Unraveling Isobel (8 page)

When I walked into my first class, everyone turned around to stare at me and then began whispering to each other like crazy. Then they turned back around and looked at me again as if they were waiting for me to display some type of deformity or outrageous behavior. I went to the bathroom twice to make sure
I hadn't accidently written on my face with my ballpoint pen. I felt like a transfer student from Leper High with an uncontrolled case of Ebola. I had to fight the urge to run down the hallway yelling “BOOLA BOOLA BOOLA!!!” and waving my hands madly above my head just to give them a reason for all the strange looks.

I called Anita on my cell as I walked to lunch.

“It's worse than I imagined,” I said before she even said hi.

“It's just first-day jitters.”

“I'm not jittery. I'm miserable.”

“You were always my glass-half-full kind of girl,” Anita said. “A ray of sunshine.”

“Easy for you to say, you're not here. You wouldn't believe some of these people. In my calculus class there's this guy …” I started to say before I realized that Anita was talking to someone else in the background.

“Sorry, what did you say?” she asked, tuning back in to me.

“I was telling you about this guy—”

“Cut it out!” Anita yelled, but she was giggling. Someone else was laughing in the background. “Sharon is being an idiot,” Anita explained to me.

“Oh.” I wasn't sure what to say. Sharon was in our class. She was one of those people who defined the term “class clown.” She'd do anything for a joke. If she'd lived in medieval times, she would have been a full-time jester with bells hanging off her hat and giant pointy shoes curling up to her knees. Anita used to
find her really annoying, but apparently not anymore. “Sounds like you guys are having a good time,” I mumbled.

“It's totally not the same without you,” Anita insisted. I could hear people laughing and a burst of conversation swirling around her. While it might not be the same, it didn't sound like it was that bad, either. “I should let you go. Go make some friends. Call me later, okay?” Anita clicked her phone off before I could tell her anything else.

I followed the herd of students to the cafeteria and shoved my phone back into my bag. I didn't know why I bothered to bring it. It wasn't like anyone wanted to talk to me.

My mom had offered to pack a lunch for me, but instead I had taken some money and planned to buy something. That was a mistake. At my old school we had a huge buffet that always had at least three options, all of them edible. We also had a salad bar. But Nairne's hot lunch program was a joke. Prison systems in flea-bitten third-world countries have better food programs. I'm not actually sure what gruel is, but I'm pretty sure that was what they were serving today.

When I got to the front of the line, I asked the lunch lady what it was and she said, “Hot lunch.” Apparently, that was as descriptive as it was going to get. It was hot and it was designed to be eaten at lunch. Other than that there were no words to describe it. There wasn't even a candy/chip vending machine in the place, because some hippie contingent on the island had protested against it for being too corporate.

I looked around the cafeteria, but no one met my eye. I noticed nearly everyone had brought a lunch from home. I held my tray and waited to see if anyone was going to take pity on me, but it didn't look like it. The place wasn't that large, which meant I was going to have to ask to join someone else's table, take my gruel out into the hallway and eat it there, or skip lunch altogether. Then I saw Nathaniel sitting alone at a small round table by the window. I wove my way through the other tables and plopped my tray down. Nathaniel looked up at me.

“Mind if I join you?”

He paused, and for a split second I thought he was going to tell me that I couldn't. My throat started to tighten up, but then he pulled his tray back to make more room.

“Yeah, sure.” He looked back down at his lunch bag and didn't say anything. I waited for him to ask how my first day was going, or if I liked my classes, or even to make some lame comment about the weather, but he just sat there contemplating his pile of chips.

As soon as I sat down I could hear a low-grade hum from the rest of the cafeteria. I turned around and everyone was looking at us. Some eighth grader one table over was sitting there with his mouth wide open while he stared at me. He was caught mid-chew and I could make out from where I was sitting that he was having bologna with that bright neon-yellow mustard.

“Problem?” I asked the kid, and he swallowed and looked away. I turned back around and poked my lunch. I wouldn't have been surprised if it started to fight back. “Good day so far?” I asked, trying to demonstrate how social skills work in polite society.

“Okay.” Nathaniel shrugged.

So much for our big relationship breakthrough yesterday. He flipped through the book on the table, US history. He was either really into studying, fascinated by the Civil War, or ignoring me on purpose. I gave lunch another poke. In theory, emotional upset is supposed to make a person lose their appetite, but I was still starving.

This was stupid. I was going to dump the gruel, consider today a diet, and call Anita back. As long as I was going to be hungry, I didn't need to be starved of human interaction as well. I would force Anita to tell me what tasty thing they were serving at my old school. If she didn't feel like talking to me, at least she could hold up her phone and I could listen in on their discussion.

“Well, this has been fun, but I think I'm going to shove off.” My chair let out a shriek as I pushed away from the table and started to stand.

Nathaniel looked up in surprise. “Wait a second.” He glanced around and then gave a tired sigh. He spotted my tray. “Do you want half of my sandwich?” He held it out, and I had the sense he was offering more than turkey on whole wheat.

