In a World Just Right Read online

  My guess is that this is related to the creeped-out feelings that led me to Kylie’s last night, if only because I don’t believe in coincidences. Still, I managed to switch from Kylie-Simms-is-my-girlfriend to the real world just fine this morning. Why would things get messed up after that?

  Unless whatever I felt was the beginning of the end of something. Like when a person’s very sick, they might have this moment when they realize something’s wrong, and from that point on they have good days and bad days until the end. What if my world-making powers are dying, and instead of disappearing all at once, they’ll sputter and jerk through good days and bad days until they reach their end? In two short months, I’ll leave the Neverland that is high school and have to grow up. What if world-making works only for a kid?

  I’ll have to wait until I’m in my room to test that theory. If I blink out of this world while walking down the street, someone might see.

  When I reach home, I glance at the car Uncle Joey bought me, which sits in the driveway all red and shiny. In Kylie-Simms-is-my-girlfriend my car gets me a lot of attention, but I never drive it to school in the real world. I’d feel too weird showing up with a car that’s better than everyone else’s. It would beg people to talk about me behind my back.

  I press the key fob button to deactivate the house alarm, and enter through the mudroom. Uncle Joey’s house is something like four thousand square feet with five bedrooms and no people. Auntie Carrie was a few months pregnant when the plane crashed, so there’s a half-finished baby room upstairs. Uncle Joey has a first-floor master bedroom wing with an office and a marble bathroom, and I get the whole upstairs to rattle around in myself. The sum total of my stuff fills a medium-size moving box, so there are three rooms up there whose doors never get opened.

  As if I’m on my regular after-school routine, I pick up the home phone to check for the stuttering dial tone that means there’s a message, but it’s clear. I grab a cold slice of last night’s pizza from the fridge and sit at the breakfast bar. The whole kitchen reflects in the gleaming granite countertop. Although I’m not hungry, eating is something I can control, so I start to feel better.

  Because they’re staring at me, I thumb through the small stack of college applications on the breakfast bar. The idea of college—open minds and starting over—is very appealing. It’s like making a new world, except it would be real.

  Uncle Joey, who’s a Princeton grad and a Harvard MBA, has been helping me collect these applications. Since it’s April, I’ve missed practically all the deadlines, but it doesn’t matter much anyway. If I want to go to college, I’ve got to do summer school or a year of prep school to make up for the classes I’ve failed due to absences I’ve accrued by traveling to Kylie-Simms-is-my-girlfriend. Uncle Joey’s lawyer’s been fighting the school board about this, saying I’ve done enough satisfactory work to pass all my classes grade-wise.

  I’ve finished my pizza.

  By now my screwup will be all over the school.

  I want to go to Kylie-Simms-is-my-girlfriend just so I can talk with the Kylie who loves me about what happened, but of course I can’t do that. I talk to girlfriend Kylie about a great many things, but the real world is not one of them. She thinks Kylie-Simms-is-my-girlfriend is the real world, and I’m not sure what would happen if I told her it wasn’t.

  But enough of this. I can’t believe how nervous I am as I climb up the stairs and flop onto my unmade bed. The sun streams through the picture window over my desk and my unused computer. Most kids my age spend half their lives in that virtual world. They can’t make the worlds I do.

  Or did. I’m about to find out.

  I kick off my shoes and slide under the covers. I squeeze my eyes shut, hold them closed for several seconds of concentration, and open them on a world of gyrating bodies with low-cut tops and high-cut bottoms. In leather and vinyl and eyeliner, they grind away to the rhythm, flashing suggestive movements at one another.

  The scared part of me cries with relief. I can still switch worlds! The logical part says if I can, I need another explanation for what happened this morning.

  A vision of Kylie’s horrified, almost-kissed face comes to mind, but drains quickly away, like I’m watching her through a television darkening. My worry evaporates even as I try to hold on to it, reaching with all I am to keep focused. It’s been a while, so I forgot this would happen if I chose this world, but the creeping euphoria replaces everything else.

