“Stanley!”
“Huh?”
I think I need to get some kind of Small Talk for Dummies book.
“How’s it going?” Meredith says.
Carolina giggles, and I look at her again. What is there about her eyes? Why is she sneaking Slim Jims?
“Fine,” I say.
Carolina giggles again. “We’ve got to invite you to my Halloween party.”
Meredith pumps her fist. “Yes! That would be so cool. It’s going to be really scary. Carolina lives over by the cemetery.”
I nod. “Okay...”
“But tell us how you scared Gary like that,” Carolina says.
I don’t look at her this time. I look at Meredith instead as I screw up my face and hold my hands up above my head like claws. They stare at me in shock, but I crack up, and then everyone at our table is laughing.
Meredith sticks out her tongue at me.
I thought I could only be like this with Jonathan and Enrique, but maybe not. Maybe if I relax, I can make pretty much anyone laugh, or at least smile.
If only I could get Karen out of my head. I finger the friendship bracelet on my wrist.
And if that wasn’t enough, track tryouts are coming up. If Lauren gives me the okay. She can’t hold off much longer, I figure. All the scans show no scarring. I feel fit as a fiddle, but if so, why are my hands shaking?
Just as we are about to be released from class, Carolina is called away to the office for a second time. She looks confused, surprised. She even looks at me for a moment, like I could clue her in, but I just shrug.
Unless ... unless she’s been hiding meat snacks in her locker, too.
What have I gotten myself into?
Chapter 14: MY BIRTHDAY POTLUCK
Walking home from the bus, I smell something in the wind. It’s sweet, tangy. The smell of blood. I follow it into the woods by my house. First there is just the smell, faint in the air. Then there’s a raccoon. Or what was left of one. It’s torn apart. All I can really recognize is the tail.
Something tore apart a raccoon as a snack. Why isn’t my stomach turning?
When I get home my mother tilts her head to the side, squints at me as I walk through the door. She sniffs the air.
“What’s the matter now, Mom?”
She shrugs, still squinting at me. “I know you don’t like to hear about it, but there’s a lot of weird talk in my coven.”
My mom’s Unitarian church has these special interest groups that meet once a week. My mom is a member of two. One is for Earth based Judaism, or Jewitchery. Another is for Wicca. The second one is her “coven.” It’s like a dozen middle-aged to elderly ladies who leap around burning sage, hitting each other with aromatic herbs and chanting things. That’s as much as I can figure out. There may be more to it than that.
“And that makes you sniff at people?” I ask her.
“I know,” she says. “It’s a strange way to greet you on your birthday. But Morgaine says dangerous things are happening to teenagers. And that they’re taking some weird new drug.”
“Weird new drug?”
She nods. “And we’ve found a few animal kills.”
“Animal kills?” I ask, my mouth dry.