Geek Abroad (11 page)

“So, guess what?”Hannah said, tiring of a conversation that didn’t revolve around her. “Mom’s throwing me a sweet-sixteen birthday party next weekend.”

I had a sudden vision of all of Hannah’s friends sitting around the living room, wearing birthday hats and looking bored, while Peyton tried to talk them into hitting a piñata with a broomstick.

“At first I was like, no way. Birthday parties are
soooooo
juvenile. But then Mom told me it’s going to be at the Canyon,”Hannah continued.

“The canyon?”I repeated, confused. We didn’t have canyons in Florida. Was it possible Hannah was throwing her party somewhere out West? Like in California or Nevada?

“Yeah. That new restaurant downtown. Mom planned the whole thing while I was away as a welcome-home surprise for me,”Hannah said. “We’re going to have the restaurant all to ourselves, and there’s going to be a band and everything.”

I couldn’t help but wonder if Peyton had planned the party in order to compete with Hannah’s stepmom, Jackie, who always spoiled Hannah rotten whenever she visited. Then again, as evil as Peyton was, she did seem to genuinely love Hannah. Sure, she expressed that love by showering her daughter with material goods, but even so. There was real affection there. It’s pretty much the only thing that’s convinced me so far that Peyton isn’t directly employed by the devil to wreak chaos and misery on the world. Unless the minions of Satan are capable of love . . .I wasn’t sure about that. It might require some Internet research.

“Anyway, you have to come,”Hannah continued.

“Really? You want me there?”I asked, surprised. Hannah and I had reached a détente in our previously hostile relationship. . . . But that didn’t necessarily mean she was going to start being nice to me in front of her friends.

“Uh-huh. It’ll be fun. And you should bring a date,”Hannah continued.

“Can I bring my friend Charlie?”I asked.

Even though Hannah had met Charlie at the Snowflake Gala—which Hannah attended as Emmett’s date—she looked at me blankly.

“Boy or girl?”she asked.

“Girl. You met her. Remember? My best friend? The artist?”I reminded her.

Hannah still looked blank.

“She has pink hair?”I tried again.

“Oh . . . right. I remember. No, you can’t bring her,”Hannah said.

“Why not?”I asked, stung.

“Because you have to bring a real date. A guy. Like Dex,”Hannah said.

I sighed heavily. “I’m not bringing Dex,”I said.

“So who are you going to bring?”she asked.

I could always bring Finn, I thought. But, then again, probably not the best idea. Finn is incapable of missing the opportunity to pull a prank. He’d end up doing something that he alone would find funny—like switching out the Diet Coke with the full-sugar, full-calorie Coke to screw with the girls who had eating disorders—but that would tick off almost everyone else. And I’d end up in trouble by association.

“I’m not. I’ll just come on my own,”I said.

Hannah pouted. “But you can’t. Everyone’s going to have a date,”she said.

It was the story of my life: dateless among the dated. I wondered briefly if Henry would consider flying out for the event, before dismissing that idea as crazy.

“I’m going back to sleep,”I said.

I shut my eyes. Hannah sighed heavily. I felt the bed shift as she stood, and then a moment later my door squeaked open and closed with a soft thud. I was finally, blessedly, alone.

Chapter 10

Still on London time, I was up and dressed by five the next morning. As a result, I was the first one to arrive at geology class, a subject I was just starting that semester. While I waited for the rest of the class to arrive, I opened my new laptop and checked my e-mail.

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Greetings from London
Hi Miranda,

Hope you had a nice flight back. Think of me here in cold, gloomy London while you’re basking in the Florida sunshine.

Top Three Reasons I want to visit America, in reverse order:

3. Not having to wait for all of the top movies to be released.
2. Getting to hear people refer to their trousers as “pants.”
1. To see you.
Yours,
Henry

I felt a little squirm of pleasure in my stomach. Henry wanted to see me! Maybe it hadn’t just been a holiday fling after all! Okay, it was crazy to think that we could have a proper relationship living so far away from one another, and on different continents at that. But even so . . .he was thinking about me. And that was a very, very nice feeling. Especially after the sting of being so summarily rejected by Dex.

