"Wake up, sleepyhead!" Kayla said, leaning around the edge of the open door. "Come on, Elizabet, time to get up!"
Elizabet groaned, burying her face in her pillow.
"Elizabet, it's almost seven-thirty. You have to get up and drive me to school, remember?" She looks a little tired, Kayla thought. But it's time to go; I need to get to school!
"To think that I asked for this," Elizabet said, her face muffled by the pillow. "I asked them to sign the papers, setting you up as my foster child. I must have been on drugs to do that. . . ."
"Elizabet, it's gonna be great. It's my first day at the new school!" Kayla sat down on the edge of the bed, watching her expectantly. "Come on, let's go!"
"Child," Elizabet said, slowly getting out of bed and reaching for her bathrobe, "there is one major difference between us that you had better understand. I am a night person. I work the night shift at the station and sleep during the morning. You, on the other hand, are a day person. You go to school in the daytime and sleep at night. As long as you're not too cheerful in the mornings, we should be able to get along just fine."
"Well, there's one solution that would be really easy. You could buy me a car, since I'll be able to get my driving permit in a couple months, and then you wouldn't have to get up early in the morning anymore, right?" Kayla asked hopefully.
"I'll think about it," Elizabet said, but Kayla caught the quick flash of her smile, like a hint of sunlight from behind clouds. "First we'll have to see how you do in high school," Elizabet continued, walking to the bathroom. Through the open door, Kayla could hear the sound of water running from the tap and Elizabet splashing water on her face. "Then we can maybe talk about a car."
Elizabet emerged from the bathroom drying her face with a towel. "So are you ready for your first day at the new high school?" she asked.
"You bet!" Kayla said, though suddenly she was much less certain. I think I can deal with it, she thought. She'd thought quite a bit about it over the last three days, what it would be like to be back in school, meeting new kids and teachers. She hadn't felt nervous at all yesterday when Elizabet had taken her downtown to complete the foster parent paperwork. And then they had driven to the school so Kayla could register for classes. The school secretary had kept them waiting outside her office for ten minutes, but Elizabet only had to deliver a few seconds of what Kayla privately was starting to think of as The Eyebrow, a stern look that allowed no opposition, before the secretary quickly filed the forms, muttering something about needing Kayla's transcripts later. So now Kayla was a registered student at Laurel High School. And now, as of this morning, she was totally terrified.
It won't be so bad, she tried to tell herself. They're just kids like me. That thought stopped her. No, not like me. Not anymore. I don't think any of them can call magic with their hands or heal somebody or hear someone else's thoughts. I'm different now, totally different.
As if hearing her thoughts, Elizabet said, "Don't worry so much, child. It'll be fine. You'll see."
"Yeah, but what . . . what if I run into one of Carlos' guys or something? You don't seem to be worried about that, but there are a couple of street gangs out there who don't like me very much, remember?"
Elizabet walked to her closet, reaching inside for a blouse and skirt. "They did come by," Elizabet said. "Twice. But they haven't been back in several days."
"What?" Kayla asked, surprised.
"They came by when you were gone. From what you told me, my guess it that it was when you were in the elven lands. I think time moves a little differently there; you were there for only a few hours, but a week went by for the rest of us. Several boys pulled up in their cars at the foot of the driveway and sat there for a while. They came back, looked around, and always left without causing any trouble."
"I wish you'd told me that," Kayla muttered.
"I didn't think it mattered too much," Elizabet answered. "After all, they haven't been back in several days. And we have the LAPD keeping an eye on the house, while they get their warrants amd subpoenas together."
"But what if they come back?" Kayla asked. "What will we do then?"
"We'll deal with it then," Elizabet said, taking some pantyhose from her dresser drawer. "Go get some breakfast, child," she continued. "We'll have to get out of here in the next few minutes if we're to get you to the school on time."
Kayla was lost in her own thoughts as Elizabet drove. I wonder what kind of people I'm going to meet at the school? I wonder if there's going to be any good teachers? Like that teacher Ramon was telling me about. I wonder if . . .
"Stop that, child," Elizabet said from the driver's seat, not taking her eyes off the road.
"Stop what?" Kayla asked, surprised.
"I can sense the magic around you," Elizabet said. "When you worry, when you're not paying attention, you let your magic show. That's the real danger, child. You can't lose control of that, not for a minute. At home, you don't have to worry about it because I've taken steps to prevent any magic traces from leaking out. But if anybody is going to find you, it'll be because of your magic, not because of a street address."
"Yeah, right," Kayla said. She pushed all her worried thoughts away from her, concentrating on calmness, trying to find the burning fire inside her and quiet it down. Chill out in there, she thought, talking to the flickering blue flames as if the magic was a misbehaving child. Just chill out for a while. We'll probably do magic lessons again tonight. You'll get to do stuff then.
