Chapter 4 [Carrie]

The single sheet of eight and a half by eleven paper was filled with names, which was slightly discouraging to Carrie, but she swallowed her apprehension and wrote her own down before passing it to the person sitting to her right. She was in the auditorium again, prepared to audition with a song and a monologue. Once the paper was filled out and handed back to the drama director—the colorful, wiry woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Franklin. She had already introduced herself to the group, and Carrie was surprised to find that she didn’t actually have any powers. She felt like the teacher was the first person she’d seen in weeks without them—although she did make up for it by having what turned out to be a very convincing prosthetic covering of a mechanical leg replacement leg, that enabled her to jump particularly high. Everyone here was special in their own way, it seemed.

Mrs. Franklin took the list of names when it was filled out, and then called the first person up on stage, asking them to introduce themselves and give their name, age and league, and then a prepared monologue and song. The first girl up was short, but she didn’t look particularly nervous, despite being first. She wore a cloth cover over her hair, so Carrie assumed she must be Muslim. She introduced herself as Sasha Adar, seventeen years old, from white- orange league. Immediately, Carrie felt more nervous—a seventeen- year- old? She gave her song and audition, which were good from what Carrie could tell although she couldn’t hear the girl all that well. Next up was another girl, this one Asian of some persuasion, with spiky, short black hair tied back into a stubby ponytail. She introduced herself as Sophie from the Blue- red league; a sophomore. Her song was much more confident than the previous girl’s, but her monologue faltered, and she dropped character to apologize halfway through.

The list dwindled, getting closer and closer to Carrie’s turn—she was one of the last, having arrived at auditions slightly late, and every person that performed before her made her more and more nervous. She recognized a smattering of people from the auditions—the boy Drew from the tour yesterday, and Lucas and Aubrey, with whom she had eaten dinner.
Several auditions before her turn, Mrs. Franklin called out, “Austen Silver?” A boy stood up and made his way to the stage.

“I’m Silver, fourteen, red-blue league.” This told Carrie four things: one, that he was a freshman, two, that he was in the league associated with hers, three, that he for whatever reason did not use his first name, and four, that his voice was something she’d never expected to come out of that mouth: it was deep and velvety, harmonious to the degree that it sounded like two people speaking at once.

“Silver? Not Austen?”

“No, not Austen,” he said in his extraordinary voice. He wasn’t exceptionally attractive, Carrie thought; he was tall and lanky, as if he had yet to grow into his body completely; however, his eyes were a dark brown, almost black, and mesmerizing. Carrie realized what she was thinking and caught herself. She didn’t believe in love at first sight. That was the sort of thing that happened in stories, in comic books, in movies—not—

She almost missed it when he started monologuing, and even then she found it hard to concentrate on the words he was saying; the sound of his voice superseded what he was trying to say. Then he moved on to singing and from then she had little doubt that he would get a lead role, even if he couldn’t act to save his life. Maybe, if she was lucky, she could get the part of the love interest. Maybe—oh, god dangit, I’m thinking it again she realized. Well. I mean, I was bound to have a crush eventually, right? Best to get that part over with ahead of time.

Finished, he stepped down from the stage and returned to his seat, although Carrie was too lost in thought to pay attention to the next two auditions, and only when the person to her left stood up did she fully regain her composure. She shook her head to clear it, went over the song and speech she was going to give in her head, and when it was her turn, she was readier than she’d ever be—if only those god dang butterflies would leave her stomach. Perhaps they’re spirit butterflies, she mused rather nonsensically as she climbed up on stage.

She introduced herself as Carrie Mann, age fourteen, from red-orange league. Looking out across the audience, she saw him turn his head to watch her. She gulped, scrambled to remember the song and speech she was auditioning with, and then began. She felt rather silly, reading a poem instead of a dramatic monologue like most people were doing (especially for a play that was adapted from Shakespeare). When she named her song and the artist, some of the staff and older students chuckled. She grinned nervously—it was from a band that she was rather fond of, that she had chosen because she knew the song well; although in retrospect, it might not have been the best song to audition with, since it didn’t display her range entirely well. Nevertheless, she sang it as confidently as she could, and she thought she was fairly in tune, even though her voice paled in comparison to Silver’s.

