Made You Up (3 page)

T
he first thing I noticed about East Shoal High School was that it didn’t have a bike rack. You know a school is run by stuck-up sons of bitches when it doesn’t even have a bike rack.

I shoved Erwin behind the blocky green shrubs lining the school’s front walk and stepped back to make sure the tires and handlebars were hidden. I didn’t expect anyone to steal, touch, or notice him, since his rusty diarrhea color made people subconsciously avert their eyes, but I felt better knowing he was out of harm’s way.

I checked my bag. Books, folders, notebooks, pens, and pencils. My cheap digital camera—one of the first things I’d bought when I’d gotten the job at Finnegan’s—dangled from its strap around my wrist. I’d already taken a picture of four suspicious-looking squirrels lined up on the red
brick wall outside my neighbor’s house this morning, but other than that, the memory card was empty.

Then I did my perimeter check. Perimeter checks entailed three things: getting a 360-degree view of my surroundings, noting anything that seemed out of place—like the huge scorched spiral design covering the surface of the parking lot—and filing those things away in case they tried to sneak up on me later.

Kids funneled from their cars to the school, ignoring the men in black suits and red ties who stood at even intervals along the school’s roof. I should’ve known public school would have some weird security. We just had normal security officers at The Hillpark School, my (former) private school.

I joined the procession of students—keeping an arm’s-length distance between myself and the rest of them, because God knows who was bringing weapons to school these days—all the way to the guidance office, where I stood in line for four minutes to get my schedule. While I was there, I took a bunch of college brochures out of the stand in the corner and stuffed them in my backpack, ignoring the weird stares I got from the kid in front of me. I didn’t take crap when it came to college—I had to get in, no matter how early I had to start or how many applications I had to send. If I was lucky, I could guilt-trip some scholarships out of a school or two, the way my parents had done with Hillpark.
It didn’t matter how I did it; either I got in or I worked at Finnegan’s for the rest of my life.

I realized everyone around me was wearing a uniform. Black pants, white button-down shirts, green ties. Gotta love the smell of institutional equality in the morning.

My locker was near the cafeteria. Only one other person was there, his locker right next to mine.

Miles.

Memories of Blue Eyes hit me rapid-fire, and I had to turn in a full circle to make sure my surroundings were normal. As I inched closer, I peered into his locker. Nothing unusual. I took a deep breath.

Be polite, Alex. Be polite. He won’t kill you because of some water. He’s not a hallucination. Be polite.

“Um, hi,” I said, stepping up to my locker.

Miles turned, saw me, and jumped so badly his locker door banged against the one next to it and he almost tripped over his backpack on the floor. His glare burned a hole through my head.

“Sorry,” I said. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

When he didn’t reply, I focused on my locker combination. I glanced at him as I tossed books into my locker. His expression hadn’t changed.

“I, uh, I’m really sorry about the water.” I held out my hand against my better judgment. My mother always said
to be polite, no matter what. Even if the other person might have a knife concealed up his sleeve. “I’m Alex.”

He quirked an eyebrow. The expression was so sudden, so perfect, and so obviously right that I almost laughed.

Slowly, so it looked like he thought he might burn himself by touching me, Miles reached out to shake my hand. His fingers were long and thin. Spidery, but strong.

“Miles,” he replied.

“Okay, cool.” We released our grips at the same time, hands shooting down to our sides. “Glad we got that out of the way. I’ll see you later, then.”

Go go go get away get away.

I walked away as quickly as I could. Had I just come into contact with Blue Eyes again after ten years? Oh God. Okay.

It wouldn’t be that bad if he was real, would it? Just because my mother never mentioned him didn’t mean he wasn’t real. But what if he was an asshole?

Screw you, brain.

It wasn’t until I got to the stairs that I realized I was being followed. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled, and I grabbed for my camera as I spun around.

Miles stood behind me.

“Are you doing that on purpose?” I asked.

“Doing what on purpose?” he replied.

“Walking a few steps behind me, close enough so I realize you’re there but not so close you look creepy doing it. And staring.”

He blinked. “No.”

“It sure feels like you are.”

“Maybe you’re paranoid.”

I stiffened.

He rolled his eyes. “Gunthrie?” he asked.

Mr. Gunthrie, AP English, first period. “Yes,” I said.

Miles pulled a paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and held it out. His schedule. There, at the top of the page, was his name:
Richter, Miles J.
His first period was AP English 12, Gunthrie.

“Fine,” I said. “But you don’t have to be such a creeper about it.” I turned and stalked the rest of the way up the stairs.

