Chapter 10
Monday morning rolled around and anxiety flooded Lily as she stared at the buzzing saw aimed at her leg. She wasn’t sure she wanted to watch. She knew Dr. Wong wouldn’t hurt her, but she still felt a sense of terror she couldn’t shake off. She looked at her aunt sitting against the wall flipping through a magazine. The saw seemed to buzz even louder as it ripped through the layers of her cast. Lily dropped her head backwards to look at the ceiling. She didn’t want to watch.
“I am never watching another horror movie ever again,” she declared keeping her eyes on the textured tiles of the ceiling. Her aunt just snickered and went back to reading her magazine. When it was over, Lily looked down at the white, shriveled leg lying on the table. She hardly even recognized it.
“You need physical therapy for a while,” Dr. Wong said in his thick, Asian accent.
“How long do you think I’ll need to go to therapy?”
“I say, six to eight months. You use crutches until you walk better.”
“I guess crutches are better than a wheelchair,” Lily said with a sigh. She was disappointed that it would take so long before she could walk on her own again. She wasn’t out of the woods yet.
***
A week later, Lily awoke to the screaming, black alarm clock on her nightstand. She sat up in her bed as she rubbed her eyes. She sat there for a moment trying to relive the dream swirling though her mind. She had been the detective in some sort of mystery. She had been so close to finding the next clue and solving the mystery, but every time she came close she began to hear voices. All sorts of different voices were whispering to her all at once, and she had a hard time understanding any of them. She would catch words, but she could never really tell what they were saying. It was like someone was constantly turning the dial on a radio. First words, then static, words, and then more static. She could tell the voices were angry, but other than that she had no idea what they were trying to tell her. She finally gave up and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands trying her best to wake up.
Lily stared at the white, popcorn ceiling hoping that her first day back would go smoothly. She was nervous and excited at the same time. It would be the first time in months that she wouldn’t be in a wheelchair at school. She was a little worried about depending exclusively on her crutches. What if she wasn’t ready? What if she became too tired and fell down the stairs all on her own. Her worries ran in a continual loop around her head, but despite her anxieties Lily was so glad to finally get back to normal life. It had been pretty boring sitting at home all day. By the time her alarm went off again, she was hobbling around her room getting ready for her first day back at school.
***
“I’ll see you later tonight. If you need anything, or if you need to come home because you’re too tired, just call me,” Jenny said as her forehead wrinkled in worry.
“I’ll be fine. I have Malaya to help me,” Lily assured her. As her aunt drove away, Lily limped toward the school, hoping she was ready to face high school again. As she came closer to the school, she noticed a faint buzzing sound. Looking around her there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Trying to ignore the annoying hum, she met up with Malaya at their normal “before-school” spot. Malaya was sitting alone on a brick wall near the entrance to the school popping grapes into her mouth.
“Hey, want one?”
“No thanks, I already ate.” Lily moved towards the wall about to sit down.
“No, wait, I’m finished. We need to get going anyway.” Malaya grabbed the heavy back pack Lily had somehow managed to haul from the parking lot. The two of them headed toward the lockers that had been assigned to them at the beginning of the year.
“I already cleaned out my temporary locker, but we’ll need to clean yours out later today. The janitor wants to clean them for a couple of new students,” Malaya said even more cheerfully than usual. She stuffed some loose papers into her locker and organized the books already in her backpack. “After school let’s meet in hall B, and I’ll help you clear it out. See you at lunch,” Malaya said as she walked away to her history class. Lily watched her make her way down the hallway leaving her alone. She wished they had more classes together, but she had registered too late, and didn’t have much choice. She rearranged the items in her backpack in an effort to make it lighter, but wasn’t very successful. She gave up and hoisted the pack on her back nearly dropping one of her crutches. Lily was surrounded by students of various ages and popularity rank and they all walked by hardly even acknowledging her existence. Not one stopped to help. She didn’t expect help, but it would have been nice. Then she heard a faint buzzing again. It became louder for a moment and then passed as the hallway cleared. Lily worked her way slowly to English class, and somehow made it to her seat just before the bell rang for the last time. English was probably her best subject. She had always loved to read and write stories. Over the years her teachers had told her she was good at writing, and her mother had always said she was a writer at heart. It was so easy to love something she was good at, which explained why she hated algebra.
After English, she went to her science class taught by one of the school coaches, Mr. Collins. For some reason, maybe because the teacher was a coach, Dean Brady and Nathan Montana were both in the same class. It was unusual for two of the Slade Gang to be in the same class. The school administrators made it a point to keep the troublemakers separated as much as possible, but apparently this time it was unavoidable. When Lily entered the science room, Dean and Montana were already throwing bits of paper at other students. Lily reluctantly took the last seat available in the room, right next to Dean Brady. She pulled out a pencil, notebook and an eraser from her backpack and set them on her desk.
