And maybe I should have felt proud of myself, or at least happy that I’d dodged a bullet, but I actually felt kind of sick.
I hated that having done the right thing was somehow considered wrong.
And I hated that there didn’t seem to be any other way to survive school.
Billy Pratt’s a peacekeeper. I didn’t understand that about him at first—at first I thought he was a total goofball, but underneath all his joking and silliness is a sweet guy who just wants everyone to get along.
His dad, on the other hand, apparently has no problem yelling at people, or calling the cops, because that’s what Billy said happened when Danny was outside their house trying to beat his way in. Billy said Danny took off before the cops or Casey showed up, and then Casey went to find him to try to talk to him.
Trouble is, none of us had heard from Casey since.
“I’ve sent him, like, eight texts,” Billy said when we were hanging around at lunch with Marissa and Holly talking about it. “I wonder what happened.”
“It’d be nice if we could just ask his sister,” I grumbled.
Well, there’s no way Marissa, Holly, or I could do that, but like dowsing rods to water, our noses all turn toward Billy.
“She hates me!” he says, reading our minds.
“Everyone loves you, Billy,” Marissa tells him. “And she’d love you to hate us, so just act like you do.”
He locks eyes with Marissa for a minute, then goes, “Aw, maaaaan,” and takes off.
Holly looks at Marissa, then over her shoulder at Billy, then back to Marissa. “You know what? I think he likes you.”
It takes a second, for Marissa and for me, but when it clicks, it clicks hard.
At least for me.
I blink at Marissa. “I think she’s right!”
“Are you guys nuts? Billy doesn’t like me. Billy’s just nice like that. To everyone.”
Holly and I eye her and shake our heads.
“Oh, yeah?” she says. “Well, since when has he liked me, then?”
First all the things he did on Halloween flash through my mind—the way he’d grabbed her hand, the way he’d walked near her, the way he’d vampired her neck.… And then I think back to all the times Billy has hung out with us—how he’s just been there, kind of waiting in the background. “Wow … maybe for a long time.”
“Shut up,” Marissa says, backhanding me. “Like I wouldn’t have noticed?”
“Not with the way your head’s been in Dannyland.”
All of a sudden Dot comes hurrying up. “You guys! You guys! Guess what?”
I hadn’t seen Dot since Friday afternoon when she’d decided to take her sisters trick-or-treating instead of going with us, so it could have been anything. And since she’s all wide-eyed and out of breath and about to burst at the seams, I don’t waste time guessing. I just say, “What?”
“Heather’s in the bathroom smoking and texting and crying.”
Now, the smoking and texting part was easy to believe.
But crying?
“Does she know you saw her?”
Dot’s head shakes like crazy. “She was in a stall.”
“But you’re sure it’s her?”
Now she nods like crazy.
Holly asks, “Were Tenille and Monet there?”
Shake-shake-shake.
“So how’d you know it was her?” Marissa asks. “Did you hear her talking?”
Shake-shake-shake.
“You recognized her shoes?” I ask.
Shake-shake-shake.
And all of a sudden Marissa, Holly, and I get totally bug-eyed. “You peeked?” we say together.
“Over the divider,” she says with a giggle.
I can’t help laughing. “Payback!” because Heather and her little wannabes do that exact thing to sneer and jeer and intimidate girls who are using the stall for its, you know, intended purpose.
“Heather hiccups when she cries,” Dot whispers all conspiratorially, and then goes into this whole hic-sob-convulsion thing that makes the rest of us just bust up.
So yeah, we were being pretty heartless, but if you knew even a fraction of what Heather’s done to us, you would completely understand why.
It wasn’t until after lunch that I started to get twinges of guilt.
* * *
I have science with Ms. Rothhammer, who’s nice, but very strict, and the good thing is she has Heather’s number. Billy’s also in that class and I’m pretty sure that not-so-deep down Ms. Rothhammer thinks he’s hilarious, but she never lets him hijack lesson time like he does in some classes.
