Avalon High (4 page)

During dinner, Will told funny stories about Cavalier and about the pranks the middies down at the academy sometimes played on one another, as well as on their instructors. He didn’t look bored when my dad told him all about the sword, or when my mom quoted a few more verses of
The Lady of Shalott
, as she is embarrassingly prone to do after a glass of wine with dinner.

He even laughed at my impressions of the Graul’s bag boys, and also at my reenactment of the Great Snake Rescue.

Nancy has always frowned on my joking around with boys. She says boys don’t develop romantic feelings for girls who goof around like stand-up comics. How can he fall in love with you, Nancy always wanted to know, if
he’s too busy laughing?

And while she may have a point—certainly no boys have fallen in love with me, with the exception of Tommy Meadows in the fifth grade, but his family moved to Milwaukee right after he declared his undying devotion…a fact which may, now that I think of it, be what spurred the declaration in the first place—my dad says he fell in love at first sight with my mom because at the faculty party where they met, she had written
Demoiselle d’Astolat
on her Hello, My Name Is…lapel sticker.

Which they all had got a terrific yuk out of. It’s actually a really lame joke, but what do medievalists know?

Not that I was trying to make A. William Wagner fall in love with me, of course. Because I’m perfectly aware that he’s taken.

It’s just that, remembering the way that shadow had seemed to pass across his face down at the pool, I thought maybe he could use a laugh. That’s all.

Will left after dinner. He thanked my parents, calling my mom
ma’am
and my dad
sir
—which made me crack up—and then he said, “See you tomorrow, Elle,” to me.

Then he was gone, melting into the twilight exactly the way he’d appeared at the side of my pool. As if from nowhere.

But I actually waited outside until I heard his car door slam, and saw his car’s taillights as he headed down our long driveway, proving he wasn’t a specter or—what had Mr. Morton been talking about in World Lit today? Oh yeah—a
bocan
, the Gaelic word for “ghost.” See, I
had been paying attention in class. Sort of.

Elle. He’d called me Elle. As in…El. Short for Ellie.

No one’s ever called me Elle before. No one. Just Ellie—which, if you ask me, is sort of a babyish name. Or Elaine, which is sort of old-ladyish.

But not Elle. Never Elle. I’m so not the Elle type.

Except, apparently, to A. William Wagner.

“Well,” my dad said, when I came back into the house, after watching Will leave, “he seems like a nice guy.”

“Will Wagner,” my mom said, as she turned on
Jeopardy!
“I like that name. It’s a very regal-sounding sort of name.”

Oh, God. I could so see where all of this was heading. They thought Will liked me. They thought Will was going to be my new boyfriend, or something. They had no idea—no idea—what was really going on.

But then again, neither did I, really. I mean, the truth is, if somebody had asked me to explain what that all had been about back there—him showing up at the side of my pool, then staying for dinner—I wouldn’t have known
what
to say. I had never had a boy do any of those things before…let alone laugh at all my jokes.

I was trying not to make a big deal out of the whole thing, though. Will was nice, but he had a girlfriend. A pretty, cheerleader girlfriend.

Who he apparently didn’t want to talk about.

Which, when I thought about it, was pretty weird.

But the weirdest part of all was that while it had been
happening—once I’d gotten used to the idea, I mean, of this hot guy hanging out with me—it hadn’t actually seemed that weird at all. It was like that smile Will had given me that day in the park, the one I hadn’t been able to keep from returning. It had just seemed natural, even right, to smile back, just like it had seemed totally natural—natural and, yes, right—to have Will there, joking around with the silverware as we set the table, laughing at my Graul’s bag boy imitation.

That
was what was weird. That it hadn’t actually
been
weird.

Still, when Nancy called later that evening, and my dad answered first, and said, “Ah, Nancy. She has a lot to tell you,” I didn’t try to play the whole thing down as much as I should have. Because I knew Nancy would tell everyone back home. About my having had a boy over for dinner my very first day at my new school. I made sure to mention that he was on the football team, sailed, and was president of the senior class, too.

Oh, and that he looked very, very good in a swimsuit.

Nancy practically had kittens right there on the phone.

“Oh my God, is he taller than you?” she wanted to know. This had always been a problem, because for most of my life, I’ve been taller than the vast majority of boys in our school, with the exception of Tommy Meadows.

“He’s six two,” I said.

