Shucked (11 page)

“No problem.” I glanced at the other
girls, noticing for the first time that they weren’t as fit as I was. I folded
my arms across my six pack, a little embarrassed. I hadn’t meant to show them
up. Even when I tried to fit in, I didn’t do it right. “I’ll tone it down a
little next time.”

Kelly had arrived while I’d been
concentrating on my fitness. The girls reluctantly came over to Callie and me,
but only after she waved them over a few times. “Everyone knows Tabitha. I hope
we can all move on from what happened the other morning. I know I don’t want to
dwell on it. Kailey’s out, Tabitha’s in. Plus, Mrs. Jordan made me the new captain.”

Silence hung over us like a shroud. I
could tell some of the girls wanted to protest, but for some reason they all
kept their mouths shut. My stomach flipped a few times. Okay, so maybe
cheerleading wasn’t going to be as easy as I’d hoped. At least I had Callie on
my side.

“Let’s work on our first cheer.
Everyone take positions.” Callie grabbed my elbow, steering me over to the
front with her. “You’re tiny, so you’re with me. Just follow along, it won’t be
hard. It’s just like line dancing.”

Line dancing? What was that? The girls
launched into a simple cheer, whose words I picked up in about half a second.
It wasn’t hard to spell success, after all. But the steps left me totally
confused. I tried to follow them, but their feet skipped all around while they
spun in circles, not to mention the arm motions. It only got faster as the
cheer went on. I struggled to keep up, but instead I tripped over my own feet
and fell flat on the wood gym floor.

The palms of my hands stung. I hadn’t
even thought to use any of my taekwondo falling techniques. It all happened so
fast, and besides, I wasn’t used to tripping over my own feet. I was pretty athletic,
but at the moment, I felt like a total idiot.

A hand appeared in front of my face.
It wasn’t Callie’s. I looked up into Jan’s blue eyes. “Thanks,” I said, putting
my hand in hers.

“So you’re not perfect, huh?” Jan asked.

I shook my head. “Never pretended to
be. I’m just…” I paused, unsure what to call myself anymore, “different, I guess.
I don’t know all the stuff you guys do. None of this comes easy to me, but if
you ever need help wrestling a crocodile, I’m your girl.”

Before she could respond, an alarm
clanged through the gym, echoing off of every corner. I panicked, running to
the bleachers to grab my gym back, but the other girls were just laughing.

“Isn’t that a fire alarm?” I asked,
my eyes wild. I wasn’t going to survive living in the jungle of South America
to die in a fire.

Callie nodded. “It is, but I doubt
there’s an emergency. It’s probably some stupid senior prank. This kind of
stuff is going to happen all year long.”

The other girls all picked up their
stuff, but no one seemed to be in a hurry.

“But, you’re right. We should get out
of here just in case,” Callie said, tossing an arm over my shoulder. “Unfortunately
this means we may not get our showers in before school starts. Depends on how
long it takes the admins to make sure there’s nothing actually wrong.”

“Great,” I said, forcing myself to
walk casually with the other girls. I wanted to break out into a run and get my
ass out of the building, but I decided to trust them. If this was another
prank, I didn’t want to be the one everyone laughed at when it was over.

Chapter Fifteen

“Looking hot, Smith. I like the belly
button ring.”

I spun around, struggling to pull my
hoodie over my workout clothes. Sweat was dripping in places I wasn’t comfortable
with anyone seeing. My workout clothes didn’t leave much to the imagination,
that was for sure.

“Hi Alex,” I mumbled through my
sweatshirt. I yanked it down over my bare stomach. Why did he have to be at
school already? His car wasn’t in the lot when I got there and it couldn’t have
been more than fifteen minutes. School didn’t start for another twenty, either.

“What are you doing here so early?” I
figured I might as well ask. The best conversation we ever had took place when
we were finally real with each other and stopped playing games. Maybe it would
work today too.

“Alex!” A shrilly voice penetrated
the crowd in the parking lot. “Can you help me, please?”

