Burning Hearts (6 page)

He saw her and flashed a smile, giving a
slight wave. She acted like she didn’t see him and resumed working
on her abstract painting that she’d started the week before.
Fortunately, she and Caleb sat in the front. She could relax for
the next hour.

“
Can I listen to your iPod?”
she asked Caleb, wanting to ease her tense brain muscles with
soulful jazz.

“
Yeah, sure.” He handed it
to her. “If I need to get your attention, I’ll just slap a wet
paintbrush across your face.”

She turned to see the smile on his face. “Or
you could be normal and tap me on the shoulder.”

“
I could be,” he mused
jokingly.

She set the iPod aside, desiring to talk
instead. “Caleb, you’re a nice guy. Why aren’t more people friends
with you?”

“
I don’t think it’s
necessarily that people don’t like me, they just dunno how to act
around me.”

“
Because of your
legs?”

He shrugged. “Well, absence of.”

“
Well, it’s not like your
head is missing. I don’t get it.”

He smiled. “Now that would be awesome. I
could carry it around and whenever I wanted to talk to people, I’d
just hold it up, and my mouth would move.”

Jenna could tell Caleb wanted to joke, but
she wanted some real answers.

“
But how can you be
so…chipper…about life? About people? Don’t you
just…hate?”

He shrugged again. “I could. But where would
that get me? Besides, I know just about everyone here in this
school and you, along with Kylie, Pru, and Riddick, well, y’all are
the only ones I wanna be around.”

“
Aw.” She tugged on his
earlobe.

“
Ow!” He covered his ear, in
pain.

“
Oh, no, no, no! Did I pull
your ear off?”

He removed his hand. His ear was still there,
just slightly pink. “No, I’m fine.” He rubbed at it, making sure it
wasn’t going anywhere. “But you got strong all of a sudden.”

“
That’s what I wanna talk to
y’all about after school.”

He smiled, pain forgotten. “I know! You went
to Oz and asked the Wizard for strength.” He was back to joking.
“Can you ask him for a pair of legs?”

“
Sorry,” she whined. “The
yellow-brick road is under construction. No travel.”

“
You got a broom stick?
’Cause we could fly straight there.”

“
I’ll go find a
witch.”

“
Riddick’s step mom might
have one.”

Her mouth fell open. “Ooh, look at you! Being
nasty!”

“
I blame you. You’re a
seducer of weak men’s minds.”

“
What?” She slapped a hand
over her heart, feigning astonishment. “Little ol’ me?”

He nodded. “Yeah, if you got all prettied up,
you’d be unstoppable.”

She dipped her brush into some blue paint and
went for his face.

“
Un-uh,” he warned, pushing
her hand away. “You’re not supposed to mess with the poor, crippled
boy.”

She put the paintbrush down. “You’re only
crippled in the head.”

He motioned to his missing legs. “And what do
you call that? A magic trick?”

“
You wanna borrow my legs?”
she joked. “They’re held on by Velcro.”

“
I don’t want your hairy
legs,” he replied deadpan.

Jenna laughed loudly, throwing her head
back.

Ms. Rush-Holliday turned toward the
disruption; her copper bracelets made a clanging noise on each arm
as she moved. “Miss Love, quiet introspective, please, and less
emotional outburst.” Her tone was soft, gentle; she was never one
to yell; the yoga lessons must be working.

Jenna was chuckling when she gave the teacher
a two-finger salute in obedience. But she quickly fell out of humor
when she noticed Malcolm staring at her with those fiery blue eyes
of his.

She turned to her friend. “Hey, Caleb?”

“
Hey, Jenna,” he
joked.

“
See that new guy over
there?” She tilted her head in Malcolm’s direction.

Caleb turned toward the back of the room.
“The one staring at you, like you’re an idiot?”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s not why he’s
staring at me.” She furrowed her brow. “Or at least I don’t think
he is.” She waved her worries away. “Anyway, do you see his
eyes?”

“
Yep, all three of
‘em.”

“
Don’t make me hurt you,
’cause I can. Do they look…fiery? Like blue flames?”

