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But Amanda never acted like Heidi was anything special. Her first article in The Spirit (the Endeavor paper) was called “Do You See What I See? A Newcomer’s Take on Orion,” and she included something about watching the local news and referred to Heidi’s mom as a “small-town TV reporter.” Heidi was furious, but not nearly as furious as she was after she confronted Amanda and Amanda said simply, “Well, that’s what she is, isn’t she? I didn’t mean it as an insult or anything. But Orion’s a small town, and she’s a TV reporter here.” After that, Heidi was happy to take any excuse to say something bad about Amanda, and Amanda provided her with plenty of excuses, like the time she beat Heidi out for a part in As You Like It and then didn’t even take it because she said she was too busy.
For her second article in The Spirit, Amanda exposed a secretary who’d been giving kids late passes in exchange for money. The secretary was transferred, so the whole situation stopped, and Heidi informed us that Amanda was the devil because Mrs. Rifkin had just been providing a service and sometimes you really, really need a late pass but then Amanda went and ruined everything.
Amanda’s third article was all about how teachers are afraid of popular students. It said that if a student had a lot of friends or if the student’s parents had money, he (or she, of course) is less likely to be yelled at in class, get detention, receive bad grades, or be asked to provide an excuse if he (or she) didn’t have the homework or couldn’t meet a deadline. The article, which came out right after February vacation, caused a huge scandal, which I thought was kind of weird since it seemed like Amanda was just stating the obvious. I mean, everyone knows that who gets in trouble and who doesn’t is totally unfair and teachers have favorites and some kids can basically do whatever they want in certain classes.
But I guess even something everybody already knows can cause a scandal, especially since Amanda backed up her argument with tons of statistical evidence. Like Mr. Thornhill said, she’s a math genius, and she’d managed to get all this data she was definitely not supposed to have access to (like who had served detention when and for what). It was this huge deal, and some students (okay, Heidi) who had enjoyed a certain … privileged status—and who, as far as I knew, had never been held to a deadline, or asked to show their work on a math problem (even after said students had been caught cheating, if you can believe it), or told to stop chatting with a friend—found that once Vice Principal Thornhill had finished lecturing the faculty of Endeavor on fairness, their classroom experience was suddenly quite different from what it had been before.
“Is it true? Was she expelled?” Kelli’s face was pink with excitement.
“Expelled? Actually, I—”
“God, I hate that girl,” said Heidi, and she stabbed viciously at a piece of sushi.
Part of me wanted to say something in Amanda’s defense, but when Heidi really hates something or someone, it’s scary to try and defend it. Plus, after the morning I’d had and the disappearing act she’d pulled, I wasn’t exactly in the mood to defend Amanda.
Traci, who rarely eats, snapped her gum thoughtfully. “I still don’t get why they even called you into the office with those weirdos. You don’t even know them.”
“I don’t know,” said Kelli. “Nia’s a weirdo, but Hal’s kind of a hottie.”
Was it my imagination or did Heidi look uncomfortable for a minute as she drew her chopstick through a small pool of soy sauce on her Styrofoam plate?
Traci was too busy brushing some invisible lint off her bright red T-shirt to notice Heidi’s behavior, and she didn’t acknowledge Kelli’s comment. “Was it just some kind of monster mistake or something?” As she pressed her chin into her neck, it was impossible to know if she was checking her shirt for cleanliness or admiring her chest, which she tends to stick out as much as possible. “How’d Thornhill get the idea that you would ever have done anything with Amanda Valentino?”
The thing was, I’d never intended to keep my friendship with Amanda secret from the I-Girls, it had just kind of … worked out that way. In the brief time between my meeting Amanda and our becoming friends, Heidi had started hating her intensely, and like I said, you really don’t want to try and point out the good side of someone Heidi’s decided to hate. Amanda made it easy, always at newspaper or some other activity at lunch, so hard to pin down during the school day that she was practically the invisible friend. Keeping our friendship very low profile was no problem. But what was I supposed to say now? Um, listen guys, the thing is that I actually am friends with Amanda. Really good friends. I hope that’s not weird or anything.
