“Here,” came a voice.
As he raised his eyes, Rex’s mouth dropped open.
Without glasses Rex’s weak eyes could see her perfectly. Behind her the hall was still a mess of blurred shapes, but her face stood out, clear and detailed. He noticed her green eyes now, flecked with gold in the sunlight.
“Your glasses,” she said, holding them out. Even this close, the thick frames were still fuzzy, but he could see the girl’s outstretched hand with crystal clarity. The Focus clung to her.
Finally willing himself to move, Rex closed his mouth and took the glasses. When he put them on, the rest of the world jumped into focus, and the girl blurred again. Just like the others always did.
“Thanks,” he managed.
“That’s okay.” She smiled, shrugged, and looked around at the almost empty hall. “I guess we’re late now. I don’t even know where I’m going.”
Her accent sounded midwestern, crisper than Rex’s Oklahoma drawl.
“No, that was the eight-fifteen bell,” he explained. “The late bell’s at eight-twenty. Where’re you headed?”
“Room T-29.” She held a schedule card tightly in one hand.
He pointed back at the doorway. “That’s in the temps. Outside on the right. Those trailers you saw on the way in.”
She looked outside with a frown. “Okay,” she said hesitantly, like she’d never had class in a trailer before. “Well, I better get going.”
He nodded. As she walked away, Rex pulled off his glasses again, and again she jumped into clarity as the rest of the world became a blur.
Rex finally allowed himself to believe it and smiled. Another one, and from somewhere beyond Bixby, Oklahoma.
Maybe this year
Rex saw the new girl a few more times before lunch.
She was already making friends. In a small school like Bixby, there was something exciting about a new student—people wanted to find out about her. Already the popular kids were staking a claim to her, gossiping about what they’d learned about her, trading on her friendship.
Rex knew that the rules of popularity wouldn’t allow him near her again, but he hovered nearby, listening, using his invisibility. Not really invisible, of course, but just as good. In his black shirt and jeans, with his dyed-black hair, he could disappear into shadows and corners. There weren’t that many students like Timmy Hudson at Bixby High. Most people were happy to ignore Rex and his friends.
It didn’t take Rex long to find out a few things about Jessica Day.
In the lunchroom he found Melissa and Dess in the usual place.
He sat across from Melissa, giving her space. As always, her sleeves were pulled down, almost covering her hands against any accidental touch, and she wore headphones, the hiss of metal power chords audible from them like an insistent whisper. Melissa didn’t like crowds; any sizable number of regular people drove her crazy. Even a full classroom tested her limits. Without headphones she found the bickering, striving chaos of the lunchroom unbearable.
Dess ate nothing, didn’t even push her food around, just folded her hands and peered at the ceiling through dark sunglasses.
“Here again for another year,” Dess said. “How much does this suck?”
Rex reflexively started to agree but paused. All summer he had dreaded another year of awful lunches, hiding from the blazing skylights here in the dimmest corner. But for once he was actually excited to be in the Bixby High lunchroom.
The new girl was only a few tables away, surrounded by new friends.
“Maybe, maybe not,” he said. “See that girl?”
“Mmm,” Dess answered, her face still raised to the ceiling, probably counting the tiles up there.
“She’s new. Her name is Jessica Day,” Rex said. “She’s from Chicago.”
“And I’m interested in this why?” Dess asked.
“She just moved here a few days ago. Sophomore.”
“Still bored.”
“She’s not boring.”
Dess sighed and lowered her head to peer through her sunglasses at the new girl. She snorted. “First day at Bixby and she’s already right in the middle of the daylight crowd. Nothing interesting about that. She’s exactly the same as the other hundred and eighty-seven people in here.”
Rex shook his head, starting to disagree, but stopped. If he was going to say it out loud, he had to be right. As he had a dozen times that day, he lifted his thick glasses an inch, looking at Jessica Day with just his eyes. The cafeteria dissolved into a bright, churning blur, but even from this distance she stood out sharp and clear.
It was after noon, and her Focus hadn’t faded. It was permanent. There was only one explanation.
He took a deep breath. “She’s one of us.”
Dess looked at him, finally allowing an expression of interest to cross her face. Melissa felt the change between her friends and looked up blankly. Listening, but not with her ears.
“
“Listen to me, Dess,” Rex insisted. “She’s got the Focus.”
Dess squinted, as if trying to see what only Rex could. “Maybe she got touched last night or something like that.”
“No. It’s too strong. She’s one of us.”
Dess looked back up at the ceiling, her expression sliding again into totally bored with the ease of long practice. But Rex knew he’d gotten her attention.
“All right,” she relented. “If she’s a sophomore, maybe she’s in one of my classes. I’ll check her out.”
Melissa nodded too, bobbing her head to the whispered music.
2
2:38 P.M. DESS
When Jessica finally collapsed behind a desk for her last class of the day, she was completely exhausted. She crammed the wrinkled schedule into her pocket, hardly caring if she was in the right room anymore, and gratefully dropped her book bag onto the floor. All day it had been gaining weight like a new employee at Baskin- Robbins.
No first day of school was ever easy. But at least back in Chicago, Jessica had had the same old faces and familiar halls of Public School 141 to look forward to. Here in Bixby everything was a challenge. This school might be smaller than PS 141, but it was all spread out on ground level, a maze of add-ons and trailers. Every five-minute change of classes had been traumatic.
Jessica hated being late. She always wore a watch, which she set at least ten minutes fast. Today, when she already stood out as the new girl, she’d dreaded having to creep into a class late, everyone’s eyes on her, looking sheepish and too dumb to find her way around. But she’d made it again. The bell hadn’t rung yet. Jessica had managed to be on time the whole day.
The class filled slowly, everyone looking end-of-the-first-day frazzled. But even in their weariness a few noticed Jessica. They all knew about the new girl from the big city, it seemed. At her old school Jess had been just one student out of two thousand. But here she was practically a celebrity. Everyone was friendly about it, at least. The whole day she’d been shepherded around, smiled at, asked to stand up and introduce herself. She had the speech down pat now.
“I’m Jessica Day, and I just moved here from Chicago. We came because my mom got a job at Aerospace
