“Halloween and everything,” Nikki went on, sighing in mock sympathy.
Isobel stooped to gather her parka, hands working fast. But not fast enough.
“Going to covert parties. Lying to your dad. Lying to your friends. Then your loner boyfriend pulls a shocker and goes AWOL. You were officially together, weren’t you? Vernon. Was that his name?”
Isobel shot to her feet, anger flaring inside her.
She shoved her locker door shut with a bang loud enough to grab the attention of half the hall.
Immediately Nikki stopped the scrupulous inspection of her nails. Her eyes, like two gleaming marbles, slid in Isobel’s direction.
“You know his name,” Isobel seethed in a heated whisper, all too aware of the multitude of gazes now aimed in their direction. “At least you should,” she snapped. “It was right there on his shirt tag that night you, Brad, and Alyssa decided it would be fun to trash the place where he worked. Or did you happen to forget that, too?”
Nikki scowled and looked away. Instead of stomping off like Isobel expected her to, she only stared at the floor, her hair falling to shield her face.
Disgusted, Isobel twisted in her locker combination again. She kicked open the door, wadded up the parka, and thrust it inside.
“I’m sorry,” she heard Nikki murmur. “I didn’t mean to . . . it’s just that . . . lately it’s been hard getting your attention. ”
“Like you said, I’ve had a lot on my mind. ”
“I know that,” Nikki went on. “I know you well enough to tell when something’s . . . not right. The only difference now is that you won’t talk about it. Actually, you don’t say much of anything. It’s almost like you’re suddenly . . . somebody else. ”
Isobel sighed, her shoulders dropping as she held open the door to her locker, staring in at the contents, a mixture of mundane items that could have belonged to any given high school girl. “Maybe I am,” she muttered.
“Yeah,” Nikki said, “well, that wouldn’t make you the only one. ” Pushing off from the row of lockers, she paused to add, “Speaking of, I should probably let you know that Brad’s back today. ”
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Isobel turned to regard Nikki with stern surprise.
She had not seen her ex-boyfriend since that night at the rival football game when the Nocs had attacked him on the field in the middle of a play, causing him to sustain a compound fracture to the leg. Isobel could still picture the glinting white bone poking through the flap of skin. The injury, combined with blood loss, had been severe enough to put Brad out of school for two full months.
“Is he . . . okay?” Isobel asked.
It was Nikki’s turn to shrug. “Except that he won’t play anymore. ”
“He quit the team?”
“No,” Nikki said, and uttered her trademark tch of impatience. “I mean he won’t because he can’t. Like, ever again. The doctors told him last week that he’s done. And you would have known that before now if you’d pick up your damn phone once in a while. ”
With that, Nikki spun on her heel and stormed away, leaving Isobel to gape after her.
Brad? Not being able to play football? Ever again?
That would be like someone telling her she was done cheering, that she’d never throw another stunt, that she was fastened to the ground for good.
He had to be devastated.
“Hope you don’t mind that I opted not to interrupt. ”
For the second time that morning, Isobel started. Swinging around, she found Gwen standing at the locker next to hers, twisting in her own combination.
“I figure at this point, the less full of cheer I am the better. But she’s got a point about your phone. And here I’d made up my mind this morning not to say anything about it because of my special place in the cockles of the warden’s heart. But you haven’t been talking to anyone, have you?”
“I’ve just . . . been doing a lot of thinking. ”
Gwen’s face went grim. “What happened?”
“Nothing. That’s just it,” Isobel said, having already made up her mind not to go into either of her most recent encounters with Pinfeathers. Aside from the fact that Gwen didn’t know much about the Nocs, Isobel didn’t really think she wanted to try to put either experience into words. If anything, she wished she could forget they’d ever happened.
“No more dreams?” Gwen asked.
Isobel shook her head. “No. You?”
“Nothing of relevance. ”
Their eyes met and a pregnant pause elapsed, a beat in which both of them seemed to understand that there was something the other wasn’t saying.
Gwen broke the connection first, returning her attention to her locker.
“So,” she said, crouching down and grunting as she worked to unearth a pastel-green binder from beneath a stack of loose papers and ragged spiral-bound notebooks. “I’m guessing Scarlett O’Hara already mentioned your ex’s less-than-graceful reemergence into high school society this morning. ”
“How did you know Brad was back?”
Gwen ceased struggling long enough to shoot Isobel a skeptical “C’mon, it’s me” kind of look. Then, finally wrenching the binder free, she stood and tucked it under her arm. She reached into the top compartment of her locker to scrounge for something, then used one booted foot to smash stray handouts back inside her locker. Along with the sound of crunching paper, Isobel heard a light plastic rustling. When Gwen’s hand reappeared, it held a powdered doughnut hole, which she popped into her mouth.
Isobel watched in appalled fascination while Gwen chewed, wondering if the open package had been in her locker over the entire two-week break.
“Please,” Gwen said, the word sending out a puff of powdered sugar. “I know it all. ” She licked stray bits of the white dust from her lips and fingers. “And this time, it’s not pretty, I’ll tell you that. ”
“You mean you saw him?”