Now, showing up late to Ms. Rothhammer’s class is a bad idea because not only will she mark you tardy, she’ll give you lunchtime detention cleaning the science lab if you do it more than once. So when Heather didn’t slide in at the bell like she normally does, I thought, Tsk-tsk, the Tearful Texter’s gonna get detention.
But then I notice that Billy’s not in class, either, and since he never reported back to us after he set out to find Heather, I start wondering if maybe he found her all sobby-faced and got sucked into some of her woe-is-me drama. And then I start worrying. I mean, Billy’s such a peacemaker and Heather’s such a manipulative drama queen—was she getting him to spill stuff he shouldn’t?
As far as I knew, Casey hadn’t told Billy about me calling the cops on Danny, but I hadn’t talked to Casey since he’d taken off so fast from the graveyard.
Maybe something had changed?
What didn’t I know?
So I’m in the middle of getting the total queasies about everything all over again when Billy walks into the classroom.
“You’re ten minutes late, Mr. Pratt,” Ms. Rothhammer says, interrupting her lecture on the wonders of the Krebs cycle.
“Emergency, sorry,” he says, walking an admit slip up to her. Then he shows her his bandaged arm. “They say I’ll live.” He smiles at her. “I’m sure that’s a big relief to you.”
“Have a seat, Mr. Pratt,” she says. It’s definitely a no-nonsense command, but there’s also a little smile behind it.
“Yes, ma’am!” he says, and goes straight to his desk without even glancing at me.
Now, I could see that the bandages he’d flashed her were covering the scrapes he’d gotten from diving into the rosebushes.
Scrapes that had been scabbed over at lunch.
So I started thinking that he must’ve made them bleed again so he could get bandages and a pass from the office, which on a normal day would have made me stifle a grin. But this wasn’t a normal day, and instead I started to freak out. It had to be something serious for Billy to risk detention from Ms. Rothhammer, and I just knew it had to do with Heather.
I stole looks back at Billy three times, but he didn’t seem to see me. His eyes were glued to the board, but they weren’t really tracking. They were just staring.
By the time the bell finally rang I was a spastic mess and had picked up absolutely nothing about the Krebs cycle.
“Billy!” I called when I got outside.
He turned and waited for me at the bottom of the ramp.
“What happened?” I whispered.
He just shakes his head. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’m worried about Heather. She’s a wreck.”
“Why is she a wreck?”
“Everyone thinks she turned in Danny. People from high school are sending her hate texts.” He frowns. “She says you started it.”
I mutter, “Man, she can dish it but she sure can’t take it.”
He looks at me. “So you did start it?”
“She started it! First thing she said when she saw me this morning was ‘Narc!’ I just turned the tables on her, that’s all. She shouldn’t start fights and then complain when she gets hurt.”
He just shakes his head again and keeps walking. “Why can’t you guys just get along?”
Well, I didn’t think I needed to explain that to him. And it felt like a slap. I mean,
with all the things Heather’s done to me, I can’t give her a little of her own medicine?
So on the one hand I was hurt that he didn’t get that I was just protecting myself, but there was also this little knot in my stomach that I was having trouble ignoring.
I didn’t feel good about what I’d done to Heather.
But why?
She’d started this war. Why did I feel bad about finally firing back?
Billy and I made it over to drama without saying much more to each other. I was really looking forward to talking to Marissa because she’s also in that class, but instead I wound up witnessing this weird little non-conversation between Marissa and Billy while Mr. Chester talked. Instead of a dialogue, it was like a shyalogue, where Marissa would peek over at Billy—who would smile or pull a goofy face—then she’d give a little smile back, blush, and turn away.
So obviously her mind wasn’t on my problems, and when we got put into groups, Billy happened to be in Marissa’s but I was not.
So great. I’m out in the cold with this knot in my stomach, and the more time goes by the worse I feel.
