Enlightened A Light Tamer Novel (The Light Tamer) (4 page)

“
S
tudents
who
had
alchemy lab
today,
you’ll
go to lab
as deemed necessary.
  Have a
brilliant
first day.  Fate has a way of bringing us all together, and I for one am grateful to be your teacher.”
She tilts her head with a fake smile
plastered
on her face.

The bell
rings
its melodic tone, not the shrill sounds like we had in my old inner city school.  Amber jumps up, throws her backpack over her shoulder
and
hurries to the door. 

“Catch you at lunch
B
, later tater.” Amber says as she practically knocks everyone over to get out of the room. 

Later tater?
Her nickname for me is
B
, for Bronx.  Only
cool
people get a nickname from her, so she says.
I navigate to the door, paying attention not to let anyone touch me.  Without looking up, I sense
him…Caleb
.

“Hey beautiful, how was your first class?  I saw Amber charge out with her old chip on her sho
ulder.  I thought we cured
her…
guess
not,” Caleb says and takes my hand.
  The now familiar current runs through
my
veins.

“It was en
light
e
ning
,
to say the least
.  You have
Alchemy
next don’t you?”  He nods at me and leads me two doors down from
Miss
Raine
’s room.

“This is where I drop you off,” he says and gently backs me up against the wall. 
Leaning
down
he
whispers in my ear, sending my hormones through the roof.  “I’ll be here after class to walk you to lunch.”

My heart skips two beats and a chill runs up my spine.
“
Why can’t I think to you?  I tried
,
but
I could tell it wasn’t working.   D
id you hear me?”

“
They’re
probably jamming our frequency.  You know they have all of their so-called charms.
 
After this summer
, nothing surprises me.”  He leans in and gives me a quick kiss.

“P D A,” someone
who
looks no older than twelve shouts out.  I feel my face flush with embarrassment. 
It’s
one thing to have Amber tease us relentlessly, but having a pimply
-
faced
kid
do it, is
totally different.

I shimmy past
him and promise to meet after class.  Honors English, my
best
subject
.

“
Take
a seat at any of the pods, think wisely, as it will be your seat all semester,” the teacher says.
  Pod?  I look around and see that small groups of four desks placed facing each other around the room.  A few of the faces look familiar from the night at Caleb’s house. 
The night that almost put an end to Caleb and I.
The night that changed my life forever
.

“Jessie, come over here and sit with us,” Carmen coos.
 
The other two at our
pod
, Caitlyn and Rob
,
aren’t impressed with Carmen’s charms
.
  It’s apparent
,
by the way
they roll their eyes every time she speaks.

This may
joll
y
well be the dumbest decision of my life to sit here with the three of them.

“Is it natural or from a bottle,”
Rob asks
. 

“Huh?  Are you talking to me?”

Rob
clucks
his tongue and presse
s
his lips together. 
“Your hair…is it naturally dirty blond or do you chemically alter it?”

“
Ahhh,
natural, although it gets lighter in the summer from the sun.”
I
reply
, trying not to sound like an idiot.

“
Oh, so t
res chic.”  By the look on his face, I’m convinced he’s considering touching my hair.

“
You scored Caleb Baldwin I hear.  How did you get so lucky?
”  Caitlyn asks as she continues drawing Japanese anime pictures of our classroom.  Her long
raven
hair and straight cut bangs
with
black eyeliner
make
her look as though she
’s
straight from her drawing.  “Not that a guy like him would be interested in someone like me, but he is a feast for the eyes.”

“Stop Caitlyn, you’re beautiful and a little bad-ass.  If you were my kind of thing, I’d so go for you,” Rob says
and flicks a Life Savor on her desk.  “Jessie, I’m kinda known around here to pass out Life Savors when I think you need a smile,” he tosses a yellow one to me.

I laugh as
Caitlyn and Rob
banter until the teacher
Mrs. Jones
decides to quit texting long enough to call
the
roll
.
 
The way
Carmen keeps her purse in her lap
,
and the occasional look down, she
is
texting too.  Thankfully she
is
more interested in the conversation going on inside of her purse than grilling me. 
One hundred and ten minutes seem like a lifetime
, for
one single class.
  Sadly, being new to the school and the teacher preoccupied
, I
sit silently with nothing but my thoughts.

“Hey zombie girl, the bell rang,” Rob says as he slaps his hand on my desk.

I stifled a yelp and look up at his laughing eyes.
  “That was mean
.”

“I never claimed to be nice.  
You headed to lunch?
  I’ll walk you to the cafeteria if so.”