“Hard not to notice someone on crutches. ”
Isobel frowned. The more she heard about Brad’s return, the more she dreaded the prospect of running into him.
“I think you’d better talk to him,” Gwen added. “Find out what happened. Today if you can swing it. ”
Isobel drew in a sharp breath. She hadn’t prepared herself for this. And why would Gwen suggest that she talk to him? What would she say? She wasn’t even sure how much Brad remembered about the whole ordeal, if anything. Then again, there was always the prospect that he remembered everything.
Isobel wasn’t certain which scenario would be worse.
“Oh,” Gwen added. “And before I forget, do you mind if we skip our usual lunchroom date today? Mikey and I are sneaking out to the new pizza place across the street. ” She grabbed one last doughnut hole before slamming the door to her locker closed, then she began to drift away, walking backward. “I’ll make it up to you by picking you up from practice. ”
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“Wait a second. Mikey?” Isobel asked, trying not to blanch outwardly. “Are you still seeing that guy?”
“Eh. It’s an on-off thing. ” She shrugged. “What can I say? He’s got nice hands. ”
Flashing a coy smile, Gwen winked and turned, skirts swishing as she vanished around the corner.
WHEN THE BELL ENDING THIRD period rang, Isobel gathered her things slowly. She took the long route through the halls, using the added time to prepare herself for the most torturous hour of the day.
Mr. Swanson’s English class.
In that room, Varen’s empty desk might as well have been a ghost. One whose hollow, vacant stare never relented.
She knew better than to try and skip the class; instead she trained herself not to look at that part of the room, or if she could help it, even think about the desk being there.
No one ever tried to sit at it. And no one ever commented on it either. It see
med the general consensus was to pretend Varen was out sick. Or maybe she was fooling herself with that thought. Maybe it was more like the room you left untouched out of respect after the death of its occupant.
Isobel tried not to let these thoughts repeat themselves in her head, circling around on a never-ending carousel. Instead she did the only thing she could think of that could occupy her mind.
She paid attention.
It wasn’t always easy, but over the two-month period that Varen had been missing now, she’d gotten better at it.
But it wasn’t so much the threat of distractions or wandering thoughts that made it difficult. Rather, it was Mr. Swanson and the way he looked at her whenever they happened to catch each other’s eye.
The expression “if looks could kill” came to her mind whenever it happened. But Swanson never dealt the accusing dagger-and-knife kind of look that usually went with that saying. It was more of a slow and painful hemlock poisoning kind of kill that came in the form of questioning glances and looks of general concern. There was a sadness reflected in those eyes too, a weighty sorrow glimpsed behind the oval lenses of his spectacles.
If there was one adult she wanted to tell everything to, it was Mr. Swanson. And maybe that was why Isobel found his looks so unbearable. Because she knew they were an invitation. One that he extended time and again, over and over, every day if he could manage to sneak it in.
What happened? those looks seemed to be asking her.
Under that pleading gaze, Isobel felt the plaster-patched cracks in her projected veneer of innocence and ignorance start to open until she began to actually entertain the idea of talking to him.
She often caught herself daydreaming about it, thinking of what she would say and how she would tell him and where she would begin. Whenever she got to that point, though, she forced herself to look down at her paper full of notes. Then, once she’d severed the connection, she told herself to think, drilling herself with the questions she knew he, or anyone, would respond with.
What do you mean he’s in a dreamworld?
Poe? What does he have to do with any of this?
And, worst of all: Don’t you think this is something we need to mention to the police?
Always, that last one became the deciding factor in her decision to remain silent and appear as clueless as everybody else.
Up until today, it had been a good plan.
Near the end of class, however, Mr. Swanson gave them a reading assignment to finish while he went around the room, handing back the pop quiz on The Crucible he’d sprung on them the Friday before break.
Even though Isobel had missed only one of the questions, she found a neon-green Post-it affixed to hers.
Please see me after the bell, it read, the words scrawled in her teacher’s loopy cursive writing.
Wonderful, Isobel thought.
Whether she was up for one or not, it seemed she was in for a Swanson chat after all.
13
Grave Danger
When the bell did ring, Isobel’s first impulse was to pretend she hadn’t seen the note and book it straight out the door. One fatal glimpse in Mr. Swanson’s direction, though, and she knew there would be no slipping past his radar, especially since it seemed to be aimed straight at her.
Like a chess club’s version of a bouncer (complete with sweater-vest and tucked-in necktie), Mr. Swanson stood poised beside the door as everyone filed out. Hands stuffed into the pockets of his pleated khaki pants, he shot several pointed glances her way between quick exchanges with the students now headed for the lunchroom.
Already halfway out of her desk, Isobel gritted her teeth and sank back down again.
She felt a surge of sudden resentment toward him for making her stay like this, for breaking his unspoken promise that he wouldn’t bring up Varen unless she came to him first.
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But maybe he’d begun to sense that that was never going to happen.
Trapped, she waited for the classroom to empty.
To avoid fueling the gossip mill, she did her best to appear as though she was only taking her time in pulling her things together. Tugging her backpack into her lap, she rifled through the front pockets like there was something inside that she just had to find before heading out.
