Rey slammed his locker shut and began to put the note in his backpack but stopped. Jason Masago was approaching. Rey readied himself to be pushed into a locker as Jason looked down at the note in Rey’s hand. Jason was an enemy of Rey’s for the simple reason that he was friends with Huxley. But he also had a too cool, too arrogant attitude that Rey had never liked. Rey tried not to show his nerves which were jumping in his belly telling him to take a run.
But Jason surprised Rey. He leaned against the locker next to him and looked around. “Keep it to yourself, but I wanted to let you know. Huxley is leading people to the house with the turret and the three lemon trees after school.”
Rey swallowed, but said nothing.
“Peter Laft says that everyone knows even if they add an anti-depressant they won’t get rid of the bitterness. Peter and I are on your side. Everyone just wants the money. So what are you going to do?”
Rey put the note in his pocket. He opened his mouth but Jason interrupted.
“You know what a ‘yo yo’ is?”
Rey shook his head.
“It’s someone who has a condition marked by fluctuations from one extreme to another. Huxley says Inez told him that’s what Alexa calls us.” He put his hand out for a handshake. Rey slapped his palm and they pulled on each other’s fingertips. “Good luck, all right?”
Rey mumbled to himself, “Great. Now we’re friends.” He wondered if Jason heard him and then the loudspeaker above his head began cackling. For the first time, he thought of the seniors on the second floor listening. They had all heard Der’s announcement about the Avocadites, and Claudette Laurie’s about the fence. He thought of Tristan and Roach.
“Will Rey Naresh and Christy Lane please report to the main office?” Miss Shumana said. Rey searched his mind for a game plan, a way of handling Miss Shumana, but none came to mind. Nor could he guess what she was going to say. He let out a shaking sigh, and made his way upstairs.
A few minutes later, Christy walked towards him as he stood in front of the office doors. “I wonder what this could be about,” she said wryly. She began to put her hair into a pony-tail.
Rey opened the door for her.
“We’re here to see Miss Shumana,” Christy said to one of the secretaries.
“Is she expecting you?”
“We’re Rey Naresh and Christy Lane,” Christy said.
“You can go on in,” the secretary said.
Miss Shumana was staring straight ahead at the two chairs across from her desk. As they walked in her stone-faced expression didn’t budge. Then Miss Shumana came to life. “I have to say I’m sorry to be seeing the two of you again.” She got up and closed the door, then sat down again. She pulled the Nadine’s Puppies Newsletter from her desk drawer and held it up for them to see. “Have you seen this newsletter before?”
Christy and Rey both exchanged a glance, leaving Miss Shumana to raise her eyebrows. “Yes,” Christy said.
Miss Shumana put the newsletter on her desk. “How much of this article is true?”
“Father Muncie made up the rumor,” Rey said, thinking it best to show some good faith. “He did it because he wants to do something about how messed up Huxley is. Viola told me she did ask Huxley, Der, and Joe to beat her. But I don’t think it’s true.”
“But they didn’t beat her,” Miss Shumana led. “Or her father did?”
Rey was about to speak but Christy said, “We don’t know.”
A glimmer of a smile on Miss Shumana lips meant they’d just planted their tombstone. “We know that you distributed this newsletter to the ninth grade. It constitutes a serious offense seeing that it is pornography.”
“We didn’t distribute it,” Rey said.
“We know you distributed it.”
“They’ve been distributing it for over a year,” Christy said. “Why would we be the ones who are distributing this one issue?”
“Huxley told us he didn’t distribute it.”
“That doesn’t mean we did.”
Rey thought anyone with common sense could tell Christy was telling the truth. Miss Shumana must have had another agenda.
“Then who did?” She asked.
The answer was that they didn’t know. But it could have been Alexa, or an organization with members on the police force. None of those answers seemed acceptable. Christy and Rey exchanged a look of resignation.
“Did you take this picture?”
Rey looked away angrily.
“This could be admissible in court. I advise you to be honest. Did you take this picture?”
“Yes.”
“You’re both suspended.”
“Are you kidding?” Christy asked.
“No.” Miss Shumana began massaging her neck and jawbone. “You can get your assignments from your teachers tomorrow. Then if you are seen on school property any time next week you’ll be expelled. I don’t want to hear from anyone about you discussing this Avocadonine nonsense with anyone.” She picked up a pen and began hitting it against the table. “And we will be launching an investigation into the possibility that you graffitied Pemota High. I’ve contacted both your parents. They will be picking you up from school today.”
Christy forced tears back. “You can’t be serious.”
