Guardian (5 page)

My contribution is to insert, “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” like I'm sure Monsieur Curie did to encourage Madame Curie when she was on a roll. Then I bump into something. Something big.

It's Duncan.

At first, he's got his bully grimace on because he can't even wrap his mind around the idea that Carolina is with me. He must have figured we were like two pieces of flotsam, caught in the student stream, but not really together. But when I stop short, she stops with me and Duncan just stares, the slow chip in his computer struggling to figure this out.

I have the ten ready in my shirt pocket, but I don't reach for it just yet.

“Do you want something?” Carolina asks Duncan.

“Uh …” His eyes fix on her chest. He is incapacitated.

“We're in a hurry,” I say. I take her hand, which is made out of silk and cream, and pull her around him and on to freedom.

“Are you actually friends with him?” she asks me as we leave him in our wake.

“You know what would be really cool?” I say. “Some tiny little seashells. Or, I know, that glitter powder. That would look like mica.”

“Oh!” She squeals. “That would be so cool!”

“Get anything you want for lunch,” I tell her. “I'm buying.”

Carolina chooses the orange spaghetti, so I do too. It's time for me to start living on the edge. As we leave the line, I see people staring at us. For the first time in my life, I like being looked at. I know they're thinking, What did he do to get her? I feel like I'm actually taller with every step I take.

One little downer. In that sea of faces, I pick out Jessie, sitting all alone at the end of a table. Usually she has a couple of loser girlfriends hanging around and I wonder if she banished them for today, hoping the bus ride meant we were starting up a romance or something. That's how girls think, I'm not kidding. I feel almost angry looking at her. Doesn't she know she's a little seventh grader? What does she expect?

“Where do you want to sit?” Carolina asks. When she stands still, she sways a little, like a palm in a light wind.

“Over there.” I point to the opposite end of the cafeteria, away from Jessie's stalker eyes. I'm having the best day of my life. I'm not gonna mess it up by feeling guilty.

When I get home that afternoon, everybody is in the kitchen. It's Jessie's turn to cook and she's standing at the stove, giving me the fisheye.

“What's for dinner?” I ask.

She gives me a nasty smile. “Spaghetti.”

Well, at least it won't be orange. Jessie is a great cook, the best we've got, and she makes everything from scratch, which is why she's working on a sauce at four p.m. No Ragu for her.

Stephanie, Andrea, and Drew are all sitting at the kitchen table, making up cute answers for the Kindergarten Queens magazine contest. Drew rolls her big eyes at me like a hostage trying to signal the FBI.

“Hobbies. What should her hobbies be?” Stephanie asks Andrea.

“Something physical, something mental, and something spiritual,” Andrea suggests.

I pull up a chair. “How about snowboarding, chemical engineering, and Buddhism?”

Now Stephanie gives
me
the fisheye. “If you're not going to be serious, at least don't distract us.”

“I don't want boob-ism!” Drew begs.

Jessie, at the stove, snorts. “That's
Hunter
's new hobby.”

Andrea looks up at that and files it in her snoopy brain. I need to create a diversion. “Why don't you do something crazy and list her real hobbies?” I say. “Eating paste and pulling the heads off Barbies.”

Drew laughs happily. “Put that down!” she says to Stephanie.

“No, honey, that's macabre.” She turns back to Andrea. “How about collecting Barbies, though? That sounds upscale.”

Andrea tilts her head. “Collecting multicultural Barbies!” she offers.

“Oh, please!” Jessie and I say in unison, while Stephanie writes greedily.

“What is that?” Drew tugs on Stephanie's arm.

“Is this how you made out your résumé?” I ask Stephanie, planting my feet carefully in case I need to jump out of range.

But I'm being ignored as much as Drew. “I think she should cook or bake things,” Andrea says. “Put down, trying out new cookie recipes.”

“I gotta go,” I say. No one rushes to stop me. Drew's eyes follow me to the doorway, then swing back to Stephanie. “Can I go too?” she asks.

“Don't you want to hear what we're writing about you, sweetheart?”

“No!”

“Well, okay. Run along.”

