The Hunting (34 page)

‘Yeah, well, I knew he wasn’t going to invent a time-machine. I mean, that would be crazy, right? Some things are just impossible.’

Rian shook his head. ‘Nothing is impossible. You were teleported, remember. You tried telling anyone? You think anyone would actually believe you? Ever?’

Renée shook her head. They never talked about it to anyone. It was their secret and their pain. As long as the Fortress still existed, they could never talk about it – to anyone.

‘What’s your team working on?’ Rian asked Renée.

Renée looked annoyed. ‘You know you aren’t supposed to ask.’

Genie shook her head. ‘That’s what I’m talking about.
We’re
supposed to be a team. We shouldn’t have secrets between us.’

‘Academy rules. Each team has to keep it secret to prevent plagiarism. You’d know that if you were in a team,’ Rian told her, his tone harsh to Genie’s ears.

‘I’m in
this
team. At least, I was,’ Genie muttered. She was sensing it was a lost cause though.

Renée sighed. ‘Well, we can’t compete with a hover board. We’re designing a multi-function chair. You know. One you could take anywhere.’

Rian pretended to look interested. ‘A chair.’

‘Ultimate chair,’ Renée said, somewhat defensively. ‘I didn’t tell you that.’

Genie sighed. It made no sense to her at all. ‘You guys take this stuff way too seriously.’

Rian shook his head. ‘No, we don’t. But
you
have to. You need to belong to a team, Genie. We have to be belong here, fit in. I think you should make more of an effort. People notice if you aren’t in a team.’

Genie said nothing. He was being openly hostile to her now. It was true then – all her instincts were right on this – he was officially falling out of love with her. She looked back down the corridor. Pity they didn’t have another spare room.

‘Yeah, you should be in a team before they force you into one. Governor’s Day is like just over a month away and it’s all about teams,’ Renée told her. ‘I’m serious, you don’t want to be stuck with the lemon heads.’

‘Lemon heads?’

‘They suck.’

‘Oh.’

Genie took her hot chocolate and drank it down, not looking at either of them. Her stomach was doing butterflies. She couldn’t believe it. Rian didn’t love her any more. It hit her like a tidal wave.

Did that mean he’d met someone else? One of the bitches that were always hanging out watching the basketball team? Well, if so, she wasn’t going to humiliate herself. If he didn’t love her any more she wasn’t going to fight with any dumb blonde over his stinking sneakers.

‘And you need to pull your grades up,’ Rian was telling her. ‘If you flunk out it will be your own fault. You can’t just waste your time in the woods being a hippy. Life is tough, Genie.’

Genie bit her bottom lip. That clinched it. It was official. The one thing she loved, the woods, he hated. He had never once wanted to see her sketches. Well, let him gather firewood and keep the fire burning, see how long he liked being cold. Even if she had to sleep on the sofa she wasn’t going to sleep in their room ever again. It was over. She didn’t mind underachieving; she knew she wasn’t ever going to be brilliant at academic studies – it just wasn’t her. She’d do the minimum to pass, but it seemed that everything they had been through together meant nothing. That’s what made her mad. How swiftly romance dies.

She left them to it, walking down the unlit corridor towards the bathroom.

In the dark she turned too early and wandered into Cary’s room by mistake. Annoyed, she turned to leave but her eye caught sight of a flashing light under the bed. She went to investigate.

It was a cellphone. Didn’t even know he had one. A video message had arrived. She was trying to figure out how to turn it off when the message launched. Cary laughing towards the camera in the science lab. She stared as it played the scene. He was standing on a skateboard, pretending to surf, and the geeks were laughing in the background somewhere. Someone else was counting down.

‘Five, four, three, two, one, ignition’.

The skateboard glowed and rose up almost fifteen centimetres. There were shouts of joy as Cary tried to balance.

‘It’s peaking!’ some other kid yelled suddenly. ‘Get off, get off …’

Suddenly Cary was pitched straight up, went right out of view it was so fast and the guy with the camera phone tried to keep up, catching the falling glass as Cary had already smashed through the stained-glass window.

Kids were yelling, screaming – glass was falling.

It ended.

Genie switched the phone off and put it back under his bed, then groped her way back out of the room towards the bathroom.

