say no. “I wouldn’t want any special treatment, though.”

She smiled. “Of course not. I like you already. Are you ready?”

I nodded, standing. She opened her door and motioned me out ahead of her. I walked down the narrow hall of my new school, elbow to elbow with my principal, wearing a neon sign on my forehead.

Ms. Ewing smiled and chatted with a few kids still at their lockers as she walked me down the hall. I studied what the girls wore. I had to figure out quickly how to tone down the East Coast look—less Urban Outfitters and more Yee Haw.

“Your first class is the American Lit survey course. I think you’ll love Mr. Landmann. He’s been a favorite here for the last twenty years. I’ll make sure someone knows to walk you to Chemistry next period.”

“I think I can find my way.” From what I could tell, there were two main hallways, and classrooms were numbered clearly.

Mr. Landmann’s classroom had a low ceiling that made my shoulders feel tired. The tiny windows I’d noticed from the outside seemed even tinier from inside. They were recessed a good foot into the thick concrete walls that were crumbling around them. I didn’t see any way to open them, either. No obvious latches or cranks. That could be a problem. I glanced back at the door we had just come through. It led out into a hallway right next to an exit. That had potential, although it would set off an alarm when it opened.

“Mr. Landmann, I’d like you to meet Meg Kavanagh.” Ms. Ewing ushered me ahead of her. “Her family has just relocated here from Pittsburgh.”

“Miss Kavanagh,” he said, smiling and reaching for my hand. “Pleasure to meet you. Welcome to Chapin High. You can sit anywhere you see an open desk, but let me introduce you first.”

Darn
. This must be what a turtle on its back feels like…exposed, vulnerable, paralyzed. I concentrated on steadying my breath. If I had to talk, I didn’t want to sound like I’d been running a marathon.

“Guys, quiet down,” Mr. Landmann said, a little too loudly. “We’ve got a new student—Meg Kavanagh from Pittsburgh. I want everybody to be on their best behavior today so she’ll like us and decide to come back tomorrow.”

All fifteen kids were staring now. Most were smiling. I felt profound relief from the simple fact that no one threw a tomato at me.

I nodded hello and started down the middle aisle. My tunnel vision focused on a desk ten steps ahead. I noticed that one of the girls I’d seen in the parking lot this morning sat to the right of the empty desk. She had long, curly brown hair and transparently ice blue eyes. She wore old jeans and a tight green t-shirt with a dachshund on it that said, “Have you seen my wiener?” I admired her immediately for that.

She smiled and introduced herself. “Hey, Meg, I’m Tennyson.”

“Nice to meet you, Tennyson.” I slid into the seat. “Cool name.”

“My mom feels big love for British poets,” she whispered. “If you have Chemistry next, we can walk together.”

Tennyson’s friendliness relaxed me. As Mr. Landmann started class, I glanced around to see if Thanet was in the room. He wasn’t, but another familiar face caught my eye. The driver of the black truck sat two rows to the left of me. He leaned forward with his chin resting in his hand and he smiled like we were old friends.

He’d had to fold his long legs into his desk. His boots had seen better days, and his jeans unraveled in a curiously irresistible way at the bottom. He didn’t look like anyone I’d ever seen before. He reminded me of an actor in an old Western—Rock Hudson in
Giant—
all dark intensity. He was definitely a throwback cowboy who belonged on a horse.

“Some of you seniors have had a class of mine before,” Mr. Landmann said. “Does anyone remember my favorite poet?”

“Fro-o-o-st,” an exasperated student groaned from the back of the room.

Mr. Landmann continued, unaffected by the disdain heating up in the back. He closed his eyes, breathed in through his nose, and recited “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” His complete lack of guile fascinated me. This guy was hilarious.

“What is Mr. Frost trying to tell us, Henry?” Mr. Landmann said.

The cowboy I’d known as Whitmire straightened up and cleared his throat. I assumed he had no idea what Frost meant because he was silent for a few seconds.

“The speaker,” he said quietly, “is at a crossroads.”

Mr. Landmann waited patiently for Henry to finish his thought.

“He feels pulled toward the woods,” Henry said. “But he knows he’s got to turn back because there are people relying on him. He’s got to be a man.”

