Psyched (3 page)

His eyes filled with wonder. “So I’m the boss of it?”

Aisi grinned. “Yeah. Totally.”

Leo’s smile beamed for a moment before fading. “But I can’t tell anyone?”

Aisi shook her head as the same deep horn beeped again in the distance. “Nope. Our secret. If you tell there are dire consequences. Pink toenails. Wedgies. Litigation. It will get ugly.”

“But why not Mom?” he pressed, getting up from the table to clear his dish. Aisi watched him move into the kitchen, her eyes coming to rest on the digital numbers on the oven’s clock. At the same moment, she heard one long, last blow of the horn and then the sound of a diesel engine revving and pulling away.

“CRAP!” she groaned suddenly, tossing her mostly full cereal bowl across the kitchen and into the sink. That horn she kept hearing was the bus driver, who probably waited a minute longer than usual so she could make it to her test on time. She was so distracted by Leo that she missed her ride to school.

Her test started first period! She still had on her fleece jammie bottoms and a tank top, her teeth weren’t brushed, and her long curls were pulled into a haphazard, frizzy ponytail on top of her head. Her brother had to be dropped off at their father’s home in town, and since their mother wouldn’t be awake any time soon, Aisi had to take him or he would miss school. As Aisi ran to the bathroom, she tried not to freak out that the only legal ride in the house was currently whacked out on prescription sleep meds.

Her mind raced as she grabbed her flip flops from the floor near the back door, hoping for a frost-free morning. She ran into the bathroom and scrubbed her teeth fiercely, yanking on a pair of skinny jeans crumpled on the floor near the toilet. She threw her favorite hoodie over the tank top she slept in after a quick dance with her pit stick. Breathless, she raced back to the kitchen, where Leo had gotten her backpack and gym bag ready for her. She froze and stared at him suspiciously.

“Really?” she asked.

He nodded solemnly. “Don’t get used to it, punk,” he said, using her own words against her. He grinned. “I made you lunch and everything, because you made the night terror go away.”

Aisi smiled as he produced her purple-rimmed reading glasses as well. “I still hate you, little troll.”

“I know. I hate you, too, stinky face.” He tossed his own backpack over his left shoulder. “We have to steal the car again, don’t we?”

Aisi nodded grimly as they hurried out the front door. It was humiliating to be the only high school senior without a driver’s license. She had a learner’s permit, and the only reason she hadn’t received her license yet was because her mother couldn’t be bothered to take her to the DMV the next town over. “Yup,” she replied. “Today, little man, we are felons.”

“Demon-fighting felons,” he added emphatically, jumping off the front porch in his best impression of a ninja, down three shaky wooden steps as they raced out the front door together.

They jumped into the cab of a corroded, beat up car missing half its front fender. Spots on the hood had rusted through, dotting the sun-faded blue car with asymmetrical orange polka dots. One back wheel was a pizza cutter spare that hadn’t been replaced after a flat on the highway six months before. Aisi gunned the engine and spun out backwards, sending pebbles from the gravel driveway flying in every direction.

Aisi spent the half hour drive down the highway debating speed over caution as her eyes flickered nervously between the clock in the dash and the rearview mirror every few seconds. She slowed down and sank down low in her seat as she pulled onto Main in town, though it was sort of pointless. Everyone in town knew their car, and everyone knew she didn’t have a license. Most of them teased her mercilessly for these two reasons.

The diner their father owned sat on the corner of the main intersection in their little podunk town, hidden deep among rolling hills and lush trees not far from the Allegheny River. He lived in the small apartment above the restaurant. Lamp light shone from his open window and curtains fluttered out into the cool morning breeze. The weak sun tried half-heartedly to burn through the morning mist enveloping the car as she stopped in front of the diner and yanked up the parking brake. She jerked the key out of the ignition and hopped out. Standing below the open window, she cupped her hands around her mouth and hollered, “Hey, Big Billy!”

Almost instantly, a familiar head poked out the window’s opening. “What…” he began, and then he sighed.

“Hi, Daddy,” Aisi said in mock cheerfulness. “We love you so much, we just had to come see you first thing.”

“Your mom is on all those pills again, isn’t she?” He clucked disapprovingly, his perfect enunciation almost masking his unique accent. He already knew the answer to his question. “It’s not locked, Sunshine. Come in. Leo is with you, yes?”

