The Elementalists Page 2

  “Yeah, it’s kind of a big deal for me.” She spun back around to answer a text from her new friend across the room.

  Chloe’s heart sank, and she looked longingly out the window. It was sunny and beautiful outside, but already she could tell that this day was going to suck. She turned when the teacher ambled into the room, somehow already disheveled and winded by the effort just to get here. His button-down shirt was sporting yellow pit stains as he began to write his name on the board with a shaky hand. The waft of cigarette smoke was evident all the way across the classroom.

  MR. JACOBSO-

  It was only then that Chloe noticed the hunched figure in the seat beside her. He was draped over the desk with his face buried in his crossed arms. Chloe had never seen him before. He glanced out from behind the shield of fingers to catch Chloe’s stare. He was Asian and looked older than fifteen, with chiseled cheek bones and sad, beautiful eyes. His red, glassy gaze met Chloe’s for only a moment, and then he hid his face again.

  Chloe faced forward, embarrassed, as if she’d intruded. And though she felt even worse for thinking it: At least someone in this school is having a worse day than me.

  • • •

  She stood at the front of a bustling cafeteria with her tray of semi-edible, mass-produced food steaming in her hands. A third of the school shared her lunch period—a mix of almost four hundred students from all three grades—sorting themselves into messy little groups that would shift and tighten in the weeks to come. Chloe was in a financial assistance program and qualified for subsidized lunches, but looking down at her near-sauceless pizza wedge, clump of browning iceberg lettuce, and green banana, she made a mental note to remember to brown-bag it from now on. The prospect of the walk before her was no more appetizing.

  She advanced through the long hall of tables, trying and failing not to notice those she passed. There was, of course, the obligatory table of football players and their cheerleader girlfriends in a prime location by the windows. And nearby was the better part of the state champion soccer squad. Liz sat among them. On one side was the boy who must be Paul Markson, grinning with a deliberately gross amount of brownie wedged in his teeth; on the other sat a screeching Kendra Roberts.

  God, she sounds like a hyena in heat! Though Chloe had to admit, Paul was pretty cute in a preppy, privileged way. She walked faster, averting her eyes.

  Drama nerds, band geeks, skaters, math league, and Goths; she didn’t belong with any of them, and she was running out of tables. At the back of the cafeteria, there was a smaller side room with lower ceilings, dim fluorescent lights, and no windows. This was the infamous Cave, filled with all the kids that didn’t want to be noticed. This was the place for her.

  She scanned for a lonely seat just as a flailing boy stumbled into her and sent her tray flying. Both he and her lunch clattered to the ground with a shower of lettuce as all eyes in the immediate radius swiveled their way. Chloe could already feel her face getting red.

  “Oh shit! I’m sorry,” said the boy on his butt. “That total douchebag pushed me,” he pointed at a laughing boy nearby. “Brian, you destroyed this girl’s lunch, dude!” Now he was laughing too. “That is not cool!”

  Echoes of “not cool, Brian,” broke out from the nearest table as Chloe knelt to salvage what she could.

  The pizza had landed cheese down. She’d peeled most of it from the linoleum floor before the fallen boy scrambled over to help pick up the lettuce.

  “Hey, I’m really sorry; you can have my tuna-fish sandwich if you want.” He had bloodshot eyes and clothes that reeked of patchouli.

  “No, thanks. I’m all right.” She picked up the banana. “I wasn’t that hungry anyway,” she lied.

  “Oh man, you’re a cool chick. You could have been totally bitchy just now. What are you, a sophomore? What’s your name?”

  “Yeah, I’m a sophomore. Uh, Chloe.”

  “I’m Stan Strakowski. Nice to meet you, Cool Chloe,” he said, offering his hand. Stan had an oily hat head and a horsey grin. His palm was warm and sticky as he helped her to her feet.

  “You too.” She smiled weakly. “Well, see ya.”

  “Yes, you will, Cool Chloe,” Stan declared.

  As she walked away, she wiped her hand on her T-shirt and tried to block out the chatter behind her.

  “Dude, she was totally hot…in a boyish way!” Stan announced to his table with a chorus of sniggers in response.

