The Elementalists Read online

  Chloe wasn’t sure if she’d heard that right. “What?”

  “You have a golden aura!” Rosalie shouted above the music.

  Chloe raised her eyebrows. “Is that good?”

  “Oh yeah,” answered Rosalie with a drifting nod. “Very rare… It’s like the second best next to pure white!” She watched Chloe with an expectant, almost reverent gaze.

  “Good to know. Thank you,” Chloe offered as Stan snickered beside her.

  Brian suddenly stood, his attention having drifted back to the floor below. He took Rosalie’s hand and pulled her back to her feet. “This is a great song… Rosalie, I was wrong! We should keep dancing!”

  “Oh, okay,” she said with a baffled smile.

  Brian whirled back toward Stan. “Dude, I will catch you later.”

  “No doubt,” answered Stan with a wave as the pending trainwreck moved away. Rosalie spun back toward Chloe with a wave. “I totally voted for you,” she hollered as they stumbled back down the stairs.

  “What did she say?” asked Chloe.

  “I’m not sure,” Stan admitted, watching them go with a blank expression.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Oh yeah, I’m great! I’m totally gonna get a blowie from a girl with a golden aura,” he pumped his eyebrows. They both burst into laughter.

  “Do you think Rosalie is going to be all right?” asked Chloe. “She seems pretty out of it.” At the bottom of the bleachers, Rosalie was battling a sudden onset of noodle-leg syndrome as Brian bear-hugged her from behind in a fumbling effort to keep her from toppling over.

  “Absolutely,” joked Stan. “She’s in good hands with a fine gentleman chaperone.”

  Chloe put her hand on his shoulder. “You know, I get that he’s your friend and all, but I think in the romance department, you could do much better…and gayer.”

  For that, Stan had no ready quip. “Thanks, Chloe.” Rosalie was now bent precariously over a trash can.

  At first, Chloe thought that she was spewing punch and mushrooms, until she reemerged shock-straight with a discarded corsage held aloft in her hand like it was the Holy Grail. “I think they really might get in trouble,” Chloe observed. “See, aren’t you glad that you didn’t smoke weed tonight?”

  Stan’s face went blank and he shrugged.

  Chloe narrowed her eyes. “You didn’t smoke weed, did you?”

  “Nope…scout’s honor,” he said with his hand in the air. “I didn’t SMOKE any weed at all.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, I may have ingested a stale pot brownie from a couple weeks ago,” he admitted with a casual wave. “It doesn’t even count, just a tiny, old thing.”

  Chloe was not impressed. “You’re high right now?”

  “I guess, technically,” he answered sheepishly.

  “You know, never mind what I said before; I think maybe you and Brian are perfect for each other.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, with the corners of his grin returning. “I’m a very weak-willed man.”

  Chloe could only shake her head. “You’re going to owe me for this,” she declared.

  “Just name it,” he offered as the deejay segued artfully into yet another radio hit and the crowd roared again.

  Chloe spotted Ezra’s smile above the rest as his perfect teeth glowed bright blue with the black light. He looked like he was having a lot of fun. Then her eye caught the red mane in the flash of a strobe light—Kendra circled her prey with sultry moves and dramatic flare. From afar, it looked like Kendra thought she was performing in a music video. Chloe had to admit, the bitch is pretty convincing!

  But Chloe’s death ray was broken by a sudden scurry of activity at the stage. Principal John Harlow mounted the stairs and shuffled through some papers beside the microphone stand. He stood just barely five feet tall, with a sincere but tired face and a rapidly receding hairline. Behind him, a group of three upperclassmen that looked like they’d dressed for a church retreat followed him up to the stage amid a frantic conference of whispers.

  “Oh, goodie, here we go,” said Stan as the music began to fade and the spotlights over the stage came on.

  One of the girls handed a folded piece of paper to Principal Harlow, who read its contents with a furrowed brow. He turned back to the nervous committee and asked them something that brought a trio of exasperated shrugs in response. Soon the four of them were reengaged in another heated round of discussion as the student body below them began to take notice with hushed expectation.

