“Anything,” he said, laughing. “One word. Hello. Good-bye. Bite me. Anything!”
“Isn’t ‘bite me’ two words?” one of his moron friends shouted out.
The kids laughed. The girl looked pained. She probably would have run off but she was trapped inside the circle.
Nate got to his feet and addressed the crowd, striding back and forth like he was a showman and the girl was part of a demonstration.
“I’ll bet anybody,” Nate announced boldly, “I can get her to talk.”
“Yeah,” some guy yelled. “She’ll tell you to shut up!”
The kids all laughed.
“That would count!” Nate declared. “Who wants to bet?”
“She hasn’t said a word in five years,” one kid called out. “What makes you think you can get her to say something now?”
Nate swelled up his chest and smiled. “I can be very persuasive.”
He spun around and looked down on the poor girl.
She looked as though she wanted to die. She seemed painfully shy…the perfect target for a bully like Nate.
I hate bullies. I believe I’ve made that perfectly clear.
“You got a great deal here, Kayla,” Nate said quietly. “Whatever I make I’ll split with you, seventy-thirty. I know you can talk, right? Or are you some kind of imbecile?”
My blood started to boil. I don’t know who angered me more: Nate for being such a jackwagon, or the kids who thought he was funny.
Nate sat down next to Kayla again and leaned in, sticking his nose close to her ear.
She cowered, looking ready to cry.
“Is that the deal? Are you an idiot?” Nate asked with a snarl. “You could lose me a lot of money. Just say something.”
That did it. Somebody had to stop this fool. I pushed my way through the crowd to get inside the circle, my eyes trained on Nate, ready to grab him by his worn hoodie and pull him away from the girl. At that moment I didn’t care about fixing a disruption. This guy needed a pounding.
“Nate!” came an enraged voice.
I put on the brakes because I thought a teacher had arrived to break up the party. But it wasn’t a teacher. It was another girl. She pushed her way through the crowd with as much purpose as I had, only she got to Nate first.
“Leave her alone!” she commanded furiously.
Nate jumped to his feet to face her.
“Butt out, Murcer,” Nate barked.
The two stood nose to nose. I half expected Nate to take a swing at her. Or the other way around—that’s how angry this girl looked. It seemed like things were going to get real nasty real fast, so the other kids moved away to give them space.
The girl was the same height as Nate. Her short blond hair and preppy plaid skirt and sweater made her look like the last person who would duke it out with a tough guy, but her attitude said otherwise. She was on fire.
“What is wrong with you?” she demanded angrily.
“What’re you gonna do about it?” Nate replied. He was smug, but his cool had been shaken.
There was a long, tense moment while each waited for the other to make a move, when—
“Look out!” someone shouted.
All eyes went upward to see a large pane of glass falling straight toward the bench.
The blond girl reacted first. While everyone stood staring at the lethal blade, she shoved Nate and kept pushing him. Nate hit Kayla, and the three went tumbling, knocking the bench over and falling to the ground…as the huge glass pane hit the cement bench with an explosive crash.
That woke everybody up. Kids screamed in terror and dove away as a wave of broken glass washed over them. I turned and threw my arms up to protect my head but still felt the tiny pinpricks of a dozen little shards hitting my arms and neck as the shattered mass blew outward. The short, sharp sound the glass made when it exploded bounced back from the brick walls, followed by the tinkling of a million bits that hit the pavement where the kids had been standing.
The drama was over in an instant. Everyone stood frozen, probably in shock, while other kids ran up to see what had happened.
“I didn’t do it!” a voice yelled down from above.
Standing inside the window frame where the glass had come from was one of Nate’s goon friends. He peered out of the now empty frame with wide, frightened eyes.
“I swear!” he called down. “I was just walking by.”
Someone pushed past me. It was Kayla. She’d finally gotten up the guts to run away. I guess near decapitation will do that.
The blond girl and Nate sat on the ground, covered in bits of broken glass. Both looked shell-shocked. Nobody else moved. It was as if they were all waiting for somebody to take charge and explain what had just happened.
The school bell rang.
It was exactly what the crowd needed to snap them back into normalcy. They quickly gathered up their books and packs and ran for the school building as they were programmed to do.
Nate and the blond girl finally got to their feet. They still looked shaken. I expected Nate to thank her for saving his life. He didn’t. Instead, he pointed a threatening finger at her.
“Stay away from me, Ainsley, or you’ll be sorry,” he said with such venom that I truly believed he meant it. With one last glare, he took off for the front door of the school.
The girl, Ainsley, gingerly picked bits of glass from her sweater.
This was a girl I wanted to know.
I cautiously approached her.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Sure. It’s just one more thing to go wrong around here.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I heard there’s been a lot of strange stuff going on.”
Teachers started flooding out of the school building and heading for the accident scene. I didn’t want to be there when they arrived, so I walked away and motioned for Ainsley to follow me. Surprisingly, she did.
She stopped picking at glass, focused on me, and said, “I don’t know you.”
“Yeah, I’m, uh, I’m new. First day. My name’s Marcus O’Mara.”
