Unconventional Scars (6 page)

5

Anna stared out of the car window at her new school. The first day she’d arrived in Smoky Hollow, the school had been dark and deserted, less threatening. Now, however, the grounds were teeming with rowdy teenagers. She swallowed nervously and wrapped her clammy fingers around the strap of her backpack. Uncle Phil was sympathetic.

“
Relax,
Annie.
It’s a fairly small school, and I know the parents of a lot of these kids. Yo
u won’t have any problems here.”

Anna sighed. “I’ll just be thankful if I don’t throw up on someone.”

Phil laughed. “
Oh, come on.
Once you make it through the first day, you’ll have a whole new perspective. I promise. And hey, you look really nice.”

The fifth and final outfit she
'd
selected the evening before consisted of dark new blue jeans, a red eyelet lace top, and a white spring jacket. The weather here, Anna found, was considerably cooler than
in
Florida
. It felt odd to have to wear a jacket in March, but at any rate she felt less self-conscious with it on.

“Thanks,” she said, reaching for the door handle. “Well, wish me luck.”

“Have a good day. I’ll pick you up here at three.”

Anna watched him drive away, then turned and
reluctantly
headed for the front steps. As soon as she was inside, she selected
an
amicable face and requested directions to the office. The girl was
polite
and helpful, and feeling encouraged by this, Anna headed off in the direction she’d been pointed.

It was much quieter inside the office. She was the only student in there, so it took no time at all for the plump, motherly woman at the desk to locate her schedule and issue a locker number.

“Anneliese Moore,” the woman read
off of some form.
“
Are you related to
Charles
and Olivia Moore?”

“No ma’am. I don’t think so.”

“How about Philip Moore?”

“He’s my uncle.”

“Your uncle! Well,
land sakes
.
I’ve known Philip for years. He is just the
sweetest
thing. You be sure and tell him Marjorie says hello.”

“I will.” Somehow the idea struck Anna as hysterically funny.
Hey
Sweet Thing
, Marjorie says hello.
She turned away from the desk quickly before a nervous giggle could potentially escape and provide proof that she was a raging imbecile.

From behind, Marjorie called out, “Have a good day, hon!”

Outside in the noisy hallway, she paused to q
uickly scan
her new
schedule. To her relief, she had basically the same classes she’d had at her old school. Good. No surprises there.

There was really no need to search for her locker right now, since she had yet to be issued books, so
instead
she wandered the crowded halls in search of her first class
.
1st period
-
English
L
iterature
-
Brenner
, room 26
.
She
located
it easily enough and timidly entered the room. So far only
three
students and the teacher were
in
there. Anna
approached
the desk and discreetly cleared her throat.

Mrs. Brenner,
an artistic-looking woman with huge
vintage
glasses and hair dyed
very bright red,
looked up and smiled.

“Oh hi
there
, you must be our new arrival
! Welcome to EHS.
I’m
Lillian
Brenner.
We are
so
glad to have you with us.”

“Thank
you
.”

“
Let me see
. . .
I ha
d
a book all ready for you, somewhere around here.
” She dug around underneath a pile of papers. Her desk resembled
a trailer park after an F5 tornado. “
I’m not sure where you left off
at your last school
, but we’re currently reading
a collection of works by
Poe. Now what did I do with it . . .
I know it’s here somewhere. O
h,
t
here it is
!
”

Triumphantly pulling t
he book
from beneath a stack of ungraded tests, she
handed it to Anna. “We’re just about to begin
The Masque of the Red Death
so you’ve come at a good time.
”

“I’ve read it, but it’s one of my favorites.”

“Wonderful! Well, yo
u can just take a seat wherever you like.
There’s no assigned seating in my class. I like to keep things informal.
”

“
Okay. Thanks.”
Turning to face the
classroom
, Anna saw that one of the students, a girl with
short
strawberry blonde hair, was watching the exchange with friendly curiosity.

“H
ey
there,” the girl said.
“You just transfer here?”

Anna slid into the desk in front of the girl and dropped her backpack
on the floor.
“Yes. From
Florida
.”

“A beach bunny! Nice. I have a cousin in
Florida
. She spends all her time tanning. I keep telling her she’s going to wind up with skin cancer, but she doesn’t listen. You don’t look like you have that problem, though.”

“No, I never really spent much time in the sun. I get sunburned kind of easily.”

“Yeah, me too. Curse of having fair skin. Even spray tans look stupid on me. So why are you changing schools this late in the year?”

Anticipating this question, Anna had her fabrication all ready.
“My mother’s job transferred her to
New York City
and I didn’t want to move there, so I came here to stay with my uncle instead. I hate big cities.”

“Really?
I would
love
to live
there
!
The city that never sleeps, you know? Not like this town. They roll up the sidewalks at ten here.
What’s your mom do?”

What’s she do?
Uh-oh. Didn’t think
anyone would ask that
, did you?
Moron
!
“Oh. She’s . . . um, a fashion designer.”
Fashion designer? Really? Is that the best you could come up with?