  All eyes drifted to the brightly lit crowns on the pedestal as whispers of prediction passed through the crowd. Even from the top row, Chloe heard the name Ezra Richardson bandied about more than once as Kendra bounced and clapped with glee before giving him an unsolicited peck on the cheek.

  “I think your gallant protector is about to become royalty,” suggested Stan a little too loudly amid the relative quiet.

  A couple of goths sitting nearby turned around to see who’d spoken, but upon seeing Chloe, the doughy boy with dyed black hair gave her a thumbs-up. “Lightning Girl!” he announced with a nod. The heavily pierced girl with Buddy Holly glasses spoke up, almost as if not wanting to be outdone by her date, “Good job at districts today. I heard you totally kicked ass!”

  “Uh, thanks,” Chloe answered with an uneasy tinge along her spine.

  “You’re a legend in your own time,” Stan whispered in her ear, just as Principal Harlow cleared his throat over the microphone.

  “Good evening, Charlottesville High School. This is the moment you’ve been waiting for,” he said while squinting through the spotlight.

  Chloe heard the shrill spike of what sounded like Rosalie’s high-pitched cackle rising from somewhere in the crowd.

  “After much deliberation and a lot of time counting and recounting ballots, we are now ready to announce this year’s Charlottesville High School Homecoming King and Queen,” Principal Harlow announced in his nasally twang, clearly hoping for more of a response than the lackluster cheer that greeted him. He looked back to the Homecoming committee for morale support, but they all still looked a little stunned by the whole thing.

  “Well, let’s get right to it then,” Harlow suggested as he was handed a gold-leaf envelope. He opened it with a ragged tear. “After leading our fighting Black Knights to an upset victory over the Monticello Dragons earlier today, it should come as no surprise that this year’s Homecoming King, by a landslide, is none other than Mr. Ezra Richardson!”

  The crowd went wild as Ezra bloomed with the biggest smile Chloe had ever seen. Kendra clung to him like some sort of parasite, hoping to be carried with him up to the stage, but Ezra managed to dislodge her as he met a wave of high fives coming at him from all directions. He moved through the masses with Kendra scooting behind in his wake as the horde started to chant his name.

  Everyone went crazier still when Ezra mounted the stage in a single bound, suddenly coming to stand by the pedestal with his arms raised victoriously above him. Chloe had to smirk at Kendra’s awkward shuffle at the front of the stage as Ezra turned away from her to shake the hands of all four presenters.

  Principal Harlow handed Ezra a gold-painted cardboard sword and then removed the crown from the pedestal. He stepped to Ezra, who stood more than a foot taller than him, and for a moment, Ezra let Principal Harlow stretch up on his tiptoes with the crown raised to the utmost of his reach while the student body hollered in approval. Finally Ezra dropped to one knee and bent his head with theatrical flare as Harlow exhaled in relief and placed the too-small crown on the new king’s head.

  Ezra came to his feet again as the football team started chanting “Speech! Speech!” Principal Harlow motioned toward the microphone, and of course, Ezra couldn’t pass up a chance to address his constituency. He leaned over to the mic with one hand on his head to keep the crown in place and paused for dramatic timing… “Thank you, Charlottesville High School!” he boomed with his sword ju
tting into the sky. The crowd erupted.

  He waited for them to die down before he continued. “I am honored to stand before you tonight and to be the one who gets to tell you all that it is time for Charlottesville High School to start kicking some ass!”

  The kids went nuts. Despite his disapproval of the public cursing, Principal Harlow found himself begrudgingly clapping along with Ezra’s infectious charisma. Some of the other adult supervisors around the edges of the floor were among his loudest supporters.

  Chloe gave a bark of a laugh, but even she couldn’t help but be swept up in the enthusiasm.

  Stan shouted over the din, “That dude is gonna be president someday.”

  “God help us,” Chloe laughed.

  Ezra waved the crowd back down to silence. “As your Homecoming King, I plan to do my part to help lead this school toward the greatness and respect that we deserve… And I know that my fellow queen will equally embody the strength, beauty, and conviction that we’ll need to take this year to the next level.” He stepped back from the mic with a rascally little tip of his crown and scanned the throng of his adoring people as if looking for someone in particular.

