Halifax (9 page)

Before Izzy could do anything to stop the invasion into the girl’s body, the tomboy began to transform. The cellulose of her clothes rearranged to mimic the uniform of a Lexham cheerleader. The girl’s shorter, blunt haircut grew long and lustrous. Her skin began stretching and her figure went from boyish to voluptuous, perfectly filling out the uniform. Her eyes brightened along with her teeth and a smile spread across her rosy-cheeked face.

As the long tentacles retracted back into the body of Shana Rowen and her eyes returned to normal, she stood back and admired her craftsmanship. The girl was a tomboy no more. She had turned into a picture perfect, pom-pom waving Lexham cheerleader. A wanna-be Shana Rowen.

Izzy stood, mouth agape, her eyes wide and her mind racing. She was fascinated and repulsed at the same time. Now, though, she knew enough about what she was dealing with to know she needed to leave and leave fast. She began to back up, trying not to be seen or heard, but only made it a few steps before she was stopped by something. Two imposing cheerleading squad members blocked her way. They grabbed Izzy by the arms and dragged her back out into the open, an offering to Shana Rowen, their (cheer) leader.

Shana turned towards Izzy and smiled with delight. “Yea! A new recruit!”

Farrell was back on the court and trying to get a handle on what was happening. The many cheerleaders were cheering but their head cheerleader had not returned. Nora was now leading the squad. Farrell wanted to watch Nora but he was preoccupied by an empty seat in the bleachers—Izzy’s empty seat.

“Halifax! Let’s go! Move it!” Coach Gwynn yelled, bringing Farrell’s attention back to the game that was being played around him. Farrell shook off his worries for a moment and instantly got back into character. He couldn’t blow his cover just yet. They weren’t finished with this mission. He was still a high school student. He was still a supposed star basketball player.

With the clock ticking down, a Westminster player broke away from both teams and raced across the court, headed for an easy lay-up at the basket. Farrell, though, was instantly across from him, coming down court at great speed, faster than anyone on his team. He jumped up below the basket, higher than the Westminster player, and bat the ball away, keeping it from going into the hoop. The crowd cheered and Coach Gwynn himself leapt into the air in excitement as Lexham got the rebound and the team headed back towards their basket.

Farrell started back down court, too, but not before checking the stands once more for Izzy and also checking to see if Nora had seen his heroics. If she had, she didn’t seem to care. She wasn’t looking at him. She wasn’t paying him any attention at all.

Someone else, though, was. Andre intentionally tripped Farrell as they both ran down court. Farrell slammed to the floor. Andre stopped just long enough to lord over Farrell. “Enjoying your first game, Halifax?”

“I didn’t realize I was playing,” Farrell said.

Andre ran down court and took a pass from a teammate and shot for three points. Farrell looked up at the scoreboard. Lexham led by two points. More importantly, there was still time on the clock and his sister had still not returned to the gym.

“You people are usually scared at this point,” Shana Rowen told Izzy even as Izzy struggled to break free from the manicured-nailed grips of the cheerleaders holding her. “Don’t you know what’s about to happen?”

“I know what you think is about to happen,” Izzy said as calmly as she could. “But I don’t have any intention of becoming a cheerleader.”

Shana seemed genuinely puzzled by Izzy’s statement. “But every girl on this planet wants to be a cheerleader,” she told Izzy, trying to convince her, as if Izzy had it all very wrong and just couldn’t see it.

“Not every girl,” Izzy told her. “Some girls actually want to make the world a better place, not just a peppier place.”

Shana suddenly grabbed Izzy by the throat. Her eyes turned black again. She was frustrated by this girl and growing angrier by the second. “Aren’t you lucky that I came along to show you the way? You’ll thank me when this is over. You’ll realize that there’s nothing wrong with being like everyone else.”

The tentacles of light almost exploded out of Shana Rowen. There was no slow, vine-like creeping this time. They came out like spears and instantly penetrated Izzy, burrowing into her eye sockets and wrapping around her body.

The head cheerleader stood back. She was connected to Izzy by the tentacles, but at enough of a distance to properly admire her handiwork. She waited for the transformation to take place, for this sadly misguided girl in front of her to change into one of them, one of
her
.

