The Seeker Page 5

  “Sure. Thanks,” Maria answered. She told Mrs. Ortecho good-bye and hung up. So Liz really was at the mall. Things were getting freakier by the second.

  Calm down and pretend you’re Liz. Think like a scientist, Maria told herself. Okay, what just happened obviously had something to do with the ring—or at least the stone in the ring. So what Liz would do is try and find out everything she could about the stone, get some hard facts.

  Maria shoved herself to her feet and walked over to her bookshelf, taking each step slowly and carefully. She pulled down The Encyclopedia of Stones and Crystals and sat down at her desk with it. She flipped through the pages, searching for anything that looked like a possible match.

  Not that one. Or that one. Maria turned another page, and a sidebar caught her eye. It was all about how some people believed stones and crystals could be used as a tool to enhance psychic abilities.

  Psychic abilities. She’d been holding Liz’s lipstick and wondering how things were going with her and Jerry—and then she saw Liz. That meant … that meant Maria had psychic abilities. Had the stone in the ring helped her tap into them?

  Didn’t some psychics use their energy to heal, too? If Maria was psychic, maybe she really had healed Sassafras the other day! Suddenly she felt filled with strength and energy. It was as if the ring’s light was somehow burning deep inside her.

  Whoa. And I’m the one who was sitting in Flying Pepperoni yesterday feeling like the ultimate girl next door, she thought. Boring with a big capital B. She’d been so afraid that some exotic alien girl was going to stroll into town and steal Michael away from her. Not that she exactly had him or anything.

  But if she was right, there was nothing boring about her. She was psychic. That meant she had powers even Michael, Max, and Isabel didn’t have.

  Maria shook her head. She was getting way too excited way too fast. Probably what really happened was she came in her room, sat down on her bed, and dozed off for a few minutes. She always had the strangest, most vivid dreams when she slept during the day.

  That was the most logical, scientific thing she’d thought yet. But Maria didn’t quite believe it. A test—that’s what she needed.

  She could just use Liz’s lipstick again. But it would be better—more scientific—if she did her test on someone different. That way she wouldn’t have junk already in her head the way she would if she tried to see Liz again.

  Kevin, Maria decided. There was plenty of her little brother’s stuff all over the house. She rushed out of her room and stumbled over Kevin’s baseball mitt. Yeah, you never had to go far to find something that belonged to slob boy Kevin.

  Maria took the mitt back into her room and sat down on her bed. She dug her fingers into the leathery material. “I wonder what Kevin is doing right now,” she whispered.

  The bed rippled underneath her. Yes! It was working.

  The room dissolved into colored dots and swooped around Maria. It’s so beautiful, she thought. At least it is now that I’m not one hundred percent freaked out.

  The dots began to clump, and Maria found herself standing in the parking lot of the minimart. Kevin and two of his buddies sat on the curb in front of the store.

  “I can burp the Pledge of Allegiance,” Kevin bragged. He grabbed his supersize soda and drained it in one long guzzling gulp. Maria could see the muscles in his throat working.

  Kevin opened his mouth to burp, and the dots began to swirl. Good, Maria thought. Kevin was always making her listen to him burp stuff. She could stand to miss one of his little performances.

  The dots clumped, and Maria was back in her room. She checked the ring—it was glowing again.

  “Maarrriiia!” Kevin shouted outside her door. He knew better than to come in without permission.

  “I’m not deaf, you know,” she snapped. She swung herself off the bed and opened the door.

  “Are you sure?” Kevin grumbled. “I called you about four thousand times.”

  “You called me once,” she shot back. Somehow she always got into these stupid arguments with her little brother.

  “Whatever,” Kevin mumbled. “Aren’t you supposed to be making dinner?”

  “I don’t know how you have any room for food with all that soda sloshing around inside you,” she said.

  Hold up, Maria thought. I just saw Kevin at the minimart. Even if he left right away, it would take him at least five minutes to ride his bike back here.

  Kevin pulled an empty soda cup out of his backpack. “I only drank this much,” he told her. “It’s not even the biggest one they have.”

