“Why?”
“Just do it, for me, man,” I said. I half shoved him down to the floor.
He muttered something about being mistreated just because he was a toad and sat on the floor. I scooted over into his spot, with my legs hanging over his shoulder.
“What the-” he complained.
“Shhh!”
Sure enough, the girl saw the open spot. It was the first one in sight, and she headed right for it. I knew she would. All she wanted to do was get away from all those eyes, and the quickest way to do that was to get her rear into a seat.
She slid in next to me. I felt my heart quicken. She smelled good, like fresh snow and perfume and fruity shampoo.
“I’m Connor Ryerson,” I said, putting out my hand.
She looked at me and stuck out her hand slowly. “Elizabeth Hatter,” she said, “But everyone calls me Beth-” she broke off here, noticing Jake, who glared up at us.
“Who’s that?”
“Oh, that’s Jake,” I said breezily. “Don’t mind, him, he likes it down there.”
“I do not,” said Jake, pinching my leg.
I gave him a mild kick.
“Nice to meet you, Jake,” she said, trying not to laugh.
“Let me up,” he complained.
“No, you can’t,” I hissed. “If Mrs. Terry sees we have three in the seat again, she’ll fuss about it.”
He glared. “You owe me, dude.”
“I’m the only one that didn’t laugh, remember?” I reminded him.
“You still owe me.”
Beth looked from one of us to the other in bemused disbelief. She looked around on the bus, and for a panicky moment, I thought she was going to get up and find another seat.
Right then, Mrs. Terry finished marking down the new arrival on her clipboard and the bus lurched back out onto the road again.
“Great to meet you, Beth,” I said with my best winning smile.
“You too,” she said. She shook her head at us and laughed. “You guys are the class clowns, aren’t you?”
“You figured it out!” I said, laughing with her.
She addressed Jake, and leaned down toward him. “You really like squatting down there?”
“Squatting,” I chuckled, “a very good choice of words.”
Jake made a growling sound. “One word about toadstools and I’ll bite your legs off.”
Chapter Five
We hadn’t gone another five minutes before I was certain she was a normal person. For most people, this is a good thing, but not in Camden. If you’re not a monster in my hometown, sooner or later, you are going to have a problem. Normal people, or mundanes as my mom calls them, never seem to like living in a town full of creatures. Once they figured it out, they panicked every time.
But in matters of the heart, I’m not always reasonable. Well, in truth, I’m never reasonable about girls. Heather would say that I’m totally immature and that I freak out every girl that likes me. My mom says I’m not even in high school yet and not to worry about it. But I do.
Beth was different. She was so easy to talk to, not like most of the boring girls in town who all wanted to know if I had changed or not yet. That was all they cared about. But Beth wouldn’t know anything about that. In fact, she probably would be happy if I turned out to have no powers at all. If I was a mundane, I would eventually have to leave Camden. That was clan law, our law, everyone here had to have the power to change or they had to leave.
“I like math, do you like math?” Beth asked me.
“Yeah! Well, no,” I said.
Beth pulled down that fluffy hood of hers and revealed hair that was somewhere between brown and red. It was straight and long and she had a gold barrette clipped over each ear. A wisp of white fluff caught on one of her barrettes and just floated there as we talked. To me, it seemed like an angel’s halo.
“What about Geometry?” she asked me. “Have you got that far yet?
“No,” I admitted. “I’m in Algebra.”
“He’s getting a D in there, too,” said Jake, interrupting.
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
Beth giggled.
“I’m getting up. I’m done squatting down here,” Jake said. He began pushing his way up onto the bench seat with us.
“Toads like squatting,” I told him.
“Not one more word,” said Jake. The green vinyl seat wasn’t really wide enough for three. I found myself pressed up against Beth.
“What is it with you guys and toads?” asked Beth. She started talking very quickly and excitedly. I liked the way she did that. “Do you like them or hate them or have you been traumatized by a wild herd of toads? Or what?”
“Or what,” said Jake.
“Well,” I said slowly, not sure how to tell her.
“Just tell her,” said Jake. “She’s going to find out soon enough anyway.”
“That’s right,” said a new voice, butting into our conversation. It was Danny from the seat behind us. His grinning face was the last thing I wanted to see hovering over my shoulder like a bad moon, but there he was.
“Danny”, I said, “people tell you to shut up all the time for good reasons.”
“Make me.”
“Danny, she’s new. There’s no need to be rude.”
“She’s a mundane. I can’t believe anyone rented her family a place.”
“I’m staying with my Aunt Suzy,” said Beth, talking quickly again. “It’s just for the rest of the year, I guess. My parents split up and somehow I ended up with my Aunt. What the heck is a mundane, anyway?”
“It just means you’re normal,” I said.
“Well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
“Not around here,” said Danny. “It means you don’t belong.”
“Danny, just back off,” I said.
“Make me,” he said again, resting his chin on the seat between us. His face was inches away, and I thought of all sorts of mean things to do to him. Then I got one of my ideas. I dug into Jake’s lunch with one hand.
“Hey, get out of there!” Jake complained.
It only took a second to find one of those little ketchup packets. Jake always had a few in his lunch, those little white ones that have about enough ketchup to dip three fries. I held it in my hand so Danny didn’t see it.
“What’d you take?” asked Jake, digging in his lunch in outrage.
Danny had his tongue out now, making “Mmmm,” sounds like a little kid. Boy, was he asking for it.
Beth saw the packet in my hand, and she saw me pop it open with my thumbnail. Our eyes met, and she gave me a little smile. I could tell right away that she was like me, that she got ideas… If she had frowned, I might not have done anything. But with her encouragement, I squirted it into Danny’s face.
He had his eyes closed at the moment of impact and that made the surprise complete and all the sweeter. We roared with laughter. He had ketchup on his cheeks and around the rims of his nostrils and in his eyebrows and gluing his bangs down to his forehead.
Everyone around us laughed too, and soon everyone on the bus was gawking and laughing. Even Thomas had a grin on his face.
But not Danny. His face was as red as the ketchup. He glared at me and rubbed the stuff off with his shirt, which was green. It made dark stains in his shirt that he would wearing all day.
“Hey!” said Mrs. Terry. I could see her eyeing us in that big long mirror she had up there above the windshield.
“Hey, what’s going on?” she asked. “Why are there three of you in that seat again?”
We sank down, trying not to be noticed.
Then I heard a voice in my ear. A quiet, angry voice. It was Danny.
“After school, you’re dead,” he said.
Chapter Six
While Danny sulked behind us and made dark plans for my future, Jake, Beth and I held our own meeting in our seat.
“What are you going to do now?” asked Beth. “And you never answered any of my questions. What’s with you two and toads? What is a mundane? Sounds like a breed of dog, or something.”