“She was the perfect welcoming committee,” I say diplomatically.
Jessamyn laughs. “Oh, to be young and in love.”
I grimace and turn away. Even when I was a prince, I didn’t want to hear about my faux parents’ love affair.
“I didn’t just create you out of thin air, you know.”
“Go figure,” I murmur.
She follows me into the kitchen. One thing I’ve noticed is that in this world, I seem to want to be either sleeping or eating all the time. I take a box of cereal out of the cabinet and stick my hand inside, pulling out a fistful of small yellow puffs. I stare at the insane cartoon on the box. Cap’n Crunch. Honestly, it’s as if whoever drew this has never met a real pirate.
“So,” Jessamyn says, sitting on a stool at the counter. “What are your classes like? Who’s your favorite teacher so far?”
Every time we have a conversation, I get flustered. I feel as if I’m being interrogated. As if there are right and wrong answers and I am bound to fail. I take a deep breath and paste a smile on my face. “I was gobsmacked by my English teacher,” I tell her, pulling a carton of milk from the refrigerator and nearly drinking from the spout before remembering that seems to be one of Jessamyn’s pet peeves. “She was brilliant.”
“Gobsmacked,” she repeats. “Brilliant. You know, you’vebeen picking up a lot of slang lately that seems a little out of character for you.”
You have no idea,I think. “I’ve been reading Dickens. . . .”
“How interesting, since I couldn’t even get you to read Shel Silverstein.”
“Delilah gave it to me,” I say quickly.
“Of course. Delilah.” Jessamyn nods. “I suppose she’s responsible for your new look as well.”
I glance down at my jeans and sweatshirt, which—yes—Delilah chose for me so that I would better fit in on my first day. “People reinvent themselves all the time,” I say. “Look at that picture of you and Dad on the mantel. Your hair was a different color and the size of a hot-air balloon . . . and you were wearing leather pants. Clearly you’ve improved.”
Jessamyn laughs. “What happened in the nineties stays in the nineties,” she says, and then she grows more sober. “It might be fun to change it up, Edgar, but don’t forget who you are.”
I think of what Delilah told me—how to respond to your parents when they start giving you life lessons. “Relax, Mom,” I say, unzipping my sweatshirt and tossing it over a chair. “I just got better-fitting jeans. It’s not the end of the world.”
An odd expression ghosts across her face. “Of course not,” Jessamyn says. Then her eyes widen. “Edgar! What did you get all over your shirt?”
I look down. Until now I’ve actually put this morning’s debacle out of my mind. “My pen exploded?”
She sighs. “Do you know how hard it is to get ink stains out?”
“Somewhat,” I say under my breath. Replacing the milkin the refrigerator, I begin to rummage through the contents, looking for something else to satisfy my perpetual hunger. I take a small container and pop off its lid, reaching in with my fingers to grab what’s inside.
“No!” Jessamyn cries, and I look up, alarmed, the fruit halfway to my open mouth. “Don’t you know what that is?”
“Pineapple?” I reply, wondering if this is yet another trick question.
“Which gives youhives,” Jessamyn points out.
“Right,” I say, dropping the spear back into the container. “Forgot.”
“You forgot the week you spent in the hospital when your throat closed up and you couldn’t breathe?”
I hesitate. “It’s been a long day,” I say, and I grab my satchel and sweatshirt, hoping to flee before I do anything else wrong.
I’m in my room absorbed in my studies, trying to understand why all of these chemicals have two-letter nicknames that make absolutely no sense, when I hear a chime on the computer.
Delilah’s face fills the screen. I wonder if this is the way she saw me when I was inside the book—close enough to touch, but two-dimensional. “What are you up to?”
“Chemistry,” I say. “Tell me: in what part of the wordIrondo you find theFe?”
“Ferrous.Itmeans‘iron.’ ”
