“Look,” I say. “I don’t know what kind of fly-by-night operation you and Crissa are running here, but—”
“Fly-by-night operation?” He frowns. “We’re not running any kind of operation.”
“Yes, you are,” I say. “A life-ruining operation.”
“I need to explain,” he says. “Crissa’s my ex-girlfriend.”
“I know,” I say. He raises his eyebrows. “I know lots of things about you.”
He frowns. “Like what?”
“Lots of things.” I try to sound mysterious, even though this, of course, is a lie. I hardly know anything about him, except his name and that he used to date Crissa. And that he’s a disgusting, heartless jerk. A disgusting, heartless jerk with nice eyes. And good taste in books. But that is beside the point.
“Well, then you’ll know that I never would have agreed to this if I knew what Crissa was up to.”
“Oh, right,” I say. “Like it was all her idea.” Does this guy think I was born yesterday? Please.
“Why would I want to ruin your life?” he asks. “I don’t even know you.” He shrugs.
“Why would Crissa?” I challenge. I try to look in his eyes, but end up looking down at our feet instead. He’s wearing shiny white sneakers. How does he keep them so clean? I wonder. My basketball shoes are a mess. Then I realize our feet are close to touching, so I pull my gaze away and look out the window behind him.
“I’m not sure,” he says, shrugging again. “Probably because she’s threatened. And the only thing she has on you is this secret. How bad is it, by the way?” He leans in close to me, like we’re sharing something. I move away from him and concentrate on not looking at him.
“How bad’s what?” Still looking out the window.
“The secret.”
“You don’t know the secret?” I finally tear my gaze away from the trees and look at his eyes to see if I can figure out if he’s telling the truth.
“No.” Hmm. No dilated pupils. Seems truthful. Of course, he’s also very conniving, so he could have some pupil-dilation control mastered. “Look, when Crissa found out we were pen pals, she came up with this idea of playing a game with you. She said it would be fun, that you were new and it would be interesting. She made it out like you guys were friends. So I went along with it. I figured it was fine, and besides, I didn’t think it would be fun writing to some random girl, so it gave me something to say.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “And if Crissa says ‘jump’ you just say ‘how high,’ huh?” Again, not the most original thing to say, but, you know, I’m being put on the spot here. “That doesn’t sound like an ex-girlfriend to me.” What does he mean it didn’t sound fun to write to me? My letters are very witty and compelling.
“It’s complicated,” he says, sighing. He pulls his baseball cap off his head and runs his fingers through his brown hair. It’s all messy and mopsy, falling onto his forehead like that day in the mall.
“Not interested,” I say, even though I totally am. “The bottom line is that you went along with whatever she wanted, and that makes you just as bad as her.”
“But that was before I got to know you a little,” he rushes on. “Before I met you at the mall.”
“Oh, right,” I say, crossing my arms. “When you met me at the mall, and then totally LIED about it in your letters. Making me think there was another guy, someone else, letting me write to you about how you should find him and …” I trail off as I realize I told James I wanted to ask Notre Dame Hat to the dance. Well. Obviously he should know that was before I knew it was him. I debate whether or not to clarify.
“As soon as I realized what Crissa was really up to, I knew I had to tell you. So I got my brother to drive me here.” He puts his hat back on his head, and looks me right in the eye.
“How very noble of you,” I say, sniffing. “Like I really believe that.” Disgusting, heartless, lying jerk.
“It’s the truth.”
“Then why did you send me that letter today? The one about Karli?” I demand.
“Because if I hadn’t sent you that letter, Crissa would have known something was up. She’s watching you, Scarlett. She knows what you’re doing, and she wants you out of this school.” His voice sounds ominous, and for a second I want to believe him. But then I remember who I’m dealing with.
“Why should I trust you?” I say. “And besides, who cares what Crissa wants? If you had any kind of backbone, you’d tell her you were going to stop.” A guilty look flashes across his face, and it bolsters me on. “If you ask me, it sounds like you still like her.”