  The cup was exactly like the one she’d seen in her vision. This did not make sense. How could he be at the minimart ten seconds ago and here right now?

  “Did you really call me a bunch of times before I answered?” she asked Kevin.

  “Yeah. I was kind of hoping you were dead,” he answered. “Except then I would have had to make my own spaghetti.” He grinned at her over his shoulder as he headed down the hall to his room.

  Maria leaned against the door frame and wrapped her arms around herself. It’s like the other day, she thought. The way my clock jumped forward five minutes, right after I healed Sassy’s paw.

  She’d just thought the clock was messed up. But maybe—it seemed like two of the times she’d used her psychic powers, she’d lost a little time. Nothing much. Five minutes the other day. Maybe ten minutes after she’d seen Kevin.

  Wait? Did I lose any time after I saw Liz in the mall? She had no idea. But she’d been alone in her room, so maybe she just hadn’t noticed.

  I wonder what happens to me during the missing time? It was kind of a creepy thing to think about. It can’t be anything too bad, she told herself. I feel fine. Better than fine.

  A slow smile spread across her face. I am definitely psychic, she thought. And that means I am most definitely not just your basic, ordinary human chick.

  The Major stepped into Alex’s doorway “What’s going on with the ROTC?”

  Alex’s dad was obsessed with having Alex coordinate starting up an ROTC program at school. He wouldn’t be happy until every kid in Roswell spent every free moment doing push-ups and learning how to clean rifles or something. Alex wasn’t exactly sure what you actually did in the ROTC. His dad had given him a ton of material on the program, and Alex had dutifully filed it away—in the circular file.

  Of course he stuck it in a paper bag before he put it in the garbage. Alex didn’t want to see the kind of meltdown his dad would have if he found the ROTC info in the trash.

  “The Royal Orangutan Telepathic Committee?” Alex asked, keeping his voice all innocent.

  “Time is a precious commodity,” his dad answered. “When you waste my time, it’s like stealing my wallet.”

  Alex sighed. The gods must have gotten a phone call or something right when they were about to give the Major a sense of humor. Either that or it was surgically removed when he joined the military.

  Alex knew his dad. If he pushed his father too hard, the guy would suddenly remember that the garage needed cleaning or that the dog poop needed to be scooped up from the backyard. But Alex wanted every step of getting the ROTC running to be hard for his dad. He wanted to make his dad wish that he’d never come up with the idea in the first place. Although Alex knew that no matter what he did, eventually there would be an ROTC program at school. And he’d probably be in it.

  “Alex, telephone,” his morn called from the kitchen.

  A distraction! Yes. “I’ll give you an update later,” Alex said, then bolted to the kitchen. He grabbed the phone from his morn. “I don’t care who this is—you’re my very best friend.”

  “Um, thanks.”

  Isabel. Her voice sounded funny, kind of cracked and husky. Which made total sense. She hadn’t been using her voice for much lately. Alex had gone to visit her every day for the last three days and spent the whole time basically talking to himself outside her door. Yesterday he had gotten so desperate he actua
lly told her how he’d been terrified of Big Bird when he was two.

  “How’re you doing?” he asked. He was totally blown away that she’d called him.

  “Okay … I guess. Actually, I wanted to ask you a favor. Like you haven’t done enough for me already,” she said.

  Alex didn’t like the tone in her voice. It was timid. So not Isabel. Yeah, she could be a pain in the butt when she got all arrogant, like she was the hottest thing ever and he should be grateful for a moment in her presence. But he hated hearing her sound so beaten down.

  “You got it,” he answered.

  Isabel gave a half laugh. “Don’t you even want to know what it is?” she asked.

  “Hey, the way I see it, you’ve got me where you want me,” he told her. “If I don’t do what you want, you could tell everyone about, you know, the bird. I’d be listening to all my so-called friends sing the Sesame Street theme song for the rest of my pitiful life.”

  Isabel gave a real laugh that time. “My mom is absolutely refusing to let me stay home from school tomorrow. At least unless I agree to go to the doctor. So I was wondering if you could pick me up on your way,” she said.

