After that explosion on my laptop, I know I should be focusing on making a dent in this epic task list, but I’m too distracted by this Lucinda girl and trying to figure out why she stopped appearing in my SnipPic photos. It’s the same with Sequoia’s feed. No trace of Lucinda in the past week. I click on Luce_the_Goose’s profile to try to get some clues, but her photos just stop completely after November 9. She hasn’t posted anything in over a week, which feels odd since before that date she seemed to have posted at least five times a day.
I’m tempted to ask Sequoia about it, but I don’t want to risk setting her off again or looking completely insane. If Lucinda is in all of these pictures on my feed then she’s clearly my friend, which means I should probably know where she is. If I start asking questions, I might find myself right back in Nurse Wilson’s office. Or worse, the hospital.
Needless to say, by the time the chime rings for first period, I’ve made very little progress on my work. The only tasks I’ve managed to tick off the list are “Turn in PE” because I did that yesterday and “Read 50 pages of Treasure Island” because I read that book last year. It was number 17 on the “25 Books to Read Before College” list that I found in seventh grade.
I started studying for my chemistry quiz, which is first period, but I didn’t get very far. Fortunately, I found a study guide that Other Me had stored on her laptop and I was able to review some of the questions and answers before Sequoia and I set off for class. Thank God Other Me is as organized and meticulous as I am.
Other than that, though, I’m pretty much screwed today. I’m hoping if I just explain to the teachers what happened yesterday—the head-bumping part obviously, not the traveling-between-universes part—they’ll take pity on me and give me some extensions.
According to the schedule in my Windsor Achiever app, which I’ve discovered is also on my phone, I have AP chemistry, followed by a study period (which the school calls Student Mastery Hour), then AP American history, lunch, AP French, then another Student Mastery Hour, then AP calculus and AP English.
When I see it all written out like that, it’s incredibly daunting, but also incredibly exciting. And I definitely appreciate those built-in study periods. I’m going to need them. Other Me is clearly even more ambitious than I am. She’s like me with better opportunities. And if she can do this, so can I.
AP chemistry is in Bellum Hall, the math and science building. It’s hands down the coolest building I’ve ever walked into. It looks more like a space museum than a school building. And don’t get me started on the AP chemistry classroom itself. I feel like I’m walking onto the set of a forensic crime show! Every lab station has its own iPad! Not to mention the teacher, Mr. Hartland, who used to teach chemistry at Cambridge University. You know, where Stephen Hawking studied. No big deal.
We do have a quiz, so I’m grateful that I crammed in those few minutes of studying before the chime rang. Also Other Me is amazing at taking notes. Everything that was covered in the quiz was in her study guide, so I’m feeling pretty confident about the results.
For the first Student Mastery Hour, I’m dying to check out the Sanderson-Ruiz Library, but Sequoia insists we study in this little alcove on the second floor of Royce Hall so we can be closer to our AP history classroom. There are tons of these little alcoves throughout the school. Windsor calls them study bays. They each have a small couch, two armchairs, a coffee table, and a single-serve coffee machine with an impressive selection of coffee pods.
Sequoia brews herself an Italian dark roast (hasn’t she had enough caffeine today?) and I opt for a green tea, which makes Sequoia’s eyes bug out of her head all over again. We make ourselves comfortable on the couch and I try to focus on my AP history reading, but this headache that started before first period has only gotten worse and now it feels like someone is slowly drilling a hole through my skull. By the time the chime rings again, I’ve barely managed to finish half a chapter.
History is in another amazing classroom. This one is made to look like someone’s living room. Instead of desks, a bunch of sofas and armchairs are set up in a circle. We spend the entire class period debating the Civil War. Yes, debating. Not being quizzed or lectured. The students here actually have opinions about the Civil War. Differing opinions. And they’re very vocal about them.
The teacher, Ms. Clemenson, just sits on the arm of one of the couches, looking amused and mediating when the discussion gets a little too passionate.
By the end of the period, I decide that Walt Disney World has nothing on the Windsor Academy. This is the happiest place on earth.
These are my people.
