Under My Skin (Wildlings) (6 page)

"What can I say?"

He nods. "You know everybody's watching you, right?"

I do. But I figure it won't last. By lunchtime, some new drama will have come along and I'll be old news.

Except it does last. The morning drags on and no one treats me the same. It's not just the other kids. Even the teachers seem … I don't want to say wary, but they treat me differently. Maybe they're just concerned because of what I went through—and by that I mean the news reports that said I was chased out of the house by a mountain lion—but they don't seem comfortable having me in their class.

Dillon catches me in the hall. He's not much taller than me but he's got the longest fingers I've ever seen. He can do a seven-fret stretch like nobody I know.

"Josh, is it true?" he says under his breath, looking around as if we're about to be jumped. "Did one of those goddamn freaks really come right into your house?"

"I'll tell you about it later. Got to get to history."

"Yeah, but—"

"It's cool," I tell him. "Really."

I clap him lightly on the back as we part.

I don't know how I'm going to handle things with Dillon from now on. This is such a drag. I love jamming in the music room with the guy, but he's so down on Wildlings that I don't think I'm going to want to spend much time in his company.

Just before last period in the morning, Ms. Chandra, the guidance counsellor, stops me in the hall to assure me that she's here for me if I need to talk about my "ordeal." Instead of telling her that all this attention is the real ordeal, I nod and say thanks before I move on to my class. I know I just need to get through this, but I'm starting to wish I'd waited another day before coming back to school.

I spend a lot of time staring out windows, looking for black SUVs and men in suits. All I see is a lone CSFA van. I was surprised there wasn't one outside the house again this morning, but they probably realized it might be easier to get hold of me here.

Or maybe I'm just being paranoid and it has nothing to do with me. Could be they finally have some real news to cover around here.

"Now I know what animals in the zoo feel like," I say to Desmond at lunch.

"Why's that?" Marina slides into a seat beside me as she asks the question.

"I feel like I'm on display," I tell her. "Everybody's watching me and wondering."

"You can't blame them," she says. "You're the new celebrity buzz."

I have to smile when I see her. Her hair's still damp from the ocean and she's got that glow she always gets when she's been out on her board. She looks so relaxed I wish I'd gone to the beach with her this morning.

"Yeah?" I say. "I don't think so. I'm more like an accident they're slowing down to stare at to see the damage."

"How were the sets?" Desmond asks Marina.

She grins. "Bitchin'."

We all laugh. Doesn't matter what they were like, that's always her answer.

Then Desmond leans forward. "Guess who was asking about the band?"

"Which so needs a name."

"You're not guessing."

She scrunches her face as she pretends to think hard, then says, "I give up. Who?"

"Come on. You're not even trying."

"Okay," she says. "Principal Hayden, because he wants to hire us for a pep rally."

"
Bzzzt
. Wrong answer. It was Chaingang Washington."

Marina turns to me for confirmation and I give a reluctant nod.

"
Seriously
?" she says.

"No, we're making it up," Desmond tells her. "Of course, seriously."

"Are we're talking about the same—"

"Big black dude who sits out at the picnic tables all day?"

"But—
why
?"

 She turns to me again and I see the concern in her eyes.

"It was cool," I tell her. "I don't know why he decided to quiz me about us. Maybe he just wanted a little dose of that celebrity buzz you were talking about."

"Ha ha."

I'm still freaked about the whole mountain lion business—come on, who wouldn't be?—and I hate all the attention I'm getting, but the thing that bugs me the most right now is how I have to lie to my friends. Nobody can stop me from sharing my own secrets, but I can't, in good conscience, share someone else's.

Something stirs in my gut and it takes a moment before I realize it's the part of me that's a mountain lion. I resent Chaingang for putting me in this position and the mountain lion wants to take it out on him.

Marina puts a hand on my arm. "Are you okay?"

And that's enough to ground me.

"Yeah. I'm fine."