In the magic lessons, where Kayla was now learning to "hear" better, that was something that Elizabet had taught her, to think of the magic as a little child, somebody who wouldn't always do what she wanted but could be convinced if you talked fast enough. Her ability to hear people's thoughts and talk directly to Elizabet with her mind was getting better, as well. Maybe I'm finally starting to get the hang of this magic thing, she thought, and smiled.
"Well, here we are," Elizabet said, pulling into the high school parking lot. "Try not to raise too much hell on your first morning, will you, child?" She smiled at Kayla, who grinned back her. "I'll be waiting here at the end of your last class," Elizabet continued, "but now I'm going home and definitely going back to sleep."
"See you later," Kayla said, climbing out of the VW.
This is a great-looking school, she decided. Twenty million kids all running into their classes. And a few of them even have hair that's more punked out than mine. Not too many with this kind of cool leather jacket, though.
Ramon's jacket. I wonder how he's doing?
She felt smugly proud at having achieved black leather superiority over the other students.
Kayla walked to the school secretary's office. The gray-haired woman assigned a student worker to escort her to her first class, who also introduced her to the instructor of the English Literature course. The dark-haired man with the handlebar mustache gestured for Kayla to take one of the empty chairs, then continued his detailed explanation of the relationships in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
Kayla listened in spite of herself, fascinated by the teacher's command of language and the way he stopped every few minutes to recite a few lines from the play, becoming that character for several seconds, bringing the play to life. "And tomorrow we'll watch a film version of Romeo and Juliet, and then compare that to West Side Story," he concluded, just as the bell rang. Kayla blinked, realizing that the hour had gone by without her even noticing it.
Now all I have to do is figure out how to get to Building 12, Room 3, Kayla thought, gathering up her notebooks. She waited until the rush of students leaving the room had died down a bit before walking out into the hallway.
"You looked like you were really into that Shakespeare stuff," someone said from directly behind her.
Kayla glanced back and saw a young man with an unruly mop of wild red hair. He was grinning at her.
"Yeah, I thought it was pretty cool," she said. "Listen, maybe you can help me out. I need to figure out how to get to my next class."
"Hey, no problem," the redhead said. "My name's Mike, what's yours?"
"Kayla," she said. "Kayla Smith."
"Oh, you've got Tokugawa next for biology, too," Mike said, leaning over to look at her class schedule on top of her notebook. "She's a killer, probably the toughest teacher in the whole school. And you've got Wilson for English Grammar after that. Looks like we've got pretty much the same schedule, which makes sense if you're in the Honors program, too."
"Honors program?" Kayla said. "I didn't know Elizabet signed me up for that."
"Who's Elizabet? Your stepmom?"
"No, my . . . uh . . . my guardian. It's a long story," she added at his confused look.
"Yeah, well, tell it to me over lunch. We'd better get ourselves to class." They walked quickly across the quad to another building, where Mike introduced her to two of his friends, Stephanie and Bert, just before the bell rang to begin biology class. Miss Tokugawa, a tiny Oriental woman, began her lecture on genetics. Kayla realized that Mike was absolutely right: this class was going to be a killer. But an hour later, she knew a lot more about genetics than she had before.
English Grammar was almost a relief after that, and Kayla was rather pleased when Mrs. Wilson turned out to be a cheerful, exuberant young woman who obviously loved what she was teaching.
After the class ended, Kayla caught up with Mike and his friends in the hallway. He saw her and smiled. "Hey, Kayla, we're thinking of going and getting burgers for lunch. Do you want to go?"
"I thought you needed a lunch pass to leave the school," Kayla said. "At least, I thought that's what the secretary told me."
"Well, yeah." Mike shrugged. "Or you could just climb the fence, which is what we usually do. It's no big deal; they don't really care all that much. We should all take journalism next semester. That way you get an automatic gate pass. Let's go, guys."
Kayla followed them out the building and around the school auto shop to a deserted area of fence. I hope Mike's right about this. I'd really hate to get busted on my first day at a new school.
Mike scaled the wire fence with the ease of someone who's been practicing it for a long time, and Steph and Bert started up as well. Kayla sighed and began pulling herself up the chain links. She jumped down lightly to join the others on the other side. This isn't too bad<M>,<D> she thought. First day here, already making some friends, some cool guys who aren't afraid of a little adventure. Though I bet they wouldn't believe the kind of adventures I've had lately.
"We usually go to the Burger Shack just over there across the street," Mike said, starting across the wide boulevard.
"Mike, watch out!" Steph yelled. Mike looked up, too late.
The oncoming driver slammed on his brakes, but not fast enough.
He's going to hit him! He's going to—
Mike yelled once, a hoarse sound, and then the blue car hit him, knocking him up the hood of the car. He landed hard against the windshield. The blue car squealed to a stop a few feet further down the road. Mike slid off the hood onto the asphalt, lying very still on the street.
