clue of what I was in for.
From everything I’d seen up to that point, it didn’t even occur to me that that kind of thing could actually be true.
“We’re members of the Council,” Aurora said, as though that somehow made sense, smiling as she took her seat among them. “Do you know what that is?”
I shook my head and bit down hard on my lip, unable to speak, unable to even think for that matter.
Pretty much unable to do anything more than stand there and gape. My eyes darting around as I took in the room once again, gut practically going into spasms when I suddenly realized what the stage was for.
Why it just sat there all empty.
What this was really about.
“No worries,” said the hot one, who I thought was named Royce but I was too freaked to be sure.
“Nothing to worry about. You’re perfectly safe. None of us bite,” said Samson, which, for some strange reason elicited a big laugh from everyone present.
Well, everyone except me.
I was about as far from laughing as a person could get. Because the truth is, I was too busy looking for a way out. Completely overcome by this horrible, sinking feeling, now that I had a pretty good idea of what my immediate future would bring.
And yet, that hard slab of fear in my gut was really no match for the rising wave of annoyance. The overwhelming feeling that I’d been Punk’d.
Sucker punched.
Set up in the most unfair way.
Remembering how just a little while earlier, my parents had simply hugged me good-bye as they sang
“have a nice day!” as though everything were perfectly normal.
As though I wasn’t about to be faced,ambushed really, with this.
No warning. No heads-up of any kind. Just tossed into a den of lions, with no ammo, no defenses, no tips on how to survive.
My gaze moved over them as I sighed and shook my head.
This was it.
Judgment day.
It was me against them and there was nothing I could do about it.
Not the least bit surprised when I suddenly found myself standing center stage even though I’d arrived there through no will of my own.
Watching in complete and total horror as they all leaned forward in their seats, eagerly waiting for the show to begin, as the drapes slid open behind me.
Claude, the bearded guy, got up from his seat, went over to the ginormous bookcase that lined the far wall that I somehow missed in my initial nervousness, and withdrew a small, slim book he casually flipped through. Proceeding to make a series of clicking sounds as his tongue hit the inside of his cheek, only to finally slam the book shut, place it back on the shelf, and return to his seat.
“Well, it seems someone’s lived a very interesting life,” he said, arranging his robe over his crossed legs as he looked at me. “Why don’t you tell us a bit about that?”
I gaped, the eye-bugging, jaw-dropping kind of gape. Shooting him my best you’re crazy look, sure that he had to be joking, even though the glint in his eyes assured me he was anything but.
They were waiting. All of them patiently waiting. Eager to hear the extremely short story of my over-before- I-knew-it twelve years of life.
And the truth is, the longer they sat there, waiting for me to begin, the more annoyed I became, until the anger bubbled up so high inside me it boiled right over and spilled out when I said, “Are you kidding me
?” I paused, waiting for someone to cop to it, to let me in on the joke, but when nobody did, I shook my head and continued. “How interesting could the story possibly be when I didn’t even make it to thirteen
?” I pressed my lips together to keep them from quivering in an embarrassing, visible way. Crossing my arms tightly across a chest that, now, thanks to the fact that I was sent Here, would stay stubbornly flat for, well, for eternity as far as I could tell. And when my eyes started to sting, and my throat went all hot and tight, it just made it all seem that much worse. I mean, the one thing — the only thing I ever really wanted was to be a teenager — and these people had yanked it right out from under me.
“So, is it accurate to say that you feel — shortchanged?” Royce asked, head cocked to the side, eyes all squinty. Studying me like he was the scientist and I his most interesting rat.
“Is that why you lingered so long on the earth plane?” asked Celia, in a polite, demure way, though I wasn’t fooled for an instant. Not with the way her eyes roamed over me, not missing a thing.
And having them all staring at me like that, well, it just made it worse.
Made me feel like I was some kind of sideshow.
Some kind of freak.
Even though they were all striving to appear calm and thoughtful and friendly, as though they had all the time in the world for me to get my bearings and give them the big reveal of how I spent my twelve, pathetically short, years, I wasn’t fooled for a second.
These people knew everything. It was all in the book. They just wanted to hear it from me. They wanted me to own up to it.
An afterlife test.
That’s what this was.
There was no doubt in my mind.
“It’s true that we know everything,” Aurora confided, confirming what I’d already guessed. “But you have nothing to worry about, there’s no judgment here. We just want to give you a chance to explain it, that’s all. To tell us what motivated you to make the choices you did. We’re interested in your input, to hear your side of things, so we can best decide where to place you.”
I squinted, my gaze moving over them,all of them, but they were too good at this, too well practiced, and I couldn’t glean even the slightest clue to what she might’ve meant by that.
“Everyone has a place,” Celia said, her tiny hands smoothing the sleeves of her gown. “It is our task to find yours,” she added, as though that should somehow mean something, as though that should make perfect sense to a newbie like me.
I shook my head, feeling completely annoyed, upset, and, well, mostly annoyed, saying, “Listen, I’m not really all that into this, so I’m wondering if we could maybe, um, catch up another time or something. I mean, since you already know all there is to know, I don’t really see the point of all this. And, the truth is, I feel a little creeped out having to stand here on this stage. But fine, if you insist on knowing, then, okay, I guess the top two items on my short list of sins would probably be: One, sometimes, on certain occasions, I used to hog the mic when I played Rock Band on the Wii with my friends—” I stopped, hearing my own voice in my head saying,Really? You’re seriously going to lie about that? Here, of all places? And clearing my throat when I added, “Um, okay, I might’ve actually hogged it more than sometimes, but that’s only because I was practicing to go on American Idol, which, you probably don’t know, but it’s this really popular show on—” I shook my head, knowing I needed to keep it moving if I wanted to get out of there anytime soon.
“So, anyway, what else? Okay, well, I guess number two would be that one time, back in fourth grade, when we had that substitute teacher and someone, er, I mean I, changed the seating chart all around, so that all the girls had boy’s names and all the boys had girl’s names — but, again, I’d like to make it clear that there were extenuating circumstances in that case too. For starters, it wasn’t entirely my idea. In fact, it wasn’t my idea at all. But anyway, the only reason I even agreed to go along with it is because Felicia Hawkins dared me. And just in case you’re unfamiliar with her, well, she is majorly mean. Seriously, she was one of the meanest, nastiest, snobbiest kids in the school, and, by the way, that includes all of the fifth and sixth graders too. So, with that in
