I’m not ugly, but I don’t know
exactly how good looking I’m considered to be. I understand it’s all relative;
relative to what others think is beautiful. My parents would always think of me
as beautiful, but to them I am. We are only beautiful to our relatives; hmm, I
think I figured out the mysteries of the world.
I dug through my bags and pulled
out the makeup case I had stuffed in deep and foolishly applied a bit of
mascara and cover-up. I also changed my shirt to something more attractive and
flattering. Not that I really own any clothing that would turn heads, but I did
my best to improve my appearance before I went down to lunch.
I took my place at the end of the
line behind two guys. They glanced over their shoulders at me, scowled and
turned forward. I guess my efforts to improve myself were in vain. Up ahead,
several girls chatted quietly and I read their lips. They were talking about
me. One said I’d lit into Beth as soon as our bedroom door shut, the other said
Beth told her I was bitterly cruel with my words and was probably a spy. They
both made eye contact with me and acted embarrassed turning their backs, and
then I heard their loud giggling. Idiotic female jocks.
A different girl nearby was talking
to someone else about Chris. This girl was infatuated with him because he’d
touched her arm. The other girl informed the first that everyone knows Chris’s
heart is already taken. The first refused to accept it and admitted to actively
pursuing his attentions.
Oh, brother! This is the kind of
stuff I can live without!
A group of guys entered the dining
hall in a tight ‘v’ formation, like a flock of geese, with Chris in the lead
position. A boy next to him whispered in his ear,
“she’s over there”
and
he glanced over in my direction as he passed by. The disgust in Chris’s eyes
made my breath escape my chest. His glance was more than innocent eye to eye
contact, it had an all out “if looks could kill” intensity. Why did he hate me
so much? His group inserted into the front of the line and nobody seemed to
mind. It left me wondering what the point was of having a line if there was no
order to it?
On second thought, I’d have let him
cut in front of me too, well, if he hadn’t looked at me like I was Satan’s
spawn. I’ve always hated jocks, but am willing to recognize undeniable
attractiveness even if it belongs to a jock. Anyway, what did it matter? His
heart was already taken so I could look all I wanted without fear of him
“falling” for little ol’ me.
Lunch foods included disgusting
cold soup which could have been mistaken for raw sewage, more fruits and
vegetables, and broiled fish. I hate fish. Why couldn’t we just have sandwiches
or hamburgers? What I wouldn’t do for some fries; or ranch dip for that matter.
The only vegetable dip available was hummus. Yuck!
“You’d better get the soup,” a male
voice said behind me. “It’s called Muck Soup and they made it just for
you
.”
“Because I’m a muck?” I answered
without turning around.
“Bingo.”
“Be careful, or I might start
thinking you care.” I glanced over my shoulder to find Beth’s guy, the one I
ran into last night, smiling a dangerous smile at me.
“The soup is made from enchanted
herbs and energy based vegetables. You should eat it because it helps the mucks
run faster, and because it’s good.”
“Are you sure? It looks like … muck.”
“Exactly,” he said with a
diabolical grin.
An equally good looking guy smacked
his arm, “Hey, Justin, you’re not supposed to be talking to the newbie.”
“Shut up, Will!” Justin looked at
me once more and walked away with Will.
I accepted my serving of muck soup
and took my scantily filled tray to my table full of other mucks. They all
stopped talking once I sat down and some of them turned around to see if they
could move to another table. Even these mucks thought of me as a muck.
I angled my head slightly to the
left and found Beth, Justin, Will and some other girl sitting at a nearby table
laughing, probably at something to do with me. Beth caught my eye and the smile
fell from her face.
At a table a little further to the
right sat the flawless exemplar of mankind, Chris, whom I could only assume was
the best of the best, the Runners’ king, the top-dog who, along with his
entourage, waltzed to the front of the line. Why were all jocks jerks? I’ve
never been one to like the arrogant athletic type and that’s too bad for me
because now I was surrounded by conceited females and males. The expression on
Chris’s face as I made eye contact with him withered my insides with
hopelessness. He made me feel as if I wouldn’t ever measure up, never add up,
never succeed amongst these Runners, and that I didn’t belong here.