  Music pounds through the speakers and becomes my pulse. There is a camera crew and a sophisticated light and sound setup enhancing the dancing, increasing the sex factor, as the pop singer rounds her mouth over a tune. There are no takes. No breaks in the filming like there are in the real world. Just nonstop dancing and singing and rolling around on satin sheets. This world is simply Jonathan’s-smokin’-hot-dance-club. I made it when I was thirteen and crazy for “experience,” which would explain the embarrassing name. I hardly go here since I made Kylie-Simms-is-my-girlfriend. There isn’t any need.

  It takes only a few seconds for the first dancer to notice me. A wet-skinned woman with straight black hair and an outfit the size of an orange peel. She puts a finger under my chin and guides me forward. Sensation overwhelms me.

  Besides the rhythm, the dancing, the groping, there’s the intoxication. The world drowns my thoughts, like losing myself without the need to do drugs. The room tips a little to the side, but no one falls. We are all writhing and swinging, strobe lights and beat. Thick air weighs on my eyelids. I try to remember why I came to this world just now.

  It’s impossible to think clearly. So I don’t.

  * * *

  The alarm beeps way too early. After a long afternoon, a late night, and only a few hours’ sleep, my body aches with the spent effort of my visit to Jonathan’s-smokin’-hot-dance-club. I roll onto my side and pull the covers up to my chin. Now that I’m back in the real world, I’m feeling all kinds of awful.

  Regret for indulging in Jonathan’s-smokin’-hot-dance-club.

  Regret for yesterday in the hallway.

  Lucky me to awaken with the Kylie incident in my head. What hurts more than anything else is the way she looked at my scar, like it was contagious or something. How could I not have seen she wasn’t the right Kylie?

  Lying in bed is just an invitation for the nightmare to continue, so I drag myself from under the covers and go into my bathroom. While the water warms for a shower, I stare at my scar in the mirror. A pale, faded reminder of what the real world took and will never return.

  The shower feels good, like my layer of awfulness sloughs away and circles the drain. I towel off and throw on a long-sleeved shirt and jeans. When I reach for the sneakers I threw into the closet last night, I rest my hand on the silver shoebox instead. It lies on the floor, a little coffin for a pair of shoes Uncle Joey somehow ended up with and I stole back. My eight-year-old-me shoes. Dried now after their washing in the harbor when I was underwater for God knows how long. Every time I touch that box, I think of the mall, of my mom pressing down on my toes through the sneakers to see if the shoes fit.

  I don’t disturb the grave by opening the lid. I grab my eighteen-year-old-me shoes, tie them on, and head downstairs.

  I find a bottle of water to throw into my backpack with the books I brought home to do no homework last night. Uncle Joey hasn’t eaten the last green apple, so I swipe it on my way out the door for the walk to school.

  The morning is actually kind of beautiful. Mornings in April come earlier as the days lengthen, and there’s a cloud-reflected sunrise firing the sky. It’s a good omen against my hopelessness, and somewhere along the road I decide I’m going only to first and second period in the real world, just long enough to see the real Kylie in class and get whatever’s going to happen over with. Then I’ll finish the day in Kylie-Simms-is-my-girlfriend. Today is relay day at practice, and Kylie and I have finagled a wa
y to be on the same team.

  At my E-Hall locker the door pops open on a gym bag swollen with clothes. My stomach sinks as I realize I skipped yesterday’s track meet in Kylie-Simms-is-my-girlfriend when I fled home. This is not good, even if the meet was in a world I made. Suddenly, seeing the real Kylie in class doesn’t seem as big a deal. I’ll be suspended from today’s practice for sure, and girlfriend Kylie will have to find someone else for her relay team. My penance for indulging yesterday in Jonathan’s-smokin’-hot-dance-club.

  Now I have two unpleasant situations scheduled for today—the real Kylie during second period, and Coach Pereira after school.

