Imminent Danger: And How to Fly Straight Into It

IMMINENT DANGER

And How to Fly Straight into It

Copyright © 2013 Michelle Proulx.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-6546-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-6547-6 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-6548-3 (hc)

iUniverse rev. date: 1/8/13

Contents

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For my mother, who taught me that different people are different and that you can’t cover all your branches with one chicken.

1

“P
ersonally, I think the existence of extraterrestrial beings is a scientific improbability. Just because there’s life on Earth doesn’t mean there’s life on other planets. Until we find evidence that aliens
do
exist, I think we’re wasting time and energy searching for something that’s probably not even there.”

Folding her speaking notes closed, Eris stared out at her fellow students in the high school science classroom. If any of them had found her presentation particularly intriguing, it didn’t show. Most were too busy reviewing their own speaking notes in case Mr. Pingree decided to squeeze in one more presentation before the bell rang. The students who had already finished their presentations were staring out the window, texting under their desks, or sleeping.

Mr. Pingree crossed his arms and addressed the class. “Any thoughts? Eris raised some excellent points.”

He was met with silence.

“Come now,” the tweed-clad teacher cajoled, wiggling his eyebrows as if this lighthearted display could somehow inject life into his zombified audience. “
Aliens
, ladies and gentlemen! Little green men from Mars! UFOs! Someone must have an opinion.”

A boy in the back row raised his hand. “I don’t know about little green men,” he said, “but that blue chick from Avatar’s pretty hot.” His friends hooted their agreement and exchanged congratulatory high-fives.

Mr. Pingree apparently sensed that expecting intelligent class participation at such an early hour might be asking too much from his teenage students. “All right,” he sighed. “An excellent and thorough presentation, Eris. You may return to your seat.”

Eris smiled tightly at her teacher and hurried back to her desk. She disliked public speaking, especially when a misstep could make her the latest target of the formidable Barlow Collegiate gossip mill.
Luckily for me, no one ever listens to class presentations,
she thought
.

She was out the door as soon as the bell rang, anxious to get back to her dorm and take the shower she had skipped that morning in favor of going over her presentation notes one last time. As she walked along one of the many pathways that crisscrossed the high school campus, she kept her head down and avoided all eye contact with her fellow students.

Once safely back in her dorm room, Eris finally started to relax. She spent a moment rummaging around for her toiletries and a towel and then locked her door and headed to the suite bathroom for a relaxing shower. But barely halfway through, the water switched from pleasantly warm to freezing cold. Eris frantically rinsed the conditioner from her long, dark brown hair. Then she wrenched off the faucet and jumped out of the shower.

Looking for her robe, Eris realized she had left it in her room. Silently berating herself, she took the towel she had brought to use as a turban for her wet hair and instead wrapped it around her body. Pressing the top of the towel firmly under her armpits, she gathered up her clothes and clutched them under one arm. With her soaking hair dripping down her back, she stepped out into the hallway.

A deep, male voice sounded from the common room, accompanied by female laughter. As Eris fumbled the key card from her bundle of clothes to unlock her door, she heard the voice say loudly, “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” This high-pitched voice with a slight British lilt belonged to Lisa Brightman, one of Eris’s roommates. Of the three girls who shared her suite, Eris found Lisa to be the most tolerable. The other two girls acted so vacuous that blonde jokes were remarkably close to doing them justice.

“The door,” said the young man. “Didn’t you say Mallory’s in class?”

“Well, she is …”

Heavy footsteps pounded on the floor as Lisa’s jock boyfriend, Josh Fisher, poked his head around the corner. “Yo, Mal, where were you last night? I thought we were gonna—whoa!”

Eris froze and blushed as the handsome rugby player gave her a once-over. His head jerked back toward the common room as he called out, “Babe! Who’s the naked chick?” Josh’s eyes returned to her towel-clad body.

The key card practically flew from Eris’s hand and plunged into the lock. Yanking the door open, she dove into the safety of her private room, the door slamming shut behind her.

“Lisa! You been holding out on me, babe?” Eris heard him yell, accompanied by the sound of receding footsteps. “Your roommate’s kinda hot!”

“So?” Lisa demanded.

“You said she was a nerd!”

Eris tried to glare daggers through the door. It didn’t work, of course. All it did was attract her attention to the full-length mirror attached to the back of the door. “How does being a nerd automatically make me unattractive?” she grumbled, eyeing her slim, admittedly less-than-luscious curves. “Maybe I don’t flaunt my body, but I’ve still got it where it counts.” She smoothed the towel down over her hips and sighed. “Keep telling yourself that, Eris.”