The hover board had worked. For two whole seconds. Way to go, Cary. Then it had damn nearly killed him. She wondered how he had done it. Rian was right. Those kids could make millions from it – if they figured it out.

And of course that’s what this team stuff was all about. She got it. Competition. Bright kids loved a challenge. But what kind of team did a girl with a sketchbook join? Where were the big bucks in that? She was going to be put with the lemon heads, for sure. She realized that she really didn’t want that.

Genie slept on the sofa that night, watching the dying embers of the fire, listening to the wind outside piling the snow up again the doors and windows. Her heart felt like ice now. She’d been so safe in the bubble Rian had put around her. She didn’t know what she’d done wrong. She hadn’t changed. Her hair had almost grown back. OK, she had tried to dye it black because she didn’t want people to see the huge white streak she’d got from the teleport, but that wasn’t enough of a reason not to love her, was it? She didn’t get this competitive stuff, she didn’t want to invent anything and make a million, or even go to university, although she would have helped Rian get through it and work jobs to help pay for it. Art school would have been nice. There was a lot to learn, new techniques and learning to draw with software, that would be useful, but what had she done to make him stop loving her? Why? When did it happen? Who was she? What had this other girl got that she didn’t? She barely slept. And two rugs weren’t enough; she had to get up and put on her coat to stay warm.

The worst of it was, he didn’t even notice. He didn’t come looking for her and make her come back to bed; he hadn’t even noticed she wasn’t there. Was probably relieved. He went for a run in the snow the moment he woke up and didn’t even say hi. Just how had this happened so suddenly?

Genie barely touched her breakfast and then trudged up the hill in the snow. It was no longer magical white stuff. All the magic had been taken away. Her heart was like lead and she was kind of glad it was so cold because she couldn’t feel anything.

Chandra met her on the way to class and told her all about her Darwin research.

She was all excited and Genie noticed she was wearing odd boots. How could she not notice one was black and the other brown? Chandra had tied her hair in bunches today and talked so loud and without interruption, Genie just let it all wash over her. She had a sudden thought that if she disappeared no one would care, or notice. It wasn’t a good thought.

She got the bad news at eleven in break. ‘You’re on the lemon-head team,’ Chandra told her, trying to be sympathetic. ‘I saw it on the notice board. Bad luck.’

Genie made her way to the big-screen TV monitor in the rec room and sure enough saw her name, Rhiannon, on the notice of Governor’s Teams. Six girls and a guy. Lemon heads – the kids no one wanted to pick for their team. First meeting fixed at two p.m. in the reading room. Genie’s heart sank.

After class she went looking for Rian. She knew he would be playing basketball at lunch. He was a creature of habit. She looked in at the court from the viewing gallery and sure enough there were three girls in non-regulation short skirts watching and giggling. She didn’t know who they were but all three were hot. It kind of confirmed her worse fears. She ducked out in case Ri saw her. Even that was stupid. Just weeks ago he would have been upset if she hadn’t looked in on him. What had she done so wrong?

She ate her lunch alone. Renée didn’t appear. She was probably with her team discussing furniture. How do you even begin to get interested in chairs? she mused. As she nibbled her veggie sandwich she realized that she should have seen all this coming. She’d been eating lunch by herself since the start of term now and never even thought about it.

The snow had stopped, but it was bitterly cold outside. Wouldn’t last, she was told. Spring comes early on Vancouver Island; this was just a weather freak show.

She wished she was outside making a snowman or on a toboggan herself, but she noticed no one was having fun. Everyone was in his or her teams, making plans, discussing things – these kids weren’t kids any more. They didn’t know what they were missing.

Genie went outside and stood admiring the way the snow had formed a pattern on the arbutus trees. It was beautiful. She wanted to sketch them but it was just too cold to make her fingers work. She committed it to memory instead. She’d sketch it later; try to get the light just right. She was just about to turn and head on back in for the dreaded team meet when she saw the wolf again.

It was watching her from the edge of the playing field. It had to be the same animal. She waved. Stupid. Who waves to a wolf? It turned and left, ducking between the trees. Had it been waiting for her? Why was it there?

‘You coming?’

Genie looked up and there was Mrs Finney – Head of the English department and her team monitor. It would have been her that put Genie (Rhiannon) on the list.

