“Hasn’t said a thing. But I did hear a rumor that Zach was talking trash about you and Lucas shut him down hard.”
“Really?” Helen said, perking up. “Shut him down in what way?”
“He wouldn’t let anyone say anything bad about you, is all. You know how Zach and Gretchen are. But Lucas wouldn’t hear it. He kept saying you felt like you had a really bad fever when he... did that thing that he did. What would you call that, anyway? A back-assed bear hug?”
Helen groaned and buried her face in her hands.
“It’s all right,” Claire said, patting her back consolingly. “He’s not going around telling everyone you’re monkey-butt crazy, so at least you brutalized a seriously sweet guy.” Helen groaned louder and tried to crawl into the sofa while Claire had a nice, long laugh at her expense.
That night, Helen had another nightmare about the dry land. When she woke she was so tired and sore that for a moment she almost believed that she had been walking for days, just like she had dreamed. She had always been good at ignoring strange things about herself, and she tried to convince herself that this was no different, but her hands shook as she bundled up her dirty sheets and took them to the laundry room.
Helen washed the grit off in the shower and tried to focus on school, though that was no comfort, either. As soon as she walked into Nantucket High, it was going to be open season on the freak, and the freak knew it.
It was still raining out, so she had to get a ride with Claire and her mother. Helen put a hand over her tummy, afraid of a cramp before she even got out of the car. She had never really understood why she got cramps; she just knew that sometimes when she did something that made people stare at her she was seized with a crippling spasm in her stomach that was so intense it made her stop whatever it was that she was doing.
“Relax,” Claire said as they opened their doors to get out. “All you have to do is make it through today and then you have the whole weekend to...” she trailed off, thinking. “Nope. Sorry, Len, I tried to be optimistic, but this’ll still suck on Monday.” Claire started laughing, and the sound cheered Helen up a bit—until they got inside the school.
It was worse than she’d imagined. A group of underclassman girls literally gasped and huddled up to gossip as soon as they saw Helen come through the front doors. A senior boy with a leather fetish leered at Helen and called her “hellcat” just as he was passing by. When she turned to stare back at him in astonishment he mouthed the words “call me” before continuing on.
“I don’t think I can do this,” Helen whispered. Claire put a hand on her back and pushed her forward.
Every time someone’s eyes landed on her and widened with recognition she got closer and closer to a panic attack. Was she going to have to suffer through the rest of junior year like this? Helen tried to melt into Claire’s shadow and realized that if it was cover she was after, she was going to have to find some bigger friends.
“Quit stepping on the backs of my feet!” Claire complained. “Why don’t you just go hide out with Hergie while I get your stuff out of your locker?”
Gratefully, Helen ducked into homeroom and tried to blend in with her desk. Mr. Hergeshimer asked if she was feeling better, and then ignored her completely as soon as she answered that she was feeling fine. She could have kissed him for that.
Matt just waved and sat down without a word. Helen guessed correctly that he had been threatened by Claire to act like he’d forgotten the whole thing, but he kept trying to stop himself from glancing over at her, so Helen knew he was still really worried. She caught his eye and smiled warmly, and after that he seemed a little less preoccupied. Zach turned his head and looked out the window as soon as he took his seat, making a big show of not looking at her.
She made it through the rest of the morning without incident, right up until lunch. As she walked to the cafeteria she realized too late that she was going to pass by Lucas’s locker. She was about to turn and go another way, which was ridiculous because that would mean she would have to literally go around the entire school, when she was spotted.
Gretchen and Zach noticed her as she stood wavering indecisively in the middle of the hall. They were at their lockers, which just so happened to be right next to Lucas’s and Jason’s. Some of the fuzz fell off of Helen’s memory and she recalled Gretchen’s and Zach’s petrified faces floating around in the background as she tried to choke Lucas. It made alphabetical sense for their lockers to be together, Brant—B, Clifford—C, Delos—D, but Helen blamed her terrible luck for the fact that all of the most popular people in her grade had been firsthand witnesses to her moment of utter humiliation.
She had no choice—she was just going to have to walk past them. Gretchen and Zach didn’t say a word and their faces didn’t show any expression at all as Helen hurried by with her shoulders practically in her ears. At least Lucas wasn’t there, she thought, ducking into the cafeteria.
“Stand up straight! You’re going to give yourself scoliosis,” Claire scolded when Helen got to their table.
“Sorry. I just had to go byhislocker,” Helen explained quietly. Matt made a disgusted sound.
“You can calm down, Lennie,” he snapped. “None of them are here today.”
“Supposedly they all took the day off because the aunt and the eldest Delos kid finally got to the island this morning,” Claire said.
“Oh yeah, great,” Helen mused. “There’s another one.”
“Hector. He’s a senior,” Claire added helpfully, although she could have no idea that saying his name didn’t help Helen at all. In fact, for some inexplicable reason, it ticked her off.
“No news on him yet. Zach will probably call me with an update this weekend,” Matt said with a shrug. “He always knows where everyone is and what they’re doing.”
The rest of the day dragged by, although there was some relief in knowing that she wasn’t going to bump into the Delos kids or the wraiths that seemed to appear whenever they did. She even started to enjoy herself during track practice as she ran through the fog and splashed in muddy puddles with Claire. Coach Tar didn’t say a thing about Helen’s pathetically slow run time when she came in, although Helen knew she wouldn’t be able to get away with that for much longer. She had an athletic scholarship to win, and Coach Tar was not about to forget it.
Dodging her way through the day, Helen made it to work that evening with something like relief, until she realized that a lot of kids from her school were coming in to buy a single piece of candy or one can of soda.
“Why don’t you go to the back and do some stocking for me?” Kate asked, giving Helen a gentle pat on the arm. “They’ll stop coming in to gawk if they think you’ve left for the day.”
“Don’t they have anything else to do on a Friday night?” Helen asked hopelessly.
“What island did you grow up on?” Kate replied sarcastically. Helen rested her forehead briefly on Kate’s shoulder, stealing a second of comfort before she straightened up. “You may as well do the inventory, too. And take as long as you want,” Kate added as Helen headed toward the back.
