Confessions of a Teenage Psychic (3 page)

“So why did you move here?” Megan asks, after we store our projects.

“My mom and her partner Sybil just opened a bookstore in Rosslyn Village.”

“Her
partner?”
Megan looks startled.

I quickly realize how that sounds.

“
Business
partner!” I’m not ready to tell her about Dad and Michael, but I really don’t want her getting the wrong idea about my mom.

But then Megan surprises me. “Whatever. My mom’s best friend Emily lives with her partner. She’s this hotshot realtor and she helped Mom find a house she could afford on a teacher’s salary.”

This is news. Maybe my psychic radar is off, but judging by the way she’s dressed I was just sure Megan was from one of those society families— you know, Mom does lunch and charities, Dad runs a corporation.

“Do you like coffee?” Megan’s checking the classroom clock with her watch, waiting for the bell, but then she suddenly looks over at me and smiles.

“Um, yes… ” I answer, startled by yet another change of subject.

“Great! A bunch of us usually go to Peterson’s after school for frozen lattes. You can come if you want to.” Megan heaves her book bag onto her shoulder as she waits for both my answer and the dismissal bell. I guess she notices my hesitation because she says, “Listen, I know what it’s like to be new here. Come on, it’ll be fun.”

I’m nervous, but I smile back at Megan. “I’d really like to go. What’s Peterson’s?”

“DUH. Peterson’s Coffee Emporium— huge chain of coffee houses in Indiana. There’s one right down the street from school.” Megan is now looking at me like I’m the most clueless girl on the planet. Maybe I am.

“Oh.” Brilliant response, Caryn. I blush and look down at my shoes.

“We all meet in front of school, walk over, then Mom picks me up in about an hour after she gets her work done.” Megan drops her book bag down again with a thud, stretches her fingers, and rubs her shoulder where the strap was cutting into it.

A light bulb flash goes off in my head. “Oh, yeah, your mom’s the new English teacher.” I instantly wish I hadn’t let that slip out since I forgot nobody has introduced me to her. But in my mind I can see her mom standing before a class of unruly freshmen on the first day of school, and I can feel her panic because things didn’t go very well.

“How do you know about my mom if you just got here?” Megan looks puzzled. “Aren’t you a sophomore? Mom teaches freshmen.”

Megan frowns at me and I struggle for a plausible explanation when really there isn’t one. “Uh, I saw her classroom when the counselor showed me around school yesterday.”

Megan looks skeptical, her brow furrowed.

“So she and your dad are divorced, huh?” I figure if I change the subject she’ll forget I said that.

“Yeah. Yours?” She hoists her book bag onto her shoulder again.

Fortunately, the bell rings before I can answer, so I scurry out of the room, heading for algebra. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the room number, so I have to stop and fumble in my book bag for my crumpled schedule, enduring dirty looks from kids who barely avoid bumping into me. I scrutinize it, try to remember how I got there yesterday, and head off into the crush of students in the hallway.

Well,
maybe I’ve made one friend, if I haven’t given too much
away
.

I promise myself I’ll do better when I meet Megan and her friends for coffee after school.

See, I don’t want what happened at school in Houston to end up sabotaging my social life here. I was always a little odd anyway, at least the other kids thought so, since I was forever blurting out stuff about them that I’d forgotten they hadn’t told me yet. When I was a little kid it wasn’t such a big deal, because all little kids say stupid stuff. As I got older my intuition began to cramp my social life. No kid likes a know-it-all, and that’s what they all thought I was.

It first started when I was about five years old and one day for no apparent reason I said to my mom, “Daddy’s on the phone.”

“No, he isn’t, Caryn,” Mom had said patiently. “The phone didn’t ring.”

“Daddy’s calling you!” I remember Mom giving me an exasperated look, and then sure enough, the phone rang.

“Hello?” Mom’s eyes got all wide and she gave me this look of surprise as she turned back to the phone and said, “Guy, did you tell Caryn you were going to call me?” Then I got yet another one of those looks.

After she finished her conversation, Mom asked, “Caryn, how did you know Daddy was going to call—
before
the phone rang?”

I just shrugged my shoulders and went back to playing with my dolls. After that, it got to be a joke in the family— I always knew when the phone was going to ring and who was on the other end. From predicting phone calls I graduated to accurately foretelling events, and pretty soon everyone in the family knew I had “The Gift” as Sybil put it.

