Under My Skin (Wildlings) (16 page)

She sees something in my face and punches my shoulder.

"What?" she says. "Didn't you ever feel like that?"

"Hey, I'm not mocking you."

"No, but you looked like you were about to. I know it sounds woo woo."

"It's not that. It's—I've only ever changed once. Twice, if you count doing it for a moment and then freaking out and switching back."

"You're kidding."

I shake my head.

"Well, we'll just have to fix that," she says. "We can easily get past the guys watching us."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

I take a breath. Okay, here comes the big turn-off.

"It's my mom," I say. "She doesn't know I'm a Wildling and I promised her I wouldn't go out without telling her first."

"But if she never finds out ..."

Her voice trails off and she cocks her head to study me for a moment.

"You guys are really close, aren't you?" she says.

"Yeah. Since my dad walked out, all we have is each other."

"At least you've got that."

I put my arm around her shoulder.

"You've got me," I tell her.

She snuggles into me for a second, then pulls away, smiling.

"I do, don't I? So we'll stay in. What do you want to do? Wait!" she adds before I can say anything. "I've got an idea."

Then she grabs my arm and pulls me down onto the bed. We fall in a tumble of limbs and the headboard bangs into the wall. We lie silent, waiting to hear if Mom heard anything. Luckily her room is way down the hall.

Elzie puts her mouth against my ear again.

"Whoops," she breathes, like she did before, only this time she removes her clothing piece by piece.

Then she turns my face so that we can kiss.

Marina

I leave my room and go sit beside Mamá in the living room. Wouldn't you know that creep Householder is holding forth on the religious channel. He's a great big man in his fifties and older people seem to think he's handsome. I don't see that. I just see a disgusting old bigot who has way too much power and sway over people.

"We live in a beautiful world," Householder is saying on the television. "We live in the best country in the world. But, friends, right now, right here in the U.S. of A., we have a contagion that threatens everything we hold dear. A virus waits to strike like the serpent did in the Garden. The Devil possesses our innocents and changes them into monsters that will turn on you and your family to rip out your throats and consume your flesh.

"Good people, we have a sacred duty to remove these vermin from the garden of God …"

"Mamá," I say. "You don't actually believe what he's saying, do you?"

"I'm not sure what to think,
mija
. He's very close to God, so I'm interested in what he has to say. But it's hard to think that the Devil has entered all of these poor children."

"I don't think God or the Devil have anything to do with it. I'll bet none of those kids had a choice about what happened to them. We shouldn't judge them for something that's not even their fault. No one really knows why it's been happening—at least, not yet—but it's got nothing to do with God and it's not a disease."

"But God watches over everything," Mamá says. "I thought that he had chosen to bring Laura Connor up to heaven with him, but perhaps Congressman Householder is right. Only the Devil himself would turn poor Laura into a rat and then kill her. I fear for you and Ampora. Have you been saying your prayers?"

Mamá and I don't see eye to eye on religious matters, but otherwise, we're pretty close. My sister Ampora and me, not so much.

My parents' divorce really split our family. Ampora sided with Papá and she still won't speak to me, even though I kept Papá's name and we go to the same school. She's proud of our Mexican heritage. I am too, but I don't know much about it.

When Mamá remarried, she pretty much turned her back on the past.

"We're Americans now, not Mexicans," she told us—and embraced my step dad's gringo culture—although she held tight to her religious upbringing.

We all lived in the barrio before the divorce. I was young enough when my parents split up that I only vaguely remember the barrio as a scary place. But Ampora thrives in it. As far as I know, she never got jumped into a gang, but she's embraced the whole gangsta music and bandas fashion scene. She thinks surfing is for dorks, so you can imagine what she thinks of me. And being as judgmental as she is, she probably hates Wildlings, too—although not for the same reason as Householder.

"Yes, Mamá," I say, to make her happy. "But I'm sure that what happened to Laura had nothing to do with God or the Devil. I think she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. None of it was her fault."

"Perhaps,
mija
, perhaps. I hope you pray for her soul."