“Sucks being new, doesn’t it?” Miles appeared beside me, a weird edge lacing his voice. Shivers worked their way up my arms.

“It’s not so bad,” I said through a clenched jaw.

“Either way,” he said, “I think you have an inalienable right to know that dyeing your hair is against the dress code.”

“It’s not dyed,” I snapped.

“Sure.” Miles quirked the eyebrow again. “Sure it’s not.”

W
hen I walked into first period, all I could see of Mr. Gunthrie was a pair of thick-soled black boots propped on a class roster. The rest of him hid behind this morning’s paper. I did a quick scan of the room, then twisted my way through tight rows of desks and stood in front of him, hoping he’d notice me.

He didn’t.

“Excuse me.”

A pair of eyes topped by a heavy line of eyebrow appeared over the paper. He was a stout guy, probably in his fifties, with close-cut, steel-gray hair. I took a step back from the desk, my books in front of my chest like a shield.

He lowered the paper. “Yes?”

“I’m new. I need a uniform.”

“The bookstore sells them for about seventy.”

“Dollars
?”

“You can get a spare for free from the janitor, but it won’t have the school crest. And don’t expect it to fit. Or have been washed.” He looked over my head at the clock on the wall. “If you could please take a seat.”

I sat down with my back to the wall. The PA system crackled to life.

“Students of East Shoal, welcome back for another year of school.” I recognized the weedy voice of Mr. McCoy, the principal. My mother and I had talked to him before. She loved him. I was unimpressed. “I hope you all had a great summer vacation, but now it’s time to get back in the swing of things. If you don’t have a school uniform, one can be purchased from the bookstore for a minimum fee.”

I snorted. No bike rack, seventy-dollar uniforms, oblivious principal—this place was just rainbows and unicorns.

“Also,” McCoy continued, “this is the yearly reminder that our beloved scoreboard’s birthday, the anniversary of its donation to the school, is coming up in just a few short weeks. So everyone get ready, prepare your offerings, and be ready to celebrate this great occasion!”

The PA system went quiet. I stared at the ceiling. Did he say “offerings”?

For a
scoreboard
?

“ROLL CALL!”

Mr. Gunthrie’s voice jerked me back to Earth. The talking of the other students in the room ceased. I got the sinking feeling that Gunnery Sergeant Hartman would be teaching us this year. I slipped my camera over the lip of the desk and began taking pictures.

“WHEN I CALL YOUR NAME, I WILL POINT TO A DESK. THAT IS YOUR DESK. THERE WILL BE NO SWITCHING, TRADING, OR COMPLAINING. IS THAT UNDERSTOOD?”

“YES, SIR!” came the united reply.

“GOOD. CLIFFORD ACKERLEY.” Mr. Gunthrie pointed to the first desk of the first row.

“Here, sir!” A burly kid stood up and moved to his new seat.

“GOOD TO SEE YOU IN AP, ACKERLEY.” Mr. Gunthrie moved down his list. “TUCKER BEAUMONT.”

Tucker stood from somewhere on the side and went to sit behind Clifford. He saw me in the back and smiled. To my dismay, he looked even more hopelessly nerdy here—his school uniform starched straight, his arms full of textbooks and already-scribbled-on papers—the sort of nerdy that gets picked on by guys like Clifford Ackerley.

But I couldn’t help giggling a little. It happened every
time I heard Tucker’s last name. It always reminded me of Chevalier d’Eon, full name Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée d’Éon de Beaumont, a French spy who lived the second half of his life as a woman.

Mr. Gunthrie called a few more people before getting to Claude Gunthrie, who gave no indication that his father, barking orders at him, bothered him in the least.

I took pictures of everyone. I could analyze details later—I didn’t plan on getting close enough to anyone to do it in person.

“CELIA HENDRICKS!”

Celia Hendricks had been assaulted by a cosmetics store. No hair was naturally that shade of yellow (and that was me talking, ha ha ha), and her real skin was locked inside a makeup shell. She wore a black skirt instead of pants, and it rode dangerously up her thigh.

Mr. Gunthrie didn’t miss this.

“HENDRICKS, THAT SKIRT VIOLATES THE DRESS CODE ON SEVERAL LEVELS.”

“But it’s the first day of school, and I didn’t know—”

“BULLSHIT.”

I stared, wide-eyed, at Mr. Gunthrie, praying nothing about him was a figment of my imagination. Either he was badass, or I was dreaming.

“GO CHANGE, NOW.”

With a huff, Celia stomped out of the room. Mr. Gunthrie sighed and returned to his list. A few more people shifted places.

“MILES RICHTER.”