Well, he and the rest of them had
another think-a-coming. Beth warned me not to show off at the time trials, but
I say to hell with her and all these egotistical jocks! I’m not scum! I’m a
damn fast athlete and everyone would find out tomorrow morning. They all hate
me anyway; why not bask in the glory of earning their hatred? I’ll shake
everything up and sit back and watch as they scramble to normalize.
After lunch, I met up with Mrs.
Winter who ushered me down the hall for medical testing. She said the
procedures are standard and everyone receives them. They drew my blood, x-rayed
me, hooked me up to all kinds of monitors and placed electrodes on my scalp to
make sure I had a brain. It was good to get confirmation on that.
One of the monitors was for my
heart. Mrs. Winter attached the wires and plugged them into the machine, she
flipped the switch and all sorts of commotion happened. An extremely loud
shrill echoed around the room and the thumping sound of my heart sounded as if
it had been hooked up to a rock band’s bass system. Mrs. Winter jumped with
shock and stumbled quickly to pull the wires and flip the switches off.
The door opened and an adult male
named Mr. Evans hurried over to Mrs. Winter. “What did you do, hook a human up
to the machine?” His eyes traveled to mine and back to hers.
Ms. Coleman, another adult, joined
us. “Clara, did you forget how to run the machine? Here, let me help.” Her
petite frame pushed pass Mrs. Winter’s and she proceeded to do the exact same
thing Mrs. Winter had already done. Again, terrible screeching and super loud
thumping and swooshing sounds before Ms. Coleman unhooked the cords. “Well,
clearly we have damaged equipment. Bring her into my office and I’ll evaluate
her.”
“I don’t think that will be
necessary,” Mrs. Winter said calmly. “She passed the rest of the exam; we’ll
address the heart evaluation later. Calli, come with me.”
We made our way back to her office
but were interrupted by another adult. “Clara, the Mind Readers are here to see
you. They say it’s urgent.”
Mrs. Winter turned to me, “I’m sorry
Calli, I must excuse myself. Go outside and get some fresh air. I’ll find you
later.”
“Oh, alright,” I replied. I could
have easily spied through her glass door to investigate what was going on but I
resisted the urge to eavesdrop and went outside.
Ah, the outdoors of the Big Sky
State. What a spectacular view with the snow tipped mountains framing the
background of the giant compound/school/hotel/freak-show. I wandered around the
perimeter of the building and found basketball courts and a large manicured
lawn. Several teams of boys and girls were sparing off on the courts. Far off
near the tree line sat a row of four small cabins. They reminded me of the ones
at summer camp where the counselors slept. I continued my walk around the backside
of the compound noting many exterior doors on the ground level and a large
veranda on the second floor. Way down at the opposite end I found an indoor
swimming pool; I didn’t even know there was a pool. Cool.
I rounded the final corner and ran
smack dab into Chris. It must have startled him too because he reached out and
took hold of my arms to steady himself. I knew he didn’t realize who he was
holding because I witnessed the realization hit his brain with a boom. He let
go of my arms as if they were contaminated with the deadly Hantavirus and he
looked upon me with disdain and disgust.
“Why are you
here
? I mean,
shouldn’t you be with Clara?” He asked me angrily.
“She’s meeting with the Mind
Readers who arrived with urgent business.”
He turned on his heal and headed to
the nearest exterior door and quickly disappeared inside.
“Talk to you
later, Calli,”
I muttered under my breath as I rubbed my arms where he’d
touched them. Oh great, now I’m like the ditsy girl in the lunch line, longing
over a simple touch.
I made my way back into the
building and up to my room where I would await Mrs. Winter or dinner, whichever
happened first.
Dinner won.
Apparently when visitors join the
clan for dinner, we eat in the formal dining room with the veranda on the
second floor. We were instructed to wear our finer clothing and to remember our
manners. I wondered if remembering our manners meant being nicer to newbies. Probably
not.