The few remaining auditioners performed, and then it was time for the dance auditions. Carrie got up on stage uneasily, dancing not being her forte.

“Pair off,” said Mrs. Franklin. “Same gender, opposite gender, doesn’t matter. We’re going to learn to waltz.” People drifted together; Carrie, slow on the uptake, was one of the last people standing towards the back of the stage without a partner. Looking across to stage right, she saw Silver also standing there, a bit awkwardly.

In a tremendous surge of courage, she walked up to him and asked, “Um, hey, partners?” He looked at her outstretched hand for a second, then at her, and shrugged.

“Okay.”

Mrs. Franklin grabbed someone from the throng, a senior who she apparently knew rather well, and demonstrated to everyone how to waltz. Most people knew already, but for Carrie, it was her first time. Fortunately, it seemed to be Silver’s too—he picked it up rather quickly, though, and soon they were stepping in time to Mrs. Franklin’s “One- two- three, One- two three, One- two three” count. Carrie stared at their feet, in part to make sure they remembered the steps and in part to keep from looking up at his eyes, and to keep her mind off the fact that he was holding his hands. Mrs. Franklin sped up the count, which forced them to keep their full attention on their feet—almost to Carrie’s relief. Then she stopped counting, telling them to waltz freely. The group continued to dance, some pairs slowing down and others keeping the rapid speed Mrs. Franklin had left them on. Silver kept at that speed, and Carrie matched his pace. He soon began moving faster and faster, however, and it was all Carrie could do to keep up with him without tripping or crashing into someone—she quickly became aware of the fact that he probably shouldn’t be able to move at this pace naturally. Glancing upwards, she saw that he wasn’t looking at her; his eyes were fixed on some distant point as they whirled.

“Hey, can you—” she managed to say, her heart pounding with actual effort, not just nerves. “Can you—slow down—a little? I—can’t—keep up!” His eyes refocused and he looked at her, stunned for a second to be pulled back into the real world. Then he looked at their feet, and at the people around him.

“Oh. Sorry,” he said, and their pace slowed back down to normal. Carrie relaxed a little, before becoming aware again of the fact that she was holding his hands. They stayed at a respectable speed until Mrs. Franklin called the group to a halt. The group stepped down off the stage, aware that the auditions were over, but no more relaxed than they had been when auditions began. Carrie, in fact, was more anxious than she had ever been since she came to the school, including the time when she set off the alarm in the science building.

“Thank you all for auditioning for Gladiator Academy’s Fall musical! As you all know, the play will be a modernized version of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. You all did excellently; remember that whether or not you get the part that you were hoping for, you all did wonderfully, and I hope that you all take something positive away from this experience. Have a lovely rest of your day!” The group gathered its stuff and headed outside. Carrie saw Silver through the crowd and again approached him.

“Um,” she said, searching for something to say that wouldn’t make her sound like an idiot. “T- thanks for, um, being my dance partner.” Oh, whoops, that did sound pretty idiotic. He looked at her, confused.

“Um, you’re welcome…?”

“But, um, so I was sort of wondering, what was going on that time when you got really fast? It seemed like you were moving faster than—”

“Oh, yes, that. Sorry about that. I have superspeed.”

“…Oh.” That explained it. “I… I thought as much.”

“Yeah,” he said, looking away from Carrie. A wave of awkward silence crashed over the two of them, with Carrie anxiously wondering if she had said something wrong, or if she should back out now, or was it painfully obvious that she was just talking to him for the sake of talking—
“Hey, so you said you were in… red-orange league?” He asked, making her jump.

“Oh, um. Yeah! Yeah, I am,” she stuttered, impulsively running her hand through her curly brown hair. “That… that means we’re in the same league. I mean, not league. We’re in the same classes. We have classes together. Um.” He gave her a bewildered look.

“…Yeah?”

“S- so why did you try out for the musical, anyway? You… like singing?”

“Yeah, sorta.” He shrugged. “I was in a couple plays back home, before.”

“Really? What plays?”