  Alex didn’t bother asking why she couldn’t just ride with Max. He didn’t care. “I’ll be there,” he promised.

  “Great,” she said.

  So was the conversation over? Did she want him to talk more? Or would she just be like, “I call to ask him one thing and he doesn’t let me off the phone”?

  “So, uh, I’ll see you in the morning,” Isabel said.

  She didn’t say it in that way that made it clear it was time to say good-bye and hang up. He got the feeling she wasn’t quite done. Like there was something else she wanted to say.

  “Thank you for choosing Alex’s Taxi Service,” he joked. “Do you want to get to school early or anything? Or—”

  “Alex, I don’t know how to say this. But I’ve got to say it. Max says I’m really bad at it. But I have to do it, anyway,” she blurted.

  “Um, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Alex told her. He heard Isabel take a shaky breath. “I want to apologize. But it’s hard to know where to start. If I start back at that night we went miniature golfing, we ’ll be on the phone forever.”

  Alex remembered that night. He remembered the way Isabel looked him right in the eye, told him she knew exactly what she wanted, and kissed him. She then proceeded to basically forget he was alive because the next day she met Nikolas.

  “Let me just give you the highlights,” Isabel continued. “I’m really sorry for the way I acted when I was with Nikolas. Even after he hurt you, I still thought … I don’t know what I thought. I guess I wasn’t thinking, at least not about anyone but myself.”

  “Isabel, you don’t have—”

  “Please just let me finish, okay?” she interrupted. “I was having so much fun that I didn’t want to hear you telling me that I was putting myself—and everybody else—in danger. I should have listened to you. If I had, maybe …”

  He could hear her fighting not to cry. But he didn’t say anything this time. He figured it was better to let her get it out. “Anyway, I’m sorry. Especially for going off on you and saying you were just jealous of Nikolas. I know you were really trying to protect me,” she said. “I—I have to go, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She hung up before he could accept her apology or say good-bye. Maybe that was a good thing. This way he didn’t have to decide if he should tell her the truth. Yes, he told her to stay away from Nikolas because he was sure the guy was going to end up getting Isabel hurt.

  But that didn’t mean Isabel was wrong about Alex being jealous of Nikolas. Because he was. Pathologically jealous.

  Alex reached into his pocket and pulled out a strip of photos that he’d found at a booth in the mall. He and the others had been trying to find Isabel and Nikolas before Valenti found them. Instead he’d come across these pictures of Isabel and Nikolas in the middle of a way too uninhibited make-out session.

  He knew he should throw the pictures away. Especially the one where Nikolas was holding a sign that said, Hi, Alex. But he kept carrying them around with him.

  Just looking at the pictures set off an explosion of jealousy inside him, which was so totally pathetic. How could he be jealous of a dead guy?

  Alex gave a growl of frustration and threw the photos in the kitchen sink. He grabbed a box of matches from the junk drawer and set the pictures on fire.

  If only he could burn Isabel’s memory of Nikolas.

  Isabel grabbed her lunch out of her locker and hurried down the hall, head lowered, eyes focused on her feet. All she wanted to do was get out to the quad. Alex would be there. And Max, Michael, Liz, and Mafia.

  She could feel people staring at her as she scurried along. She used to like being looked at. But not anymore. Now people were looking at her and whispering about Nikolas. She kept hearing his name—Nikolas, Nikolas, Nikolas. Everyone was gossiping about him … and her. Wondering what really happened to him. Trying to guess what the fight he and Isabel had the night he disappeared was about—somehow everyone had heard that lie she told Valenti.

  “I bet Isabel killed Nikolas because he was going out with Stacey Scheinin on the side,” Isabel heard someone whisper. Then she heard a burst of laughter. She smelled a whiff of gunpowder. Oh, God, no. It was starting again. The image of Nikolas falling to the floor, his eyes wide open and staring.

  Isabel shoved her way out the main doors and ran around to the quad. She forced her eyes up and saw Alex, Max, Liz, Maria, and Michael settled in their usual lunchtime spot. The smell of the gunpowder started to fade.

