XGeneration, Books 1-3: You Don't Know Me, The Watchers, and Silent Generation Page 7

  At this, Amy sniggered from her desk.

  “But not two-faced in the sense of duplicity, oh no,” Mrs. Fern continued. “Janus is a powerful god, a diviner. A god of doorways. Think of Janu-ary. One face looking to the past. The other peering ahead, to the future. But we speak not just of doorways in the sense of time. No, there is also the doorway between here and there.”

  Mrs. Fern’s head bobbed slowly. Janis had been anticipating having her name explained, but now she became uncomfortably warm. She curled her toes inside her white Keds, alternating feet.

  “The doorway between this world and another. Yes, another. One not quite seen, perhaps?” When her eyes opened, it felt to Janis as if they were poised to swallow her. “Isn’t that right, Miss Graystone?”

  But Janis couldn’t make a sound because she remembered why she had felt protective toward Margaret at lunch. She remembered what had happened the night before. The dream, the experience…

  In a torrent of horrifying images, she remembered it all.

  “This desk in the very middle of the classroom will suit a Janis quite perfectly, I would think.”

  But Janis did not go to the desk Mrs. Fern was opening her arm toward. She turned from the classroom and fled.

  9

  Mr. Shine stood before Scott, chuckling and holding out a quarter. “Ain’t much magic to making her jump. Jus’ a little diligence. A little patience.” His brown eyes flashed sky blue as he snapped his fingers. The quarter changed from tails to heads. “Go on and try for you’self.”

  Scott accepted the quarter from Mr. Shine, whose eyes had settled to brown again, and snapped it between his own fingers.

  The quarter disappeared.

  “Not bad, young blood. Not bad at all,” Mr. Shine said. “Course, it ain’t gonna happen overnight, but look at you!”

  When Scott looked down, he was wearing a full-body uniform, dark blue except for what appeared to be a pair of Speedos and boots, both yellow. Above a broad red belt, abdominal muscles showed beneath the uniform’s fabric in interlocking columns. He was no longer Scott Spruel, he realized, but his favorite comic book character: Scott Summers of the X-Men.

  Smiling, Scott began to feel for his cyclopean visor.

  Brakes cawed, and Scott jerked awake to find the school bus approaching his stop. After disembarking, he stood a moment squinting into the heat, watching the bus rumble away. He turned to the bush beside the Pattersons’ garage door, the one he’d hidden behind that morning. Maybe it was because of the dream, or because he’d made it through his first day of high school intact, but in the light of midafternoon, everything appeared more promising.

  Scott crossed the street, then ran the rest of the block home, rejuvenated, his arms and legs fueled by hope. One of Scott’s hopes was that if the FBI hadn’t come down on his head, it was because they didn’t have enough evidence or didn’t consider his crimes criminal enough. There were still no Crown Victorias in his yard, anyway. Scott let himself in the front door using the key kept on the string around his neck. He dropped his backpack in the hallway and, without breaking stride, headed toward his room, J.R. yipping circles around his feet.

  The solution, Scott told himself, was to leave his equipment in the storage room in the garage and give his extracurricular activities a rest for a while, take a hacking hiatus — a long one if need be.

  But standing inside his doorway, Scott could see that was going to be easier said than done. His brain still harbored a compulsion to beeline to his computer desk, flip on his equipment, and launch into his latest hack, the behavioral groove well established and deep. Scott leaned his arms on the back of his office chair and stared down at his naked desk. There would be no more navigating the networks, no head-splitting challenges, no fist-pumping victories. He was out of “The Game,” as some hackers called it. At least until he was no longer a person of interest.

  You need Wayne.

  Scott picked up the cordless phone and punched his number. The exchange and suffix pulsed out — a pause a few milliseconds too long — then a ring. With one hand, Scott ushered J.R. from the room, letting him keep the stick of pizza crust he’d foraged from beneath the bed, and closed the door. On the eighth ring, Scott hung up. Either Wayne had divined it was him, or he wasn’t home yet.

