Good vs. Evil High (10 page)

“Yes, sir.” I could almost feel happy pink
bubbles boiling up and a woman dancing around inside me. I could
stay here at North Haven and create art for the rest of my
life!

Headmaster opened a desk drawer and pulled
out a sheet of thick white paper and a manila envelope. “I have
your schedule for next semester here. Usually we hand them out to
students a week before it begins, but I wanted to give you a chance
to look it over while you’re here with me so you could ask
questions if you have any. Everything’s on the fifth floor, except
for Physical Fitness.” He slid the paper across his desk so I could
see it.

North Haven High School

Spring Schedule for: Fayre,
Kristine A.

1st Hour: Art with Miss Rivers,
Room 35

2nd Hour: Physical Fitness with
Coach Beckham, Gymnasium on 4th Floor

3rd Hour: Geometry with Miss
Tripside, Room 6

4th Hour: Advanced Biology with
Mrs. Weathers, Room 10

5th Hour: English II with Miss
Lytton, Room 1

6th Hour: Activities Committee with
Mr. Fielding, Room 33

“No history?” I said. “This schedule looks
fine to me.”

“Good, good. I decided to make such an
exception for you. But if you decide to change your future plans,
history may be forced back onto your schedule, of course.”

“Yes, sir.”

“There’s one more thing I want to give you.”
He slid the envelope toward me. I picked it up and began opening
it. I felt a mixture of joy and sadness when I pulled out an old
photograph of my father with his arm around my mother, who was
holding a tiny baby that had to be me. She was sitting in a
hospital bed with a blue gown on.

“Where did you get this?” I asked, a single
tear rolling over my cheek.

“The hospital where you were born keeps
pictures of every woman and her new baby who comes through their
delivery rooms.”

It was hard, but I tore my gaze away from the
woman I would always love more than anything else to smile at
Headmaster. “Thank you. You can’t imagine how much this means to
me.”

“Actually, I can.” He stood up and walked
around his desk to my chair, where he held his arms out for me.
Standing up, I hugged him and cried. It felt exactly the way I
always imagined a father’s embrace would, full of warmth and
love.

Chapter
Twelve

~ A Touch Possessive ~

We woke up excited Tuesday morning. It would
be nothing compared to Wednesday, but today we got to pack.
“They’re already here,” Harmony said when she opened the door to go
to the bathroom.

“Who’s here?” Sassy asked.

“The suitcases.” She wheeled in two big black
ones, then two more.

“I’ve gotta fit all my stuff in that?” Sassy
grabbed one and pulled it over to her wardrobe. It looked like
plenty of space to me, but Sassy’s got a problem with collecting
way too many clothes and never letting any go. And then there were
her purses, jewelry, shoes, nail polish. She kept a lot of her
stuff under Nadine’s bed and used up the entire closet on their
side of the room. Lucky for her, Nadine didn’t need one. She was
content with a few outfits. “If anyone has space leftover when
you’re finished packing, let me know,” Sassy said.

“I will,” Nadine said. She grabbed a
suitcase, reached into her wardrobe, and pulled out several things,
still on hangers. After stuffing those into it, she pulled a drawer
out and dumped it in, too. She took her toothbrush and hairbrush
out of the pile. “The rest is all yours,” she said to Sassy.

“It’s only half full. Thanks, Nadine!” Sassy
went to give her a hug. My con began ringing on the long desk in
the back of our room. “Kristine Con, answer please,” I said. I
grabbed a suitcase and sat beside my wardrobe as my con opened and
flew toward me. I wasn’t surprised to see Roman’s face appear on
the screen with snow and sunshine behind him.

“Hey, sweetie,” he said, making me want to
hurl. I hated when he called me that.

“Hey, Roman. What’s up?”

“I talked my coach into giving me the day off
if you want to do something. Karaoke’s at three and Moonlight Ghost
is showing at five.”

“I’m sorry. I already have plans.” Maybe I
didn’t, but I could make some.

“With who?”

“My friends.”

“Which ones?”

I hated playing Twenty Questions with him,
but it seemed to be his favorite game. “Sassy, Harmony, and
Nadine.”

“Nadine’s got soccer all day.”

“Then I guess it’s Harmony, Sassy, and
me.”

