Spark (7 page)

I laughed.  “Wow, this is different.  So can anyone use it?”

“Certain classes will be held here, and it will be open for use during lunch and before and after school.”

“Cool!  Except I don’t have a laptop.”

“No problem—you can check one out from the library.  And with this government program in place, they have the latest software and high speed processors.”

“You sure know a lot about computers.”

“I’m the resident computer nerd.  Three years of computer tech under my belt.”

I felt so comfortable there with Alex.  He was like a big brother, with his broad shoulders and freckles.  I have no idea why, but I found myself telling him everything, from the beginning, from my birthday party to the day I woke up from the coma, to feeling like an outcast, even now.  I even told him about following Zach, about meeting him outside the movie theater.  How crazy is that?  I kept my head down, rambling through every awful detail, and when I looked up, expecting to see Alex, wide-eyed and fearful, sure he’d stumbled upon the craziest person on the planet, and he just placed his hand on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry about your friend.  That makes me sad,” he said.

“Me, too.  I really miss her.  She was, like, the only person who really knew who I was, you know?  She got it.”

“Personally, I think you’re cool.”

“Really?”

“Sure.  You’re different.  I like that.”

“Well, I’m definitely different,” I agreed.  “A mess, in fact.”

“Hmm.” Alex squinted, as if in deep thought.  He was actually taking me seriously.  He didn’t think I was a freak.  I was just a normal teenager with a strange experience—and the kind way Alex looked at me said it all: 
You are going to be ok.  You’re not weird or crazy.  I believe you. 

“I’m not a doctor, but maybe some of this stuff is, you know, normal.  After what you’ve been through.  Have you talked to your parents?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You should tell them.  That’s what parents are for.”

“I’ll try,” I said.

“In the meantime, you might want to steer clear of Zach Webb.”

My head jerked up.  “Why?”

Alex shrugged.  “He’s sort of…
different—
but in a bad way—the opposite of different-cool, like you.”

“I don’t even know him” I said with a shrug, trying to act like I was indifferent.  “I only talked to him once.”

“Good.  Just be careful, ok?"

I nodded.  “Got it.”

Alex was quiet for a moment, and I started to feel sick to my stomach. 
He’s probably regretting ever asking me to come with him today
, I thought. 
One of the most popular guys in school and I had to go and spill my whole stupid story to him.
  I was wishing I’d brought my own car so I could make a quick exit.  Invisibility would come in handy right about now.

“I’m here for you,” Alex said, shrugging naturally as if digesting lunatic spiel were an everyday occurrence for him.  “For whatever that’s worth.”

“Then you don’t think I’m a freak?”  I asked.

“Everyone’s a little bit freaky.  Even me.”

I made a mental note to ask him about the details of his freakiness later, but for now, I was simply relieved to have found a friend.  “Thank you,” I said. 

I looked up and through the panes of glass, I could see the sky, gray clouds forming in enormous clumps overhead, like angry fists.  I could almost feel the wind lifting my hair, but I knew we were completely enclosed in the dome.  “Looks like a storm is coming,” I said.

Alex nodded.  “We should go.  I left my car windows down.” 

I followed him across the walkway back toward the door.  I paused and for some reason, I just stood there staring at the sky, like I was hypnotized by it.  The whole courtyard had turned dark by then, as if a shade had been thrown over it. 

“I need to just activate the alarm,” he said, stopping at the circuit board.

I was just thinking about what Alex had said, replaying it over and over in my head. 
I believe you. I believe you.  Everyone’s a little bit freaky. 
If I was a little bit freaky, I wondered, what was someone
a lot
freaky like?

That night, I had another dream about Zach.  We were floating in a hot air balloon and he was holding my hand.  It was spring time and everything was green—giant fields, trees—the sky was blue, not a cloud in sight.  And he looked at me and said, “I can see my future up here.”

