Authors: Michelle Warren
::8::
Act of Idiocy
Scared, I begin to shake. Stalker Boy paces back and forth in front of me, making sure no one is nearby.
“If you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’ll scream!” I belt out.
His face instantly turns to shock. He rushes toward me. “No, please!” He places his palms on my arms and pulls me close. His gaze locks on mine. It becomes hard to concentrate again.
“Why?” I mumble.
“They can’t know that I’m talking to you,” he says. I look back at him. Something in his eyes says he’s not here to hurt me, and I realize the thought is one I fabricated on my own from almost no information. I’ve blown everything out of proportion, as usual.
His eyes plead for my silence. They instantly make me melt. For some reason, I grab his hands. They’re warm and bare despite the weather. Heat pulses through them and into me, and now we’re sharing something more than a gaze. Locked in another world, we just stare at each other, saying nothing.
After a long moment, he clears his throat, drops his grasp, and digs his hands into his pockets. I use my hands to straighten my coat and compose myself as though nothing’s happened.
“You’re not going to hurt me?” I cross my arms. I want to confirm it, regardless.
“Of course not!” he says chuckling as though it’s a funny thought.
“Why can’t you talk to me, then?” All I want to do is talk to him—to know everything about him.
A door slams shut in the distance. His head jerks anxiously back and forth from the front to the back of the building.
He turns to me, ignoring my question. “Have you wandered yet?” he asks with an edge of desperation.
My eyebrows pinch together at the question. I’m not sure if I hear him correctly.
“Have you
wandered
?” he asks again as though he’s running out of time.
I stand speechless at his choice of words. Even though I have no idea what the question means, I sense that ‘no’ is the wrong answer.
“What do you mean, wandered?” I ask.
“I guess that’s my answer,” he says, looking wounded. Even still, his velvety British accent makes even his distress sound beautiful. He shoves a piece of paper into my hands, pivots, and quickly retreats.
He’s upset. Somehow, I’ve hurt him, and I don’t even know how.
“Wait! What’s your name?” I call after him and reach out my arm as though I want to pull him back to me. He only glances back with sad eyes. They ask me to understand, but I don’t. Our meeting only confuses me further. He disappears behind the Academy building and into the trees.
My mouth hangs open. How can he leave when he hasn’t told me anything about his photo, who the gang is, or what wandering is? As I reflect for a moment, I realize he’s the second person to use the term “
wandering
” since I arrived. The disgusting bum on the L train, Frances, someone called him, said the same word—wandering. What does Frances have to do with this? He isn’t on my list of weird occurrences. Should I put him there?
Now there are only questions and no answers.
Annoying.
What the freak is “wandering?” And why are, now renamed,
British
Stalker Boy and Frances Germ Bum asking me about it? This creates a new category. Together they fit neatly in it, but my list of weird is growing:
Lady in Black
Chicago premonition
Frances Germ Bum
Grungy Gang
British Stalker Boy
Wandering
I exhale, frustrated.
I look down at my hand. The piece of paper British Stalker Boy gave me crunches in my grasp. It’s an envelope, a piece of mail. When I look closer, I see it’s one of Aunt Mona’s electric bills. What is British Stalker Boy doing with this? How does he even know where I live? My stomach turns, leaving me queasy.
A green sticky note hangs from to the back of the bill. On it, crappy boy handwriting scratches across the paper. I scan the notes. They’re directions of some sort.
1. Stand in the front, east corner of the Strovel’s yard. (Address- 125, next to Mona’s house)
2. Hold this piece of mail and concentrate on Mona, and only Mona. (‘Mona’ is your keyword)
3. Run as fast you can in a straight line going west.
4. Sit down behind the hedges, be very quiet, and listen.
5. Return after you hear what you need to hear.
6. Repeat number two while running in the opposite direction to return home.
The only thing I’m sure of is that British Stalker Boy intended to give this to me today, but what it means, I’m not sure.
It would be nice to spend a day at school where I actually get to think about—well—school. Instead, I find myself contemplating a stupid note and its very hot messenger. Just the thought of his silky voice warms me all over.
Why would I want to run around the neighbors’ yard with Mona’s mail? And why is someone I don’t know, instructing me to do so?
The scene is starting to feel like some strange prank everyone is playing on the new girl. I glance around the class, taking in each individual student’s face, to see if anyone breaks into as little as a smirk, but no one does. I hoped someone would because a prank would be easier to deal with.
Macey leans over when the teacher walks out of the room. “What’s with you today? You’ve been in a funk all afternoon,” she says and pulls her hair back into a low ponytail. With a few quick movements of her fingers, she secures it with a rubber band.
“I dunno. Just got a lot on my mind, I guess.”
“Like what?” she pushes, picking up her pencil and playing with it.
“You know, the usual girl drama.” I give a weak smile because I know, as soon as the words leave my lips, this information will set her off.
“Oh—I
love
drama. Tell me more!” she insists, leaning into me with interest, the way she always does.
Hmm, which crazy thing should I share with her? The part where the Lady in Black burns my brain into a crispy critter, or the part where a Grungy Gang matriculates out of thin air to try to kill me?
Everything sounds so ridiculous, so I stick with the most tame. No need to scare my new friend away.
“Well, for one, I kinda have a thing for a guy,” I say. Macey’s eyes light up.
“But?” she asks, her eyes grow even larger, if that’s possible.
“But, I have no idea who he is, and—well—he’s kind of mysterious.”
Mysterious
—that’s a good word for him.
