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“Yo, Enid! You’re not gonna believe the dirt I heard about your new roommate. She eats human flesh. Totally chowed down on that kid she murdered. You better watch your back.”
Enid stepped aside to reveal Wednesday to the foolish boy who had clearly not seen her stand behind her taller roommate, and she simply couldn’t let this occasion go. “Quite the contrary. I actually filet the bodies of my victims, then feed them to my menagerie of pets.”
He was left gaping, and Enid said in a gratingly exaggerated sweet tone, “Ajax, this is my new roommate, Wednesday.”
Ajax stared at her as she turned to face him. “Whoa. You’re in black and white. Like a living Instagram filter.”
“Ignore him. Gorgons spend way too much time getting stoned,” Enid said, clearly uncomfortable, then added, “Excuse me for a minute, I’ll be right back!” all the while shoving Ajax ahead of herself.
Wednesday heard a chuckle from behind her. “Do you think he’d be more or less afraid of you if he knew that you didn’t murder anyone but you put piranhas in a swimming pool instead?”
Wednesday whirled to face the boy who had spoken. He was slouched against the wall next to the closed doors she and Enid had been standing in front of. Tall and lean, he had caramel curls and hazel eyes, his conventionally handsome face still showing his amusement at the exchange he had just witnessed.
At her surprised look, he shrugged and added with a tiny smirk, “Well, I may have done a little digging on you after reading the rumors on Enid’s vlog.”
“And how come you found out about the piranhas, but the author of the ‘number one source of Nevermore gossip’ didn’t?”
“Well for one, she spelled your last name with one d instead of two. And my dad being the Sheriff does have one advantage.” She detected a hint of anger in his voice underneath the casual tone. Bad blood between father and son? Clearly this boy was an outcast, but was his father, too? It would be unusual to find an outcast Sheriff. His mother, then? Intermarriages between normies and outcasts were not unheard of, but still rare. Interesting.
Wednesday filed that thought away for now and raised an eyebrow. “You hacked the police database? Impressive.”
“Don’t give me too much credit. It’s not hacking when you know where he’s written down the username and password.”
Wednesday hummed. “You know who I am, but you haven’t told me your name yet.”
“Tyler. Tyler Galpin.”
She tilted her head as she studied him more closely. He seemed relaxed, but there was a subtle air of danger about him, of power that could be unleashed within a moment’s notice. Students who walked past them took a wide berth around them through the open area with the picnic tables at the center of the quad. At first Wednesday had attributed it to her reputation based on Enid’s vlog, but now she thought maybe it was him. “You don’t belong to one of the main cliques.”
“No. And I’d rather not tell you quite yet what I am, because I actually enjoy having a conversation without the other party reeking of fear for once.” He frowned, studying her in his turn. “Then again, you’re not like anybody else here, either.”
“No. I’m not. And I don’t scare easily.”
There was a pause as they looked at each other, and Tyler seemed to come to a conclusion as he straightened up from his slouch. “Have you ever heard of a Hyde?”
Her eyes widened. “Actually, I have. They’re exceedingly rare. My uncle Fester met one once, during his stay at the Zurich Institute for the Criminally Insane. I am pretty certain that they had a... fling.” She scrunched her nose, then looked him up and down. “So you’re a Hyde? Tyler Galpin, you might just be the only remotely interesting thing at this school.”
His face broke out into a bright grin that took up his whole face, almost making her blink at the transformation. “I could say the same about you, Wednesday Addams.” He sobered when his eyes briefly flicked over her shoulder. “Your roommate is coming back; I better go,” he said wryly. “Will I see you around?”
“Probably.”
“Definitely.”
With a final smirk, Tyler turned away and walked the way she and Enid had come from earlier, just in time to avoid Enid’s scandalized voice demanding to know what she was doing talking to Tyler Galpin. It was easy enough to tune her out.
For the first time since learning that she would be forcibly enrolled at Nevermore Academy, Wednesday thought that maybe she should reconsider her escape plans. After all, this might be the only chance she would ever get to study a Hyde in vivo.