“Oh. Uh. I’m not sure you would know them… one was an original production by our school. I helped write the script.”

“You like to write?”

“…Sometimes.”

“That’s cool!” she said, grinning (nervously). “I love writing! I went to writing camp once. This November, I’m—have you heard of National Novel—"

“—Writing month? Yeah. I did it last year.”

“Wow! Really? That’s… that’s so cool! Did… did you win? Did you get to forty thousand or however many words you’re supposed to reach?”

“Fifty thousand, and no,” he said, a little guiltily. “Schoolwork got to be too much, and my dad forbade me from continuing it after I had about fifteen thousand words in.”

“You… you gonna do it again this year, then?”

“No… I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Because I won’t have time,” he said, shrugging. “I have to keep my physical training up, and if I get into the musical I’ll have even less time.”

“You should do it! We can both do it, and we can be… writing…” her voice faltered. “…cohorts.”

“Nope, sorry.”

“Aw, c’mon. It’ll be fun! I don’t want to be the only person doing it in the whole—”

“I’m sorry, Carrie, but—no,” he told her, and then turned in a separate direction and walked off. Something about his retreating back told Carrie she shouldn’t follow, coupled with a growing hurt. It had felt more than just a refusal to write; it seemed to Carrie more like utter rejection. What—did she do something wrong? Was she coming on too strong? She must have scared him off… and now he thought she was a creep. The first cute guy she meets, with cool interests and a lovely voice, and she’d blown it already. She stood where he had left her for about a minute before continuing in a different direction, towards the building with the club fair.

Only when she had passed the café did she realize that he had used her name—he had remembered her name! The memory of hearing it in his voice sent shivers down her spine, before she mentally kicked herself for being all sappy and romantic, and banished the thought to the back of her mind, turning her thoughts to other matters. The club fair looked interesting, so that even if the whole musical thing fell through she could still find something to fill her occupational free blocks with. She hoped it wasn’t over already—it was already 2 p.m. and the fair had been going since 10 a.m.

It was a fairly long trek. The arts and theatre building was at the complete opposite end of campus from the Social Studies building where they were holding the fair (incidentally, in the same cafeteria where Carrie and Tess had met with the tour the day before). As Carrie neared the building, she scanned the area for familiar faces—although, truth be told, she didn’t have any of her leaguemates’ faces imprinted on her mind’s eye just yet. Heck, she’d only met them the day before, so she had a legitimate excuse. She went over their names once more in her head—her, Tess, Nikki, Bridget, Keli, Anita, Erin, Lucy… a motley crew. And she could only guess at what their male counterparts would be like—besides, of course, Silver. She could already tell that this whole situation with him was going to be a disaster.

She reached the large double doors and pushed one of them open, peeking inside the well- lit cafeteria area. It wasn’t very active, but there were still people sitting at booths, hawking their extracurricular activities to the sparse passersby. She walked along the first row, considering such ideas as the student faculty senate, or the calligraphy club, or the Jewish club, or the Chinese yo- yo club. Those three were ruled out almost immediately—while policymaking was kind of interesting to her, she knew from experience that those kinds of organizations barely influenced anything, with the exception of purchasing new recycling bins. Calligraphy was nowhere near her realm of interests, and while she was ethnically Jewish (Israeli, technically, although she wasn’t even that; she was a Russian Jew), she never followed the religion itself. She remembered having tried Chinese yo-yo once and almost breaking the thing. The next row housed some mildly interesting clubs, and she did put down her e-mail for the art club, and for the empty booth that the sign indicated was the drama club (the club directors, or whoever it was who handled the booth, had the courtesy to leave an “out to lunch!” sign). The writing club seemed mildly interesting, too, although she didn’t know what they would do at club meetings (…write?)

She passed by some other clubs; clubs for charities, clubs for sports teams, and clubs for wackier things like investigating paranormal phenomena (of which there was no deficit in this school), enlivening the student body (like a glee club, she wondered?) and anime. The latter had two people managing the desk—a senior, already wearing his white uniform, and a younger boy who must have been a sophomore, who had his feet up on his desk and was playing a handheld game and intermittently glancing at the TV screen, upon which they were showing the media that was the focus of their club. Carrie smiled when she saw it and looked around for somewhere to sign her e-mail.

