The rain the night before had left enough moisture to cause a swirling fog to form. The sun, a blotchy pale globe, rose and fought to burn through the drifting orange haze. Feeling like he too was in a fog, Aidan stood alone, waiting at the bus stop.
Things had seemed so clear when he left The Realm. He’d just come back, tell his parents and Robby about his amazing adventures serving King Eliam as a knight, and they’d all just believe. Right. So far, Mom thinks I’m going through a “stage,” and Robby seems to have dropped off the face of the earth! And the only reason Dad believes is because of Grampin.
And then there was Gwenne. Aidan had thought he’d come up with a clever plan to see her again. “See you soon!” he had said just before kissing Gwenne on the cheek and leaving The Realm. He had figured that since every Glimpse had a human twin, he’d just find Gwenne’s double, and everything would be happy ever after. Good thinking. She could be anywhere in the whole world! And I might not even recognize her since time works differently between The Realm and earth. She could be three or thirty for all I know.
The visions he’d been having and Grampin’s diary had muddled things further. And to top it all off, Aidan’s mom—a high school math teacher—had called the math department chairman at Aidan’s new school to get Aidan bumped up to honors math. I barely scraped by with an A in general math, and she puts me in honors? At last the bus turned onto Aidan’s street. As it hissed to a stop, just inches from the curb, Aidan issued a silent plea to King Eliam for help.
Aidan boarded the bus. Great! No open seats! He’d just about given up hope of finding a seat when he reached the back of the bus and noticed that the second to the last seat on the left was occupied by only one person. It was a very tall male student wearing a black long-sleeved T-shirt and the baggiest jeans Aidan had ever seen. He had his knees and feet up on the dark green bench seat. The boy’s hair was spiked and dark except for blue highlights on the pointy ends. He wore headphones and was completely oblivious to Aidan standing there.
Six other kids filled the seats near Mr. Bluehair. Black seemed to be their favorite color. Some wore leather jackets. Others wore trench coats. Most wore military boots. But it was all black. The most disturbing thing to Aidan, other than the group’s black attire and various shocks of technicolored hair, was their makeup.
The boys all wore eyeliner, eye shadow—even lipstick. Black of course. There were two girls. The one with short, spiked, white-blond hair wore fierce blush and deep purple eye shadow. She had double eyeliner that streaked back from the corners of her eyes. Cleopatra! Aidan thought. She looks like a punk version of Cleopatra. The other girl, the one with very long, very red hair, didn’t wear much makeup at all. Her wide eyes were startlingly blue.
The bus lurched. Aidan lurched. Finally, the girl with the long red hair glanced up sideways at Aidan. She brushed a wave of red hair over one ear that was pierced more than once, and she continued to stare. Aidan felt as if he was being sized up, analyzed, measured—like he was an insect under a blue-eyed microscope. Her stare felt oddly familiar, but uncomfortable at the same time.
At last, she reached over the seat and pushed Mr. Bluehair in the back of the head. He looked up and suddenly realized that Aidan was standing there. Without a word, he put his feet on the floor and scooted over so Aidan could sit down.
Although he felt very much alone in the back of the bus with the trench-coat clan, Aidan knew he was not alone. Recent events had taught him that much.
“Honors math. Great . . . just great!” Aidan grumbled as he left the main office. He looked down at his new schedule and wondered why his mom thought this was the best class for him. The bell rang. Now he was late for class! After bounding up a flight of stairs, he finally found the honors math classroom. Aidan eased open the door and tentatively walked in. The teacher had her back turned and was writing on the chalkboard.
“Uh, excuse me, Mrs. . . . , um—” Aidan looked down at the schedule. “Mrs. Van Der Ick?”
“That’s VanDerEyck,” said the teacher as she turned. “It’s Dutch. Like eye with a ‘k’ at the end. VanDerEyck. And who are you?”
“I’m Aidan. Aidan Thomas.”
“You aren’t on my class list.”
“I . . . I’m a new add.”
“I see,” said Mrs. VanDerEyck. She picked up a chart. “Thomas. That will put you in the seat behind Ms. Reed. We’ll have to move Ms. Timmons, Mr. Young, and Ms. Zook.”
She glanced up and three students immediately stood and moved to different desks.
The teacher nodded and then looked back at Aidan. “Order, Mr. Thomas. Get very used to order. It is the foundational principle that makes math worth our study. Keeping my seating chart in strict alphabetical order makes it possible for me to learn your names immediately. And in much the same way, I will teach you to recognize the order of all the operations of math, and you will learn deeply and at great speed. Now, Mr. Thomas, take your seat behind Ms. Reed.”
Aidan looked nervously about, wishing he’d been watching the students who moved. There were two empty seats now, and he wasn’t sure which student had left the seat he was now supposed to occupy.
Finally, the slightest of waves caught his attention. To Aidan’s surprise, it was the red-haired girl from the bus. She waved again, more a ripple of fingers than a wave, but Aidan hurried over and took the seat behind her.
“Thanks!” he whispered to her.
“No problem,” she whispered back. “You looked a little lost.”
“She seems kind of strict,” Aidan said.
“Confident, I think,” she replied. “I like her.”
And those were the last non-math-related words anyone said the rest of that class. Mrs. VanDerEyck became a hurricane of information, and it was all Aidan could do to hang on to a pencil.
In the hall after class, Aidan felt a tap on his shoulder. “Hey, it’s Aidan, right?” It was the red-haired girl, Ms. Reed.
“Yeah, that’s right, um—”
“Antoinette. I’m Antoinette Reed,” she said. “You aren’t from Red Rocks Middle—that’s where I went last year. Are you from Breezewood?”
“No, I’m from Maryland. We just moved here in July.”
“Oh, Maryland, huh? What’s your next class?”
“Uh, art, I think.”
“Art? With Mr. Kurtz?”
Aidan looked at his schedule. “Yeah, Mr. Kurtz, room 192.”
“Me too,” said Antoinette. “I’ll walk with you.”
Aidan wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. The thought occurred to him that Mr. Bluehair and the rest of the trench-coat clan might not like it.
They easily found the class. Students filed in and checked the seating chart. Antoinette waltzed in and quickly found her seat. Aidan didn’t have a seat on the chart and stood there like he’d just been hit by a bus. He had, in fact—a bus named Antoinette Reed.
Finally, Mr. Kurtz—a tall, slender man with a beak nose and big eyes—came over to Aidan.
“Your schedule, please,” he said, drawing out each syllable ridiculously. “Yup, no doubt about it, you belong here.”
He showed Aidan to a stool. In some ways, Aidan was relieved that it was on the other side of the room from Antoinette. In another way, he was a little disappointed.
Aidan glanced up at her. She immediately looked away. Had she been staring at him the whole time? This is getting strange, he thought.