My seat at the little kid table
afforded a view of the entire dining room and its occupants, including Chris. He
seemed put out that I was in his line of sight, yet didn’t make any effort to
move himself. Servers brought us our meal instead of the cafeteria style lunch
line, but the food selection wasn’t any different. Nuts, nuts, and more nuts,
fruits, vegetables and fish. The Mind Readers merely pushed their food around
on their plates. They probably didn’t eat foods like these at their compound,
if they had a compound.
I caught Chris looking at me on
several occasions during dinner and it made me extremely uncomfortable. I
wondered if he could see my cheeks heat up; hopefully not. However, a couple of
times I’d hazard a glimpse in his direction to find him talking and laughing
with his companions. Their topics of discussions didn’t include me, for once,
but were about something funny that happened out on the basketball court
earlier in the afternoon.
“May I have everyone’s attention?”
Mrs. Winter stood and spoke loudly. “As some of you are aware already, three of
our comrades are missing. Dirk, John and Macey never reached their delivery
destination. Our guests here tonight bring word of three of their own missing
clan members and the Seers are also missing three.” The murmur of the shocked
crowd began to grow in volume. “We’ve yet to receive a ransom request and have
not been given an explanation as to their whereabouts, but we will continue to
investigate until we find them and return them home.” Applause and hollers
roared through the room and the intensity made my hair stand on end. “Please
continue to use extreme caution when out of doors and if you pick up on any
suspicious activity report it at once. Thank you.”
The kids at my table all started
talking to each other, excluding me from their conversation of course, but I
sat and listened to them gathering as much information as possible.
“It’s got to be the Death Clan
behind this,” one girl said.
“No, it’s the CIA. They’ve been
staked out, spying on us. They even have insiders here at the compound.”
“You’re crazy! Our Seer or Mind
Reader would have rooted out a spy already.”
“Not if the spy had superior
blocking abilities.”
“Maybe she’s the spy?”
They all looked at me. “Me?” I
laughed. “Maybe you are spies.” That got them going. The bickering and name
calling began and grew rapidly until Mrs. Winter had to come to our table and
put a halt to the commotion. I couldn’t help but laugh, until I raised my head
and found Chris judging me harshly. I excused myself and walked out to the
floodlight-lit veranda. The sun was still low in the sky.
Beth came out behind me and closed
the door. “Calli, you better not do anything stupid at the time trials
tomorrow.”
“Or what? You’ll make my life even
more
miserable and make sure everyone talks bad about me behind my back? Oh,
wait, I remember, you’ll beat me up.”
“This new assignment is most likely
related to our missing friends and if you go and beat out the fastest, you’ll
be placed on the team. You don’t know crap about our world so don’t go screwing
it up by being a showoff.”
I didn’t answer her; I only turned
my back and waited until the door closed. The cool night air was revitalizing
to my senses and the crisp pine and freshly cut grass smelled pure and fresh. Four
adults, probably the tutors or hired clan members, made their way across the
lawn to the four cabins. I turned back to the dining room where everyone filed
out, except Chris. He stayed in his chair, watching me.
Mrs. Winter came out to the veranda
with me. “Are you alright?”
“As good as I can be, I suppose. When
will you show me the Shadows?”
“Not for a couple more hours. The
sun has to go all the way down before the Demons come out.”
“Sounds like a bad dream.”
“You don’t know how right you are. Meet
me in my office after dark and I want you to bring along the shirt you were
wearing earlier.”
****
I walked the well-lit deserted
hallways down to Mrs. Winter’s office. Her door was closed so I peered around
the edge of the glass window. She was sitting at her desk talking to someone on
the phone, “I’m not comfortable with what … this will put our slowest in too
much danger. Yes, he’s right here, hold on.” Clara extended the receiver toward
the empty room and from out of my range of vision, up popped Chris as he went
over to the desk. His back was to me as he spoke on the phone. Mrs. Winter
spotted me at the door and held up a finger to say, ‘wait a minute.’ I moved
away from the door and rested my back against the wall. Soon, the door opened
up and Chris walked out. I purposefully turned my head away from him as he went
by. My self-esteem had taken enough blows for one day. I entered Mrs. Winter’s
office as she was pulling her arms into her extravagant coat.