“Oh, you wanna join?” asked the senior. “We don’t have a sign-up sheet, just come whenever you want. No worries. We meet on Tuesdays during the occupational.” Carrie thanked him and walked off, mentally tallying up what she had signed up for. Art club, Monday. Anime and Writing club, Tuesday. Drama club, Thursday. There were no clubs on Wednesday or Friday, which meant that she would have a free block those days—or not, if she got cast in the musical, which met on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, plus weekends. She wasn’t banking on that, though. The competition was, she admitted, pretty steep.

As she was leaving, she saw someone familiar coming down the stairs. It took her a few seconds to pin a name to her face—it was Nikki, from her league.

“Hey,” she said casually.

“Hey,” said the girl in return. “How was the fair?”

“Oh… interesting, I guess. I signed up for a lot of stuff.”

“Wait, you did the musical, didn’t you? How’d that go?”

Carrie’s stomach turned over. To mention Silver or not? Nikki would get to know him soon enough anyway… like tomorrow, in class. She figured she could get away with simply not mentioning that she had developed a spontaneous crush on him.

“It went fine, I think, but there was a mishap with the dance auditions,” she said simply. “my partner had superspeed.”

“…Ouch,” Nikki said, entirely sympathetic. “Well, good luck anyway. What clubs did you sign up for?”

“Like I said, a lot,” Carrie told her. “Art club, drama club, anime club…” for each club she named, she raised a finger, and by the time she had gotten through her list, she was sure that she had one more finger than club and had all but lost track of where she was going. “Uh, I need a planner or something…”

“Me too,” admitted Nikki. “H- hey, did you say you were in the anime club?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You like anime?”

“Of course! Otherwise I wouldn’t join, would I?” she gave Nikki a sidelong look.

“Yeah, no, I got that. It’s just that you didn’t strike me as the type to be… into that sort of thing, is all.” She shrugged.

“Well, you learn something new every day,” Carrie told her, smiling a little. “Um… I’m going back to the dorm, I think. That okay?” Nikki nodded dumbly and Carrie waved to her, then turned and strolled back to the red-orange dorm, where she planned on browsing the internet on her laptop. When she opened the door to her room, she found Tess sitting on her lower bunk, hunched over a DS. She didn’t look up until Carrie tapped her shoulder.

“’Ey!” she said, hands on hips. “What’re you doing playing games? It’s a beautiful day!”

“Sorry,” said Tess. “What else am I supposed to do? I’m not gonna play sports or anything.”

“Haven’t you been to the club fair?” asked Carrie sternly.

“Nope, not interested.”

“What?! Why not?! C’mon Tess! You can’t just cut yourself off from the rest of everyone like that!”

“I’m not,” she said, closing her DS. “I’ve got you. I don’t need to worry.”

“Well, yes, but—I’m busy! Go! Get up! Get out! Make friends!” Carrie commanded, grabbing Tess’s upper arm and hoisting her to her feet.

“I will, I will,” she grumbled. “I just don’t think I need to do it actively.”

“Join some clubs, at least! There’s tons of stuff that even you’d be interested in! C’mon, video games club?”

“Not interested,” Tess muttered. “I’ve got plenty of games here. Plus, it’ll just be full of nerdy boys who only want to play Halo.”

“…Okay, point made. Still. How about Anime club? I’m joining that.”

“Doesn’t interest me,” Tess said, motioning to go sit down again.

“C’mon. Let’s head outside at least,” Carrie said, resisting against Tess and dragging her towards the door.

“But—the sunlight glare means I can’t see the screen—”

“Oh, you’ll find a way to work around it,” Carrie told her as the two descended the stairs and headed out to the courtyard between the boys’ and girls’ buildings. There were a few people there already—two girls, both of them reading, and then farther up the hill some freshmen were throwing a Frisbee.

“Here, take a seat,” she said, gesturing towards one of the benches for the picnic table. Tess did so, reluctantly, and Carrie sat down beside her. She twisted around, looking for anyone familiar, and as she did so, she recognized a figure up on top of the hill. She immediately turned away, hoping he hadn’t seen her, but it was too late—she could have sworn that his eyes met hers. She sighed deeply.

