Halifax Read online

  * * *

  “Halifax!” Coach Gwynn screamed from the bench. “Keep your eye on the ball!”

  It seemed ridiculous for Farrell to keep his eye on the basketball when Andre and his teammates were making sure he would never get his hands on it. Besides, there was something so much more interesting to look at. Shana Rowen had returned to the gym and had brought the hairy girl back with her. Now, however, the formerly bushy-browed girl had been transformed into a living, breathing, bouncing cheerleader, complete with uniform and pom-poms. She was plucked and pruned to a perfectly coiffed state. She joined the rest of the squad to cheer on Andre as he made the final basket before the buzzer sounded at the half.

  All the players headed for the boy’s locker room through a seemingly endless tunnel of cheerleaders. Farrell brought up the end of the line and searched the crowd for Izzy. He finally caught her eye and they both watched at Shana Rowen pulled yet another girl, a tomboy with a truly unfortunate pageboy haircut, from the stands and led her towards the girl’s locker room.

  Farrell was about to follow Shana when Coach Gwynn grabbed him by the back of his jersey. “Let’s go, Halifax! Half time meeting.”

  “I’m really not feeling that good, Coach,” Farrell told him as he looked over the coach’s shoulder to see Izzy trail Shana out of the gym.

  “I don’t care if you’ve got the plague, Halifax. Get a move on!”

  Farrell waited for the coach to enter the boy’s locker room and then quickly pulled his cell phone out of his gym bag and dialed Rom’s number.

  In the library, Rom’s could hear his cell phone ringing from inside his backpack. He dug into his bag, desperately trying to silence the ringing, and grabbed the phone just in time for the librarian to snatch it out of his hand. For a split second, right before the librarian pressed the end button, Rom could see it was Farrell who had been calling.

  “That was my brother. I really need to call him back,” Rom said as he reached for the phone. “It could be very important.”

  The librarian dropped the phone into her pocket. “You’re in ninth grade. Trust me. Nothing’s important.” She trudged off back to her desk, leaving a worried Rom in her wake.

  * * *

  Izzy followed Shana Rowen and the tomboy into the dimly lit girl’s locker room. It was always an adventure going into an unknown situation. You never knew what you’d encounter or how you would react. A menacing monster could be lurking behind locker number fifteen --- or it could be a pile of dirty towels. Izzy loved to test herself, to see how she reacted to stress, to danger, to surprises. Being that she was still alive and had survived hundreds of these situations, she was bold in her investigations. She was still alive so she must have been good, even great, at what she did. There was always, though, somewhere in the back of her mind, somewhere deep inside, a tiny little doubt. What if it was this time? What if this was the time, after so many times, that what she found behind the locked door or in the dark corner…or hiding behind the lockers…was the thing that finally proved once and for all that she should never have gone in alone?

  Duty and pride and a sense of adventure, though, pushed Izzy forward through the rows of lockers and towards the light by the tiled showers. A voice could be heard. It was very low. A whisper. Almost a hiss. “I know it’s not easy being you,” the voice said. It was Shana Rowen’s voice and was soothing and bullying at the same time, like she was telling someone something mean but in a very nice way.

  “I know it’s not easy being you,” Shana said again. “Not getting invited to the best parties. Or any parties. Not getting to date the most popular guys. Always on the outside looking in. Why would you want that?”

  Izzy held her breath as she slowly looked around the edge of the final locker to see Shana Rowen with the tomboy. The girl was up against the tiled wall of the shower stalls with Shana almost up against her, pinning her to the wall, if not actually with her body then with her body language. Although Shana was smaller than the girl she was easily lording over her, intimidating her and controlling her.

  “Why would any of you want that?” Shana asked as she reached out and felt the girl’s limp hair, twisting the split ends in her fingertips. “Why would you want to be like you when you could be like me?”

  Suddenly Shana reached out and grabbed the girl by the neck. She stared into the girl’s eyes and as she did Shana’s own eyes began to change. They began to turn black. It was like a pool of oil was rising up from her pupils and spreading out, covering first the blue irises and then the white of the eyeballs, filling up until her eyes were nothing but black holes.

