A Bad Day for Sunshine (Sunshine Vicram #1) - Darynda Jones Page 0,45
word: help.
Cruz nodded as though agreeing to something, but that wasn’t the interesting part. He’d understood her. Every word. As though he knew ASL as well as he knew English, because another student raised her hand, shook her head, and signed understand. She didn’t understand either and was asking for clarification.
Mrs. Johnson spoke aloud again. “I just asked Mr. De los Santos if he would consider helping out in class every so often, and he agreed.”
The female student flashed him a smile, clearly as impressed as Auri, but he didn’t seem to notice. Nor did he seem to notice the seven other girls vying for his attention. But he did notice Auri. He had yet to take his eyes off her.
Auri faced the teacher again before she lost control of her own inane smile, but she burned with a million questions for him, not the least of which how he seemed to know ASL so well. Hopefully, she’d find out when she interviewed him for their history assignment.
When the teacher passed out a worksheet, Auri opted to check out Sybil’s schedule instead. As luck would have it, she shared not one, not two, but three classes with Sybil, and one of those was their seventh-period class, athletics.
After obsessing over Cruz and the fact that he knew ASL like the back of his hand through the entire class, Auri refocused her energy twenty minutes later on investigating the elusive St. Aubin girl. So far, no one in her seventh period knew that much about her. Nor did they know of any friends she may have had.
But surely Sybil hung out with someone in PE. There was safety in numbers in such a class.
As luck would have it, Chastity was in the class, too. The only person in school ridiculously happy to see Auri rushed up to her after they dressed out. Auri was assigned to the bleachers since she had yet to purchase the requisite uniform, which was basically shorts and a tee in the school colors, red and gold.
Still, bleachers as opposed to slamming her face into someone’s elbow during basketball? New-girl perk.
“Hi!” Chastity said, sitting beside her on the bleachers while the teacher, a curvy brunette, took roll. “I have an extra pair of shorts and a tee if you want to dress out.”
“I’m good,” Auri said with a grin.
Chastity laughed. “Right. Sorry. So, you and Cruz seem to be getting along well.”
“Um . . . thanks?”
“Oh, you’re welcome. Remember that summer Miller Thomas almost drowned and Cruz De los Santos jumped in and dragged him out, doing that lifeguard hold while the lifeguard just kind of stood on the pier with his mouth hanging open? That was so crazy. And then he got a medal for bravery and—”
“That was Cruz?” Auri did indeed remember that summer, but she didn’t remember Chastity being there or the fact that Cruz was the one who’d saved that kid. They were only nine.
Cruz was only nine years old and had saved a kid from drowning. She could barely walk and chew gum at the same time when she was nine, and he was saving lives.
She was learning all kinds of new things about Cruz De los Santos, but why now? Perhaps because he’d only recently shown up on her radar? But that wasn’t true. She’d had a bit of a crush for years, she just didn’t know his name. And she was always too shy to actually talk to him. Who did that?
But she remembered the very day she’d first noticed him. It was exactly three summers ago, and he’d sat on a boulder reading while the popular kids tried to get him into the lake. He ignored them. Completely.
Maybe his saving Miller did have an impact on her, she’d just never made the connection. She liked how he just sort of hung back and let others take the spotlight even though he was clearly popular. Everyone seemed to respect him, and the girls definitely showed interest even when he didn’t.
And while all of that was fine and dandy, Cruz was not the one she needed to be gathering intel on.
“So, do you know Sybil?” she asked Chastity as the girl tied her gym shoes.
She sat up. “The missing girl? Sure.”
Finally.
“She’s so nice, and she has this really cute jacket, and she likes to read. A lot. And this one time—”
“You were friends?”
“Well, I tried to be. She didn’t talk much, though. Really shy.”