Drew follows me down the hall like a little penguin. “Can I help you with something?” I ask her. She follows me into my room and sits on my desk chair while I flop onto the bed.

“Hunter, I don't want to be the queen. I don't like taking pictures of me and making up lies. Stephanie says someday I have to stand in front of men in my bathing suit. I don't like it.”

“You can't take it seriously, Drew. It's just a game. It's not real. You dress up and you play the game and then you either win or lose and you can come home and relax.”

She is shaking her head emphatically. “No. It's not a game. It's real. Stephanie is trying to change me into a doll.”

Usually I think of Drew as a minor annoyance, like radio static or mosquito bites, but when she says this, it's as if she reached into my chest and grabbed my heart.

“Is that how it feels to you?” I almost whisper.

Her voice rises to a low wail. “What if I change into a doll and I can't change back?”

I think of Carolina and some of the other girls in school. I realize Drew is not just a little kid seeing a monster under the bed. She's talking about something important, whether she understands it or not.

I lean forward. “Drew, I totally agree with you. I think this is a real stupid thing to do to a little girl. But you just have to remember she can't change you into anything.”

“You have to stop her, Hunter.”

“Me? What do you think I can do about it? Stephanie's on the trail of money. You might as well ask me to step in front of a moving train.”

“When she puts that letter to the magazine in the mailbox, you steal it and tear it up into a million pieces. Then I won't be the queen and maybe she'll give up.”

I have the stupidest urge to cry. “I can't steal out of a mailbox, Drew. They'll put me in jail if I do.”

“Do it at night and they won't see you!” She's breathing hard, desperate. When you're five, I guess you think a thirteen-year-old boy can do anything.

“No, Drew. They guard the mailboxes. They have locks on them. There's no way I can do that for you. I would if I could.”

She stares at me. “Okay, Hunter.” She slides off the chair.

“Maybe I can talk to Stephanie. Maybe I can do something.”

She's trudging out, looking at the carpet. “Yeah, maybe.”

She closes the door. I hold my breath so I won't cry. I wonder how hard it would actually be to break into a mailbox. I want so much to be what Drew thinks I am. A magical savior.

A guardian angel.

Someone gave me that ten dollars.

I get on my knees. Rolan Thunder looks down from his poster like he thinks I've lost my mind. But what have I got to lose?

“Saint Gabriel?” I try not to listen to my weak little voice. “Thank you so much for the ten dollars. And thank you for sending Carolina to me and making Duncan leave me alone. You solved, like, half my problems in one day. I mean, I think I might get an A on the science project and then Mrs. Morales might like me better too. I mean, it's really cool how you worked everything out for me and if I end up being … friends with Carolina … well, that's maybe too much to ask for but anyway … I want something that's not for myself. I'm not testing you or anything, but Drew really doesn't want to be in that contest. Can you stop the envelope from getting to the magazine? I mean with the other stuff you did today, I would think holding up one little envelope wouldn't be a problem. Not that I'm questioning you. It would mean a lot to me. She's a good little kid, and I don't like what Stephanie is doing to her. Please help me and thank you in advance if you do. I'll pray to you every day if you do this thing for me. Thank you. Amen.”

I stand up, brushing off my knees, feeling like a fool. But hopeful.

Chapter 5

In the media center, I find a book called
A Dictionary of Angels, Including the Fallen Angels
. Now how in the world, I wonder, did that book get into a school library? The left-wing guys should have nabbed it for promoting religion in a public school. The right-wing guys would definitely not want us reading about fallen angels. But I'm used to miracles by now, so it doesn't really surprise me that this book is here for me to find.

I learn that angels, in the whole history of people interacting with them, are more complicated than I thought. Apparently, the Zoroastrians got the first glimpse of them and passed the idea to the Hebrews, who passed it to the Christians, Muslims, and so on. But during all those thousands of years, it's not a consistent team of good guys on a mission. Some of the angels (not fallen) hang out in Hell, exchange jobs, and even names, with other angels, piss off God, get suspensions, even come down to Earth and get into fistfights with humans. Pretty cool. There are girl angels, leopard-spotted angels, shape-shifting angels, you name it. And that's without getting into the fallen angels, which I skip over because I don't want to think about stuff like that. It's scary enough to have a good-natured spirit coming after you. But from this overview I can see that finding a guardian angel in black leather riding a motorcycle is perfectly within the realm of angel norms.

