And, part of my brain whispered that it also made me remember my reaction to Heath's blood yesterday. Had that been only yesterday? And also my more recent response to the blood of that guy in the hall. No. I definitely didn't want to think about either of them—at all. So I quickly refocused on the healthy-diet issue.
"Okay, they don't particularly care about eating healthy, so what's the big obsession with us eating healthy?" I asked Stevie Rae.
She met my eyes, looking worried and more than a little scared.
"They want us to eat healthy for the same reason they make us exercise every day—so that our bodies are as strong as possible, because if you start getting weak or fat or sick, that's the first sign that your body is rejecting the Change."
"And then you die," I said quietly.
"And then you die," she agreed.
CHAPTER 11
I didn't think I'd sleep. I figured I'd lay there and miss home and think about the bizarre twist my life had taken. Disturbing flashes of the guy in the hall's eyes drifted through my mind, but I was so tired I couldn't focus. Even Aphrodite's psycho hatefulness was something else that seemed sleepily far away. Actually, my last worries before I could remember nothing else were about my forehead. Was it feeling sore again because of the Mark and the cut over my temple—or was it because I was getting a ginormic zit? And would my hair look okay for my first day of vamp school tomorrow? But as I curled up with my comforter and inhaled the familiar smell of down feathers and home, I felt unexpectedly safe and warm…and was totally out.
I didn't have a nightmare, either. Instead I dreamed about cats. Go figure. Hot boys? No. Cool new vampire powers? Of course not. Just cats. There was one in particular—a small orange tabby who had little tiny paws and a pot belly with a pouch that looked kinda marsupial. She kept yelling at me in an old lady's voice and asking what had taken me so long to get here. Then her cat voice changed to an annoying buzzing beeping sound and I…
"Zoey, come on! Turn that stupid alarm clock off!"
"Who—, huh?" Oh, hell. I hate mornings. My hand flailed about trying to find the off switch of my annoying alarm clock.
Have I mentioned that I am totally, completely blind without my contacts? I grabbed my nerdy glasses and peeked at the time. Six thirty P.M., and I was just waking up. Talk about bizarre.
"Do you want to take a shower first, or do you want me to?" Stevie Rae asked sleepily.
"I will, if you don't care."
"I don't…," She yawned.
" 'Kay."
"We should hurry, though, 'cause, I don't know about you, but I have to eat breakfast or I feel like I'm going to starve to death before lunch."
"Cereal?" I suddenly perked up. I seriously adore cereal, and have an I [heart] CEREAL shirt somewhere to prove it. I especially love Count Chocula—yet another vampyre irony.
"Yeah, there're always lots of those tiny boxes of cereal and bagels and fruit and hard-boiled eggs and stuff."
"I'll hurry." Suddenly I was starving. "Hey, Stevie Rae, does it matter what I wear?"
"Nope," she yawned again. "Just pick one of the sweaters or jackets that show our third former symbol and you'll be fine."
I did hurry, even though I was really nervous about not looking right and I wished I could take hours doing and redoing my hair and makeup. I used Stevie Rae's makeup mirror while she was in the shower, and decided that under-doing was probably a better choice than over-doing. It was weird how my Mark seemed to change the whole focus of my face. I've always had nice eyes—big and round and dark, with lots of lashes. So much that Kayla used to whine about how unfair it was that I had enough lashes for three girls and she only had short little blond ones. (Speaking of …I did miss Kayla, especially this morning as I was getting ready to go to a new school without her. Maybe I'd call her later. Or e-mail her. Or…I remembered the comment Heath had made about the party, and decided maybe not.) Anyway, the Mark somehow made my eyes look even bigger and darker. I lined them with a smoky black shadow that had little sparkly flecks of silver in it. Not heavily like those loser girls who think that plastering on black eyeliner makes them look cool. Yeah, right. They look like scary raccoons. I smudged the line, added mascara, brushed some bronzing power over my face, and put on lip gloss (to hide the fact that I'd been nervously picking at my lips).
Then I stared at myself.
Thankfully my hair was acting right, and even my 'weird widow's peak wasn't sticking all up crazily like it did sometimes. I still looked…umm…different, but the same. The effect my Mark had on my face hadn't faded. It made everything that was ethnic about my features stand out: the darkness of my eyes, my high Cherokee cheekbones, my proud, straight nose, and even the olive color of my skin that was like my grandma's. The sapphire Mark of the Goddess seemed to have flipped a switch and spotlighted those features; it had freed the Cherokee girl within me and allowed her to shine.
"Your hair looks great," Stevie Rae said as she came into the room toweling dry her short hair. "I wish mine would act right when it's long. It doesn't. It just frizzes out and looks like a horse's tail."
"I like your short hair," I said, moving out of her way and grabbing my cute sparkly black ballet flats.
"Yeah, well, it makes me a freak here. Everybody has long hair."
"I noticed, but I don't really get it."
"It's one of the things that happens while we're going through the Change. Vamps' hair grows abnormally fast, just like their fingernails."
I tried not to shudder as I remembered Aphrodite's fingernail slashing through jeans and skin.
Thankfully, Stevie Rae was oblivious to my thoughts, and kept on talking.
"You'll see. After a while you won't have to look at their symbols to know what year they are. Anyway, you'll learn all about that kind of stuff in Vamp Sociology class. Oh! That reminds me." She rifled through some papers on her desk until she found what she was looking for and handed it to me. "Here's your schedule. We have third hour and fifth hour together. And check out the list of electives you have for second hour. You can choose from any of them."
My name was at the top of the schedule, printed in bold letters, ZOEY REDBIRD, ENTERING THIRD FORMER, as well as the date, which was five (?!) days before the Tracker had Marked me.
1st hour-Vampyre Sociology 101. Rm. 215. Prof. Neferet
2nd hour-Drama 101. Performing Arts Center. Prof. Nolan
or
Sketching 101. Rm. 312. Prof. Doner
or
Intro to Music. Rm. 314. Prof. Vento
3rd hour-Lit 101. Rm. 214. Prof. Penthesilea
4th hour-Fencing. Gymnasium. Prof. D. Lankford
LUNCH BREAK
5th hour-Spanish 101. Rm. 216. Prof. Garmy
6th hour-Intro to Equestrian Studies. Field House. Prof. Lenobia
"No geometry?" I blurted, totally overwhelmed by the schedule, but trying to keep a positive attitude.
"No, thankfully. Next semester we'll have to take economics, though. But that couldn't be as bad."
"Fencing? Intro to Equestrian Studies?"
"I told you they like to keep us in shape. Fencing's okay, even though it's hard. I'm not very good at it, but you do get paired with upperclassmen a lot—kind of like peer instructors, and I'm just sayin', some of those boys are just plain hot! I'm not taking the horse class this semester—they put me in Tae Kwan Do. And I have to tell ya, I love it!"
"Really?" I said doubtfully. Wonder what the horse class would be like?