He raised an eyebrow and grinned widely. “You were eavesdropping?”
“Weren’t you?” I countered.
“Touché.” He took another bite of his sandwich. “I was just wondering where you got an idea like that. Buildings of flowers and streets of grass.”
I started to reply when it occurred to me I never said anything about streets of grass to Kate. All I told her were about the buildings. There was no way he could know that. “How did you know there were streets of grass?”
His eyes widened. “What?”
“I told Kate that the buildings had flowers on them, not about the grass streets.” I watched for his reaction. He just stared at me, looking as if he wanted to punch himself for saying something he shouldn’t have. So there was something going on that he wasn’t telling me, and it had been me that they were talking about all this time.
Now, the better question was why.
“How would you know that Chase?” I asked.
He stayed silent, probably realizing he had said too much and didn’t want to dig himself in a bigger hole than he already was in. Too late, though, because now I wanted answers.
“Answer me Chase.” I sounded more demanding than I should have, but I really just wanted to know the truth. Something wasn’t adding up and after passing out yesterday I felt like everything was in a haze, as if my world was spinning around off its axis.
“Is he bothering you? I can make him stop if you wish.”
I looked up to find Malcolm standing across from me, his lunch bag a little neater than Chase’s crumpled up bag. I wondered if he also had a tuna sandwich for lunch, which I doubted because no one in their right mind would bring that to school for lunch.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Chase asked, a little snarky, as if he thought Malcolm had really threatened him.
“Well?” He inquired once more. I had totally forgotten about the question he had asked of me.
I shook my head. “No, he’s not.” But that didn’t mean I wasn’t mad about Chase not answering my questions, but let’s be honest, I couldn’t bring myself to start interrogating Malcolm as well. I was too shy and I could already feel my cheeks start to redden.
“Good, I would hate to think he was doing otherwise.” Malcolm gave Chase a look. Chase stuck his tongue out at him. I laughed. With all the things that had happened, I had almost forgot about this morning. Maybe one of them knew about that strange kid.
“Hey, random question,” I began. “You guys wouldn’t happen to know anything about a young boy with white hair would you? I saw a kid running around earlier and was curious why he was here.”
Chase and Malcolm glanced at each other. They knew something, I was sure of it.
“No,” Malcolm finally answered. “I wouldn’t.”
“Probably one of the teacher’s kids or something,” Chase added.
I nodded, even I knew that it was a lie. “That’s what I thought.”
Malcolm stood there for a moment longer, then nodded to Chase. “Hey, Chase, remember that meeting we had with Mr. Williams?”
“Yeah. We should get to that. Great talking to you, Alice.” Chase stood up quickly and followed Malcolm out, taking his disgusting sandwich with him.
I watched as they left in a hurry, frowning. Mr. Williams was absent today.
CHAPTER 4
“Very good.” Becca stopped the recording of the song “Mad World” by Michael Andrews. It was going to be one of the songs included in the ballet Becca constructed around the theme of dreams. She was awesome like that, and with this being her first ballet which she created from scratch, I was extremely excited about it.
“We will go through this one more time and then you three can practice your hip-hop routine for the pre-ballet performance.” She nodded to Val, Rei, and I.
I smiled. Three of us got to perform a hip-hop routine to “See you in my Nightmares” by Kanye West. It was a fun choreography that we all put together one afternoon, well it took a few to really clean it up. I would have to jump on Val’s back as part of it, so we would need a lot of practice so I didn’t fall off or hurt her, or nearly pull her pants down again…
As I got ready to do our ballet routine, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye at the doors that were left open letting in some fresh fall air. It was the boy from earlier, standing across the street, staring at me again. A car passed by in front of him and he vanished.
I blinked a couple of times, not sure what exactly I saw. No one else seemed to have seen the boy as they were still gathering together to start the song.
“Are you ready, Alice?” Val asked. I must have seemed really out of it.
I turned to her and smiled. “Yeah, let’s do this!”
The music started playing.
“…And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad. The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had.”
Once the song was done, the three of us changed into sneakers and got ready for our hip hop routine. I was glad I remembered my NIKE’s, it always looked weird doing hip hop in ballet slippers. The three of us got in our positions and waited for the music to start.
“... We were once a fairy tale, but this is farewell…”
Class came to an end and I gathered my things. I was going to ride my bike over to my parent’s work off Summer Street, which was only a few
