It was at this point that Mr. Walden noticed Mike coming out of his defensive hunch.
“Meducci,” he said flatly. “What’s with you?”
Mr. Walden, I realized, did not know how Mike had spent his weekend. Maybe he didn’t know about the comatose sister, either. How CeeCee had managed to find out these things that even our teachers did not know was always a mystery to me.
“N-nothing,” Mike stammered, looking pastier than ever. There was something weird about his expression, too. I couldn’t put my finger on what, exactly, was wrong with it, but something more than just typical geek embarrassment. “S-sorry, Mr. W-Walden.”
Scott Turner, one of Dopey’s friends, seated a few desks away from me, muttered, “S-sorry, Mr. W-Walden,” in a whispered falsetto, but still audibly enough for him to be heard by everyone in the room—especially by Michael, whose pale face actually got a little bit of color into it as the snickers reached him.
As vice president of the sophomore class, it is my duty to instill discipline in my fellow classmates during student council meetings. But I take my executive responsibilities quite seriously, and tend to correct the behavior of my more rambunctious peers whenever I feel it necessary to do so, not just during assemblies of the student council.
So I leaned over and hissed, “Hey, Scott.”
Scott, still laughing at his own joke, looked over at me. And stopped laughing abruptly.
I’m not exactly sure what I was going to say—it was going to have something to do with Scott’s last date with Kelly Prescott and a pair of tweezers—but Mr. Walden unfortunately beat me to it.
“Turner,” he bellowed. “I want a thousand-word essay on the Battle of Gettysburg on my desk in the morning. Group Eight, be prepared to give your report tomorrow. Class dismissed.”
There is no bell system at the Mission Academy. We change classes on the hour, and are supposed to do so quietly. All of the classroom doors at the Mission Academy open into arched breezeways that look out into a beautiful courtyard containing all these really tall palm trees and this fountain and a statue of the Mission’s founder, Junipero Serra. The Mission, being something like three hundred years old, attracts a lot of tourists, and the courtyard is the highlight of their tour, after the basilica.
The courtyard is actually one of my favorite places to sit and meditate about stuff like…oh, I don’t know: how I’ve had the misfortune to be born a mediator, and not a normal girl, and why I can’t seem to get Jesse to like me, you know, in that special way. The sound of the bubbling fountain, the chirping of the sparrows in the rafters of the breezeway, the buzz of hummingbird wings around the plate-sized hibiscus blossoms, the hushed chatter of the tourists—who feel the grandeur of the place, and lower their voices accordingly—all made the Mission courtyard a restful place to sit and ponder one’s destiny.
It was also, however, a favorite place for novices to stand and wait for innocent students to slip up by talking too loudly between classes.
No novice has ever been created who could keep Gina quiet, however.
“Dude, that was so bogus,” she complained loudly as we walked toward my locker. “What kind of conclusion was that? I am so sure the Chinese are going to come rolling over here in tanks and attack us. How are they going to get here, anyway? By way of Canada?”
I tried not to laugh, but it was hard. Gina was outraged.
“I know that girl is your class president,” she went on, “but talk about dumb blondes…”
CeeCee, who’d been walking beside us, growled, “Watch it.” Not, as I’d thought, because, being an albino, CeeCee is the blondest of blondes, but because a novice was staring daggers at us from the courtyard.
“Oh, good, it’s you,” Gina said when she noticed CeeCee, completely missing her warning glance at the novice, and not lowering her voice a bit. “Simon, CeeCee here says she’s going to the mall after school.”
“My mom’s birthday,” CeeCee explained apologetically. She knows how I feel about malls. Gina, who’d always had something of a selective memory, had apparently forgotten. “Gotta get her some perfume or a book or something.”
“What do you say?” Gina asked me. “You want to go with her? I’ve never been to a real California mall. I want to check it out.”
“You know,” I said as I worked the combination to my locker door, “the Gap sells the same old stuff all over the country.”
“Hello,” Gina said. “Who cares about the Gap? I’m talking about hotties.”
“Oh.” I got rid of my world civ book, and fished out my bio, which I had next. “Sorry. I forgot.”