Miss Shumana pointed to the door, marking the second time she made this gesture. Rey guessed it was her favorite for the rule-breakers that she dealt with regularly. Christy and he stood up and the door closed itself behind them.
Christy looked in the window to see a small smile on Miss Shumana’s lips. Christy screamed, “We know that you know!”
Miss Shumana put on some reading glasses, and mumbled, “Should look great on a college application.”
“Let’s go,” Rey said.
As soon as they stepped out of the office they heard someone yell, “There’s Rey Naresh.” Rey thought right then that any news was good news. He turned to see Tristan and Roach trotting towards Christy and him. “What happened in there?” Tristan asked.
“We’re suspended,” Rey said.
“You’re suspended,” Tristan said in disbelief. “All right, listen. We heard the announcement this morning about the fence. So someone went outside and tried it. They didn’t get zapped. The fence doesn’t do what Laurie said.”
“Have you seen the newsletter?” Christy asked.
“Yeah. Roach says he thinks the fence is a Faraday cage.”
“What’s a Faraday cage?” Christy asked.
“It houses electromagnetic energy. Same principle as a microwave,” Roach said. “We know about the Avocadonine. What do you guys think is going on?”
“Huxley is leading people to a home in the woods afterschool,” Rey said. “There’s three lemon trees across from it and they’re gonna take the lemons. Anything you can do to stop them would be good.”
“There’s three lemon trees? I say we cut them down and take the lemons. Is H period last period?” Tristan asked.
Rey nodded. “Yeah.”
“We both have study hall. We’ll take a chain saw to the trees. Will that help?”
“I think the lemons are just like a symbol of what Alexa wants the ninth grade to do,” Christy said. “But it can’t hurt.”
“It’s a good idea,” Rey said.
“I want to give you my phone number,” Tristan said. “Remember we owe you. All right? If it’s really as big a deal as we think, we want to do whatever we can.”
“Cut the trees down, take the lemons,” Rey said. “And we’ll go from there.”
Tristan pulled a folded up piece of paper from his pocket and Rey opened it revealing a phone number. He put it in his pocket along with the note from Mr. Chandon.
“Where’s the home and the lemon trees?”
As they had walked back to school from the house with the turret after meeting Inez they had cautiously traced their steps and th
ought they could find it easily upon returning. They explained to Tristan how to get there as best they could.
Next, it was Spanish class with Viola, and Rey planned on making their cause clear and arming her for whatever the rebellion required. There was only twenty-five minutes left in class. Ms. Carmen was going over some sentence construction for ordering a meal in Spanish. He wondered what Miss Shumana had said to Isabel, and more importantly, whether or not Isabel was on his side. When the class neared deafening boredom, Rey leaned forward and whispered to Viola, “Is it true?”
When she didn’t respond, he saw she was angry inside, maintaining a placid exterior, but clearly angry nonetheless. When the bell finally rang, Rey wanted to give Viola some hope. As she rounded up her things, he told her about Spring. It was the one thing she knew nothing about. After he’d told her the main details of what they knew about Spring, Viola seemed to soften. Finally, she looked at him.
“My father told me I was ugly and useless and that if I didn’t have sex with someone he’d kill me.”
Rey’s smiled vanished. He couldn’t think of anything to say.
“So I asked Huxley to do it. Because I don’t care who it is. And then when he said no, I told my father I was a lesbian.” She threw her backpack onto her shoulder. “But he didn’t believe me. And Huxley said that if I didn’t let them do whatever they wanted to me, they were going to tell everyone that I asked Huxley to have sex with me.” She looked at him with daggers in her eyes.
“Maybe we should call someone about it. They have people that will work stuff like this out.”
“Rey. Why don’t you do whatever you’re gonna do. I can take care of myself. Do you know they’re handing out Hochus Mochus and Mountain Springs after school before Huxley leads everyone to the trees?”
Rey shook his head. “No.”
“The lunch ladies say they shipped too much and it’s gonna be free. So I don’t think you can really do much of anything. But good luck. I have a class to go to.”
She turned and left.
Rey had to go to woodshop. The class was painting their clay bowls. They were due tomorrow. Rey thought he had enough time to finish his. He was preoccupied, however, as the class ticked by. Fynn was sitting on a pile of wood chips looking morose. Rey painted his bowl blue. He wondered if the lunch ladies even knew why they were distributing Hochus Mochus and Mountain Springs. And lastly, he wondered why, if the Avocadonine was making people bitter, that no one, save Viola -- not even Ryan O’toole -- had spoken about any emotional disturbances. Perhaps Alexa was working under misapprehensions.