But nothing happened.

In fact, Izzy looked a little bored by it all. Like she was waiting for her nails to dry. She simply stared into Shana’s black eyes, betraying nothing.

A look of fury passed over Shana’s face and the tentacles retreated as quickly as they had appeared, retracting back around Shana’s body, poised in the air, ready to strike again. “Why won’t you be like me?” Shana screamed, shaking with anger.

Izzy shrugged. “Why would I want to be like you?”

Enraged, Shana grabbed Izzy by the shoulders and ripped her away from the other cheerleaders. With far more strength than any cheerleader, or even any human could command, Shana literally hauled Izzy up over her head and tossed her across the room, at least twenty feet away. Izzy smashed into the tiles alongside the sinks, putting an Izzy sized crack in the wall.

Izzy lay motionless, bleeding from her mouth, unconscious at the very least, as Shana turned to the others and let out a very otherworldly scream.

The library door flung open and a figure stood in the doorway, blocking out the light from beyond. It was Mom and Mom was very unhappy. She marched into the room and looked over at Rom. He was sitting alone at his table and looked very sad. Which made Mom very mad.

“I’m Mrs. Halifax and I believe you’re holding my son here against his will,” Mom said, turning her attention to the startled librarian.

“Mrs. Halifax,” the librarian said, “your son is here because he has detention.”

Mom walked over to the librarian’s desk and leaned over the woman, staring her down. She raised her finger and waved it around in front of the woman’s face. “Maybe other people’s sons have detention, but I don’t pay you all a Mercedes worth of money in tuition for my boy to sit in the library!”

Rom couldn’t help but smile. He began packing up his backpack as Mom continued her tirade.

“And since I have three kids at this school I’m paying a whole car dealership worth of tuition. I’m probably even paying your salary, lady.” The librarian sunk down in her chair, but there was no escaping the wrath of Mom. “And I know you don’t want to lose your job because I decided to send my kids to another school. One where they don’t have detention—and one where they don’t take away a child’s freedom of speech!” Mom held her hand out and the librarian quickly gave her Rom’s cell phone.

“Next time my son comes in here, he better be checking out a book. Got it?” Mom said as the librarian scooted so far down in her chair she fell on the floor. She was tempted to hide under the desk but Mom retreated, sparing the poor woman any more abuse.

“Let’s go, Rom,” Mom said as she headed for the door.

Rom slung his backpack over his shoulder and began to follow Mom. He stopped at the librarian’s desk and dropped the phone book on it. He looked down at the floor, at the cowering woman. “You’re Ilyssa Goodman,” he told her. “Did you know there are two hundred and fifty three other Goodman’s in the phone book? But only sixteen Ilyssa’s. Not one Rom, though. Surprisingly.”

“Come on Rom,” Mom said. “You’ve got to get over to the gym to watch your brother’s basketball game. He’s been trying to call you. I’m going home to make you some cookies.”

“Peanut butter?” Rom asked. He was savoring the mere thought of them.

“Whatever my little boy wants,” Mom replied as they both left the library.

The digital clock on the wall in the gym seemed to be moving backwards. At least it seemed that way to Farrell. He had more important things to do than guard some pimply-faced Westminster player or be insulted by Andre, who may have been greater in height than Farrell but was certainly lesser in intelligence. An escaped alien was on the loose and Izzy was missing. Farrell wanted to run away from the court in search of answers but he couldn’t. What if Shana Rowen was simply giving girls makeovers in the locker room and Izzy was standing in line waiting her turn? Farrell couldn’t risk blowing his cover and letting whatever
it
was that was out there know that he was looking for it. He had to finish the game.

Farrell already had one foot off the court. Lexham led by two with only a few seconds to go and the ball was in the hands of the worst player on the opposing team. Certainly this game was finally over. The player, the shortest and most pathetic one on the Westminster squad, had not scored a single point the entire game. He seemed lost with the ball and desperate. He panicked and lobbed the ball into the air, haphazardly, and it somehow, by some infuriating whim of the basketball gods, found its way into the hoop and fell in for two points.

The Westminster students were delirious with happiness. The game was tied! Coach Gwynn immediately called for a time out. He was jumping up and down like he was on fire.