“Do you think death is represented here?” Mr. Landmann led Henry right to his next point.

“Yes, sir, I do,” Henry said. “I think he’s tired of life, but he’s too responsible to choose death. He knows living is always harder than dying.”

Mr. Landmann continued with a quiet discussion of Frost’s psychological makeup. But I had trouble listening to him. I could only think about Henry and his jeans and insight.

When class ended, Tennyson picked up her books and waited for me to get my things together.

Henry paused, too, watching me. “Meg Kavanagh, remember me?”

I shrugged. “You don’t just forget the first person who tried to run over you.”

He chuckled and scratched his cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Now, I believe I apologized. More than once.”

Tennyson glanced back and forth between Henry and me. “What am I missing here? You two know each other?”

“No,” I said, just as Henry said, “Sort of.” He walked closer, towering over Tennyson and me. “Henry Whitmire.” He leaned toward me and said his name like he was sharing a secret and it made me think he probably kept a lot of secrets. His smile was sweet and his teeth the tiniest bit crooked.

“Thanet told me your name,” I said. “
He
apologized with coffee and a job offer.”

A laugh erupted out of Henry. “Yeah, I know. You wouldn’t like any jobs I had to offer you. I heard you didn’t waste any time booking it back to his mom’s store when I left.” He flung his backpack over a shoulder, then lifted mine out of my chair and held it out to me.

“Well,” Tennyson interrupted, clearly amused. “This is interesting.” Her head tipped to the side as she studied us. She said it like, “
This
is
interesting
.” I knew she’d be full of questions on our way to Chemistry.

“I’ve got Statistics,” Henry said. “I’ll catch up with you two later.”

He walked backward out the door. “Hope you have a good day, Meg.”

“What about me, Henry?” Tennyson said. “I’d like to have a good day, too.”

“Sorry, Tenn, have a good a day,” he called over his shoulder. “Don’t go getting into your usual trouble and, if you do, leave the new girl out of it.”

Tennyson turned to me, her eyes wide. “That just happened, didn’t it?”

“What?” I followed her to the door. “What just happened?”

“Henry Whitmire stayed after class and talked. He more than talked…he flirted.” She grabbed my elbow and directed me down a hall and toward the last classroom on the right. “He’s a senior, so….”

“So that’s not a…that wasn’t a normal thing for him?”

She rolled her eyes, throwing her backpack into a seat, and claiming the one next to it for me. “He’s too quiet to flirt,” she whispered just as Mr. Slaten started taking roll. “Plus, he’s adorable but unavailable.”

M
r. Slaten ran his class like a Dow Chemical staff meeting. He assumed each of us had a working knowledge of chemical compounds and a drive to change the world with them.

When he called roll and I told him I preferred to be called Meg, he lost his mind.

“MEG! Monoethylene Glycol!” he yelled. “
You
are my favorite formula.”

He turned toward the white board and wrote C
₂
H
₆
O
₂
with a bulleted list of words like resin and antifreeze. “That’s you,” he said pointing at me. “You make good things even better because you understand how to keep other compounds calm and warm.”

“Yay me,” I whispered.

Some guy made a rude comment about how he’d use MEG to keep warm and I wanted to crawl under my desk.

Tennyson squeezed my arm and frowned. “Grayson’s like rain on Christmas. He ruins everything.”

After Slaten calmed down and started talking about the syllabus, I looked around. Thanet caught my eye from the back of the room by holding up a paper that said, “Hi.” I sighed, letting him see my shoulders relax and my head hang down.

“Where have you been?” I mouthed.

He shrugged and pointed toward Slaten, who was watching me while he talked.

I kept my eyes down for the rest of the period. It turned out that Thanet and I had third and fourth periods together. And Tennyson introduced me to her friends—Sara and Taylor—who were just like her. Funny and willing to let me tag along. So I did. The possibility of lunch in the cafeteria at a table became real. I had planned to hide in the library with some crackers.

From our table in the back corner we saw the entire cafeteria. Tennyson pointed out people I should know and people I should avoid. This cataloguing of people made me uncomfortable.

“Awkward, that one,” she said, pointing at a guy sitting by himself with a French horn case on the seat next to him.

“He looks nice, though,” I said. “How about him?” I pointed at a guy who seemed to be heading our way, mouth set in a grin that said he knew we were looking and he enjoyed it.