Not about Marissa ignoring me.
About what I’d done to Heather.
And then Billy zips over to me and whispers, “I just got a text from Casey. He wants you to meet him at the mall at five o’clock.”
“Five o’clock? Why five o’clock? And what for?”
He shrugs and gives me a goofy Billy Pratt smile. “Dunno!” Then he zips back to his group.
Well, obviously he’s forgotten all about Heather, but now I’m double knotted because I’m thinking that Casey doesn’t want to meet me at the mall to, you know, meet me at the mall. He wants to meet me at the mall because he found out I started a rumor about his sister and he’s mad at me.
When school finally lets out, I’m dying to talk to Marissa, but she jumps in with, “Billy wants to hang out with me after school. You don’t mind, do you?”
Well, obviously I’m not invited to this little after-school hang, and normally that would be fine. Actually, normally I’d be excited.
Marissa showing interest in someone besides Danny?
Come on, I’d be ecstatic.
But I’m so tied up in knots that I can barely even get out, “That’s fine.”
And since Holly’s working at the Humane Society after school and Dot always gets a ride from her dad, I leave school by myself feeling completely tangled up and nauseous.
And dreading five o’clock.
I wound up at Hudson’s and right away he could tell something was bothering me. “I’m glad you’re here,” he says, guiding me toward the kitchen. “I’ve been a little worried about you since you left here Saturday.”
It had only been two days, but Saturday seemed like a lifetime ago. “Yeah, that was about seeing a dead body and some skulls and a bunch of other death-related stuff. This is worse. This is about Heather.”
He pulls down two glasses and starts filling them with ice. “Back to the critical things in life, huh?”
“More like annoying. And confusing.”
“So what happened?”
“I gave her a little of her own medicine. It was totally in self-defense, too! But she winds up crying in the bathroom and now I feel like I did something wrong. Why should I feel bad? She started it! She always starts it!”
He pours tea on the ice, then cuts us each a piece of homemade cinnamon swirl cake. “Why don’t we start at the beginning, huh?” He hands over my cake and tea. “Is the porch okay?”
“That’d be great.”
Now, I know Hudson can’t fix my school problems, but something about the way he listens always helps. Talking to Hudson is like soaking your feet in a river after hiking all day—it won’t get rid of your blisters, but it sure makes you feel better.
But, wow, did I have a lot of unlacing to do to get to a place where my shoes were off and I could dip my feet in the water—I had to go clear back to Halloween night and the aftermath of the Preacher Man being beat up, and then tell him about spying on Danny Urbanski and all of that.
I did try to stick to the parts that mattered and leave out anything that had to do with the graveyard or the skulls. And even though I started to get sidetracked about seeing the Deli-Mustard Car after calling Officer Borsch, I stopped myself and fast-forwarded to Danny seeing us come down the police station steps.
Through it all Hudson didn’t say a word, but now he stops me with, “Why did you go to the police station if you’d already made that ‘anonymous phone call’ to Officer Borsch?”
I hold on to my forehead and tell him, “We went there because of some skulls, but that’s a whole other story and I’m trying to just stick to the Heather problem.”
He nods, takes a bite of cake, and says, “One thing at a time. Go on.”
So I tell him about picnicking at the graveyard—something that seems to really please him—and then how I’d confessed the truth to Casey, which gets a “Good for you.”
And after I tell him about Casey asking me to not tell Marissa but how Holly already had, and then about how things unfolded at school, I shake my head and finish up with, “So I guess the stuff I said to Heather kinda spread, and now Heather’s getting hate texts and Casey told Billy to have me meet him at the mall at five o’clock.” I look over at him. “Why am I so nervous about meeting Casey? Why do I feel so bad? Why do I feel so guilty?”
He’s quiet for a little while, collecting little crumbs off his plate with the back of his fork. And when he finally turns to look at me, all he says is, “I think you know why.”
“I do?”