  Here is where one might think: If he made Kylie-Simms-is-my-girlfriend, why can’t he make the coach in that world blow off his absence? Answer: It doesn’t work that way. Once I make a world, it runs on its own. I could make a new Kylie-Simms-is-my-girlfriend with everything the same, except with a coach who loves his athletes to skip track meets, but it would get exhausting keeping track of every new world I made just because I messed something up. I don’t make worlds because I can’t take responsibility for my actions. I make them because I’m a sad, pathetic loner. There’s a difference.

  I grab my history book and creative writing notebook and begin the trek to Non-Western History with Ms. Sawyer. It’s an okay class that might be interesting if it weren’t full of noncollege types who never do any work but somehow still pass. (Yes, I took the class because that description fits me.) In Kylie-Simms-is-my-girlfriend, by contrast, I have first period AP Economics with Ms. Palumbo, my favorite class and teacher ever, which I’m barred from in the real world because I’ve failed too many classes due to absences.

  I’m one of the first to get to Non-Western History. Even though we’re seniors, we have assigned seats like we’re in first grade. Mine’s in the front by the door. That means everyone in the class gets the chance to walk by and totally ignore me. I’ve given up trying to catch their eyes on the way in. No one ever says hi.

  Class goes by in a whir of terms on the board, definitions in the notebook, a pop quiz on the reading no one did. As the clock ticks closer to the end bell, I get more and more nervous. What will Kylie do about the incident in the hall yesterday? I don’t know which would be worse, me finally making her radar or me still being gum on the floor of her control room.

  The bell rings. I’m about to find out.

  When I enter the hall, it’s stuffed with kids. A bunch of gossiping girls clogs the flow like a ten-car pileup. Somehow I get by them and through the busy crossroads of ramps and staircases between the original high school building and the addition. As I enter D-Hall, I’m on the lookout for Kylie. I’m maybe a few seconds later than usual, but in a world of bells and regular routes, it’s enough time to get a glimpse of Kylie before class. She’s at the classroom door. She scans the hallway, and her gaze lands on . . . me.

  Incapable of staring back at her, I find an important club notice on the wall to pseudo-read. I slow down as I walk by it, mentally kicking myself for having zero guts. When I’m too far to read any more without stopping, I turn toward Kylie, but she’s disappeared into the depths of creative writing.

  I cross the hall and slide into class. Finding a seat in here is always a challenge because Mr. Eckhart switches up the desk arrangement every day. Today, mercifully, the desks are in formal rows. He must have given a test last period. Kylie has grabbed a seat by the window next to her usual critique partners, Emily Eilson and Zach Odanhu. She’s greeting them, but her eyes catch mine in the instant before she sits. That’s twice now. I choose the desk farthest away from her in the corner by the book closet.

  In Kylie-Simms-is-my-girlfriend I sit with Kylie, Emily, and Zach.

  From here I can see her profile against the backdrop of the courtyard beyond the wall of windows. She thumbs through her notebook and opens it to a page that might be the poem we were supposed to polish for homework last night. Damn. I dig through my backpack for my own draft as the late bell rings. I find my notebook and my page of scribbled words and cross-outs. It’s not a poem for the ages, but if I had just copied it over neatly, I could have handed it in for credit. Mr. Eckhart is closing the door, his signal that class is beginning. I wish I had thought enough ahead to copy the poem over in Non-Western History, but now it’s too late.

  Mr. Eckhart is an older teacher, not about-to-retire older but not fresh out of teaching school either. He still has the energy to rearrange his classroom on a period by period basis, and he turns to us now and says, “Okay, writers. Circle it up.” I groan inwardly, but everyone else hops into action to help Eckhart make a giant circle of desks for the twenty or so people in the room. Because of our relative positions in the rows, Kylie and I end up on opposite sides of the circle. We are stuck for the whole class having each other in direct sight.

  “We’ll start with what we finished last night,” Eckhart says. He points to four pictures still taped to the board. The first is a lighthouse, the second a carousel, the third a plate of spaghetti, the fourth a gravestone. We had to choose one yesterday and write a poem about it in class using a set of figurative language rules. Then we were supposed to clean up the poem however we liked last night. “I’ll give you fifteen minutes to pair up with someone who did not choose the same picture you did. Give feedback, make notes, and we’ll come back together and talk about what you’ve written.”

