Young Writers Society

A/N: In chapter four, the new character's name is Riley. It was originally Braxton, but I ended up changing it (long story; please don't ask). If you see a part where I accidentally call him Braxton, please change it. Also, excuse the French in chapter 3. I'll try not to add any more of that.... xD

Chapter 3:

Taking the bus home was not an option. Missing out on fresh air filling my lungs and warm sun caressing my skin? No thanks.

The plethora of cars in the parking lot made the air smell like gasoline and garages. That new car smell was one I enjoyed, but now it muddled my brain and made me eager for the clean scent of grass and lilacs.

As I waited behind an idling vehicle, a memory tugged at me, holding me captive.

Sitting in the bed of the pick-up while Daddy tinkers around underneath it. The smell of turpentine and oil is heavy. I hand Daddy the wrench and the truck groans when he works his magic on it. Our pick-up is a senior citizen. It creaks in odd places and there was that one summer a few years ago when squirrels had made a nest in the back. That was the summer no one was allowed to go near the garage. Pepper has a pathological fear of getting rabies.

Daddy slides out from under the car and wipes some grease off his cheek with his ever-present rag. “All right. We need to jump start it now.”

I jump out of the bed and slide into the driver’s seat. “Give it a push, Daddy.”

He shoves the car out of the driveway at the same time I turn the keys. The engine revs loudly once before quieting down to a softer purr. I’ve known the sound my entire life. It’s the sound of chipping grey paint, of long drives down back roads. It’s the sound of my father. Before…

I was rattled out of my daydream by a honk behind me. I turned around and mouthed ‘sorry’ to the guy behind the wheel of an ’86 Chevy. He waved to me and I heard him shout, “Move!”

Gladly. I tore out of the parking lot full speed. Sweat had already been pouring down my forehead while I’d been standing, but I needed my happy-brain-nature-drug right now.

I heard the sound of running footsteps, followed by, “Zeph!” as Grace jogged up beside me.

“You don’t take the bus?” I asked her.

She shook her head. “Not anymore. I really want to loose those last five pounds.” She frowned and her shoulders hunched up. “The doctor told me last year that I was overweight. I’ve gone down three sizes since.”

“That’s great!”

Her frown deepened and a little crease appeared between her eyebrows. “Not really. I miss food. My parents don’t let me eat – and I mean really eat, like rich French food; not those tasteless rice snacks. I mean, I haven’t had ice cream since I was thirteen. Can you believe it?”

“Are you kidding me? That’s sick.”

“Yeah, but thanks to that, I’ve found pomegranates. You ever had one?”

I nodded. “I love them! But it’s really hard to find good ones.”

“Oh, yeah. They have to be perfectly ripe – either they’re the best thing you’ve ever tasted, or the worst.”

“You know that French for pomegranate is granade?”

She looked at me, grinning. “Tu parle français?”

“Mais, oui! J’adore cette langue.”

“Ce très belle, n’est pas? Est-ce que tu un francophone naturale?”

“Non; je l’étudie. Et toi?”

“My Mom’s French,” she said. “And yeah, these francophones are awesome. They’re the only ones who’d call a fruit a grenade. Talk about arsonists.”

“Well, they do set cars on fire in the suburbs.”

“Colorful folks, aren’t they?” she laughed.

I chuckled. “Amazing.”

“Well, here’s my street.” She jerked her head towards a fork in the road ahead of us. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

We parted ways.

Every step I took closer to home made me wish for the pallid comfort of school; as much as I hated it, home would not be an ideal place at the moment.

Or so I thought.

When I opened the door – cringing at the hideous squeal it made – my mother was in the kitchen, fingertips brushing lazily against magazine pages as a smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

Not surprisingly, I was wary. Hadn’t it been just yesterday that she had bawled her eyes out? Hadn’t it been just yesterday that she had clung to me like a baby to a blanket while she sucked her thumb?

So… “Why the smile?” I asked, doing my best to sound indifferent.

