“Everyone line up in front of the limo!” Marjorie shouts, holding up an expensive-looking camera with a long lens.
“She spent six months working as a photographer’s assistant,” I explain to my friends. But the Freakshow doesn’t need an explanation.
“Got it!” Marjorie hugs every single one of us, and we get into the limo. Our driver, Earl, is friendly, but not too chatty. I have to say, the limo is really cool inside. It has a TV and a mini fridge and huge seats that are as comfortable as the ones in Mr. Tool’s office.
“Earl, is it okay if I open the sunroof?” I ask.
“Everybody does,” he says, and the roof opens with a low hum.
We pull up to the Holiday Inn and head to the room where our school has set up the Back to the Millennium Prom. Well, that’s the official name.
Unofficially, though, everyone calls it the Hugs. Would we have come together without the Scream Out? I don’t know. But I do know one thing: The Hugs is very emotional. Except for the fistfight between Jacob Answar and Bobby Dupree, it’s nothing but love all around.
The Nations have finally come together.
And, after it’s all over, my friends and I gather at our table.
Brainzilla seems almost hypnotized by the disco ball. “This has been really amazing,” she murmurs.
Tebow gives me a shy smile. He had asked me to be his date to the prom, but we decided that it would be better if the whole Freakshow went as friends. I’m really glad we did it that way.
“I’m kind of starting to like these people,” Zitsy announces, draining his punch. “Man, this stuff is gooooooood.” He stands up. “I love you guys!” he shouts.
Everyone ignores him.
“That’s enough punch for you.” Eggy takes his glass.
Zitsy turns to her. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Zitsy,” she says. He grabs her in a sudden hug. Eggy is surprised, but she just laughs and hugs him back. Then Flatso joins the hug. Then Brainzilla and Tebow. I’m the last… but that’s just because I want to wrap them all in my arms.
I just know we’ll be friends for the rest of our lives. No matter how long that is.
Chapter 72
TALKING TO MRS. MORRIS
I was the last to get picked up, and I’m the last one left in the limo on our way home.
“Hey, Earl?” I say as we head down Whittaker Avenue. “Would it be okay if we make an extra stop?”
“Fee’s paid for eight hours,” Earl says over his shoulder. “It has only been six. I’ll stop any place you want..”
So I give him the directions. I know it’s late, but there’s someone I really want to visit.
“Marjorie’s my housemate now. We’re actually a really good match. I can see why you were proud of her. She’s got a lot of amazing talents. She made me this dress. Can you believe that?” I talk to Mrs. Morris for a while—probably more that night than I ever did in real life. We were used to comfortable silence. But there are a few things I want her to know. Things I want to say out loud.
“School is a lot better. Either my teachers are getting nicer or else I’m getting used to them. And Tebow—well, you always said he was a nice boy. He is. But I still miss you. I love you, Mom. I hope you don’t mind it if I call you that. But that’s who you were to me. Who you are. And who you’ll always be.”
Chapter 73
WINNING
Ding-dong.
It’s Sunday, two days after the end of school. I have no idea who could be dropping by at nine in the morning, but I figure it’s probably not an ax murderer, so I put down my diary and shout, “I’ll get it!”
That wasn’t really necessary, since Marjorie is still asleep and Morris the Dog is already barking madly. I pull a linty treat from my pocket and toss it to him. I wait until he’s trotting happily toward the couch before I pull open the door.
It takes me a minute to even realize who it is. Winnie Quinn is wearing jeans, which make him look like the teenager he is.
“H-h-hi,” I stammer. I’m too shocked to be very coherent.
“Hi, Kooks,” he says.
It hits me that I am still in my pajamas and that my hair is very likely doing an impersonation of a bird’s nest right now. But I’m pretty sure I can’t close the door and try this over again, so we stare at each other a moment. Finally, I think of something to say. “Do you want to come in?”
“Actually, I can’t stay long. I just wanted to let you know that I’m not coming back to North Plains High School next year. I got a research job at Portland State, so I’m going to be working over there.”
“Uh—congratulations.”
He nods. “I’m pretty excited about it. Anyway, I’m not going to be your teacher anymore. I’m not going to be a teacher at all.”
I’m not sure how to respond. Too bad? You were good? It’s a loss to the profession? In the end, what comes out of my mouth is “I’ll miss you.”
Winnie turns pink. “Well… I, uh—I wondered if you might want to go to the movies sometime. With me.” He laughs like he’s embarrassed.
I admit it. I’m floored. “You want to take me to the movies?”
