it. I’m going to cry again. But then we all hear yelling.
A pretty serious fistfight has erupted next to the keg. The kid who said I had roadkill on my head—Gilroy—is currently being pounded into the dirt. The crowd has moved back to a respectful distance, happy for the entertainment.
“Faggot!” Gilroy screams at the other boy as they roll around on the ground, arms wrapped around each other’s necks.
“If that’s true, then I think Gilroy’s definitely the bottom,” I say, and I detect a tiny smile flitting across Thaddeus’s face. It’s not like me to be so bitchy, but what the hey? I finally got him to smile.
Then things go bad. Sparks from the bonfire ignite a clump of Spanish moss dangling from the canopy. It smolders, bursts into flame, and drops like a rock into a bunch of scrub at the base of the trees. The scrub is bone-dry from the August heat.
“Those idiots are going to get killed,” Thaddeus says. Without a backward glance, he runs toward them.
“Jimmy! Roy!” he yells. “Look around you!”
They continue to roll on the ground—doing themselves no favors in proving they’re not attracted to each other. I look over to where Hayes and Madison are standing, and they’re staring at the bonfire. The crowd is jostling and people are running into each other as they back away. No one’s in a panic yet, but it’s only a matter of minutes. The scrub at the base of the live oaks is blazing, and the flames are creeping across the ground. Thaddeus tries to break up the fight, but a flying leg from the man tangle on the ground sends him back on his ass, right into the burning scrub.
Hayes starts toward him, but she can’t get there through this river of people. I’m closer, and no one else is nearby except Sina. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but someone has to do something.
“Thaddeus!” I yell. “Watch—”
And then something seriously strange happens.
As I come near him, the flames shrink away from me, and then the fire dies down, as if someone has blown out an enormous candle.
I step back, stupefied. Did that really happen? Maybe I imagined it. It is hot out here. I look down at Thaddeus on the ground. I reach out my hand to help him, but he stands up on his own.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Perfectly fine,” he says, his face red, his clothes covered in ash.
“Did you see that?”
“No.”
“But—”
“Just watch out for snakes, Alex,” Thaddeus says curtly, walking away. As I watch, mouth agape, Sina sidles up to me.
“Nice work,” Sina says. She leans in close and then brushes my necklace with her fingers. “I see you’ve learned to use your protection.”
“What?” Some idiot has already started another fire in the pit behind us. Sina’s eyes glitter in the new flames.
“I’m onto you, Alexandria,” she says. “Remember that.”
I watch as she sashays away into the darkness, leaving me to fend for myself next to the fire.
13
Okay, so, I’m sixteen years old. Yes, sixteen… and this is my first day of school. Ever.
What do you even wear to real school? At the RC, we wore overalls or old shirts and work pants. Whatever we were planning on wearing later while we worked the soil. When I mentioned that to Madison, she turned pale.
“Overalls?” she whispered. “Sure, they’re great if you haven’t turned four yet, but after that they’re a big no-no. Maybe—maybe— if you worked in a traveling circus, like in the sideshow, and you shaved your eyebrows and bit the heads off live chickens for money—maybe then you could pull off overalls. Anyway, I’m sorry, were we talking about overalls? I’m going to have to go wash my brain now.”
So… no overalls. Instead, for my first day as a student at the River School for College Preparation, I’m going with a pair of Rock & Republic jeans, my String Cheese Incident T-shirt (it’s not vintage, but I still think it’s pretty awesome), and a blazer. It doesn’t look too bad. I consider putting my hair up the way Hayes showed me, but then I decide against it. The dreads are my look. I’m not going to change myself just for these snobby, judgmental girls.
Still, I have to admit I’m totally nervous. Even more nervous than before that stupid party, because now, instead of just having to deal with a bunch of new kids, I have to meet with teachers, coaches, a principal… all of whom will no