She looked up and her bright blue eyes swallowed me up. “I met someone.”

My innards twisted. My mind screeched. My fists clenched. My pulse quickened. Already? So soon after Jericho turnpiked on her? Usually, it took her a month. Sometimes two. Once, three. Those had been my times of peace; times when I didn’t have to make petty small talk with imposters who tried to nose their way into positions and roles that did not belong to them.

But, as always, I ground my teeth, forced a smile, and pushed the moonbeam-colored hair that was a gift from my real father out of my eyes.

She proceeded to tell me the story of how she had met Bob Williamson, a doctor – heart surgeon no less – at the grocery store and struck up a conversation with him. He had adopted a three-year old Chinese girl named Lin. On weekends, he ran the youth group down at the church. He played piano and golf. He’d never had a drop to drink his whole life.

He was perfect.

I hated him.

The bad ones shoved knives into her heart. The good ones stabbed repeatedly. The best ones were mythical.

Best did not exist in the world of love. Best was a faerie-story told to children. Let them believe that the universe was made of rainbows and sugar, and that each wart-ridden frog had a happily-ever-after written across her palm.

Mom looked at me, the skies in her eyes filled with doves and angels. “I’m going out with him tonight, and if everything goes well, maybe you and Pepper will meet him soon.”

I grabbed an apple, bit through the skin, and grinned at my mother through a mouthful of crimson flesh.

Chapter 4:

“Class,” Manic Merrigan announced, doing her best not to sound like she’d just robbed an espresso factory. “We have a new student.”

The boy at her side, whom she had introduced as Riley Hivers, smiled as if he personally knew each of us. Merrigan directed him to the only available seat – the one behind mine. Half the girls sighed wistfully. From her position next to me, Grace nudged me and crossed her eyes while twirling her finger next to her ear. I choked back a laugh.

“Today you’ll be working in groups,” Merrigan said. “Partner up with whoever sits behind you. You are to write a prediction about Catcher in the Rye.” We had moved on from Shakespeare and onto yet another book that I had already read.

I turned around, cursing my luck as a dozen pairs of eyes glared at me from behind mascara-clumped lashes. Riley raised his eyebrow at me. “Hey.”

“Hi. I’m Zephyra.”

His brow shot up even higher. “Cool name. Mean something?”

“It’s Greek for wind. Do you know what your name means?”

He smirked. “Nope. My name’s not that uncommon.”

I shrugged. “You read Catcher in the Rye already?”

“Yup. You?”

I nodded and said, “Salinger needs work on his grammar.”

“No, that’s just his diction. Holden’s a guy who flunks out of schools. He’s a guy who gets into fights. He’s not supposed to sound like Robert Frost.”

“True,” I said. “But he reads. Things like Beowulf and Romeo and Juliet. You’d think his speech would reflect that.”

Riley tilted his head to the side thoughtfully. “Ever realize that most books have pretty literate characters? Salinger’s Holden, Harper Lee’s Scout, Sue Monk Kidd’s Lily. Coincidence?”

“Maybe they’re just trying to promote reading. I mean, in real life, most kids wouldn’t look twice at a book.”

“Than call us abnormal.” He chuckled, and I noticed that his face had permanent laugh-lines and crinkles, as if he were merely playing the façade of a teenager. It was easy to see why the girls were already ogling him. He wasn’t particularly cute, but he did look older and more mature. Not that it made a difference to me.

Merrigan frowned when she passed by our desks. “Why haven’t you two written anything?” she demanded.

“We’ve already read the book,” Riley told her.

She looked at us warily before walking away to interrogate another group.

“Is she a good teacher?” Riley asked me, lowering his voice.

I shook my head. “Not at all. I’ve actually lost brain cells in this class.”

“Oh. So she’s the kind of teacher who doesn’t even read the books beforehand?”

“Exactly.”

Seeing that everyone had either finished or opted out on the assignment, Manic Merrigan again interrupted our conversation.

“Okay, class! Would anyone like to share?”

