After they fix the house, the team will infiltrate the neighborhood long enough to put minds at rest, seeding gossip about the sad family returning to Arizona or Georgia or Maine to deal with the loss. The rumors are always started by the unrecognizable guy at the gas station or the mousy girl using the computer at the library.
The agents—the Disciples—are trained as doctors, scientists, watchers, and bodyguards, but I’ve always thought most of them could make it in Hollywood, too.
Mason, in his recurring role as Loving Father, finally climbs into the driver’s seat. In worn jeans, loafers, and a cozy brown sweater, with his tired green eyes and messy dark (but prematurely graying) hair, he fits the role he’s played for eleven years now.
“Where are we going?” Mason asks Cassie. Cassie doesn’t look up from her tiny computer when she replies in her Southern-accented voice.
“Nebraska,” she says. “Omaha.”
Mason nods once and puts the SUV in reverse. I check my former home once more for signs that there are government agents inside: no luck. Then I exhale the day and the town away and stuff a pillow between my head and the cool window, and by the time we’re down the driveway and turning off of our street, I’m asleep.
When I open my eyes, it’s light outside. Bright light. The kind that makes me want to throw a rock at the sun. I have a crook in my neck and my mouth feels like I ate salty cotton balls. I look at Mason in the rearview mirror; he feels my stare and speaks.
“Hi there,” he says. I can’t tell whether he’s looking at me or the road because he’s wearing dark sunglasses.
“Hi,” I grumble.
“How do you feel?” he asks.
“Headache,” I answer.
“That’s normal,” he says.
;one
I’m flattened and thrashing on the sun-warmed track next to the football field, lying on what looks like asphalt but what I realize now that I’m down here is actually that fake spongy stuff. It reeks like it was just installed. There’s a woman kneeling beside my right shoulder, shouting into a cell phone.
“Her name is Daisy… uh…” Sharply, she sucks in her breath. “I don’t know her last name!” she cries.
For a split second, I don’t know, either.
“Appleby,” another teacher shouts.
“Appleby,” the first repeats to the 911 dispatcher. “It looks like she’s having an allergic reaction to something.”
Bee, I try to say, but there’s no air. No word.
My jerking limbs are like venomous snakes to the students forming a circle around me: The kids jump back in fear. I gasp with my entire body but only one rationed breath comes through. I know it’s one of my last.
When my P.E. teacher told us to jog the outdoor track to warm up for volleyball, I was excited about the fresh air. Maybe I’d get a little color on my cheeks. But then a fuzzy yellow and black menace wanted to join me, and decided that maybe he’d invite a few friends, too. I hit number one on my speed dial the second I felt the familiar pinch of the first bee sting; I only hope Mason makes it in time.
A wave of calm begins to creep through my body: I know it won’t be long now. Everything, forehead to toenails, relaxes. When the threat of getting kicked disappears, the crowd tightens around me. My eyes bounce off face after face hovering above me. They’re all strangers; high school just started yesterday, and no one I know from junior high is in my P.E. class.
Most of them look terrified. A few girls are crying. The principal shows up and tries to contain the crowd, but they’re like magnets, drawn in by the thrill of someone else’s misfortune.
“Move back,” he shouts. “Move back so the paramedics will be able to get through!” But no one listens. No one moves back. Instead, without knowing it, they form a blockade between me and help.
I lock eyes with a pretty, dark-skinned girl whose locker is near mine. She seems friendly enough to be the last person I see. She’s not crying, but the look on her face is pure distress. Maybe we would’ve been friends.
I stare at the girl and she stares at me until my eyelids fall.
The crowd gasps.
“Oh my god!”
“Do something!”
“Help her!” a guy’s voice pleads.