School Spirits (Hex Hall Novel, A) (4 page)

T
he next morning, I woke up before my alarm. It wasn’t like I’d never thought about the first day of school before. I remembered going into stores with Mom and Finn, passing all those displays of pencils and binders and backpacks, and wondering what it must be like to live that kind of life. But I’d never thought that would be my life.

I was still brooding when I headed downstairs and into the kitchen. Mom was already there, and from the look of things, she’d been busy.

“Do you expect me to eat…all of this?” I stared at the kitchen table, which was practically buckling under the weight of all the food. Pancakes, bacon, eggs, a fruit bowl, an entire loaf of toast, and…

“Is that actual gruel?” I asked, pointing to a pot.

“Grits,” Mom answered, wiping her hands on a dish towel stuck in her waistband. “And no,” she continued, “you don’t have to eat all of it. I just…I want you to start your day off right.”

I grabbed a plate and some bacon. “Mom, you didn’t make this much food the day Finn and I chased our first werewolf. I’m pretty sure today will be less challenging than that.” I was trying to joke, but Mom frowned.

“I don’t think I ever made you girls any food. Finn could make mac and cheese by the time she was four, and you were using a microwave by that age. I should’ve cooked more.”

I stared at her. “Mom, we were fine. And I happen to like SpaghettiOs. Especially the kind with the meatballs. Finn used to give me the meatballs out of her bowl, and—”

I hate crying. The tears, the snot, the red face. All of it. But what I really hate is when crying sneaks up on you unexpectedly. So I looked down at my plate and shoved a piece of bacon into my mouth, hoping that would stop the sob that was welling up in my throat.

You need these meatballs more than I do, Junior
.
You’re so
skinny, a shifter is gonna pick his teeth with you one day.

Mom had turned back to the sink. “Hurry up before you miss your bus,” she said, and I could’ve imagined it, but her voice sounded a little watery, too.

The bacon might as well have been made of cardboard for as much as I tasted it, but I got it down. “Right. Okay. Well. I, uh, guess I’ll go wait for the bus.”

Mom turned. “Do you want me to wait with you?”

I did. A lot. Why was hunting monsters
less scary
than waiting by a freaking stop sign in the suburbs? But I shrugged. “No, don’t worry about it. I think I can handle standing on a corner by myself for ten minutes.”

The parentheses deepened around her mouth. “Don’t get smart.”

“I wasn’t! I…” Sighing, I shouldered my backpack. It was the same one I used to take when Finn and I would patrol, but this time there were no crossbows or vials of holy water. Just notebooks and two packs of pens.

“I’ll be home after three,” I told Mom.

“Okay,” she replied. “Remember, main thing
today is just to start getting yourself situated. Head down—”

“Eyes open,” I finished for her. That might as well have been the Brannick family motto.

Mom gave a sharp nod. “Right. We’ll talk when you get home. And…”

She walked over and, to my surprise, gave me a hug. “Have a good day, Iz.”

I hugged her back, closing my eyes and breathing in the safe, familiar smell of Mom. Brannicks aren’t huggers, and I couldn’t remember the last time Mom had wrapped her arms around me. “I will.”

The kitchen was right off the main hallway leading to the front door. The old owners of the house had put up a little shelf with hooks, a box for keys, and a tiny mirror to, I don’t know, check your lipstick before you went out or whatever. I snagged my black jacket from one of the hooks, and as I did, caught a flash of movement.

Torin.

In the mirror, he leaned against the wall behind me. “Nervous?” he asked, grinning.

Glancing down the hall toward the kitchen, I leaned in closer and whispered, “No.”

His grin got bigger. “Yes, you are. You’re a Brannick, a Queen Among Women, and you’re scared of going to school. When, really, it’s the school that should be scared of you.”

He said it like that was something to be proud of. Mom was still banging pans, water running in the sink, but I kept my voice as low as I could. “What the heck does that mean?”

“Like I said,” Torin replied, “you’re a Brannick. Not only have you been trained to dispose of the most
powerful creatures this world has ever known, you’ve been bred to be an effective killer. Over one thousand years of genetics, all coming together to form Isolde Brannick, a deadly weapon.”

I stared at him. “Torin, is…is this your idea of a pep talk?”

His brow wrinkled. “A what? I am simply trying to make you feel more confident about your day by giving you a small speech on your many virtues.”

Adjusting my bag on my shoulder, I poked at the glass. “That’s a pep talk, then. Except yours isn’t really helping.”

Now Torin was leaning back against the wall, his arms folded over his chest. “I actually felt it was going quite well, and I hadn’t even gotten to the part where I declare you a tiger sent to matriculate among kittens.”