“Come on, Kristine. This is the first chance
I’ve had to spend any real time with you since you got here. You
see your roommates all the time.”

“I know, but I already told them we’d hang
out.”

“They’ll understand—Are they there?”

“Yeah.”

“You girls don’t mind if I borrow her, do
you?”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Sassy said, “but the kids
we’re having breakfast with might. I thought it would be good to
help Kristine make some new friends, and since they’re expecting
Kristine to be there, she probably should be.” Thank goodness she’d
caught on.

“You said it was just you and Sassy and
Harmony,” Roman said to me, his voice getting angry.

“It is. We’re just having breakfast with a
few other people.”

“I’ll come too.”

“Roman, it’s a girl’s day.”

He glared at me as one corner of his mouth
twitched. “Fine.” The screen went black and began folding up.

“When are you going to dump that guy?” Sassy
asked me.

“I don’t know. I keep hoping he’ll figure it
out himself. He’s a lot of fun, and it kind of feels nice when he
puts his arm around me...but he’s so possessive. Why can’t we be
friends?”

Harmony sat on the floor next to me. “I’m not
gonna tell you what to do, but things might get better if you told
Roman you don’t want to be his girlfriend.”

“But he’d probably freak out. He’s obsessed.
If I’m a really crappy girlfriend, maybe he’ll get over it on his
own.”

“Don’t worry about him.” Sassy stood up next
to her suitcase, already overflowing with all sorts of things.
“Let’s just get dressed and go down to breakfast. Today’s supposed
to be fun, and tomorrow we fly south for the winter. No school for
three months. No morning announcements waking us up at the crack of
dawn.”

“Yeah, it’s like summer vacation,” Harmony
said.

Summer vacation with these girls sounded like
crazy fun. If only I could shake Roman. I was afraid I’d spend the
whole time worrying and trying to avoid him.

Nadine zipped up the white suit she’d just
pulled on. “I’ve got to go eat and get to practice. Have fun for
me, too.”

“Bye, Nadine.”

I was a little nervous when we finally walked
into the cafeteria, since I knew Roman might be waiting for me. But
he wasn’t. So I got to relax and laugh through the morning.

It wasn’t until we were walking through the
rows of snowy bushes and towering ice sculptures outside that I
realized someone was following me. As we passed an elephant-shaped
bush, I turned back to get another look at the little ice-stars
hanging on a tree. And that’s when I saw him—a smallish boy with a
bit of dark hair hanging over his forehead. He was standing there
watching me. But when our eyes met, he jumped behind the tree. I
kept an eye out for him after that, and saw him three more
times...just standing there, watching me. After the third sighting,
I decided to head back inside, because he was really creeping me
out.

* * * *

Later that evening, as the four of us stepped
out of the movie theatre room, I felt someone grab my arm. I gasped
and jerked away, bumping into a group of girls and pushing one into
the open door. “Ow, ow, ow,” she said as two others screamed.

“I’m sorry. Are you okay?” I asked. She bit
her lip and nodded. I felt terrible.

“Kristine,” Roman’s voice drew me to face
him. “Can I talk to you alone?”

“You can’t grab me like that. You scared me
to death.”

“I’m sorry, but I really want to talk to
you.”

“But we’re going to eat supper and pack up
our stuff.” Harmony and I hadn’t even really gotten started.

“Just for a minute.”

I looked at my roommates for help. “We’ll
meet you back in the room,” Sassy said before they walked away. I
could have killed her for that, but I guess I couldn’t avoid Roman
forever.

“Okay.” Since the movie room and dome room
were on the same floor, I followed him onto the same veranda where
we’d first kissed.

“How was breakfast?” he asked, turning to
face me.

“Fine, I guess.”

“Did you like all those new people Sassy said
you were meeting?”

“Sure.”

From the way his eyebrows bent down as he
studied my face, I got the feeling he knew it was all a lie. I
wasn’t going to say anything, though.

Roman reached out and put both arms around
me. I leaned against him and crossed my arms over his back. It did
feel pretty good to have him hold me that way, just not the same
kind of good I think he felt.

“Why don’t you want to spend time with me,
Kristine?” Roman asked, making me a little afraid to pick up my
head and look him in the eye.

