Good vs. Evil High (7 page)

“Everyone grab a jump rope,” Coach yelled.
“You’re going to jump double time for the next ten minutes. Make
sure you put plenty of space between you and everyone else.”

So we each grabbed a rope from the pile at
the far corner of our square and the rest of second hour was too
hard to even think about talking to either of my roommates. It
didn’t take long to wear myself out completely. It felt great to
have beaten the fastest girl at North Haven High...but
man...physical fitness was not my thing...

Chapter
Eight

~ Café Cafeteria ~

Cons in every pocket began buzzing when
second period was over. I jumped a mile, as I figured I would every
time it happened until I got used to it.

We took an elevator up to the next floor.
“See you at lunch,” Harmony said when we went down different
hallways.

Sassy and I walked into a really cheerful
room with giant yellow butterflies hung along the walls. Four
tables seated the kids that were coming in. The teacher, Miss
Rivers, was a string bean with pointy glasses connected to a loose
chain that wrapped around behind her neck.

Since I was only there for three days, she
told me to do whatever I wanted while the rest of the class did a
worksheet focusing on some of the great artists of the past. I got
into some yellow clay and made little flowers, which I sprayed with
sticky stuff and dropped into a bowl of gold glitter. It was
difficult with one hand heavily bandaged, but maybe when they dried
I could use them to decorate my bed and wardrobe.

Then it was lunchtime. “Thank goodness. I’m
starving,” Sassy said as we walked down the hall toward the
elevators.

“Me too. Do they serve regular cafeteria food
here, like chicken nuggets one day and pizza the next?”

“Eww.” Sassy laughed. “No, they put together
a kind of soup, salad, sandwich buffet at lunch and a full-blown
buffet from the time classes are over until lights out. That way
you can eat whenever you’re ready.”

We stepped into an elevator with two other
girls who were talking about what clothes they were packing for
next week when we went south. It sounded like the white suits we
were all wearing weren’t included.

I waited until we stepped out of the elevator
onto the first floor to ask Sassy about it. “Where do kids get
clothes from when they live way up here? You can’t go shopping,
right?”

“Well, there’s a secondhand room where girls
drop off clothes they don’t want anymore. You can take whatever you
want from there. But most of the girls in our hall go to Miss
McCree when they need anything and she helps them pick things out
of catalogues and then takes care of ordering it and getting it to
you. I’ve got a few catalogues in our room, though. We could look
through them together after classes and make a list of what you
want. Then I’ll give it over to her. You should have a few basic
things in your wardrobe already, and you can always borrow our
clothes until we get yours. It takes forever, so Miss McCree might
actually have to try and figure out a way to get them sent to you
in the Southlands.”

We walked through an opening into what looked
more like a café than a school cafeteria. The walls were golden
brown and red spheres hung from low ceilings over each circular
table, providing the soft light that lit up the room. Four red
padded chairs surrounded each table. A few kids had pulled two
tables next to each other to seat more people together. It actually
seemed pretty cozy, in spite of how big it was. It should have been
called Café Cafeteria, I decided.

Two long, identical buffet trains were on
either side of the entrance we’d walked through. I followed Sassy
to get in line for the one on the left, since it was pretty
short.

“What do you think so far?” Sassy asked
me.

“I love it here.”

We each grabbed a plate and began piling food
on it. No desserts, I noticed. “It’s a lot better at dinnertime,”
Sassy said.

“There’s Nadine.” She pointed to a table
before she stopped at a glass-front freezer at the end of the
buffet that was stocked full of bottled water. We each grabbed one
and headed for Nadine. “Headmaster keeps sugar out of our diet
during school hours. He thinks we’ll be able to focus better, which
is probably true.”

“Where’s Harmony?” Sassy asked Nadine as she
sat down. “She usually beats us here.”

“Talking to Mr. Fielding about the
Cinder-Haven dance. She said it’s the only activity we’re in charge
of this year. Cinders are picking up the rest.”

“There’s going to be a dance?” I asked, a
little surprised.