Nancy cooed appreciatively. At five ten, I’d still be able to get away with heels if we went out, she said.

“Wait until I tell Shelley,” Nancy said. “Oh my God, Ellie. You did it. You were able to start over at a whole new school and give yourself a total personality makeover. Everything’s going to be different for you now. Everything! And all you had to do was move to a totally new state and start going to a completely new school.”

Yeah. Things were definitely starting to look up.

That’s really what I thought.

Then.

I took the bus to school the next day. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Liz, the girl from the track team who lived nearby, was waiting at the stop, so we started talking, then ended up sitting next to each other.

Liz is a high jumper. She let me know right away that she doesn’t have a boyfriend or a driver’s license yet.

I knew we had solid groundwork for friendship based on the latter two facts alone.

I didn’t mention to Liz that A. William Wagner had visited me after school the day before, then stayed for dinner. For one thing, I didn’t want to seem like I was bragging. And for another, well, Liz seemed to really like talking about people in school, and I wasn’t entirely
convinced it was a good thing to have spread around. That Will had come over to my house, I mean.

I got a pretty good idea, in fact, that it was a bad thing when I closed my locker a few periods later and found Jennifer Gold standing on the other side of it, not looking too happy.

“I hear Will came over to your house for dinner last night,” Jennifer said, in a distinctly unfriendly voice.

Since I hadn’t told anyone that Will had been over, I knew the spillage was courtesy of him. Unless Jennifer had spies in my neighborhood, or something, which seemed unlikely.

So I just said, wondering why tiny girls like Jennifer always get the tallest boyfriends, leaving all the pip-squeaks for giraffes like me, “Yes. He did.”

But Jennifer didn’t say what I expected her to say. She didn’t go, “Well, he’s my boyfriend, so hands off,” or “If you so much as look at him again, you’re a dead woman.”

Instead she asked me a question: “Did he say anything about me?”

I looked down at Jennifer wondering if she, like her boyfriend, was also suffering from some kind of mild form of psychosis—only in her case, not on account of liking me.

She looked sane enough in her pale pink cotton sweater set and capris. But it’s hard to tell if someone’s crazy just by how they dress. The cheerleaders at my old school dressed totally regular, but a couple of them were certifiable.

“Um,” I said. “No.”

“Or Lance?” Jennifer’s perfectly made-up eyes narrowed. “Did he say anything about Lance?”

“Only,” I said, “that the two of them sailed up the coast this summer. Why?”

But Jennifer didn’t answer my question. She just went, “Good,” looking relieved. Then she walked away.

But Jennifer Gold wasn’t the only person who asked me about Will that day.

Mr. Morton, my World Lit teacher, announced that for our first nine-week project, he was assigning us each a poem to study and then deliver an oral report about. In front of the whole class. The report would count toward twenty percent of our semester grade, and had to include critical, secondary, and source materials.

As if that weren’t bad enough, he was also assigning us partners to work with.

Gee, thanks, Mr. Morton.

He handed out our partners’ names first. When I got mine, I raised my eyebrows.

Because my partner’s name was Lance Reynolds.

Which didn’t seem possible, since I’d been certain yesterday that I didn’t have any classes with the guy. I mean, after all, he was a year older than me, like Will.

But sure enough, when I turned around, there he was in the back of the room. He was looking down at the slip of paper Mr. Morton had handed him, his golden brow furrowed as he tried to figure out who Elaine Harrison was. When he glanced up and saw me staring at him, I
raised my own slip and mouthed, “Lucky you.”

He didn’t react the way I’d have expected a jock who’d been assigned to do a project with the too-tall new girl would. Instead of sniggering or even just nodding, he turned a deep, dark shade of umber. It was kind of interesting to watch, really.

Then Mr. Morton gave us each our poem. Ours was
Beowulf.

My heart sank when I saw it. I hate
Beowulf
almost as much as I hate
Jeopardy!

“Right, everyone,” Mr. Morton said, in his clipped British accent. “Find your partner and discuss how you’d like to approach your topic. I’d like your outlines on my desk by Friday.”

I got up and went back to where Lance was sitting, since it didn’t seem likely he was going to come up to me. He was pretending that he didn’t see me coming, messing around with his books and everything, when I slid into the empty desk in front of his.