“That’s the problem with you, Simon,” Gina said, leaning against the locker next to mine. “You don’t think enough about guys.”
I slammed my locker door closed. “I think a lot about guys.”
“No, you don’t.” Gina looked at CeeCee. “Has she even been out with one since she got here?”
“Sure, she has,” CeeCee said. “Bryce Martinson.”
“No,” I said.
CeeCee looked up at me. She was a little shorter than me. “What do you mean, no?”
“Bryce and I never actually went out,” I explained, a little uncomfortably. “You remember, he broke his collarbone—”
“Oh, yeah,” CeeCee said. “In that freak accident with the crucifix. And then he transferred to another school.”
Yeah, because that freak accident hadn’t been an accident at all: the ghost of his dead girlfriend had dropped that crucifix on him, in a totally unfair effort to keep me from going out with him.
Which unfortunately had worked.
Then CeeCee said, brightly, “But you definitely went out with Tad Beaumont. I saw you two together at the Coffee Clutch.”
Gina, excited, asked, “Really? Simon went out with a guy? Describe.”
CeeCee frowned. “Gee,” she said. “It didn’t end up lasting very long, did it, Suze? There was some accident with his uncle, or something, and Tad had to go live with relatives in San Francisco.”
Translation: After I’d stopped Tad’s uncle, a psychotic serial killer, from murdering us both, Tad moved away with his father.
That’s gratitude for you, huh?
“Gosh,” CeeCee said, thoughtfully. “Bad things seem to happen to the guys you go out with, huh, Suze?”
Suddenly feeling a little depressed, I said, “Not all of them,” thinking of Jesse. Then I remembered that Jesse:
(a) was dead, so only I could see him—hardly good boyfriend material—and
(b) had never actually asked me out, so you couldn’t exactly say we were dating.
It was right about then that something whizzed by us so fast, it was only a khaki blur, followed by the faintest trace of slightly familiar-smelling men’s cologne. I looked around and saw that the blur had been Dopey. He was holding Michael Meducci in a headlock while Scott Turner shoved a finger in his face and snarled, “You’re writing that essay for me, Meducci. Got that? A thousand words on Gettysburg by tomorrow morning. And don’t forget to double-space it.”
I don’t know what came over me. Sometimes I am simply seized by impulses over which I have not the slightest control.
But suddenly I’d shoved my books at Gina and stalked over to where my stepbrother stood. A second later I held a pinchful of the short hairs at the back of his neck.
“Let him go,” I said, twisting the tiny hairs hard. This method of torture, I’d discovered recently, was much more effective than my former technique of punching Dopey in the gut. He had, over the past few weeks, greatly built up the muscles in his abdominal wall, undoubtedly as a defense against just this sort of occasion.
The only way he could keep me from grabbing him by the short hairs, however, was to shave his head, and this had apparently not occurred to him.
Dopey, opening his mouth to let out a wail, released Michael right away. Michael staggered away, scurrying to pick up the books he’d dropped.
“Suze,” Dopey cried, “le
t go of me!”
“Yeah,” Scott said. “This doesn’t concern you, Simon.”
“Oh, yes, it does,” I said. “Everything that happens at this school concerns me. Want to know why?”
Dopey already knew the answer. I had drilled it into him on several previous occasions.
“Because you’re the vice president,” he said. “Now let me freakin’ go, or I swear I’ll tell Dad—”
I let him go, but only because Sister Ernestine showed up. The novice had apparently run for her. It’s become official Mission Academy policy to send for backup whenever fights break out between Dopey and me.
“Is there a problem, Miss Simon?”
Sister Ernestine, the vice principal, is a very large woman, who wears an enormous cross between her equally sizeable breasts. She has an uncanny ability to evoke terror wherever she goes, merely by frowning. It is a talent I admire and hope to emulate someday.
“No, Sister,” I said.
Sister Ernestine turned her attention toward Dopey. “Mr. Ackerman? Problem?”
Sullenly, Dopey massaged the back of his neck. “No, Sister,” he said.
