Читать книгу Changers Book Three - T Cooper - Страница 14

Change 3–Day 3

Three days as Kim Cruz, and I have to say, I’m getting the knack for maintaining a low profile. In class, I am the big black-clad blob that hovers in the back row, hunching over my desk and praying for the TARDIS to appear and whisk me away to another time. Amazingly, everyone seems happy to let me do this. Ain’t nobody got time for drawing out the shy weirdo. Which is fine by me. I am viewing this year as a prison sentence, and I will serve my time, quietly and without ruckus. Nothing to see here, folks. Keep moving.

Mr. Crowell is the one pesky fly in the ointment. He seems to think he’s an extension of Tracy, and as such, I am somehow his charge. He keeps giving me the curious-puppy-dog eyes in homeroom, and asking me way more than my fair share of questions, which if he had any memory of his teenage experience in homeroom, he would know only makes my existence more of a misery. I need to somehow communicate to Tracy (and thus him) that this isn’t a case where if I just “put myself out there,” the gang is going to discover how amazeballs I am and shower me with respect and acceptance. This is high school. Not the Special Olympics.

After homeroom, I try again to connect with Audrey. I can’t help it. To me she is worth the risk. I figure the old her has to be buried underneath her cutesy hair and glitter lip plumper. She can’t have been subsumed completely by the bitch squad.

“Hey!” I say with . . . not much of a plan past that.

“Hey?” she answers back, checking me out for about two seconds before finding something to fiddle with in her backpack.

“You look f-familiar to me,” I stammer. Stupid.

“Oh. Well. I mean, I look like a lot of people.”

“No you don’t,” I reply too quickly.

Audrey lifts her chin from her bag and takes me in again, intensely this time. I stare back into her eyes, willing her in my head to see who I really am.

I’m Oryon! I’m Oryon! You loved me. You said so. You know me! How can you not know you know me?

“I’m sorry. Who are you again?” she says finally, seeming annoyed now.

“I’m Kim. From homeroom. Kim Cruz.” (And your best friend Drew, and your first love Oryon, but whatever.)

“Kim. Good to meet you.” She extends a hand to shake mine, looking over my head as she does, as if searching for exit doors. “I’m Audrey. Anyway. I really need to get to class . . .”

“Me too, same,” I say, but she has already begun walking away. And unlike when I was Oryon, she doesn’t stop and take one last look over a shoulder to see if I’m watching her go.