His eyes narrowed a bit, but not
enough to fully change his expression. The smile became a little harder and
straighter, but didn’t waver. “Coming, Kailey,” he yelled back.

“Oh, you’re helping her out while her
ankle’s broken?” I ran my hand through my hair, trying to act like I didn’t
care. But I did. A lot. “That’s cool.” I wanted to ask if they’d really broken
up. If she’d guilt tripped him into helping her. If he knew how she tried to
hurt me at cheerleading a couple days ago.

I wanted to stake some kind of claim
on him, but I knew, with a very heavy heart, that it wasn’t my place.
Especially not while she was injured. I didn’t like the girl, but I wasn’t
heartless, either.

“Yeah, I guess.” Alex shrugged.
“Guess I’d better go see what the princess needs. I’ll catch you later, okay?
If not, there’s tutoring again tomorrow.”

“Yeah, tutoring,” I said with a
smile. My most and least favorite part of school. I glanced back. Kailey was
elbowing her way through the crowd, not bothering to check for toes before
slamming her crutches on the blacktop.

“Slow down, K, I’m coming,” Alex
said. He waved his arms and people moved without a word. Most of them tossed
him smiles as they glared at Kailey. Maybe I wasn’t the only person who didn’t
like her. For a second, I kind of felt bad for her. People thought I was weird
because, well, I was. But I’d hate it if everyone thought I was mean like
Kailey.

They went past me, Kailey acting as
if I wasn’t even standing there, Alex tossing me a pathetic smile. Didn’t she
have anyone else who could help her? Maybe he felt sorry for her and they got
back together. Maybe he just realized I wasn’t interesting enough to warrant his
affection.

My heart dropped to my toes when he took
her backpack. Kailey leaned into him, whispered something in his ear, and then
kissed him on the cheek. And it wasn’t one of those little pecks you’d give
your brother. It was a little wet and lingering. Not smoochy, but like
something she’d learned reading Fifty Shades of Grey. I closed my eyes, hoping
the image would disappear, but of course it was the only thing I could see. It
didn’t help that my mind projected it in IMAX 3-D.

My eyelids snapped open, rejecting
that film for reality. I scanned the lot, but they’d already gone into school.

“Hey, Tabitha,” Callie put her hand
on my elbow. “We can go back in now. The firemen confirmed it as a prank.” She
giggled. “I guess the security cameras caught the boys who did it. Idiots.
They’re going to get in big trouble. Probably detention. Maybe even suspension.”

I nodded, pretending like I was
listening. In actuality, I didn’t care. My hopes for something with Alex were
burning down, alarms wouldn’t stop going off in my head. I wanted to kick
myself for playing so hard to get with him. Maybe if I’d given in right away,
I’d be in the school with him right now. Just one more thing I didn’t know how
to do, and Kailey knew how to do it better than I did.

I hit the showers, glad for the
private stalls so no one could tell the water running down my face was
partially coming from my eyes.

Chapter Sixteen

At lunch, Becky waved me over to her
table. She’d saved a seat and I was relieved. The cheerleading thing was cool,
but I wasn’t ready to actually socialize with any of them. I needed Becky and
her weirdness to calm me down. I knew it was okay to just be myself with her
because even if I had a slip with my attitude, she’d cut me short. The first
half of the day hadn’t been easy because it felt like I was bumping into Alex
and Kailey around every corner.

“What are you reading?” I stuck my
head over Becky’s shoulder, looking at her iPhone screen. I stuffed half of a
Snickers bar in my mouth. I couldn’t get those overseas, at least not the
places my mom and I travelled to. When I was in the states, I couldn’t eat
enough. I gained a few pounds every summer just from the Snickers.

“TIME’s mobile app. Science news.”
She shrugged. “I think it’s interesting.” Becky scrolled through the headlines.

A flash of red caught my eye. I
grabbed Becky’s hand. “Stop!”

“What?”

I grabbed the phone out of her hand.

“What are you doing? I don’t care if
you want to look at something, but at least ask me first! Jeesh, Tabs!”