But I’d either managed to keep my abilities under wraps through eighth grade, or else the other kids were too clueless to pick up on it, because no one outside of the immediate family knew about me. When I started ninth grade at a new high school, though, things went south in a hurry. I kept blurting out information without thinking. Why? New kids, new surroundings, maybe I’d just gotten used to getting away with that when I was younger, but high school kids are a lot less forgiving. I’d say stuff about students and teachers in front of everyone, and at first I just got the weird stares I’m used to, but pretty soon kids were looking at me suspiciously all the time. When I really messed up was in history class one day in November.

“Hey, Caryn,” whispered a girl in class. “Can I borrow your notes from last week when I was absent?”

“I’m sorry about your dad,” was my idiotic response. She looked at me funny, so naturally, I made it worse. “Sorry he’s sick. Heart attack, right?”

With a look somewhere between shock and anger, she gasped. “How did you know that? I didn’t tell anyone!”

After that, my reputation as a weirdo grew, completely ruining my social life. No one wanted anything to do with “the witch” as they started calling me. For a while I laughed it off, but by spring, I had no friends left and I was totally miserable. That’s when I dyed the green stripe down the middle of my hair and started wearing it loose and unkempt. I figured if they were going to call me a witch I might as well look the part.

Except for making fun of my hair, kids continued to ignore me for the rest of the school year, which is why I was ready and willing to move to Indianapolis with my mom. I hoped a fresh start here would erase the pain of freshman year and put me on a better social path.

That’s why I have to watch what I say in front of Megan and her friends. If I start to let stuff slip out uncensored, pretty soon I’ll end up an outcast again. I just want to be normal, doing all the things normal kids take for granted— friends, homework, extracurricular activities— you know, NORMAL. I wish I could just forget I’m psychic.

Caffeine Rush

I spot Megan standing on the street corner outside school that afternoon and hesitantly walk over to join her. Even though she was nice to me today in art class, I’m still the new girl and my insecurities make me wonder if I’d really been expected to come or if it was just a pity-invite.

“Hi,” Megan says, looking surprised.

“You did say
today
after school, right? For coffee?”

“Oh, yeah,” she says, like she’s just remembered she asked me to join them.

She turns away and continues watching for her friends to emerge from the school building.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d really come,” she adds without looking at me.

I’m not sure whether to stay or go, but while I hesitate, Megan glances over my head and waves both arms. I turn around and see two girls heading toward us.

“Hey, Megan!” shouts one.

“Can we hurry and go?” asks the other one. “I’m meeting Kevin.”

“And who’s this?” asks the first one, staring at me. This girl is very pretty, part Asian, with long black hair and dark eyes. I wistfully admire the rhinestone-studded T-shirt she’s wearing, take another look at my faded Astros shirt, and wish I’d chosen something else for my first day at a new school.

“Emma, Ashleigh, this is Caryn Alderson,” Megan says, motioning toward the two girls to show me which one is which. “She just moved here from Texas. She’s going with us.”

I guess that means I’m staying, but I’m still nervous about trying to fit in. At the moment I’m not sure I do.

Emma has a pretty oval face and light-brown curly hair tucked behind pierced ears. With her crisp white blouse, flowered cotton skirt, black Mary Janes, and a small string of pearls at her throat, she’s sort of a throwback to another era. But I have to admit it works for her.

“Aren’t you in my English class?” Emma asks, interrupting my thoughts.

“I’ve got Mrs. Renfrow fifth period. Is that your class?”

“Yeah. Mrs. Renfrow is pretty boring, but at least it’s easier than math,” Emma says with a moan.

Megan nods in agreement. “I can’t do math either.”

“If you two would just study a little,” says Ashleigh, shaking her head. “It’s not all that hard.”

“So you take honors geometry, right? And play violin?” That just pops into my head and out of my mouth before I can stop and think. I press my lips together— too late— and brace myself for her reaction.

Ashleigh looks a little surprised. “Yeah, I’m an Asian cliche— good at math and first chair in the orchestra. Who told you?”

“Lucky guess,” I say. “You seem smart.”

Be cool, Caryn, you just met these girls.