  Chloe was brought to giggles, watching the way that Kendra stood at the foot of the stage, trying desperately and failing to catch her date’s searching eye. Principal Harlow stepped back to the mic with a new envelope in hand and exhaled loudly as he waited for the hush to return.

  He looked to Ezra, who gave him a supportive nod. “This year’s race for Homecoming Queen comes with a bit of an upset,” he admitted. “It was a very tight contest between three worthy candidates. But one name won out by only five votes, and with some key endorsements to back her up.” He was sweating beneath the lights, and the three committee members behind him were fidgeting with nervous energy. “Traditionally we only accept the names of upperclassmen in the race, but this year an incoming student and surprise write-in candidate proved to have the most support… After a lot of debate, we’ve decided to let the vote stand.”

  Chloe could see the furious posturing of a couple of the senior front-runners near the stage, just as Kendra’s little hive of sophomore girls buzzed up around her with a flurry of excited energy. Chloe suddenly found herself on the verge of shouting. “You’ve got to be kidding me! She’s a stinking tenth grader!” She looked to Stan for backup.

  He had nothing.

  “What, did she sleep with the whole damn Homecoming Committee?” Chloe challenged.

  Harlow cleared his throat as the spark of outrage and anticipation receded to a quiet rumble. “This year’s Homecoming Queen is…” he fumbled with the envelope and read the name on the card like he’d never seen it before, “…Chloe McClellan!”

  Ezra leaned over him toward the mic. “Lightning Girl!” he shouted as the crowd exploded with a mixture of cheers, laughter and fury.

  At first, Chloe wasn’t sure what was happening, unable to make any sense of the words she’d just heard. But as the goths turned back around with huge smiles and loud hoots, she began to feel the swell of panic in her gut. She glanced to Stan, who was still wearing the nervous remnants of his signature grin as she looked for some sign of understanding or reference for the joke that was forming around her. Stan could only shrug as Chloe began to feel the press of more and more eyes.

  “Queen Chloe ‘Lightning Girl’ McClellan!” Ezra’s voice boomed again through the speakers, cutting through the encroaching haze of madness. It provided an anchor for Chloe’s focus, though it came from the last place in the world she wanted to go. “Please report to your coronation!” he commanded from the stage.

  What felt like an invisible fist buried into her stomach, and she totally lost the ability to breathe.

  Stan leaned over and shouted into her ear, “I think you have to go down there, dude… You’re the Homecoming Queen!”

  Chloe’s wide, terrified eyes turned on him. “Did you know about this?” she croaked.

  He shook his head furiously. “No!” He stuck his hand in the air. “Scout’s honor.”

  Chloe contemplated making a run for it, but too many eyes had already found her among the high shadows as Ezra began a quiet chant over the microphone below.

  “Lightning, Lightning, Lightning,” he said it over and over again in a building rhythm, and before the fifth “Lightning,” many other voices had joined in.

  The goth kids were shouting along with fists pumping in the air. At the edge of the crowd, Chloe spied Liz jumping in glee as she rallied those around her to join in the infectious ovation. Most of the kids that yelled her unwanted nickname had no idea who she even was. Only a handful had ever actually spoken to her, and most had probably never even seen her before or since Kendra’s e-mailed introduction.

  Chloe’s humiliation had officially become a spectator sport. She tried to will herself into an aneurysm or a massive coronary, anything to keep her from having to face the path ahead. Instead, she found herself rising to wobbly feet with the help of a supportive push from Stan.

  Though she couldn’t feel her legs, her feet started moving down the bleacher stairs as the cheer from the aisles around her swelled with her passing. She thought she might pitch forward and tumble to blissful silence, but she kept on coming with steady, almost automated steps.

  At the bottom of the bleachers, she moved into the thicker crowd, and the sea of cheering, well-dressed bodies parted before her. Their group sound was muffled and distant in her ears as she advanced with only a vague notion of the direction toward the stage.

  She passed Brian and Rosalie as they clung to each other amid the swarm.

