Exotics #2, page 8
Rachael got hit in the back of her head several times with notes, but she didn’t bother to pick them up to read them, so Sergie had to sneak over and pick them up when Ms. Q. wasn’t looking, except Ms. Q. did look, and Sergie got put on warning.
Then Toni started banging her foot on the leg of the desk until Ms. Q. had to tell her to stop it three times.
Ms. Q. said, “I don’t know what’s gotten into your girls today.”
Finally, it was time for lunch. Toni and Sergie lined up with everyone else, but once they were out of the classroom, they ran off.
Rachael didn’t even try to talk to Mickey, but he followed her through the lunch line and sat with her anyway.
“I thought you didn’t want to talk to me anymore,” Rachael said.
“You better tell Babra to watch out,” Mickey said. “Toni and Sergie are trying to steal something from her.”
Rachael shrugged. “She’ll be fine.”
Mickey stared at her; she was normally so protective of Babra that it must have sounded weird.
Rachael added, “They won’t get anything.”
Suddenly, Mrs. Harrington marched across the lunchroom with Toni and Sergie, holding onto one arm each. She looked very, very angry.
“Uh-oh,” Mickey said.
Rachael grinned, then squished her lips together so Mickey wouldn’t see it.
Soon, lunch was over, and they went back to class. Toni and Sergie were missing for the rest of the afternoon.
When the final bell rang, Rachael looked at Ms. Q. to see if she could stay after school and help, but Ms. Q. shook her head just a little bit. Rachael sighed and put her homework in her backpack.
Rachael met Babra and Digger in the hallway. “Well?”
Babra started giggling so hard she couldn’t speak.
Digger said, “They got caught before they could touch it.”
“We’ll just have to wait until tomorrow,” Rachael said.
They started walking out of the school. On their way down the stairs, they passed Toni’s mother, who looked even angrier than Mrs. Harrington had looked at lunch.
“What happened to them?” Digger asked.
“I don’t know,” Rachael said, “but I hope it’s in-school suspension.”
Babra was still giggling.
Rachael hugged her hard. “See? It’s going to work just fine.”
They went to Xanadu House. Aunt Kitty took one look at Babra, who had stopped giggling all the time but was still breaking out into little hee hee hees once in a while.
“Somebody had a good day,” Aunt Kitty said.
Babra started giggling harder. She put her hands across her stomach. “Oh! Oh! I can’t stop laughing and it hurts!” Then she giggled some more.
Rachael knew that whatever happened, it would be worth it, to make Babra laugh so much.
Chapter 24
The three of them left for school a little early. Babra ran into her classroom, checked her desk, and ran back out again. “It’s not there!” she said.
“Good,” Rachael said.
They waited until Toni and Sergie came to class. They weren’t sneezing.
Babra looked at Rachael. “Why isn’t it working?”
“I don’t know,” Rachael whispered.
The bell rang, and they all had to go to class. Toni and Sergie were quieter than usual, but that was the only difference.
Then, just after recess, there was an enormous sneeze. Rachael looked up from her worksheet toward Toni and Sergie, but they didn’t have any boogers dangling from their noses. They had their mouths open in horror and were looking at someone on the other side of the room. Rachael turned her head and saw that Mickey was covering his face with one hand and raising his other hand.
“May I be excused?” he asked, then sneezed again.
It was disgusting. Streamers of snot flew from around the sides of his hand and landed—plop—on his worksheet.
Ms. Q. said, “By all means.”
Mickey took that as a yes and ran out of the classroom. It took him a long time to come back. His nose was red and his pockets were stuffed with paper towels and toilet paper.
“Are you all right?” Ms. Q. asked.
Mickey sneezed again. The boogers flew, and he ran out of the room to the sound of everyone’s laughter.
Rachael was horrified.
This wasn’t the way it was supposed to work.
It was almost time for lunch when there was another sneeze. Rachael looked at Mickey, wishing for the spell to break. She felt bad for him; Toni and Sergie had probably bullied him into stealing the notebook.