“Hi,” I said, in a phony voice, like on a commercial. “I’m Ellie, and I’ll be your project partner this semester.”

He messed up, though. He’d been trying to pretend like he didn’t know who I was. But somehow, “I know,” slipped from between his lips, and he turned an even darker shade of red.

This was pretty interesting. I couldn’t remember ever having made a guy blush before. I wondered what Lance had heard about me, to make him react that way.

“I…I saw you that day,” he stammered, by way of
explanation. He didn’t look like the kind of guy who stammered often. “That day in the park.”

“Oh yeah,” I said, like I had only just remembered the incident myself. “Right.”

“Will had dinner at your house last night,” Lance said. Carefully. Too carefully, I thought. Like he was fishing for information.

“Yeah,” I said. I wondered if he, like Jennifer, was going to ask if Will had talked about him.

But he didn’t.

“So,” Lance said. “
Beowulf
, huh?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I hate
Beowulf
.”

Lance looked kind of surprised. “You’ve already read it?”

I realized what kind of dweeb I must have sounded like. I mean, it was bad enough I was even taking World Literature. It’s an elective, open to anyone in any grade who’s interested—or who needs an extra humanities credit, as Lance evidently did. It was even worse that I’d already read most of the books on the syllabus. On my own. Because they’re all the same books that have been sitting on my parents’ bookshelves forever, and it’s not like I ever had much of a social life, so…

Not wanting to admit this, however, I just said hastily, “Well, yeah. My parents are professors. Medieval studies.
Beowulf
is kind of their thing.”

It was as I was saying this that I noticed a skinny-necked kid in glasses, sitting one desk over, looking at us very intently. When he saw me glance his way, he went,
“Sorry but…did I hear you say you guys have
Beowulf
?”

“Yeah,” I said, glancing over at Lance, who was staring at the kid with narrowed eyes. I recognized the look. It was the kind of look the popular give to the unpopular—like Lance couldn’t believe Skinny Neck had had the nerve to speak to him. “So what?”

Skinny Neck glanced nervously at his partner, an equally nerdy-looking kid.

“We love
Beowulf
,” he said, his voice going up a few octaves on the last syllable.

“Yeah,” his partner agreed. “Grendel rules.”

I supposed Grendel
would
rule to a couple of guys who, back in the Middle Ages, probably wouldn’t have made it past the age of five on account of inhalers not having been invented yet, or whatever.

“What’d you get?” I asked Skinny Neck, referring to his assigned poem.

“Tennyson,” Skinny Neck said, making no effort to hide his dissatisfaction.

I recoiled.

“Not
The Lady of Shalott
,” I said, in horror.

“Yeah,” Skinny Neck said. Seeing my expression, he added, “It’s way shorter than
Beowulf
.”

“Sorry,” I said, seeing all too clearly where this was headed. “No can do.”

“Wait a minute.” Lance butted in. “What’s wrong with the shallot lady? If it’s short—”

“My mom’s writing a book on her,” I interrupted, not
mentioning the part about having been named for the main character in the poem.

“Then the paper’ll be a cinch,” Lance said, brightening. “Just ask your mom what to say!”

I stared at him. I couldn’t believe this was happening. And yet, at the same time, I sort of could. Which seemed to be how my life was going at Avalon High. Weird and yet strangely not weird.

“Contrary to how you might do your homework,” I said, in a desperate effort to save myself from what I saw barreling down on me, knowing full well there was no escape, “I do my homework myself, without my parents’ help.”

“This one’s shorter,” Lance said, taking the piece of paper from Skinny Neck’s fingers. “We’re doing it.”

It was obvious there wasn’t going to be any discussion, much less arguing, over the issue. Lance had spoken. And what Lance says—it was perfectly clear, even to the new kid, namely me—goes.

I’ll admit it. I was peeved. I’m sick of the Lady of Shalott. Her and her stupid robes of snowy white, loosely flying left and right.

“Fine,” I said, snatching the topic paper out of his hands. “I’ll write it. But you have to stand up in front of the class and read it.”

The smug expression vanished from Lance’s face. “But—”

“You’re doing it,” I said, matching the tone he’d used with me exactly. “Or we can just flunk, for all I care.”

He looked stricken. “I can’t get an F. Coach won’t let me play.”

“Then give the report,” I said.

