accusation that it takes my breath away.
“What — what do you mean?” I stammer.
“I mean,” he starts. “I don’t know what I mean. I just. You’re just. ”
And then he doesn’t say anything else.
Insert the biggest, most awkward silence in the history of big awkward silences. I stare at him. I’m suddenly exhausted by all the lies I’ve told him. He’s my friend, and I lie to him every day. He deserves better. I wish I could tell him then, more than anything I’ve ever wanted. I wish I could stand in front of him and truly be myself and tell him everything. But it’s against the rules. And these aren’t rules you break lightly.
I don’t know what the consequences would be if I told.
“I’m just me,” I say softly.
He scoffs. He picks up the dish towel and holds it up, a bit of white terry with my incredibly bright red blood soaked into the middle of it. “At least now I know you can bleed,” he says. “That’s something, I guess. You’re not completely invincible, are you?”
“Oh right,” I retort as sarcastically as I can manage. “What, did you think I was Supergirl? Vulnerable only to Kryptonite?”
“I don’t know what I think.” He’s managed to tear his gaze away from the dish towel and is now looking at me again. “You’re not. normal, Clara. You try to pretend you are. But you’re not. You talked to a grizzly bear, and it obeyed you. Birds follow you like a Disney cartoon, or haven’t you noticed? And for a while after you came back from Idaho Falls, Wendy thought you were on the run from someone or something.
You’re good at everything you try. You ride a horse like you were born in the saddle, you ski perfect parallel turns your first time on the hill, you apparently speak fluent French and Korean and who knows what else. Yesterday I noticed that your eyebrows kind of glitter in the sun. And there’s something about the way you move, something that’s beyond graceful, something that’s beyond human, even. It’s like you’re. something else.”
A violent shiver passes through me from head to foot. He really has put it all together. He just doesn’t know what it adds up to.
“And there couldn’t possibly be any rational explanation for all of that,” I say.
“Considering your brother, the best I’ve been able to come up with is that maybe your family’s part of some kind of secret government experiment, some kind of genetically altered animal-friendly superhumans,” he says. “And you’re in hiding.”
I snort. It would be funny if the truth wasn’t so much weirder. “You sound crazy, you know that?”
Another silence for the record books. Then he sighs.
“I know. It’s crazy. I feel like—” He stops himself. He suddenly looks so miserable that my heart aches for him.
I hate my life.
“It’s okay, Tuck,” I say gently. “We’ve had kind of a crazy day.”
I reach to touch his shoulder but he shakes his head. He’s about to say something else when the screen door opens and Mr. and Mrs. Avery enter the house, talking loudly because they know they’re interrupting us. Mrs. Avery spots the pile of bandages and ointment on the counter.
“Uh-oh. Someone have an accident?”
“I cut myself,” I say quickly, avoiding Tucker’s eyes. “Tucker was teaching me how to clean out the fish, and I got careless. I’m okay, though.”
“Good,” says Mrs. Avery.
“That’s a nice fish,” Mr. Avery says, peering down in the sink where I dropped the big rainbow trout. “You catch that today?”
“Tucker did, yesterday. Today he caught the one over there.” I gesture to the open cooler. Mr. Avery looks at it and gives a low whistle of appreciation.
“Good eating tonight.”
“You sure that’s what you want for your birthday dinner?” asks Mrs. Avery. “I can make anything you like.”
“It’s your birthday!” I gasp.
“Didn’t he tell you?” laughs Mr. Avery. “Seventeen years old today. He’s almost a man.”
“Thanks, Pop,” mutters Tucker.
“Don’t mention it, son.”
“I would have gotten you something,” I say softly.
“You did. You gave me my life today. Guess what?” he says to his parents, louder than his usual gruff speech. “Today we ran into a mama grizzly with two cubs up at the ridge off Colter Bay, and Clara sang to it to make it go away.”
Mr. and Mrs. Avery stare at me, aghast.
“You sang to it?” Mrs. Avery repeats.
“Her singing is that bad,” said Tucker, and they all laugh. They think he’s joking. I smile weakly.
“Yep,” I agree. “My singing is that bad.”
After Mrs. Avery fries up the fish for dinner, there’s cake and ice cream and a few presents. Most of the gifts are for Tucker’s prize rodeo horse, Midas, which I think is a funny name for a horse. Mr. Avery brags about the way Tucker and Midas can pick a single cow out of a herd.