One of the girls at the other table—a petite Indian girl—got up and approached them.

“Hey, uh… you ok?” she asked Carrie, whose head was down. She jerked her neck up in surprise, accidentally twisting it painfully in the process, and lowered it with a groan. The Indian girl winced too.

“I’m fine,” mumbled Carrie. “Talk to her, she’s the one with problems,” she said, pointing at Tess without looking at her.

“You’re not fine,” said the girl, hands on hips. “You’re in love.”

Tess looked massively confused. Carrie sat up slowly and carefully this time—her neck still smarted—and asked, as calmly as she could, “What?!”

“I’m an empath,” the girl said, shrugging. “I can read peoples’ emotions, and control them. And you are in love. And you are confused,” she told Tess, “but don’t worry. I think she just saw the guy she liked up on that hill. Is that right?”

“Who… who ARE you?”

“Sarita Gomez,” she introduced herself, holding out a hand which Carrie weakly shook. “I’m in red-yellow dorm.”

“Cool. We’re in red-orange,” said Tess, while Carrie was silent. The other girl sitting at the opposite picnic table got up and came over.

“Sari, are you messing with them again?” she asked playfully, crossing her arms.

“I’m not messing with anyone!” she said, raising her arms defensively. “I just felt a surge of emotion from this girl here… and I thought it was interesting, so…”

“Ooh, who was it?” asked she other girl. She was Caucasian, with an oval- shaped face and straight brown hair tied back in a ponytail. “I mean, I heard you talking about someone she had a crush on. So who was it?”

Carrie, not wanting to let him think they were talking about him (unless he was a mind reader as well, in which case he would already know), glanced up in his direction for a second before flipping her hand towards him. “Up by the tree. His name’s Silver. Or, well, that’s not really his name, but—”

“Is he the one doing flips off the tree?” asked the brown- haired girl. Carrie, surprised, looked. Sure enough, just as she looked, he backed up about five feet and began sprinting impossibly fast, so that one second he was standing vertically and the next he was horizontal in midair. His feet went over his head, but for a split second it seemed that he would fall on his face. Then he extended his arms and caught himself, rolling over a shoulder and bouncing to his feet again. He glanced down the hill to the four girls who were watching him. Sarita clapped. He gave a short bow and then backed up to do it again.

“Wow,” said the other girl. “That was… odd…” Carrie hid her head in her hands.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Sarita told her, flapping her wrist at Carrie. It was like a cool wave had washed all the anxiety away—her heart stopped thudding, and her face relaxed, free of worry.
“...Wow!” she exclaimed. “That—that was—”

“My power? Yeah. I’ve had lots of practice. It’s one of those powers that you can have, and nobody will guess as long as you make it seem natural.” She smiled.

“Can you use it on me?” inquired Tess. Sarita glanced at her, smiling, and Tess broke into a broad, bracy grin, and started laughing—something she hardly ever did. Carrie looked on, fascinated; the most she had ever seen her laugh that she could remember was a quiet snigger.
“Heh heh. Ha ha ha ha! Ha—that’s—ha—awesome! Why—ha ha—can’t my powers—be cool like that? Heh,” Tess gasped, in between fits of laughter.

“What are your powers?” asked Sarita.

“Oh, um—heh—electricity,” she said, coming off of her high.

“Really? That’s—that’s so cool! What a coincidence! Hey, Skye—” she turned to where her friend had been standing a moment before, but the space was empty. “Oh, don’t do this again,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Hang on a sec.” She closed her eyes and frowned, concentrating. Then she pointed up towards the hill. “There she is—invisible, and messing with your boyfriend, it looks like.”

As Carrie watched in half- terror, half- laughter, Silver backed up to spring into the tree again, but when he pushed off, he tripped. His arms flashed out, faster than the eye could see, to catch himself. Shifting his weight, he brought his legs around in a sweep. Skye flickered back into visibility, letting out a startled cry and falling onto the grassy hill. They both looked equally startled. Silver stood up and brushed the grass stains off his knees; Skye rubbed her shoulder, which she had fallen on.