Miles yawned as he dragged his tall self across the room. He fell into his new seat. There were only two people left—me and a girl who’d been talking to Clifford before class had started. Maybe, just maybe, her last name would be between Ric- and Rid-.

“ALEXANDRA RIDGEMONT.”

Damn.

Everyone turned to look at me as I sat down behind Miles. If they hadn’t noticed me before, they did now—and the hair. Oh, the
hair
. . .

Stop it, idiot! It’s fine, they’re not looking at you. Okay, they
are
looking at you. But they’re not coming after you. You’re okay. Everything’s okay.

“Alex is fine,” I said weakly.

“MARIA WOLF.”

“Ria!” the last girl said, almost skipping to her spot behind me. Her strawberry blond ponytail jumped happily as she went.

Mr. Gunthrie tossed the class list back onto his desk and stood at the front of the room, hands clasped behind his back, square jaw high.

“TODAY WE WILL HAVE PAIR DISCUSSIONS OF YOUR SUMMER READING. I WILL PICK THE PAIRS. THERE WILL BE NO SWITCHING, TRADING, OR COMPLAINING. IS THAT UNDERSTOOD?”

“YES, SIR!”

“GOOD.”

As if he remembered all of our names after only seeing them once, Mr. Gunthrie pulled pairs out of thin air.

Being stuck in the seat behind Miles was my payment for getting to be partners with Tucker, I guess.

“I didn’t know you’d be in my class!” I said when I raced out of my seat and slid into the chair behind his. He was the one person in this room who didn’t give me the creeps. “And you weren’t lying about this place.”

“People around these parts don’t lie about a thing like that.” Tucker tipped an imaginary ten-gallon hat. “And you didn’t tell me you were going to be in AP English. I could’ve told you. Mr. Gunthrie teaches the only one in the school.” He held up the papers he’d scribbled on. “I already finished the discussion. He does the same first assignment every year. Hope you don’t mind.” He paused, frowning over my shoulder. “God. Hendricks is doing that thing again. I don’t even see why she likes him.”

Celia Hendricks, who’d returned wearing a baggy pair of black sweatpants, was leaning over her chair and doing
some weird flips with her hair and whisper-calling Miles, who had his back to her. When he ignored her, she began launching balled-up pieces of notebook paper at his head.

“Why do you hate him so much?” I asked Tucker.

“I don’t know if ‘hate’ is the right word,” he replied. “‘Am afraid of him,’ ‘wish he’d stop staring,’ and ‘think he’s a lunatic’ are more accurate.”

“Afraid of him?”

“The whole school is.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s impossible to know what’s going on in his head.” Tucker looked back to me. “Have you ever seen a person completely change? Like,
completely
completely? So much that they don’t even have the same facial expressions they used to? That’s what happened to him.”

I hesitated at Tucker’s sudden seriousness. “Sounds creepy.”

“It
was
creepy.” Tucker concentrated on a design someone had etched into his desktop. “And then, he, you know. Had to be the
best
. . .”

“You . . . wait a minute . . . he’s the valedictorian?”

I knew Tucker didn’t like the valedictorian, but during his rants at work he’d never said who it was. Just that the kid didn’t deserve it.

“It’s not even that he’s beating me!” Tucker hissed, casting a quick look back at Miles. “It’s that he doesn’t
try
. He doesn’t even have to read the book! He just
knows
everything! I mean, he was sort of like that in middle school, but he was never the best. Half the time he didn’t do his work because he thought it was pointless.”

I looked back at Miles. He and Claude had apparently finished their discussion, and he’d fallen asleep on his desk. Someone had taped a paper sign to his back that said “Nazi” in black marker.

I shivered. I liked researching Nazis as much as the next war historian, but I would never use the term as a nickname. Nazis scared the daylights out of me. Either everyone at this school was an idiot, or Miles Richter really was as bad as Tucker was making him out to be.

“He has this ridiculous club, too,” Tucker said. “The East Shoal Recreational Athletics Support Club. It’s just the sort of obnoxious name he’d pick.”

I swallowed the sudden unease in my throat. I knew the club name, but I hadn’t known it was
his
club. The sign on Miles’s back rose and fell with his breathing.

“Um. Hey.” Tucker nudged me. “Don’t let him try to pull anything on you, okay?”

“Pull anything? Like what?”

“Like unscrewing your chair from your desk, or tearing a hole in the bottom of your backpack.”

“Ohhhkay,” I said, frowning. “You know, now I’m
pretty sure he’s either a gorilla, a T-Rex, or a poltergeist. Anything else I should know about him?”

“Yeah,” Tucker said. “If he ever starts talking with a German accent, call me.”