The Otherworldlies (9 page)

“Why not? Why do you keep giving me all these half stories?”

“I’m going to help you in any way I can. You shouldn’t worry about that man, though. Not yet anyway. I just can’t talk about it right now. Please trust me.” Lindsey’s voice was distant and withdrawn. Fern turned her head to look back at Lindsey. Lindsey’s most distinctive quality—her confidence—had all but drained from her voice and expression. Her face had turned pale and she looked deeply distressed.

Fern thought for a moment. There was a small part of her that thought friendship was not Lindsey’s only motivation. After all, Lindsey already had plenty of friends. What did she want with Fern? The larger part of her was thrilled: thrilled to be bonding with a classmate, thrilled with the attention, thrilled to have an ally. Fern pushed the smaller part, her worry, to the back of her mind.

“Okay,” Fern said.

The two did not speak as Lindsey worked with diligence on Fern’s hair. Black locks fell on and around Fern. Finally, Lindsey spoke again.

“From now on, Fern, I want you to sit next to me in chapel.”

“All right,” Fern said.

“Is it all right if I come by every once in a while during lunch, like Sam does?” Lindsey asked.

“Sure,” Fern said, unable to hide her surprise that Lindsey had even noticed Sam’s lunchtime visits.

“Good,” Lindsey said, standing up behind Fern. She patted Fern’s shoulders, indicating she was all finished. “Go ahead and take a look.”

Fern lifted herself up from the tiled floor. As soon as her head reached mirror level, she lurched backward. She hardly recognized herself.

Lindsey had layered Fern’s hair very short in the back, almost up to her hairline. In the front, her hair was much longer, cutting a sharp angle on each side of her face as it tapered to the length of the back. The drastic angle—from short in the back to long in the front—made Fern’s features pop out from her face. Her eyes now looked large and clover green. Her small pointed nose and red lips were focal points on her face.

“I look like a forest fairy,” Fern said, unable to take her eyes off her new mirror image.

“Like an incredibly cool fairy,” Lindsey said, admiring her own work. Fern, who sometimes passed for eight or nine, now looked much older than twelve, despite her small frame.

“Where’d you learn to cut hair like that?” Fern said, feeling the back of her head.

“You’re my first,” Lindsey said, smiling at Fern in the mirror.

“My mother may in fact kill me,” Fern said, smiling back.

“If she doesn’t kill me first.”

Fern and Lindsey’s smiles evolved seamlessly into laughter. Soon both girls were on the floor in a heap of giggles and hair. Several minutes passed before the bell broke up the girls’ laughter. Chapel was officially dismissed. Fern and Lindsey crawled along the floor and cleaned up every visible scrap of hair.

Fern got up, feeling a slight tingle behind the skin of her forehead. This, she thought to herself, must be what it was like to make a friend—to have someone to talk to that wasn’t related to you.

Fern was beaming when she pushed the door of the bathroom open, ready to take on the whole of St. Gregory’s, knowing Lindsey Lin was right behind her.

Chapter 6
the chapel mishap

T
o say Fern’s haircut was big news at St. Gregory’s would not be quite accurate.

It was a sensation.

After Fern showed up in class, her hair was all anyone was talking about. Fern looked so different, so changed, every pair of eyes was on her. Some of her classmates were convinced she now resembled an anime character, with her big eyes and small, perfectly round mouth. Others were convinced she was a younger, nymphet version of Catherine Zeta-Jones. Even Mrs. McAllister, who was a little bothered that Fern had cut her hair without any consultation, had to admit that her daughter had taken on a pixie quality that suited her.

When someone confirmed that Lindsey Lin had given Fern the cut while both girls were playing hooky from chapel, citing as evidence the scissors found in the girls’ rest room, the whole story took on the aura of myth. By the end of the week, eleven of St. Gregory’s socially elite had asked Lindsey Lin if she could give them a cut too. Lindsey refused, but always made sure to note that she gave Fern the cut because she was “cool but misunderstood.” Fern’s reputation was morphing. Though she was still a loner, she was becoming less of a punching bag.

