Shadows (4 page)

‘That’s not what I said. It’s just that we’ve elevated him to this perfect being, and he wasn’t,’ Luke explained. ‘I’d like our paper to show both sides of him. Real humans are a lot more interesting than immaculate heroes. And I think they’re more inspirational too. Gandhi was a man with lots of contradictions. Did you know he was supported by industrial billionaires? He even went on a hunger strike to stop the employees of one of the billionaires from striking for better working conditions.’

Eve flipped open her binder as they walked. ‘Look. Last week’s notes.’ She scanned them quickly. ‘
Mahatma means Great Soul. Inspiration to civil rights leaders across the globe. In favour of women getting more rights. Against poverty. Against classing people as—
’

‘Hey, I didn’t know you were an artist,’ Luke interrupted. He tapped one of the hole punches at the edge of the loose-leaf paper. She’d added a beak and feet to the little hole. ‘Cute.’

Eve quickly closed her binder. She’d been making little chickens in the margins of her notes for so long that she didn’t even notice them any more. She’d forgotten about them when she’d showed the notes to Luke. The chickens
were
cute, but they were also embarrassing. Like something a little kid would draw.

‘We’re not talking about my art. We’re talking about the paper that we somehow got assigned to do together,’ she said. ‘I’m not risking a D just to diss Gandhi.’

Luke looked at her for a long moment.

‘What?’ Eve demanded.

‘I was just wondering if you believe a high-school history class gives the complete picture about anything,’ Luke said. ‘Can’t you see the world is a lot more complicated? Do you ever really think about things? Or
do you just eat up whatever anyone tells you, like baby food silver-spooned into your mouth? Gandhi was—’

Had he just asked if she really thought about things? He really did think all she cared about was lip gloss and bags that had the perfect amount of fringe – and it was so not true.

‘Why is nothing ever easy with you?’ Eve exclaimed. A loud bang accented her question, making her jump. She glanced over at Dave Perry, who was sucking on his finger.

‘My locker slammed on it,’ he said.

Eve winced. ‘I must’ve hit it with my elbow. Sorry.’

‘How’d you even do that?’ Dave asked, shaking his hand. ‘You weren’t anywhere near me.’

‘What can I say? I’m truly gifted at the klutz thing,’ she answered, then turned back to Luke. ‘I don’t want to write that Gandhi had a jerky side, OK? Unlike you, I don’t feel the need to make a statement every second.’

‘Excuse me?’ he said. ‘It’s wrong to have something to say? I guess we could do the paper on Gandhi’s feelings about make-up and fashion, but other than that
Vogue
cover in that really cute loincloth after he’d had all that diet success, we don’t have a lot of material.’

Eve stared at him, astonished. And furious. That proved it. That’s what he really thought of her – that all
she cared about was diet tips and cute clothes. He went around flirting with every girl he saw … and
he
was being judgemental? How did that work? ‘You’re not trying to say anything about Gandhi,’ Eve said, stung. ‘You’re just trying to make a point. Well, we get it. You’re not from around here. You’re not a spoiled rich kid. You care about important things like working conditions for the poor and how buying a designer bag – I don’t know – rips food out of the mouths of the starving. You’re far superior to everyone you meet. You’re a special, special snowflake.’

Luke laughed. Which wasn’t the reaction Eve was expecting. Or wanting. She’d just insulted him, the way he’d insulted her. Didn’t he get that? Or maybe he was incapable of being offended by the opinion of someone who he thought was a complete fluff-head?

Eve turned and stalked away from him, fuming. She’d known him for a week and a half now, and he got more annoying every day. And she couldn’t get rid of him for another fifty minutes. Not only was he in her biology class, he was at the same lab table.

Eve ignored him as she walked into the room and took her seat on her lab stool. Finally she risked a glance at Luke to see how he was taking it. He didn’t seem to notice. He was too busy flirting with Belinda
Delaware. Somehow she’d become his girlfriend, or at least his number one groupie. The boy was shameless.

Eve picked up her list of supplies for that day’s experiment. The final bell hadn’t rung yet, but she decided to start getting out the equipment – it would keep her from having to deal with annoying Luke.

‘One hundred-millilitre beaker, one hundred-millilitre graduated cylinder, one fifty-millilitre graduated cylinder, one twenty-five-millilitre graduated cylinder,’ she muttered as she knelt down by the cabinet under the lab table.

‘Great. It’s good to see someone using this time to prep,’ Ms Whittier said as she breezed into the room. ‘Today’s experiment is a long one. You’re going to need every minute.’