Great idea, Callie. And why don’t you bring Nia Rivera to that party on Saturday.
The three of them were staring at me, and I thought about Nia and Hal talking at their table. Maybe they did know Amanda better than I did. Maybe despite what she’d said about my being special and her guide and everything, she and I hadn’t ever really been friends.
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “It was just a total mistake.”
Kelli put her arm around me. “You poor thing. I can’t believe you had to spend the whole morning trapped in a room with the biggest freaks in the school.” She squeezed me to her.
“Even if one of those freaks is a hottie freak.”
From my other side, Traci put her arm around me. “Do you need a cootie shot? Like the old days?” She laughed and then reached for my arm, starting to say the words even before she touched me. “Circle, circle, dot, dot—”
As her fingers reached for my wrist, I realized what was about to happen.
“Don’t.” My voice was sharp, and I yanked my arm away from her as if her hand were a flame.
Traci looked up, a hurt expression on her face. “God, Callie, what’s your deal?”
“I just … I burned myself last night. Making pasta. And my arm’s kind of … it’s still sore.”
“Oh,” she said, suddenly contrite. “I’m really sorry. Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I was relieved to see that my sleeve actually covered half my palm. “I’m fine.”
“Cool,” said Kelli, ready to move on. “Okay, can I show you guys the cutest lip gloss my mom picked up at the mall yesterday?”
“Sure,” I said, and when Kelli went to put it on me, I puckered my lips and let it roll.
Is it possible for forty-five minutes to last a millennium? I must have looked at the clock over Heidi’s head fifty times between when I sat down and when the bell finally rang to end lunch period.
“Oh my god, is lunch over already?” asked Traci, her face crumpling. “I have double bio now. Kill me.”
“Do you guys want to come over and hang at my place after school? Maybe the guys would come, too,” said Heidi. She’d also sampled Kelli’s lip gloss, and the shiny, bright pink—the perfect color for her—made her supermodel smile even more sparkly.
“Sure,” said Traci.
“Yeah,” said Kelli.
“I can’t,” I said, and my mild irritation with Amanda grew into actual anger in the face of their matching, glossy smiles. My friends and my kind-of boyfriend were going to have a great afternoon together while I spent the hours after school scrubbing spray paint off a car with two social outcasts who had the nerve to ignore me. Great.
“And why not?” asked Heidi.
“I’ve got to clean the vice principal’s car.”
“What? But you said it was just a big mistake that he even made you come into his office.” Traci had been checking her nails for chips, but now she looked at me, completely confused.
“Yeah, why didn’t you just tell him you had nothing to do with that stupid psycho painting on his car?” demanded Heidi. She did not like it when her vision of an afternoon was thwarted.
“I did,” I said. And I comforted myself with the fact that I wasn’t lying. That was what I had told Thornhill.
Kelli pulled a pack of Orbit gum out of her bright green Coach bag. “Can’t you have your parents call and complain or something? That is completely unfair.”
I thought about my dad, who was probably about halfway through his second bottle of wine by now, and tried to imagine his making a coherent case to Mr. Thornhill about my innocence. Not exactly a pretty picture. And it wasn’t like my mom was reachable by phone.
“I think it’s easier to just get it over with,” I said, accepting the piece of gum she held out in my direction. “Trust me.”
After we’d hugged good-bye, I slung my bag over my shoulder and turned to head to English. As I left the cafeteria, I almost walked right into Beatrice Rossiter, a ninth grader who was hit by a car over winter break. The whole left side of her body including her face was totally disfigured—she’s got all of these scars and she wears a patch over her left eye and she always walks really close to the wall, like maybe nobody can see her when she does it. Once when we walked past her, Traci whispered to me, “Every time I see her, I’m thankful I’m me.”
I didn’t say anything to Traci at the time, but what I was thinking was, If you were me, Traci, and if you knew what I know, then every time you saw Bea, you’d wish you were just about anyone but me.