  “It’s a golden light! It’s so beautiful!” Rosalie’s shrill voice sounded above the chant before she was swallowed again by the crowd.

  Chloe glanced at Liz, who was pumping her fist toward the sky and doing her part to lead the hive mind in support of their new queen right along with Ezra. How long have they been planning this?

  Liz looked like she was about to burst with joy as she pounced on Chloe and kissed her cheek. “This is awesome!” she squealed in Chloe’s ear before bouncing back and waving her on. Paul Markson led the chant in his section with renewed vigor.

  This is not my life. But Chloe kept moving, blind and deaf to the press of cheers and jeers all around her as the stairs to the stage came into view ahead. She tried not to openly tremble, though she’d begun to feel light-headed and cold. The stirrings of a migraine toyed at the base of her skull.

  Beside the stairs, Kendra and her defeated drones watched Chloe’s approach with silent hatred. Kendra stepped before her path with a gaze that left a heated trail across Chloe’s skin. “I’m going to end you, little girl!” she snapped.

  What Kendra didn’t know was that she’d already won. Now Chloe wouldn’t be able to escape the Lightning Girl nickname for the remainder of high school. She was officially a super hero, accept without anything super or heroic to show for it—just a foolish little girl in costume as everyone around her pointed and laughed. “Please do,” she answered without stopping. She sidestepped Kendra and watched her own high-heeled feet as they climbed the stairs toward the harsh spotlight.

  She looked up to see Ezra’s self-satisfied smile as he broke away from the pounding chant and nodded toward the gilded dunce cap that awaited her. She wondered what it would do to her reputation if she decked the Homecoming King in front of the whole school. She actually would have considered it if she could have reached his perfect jaw or if doing so wouldn’t have almost certainly led to a broken hand and suspension.

  Principal Harlow stepped forward to grip her sweaty palm. “Congratulations, Ms. McClellan, I heard about your impressive showing in districts this afternoon, and I’m told your grades more than speak for themselves.” He plucked the bulbous crown from its velvety perch and placed it on her head with a pat. “I’m sure you will be an exemplary model of excellence on both the field and in the classroom.”

  Unlike with Ezra, Chloe’s crown was too big fo
r her head and slipped toward her brow, causing a fresh wave of laughter from the watching horde. She didn’t even bother to fix it.

  Chloe barely registered that many of the meatheads at the front of the stage had started yelling “SPEECH!” again before Ezra gripped her by her shoulders and directed her toward the microphone.

  She froze, squinting into the harsh light with only a ghost image of the many eyes that watched her expectantly. She felt a surge of panic, and for a second, the lights seemed to flicker and dim. She prayed that the power would go out altogether and she might escape in the darkness. Instead, she heard the wind of her breath against the microphone.

  She tried to swallow, but there wasn’t enough moisture in her mouth to get it down. She smacked her lips, trying to get something going, and the sound of it echoed about the room. Holy shit, say something!

  “Uh…” she glanced up to the top of the bleachers and caught Stan’s huge grin in the shadows. He gave her the thumbs-up… “I feel like this must be some sort of mistake,” she admitted.

  Ripples of laughter carried through the audience, and Chloe was painfully aware of Principal Harlow’s nervous shuffling beside her.

  “This isn’t really my thing, and I didn’t even know I was running for it… So I just want the people, you know, who actually care about this, to know that I’m sorry… And to all the people who voted for me…uh, thanks, I guess, but I kind of wish you hadn’t.” Chloe could hear a few isolated points of support as she spoke and decided to block out all the mockery and anger and speak just to them. “I wasn’t even going to come tonight; to be honest, I think the whole thing is kind of stupid.”

  This time, the outburst of applause had gathered significantly in size and commitment. If I’m going down, I might as well go down in flames!

  “It seems to me that this whole charade is set up to reinforce some antiquated notion of social hierarchy that doesn’t really belong in high school in the first place,” she announced to another wave of scattered cheers and laughter. “And if I had any real power as your newly elected symbolic queen, the first thing I’d do is abolish the whole idea of a Homecoming Court!”