Eve found the graduated cylinders and set them on the table, then grabbed the beaker. ‘Hey, Belinda, would you say I’m a special snowflake?’ she heard Luke ask. He was talking loudly, and Eve knew she was meant to hear him. Did he live to torment her? Her fingers twitched, and the beaker fell to the floor, leaving sparkling shards of glass around her feet. The tinkling sound seemed to echo through the room.

‘Man down!’ Luke called. Belinda giggled. She thought Luke was so, so funny. Didn’t Luke realize
she was the stupidest girl in school? Maybe he didn’t care as long as she thought he was so, so funny.

Eve straightened up, and as she did so, a beaker fell off the shelf, adding more glass to the pile.

‘Wow. Nice shooting, Tex,’ Luke joked. And Belinda giggled again. Of course.

Ms Whittier walked over with a broom and dustpan. She handed them to Eve with raised eyebrows, but didn’t comment. Eve kept her back to Luke and Belinda while she swept. Her earlobes were burning. That always happened when she got embarrassed.

‘They should give you a medical excuse from lab. For Klutzitosis,’ Kyle Rakoff, her lab partner, said as he reached for the broom. Eve held onto it, sweeping harder, even though she knew he was just trying to help her. And that he was just trying to help her because he had a little crush on her. But Eve could clean up her own mess, and the sooner she got rid of the evidence, the better. Still, somehow she managed to knock two of the graduated cylinders off the table with the handle of the broom. She’d be wading through glass if this kept up.

‘Eve, I’m going to have to start charging you for breakage,’ Ms Whittier warned. The room was filling up with students now, and everybody who came in slowed down and stared.

Eve kept her eyes down, willing herself not to notice the other people. She slowed down the sweeping, making each movement precise and steady. When she had a neat little pile of glass, she knelt down and swept it into the dustpan. Well, most of it. Some of the pieces were so small that they kept getting caught on the lip of the pan. She used her fingers to brush them in.

‘Ow!’ she exclaimed. She stared down at her right ring finger. A few tiny drops of blood had appeared on the tip. Great. Was a little piece of glass in there? Eve rubbed her thumb gently against the fingertip. Yeah, she had a sliver of glass inside.

‘Don’t rub it. You’re just going to push it deeper.’ Suddenly Mal was kneeling beside her. He must’ve come in while she was sweeping.

‘I know, but I can’t walk around with glass in my finger.’

Mal pulled a Swiss Army knife out of his pocket.

‘Wait. You’re not cutting it out,’ Eve protested.

Mal didn’t answer. He really wasn’t a talking kind of guy. That mini-convo the two of them had had on Day One was the most she’d heard him say, except when a teacher called on him. Although Eve had managed to get a laugh out of him once – by guessing that his name was Malvin. Plus she’d scored a couple of those slow,
one-sided smiles. And looks. She’d caught Mal giving her quite a number of looks.

But none of that mattered when he wanted to take a knife to her finger. ‘I’m fine. Leave it,’ she said.

Mal just opened the knife – and pulled a little pair of tweezers from a slot in the side. He held his free hand out, raised his eyes to hers and waited.

Eve took a deep breath and put her hand in his, palm up. She closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see when the tweezers were going to touch the glass splinter. She knew she was being a baby, but she couldn’t help it. She pulled in another breath, and the smell of wood-smoke filled her nose. She could even taste its tang on her tongue.

It was coming from Mal. He was inches away from her, and the scent of him was wonderful.

‘You smell good,’ Eve murmured. Then her earlobes went hot again. Had she actually just said that out loud? What was she thinking?

‘Well, that’s a relief.’ She could hear the smile in his voice.

Eve opened her eyes. Yeah, he was smiling. And not his usual half-smile, either. He was almost grinning. ‘I was playing football in gym last period. I didn’t have time to take a shower,’ he said. ‘I was afraid I’d scare people away.’

She smiled back. ‘You must have good sweat.’

‘Who even knew there was such a thing?’ he said. He was still holding her hand, and Eve couldn’t help noticing how gentle his touch was. The heat moved from her ears to her neck, and her breath caught.

‘OK, I’m shutting my eyes again,’ she said quickly. ‘Don’t tell me when you’re going to do it. I know, I know, I’m a big baby.’

‘Done,’ Mal said immediately.

Eve’s eyes snapped open. ‘You can’t be!’

‘You were too busy smelling me to notice.’ Mal held up the tweezers and Eve could see the tiny chip of glass glinting in their grasp.

