“A dog.” Miles wrinkled his nose when he said it, which didn’t surprise me—I imagined that Miles was sort of like an overgrown house cat. Slept a lot. Always looked bored. Liked to play with his food before he ate it.
I watched a ladybug crawl along the edge of the sink. I was pretty sure it wasn’t real—its spots were shaped like stars. I’d left my camera in my backpack. “None. My dad’s allergic.”
Miles grabbed the paper from me and looked it over. “You’d think they could bother to make the questions a little more interesting. ‘Favorite Color’? What can that possibly tell you about a person? Your favorite color could be chartreuse, and it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference.”
Then, without waiting for me to answer the question, he wrote “chartreuse” under “Favorite Color.”
It was the most animated I’d seen him all day. Listening to him rant relaxed me, in a weird kind of way. If he was an angry ranting asshole, he wasn’t Blue Eyes.
“Then yours is mauve,” I said, writing it in the blank.
“And look—‘Favorite Food’? What’s that going to tell me?”
“Agreed. What do you like to eat? Pickled frog hearts?” I pressed my pen to my bottom lip and mulled it over. “Yeah. You love pickled frog hearts.”
We got through a few more questions. I knew I wasn’t imagining the awed looks of our comrades across the table. When we got to “Pet Peeves,” Miles said, “When people say ‘catsup’ instead of ‘ketchup.’ It’s a condiment, not animal vomit.” He paused a moment and said, “And that one’s true.”
“I can’t stand it when people get history wrong,” I said. “Like saying that Columbus was the first explorer to land on North America, when he didn’t even land on North America, and the first explorer was Leif Ericson. And that one is also true.”
We answered a few more, and by the time we got near the end, something strange started happening to his voice.
It was rougher, somehow. Less fluent. His th’s slurred together, and his w’s started sounding like v’s. The group across the table stared at him like it was the advent of the apocalypse.
I moved down to the last question. “Thank God, we’re almost done. What’s one thing you remember from your childhood?”
“Animalia Annelida Hirudinea.” Miles bit the end of his pen like he wished he hadn’t said it. He didn’t look at me, but stared at the two silver faucets arching over the sink basin.
Those words . . . the bandages. The pain I hadn’t understood. The Yoo-hoo. The smell of fish.
A chill seeped from my head to my feet, freezing me to the spot. I stared at him. Sandy brown hair that stuck up all over the place. Metal-frame glasses. Golden freckles sprinkled over nose and cheekbones. Blue eyes.
Stop looking at him, idiot! He’ll think you like him, or something!
I didn’t like him. He wasn’t even that cute. Was he? Maybe another look would help. No, dammit! Oh hell.
I scratched awkwardly at my notebook, ignoring my pounding heart. Was I supposed to write down what he said? Why was he speaking in scientific classifications? Blue Eyes wasn’t real. There had been no one to help me free the lobsters. He hadn’t just said that. This was my mind screwing with me. Again.
I coughed delicately, pulling on a piece of my hair. “Well. You can write down ‘Yoo-hoos’ for mine.”
“Yoo-hoos,” he said slowly.
“Yoo-hoos—you know, the best drink ever?”
Now he was the one staring at me. I rolled my eyes. “Y-O-O-H—”
“I can spell, thanks.” His voice had snapped back to normal. Fluent and clear. As he began writing, I glanced up at the clock. Class was almost over. My hands shook.
When the bell rang, I sprang to collect my bag and join the others moving into the hallway. I felt better when I got away from Miles, like the revelation I’d had in the chemistry classroom had been nothing but a dream, and I’d woken up from it. I didn’t understand him—he’d come right out of my delusions, but here he was. He straddled the line between my world and everyone else’s, and I didn’t like it.
We arrived at our lockers at the same time. I ignored him, opened my locker, and reached for my textbooks.
They fell right out of their covers like guts out of a fish.
“Looks like someone destroyed the binding in your books,” said Miles.
No shit, asshat. Screw him—Blue Eyes or not, I wasn’t putting up with this.
I picked up my ruined books, stuffed them into my bag, and slammed my locker shut. “Guess I’ll have to fix them.” And then I stomped off toward the gym, knowing I wouldn’t be able to get away from him now.
Chapter Six
Tucker was wrong about the East Shoal Recreational Athletics Support Club. Miles hadn’t chosen that name. Principal McCoy had, and he’d told me so when he explained my mandatory community service to me and my mother.