  “Hey, Isabel. I heard you’re in the market for some new man meat,” a guy shouted. “I’m grade-A prime.”

  Isabel recognized the voice and the attitude. Usually she would have found a way to reduce Kyle Valenti to a writhing puddle of humiliation. But today all she wanted to do was get across the quad to her friends.

  Just a few more steps, she told herself. Then she squeezed into the circle next to Alex. Some of the tightness in her chest relaxed, and she could breathe a little more easily.

  “Do you want me to go beat up Kyle for you?” Liz asked. “I’d enjoy it, really.”

  “It’s okay,” Isabel mumbled. “But thanks.” Liz was being so totally incredible. She’d called Isabel every night that Isabel had been out of school, and she and Maria had stopped by one morning with muffins and juice and a ton of magazines.

  Neither one of them had even gotten close to saying, “I told you so, I told you Nikolas was going to put us all in danger.” Neither one of them had given the slightest hint they were relieved that Nikolas was … was … Isabel shivered. Michael pulled off his jacket and tossed it to her. Typical Michael. Always there for her, without making a big deal out of it.

  They had all been there for her—Michael, Liz, Maria. Plus Alex, her human tranquilizer, sitting outside her door hour after hour, talking until he was hoarse. And Max, in total big-brother mode, bossing her around, making sure she at least got out of bed every day.

  “What is DuPris doing here?” Alex asked. “Don’t they have laws about strange men wandering around talking to us children?”

  Isabel glanced over her shoulder. Yeah, there was town wack job Elsevan DuPris. He strolled their way, twirling his walking stick between his palms, then veered off to talk to a group of kids over by the big oak tree.

  Almost everyone in Roswell read DuPris’s paper, the Astral Projector But what DuPris didn’t seem to realize was that they read it because the stories were hilarious. Isabel always loved it when he did one of his special reports on bloodsucking alien babies.

  “If he offers you candy—run,” Liz advised.

  “I don’t like the way he always happens to end up talking to us,” Max said.

  “Cheese it. Here he comes,” Alex said.

  Maria giggled. “Did you actually just say cheese it?”

  “That I did,” Alex an
swered. “That’s my latest list. Food-related expressions. Which you would know if you cared enough to check out my web site.”

  “Hello, young people,” DuPris called as he ambled up to them. “You look like some of the brightest and best of your classmates.”

  Michael smirked. “Why, aren’t you just as sweet as pie,” he drawled, imitating DuPris’s fakeoid southern accent.

  Isabel choked back a laugh. This was the good part about rejoining the outside world. Here she was just a normal girl hanging out with her friends in the quad, a group in the middle of all the other groups. There was nothing more normal than that.

  “I’m doing an opinion poll for my little paper,” DuPris told them. “If you would be so kind, I’d like you to answer me this question. If you were an alien and you went to our lovely shopping mall, what would you buy?”

  The mall. Why is he asking about the mall? Isabel thought. Her heart gave a hard double-fast beat. Could Valenti have told him he shot an alien there? Or does he have some other source? Does he know I was there, too? Does he know the truth about me?

  Isabel shifted her weight so her arm grazed Alex’s. She needed to feel the warmth of his body.

  “It would have to be … a Crock-Pot,” Alex said.

  “Absolutely,” Michael jumped in.

  “If I were an alien, I’d find a Crock-Pot pretty much irresistible,” Max agreed.

  “They’re so convenient,” Liz added.

  “And there’s so little cleanup time,” Maria chimed in.

  DuPris raised one eyebrow as he turned to Isabel. “And you, young lady, do you agree with your witty friends?”

  She cleared her throat. “Crock-Pot gets my vote. Uh-huh.”

  “Why, I thank you, and I hope to see you all again soon.” DuPris gave them a little wave and set off.

  “Do you think he knows?” Isabel asked the second he was out of earshot.

  “He might know something happened at the mall,” Max said slowly “One of the UFO heads might have reported a strange light. When Ray used his power to trap Valenti inside, it was almost blinding.”