“Good,” Sister Ernestine said. “I’m glad the two of you are finally getting along so nicely. Such sibling affection is an inspiration to us all. Now hurry along to class, please.”
I turned and joined CeeCee and Gina, who’d stood watching the whole thing.
“Jesus, Simon,” Gina said with disgust as we headed into the bio lab. “No wonder the guys around here don’t like you.”
Chapter
Five
“Girl,” Gina said. “That is so you.”
CeeCee looked down at the outfit Gina had talked her into purchasing, then had goaded CeeCee into putting on for our inspection.
“I don’t know,” she said, dubiously.
“It’s you,” Gina said, again. “I’m telling you. It’s so you. Tell her, Suze.”
“It’s pretty flicking,” I said truthfully. Gina had the touch. She had turned CeeCee from fashion challenged to fashion plate.
“But you won’t be able to wear it to school,” I couldn’t help pointing out. “It’s too short.” I’d learned the hard way that the Mission Academy’s dress code, while fairly lenient, did not condone miniskirts under any circumstances. And I highly doubted Sister Ernestine would approve of CeeCee’s new, navel-revealing faux-fur-trimmed sweater, either.
“Where am I going to wear it, then?” CeeCee wanted to know.
“Church,” I answered with a shrug.
CeeCee gave me a very sarcastic look. I said, “Oh, all right. Well, you can definitely wear it to the Coffee Clutch. And to parties.”
CeeCee’s gaze, behind the violet lenses of her glasses, was tolerant. “I don’t get invited to parties, Suze,” she reminded me.
“You can always wear it to my house,” Adam offered helpfully. The startled look CeeCee threw him pretty much assured me that however much she’d spent on the outfit—and it had to have cost several months’ allowance, at least—it had been worth it: CeeCee had had a secret crush on Adam McTavish for as long as I’d known her, and probably much longer than that.
“All right, Simon,” Gina said, lowering herself into one of the hard plastic chairs that littered the food court. “What were you up to while I was coordinating Ms. Webb’s spring wardrobe?”
I held up my bag from Music Town. “I bought a CD,” I said lamely.
Gina, appalled, echoed, “A what?”
“A CD.” I hadn’t even wanted to buy one, but sent out into the wilds of the mall with instructions to return with a new purchase, I had panicked, and headed into the first store I saw.
“You know malls give me sensory overload,” I said, by way of explanation.
Gina shook her head at me, her copper curls swaying. “You can’t really get mad at her,” she said to Adam. “She’s just so cute.”
Adam shifted his attention from CeeCee’s sassy new outfit to me. “Yeah,” he said. “She is.” Then his gaze slipped past me, and his eyes widened. “But here come some people I’m not sure will agree.”
I turned my head and saw Sleepy and Dopey sauntering toward us. The mall was like Dopey’s second home, but what Sleepy was doing here, I could not imagine. All of his free time, between school and delivering pizzas—he was saving up for a Camaro—was usually spent surfing. Or sleeping.
Then he slumped down into a chair near Gina’s, and said, in a voice I’d never heard him use before, “Hey, I heard you were here.”
Suddenly all became clear.
“Hey,” I said to CeeCee, who was still gazing rapturously in Adam’s direction. She was trying to figure out, I could tell, just what precisely he’d meant when he’d said she could wear her new outfit to his house. Had he been sexually harassing her—as she clearly hoped—or merely making conversation?
“Yeah?” CeeCee asked. She didn’t even bother to turn her head in my direction.
I grimaced. I could see I was all alone on this one.
“You got your mom’s present yet?” I demanded.
CeeCee said, faintly, “No.”
“Good.” I dropped my CD into her lap. “Hang on to this. I’ll go get her Oprah’s latest pick of the month. How about that?”
“That sounds great,” CeeCee said, still without so much as a glance at me, although she did wave a twenty in the air.
Rolling my eyes, I snatched the bill, then stomped off before I burst a blood vessel from screaming as hard as I could. You’d have screamed, too, if you’d seen what I had as I left the food court, which was Dopey trying desperately to squeeze a chair in between Sleepy and Gina.