He nods. “I don’t blame you for what you did to Heather. But the goal isn’t to become like her … is it?”
Like cool water across hot, angry blisters, there’s my answer.
I shake my head and groan, “Maaaaan,” and look down. And when I look up again, I ask, “So what do I do?”
Hudson takes a deep breath. “Ideally you’d find some way to stop the rumor and clear her, but this may just be a case of having to learn from your mistakes.” He shakes his head a little. “The real tragedy here is that the issue’s been so badly twisted—Danny’s the one who should be on his peers’ chopping block, not the person who reported him.”
“I know, but that’s not how it works. Junior high’s a war zone, Hudson. And high school sounds like it is, too.”
He nods. “I understand that. And that’s why I said before that nobody can blame you for what you did.” He eyes me. “Just remember—you don’t want to become what you hate.”
I let out a heavy sigh, then drink some tea and just sit there, thinking about what I should do. I mean, I can’t exactly announce at school that it was me, not Heather. That would be suicide!
Plus, there’s still a part of me that thinks Heather deserves everything she’s getting.
But I can tell now that’s the part that’s making me a little crazy.
That’s the part tying me in knots.
I start thinking what it must be like to be Heather. She’d always been mean to me. Condescending and catty and just vicious. But why? When did acting that way become her M.O.? It must’ve happened way before she met me, because the day she started harassing me she was already a pro.
So did it start with one little thing and build from there? Did she tell herself she had to be mean in self-defense?
Is that how she turned into the Heather I know?
Hudson shakes me from my thoughts. “You have some time before you have to be at the mall. Feel like telling me about those skulls?”
“Uh … skulls?”
“Mm-hmm,” he says with a little smile. “There was also mention of a corpse? And something about a vampire and a deli-mustard car?”
I shake my head and laugh a little. “Haven’t you heard enough for one day?”
He sips his tea. “I get the feeling we’re just warming up.”
So after a little hemming and hawing I dive in again and tell h
im the skull story from the beginning. And unlike Officer Borsch, he soaks up every word and even asks me for details and to repeat parts. And when I’ve finally got the whole thing out, he smoothes back one of his bushy eyebrows and says, “That’s everything? You’re sure?”
I nod, but then I remember about Ofelia Ortega’s grave and Dusty Mike wishing he had been there on Halloween and all of that. And while I’m talking, I’m noticing that Hudson’s eyebrows are taking a slow stretch up. So much so that by the time I get to the end of it, his eyes are wider than I’ve ever seen them.
“You say the dirt was smooth?” he asks. “Like someone had taken care to make the grave look nice?”
“Yeah! Which didn’t make sense to me. If you’re going to dig up a grave to get at something valuable, you’d just dig like mad, get it, and leave. I don’t know why you’d put the dirt back and smooth it out. It was still really noticeable. And grass doesn’t grow overnight!”
Hudson’s eyebrows have come in for a landing, and his eyes are now twinkling. “What if the person who dug up the grave smoothed it over because they respected the person who’d been buried?”
“Then why would they dig up their grave!”
“Ah,” Hudson says, standing up.
“Where are you going?”
He tosses me a twinkle. “Follow me.”
Hudson’s got the most amazing library I’ve ever seen in a house. It’s floor to ceiling books, and any time I have a question he doesn’t have an answer to he takes me back there and finds an answer.
But this time he didn’t go for a book.
This time he went to his computer.
Hudson types with only his first fingers, but he’s still quick. And before I can ask, What are you looking up, he’s typed in Day of Skulls.
“Day of Skulls?” I ask.
He scans the list of websites that come up. “That’s right.”
“How many days of dead things are there?” I hold my head between my hands and start pacing around. “There’s All Saints’ Day for dead people who have made it to heaven, there’s All Souls’ Day for dead people who haven’t made it to heaven”—I throw my hands in the air—“which is also known as Day of the Dead.… And now we have Day of Skulls?”