“Ainsley Murcer,” she said, and held out her hand to shake, very businesslike and efficient. “I’m the eighth-grade president.”
“Of course you are,” I said with a chuckle, and instantly regretted it.
She frowned. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly, covering. “You just seem like somebody who would be a class president. I mean, the way you stood up for that girl. Very cool.”
The sound of far-off sirens intruded on our conversation.
“Fire department must be on their way,” I said.
“They’ve been spending a lot of time here,” Ainsley said. “They must be sick of making the trip. Then again, it’s never been a false alarm.”
“I don’t have a schedule yet,” I said. “I’m just kind of checking out classes. Would you mind if I tagged along with you today? I mean, who better to find out about the school from than the class president?”
Ainsley brightened at the idea. I had totally read her right. She was the kind of girl who knew everything about everything and loved to show that knowledge off.
“Sure,” she said with a warm smile. “I should probably give the fire department a statement first.”
“You think of everything, don’t you?”
Ainsley shrugged. “I try.”
“I’ll wait by the door.”
“Okay, you’ve got yourself an ambassador.”
She gave me a satisfied smile and was about to head back to the accident scene, when she stopped and turned to me.
“Seriously, Marcus, with all that’s been going on around here, I’m not so sure it’s a good time for anybody to start at Coppell.”
“I’ll take my chances,” I said.
“Brave guy,” she said with another smile. “I like that.”
She spun on her heel and jogged off.
I backed away, headed for the school entrance. I was proud of
myself for coming up with a cover story to explain why I was there. Not that anybody would notice one extra kid. They had more important things on their minds…like a disaster that nearly killed three students. I’d been at Coppell for only ten minutes and I already sensed that Everett’s instincts were right.
There was a disruption here. I was sure of it.
I had also stumbled on a couple of people who could very well be square in the middle of it. Nate was trouble and Kayla had issues. Were they victims or part of the disruption?
Better still, I had the eighth-grade class president to show me around.
Maybe Everett was right about something else too.
I might be good at this after all.
Ainsley’s first-period class was social studies, and it was definitely a social class.
“Why hasn’t he been expelled?” one kid shouted as soon as Mr. Martin, the teacher, walked in. “The guy’s a menace.”
Another kid shouted, “It’s not just him—it’s his whole crew! You know they’re the ones doing all this stuff.”
“Who exactly are we talking about?” Martin asked innocently.
Most everyone shouted out, “Nate Christmas!”
The class went chaotic with everyone shouting out their opinions. Nobody was defending Nate.
I sat at a desk in the back row, trying to be invisible.
Ainsley was sitting quietly in the first row, looking straight ahead, her hands folded on her desk.
“All right, all right!” Martin called out, his hands raised, trying to quiet the class. “One at a time.”
Martin was a young guy with longish blond hair that he kept sweeping out of his eyes. He wore jeans with a blue shirt, tucked in, and a thin tie. Unlike my social studies teacher at home, Mr. Winser, this guy looked fairly human. He wasn’t getting all bent because the kids in the class were going out of their minds. He had a calm way about him that allowed for their anger to boil over while he still kept things in control.
“Parker,” Martin called out, pointing to a girl in the third row.
“I saw Nate’s friend Logan in the window right after the glass fell,” she said. “He must have pushed it. They planned the whole thing.”
The class chimed in with various shouts of agreement like “Yeah!” and “I saw him too!”
“That’s a pretty serious accusation,” Martin said, trying to sound evenhanded.
A girl in the front row shot to her feet. “I heard Nate was buying lighter fluid and matches at the 7-Eleven. Then the next day, there was a fire in the cafeteria kitchen. You can’t tell me that’s a coincidence.”
Everyone grumbled in agreement.
“Noah,” Martin said as he pointed to a guy near me who was waving his hand in the air, begging to be called on.
“Nate set off those firecrackers under the bleachers at the pep rally,” Noah said. “And he’s got a lot more than that. The guy has, like, an arsenal of explosives. He brags about it all the time. Cherry bombs, M-80s, you name it. That’s why the bleachers fell down.”
“Firecrackers don’t cause bleachers to collapse,” Martin said. “And nobody proved Nate set off the firecrackers.”
“How can you defend him?” Parker shouted in frustration. “It’s getting scary to come to school!”
“I’m defending someone who hasn’t been proven guilty,” Martin said. “Civics 101. Until the investigation plays out, we have to assume Nate is innocent. That’s the way it works in this country.”
Noah said, “Until he’s proven guilty I think he should be thrown out of here. Or locked up. If the teachers don’t do something, maybe us kids should.”
“Yeah!” Parker chimed in. “Before somebody really gets hurt!”
Most kids liked that idea and chimed in with applause and whoops.
Martin held up his hands again to calm the class. “This isn’t the Wild West, people. You’re making an assumption of guilt based on incomplete evidence. Hearsay. Rumor. You’re seeing the facts the way you want to see them, to support your own theories. What about the car that crashed through the window? How could Nate have done that? And when the power went out? Could a kid blow up a transformer?”
Nobody responded.
