This is the 20th installment of the book I am currently writing. It is Sci-Fi/Adventure for young adult. It is not part of the Oz Chronicle series. The first draft is completed, and it is currently under review by my agent, so the final version of the book will most likely look a bit different than what you read here, but I thought you might like to see a work in progress. Happily my agent is busy with another one of my projects at the moment, and she hasn’t been able to give me feedback on “Lost Day”s as of yet. Click on the “Lost Days Book” category on the right to read from the beginning. Or you can click here.
I have a faint memory of attending classes that morning. My teachers stood at the front of the room, and I assume they went over various lessons, and spoke in bright and brilliant tones that enlightened everyone within the sound of their voices, everyone except me that is. They could have stood in front of the class naked and quacked like ducks for all I knew. I had Joyner on the brain. I was beside myself with… disbelief.
I was happy, don’t get me wrong. But I was more confused than anything else. Why me? At one point I asked Denise for her compact, and I sneaked a long look at myself in the tiny mirror. At best, I am plain. At worst, I am gawky looking. My nose sticks out on my face like a ski slope and one eyebrow is higher than the other. I had bags under my eyes. Not too big, but they were there. You couldn’t help but see them. And my hair, I can’t even begin to tell you how ratty and dry my hair is. The more I stared at myself in the mirror, the more unbearable I thought I looked.
Maybe Joyner is partially blind. Maybe he has trouble seeing certain spectrums of light, the spectrums that highlight all my ugly. Should I tell him? After all, he has a lot to lose by being seen with the wrong girl, and every unfortunate flaw in my face told me I was the wrong girl. I could ruin his high school existence.
These were the thoughts that occupied my mind for the first three periods of school. By lunch, I was a shattered mess of a human being. But at lunch, my spirits were lifted a bit. Joyner bypassed his normal group of Ken doll cronies and G.G. skeezers and sat at a table with Denise, Owen, and me.
I smiled and said, “Hi.” Not very creative, I know, but I was still new to this… whatever this was.
“Hello,” he said with a wink. He took a bite out of a french fry, and turned his attention to Denise. “You know Danny Perry?”
She stopped mid gulp of a diet soda. A little trail of the dark liquid leaked out of the corner of her mouth. She reached up, wiped it away, and nodded.
“I know he’s no great catch, but do you think you could stomach an evening with Danny if I pay for the pizza?”
She stared at him blankly and didn’t answer.
“Hayley and I will be there,” he said.
She still didn’t answer.
“Owen can come, too,” Joyner prodded.
Owen looked shocked. “Me? You know me?”
Joyner laughs. “Of course. We’ve only gone to school together since kindergarten.”
“Denise,” I said.
She slowly shifted her gaze from Joyner to me.
I snapped my fingers in front of her face. “Do you want to go with Danny Perry for pizza on Friday?”
She nodded very methodically.
Joyner smiled. “Excellent.” He turned to a group of students sitting three tables over. “We’re on, D. Friday. Pizza.”
A boy with short blond hair and sparkling blue eyes shouted, “Sweet!”
Joyner turned back to us. “What about you, O? Want me to set something up for you?”
“Don’t do that,” Owen said.
“Do what?”
“Call me by the first letter of my name. My name is Owen.”
I bit my lip. Owen had a right to be called whatever he wanted to be called, but I hated him for being so sensitive.
Joyner took it in stride. “My bad. I didn’t mean anything by it. I just do that with all my friends.”
Owen cocked his head to the left. “Friends?”
“Yeah, friends. So, what do you say, should I set you up or not? Lindsay Gray? Stephanie Little. Name your poison.”
Lindsay and Stephanie were two of the biggest G.G.’s in school. I hoped to god that Owen would say no.
Owen sank in his chair. “I’m busy Friday.”
“C’mon,” Joyner said. “It’ll be fun.”
“I’ve got… things to do.”
“Suit yourself,” Joyner said. “Maybe next time.”
“Yes,” Denise finally said.
“What?” I asked.
“Yes, I’ll go… I mean I would be happy to have pizza with Panny Derry… Danny Perry.”