  She lowered her head and walked faster, finally coming to a stop at the last table in the corner. She dropped her empty tray and fell into a chair with a tight hold on her banana. This day was not getting better.

  She looked up to find the sad boy from homeroom only a few seats down on the far side of the table, watching. The red rim around his eyes highlighted the striking honey brown of his irises, and his jet-black hair was artfully messy. He nodded, “Do you want half my sandwich? I’m not going to eat it.” His gaze was intense, but disarming.

  “It’s all right—”

  “Really,” he cut in, “I’ll throw it away if you don’t want it.” He had barely touched his lunch and was fidgeting with a cell phone.

  She smiled, “All right, thanks.” She reached across the table to accept the offer. “You saw that, huh?” She motioned back to the scattered remnants of her lunch.

  He nodded again, this time with the beginning of a smirk, though his eyes were still sad. “Good first day?”

  “Yeah, not so much,” she mumbled, taking a tentative bite of the sandwich. It was grilled chicken and avocado and far better than the pizza-like product she would have otherwise choked down. “Only a hundred ninety two and a half days to go.”

  “A hundred eighty two and a half,” he corrected. “We get ten sick days, and I plan to use every one.”

  Chloe smiled with a nod of agreement. She’d gotten the perfect attendance record the last three years in a row, but wasn’t about to admit it. She was very conscious of trying not to look at him for too long and even more conscious of the fact that he hadn’t stopped looking at her since she’d sat down. He’d taken off the button-down he’d had on that morning to reveal tanned arms and a frayed T-shirt that said “Costa Rica,” and then “Pura Vida” beneath.

  He was way too easy to look at and looked way too old to be in the tenth grade. She turned away to fetch her Nalgene water bottle from her bag and took a deep, unintentionally audible gulp.

  “Are you a sophomore?” she finally blurted.

  “Senior, but this is my first day, too.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “I just moved here from Santa Cruz a couple months ago. My dad got a job here, so…now I’m here, too.”

  “Santa Cruz, that’s pretty cool,” she said. “Are you a surfer?” she asked with a little too much excitement. Oh God, I sound like a yipping puppy dog!

  “Yeah, I was a pretty goddamned good surfer, actually,” he admitted.

  “And now you’ve traded the waves for the woods?” Did I really just say that?

  “Not by choice.”

  “…But if you’re a senior, why are you in my homeroom?” she asked, only then remembering that he had been upset in class this morning. Her breath froze.

  “Yeah…I already have enough credits in science and math to graduate, but need to make up a couple school requirements, like American Civics,” he answered, now more guarded.

  Chloe tried to conceal her nervousness with another bite of sandwich. He didn’t look it, but maybe he was a bit of a closeted nerd, too?

  “So what’s your deal? Are you some crunchy hiker girl, or something?” he asked without any discernible scorn.

  “Yeah, I guess I’m kind of a loner bio-geek. But I was thinking of going for aloof and mysterious this year,” she said, immediately wishing she could learn to self-edit.

  “Sorry, I already claimed aloof and mysterious,” he responded without hesitation. “You’re going to have to find something else.”

  She stifled her grin and
thinned her eyes—playing at aloof and mysterious. “I know this is the first day for both of us and all, but technically I’ve been in town a lot longer, so I kind of have dibs.”

  “I don’t know, Cool Chloe, you already have a pretty unmysterious nickname and a fan club.” He motioned to the table of party kids, where Stan was jumping on a chair and hooting like an ape.

  Despite the wound behind his gaze, his humor was natural and effortless. And Chloe was fairly certain that he was flirting with her. So far, it was an alien and awesome feeling, and she didn’t want it to stop. “So let’s hear your mysterious name,” she challenged.

  “Kirin Liou.”

  “Kirin…really?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “For Charlottesville, Virginia, that’s pretty good,” she admitted. “Kirin Liou—what is that, Japanese and Chinese?”

  Kirin looked impressed. “You’re good. Dad is from China and Mom was Japanese.” The sadness sunk into his eyes once more.