“That would be nice.” I took the sandwich from him and sat back down. It wasn't much, but it was progress. “You can have some of mine if you want.” I pushed my tray in his general direction. He pushed it right back.

“No matter what you might hear, I'm many things, but not crazy.”

I laughed. I thought he was joking. He didn't even crack a smile.

Chapter 9

H
igh schools are pretty much the same no matter where you go. There is an elite crowd, the losers, and the majority middle who are trying to either obtain elite status, avoid falling into the loser category, or are just doing their best to survive until graduation, when there's hope of a better life. There might be slight variations on what it takes to be in the cool crowd, but a safe bet is money, good looks, or athletic ability. If you manage to have two out of the three, or all three (a genetic home run), then you are destined to be popular.

I have zero out of the three. Generally, this doesn't bother me. I've never been one of those girls who read all the teen magazines trying to glean advice on how to be popular. I've never cut my hair like a pop star's. I never saw shaking my ass and a pair of pom-poms as a major life goal. Despite what the made-for-TV
movies would lead you to believe is the dream of all teen girls, I have no major aspirations of having the star football player take me to prom, where I could lose my virginity in a glow of pink taffeta and the stink of a carnation corsage.

To be totally honest, most of the popular kids at my old school were dull. How many conversations can you have about the benefits of one brand of hairspray over another? I would rather tweeze my own eyebrows with kitchen tongs than spend hours dissecting who wore what to the dance and how so-and-so asked someone else's boyfriend to dance, and
oh my God
did you see her hair? I mean, really, who cares?

Anita and I weren't bitter outsiders who hated popular kids and secretly plotted their demise because in our hearts we wanted to be one of them. We had our own thing going. We had our own hangouts, friends, and hobbies. The popular crowd was an abstract concept for me. Sort of like the country Bora Bora. I know it exists, but it has no impact on my life whatsoever. I didn't expect things to be any different in my new school. Especially after all the strange looks I got by sitting with Nathaniel at lunch.

This is why I was totally shocked when Nicole Percy sat next to me on the bleachers in gym while our teacher set up the volleyball net. I hadn't been at this school for even a full day and I had already identified Nicole as the queen bee. I would have had to have severe social retardation not to notice that she was the most popular girl this island had going. She was most likely
awarded prom queen status while still in elementary school. Nicole is one of those people who exude popularity. When she walks down the hall, people part in front of her and a gaggle of wannabes trail in her wake. She's blond (of course), and pretty, and her teeth are unnaturally white. Crest should sponsor this girl. When she sat next to me and smiled, I had to look away to avoid being blinded.

“So what do you think of Nairne?” Nicole tossed her hair, showing off shimmering highlights. “It must seem like the middle of nowhere after living in Seattle.”

“It's okay.” I wasn't stupid enough to insult her hometown. This was clearly one of those situations where if I called this place the armpit of Washington, the quote would end up in the local paper and I'd be pelted with rocks whenever I went out in public.

“It must be hard to transfer your senior year.”

“You do what you gotta do.” I was proud of myself for not calling her Captain Obvious. I couldn't figure out why she was talking to me. Either she mistakenly believed I was some sort of a volleyball genius and wanted me on her team, or she was working on her Girl Scouts Friendly to Strangers badge.

“If you need anything, you can just ask me,” Nicole offered. Her eyes suddenly widened. “Hey, you should have lunch with me tomorrow. Then I can introduce you to everyone.”

“Sure. That would be nice.” I was careful to hide my surprise. Maybe the popularity threshold was lower here, and I was getting
bonus points for being from the big city. Nicole was a bit perkier than I preferred, but who was I to be so choosy in the friend department? She seemed nice. It would be great to have someone to hang with, since it wasn't like I could call Anita every second, especially since she was so busy hanging out with Sharon.

Nicole smiled even wider. Her teeth looked like Tic Tacs. Perfectly white, perfectly shaped. “Do you want a ride home after school? I've got a car.”

“I'd love a ride, but I live way out of town.”

“I know where you live.” Her eyes flashed. “Small town, you know, we know everything.”

Chapter 10

I
had pictured Nicole driving something that went with her personality. Maybe a car painted pink with Hello Kitty decals on it. I was surprised when she pulled up to the school door in an olive-colored Jeep with rust holes. The top was down and the sides were splattered with mud.

“Jump in.” Nicole cranked the volume up on the radio.

I threw my backpack onto the floor and buckled in. Nicole was already peeling out. She gave a wave over her shoulder at a group of girls waiting for the bus. One of them was scowling at me. Uh-oh. The world order had been upset.

“I hope giving me a ride didn't put anyone out?”

“It's okay. I usually give Brit a ride, but she lives on the other side of the island altogether. She didn't mind taking the bus.”

I hadn't met Brit yet, but I had the sneaking suspicion she
did
mind taking the bus. She minded a lot. Great. One thing I didn't need at my new school was an enemy.

Nicole sped around a corner, and I grabbed on to the door handle for dear life. My hair was whipping around in the wind, and I suspected by the time I got back to the house it was going to look as if I'd styled it with a blender. Nicole's hair seemed to blow straight back. If anything, she was going to look better at the end of the ride.