In fact, the seventh grade was the kind of place where small adjustments could make a huge difference. The new association with Lindsey Lin had changed Fern’s school life inside and out. When Fern was with Lindsey, she actually felt normal. Having a friend gave Fern a break from the questions about herself that tormented her.

Along with the lunch visits from Sam and Lindsey, Fern looked forward to chapel. Chapel now represented the locale where Fern sat next to the most popular girl in school. Lindsey would wait by the entrance as other students filed into the chapel, and then rejoin the line slightly in front of Fern, ensuring they would sit together.

Today Fern followed Lindsey Lin up the stone cut steps, as she had for the past three weeks.

Mother Corrigan stood at the chapel’s entrance along with Headmaster Mooney, greeting the students with a warm smile. St. Gregory’s Mother Corrigan never discriminated, always smiling brightly as each student passed by, bidding good day to all. Headmaster Mooney’s role that morning, as it was every morning, was that of an enforcer. If a student failed to wear his or her formal dress on a chapel day, an after-school detention was administered on the spot. It was never much of a stretch to imagine that the headmaster delighted in this job.

“Lindsey, what are you doing?” Fern whispered over her friend’s shoulder.

“Huh?”

“You’re wearing running shoes!” They were forty feet away from the chapel, getting closer to the entrance by the second. Fern could see the shimmer coming from Headmaster Mooney’s bald head.

“Darn it!” Lindsey said, looking down at her New Balance running shoes sticking out from underneath her pleated and cuffed dress pants. “This is my third time—I’m in for a Saturday school!” Lindsey rolled her eyes as she mentioned one of St. Gregory’s most hated institutions. Saturday school involved spending five hours at St. Gregory’s at the mercy of a junior or senior supervisor and Mr. Unger, head of the student recycling program, picking up trash on the school grounds and writing an essay on what kind of behavioral change was necessary to avoid receiving a Saturday school in the future. A student wasn’t even allowed to do homework—that activity was not viewed as a sufficiently severe punishment. There were worse ways to spend a Saturday, but not many. “I wish there was something I could do to get out of this,” Lindsey moaned as the girls kept walking.

When Fern and Lindsey arrived at the chapel entrance, Mother Corrigan, with her cropped haircut and wire-rimmed glasses, radiated the warmth and acceptance students had come to expect, but soon Headmaster Mooney was upon the two girls. Wasting no time, he scanned Fern’s outfit: collared St. Gregory’s shirt, trousers that had been Eddie’s, and patent leather loafers that had been in the McAllister family for years. It certainly wasn’t pretty, but it passed for formal. In combination with her new haircut, which had grown out a bit in the last three weeks, she looked absentmindedly stylish, even if it was all a huge coincidence.

Fern could see the headmaster’s eyes lock on Lindsey’s New Balances. He feasted on the impropriety of it all.

“Miss Lin, you must have lost your shoes,” Headmaster Mooney said as if he were laying a trap for Lindsey.

“I’m pretty sure I’m wearing them,” Lindsey said, giving Headmaster Mooney a coy smile.

“I mean that you must have lost your chapel-appropriate shoes,” Headmaster Mooney said. “This is your third time this semester, is it not?”

“Actually, Headmaster Mooney,” Fern said, almost beginning to stammer, “Lindsey lent me her shoes because she knew how mad my mom would be if I got a detention.” She seized the chance to return the unspeakable kindness Lindsey had shown her. “She took pity on me—I’m the one who should get the detention.”

“That’s not true,” Lindsey said. “These are my shoes.”

Headmaster Mooney raised his hand, signaling his desire for the girls to stop talking. The line into the chapel had come to a dead halt, and other students craned their necks to figure out what the holdup was all about.

