He bursts out laughing. “I’m kidding,” he says. “He’s terrible. Loves to blow his bazoo. But you should have seen your face.” He takes off walking again. “Come along,” he calls back over his shoulder.
I break into a smile at the retreating back of his head and hurry to catch him. We round a corner and narrowly miss colliding with a girl wearing tortoiseshell glasses. A braid wraps around her head like a snake.
The look she gives me is something beyond curiosity. She scowls and darts away, and I think again of the note from town.
“You know, I met your mother yesterday,” I tell George.
“She mentioned that.” He makes a face. “Please know I take more after my father.”
“She was . . . perfectly nice,” I say feebly. In response, George snorts.
We slow in front of a classroom filled with long wooden tables. “Biology laboratory. My favorite class.” He points me inside. “Here we are.”
The entire class turns when I step into the room. Out of the corner of my eye I can see that the heart I drew is already fading.
“Welcome, welcome,” Dr. Digby says, stepping forward. His magnified eyes loom behind thick glasses, and a row of pens peek from his laboratory coat pocket. “Students, this is Miss Aila Quinn,” he announces.
“What a felicitous day for you to join us, Miss Quinn. Today we begin to explore the wondrous world of osmosis, on none other than the Allium cepa.” He displays a white bulb to the class. “Better known to the layman as the common onion.” With his other hand he taps a ruler twice on his desk. “Goggles, everyone!”
I follow George to the farthest lab desk. There are two seats next to a girl with eyes the color of umber and a line of rounded black bangs that graze her eyebrows. She offers me a smile with some curiosity and moves her violin case to make room. Her spectator pumps make her uniform look miles more sophisticated than my bobby socks and saddle shoes.
I set my bag down, and as soon as Dr. Digby’s back is turned, a flurry of notes are passed under the lab tables. It’s a special kind of agony to know they all contain my initial evaluations. I’m suddenly back in eighth grade again, feeling Dixon Fairweather’s hot breath in my ugly ear.
“Beas,” George says, “meet Aila. She moved here from . . .”
“Gardner,” I say. “Hello.”
“Welcome to the madness,” Beas says, handing me a pair of goggles. Her voice is low and throaty. She pulls her own goggles down and sticks a piece of hard candy in her mouth. “Candy?” she offers. I shake my head. “So what do you think of our nuts little town so far?”
“It seems all right,” I say nervously. “I’m staying with the Clifftons. Do you know them?”
“Right. With William,” she says. She looks amused. Then she drops her onion on the table and George catches it just before it rolls to the floor.
He points his knife at the bulb and says, “Yes, Will’s a giant hunk of heartbreak. Now let’s pay attention to the task at hand, shall we?”
“No, no, it’s not like that.” Beas laughs. “You know I only have eyes for Thom. However . . .” She trails off. “Let’s just say I know some people who aren’t going to be very pleased to hear that.”
George gives a sort of shrug-nod, as if he knows exactly whom she means.
“Class, turn to page fifty-two, and let’s get started,” Dr. Digby says. George takes out a small scalpel and begins to peel off the thin translucent layers of the onion.
“So I guess this is the part where we’re supposed to tell you all the different ways you can’t use the Variants,” Beas says. She makes no move to help George with the experiment. Instead she reaches into my half-open bag and pulls out the Variant Compliance booklet. She turns to one of the earliest pages and runs her fingers over the list. It reads:
ATONING VARIANTS
Tint
Fragrance
Looking Glass
ENHANCING VARIANTS
Ember
Glimmer
Mind’s Eye