“I never said that!” Lisa’s shrill voice cried from the common room. “I said she never parties with us!”

And that makes me a nerd how?
Eris thought.

“Fine, babe, whatever you say,” Josh said. Eris knew that the rugby player was right now raising his hands in surrender before her very persuasive roommate. Lisa was commonly referred to as “that smokin’ hot British chick,” and she generally got her way where boys were concerned.

Eris wished she had a fraction of Lisa’s natural good looks and poise. Growing up, Eris hadn’t been given the usual advice that other girls received from their mothers. Most mothers taught their daughters how to dress stylishly, how to wax their eyebrows, and how to wear makeup. But Ms. Miller, a divorced feminist entirely disillusioned with men, had always insisted that following fashion trends turned you into a mindless automaton, waxing was unnatural, and wearing makeup didn’t make you more attractive; it only made you look like you were wearing makeup.

Three years ago, when Eris had first set foot on the campus of Barlow Collegiate as a freshman, she’d had an unpleasant surprise. Not that middle school hadn’t been enough of an eye-opener, but in high school, looking good seemed to be an obsession—that, and getting drunk and high, but Eris’s mother had turned her off those as well. Eris had tried vodka at the only residence party she had ever attended but hadn’t liked the fuzzy-headed feeling it gave her. Drinking herself into a stupor had never struck Eris as particularly appealing.

It’s not that I mind not fitting in here
, she reflected.
Well, fine, of course I do. Who wouldn’t? But if fitting in means showing up to class stoned or going to the hospital for alcohol poisoning, I think I’ll pass.

She could still hear Josh and Lisa talking and laughing in the common room. To her dismay, Eris felt a familiar pang of longing.
I wish someone would talk to me like that. He doesn’t have to be cool or handsome like Josh. Just a nice, sweet guy who would make me feel wanted.

She sighed. “Who am I kidding? I don’t have a chance, not with girls like Lisa around.” Eris grabbed the bottom edge of her towel, gave her mirror a practice curtsy, and then rolled her eyes. “Might as well wait for Prince Charming to appear out of thin air and sweep me off my feet, for all the good it’ll do me.”

She pulled on a pair of jeans, her favorite purple hoodie, and worn sneakers. Normally she had to wear the school uniform—a pleated green skirt and white shirt—but today was casual Friday. After a quick trip to the bathroom to brush her teeth and fix her long hair into a ponytail, Eris gathered up her books, put on a coat, and hurried from the suite. Josh and Lisa barely glanced at her as she passed by.

Eris decided to take the elevator down to the ground floor even though the plodding old contraption was long past its prime.
Although that will mean missing this month’s “art exhibition,”
she thought. Last month, the stairwell had been splattered crimson from top to bottom, thanks to three seniors, a bottle of tequila, and a can of red paint.

When the elevator doors finally grated open, Eris stepped inside and pressed the M button. “Hold it!” a familiar voice called as the doors lumbered shut. Josh barreled into the elevator, book bag flung over his shoulder.

Feeling very awkward, Eris stared at her school bag while the elevator descended, avoiding eye contact with Josh. She wasn’t used to being alone and so close to an attractive member of the opposite sex. When something touched her arm, she was so startled she yelped and jumped away.

“Sorry!” Josh exclaimed, giving her a weird look. “I was just being friendly. Chill.”

Eris flushed and rubbed her forehead. “No, sorry, it was my fault. I’m not used to people touching me. Strangers, I mean.”
Thank God I stopped myself from saying “boys.”

Josh chuckled. “Considering that I just saw you half-naked, I wouldn’t call us strangers.”

Eris’s jaw dropped. “What would you call us, then?”

“I’m sure I could think of something.”

“I’m not entirely sure you could.”

Before he could respond, the elevator doors opened on the main floor and Eris rushed out. She wanted to be far away from Josh in case he ever figured out what she had meant.

She had ten minutes to get to Calculus, so she set off along the bustling, tree-lined pathway that led to the science building. Eris found something comforting about being lost in the flow of students—it made her feel like she belonged, and that was something that didn’t happen very often.

Just as Eris was passing the thick row of pine trees that lined the path near the science building, she felt suddenly uneasy. She stopped and looked around but could see nothing out of the ordinary. “Stop being so paranoid,” Eris muttered. She hoisted the book bag farther up her shoulder and continued walking.

A flash of movement among the pine trees startled her, and she stopped again. “Watch it!” a girl snapped, almost running into Eris.