They spoke, and although Carrie couldn’t hear the whole conversation, she caught snippets.

“—did you do that? What was that about?” he asked, not angry exactly; he was actually grinning crookedly.

“Just to see—react,” she heard Skye say. “But that hurt!” she rubbed her shoulder, making a big show of it. The three listeners moved higher up on the hill, trying to get in earshot.

“Sorry,” he told her, shrugging. “But wasn’t that totally cool? What a clean sweep! Took your legs right out from under you. Oh yeah, I’ve still got it.”

“That hurt,” she whined.

“Would have hurt me more if I hadn’t caught myself.”

“Okay, true.” She shrugged. “Sorry for trying to trip you.”

“It was a good test of my reflexes. Say, is one of those girls down there listening to us named Carrie?” Carrie’s heart stopped, or felt like it did—she panicked until she felt a wave of sympathetic energy wash over her, courtesy of Sarita.

“…I think so. I only just met her. Why?”

“Just that she’s in red-orange league, so she’s in my classes… plus, I just thought she should know that she can never out-ninja me, ever.” He looked around the tree, where Carrie, Tess, and Sarita were hiding. Carrie waved, shyly.

“H-hi,” she said, making herself look like a fool again. Sarita was frowning, concentrating on something.

“Hello. Were you admiring my wall-jumping skills? It’s all got to do with inertia, and I can do it anywhere, provided I have enough space for a running start and a suitably sturdy object to brace against. I’ve made it eight feet up once, before jumping—that was epic. Of course, my power has something to do with it, too. Although there’s plenty of ninja that weren’t mutants who could climb higher than me, which just proves that you don’t need powers to be awesome.”

“Wha—” Carrie was speechless. Was this the same guy that had snubbed her, not an hour ago? She quickly glimpsed at Sarita, who was still frowning and muttering to herself, and an uncomfortable premonition rolled over her. Was Sarita—was she messing with him? Was she messing with Carrie? What was she doing?

“Do you know anything about martial arts?” he asked.

“Um,” Carrie answered. “Some. I, uh, trained before I came here.” That was true. It had been a fairly big decision, leaving her studio behind.

“For how long? What belt rank were you?”

“Oh, um, seven years, I think. I had just gotten my black belt…”

“That’s cool! I’ve trained in lots of different styles over the years, so I’ve just sort of developed my own style from what I’ve learned. I call it Chijutsu.”

“Tha—that’s cool! Can I learn it?” asked Carrie. “I had to quit my training in order to come here. Although I don’t think I have much free time…”

“I doubt you could manage the training regimen,” he said, shrugging.

“Because I’m a girl?” she interjected, suddenly angry.

“No! Not because you’re a girl. It’s because I specifically designed it to be tailored to me, as in people with superspeed. Unless you think you can run ten laps around the track in five minutes? Because that’s how I warm up at 6 A.M. each morning. And ten’s getting too easy. I should raise it to fifteen.”

“Woah.”

“Yeah. And now I’m doing the agility training—they told me I’m super-agile as well as being super fast, so I don’t think you or the average student could do this either,” he said, backing up and sprinting up the tree again. His feet thudded twice against the trunk as he kicked off, caught himself on his hands, and sprung backwards to his feet. While he did this, Carrie cast her gaze around for the other girls and realized they had left—they were down at the base of the hill again, reading or playing. Panic seized her—now that Sarita wasn’t there to theoretically control his feelings, would he reject her outright again?

“What style of martial arts do you do?” he asked in his velvet voice, causing her to jump. She sat on the boulder near the base of the tree, and he came and sat next to her.

“Oh, um. Kenpo, I think? With a N. Or maybe it was Kempo with an M? I’m, uh, not sure.”

“We’ll have to spar sometime.” He was completely serious.

“I think we’d be a little… mismatched. Not just because I’m a girl, or that I’m not as fit as you…”

“Oh, I’ll slow down,” he assured her.

“Like on the waltz?”

“…”

“Didn’t think so,” she said, grinning. “Don’t worry, I’m not mad about that or anything. I think it would be better to just do… like, Tai Chi or something. I was never really good at sparring, either.”

