Avalon High Read online

  But whatever. I ended up giving in to my mom in the end. Not about the mall. About running with my dad.

  I didn’t want to go, or anything.

  But this was different than going to the movies or the mall. I mean, exercise is supposedly very good for middle-aged men, and my dad hadn’t gotten any in a long time. I’d won the district’s women’s two hundred meter back home just last May, but Dad hadn’t exercised since his annual physical, which was last year, when the doctor told him he needed to lose ten pounds. So he’d gone to the gym with my mom twice, then gave up, because he says all the testosterone at the gym makes him crazy.

  My mom was the one who was all, “If you take him running, Ellie, I’ll get off your back about the floating thing.”

  Which pretty much clinched it for me. Well, that and the fact that it would give Dad a chance to get his heart rate up—something I knew from what they’re always saying on the Today show that old people badly need.

  Like a good academic, Mom had done her research. She sent us to a park about two miles from the house we were renting. It was a very fancy park that had everything: tennis courts, baseball diamond, lacrosse field, nice, clean public restrooms, two dog runs—one for big dogs and one for little ones—and, of course, a running path. No pool, like back home in Como Park, but I guess people in our new upscale neighborhood don’t need a community pool. Everyone has their own in their backyard.

  I got out of the car and did a few stretches while I surreptitiously watched my dad prepare for his run. He’d put away his wire rims—he’s blind as a bat without them. In fact, in medieval times, he’d probably have been dead by the age of three or four from falling down a well or whatever; I’d inherited my mom’s twenty-twenty vision, so most likely I’d have lived a bit longer—and put on these thick plastic-rimmed glasses that have an elastic band he can snap behind his head to keep them from sliding off while he runs. Mom calls this his Dork Strap.

  “This is a nice running path,” my dad was saying, as he adjusted his Dork Strap. Unlike me, who’d spent hours in the pool, Dad wasn’t a bit tan. His legs were the color of notebook paper. Only with hair. “It’s exactly one mile per lap. It goes through some woods—a kind of arboretum—over there. See? So it’s not all in the hot sun. There’s some shade.”

  I slid my headphones on. I can’t run without music, except during meets, when they won’t let you. I find that rap is ideal for running. The angrier the rapper, the better. Eminem is ideal to listen to while running, because he’s so mad at everyone. Except his daughter.

  “Two laps?” I asked my dad.

  “Sure,” he said.

  And so I turned on my iPod mini—I keep it on an arm strap when I run, which is different than a Dork Strap—and started running.

  It was hard at first. It’s more humid in Maryland than it is back home, I guess on account of the sea. The air is actually heavy. It’s like running through soup.

  But after a while, my joints seemed to loosen up. I started remembering how much I’d liked to run back home. It’s hard and everything. Don’t get me wrong. But I like how strong and powerful my legs feel underneath me while I run…like I can do anything. Anything at all.

  There was hardly anyone else on the path—just old ladies, mostly, power-walking with their dogs—but I tore past them, leaving them in my wake. I didn’t smile as I ran by. Back home, everybody smiles at strangers. Here, the only time people smile is if you smile first. It didn’t take my parents very long to catch on to this. Now they make me smile—and even wave—at everyone we pass. Especially our new neighbors, when they’re out in their yards mowing their lawns or whatever. Image, my mom calls it. It’s important to keep up a good image, she says. So people won’t think we’re snobs.

  Except that I’m not really sure I care what people around here think about me.

  The running path started out like a normal track, with closely cut grass on either side of it, snaking between the baseball diamond and the lacrosse field, then curving past the dog runs and around the parking lot.

  Then it left the grass behind, and disappeared into a surprisingly thick forest. Yeah, a real forest, right in the middle of nowhere, with a discreet little brown sign that said WELCOME TO THE ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY ARBORETUM by the side of the path.

  I was a little shocked, as I ran past the sign, at how wild the undergrowth on either side of the trail had been allowed to get. Plunging into the deep shade of the arboretum, I noticed that the leaves overhead were so thick, hardly any sunlight at all was allowed to get through.

  Still, the vegetation on either side of me was lush and prickly looking. I was sure there was also a ton of poison ivy in there, too…something that, if you contracted it badly enough back in medieval times, could probably have killed you, since there wasn’t any cortisone.

  You could barely see two feet beyond the path, the brambles and trees were so close together. But it was at least ten degrees cooler in the arboretum than it was in the rest of the park. The shade cooled the sweat that was dripping down my face and chest. It was hard to believe, running through that thick wood, that I was still near civilization. But when I pulled out my headphones to listen, I could hear cars going by on the highway beyond the thick growth of trees.

  Which was kind of a relief. You know, that I hadn’t accidentally gotten lost in Jurassic Park, or whatever.

  I plopped my earphones back into place and kept going. I was breathing really hard now, but I still felt good. I couldn’t hear my feet striking the path—I could only hear the music in my ears—but it seemed to me for a minute that I was the only person in these woods…maybe the only person in the whole world.

  Which was ridiculous, since I knew my dad wasn’t that far behind me—probably not going much faster than the power-walking ladies, but behind me nonetheless.