Caleb shook his head. “Nope. I can’t even
tell what color they are from here.”

“
Is he still
looking?”

“
Nope. Now he’s staring at
the teacher’s butt.”

“
What?” She whipped her head
around to find Malcolm. He was looking down, busy painting. The
teacher or her butt wasn’t even in his supernatural
sight.

She turned back to Caleb and raised her
fist.

He raised his hands in a submissive gesture.
“All right, all right. Don’t go getting feisty just ’cause you’re
in love with the new guy.”

“
I am
so
not
in
love!”

“
Says the girl whose
emphatic statement does
not
use contractions.”

~~~

In her next class, calculus with Mr.
Zechariah Worth, people probably thought she was in love with
Malcolm. He sat right in front of her because Mr. Worth could never
remember his students’ names, preferring to keep everyone in
alphabetical order. All except Val, Barrie, and Aidan; they were
allowed to sit in the back because Mr. Worth—a star quarterback
back in his day—thought football players were the only reason for a
school’s existence. The middle-aged teacher stood at the front with
a diagram of the seating arrangements on his podium.

“
Jenna?” he chose out of the
twenty-six other possibilities.

“
Huh?”

Mr. Worth took off his square-rimmed glasses
and with his thick forefinger, loudly tapped at the problem on the
board. “Care to solve?”

“
Not really.”

“
It wasn’t a choice.” He
held up a piece of chalk, motioning her forward.

Her heart was racing. She hadn’t been paying
attention at all, staring at the back of Malcolm’s head, breathing
in his exotic essence—while chewing on his pen.

“
C’mon Jenna!” Val urged,
lounging with his buddies in the back of the room. Barrie and Aidan
started chuckling. “You can do it!
Do it!
Do it! Do it!
” her good-for-nothing ex
cheered.

The class chuckled too, knowing what he meant
by his enthusiasm. Mr. Worth just told him to quiet down, still
insisting on embarrassing Jenna. As she stood before the
blackboard, white chalk in hand, staring at the problem to be
solved, she kept hearing Val’s chorus, along with his backup
singers.

She felt enraged, so enraged, she crushed the
chalk in her hand. The white powder fell like snow on the tiled
floor. Mr. Worth ignored her feat of strength and handed her
another piece of chalk.

“
Can anyone help her?” he
asked the class.

“
No, she’s helpless,” Val
replied with a chuckle.

“
I can.”

Jenna turned to see Malcolm, walking toward
the board. He took the chalk from her and solved the problem.

“
Thank you,” she said in a
meek voice.

“
You’re welcome.” His tone
was soft, comforting. He put the chalk back in its tray, managing
not to destroy it like she’d done.

~~~

After class, Jenna slowly put away her
belongings, allowing everyone, especially Val and his gang to
leave, before she followed. On her way out, Malcolm stopped her
outside the door.

“
Are you all
right?”

She shrugged. “Yeah, great.”

She wasn’t going to give him the 411 on her
life.

There wasn’t enough time in the day for that
sad story.

“
Why was he so mean to
you?”

“
Didn’t you have jerks in
Egyptian high schools?”

“
I
was…home-schooled.”

“
Well, lemme just say this:
be careful who you fall in love with.”

He seemed taken aback by her advice.
“Why?”

Wisely, she replied, “’Cause people aren’t
always who they seem.”

SHOW AND TELL

Pru was sitting on Jenna’s wicker chair.
Kylie was sitting on the other one. Caleb remained in his
wheelchair. Riddick preferred to stand, leaning against Jenna’s
closed bedroom door. It was six o’clock, and Jenna’s parents had
just gotten home.

“
Okay, I’ll start from the
beginning.” Jenna stood too, next to the cedar chest. “Two days
ago, I started having visions of…killing people. In these trances,
I knew they were bad…evil…so I took a knife and stabbed them in
their hearts. Then they caught on fire like they were burning from
the inside out and finally, they were reduced to ashes. That was
the same day I playfully hit Riddick,”—she gestured to him—“who now
has a nasty bruise. The next day, my strength seemed magnified. I
crushed my alarm clock. A bottle of soap exploded in my hand. I
bent a bunch of spoons trying to eat cereal. I cracked a pen in
half.” She waved at Caleb. “I hurt his ear when I tugged on it.”
Then she curled her fingers inward, digging the tips into her
palms. “In calculus, I crushed a piece of chalk in my hand, turning
it into fine powder.”

