First Impression (A Shadow Maven Paranormal)

Chapter 2

The day drags by in places and races by in others. You know, the typical school day. By lunch time, I’m starving, but my sniffles have returned with a vengeance, so I stop in at the nurse’s office for two more pills. The halls are basically empty. Those in second block lunch are in the cafeteria or the courtyard. The rest of the miserable students are off in their classrooms.

“Alright, Ms. Sniffles, see me again at the end of the day for a take home baggie. Got it?” Nurse Kellogg says.

I nod and start out the door. When I get to the hallway, I hear the squeak of shoes against the polished tile. Ben Oscuro is darting up the stairwell at the end of the hall. I look around but don’t see anyone else. My stomach growls, but curiosity gets the better of me, and I follow him. When I reach the second floor landing, the door at the top of the stairs click shut. There’s only one door in the stairwell. He’s on the roof?

Blinking hard, I dart up the rest of the staircase to the top as well. I stop at the door and catch my breath after running up the four flights of stairs. I doubt myself for a minute. Could he be smoking up there? There’s no smoking for students anywhere on school grounds, but lots of kids hide it out in the courtyard. But remembering the pine and mint scent from before, I doubt that’s the reason.

What if he was lost? What could he be doing? I steel myself. There’s only one way to find out. I open the door to the roof. Overhead, the azure sky is swirled and streaked with cirrus clouds that were pulled apart by the wind like cotton candy. Gravel crunches beneath my feet. I hold the door and force it to close slowly and as it clicks shut, I fear for a moment that it might be locked. I sniff.

“Hey, Sniffles, are you following me?”

I stiffen, even while my body rejoices at hearing him string together more words than I’d heard him say thus far. “What? No…I mean…Yes. What are you doing up here? Lunch is half over.”

I spin toward him and my stomach growls in betrayal. My arms cross over me in an attempt to hide it.

He leans back and smirks down at my midsection. Over his shoulder, an owl—no, the owl—sits on the top of the chain-link fence that surrounds the roof top. And suddenly it dawns on me where I’d seen this guy before. And butterflies begin in my stomach. My mind flies in all sorts of directions, and my rational side says that I need to get a hold of myself. An owl is just a bird. Probably just a pet. And this boy who goes to my school is just Ben. Not a wizard, right? Although his voice does seem to have some sort of magical quality to it.

He steps into my line of site, blocking me from the owl. He shoves a brown bag toward me. “Here.”

I frown, while my hands reach for the bag of their own accord. “What’s this?”

Ben has already turned toward the owl when he says, “It’s a sandwich and a granola bar. Eat it.”

Part of me wants to throw the bag at his face. I don’t need his charity, and the way he just commanded me to do something makes me want to rebel. But then his arm raises in a welcoming gesture toward the bird, and the owl leaps from the top of the fence and lands on Ben’s shoulder. He hands the owl something with his other hand.

“What’s that?” I ask, because I can’t tell what he’s feeding it.

Ben doesn’t stop, but says, “It’s beef jerky.”

The sounds of the city are more distant from up here, and through the diamonds in the chain link fence, I can see all the way to the Potomac River. The land and the woods surrounding the back side of Jackson Hall seem farther away than when I’m out on the track during gym class. Sunlight has warmed the asphalt on the roof and the place smells of tar, but it’s not too strong.