"Because you had this intense look in your eyes …"

I shrug. "It's been a really stressful morning."

She holds my gaze for a long moment, then finally nods.

"No surprise there," she says. "You should have come out with me this morning."

"It wouldn't have helped," Desmond says. "He'd just have spent the whole time looking out for guys in black bathing suits."

I go to punch him in the shoulder but he pulls back out of range.

"Seriously, dude," he says. "You ought to blow off the rest of the day."

I shake my head. "The last thing I am today is anonymous. They'd know I was skipping and I don't need detention on top of everything else."

"You could go to the office," Marina says. "I bet
they'll understand if you need more time to deal with this."

"No, I just need to get through the day. I want things to go back to normal and that's not going to happen if the school decides to start treating me with kid gloves."

"Yeah, they'd probably make him go see Ms. Chandra," Desmond says, "and she'll want him to talk about his
feelings
."

"Probably. She already stopped me in the hall on my way to calculus."

The bell rings for us to go back to class. Marina and I have study period, so we head off to the library while Desmond goes to English. We get our usual table at the far end of the room, except I take the chair Marina normally does so that I can look out the window. I don't like having my back to doors or windows anymore.

"Desmond doesn't get it yet," Marina says.

She leans forward over the table, pitching her voice low so that the librarian won't come over to shush us. The mountain lion lets me smell the salt in her hair.

"He hasn't really thought it through," she adds. "You know, how huge a change this is and how you have to work through a few things."

"I know."

I glance down the row of tables along the window and see Rachel Armstrong sitting with some of her friends. She looks away quickly and I realize she's been staring at me. I've had a huge crush on her since the school year started and didn't think she even knew who I was. But I guess everybody does now. The trouble is, it's for all the wrong reasons.

Marina rolls her eyes when she notices.

"Forget Ms. Chandra," she says. "Maybe you should talk to Rachel about your
feelings
."

"Shut up."

But that only makes her smile and shake her head.

"Desmond's right," she says. "You're way too easy to tease these days."

"It's just—I feel like my life's falling to pieces around me. Like I don't have any control over anything anymore."

That stops the teasing.

"I know," she says. "But he's partly right, too. You can't change what's happened. So maybe it's time you embraced it."

"What? Like change into a mountain lion and go racing through the halls?"

"Don't be an idiot. I just mean that all we seem to hear about with the Wildlings is the negative stuff."

"Because that's all there is."

She goes on like I didn't interrupt. "But maybe there are some good things, too."

"Like what?"

But I remember Cory answering that for me.

You're stronger and faster than you were before. You're going to live longer and you won't get sick as easily. All your senses are heightened—smell, hearing, vision. And that's just in your human form
.

"I don't know," Marina says. "But this is your life now. If you don't look for the silver lining, then all you're stuck with is the crap."

"Is that what you'd do?"

She looks down at the table, but she nods. "But then, I'm a cup-half-full girl."

"Where would you start?"

"Have you heard of this thing called the Internet?"

"Very funny."

"But I wouldn't go looking up news reports. I'd be looking for blogs. For all we know, some Wildling is out there on WordPress or whatever, talking about the very same stuff you're going through."

"That's a good idea."

She smiles. "It sure beats playing Animal Planet in the halls and spending the rest of the school year in detention."

"If the government doesn't come along and take me away first."

"Yeah," she says, a worried look in her eyes. "There's always that. So promise me you won't do anything stupid."

Not unless it's stupid to just try to be normal again.

"I promise," I tell her.

Speaking of detention, that's where Desmond is when school's over. He was goofing around with some guys out in the hall between classes and Principal Hayden himself busted them, so there was no chance they'd get off easy. And since Marina's mom picked her up to go to the mall, I'm on my own, skateboarding home. I don't mind. Last night after Desmond and Marina left, I was bouncing off the walls of my bedroom, wishing I had someone to talk to. But with the day I've just had, I'm relieved to be by myself, pushing along on my board, hoodie pulled over my head.

