The Awakening (3 page)

Here goes nothing.

"I'm Kendall Moorehead," I say to the woman behind the counter in the school's office. "I was told to check in here because I'm new."

The frazzled lady takes a pencil from behind her ear and places it between her teeth. "Evvwyonez sorrrda nooo tahdahy."

"Excuse me?"

She removes the pencil. "Sorry, it's just that everyone's sort of new today, sugah, with it being the first day of school and all and everyone getting settled." She thumbs through a stack of cards and pulls one out. "Here you are. Moorehead, Kendall. Your first class is Mrs. Johnston's. Round yonder, hit the stairs, third floor, room three thirty-three."

I stare at the card in my hand, trying not to be hypnotized by her singsongy Southern accent. Guess I'll have to get used to that, now that I'm living in the South. Hmm ... calculus, physiology, English literature, history, Spanish I, and computer lab. I see my classes have already been picked, probably by my mom. Fine. Whatever. It's all core stuff I need anyway.

The pencil-chewing woman stares at me. "Now scoot! You don't want to be late. First impressions are everything."

She's
telling me this? At least I styled my hair this morning with something other than number-two lead and yellow paint and I managed to get my cereal inside of me instead of on the front of my shirt, like her. Frowning, I mentally scold myself for being so judgmental, particularly when I'm about to hop on the stage in three seconds and be judged by Randy, Paula, Simon ... and all of Radisson High. Sure, I've seen all those teen movies where the heroine is a fish out of water and soon takes over the school and wins the heart of the popular-quarterback-who's-really-a-sensitive-headed-for-an-Ivy guy. This is not a movie. This is my life. I've never been the new girl. In my sixteen years, I've been educated solely by the Chicago public school system. I don't know if I'm ready for how they do it here.

Instead of heading straight up to Mrs. Johnston's homeroom class, I leave the office and weave through a maze of probing eyes—why can I feel each individual scan?—and not-so-faint whispers to find the ladies'. I push into the bathroom, and it seems that every girl in there turns to check me out. I might as well be holding up a sign that reads I'm Not from Round Here.

Really, there's not much for them to see other than an ordinary Midwesterner with long, ever-so-slightly wavy brown hair, very little makeup—some eyeliner and mascara—and a nose full of freckles. Okay, so Marjorie thinks I'm a little on the Amanda Bynes end of the scale, which is fine with me. She's a fave of mine, so I'll take it as a compliment. I lower my eyes (hazel, BTW) and look at my feet as I walk to the sink. All around, I hear girls grab their books and bags and rush out, obviously hurrying to class. Which is what I should do, instead of dawdling.

I think of splashing some cold water onto my face, but I'm not a hundred percent sure that my mascara is waterproof. Since there's no major mall here in Radisson, I had to settle for a pink container of some Maybelline, L'Oréal, or what have you from Mega-Mart in lieu of my regular waterproof Clinique that I can't find anywhere in my makeup bag—Kaitlin probably boosted it without my permission. Instead, I turn on the hot and cold water and wash my hands with the generic, detergenty-smelling soap.

All of a sudden, my stomach cramps up. A burning pain that sears me right in the middle, like I've been slashed with Darth Vader's light saber. It really hurts. Like, bad. Like I want to throw up. The nausea is rising up into the back of my throat and there's a wicked acid sensation. I move toward the stalls, thinking I'm gonna get sick all over the place, when I hear the sounds of someone
actually
retching.
Ewww
...now I'm really gonna blow chunks. I so can't deal with hearing someone else barfing. I nearly double over from the tenderness in my throat and the ache in my abdomen. It's almost as if I'm feeling
her
throwing up.

That's just goofy as hell, though.

At the sink, I jerk the faucet back on and scoop a handful of cold water into my mouth, trying to wash away the yucky sensation. A toilet flushes down on the end of the row. More retching sound amplifies inside my headache. Jesus ... what's going on with me?

A stall door opens and out walks the tall girl I'd seen outside in the parking lot on a Segway. Is she the one who was sick? No, for some reason I know she's not. Plus, she kind of screws up her nose when the gagging sound continues. She stands next to me at the sinks and looks me over. Lowering her brows, she asks, "Are you okay?"

I nod and then dab my mouth with the coarse, industrial paper towel. "Yeah. I'm just sensitive to hearing other people ... you know, puking like that."