"Oh, shit . . ." Kayla was kneeling next to him a minute later. He was still conscious, staring at her, his mouth moving but not making any sound.
She put her hands on his shoulders and her other vision peeked in a moment later. He's hurt on the inside, bleeding. No broken bones, but I'd better stop that bleeding. Relief swept through her as she realized that he'd be okay. And then she called the magic out from that tiny safe place where she'd hidden it away from sight, freeing it to run through her. She could feel it skittering down her arms beneath the leather jacket, tickling her hands. She knelt closer over Mike so her body would shield the light, closed her eyes, and let the magic flow through her.
From a distance, she could hear Stephanie's voice. "Oh my God, Mike!" And Bert: "Kayla, is he okay?"
Kayla didn't answer; all of her concentration was on the magic, caught up in the healing.
"Hey, girl, is he okay?" an older voice asked, rough with concern. Someone grabbed her shoulder, pulling her back. Magic flared, bright enough that Kayla could see it through her closed eyes. She damped it immediately, knowing that she'd done what she needed to.
He's okay, he'll be all right.
She opened her eyes and saw Steph staring at her, a last hint of blue fire reflected in the other girl's eyes. "Kayla, what . . . ?" she began, and then stopped.
"It's okay, he's okay," Kayla said quickly. "Mike's gonna be fine."
The driver of the car shook his head. "I must be seeing things . . . hey, kid, you all right?" he said to Mike, who was sitting up slowly with Bert's help.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Mike said, then glared at the driver. "Jesus, man, can't you watch where you're driving? You could've killed me."
"Yeah, well, you should look before you run into the street! Goddamn kids," the driver said, then sighed. "Listen, kid, here's my business card. If you decide later in the day that you're not all right, get yourself to a hospital. Don't worry about it, I'll pay for it. Just don't tell my insurance company, okay?"
Mike stood up slowly, a little wobbly on his feet, and Kayla and Bert both reached out to steady him. "Yeah, sure."
"You sure you're all right, Mike?" Steph asked.
He nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I feel fine. Just a couple bruises maybe, that's all." He glanced in the direction of the school. "Hey, look at that!"
Kayla turned and saw the row of students staring and pointing at them through the chain link fence. Great, she thought. That's all I need now. I know Steph saw the magic, and the driver, though I don't think the driver believed in it. Mike was too out of it to notice anything, but who knows how many of those kids saw what I did.
"We'd better get out of here before the principal shows up," Mike said. "How 'bout we skip on the burgers for lunch? Somehow I'm not all that hungry anymore."
"Good plan," Kayla said, and they headed back onto the sidewalk, climbing the fence to get back into the school. She saw Steph watching her as she jumped down from the fence, and looked away, not wanting to answer the questions in Steph's eyes.
No one commented on it, though, and by the end of the day Kayla had almost forgotten the incident. Each of her classes was more fascinating than the last, and she'd met a dozen interesting people ranging from the quiet Sandra to Mike's best friend Steve, who described himself as a computer hacker and offered to take Kayla on a guided tour of the AT&T network. Mike had to one-up that offer by saying that he'd teach Kayla how to pick locks and get herself out of a pair of handcuffs, to which Steve said that he figured he'd break Bank of America's security codes by next week and wouldn't that be a fun place to check out?
Kayla was laughing so hard at their attempts to impress her that it took her a few moments to notice the two businessmen that were loitering just outside the school's wire fence. Loitering and watching them. A moment later, Kayla noticed their ears.
Their long, curved, pointed ears.
"Uh, excuse me, guys," Kayla said. She walked quickly into the closest building and stood there for a moment, leaning against the row of metal lockers. It's the elves. They know I'm here. What am I supposed to do now?
As if for an answer, Kayla saw one of the business-suited elves walk into the building, scanning the hallway. He saw her, and for a brief moment, they stared at each other. Then Kayla turned and ran.
She didn't hear footsteps running behind her, but a split second later there was the startling crackle of displaced air and then the elf was standing ten feet ahead of her, right in the middle of the only doorway out of the building. He smiled at her. Kayla didn't lose a step, but slammed into him at full speed like a high school football player. The elf had time for one startled expression on his finely-chiseled features before he was knocked flying. Kayla heard him crash into a locker as she fell, then she rolled to her feet and kept going.
Can't believe it. Elves invading my new high school, and it's only my first day here! She dodged into the next building, running past the startled faces of other students, then through the open double doors and past the library.
The main entrance to the school was just ahead, and the parking lot behind it. Kayla went through those gates as though all the demons in hell were hot on her tail. Well, at least one of them is! She stumbled to a stop in the parking lot, looking around quickly.
Ten feet away, she saw Elizabet's VW, parked with the convertible top down. She ran for it. Elizabet smiled as Kayla flung open the door and dived into the passenger seat.
"So, how was your first day at the new high school?" Elizabet asked cheerfully.