  Still, I had seen too many TV movies where the heroine was jogging innocently along and some random psychopath comes popping out of thick growth, just like the stuff on either side of me, and attacks her. I wasn’t taking any chances. Who knew what kind of freaks were lurking? I mean, it was Annapolis, home of the U.S. Naval Academy and the capital of Maryland, and all—hardly an area known for harboring violent criminals.

  But you never know.

  Good thing my legs were so strong. If someone did jump out at me from the trees, I was pretty confident that I could deliver a good kick to his head. And keep stomping on him until help came.

  It was right as I was thinking this that I saw him.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Willows whiten, aspens quiver,

  Little breezes dusk and shiver

  Thro’ the wave that runs for ever

  By the island in the river

  Flowing down to Camelot.

  Or maybe I just thought I did.

  Still. I was pretty sure I saw something through the trees that wasn’t green or brown or any other color found in nature.

  And when I peered through the thick leaves around me, I saw that there was someone standing at the bottom of a pretty deep ravine to one side of the path, near a large cluster of boulders. How he could have gotten through all that vegetation without a machete, I couldn’t imagine. Maybe there was a path I’d missed.

  But he was there all right. Doing what, I went by too quickly to tell.

  Then I was out of the woods, out into the blazing sunshine, and sprinting past the parking lot. Some women were getting out of a minivan and heading toward the dog run with their Border collies. There was a playground nearby, on which some tiny kids were swinging and going down the slide, their parents watching them closely in case of accidents.

  And I thought to myself: Had I really seen what I thought I’d seen? A guy standing at the bottom of that ravine?

  Or had I just imagined it?

  There was a park employee with a weed whacker by third base over at the baseball diamond. I didn’t say hi to him. I didn’t smile, either.

  Nor did I mention the man at the bottom of the ravi
ne. I probably should have. What about those kids on the playground? What if he was a child molester?

  But I didn’t say anything to the guy with the weed whacker. I blew past him without making eye contact.

  So much for Image.

  I could see my dad, in his bright yellow shirt, way on the other side of the track. He was three-quarters of a lap behind me. That was okay. He’s slow, but he’s steady. Mom always says Dad will never make it there fast, but at least he’ll always make it, in the end.

  Mom’s one to talk. She can’t even stand running. She likes to do aerobics at the Y.

  Which, given the freak-out I’d gotten from passing that guy in the woods, was starting to sound like it wasn’t such a bad idea.

  This time around, when I headed into the trees, I scanned the sides of the path for signs of a trail, something the man could have used to make it down to that ravine without getting all scratched up by the undergrowth. But I didn’t see anything.

  And when I went past where I’d seen him before, I saw that the ravine was empty. He wasn’t there anymore. There was nothing, in fact, to indicate that he’d been there at all. Maybe I really had imagined him. Maybe Mom was right, and I really should have spent less time in the pool, and more at the mall this summer. Maybe, I worried, I was cracking up from lack of contact with people my own age.

  Which is when I rounded a corner, and nearly ran into him.

  And realized I hadn’t imagined him at all.

  He was with two other people. The first thing I noticed about them—the two people who were with him, I mean—was that they were both blond and very attractive, a guy and a girl, around my age. They were on either side of the man from the ravine…who, I noted upon closer inspection, wasn’t a man at all, really, but a boy, also my age, or maybe a little older. He was tall and dark-haired, like me.

  But unlike me, he wasn’t covered in sweat or gasping for breath.

  Oh, and he was really cute, too.

  All three of them looked up, startled, as I came running by. I saw the blond-haired boy say something, and the blond-haired girl looked upset…maybe because I almost ran into them, even though I veered in time to avoid a collision.

  Only the dark-haired boy smiled at me. He looked right into my face and said something.

  Except that I don’t know what it was since I had my earphones on and couldn’t hear him.

  All I know is that for some reason—I don’t know why—I smiled back. Not because of Image, or anything. It was weird. It was like he smiled at me, and my lips automatically smiled back—my brain had nothing to do with it. There was no conscious decision on my part to smile back.

  I just did. Like it was a habit, or something. Like this was a smile I always smiled back to.

  Except that I had never seen this guy before in my life. So how could my mouth even have known this?

  Which was why it was kind of a relief to run past them. You know, to get away from that smile that made me smile back, even when I didn’t want to. Necessarily.

  My relief was short-lived, though. Because I saw them again as I leaned against the hood of our car, panting heavily and polishing off one of the bottles of water my mom had made Dad and me bring with us. They emerged from the woods—the two boys and the girl—and headed toward their own cars. The blond girl and boy were talking rapidly to the dark-haired boy. I wasn’t close enough to hear what they were saying, but judging from their expressions, it didn’t look like they were too happy with him. One thing I knew for sure: He wasn’t smiling anymore.

  Finally, he said something that seemed to placate the blond couple, since they stopped looking so upset.

  Then the blond boy climbed into a Jeep, while the dark-haired guy slid behind the wheel of a white Land Cruiser…and the blond girl slipped into the passenger seat beside him. Which surprised me, since it had looked to me like she and the cute blond guy, not the dark-haired one, were the couple.