  Scott scrubbed a hand over his face and drew up his blinds. Light flooded the bedroom, causing him to frown in thought. Something seemed out of place, and it wasn’t that the walls were bare from his having yanked down the hand-drawn Bell schematics the night before.

  Then it hit him.

  The room belonged to somebody barely out of elementary school, a child. So much of his attention the last three years had focused on Ma Bell, ARPANet, D&D, and comic books that he had neglected the fact that he was growing up. Today, he’d been the tallest in almost all of his classes. (His P.E. teacher had even asked if he would be trying out for ninth grade basketball — now that was a laugh.) But nothing in his room reflected that growth. And after the revelation at lunchtime that he was among a more mature, more accepting breed of student, he didn’t want to remain in his childhood any longer. He didn’t want to hide in his bedroom behind his computer. He wanted to belong.

  Especially after his encounter with Janis.

  Scott?

  He drew a Glad Bag from the box his mother had given him, whipped the bag open, and pushed a scatter of RC Cola cans into its mouth. At the start of the day, he had imagined himself dropping into bed upon returning home and zonking out until eight or nine o’clock that night. But now that he was home, he found himself incapable of sitting still, much less nodding off. Because with the memory of Janis still swimming through his thoughts, he believed he could do this now, that he could remake himself. That he could belong.

  Now tails, now heads.

  Scott?

  Yes, he had seen her. Better, she’d come and stood beside him before the start of seventh-period English. The flaming cascade of hair that, for so long, he could only watch from a distance, had been right there, at his shoulder. In that first moment, the classroom revolving around him, he’d had to summon almost all of his nerve to compose himself and then the rest to get her name past his stuttering lips. But he had gotten it out. He’d spoken to her, and that seemed a victory in itself — one more monumental than all of the printouts in his hidden box of hacks.

  And she’d spoken his name, too.

  Scott?

  That one word, the texture of it, the breath behind it, were now the most precious things in the world to him. He’d been preparing to ask her how her day was going. It would’ve been a start, something to build on. Hard to screw up. But his throat succumbed to what felt like a seismic tremor, and the words became Larry, Moe, and Curly jammed inside a doorway. Then the teacher jumped out of the closet.

  As students spun, Scott’s eyes remained fixed on Janis, the swirl of her hair, the excited shine of her eyes. When the teacher started in with her seating system, he had to bite back a grin. It was no alphabetical system, which would have doomed the names Graystone and Spruel to distant rows. No, it was something different. Something unique. Scott didn’t understand it entirely, but he stood a chance of sitting next to her — or close to her, anyway.

  “Spruel,” Mrs. Fern said. “A derivative of Spurling, most likely. And not nearly as lowly as it sounds. The name means ‘little sparrow.’” And she proceeded to seat him as far as possible from another student whose name meant “great cat.” That received a healthy tide of laughter from the class and a pretty smile from Janis — teeth and all. Scott returned the smile. It was crooked and brace-faced, he knew, but he didn’t care. Having her smile at him was right up there with hearing her speak his name. He would not be forgetting either for a long time.

  But then something had happened.

  Scott stopped pushing trash into the bag long enough to stand and gaze outside. The cul-de-sac in front of the Graystones’ house stood empty. The Prelude was still gone. He bounced the Glad Bag
against his knee.

  When the teacher had gotten to Janis, she talked about a Roman god and doorways — Scott remembered that. And then he watched Janis’s face change, going from open and bright one moment to tense and pale the next. It was as if she had aged — not outwardly but inwardly, as if she’d acquired all of the cares and concerns of an adult in a matter of seconds.

  She ran from the classroom.

  Whispers rose. Necks craned. Scott imagined himself going after her, seeing if she was all right. It’s what Scott Summers of the X-Men would have done. He would have pursued his red-haired love, his Jean Grey. But Scott Spruel was no Cyclops, he found out. That would have required something he didn’t have. Gallantry? Courage? A working spine?

  He just sat there and craned his neck like the others.