But the sneeze hadn’t come from Mickey.
Rachael looked back toward Toni and Sergie. Toni’s eyes were wide in horror, and she had a tiny tissue printed with hearts held up to her nose. Then, behind her, Sergie sneezed, getting boogers in Toni’s hair. Toni yelled and used her tissue to wipe at the back of her head, revealing a long, green booger dangling from her nose.
Everyone in the class started laughing, except for Toni, Sergie, and Mickey, who sneezed again.
Ms. Q. said, “Class, be quiet.”
They tried, but it was just too funny.
Ms. Q. said, “Will the three of you go to the bathroom and get cleaned up? I’ll have someone call your parents to pick you up. Clearly, you’re too sick to be in class today.”
Someone, not Rachael, said, “Now who are the booger girls?” and everyone laughed so loudly that Ms. Q. had to yell at them to get them to be quiet again. Toni, Sergie, and Mickey left.
Ms. Q. called the secretary; then it was time for lunch.
As the line of students walked down the hallway, Rachael looked through the door to Babra’s class. Babra looked up just then, and Rachael gave her a thumbs-up sign.
Toni, Sergie, and Mickey didn’t come back to class.
At the end of the day, Ms. Q. said, “Rachael? Would you stay after class and help me today?”
Rachael nodded eagerly. As the other students left, she started putting the chairs upside-down on top of the desks.
“Sit,” Ms. Q. said.
Puzzled, Rachael sat.
The other students were gone. Ms. Q. closed the door.
“I’m ashamed of you, Rachael,” Ms. Q. said. “If it were up to me, I’d have you transferred out of this school this minute.”
“What?” Rachael asked. She felt frozen, like her lips were solid ice.
“You know what I’m talking about. What you did to Toni and Sergie. And Mickey!” Ms. Q. clicked her tongue. “I thought the two of you got along so well, too.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Rachael protested.
Ms. Q. smiled, but it wasn’t a friendly kind of smile. “I know more than you think I do,” she said. “Now, you can either go home tell your Aunt Kitty about what you did, or I will.”
Rachael bowed her head.
“We all make mistakes,” Ms. Q. said. “But you, of all people, cannot afford to make mistakes, because your mistakes won’t hurt just you, and it will be so, so much harder for you to make up for them. Now go.”
Rachael stood up slowly, picked up her backpack, and put her hand on the door. She didn’t dare look back to see the angry look on Ms. Q.’s face.
“I’m calling her tonight at seven,” Ms. Q. said. “You better have told her by then.”
Chapter 25
Rachael walked so slowly that she never caught up with Digger and Babra.
When she opened the front door, Aunt Kitty called from the kitchen, “You must have stayed late helping Ms. Q. tonight!” Then she saw Rachael through the kitchen doorway. “My goodness, Rachael. Are you all right?”
Rachael said, “I don’t feel good. I’m going to lie down in bed for a while.”
“Okay, sweetie,” her aunt said. “Let me know if you need anything.”
Rachael climbed the stairs, each foot feeling heavier than the last. Ms. Q. would call at seven, and then it would be all over. Rachael knew she couldn’t tell Aunt Kitty on her own. She couldn’t.
Then she remembered the spell. It would probably go better if they got rid of the spell before Aunt Kitty found out.
Rachael found Raul in the basement, lying on the bed with a stack of comic books. She sighed. Raul looked up but didn’t say anything; then he went back to reading his comic book.
“We have to take the spell off,” Rachael said.
Digger said, “Why?” and she about turned into a gecko, she was so surprised. He and Babra had sneaked up on her.
Rachael said, “Ms. Q. knows.”
Raul looked up again, and his eyebrows went up just like a dog’s. Rachael was too anxious to smile—her stomach felt like she’d been chewing rocks and bugs.
“She’s going to call Aunt Kitty at seven o’clock. So the spell had better be gone by then.”
Raul put a bookmark in the comic book, even though he’d probably read the whole stack three times by then. “But it worked all right, yeah?”