“I could do Tai Chi, too,” he agreed. “What do you know?”

“N- not much…” she admitted. “I was kind of hoping you would know something about it. It’s the thing where you’re simultaneously pushing and pulling, tense and relaxed?”

“That’s pretty much it,” he told her. “Here, you just put your hands together with another person and take turns resisting and giving, resisting and giving…”

“…Right,” she said, and a warm zephyr blew through. He was silent, as was she; she refused to say that the silence was awkward, because naming it would ruin the moment. If there was a moment there at all. She sighed.

“What’s up?”

“N- nothing… I’m… I’m sorry, this is all so confusing,” she said, feeling despaired. “I… I need to go hang out with Tess. We’ll… talk later, okay?”

“Okay,” he said, not particularly concerned. As she walked down the hill, though, he ran to catch up with her.

“Wait! There’s—you—” the romantic within Carrie noticed how close his face was, and how messy his hair was from rolling on the dirt. “You never told me what your powers were.”

“Oh,” she said. “I can summon animal spirits.”

Suddenly, the warm day seemed a little colder. “Like, ghosts?”

“Um, I guess you could call them that, but they’re a little more like… well, all the lore calls them spirits… they’re like a bunch of animal ghosts roped together, I guess. I can… show you…” she said, but he had turned away.

“See you tomorrow,” she barely heard him say, and again she was left watching him leave, confused and disappointed. It had been so lovely, so—so close—and then…

Walking down the hill, she rejoined the three girls at the bottom.

“How’d it go?” asked Tess cheerfully, but Sarita looked concerned.

“You’re unhappy,” she told her. “You were so happy, up until thirty seconds ago. What happened? What did he say? What did you say?”

“Were you messing with him?” Carrie demanded.

“Me? God, no,” Sarita said, raising her palms. “I may have made you a bit more confident, but that’s it.” Calming energy washed over Carrie, but it couldn’t pierce her sudden sullenness.

“I don’t actually know what happened,” she said, putting her chin on her hands. “He just asked about my powers, so I told him, and then he suddenly got all cold like earlier today—what did I say?”

“What did you say? What are your powers?”

“Summoning animal spirits,” she replied with a shrug. “I don’t really see how that’s related at all… I mean, what could be offensive about that?”

Sarita exchanged glances with Skye. “Um… I don’t know really, but it sounds like… I mean, the last time there was someone with the power to revive the dead…”

“Which last time? I don’t know what you’re—” the school bell pealed, telling the campus that it was time for dinner. Sarita and Skye closed their books, and Tess shoved her DS into her pocket.
“You mean you really don’t know?” asked Skye. “Well, I daresay you’ll find out soon enough… I mean, it’s common history. Although if nobody taught you specifically, you might not know the details of course…”

“Just tell me!” she said despairingly.

“Dinnertime,” Sarita said as she left. “Ask a teacher, maybe. They’ll be able to explain it better than me, I’ll bet.”

Carrie pounded the table with her fist, hurting it. “God dang—why can’t anybody just tell me these things?” Tess shrugged, and the two of them started walking across the campus towards the main dining hall.
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Author's note

Can youuu count the references and cameos? Especially in the Audition and Club sections. I almost literally laughed, rereading it.

So, Silver. What can I say? He really, really is like that, and woe to the poor, lovesick Carrie that would fall for him. (They make a lovely socially awkward couple, don't they? The melodramatic and the narcissistic.) This is a-- no, better make it the-- romantic plot tumor in this book. (there are other subplots of course, but this being a triangle... oh, that's two chapters from now.) Hope you like it, otherwise you are free to skip all of Carrie's chapters, because they basically boil down to just that (not to mention abusing Tess and decrying her general failure. Yeah, I'm not nice to either of them. Ironic, considering...)

Sarita's utterly unlike her real-life counterpart, personalitywise. *shrug* She has one of the coolest powers, imo. (Why didn't I give it to a main character? Hindsight is 20-20.) Skye has a wonderful name and is also minor character. At first she was Tia, but that would be too convenient for reasons unrevealed.