“What are you talking about?”

“I could have had all day off of practice to
be with you, but you chose your friends over me.”

“Because I already had plans. I thought I
should keep them.”

Roman pulled away from me slightly.
“Headmaster’s got girls and boys separate in the jets this year, so
we won’t be flying together.”

“Oh, yeah?” I realized that I sounded way too
excited, so I tried to look upset. “That’s too bad.”

His eyebrows did the same thing, making me
feel incredibly guilty. But maybe he would begin to catch on. I
really didn’t want to hurt him, because he was such a nice guy.

“Maybe we could at least have dinner
together. We probably won’t see each other again until Thursday,”
he said, taking a step back and reaching out for my hand.

“Sounds great.”

Gripping my hand a little too tightly, he
began pulling me toward the elevator.

Chapter
Thirteen

~ Southbound ~

I really didn’t want to wake up. I was in
such a deep sleep.

“Come on, Kristine,” Harmony was saying.
“We’ve got half an hour to get to the jet.”

“Half an hour?” I forced myself to sit up.
Anticipation mixed with extreme drowsiness gave me a bit of a
headache, but it was hard to think about that when there was so
much to look forward to. I climbed out of bed and got busy.

Fifteen minutes later, my roommates and I
wheeled our suitcases into an empty elevator. Connie didn’t have to
ask where we were going.

“What did you guys bring to do while we’re in
the air?” Harmony asked, practically bouncing on her heels.

“Magazines and my sketch pad,” Sassy said.
“I’m gonna get to work designing my dress for next year’s
dance.”

“I brought my notebook and
A Guide for the
North Haven High School Student,”
I said.

“We’ve all got cons,” Nadine added. “What
else do we need?”

Harmony gave us incredulous looks. “Man, it’s
a good thing you have me. You’d all be bored out of your minds
after an hour if I weren’t here. Don’t you remember last year?”

Nadine and Sassy looked at each other. “Yeah,
I pigged out and slept it off. Then we were there,” Nadine
said.

“That’s not fun. I brought games and puzzles,
a notebook we can fill up with everything about our trip, and
stickers and markers. I even brought a flashlight and a sheet we
can huddle under together and tell ghost stories. This year we
won’t get bored.”

Sassy and Nadine laughed as we got out of the
elevator. “You’re right, Harmony,” Sassy said. “What would we do
without you?”

“I think it sounds great,” I said.

We were met by chaos in the giant underground
hangar. Students were everywhere. The many jets were parked in a
row beside one wall, with their doors open and stairs leading up to
each one. A few kids would stop and ask a teacher a question, then
head to the jet they were told to get on. But most of them were
moving or standing around talking.

“Let’s go ask Miss Tripside which one we’re
in,” Sassy said. We made our way to the tall, boxy woman with her
head down, skimming through the papers she was holding. “Good
morning, Miss Tripside. We were wondering where we’re supposed to
go.”

She looked up at us through square
spectacles. “Good morning, girls. Let me have a look here. You’re
all in the west wing, right?”

“Uh, huh.”

She flipped through several papers before she
stopped. “Here you are. Harmony Foxen, Nadine Rodriguez, Sassy
Johnson, and Kristine Fayre, you’re all in Jet Seven.”

“Thanks.”

We walked toward the jet with a white seven
painted on the wall behind it and saw Mr. Westhyme standing in the
doorway. “We get you?” Nadine asked. We climbed the stairs, leaving
our suitcases with all the others. Each one was tagged so they
wouldn’t get mixed up.

“Sorry, Nadine, but you’re stuck with me all
the way to the Southlands and back.”

“You’re my favorite pilot. You know
that.”

Mr. Westhyme chuckled. “I’m just pulling your
leg.”

We walked into the same jet I’d been picked
up in, this time with a huge extension to the table and lots more
chairs. Not to mention the ten other girls already inside.

Miss McCree walked over to us as we sat in a
circle on the floor beside the edge of one long sofa. “Hello,
lovelies. You remember where the toilets are, Kristine, behind the
stairs there. But if yah’ get sleepy, you can go through those
doors you always see me comin’ in and out of, and there’s a load of
pull-out beds. It’ll be too crowded for sleepin’ in here, I’m
afraid.”