Starstruck

Chapter 4a: Retrograde motion (part 1)

CHAPTER 4

Retrograde motion (part 1)

Bri and Deb rushed up to me so quickly I realized they must have been hanging back, watching the whole bizarre exchange.

"Wow, what was that all about?" Bri exclaimed as we all climbed onto the bus.

"Did you say something to piss him off?" Deb asked, looking over her shoulder in the direction Rigel had gone.

I hadn't quite caught my breath yet, but I shook my head. "I . . . I don't know. I don't think so. Maybe?"

"You must have said--or done--something," Bri insisted. "I saw his face when he ran off. He was seriously freaked."

"Um, well, you know how I sometimes shock people? I mean the static thing," I clarified when they both looked confused, and their expressions cleared.

"Yeah, that's a little freaky," Bri agreed, "but not that strange. I mean, everyone does that in the winter time. You just do it year round. Are you saying you shocked Rigel?"

Even though I knew that wasn't at all what had happened, I nodded. I sure didn't have any other explanation. "He touched my shoulder--" I put my own hand there, on the very spot-- "and got a jolt, I guess. It seemed to weird him out."

Deb actually chuckled.

I stared at her. "What?" It didn't seem funny to me at all.

"Maybe he thought it was some special chemistry between you and it scared him." She grinned. "You know how boys are about commitment. Maybe he thought it was, like, destiny or something. I mean, he doesn't know about your, um, electric personality."

Actually, his reaction almost did seem like that, but what I'd felt hadn't been a static charge. Had it? Was I just trying to make it something "special" because of the way I felt about Rigel? Now I wasn't sure.

Bri patted me on the shoulder--the same one--and I noticed there wasn't the slightest spark. "Don't worry, M. Tomorrow we'll explain about your static thing. Especially if Rigel is your destiny, you don't want to scare him off by letting him know it too soon."

I nodded, willing myself to believe that's all it had been. "Thanks, guys. You're right. We'll tell him tomorrow and maybe he won't think I'm such a freak after all."

Except maybe I was.

I tossed and turned that night, and when I did fall asleep, sometime after two, I dreamed about Rigel--and not the good kind of dream. Instead, I kept seeing the horrified look he'd had on his face when he touched me. Only, in my dream, I noticed my hands had gone all scaly, and when I felt my face, that was scaly too--and I'd sprouted horns.

Like I did every morning, I woke up five minutes before my alarm went off. Remembering my creepy dream, the first thing I did was check my hands and face. No scales. No horns. And Rigel hadn't exactly looked horrified. Had he?

Feeling like I'd barely slept at all, I turned off the alarm before it buzzed and rolled out of bed with a groan. If I didn't hurry, Uncle Louie would need the bathroom before I was done with it. Some people might call our nearly hundred-year-old house charming, but I thought a second bathroom would add a heck of a lot more charm than gingerbread trim and dormered windows.

I took my usual quick shower, brushed my teeth and dragged a comb through my wet hair, then flipped open my tube of acne cream. Leaning close to the mirror--I was pretty nearsighted without my glasses--I verified again that I didn't have any scales on my face.