She waited, because that wasn’t the whole of
it. She still had to reveal the contents of the chest.

“
So you’re a mutant or
something?” asked Riddick. He wasn’t joking. “You have super
strength?”

“
Well, I dunno about the
mutant part, but yeah, I seem to be really strong. I’m also having
hallucinations, I guess. That new guy, Malcolm King, well, his eyes
don’t look normal to me. I see blue fire. Now that’s sorta
significant because in my visions of…killing people...they have
fiery eyes too, except theirs are red.” She paused, unsure how to
reveal her next statement. She decided to give it to them straight.
There was no turning back now. “When Malcolm handed me a pen today
at school, our fingers touched and…well, I wanted to kill him, but
at the same time, I didn’t wanna hurt him.”

Pru was staring at Kylie. Kylie was staring
at Pru. Caleb was looking down. Only Riddick kept her gaze. She
couldn’t tell what they were thinking.

“
So y’all still wanna be
friends with me?” she continued with a hopeful smile.

Pru, Kylie, and Caleb finally looked at her,
but Riddick broke eye contact and lowered his head.

“
Well, it’s not like you’re
actually killing people,” said Kylie, trying to find the positive.
Then she shrugged. “Even if you did,”—she smiled—“I wouldn’t
tell.”

“
I told you, no matter
what,” Caleb began, wheeling over to her, “I’ll still be your
friend.”

“
Me too,” Pru agreed with a
smile.

Jenna was relieved, but there was one Misfit
who’d yet to affirm his unwavering friendship.

She turned to Riddick, who was
uncharacteristically quiet, looking down at his folded arms.

“
Are you afraid I’m gonna
hurt you again?” she asked him. “I’d understand if you didn’t wanna
be around me ’cause of that…and the other crazy things
too.”

He finally looked up at her.

“
Okay, I’ll start from the
beginning,” he said, mimicking her from earlier. “Three months ago,
you were a Stuck-Up. Val, Barrie, Aidan, Kit, Daniela, Emma. They
were your friends. You laughed with them. You partied with them.
Val was your sweetheart. You didn’t know another life. And then
Val, the love of your life, wanted to have sex.” He held out his
hands. “As all guys do, right? Well, you said no. I dunno your
reasons. You haven’t talked about it much, but you just weren’t
ready, I guess. Val broke up with you. Worse, he treated you like
crap. Got your so-called friends to turn against you. So there you
were in school, the only one without a friend. You sat alone. You
walked to class alone. People would talk about you behind your
back. You were either a slut or a lesbian, if the rumors were
true.”

He pointed to Kylie. “She felt sorry for
you—even though you’d done nothing to make us feel welcome. But
Kylie got Pru on board and Caleb, well, Caleb’s just about the
nicest guy around, and he didn’t like how you were being
treated—even if he couldn’t say one bad thing about the Stuck-Ups.”
He smiled at Caleb. “Always wanting to turn the other cheek, eh?”
He turned back to Jenna. “Well, I was the last to be asked. They
said, ‘She’s all alone. She doesn’t deserve how everyone’s treating
her.’ And you know what I said? I said, ‘No!’ You know why? ’Cause
you never even knew our last names. You never even looked our way.
Yeah, you never made fun of us, but you acted like we didn’t even
exist. So I said to the others, ‘Why should we help out someone
who’s never helped us out?’ Since the vote had to be unanimous, and
I was the dissenter, well, you didn’t get in our little Misfit
club.”

Jenna was on the verge of tears. “What
happened?”

Riddick allowed himself to smile. “It was
about two weeks or so when you’d been all alone, an outcast, and
you weren’t watching where you were going and slammed right into me
in the hall. All my books went flying. I knew who you were. I
expected you to keep walking, but you didn’t. You crouched, helped
me pick up my books, apologized, gave me a weak little smile, and
then went on your way.”