Sinking a little deeper beneath his desk, Lance said, “Whatever,” which I—and the nerds, who turned in their seats to give each other high fives, triumphant in having secured Grendel—took to mean he agreed.

When the bell rang, I waited until Lance had cleared the room before I followed him, so we wouldn’t have to make awkward conversation out into the hallway. I ended up exiting the classroom right behind the nerds….

So I had a front row seat to what happened next.

And that was that some of Lance’s friends from the football team met him outside the classroom door. Then one of them—either because he was bored, or mean, or possibly a combination of both—reached out and, as one of the nerds in front of me passed through the doorway, snatched the kid’s notebook.

“Rick,” Skinny Neck said, in a disgusted voice. “Give it back.”

“
Rick
,” one of Lance’s friends echoed in falsetto. “
Give it back
.”

“Get a life,” Skinny Neck said, making a grab for the notebook.

But Rick held it high in the air, out of reach of its much shorter owner.

“
Get a life
,” one of the other team members said, in the same falsetto. “Christ, look who’s talking.”

The nerdy kid looked like he was about to cry. Until a hand belonging to someone taller than all the other jocks reached out and plucked the notebook from Rick’s fingers.

“Here, Ted,” Will said to Skinny Neck, giving him back his notebook. Ted took it with trembling fingers, his gaze, as he looked up at Will, worshipful.

“Thanks, Will,” he said.

“No problem,” Will said to the geek. He had not once cracked a smile, and he didn’t do so now, either. To Rick, he said, “Apologize.”

“Come on, Will,” Lance said, in an Aw-Shucks-We-Were-Just-Joshing manner. “Rick was just messing around with the kid. He—”

Will’s voice was cold. “We talked about this,” he said. “Apologize to Ted, Rick.”

I wasn’t a bit surprised when Rick turned to Skinny Neck and said, sounding genuinely regretful, “Sorry.”

Because there’d been a steely note in Will’s voice that made it clear no one—not even a two-hundred-pound halfback—had better try to mess with him. Or dare to disobey one of his commands.

Maybe it was just a quarterback thing.

Or maybe it was something else.

“’S all right,” Ted said. Then he and his friend darted away, disappearing into the throng jamming the hallway.

I followed them, more slowly. Will hadn’t noticed me in the crowd, and I was glad. I probably wouldn’t have known what to say to him if he’d said hi or whatever.
The sight of him telling that enormous jock what to do—and the jock actually
doing
it—had kind of freaked me out.

If you can call realizing you’re head over heels in love with someone being freaked out.

This was bad.
Really
bad. I mean, I did not need to be falling in love with some guy—even a guy who randomly showed up at my house for dinner and was a champion of geeks—who was already taken by one of the prettiest girls in school. This so wasn’t going to end happily for me. Not even Nancy, the romantic optimist, would be able to see any possible upside to me falling in love with A. William Wagner.

So I spent the rest of the day resolutely trying not to think about him. Will, I mean.

It wasn’t like I didn’t have other things to worry about. There was the report for Mr. Morton’s class, of course. And I’d found out from Liz during lunch that there were more than a few freshman girls who were running the two hundred meter—my event—at varsity times. Unless I could beat them, there was a chance I might not make the Avalon High track team, should I be considering going out for it.

I didn’t want to go to the trouble of trying out for the team, only not to make it because some snot-nosed freshman had spent her summer training and not floating in a pool, like me.

So when I got home from school that day, I changed
into my running clothes. I figured the run would do double duty—it would help get me back into shape for track try-outs, and also keep my mind off a certain quarterback.

But when I went to look for Mom to give me a ride over to the park, she wasn’t in her office. I banged on my dad’s office door. He grunted, so I went in.

“Oh, Ellie,” he said. “Hi. I didn’t hear you come home.” Then he noticed what I was wearing, and his face kind of fell.

“Oh,” he said, in a different voice. “Not today, Ellie. I’m really swamped here. I think I’ve made a breakthrough. See this filigree, here? That’s—”

“You don’t have to come with me,” I interrupted, not wanting another lecture on my dad’s crazy sword. “I just need a ride to the park. Where’s Mom?”

“I dropped her off at the train station. She had some research to do in the city today.”

“Fine,” I said. “Just give me your keys, then, and I’ll drive myself over.”

He looked appalled.

“No, Ellie,” he said. “You only have a learner’s permit. You need someone with a valid driver’s license with you.”