The passenger door slammed shut in reply. “Here I am, Dad!” he called, waving energetically up at his dad.

Aisi opened the diner’s door open, searching for the nearest clock as he lumbered down the stairs to greet them. “Dad, I had to steal the car again but I don’t want to get caught like I did last time,” she said in a rush as his massive, muscular frame squeezed through the door. Leo jumped on his dad and tackled him in an odd hybrid of hug and head lock. “She took some sleeping pills and I overslept because…it was just one of those nights.”

“More night terrors?” he asked with concern, glancing at Leo, who looked at Aisi for help on what to say.

“Something like that,” she answered lightly, pulling her backpack more snugly around her shoulders. “We got it covered though, right, kid?”

“Yeah,” Leo responded, looking relieved he didn’t have to start lying to his parents just yet. “We got it, Dad.”

“So I need a ride to school because if Officer Padelski catches me in the car again without my license, he says I might not be able to get it at all. End of levels start in like ten minutes and I can’t be late. Can you take me and then pick Leo up this afternoon, since I stole Mom’s car? I can work the diner after cross country practice.”

“I can do that, if my little man promises me to help around here during lunch rush after kindergarten.” Her father’s big, toothy smile lit up his face as he grinned at his kids, the gleaming white of his teeth a stark contrast to the deep ebony of his skin. Aisi might have her mother’s slim build, but she definitely inherited his striking silvery green eyes.

“Can I work the fryer this time?” Leo asked eagerly, following their dad out the door. Her dad took the keys from Aisi and they trundled back to the car.

“No. Let’s start with the toaster.”

Aisi slammed the door as she plopped onto the front seat and buckled herself. Leo groaned, shoulders drooping dramatically before he clambered into the back and pulled his own door closed. “Aw!” he complained. “I don’t like toasting buns. It’s boring.”

“It’s that or the dishwasher, little man,” Dad said as he pulled away from the curb and sped injudiciously down Main toward the high school. The late bell would ring in a little less than ten minutes, but Aisi sat back, knowing that although it should take around fifteen minutes to get there, her dad would drop her off with a kiss on the cheek in seven.

Chapter 3: End of Levels

Aisi made her way through the maze of ancient wooden desks and slid into her seat just as the tardy bell rang. She dropped her backpack carelessly onto the floor and shoved it under her chair with a casual kick. The girl in front of her spun around and passed a stack of number two pencils the teacher sent around the room the moment the bell rang. Floor to ceiling windows let in a bit of light, but the fog outside did nothing to encourage the kids inside the dim and depressing test room.

“Everyone take at least two pencils,” a smallish, balding man in a bow tie called as he stood at the front of the full classroom. The teacher’s squeaky voice somehow rose above the morning chatter. “I will not allow you to leave your seat until you have completed each section, so I hope you took care of personal needs before you got here. No potty breaks! Also, make sure you have at least…two…pencils!”

The girl in front of her turned just enough to glance over her shoulder while still keeping an eye on her desk. “I thought you were gonna be late again,” she hissed. “What happened?”

Aisi smiled. Her best friend, Zinnia Dalrymple, was something of a drama queen. With her, the cup wasn’t half empty or half full. It was completely full of a toxic chemical compound that would kill you instantly, but she would probably drink it anyway just for laughs. She was the funniest person around. Her rich, snooty mother sent her out the door every day in cashmere sweater sets and pearls, but somehow Zinnia showed up to school in something much less demure. Today her ensemble consisted of blue zebra stripe pants, a glittery vintage rock concert tee, and hot pink extensions clipped into her platinum blonde bob, topped with an electric blue bow. “Was your mom running late or something?”

“My mom was off in dreamland, romancing Prince Valium,” Aisi whispered back. “Still is, probably. Leo had more…uh, night terrors last night. He kept me up half the night after I’d been up ‘til, like, one a.m. studying.”

“No talking, please!” the bald man said, his shrill voice ineffective against the din of nervous student babble.

Zinnia snorted. “Why bother studying? At this point if you don’t know it, you’re boned anyway. And who are we kidding? You totally know it.”

“Please direct your attention to the front, class. We need to get started, if you please.”