“I thought he was my friend,” Rachael said. She was almost ready to cry or throw up; she didn’t know which.
“Who?”
“Mickey. His mom’s in the Lighthouse Parents group, but he said he hates them. But he was the first one to start sneezing boogers.”
Digger said, “He must have been the one who took the notebook. Toni and Sergie were being watched too closely.”
“They must have made him do it,” Rachael said, looking for a little bit of hope that Mickey hadn’t betrayed her on purpose.
Raul shook his head. “If they can make him betray you once, they can make him betray you whenever they want. You have to stay away from him. Nobody can know the secret yet.”
“Yet?” Rachael asked. But Raul didn’t answer, just squeezed his fingers together and opened a glowing blue window. He breathed on the center of it, and the middle of it popped like a bubble. Then he closed the window again.
“It’s gone,” he said.
Rachael should have felt a little better, but she just felt worse, maybe because it was four o’clock already.
Only three more hours until Aunt Kitty found out.
They had a snack of peanut butter and raisins on celery—ants on a log—and Aunt Kitty sent them outside to play. And then there were only two more hours until Aunt Kitty found out.
Not even Babra suggested they tell Aunt Kitty ahead of time.
Rachael sat by the front window to do her regular homework. She wasn’t in any hurry to get done, so it took a long time. And then there was only one hour left. Then Rachael got her library book and started doing her reading homework and lost track of how much time was left.
Rachael heard a car drive by, but looked up too late to see what kind of car it was. A few minutes later, she thought she heard the same car drive by. She looked up and saw the back end of it, a dark red car with rounded edges. She thought she saw a kid in the front seat, pointing at her and at the house.
Suddenly, she was angry. Were cars starting to drive by Xanadu House just so people could say, “Look, there’s that house full of freaks”?
The phone rang, and her anger vanished, replaced by fear. Rachael felt like she couldn’t move or breathe.
Aunt Kitty said, “Hello? Oh, hello, Dahlia. No, she didn’t. Is she in trouble?”
Each word fell on Rachael’s stomach like a big rock wrapped in scissors.
Aunt Kitty listened for such a long time that the car had time to drive by again, and Rachael saw that it was Mickey sitting in the front seat. He was looking at Xanadu House with a very scared face, with big eyes and an open mouth. He had streaks down his face like he’d been crying. Rachael looked past him to the driver’s seat and saw a woman who must be Mickey’s mother. She didn’t look scared. She looked mad. The car stopped at the curb, and Mickey’s mom talked on her glowing pink cell phone. She looked like she was yelling. A pair of fat tears rolled down Mickey’s face.
Mad? Why would she be mad?
“They did what?” Aunt Kitty yelled.
Then again, Rachael thought, maybe she was mad because they’d made Mickey sick and she’d figured out who had done it.
But how, though?
“Rachael, Digger, Raul, Babra! Get in here!” Aunt Kitty yelled.
Rachael put her bookmark in her book and walked into the kitchen. Her arms and legs were stiff and shaking. The others followed her.
“Raul, what are you doing?” Aunt Kitty yelled, and Rachael noticed he was in boy form.
Raul was so startled that he changed, right there in front of the window, into a dog.
“Wait!” Rachael said, but of course it was too late. She ran back to the window seat and looked out.
Mickey’s mom’s car screeched away. They must have seen Raul change.
Chapter 26
“What now?” Aunt Kitty growled.
The car zoomed around the street corner and was gone.
“Mickey and his mom were outside and I think they saw Raul change,” Rachael said. “Mickey’s mom is part of the Lighthouse Parents.”
Rachael didn’t know until then whether Aunt Kitty knew about the Lighthouse Parents or not, but she must have known, because Aunt Kitty grabbed the kitchen door to keep herself from just falling over.
“What have you done?” Aunt Kitty said. “Never mind. It’s too late. We have to get out of here.”
“Out of here?” Rachael asked.
Babra started crying.
Aunt Kitty took a couple of breaths. “We can’t risk staying at Xanadu House right now. If the Lighthouse Parents know you’re not just…that you’re Exotics, then…they’ll think their kids got sick because you’re turning them into Exotics, too.”