  The young girl was so entranced by Shana’s eyes that she didn’t notice as translucent, pulsating tentacles of light began to protrude from the head cheerleader’s body, pushing out from her skin, growing and twisting in the air like the tentacles of a jelly fish floating in a current. The many glowing arms began to wrap around the poor girl and soon found openings in which to invade her body, sneaking into her ears, then slinking across her body and moving past her lips, frozen in fear, and down her throat.

  Izzy watched in amazement at what she was seeing. Her need to study the scene and figure out what she was dealing with had overtaken any natural desire to help. She had been in situations like this before and knew better than to leap into action when you had no idea what you were dealing with. Besides, whatever was happening to the girl was happening quickly.

  Before Izzy could do anything to stop the invasion into the girl’s body, the tomboy began to transform. The cellulose of her clothes rearranged to mimic the uniform of a Lexham cheerleader. The girl’s shorter, blunt haircut grew long and lustrous. Her skin began stretching and her figure went from boyish to voluptuous, perfectly filling out the uniform. Her eyes brightened along with her teeth and a smile spread across her rosy-cheeked face.

  As the long tentacles retracted back into the body of Shana Rowen and her eyes returned to normal, she stood back and admired her craftsmanship. The girl was a tomboy no more. She had turned into a picture perfect, pom-pom waving Lexham cheerleader. A wanna-be Shana Rowen.

  Izzy stood, mouth agape, her eyes wide and her mind racing. She was fascinated and repulsed at the same time. Now, though, she knew enough about what she was dealing with to know she needed to leave and leave fast. She began to back up, trying not to be seen or heard, but only made it a few steps before she was stopped by something. Two imposing cheerleading squad members blocked her way. They grabbed Izzy by the arms and dragged her back out into the open, an offering to Shana Rowen, their (cheer) leader.

  Shana turned towards Izzy and smiled with delight. “Yea! A new recruit!”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Farrell was back on the court and trying to get a handle on what was happening. The many cheerleaders were cheering but their head cheerleader had not returned. Nora was now leading the squad. Farrell wanted to watch Nora but he was preoccupied by an empty seat in the bleachers --- Izzy’s empty seat.

  “Halifax! Let’s go! Move it!” Coach Gwynn yelled, bringing Farrell’s attention back to the game that was being played around him. Farrell shook off his worries for a moment and instantly got back into character. He couldn’t blow his cover just yet. They weren’t finished with this mission. He was still a high school student. He was still a supposed star basketball player.

  With the clock ticking down, a Westminster player broke away from both teams and raced across the court, headed for an easy lay-up at the basket. Farrell, though, was instantly across from him, coming down court at great speed, faster than anyone on his team. He jumped up below the basket, higher than the Westminster player, and bat the ball away, keeping it from going into the hoop. The crowd cheered and Coach Gwynn himself leapt into the air in excitement as Lexham got the rebound and the team headed back towards their basket.

  Farrell started back down court, too, but not before checking the stands once more for Izzy and also checking to see if Nora had seen his heroics. If she had, she didn’t seem
to care. She wasn’t looking at him. She wasn’t paying him any attention at all.

  Someone else, though, was. Andre intentionally tripped Farrell as they both ran down court. Farrell slammed to the floor. Andre stopped just long enough to lord over Farrell. “Enjoying your first game, Halifax?”

  “I didn’t realize I was playing,” Farrell said.

  Andre ran down court and took a pass from a teammate and shot for three points. Farrell looked up at the scoreboard. Lexham led by two points. More importantly, there was still time on the clock and his sister had still not returned to the gym.

  * * *

  “You people are usually scared at this point,” Shana Rowen told Izzy even as Izzy struggled to break free from the manicured-nailed grips of the cheerleaders holding her. “Don’t you know what’s about to happen?”

  “I know what you think is about to happen,” Izzy said as calmly as she could. “But I don’t have any intention of becoming a cheerleader.”