Next I go to the section on Gabriel. I know I'm counting on a memory from age four, but I can still remember that when I had my Visitation, he asked me, “Do you know who I am?” And I said, “No.” And he said, “I'm Gabriel. Hasn't your mom told you anything about me?” And I said yes, and he seemed to like that. Another thing I remember is that when he came through my window, he said, “Hunter, don't be scared.” He not only knew my name, but he used the standard angel greeting. Check your Bible. Every time they appear to someone, they say, right off, “Be not afraid.” And with good reason.

I learn that my guardian angel is one of the top guys in the organization, running second only to Michael. Saint Gabriel is the angel of annunciation, resurrection, mercy, vengeance, death, and revelation. He is the Prince of Justice and the Angel of War. According to the Babylonians, he fell into disgrace once for not following one of God's commandments to the letter, but he was reinstated after a while. So I guess he is some kind of rebel. He was the angel who helped Joan of Arc and he also appeared to some pastor in Indiana, where he left his footprint in some wet cement. Of course his biggest claim to fame is his big scene with the Mother of God, which is what makes him the protector of illegitimate children. Like me.

As I'm reading along, I start to smell flowers. If you were raised Catholic, you know this is something to pay attention to, since Mary and some other saints are supposed to scent the air with roses when they appear to you. So my spine starts to prickle. Then I feel two hands on my shoulders and I scream.

Everyone in the media center, especially Mrs. Wolfe, the media director, stares at me.

“Hunter! Did I scare you?” It's Carolina Cummings, sliding into the chair next to me as I blush and scramble to hide my angel book.

“Yes.” I'm breathing hard, which makes all my sore places hurt. “You did.” I try to control my blushing, but if anything, my face is getting hotter.

“What are you reading?” She flips her finger at my notebook, which I'd slammed down over the angel book. She giggles. “Is it porn?”

I need to take control of this situation. “Yes. I finally cracked Mrs. Wolfe's code and found the porn section in this library.”

She picks up my pen and starts playing with it. “What's your e-mail address, Hunter?”

“My what?”

“What's your e-mail? I want to start e-mailing you now that we're … friends. Mine is Stardust fourteen at Newmail dot com. What's yours?”

I can't tell her that Stephanie is so cheap she won't let us have a computer. She has a laptop, but we're not allowed to touch it. She says she's protecting us from Internet predators.

I need to think fast here. Stalling, I take out a sheet of paper, careful not to flash my forbidden book. “What's that address again?” While she's repeating and I'm writing, I figure out what I have to do. I know we can get free e-mail accounts from Yahoo here in the media center. The “economically disadvantaged” kids do that. I never bothered to set up an account because I basically had no friends. But now I guess I do.

“I'm Shoehorn six at Yahoo dot com,” I say. I'm pretty sure I've picked a handle that nobody would want.

“Shoehorn?” Carolina flips back her curls.

“Uh. It's a private joke. I'd better not explain it to you.”

She laughs, touching her perfect tongue to her perfect teeth. “You are so bad, Hunter.” Her hand perches on my arm. “I'll see you later, Mr. Shoehorn!”

After I'm done watching her walk away, I see that all the kids in the media center are still staring, obviously wondering how someone like me hooked up with someone like her.
Because I've got friends in high places, chumps
! I reshelve my book and go to Mrs. Wolfe to set up my account.

When I open my locker before fourth period, I see something like confetti. I pick up a few pieces and examine them. It's Drew's entry form in the Kindergarten Queens contest—intercepted, shredded, and delivered. I close the locker door and murmur, “Thank you, Saint Gabriel.”

Jessie and I come home to an empty house. I already know that it's the day when Andrea stays late to meet with her geeky service club. There's a note from Stephanie that says she's working late and Drew got picked up at kindergarten by some friend's mom. It's Stephanie's turn to cook but she knows she's going to be exhausted. Will someone order a couple of pizzas?