Hunters of Chaos (12 page)

“Everyone, under your desks,” Ms. Benitez called, but before we could move a muscle, the shaking stopped.

Somewhere far off, on the other side of campus, the dogs in the kennel began to howl. My ears pricked, listening to the mournful sound, even as I wondered how I could possibly hear the dogs all the way from here. I glanced at Ms. Benitez and saw her cock her head. I realized with a start that she could hear them too!

She turned to Principal Ferris and Dr. Logan and offered a weak laugh. “I guess you see why an exhibition might not be a good idea.”

The principal returned a blank stare. “I'm sorry,” she said. “Why is that?”

Ms. Benitez spread her arms, gesturing outside. “The frequency of these earthquakes has made it necessary for the museum staff to spend extra time to secure the pieces already on display. Otherwise, they could be damaged by the aftershocks. I'm not sure three days is enough time to secure a whole new exhibit. Besides, the excavation is still in its early stages. Do you really think it's wise to open the site to the public when there are so many priceless artifacts still being found and openly displayed?”

Principal Ferris nodded, taking in the history teacher's position with disappointed eyes. She turned to Dr. Logan. “Those are valid points. Dr. Logan. What do you think?”

Dr. Logan cleared his throat and said, “I can certainly understand your concern, Ms. Benitez. I'm sure the team I brought with me would be happy to assist in securing the exhibit so that should the earth shift again, the new pieces won't. And no one is more protective of the artifacts than I am. Every measure will be taken to ensure their safety. But as you and I have discussed many times, Principal Ferris, it would be an injustice to keep them locked away, hidden from the public.”

Shani lifted her eyebrows at me in surprise.
Do Principal Ferris and Dr. Logan even know about the treasures that Ms. Benitez has hidden away in the safe beneath the museum?
the look said. It seemed unlikely.

“And let's not forget that this very school rests only yards away from a thriving Native American community, descendants of the Anasazi people, who I'm sure would love to see what their ancestors have left behind.”

I glanced at Doli, but she stared straight ahead and sank down into her seat, looking uncomfortable.

“I suppose you're right,” said Ms. Benitez, but she was still wringing her hands, and her smile was laced with worry.

Personally, I thought the exhibit was a great idea. It would be good to finally be around
normal
people for a change—people who didn't think Old Navy was the seventh circle of hell and who didn't own private islands. Besides, Dr. Logan was right—everyone deserved to see firsthand how incredible the Anasazi were. As a history teacher, Ms. Benitez should understand that better than most. So why did she look so upset?

After the adults spoke alone in the hallway for a few minutes, Principal Ferris and Dr. Logan left to continue their tour of the school, and Ms. Benitez reentered the classroom without them. She seemed to have put any lingering doubts about the exhibit behind her for the moment.

“Class, we have been given a wonderful opportunity to participate in the exhibit being planned. We will be putting together a display about the Anasazi and their way of life. I will divide you into groups. Decide among yourselves what aspect of Anasazi culture you choose to highlight.” Usually, when we were divided in groups to work, she had us turn to the girls immediately surrounding us. But not this time.

“I will call out names at random,” she said, but we all knew there was nothing random about the fact that Lin, Shani, Doli, and I were all in the same group. Lin moaned, whining that her ambassador father felt strongly that she could make her own decisions about whom she chose to work with, and her actress mother blah blah blah . . . but Ms. Benitez cut her off. “Time is of the essence, Lin. So let's table this for now. You're all dismissed to the library for the remainder of the period. Meet with your groups and get to work.”

As soon as the four of us were huddled in one corner of the library, Lin let out a wistful sigh. I noticed her usual clique, which included Nicole, whispering excitedly at the next table and figured she probably wished she were working with her friends. But since that couldn't happen, Lin looked at each of us in turn and said, “So, I call this first meeting of the Ancient Civilization Superpowers to order.” She brought her fist down on the table like a gavel. The librarian shushed her.

The tension was broken and we all laughed as quietly as we could.

“ACS for short,” added Doli.

Shani whispered, “Could she have been any more obvious about wanting us to work together?”

“I feel like she's some kind of cultural groupie,” said Doli.

“Ew,” Lin added sagely.

While they talked, I opened my newly revamped laptop in front of me. I had volunteered to search for facts about the Anasazi so we could choose a topic. I did genuinely want to learn more about the Anasazi, but I also wanted Nicole to see that my laptop was alive and well, no thanks to her. After I clicked on the Internet icon on my desktop, the school's log-in page automatically popped up, requesting a Wi-Fi password. I typed it in, and the Temple Academy website came on the screen with a flourish. Along the top of the page were pictures of the campus and students raising their hands in class. Beneath that were links to access class schedules, articles about Temple, a link to the museum collection, and faculty contact information. I was just about to go to Google when a link at the very bottom of the page caught my eye. “Temple Academy Archives.”

Of course. Why hadn't I thought of this before? The school had records and photos of the previous classes of students, which meant somewhere in here there might be information about my mom and dad. Maybe even photos.

Doli, Lin, and Shani were still riffing about the Ancient Civilization Superpowers, so I figured I had a couple of minutes. I clicked on a photo link that said “Temple Academy 1985–1990.” I did the math in my head—my parents would have been here at the time. I did my best to tune out Shani's jokes about us making matching spandex ACS superhero uniforms, and Lin's complaints about how dusty the table was and whom could she call about that? It was harder to drown out the sound of someone at Nicole's table whining that the money in her wallet had disappeared.

Nicole scoffed. “Just have your parents send you some more,” she suggested. “And stop carrying so much cash.
Ew.
Cash is over.”

