One Hundred Different Lives

“If you’ll wait here, she should be along soon,” the lady in the office of my new school told me. She was an older woman in her sixties, with short, steel gray hair and thick, wire-rimmed glasses. She turned away from me when she finished speaking, back to her computer where I noticed her right hand was on the arrow keys and her left hand was on the space bar, which she was pressing furiously.

“Hi!” a cheerful voice gushed behind me. “I’m Laura! I’m the girl who’s going to show you around today!” I could practically feel the exclamation point at the end of each sentence. A thousand to one this girl was a cheerleader.

“Hey,” I said in reply, trying to sound as bored as possible, and was gratified when Laura’s expression fell a little. We left the office and I heard a quiet, “Not so hot when I have a twenty-two in my hands, huh? Alien scum,” muttered behind me.

After my brush-off, Laura seemed to give herself a mental pep-talk before speaking to me again. “So you’re taking a bunch of advanced classes! You must be really smart!”

“Nope,” I said, trying to hide my smirk as she pursed her lips. She wasn't sure how to reply to that, so she just ignored my comment.

“Well, I’m in two of your classes! English and Calculus! Mrs. Aunsbach teaches English, and Mr. Phrax teaches Calculus! Both of them are super nice, even if Calculus is boring sometimes!” Her enthusiasm for school sickened me, and I shortened my responses down to nothing. Laura tried to seem unfazed, adding a little skip to her step.

I had gotten here early this morning to meet with this girl like the principal suggested. The halls were deserted, but it didn’t feel creepy like it did at night. Every once in a while, a teacher would wander out of their classroom to go make a photocopy or chat up their fellow instructors in the math department. I tried to drown Laura’s chatter out and concentrate only on the location of my classrooms. For once, I wouldn’t have an escort to each of my classes.

The bell finally rang and the few students who had arrived before it were released from their holding pen in the cafeteria to their lockers. Laura didn’t even wave goodbye to me. She just turned around, her peppy self deflated from my lack of enthusiasm. I tried to remember where my locker was and pushed through the growing throngs of students.

Stuffing some blank notebooks in there, I headed to my first period class, thankfully not one with my friend from the morning, and sat down in the desk closest to the door. By the time the late bell rang, the classroom was completely full, not a spare seat to be found. Hell of a lot of people for an advanced placement class.

The teacher, a short, middle-aged man with a rotund belly and balding head, called the role.

“Rosing?”

“Here.”

“Tyler?”

“Here.”

“Taliaferro?”

“Present.”

“Whitaker?”

“Here.”

“Yeary?”

“I think she’s sick today,” someone called. Well, she’ll be out of a seat when she returns, I thought. The teacher made a note of it and continued.

“Take out your review sheets from yesterday and trade with the person next to you.” I had been avoiding the glances of the other students until now. It seemed like the only person who hadn’t noticed my presence was the teacher.

“Mr. Bibbs?” A tall blond girl in the front piped up. “I think we have a new student.” Now all eyes turned to me and Mr. Bibbs searched the ranks until he spotted me in the farthest row over from where he was standing.

“I don’t have you on my roll. Let me call the office. What’s your name?” He didn’t even look surprised, like he got new students every day. Maybe they did here.

“Lucy Whitcomb,” I answered him, trying to sound meek and respectful. Best live up to my reputation. I could tell my tone of voice and the change in my demeanor confused some people. They had already pegged me as a confident rebel, slouching easily in my desk and meeting people’s gazes unflinchingly. It didn’t really matter what I did here, according to my mom, so confusing people might provide at least some entertainment.

Class crawled by and only one girl spoke to me, asking if I could pick up the pencil she dropped since it was closer to me. I wiped any expression off my face and kicked it over to her. She said thanks, even though I could tell she thought I was rude. By the time the bell rang, I had made an enemy.

Calculus was next, and I noticed Laura pointedly avoided anything to do with me, even eye-contact. She sat in the front of the class near a few other girls who looked like they might share her problem with enthusiasm. They must have fixed the problem with roll because Mr. Phrax called my name out, making a few people cast unabashed glances my way. When the signaled we could work in groups on the worksheet, a couple of girls a one guy invited me kindly to their group, obviously thinking they were doing me a favor.

“Nope, I’m good,” I said, glaring at them and their perceived superiority. One girl, a brunette with long, curly hair and a wide mouth, looked like she was about to say something, but her friend shook her head at her and rolled her eyes, obviously signaling that I wasn’t worth the effort. That was the problem with these people. They weren’t willing to make any effort to be my friend or get to know me. So I would give them an idea of who Lucy Whitcomb was. A bitch.

Lunch came after two more classes, and I went through the crowded line with my plastic tray. Even though there were enough students here to be a crowd in the Grand Canyon, there was a gap on either side of me, where the kid behind me lagged, and the girl in front stayed glued to her friend, apparently afraid that I breathed out mustard gas.