“Since neither of you is sure whose shoes are whose, you’re both getting a Saturday school,” he said, glowering at Fern and taking a pad and pencil out of his shirt pocket. “In fact, Miss McAllister, you’ll receive
two
for lying. And since this is your third offense, Miss Lin, I’m writing you up for two as well.”

Mother Corrigan cast her head down, slightly chagrined as the headmaster raised his voice at the girls. “You can spend the next couple of Saturdays reminding yourselves that making a mockery of chapel and lying to school officials will not be tolerated at St. Gregory’s.” The headmaster smiled with perverse pleasure at the two girls’ plight. “Keep the line moving, please,” he said to nobody in particular.

Faced with no choice but to follow Headmaster Mooney’s instructions, Fern and Lindsey filed in to the chapel, which was bright with the light of morning.

“Why’d you do that, Fern?”

“Do what?”

“You just made the situation worse.”

“I thought me getting a detention was better than you getting a Saturday school,” Fern said.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t ask you to do that. You made the whole thing a bigger deal than it should have been—now the whole school knows I forgot my shoes and thinks I’m a liar,” Lindsey said, sitting down on the pew next to Fern while deliberately looking the other way. Lindsey was the one who had first drawn attention to the fact that she and Fern were friends. Was she embarrassed to be with Fern now?

Fern looked at Headmaster Mooney sauntering up the aisle. In Fern’s mind, she’d acted valiantly by trying to save Lindsey from the pain of Saturday school. Yet Headmaster Mooney had twisted her act into something negative that turned Lindsey against her. Friendship was new to Fern and the idea that Headmaster Mooney had thrown a wrench into the mechanics of the whole thing made Fern terribly angry. As Fern sat in the chapel, St. Gregory’s most spiritual place, she was sure she hated him.

On most Tuesdays, Mother Corrigan led the standing students in song, usually a psalm, and then began her sermon. Today, however, Headmaster Mooney marched up to the pulpit in order to address the entirety of the middle grades. Three hundred students watched him make his way up the wooden steps—steps that almost seemed to bow under the weight of the large man.

“Good morning to you all,” Headmaster Mooney began, taking a sip of water from the glass on the lectern. His voice sounded deep and cavernous. He looked enormous. Perhaps Fern was used to the dainty presence of Mother Corrigan, but as the headmaster stood above her, overwhelming the pulpit with his large teeth and mustache, he reminded Fern of a beached walrus.

“I wanted to make a few remarks before I hand the podium over to Mother Corrigan,” Headmaster Mooney said, clearing his throat. He directed his gaze in Fern and Lindsey’s direction.

“Now, I’ve noticed a distinct increase in formal dress violations on chapel days. This trend is alarming. Many of you may wonder why St. Gregory’s insists upon formal dress. Well, not only is it a tradition, it is also a means of displaying your reverence for this institution and God himself. I want to point out that certain members of the middle grades are defying the rules, and also lying after getting caught.”

Headmaster Mooney’s words echoed off the concrete walls. His gaze was so conspicuously locked on Fern and Lindsey that whole rows of students sitting in front of them turned around to figure out at whom the headmaster was directing his diatribe. Fern turned red from anger, not embarrassment. She stared right back at the headmaster, glaring, wishing to herself that something terrible would befall the headmaster at that very moment.
Maybe he’ll fall off the pulpit and wind up flat on his face. Maybe something will drop down and hit him on the head. Maybe he’ll blurt out something terrible, or his pants will fall down and everyone will point and laugh. Maybe he’ll have an accident and not be able to make it to the bathroom in time.

Fern closed her eyes, forgetting Lindsey’s anger for the time being and concentrating on her own
.
As she imagined these scenarios, each seemed more delightful than the last.

“Not only are these students setting a terrible example for others, they also view themselves as, um . . .” The headmaster’s voice trailed off.

“They also view, uh, view them, or, um themselves,” he continued, uncharacteristically stumbling over his words.

“They view . . . they view . . .”

A bated murmur gurgled throughout the chapel. Anticipation over Headmaster Mooney’s next move heightened as his thick brown mustache contorted into strange positions on his face. The headmaster’s discomfort was growing—that much was clear.