In the middle of the night, thunder woke me up and I thought about the dream.  I got up to look outside and it was just beginning to rain.  Huge, globby pelts of rain fell on the streetlight.  I watched it fall for a few minutes and then looked up at the sky.  I could have sworn I saw the moon—perfectly clear and full.  Not a cloud in sight.  But I was half awake and it took me only a few seconds to drift back to sleep thinking about Zach in a hot air balloon, the way his eyes reflected the clouds.

First Day of School

              I read the text from Cricket as I stood outside of school on the first day: 

              -
Wait for me.  Be there in a sec

              -Ok, I will,
I answered.

             
I was early anyway, so it gave me a few minutes to collect my thoughts.   I had two really big things to tell her:  Number one, I had gone out with Alex.  Number two, I had talked to Mystery Man Zach Webb.  I knew Cricket would be skeptical, but it was really bugging the heck out of me.  I just had to tell her.  It was like the most exciting news of the century… for me. 

              Cricket was running up dressed in a bright orange jacket and a black and white polka dotted headband.  “Nice,” I said.  “Like your outfit.”

              “Thanks.” She tossed back her hair.  “So.  I hear you and Alex are an item.”

              “No,” I scoffed.  “Just friends.”

              Cricket giggled.  “Sure you are.”

“Anyway, guess who I ran into on Saturday,” I said.  Might as well just jump right in.

              Cricket shrugged.  “Who?”

              “Zach Webb.”

              “And?”

              “We talked.  He wanted to go out.”

              Her jaw dropped.  “Shut.
Up
.”

              When I didn’t say anything, Cricket slapped my arm.

“Seriously,” she said.  “Shut the heck up.”

“That’s it.  He wants to take me sight-seeing.”

“Oohh.  The old sight-seeing trick.”

“Please.  He seems nice enough.”

“Well, be careful.  You never know about guys like him.”

“Oh so you’re an expert on guys now?  An expert on Zach Webb.”

“No, but I know his type,” she said, squinting her eyes. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Cricket paused, glanced around.  She looked a little nervous, like she really wanted to tell me something, but had sworn not to. 

“What?” I asked.  “What is it?  Tell me.”

She sighed.  “Ok.  But you didn’t hear it from me.”

“Ok.”

“Kelsey Hardy’s parents have a store downtown.  She says she sees Zach walking around down there all the time, like
hanging out
at this old warehouse across the street. 
Creepy I
mean, what’s he
doing
in there?  You think he’s a junkie?”

Cricket would have a heart attack right there if she knew I’d followed him and actually watched him go inside that building.  To tell you the truth, it
was
sort of creepy.  If I told Cricket what I knew now, I’d never hear the end of it, especially if I decided to meet him again.

Then I remembered Zach’s hand, the way he’d touched my hand in front of the movie theater, how we’d shocked each other.  Surely that sort of thing wasn’t completely outside the realm of normal events.  Just the other day, I shocked the lady at the convenience store when I reached out to get my change.  But somehow that one was different and I knew it.  It was stronger with Zach.  More memorable.  My whole hand tingled afterwards.

“No way,” I said, rubbing my hand where Zach had touched me.  “Maybe he’s supposed to be there.  Like, maybe he has a class or something.  Karate.  Piano...”

“Tess, it’s an old
abandoned
building.  Like, why would he be hanging out there?  So not cool.”

“I don’t know, maybe he’s just exploring.  Maybe it’s not abandoned.  Has anyone else ever been inside the place?”

Cricket shook her head.  “No, Kelsey says it’s for sure empty.  Has been for years.”

“Has she ever been in it?”

“I don’t think so.  I’ll have to ask her.  Or we could just find out who owns it and ask them.  Problem solved.”

“Maybe his parents own it.”

“Why would they own an old empty building?”

“Who knows?  It’s not like it’s a toxic waste site or something.  It’s just a building.  People own buildings.  Maybe they own it and they’re fixing it up.  Maybe that’s why Zach is there … to work on it.”

Cricket gave me a serious look.  “You know there’s only one way to find out for sure.”

              I wondered what she had in mind, thinking that maybe my following Zach around wasn’t too far off the scale of acceptable behavior, but there was no time to ask her what she meant because the bell rang and we had to hurry to class.