An even guiltier look passes across his face. “Like I said, it’s complicated.”
“It doesn’t sound that complicated to me,” I say, pausing for effect. “In fact, it sounds like maybe you want her back.”
Silence. Aha!
“When she broke up with me this summer, yes, I wanted her back. I thought maybe doing this letter thing would be a good way to accomplish that. It seemed harmless enough.” Well, that’s that. I stand up to go, but he grabs my arm. “But as soon as I realized what she was doing, I didn’t want any part of it,” he says. “I have no feelings left for her, seriously. How could I after realizing she’d do something like this?”
The front door to the dorm opens, and James looks alarmed. Voices float through the hall and into the common room before disappearing down the hall and up the stairs.
“Listen,” he says, leaning in close to me again. “Can we get out of here?”
I look at him incredulously. “Are you serious? Get out of here?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Get out of here. Go to the library or something.”
“Look,” I say, crossing my arms. “If you’re afraid of bumping into Crissa, you have much more of a chance of doing that in the library than you do here. And besides, if you are so intent that this was all her idea, then why are you so worried about seeing her?”
“Because if she knows I’m here warning you, she’ll probably be mad, which means she might tell whatever it is you’re hiding.”
Oh. The sound of a car horn honking comes from outside the window, and James looks at me. “That’s my brother,” he says. “He said a dollar a minute, so it must have been ten minutes already.” He sighs.
“You had to pay him to bring you here?”
“A dollar a minute, plus gas.” The horn comes through the window again, twice this time.
I think about it. If James tells Crissa he’s not going to write me anymore, she might end up getting so mad she’ll blab my secret all over. “Look,” I say. “You keep writing the letters. I’ll decide what to do about it.” And then I get real close to him. So close that our faces are an inch apart. “And if you tell her you came here to warn me, I swear, you will regret it. I don’t care if she’s your ex-girlfriend or not.”
“Don’t worry,” he says. “I won’t.” He tries to move by me toward the door, and we almost bump into each other. I realize again how tall he is. Really tall. Maybe even taller than any boy at my old school. He looks like he wants to say something else, but instead he brushes by me and out the door, and I collapse onto the couch, realizing for the first time how fast my heart is beating.
That night I skip dinner. I sit in my room, reading James’s letters over and over, and trying to figure out what to do.
At around seven, Amber appears in my doorway. “Why weren’t you at dinner?” she asks, jumping on my bed. My Spanish book goes flying off the bed and onto the floor.
“I wasn’t hungry,” I say. “And James McFayden came to see me.”
“James McFayden what?” Amber screeches, her eyes bugging out of her head.
“Shhh!” I say. Crissa’s nowhere to be seen, but there’s no telling when she might pop up.
“What are you going to do?” Amber asks, once I fill her in on the details of the night.
“I’m not sure,” I say. I don’t tell her that right after James left, I went down to the library and kind
of sort of maybe opened one of the windows on the ground floor, so that I could sneak in later if need be. “But I think I’m going to do it.”
“You’re going to sneak into the library?” Amber’s eyes are seriously bugging out of her head now. I’m afraid they might pop out.
“All I’d have to do is figure out a way to sneak in. How does Karli get in?”
“She volunteers there on the weekends shelving books, so she has a key.” Amber replies. Not helpful.
“Okay, then I’ll just wait until after Miss Cardanelli comes around to check us at eleven, then sneak into the library through a window. We could camp out on the chairs in front of the main windows, and see if Karli shows up to meet her boyfriend.” Granted, the thought of spending the night in the dark library is kind of spooky and scary. But I’m sure they must keep some lights on in there somewhere. Plus, I have a hard time believing anyone would catch us. The librarian’s name is Ms. Potter, and she’s seriously about eighty years old. It’s lucky that everyone here is smart enough to figure out how to use the library on their own, because she is not much help at all. She can hardly hear.