Grace raised her hand and spouted something about a private school drop-out who had a night on the town. I had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing; I knew she’d already read the book as well.

“Well, we’ll just have to see,” Merrigan said, sounding a touch annoyed by Grace’s extremely accurate ‘prediction’.

The period ended with the bell screeching like a harpy eagle. I prodded Grace as we both walked out the door. “Nice job pissing her off.”

She gave me a wolfish grin and said, “Thanks. She probably thinks I’m some kind of freaking psychic now.”

“She’s stupid enough.”

Grace glanced at me from the corner of her eyes. “So, how’s the new guy? Has he got something in that head of his, or is he just another hunk of meat for the girls to drool over?”

I tilted my head to the side thoughtfully. “Actually, he’s pretty smart. He reads, for one thing.”

“Ah. Well, there’s a sure sign of an intelligent guy.” She sighed and frowned slightly. “No one reads anymore.”

“Well we do,” I said, counting on my fingers. “Riley does. Truth and Heather do. My sister Pepper reads. So that makes at least six of us.”

Grace shrugged as we walked into our algebra class. “Six is a pretty small number.”

“At least it’s something.”

We took our seats and Mr. Parker launched into a half-hearted explanation of why we’d need trigonometry in our daily lives. “Suppose you wanted to cover a triangular room with carpet. Suppose your tape measure only reaches a certain length, and you can’t find the hypotenuse. You’d use trig.”

I considered mentioning to him that you could simply buy another tape measure, but I thought better of it.

The period was filled with monotony as I struggled my way through complex math problems. By the time it was over, my head was spinning towards migraine-land. I dashed out of the room as soon as the bell released us, Grace trailing at my heals.

We plopped ourselves down at the first lunch table we saw. I hadn’t really noticed when Grace began sitting with my friends and me. It just seemed like one of those things that was supposed to happen.

“Math is scary,” I whimpered.

Grace patted my shoulder. “I know, honey. That’s why we have calculators.” She winked at me, and I remembered the joke I had made about Spark Notes a few days ago.

I rolled my eyes at her and smiled.

Truth and Heather came into the cafeteria and sat down across from us. “What’s up?” Truth asked.

“Zeph has a pathological fear of arithmetic,” Grace explained.

“But we already knew that,” Heather said. “It’s common knowledge that our dear Zephyra cannot comprehend numbers.”

I glared at her. “Can we not talk about the fact that I am retarded in math?”

I heard the patter of sneakers on the floor just as Truth and Heather simultaneously glanced up, their identical brown eyes widening.

I turned around and found myself face-to-chest with Riley. I craned my neck to look him in the eye. “Can I help you?”

His eyebrows shot up, same as they had when I’d first met him two hours ago. His lips widened into a mocking grin and he said, “Mind if I sit with you? You’re the only one here that I know.”

“Sure,” Grace piped up when I didn’t answer.

“Mathematically retarded, huh?” he asked as he sat down next to me. I grimaced; I knew all too well what happened when someone became too attached to a guy, and I wasn’t about to take the chance. I scooted away from him, nearly bumping into Grace, who gave me a weirded-out look.

“Um, yeah,” I stuttered. “Because I can’t do trig.”

His huge owl eyes danced with amusement. “Miss Literate has trouble with math?” I nodded, and he barked out a laugh.

Truth cleared her throat. I blushed as I realized that I had forgotten to introduce her and Heather to Riley.

“Truth, Heather, this is Riley. He’s new. Riley, these are Truth and Heather, and you know Grace from English.”

“Hey,” he said, nodding at each of them.

“So Riley,” Truth said. “Do you do any sports?”

“I did track at my old school.”

“Oh, you run? Zephyra runs too!”

Turning back to me, he said, “Oh really? I heard tryouts are tomorrow.”

Grace nudged me. “What?” I hissed.

“Hear that? You should try out too,” she whispered.

“Why? It’s not like I care.”

The next afternoon, I found myself standing behind a row of long-legged kids.