“Clara.”
“Wendy,” she says in response.
“Where are we going?”
“The nurse.”
“No,” I object, breaking free of her arm. I straighten and attempt to smile. “I’m fine, really.”
The bell rings. Suddenly the hallway’s deserted. Then from around the corner bustles a plump, yellow-haired woman wearing blue nursing scrubs, walking fast.
Behind her is the boy.
“There she goes again,” Wendy says as I wobble into her.
“Christian,” orders the nurse quickly as they rush toward me.
Christian. His name.
His arm comes under my knees, and he lifts me. My arm is around his shoulder, my fingers inches away from the spot where his neck meets his hair. His smell, a mixture of Ivory soap and some wonderful, spicy cologne, washes over me. I look up into his green eyes, so close that I can see flecks of gold in them.
“Hi,” he says.
Heaven help me, I think as he smiles. It’s just too much.
“Hi,” I murmur, looking away, flushing to the roots of my loose, very-orange hair.
“Hold on to me,” he says, and then he’s carrying me down the hall. Over his shoulder I see Wendy watching me, before she turns and walks the other way.
When we reach the nurse’s office he puts me down gently onto a cot. I do my best not to gape at him.
“Thank you,” I stammer.
“No problem.” He smiles again in a way that makes me glad I’m sitting down. “You’re pretty light.”
My jumbled brain tries to make sense of these three words and put them in order, with little success.
“Thank you,” I say again, lamely.
“Yes, thank you, Mr. Prescott,” says the nurse. “Now get to class.”
Christian Prescott. His name is Christian Prescott.
“See ya,” he says, and just like that, he’s walking away.
I wave as he rounds the corner, then feel like an idiot.
“Now,” says the nurse, turning to me.
“Really,” I say. “I’m fine.”
She looks unconvinced.
“I could do jumping jacks — that’s how fine I am,” I say, and I can’t wipe the stupid smile off my face.
Thus I arrive at Honors English late. The students have pulled their chairs into a circle. The teacher, an older man with a short, white beard, motions for me to come in.
“Pull up a chair. Miss Gardner, I presume?”
“Yes.” I feel the whole class staring directly at me as I grab a desk from the back of the room and drag it toward the circle. I recognize Wendy, the girl who helped me in the hall. She scoots her desk over to make room for me.
“I’m Mr. Phibbs,” says the teacher. “We’re in the middle of an exercise that’s largely for your benefit, so I’m glad you could join us. Everyone must give three unique facts about themselves. If anyone else in the circle has one in common, they raise their hand, and the person whose turn it is has to choose something else. We’re currently on Shawn, who was finishing up by claiming that he has the most. rocking snowboard in Teton County. ” Mr. Phibbs raises his bushy eyebrows. “Which Jason here contested.”
“I ride the beautiful pink lady,” brags the boy who I assume is Shawn.
“No one can argue that’s unique,” says Mr. Phibbs with a cough. “So now we’re on to Kay. And say your name, please, for the new girl.”
Everyone looks to a petite brunette with large brown eyes. She smiles as if it’s the most natural thing in the world for her to be the center of attention.
“I’m Kay Patterson,” she says. “My parents own the oldest fudge shop in Jackson.”
“I’ve met Harrison Ford lots of times,” she adds as her second thing, “because our fudge is his favorite. He said that I look like Carrie Fisher from
So she’s vain, I think. Although if you dressed her up in a white gown and put the cinnamon-roll buns on either side of her head, she really could pass for Princess Leia. She’s very attractive, definitely one of the pretty people, with a peaches-and-cream complexion and brown hair that falls past her shoulders in perfect curls, so shiny that it almost doesn’t look like hair.
“And,” Kay adds as her final touch, “Christian Prescott is my boyfriend.”
I dislike her already.
“Very good, Kay,” said Mr. Phibbs.