He hesitates, and I realize I might have totally read this wrong. It’s Tebow all over again. He just wants to be friends, you nutty Cuckoo—
“Yes. I want to take you to the movies. Sorry. I’m not very good at this. It’s just that… you’re really beautiful, Margaret.”
“You’re really beautiful, too,” I say finally. I have no idea where that came from. Stop talking! I command myself, which does not work at all, because I immediately add, “Would this be a date?”
“Um…” Winnie turns bright pink.
“Scratch that,” I say quickly. “Forget I said it. We’ll figure it out later.”
He looks slightly—only slightly—relieved, but still embarrassed. Which is how I’m feeling, too. Why does this stuff always have to be so awkward?
My hand is holding open the door, and Winnie puts his fingers over mine. Very gently. His hand is warm. “Will you call me?”
“Yes,” I promise.
“Good.” And then, after giving me a slip of paper with his number scrawled on it, he walks away. I watch his retreating form, wondering if it was all a dream. And I’m struck by the idea that I may really, truly fall in love with Winnie Quinn in the actual world, not just in my mind.
Chapter 74
TEBOW’S PREFERRED ENDING
As you may have noticed, I’m into alternate endings. Here’s one for Tebow.
Chapter 75
ZITSY’S ENDING
Chapter 76
BRAINZILLA, EGGY, AND FLATSO’S ENDING
Chapter 77
BYE
And finally, finally, here’s my alternate ending for the Twilight series.
Apologies to Ms. Meyer.
What do you think?
And for you, you don’t get off so easily. I love writing in this diary—to you. And I don’t really like endings. They always seem so final.
Besides, I’ll have to tell you about what happens with Winnie.
You’ll probably want to meet my mom… when she shows up. We’ll both want to hear her seamy side of the story, am I right?
I’ll have to give you the update on Tebow.
And you’ll need to know everything the Freakshow gets into. Thrills and chills, tears and fears, chuckles and gerfuckles. (That’s Brainzilla’s word. Not sure if it’s obscene or not, but this is my diary, so I’m leaving it in.)
Plus, I have this incredible new alternate beginning for Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
So, good-bye.
For now.
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BOOKS BY JAMES PATTERSON FOR YOUNG ADULT READERS
The Witch & Wizard Novels
Witch & Wizard (with Gabrielle Charbonnet)
The Gift (with Ned Rust)
The Fire (with Jill Dembowski)
The Kiss (with Jill Dembowski)
The Maximum Ride Novels
The Angel Experiment
School’s Out—Forever
Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports
The Final Warning
MAX
FANG
ANGEL
Nevermore
The Confessions Novels
Confessions of a Murder Suspect (with Maxine Paetro)
Confessions: The Private School Murders (with Maxine Paetro)
Nonfiction
Med Head (with Hal Friedman)
Illustrated Novels
Maximum Ride: The Manga, Vol. 1–6 (with NaRae Lee)
Witch & Wizard: The Manga, Vol. 1–3 (with Svetlana Chmakova)
For previews of upcoming books in these series and other information, visit confessionsofamurdersuspect.com, maximumride.com, and witchandwizard.com.
For more information about the author, visit jamespatterson.com.
1
I have some really bad secrets to share with someone, and it might as well be you—a stranger, a reader of books, but most of all, a person who can’t hurt me. So here goes nothing, or maybe everything. I’m not sure if I can even tell the difference anymore.
The night my parents died—after they’d been carried out in slick black body bags through the service elevator—my brother Matthew shouted at the top of his powerful lungs, “My parents were vile, but they didn’t deserve to be taken out with the trash!”
He was right about the last part—and, as things turned out, the first part as well.
But I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I? Please forgive me.… I do that a lot.
I’d been asleep downstairs, directly under my parents’ bedroom, when it happened. So I never heard a thing—no frantic thumping, no terrified shouting, no fracas at all. I woke up to the scream of sirens speeding up Central Park West, maybe one of the most common sounds in New York City.
But that night it was different.
The sirens stopped right downstairs. That was what caused me to wake up with a hundred-miles-an-hour heartbeat. Was the building on fire? Did some old neighbor have a stroke?
I threw off my double layer of blankets, went to my window, and looked down to the street, nine dizzying floors below. I saw three police cruisers and what could have been an unmarked police car parked on Seventysecond Street, right at the front gates of our apartment building, the exclusive and infamous Dakota.
A moment later our intercom buzzed, a jarring blatblat that punched right through my flesh and bones.
Why was the doorman paging us? This was crazy.
