I wave as he rounds the corner, then feel like an idiot.
“Now,” says the nurse, turning to me.
“Really,” I say. “I’m fine.”
She looks unconvinced.
“I could do jumping jacks—that’s how fine I am,” I say, and I can’t wipe the stupid smile off my face.
Thus I arrive at Honors English late. The students have pulled their chairs into a circle. The teacher, an older man with a short, white beard, motions for me to come in.
“Pull up a chair. Miss Gardner, I presume?”
“Yes.” I feel the whole class staring directly at me as I grab a desk from the back of the room and drag it toward the circle. I recognize Wendy, the girl who helped me in the hall. She scoots her desk over to make room for me.
“I’m Mr. Phibbs,” says the teacher. “We’re in the middle of an exercise that’s largely for your benefit, so I’m glad you could join us. Everyone must give three unique facts about themselves. If anyone else in the circle has one in common, they raise their hand, and the person whose turn it is has to choose something else. We’re currently on Shawn, who was finishing up by claiming that he has the most . . . rocking snowboard in Teton County. . . .” Mr. Phibbs raises his bushy eyebrows. “Which Jason here contested.”
“I ride the beautiful pink lady,” brags the boy who I assume is Shawn.
“No one can argue that’s unique,” says Mr. Phibbs with a cough. “So now we’re on to Kay. And say your name, please, for the new girl.”
Everyone looks to a petite brunette with large brown eyes. She smiles as if it’s the most natural thing in the world for her to be the center of attention.
“I’m Kay Patterson,” she says. “My parents own the oldest fudge shop in Jackson. I’ve met Harrison Ford lots of times,” she adds as her second thing, “because our fudge is his favorite. He said that I look like Carrie Fisher from Star Wars.”
So she’s vain, I think. Although if you dressed her up in a white gown and put the cinnamon-roll buns on either side of her head, she really could pass for Princess Leia. She’s very attractive, definitely one of the pretty people, with a peaches-and-cream complexion and brown hair that falls past her shoulders in perfect curls, so shiny that it almost doesn’t look like hair.
“And,” Kay adds as her final touch, “Christian Prescott is my boyfriend.”
I dislike her already.
“Very good, Kay,” says Mr. Phibbs.
Next is Wendy. She’s blushing, obviously mortified to be speaking in front of the entire class about herself.
“I’m Wendy Avery,” she says with a shrug. “My family manages a ranch outside Wilson. I don’t know what else is that unique about me. I want to be a veterinarian, not a big surprise because I love horses. And I’ve made my own clothes since I was six years old.”
“Thank you, Wendy,” says Mr. Phibbs. She rocks back with a small sigh of relief. From the desk next to hers, Kay stifles a yawn. It’s a small, ladylike gesture, but it makes me dislike her even more.
Silence.
Oh crap, I realize, they’re waiting for me.
All the things I’ve been considering fly out of my brain. Instead I think of all the things I can’t tell them, like I can speak any language on Earth fluently. I have wings that appear when I ask them to, and I’m supposed to be able to fly, but I suck at it. I’m a natural blonde. I have an impeccable sense of direction, which I think is supposed to help with the flying thing, but it doesn’t. Oh, and I’m here on a mission to save Kay’s boyfriend.
I clear my throat. “So I’m Clara Gardner, and I moved here from California.”
The other students snicker as a guy across the circle raises his hand.
“That’s one of Mr. Lovett’s unique facts,” says Mr. Phibbs, “only you weren’t here when he said it. You’ll find that there are quite a few students here who have migrated from the Golden State.”
“Okay, well, let me try again.” Specificity is obviously the key here. “I moved here from California about a week ago, because I heard such great things about the fudge.”
The class laughs, even Kay, who seems pleased. I suddenly feel like a stand-up comedian who’s just told the opening bit. But anything’s better than being known as the redheaded dorkina who passed out in the middle of the hall after third period. So jokes it will be.
“Birds are weirdly attracted to me,” I continue. “They kind of stalk me wherever I go.” This is true. My current theory about this is because they smell my feathers, although it’s impossible to know for sure.
“Are you raising your hand, Angela?” asks Mr. Phibbs.
Startled, I glance to my right, where a raven-haired girl in a violet-colored tunic dress over black leggings is quickly lowering her hand.
“No, just stretching,” she says casually, looking at me with grave amber eyes. “I like the bird thing, though. That’s funny.”
But nobody’s laughing this time. They’re staring at me. I swallow.
“Okay, one more, right?” I say a little desperately. “My mom is a computer programmer, and my dad is a physics professor at NYU, which probably means that I should be good at math.” I make a pained face. The idea that I can’t do math is bogus of course. I’m good at math. It’s a language after all, which is why Mom understands the way computers talk to one another without having to work at it. And probably why she was attracted to Dad to begin with, who’s like a human calculator even without a drop of angel blood running through his veins. Jeffrey and I both find it ridiculously easy.
This doesn’t get a laugh, either, just a pity chuckle from Wendy. I’m apparently not cut out to be a stand-up comedian.
“Thank you, Clara,” says Mr. Phibbs.
The last student to name her three things is the black-haired girl who looked at me so attentively when I mentioned the weird thing with the birds. Her name, she says, is Angela Zerbino. She tucks her side-swept bangs behind her ear and lists her three unique things quickly.
“My mother owns the Pink Garter. I’ve never met my father. And I’m a poet.”
Another awkward silence. She looks around the circle like she’s daring someone to challenge her. Nobody meets her eyes.
“Good,” says Mr. Phibbs, clearing his throat. He peruses his notes. “Now we know each other better. But how do people really get to know each other? Is it with facts, the specifics about ourselves that distinguish us from the other six and a half billion people on this planet? Is it our brains that make us different, the way each person is like a computer programmed with a different mix of software, memories, habits, and genetic makeup? Is it what we do, the actions we take? What would your three things have been, I wonder, if I’d told you to name the most defining actions you have taken in your life?”