In the kitchen, the water shut off. I glared at Torin. “I’m not a
tiger
,” I hissed. He gave one of his elegant shrugs as Mom called, “Iz?”

She stepped out of the kitchen, but by then, Torin had already vanished from the mirror.

“Yeah?” I replied, hoping I sounded casual.

“Just…be careful today, okay?”

It was such a weird thing for her to say. I mean, it was a perfectly normal thing for regular moms to say, but not for
mine
. And for a second, I wondered if I actually could be the sort of person who had a mom who told her to “be careful.” The kind who rode buses and whose mom cooked breakfast.

Then she added, “Lie low. And remember your cover.”

The bus ride ended up being easier than I’d thought. I snagged a seat by myself and spent the twenty-minute ride watching the boring streets of Ideal flash by and trying to tell myself that I’d faced off with werewolves and demons, for heaven’s sake. Not one other kid on this bus had done that. So how tough could it be navigating high school? All I had to do was go into the main office, hand the secretary my (fake) paperwork, get a schedule, and then…go to class. Mom and I had agreed I shouldn’t start asking questions about the attack on the science teacher too quickly, but I could definitely keep my ear to the ground.

I’d studied a map of the school last night, but that didn’t prepare me for the crush of people and confusing warren of hallways and stairs and classrooms as I walked through the giant double doors. It was so…
loud
. To my left, a group of girls shrieked and laughed about
something, while just in front of me, two boys were shouting at each other, earbuds jammed firmly in their ears.

Pushing my shoulders back, I tried to move with the same sense of purpose that everyone else seemed to have, but that wasn’t really helpful since I didn’t actually know where I was going. I wandered down one hallway, only to have to double back when it dead-ended in a row of lockers. Then I thought I’d found the main office, but that was actually the attendance office.

“The main office is in the east wing,” the harried attendance lady had told me, and I’d nodded and mumbled, “Thanks,” like I knew where the heck the east wing was.

Well, other than east, obviously.

By the time I found the main office, it was nearly time for first period, and the secretary hardly looked at my papers. “Here,” she said, shoving a folder at me. “Schedule and list of extracurricular activities. Now get moving before third bell.”

Third bell? There hadn’t even been one so far.

At that moment, a harsh buzzing filled the air, and as I stepped out into the corridor, kids suddenly began to sprint for the staircases and other hallways. Pressing myself against the wall, I struggled to open the folder and not get run over. As I did, I kept up a running monologue with myself.
Oh my God, chill out. Your heart is going a million
miles an hour over a bunch of kids? You fight monsters. Get a
hold of yourself, Brannick.

And I’d almost managed to do that when a boy nearly a foot taller than me collided with my shoulder, sending the folder spinning out of my hands, papers scattering everywhere.

My muscles tensed, and before I could stop it, my hand had darted out to…I don’t know, grab the guy, or punch him, or who knew what. Thank God he’d already moved too far past me, and my hand just flopped harmlessly in midair.

Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm down. The last thing I needed was to let my instincts take over before I’d even set foot in my first class. I knelt down and started to pick up my papers.

“Hey, you okay?”

A boy about my age stood in front of me. Sandy brown hair fell in his eyes, which, I noticed, were dark brown. “Just, uh, dropped some stuff.”

Crouching down, the boy gathered up my schedule and list of school clubs while I fished the map out from under the water fountain. “You must be new,” he said, and my head shot up.

“How did you know?”

“Um, the folder saying ‘NEW STUDENT’ kind of gave it away.”

Oh, right. Now that he mentioned it, that was scrawled across the top. “Ah,” I said, unsure of what else to say.

“And according to this,” he continued, brandishing my schedule, “you and I have first period English together.
Come on, I’ll walk you.”

As I followed him, the boy adjusted his dark green backpack covered in various badges that read things like, “Rusted Nail,” and “The Filthy Monkeys.” I figured either those were bands, or this kid was in the weirdest Boy Scout troop ever.

“I’m Adam,” he threw over his shoulder. When I just nodded, he stopped. “I’m assuming you have a name, too.”

“Oh. Yeah. Izzy. My name is Izzy.”

Adam inclined his head. “Well, nice to meet you, Izzy.”

There was another bell, the second one, and I heard doors begin to close. “Is that—” I started, but Adam waved a hand. “You’re new and I was showing you around and being a good citizen. We’re good. So.” Still walking, he held up the list of extracurricular activities. “Have you picked which of our fine organizations to
join yet?”