Farrell was forced to join his teammates in a huddle courtside to listen to their coach give yet another quasi-inspirational speech.

“Okay, guys, listen up,” Coach Gwynn said. “We’re down by two and we are NOT GOING TO LOSE THIS GAME! Understand? My reputation—and a substantial amount of money I’ve bet on this game—is on the line. I want the ball in Andre’s hands. Get the basket. We tie the game. We take ‘em in overtime.”

Overtime? Farrell was suddenly interested. “Why don’t we try to win?” he asked. “Three points and we go home.”

“I’m the coach, Halifax,” Coach Gwynn told him. “See? Says it right here on my shirt.” Which it did.
Coach Gwynn
was embroidered on the right side of his polo shirt in the place where a little polo pony usually resided. The coach poked his hand out, palm down, into the middle of the team huddle and the players piled their hands on top of his. “Go Nimrods!”

The cheerleaders, all seemingly three million of them, were lined up to cheer on Andre and the Nimrods. Get two points and take us to overtime. Farrell looked at the clock. There were five seconds left. They were five seconds that threatened to turn into five minutes of overtime if Lexham tied the game.

As a teammate danced around the edge of the court trying to find a way to get the ball in to Andre, Farrell had an easy way out. Foil the shot and Lexham loses, leaving Farrell plenty of time to search for Izzy and save the world. Or at least save the school. Or maybe just save Izzy. In any case, he wouldn’t have to play basketball anymore.

Nora Evans was watching, though. Pom-poms trembling. She was actually biting her lip and she looked amazing in anticipation. Losing was no longer an option.

Five seconds…

Farrell intercepted the inbound pass.

Four seconds…

He dribbled around the Westminster player guarding him.

Three seconds…

He dribbled around Andre Davies who may as well have been guarding him.

Two seconds…

Farrell planted his feet at the edge of the key.

One second…

Farrell took his shot. A three point shot. He looked just like Kobe Bryant, only shorter and whiter, as the ball rolled off his fingertips and flew towards the basket as if it were being pulled by some kind of tractor beam or carried by the ghost of Pistol Pete Maravich. The inhabitants of the gym held their collective breath as the basketball fell in the basket. Swoosh! The final buzzer buzzed and the entire gym erupted, a boiling cauldron of joy from one side and despair from the other.

All the teammates, except Andre, surrounded Farrell, slapping his back, high-fiving him. They were his new best friends. Coach Gwynn threw his clipboard into the air and rushed out on to the court to join his them.

“God damn it, Halifax!” the coach said furiously. “What was the plan?”

“The plan was to win, Coach,” Farrell replied calmly in the storm of adulation.

“Halifax, I think I love you,” Coach Gwynn said as he grabbed Farrell in a giant man-hug, lifting him up off the court.

The coach moved on to celebrate with the other players as Andre moved in to do anything but celebrate with Farrell. “I’m not going to forget this,” he said. He was serious. Andre was the kind of guy who would remember being wronged until the day he died.

“Neither am I,” Farrell told him. “And I’m sure we’ll have lots of time in the future to relive our glory but right now I gotta go.” Farrell shook Andre’s limp hand and ran off the court, leaving the victory party behind him, and headed towards the girl’s locker room and hopefully towards Izzy.

Watching him go, as she had watched Shana go, was Nora Evans. Despite the mayhem of pure elation raging around her, she was unmoved. Unsmiling. Emotionless.

Rom ran down a Lexham hallway, slipping in spots on the linoleum floor, his penguin backpack bouncing up and down and threatening to take flight. He rounded a corner at full speed and almost crashed into the lockers that lined the walls. He straightened himself out at the last moment, just in time to see Mrs. O’Brien coming his way. Rom slid along the floor, his tennis shoes squealing and the rubber from the soles leaving a mark on the floor like a drag racing car burning rubber down a racetrack. He stopped mere inches from the old teacher.

Mrs. O’Brien held her purse firmly under one arm and a pile of papers to be graded under the other. She was headed home after another long, thankless day of trying to enrich the minds of spoiled teenagers and was in no mood to deal with Rom Halifax. Wasn’t it enough that she had to see him in class? Looking at him after hours, in her free time, her
me
time, was almost more than she could take.