The next morning, I walked into school on stiff legs, not sure what to expect. Ben had my hand, but it wasn’t doing much to comfort me or calm the butterflies flying around in my stomach that seemed to be having some sort of war.
I had no idea what time Mrs. Flamingo had agreed to come in and meet with Mr. Short, or if she’d even agreed to meet with him for that matter, so I tried to go about my day as usual, hanging out with my pack before the first bell rang. But I was distracted. My eyes constantly searched the crowd around me, looking for Fionna or even Mr. Short. I didn’t know if he would find me before the meeting to let me know what time the Flamingos were coming or if it would just be a surprise.
All through first period, I was on the edge of my seat, constantly looking at the door, waiting for my summons to the office. The bell rang,
It was odd, holding hands with another girl as I walked to the classroom door. Especially one that isn’t necessarily my friend. Especially one who is so… odd. But when Fionna Flamingo reached for my hand, I gave it to her.Why would I do such a thing? Normally, I wouldn’t. But the words the forest whispered in my ear were weighing on my mind as we walked to art class together. If I was going to win Fionna over and recruit her, the way the forest told me to, I couldn’t jerk my hand away from hers, no matter how odd or uncomfortable it might be to have her cold fingers wrapped around my wrist.It didn’t take us long to reach the art room. I pulled the door open with my free hand, hoping she’d let go of me as we entered, but she didn’t. I tried not to meet anyone’s eyes as we entered the room, but I couldn’t h
Mr. Short’s hands were shaking as he sat down behind his desk and gestured for me to sit across from him. I knew the drill by now. I’d been here enough times by now to know the drill by heart and didn’t really need for him to point to the other chair for me, but he is one of those people who likes to be official, so I gave him the opportunity to brandish his arm and show me where to sit as if I’d never been here before.He was still sweaty as he sat down across from me, but he seemed to be gathering himself together a little bit more than he had been before. I knew, though, as soon as he started talking about what had happened in the meeting, he would start sweating profusely and probably shake even more. He was definitely intimidated by Francis Flamingo, and apparently scared out of his wits at her odd daughter.“Thanks for coming
The scene near the classroom where I’d left Fionna was chaotic, to say the least. Students were running past me down the hall, going as fast as they possibly could, looking for the nearest exit. When I got right to the classroom, door, the kids running past me weren’t just scared anymore. No, the ones fleeing the scene of the incident had more pressing issues, other than fear--many of them were on fire.My eyes bulged from my head as I stared at them, coughing myself from the smoke. I needed them to stop, to slow down, so that I could help them, but none of them were capable of thinking clearly at the time. It was clear to me that no one had ever taught these kids, “Stop, drop, and roll,” like I’d learned as a little kid.“Hey, wait!” I shouted to a few who burst past me, their shirts on fire, one of them with her hair
A soft, rhythmic beeping sound, like a lullaby, soothed me as I began to come back around. I was aware that I was lying someplace comfortable, soft, and warm. I couldn’t open my eyes at first, as they seemed so heavy, but my other senses were coming back to me more quickly. The sense of touch--the soft bed I was lying in, the warm blankets over me; the sense of sound--the melodic beeping of a machine to my right, labored breathing of someone standing near me; the sense of smell--medicinal, clinical, very clean. Wherever I was, it had been cleaned with some pretty strong chemicals recently. My mouth was dry, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, which tasted a little acrid and a bit like glue. I wondered if I’d even be able to speak once I came fully to consciousness or if my tongue would be stuck to the roof of my mouth.The more my thoughts came back to me, the more I realized
“No one knows where Fionna is?” I repeated to an empty hospital room. My family had left to go get my friends, and even though my mom insisted she would come back in with whichever two of my friends came to see me first, she had stepped out into the waiting area with Max and Gray.I wondered what had happened to the girl. I was furious at her, of course, but at the same time, I thought about how small and helpless she had seemed earlier in the day, when she’d insisted on holding my hand to walk to class. She was like a little lost child, out there in the big world on her own. What if she got lost? Or more importantly, what if some unexpecting human came across her and ended up getting hurt? I shuddered at the thought of what might happen.When the door opened again, it wasn’t my mom as I’d expected. Rather, it was a nurse, dressed
I knew I was asleep, but it felt like I was awake. It felt like I was really standing in a foreign location, a place I’d never been in before, some sort of fantasy realm, and it seemed certain that the woman standing across from me was really there, that she wasn’t just a figment of my imagination.I looked around me at the landscape. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. It seemed like I was floating on an orange cloud, the air around me tinged red, sort of like when I’d walked into that room where everyone was on fire, but there was no smoke, no haze, only shimmering air that seemed to be glowing with a scarlet hue. It surrounded me on all sides, except for the orange billowing surface I was standing on. Even as high as I could see above me, it was moving, reddish air.Across from me, standing about twenty feet away, was Francis
The dream I’d had the night before wasn’t a real dream. I had actually spoken to Francis Flamingo. I had no idea how that had workedWhen I got out of bed, it was almost noon. No one in my house was pressuring me to get up. Even though it was a school day, the school wasn’t open. Two classrooms had extensive damage from the smoke and fire, so they were under repair.After a shower, I wandered downstairs to the kitchen, my stomach rumbling since I hadn’t eaten anything from the fast food restaurant the night before and had missed breakfast. I didn’t quite make it to the kitchen, though, when there was a knock at the door.I froze in my tracks at the bottom of the stairs, dreading going to the door. A flood of faces crossed my mind of who might be standing there, and none of them we
I opened the door to find Nuthatch standing on the porch, the look on his face telling me he had more worries than what I had to say to him. I didn’t invite him in. Instead, I stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind me. Now that I had eaten lunch, I wanted to go out and do my part to find Fionna, so I wasn’t intending on sitting around in the house, chatting with Mr. Nuthatch. “What did you find out?” I asked him.“Well,” Nuthatch said, taking a few steps back. “I spoke to Mage Jaye, and she is open to the possibility of accepting Miss Flamingo into the school--under one condition.”My eyes narrowed, and I pursed my lips for a second before I said, “If you tell me that that condition has to do with me also attending the school, you’d better get back on that phone because that’s not