“Excuse me,” Headmaster Mooney said, bolting down the stairs, his hands draped over the pleats of his pants. Fern couldn’t see Mooney clearly from her position in the back of the chapel. The first four rows, however, could see him quite clearly. He sprinted to the side exit, marked
EMERGENCY
, now gripping the front of his pants. The entire chapel was buzzing with the excited chatter of an unfathomable event.

“Headmaster Mooney wet himself!” someone shouted.

The chapel chatter had turned into an official commotion. Wild laughter reverberated off the chapel walls. It did not take a PhD in psychology to figure out that there was no human behavior more contagious than church laughter.

Mother Corrigan, showing a good amount of agility, was up at the pulpit and leaning into the microphone within seconds of Headmaster Mooney’s unexpected departure.

“Quiet down, please.” The ruckus began to subside. “Please. Thank you,” Mother Corrigan said, as serenely as if she hadn’t just witnessed the headmaster of St. Gregory’s scramble out of the chapel with a large wet stain on the front of his pants.

“I’d like to begin with a short passage from Deuteronomy 31:8: ‘He will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.’” Mother Corrigan looked up from her Bible and took her glasses off. “Now, that’s all well and good,” she continued, “but how do we incorporate faith into our everyday lives?”

Mother Corrigan had not missed a beat, but Fern promptly tuned her out, able to concentrate on little else but the headmaster’s dramatic exit. She told herself there was no connection between her fantasy and what had just happened. Lindsey turned toward Fern, aghast. The two girls did not speak; Fern’s eyes were wide with guilt.

Mother Corrigan spoke for fifteen minutes before ending her sermon with a series of hymns.

Fern filed out of the chapel lost in her thoughts. A few weeks ago, the unremitting sunlight beating down on her would have driven her to tears. But because of Lindsey’s bottles, she felt no ill effects at all. Her mind wandered elsewhere: Could she have possibly affected Headmaster Mooney in that way? Was her imagination poisonous? Fern was learning, in terms of her own life, that the most implausible answer was usually the right one.

Lindsey gripped Fern’s wrist and pulled her out of line. Fern stumbled along behind as the two rounded the back of the chapel.

“Follow me,” Lindsey said.

Fern trailed Lindsey up the steps and toward the library. Lindsey kept walking, turning around every so often to make sure that Fern was following behind her. She pushed through a pair of doors that led to the library. Fern ran to catch up.

The two girls were now standing in the Hall of Legends. Over a decade ago, an alum by the name of Davis Orbit had donated a sizable amount of money to St. Gregory’s for a new library on the condition that the school would build a foyer dedicated to the “giants of Academia.” It turned out that the donor had a very specific vision for the room. Columns lined the hallway and the marble floor was polished with great care. The gray stone walls were engraved with quotations in Greek characters with their English translations underneath. Three white marble busts stood on each side of the hallway, each resting on its own pedestal, all commissioned by the fanatical donor. Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Pythagoras, Aristophanes, and Homer stared at Fern and Lindsey with their unflinching marble eyes.

“Why did you drag me in here?” Fern asked.

“I wanted to go somewhere private,” Lindsey said resentfully. “The last thing I need is half the school watching us.” Her voice echoed off the walls of the hall. “Now,” she continued, “how did you do that?” Her voice sounded exactly as it had when she appeared in the bathroom that day. Only this time her wrath was directed at Fern.

“Do what?” Fern said, wondering how things had gotten so contentious so quickly. To Fern, the friendship gods seemed to be a pretty fickle bunch.

“You’re a Poseidon and you know it. How else did you do that to Mooney?”

“What are you talking about? Poseidon?”

“Stop messing with me. Who taught you to do that, Fern? When did you find out you were a Poseidon? You’re not really as clueless as you’re acting.” Lindsey grew enraged. “Do you realize how much trouble you could get in if someone from the Alliance finds out you did that in public?”