I snuck my phone out of my backpack and turned it on, but there were no new messages.
CHAPTER 7
Bio and English were a total blur except for when Ms. Burger pointed out that today was March fifteenth and warned us to “beware the Ides of March.” Her words created a flicker of anxiety in the pit of my stomach. Could there be some connection between the date and Amanda’s prank? But what? I couldn’t even remember why we were supposed to beware the Ides of March, and by the time Ms. Burger told us to open our books to Shakespeare’s Sonnet 138, I’d gone back to ignoring what was going on around me, just focusing on the clock as I counted the seconds until last period.
I was totally sure Amanda was going to be in math class, so sure that I actually jogged the last fifty yards to the room. Even though I was pretty confused and starting to get more than a little annoyed about everything that had gone down over the course of the morning, it would be such a relief to see her. Was she really friends with Hal and Nia? Why had she spray-painted Thornhill’s car and our lockers? I’d run over in my head what I was going to say to her so many times I practically had it memorized.
It didn’t mean anything that she wasn’t there when I pushed open the door of room S-51 (when was Amanda ever on time for anything?). It didn’t even mean anything that she hadn’t shown up by the time the late bell rang. But as the minutes ticked by and Mrs. Watson took us through the homework problems (problems Amanda and I had just done together the night before), the excitement I’d felt started to morph into frustration. Where was she? It was one thing to cut school; god knows Amanda did that fairly regularly. It was another thing to cut school on a day when you’d pulled a prank that got several other people in mad trouble. Of course, knowing Amanda, she would just respond with a raised eyebrow or a quotation of unknown origins to direct questions she didn’t care to answer.
That was so not going to fly this time.
It’s not exactly a major problem when I can’t concentrate in math class. When I don’t pay attention in history, I know I’m a goner on the next test. But math is totally different. Math is like … okay, you know when you’re shopping for jeans and you try on ten million pairs and each one is just a little too tight, or a little too loose, or it’s got some freaky acid washed thing going on, and then all of a sudden, right when you’re like, Oh, forget it, I’m just going to live without a new pair of jeans, you try on one last pair and as they slide up your legs it’s … it’s like you were born to wear them. That’s what math is like for me, like a language I was somehow born knowing.
Actually, I probably was born knowing it. My mom is one of the best mathematicians in the world. I mean, I might be good at math, but she’s brilliant. Like, if you ask me to multiply two three-digit numbers, I can do it in my head pretty fast, but that’s nothing compared to my mom. If we’re at the grocery store and she’s trying to estimate what everything’s going to cost, she can glance at the cart and figure out to the penny what the total’s going to be. And if you ask her in July how many days until Christmas, she can tell you the answer in less than a second.
For me, it’s more … well, when Mrs. Watson puts a new concept up on the board, like when we learned sine and cosine this fall, it feels like the whole time she’s talking and writing stuff down, I’m just thinking, Right. Right. Of course. That makes total sense. I can’t really explain how I understand something when it comes to math—I just understand it.
That was why I was so totally bummed back when Mrs. Watson asked me to catch up the new girl in our class, Amanda Valentino, on one of her first days in school, maybe Halloween or the day after. First of all, I was already half out of my mind because of everything that was going on with my mom, but even when I’m functioning normally, I’m lousy at relaying math concepts to other people. Traci used to ask me to help her with her math homework when we first became friends; after I tried to teach her a few times, she got so irritated by my inability to show her how I was getting my answers that she just told me to forget it. So I knew assigning me to teach Amanda Valentino two months' worth of math was destined to end in failure, but I mean, what can you say? I’m sorry, Mrs. Watson, I swear I wasn’t cheating, but there’s no way I can explain my work to another human being.
Instead I just said what you always say when a teacher asks you to do something. “Sure.”
“How long have you lived in Orion?”