“Tr
è
s chic! My name’s Erica, by the way. Erica Johansen.”

“Anna Moore.”

More students were filing into the classroom, most of them sending
inquisitive
looks her way. She pretended not to notice.

“What time do you have lunch?” Erica was asking.

Anna checked her schedule. “Um . . . eleven-thirty.”

“
Perfect,
same time as me. What’s your third period class?”

“Third period?
Algebra II
.”

“If you want, I’ll meet you outside Mr. Henderson’s class after the bell and you can have lunch with us. I know it must be kind of freaky
being
new here and all.”

“That would be great
!
I really appreciate it,” Anna said gratefully. “I
so
wasn’t looking forward to having lunch alone.” Maybe
, just maybe,
school wouldn’t be a complete disaster this time around. She liked Erica already and, thanks to the makeover courtesy of Uncle Phil and Lisa, so far nobody had looked at her as if they feared she had lice or something.

So far, so good.

****

Erica was true to her word. As soon as
her third period class was over, Anna
waited
just outside
the door and almost immediately spotted the familiar face making her way down the hall toward her. She wasn’t going to have to endure the
discomfort
of spending lunch period alone. Hail to the strawberry blonde!

“So what did you think of Mr. Henderson’s
toup
é
e
?” was the first thing Erica said.

Anna laughed. Erica’s breezy personality had the effect of putting her at ease. “
T
oupée
? Really? I
thought
his hair looked a little off-center. Yikes.”

“Do you need to stop off by your locker?”

“No, that’s okay.”

“Oh, I didn’t even think to ask. Did you bring your lunch or do you need me to show you where the cafeteria is? We always eat outside at the picnic tables when it’s not raining.”

“I brought my lunch.”
Relieved
that she
'd
made a turkey sandwich for herself that morning in lieu of Uncle Phil’s offer of lunch money, Anna followed Erica through glass double doors and into a courtyard, where about a dozen picnic tables were scattered. To her astonishment, Erica seated herself at a table already occupied by none other than Alex Somerville, who was sipping a can of
Coke
. He looked mildly surprised to see her.

“Anna. Hi.”

“Hey, Alex.”

“You two already met, I take it?” Erica opened her lunch bag, pulling out a sandwich wrapped in plastic and a bottle of cranberry juice.

Anna sat down beside her, across from Alex. “Actually we’re neighbors. My uncle lives right next door to him.”

“Seriously? That’s awesome! My boyfriend and I hang out at Alex’s house once in a while. You should join us
next time
so I
d
on’t have to feel
completely ignored
when they get wrapped up in their lame
video
games.”

“Like you’re not always pestering
us
to
do lame stuff
,” Alex retorted, popping a grape into his mouth.
To Anna, he said, “She made all of us go to her ballet recital. An hour and a half of sheer torture.” Erica raised an eyebrow and gave him a
look
.

A lanky, sandy-haired boy appeared at that moment and settled on the other side of Erica, planting a quick kiss on her cheek. Almost simultaneously, a
striking
raven-haired girl abruptly plopped down beside Alex. She
tossed
her pink insulated lunch bag on the table unceremoniously.

“Oh my God, if I get assigned
one more
page
of homework today, I’m going to go postal,” Raven Hair announced. “Do these teachers think we have nothing better to do? I have a life, you know. Do I really need to know how to parse a sentence in French? Is that seriously what they worry about in
Paris
?” Suddenly noticing Anna, she inquired bluntly, “Who’s this?”

Erica swallowed a mouthful of cranberry juice and wiped her mouth with a napkin. “This is Anna . . . um, what did you say your last name was?”

“
Moore
.”

“Anna Moore. She just moved here from
Florida
. Anna, this is my obnoxious friend Karen, and
the
sexy beast over here is Josh.” Erica poked the boy next to her playfully in his side, and he grinned back at her.

"Nice to meet you, Anna," Josh said.

“Oh, wait a minute, weren’t you in second period creative writing today? I thought I’d seen you before.” Without waiting for a reply, Karen began lamenting once again the fact that she had
way
too much homework and if she made one more D, her parents were going to ground her
until she was sixty
and someone named Chase
would probably dump her for someone who wasn't in permanent isolation
. Although it was idiotic, Anna couldn’t help feeling a tiny bit glad that Karen wasn’t Alex’s girlfriend. Then she mentally berated herself for even caring.
What did it matter if he had a girlfriend?

Halfway through lunch, after fifteen minutes of listening to Karen chatter incessantly on the pros and cons of a low-carb diet, a good-looking boy with close-cropped blonde waves sauntered over. He looked as if he belonged on the pages of
GQ
magazine,
or at
the very
least
on a
tennis court
at
some posh country club,
and if possible exuded even more
arrogance
than Creed Somerville. He
brazenly
slid onto the bench next to Anna, so near that their thighs were touching
.