“What are you suggesting, Mr. Martin?” Ainsley said calmly, speaking for the first time. “Somebody has to be responsible for what’s going on. If it isn’t Nate, then who? Evil spirits?”
That got a couple of nervous chuckles.
Martin smiled patiently and said, “No, there’s no boogeyman at Coppell.”
He was right about that. The boogeyman was trapped in a metal box at the bottom of the Long Island Sound, thank you very much.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Ainsley said ominously.
“All I’m saying is we can’t rush to judgment,” Martin said. “We don’t even know if these events are connected. It could all be a series of unfortunate coincidences. We’ll get to the bottom of it soon enough. We just have to let the process play out.”
“And hope nobody gets hurt in the meantime,” Ainsley said.
That sobering thought left the class speechless.
Martin scanned the room and finally spotted me. “I see a new face in class.”
Busted.
“Who might you be?” Martin asked.
All eyes went to me.
Showtime.
“My name’s Marcus O’Mara. My family just moved here and I think I’ll be going to Coppell. I’m not registered yet, so Ainsley is letting me follow her around to check the school out.”
It was amazing how easily the lies flew out of my mouth. I suppose I should have felt guilty. I didn’t. I was undercover.
“Well, Mr. O’Mara, have you heard much about the string of accidents we’ve had?”
“A little,” I said. Lying again. I knew all about them. Maybe I had a future as an undercover cop. Or a spy. Or a politician.
“Coming from the outside, do you have any theories about what we’re dealing with?” Martin asked.
“Not yet,” I said. “But I’m working on it.”
That got a chuckle out of some of the kids. They had no idea that it was the only totally honest thing I’d said.
“Well, best of luck, Mr. O’Mara. I hope you can solve our dilemma.”
I hoped so too. More than he’d ever know.
Martin spent the rest of the class talking about ancient Rome and the construction of the Colosseum. It was actually kind of fun to be in a classroom and not have to worry about remembering anything the teacher was saying. I took the time to think, and to plan my next move.
The kids blamed Nate Christmas for all the dangerous doings. Ainsley was dead-solid certain it was him. Since she seemed to know everything about everything, I figured I should definitely consider the possibility that this was Nate’s story. The real question was, why? Had he done something that caused the disruption? Or was he a victim?
Or was he just a plain old jerk?
As the class lecture went on, I kept my eye on Ainsley. She sat up straight, paying strict attention to Martin, as if whatever he was saying was the most important thing in the world. She took lots of notes too. I wondered if her parents put the same kind of pressure on her about school as Lu’s parents did.
When class ended I walked with Ainsley through the crowded halls to her next class. Maybe I was imagining things, but I felt serious tension in the air. There wasn’t the normal loud chatter when classes passed. It was like everyone was constantly glancing back over their shoulders, waiting for the next boom to be lowered.
“Why does everybody blame this Nate guy?” I asked Ainsley.
“Because he’s a stupid thug,” she replied with more than a drop of venom. “This is his first year here and he’s already threatened to beat up half the student population. He’s a bad apple and he’s gotten other delinquents to join him. I’m the class president. I wish I could, like, expel him or something. This school was so awesome before he showed up.”
; “What is it you do as president?” I asked.
“Everything. I organize dances, plan fund-raisers, arrange pajama days, map out all our festivals, including the Halloween Fright Night dance and the Spring Fling party. I’m basically in charge of school spirit, which means I run the pep squad and the cheerleaders and arrange for our band to play at events and—”
“Whoa, okay. I get it. When do you sleep?”
“I don’t” was her totally serious answer. “Not much, anyway.”
We passed a row of lockers, where the girl Nate had been harassing that morning was getting her books.
“Hi, Kayla!” Ainsley called to her as we passed by.
Kayla gave her a weak smile and then buried her nose back in her locker.
“What’s her deal?” I asked when we were out of earshot.
“She’s shy,” Ainsley said. “I mean, painfully so. I’ve known her for a couple of years and I’ve never heard her say a single word.”
“Is she, like, special needs or something?” I asked.
“Not that I know of. She’s in all the regular classes. But she doesn’t have any friends. I looked it up once. Her silence has to do with extreme shyness. I’ve tried to get to know her, but it’s hard when she won’t give anything back.”
“And you look out for her,” I said.
“Sometimes, and today I nearly got killed because of it. It’s just another reason for me to hate Nate Christmas.”
I didn’t know if I was any closer to figuring out whether Nate was responsible for the accidents, but he was definitely the most hated guy in school. I had to learn more about him, and I got my chance in Ainsley’s next class, biology. When we walked in, I saw that Kayla was sitting near the back of the room. Seeing her made me laugh to myself. I was already getting to know this school and the kids. Instead of desks, there were tall stools and black-surfaced lab tables with built-in sinks and gas jets. There was no way I could blend into that crowd, so I walked right up to the teacher, a lady named Miss Britton, and gave her the same bogus story about checking out the school before I transferred in.
“Then welcome to Coppell!” she said with a bright smile and a thick Southern accent that sounded more Georgia than Massachusetts. “Sit anywhere you’d like!”