The girl waves her hand in the air dismissively and then goes to wash her hands. "Don't pay any attention to it. It's just RHS's own after-school special."

"Excuse me?"

She lowers her voice and points behind us. "Courtney Langdon. Cheerleader. Does it all the time when she's trying to keep her size-zero figure for football season."

"I think that's called a disease."

The tall girl shrugs. "Try telling
her
that. Splurge and purge. That's her lifestyle."

I bend to look under the stall and see this Courtney girl still on her knees. "Shouldn't someone do, like, an intervention or something? Tell the school nurse? Advise her parents of what she's doing?"

"Nah," the girl whispers. "She'd scratch your eyes out for doing that. She's a certified bitch. We're all used to it. You'll get used to it too."

Well, who am I to take on the school bitch on my first day?

I doubt I'll get used to it, though. Especially if it causes horrific suffering of my own, like I'm currently experiencing. "I, umm, suppose so." I just hope the "bitch" doesn't hear us talking about her.

The tall girl smiles at me like she's sizing me up. I do the same to her. She's lanky and slightly geeky, wearing a graphic T-shirt that reads "More Cowbell" half tucked into a pair of dark, worn Levi's. And she's as flat-chested as I am. Thank God for small miracles! (No pun intended.) It's apparent from her relaxed look that she's not too worried about fashion. Or maybe she's just comfortable in her own skin. Her hair is messy, black, and in a bob that fits her smiling face well.

The toilet flushes and I hear Courtney, of tossed-cookie fame, gather her things and bang out of the stall. I stare at her mane of golden blond hair and her thick, thick makeup that you could almost carve your name in with a fingernail.

Courtney sneers at me. "What are
you
looking at?"

I shift my eyes down to the floor. "Nothing. Sorry."

"Damn right." She whips the tip of a berry-colored lipstick over her mouth and then nods at the tall girl in the mirror. "Junior year and I see you're still a fashion disaster." Then she turns and leaves.

When the door shuts, I can't stop myself from saying, "What a beeyotch."

The tall girl shrugs. "Told ya."

The bell rings and I feel my nausea dissipate just as quickly as it started.

Huh ... that's weird. All that pain must have been from first-day nerves. I'd like to talk to this girl more, but I don't want to be late for homeroom. "Crap! I better run to class," I say.

"Hope to see you later," she shouts after me.

"Yeah, me too!"

I take the stairs two at a time to get up to Mrs. Johnston's class. Talk about a workout! When I finally reach the top, a little more winded than I'd like to be, I see that room 333 is bright and airy. Mrs. Johnston has the windows open, and I can hear birds chirping away like a Disney soundtrack gone bad. It's as if the birds are sitting here on the desk in front of me. Do I have some sort of bionic ear all of a sudden? I feel like I'm ear-jacking the birds' feathery conversation. Or maybe it's just that the stillness of a small town makes any sound more amplified.

There's a seat in the next to the last row by the window, so I swerve through the backpacks and stretched-out legs of my fellow classmates and plop down. The students look ... normal. Girls in jeans and cute tops and guys in khakis and NFL gear. They have hairstyles that look the same as we have in Chicago, with the exception of some of the boys who sport 'Bama Bangs like the gang from MTV's
Two-a-Days.

One really pretty girl with long, flowing gold-blond hair—all glossy and perfect, resembling a Pantene commercial—smiles warmly at me. I bet she's one of the popular kids, with a face like that. She's probably best friends with that Courtney Langdon chick too. I can see it now: they're the heads of some high school sorority that you can join only if you can trace your family tree back to Scarlett O'Hara. They'll laugh at me as I walk through the lunch cafeteria, for eating the wrong food or what have you.

However, Pretty Girl smiles again and waves at me in welcome.

I snicker to myself.
Geez ... paranoid much, Kendall?
I can't help it, though. This is all so new to me. I can't assume that I'm going to fit in. My accent is different from everyone else's. That alone is bound to get me a mass inspection. Then again, maybe Pretty Girl will invite me to sit with her and her friends and introduce me around, then include me in the Scarlett O'Hara-ish secret sorority. I can't be so negative. I've got to be optimistic. What other choice do I have?