Anonymous.

I make the trip across town in record time and I'm not even winded. I guess there's something to say for the stronger and faster part of me. When I get to the pier, I snap my board up into my hand and carry it under my arm as I step from the pavement onto its wooden slats. There's a good wind coming in from the sea and waves are crashing against the support beams below, spraying water. I smell the salt and listen to the conversations around me, the cries of the gulls. Leaning on the north side balustrade, I watch the surfers for a while, then sit down on a nearby bench. I drop my skateboard to the ground. Putting my feet on it, I lean my head back and close my eyes.

I'm really enjoying my solitude, so of course someone has to sit down beside me. I don't bother to open my eyes. Maybe they'll go away.

"Saunders?"

It's a girl's voice. One I don't recognize. But there's something else—a faint animal musk and a little
ping
inside my head. I remember what Chaingang said—
Once you settle into your skin and get used to your new world, you'll see. You won't be able to
not
tell who's got an animal under his skin
—and I figure this must be what he's talking about. It's so slight that I doubt it would be noticed by anybody—. I hesitate over the word, but there isn't another one I can use.

Anybody
human
.

I turn to look at her. She's a white girl, my age, maybe a little older, with a dark tan and reddish-brown hair in long dreads that put the little ones I have to shame. A tribal pattern is tattooed like a necklace on her chest bone and she has a dozen silver rings piercing the curve of her right ear. Her left ear just has a stud in the shape of a feather. Her feet are bare under khaki capris and a tight white tank top. She's got the greenest eyes I've ever seen and she's so cute that I know this is as implausible as Chaingang wanting to talk to me. How do I know? Because I can tell you exactly the last time a girl this cute struck up a conversation with me: never.

"Sorry," I tell her. "You've got me confused with someone else."

She shakes her head. "Nice try, but your face was plastered all over the news. You're definitely Joshua Saunders. I'm Elzie."

I sigh and look away.

"I'm not a reporter," she says.

"I kind of figured that out. Look, no offence, but I just want some down time. I don't know who put me on the Wildling Welcome Wagon list—or maybe you're from some Wildling outreach program—but I'm calling time-out."

"You should be a little more careful talking about that stuff with a stranger."

"Yeah, except I know you're a Wildling, too, though I don't know exactly what kind."

"That's good," she says. "It takes most of us more than a few days to be able to start recognizing others."

I don't say anything.

"I take it you've already been approached by someone?" she says.

I nod, but I don't start handing out names. Maybe Wildlings can smell each other out or something, but if I have to lie to my friends about Chaingang, I'm sure not going to give him up to a stranger.

"Let me guess," she says. "One of them was a guy named Cory and he warned you to watch out for me."

I shake my head. "I've met Cory, but he didn't say anything about you. Why would he?"

She shrugs. "Let's just say he doesn't like my politics."

I study her for a moment.

"You don't go to Sunny Hill, do you?" I say.

Because a girl as cute as she is, I'd remember.

"I'm from Long Beach," she says.

"So you didn't get changed like the rest of us. You're like Cory."

"No, I changed."

"I didn't think it happened anywhere outside of Santa Feliz."

"So far as I know, it hasn't," she says. "I changed when I was here visiting a friend. I tried to go back home, but my parents wouldn't let me. They were afraid of me."

"That's harsh."

I can't imagine Mom turning her back on me like that. But I haven't told her yet, have I, so what does that say?

She shrugs again. "I don't blame them. They were afraid something would happen to my little brother if I stayed. So I dropped out of school and I live here now."

"Something like what? What did they think you were going to do?"

"Come on, don't play dumb. You heard about that kid who turned into a rattler and bit his old man, right?"

"Yeah, but your own
brother
? You wouldn't do anything like that."

She shakes her head. "Except they couldn't know for
sure
for sure."