“She IS smart,” Emma says. “She’s the— ”

“Valedictorian,” I finish, but then want to clap my hands over my mouth.

“Well, not yet, but she will be.” Emma gives me a puzzled look.

Quickly changing the subject I ask, “Are we waiting for anyone else?”

“No, this is it. Sometimes other kids just show up there, but it’s usually pretty crowded, so we’d better go if we want a decent table,” Megan says as she pushes the Walk button on the street signal.

The light finally changes and we all cross the busy street, heading toward Rosslyn Village. That’s what the locals call it, although I don’t know if the name is really official. Actually it’s just an odd assortment of little shops, trendy restaurants, and nightclubs for the over-twenty-one crowd. And of course plenty of places where kids like to hang out too, like the coffee shop and a fast-food restaurant.

Peterson’s Coffee Emporium is an easy one-block walk from school, situated on a corner (and taking up most of the city block) next door to a pizza place and across the street from a consignment clothing store. I don’t know why I didn’t notice Peterson’s before, because Mom and I have eaten in that pizza place. Megan, Emma, Ashleigh, and I walk in and I follow them straight to the counter to place our orders. They all seem to be buying frozen lattes, and wanting to fit in I do the same, despite the fact that I’d rather have an herbal iced tea.

I look around while I wait and a sudden flash in my head tells me that this hasn’t always been a coffee shop. I see a pool table and bar that used to be here. But it’s definitely a coffee shop now, decorated with cozy tables-for-two scattered around the room, but also lots of large leather-upholstered booths lining the walls. There’s an old Tiffany chandelier hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room where the pool table probably was, and the eclectic posters on the walls are supposed to look like they came from a garage sale.

“Over here!” Megan leads us all to a large circular booth in the corner.

We slide in, one after another, and I start sipping my latte. Slowly, because too much caffeine gives me a head rush, and if there’s one thing I don’t need it’s to be even more wired.

“Is anyone going to the homecoming game Friday night?” Emma asks.

“I am!” Megan answers, and then adds for my benefit, “It’s not that I care about football really, but I want to go to the dance afterward, and you can’t go to the dance unless you go to the game.”

Weird rule.
I take another sip of the latte and then push it aside. “A homecoming dance after a football game? How does that work?”

“It’s like a mixer,” Megan explains. “No one really dresses up. Everyone just goes to the game and then to the dance in the school cafeteria. Wanna go with?” she suddenly asks me.

I’m a little surprised, being the new kid and all, but before I can answer, Emma jumps up and hurries to the door as two good-looking guys walk in. And I mean these two boys are HOT! Emma kisses the dark-haired one on the cheek, links her arm in his, and leads him to our table. The other boy goes to the counter and places an order.

“Scoot over.” Emma nudges everyone to make room for the newcomers. “This is Kevin Marshall,” she says to me. Her boyfriend I assume, and I don’t need to be psychic to figure that out.

“And you are… ?” he asks me.

“Caryn Alderson, new to town, new to Rosslyn High.” I start to offer my hand to shake, but there isn’t enough room at the table to even stretch it out, so in embarrassment I pretend I just meant to grab my latte.

“Mind if I sit down?” asks the other boy, balancing three iced teas. He hands one of them to Kevin and takes a sip from one of the other two.

Did I say he was hot? That doesn’t begin to describe him. He’s tall, probably over six feet, and very muscular in an athletic sort of way. He keeps running his fingers through his surfer-blond hair, and he’s dressed prep-style— golf shirt, belted khaki shorts, loafers. You know, the clean-cut all-American type.

He can’t be that thirsty
. I glance around the room to see who else might be joining us.

“Everyone shove over again,” Emma orders. “Caryn, this is John, but no one calls him that.”

He awkwardly tries to juggle the iced teas in order to shake hands with me, but grins at me endearingly when he realizes he can’t do it. I can feel my heart start to flutter.

“Everyone calls me Quince,” he says in a clear, deep voice.

He has an easy-going charm, the kind that makes girls fall instantly in love, and I am already sure I’m going to be one of them. Sometimes guys like that are players— they like to play with girls’ hearts for a while and then dump them when they get bored. But my instincts tell me Quince isn’t like that. This guy seems genuine and I like him immediately.