  Mrs. Fern appeared unperturbed. “Now, now, settle down,” she said, closing her eyes again. “Our goddess of doorways just needs a little fresh air. A moment to reorient. She’ll return shortly.”

  Janis came back maybe ten minutes later. By then, the final student had been seated and the course syllabus distributed. Janis smiled tightly and said something about becoming lightheaded but that it had passed. She still looked pale to Scott, especially around her eyes. And when she took her seat (two rows from him, damn it all), her hair looked as though it had lost some of its luster as well. Amy, a student from their middle school, muttered something — “Faker,” Scott thought he heard. When he turned, she leveled a hard stare at him. The stare reminded him so much of his mother’s that he lowered his eyes and turned back around.

  After class, Scott had been determined to ask Janis if she was okay. He followed her the entire length of A-wing before losing his nerve and veering off toward the bus circle. Tomorrow.

  And that was the amazing thing, he thought. He had tomorrow, the next day — every day for the rest of the school year. He didn’t have a seat beside her, no, but he shared a class with her (one he wasn’t even supposed to have been in; he’d signed up for honors, not AP, English). A class with the same peculiar teacher, the same reading list — things to talk about. For the first time since they were kids, he would no longer have to resign himself to gazing helplessly on her from his bedroom window, a span which always felt farther than its actual distance.

  Scott sighed and dropped the Glad Bag by the window. He pulled a comic book from one of the boxes beside his bookshelf and retired with it onto his bed, his pillows piled three deep under his head.

  His favorite comic book artist was John Byrne, and Scott’s acquisitions for the last three years followed his career through Marvel Comics: old issues of The Avengers, Captain America, Daredevil, Iron Fist, The Amazing Spiderman. Byrne was currently illustrating the Fantastic Four, since issue #232, so that collection was ongoing. And last year, he had started this cool new series about a Canadian superhero team called Alpha Flight.

  But Scott’s favorite John Byrne series by far — by light years — was The X-Men, issues #108 to #143. Those issues had everything, cool characters, awesome powers, riveting storylines, and all of them illustrated and co-plotted by John Byrne. The issues Scott liked the most, the ones he had absolutely fallen into (and whose condition he’d knocked down a peg or two through his constant handling) were the ones with Scott Summers and Jean Grey, also known as Cyclops and Phoenix. Scott would start the series at #108, read until Cyclops and Phoenix each presumed the other dead in issue #113, then skip to where they were reunited on Muir Island in issue #126.

  He would read and reread the panels when it was just the two of them speaking intimately — before the mess with The Hellfire Club, before the power of the Dark Phoenix corrupted Jean. And maybe it was his knowing that their time together was short, that they only had those few precious panels, that made the panels seem to Scott sadder and more special than anything in his real life.

  He opened issue #132 to one of those pages.

  Byrne had stopped drawing The X-Men more than three years ago, so Scott had to track down old issues. Some he’d acquired at The Time Machine, others at comic book conventions. At the convention in Gainesville the year before, he’d had the good luck of scoring the two issues where the X-Men visited the Savage Lands. Still others he had bought at school.

  Now he owned the entire series, save one: issue #137, the issue where the X-Men fight to save Jean’s life. And without it, he didn’t feel quite complete. It was less that there was a break in the collection and more that it left a hole in the complexity of feelings he had taken from the series and projected onto Janis and himself.

  He squinted his glasses up and drew issue #132 closer to his face. He was at the page where Jean Grey interrupts Scott’s meeting with Angel. They’re on the top of a stone mesa in New Mexico. Angel leaves, and now it’s just Scott Summers and Jean. She spreads out a picnic blanket. They speak. They kiss. Four issues later, Scott proposes to her.

  Jean Grey-Summers.

  Scott rested the comic book on his chest and closed his eyes.

  Janis Graystone-Spruel.

  Someday, maybe. If he could transform himself. If he could leave Stiletto for Scott Summers. If he could become that person who would pursue Janis down a hallway and ask if she were all right.

  Now tails, now heads.

  Just maybe.

