Down World (Book 1 of the Down World Series)

Part One, Chapter 1

If Robbie were alive, he'd be a senior at this school. That was the thought that struck me when I entered East Township High on that August morning, the first of my sophomore year. I had never set foot in the school before, and I was scared out of my mind. I missed my friends at St. Joe's, the Catholic school the next town over, where I had spent seventh through ninth grades. I missed Robbie. After three years, I still missed him. All the time.

And then there was that stupid little map.

The school had included the map in an orientation packet they'd sent me the week before, but I couldn't make heads or tails of it. East Township, my father had warned me, had originally been built as an army base in the 1940s, and they had intentionally designed it to be confusing. (I guess so Nazis couldn't sneak in and find the top-secret paperwork?) It was full of bricked-up doors, oddly sized rooms, and long twisting hallways that led to nothing.

And the map might as well have been written in hieroglyphics. Everything was color coded, without any indication of what the colors might represent, and not one damn "You are here" in the mix.

The first-period bell rang, and I found myself alone in the hallway next to my empty locker, turning the map in useless circles like a dyslexic juggler, tears stinging behind my eyes.

Pull it together, Marina, I reprimanded myself. Lost is embarrassing enough. Lost and crying is pathetic.

I laid the map out on the floor, desperately scanning for some indication of where my math lab might be, when a boy appeared over my head. He and a friend were strolling down the hall like they owned the place, not the least bit concerned that they, too, were apparently late for class.

I didn't notice how cute he was at first: how only one cheek dimpled, or how his shoulder bones made a perfect T with his Adam's apple. I didn't notice that he smelled like lemon-scented laundry detergent and powdered sugar from the doughnut he was eating for breakfast. I was so wrapped up in being lost, and being angry that I was lost, that I didn't notice him at all.

"Where you goin'?" he asked in his low voice, hovering above me. I barely even looked up.

"Nowhere, apparently," I said in frustration, crumpling up the map and throwing it in my locker.

He chuckled, which finally made me look at him. I was shocked to feel my hands go clammy, and I wiped them on my jeans. The boy turned to the friend he had been walking with. "I'll catch you later, man. I gotta help this one out before she burns the place down."

"Later," his friend said.

The boy dipped his head into my locker, so casually it might as well have been his own. "Let's see what we got here, shall we?" He handed me the other half of his doughnut, like we were old friends. Something about him—his voice, maybe, or the flip of his hair—made me feel very safe all of a sudden. Like nothing was a big deal. He uncrumpled the map and spread it out, laughing and shaking his head.

"What's funny?" I asked.

"This map. It makes absolutely zero sense. You can eat that doughnut, by the way. It's my second one today."

I laughed and took a bite. It was weirdly delicious, and I wolfed it down like I'd never had a doughnut before.

"Okay, so first off," he said, conspiring with me over the map, "this makes it look like the math rooms are downstairs. They're upstairs."

"Okay."

"Second, this whole wing over here? It's, like, never used for anything anymore. You don't need that part. So we'll just . . ." He ripped off half the map, balled it up, and threw it on the floor. I smiled, wiping powdered sugar off my mouth as I chewed the last of the doughnut.