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COIN TOSS
It was an odd little scene, a pocket of stillness in the middle of the cafeteria shuffle and noise: two boys at a corner table, watching a silver coin flip end over end. The girl across from them called it in the air, “Heads” or “Tails,” her voice indicating it was far less interesting than their bug eyes suggested. She’d called it correctly thirteen times in a row. She could’ve called it a hundred more.
“How are you doing this?”
“Magic,” Cassandra Weaver replied. The coin spun. “Tails.”
Aidan Baxter caught it and slapped it down against the back of his hand. He showed it, tails side up; the silver eagle shone under the glare of the fluorescent lights.
One of the boys held his hand out.
“Let me see it. Is it weighted?”
They studied it curiously, turning it in their fingers, scratching the edge, tapping it on the table. They flipped it themselves a couple of times. But it was just a quarter.
“There’s got to be something,” the taller boy muttered. He looked at Cassandra like it might be her. Something that she was doing.
Warmer.
But there was nothing special about her. No mystical tell, no ethereal eyes. Just normal, brown, blinking ones. He looked at her brown hair, hanging down around her shoulders. Too average. Not even a streak, no punk-rock pink or gypsy ribbons. He turned toward Aidan.
Colder.
No one ever bought the magic. They always thought it was a trick, or an angle. Some boring explanation so their world could keep its dimensions and still be explained by the ABCs. By laws and math. That was the way they wanted it. If they learned the truth, they wouldn’t look at her with wonder. They’d be disappointed. Maybe even have her stoned to death.
“Seriously. What’s the trick?”
“Seriously?” She watched the coin spin and called it again. She could tell them she was counting the spins. That it wasn’t much different than scamming a game of poker. They’d believe that. “Seriously, I’m a genuine, bona fide psychic. Always have been.”
He smirked. “Right.”
She glanced at Aidan, and he smiled.
“It’s true,” he said as Cassandra called “Heads” almost before the quarter left his fingertips. “Pretty annoying, actually. I could never cheat on her and get away with it. And don’t get me started on the things she sees before they happen.”
Cassandra stifled a laugh. Mentioning her visions was farther than they usually went. But it wouldn’t matter. The skeptical muscles in the freshman’s face just clenched harder. They were muscles she knew well.
Aidan snatched the coin back. “So. Think you can beat her?”
For a second the boys’ mouths opened and closed like fish and Cassandra thought they might try. Sometimes they did. Once, a girl managed to call it right five times before she missed. Maggie Wegman. Just a petite blond girl who sang in the choir and played volleyball. Cassandra watched her sometimes in the halls, wondering if the five times had been a fluke, or if Maggie might be a little bit psychic too.
Might be nice if she was. We could start a club for freaks. I could be like Professor X.
She smiled to herself, and shook her head when Aidan gave her a weird look.
“Don’t waste your time.” Sam Burress winked at her from across the table, his brow arched beneath his black stocking cap. She hadn’t thought he’d been paying attention. “Nobody beats Cassandra. Half the school’s lost money to these two.” He gestured between her and Aidan with a carrot stick before biting through it. “Better just pay up. Get your friends to play and she’ll give you a cut.”
The boys opened their wallets and forked over ten dollars apiece.
“This isn’t hard-earned allowance money or anything, right?” Cassandra asked as she took it.
“Nah,” said one of the boys with a shrug. He had a sweet face and a mop of brown hair. “It’s a really cool trick.”
“Thanks. I stayed up for three days watching Criss Angel to figure out how to do it.”
His face lit up, relieved by the explanation. “I knew I saw this somewhere.” He picked up his plastic lunch tray and nudged his friend to leave, back to their own table. Before he left, he winked at her. No hard feelings, and now when they passed each other in the hall, they’d nod.
“Why’d you say that?” Aidan asked after they’d gone.
Cassandra shrugged. To make them feel better maybe. Or maybe just to get the wink. Some goodwill instead of wary glances later on.
Aidan shook his head.
“Your showmanship is slipping. Do I need to get you a crystal ball and a bunch of gold jewelry?” He slid closer to her on the bench, blue eyes dark and devilish, then picked up her hand and kissed it. “They’re going to start thinking it’s me. That I’ve got a trick to tossing it. Maybe you should breathe heavy, or roll your eyes back in your head.”
Cassandra snorted. “What am I? Some guy at a carnival?” She shoved him with her shoulder. “You really love this about me, don’t you?”
“I really do.” He kissed her temple, like that was where it came from. “Amongst other things.” He turned away to take a bite of bland lunchroom burrito and to scoop the cherries out of his fruit cup into Cassandra’s. The hood of his gray sweatshirt was over his head, covering his golden hair just like it always was at school unless a teacher made him take it down for class. He looked like a street urchin, sitting there with his knee tucked up, scarfing his food.
But a good-looking street urchin.
Cassandra reached to touch his cheek.
“No PDAs while I’m eating.” Andie Legendre swung her leg over the bench opposite, disrupting Sam and the rest of the table. They clucked and rustled like birds disturbed on the roost as they moved down. “You’ll appreciate that rule when I have a disgusting boyfriend of my own.”
“Yeah, we will,” Aidan said, too enthusiastically for Andie’s taste if her expression was anything to go by. “Besides, when are you ever going to get a boyfriend?”
“Whenever I find one who’s more manly than I am.” She threw a carrot at him.
“So never, then.”
Cassandra punched Aidan lightly in the shoulder, but he and Andie both laughed. It wasn’t exactly untrue. Andie had been named cocaptain of the varsity girls’ hockey team that fall, even though she was still a sophomore. And she was taller than most boys. And stronger.
“Trade you?” Andie scooped Cassandra’s burrito off her tray and deftly swapped it for a tri-cut potato. Half the burrito disappeared in one bite.
“Tuck your hair back.” Cassandra reached forward and slid Andie’s black hair behind her ears. “You’re going to eat it otherwise.”
Andie snorted. “So what? It’s clean. You guys been scamming freshmen again?”
“How’d you know? Are you psychic now too?”
“Yeah. I used my magical ability to see you from the lunch line.”
Cassandra’s eyes drifted through the cafeteria. It was always so loud. Pervasively loud. A constant, multitone buzzing interspersed with the clack and clang of trays and silverware and chair legs dragged against the floor. At least fifty conversations going on at once, and