“My whole life.” My answer was more terse
than polite because Amanda struck me as kind of weird. First of all, she was wearing bright, bright red lipstick, which looked even brighter because her face was super pale, like she’d powdered an already Über-white complexion. She wasn’t ugly or anything. Actually, she was pretty; not like Heidi and Traci and Kelli are pretty, not the kind of pretty you’d find in a catalog, but there was something about her that would definitely make you look at her twice if you saw her in a crowd. It might have had something to do with what she was wearing—her black hair was pulled back in a tight, high bun held up by two crisscrossed chopsticks, and she was wearing a gray dress that was really plain but somehow chic, like something you might see on a Vogue model. Around her neck was a thin blue ribbon necklace that disappeared under the front of the dress. It was nothing that anyone at Endeavor would ever wear.
“That must be wonderful, living in one place.” She sounded wistful, which was surprising considering I’d heard she grew up all over the world. I mean, why would someone with a childhood
like that envy someone who’d spent her life in Orion, Maryland, capital of nothing?
“I guess,” I said. Then I felt bad for being so rude. “Um, do you have a favorite country?”
“Country?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, realizing too late that it might freak her out to know the Endeavor population was already gossiping about her. “I heard you grew up all over the world.”
Amanda laughed this totally unself-conscious laugh that I wouldn’t have expected to come from someone looking so tailored. “Fascinating. Who told you that?”
I’d heard it from the note Heidi passed me in history.
I shrugged. It wasn’t like the name Heidi Bragg would mean anything to Amanda. “A friend.”
Amanda nodded. “And what else did she say about me?”
Okay, the rest of the note so did not need to be repeated. “That was all,” I said. Amanda gave me a look that said she knew I was lying. It was a look I’d get to know very well over the next few months. “Did you not grow up all over the world?” I asked,
not one hundred percent sure what “citizen of the world” actually meant.
“Not a bit,” said Amanda. “I grew up in this country.”
I thought it was strange how she didn’t name a city or even a state. “Where?”
“Here, there, and everywhere.” Her smile was impossible to read.
“Oh,” I said. I mean, what are you supposed to say to something like that? (It wasn’t until much later that I would learn about her penchant for quoting others.) “Well, welcome to Orion.”
“Thanks.” She nodded, looking around the corridor where we were sitting. “I really feel I’m going to like it here.”
“Don’t count on it,” I said. “Not much here.” Okay, I realize I wasn’t exactly being the Orion Township Welcoming Committee, but I wasn’t feeling all sunshine and light right about then. My mom had been gone for two weeks, and my dad was already starting to lose it.
Amanda didn’t seem to mind my negativity, and she didn’t ask why I was so down on my hometown. Instead, she continued to nod, like I’d just given her a really helpful, insightful piece of information. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
I wasn’t in the mood to keep talking. I wasn’t in the mood to do much of anything besides stare out the window and figure out when my family was going to get back to normal. I knew attempting (and failing) to teach someone math wasn’t exactly going to improve my mood, but anything was better than chatting.
“So,” I said. “Sine and cosine.” I flipped open my book to the page we were on, then started to work backward to the beginning of the chapter.
“Right,” said Amanda. “About that.” Suddenly she sounded embarrassed. I was kind of surprised given that she’d been so cool and collected when Mrs. Watson had introduced her while making her stand at the front of the class like livestock to be judged at a county fair.
I held my book open at page 217 and looked up at her. On her index finger was an enormous silver ring shaped like a bunch of grapes, and she was twirling it around distractedly.
“What ’about that'?"
“I actually know about sines. And cosines. My father taught them to me. I’m sure that sounds completely strange to you,” she added quickly.
“No it doesn’t,” I said honestly. “My mom knows tons of math. She’s always teaching me stuff.” I was kind of psyched. All my friends thought it was really bizarre that my mom and I talked about math so much. Back when we were first hanging out, Heidi asked me one day what I’d done the night before, and I said my mom and I had used her telescope to find M31 in the Andromeda Galaxy, only we’d purposely used an out-of-date star planner so we’d have to do the computations to figure out where to look in the night sky. When I finished, Heidi looked at me like I’d just confessed to being a victim of domestic violence.