I reached out and grabbed Joyner’s forearm as I laughed uncontrollably. I gathered my composure, and said. “Didn’t you hear Joyner tell Danny we were on? It’s all set, Denise.” That’s when I looked down and saw my hand resting on Joyner’s arm. His skin was warm and soft. I could feel the tiny hairs and rippling muscles. My heart actually fluttered. I thought it was an old wives’ tale. I didn’t know your heart could actually flutter. I pulled my hand back quickly before I fainted from sheer delight.
We spent the rest of lunch talking about everyone in the lunchroom. Joyner was dishing the dirt on all the popular people. He let us know what rumors were true and which ones were total bull crap. A lot more of them were total crap than true. We were disappointed to find out some weren’t true. It was always kind of nice thinking that Amy Harper had actually given birth to a two-headed mutant the summer before eighth grade. She was a horrible human being who treated everyone like they were second class citizens just because her father served one term in the U.S. Congress. The truth was she did go into the hospital that summer, but it was just to have her tonsils removed. And it turns out that Anderson Crane wasn’t really a thirty-year-old undercover cop. Despite his mustache and sideburns, he was only 16, and was not in fact a narc.
“And then there’s Ginger Starling,” Joyner said shaking his empty soda can.
“What about her?” I asked.
Owen looked at me confused. “Starling,” he said. “As in daughter of Elizabeth Starling.”
I still didn’t get it.
“The woman who was killed?” Denise asked.
Owen tapped the end of this nose with his finger signaling that she hit the nail on the head.
“Oh,” I said. The news tumbled around in my head. “I didn’t know she had a daughter.”
“She’s two grades ahead,” Joyner said. “Not very sociable. Only has a couple of friends as far as I know.”
I wondered if Joyner realized who he was really talking to. Denise, Owen, and I were about the three most unsociable people in school. Him sitting with us was pretty much like when Jesus hung out with the lepers.
I felt a physical pain in my gut for Ginger. I didn’t know her, but to hear Joyner describe her, I felt a deep kinship with her. She didn’t have many people in her life that she trusted. She was probably closer to her mother than anyone else on the planet. Now that person was ripped from her life by a cruel, evil creep. I felt a catch in my breath when I realized a small part of me still thought my uncle could be that cruel, evil creep.
“That’s awful what happened to her mother,” Denise said.
I listened to words coming out of her mouth and felt angry because she said something so obvious in such an insincere way. It felt like she said it just so she could be heard by Joyner.
“I just wonder what she was doing out there at night,” Joyner said.
“Maybe the killer dragged her out there,” Denise said.
Owen grunted. “Her car was out there. She had hiking equipment and photographic equipment in the trunk. She went out there on her own. My cousin…” he looked at me to gauge me level of irritation at the mention of his cousin. I gave him an awkward look of indifference and he went on. “My cousin, he’s a cop,” he said for Joyner’s benefit. “He says her camera is missing. Case was there, tripod, whatever, everything but the camera.”
The first bell rang to signify that we had five minutes to clear out of the cafeteria and go to our next class. I started to pick up my tray, but Joyner grabbed it before I had a chance.
“I got it,” he said. “See you after 6th period again?”
I smiled uncomfortably and nodded.
He smiled confidently and walked away.
Denise let out a big sigh when he left. “That is so exhausting having him around. Trying to be perfect all the time is hard work.”
Owen snickered. “That was you being perfect?”
She flipped him off.
“I don’t get why you’re so mesmerized by the dink. He’s just a dude.”
“If by just you mean exquisite, then I agree with you,” Denise said.
“You going to let her talk about your boyfriend like that?” Owen asked.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I snapped.
“Take it easy,” Owen said. “Just making conversation.”
I stood up from the table, and said, “I’ve got something to do before English. I’ll see you later.”
I could feel them watching me as I walked away. They thought I was mad at them, but I wasn’t. My mind was still bouncing Ginger Starling’s name around in my head. I had to know more about her. I headed to the principal’s office formulating a plan to get her home address.
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