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. Words
could not describe what I was seeing. A red-haired woman, only caught in
profile on the edge of the picture, shattered the truth into a million pieces.
Her head turned partly away from the camera, but I knew without a doubt that it
was her. I double tapped the picture, making it even bigger. No mistaking it.
My mom was caught up in something big and she’d mailed me the item in question.

“Tabitha?”

“My mom.” I pointed at the screen.
“That’s my mom.”

Becky squinted and pushed her glasses
up her nose. “How can you tell? It’s so small and blurry.”

“It’s my mom. I’d know her anywhere.”

“So what? She’s an archaeologist.
It’s not a big surprise she’d be in the science news, right?”

“No, but look at the headline.”

“Japanese Museum Missing Important
Artifact.” Becky was almost out of breath, grasping at every word like she was
hanging off the edge of a cliff. We read the article together.

It went on to detail how the dogu in
their museum was one of the only ones in the world totally intact and a
Japanese National Treasure. They were preparing to loan it to a prominent
businessman as a token of respect. His wife had proved to be infertile, but she
didn’t want to go through infertility treatments. She’d begged her husband to
procure the dogu, which was believed to have magical healing powers when it
came to feminine issues. Because of his prominence in the business world and
donations, the museum saw it as a token of gratitude to loan the dogu to him
and his wife for a period of thirty days.

The day after the public transfer,
the dogu went missing. No one had any idea who had stolen it. The security
systems had been taken offline, so there was no proof. No fingerprints.
Nothing. It was as if the dogu had disappeared into thin air.

I sat back in my chair, the metal dug
into my back, but I only pushed back harder. I needed something to ground me,
help me make sense of what was in front of me.

“You said that thing your mom sent
you is just a reproduction.”

“It should be. She’d never send me
anything real like that. My mom’s a professional archaeologist. Haven’t you
ever seen Indiana Jones? That whole ‘it belongs in a museum’ quote isn’t a
joke. It’s almost more important than the Hippocratic oath for doctors. My mom
would never in a million years send me an important artifact to keep on a
bookshelf.”

So why was she in the picture next to
the Japanese businessman while he spoke angrily with the museum directors? What
was she doing involved in the theft of a dogu?

“I don’t understand.” I gave Becky
her phone back. “I mean, why would my mom steal this artifact? And why the hell
would she send it to me? None of this makes any sense.” I took another swig from
my Mountain Dew, hoping the jolt of caffeine would give me some clarity.
Instead, my hands just shook even harder.

“Didn’t you say that your dad is some
kind of antiquities dealer? A little shady?” Becky enlarged the picture again.
“Is that him?” She pointed to the side of the picture.

All I could see was a shock of dark
hair, but no face. “I don’t know. I mean, maybe, but without a face, it’s
impossible to say.”

My mind raced in a million different
directions. I’d thought she was holing up with my dad in England, but that was
definitely her in the picture. The timestamp underneath said it was taken two
weeks ago in Japan. She stood directly behind the Japanese businessman. I
hadn’t even noticed her the first time Becky showed it to me because I’d only glanced
at his angry face.

“Tabitha, you’ve got something the
Japanese government wants.” Becky held a hand up to her mouth, trying to keep
our conversation private.

I glanced around. No one was paying
any attention to us and I had no interest in any of them. Even a quick glance
at the corner of the lunchroom where Kailey was curled up next to Alex wasn’t
enough to faze me.

“She probably didn’t think you’d even
hear about this.”

“It’s true. I’ve never been
interested in the news. I’d just go about my life here, never the wiser.” I sat
up straight and looked at Becky.

“So what are you going to do?” She
slipped her phone into her back pocket, getting rid of the evidence.

“As soon I get back to Mimi’s house,
I’m putting that dogu somewhere safe.” I couldn’t believe I’d held in my bare
hand and even slept with it. My mom would have a fit when she found out. One of
the first rules of archaeology: never touch an ancient object with bare hands.
The natural oils in our skin could hurt its composition, rendering it useless
to scientific study. Any little thing could damage it.