“Oh, this is such a relief,” said Amanda. “I was debating between pretending not to understand what you were talking
about or saying I learned it at school. I didn’t want you to think I was odd.”
Now I was the one who laughed a real laugh. “Wow, I’m so the last person to think that you’re a freak for learning about math with one of your parents. And you would have been really sorry if you’d pretended not to know what sine and cosine are. I’m the worst teacher.”
“Me too!” Amanda’s voice was a shout, and she put her hand over her mouth. “Me too,” she repeated, whispering this time. “I can never explain how I got my answers on tests. I just … I see them. Teachers are always accusing me of cheating.” She practically glowed with pleasure.
“That used to happen to me!” I said, almost as loudly as she’d spoken before. And then we were both laughing, like being accused of cheating on a math test was the funniest thing that could ever happen.
Amanda stopped laughing first and gave me a look that lasted so long I started to get weirded out. “What?” I asked, rubbing under my nose self-consciously. Did I have a horrible embarrassing something?
“Do you ever get a feeling about the future?” she asked. Her eyes were enormous—a deep, storm-cloud gray that I would later learn changed color with the light.
“What, you mean, like, ESP?” My nose felt clean, and I put my hand down.
“Not exactly,” she said, gently tapping the tip of her pen against her top lip. “More like the sense that something is destined.”
“Um …” Okay, this was getting a little intense. A second ago we’d been joking about math tests and now we were suddenly onto destiny?
Amanda didn’t seem to mind that I wasn’t answering her. She leaned forward and touched me lightly on the shoulder with her pen. “It’s you,” she said.
“What?” I said, not sure how to communicate to her that she was starting to freak me out.
Oblivious to my monosyllabic, unenthusiastic response, and with a sure smile on her face, she exhaled, leaned back against the wall, and closed her eyes. “You’re going to be my guide.” Her voice was quiet.
Even though I had no idea what Amanda was talking about, I felt my heart pounding in my chest. “Your guide?” I asked, and my voice was as low as hers had been.
Amanda opened her eyes and stared straight at me. “I knew I’d find you,” she said.
And since I didn’t know what to say back, I didn’t say anything at all.
Occasionally a geological occurrence takes place that is so dramatic, it actually shifts the earth on its axis. A tsunami. An earthquake. If you could go into outer space and film the planet at the exact moment the event occurs, you would literally witness the world move.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but that is what meeting Amanda Valentino would be for me.
CHAPTER 8
Nia snickered when Mr. Thornhill offered us a chance to “come clean” right after we’d each picked up a bucket filled with rags, rolls of paper towels, and cleaning products piled by the door. It took me a minute to get the joke about cleaning, but I’m not sure if that was because Nia’s smarter than I am or if it’s because I was so confused by all the thoughts whirling through my head that I didn’t have room in my brain for a pun.
When nobody said anything, he just gestured toward the door and we trooped out in a line: Hal first, then Nia, then me.
“It’s not like we’re going to be able to get the stuff off his car with this,” I pointed out, rattling the bucket toward their backs. “Spray paint doesn’t exactly wash off.”
Neither of them said anything, as if during lunch they’d made a pact to ignore me. Well, two could play at that game, and I didn’t say anything more. A crowd was gathered by the gate to the faculty parking lot to gape at Mr. Thornhill’s car (some people had out their phones and were taking pictures); at first the security guard, who was holding them back, wouldn’t let us through. Hal had to explain for about fifty years that we had to go to the car, and even then the guy was reluctant to let us pass. As we walked past him, I spotted Lee’s curly dark hair towering above the crowd and then I saw Traci, Heidi, and Jake, who were all standing with him. Lee saw me before they did, maybe because he’s so tall, and he put his fists up over his head and shouted, “Go, Callie!” as Traci and Heidi clapped and Jake whistled. I hoped Hal and Nia heard them. I hoped they realized who they were ignoring.