When lunch rolls around, Sequoia rushes off to an appointment with her college counselor and I check my app to see I’m scheduled to be in Fineman Arts Center, room 117, for an Investment Club meeting. I have no idea what one does in an Investment Club but I’m about to find out.
I make a sandwich from the epic sandwich bar in the Windsor Café, then dash out of the student union to find the Fineman Arts Center. According to all the online campus maps that I’ve memorized, it’s supposed to be right next door, but those maps must not be proportionate because I feel like I’m running forever.
By the time I get to room 117, I’m completely breathless.
“Sorry! Sorry!” I say as I burst through the door. “I know I’m late—” But the words are snatched from my lips when I see that the room is completely empty. Well, almost empty.
There’s one guy. He’s sitting at a large round table, typing at a laptop.
I recognize him immediately and a wave of revulsion passes through me. He’s that guy I met yesterday when I was sitting outside the dean’s office. He looks exactly the same, like he hasn’t showered in weeks and slept in his uniform last night. He peers at me from over the top of his computer and I swear I see a flicker of annoyance flash in his eyes before he goes back to work.
“Where is everyone?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer, keeping his head bent toward his screen.
I glance around at the empty room. “Is this the Investment Club?” If it is, it must not be very popular.
He finally stops typing. “No. This is Writer’s Block.”
“Writer’s Block?” I repeat.
He scoffs and rolls his eyes. “The literary magazine,” he clarifies, and I don’t miss the condescending way he says literary like I’ve never heard the word before.
I feel a small jolt of excitement. A literary magazine! My app must have had the wrong club listed. But it makes perfect sense that I’d be part of a literary magazine. I am, after all, a writer. “Oh! Right. Sorry. My mistake.” I slide into a chair on the other side of the table and pull out my laptop. “Am I early?”
But the boy watches me with a confused expression that quickly morphs into irritation. “What are you doing?” he asks.
“Uh…” I’m starting to feel uneasy. “I think this is where I’m supposed to be.”
He barks out a laugh. “I highly doubt that.”
His reaction takes me by surprise. “Aren’t I a member of the literary magazine?”
“Is this a joke?”
My stomach swoops. “I don’t think so.”
The boy gawks at me, his eyebrows knitting together like he’s trying to decipher the foreign Martian language coming out of my mouth. “Why would you be on a literary magazine? You have absolutely zero writing experience.”
“That’s not true!” I begin to argue. “I’m the editor in chief of…”
But my voice trails off as the realization punches me right in the gut.
The Southwest Star.
It’s not mine anymore.
That’s why the framed issues had disappeared from above my desk, replaced by the framed acceptance letter from Windsor. I guess since I go to school here, I don’t run the newspaper at Southwest High anymore.
I know that makes sense, I just …
Well, I hadn’t really thought about it until now.
I wonder who’s running the Southwest Star now. Probably Mia Graham, my features editor, or maybe even Laney. As much as the very thought of her sends a quiver of anger through me, I know she would do a good job.
“The editor in chief of what?” the boy prompts, looking amused. “The Zombie Press?”
My temper flares. “No,” I say indignantly. “I’ll have you know I have plenty of writing experience.”
He goes back to typing. “Writing papers on the Civil War doesn’t count.”
My headache throbs inside my skull. Why is he implying that I’m not a member of the literary magazine? Is he playing some kind of prank on me? Well, whatever. If I’m not a member yet, that doesn’t mean I can’t sign up now. Investment Club can wait.
I plaster on a bright smile. “Fine. If I’m not a member, then I’d like to join.”
He lets out a snort that grates on my nerves and continues typing. When I make no move to leave, he glances up. “Wait, are you serious?”
Now I’m just kind of offended. “Yes. Dead serious.”
He studies me. Like really studies me. His eyes are narrowed, his lips are pressed in a hard line. I start to feel self-conscious and surreptitiously check my teeth with my tongue for pieces of food.
“No,” he says after a long moment, and then goes back to work.
“No?” I spit back, astonished. “What do you mean no?”
“I mean, you can’t join. I’m saying no.”
I gape at him. “Can you do that?”
“I’m the editor in chief. I can do whatever I want.”