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Greetings from Florida
Hi Henry,

It may be sunny here, but trust me, I’d much rather be walking through St. James’s Park playing Top Three with you than sitting here in boring old Geek High.

Top Three Reasons You
Should
Visit America, in reverse order:

3. Hamburgers and onion rings at the Orange Cove Grill.
2. Going to the beach (have you ever surfed?).
1. I’m here.
I read my e-mail over a few times before sending it, hoping it didn’t sound too dorky, and even then I felt a nervous flutter in my stomach as I hit the send button. We were flirting via e-mail! I’d never done that before. Then again, I’d hardly ever flirted before, even in person.

“Hey, world traveler,”a familiar voice said.

I looked up and saw Finn loping into class. He had his knapsack slung over one shoulder, his laptop tucked under his arm, and he was grinning at me. Finn was very tall, very thin, and very pale. He had shaggy brown hair that fell into his blue-gray eyes and a scar over his mouth from the surgery he had as a baby to correct a cleft lip.

“Hey!”I said. “I thought you were taking Environmental Science?”

“And miss out on Rocks for Jocks? Not a chance,”Finn said, swinging into the chair next to mine.

“Rocks for Jocks?”I asked, amused. Geek High isn’t exactly known for its jock population. In fact, the only sports teams the school fronted were golf and tennis. “You do know Mr. Douglass is teaching this class, don’t you?”

Finn paled. “Douglass? I thought Keegan was teaching it,”he said.

Mr. Douglass was the only teacher at Geek High that Finn feared. Well, maybe
feared
wasn’t the right word. . . . I don’t think Finn was actually afraid of Douglass. But the two of them had certainly never gotten along. Most of the Geek High faculty found Finn’s easy humor and good-natured antics charming, but not Douglass. He was an old grouch who lectured in a monotone and was always happy to hand out detentions to anyone not paying attention in his class. And Douglass detentions were the worst. Usually, getting a detention at Geek High just involved sitting in the teacher’s room after school, working quietly. And let’s face it—in a high school full of geeks, the opportunity for some quiet study time wasn’t that onerous of a punishment.

But Douglass made unruly students in his class spend their detention time cleaning out the cages of the snakes he kept as pets in his room. And Finn
hated
snakes.

“Nope. Keegan’s teaching Enviro Sci,”I said. “Didn’t you notice what classroom we’re in?”

“I wasn’t really paying attention. I wonder if it’s too late for me to transfer,”Finn muttered. He glanced nervously back at the long reptiles slithering around in their glass aquariums.

“It is,”Charlie said, walking in with a group of our classmates, and tossing her bag on the open desk next to me. “I checked, and the class is closed. Keegan’s only taking five students this semester, because of all of the field trips they’re going to be going on.”

“Charlie!”I said, grinning at her. “Hey!”

The last time I’d seen her, Charlie’s hair had been pink and spiky. In my absence, she’d colored it a rich, dark burgundy and had cut it in a short, choppy style that accentuated her large brown eyes and pale skin. She was wearing a Sex Pistols T-shirt with an artfully torn denim miniskirt and her clunky black Doc Martens. It was an outfit that would look ridiculous on me, but Charlie was able to carry it off with great panache.

“Hey, you,”Charlie said. She leaned forward and gave me a quick hug. “When did you get back?”

“Last night. Sorry I didn’t call. I was exhausted and went straight to bed,”I said.

“It’s okay. I wasn’t home anyway. I was out with Mitch,”Charlie said. Suddenly her expression became dreamy and unfocused. She hugged her arms around herself and smiled goofily. “We went for a walk on the beach as the sun was setting. It was so romantic.”

Finn let out a disgusted snort. I turned to glance at him, but he was glowering down at his laptop. I could tell he wanted nothing to do with this conversation.

Charlie didn’t seem to have heard Finn. “And then later we were looking up at the stars, and I was pointing out some of the constellations to Mitch, and do you know what he said?”she continued in a nauseatingly gushy voice.

Charlie paused, waiting for me to respond.

“Um. No. What?”I asked.

