Sophomore Freak (Reject High: A Young Adult Science Fiction Series Book 2) by Brian Thompson Page A

held on longer than usual, even for my best friend, but it wasn’t weird. I squeezed her back. The dust made me cough, which was a good excuse for both of us to let go.
    “We’re not safe – especially not here.” Wiggling my fingers, I felt the grit in the air. It was like airborne sand. 
    “Like we’re safe anywhere ?”
    She had a point. Now what?
    “I’ve got a guy on the outside,” she said. “He’ll signal us if something’s up.”
    A guy? My chest tightened. “Unless he’s like us, it’s not going to matter.”
    She paused. He was like us? Selby?
    Rhapsody stopped short of answering me. She shined her cell phone’s flashlight application onto her face. Without makeup, she looked tired around the eyes. “Somebody was mind-controlling him for a minute. He’s not sure who.”
    Of course he’s not. “I don’t buy that crap. Why do you?”
    “He looked out for me in elementary school. I needed help. Want me not to call other dudes for the job? Stop feeling up Girl Genius long enough to answer your phone. Quit blowing me off!”
    “Fine!” I said, kicking at a loose piece of linoleum. “What’s the big emergency, anyway? What was in Welker’s safe?”
    “Not yet.” She keyed a text message on her phone. “We came to Reject High so you could find us. Staying anywhere too long will make us targets.”
    As soon as she pressed “send,” Selby whooshed into the lobby and sent a violent rush of air our way. I closed my eyes and mouth. Rhapsody ghosted and it passed through her. When the breeze faded away, I saw nothing but his silhouette. When I swung at it on instinct he easily dodged my punch.
    “Good seeing you, too, Freak,” he said. “She told you about the. . .”
    “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Mind control, blah blah blah . Tell it to my collapsed lung.”
    “Meet you at the rendezvous point,” he said before zipping away.
    Rendezvous point? Who talks like that?
    “He’s way too into this,” I said out loud by mistake. “Where’s this ‘rendezvous point’?”
    Rhapsody laughed a bit. “He’s extra. Dude, it’s just the old playground.”
    I knew which one she meant – the one where Selby had pushed her to ghost for the first time and she’d almost lost her legs trying to do it.
    No one was going to get maimed tonight, I hoped.
    Once we got outside I held Rhapsody’s waist while we jumped to the playground. Its dull overhead orange lights allowed us to see each other. Selby, wearing one of his white practice jerseys and black shorts, relaxed on one of the benches. We joined him. It felt like an incomplete meeting without Sasha, but she had “Corky” to deal with.
    Rhapsody pulled a small journal from the bottom zipper pocket of her black utility vest and handed it to me. “Read.”
    As I flipped the yellowed pages they made a crackling sound like dry leaves. Each had a bunch of penned drawings and equations on them, written in English, I think, but with symbols I didn’t understand. “Carrington” was scribbled over and over again in black cursive.
    Nearing the back of the journal, I saw the writings concluded with drawings of crystals and observations. Nothing was written next to “morganite,” which were the pink stones, “heliodor,” the gold, or “aquamarine,” the blue.
    Had the owner of this journal never figured them out? Or he didn’t want anyone else to know what he did?
    Selby must have seen confusion on my face. Sitting on the other side of Rhapsody, he leaned his head forward. “A scientific journal,” he said. “At least, that’s what we think.”
    Rhapsody reached over and turned the pages back as it sat in my lap). Her fingers grazed my leg and my heart jumped. “I Google searched for details on Carrington,” she said. “It was a solar storm in 1859 – the biggest one in five hundred years.”
    I connected the dots – the book was really old . “Bigger storm than next week?”
    “Nope,” Selby jumped in. “Way smaller. Don’t you