The Nightworld - Jack Blaine [1]
The sun is glinting off the buses, and the heat is nice after the air-conditioning inside. I squint at the sea of tank-topped students looking for Charlie. A surprise is waiting for me there. Lara is standing in front of the bus with Charlie. Lara Hanover, who doesn’t take the bus and who doesn’t talk to Charlie. He’s just a little lamer than me, which puts him right over the edge of too-lame-for-Lara-to-notice.
I have no idea how to react to this unlikely scene. Lara’s wearing a red tank top and blue cutoff jeans. She looks, well, like she always looks. Beautiful. Her hair looks like gold in the sunlight and her shoulders, bare in the light breeze, look smooth and soft. I can’t count how many times I’ve watched her from afar, knowing full well she’ll never notice me. And then, as though she’s being filmed in slow motion, she turns, and sees me, and ooooooh sooooo sloooowly smiles at me. Charlie turns too, equally slowly, and makes an incredulous face while he points at Lara, as though to say “Duuuuude, do you seeeee this?” All I can do is nod, dumbly.
“Nick!” Lara is making actual sounds.
“Ummm.” I stand there for an additional two brainless seconds, and then I lope over to her.
“Hi, Lara.” I’m trying for cool. Her lips look so soft. And pink. And soft.
“Listen.” She tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear.
I listen.
She stares at me for a full ten seconds, waiting for some sort of appropriate response, but I am lost in her aura. Finally she frowns slightly and speaks again.
“I’m having a little thing, Nick.”
She knows my name!
“A thing?” I’ve managed to form words.
“Yeah. A sort of inaugural bash for summer.” She peers into my eyes, trying to see if I understand.
“An inaugural bash, huh? Sounds pretty fancy.” I see Charlie making desperate motions behind Lara’s back, beseeching me to stop acting like such an idiot. I have got to snap out of it.
“Sounds cool.” I cock my head at Lara and slouch a little. “Where and when?”
She smiles at me and giggles. But she’s not laughing at me. She’s just amused.
“My place, this weekend.” She pauses for dramatic effect. “My parents are in Europe, so the place is all mine.”
“Sounds way cool.” Charlie’s panting like a happy puppy.
Lara and I both turn to stare at him. He’s practically drooling on her. I give him a look, the look I give him when he’s being lamer than usual. He closes his mouth.
“Anyway.” Lara hands me a scrap of paper. It’s pink. “See ya.”
She walks away while Charlie and I stare after her.
“Huh.” Charlie is astute, sometimes. This is not one of those times. But I can’t blame him. I can’t even muster a huh.
“You boys want a ride or not?” Mrs. Snelling, the bus driver, is leaning out toward us from her seat behind the wheel of our bus, her hand on the lever that closes the bus door.
We both clamber on, sliding into our customary seats near the back of the bus.
“What was that?” I doubt Charlie will know, but I have to ask somebody.
“Dude.” He shakes his head back and forth, as stunned as I am.
Chapter 2
Lara Hanover. Inviting me to her . . . thing. My high lasts the whole bus ride home. But as soon as I open the door to my house: buzz kill. It’s absentee father time again.
I can hear the hum of the generator, which means Dad’s still in the basement. Of course. He promised he’d be up for dinner tonight, but I know from experience that if he’s still down there by the time I get home from school, I won’t see him until the next morning.
Dad’s a consulting research scientist for the government. He works in development, specifically in particle physics. I don’t really know what that means, but the two words have rolled off Dad’s tongue for as long as I can