The girl groaned. “But my parents are already mad at me for spending my book money on that vintage Chanel jacket. . . .”

My skin pricked with annoyance, and I was pretty sure Nicole's Flowerbomb bath gel was giving me a headache. But when a list of photos from different classes popped up, I focused in on the archive, clicking through as quickly as I could, hoping to catch a glimpse of my parents as teenagers. Finally I came across a picture that looked incredibly familiar. It wasn't of my parents, though. . . . I gasped. Brown hair, kind eyes, glasses hanging from a chain . . .
Ms. Benitez
? But that was impossible! I mean, not that she showed up in the school's archived photos. That wasn't the weird thing. The strange part was that in the photo, she looked exactly the same as she did now.

According to the caption, the photo had been taken in 1985, nearly three decades ago. From her current appearance, I'd estimated her to be around forty years old—max. Was the woman in the photo her, or someone who just looked exactly like her? I didn't know what to make of it. But one thing was absolutely clear—

“
I LIKE BIG BUTTS AND I CANNOT LIE. . . .”

The blaring music snapped me out of my thoughts. Where was it coming from? I looked over and saw Nicole fumbling in her purse. She pulled out the offending cell phone and looked at it in horror as Sir Mix-a-Lot yelled out, “
YOU OTHER BROTHERS CAN'T DENY. . . .”

The librarian who had shushed Lin now stomped over to the table just as Nicole was finally able to shut the phone off. But it was too late. The librarian held out her hand. Nicole slid the phone onto her palm as she turned twelve different shades of red. “You'll get it back when you
leave
,” said the woman, clearly not amused.

When she was gone, Lin turned in her chair and said, “Ugh. That song is gross. Is that really your ringtone?”

“No!” Nicole whispered desperately. “I've never even
heard
it before. Someone must have hacked my phone.”

My eyes immediately slid over to Shani, who gave me a knowing smile. I grinned back. This was the payback for the laptop. I fist-bumped her under the table, making a mental note to tell her later her new motto would have to be
Hacks and apps, not tatts
. She'd love it.

“Hey, how's that research coming?” Doli said, nudging my arm.

“Right,” I said. “I'm on it.” Reluctantly, I closed the photo archive. The mystery of the Ms. Benitez look-alike would have to wait.

I
T'S AMAZING HOW QUICKLY A
place becomes familiar—even one I'd thought was basically a different planet not so long ago. I was proud of myself for getting to know the campus so well in such a short amount of time. I'd been there for only five days and I'd already learned some of the shortcuts. For example, I found out that if I left the academic building from the east exit, I could cut through a section of the hiking trails and come out near the athletic field. Going that way also gave me a much-needed break from the other girls, most of whom cared too much about their shoes to follow me through the woods.

After my last class of the day, I took the shortcut again, only this time the trees were alive with sounds I'd never heard this clearly before. Had the birds always been that loud? Looking up at them through the bright green leaves, I saw an image from my dream flash before my eyes. The thick jungle vines, the hyena's frightened stare as my jaws closed in on its neck. . . .

I shook the image away, blinking my eyes.
It was just a dream,
I reminded myself.
Just a terrible dream.

I refocused my attention on the beautiful, clear day and the birds with their colorful wings. Beneath their excited chirping, I could have sworn I heard a boy's voice—and it sounded like he was cheering himself on. Sure enough, when I emerged onto the field, I was rewarded with the sight of Jason Ferris practicing lacrosse all by himself. He had a bucket of balls next to him and was using the lacrosse stick to shoot them into the net one by one. I smiled as I approached.

“Nice job!” I called. “But then I guess it's not hard to score when the goal isn't even guarded.”

Jason wiped sweat from his face and smirked at me. “Sounds like a challenge,” he said.

“You got that right.” I dropped my bag and pounded my chest like an ape. “I even have my gym clothes with me, so I'm ready for you. There's only one little problem.”

“What?”

“I don't
actually
know how to play.”

Jason laughed. “All right. We can fix that. First let's get you suited up.”

He led me into the clubhouse where all the sports equipment was stored. When I came out, in addition to my running shorts and T-shirt, I had protective pads on my elbows and knees, and a helmet over my head that was one size too big.

“Is all this really necessary?” I asked.

“Only for first timers like you,” Jason answered. “Lacrosse can be brutal. Are you sure you want to play?”

“Bring it on.”

After he showed me how to hold the lacrosse stick, he gave me a quick tutorial in the game. It sounded a little bit like soccer, except instead of kicking the ball with your feet, you catch it with the mesh at the end of the stick and fling it into the goal any way you can.
Easy.
That is, if you can get it past the goalie.

Since we didn't have a full team, we couldn't really work on defending or attacking, so we boiled it down to the essentials.

“I'll be goalie first,” Jason said, “and you just try to get it past me. Then we'll switch, okay?”

I nodded, getting into position. I slid my right hand up a few inches from the top of the shaft and clamped my left hand a few inches from the bottom. I picked up one of the balls from the bucket and ran at Jason, zigzagging back and forth to psyche him out. I feinted left and when he mirrored me, I shot to my right, whirled, and sent the ball flying past his ear and into the net. Jason looked at me in disbelief. “Nice!” he exclaimed.

“Beginner's luck,” I said. But we both knew it wasn't. I was good at this. I didn't make every goal, because Jason was a strong player. But I had speed, and my aim was dead on. When we switched, it turned out I wasn't a bad goalie, either. Jason had played for years, so a few shots took me by surprise and got by me. But eight times out of ten, I seemed to sense where the ball would go and was right there to bat it away or block it with my body. I reacted to shifts in the ball's position with lightning-fast reflexes that surprised even me.