‘I liked your story about the woods, Rhiannon. It was full of really well-observed texture and quite sad. Good writing.’

Genie smiled. She didn’t know that she had marked them yet, let alone knew who she was. She never said anything in class and Mrs Finney never called on her to answer.

‘I kind of feel for trees, I guess,’ Genie said, trying to force a smile.

‘You certainly do. I wish there more like you. Come on, let’s see if we have any more passionate souls in our team.’

Inside the wood-panelled reading room Genie’s heart sank. This was exactly a group of perfect rejects. The angry, the mumblers, the Little Miss Attitude and the ‘I’d rather die than ever speak to anyone’ group.

Joy. Rian was right. She should have tried to join a team before this happened. She doodled whilst the tension grew in the room.

Miss Finney was going to try her best to get them to talk. They sat in a semi-circle around the huge conference table and you could feel her heart sink. This was going to be tough.

‘Governor’s Day is all about teams coming up with ideas that can benefit the school, yourselves and of course your futures. You all know this. Each one of you I just know has a special talent or skill – so first, let’s try to get to know each other a little.’

She turned to Zara, the one with attitude and cropped hair.

‘Zara, what special skill do you have?’ Miss Finney asked breezily.

Zara scowled at her and leaned forward, speaking particularly slowly. ‘I make people feel
very
uncomfortable.’

Miss Finney laughed with embarrassment, then shivered slightly. It was as if someone had opened a window to let the snow inside.

‘Well, Zara, I happen to know you have a very high IQ – it should help us all come up with a theme for our research.’

‘Yeah, manic depression. There’s a theme for you. Wrap it up and sell it to the masses,’ Zara said with a sly smile, which died immediately, as she went back to sulking.

Miss Finney began to clutch her head. Genie could feel it, Zara really could make people feel uncomfortable. It was truly a special talent.

‘And your skills, Sophia?’

Sophia was hiding behind her mousey hair, hoping no one could see her. Genie looked across the room at her and sensed she had a talent – a gift even. She could feel it.

‘Sophia,’ Zara stated with an icy voice, ‘would rather not share her special skills. I make people uncomfortable, she—’

‘Don’t say it,’ Sophia shouted, still hiding behind her hair.

‘Knows why,’ Zara finished, letting a cruel chuckle escape.

Genie really hoped Mrs Finney didn’t ask her anything.

‘And you, Mr Ackroyd.’ She turned to the boy, quickly giving up on Sophia. ‘Pierre, what can you bring to this party?’

Genie hadn’t seen this boy before. But she knew of him. Pierre Ackroyd. His father was rich. At Christmas he’d come to the island to fetch him in a Maserati, which all the boys swarmed around. For a nanosecond Pierre was popular, but it soon passed. This was only the second time she’d seen him, even though he was supposed to be in her history class.

Pierre mumbled something but none of them could hear it.

‘What? Speak up. We have to build a team around something. You have something for us? A special skill for—’

‘For projectile vomiting,’ someone said. ‘I’ve seen him throw up. No one could beat it, Miss Finney. Nine metres, someone said. Honest. A record.’

Everyone laughed. Pierre turned bright red and fled the room.

Miss Finney wasn’t amused and rubbed her head.

‘I can draw a little,’ Genie said, to make things easier. ‘I can’t see us build a team around that.’

Miss Finney was annoyed. She snatched Genie’s sketchbook from her, not appreciating that Genie was doodling, then stared at the page. She looked surprised.

‘You drew this just now?’

Genie frowned. ‘It’s a just a doodle, I didn’t mean …’

Mrs Finney was clearly astonished. Genie had drawn the entire group and Mrs Finney clutching her head, all with uncanny accuracy. She looked up at Genie with a mixture of annoyance and pride.

‘Come and see me in my office after this, Rhiannon. I’ll hold on to this meanwhile.’

‘But …’

Genie seethed. That was
her
sketchbook,
her
lifeline. It had everything in there – a whole month of sketches – she couldn’t confiscate that, she couldn’t. She hadn’t done anything wrong.

‘Rhiannon’s in t-r-o-u-b-l-e,’ Zara trilled, pleased that no progress was being made.