“Christian, I. .”
Angela bursts back into the room, her face wild with excitement.
“Holy awesome! I can’t believe how bright it was, I mean, wow. Did you see my mom?
She, like, dropped. Her face was all pasty. I’ve never seen her like that. She’s okay now, though.
I gave her some water, and she just, like, shook it off. She’s fine.”
“Glory terrifies humans,” I remind her, trying to remain serious, but it’s hard not to get swept up by her enthusiasm. It
“Yeah, I think we’ve learned that’s true, haven’t we? Let’s do it again. Try it with me, this time,” Angela insists to Christian.
“I don’t think I could.”
“Come on, I want to learn. Pretty please!” she begs.
He drops his head, sighs, giving in. “All right. We can try.” This ought to be good. I sit in Angela’s chair as the two of them march back up to the stage, take hands, concentrate.
“Be in the present,” Christian says again. “That’s the key. Not the present, like what you’re thinking about now, but apart from your thoughts. This is going to be hard for you, because you overthink everything. Just remember that you are not your thoughts.”
“Okay, Sensei, let’s go,” she cracks.
They both close their eyes. I lean forward, watching, waiting for the glow to start, trying to contain my envy that it’s Angela up there and not me. But nothing happens. They just stand there like they’re suspended in time.
“None of that in here!” comes a voice from the lobby. Anna must be afraid to come in.
Angela and Christian drop hands, open their eyes. For a minute Angela looks disappointed, but then a mischievous smile spreads across her face.
“That was so hot,” she says. She turns to look at me with one eyebrow arched. “Right, Clara?”
“Uh—”
“I think you wanted to tell me something, too,” she purrs to Christian, totally faking and he knows it. I remember how she told me once that she and Christian played spin the bottle in ninth grade and she thought kissing him was like kissing a brother.
“Oh yes,” he replies without inflection, “that was pretty hot, Ange. You’re like my dream girl. I always wanted to tell you that.”
“None of that in here!” Anna Zerbino calls again.
We all bust up laughing.
A loud noise wakes me in the middle of the night. For a minute I lie in bed, listening, not sure what’s happening. I feel like I’ve just woken up from a bad dream. I glance at the alarm clock. It’s four in the morning. The house is absolutely quiet. I close my eyes.
Something crashes. I sit up in bed. The best weapon I can come up with this time is a can of hair spray, like that will do any good if Samjeeza’s here.
Note to self: buy some nunchucks or something.
Another crash reverberates through the house, then a loud curse, the sound of breaking glass.
The noise is coming from Jeffrey’s room.
I throw on my robe and hurry down the hall. There’s another loud bang. He’s going to wake Mom up if he hasn’t already. I open his door.
“What are you doing?” I call into the dark, irritated.
I flip on the light.
Jeffrey is standing in the middle of the room with his wings out, dressed in just his jeans.
He yells in surprise as the light goes on, then swings around with his hand in front of his eyes like I’ve blinded him. His wings catch a stack of books on his desk, which crash to the floor. He’s soaking wet, his hair clinging to his face, a pool forming under him on the hardwood. And he’s laughing.
“I can’t remember how to retract my wings,” he says, which he obviously finds hilarious.
I look beyond him to the open window, where the blinds are all twisted up and dangling from one side.
“Did you just get home?” I ask.
“No,” he says, grinning. “I went to bed early. I’ve been here all night.” He takes a step toward me and stumbles. I catch him by the arm to steady him. That’s when he laughs into my face and I get the full, nasty brunt of his breath.
“You’re drunk,” I whisper in amazement.
“At least I didn’t drive,” he says.
This is bad.
I stand there for a minute, hanging on to him, trying to get my brain to function at four in the morning. I could go get Mom, assuming she isn’t already on her way up the stairs to find out what the racket is about. If she still has the strength to make it up the stairs. I don’t even know what she’ll do or, worse, what this might do to her. This is way beyond any kind of punishment she’s ever had to dole out. This is like grounded-for-a-year kind of behavior.
