Rosemary jumped back. The girl had not faded into nothingness, as though she were a ghost. A ghost Rosemary could handle, maybe. Instead, she had folded out of existence, growing thinner as she turned until she was a line and then nothing at all, as though she were a piece of paper. Rosemary goggled at the empty space, and she swore it was looking back at her.
The smell of dust was so intense, Rosemary thought her throat would close. She choked.
A hand fell on her shoulder. Rosemary gasped and whirled around.
Behind her was a tall boy with a flop of light brown hair, a lot of freckles, and eyes that looked friendly, or maybe sad. He smiled at her. “Hey!”
She struggled a moment to place him, then remembered him: the new kid in English class, off to one side, neither perched near the front of the class nor hiding in the back. When the rest of the class had laughed at her, he hadn’t joined in. “You’re ...” she began.
The boy grinned ruefully and recited, “Peter. Peter McAllister, the new kid. From Toronto. The school buses are here.” He slung his backpack over his shoulder. Benson was already checking his books out.
She looked back at the aisle. The sense of being watched by empty space returned. She tried to steady her breath.
“What’s wrong?” said Peter. “You see something?”
She took a step back and turned away. “It’s nothing,” she said. It’s nothing, she thought. Don’t act crazy. Leaving Peter behind, she grabbed up her backpack and her winter coat and ran for the door.
The blast of cold air blanched Rosemary’s cheeks, but that was not why she staggered to a stop outside the entrance to Clarksbury Junior High. Across the yard, she could hear the shouts of the children heading towards the school buses, but around her it was too quiet. She could hear the whistle of the wind. The low walls nearby seemed to be giggling.
She judged the distance between herself and the school buses, calculated how long it would take for her to run, then nixed that idea. Never let them see you run.
The door swung open, and Peter stepped out with Benson. Peter gave her a smile as he passed. Rosemary shouldered her backpack, pushed her glasses further up on her nose, focused on the nearest school bus, and strode forward.
For several steps, nothing happened. Then, as she got out into the open, somebody shouted, “Get her!” Kids leapt out of cover, and the air became alive with snowballs. They caught Peter as well as Rosemary. He laughed and scooped up snowballs of his own, returning fire. Then Rosemary yelled as an incoming shot caught her on the ear and sent her glasses flying.
She waved her hands at the blurry white onslaught. “Stop! Stop, you idiots! I’ve lost my glasses!”
The volley stopped. Rosemary clawed snow from her eyes and sank to her knees to paw at the ground. There were chuckles from the crowd. Peter dropped the snowball he was holding. “Hey, are you okay?”
Rosemary couldn’t stop her angry, rasping breaths. She would not cry. “Just help me look!”
“Looking for these?” A shape pressed forward and picked up something off the snow. Rosemary froze. She recognized the voice of Leo Cameron, noted schoolyard bully. Great, she thought. First The Outsiders, then folding people, and now this.
“Give them to me,” she growled.
Leo chuckled. “Now, now, Sage, ask nice!”
“Come on, Leo,” said Benson. “Go easy on her.”
“Yeah, don’t make her crazy like her brother,” shouted someone from the crowd. There was a ripple of laughter.
Rosemary shot up from her hands and knees. Her breathing quickened. Her eyes glistened. Then she let out a yell and charged, arms swinging. Leo ducked back, and she spun herself around and landed heavily in the snow. Leo laughed. “Where’re your manners, Sage? Say please!”
Peter pushed forward and stood chest to chest with Leo, looking down. He stuck out his hand. “Please.”
There was a pause as everyone stood poised, waiting for something to happen. In her blurred vision, Rosemary saw Peter, tall, towering over the bullies, and for a minute she thought of her brother, Theo.
Finally, Leo tossed the glasses to Rosemary. They hit her chest and she caught them. “Go ahead and have your glasses; like I care. C’mon, guys!”
His friends filed after him, followed by the rest of the crowd. Peter stayed close while Rosemary smeared her glasses with her scarf.
“Thanks,” she said, bitterly. Almost as bad as being teased was being rescued from it. Almost. She put her glasses on again.
Peter handed over her fallen hat. “You’ve got a nice left hook.”
Rosemary flushed and looked away. “I lost my temper.”
“Better than just standing there. You’re Rosemary, right? Rosemary Watson?”
Her eyes narrowed. “You know me?”
He shrugged. “I see you get on the bus every day. I live just down the road.”
There was a pause. The two stared at each other. “So ...” Rosemary began.
Then there was the sound of engines. Rosemary whirled and charged across the snow. “Wait! Hey!” But the buses pulled into the street, turned a corner, and were gone. She stumbled to a stop and threw up her hands.
Peter caught up with her, puffing. “I’m sorry! I forgot they were about to leave.”
She sighed. “It’s okay; my fault. Perfect ending to a perfect day. I’ll walk.” She turned to him, nodding curtly. “Thanks for the help. See you Monday.” And she turned away and trudged off.
A moment later, she heard the scuff of snow behind her. “Why do they call you ‘Sage’?”
She froze. “Are you following me?”
“Do you mind?” He had his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched. He smiled at her sheepishly. “It’s a long way, and we live on the same street.”
She considered a moment, then shrugged. “Whatever. Free country.”
They walked through the main street of Clarksbury, passing fish and tackle shops closed for the season and a single, quiet convenience store. The proprietor of Luigi’s Pizzeria and Bait Shop looked up from the scrape of his shovel and waved to them as they passed; Rosemary took no notice. On the road, a single car breezed by.
“So, why do they call you Sage?” asked Peter.
She hunched forward. “My family called me Sage. My brother let it slip. It stuck.”
“Your family calls you Sage?”
“Because I read encyclopedias,” she replied. “It was okay when they did it.”
“‘Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.’ That’s a folk song, isn’t it?”
“How would I know? I don’t sing!”
“Leo probably doesn’t either. He sounds like a cat with a hairball.”
Rosemary snorted.
They neared the edge of town. Their boots squelched on slush as the sidewalk gave way to gravel. The houses receded, and the Niagara Escarpment, a one-hundred-foot rise of rock and trees that surrounded Clarksbury on three sides, drew closer. They turned at a sign pointing to a road that broke off the main highway and ascended the Escarpment. “45th Parallel Road,” it said, with a sign beneath boasting, “Halfway between pole and equator.”
Peter puffed as they trudged up the slope. “Well, not much further, Sage.”
She rounded on him. Her fists clenched. “What did you call me?”