  Shana seemed genuinely puzzled by Izzy’s statement. “But every girl on this planet wants to be a cheerleader,” she told Izzy, trying to convince her, as if Izzy had it all very wrong and just couldn’t see it.

  “Not every girl,” Izzy told her. “Some girls actually want to make the world a better place, not just a peppier place.”

  Shana suddenly grabbed Izzy by the throat. Her eyes turned black again. She was frustrated by this girl and growing angrier by the second. “Aren’t you lucky that I came along to show you the way? You’ll thank me when this is over. You’ll realize that there’s nothing wrong with being like everyone else.”

  The tentacles of light almost exploded out of Shana Rowen. There was no slow, vine-like creeping this time. They came out like spears and instantly penetrated Izzy, burrowing into her eye sockets and wrapping around her body.

  The head cheerleader stood back. She was connected to Izzy by the tentacles, but at enough of a distance to properly admire her handiwork. She waited for the transformation to take place, for this sadly misguided girl in front of her to change into one of them, one of her.

  But nothing happened.

  In fact, Izzy looked a little bored by it all. Like she was waiting for her nails to dry. She simply stared into Shana’s black eyes, betraying nothing.

  A look of fury passed over Shana’s face and the tentacles retreated as quickly as they had appeared, retracting back around Shana’s body, poised in the air, ready to strike again. “Why won’t you be like me?” Shana screamed, shaking with anger.

  Izzy shrugged. “Why would I want to be like you?”

  Enraged, Shana grabbed Izzy by the shoulders and ripped her away from the other cheerleaders. With far more strength than any cheerleader, or even any human could command, Shana literally hauled Izzy up over her head and tossed her across the room, at least twenty feet away. Izzy smashed into the tiles alongside the sinks, putting an Izzy sized crack in the wall.

  Izzy lay motionless, bleeding from her mouth, unconscious at the very least, as Shana turned to the others and let out a very otherworldly scream.

  * * *

  The library door flung open and a figure stood in the doorway, blocking out the light from beyond. It was Mom and Mom was very unhappy. She marched into the room and looked over at Rom. He was sitting alone at his table and looked very sad. Which made Mom very mad.

  “I’m Mrs. Halifax and I believe you’re holding my son here against his will,” Mom said, turning her attention to the startled librarian.

  “Mrs. Halifax,” the librarian said, “your son is here because he has detention.”

  Mom walked over to the librarian’s desk and leaned over the woman, staring her down. She raised her finger and waved it around in front of the woman’s face. “Maybe other people’s sons have detention, but I don’t pay you all a Mercedes worth of money in tuition for my boy to sit in the library!”

  Rom couldn’t help but smile. He began packing up his backpack as Mom continued her tirade.

  “And since I have three kids at this school I’m paying a whole car dealership worth of tuition. I’m probably even paying your salary, lady.” The librarian sunk down in her chair, but there was no escaping the wrath of Mom. “And I know you don’t want to lose your job because I decided to send my kids to another school. One where they don’t have detention --- and one where they don’t take away a child’s freedom of speech!” Mom held her hand out and the librarian quickly gave her Rom’s cell phone.

  “Next time my son comes in here, he better be checking out a book. Got it?” Mom said as the librarian scooted so far down in her chair she fell on the floor. She was tempted to hide under the desk but Mom retreated, sparing the poor woman any more abuse.

  “Let’s go, Rom,” Mom said as she headed for the door.

  Rom slung his backpack over his shoulder and began to follow Mom. He stopped at the librarian’s desk and dropped the phone book on it. He looked down at the floor, at the cowering woman. “You’re Ilyssa Goodman,” he told her. “Did you know there are two hundred and fifty three other Goodman’s in the phone book? But only sixteen Ilyssa’s. Not one Rom, though. Surprisingly.”

  “Come on Rom,” Mom said. “You’ve got to get over to the gym to watch your brother’s basketball game. He’s been trying to call you. I’m going home to make you some cookies.”

  “Peanut butter?” Rom asked. He was savoring the mere thought of them.