I took the paper back. “Seeing as how I’ve been here all of five minutes, no. And besides, I’m not much of a joiner.”

“Fair enough,” he said amiably, leading me up a staircase. “But hey, at least you know if you get a sudden urge to be part of a chess club, or a lacrosse team, or a ghost-hunting society, you’ll have the option.”

I froze on the fifth step. “A what?”

Adam turned, shoving a handful of hair out of
his eyes. “Lacrosse? It’s this sport with sticks, and—”

“Not that,” I said, scanning the list. “Do you have a ghost-hunting group?” And sure enough, there it was on the list, the Paranormal Management Society. Trying to hide my glee, I folded the paper up and shoved it into my back pocket with a nonchalant shrug. “I mean…that’s just weird.”

Adam snorted and started climbing the stairs again. “That’s one word for it. The chick that runs it, Romy Hayden, is a total wack job. Which you’ll see since she’s in English with us. And speaking of”—he stopped in front of a door and gave a bow—“here we are.”

B
y the time we walked into class, everyone was already in their desks, and I felt thirty pairs of eyes suddenly land on me.

It was not the best feeling.

“This is Izzy,” Adam announced to the teacher. According to my schedule, she was Mrs. Steele, and Adam was right; she didn’t seem put out by our lateness.

“Welcome to Mary Evans High, Izzy,” she said to me. “Why don’t you take a seat near the front for today. Romy, can you move over one desk?”

I spun around, wanting to catch sight of this girl. It wasn’t like I thought her little ghost-hunters club would actually be that useful. Every once and a while, groups like that spring up somewhere in the country, and they have a really bad tendency to result in a high body count.
Nothing more dangerous than civilians who think they can track
Prodigium
, Mom had said a few years ago after she’d had to go clean up after one of those groups. “Kids read a few books, watch a couple of stupid TV shows, and get in over their heads before they know what’s happened.”

But still, if I was looking for a vengeful ghost, this was a start, and a heck of a lot better one than I’d thought
I’d get.

A tall Asian girl got out of one of the desks in the first row, and I realized I’d seen her on the bus. It would’ve been hard to miss her. Next to my all-black ensemble she was a riot of color. Her jeans were bright red, and her white T-shirt had two rainbows splashed across it, with the words
DOUBLE RAINBOW ALL THE WAY
written in electric-blue bubble letters. A hat that same vivid blue was yanked low on her head, and the frames of her glasses were neon purple. When got up, I noticed she was
wearing red Converse sneakers.

As she sagged into the other desk, she flipped up
the dark lenses of her sunglasses, revealing regular glass underneath. “Enjoy that desk. It’s one of my favorites.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Mom said to get close to people, find stuff out. Investigate. What she’d neglected to mention was how. Should I introduce myself to Romy now? Use the cover story? Or was that too much too soon?

Luckily, I was literally saved by the bell. It trilled, and Mrs. Steele started handing out work sheets. I spent the next fifty minutes using words like “inscrutable” in a
sentence. When class ended, Romy bolted for the door, so I didn’t have to practice my cover story after all.

Next up was P.E., the one class I wasn’t that worried about. Mom had had me and Finn running at least six miles a day basically since we could walk. Besides, in all the TV shows Mom had gotten me, people usually just spent P.E. talking under the bleachers, or meeting up with their secret boyfriends. Since I didn’t have anyone to talk to, or a boyfriend, secret or otherwise, I figured I had this.

Or I would have if I’d been able to find the gym. It took me a while to figure out that the gym was actually
an entirely separate building, slightly downhill from the school itself. And once I finally got there, I realized
there was one thing I didn’t have: a uniform. Everyone else was coming out of the locker rooms in these awful gray shirt/shorts combos with
MEHS
scrawled across the chest.

The coach, a tubby guy who was about my mom’s age, looked me up and down and barked, “You! Why aren’t you dressed out?”

Before I could answer, a voice called, “She’s new, duh.”

It was Romy. Dressed all in gray, she seemed smaller than she had earlier. The coach frowned at her. “Attitude!”

“Sorry,” she said, sounding anything but. Then she turned to me. “He basically shouts everything. You’ll get used to it.”

And then, to prove her point, the coach yelled, “Okay, you over here!” He waved at my half of the gym, “You’re Team A, rest of you are Team B. Opposite sides, let’s go!”

Groaning, Romy pushed her glasses up her nose.

“Teams for what?” I asked as the kids next to us began heading for the nearest wall.

“Effing dodgeball,” she said with a long sigh.

Dodgeball. Right. I’d heard of that. And it seemed kind of self-explanatory. Clearly, there’d be balls. And then we’d…dodge.

