—Tulipia, Aromateur, 1755
THE ROOSTER’S CROWING jolts me awake. Mother’s gone. I smell only the fraying threads of her winter’s bark base notes. I wrestle on the nearest clothes—T-shirt, sundress, oversized sweater, and leggings—and then peer into my mirror. Dark circles bloomed overnight under my eyes, which look more snail brown than amber at the moment.
I employ a battalion of bobby pins to keep my hair out of my face, jamming them in wherever I see a stray lock. My chin-length bob is begging for a real trim after that last hack job I gave it.
I’m so jittery, I want to pedal to the train station right now, but Meyer doesn’t open until one on Tuesdays. And I have to go to school anyway, because Mr. Frederics might wonder why I’m not at algebra.
Mother left a bowl of oatmeal sprinkled with raisins on the kitchen table with a note.
SEE YOU IN A WEEK. EMERGENCY CELL # ON FRIDGE.
LOVE, M.
P.S. CHECK ON MS. DICARLO.
Did Mr. Frederics tell Mother about Alice’s odd behavior? Did something happen or not happen between him and Ms. DiCarlo? We always follow up on the targets to make sure they don’t adversely react to our potions. But Mother’s never had to remind me to do it.
I choke down the oatmeal, grab a beret, and dash off to school.
I whiz through the parking lot, past Court’s Jeep and Mr. Frederics’s bamboo-green hybrid, feeling every glance thrown my way like a pie in the face. No one cares about my problems any more than they didn’t yesterday, but I’m still self-conscious, as if everyone knows what I’ve done to Alice. I reassure myself that Court wouldn’t say anything, for his mother’s sake, if nothing else.
Today’s Cardio Fitness leader, Vicky, stands in front of the class, fiddling with her phone. Kali stretches to one side, then the other. “Thought you were going to Meyer.”
“I’m catching the 12:20 train.”
The bluesy sounds of a guitar blare from the speakers, making the air ducts vibrate. We exchange a look when we recognize the song, “There’s a Place for You and Me,” a slow ballad that’s not exactly cardio.
Ms. Bobrov waves her wristbanded hands at Vicky. “Wait, wait.”
Vicky cuts the music and asks, “Something wrong?”
“This song ees not right.” The teacher snaps her fingers.
“Oh, come on, Ms. B.” Vicky slides her eyes to Kali, who’s gone as still as an oak tree. “Some of us just move to a different beat.”
Vicky jerks her head from side to side, cracking her neck, then pins me with her gaze. “It’s just the warm-up song.”
Melanie says, “Please, Ms. B!” in support of her BFF and then more voices join in. Ms. Bobrov throws up her hands. “Oh, very well. After zis, then we need something more zippy.”
Vicky switches on the music again and the class starts following her lame moves. Kali follows, too, but at half her usual speed. I’m close enough to see that she’s shaking.
The singer belts the chorus:
Just because we both wear heels, don’t mean our love’s not real.
One day, the world will see, there’s a place for you and me.
Kali throws me a dark look then picks her way toward the exit, leaving a queasy trail of frogbit in her wake. She says something to Ms. Bobrov, who nods curtly, then disappears out the door.
As Vicky executes the lamest jumping jack in the history of jack jumping, I’m resolved. I can’t stand by while Vicky ruins Kali’s life, one cruel prank at a time. Operation Fix Vicky officially begins.
On the way to algebra, I stop by the brick planters, though this time I’m not looking for aloe. Instead, I reach for a plant with straw-like flowers, otherwise known as sneezeweed, which likes to grow wherever it can find a layer of dirt to stand in. Nasal secretions can substitute for saliva in a pinch.
I pull off my beret and begin crumbling the flowers into my hair. Unlike the rest of the population, I’m immune to sneezeweed allergies.
Vicky is discussing the hotness of the pop star Tyson Badland with Melanie when I enter the classroom with my beret at a jaunty angle. Her gaze stretches toward an exposed pipe in the ceiling as if looking at that surely beats noticing what’s coming through the door. Mr. Frederics is writing an equation in his neat block letters. He pauses midequation, stares up at the clock, and smiles. What’s he thinking about? Or, more important, who?
I shake myself out of my thoughts and focus on the task at hand. Drew’s doodling in his notebook again, this time with a calligraphy pen. He wrote, “‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’—Nietzsche.”
He notices my interest.
“Nice calligraphy,” I say, slipping into my chair. “Carolingian, right?”
His smile pulls his chin into a point. “Yeah, Carolingian. I’m branching out from Gothic. You know calligraphy?”
“Yes. You ever try parchment? It’ll give you cleaner lines.”
His head bobs up and down, and his red-rimmed glasses slip down his nose. “Cool.”