“Ha, I’m gonna get her eraser. There’s no way that cripple can get it back.” Lily knew it was Dean in her head, and it was her eraser he was thinking about. She could have grabbed it before he snatched it away, but she didn’t want to antagonize him, so she simply ignored him. It didn’t matter that much to her; it was just an eraser. It wasn’t long before Dean had grabbed her eraser and began a game of keep away with Montana. She didn’t even try to get it back. She knew she couldn’t, and she knew if she tried, she would just fan the fire. Thankfully it didn’t last long before Mr. Collins walked in the room and confiscated the pink eraser flying through the air. The class was the same as it had been when she was there last. The class would go smoothly for a while, and then either Dean or Montana would make some remark, or cause some sort of trouble. Then Mr. Collins would lose his temper. With his face turning a bright shade of red, he would assign the antagonist detention. When everyone was packing up to go, Mr. Collins set the eraser on the desk in front of Lily, and headed for the teacher’s lounge to de-stress.
“Now’s my chance, it’s mine this time,” Deans thoughts hummed at her. This time Lily snatched her eraser quickly from the desk and stuffed it in the pocket of her backpack. She glanced up to see Dean’s startled face, smiled innocently, and promptly left the room.
***
By lunchtime, she was more than ready to take a match to her crutches. Malaya plopped down in the blue plastic chair beside Lily and began to chatter away about her classes and how the cafeteria spaghetti looked like elongated worms. Lily slowly ate and listened until her thoughts were interrupted by the buzzing she had heard earlier that morning. However this time the buzzing didn’t go away, but instead morphed into words so clear they may as well have been her own thoughts.
“Look at that nerd. He shouldn’t even be allowed into school dressed like that. It should be illegal. I think he needs to go for a little trip.” Just as the words ended in Lily’s mind, there was a crash a couple of tables over. Lily jerked her head around to see someone lying on the floor. It was Robert from her Algebra class. His tray had splattered all over the floor and red tomato sauce covered the front side of his shirt. Directly behind him sat Dean, one of Landon’s friends, and one of the worst bullies of the school. Everyone in the room stared as Robert slowly stood, obviously embarrassed, and began to pick up his tray.
“You should go help him,” Lily urged Malaya.
“Yeah, no one else will, I guess,” she replied clearly hoping someone else would volunteer for the job. With a sigh Malaya shoved back her chair and wove her way through the tangled web of cafeteria tables. She began sweeping spaghetti worms into a pile with the edge of her shoe, and then with a wad of napkins from a nearby table she scooped them up and tossed them in the trash. Robert shot her a look of gratitude, and then continued his own efforts to wipe up the mess. Dean just smirked at them and went back to scarfing down his own lunch. Lily watched feeling helpless when she noticed that Landon wasn’t at the table with his friends. She looked around wondering where he was. Had he seen what his “friend” had just done? Was he going to do or say anything about it?
“Probably not,” Lily thought disappointed. Lily knew Landon wasn’t really like those jerks, but she also knew he wouldn’t stand up to them either. Just as she was about to give up her search, she spotted him standing at the salad bar. It seemed he didn’t have the slightest idea that anything had happened. If he had seen Robert trip, apparently he didn’t care. Landon rounded his way around the tables to sit with his friends. By that time Malaya was back in her chair munching away on a carrot stick.
“So do you know that guy? I think I’ve seen him somewhere before,” Malaya crunched away. “Maybe he’s in one of my classes. I can’t remember.”
“That’s Robert; he’s in my algebra class. Dresses a little odd, but he seems like a really nice guy,” Lily said, glancing his direction. He sat in a corner along with a handful of other “geeks”. His clothing was well worn, and incredibly out of style. His blue t-shirt was tucked into his high-waisted jeans. However bad his clothes were, he had a handsome face. Lily thought his brown, wavy hair was a little long, but not terrible enough to bother cutting it yet. He had a dimple when he smiled, which wasn’t very often. Lily had only seen it once a few weeks ago when he got the best grade in the class. He didn’t have a lick of fashion sense, but he was sure smart. Jason Hadley usually got the best grade in algebra, but Robert was always a close second as far as Lily could tell.
“He’s pretty cute, I mean, he has nice brown eyes. They’re almost like warm fudge brownies. Hmmm…” Malaya was also staring in his direction. “I think we should be nicer to him in the future,” she said tilting her head to the side. “If nothing else, he can tutor us.” Lily just smiled at her friend and focused her attention back on her lunch. Her thoughts were interrupted again by a steady humming. Lily knew this was the gift her father had told her about. She tried to remember what he had told her. He had said she would hear the thoughts of the wicked. She didn’t know if that meant that she could hear only the thoughts of truly wicked people, or if that included the wicked thoughts of normally good people. The humming progressed into words as clear as glass.