She looked up only when she heard the door click shut.
Staring straight at her, Mr. Swanson wore a blank expression, which Isobel thought must be his stab at a poker face. The fixed, deadpan look gave her the distinct impression that he was pulling a Clint Eastwood, waiting for her to draw first. It was like he hoped that any second now she would freak and launch into a word-vomit session of the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Isobel tried to keep her face as blank as possible as she held up the quiz paper, Post-it side out. “I didn’t cheat,” she said.
Mr. Swanson frowned, his wiry white-and-gray eyebrows drawing in close enough to touch. He pressed his thin lips together, rocking on his heels with his hands still tucked inside his pockets.
“I know you didn’t,” he said. “Actually, this isn’t about the quiz. ”
Shocker, Isobel nearly muttered. Instead she did her best to look perplexed.
“It’s about your project paper on Poe,” he said.
This time, his words did manage to catch her off guard.
Isobel watched him as he went to stand behind his desk. He slid open the top drawer, extracted a small stack of stapled papers, and dropped them onto the desktop. “I’d like you to tell me how much of it you actually wrote. ”
Uh-oh, Isobel thought, realizing that Swanson must have made copies of all the papers before handing back the originals. Of course he had. Knowing him, he probably kept a backlog of every single assignment he’d ever given. He probably had an FBI-style database of every student he’d ever taught too.
Isobel picked up her pen, twisting it around and around, trying to think of an honest yet nonincriminating way to answer his question.
There wasn’t one.
The truth about the gargantuan ten-page essay was that Isobel hadn’t written a single word of it, something Varen had assured her wouldn’t be a problem.
Obviously, among other things, he’d been wrong about that.
But it wasn’t the possible change in her grade that made Isobel nervous so much as the prospect of a call home from a teacher. After the night her father had found her swinging the fireplace poker in the living room, he’d of course drawn the false yet inevitable conclusion that she had smashed the lamp. Even though Isobel had been able to convince her dad that she’d been sleepwalking, she didn’t need another reason for either of her parents to reconsider the Maryland trip. And she certainly didn’t need another instance of her involvement with Varen being brought up, least of all by Mr. Swanson.
Isobel tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Um,” she began.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You don’t have to worry. Last grading period’s grades are locked in. Report cards already went home, remember? Besides, I wouldn’t change the grade even if I could. I’m not doubting that you earned it. That’s not why I’m asking. It’s just that I happened to read over the essay again during the break and . . . well, it made me curious, is all. ”
Over the break? Seriously? Was that what he did in his spare time? Reread old papers when he ran out of pop quizzes to grade? Or had he reread the essay because it had been hers and Varen’s?
Maybe he had thought the same thing about the paper that he seemed to presume about her—that it held some kind of special information.
Isobel sat up in her chair. She cleared her throat. “Everything kind of got down to the wire,” she said.
Mr. Swanson nodded as though she wasn’t telling him anything he hadn’t already concluded for himself. “Mr. Nethers has a very distinct writing style,” he said, “even when he tries to hide it. ” Rounding h
is desk, he folded his arms and perched on the edge of one corner. “And so now I guess it’s only fair,” he went on to say, “that I ask how much of the presentation Varen contributed to. ”
“We worked on it together,” Isobel said. “Whenever we could, that is,” she added. “Sometimes stuff . . . got in the way. ”
A stern look of concern clouded Mr. Swanson’s features. “You know,” he said, “despite what I’m sure the two of you must have thought, I didn’t pair you together on purpose. I really did draw names at random. Though I have to admit, I did get a kick out of seeing the two of you side by side on the day you presented. . . . ” A wistful smile breezed across his face, vanishing as quickly as it appeared. “I take it then that you two got to know each other fairly well. ”
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“Fairly,” Isobel allowed. Her grip on her pen tightened.
“That day,” Mr. Swanson said. “He . . . he seemed a bit strange, don’t you think? Stranger than usual, that is. Kind of out of it. Did you notice?”
Isobel glanced down at her notebook. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, aware that this was Swanson’s not-so-subtle way of looking for an in. And aside from the fact that she couldn’t think of a single response that wouldn’t give him just that, she found herself once again struggling to come up with a comprehensible answer concerning that particular hour of Halloween day.
It was the one big paradox of the entire twenty-four-hour period, a giant piece missing from a fragmented puzzle already riddled with so many holes.
That day Varen had been here, in this very room, present for all to see and yet, supposedly, also fast asleep in the attic of Nobit’s Nook.
“I remember,” Mr. Swanson said, his voice cutting through her thoughts, “that he wouldn’t take off his sunglasses when I asked him. He’s never done that before. Looking back, I should have known right then that there was something the matter. ”
Isobel maintained her silence. She told herself not to say anything, to just nod, unable to trust herself not to give something away.
So many times she had played and replayed the events of Halloween in her head, always starting with the enigma of Varen’s strange dual existence during Mr. Swanson’s class. She could also recall how, after everything was over, even Reynolds hadn’t been able to explain the why or how of what had happened. He’d even seemed shocked when Isobel had brought it up. Or if not shocked, at the very least dismayed.