“It’s going to get you hurt . . . like that kid they hung from the Wonder Wheel.”
That kid’s name was Kevin Folkes. When the Alpha arrived, people went down to the beach to ogle them, back when they were a curiosity and not something to fear. Kevin started a friendship with one of them and even helped her pick a name—Madison. She was a vision of hotness, but most Sirena are. They’re the closest to what people think of when you think mermaid—long flowing hair, beautiful face, flawless body—but when they’re on land they lose their tails and at first glance are as human as everyone else. My mom is a Sirena.
Kevin was smitten. He gave Madison little presents: flowers, clothes, shoes. He made her a playlist and fed one end of his headphones through the fence so they could listen to it together. It was puppy love, innocent really, but people talked. A TV preacher said Kevin was committing bestiality, a sin against God, but Kevin ignored him. Then, one morning, soldiers found his body hanging from the Wonder Wheel, fifty feet in the air. Someone had tied a chain around his neck, attached an end to one of the cars, and turned on the ride.
“Well, that won’t happen, because I’ve got you to protect me, even in the bathroom!” Bex crows.
The bell rings.
“Get out of here,” the cop snarls.
I snatch up my things and grab my friend.
“Bex, you can’t do that. She could report you,” I say once we’re in the hall.
“Screw her,” Bex says. “Stupid toilet cop.”
“I’m serious,” I cry.
“Sometimes I don’t get you, Lyric. Are you going to let everyone intimidate you?” she says.
I wish the answer weren’t yes.
Chapter Six
There are schools in New York, even in Brooklyn, that are temples to education. Their walls of glass and stone rise into the sky, beckoning to the city’s elite and affluent. John F. Hylan High School is not one of those schools. Our school is a depressing, hopeless holding cell for future criminals, with outdated books, a staff of misfits drummed out of every other school in the state, and a student body of barely awake degenerates. The Board of Education hasn’t appropriated the funds to wire the entire building for the Internet. Apparently, they think it’s a fad. We haven’t had a full-time librarian in years, but that’s okay, ’cause no one is banging down the doors to check out Someday We Will Go To The Moon. There’s no music department. No art class. No after-school sports. Hylan’s architect must have gone on to a lucrative career designing maximum-security prisons. Built in 1945, it probably would have been demolished years ago if it weren’t in the Zone. Nothing gets knocked down here. Nothing gets built, either, except fences.
But Hylan does have one thing going for it: Mr. Ervin, a kind, passionate guy who really does seem to enjoy his job. He’s waiting outside my homeroom class, smiling and giving our faces his full attention. He’s the first happy person I’ve seen in days, and if I didn’t know him, I’d suspect it was chemically induced. He came up from the middle school, where Bex and I had him for health class (another name for sex education). There he suffered through our endless giggling while he showed us gross-out slides of STDs. I wonder if he remembers us from then.
“Oh, brother,” he says when he spots us. I want to hug him. “Find some seats, ladies. We’ve got lots to cover this morning.”
We stroll into his room, and I give the place the once-over. There’s a security camera mounted on the ceiling. That’s new. A bright-red steel box on the wall has a thick padlock on its lid. That’s new too. The other kids don’t know what’s inside, but my father spilled the beans. It’s a pistol. Every class has one now. Mr. Ervin has a key and a permit to use it. I don’t want to imagine a situation where he would need it.
“What’s with the windows?” Bex asks as she points to the brown paper that blocks our view of the sky.
“Snipers,” I whisper into her ear. “The police are worried the crazies will be able to see the Alpha kids from the rooftops across the street.”