“That nerd deserved what I gave him. They shouldn’t even let dorks like that onto the school grounds.” She was hearing Dean’s thoughts again. “Montana’s such a dork sometimes.” Lily glanced sideways to see what he was referring to. Montana Blakely, the youngest of the group, was repeatedly sticking a straw up his nose, holding his empty nostril and launching the straw at unsuspecting students. Landon finally made an appearance and sat in the chair across from Dean.
“At least Slade is sane. Good thing he isn’t all preachy anymore. I would have clobbered him if he said a single word about tripping that nerd.” Lily was pleased to hear that Landon had tried to stop Dean from bullying, but was disappointed that he had apparently given up. So even though he wasn’t the biggest bully in the school, as she had once thought, he allowed his “friends” to continue. She had hoped that the Landon she had become friends with would decide to show up to school today, but he didn’t. Lily decided she wouldn’t get her hopes up for him making an appearance anytime soon.
***
After lunch, Lily limped to her algebra class. Robert was already seated in his usual seat in the front row. His attention was focused on his homework lying on his desk, which was already completed of course. Lily wasn’t usually one to talk to people she didn’t know very well, but she decided that she could make an exception in this situation.
“So, your homework survived the flood of spaghetti sauce, huh?”
“Yes, it was safe inside my backpack, as usual,” Robert said, squinting his eyes slightly.
“That’s good,” Lily said smiling. “Oh, and congrats on getting the highest grade in the class the other day.”
“Thanks,” he said with a dimpled smile. Yes, his clothes were pretty bad, but Lily didn’t think anyone could argue that his smile was probably one of the handsomest in the entire school.
“I think the only reason I beat him was because he had the 24 hour flu the day before the test, and wasn’t on top of his game that day.”
“Well, you deserve it anyway,” Lily said, lowering herself into her chair. Robert shot her one last friendly grin before turning his attention to the teacher at the front of the room. Even though he was looking at the teacher, he wasn’t thinking about the equation Mr. Giles was writing on the board.
“My shirt looks so stupid, and I think I still have spaghetti in my hair. I bet the only reason Lily said a word to me today was because she felt sorry for me. Boy, if I could get my hands on that Dean, he would be sorry. There has to be something I can do to teach that guy a lesson.”
Lily tried to focus on the equation she was haphazardly writing on the paper in front of her, but it was nearly impossible with Robert’s thoughts broadcasting to her brain.
“I’m twice, no, three times as smart as that guy, so why can’t I think clearly about this. I’ve never been one to seek for revenge before, but this has all gone too far. Revenge is such a strong word. It’s not something I’ve really done before, but there’s a first time for everything. I have to do it for every nerd in this school. It’s got to be big, bad and terrible. This school’s jerk infestation is about to be terminated.”
“Robert? Robert?”
“Um, yes?”
“Do you have the answer to problem three?”
Lily didn’t hear Robert’s thoughts of revenge or any other thoughts at all after that. She spent the remainder of class in a confused stupor. Just when she thought algebra couldn’t be any more confusing, it always found a way to prove her wrong. When the class was finally over, she was mentally exhausted. She wanted to collapse over her desk, and stay there for the rest of the school day. Instead, she hunched over her desk and rubbed her forehead with her fingertips, trying to massage away the tension. She wondered if Landon would offer to help her with her homework again. After what happened at lunch she wasn’t so sure she wanted to even talk to him again, but somehow he magically knew exactly what to say for everything to make sense in her head. Instead of a mass of random numbers and signs, she was able to see patterns and rhythms she never knew existed. This new understanding was a whole new world that was unlocked to her when he was there. Obviously her algebra teacher, Mr. Giles, didn’t have the right key to unlock the door to that world. She took a deep breath, hoping that somehow she would find another way to unlock the door herself. When she looked up from her wonderings, Robert was standing in the doorway watching her. His arms were full of papers and books, and he had a pencil tucked behind his right ear.
“Is it really that bad for you? Algebra, I mean.”
“Yep,” she said picking up her crutches.
“If you need a tutor I have an opening on Wednesday afternoons. I probably already tutor half the school, so what’s one more?”
“Really? Yeah, that would be great. Thanks.”
“Just go to the cafeteria after school on Wednesday and I’ll meet you there,” he said turning to go.
“Thanks again. See you then.” Now she could easily say no if Landon offered to help her again. Problem solved.