"Of course I do. But what Congressman Householder is preaching is racism. Treating people like second-class citizens because they're different just leads to what happened to the Native people and Mexicans when the Spaniards came, and the way some people still treat us today."

"How can you be so sure?" Mamá asks. "Congressman Householder seems to be a man of God."

I press my point. "And a bigot. Think about it, Mamá. A quarantine will keep everybody stuck here in Santa Feliz—not just kids. You won't be able to visit Abuela and Abuelo, or Tía Rosa."

"I hadn't thought of that."

"Please tell me you'll get in touch with our own congresswoman and tell her that you don't agree with Householder's ideas. We need to fight that kind of thinking."

Mamá gets a line in her brow that tells me she doesn't much like the prospect of a quarantine.

"Tonight I will ask for God's guidance in my prayers," she says. "You know that you can do that, too, don't you? You might also pray for your little stepsisters, that this terrible curse doesn't fall upon them."

I don't let my face show how much it hurts that my own mother can feel like that about what I've become, even if she doesn't
know
I'm a Wildling.

All I say is, "Of course. And I'll pray for you as well. I know God will tell you that it's not right to cast judgment on those who are innocent. I really hope you'll call Congresswoman Cohen and ask Papá to call her, too."

Josh

When I wake up the next morning, Elzie's gone. I don't know when she left and there isn't a note. I see a light blinking on my phone, telling me I have a text. I reach over from the bed and look.

had 2 leave b4 light so i wouldnt b seen. talk 2 u soon. kiss kiss.

I grin like a fool as I go take a shower. I never got around to asking Elzie where she sleeps or what she does during the day, but right now, I don't really care. Not even seeing the undercover cops sitting in their car at the end of the street can wreck my mood. I've still got a goofy grin when I meet up with Desmond and Marina to go to school.

"Aw, man," Desmond says. "I know that look. You totally got some last night."

Marina elbows him. "Don't be gross," she tells him before turning to me. "So how is Elzie? Obviously she got your message, but is she okay?"

I tell them what she told me about how the police rousted the homeless people under the freeway overpass, looking for Wildlings.

"They shouldn't be allowed to do that," Marina says. "That's just wrong on so many levels."

"No kidding," I say.

"Is that where she lives?" Desmond asks. "Under the overpass?"

"I have no idea. I never seem to get around to asking her where she lives or what she does when she's not with me."

"That's kind of weird."

"I usually have other stuff on my mind."

Desmond smiles and gives me a push. "No kidding, stud-boy. You had so much of that other stuff on your mind today that you forgot your board. Now we all have to walk."

I realize he's right. I did kind of float out of the house in a happy cloud.

"Where does Cindy live?" I ask, to change the subject.

"She—uh. Okay. I don't know yet. Point for you."

"We'd better get going," Marina says. "Des, can I stash my board in your garage till after school?"

"Sure. Man, I should've never sold my old board," says Desmond. "Walking is way too slow."

"Suck it up, baby," says Marina. "I think we humans were meant to walk occasionally."

They put their boards in the garage and we all head down the street. It doesn't take long before we realize we've got company several houses behind us.

"I really hate those guys following you," Marina says. "Following you and staking out our houses. Doesn't the government have better things to do than harass a bunch of kids?"

"Apparently not," Desmond says. "Hey, did you ever figure out who your secret blogger is?"

Marina looks over as I shake my head. "No, but I read some more of her blogs before Elzie came over last night. I like the way she thinks. I'm going to try private messaging her some time."

"Don't bother," Desmond says. "She'll never respond. She'll think you're either a cop or some perv."

"Yeah," Marina adds, "and unless you've picked up some mad computer skills to hide your identity, the FBI will be able to trace your email right back to you."

"You think they're monitoring her blog?"

"What do you think? If they're disappearing Wildlings and following you around, wouldn't they be doing that, too?"

Desmond taps my shoulder to get my attention. "Hey, what's going on at the school?"