As I'm pulling my notebook and my favorite blue (again with the blue!) Uni-ball pen out of my bag, I get this intense, shooting pain in my left leg. It's not like the tingly, fallen-asleep feeling my hands have been experiencing the past few days. This freakin' hurts! If I didn't know any better, I would think my tibia had cracked right below my kneecap. Huh? How do I know that? Am I suddenly an intern at Seattle Grace, or what? Sweat dots my upper lip, and the underside of my hair dampens. My breathing increases, like when I'm on an airplane and we're about to take off. I do
not
like to fly, so my dad always tells me to stare out at the horizon. Only right now, the horizon for me is the lush, green schoolyard of Radisson High, and it is so not helping.

I sense fresh, hot tears pooling in my eyes from the severe throbbing in my leg, and I try to pinpoint what's happening to me. Rubbing hard on my left calf muscle, I literally feel the warm anguish of a break. I broke my arm when I was nine years old, so I know what the sensation is like. Holy crap! Seriously, did I dislocate some ligaments or jar something loose when I was barreling up the stairs? Is this some sort of inherited degenerative bone disorder no one in the family warned me about? I certainly don't remember knocking into anything in the last few minutes. Folks, I'm on full freak-out mode inside my head.

I have to do something about this. Like, now.

I'm about to raise my hand and ask for some help getting down to the school nurse's office when I see a large guy come into the classroom.

"Okra!" a guy shouts out at him.

"Hey, it's Okra!"

This kid's name is Okra? Like the vegetable?

"What up, dawwwwwwgs?" he calls out.

Mrs. Johnston rises from behind her desk and removes her reading glasses. "Why, Sean Carmickle. I didn't think we'd see you today. I heard that was a nasty fall you took off your father's tractor, young man."

"Yes, ma'am," he says. "Fixed myself up real good. Doctor said no football for me this year, but I might be able to play roundball if it heals up okay by January."

"You poor thing. We'll certainly miss you at wide receiver."

"You know it!" his friend—more than likely a teammate—shouts out.

Mrs. Johnston nods. "Sean, you just go take a seat over there so you can stretch yourself out."

Curiosity is totally killing the Kendall-Cat.

I tuck my foot underneath myself to get a few extra inches of height so I can see over the kids in front of me. The searing pain in my leg continues to thud and I feel my eyes grow wide as I look at Sean "Okra" Carmickle hobble on his crutches across the room to take a seat. When I finally get a full view of him, I nearly choke on my intake of breath. His left leg is encased up to his thigh with a thick white plaster cast, obviously surrounding his broken bone.

Hold the phone!

Okra's left leg. My left leg.

My mind is reeling. Spinning, even, as I think of the ridiculous chances.

Courtney getting sick. Me feeling sick.

Then it hits me like Brian Urlacher sacking Tom Brady on fourth and long...

Jesus in the garden! Am I feeling
other people's
pain?

How is that even possible?

"K
AITLIN
, I'
M GONNA TAKE
A NAP,
so don't get into any trouble, understand?"

"Kiss my butt, Kendall." She sticks her tongue out at me. "You're not my mother."

Why does Kaitlin love to push my buttons so much? "No, I'm your big sister." I swear, I can't believe we came from the same parents. "When Mom and Dad are at work, I'm in charge."

"In your dreams." She plops down in front of the television and cranks up Halo 3 on the Xbox. I'll never understand why my parents let her play shit like that, which only serves to warp her already demented mind. Whatever.

"Well, I'm going upstairs and putting my headphones on." What's the point? She's not even listening to me. "Unless you've severed an artery and are bleeding to death, it would behoove you not to disturb me, okay?"

She blinks twice at me. "
Behoove's
not a word. You made that up."

I roll my eyes. "Look it up in the dictionary, brainiac."

With that, I pound upstairs to my room, the second bedroom on the right. It's in the front of the house, overlooking Main Street, with a nice bay window and a cushiony seating area. I wish I'd gotten the back bedroom, but Kaitlin snagged it when we first walked into the house. Mom told me to "be the bigger person" and let her have it. Her room has a huge walk-in closet and its own bathroom. I have to use the one in the hallway with the antique claw-foot tub and added-on showerhead. Fine. At least all of Kaitlin's wet towels and ridiculously large bras won't be in there, like when we lived in Chicago and had to share. Maybe there's a weird-ass voice in her room too to scare the crap out of her.
Mean Kendall.