Chapter 76
The atmosphere in the hallway when I got to school was suffocating. Everyone was walking around with their heads down, like they either dreaded coming back after a long break or they were still thinking about losing two of our own. There wasn’t even the whispering and talking behind cupped hands there had been right after Drew’s death. I couldn’t help but feel like everyone was wondering who was going to be next, and there was nothing pleasant about that.
Emma definitely wasn’t herself. I saw her at her locker right before first period and approached her with caution. She still jumped when I said her name. “Sorry!” I said, keeping a comfortable distance away from her. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
She glanced over each shoulder before she said, “It’s okay. I just….” She let it go. “How was your break?” We hadn’t seen each other for a while.
“It was all right. How was yours?”
Emma let out a deep breath. “Okay.” She glanced around again. “I can’t stay here,” she said quietly, which I thought was very strange. “I’ll see you second period.”
“Wait! Em!” But she was gone, disappearing into the crowd of students making their way to their first class. I sighed and headed off toward first period, hoping she’d be okay. We had biology together second period, Lucy, too, so at least I’d have a chance to check on both of them in an hour or so.
Our teacher, Mrs. Neally, was standing behind her desk shuffling papers, which I hoped were not a pop quiz. I smiled at a few girls I knew from cheerleading and then found my seat, noticing that Liam’s desk, which is right behind mine, was empty. Just as I was beginning to worry that something weird had happened to him, too, he came through the door, a big smile on his handsome face.
“Hey, Cass,” he said, bounding past me to his desk. “Nice to see you. Did you have a good break?”
I had been digging in my bag for a pencil, which I finally extracted, and turned to look at him. “Uh, yeah, it was fine, thanks. How was yours?” I had seen him at the mall right before Christmas, but that had been almost two weeks ago, and believe me, a lot can change in a couple of weeks.
“It was great,” he replied, still grinning. He was the only person I’d seen all day who looked genuinely happy, and I was beginning to grow a little concerned. “It’s gonna be an awesome day!”
My eyebrows were knit together so tightly, I could hardly see. Just when I was about to ask Liam what in the world was up with him, a rush of students came in the door, four or five of them, also all smiling from ear to ear, making comments about what an awesome day it was going to be. “This is the best day yet!” one of them, a football player named Grant, exclaimed, and his buddies all agreed.
“You may take your seats!” Mrs. Neally said, her countenance not at all chipper, and the bell rang. While I couldn’t figure out what was going on with my classmates, I knew I needed to concentrate on Mrs. Neally’s lesson. You never knew when you might encounter a pop quiz or an assessment you didn’t see coming in here, and unlike my sister, I was still planning on going to college, which meant I needed to keep my grades up, even if the world around me was morphing into some kind of psychotic Tim Burton movie.
The hour passed by fairly quickly, and even as the bell rang to dismiss us to second period, those kids who came in all happy were still laughing and carrying on. Mrs. Neally had commented about something being in the water, and I honestly wondered if they’d slipped something into class in their Ozarka bottles.
“See you in algebra, Cassidy,” Liam said, patting me on the shoulder as he slipped past me. “Make it a great one!”
“You, too,” I replied, my forehead still crinkled. If nothing else, at least whatever was wrong with Liam had caused him to touch me, and as I gathered up my belongings and headed out the door, I could still feel the warmth from his hand on my shoulder.
Our biology classroom was down the next hallway, so I had to hurry to my locker to switch out my textbook before I rushed to class. I had heard about some schools going to online textbooks, and I thought that sounded like a fabulous idea, especially since I had a bottom locker and Morgan Pence wasn’t always so careful when he opened his. I’d been the recipient of one too many book drops to the head already this year.
Morgan wasn’t there when I arrived, however, and I was glad. I quickly grabbed my bio book and shoved in my history book before turning and hurrying toward class. Even though I was in a rush, I could tell something had changed. Where there had been dismal kids with solemn faces, lots of people seemed happier now, like a cloud had lifted. I still had no idea what was going on, but I was glad to hear the laughter ringing out down the corridor as I rounded the corner to class.
As soon as I stepped into Mr. Horton’s lab, I realized what was going on. Rather than seeing the familiar face of our aged bio teacher sitting behind his desk, a different familiar face was present, and rather than sitting in the chair like our proper teacher, he was sitting on the corner of the desk. Dressed in a tan sports coat, a blue tie, white button-down shirt, and navy blue slacks, I wouldn’t have even recognized him from this angle, with Lucy’s head blocking his face, if it hadn’t been for the unruly curls springing up around Lucy’s perfectly coiffed long, caramel brown tresses. Lucy was laughing, and I realized there were a few other kids standing around talking to him as well. Shaking my head, I went to my work area and put my stuff down.
