The Adoration of Jenna Fox (Jenna Fox Chronicles 1)

Mitch turns, not waiting for the rest of the introductions. ‘Rae will be in soon, I’m sure. Carry on,’ she says as she leaves.

The other boy steps forward, wipes his palms on his jeans, and then stuffs them in his pockets, apparently deciding not to offer one after all. He is thin and small. ‘I’m Gabriel. Hi.’

‘Hello,’ I say to them all. ‘Where’s the rest of your class?’

‘This is it, cupcake. Welcome to Freaks Unlimited.’

I spin around. A young man fills the doorway.

‘Shut up, Dane.’

Dane ignores Ethan and smiles at me. ‘So this is our latest addition. Very nice. Ethan’s right for once—nothing freakish about you.’ He carefully looks me over, like he is trying to decide something. ‘We’ve met?’

‘A couple of days ago. I was outside—’

‘My house. Yes. I remember. So you’re Jenna Fox.’

I never told him my last name. Did Mitch?

Dane saunters past me and plops onto the couch. He is full of smiles. He seems to be the happiest of the group.

‘You can put your stuff in there, if you like,’ Allys tells me, pointing to a cabinet behind the library tables. All I have is a small knapsack containing my vial of nutrients, but I go ahead and walk to the other end of the room to put it away.

‘Wrong!’ Dane calls out. ‘I stand corrected. You are one of us.’

I turn back to him. ‘Pardon me?’ I say.

‘Your feet?’

‘Leave it, Dane.’

‘What? We’re supposed to pretend she doesn’t walk funny? Right, Allys. And you’ve got all your digits, and Ethan has a magnetic personality.’

‘Eat it,’ Ethan says and falls back into one of the sling chairs.

Gabriel slinks into the corner and sits at a Net station, looking small and thankful to be under the radar.

Allys works her way back to her chair. ‘Learn to ignore him, Jenna. The rest of us do.’

I walk funny?

‘It’s okay,’ I say. ‘I had an—’ Don’t discuss the accident. ‘—an illness. I’ll be better soon.’

‘That’s what we all say,’ Dane answers.

Dr Rae breezes into the room. ‘Jenna, you’re here. Welcome! And you’ve all been getting acquainted. That’s nice.’

Nice.

I need to look that word up again.

Ethan

I get a turn at ‘conferencing’ with Rae. She doesn’t like to be called doctor. She says we are all ‘learning colleagues’. She tells me details of her life. Since we are colleagues, she says, I should know as much about her as she knows about me. She is forty-eight, older than Claire, but she looks about ten years younger. I wonder what has aged Claire so. She says she moved here from Ohio when she was a teenager. It was hard for her to move at that age.

‘Was your move from New York difficult for you?’ she asks.

New York. Right. Mother says not to tell we are from Boston. Reporters are always bothering Father, and she wants peace and quiet.