  And that was the final, hopeful thought he carried headlong into sleep, a sleep so sudden and profound that he didn’t stir at the sound of Jesse Hoag’s Chevelle creeping past his house only minutes later.

  10

  “You know, it sort of defeats the purpose when you drown your yogurt in chocolate syrup and Gummi Bears.” Margaret aimed her plastic spoon toward Janis’s cup before dipping it back into her own — plain vanilla, no toppings. “We might as well have gone out for ice cream.”

  Janis watched her sister’s lips ply a layer of frozen yogurt from her spoon. Maybe it was this gesture, or maybe it was the angle of Margaret’s head, the small hunch of her shoulders, that made her seem young to Janis. Vulnerable, even.

  “I have to tell you something,” Janis said.

  “Oh, right.” Margaret sat up, appearing to remember why they had come to TCBY. She’d blabbed the whole car ride over. “What’s up?”

  “It’s…” Janis took a deep breath, wondering where to begin. “Do you remember how you said you saw Mr. Leonard’s car at the beach yesterday? And then we saw him behind us on the way home?”

  Margaret nodded, eyebrows raised in question.

  “I think he was following us.”

  Margaret laughed and brought the spoon back to her lips.

  “I’m serious, Margaret.”

  “On what basis?”

  Janis couldn’t tell her about the experience last night. Just like at the beach yesterday, Margaret wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t believe her. And who could blame her? The whole thing sounded insane, but Janis still needed to warn her.

  “I woke up last night from a bad dream. A dream where Tiger was hit by a car,” Janis lied. “It was just a dream, I know, but I went out to look for her anyway.”

  Tiger was their gray tabby cat. When Margaret was ten, she had spotted her in the petting area of Fish and Critters at the mall and begged her father that she be able to take the kitten home. He relented on the condition that Margaret care for her and that Tiger remain an outdoor cat. The first chore had eventually fallen to their mother, but on the second point, their father remained resolute.

  “What time?” Margaret asked, narrowing her eyes.

  “I don’t know — twelve thirty, one? Anyway, when I got to the backyard, I could see Mr. Leonard out on his deck smoking a cigarette.”

  “So?”

  “He was staring at our house, Margaret. Over the tops of the bushes. I could see his glasses.”

  “He probably heard you walking around.”

  “I don’t think so.” I was incorporeal.

  “Janis, his deck faces our backyard. So he comes out and smokes at night. His wife probably doesn’t w
ant him doing it in bed, which is smart. Lots of house fires start that way. You remember David Cassidy of The Partridge Family? ‘Daydreamer’? That’s how his father died.” Margaret’s spoon scraped the bottom of her Styrofoam cup. “What is it with you and this obsession with being watched anyway?”

  “It’s not an obsession. It’s a feeling. A…” Janis searched for a stronger word. “A strong feeling.”

  Margaret shook her head.

  “Just promise me you’ll be careful.”

  “So what you’re saying is that Mr. Leonard — our Mr. Leonard — is dangerous all of a sudden? Why now? He’s lived there since before we moved in. Plus, he’s around students all the time, and he hasn’t done anything to any of them.”

  Not that we know of.

  Janis rescued a drowning Gummi Bear from her melting yogurt and then ate it. She didn’t have a good answer for Margaret. She only knew what she couldn’t tell her, what she had seen the night before, what she had discovered when she’d gone through the bushes into his backyard.

  “Seriously, Janis. Where is this coming from?”

  When Janis looked up, her older sister had finished and set her cup aside. Margaret sat regarding her, hands folded on the table, no longer young, no longer vulnerable. And those eyes…

  “Just promise me,” Janis repeated, straining to recall what they were even talking about. “That’s all I’m asking.”

  Margaret sighed and lowered her gaze to Janis’s half finished cup. “All right, I promise I won’t let the big, bad Mr. Leonard get me. Now hurry it up. I have to stop by the store for some poster board before it closes.”

  In the parking lot, Margaret spoke over the car’s roof as she fished for her keys. “Was Tiger okay?”

  “Tiger?” Janis had to think for a moment. “Oh, yeah. She’s fine.”

  * * *