“That’s Luke, Taylor’s brother. He’s a senior.”

When Luke reached the table, he pulled Taylor up into a hug and started jumping around mosh-pit style and singing.

“He’s a weirdo but we love him,” Tennyson said. “Basketball star, brain, all-around good guy.” Luke air-punched her bicep.

With all the noise, I didn’t notice that Thanet and Henry had joined our table. I leaned across the table to say hello. I had to yell, though. They both spoke, but I missed what they said.

“I can’t really hear you over all this folderol,” I yelled. The table got quiet.

“I’m sorry, did you just use the word ‘folderol’ in a sentence
?
” Sara said.

“Yeah,” I said. “’Cause…folderol.” I waved my arms around in the direction of Luke and Taylor, and Tennyson who’d joined their party. Every face at the table turned toward me.

“Henry and Thanet are here,” Tennyson said, in a bid to rescue my ego. She scooted over to bump into them and nearly sent Thanet scattering off the end of the bench.

“I was just telling Henry about Mr. Slaten’s crush on Meg,” Thanet said. “I’ve never seen him more excited.”

I shook my head and tried to think of a way to change the subject. “Slaten’s a little strange,” Henry said. “I wouldn’t worry too much. He falls in and out of love with compounds every day.”

The conversations went on around me as they caught up on their summers. It gave me a chance to study them. Henry, who looked so tall compared to Thanet, unwrapped an enormous sandwich and started eating. Someone had taught him how to eat in public. He had a napkin in his lap and he was careful not to elbow Tennyson and Thanet next to him. He caught me staring and smiled between bites of a green apple.

Thanet was quiet, too, listening to the girls talk and laughing to himself when they over shared. He looked genuinely happy. I wanted to snap a secret picture to show Annie. But, really, that was stupid and presumptuous of me. Thanet was capable of telling his own mother about his day.

Classes after lunch went by quickly and at the end of the day, I made my way to my locker, relieved about a lot of things—especially Ms. Ewing’s understanding and a schedule that matched Tennyson’s.

I noticed a group of kids laughing in the hall. Not wanting to push through the mob of familiars, I backed flat against the closest group of lockers. I recognized one of the loudest voices as Grayson, the guy who said he’d like to “rub Meg to stay warm” in Slaten’s class. Through the pauses and breaks in the laughter, I recognized another voice—Thanet’s. He didn’t sound happy like he had at lunch. He sounded mortified.

“Thanet, you’re such a chicken,” one kid taunted. This one used his size to intimidate. “I saw you staring at her in class.”

“I told you that was nothing,” Thanet said. “She works for my mom. She’s a friend.”

A girl leaned around Grayson to look at Thanet. “What?” she said. “Tee woks fo you ma?” She tried out a cruel imitation of his speech.

My heart pounded out a warning. I wanted to help Thanet, but if I walked into this, he’d suffer more. Also, I was the chicken.

“Thanet might finally get a date,” Grayson said. “He’ll have to ask his mom to drive, though.”

“Holy crap, that’s right,” one of the guys said, laughing. “Or she could sit on the back of his little scooter.”

The group fell apart laughing. Someone walked up slowly behind me and paused. When he passed me, he woke every nerve ending in my body. It was Henry—cue the superhero soundtrack.

“Hey, Than, what’s up?” he said. “You headed out?” He pushed his way through the group until he was between Thanet and the biggest of the guys and then he made eye contact with every person standing there. His slow gaze cut quicker and cleaner than any words he could’ve said.

“Just leaving,” Thanet said. Side by side, the two of them created a path through the crowd. Henry hit the door hard and it flew open and banged against the doorstop outside. Obviously intimidated by Henry, the group stopped laughing as soon as he walked up, but when the door closed, they started up again.

Grayson noticed me next to the lockers. He pointed at me then held his arms out magnanimously. “You’re welcome, new girl,” he said. “I just saved you from having to find a nice way to say no to the leg dragger.”

I felt my lunch trying to make an appearance. Covering my mouth, I ran into the nearest bathroom and leaned against the door so no one could push it open.

This kind of scene—crowds batting around a person because they thought he was weak—happened to be my personal trigger.