There's a crowd of kids gathered on the walkway at the school entrance. There are so many of them that they spill over onto the lawn on either side. That's unusual enough, but when we get closer, we see another bunch of kids clustered right up at the front doors arguing with Principal Hayden. It takes us a moment to realize that they're all wearing bits and pieces of animal costumes. There are lots of perky cat ears, drooping rabbit ears, insect antennas and various animal tails. One girl's wearing a faux leopard-skin jacket. Another has a striped black and yellow sweater that makes her look like a skinny bumblebee.

"This is insane," Desmond says. "What is this, a Fuzzies convention?"

"I think you mean Furries," Marina says.

"Whatever."

He taps the closest guy on his shoulder and Terry Seals turns around.

"What's happening, dude?" Desmond asks.

"You didn't hear?"

"Why do you think I'm asking?"

"Dillon Harner killed himself this morning. He hanged himself in his dad's garage."

"Oh, crap," Desmond says. "Really?"

I hear what they're saying, but I can't quite process the words. They don't make sense. Dillon would never do this. He has too much to live for. He's one of the best musicians I know. We hang out in the music room trading guitar licks a couple of times a week when we have the same spare. He plays his classical guitar and I use one of the school's cheap Strat knock-offs. He's taught me Segovia and Gilardino on the electric, while I've turned him on to The Ventures and Dick Dale—both of which sound surprisingly cool on a classical guitar. At least, they do the way Dillon plays them. He loves music as much as I do and he's brilliant at it.

Weekends he's in Long Beach with his mother and the rest of the time he lives with his dad here in Santa Feliz. His dad's a guitarist, too. He seems to overcompensate for the breakup, filling all their evenings with father–son jam sessions, which is why I only see Dillon at school. Except for his dislike of Wildlings, Dillon was a happy guy. Nothing fazed him.

How the hell can he be dead?

"That doesn't explain what's going on with the costumes," Desmond is saying to Terry.

"Are you okay?" Marina asks me.

I shake my head. The day's already warm, but I can't shake the chill that's crawled up into my chest.

Susie Wong, who's standing beside Terry, turns then. Her eyes are red from crying and she's holding a cloth shopping bag.

"He sent texts to a couple of people," she says to Desmond, "telling them he was a Wildling. That he couldn't take what was coming."

"He was a Wildling?" I say.

He hated Wildlings. How could he be one? And how could I not have known? We were just working up a version of The Astronauts' "Baja" last week. We even talked a bit about the mountain lion in my house business—although I didn't tell him the truth. We played more than we talked.

Where the hell was my Wildling radar? I could have talked him out of doing something this stupid.

"What did he think was coming?" Marina asks.

Susie shakes her head. "I don't know. I didn't get the text—Nancy Hajjir did and she told me. She said he was afraid he was going to be outed."

"Would he really have been scared enough to kill himself?" Marina says.

"Are you kidding?" Terry says. "It'd be a freak show. You've seen how the media goes for the throat whenever they get a lead on a new Wildling. There haven't been many recently, so they're hungry for fresh blood. Rehashing old stories doesn't sell ads."

I find myself nodding, even though I somehow managed to sidestep most of that attention myself.

Susie touches the cat's ears on the hair band that she's carrying. "Nancy says we should show our support for Dillon and all the Wildlings by wearing animal ears and stuff. To honour Dillon's memory. But Principal Hayden says we can't wear them on campus."

Terry nods. "Anybody who does is going to get a suspension."

"So we're trying to get everyone to wear something. He can't suspend the whole school, can he?"

I still can't get past the idea that Dillon was a Wildling and killed himself because of it. I glance to the street, where the FBI agent who was following us should be. For a moment I can't see him, then I spot him beside a dark car parked down the block, leaning in the window of the passenger's side. As I watch, he gets into the back seat and the car takes off.

My mountain lion hearing lets me in on the conversation that Hayden and some of the students are having by the front door. He's telling them that this can all be discussed in the special assembly he's called for first period. Everybody's supposed to go to the auditorium.