A tiny smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. I was almost happy being here, in a place where I didn’t have to worry about being liked. I was respected already. Or maybe more accurately, I was feared already.

“Meatloaf or casserole?” a wheeze interrupted. The hulking lunch lady stood behind the counter holding tongs that looked like they could kill someone. Her left eye was twitching and a tiny black hair grew from a mole on her neck. I looked at my choices. The casserole was some sort of cheese mixture, but it had turned kind of gray. The meatloaf looked no better, with dried ketchup on the top and little pieces of green things poking out.

“Neither,” I replied, moving on to the snack section. Piling three 100-calorie bags of pretzels and an apple on my plate, I paid for my lunch and sat down at a table. I had reached the lunch room fairly early, so my table was empty.

With no friends to talk to and no work to do, I was without something to do at lunch, except eat, of course. Running out of options, I settled for people-watching, something that I think unnerved more than a few students. A group of sophomores came out of the lunch line, laughing and chatting and generally unaware. They came close to my table before they saw me seated there, when they stopped dead in their tracks. One of them whispered to his friend and nudged him in the side. I watched them leave to sit at another table, as I was apparently occupying their usual one.

Halfway through the second bag of pretzels, two boys came right up and plopped their trays down on either side of me.

“You’re new here,” the one on my right said.

“-And obviously alone,” the one on my left finished.

“So we’d like to welcome you-,”

“-with open arms-,”

“-and invite you to sit with us,” the one on my right finished.

Their back-and-forth got my attention and I swallowed my immediate retort to study them instead. The one on my left had straight brown hair, large brown eyes, and a goofy grin. The one on my right . . . was exactly the same.

“Twins or clones?” I asked, keeping my tone bored and looking back out into the crowd of people.

“Both,” one said.

“Neither,” the other said at the same time.

Then in sync they suggested, “aliens.” I saw them look at each other, obviously impressed with their ability to share vocal chords and did a fist-bump behind my back.

“Look, I’m not interested in sitting with you two. I’m fine right here.” And I turned back to my pretzels.

“We can tell.”

“You look happy.”

I rolled my eyes. “Seriously, you guys. I don’t need pity.”

“Who said we were pitying you?” the one on the right said. “I’m Jack, by the way. And that ugly bastard over there is-,”

“Gavin,” the other one chimed. “I can answer for myself, thank you. And I got news for you, brother. We share identical DNA.” By this time, I could barely control my facial expression. Despite my resistance, these two were hilarious, and I could feel the muscles around my mouth twitching. Startled at my lack of control, I shut my face down, losing all expression, much to my satisfaction and the twin’s disappointment.

“It’s a draw, I think, brother,” Gavin said.

“I think you’re right, brother,” Jack replied, nodding solemnly.

“A draw?” I asked simply, curiosity piqued.

“You’re so stoic over here-,” Jack began.

“-and we can make anyone laugh-,” Gavin continued.

“So we made a wager. Fifty bucks to whichever one of us could make you laugh first. But, alas-,” Jack put his hand to his forehead and affected an English accent, “-neither of us prevailed.”

“Kudos to you,” Gavin complimented, with his eyebrows raised.

“You’re the first not to crack.” I was pretty sure the bet was still on, but I kept my face neutral.

“Well I guess a bet is better than pity.”

“Right you are, -,” Jack paused, waiting for me to answer his unspoken question. When I didn’t, Gavin spoke up.

“What’s your name, by the way? Or is it a secret-,”

“-and you’ll have to kill us-,”

“-if you tell us?” It was getting more difficult to keep a straight face.

“Wait, I bet we could guess her name,” Gavin suggested.

“Cary?” Jack suggested.

“No.”

“Katie?” Gavin asked.

“No.”

“Sarah?”

“No.”

“Wait, is it a regular name? Or is it like, Bonquiqui?”

“Not Bonquiqui,” I said, clenching my jaw to keep from laughing.

“I bet it’s something weird,” Jack said.

“Blue?”

“No.”

“Cat?”

“No.”

“Vanilla spice?”

I only raised my eyebrows.

“I look like a hooker?”

That made both of them crack up.

“Admittedly, no,” Gavin replied. “We give up.”

“Completely surrender.”

“You’ve won.”

“You’re victorious.”

“Victoria?”

“Nope,” I said, right on cue. “Can I just tell you-,”

“No!” they chorused.

“We’ll get it,” Gavin insisted. But they didn’t have time to get it right because the bell rang then, signaling the end of lunch, and they took their leave, waving to me as they left. Several people glanced in my direction, surprised, and I shot them annoyed looks, leaving them behind me to go to my next class.