“But Raul took the spell off,” Rachael said.
Aunt Kitty looked at Raul, who cowered on the floor in dog shape. “I wondered who did it. I didn’t think any of you knew enough magic. And now everyone who was sick got better all at the same time. Raul, these are the same people who burned down your house.”
Raul whined.
“I know, I know, you didn’t know. But all of you have made a terrible mistake that’s put us all in danger—yes, you too, Digger and Babra, because you let the two of them do this and didn’t tell me. But we can’t do anything to take it back now.”
“What do we do?” Rachael asked.
“Everyone, pack your things. Put two changes of clothes, your toothbrushes, and toothpaste in your backpacks and then bring them downstairs, and I’ll fill them the rest of the way with food and water and extra money. Put everything else that will fit in your suitcases or whatever you came with.”
“What about our homework?” Digger, who hadn’t started his, asked.
“Forget about it. You won’t have room.” Aunt Kitty picked up the phone and dialed.
Rachael said, “I’m sorry, Aunt Kitty.”
“Go on, girl, get a move on,” Aunt Kitty yelled.
Rachael ran out of the room, crying.
—
In the end, they couldn’t leave right away; Aunt Kitty’s old brown station wagon wouldn’t start, and she was going to have to get it fixed.
Aunt Kitty sighed and made everyone go back in the house. “We’ll…well. We’ll see what I can figure out. I want you to put on clothes and try to get some sleep; I’ll wake you up as soon as we can leave. Even you, Raul. It’s no use pretending you’re a dog at this point; they already know you’re here.”
“Okay, Aunt Kitty,” they all said.
“And if anything happens and we get separated, grab your backpacks and get to the bus station where I showed you. If I don’t get there in an hour, take the bus back to Rachael’s house in Denver. Rachael, I want you to be in charge of making sure Babra gets there. Raul, you’re in charge of getting Digger there. Now say it back to me.”
Babra’s eyes were almost closed already, she was so tired.
“Grab your backpack, go to the bus station, I’m in charge of Babra,” Rachael said.
“Good. Now, go to bed and stay quiet if you can’t sleep. It’ll be a wonder if any of us can sleep. You know you can go out the front window and climb down the trellis on the front porch, don’t you? And you know where the key is, right?”
“Yes, Aunt Kitty,” Rachael said.
“I called your father. He’s expecting us.”
Home! She was really going home!
—
Rachael woke suddenly. She was afraid, but she didn’t know why. Maybe she’d been having a nightmare. She tucked her blanket around her and tried to go back to sleep.
But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t.
She got up and started to slide out of bed; maybe if she went to the bathroom, she’d be able to go back to sleep. But before her feet touched the floor, she heard something from downstairs that she didn’t like at all.
It sounded like someone had just shut the front door, very quietly.
Also, something smelled bad. Rachael didn’t know what it was, but it didn’t smell like farts or unwashed dog, which were the usual kind of bad smells they got in their room.
Rachael put her feet on the floor softly, very softly, and tiptoed to the bedroom door. She put her ear on the door and thought she heard the sound of something tearing. Weird. She opened the door.
Smoke was coming up the stairs, and there was a bright red glow everywhere. Fire.
Rachael ran across the hall to the boys’ room and banged on the door. “Wake up! Wake up! There’s a fire!” Then she ran to her aunt’s door and opened it. “Aunt Kitty!”
Just then, the fire alarms upstairs went off, and Rachael couldn’t hear herself yelling anymore. But it didn’t matter, because Aunt Kitty had already jumped out of bed and was running toward the stairs.
“Go out your bedroom window,” she shouted. “Go get the boys. Close all doors behind you. Hurry!”
Digger threw open his door. Raul was right behind him. Both of them were wearing their clothes and their backpacks.
“Come on!” Rachael yelled.
Aunt Kitty ran down the stairs, straight toward the fire. “No!” Rachael yelled. “Don’t go that way!”