  If I had known creative writing would involve so much finding of your own partners, I never would’ve taken the class. I usually end up with Kaitlyn Frost, who in the eyes of Pennington High School is an even bigger pathetic loser than me, and her writing is all about faeries and other stuff that third graders think about. Personally I don’t mind her, because I feel we both have a little understanding of loneliness, but I really, really have a hard time finding positive stuff to say about her writing.

  So, as usual, Kaitlyn asks me to partner with her, but she’s written about the lighthouse, same as me, and isn’t allowed to be my partner. She goes off to ask Luis Alves what picture he picked, and suddenly I’m alone. Everyone else is in pairs or threes exchanging poems. Eckhart sees me standing there, waits a few seconds to see what I and the class do, and then clears his throat. He’s always encouraging us to watch out for one another, not simply to fall into the safety of choosing our best friends for critique and forget about the rest of the class. The throat clearing means, Look up, class. Someone’s partnerless. It doesn’t happen often. Last time he cleared his throat was for Kaitlyn. As everyone’s attention focuses on me, I wish I could squeeze my eyes shut and wake up in a world without worlds.

  “Which picture did you pick?” someone asks. I think it’s Luis.

  “The lighthouse,” I say, knowing I won’t be able to work with him because Kaitlyn and her lighthouse have already claimed him. Why didn’t I just write about the spaghetti? Why didn’t I just lie and say I wrote about spaghetti so I could sit down and no one would be staring at me right now?

  Kylie, Emily, and Zach whisper to one another. Then Kylie stands up. “I did the gravestone.”

  Kylie Simms gathers her things to come partner with me.

  Kylie Simms smiles reassuringly at Emily and Zach as she leaves to come partner with me.

  Kylie Simms moves closer to me.

  We sit down in desks that touch each other.

  Her legs, her runner’s legs, are long and beautiful under her short skirt, and all but one sandal-clad foot disappears under the desktop when she sits and crosses her legs. I know those legs but I don’t know them. I know the hands that pass me a poem about a gravestone. They touched me just yesterday morning, but they’ve never touched me at all. I gave Kylie a ring for her seventeenth birthday, but there are no rings on these fingers.

  “Thanks,” I say, both for the poem she has passed me and for rescuing me from total annihilation.

  “Did you finish yours?” she asks, because she sees
that my draft is scribbles.

  “Sort of.” I rip out the poem and hand it to her. She doesn’t say anything, just picks a few fringes off the edge and makes a tiny pile of them in the corner of her desk. If she’d entertained for a second the notion that I might be worth getting to know, I’ve spoiled it by being a complete and utter slob. She glances at her old critique partners, and I know she’d rather be sitting somewhere else.

  Everyone is already reading poems out loud to each other. Eckhart believes in hearing our words out loud. “Do you want me to go first?” Kylie asks.

  “Doesn’t matter.” Why can’t I be friendlier? I can’t believe how much this Kylie resembles my Kylie. Right down to the tropical scent in her hair, something I couldn’t have known when I made my Kylie, because I’ve never been close enough to smell her real hair before today.

  She squints at my scribbles and makes out the title. “The Lighthouse.” She huffs a little air through her nose as if commenting on my lack of title cleverness.

  THE LIGHTHOUSE

  by Jonathan Aubrey

  I see a lighthouse on the shore.

  I’ve never seen it lit before.

  Today, however, it is bright

  With guiding, misty lighthouse light.

  The boats go by it one by one,

  The fisherpeople having fun.

  They leave on time like floating clocks

  But do not dash upon the rocks

  Because they have the lighthouse lit

  They’re safe because they pass by it.

  She pauses to read it again to herself. I’m a little impressed she’s made out all the words through my editing marks. “I like ‘guiding, misty lighthouse light,’” she says, and I recognize the tone as the one I use with Kaitlyn Frost when she writes a unicorn poem.