“Yeah, we have one every winter,” Sassy said.
She suddenly put her hand over her mouth and gasped. “Oh my gosh.
There’s a room full of ball gowns in the west wing and you’re the
only one who hasn’t picked one out. I can’t believe I didn’t think
of this sooner. We’ll pick one out together tonight, okay? I love
doing dresses.”

“She can’t,” Nadine said. “She’s got a date
with Roman.”

“Aw,” Sassy groaned.

“It’s not a date,” I said. “We’re just going
to watch a show or something. You guys could come with us.”

“No, trust me. It’s a date.” Sassy gasped
again. “We can look for a dress tomorrow night. Tonight I’ll give
you a makeover and help you pick out what to wear.”

“That’s okay. I can go in this. I don’t
really want to have to worry about makeup and hairdos.”

“Mind if I sit here?” someone said from
behind me. I turned around as Roman set his plate and water beside
me.

“Go ahead. I’ll get another chair for
Harmony,” Nadine said.

Roman opened his bottle of water and drank a
lot of it before he turned to me. “The show’s at six tonight. Do
you wanna meet me here at five so we can eat first?”

“Sure.” Dinner and a movie? It really was a
date. I was freaking out a little inside as Nadine set a chair down
between herself and Sassy about the same time Harmony got
there.

“Hey, guys. Sorry I’m late. Activities
committee stuff, you know,” Harmony said.

“What’s the dance going to be like?” I
asked.

“Well, the Cinders always have the dances and
celebrations in this dark dungeony place. We were thinking
medieval, maybe—like dragons and swords and stuff. Headmaster said
we need to think of the southern school and its tastes since they
did it for us when they put together the dance here last year,
which kind of sucks, cause then nobody ever gets to put together
the dance they want. It’s always for the other school.”

“Medieval sounds pretty cool,” Nadine said.
“I think it’ll be a lot of fun.”

“Me too,” I added. It sure sounded better
than a traditional pastels and punch bowl sort of dance.

“Hey, Fayre,” Rose called from the next table
over. She was sitting with Adora from the track team and a couple
of guys. With her long hair down now, she looked like some sort of
super model. “Were you serious about joining the Tracers next year,
or just trying to get Coach Ling off your back?”

I shrugged. “Maybe.” I honestly wasn’t
sure.

“Just so you know, I think you should
definitely join.” Rose turned back to the kids she was with.

“You’re thinking about joining the Tracers?”
Roman asked me.

“I’ve been wondering, is that like their team
name or something?” I asked, wanting to avoid the question.

“Yeah. They came up with that name for the
girls’ track team when they started it years ago because they’re
supposed to be so fast they leave tracers behind them.”

“Huh.”

Harmony set her sandwich down and stared at
Roman. “Kristine beat Rose.”

Roman looked startled. He glanced at the
table where the two runners sat. “Rose Jennings? Her?”

I shrugged.

“She’s the fastest girl there is. And you’re
not sure if you’re going to join the Tracers? You could be team
captain, like me.”

“I don’t want to be team captain. I want to
be a regular student.”

“But there’re only a handful of captains in
this school. It’s a major status thing, and you don’t want
that?”

“I don’t know. Not yet.”

Sassy put her arm around me. “Leave her
alone. She’ll run when she’s ready to.”

“I know, I just...” Roman shook his head and
picked up his fork before he started eating his mostly meat
salad.

“Who cares about status anyway?” Nadine said.
“The competition’s just for fun.”

I was definitely with her on that. Life was
meant to be lived, not wasted on worrying about what others think
or things like social status.

We spent the rest of lunch eating and helping
Harmony come up with ideas for the medieval dance. I hoped Roman
wouldn’t ask me to go with him, because I really didn’t want to
hurt his feelings.

After that, Harmony and I went to English
Composition. I nearly fell asleep during that one.