As people were shuffling around, switching seats and getting situated in Homeroom, I slowly walked in—expecting everyone to look at me—and I wasn't disappointed.  One of the Beautiful People looked up from writing the name
Tiffany
on her pink folder just in time to glare at me.  I looked toward the back of the room and heaved an enormous sigh of relief when I saw Cricket had saved a seat for me and also noticed that Zach had not arrived yet.  But before I got to my seat, the lights went out for about three seconds and then came back on.               

My first thought was a storm, of course, but there wasn’t a cloud in sight.  That got me thinking about the scanner on orientation day.  Somehow things got all wacky when I was around.  But why?  Maybe I had some sort of residual lightning charge in my body or something. 
That would just make my whole year,
I thought. 
Nominate me for Most Likely to Spontaneously Combust.
  Thank God no one else seemed to suspect I had anything to do with it.. They just started mumbling and talking amongst themselves above the sound of computers rebooting.

“What the heck?”  Cricket was tapping on her computer screen.  “I don’t even have a login.”

“Maybe there’s a virus,” I offered.

Cricket shrugged.  “Oh well.  Maybe we won’t have to do any work.”

“Yeah, really,” someone added.  “Maybe they’ll have to send us home since the whole school is like running on a computer.”

“Cool!” Someone else said.

Mrs. Hayes got up and started wandering around the classroom, inspecting computer screens, looking genuinely puzzled.  “Raise your hand if you don’t have a login.”

No one raised a hand.  I stared at my blank—utterly blank—screen.  Turns out, I was the only one who didn’t have one, but I wasn't about to raise my hand.  Weird was becoming too normal for me, and it was scary that I was starting to get used to it.  To make matters worse, Mr. Hayes came up behind me and said, too loudly, “Oh, you don’t have a login.”

Just when I was ready for the ground to open and swallow me up, Zach Webb walked in, talked to the teacher for a few minutes, and sat down
right next
to me, smiling.  He handed me a note when Cricket wasn’t looking.  I glanced over at
Tiffany,
who glared at me.

The note said,
Enjoy your movie?
and had a smiley face at the bottom.  I looked up, smiled and nodded before Cricket noticed, then folded it up and stuffed it in my purse.  The rest of the hour, the teacher droned on about the computer system and the homework program, so we didn’t really get a chance to talk.  Every few minutes, one of us would glance over at the other.  I was starting to get nervous that Cricket would notice, but she was busy getting frustrated over how to navigate the computer.

“I hate these things,” she said.

I guess she expected me to answer her, but I was too busy watching Zach, who’d gotten up to throw something away.  And apparently, Cricket had noticed.  She gave me a quizzical look, as if she wondered—the same way I was wondering—what it was about Zach that was so intriguing.  In a more direct, determined gaze, she seemed to say, “We are going to find out.”  Which was good for me.  Cricket, on the other hand, was about as skeptical as she could be.

Operation Mystery Man

              By the time school ended that day, Cricket had organized a covert operation to find out more about Zach Webb and the old building.  She was waiting for me in our customary spot on the front steps of school, her jaws chomping on an extra large piece of gum as she texted someone.

              “Ok, I have a plan,” she said, putting her phone in her backpack.  “Operation Mystery Man starts now.”

              “What are you talking about?”  I knew, of course, but I was hoping I was wrong. 

              “You know—Zach Webb.  The old abandoned building?”

              “What are you up to?”

              Just then, Alex walked up.  “Hey guys.” 

              I expected Cricket to change the subject, but when she didn’t, I realized she had pulled Alex into her crazy operation.  “What’s going on here?”  I asked.

              Alex told me, “Cricket and I have been talking and we’re worried about you.”

              “Well don’t, ok?”  I was getting mad and could feel my cheeks start to tingle.  “I’m fine.”  It really burned me up that they’d gone behind my back to discuss my business.  Then to pull me in on some stupid scheme to spy on Zach?  It was just too much.  I walked away.  “Call me when you’re done trying to run my life.”

              “Tess, wait!”  Alex came after me, grabbing my arm.  “We just—it’s just we’re your friends—”