‘Thanks.’ Eve wished there was an excuse to stay down there with Mal, but she couldn’t think of one. Slowly she stood back up.

‘Maybe you need to put some lipstick on your wound,’ Luke suggested. ‘Since it has all those healing properties.’ Belinda laughed – as if she even knew what he was talking about.

‘Mal took care of it for me,’ Eve said.

‘Let me get that,’ Kyle said. He picked up the dustpan, then turned to Luke. ‘We’re going to need to work with you and Belinda. We have no equipment left.’

Oh, God! I can’t deal with watching the Luke and
Belinda lovefest all period. Especially with that inane giggling
, Eve thought.

‘Eve’s working with me today. My lab partner’s out,’ Mal announced. He looked at Eve. ‘If that’s OK with you,’ he added in his husky voice. How much did she love that voice? So much.

‘
Definitely
OK,’ Eve told him.

‘So you got to be lab partners with Mal. That part is cool,’ Jess said that afternoon after school. She unlocked her back door and ushered Eve into the utility room. The Merediths only used the front entrance for guests during dinner parties. Eve could barely remember the last time she’d set foot inside her best friend’s formal living room.

‘You should have heard stupid Luke, though. It was like he was auditioning for Comedy Central,’ Eve complained. ‘Even when I wasn’t at his table any more, he kept making fun of me, and Belinda kept laughing. I still can’t believe I have to do my history report with him.’

‘Focus on the positive, remember? Partners with Mal. We’re not going to talk about the negative any more. We’re going to watch the
Gossip Girl
where Chuck says “I love you”, and we’re going to watch it
more than once, while eating gourmet chocolate chips with whipped cream on top, and while not thinking about anything annoying.’ Jess had invited Eve over to help her forget about the horror of being partnered with Luke for the history project.

‘There’s no whipped cream left,’ Jess’s brother, Peter, called from the kitchen.

‘There has to be. I just convinced Mom to buy it yesterday,’ Jess protested. She dashed into the kitchen, Eve on her heels.

Peter stood in front of the huge Sub-Zero refrigerator, squirting whipped cream into his mouth straight from the can.

‘Oh my God. That is disgusting,’ Jess said, rolling her eyes. ‘Sometimes I can’t believe you are only a year younger than me.’

Eve just laughed. She kind of enjoyed Peter’s disgusting side. Jess said that was because she didn’t have to live with him.

‘It’s delicious,’ Peter mumbled through the white foam. The can started making an airy stuttering sound.

‘You really ate it all. Piglet.’ Jess went to what her family called the snack cupboard, which was actually a full-sized butler’s pantry, and stared inside at the yummy contents. ‘He didn’t finish off the cookies at
least,’ she told Eve, grabbing the bag of Mollie’s Market soft chocolate-chunk cookies. Mollie had a tiny store on Main Street, and it was enough to perfume the whole shopping district with delicious cookie smells all day on Mondays and Thursdays, which were her baking days.

‘Thank God. I can’t de-stress without chocolate,’ Eve said, taking the bag.

‘You thirsty?’ Jess asked as she swung open the fridge door.

‘So who’s this stupid Luke?’ Peter cut in, wiping his whipped-creamy mouth on his forearm. He smirked at Eve. ‘Was he torturing you, poor little Evie-weevie?’

Suddenly Eve’s fingers started to sting. All of them, not just the one she’d cut in lab. The refrigerator light flickered, then went out.

‘Weird. This fridge is only three months old,’ said Jess. She squinted into the dark interior. ‘Jones cherry soda?’

She didn’t wait for Eve to answer. Jess knew Eve’s favourite stuff as well as she knew her own.

Eve carefully got two glasses down from the cabinet. She gently, very gently, set them on the counter. Jess shot her a
what’s with that?
look and filled the glasses.

‘You carry them,’ Eve told her. ‘I can’t be trusted.’

‘O-O-O-K.’ Jess picked up the drinks and headed into the family room. Eve followed, and Peter followed her.

‘Seriously, who’s this Luke dude?’ Peter asked. He reached for the bag of cookies under Eve’s arm. She elbowed him away.

‘Luke Thompson. You know, the new minister’s son,’ Jess replied before Eve could. ‘Turns out he’s not too holy.’

‘In fact, he’s pure hell,’ Eve grumbled. Jess cocked an eyebrow. ‘OK, maybe not pure. But today he was about eighty-five per cent. Did I tell you he called me stupid?’