Silence (5 page)

He hadn’t been waiting for her. He’d been walking in tight little circles.

Shouting in his ear when he was like that did nothing.

Touching him, on the other hand, always got his attention; she’d put a hand very firmly on his shoulder, and when he said, “Oh, hi, Emma,” she had steered him into the cafeteria. Philipa and Alison had puled up the rear, and Amy had gone on ahead, clearing a path by simply, wel, teling everyone to get out of the way. They had found a table with enough space, deposited Michael at one end, and had taken turns braving the lunch line.

The big advantage to having Amy as the unofficial spokesperson on that first day? It made clear that she, too, was watching out for Michael, and anyone who chose to pick on his strangeness was going to have social difficulties that lasted pretty much until they died, which would probably not be that far in the future. And it worked reasonably wel, at least where the grade nines had been concerned.

nines had been concerned.

It was harder to control the other grades, though, and they had made Michael’s life a little less smooth.

After the first day, Alison and Emma explained that if Michael found a space at a table and sat there, they would get lunch and join him. He did that, although he always chose the empty table closest to the door.

Michael brought a bagged lunch from home. Given the food in the cafeteria, this was probably for the best. He would sometimes eat other food if it was offered to him, but he was— no surprise—enormously picky. He would also join in a conversation if the topic interested him. Given that it was the cafeteria that was seldom. But he had made a few more friends since ninth grade, and one of the things that fascinated him was Dungeons and Dragons. He also liked computers, computer games, and web comics, and by tenth grade, Oliver and Connel frequently took up spots beside or facing Michael.

This had continued into the eleventh grade, and a long and tortuous discussion—to those who were not interested in D&D—was wel under way by the time Emma reached their table. She frowned because there was someone sitting beside Michael, and she didn’t recognize the student. He wasn’t in their year, but she knew most of the grade twelves on sight. Maybe he was new?

But he was sitting beside Michael, he was a total stranger, and Michael didn’t even seem to be concerned. One glance at the table made clear he hadn’t braved the cafeteria lines for what

the table made clear he hadn’t braved the cafeteria lines for what passed for food, either.

“Emma?” Alison asked. Emma stood holding her tray, and Alison shrugged and sat down.

She sat down on top of the stranger—and passed right through him.

For a moment the strange student and her best friend were superimposed over each other. Emma blinked rapidly as the lines of the stranger’s face blended with Alison’s, the cafeteria tray listing forward in her hands. Eric caught it before she lost her grip completely.

“Emma?”

She shook her head as the stranger stood. Alison’s expression slowly untangled from his as he moved. His eyes widened as he met Emma’s, and then he smiled and waved. She opened her mouth; he shook his head, and as she watched, he faded from sight.

ERIC SET EMMA’S RESCUED TRAY down across from Alison’s and took a seat himself.

Emma stared at her food. There was no way she was now up to eating any of it.

“Em?”

She smiled across the table at Alison; it was a forced smile, and it obviously didn’t make Aly feel any better. “I’m fine.

Honest, I’m fine—I have a headache, that’s al.”

Michael turned to her. “You have a headache?”

This was not exactly what Emma needed. She could lie to Alison in a pinch. She could lie to Eric, because she didn’t know him and didn’t need a near stranger’s obvious concern. Lying to Michael, however, was different. She could tel Eric—or Alison —that she had headaches al the time, and they’d pretend to believe her; Michael would cal her on it, and if she argued, it would upset him because what he knew and what she was claiming was true weren’t the same.

“I tripped when I was walking Petal last night. I hit my head on something.”

Alison’s brows rose, but she said nothing.

Michael, Dungeons and Dragons forgotten, frowned. To no one’s surprise except Eric’s, he began to question her about possible symptoms. Emma interrupted to ask what, exactly, these might be symptoms of, and he very seriously replied, “Concussion. I think you should go to the doctor, Emma.”

Emma didn’t particularly like visiting the doctor. Neither, if it came down to it, did Michael—but Michael persisted in being logical. And if you wanted him to persist in being calm, you had to toe the same logic line.

Rescue came from an unexpected quarter. “Hey, don’t waste your time on Emma,” said the clear and annoyingly perky voice of Deb McAlister, who, accompanied by Amy and Nan, had paused in her walk to the exit.

“Oh?” Eric asked, turning on the bench.

“She’s not looking for anyone.”

Eric glanced at Emma, who shrugged and nodded. “It’s true.

I’m not.”

Eric returned the shrug. “Neither am I.” He smiled politely at Deb and Nan, smiled in an entirely different way at Amy, and turned back to what was left of his lunch. He was not, unlike most of the guys, a fast eater.

“Too bad.” Deb’s voice was friendly. In fact, given Deb, she was probably trying to be helpful. In her own special way.

Nan smiled shyly and introduced herself to Eric, who—as if he were someone’s grandfather and not their classmate— actualy got up from the table to shake her hand. This caused a little ripple of silence, but it was a pleased silence. Nan was not, in the classical sense of the word, beautiful, but she had long, thick, straight black hair that was the envy of every girl in the thick, straight black hair that was the envy of every girl in the school who wasn’t Amy, and her eyes were a perfect brown in equaly perfect skin. She could speak Mandarin, but she hated doing it unless she was with her cousins, five of whom attended Emery. Emma had asked her why once, and Nan had said, “I’m not someone’s exotic pet seal. I don’t want to bark on command.”