“Hmm, that is definitely a drama problem, but I love mysterious boys.” She leans closer and tips her pencil to her chin. “Is he in this class?” she whispers. Her eyes shoot around the room, studying the options.
“Uh—No. I’m not even sure he’s a student here—don’t know anything about him.” I roll my lips together into a line and raise my eyebrows.
“That sucks!” She harrumphs. Her lips form a pout.
“I know, tragic, right?”
“Anyway, did you notice how many students were absent from Spanish earlier?” I say, and I glance around, trying to change the subject. “Even this class looks pretty slim.”
“Yeah, I did. Really weird,” Macey says. I can see she’s counting the empty chairs.
“You ladies know that some of the students switch to the east building, right?” Chris Kwan, the boy next to me, chimes in.
“What do you mean—they switch? Isn’t it the same school?” I ask.
“Yeah, of course, but the east building is for boarders. You know, like a boarding school,” he explains.
“A boarding school?” I ask. I hadn’t taken much notice of the mirror building. There never seems to be any activity there. I guess I’ve been too caught up in my own craziness to consider it noteworthy.
“Yeah, they have dorm rooms and take classes there. Kinda blows if you think about it. They’re always hanging around the same building,” Chris continues.
“Seriously, that does suck. You’d have a hard time skipping wouldn’t you?” I say, and we all laugh together at the east building’s unfortunate, boarding students.
Our teacher, Ms. Ames, slips back into the classroom, and we return our attention to her lecture.
After school, I’m happy that Macey and Xavier walk home with me. Having them around to talk about normal things makes me think it’s impossible that the Lady in Black or anything else that has happened is real.
Macey swoons over a boy in her biology class named Quinn Hayes. Since we don’t share the class, she insists on describing him in great detail every day. She rambles endlessly about his “perfect, surfer bod, and dreamy, blue eyes,” and how completely devastated she was when he hadn’t shown for class today. When she sighs dramatically, Xavier and I exchange a look.
She continues rambling, but when I look over at Xavier, something’s wrong. He cringes at every remark she makes. I realize that he probably likes her, but he may be too shy to act on his emotions. He quietly listens to her babbling every afternoon. For this, I consider him sweet. It makes me sad that Macey is too caught up with Quinn to notice him.
“You should come jam with the band later, Sera,” Xavier says, changing the subject. The Quinn topic is getting old, even for me.
“If you’re going, I’m going too,” Macey adds, waiting for my answer.
Xavier perks up and gives me a look of desperation.
Yeah, he totally has the hots for her.
“Sounds like fun. What time?” I ask.
“How about in an hour?” Xavier suggests.
“Cool, see you then,” I say.
They turn away, and I watch them leave. Macey towers over Xavier by at least a foot. Her dark curls brush the top of his black knitted hat.
Regretfully, I decide to make a fool of myself by running around the neighbor’s yard per British Stalker Boy’s suggestion. I pray no one else will be home to see my act of idiocy.
A few minutes later, I stand in the Strovel’s front yard, gripping the now crumpled piece of mail. I’ve already read and memorized the directions, so I shove the green sticky note in my pocket.
I focus on Mona because this is some kind of keyword. For what, I’m not sure.
Mona. Mona. Mona.
I take a deep breath and run as fast as my legs will carry me across the front yard, hoping something will happen before I plow through the opposing snow covered hedges.
Mona. Mona. Mona.
Lifting my knees to my chest and extending my stride, I fly. I look back over my shoulder, alarmed by a hideous sound of the earth ripping and moaning in protest. Townhomes and buildings crush in on themselves as they lift high into the sky. An oversized shadow of the earth spits debris and hangs over me like a dark cloud. Finally, it races down to crush me. When the earth closes like a book, slamming shut, I catapult through the familiar wormhole. Wintery muted colors of the city stream past me. City sounds disappear through a whirlwind of crisp air, transforming into eerie whispers that call my name. The ghostly words escalate into a high-pitch whistle. My body rolls around in uncontrollable weightlessness, whipping various directions before I finally land inches away from Mona’s snow covered hedges.
This time, I stick the landing like a gymnast because I know the end of the tunnel is coming. Now, I realize I have done this before—twice. My unplanned trips through whirling vortexes weren’t dreams.
They were real.
I sit quietly below the hedge line, wondering if anything has changed. I pop my head up to assess the situation. Mona stands on the opposite side of the yard, toiling with the front hedges.
Is this what I’m supposed to see?
She shouldn’t be home yet. It’s too early. Someone struts past me on the sidewalk. I can see bits of their dark blue pant legs through the hedge wall.
“Hey, Mona! Taking down the Christmas lights, are ya’?” the man asks.
“Hello, George, lovely to see you,” Mona says cheerfully.
“I’ve got your mail here,” the man says.
Ruffled paper exchanges hands. I look down at Mona’s mail in my hand, the piece British Stalker Boy gave me.
A connection, maybe?
“Thank you, George. Have a fabulous day!” Mona says.
“Thanks, you too!” The mailman’s footsteps fade into the distance.
Mona’s front door creaks open. Someone cautiously walks down the stairs and out onto the snowy sidewalk. Through branches, I can only make out a pair of olive green pants with distinct bronze buttons on the seam.
“Are you leaving already?” Mona asks. I hear her kiss and hug the person. Does Mona have a secret boyfriend? Wow, I didn’t see that coming. Unfortunately, I can’t see much from across the yard.
“Oh, wait, hold on one moment. I’m getting a call,” Mona says to the person. I hear her phone flip open.
“Hello, Terease. Yes, Seraphina is on her way as we speak. I’m very excited. We all are. Oh, wait one moment.” She pauses.