Sure enough, the coach began placing a line of red rubber balls between our two “teams.”

“I swear to God, if my glasses get broken again, I’m suing this crappy school,” Romy muttered darkly under her breath. When she caught me looking at her, she added, “Twice last year. Two pairs.” She raised her voice, her eyes fixed on the coach’s back. “This game is barbaric!” she called.

“Zip it, Hayden,” the coach replied with the air of someone who had said those three words many, many times.

Romy scowled but stepped into line. I stepped next to her, tugging at the hem of my hoodie.

“What’s your name?” Romy asked. A tiny dimple flashed in one cheek. “I mean, in my head, you’ll always be The Girl Who Took My Desk, but that’s kind of an awkward thing to call you all the time.”

“Izzy.”

“Ah, a fellow holder of a cutesy name. So you’re new?”

I nodded, but before I could say anything else, the coach blew his whistle. At the sound, several kids darted forward and grabbed the rubber balls. Before the whistle had even faded, a tall boy on the other side of the gym took aim at Romy and threw.

The ball didn’t hit her glasses at least, but it did slam into her forearm with a meaty smack. Romy winced, rubbing the red mark already forming on her skin. As
the tall boy laughed and high-fived one of his friends, Romy called out, “Yeah, nice one, Ben. You took out a ninety-pound myopic chick. Congratulations on
your masculinity!” With that, she trudged over to the bleachers.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a ball zooming at me, but I jerked back so that it sailed harmlessly by. Okay. I could do this. It was actually kind of similar to a training exercise Mom used to make me and Finley do. That involved dodging a much heavier ball made of leather, but the principle was the same. It was one of Mom’s favorite training exercises because it combined both strength and agility. Finley had always been better than me at the strength part, but agile? That I could do.

By now, kids were getting hit all over the place, and soon there were only five of us on our side of the gym, and six on the other side. One of those was the tall boy, Ben, who had hit Romy. I guess some girls would’ve thought he was cute, but all I could see was “psychotic jerk who goes out of his way to hit girls.”

His gaze locked with mine, and one corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk. Rearing back on one leg, like he was pitching a baseball, Ben hurled a red rubber ball directly at me. He threw it so hard that I actually staggered back a step when I caught it. But I did catch it. Ben’s smirk turned into a frown, I guess because he’d been looking forward to seeing me sprawled across the gym floor.

“Too bad, buddy,” I muttered under my breath. And with that, I threw the ball back at him.

I meant to hit him in the arm, the same place he’d hit Romy. I didn’t mean for it to hurt—okay, so maybe I meant for it to hurt a
little
bit—but the second the ball was out of my hands I knew I’d thrown it too hard. The ball we trained with back home was made of boiled leather. It was heavy and required some real heft to get it through the air. This ball was rubber, but I’d put the same amount of force behind it.

It hit Ben’s shoulder and sent him skidding across the hardwood, his sneakers shrieking as he slid. Arms pinwheeling, he stumbled back against the far wall of the gym before finally collapsing in a heap.

For a second, everything was deadly quiet. Then the coach’s shrill whistle pierced the air. “You!” he barked, letting the whistle fall from his lips. “New girl! What’s your name?”

I was suddenly very aware of everyone in the gym staring at me. Crap.

Straightening my shoulders, I faced the coach. “Izzy Brannick.”

“Okay, Izzy Brannick, do you wanna tell me why you just knocked McCrary here on his butt?”

Confused, I glanced over at Ben. One of his friends was helping him up. His face was pale, and when the other boy touched his shoulder, Ben winced.

“I was just…playing the game,” I replied, and this time there was a little waver in my voice.

“He was
out
,” the coach said, and when I just stared at him, he shook his head. “You caught his throw. So he was already out. There was no need to throw the ball at him, and certainly no need to—” He broke off to look at Ben, and his eyes went wide. “Dear God, did you
dislocate
his shoulder
?”

Ben did look a little…crooked.

“I didn’t mean to,” I said, but the coach wasn’t listening. “Get him to the nurse’s office,” he called to the boy beside Ben. Then his gaze swung back to me. “And you. You…just go run some laps. Until the end of the period.”

“Seriously, it was an accident—” I said, but Coach Lewis just pointed at the double doors. “FOOTBALL FIELD. LAPS.”

I heard a few giggles, and Romy was squinting at me, but basically everyone else in the gym was watching me with a combination of dislike and fear. Suddenly I saw myself through their eyes—all in black, my hair scraped back from my face—and I wondered how “fitting in” had ever seemed possible.