  Chloe kicked herself internally; she needed to keep this going. “Did you hear about that earthquake in China yesterday?” she flailed. “They say it was one of the biggest recorded quakes in history.”

  Now his smile dropped, and his gaze went glassy and distant. It was as if he looked right through her. The silence stretched on, save for the thundering in Chloe’s chest.

  “My grandmother lives in Xining, China,” he answered stonily, his emotions starting to crack. “We still haven’t heard anything.”

  “God, I’m so sorry. I was just—”

  “It was nice to meet you, Chloe,” he stood abruptly and gathered his things. “I have to make a phone call.” And with that, he walked briskly away and out of the cafeteria.

  Chloe exhaled slowly and dropped her head to the table with a painful thud. Now the universe was just being mean.

  • • •

  And then there was gym.

  Chloe stood on the football field among a diverse cluster of girls, all wearing bright orange gym shorts and shirts with their first initial and last names written on the chest. Her shorts were too short for her thin legs, and the shirt hung like a dress. It was mortifying.

  They were spread out to stretch, led in the endeavor by Ms. Anita Barnes, a scowling, boxy woman who always carried a Ping-Pong paddle and a whistle. Chloe’s eyes glanced to the cluster of boys as they ran around the track. They wore the same outfit, but in unobtrusive black, which seemed a little unfair to Chloe as she was forced to squint from the sun’s reflection off her day-glow tangerine chest. Some of the boys watched the girls intently from afar, no doubt hoping to catch good angles for the most compromising of stretches… Kirin Liou was not among them.

  “Touch your toes and hold it for fifteen seconds!” shouted Ms. Barnes. The whistle chirped, and Chloe leaned over and touched her head to her knees. Her mom had always said she should be a dancer, but she’d never been able to tolerate all that practice. She counted slowly to ten, glancing upside down at the girls around her. The whistle sounded again and she straightened.

  Kendra Roberts righted with an impressive flip of her fire-red mane. Somehow her body still looked amazing in the neon polyester. Chloe couldn’t help but stare. Fifteen is way too young to handle that kind of power. She looks like some sort of supernaturally nubile succubus out of mythology.

  Mrs. Greenwald had often talked about all the hormones and chemicals that had filtered into the world’s drinking water, causing periods and puberty to come earlier and earlier. “Boobs and hips are showing up on some eight- and nine-year-olds,” she’d warned.

  Chloe still hadn’t seen much of that in the mirror. Her period had arrived at lucky thirteen, accompanied only by all the glorious benefits of monthly mood swings, manic irritability, and clockwork migraines that ruined at least one full day of every month. She’d already done the math: her sixteenth birthday on December 21st—still four months off—would be especially sweet.

  “Twenty jumping jacks on my whistle!” barked Ms. Barnes. The whistle blew, and arms and legs began to fly in a disjointed mockery of group rhythm. Chloe’s jumping jacks were smooth and precise, her mind already slipping into the quiet place it found during exercise, able, if only then, to fully shut out the cascade of anxious thoughts.

  Most of the girls around her flopped and sweated in the punishing September heat—still pushing ninety degrees and brutally humid, though the summer had supposedly come to an end. Chloe had spent much hotter days outside these last few months, and if the air was moving at all, her mom opted for open windows over air conditioning bills, no matter the heat.

  It had been the hottest summer she could remember, and it was headed toward being the hottest year on record for the fourth year in a row. To the average kid of Charlottesville High School, it was only a statistic that meant more time at the mall or inside and online, but to the millions who’d been caught up in the drought and famine riots across Africa and parts of Asia, it was a life-changing, and often life-ending, reality.

  The whistle chirped for the twentieth time. “Nicely done, Ms. McClellan!”

  Chloe didn’t even register what Ms. Barnes had said until some of the other girls turned to look at her with judgmental glares. She looked back, confused, wondering if maybe a bird had pooped on her or something. Kendra looked her up and down before spinning away with a snort.

  “That’s just great,” Chloe mumbled to herself. I don’t even have to open my mouth to make everyone dislike me.