“I’m sorry, Scarlett, I just can’t,” she says, biting her lip. “I can’t afford to get into any trouble.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “I understand.” And I do. I mean, I can’t force her to do something that might get her into trouble. This is my problem to deal with.
“And honestly,” she says. “I don’t think you should, either.”
“I have to,” I say simply.
“Scarlett, this thing with your dad—” But I put my hand up to stop her. I know what she’s going to say. That no matter what it is, she doesn’t care, that we’ll be friends. The same stuff Brianna and everyone else said before they laughed behind my back and refused to talk to me. No. I’m not going through that again.
So that night, I stuff a pillow into my backpack, along with my math book, my science book, and my binder full of social studies notes. I add some granola bars and little packages of mini-cookies and a bottle of iced tea. You never know when you’re going to need a midnight snack.
After eleven, we’re supposed to stay in our rooms. We get around this rule by having whispered conferences in the bathroom, or waiting until the teacher on duty does her checks before sneaking into each other’s rooms. So when Miss Cardanelli comes around to check that we’re in our rooms, I smile at her in what I hope is a sleepy way.
“Good night, Scarlett. Good night, Crissa,” she says.
“’Night, Miss Cardanelli,” I say. Her cheeks look flushed and happy. I wonder if it’s because things are going well with her and Mr. Lang.
I make a big show of yawning and telling Crissa that I’m going to go to sleep so that I can be well-rested for tomorrow. She doesn’t look up from her book. Luckily, she turns the light out shortly after, and within seconds, I can hear her breathing softly. Not like it matters if she’s sleeping or not. She knows what I’m going to do.
I tiptoe out the door and down the hall. It’s actually pretty easy to make it out of the building. I get a little nervous when I have to sneak past the door of the Gilbert twins, these two seventh graders who are infamous for staying up all night. They have the door to their room open, and I have to pass by to get to the stairway.
But finally, I’m down in the lobby, and I sneak out the door and run across the street to the library. I turn the knob, but it’s locked. Of course. But the window I opened earlier is ajar, and so I slide through it and into the first floor. Well, onto the first floor. I don’t even want to think about the fact that I just broke the law. Although, is breaking into the library breaking the law if I don’t actually take anything? And is it breaking the law if you’re only going into your school library?
Wow. The library is kind of spooky at night like this. No lights. And the new book shelf looks like a ghost. Or a killer. I decide I need to get to the front of the library pronto. It’s already eleven thirty, and I don’t want to miss Karli. Plus there is a very comfy couch by the front window, and I think if I lie on it, not only is it a central location, but the streetlights should shine in a bit, making it a little less scary. At least I hope it will. Plus that seems like a great place to have a cookie, and these snacks are burning a hole in my backpack.
By the time I get to the front of the library, my eyes are a little bit more adjusted to the darkness, but I’m still having a little trouble seeing. I have to use my hands to move down the stacks of books and maneuver myself over to the couch.
I finally get there, but when I plop down on it, I scream.
SOMEONE IS ON THE COUCH.
And that person screams too.
I’m about to run for the emergency exit, not even caring if I get caught (being expelled from school = much better than getting killed at age thirteen), when I realize the person has stopped screaming, and is calling my name.
“Scarlett, it’s me,” the form says.
“Who?” I say, not turning around completely in case it’s a crazy stalker killer person. I look around for something I can use as a weapon.
“Me,” the person says. And then I realize the voice sounds more like that of a teenage girl than of a scary killer. So I turn around.
“Amber!” I’ve never been so happy to see someone in my life.
“It’s about time,” she says, plopping back down on the couch. “I’ve been waiting for you forever.”