  But having had little experience in the boyfriend department, I’m not exactly an expert.

  I was sitting on the hood of our own car reflecting on what I had just witnessed—a lovers’ quarrel? A drug deal of some kind?—when my dad finally came staggering over.

  “Water,” he croaked, and I gave him the other bottle.

  It wasn’t until we were inside the car, the air-conditioning blasting on us at full power, that my dad asked, “So. Have a good run?”

  “Yeah,” I said, kind of surprised by the answer.

  “Want to go again tomorrow?” my dad wanted to know.

  “Sure,” I said, looking at the place where the three people I’d seen—the two blonds and the dark-haired boy—had last stood. They were long gone by then.

  “Great,” my dad said, in a voice totally lacking any sort of enthusiasm.

  You could tell he’d been hoping I’d say no. But I couldn’t do that. Not because I’d finally remembered how much I enjoyed running, or because I’d had a good time with my dad.

  But because—fine, I’ll admit it—I was hoping I’d see that cute guy—and his smile—again.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Four gray walls, and four gray towers,

  Overlook a space of flowers,

  And the silent isle imbowers

  The Lady of Shalott.

  I didn’t. At least, not at the park. Not that next week, anyway. Dad and I went running every day—at around the same time as that first day—but I didn’t see anyone in the ravine again.

  And I looked. Believe me. I looked hard.

  I thought about them—the three people I’d seen—a lot. Because they were the first people my own age I’d seen in Annapolis—outside of those working at Graul’s, the local grocery store where we bought trash bags and bread, or waiting tables at Red Hot and Blue.

  Was that ravine, I wondered, some kind of local make-out spot?

  But the dark-haired guy hadn’t been making out with anybody that I had seen.

  Was it where kids went to do drugs?

  But the guy hadn’t seemed high. And he and his friends hadn’t looked like headbangers. They’d been wearing normal clothes, khaki shorts and T-shirts. I hadn’t noticed a single tattoo or piercing on any of them.

  It didn’t appear that I was going to get answers to any of these questions anytime soon. Our days of running in Anne Arundel Park—and my floating in our pool—were coming to an end anyway: School was starting.

  It had always been my dream, of course, to start off my junior year as a new student in a high school in a faraway state where I knew no one.

  Um, not.

  The first day at Avalon High School wasn’t a real first day. It was an orientation. Basically you just got assigned classes and lockers and stuff. Nothing cerebral involved, I guess to sort of ease us back into the academic routine.

  AHS was smaller than my old school, but had better facilities and more money, so I wasn’t exactly complaining. They even had a student guide they handed out on the first official (non-orientation) day, with a small photo and bio on each student. I had to pose for my photo during orientation—me and two hundred giggling freshmen. Yippee—then fill out a form that asked me for my pertinent information: name, e-mail address (if I chose to share it), and interests, so they could put it in the guide. It was so we could all get to know one another…sort of Image for the student population.

  My parents were super excited on my first day of real school. They got up early and made me a big breakfast and a bag lunch. The breakfast was okay—waffles that were only a little freezer burned—but the lunch was really sad: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with Red Hot and Blue potato salad on the side. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that the potato salad would get all warm in my locker before I ever got a chance to eat it. My parents, being medievalists, just don’t think about refrigeration that often.

  I took the bag they offered me all proudly and just went, “Thanks, Mom and Dad.”

  They drove me to school the first day because I said I was too emotio
nally fragile to take the bus. All of us knew this wasn’t true, but I really didn’t want to deal with the hassle of not having anybody to sit next to, and people possibly not wanting to share their seats with a total stranger, et cetera.

  My parents didn’t seem to mind. They dropped me off on their way to BWI, the local train station, because they had decided to make a day of it and go into the city to consult with other medievalists on their books—my mom about Elaine of Astolat, and my dad about his sword.

  I told them to play nice with the other professors, and they told me to play nice with the other high school kids.

  Then I went on into the school.

  It was a typical first day—at least the initial half was. No one spoke to me, and I spoke to no one. A couple of the teachers made a big deal out of my being new, and from the exotic land of Minnesota, and had me tell the class a little about myself and my home state.

  I did.

  No one listened. Or if they did, they didn’t seem to care.

  Which was all right, because truthfully, I didn’t care very much either.

  Lunch is always the scariest part of any kid’s first day at a new school. I’m kind of used to it, from previous sabbaticals, though. Like, I knew enough from my experience in Germany that taking my paper bag and going to sit in the library by myself would peg me as a huge loser for the rest of the year.

  So instead I took a deep breath and looked around for a table where tall, geeky-looking girls like myself were sitting. After I found some, I went over to introduce myself. Because, basically, that’s what you have to do. Feeling like a complete and total dork, I told them I was new and asked if I could sit with them. Thank God they scooted down and made room for me. That is, after all, the accepted code of conduct for tall, geeky-looking girls everywhere.

  Granted, they could have told me to get lost. But they didn’t. Avalon High, I was starting to think, might not be so bad after all.