“No, we don’t please,” a guy’s voice called from the corner. A couple of his equally ridiculous friends guffawed in appreciation of his stellar wit.

“Kalen, you’re already going to fail senior year again,” the bald teacher warned lightly, a smile on his chubby face. “Don’t make me demote you to roasting hot dogs in the school’s weenie wagon for the rest of your life.”

Laughter filled the room, and Aisi grinned. “I love Mr. Jensen.”

“Don’t let Monica hear you say that,” Zinnia warned quietly. “She’s looking for targets to unleash on today. She hears that and next thing you know, everyone in school will be asking when your wedding with Mr. Jensen is. I think she’s PMSing or something because today she’s way worse than usual. She made some little freshman girl cry in the bathroom while she did her makeup this morning. The poor kid’s crime was daring to use the sink next to Monica to wash her hands. Emotional torment is her latest hobby.”

Aisi shook her head. “Like I care what Monica Hart thinks of me.”

“Ooh, you missed the morning gossip!” Zinnia added excitedly, ignoring all the rules and spinning in her seat to face her bestie. She planted her elbows on Aisi’s desk and crossed her legs, getting comfortable. “Monica and Kalen hooked up last night!”

Aisi shrugged. Unlike most people in her small high school, she didn’t really care who made out with whom.

“Seniors, this is Miss Benita Mifflin,” Mr. Jensen announced loudly as the group of teens slowly came to order. It had nothing to do with him, however. Zinnia jerked forward and turned back around, alert. The atmosphere in the room instantly became heavy as the dowdy, middle-aged woman waddled to the front of the room, overlooking severe spectacles perched at the end of her nose as she eyed them sharply. She ran her fingers menacingly over the thick stack of test booklets curving over one of her flabby forearms as she stood before them like a chunky drill instructor.

Mr. Jensen continued, “Miss Mifflin is your test proctor for this portion of the exam. She is a lovely lady as well as a former member of the U.S. Olympic women’s heavy weight wrestling team. I assure you, should you feel it necessary to cheat, she has my full permission to practice her headlocks and body slams on you.”

The assembled group looked around uncertainly, trying to decide how serious their teacher was about the wrestling thing. Aisi caught his eye, and he winked at her. She looked at Miss Mifflin and then back at her favorite teacher. Mr. Jensen was rather small, and Aisi felt pretty sure that, regardless of whether or not the proctor had ever belonged to any wrestling team, the woman could easily take him out with one good head butt. Aisi began her deep breathing to calm the panic threatening to overwhelm her as Miss Mifflin barked out instructions and warnings.
I control my thoughts
, she said to herself.
I am calm and ready for this test…if I don’t hyperventilate first.

After Miss Mifflin completed her instructions and issued more warnings and threats to any potential cheaters, Aisi unsealed her test booklet and opened it to the first page. The gentle rustling of paper and frantic scratch of pencils were punctuated with nervous coughs and the staccato beat of Mifflin’s sensible shoes as she paced the aisles.

Despite her best efforts at thinking only of the test, Aisi couldn’t keep her mind from wandering to Leo. She kept thinking of what else she should have said, how else she could have explained it, how much she should have said. There was more, so much more he needed to know.

Focus!
she yelled in her head. Normally Aisi Turay had complete control over her emotions, but today, not so much. She wanted to cry. The test itself overwhelmed her, but by adding no sleep and the emotional havoc her little brother had unintentionally wreaked on top of it, she opened herself up more than she had in years. She wasn’t surprised when a black shadow slipped into the room an hour into the test, hovering in the corner above her. Its red eyes malevolently fixed on her as she diligently worked, slurping up all the raw emotion in the room like soda through a straw.

“That was brutal!” Zinnia griped later, when they finally reached their allowed lunch break. “I’ve never taken a test like that before. I mean, it was hard—I expected that, but it felt different this time. Like something else was wrong. Does that make sense? I had such a hard time focusing.”

“I know what you mean,” Aisi replied grimly, looking over her shoulder at the room they just exited. They walked out together, side by side, but Kalen shoved them aside to reach the girl just in front of them. He wrapped his arm around the girl, Monica Hart, casting a quick glance at Zinnia before kissing the girl awkwardly as he tried to keep walking.