I don’t get it. I really don’t. I mean, I know I probably come off as insensitive and maybe even a little weird, what with the mediator thing, but deep down, I really am a caring person. I am very fair-minded and intelligent, and sometimes I’m even funny. And I know I’m not a dog. I mean, I fully blow-dry my hair every morning, and I have been told on more than one occasion (okay, by my mom, but it still counts) that my eyes are like emeralds. So what gives? How come Gina has two guys vying for her attention, while I can’t even get one? I mean, even dead guys don’t seem to like me so much, and I don’t think they have a whole lot of options.
I was still mulling over this in the bookstore as I stood in line for the cashier, the book for CeeCee’s mother in my hands. That was when something brushed my shoulder. I turned around and found myself staring at Michael Meducci.
“Um,” he said. He was holding a book on computer programming. He looked, in the fluorescent lights of the bookstore, pastier than ever. “Hi.” He touched his glasses nervously, as if to assure himself they were still there. “I thought that was you.”
I said, “Hi, Michael,” and moved up a space in the line.
Michael moved up with me. “Oh,” he said. “You know my name.” He sounded pleased.
I didn’t point out that up until that day, I hadn’t. I just said, “Yeah,” and smiled.
Maybe the smile was a mistake. Because Michael stepped a little closer, and gushed, “I just wanted to say thanks. You know. For what you did to your, um, stepbrother today. You know. To make him let me go.”
“Yeah,” I said again. “Well, don’t worry about it.”
“No, I mean it. Nobody has ever done anything like that for me—I mean, before you came to school at the Mission, no one ever stood up to Brad Ackerman. He got away with everything. With murder, practically.”
“Well,” I said. “Not anymore.”
“No,” Michael said with a nervous laugh. “No, not anymore.”
The person ahead of me stepped up to the cashier, and I moved into her place. Michael moved, too, only he went a little too far, and ended up colliding with me. He said, “Oh, I’m sorry,” and backed up.
“That’s okay,” I said. I began to wish, even if it had meant risking a brain hemorrhage, that I’d stayed with Gina.
“Your hair,” Michael said in a soft voice, “smells
really good.”
Oh my God. I thought I was going to have an aneurysm right there in line. Your hair smells really good? Your hair smells really good? Who did he think he was? James Bond? You don’t tell someone their hair smells good. Not in a mall.
Fortunately, the cashier yelled, “Next,” and I hurried up to pay for my purchase, thinking that by the time I turned around again, Michael would be gone.
Wrong. So wrong.
Not only was he still there, but it turned out he already owned the book on computer programming—he was just carrying it around—so he didn’t even have to make a stop at the cashier’s counter…which was where I’d planned on ditching him.
No. Oh, no. Instead, he followed me right out of the store.
Okay, I told myself. The guy’s sister is in a coma. She went to a pool party, and ended up on life support. That’s gotta screw a person up. And what about the car accident? The guy was just in a horrifying car accident. It’s entirely possible that he may have killed four people. Four people! Not on purpose, of course. But four people, dead, while you yourself escaped perfectly unscathed. That and the comatose sister…well, that’s gotta give a guy issues, right?
So cut him a little slack. Be a little nice to him.
The trouble was that I had already been a little nice to him, and look what had happened: he was practically stalking me.
Michael followed me right into Victoria’s Secret, where I’d instinctively headed, thinking no boy would follow a girl into a place where bras were on such prominent display. Boy, was I ever wrong.
“So, what’d you think,” Michael wanted to know as I stood there fingering a cheetah-print number in rayon, “about our group report? Do you agree with your, uh, friend that Kelly’s argument was fatuous?”
Fatuous? What sort of word was that?
A saleslady came up to us before I had a chance to reply. “Hello,” she said, brightly. “Have you noticed our sale table? Buy three pairs of panties, get a fourth pair free.”
I couldn’t believe she’d said the word panties in front of Michael. And I couldn’t believe that Michael just kept standing there smiling! I couldn’t even say the word panties in front of my mother! I whirled around and headed out of the store.