Jocelyne Legault! Why was it so galling to see her, tiny, in her warm-ups and running shoes, her loose athletic top, walking beside Pyke, nestled under his wing—literally—demure and safe-looking and obviously besotted?
Why should Shiels have cared? It should have been a relief that Pyke was not battered and bruised, that the NCA would not, after all, be needed. Who could have anticipated such a reception for a flying beast now enrolled at the school?
Overnight the beast had followers.
Of course, suddenly Pyke was all over Vhub. All over! But when had it happened? When had Pyke and Jocelyne ever had time to get together? Since last night? Really? Twelve hundred and eighty-four students, and now countless conversations about the great running champion and the only boy in the school who could fly. Of course they were together! Hadn’t Pyke been smitten ever since he’d seen her from high above the track—that bouncing blond ponytail, those tireless legs? And hadn’t he cradled her in his arms, and hopped her over to the nurse after his bruising landing?
And wasn’t he different in every way from every other boy? Those muscles. Those wings. His eyes. The things he must’ve seen.
Of course Jocelyne had fallen for him. No other boy could keep up with her. But Pyke—
Pyke had something extra. Everyone felt it. Yesterday Shiels had thought they were all making fun of him. Had she completely misread the situation? Clearly the whole school now pulsed in a new way. Crowds gathered around the door in Mr. Saint-Croix’s math class, and not because of fractional polynomials. Pyke sat in the last chair in the far corner, his little tail tucked under, wings in check, his crest pointing backward like a shark fin. He was not taking notes but nodding his head, clicking his beak like he was paying attention.
Utterly different. Famous already. A star, a celebrity in the school on the day he’d arrived. The real danger was that news could not stay contained. The world was going to beat down the doors of the school to see the beast who clicked his jaws and hung around with a running champion. How to stop that feeding frenzy? How to contain it? How to—
Our business is our business, Shiels posted, hardly thinking of what she was doing. Let’s keep it on the Vhub.
Sheldon reverbed it immediately with his own twist. We know what we know, he sent. Our secret. Let’s let it happen here.
Between them they had more than nine hundred followers in the school. The reverbs started, slowly, then came in more quickly. Someone wrote in: Let’s not tell our parents. Someone echoed: No one else needs to know!
Fifty reverbs, then sixty-five. Then Pyke wrote in. When did he get a Vhub account—just today?
Tezding. Tzting. Hllo u from me.
And the whole thing went crazy.