Picking up my handouts of classroom rules and shove them in a fo
lder.  “Oh, thank you, but
it’s not
necessary.  Caleb
’s
waiting for me.”

Rob fake stabs himself in the heart.  “The first girl I ask to eat lunch with
me
shoots me down like a wild turkey. 
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream
.”

I raise my eyebrows at him, and give him a sideways glance
. “
You’re quoting Poe, because I won’t walk with you to lunch?  Nice.”

He claps his hands quickly and squeals in delight.  “Oh, yay!  Another Poe fan.  Girl, we are going to get along fabulously,” he sa
ys
as he
prances
away.

As promised, Caleb is standing in the doorway waiting for me. 
“I see you met Rob. 
He has an endless supply of candy.  If sugar is an addiction, he has one.
”

“
That’s priceless
.  Yeah, he clued me in about
Life Savors
.”  He
reaches for
my hand
,
and
we walk to the cafeteria.
 
I
t
was only three months ago
when
I was walking the halls of Madison High School with my best friend Jersey.  Neither one of us had a boyfriend
,
we
played it off by making
fun of the lovey-dovey couples holding hands. 
Here
I am
,
being a hypocrite. 

The cafeteria looks nothing like the kind we had in the Bronx.  The smell of
fresh-baked
bread and chocolate chip cookies
make my stomach growl
. 
Spread across the room
are
different food stations, everything your heart desires.

“Where do you want to start?  I like the salad
bar;
it has everything you can think of to put on a salad.  If you’re not in the mood for
rabbit food
, we can get steak or chicken, whatever.
I’m not picky.  I’d avoid the Brussels
sprouts though, there’s nothing that screams hot like a butt smelling vegetable
.
”
  Caleb says and smiles and brushes his shoulder with mine.

I fill my plate with cantaloupe, grapes and a hardboiled egg.  “Where’s Amber sit?” I
ask
and balance
my plate of food. Scanning t
he dining tables I finally see her at a table in the corner of the room
.  She spots me as I walk
towards
her.  “Hey, we can sit here right?” 

“Sit already. 
For gawd’s sake,
it isn’t
like I own the table or anything,”
Amber says.
  “This is Shawn, she’s a junior too.”

Shawn flashe
s
me
a
smile and
a half wave.  If I were African
-
American, I’d wear my hair just like her
s.  Her giant afro, with caramel colored highlights
, bounced up and down as she moved.  “Hi Shawn, I’m Jessie.”

“Yeah, everyone’s talking about you.  I wouldn’t have guessed you to be friends with Amber.”  Her de
ep southern drawl
matched
her bouncy hair
.  “Not that there’s any problem being friends with her.”

Amber rolls her eyes
,
bored with the conversation. 
“Hell-O, I’m right here.  Tell me how you
tru
ly
feel,” Amber snap
s
.
  She pockets a handful of saltine
s
like a kleptomaniac, stuffing them in the side pocket of her backpack.

“Oh, whatever Amber.  Jessie here is one of those classy hippie types.
  She doesn’t strike me as the neglected angst-filled teenager.
”

“Hi ladies, look how lucky I am.  I’m able to sit with the prettiest girl in school,” Caleb
winks at me, “and the
cool
kids
.
”
  His plate of salad was barely recognizable with his pile of ranch dressing smothering it.
  “You’re not too good for me to sit with again this year are you Amber?”

“Touché
,
”
Amber says as she grabs an imaginary sword from her chest.

“How’s operation Thorne going?”  I watched as Amber chewed on a carrot nervously.

Caleb swallowed his
hu
lking
bite of salad before asking us what we are talking about.

“Wait, you’ll see,” Amber said and grinned at us.  She pulled the wrapper from a giant cupcake decorated in confetti and streamers.  “Want
a taste
before I take a bite?”

“Thank
s, I’m
good
.”  I grab
my hardboiled egg and salt it evenly before biting into it.
  Amber
takes
a carrot and
runs
it through her frosting before popping
it
into her mouth. 

“Ewww,
”
we all said in unison.

“Everything tastes better with frosting.  Do you want some for your egg?”

The vibe at the table suddenly changed as Shawn and Amber stare at something
or rather someone
who
was headed our direction
.
I jumped as a hand grabbed the chair on the other side of me.  I recognize the black hoodie before I even see his
face…Thorne
.
  He sets his plate of macaroni and cheese and corn down on the table,
and then
he takes a butter knife and separates the food.  Once his food is void of touching, he takes a napkin and folds it just so.  Amber watches him like a cat
after a mouse, ready to pounce
.
  Without a word, Thorne starts eating his food
like it
were his last before battle.