And Amy?

“Eric, what are you doing Friday night?”

“Why?”

“I have a big—I mean big—open house planned at my place.

Pretty much everyone in our year should be there, if you want to meet them al. I would have invited you by e-mail,” she added, “but you’re new enough here that I don’t have yours yet.

“Are you coming, Emma?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Can you tel Eric where and when, and send me his e-mail address if he has one? I have to go to the yearbook committee meeting—I’m running late.”

“Sure.” She watched Amy head out the cafeteria doors and then said, “Pul your tongue back in. You’re drooling.”

Eric laughed. “That obvious?”

“Wel, you’re male. And at least you didn’t try to eat and miss your mouth.”

He laughed again.

“Don’t laugh,” she told him with a grimace. “I’ve seen it happen at least once every semester.”

When history was over, school was done for the day. Emma went to her locker, deposited her textbooks, and then stood leaning against the narrow orange door.

“Emma?”

She looked up. Eric, pack hanging loosely from his left shoulder, was watching her.

“Are you feeling al right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” She puled herself off the locker door and grimaced. “I have a bit of a headache.”

“Should you be walking?”

Emma shrugged. She slung her backpack over her right shoulder and started to head down the hal. “I’l be fine,” she told him, when it became clear he was folowing her. “Alison wil walk me home.”

“Did your mother take you to a doctor?”

“I did not, and do not, have a concussion. I have a headache.”

“Migraine?”

“Eric, look, you are not my mother, for which I’m grateful because I can barely handle the one I have now.” She gritted her teeth and lifted a hand, palm out. “No, look, I’m sorry, I know that was unfair. I have a headache. I wil walk home. I wil sleep it off.”

Eric lifted both his hands in surrender. If her waspish comment had bothered him at al, it didn’t show, and if her head had not, in fact, been pounding at the temples, and if the light in the hals had not begun to actualy hurt, she would have smiled.

“Tel you what. You can folow me at a discreet distance, and “Tel you what. You can folow me at a discreet distance, and if I colapse, you can cal my mother again. She might take a little longer to show up, though, because she’s at work.”

Alison was waiting for her on the wide, shalow steps from which less adventurous skateboarders leaped. The one thing Emma missed about winter was the lack of skateboards.

Alison bypassed the usual quiet and concerned questions she liked to open with and went straight to the single sylable. “Em?”

She held out a hand, and Emma took it. Clearly, from the way Alison’s expression changed, she had gripped it a little too hard.

“Sorry,” Emma managed to say. “The light is kiling my eyes, Aly. And the noise—it’s making me dizzy. I feel like someone is stabbing the top of my spine with—with hot stabbing things. I think I’m going to throw up.”

“Let me cal your mom.”

“Are you kidding? I’l throw up in the car, and you know who’s going to have to clean it up later.” Not that her mother wouldn’t try. “Just help me get home.” She paused and then managed to say, “Where’s Michael?”

“He’s talking to Oliver.”

Going home from school had never been as stressful for Michael as getting there. Which made sense—going to a very strange place from a safe one was always worse. “Ask him if he needs us to wait for him?”

Alison nodded and then said, very softly, “You need to let go of my hand. Sit down on the steps so you don’t fal over.” She helped Emma lower herself to the steps and then hovered there helped Emma lower herself to the steps and then hovered there for a minute.

Emma heard steps behind her. Actualy, she heard steps in al directions, but the ones behind her were louder. Alison hadn’t realy moved, so they couldn’t be hers.

“Emma,” Eric said, speaking very, very quietly. “Let me take you home.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you are not. I have a car,” he added.

“You drive?”

“Depends on who you ask. I have a license, if that helps.”

“No, look, I—”

“And if you throw up in the car, I can clean it up. Go ask Mike if she needs to wait,” he added. Emma couldn’t see Eric; at this point her eyes were closed, and her hands were covering them. But she could guess who he was talking to, and she did hear Alison’s retreat.

“Don’t cal him that,” she said.

“What?”

“Don’t cal him Mike. It’s not his name, and he doesn’t recognize it as his name.” She wanted to weep with pain. She stopped talking.

“I’m driving you home,” he said, in the same quiet voice.

She didn’t have the energy to say no again. She did, apparently, have the energy to throw up.

The car was agony. Curled up in a fetal bal, Emma almost cried.

Almost. She did throw up again, but Alison was in the backseat Almost. She did throw up again, but Alison was in the backseat beside her, and she was holding something in front of Emma’s face. Eric was either the world’s worst driver, or any motion caused waves of nausea.

She tried to say Michael’s name, but it realy did not come out wel. Mostly, it was whimpering, and Emma decided not to talk.

“Michael’s here,” Alison said quietly. “He’s in the front seat with Eric.” Alison’s hand was cool when it touched Emma’s forehead. She wanted to lean into it.