Math was fifth hour, but since that was
canceled, Harmony and Roman showed me around the first floor. I
wanted to go outside, but they said it takes forever to get dressed
up warm enough for that and just as long to get undressed when you
come back in, so I had to settle for a tour of the inside. But I
made sure I got a good look at the winter wonderland through the
giant windows beside the mountainous castle’s front doors. We
explored the lounge, rec room, library, and auditorium, each one
leaving me breathless at how vast and well-equipped it was. A
person could spend their entire life on that floor and never get
bored. It was kind of disappointing when our cons buzzed, letting
us know it was time for sixth hour.

We headed up to the fifth floor, where all
the classrooms were, and Harmony and I went to Advanced Zoology,
which I fell in love with.

After that, Harmony and I went down to the
cafeteria for some snacks and then up to our room.

“I’m gonna go shower,” Harmony said, reaching
in the wardrobe at the head of our beds and pulling out a pair of
jeans and a soft white sweater. “They’re at the end of the hall if
you want to come with me. They’re all separated.”

“I’ll probably head down there in a few
minutes.” I needed a shower, but I wanted to see what the basic
clothes Sassy told me about were first. She and Nadine were nowhere
to be found at the moment.

“All right, meet you back here.” Harmony left
the room, so I went to the wardrobe at the foot of our beds and
opened the two upper doors.

Inside, I found two pairs of jeans, a yellow
skirt, a pair of white sweatpants, two beautiful blouses, and two
sweaters. I couldn’t believe it. They were exactly what I would
have chosen for myself. I smiled as I pulled open the two bottom
drawers. The first had several pairs of socks and underwear, plus
two more bodysuits, and the second had all the basic
necessities—toothbrush and toothpaste, soap, shampoo, etc. I picked
out a pair of jeans and the blue sweater with long sheer material
wrapped around the waist, left to wave gently behind when I
walked.

As I was closing the top doors, something
caught my eye on my bed. A sparkle. I walked over to the side and
leaned down. There on my pillow was the most beautiful notebook I’d
ever seen. The entire cover was made up of gold glitter, but felt
smooth like plastic. A set of sketching pencils had been placed
beside it. I sat on my bed and picked them up, opening the notebook
to the first page to write my name inside. But someone had already
done it for me. My full name was written in the upper left hand
corner inside the cover and a message was written halfway down.

Dear Kristine,

I’m delighted to have you here at my school
and hope you will find only happiness in the years you spend here.
I also hope this notebook will serve you well as you fill it with
the things of your heart. I’m available any time you wish to
discuss anything, day or night. So please, never hesitate to
ask.

Best wishes,

Headmaster Veziamo

It was wonderful. The clothes, the notebook,
my room, the girls I shared it with—all just wonderful.

So that was my first day at North Haven High
School. Now, for my first night....

Chapter
Nine

~ First Kiss ~

After my shower I barely made it back to our
room before Harmony left for an activities committee meeting.

Sassy was there, though, catalogues in hand.
We went through them for a while and I picked out what I needed,
most of it against Sassy’s advice. We had very different tastes in
clothes. But I did let her talk me into wearing mascara, perfume,
and a pair of her black boots for my date, though I still wasn’t
sure how I felt about it. After that, we went to the secondhand
room to pick out a few things to hold me over until I got my new
wardrobe. Then it was time to go down to the first floor.

“You’ll be fine,” Sassy kept telling me all
the way to the elevator.

But it was my first date with a guy I barely
knew. How was I going to be fine?
Deep breaths
, I kept
telling myself.

“Hello, Kristine,” Connie said when I stepped
inside an elevator. “Roman is already waiting for you on the first
floor.”

“What?” It was only four-forty. I’d hoped to
get to look around the rec room for a little while before I met him
at the cafeteria.

“Roman is waiting for you on the first
floor,” Connie repeated.

“Yeah, yeah.”

When the elevator came to a stop, I saw him
reading a book in a fluffy chair beside it.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey.” He set the book down and stood up.
“You’re early. It looks like you’re as excited about tonight as I
am. Do you want to eat and then hang around here until it’s time to
go up to The Dome Room?”

“Okay.”