SO IT WAS THE FIRST DAY at a new school and I didn't know anyone. There's thousands of kids all rushing and pushing and yelling and I had a fever of 102°. I should have been in bed I guess. But my dad said I needed to be in school. I was up all night going from sweats to chills, watching the little orange dial of my clock. 3, 4, 5, 6. And the fever got worse just about when the sun came up.
Burning red, cold September light. I rolled out of my sweat-drenched bed and an hour later I was standing in line for something, it doesn't matter what now. Just a line. A hundred kids, shoving and grumbling.
And me, burning up. The Amazing Fever Girl. Weak, wet, and woozy.
"You into Brain Hammer, too?" a kid asked me. I'd drawn band logos inside one of my notebooks. Kind of secret. The cover was perfectly plain. Not a mark on it. But inside, in bold, hard lettering: Brain Hammer, the Fabulous Rectotem, Breather Hole, Little Black Pills.
No one had ever seen inside before. No one had ever bothered to look, when I was writing in it.
"Yeah," I said. It felt weird to have him peeking at my gallery of band names. But I didn't close the notebook. "Saw them last year at Waterstreet. Put on a good show."
He was skinny, with long black hair and eyes like a night creature's. Big and and shiny and red. Some people have beautiful blue or green eyes, like gemstones. But this kid's eyes were deep red, almost purple. Mine are the exact opposite, kind of washed-out watery brown. "Real good show," he said. "My ears were ringing for a week."
The fever was making everything blurry. The kid kind of shimmered there in front of me, like when you see something through waves of heat. "My name's Relly," he said, almost in a whisper. I had him repeat it.
"Relly?"
"That's right," he said. He didn't exactly smile. In fact, I never saw him smile. But he stayed there with me. And he kept talking.
"I'm Zee."
"What?"
I spelled my name for him. "It was my dad's idea. I think he got it from an old mystery novel. Least, that's what he says."
So we both were into Brain Hammer. And we both were members of the Weird Name Club. If you're a John or a Sarah or a David or an Emily, you just don't know what it's like to have people look at you funny every time you say who you are. "How do you spell that? Does that mean something? That's your full name?"
I was feeling so weak I had to lean against the wall or I'd end up in a heap. "You in Bio this period?" I asked.
"Yeah." He edged in closer and looked at me like he was trying to see through a foggy window. "You look awful," he said.
"Thanks."
"No, I mean you look kind of sick."
"Just the flu. I should be home in bed."
He said some more, but it was all a blur. Names of people I didn't know, words I didn't understand, bands I'd never heard of.
I made it to the end of the day in my fever fog. I didn't remember anything but Relly. Those big eyes staring into me, like he saw something nobody else could see.