  “Whatever my little boy wants,” Mom replied as they both left the library.

  * * *

  The digital clock on the wall in the gym seemed to be moving backwards. At least it seemed that way to Farrell. He had more important things to do than guard some pimply-faced Westminster player or be insulted by Andre, who may have been greater in height than Farrell but was certainly lesser in intelligence. An escaped alien was on the loose and Izzy was missing. Farrell wanted to run away from the court in search of answers but he couldn’t. What if Shana Rowen was simply giving girls makeovers in the locker room and Izzy was standing in line waiting her turn? Farrell couldn’t risk blowing his cover and letting whatever it was that was out there know that he was looking for it. He had to finish the game.

  Farrell already had one foot off the court. Lexham led by two with only a few seconds to go and the ball was in the hands of the worst player on the opposing team. Certainly this game was finally over. The player, the shortest and most pathetic one on the Westminster squad, had not scored a single point the entire game. He seemed lost with the ball and desperate. He panicked and lobbed the ball into the air, haphazardly, and it somehow, by some infuriating whim of the basketball gods, found its way into the hoop and fell in for two points.

  The Westminster students were delirious with happiness. The game was tied! Coach Gwynn immediately called for a time out. He was jumping up and down like he was on fire.

  Farrell was forced to join his teammates in a huddle courtside to listen to their coach give yet another quasi-inspirational speech.

  “Okay, guys, listen up,” Coach Gwynn said. “We’re down by two and we are NOT GOING TO LOSE THIS GAME! Understand? My reputation --- and a substantial amount of money I’ve bet on this game --- is on the line. I want the ball in Andre’s hands. Get the basket. We tie the game. We take ‘em in overtime.”

  Overtime? Farrell was suddenly interested. “Why don’t we try to win?” he asked. “Three points and we go home.”

  “I’m the coach, Halifax,” Coach Gwynn told him. “See? Says it right here on my shirt.” Which it did. Coach Gwynn was embroidered on the right side of his polo shirt in the place where a little polo pony usually resided. The coach poked his hand out, palm down, into the middle of the team huddle and the players piled their hands on top of his. “Go Nimrods!”

  The cheerleaders, all seemingly three million of them, were lined up to cheer on Andre and the Nimrods. Get two points and take us to overtime. Farrell looked at the clock. There were five seconds left. They were five seconds that threatened to turn into f
ive minutes of overtime if Lexham tied the game.

  As a teammate danced around the edge of the court trying to find a way to get the ball in to Andre, Farrell had an easy way out. Foil the shot and Lexham loses, leaving Farrell plenty of time to search for Izzy and save the world. Or at least save the school. Or maybe just save Izzy. In any case, he wouldn’t have to play basketball anymore.

  Nora Evans was watching, though. Pom-poms trembling. She was actually biting her lip and she looked amazing in anticipation. Losing was no longer an option.

  Five seconds…

  Farrell intercepted the inbound pass.

  Four seconds…

  He dribbled around the Westminster player guarding him.

  Three seconds…

  He dribbled around Andre Davies who may as well have been guarding him.

  Two seconds…

  Farrell planted his feet at the edge of the key.

  One second…

  Farrell took his shot. A three point shot. He looked just like Kobe Bryant, only shorter and whiter, as the ball rolled off his fingertips and flew towards the basket as if it were being pulled by some kind of tractor beam or carried by the ghost of Pistol Pete Maravich. The inhabitants of the gym held their collective breath as the basketball fell in the basket. Swoosh! The final buzzer buzzed and the entire gym erupted, a boiling cauldron of joy from one side and despair from the other.

  All the teammates, except Andre, surrounded Farrell, slapping his back, high-fiving him. They were his new best friends. Coach Gwynn threw his clipboard into the air and rushed out on to the court to join his them.

  “God damn it, Halifax!” the coach said furiously. “What was the plan?”

  “The plan was to win, Coach,” Farrell replied calmly in the storm of adulation.

  “Halifax, I think I love you,” Coach Gwynn said as he grabbed Farrell in a giant man-hug, lifting him up off the court.