My bedroom was the one closest to the front door, so I bolted through the living room, hooked a right at the sharks in the aquarium coffee table, and passed between Robert and his nonstop TV.
When I reached the foyer, I stabbed at the intercom button to stop the irritating blare before it woke up the whole house.
I spoke in a loud whisper to the doorman through the speaker: “Sal? What’s happening?”
“Miss Tandy? Two policemen are on the way up to your apartment right now. I couldn’t stop them. They got a nine-one-one call. It’s an emergency. That’s what they said.”
“There’s been a mistake, Sal. Everyone is asleep here. It’s after midnight. How could you let them up?”
Before Sal could answer, the doorbell rang, and then fists pounded the door. A harsh masculine voice called out, “This is the police.”
I made sure the chain was in place and then opened the door—but just a crack.
I peered out through the opening and saw two men in the hallway. The older one was as big as a bear but kind of soft-looking and spongy. The younger one was wiry and had a sharp, expressionless face, something like a hatchet blade, or… no, a hatchet blade is exactly right.
The younger one flashed his badge and said, “Sergeant Capricorn Caputo and Detective Ryan Hayes, NYPD. Please open the door.”
Capricorn Caputo? I thought. Seriously? “You’ve got the wrong apartment,” I said. “No one here called the police.”
“Open the door, miss. And I mean right now.”
“I’ll get my parents,” I said through the crack. I had no idea that my parents were dead and that we would be the only serious suspects in a double homicide. I was in my last moment of innocence.
But who am I kidding? No one in the Angel family was ever innocent.
2
“Open up, or my partner will kick down the door!” Hatchet Face called out.
It is no exaggeration to say that my whole family was about to get a wake-up call from hell. But all I was thinking at that particular moment was that the police could not kick down the door. This was the Dakota. We could get evicted for allowing someone to disturb the peace.
I unlatched the chain and swung the door open. I was wearing pajamas, of course; chick-yellow ones with dinosaurs chasing butterflies. Not exactly what I would have chosen for a meeting with the police.
Detective Hayes, the bearish one, said, “What’s your name?”
“Tandy Angel.”
“Are you the daughter of Malcolm and Maud Angel?”
“I am. Can you please tell me why you’re here?”
“Tandy is your real name?” he said, ignoring my question.
“I’m called Tandy. Please wait here. I’ll get my parents to talk to you.”
“We’ll go with you,” said Sergeant Caputo.
Caputo’s grim expression told me that this was not a request. I turned on lights as we headed toward my parents’ bedroom suite.
I was climbing the circular stairwell, thinking that my parents were going to kill me for bringing these men upstairs, when suddenly both cops pushed rudely past me. By the time I had reached my parents’ room, the overhead light was on and the cops were bending over my parents’ bed.
Even with Caputo and Hayes in the way, I could see that my mother and father looked all wrong. Their sheets and blankets were on the floor, and their nightclothes were bunched under their arms, as if they’d tried to take them off. My father’s arm looked like it had been twisted out of its socket. My mother was lying facedown across my father’s body, and her tongue was sticking out of her mouth. It had turned black.
I didn’t need a coroner to tell me that they were dead. I knew it just moments after I saw them. Diagnosis certain.
I shrieked and ran toward them, but Hayes stopped me cold. He kept me out of the room, putting his big paws on my shoulders and forcibly walking me bac
kward out to the hallway.
“I’m sorry to do this,” he said, then shut the bedroom door in my face.
I didn’t try to open it. I just stood there. Motionless. Almost not breathing.
So, you might be wondering why I wasn’t bawling, screeching, or passing out from shock and horror. Or why I wasn’t running to the bathroom to vomit or curling up in the fetal position, hugging my knees and sobbing. Or doing any of the things that a teenage girl who’s just seen her murdered parents’ bodies ought to do.
The answer is complicated, but here’s the simplest way to say it: I’m not a whole lot like most girls. At least, not from what I can tell. For me, having a meltdown was seriously out of the question.
From the time I was two, when I first started speaking in paragraphs that began with topic sentences, Malcolm and Maud had told me that I was exceptionally smart. Later, they told me that I was analytical and focused, and that my detachment from watery emotion was a superb trait. They said that if I nurtured these qualities, I would achieve or even exceed my extraordinary potential, and this wasn’t just a good thing, but a great thing. It was the only thing that mattered, in fact.
It was a challenge, and I had accepted it.
That’s why I was more prepared for this catastrophe than most kids my age would be, or maybe any kids my age.