“B-b-but,” I stammer, “why?”
He sighs and shoots me a look that says, I really don’t have time to deal with this. “Because I just don’t think you’d be the right fit for this particular publication.” I can hear the hostility in his voice. If he’s been trying to hide it, it’s out of the bag now.
I cross my arms over my chest. “You don’t even know me!”
He laughs at this. A dark, vicious, villain-in-a-lair-stroking-a-cat kind of laugh. “Oh, trust me. I know you.”
“How could you possibly know anything about me,” I argue. “We just met—” But the words halt on my lips. I was going to say we just met yesterday, because that’s when I remember meeting him, but then I remind myself that this me has been a student at Windsor for more than three years. That’s plenty of time to make friends with everyone … or, as it would seem in this boy’s case, enemies.
He gives me a strange look.
“Never mind,” I mutter. “Why don’t you think I would be a good fit? I’m a good writer.”
“Fine,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “I’ll let you join the magazine—”
I break into a grin. “Great!”
“If,” he goes on, holding up a finger, “you can tell me what my last name is.”
My jaw drops open. He can’t do that! That’s not fair. I don’t know anyone’s last name. I barely know anyone’s first name. I just started here!
He stares me down like a challenger in a duel, tilting his head with an amused smirk. “Well?”
I swallow. Okay, I’m not sure how to get around this one. But the bigger question is, why does he just assume that I wouldn’t know his last name? I mean obviously I don’t, but he doesn’t know what I’ve been through. He doesn’t know I’m a foreigner from another universe. As far as he’s concerned, I’m Kennedy Rhodes, the girl he’s gone to school with since the ninth grade. She should definitely know his last name. And his first name, for that matter.
“You can’t do it, can you?” He laughs again. This one is even darker. And I swear I hear the faintest trace of sadness underneath. “Un-freaking-believable.”
I open my mouth to protest but nothing comes out.
“That’s amazing,” he says bitterly. “You’ve gone here how many years? We’ve been in how many of the same classes—not to mention the other things we’ve done together—and you can never be bothered to remember my last name?”
What?
That can’t be true. He’s lying. He’s tricking me somehow. And what other things is he talking about?
“I-I…” I stammer. “I do remember. I just temporarily forgot. I hit my head yesterday and—”
He doesn’t look convinced. “Oh, that’s a good one.”
“I did! I swear. It was right after I saw you outside of the dean’s office.”
The shift in his body is almost imperceptible. I almost don’t notice the way his jaw tightens and his fingertips dig into his palms.
“I mean,” I correct myself, “it was right after Student Mastery Hour.”
But he doesn’t seem interested in my correction. He doesn’t seem interested in my head injury at all anymore. “How did you know I was in the dean’s office?” he snaps, and I sense the panic in his voice.
“I don’t,” I try to cover for myself.
According to Sequoia I was with her yesterday when I fell.
“You just said…”
“I was mistaken,” I say, rubbing at my temples to fake confusion. Although to be honest, they’re really pounding now. “I was confusing you for someone else. Like I said, I bumped my head. Details are getting mixed up in my brain.”
I watch his lips twist in contemplation, noticing for the first time the dark stubble on his cheeks. Looks like someone forgot to shave this morning.
I think he’s about to say something else but he never gets the chance, because right then the classroom door opens and a group of students—the rest of the literary magazine, I presume—bustles in, talking animatedly about something. They all screech to a halt when they see me.
“Well,” the boy says, rising from his seat. I notice his demeanor instantly shifts at the appearance of the other students. Like he’s an actor preparing to take the stage. “It was nice chatting with you. But I have a meeting to lead.”
“So,” I say, confused, “can I join the magazine?”
He walks to the whiteboard, turning back to me long enough to say “No,” before uncapping a dry-erase marker and scribbling something on the board.
I can feel everyone’s eyes on me as I close my laptop and slide it back into my bag. Trying to blink away the tears of humiliation that are welling up in my eyes, I keep my head down and start for the door as the rest of the students take their seats.
“And for the millionth time,” the boy calls out just before I leave, “it’s Dylan Parker. Let’s see if your zombie brain can remember that tomorrow.”