  “Line up on the track for the one mile run, girls!” yelled Ms. Barnes as she marched across the field with a wave of her Ping-Pong paddle. “Four laps, and I will be timing this! I want to see everyone try to finish in less than ten minutes!”

  Groans and protests erupted from all around, but Chloe followed silently. The boys were just approaching the finish; two clearly athletic kids sprinted toward the line as the others trailed at an ungraceful distance.

  “Five minutes: thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six!” called out the male gym teacher, Mr. Johnson, as the two boys passed him with competitive flourish. “Good work!” announced Mr. Johnson as the boys slapped each other five and slowed to a rubbery-legged stroll.

  Chloe recognized Paul Markson as one of them, breathing heavily and puffing out his chest for the watching girls. Kendra took that moment to put her signature hair back in a ponytail, making sure to arch enough to show some skin at her midriff. Paul’s eyes lingered there before they exchanged little waves. Does Liz know just how cool her new friend, Kendra, really is? Chloe wondered as she lined up on the track beside her. Visible waves of heat rose from the lanes.

  Other boys decided to finally exert themselves for the finish, crossing the line in eight or nine minutes, with gasping stumbles and a lot of sweat. Still others ambled on, more than willing to miss the ten-minute time limit that had been assigned.

  The whistle screeched again. “Eyes front, girls!” yelled Barnes. “I want your best efforts here! You will be marked on your improvement throughout the year!”

  “Then why would we try to go fast now?” muttered Kendra under her breath, followed by snickers of approval from the girls around her.

  “Those of you who plan on joining the indoor track team this winter might want to consider this as an introduction, Ms. Roberts!” announced Barnes in response. “I’ve heard through the grapevine that you could have some real talent, so let’s see what you’ve got.”

  Her? Talent! Chloe rolled her neck with a crack.

  “Good luck,” offered Paul Markson with a smile to Kendra.

  “No sweat,” she answered, sliding into an overdone runner’s stance. Some of the boys chuckled and whispered behind her.

  “At the sound of my whistle!” yelled Barnes as tension spread down the line.

  Sunlight reflected off the white sheen of Kendra’s running shoes and flashed Chloe in the eye. She turned her head away just as the whistle blew.

  The boys rose in a chorus of encouragement, and Kend
ra took off like a bolt. Chloe reacted a step later, fumbling the first few strides until her skinny legs found their rhythm. A cluster of other girls were ahead of her as well, jockeying for position as they stretched out along the inside lane, but Chloe’s eyes were fixed on the annoying bob of the red ponytail in the lead. She settled her breathing and found the quiet zone within once more, knowing that the others had started too fast and would soon wilt in the heat.

  One by one, Chloe passed them, all left blotchy and gasping in her wake by the end of the first lap—all but Kendra, whose perfect legs continued to move in long, elegant strides ahead.

  “Looking good, Kendra!” shouted Paul Markson as they passed the cluster of boys.

  Chloe pushed harder, erasing the distance between them until she came up on Kendra’s heel. Kendra glanced over her shoulder, and without thinking, Chloe challenged her gaze. At this, Kendra accelerated, but Chloe hung with her, moving up just behind her shoulder.

  At the end of the second lap, the boys’ cheers had acquired a more spirited edge. Chloe tuned out the shouts of “Come on, Kendra!” and “Dig deep!” and focused instead on the growing flush of Kendra’s cheeks and the wheeze of her breath. Already they had lapped most of the other girls. Halfway through the third lap, Chloe moved up directly beside her, their long strides matching for twenty-some paces as the pain and defeat sunk into Kendra’s face. Then Chloe pulled ahead in a quickening burst that left no room for comparison.

  When she flew past the boys for the third time, all the shouting had been silenced. “Goddamn, she’s fast,” she heard someone mutter.

  In the back of her mind, Chloe was vaguely aware of the little voice screaming: Don’t do this, idiot! But it felt too good to let loose and show what she could do, too liberating to sit back and let perfect Kendra claim all the eyes and praise yet again. Chloe might not have been the prettiest, wealthiest, or most popular girl in her class, but she was pretty sure that she was the fastest. Today she was going to prove it.