“What time do you think they get here?” Amber asks. It’s a little before midnight, and still no sign of Karli. Actually, I don’t exactly know what Karli looks like (I’ve only seen her a couple of times in the hall, and it was just a rush of blond hair and a giggle—in fact, that’s the only reason I know who she is. Sometimes I hear Crissa say, “Ugh, that Karli Montesorri and her giggle make me want to cut my ears off, it’s sooo annoying.”) But it doesn’t matter if I know exactly what she looks like. As Amber pointed out a few minutes ago, how many people would end up in the library at midnight with their boyfriend? And then I said, well, what if it’s some kind of trick question that Crissa’s testing me with, like, some tenth grader does meet her boyfriend in the library, but it’s not Karli? And then Amber said it was okay, she knew what Karli looked like and to stop obsessing. So I did. Well, sort of.
“I dunno,” I say, taking a bite of granola bar. “But I’m sure probably soon. I mean, how late can it possibly get before they show up?”
“True,” Amber says. We’re both on the same couch, with our feet up, facing each other from different ends. I’m really, really glad she’s here, since it’s kind of spooky in here. Every time we hear even the smallest noise, I jump. What I actually want to do is scream, “Who is it?” and run out of here, but I can’t.
“Hey,” Amber says, leaning forward and breaking off a piece of my granola bar. She pops it in her mouth and chews. “You don’t think they’re going to be making out in here, do you?”
“Of course they’re going to be making out in here,” I say. “Why else would they be meeting here after curfew?”
“That’s disgusting,” Amber says. “What are we going to do while they’re slobbering all over each other?”
“Ewww,” I say. “Do you think they slobber?”
“Yes, I do,” she says. “Although I’ve never been kissed before, so I’m not sure.”
“Me neither,” I say, and for some reason, James’s face pops into my mind. But then I push him out of my head, because when it comes down to it, he is not the cute boy recommending me really good books and not making fun of me for reading romances. He is the horrible, disgusting ex-boyfriend of Crissa and accomplice to a blackmailer. Of course, he didn’t know what she was doing. But still.
“You’re thinking about James, aren’t you?” Amber says, grinning.
“No,” I say. I can feel my face start to get hot. “I don’t think about total jerks.”
“He’s definitely a jerk,” she says. “But he’s really cute, isn’t he?”
“No,?
?? I lie. “There are loads of boys at my old school way cuter than him.”
“I dunno,” Amber says. “It doesn’t seem like—”
But she’s interrupted by the sound of a door opening and a giggle from the other side of the library. Amber looks at me with a panicked look. We grab our stuff and dive behind a rack of nonfiction books on Buddhism.
And just in time, too, because Karli’s voice is moving down the library. “It’s not just that I don’t like my roommate, it’s that I don’t like the things she does,” she’s saying. “Like how she’s always looking for her bathroom cup. And how I can’t really eat microwave popcorn at night because she can’t stand the smell, you know?” She giggles.
“Mmm hmm,” we hear a deeper, male voice say. But it sounds totally uninterested.
“Blake, are you listening?” Karli demands.
“Yes,” Blake says. “You don’t like your roommate because of microwave popcorn.”
“That is not the point,” Karli says. Amber and I cover our mouths to hide our giggles. We’re crouched down, and I accidentally step on Amber’s foot.
“Ow,” she squeaks. Oopsies.
“What was that?” Karli asks. Amber’s eyes get wide and we both hold our breath.
“Nothing,” Blake says. We hear the squeak of the couch as he sits down. “Probably just settling. Look, do you want to get started or what?”
Jeez. That’s romantic. If any guy ever tries to kiss me by saying “Do you want to get started or what?” I will never, ever kiss him. This Blake must be pretty cute for Karli to put up with that kind of treatment. This is exactly the kind of thing my mom warns me about, guys not treating girls the way they deserve to be treated.
“Yes,” Karli says, and we hear the couch squeak again. Probably Karli sitting down next him.
Amber mimes putting her finger down her throat and pretends to gag. It is pretty gross. I wonder if we can sneak out of here now without anyone noticing. Hopefully we can—
“Innocuous,” Karli says. What? What’s innocuous? His kisses? That’s not a very good sign, if she’s calling him an innocuous kisser. But really, what can she expect from a guy who says, “Do you want to get started?”