“He pointed up to this really bright star and said that it would be
our
star. Can you believe that? All couples have a song, but how many have their own star?”she exclaimed.

I stared at her for a long moment. “Who are you, and what have you done with my best friend?”I finally said.

Finn sniggered, and Charlie shot him a dirty look. For the first time since I’d set eyes on her, she looked like her old self. The Charlie I knew and loved was sarcastic and cynical and amazing. That Charlie, the old Charlie, would have been disgusted by the way this current Charlie was mooning over some guy’s idiotic line. I mean,
come on
. A couples star? It was appallingly sappy.

“Sorry. I just thought you might be interested in what’s new with me,”Charlie snapped, not sounding at all sorry.

“I am,”I said, attempting a conciliatory tone. “So things are going well with Mitch?”

Charlie beamed. “Amazing,”she said, with a deep, self-satisfied sigh.

“How about everything else?”I asked.

“Like what?”Charlie asked.

“You know. Anything. Everything. How about your painting? Are you working on your new show?”I asked.

Charlie’s an incredibly talented artist and has had several shows at local art galleries. The last one was so successful, a big-name gallery in Miami offered to host her next show there, and I knew Charlie had been really excited about it. She was just waiting until she had enough new paintings to exhibit. I knew it was only a matter of time before she was ready. Plus, she’s bipolar, and when she’s on one of her manic swings, it’s not unusual for her to stay up all night painting.

“Oh. You know. Nothing much lately,”Charlie said vaguely.

I stole another look at Finn. This time he looked back at me. I could tell from his raised eyebrows that he was thinking the same thing I was: It was one thing for Charlie to go all mushy over Mitch, but quite another thing altogether for her to stop painting. Art had always been her life.

“But what about your exhibit?”I asked, turning back to face Charlie. She hadn’t noticed Finn and me exchanging dark looks.

“What exhibit?”she asked.

“The one down in Miami!”I exclaimed.

“Oh, that.”Charlie shrugged dismissively. “We didn’t set a date or anything. The guy at the gallery just said to contact him when I was ready. So it’s not like there’s a rush.”

“But I thought you were really excited about the show,”I said.

“I was. I mean, I am. Wait . . . why are you so obsessed with this?”Charlie asked.

“I’m not. I just . . . I just don’t want you to miss out on such a great opportunity,”I explained.

“Well, don’t worry about it,”Charlie said. She glanced at the clock. “I’m going to see if Mitch is online.”

She opened up her laptop, clicked on her instant-messaging program, and a minute later was tip-tapping away, the goofy smile back on her face.

“Hey, Miranda,”Sanjiv said, appearing in front of my desk. Sanjiv Gupta was a gangly, serious boy who wore thick glasses and had a prominent Adam’s apple. He was the captain of the Mu Alpha Theta math competition team, and he took his position very seriously. But, then, Sanjiv took everything seriously. I don’t think he actually possessed a sense of humor.

“Hi, Sanjiv. How was your holiday?”I asked.

“Fine,”he said. “Don’t forget we have our first team practice tomorrow.”

“Oh, right. Okay,”I said.

Once Sanjiv had returned to his seat, Finn said, “You’re not going to stay on the MATh team, are you?”

I shrugged. “Yeah. I sort of have to.”

Mr. Hughes, the headmaster of Geek High, had blackmailed me into rejoining the MATh team the previous semester. In return, he’d let me make the necessary changes to turn the Snowflake Gala into a fun dance (up until this year, it had been a horribly dull dinner featuring a dry academic lecturer). Which sounds like a fair bargain . . .except for the part where I hadn’t wanted to plan the stupid Snowflake in the first place, and did so only under duress from the headmaster. To make matters even worse, being on the MATh team had meant I couldn’t join the staff of the
Ampersand
, Geek High’s award-winning literary journal. For a brief time, I’d thought I might be able to juggle both extracurricular activities, but then Sanjiv had scheduled a practice at the same time that a mandatory informational meeting for the
Ampersand
was being held, and so I had to miss the
Ampersand
meeting. . . . Which meant that I wasn’t able to join the journal this year. It was hugely disappointing.