When the bell rang Rey sat down next to Fynn. “Fynn, the bowls are due tomorrow,” Rey said.
“Does it matter?” Fynn said, sadly. “I wanted to get good grades this quarter. Now we’re gonna be brainwashed into being smarter and friendlier and anything we do that’s good isn’t even us. I already decided not to be high anymore.”
Rey put his head on his hands. “What do you think we should do?”
“Take it public. Or go to the police.”
“Some of the police are in on it. And Laurie could always say she doesn’t know anything. They’re already blaming everything on me and Christy.”
“Did you tell your Mom?”
“Yeah. She knows.”
“She could write an article.”
Rey nodded. “We’re talking about it.”
“I want to do something. I don’t care what. I just want to show Laurie up, show her we’re not a bunch of losers.”
They sat in silence for a short while. Rey began thinking about the bitterness of the Avocadonine. “Do you think that you’re an Avocadite? Are you bitter?”
“I’m not happy,” Fynn said, fiddling with his baseball cap. “I’m not bitter. It’s also Annette.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re broken up. Annette said, she thinks she’s dying and she can see half the ninth grade in her mind. And I said, you sound like you’re going crazy. And she said she didn’t want to talk to me anymore. And I said, all right, but it’s weird as hell.” He put his hat on. “So she told me to get lost. It wasn’t going anywhere anyway. But Annette said she needs some time to think. I guess she’s pretty messed up.”
Rey decided not to tell Fynn they were going to visit Annette after school tomorrow.
“Alexa is the 39th richest woman on the planet.”
“Claudette Laurie can’t be stupid enough to just do it for the money.”
“Well, whatever it is, I can’t do anything about it.”
Rey nodded. Then Fynn stood up and threw his clay bowl against the wall, shattering it.
As soon as school ended, Rey’s cell-phone rang. It was Isabel. Before picking up, Rey thought about their last conversation. Isabel had said she was glad they spoke. She had to be on his side. She must be. He picked up.
“Rey. What happened?”
“Christy and I are suspended. They tried to blame what Alexa is doing on us, the graffiti and everything. We think the administration is in on it.”
Isabel sighed. “Okay. Am I picking you up after school or not?”
“No. I’m going to go talk to Mr. Chandon. I’ll explain everything after that. I’ll meet you at the Gazette at 3:00.”
“I have something I have to finish. It’s been a long day. I have a lot to tell you. I’ll pick you up at 3:15.”
“Okay.” He hung up.
Mr. Chandon returned from the bathroom whistling Mozart. He stopped mid-note when he saw Rey sitting at the desk. His eyes widened momentarily, and then he gave a little smile. “You got my note,” he said. “And judging from the fact that you are here now, I guess, you don’t know what it means.”
“I guess we gotta talk,” Rey said.
“Yep,” Mr. Chandon said. “Come on down to my office. Let me just lock up.”
Rey felt good that Mr. Chandon was neglecting his after school students in favor of speaking with Rey. Now, if only he had good news. He closed the door behind him and locked it. “Come on,” he said.
They made their way across the hallway to the science teacher offices. There was a sign on them that said, “Staff Only,” but Rey decided that under the circumstances with the administration and the suspension, he wasn’t going to pay it any mind. Mr. Chandon seated himself at his desk chair, and Rey sat down on a green seat as the door closed itself.
“Went to check out the town’s water supply, the other night,” Mr. Chandon said.
Rey swallowed. “Yeah. I heard some interesting things went down.” Rey looked up and down Mr. Chandon’s wall. Mr. Chandon had several photos of Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard of the Enterprise. The rest of the wall seemed to be dominated by photos of the Arizona Cardinals going as far back as the 1980's.
“So…,” Rey said.
“You want to start or should I?” A short silence followed. “Flip for it,” Mr. Chandon said. He pulled out a quarter.
“Tails,” Rey said.
It landed in his palm heads.
“You’re supposed to put it on the back of your hand.”
Mr. Chandon laughed. “Pretty quick. Tails it is.” He put the quarter back in his pocket. “Steph Calida and I grew up on the same street. We were best friends. In eighth grade we saw each other at a football game. I had been suspended for being caught with beer. And we went to the game, some friends and I, to try to convince the coach to admit to the principal that he’d bought it for us, thinking it would get us off the hook. Steph came out from under the bleachers -- flashed me a glance -- and we walked off leaving our friends behind. We dated for four months it was. That summer, I went to football camp in Pennsylvania. Steph sent me letters. She’d sworn off drinking and meat products. I guess they call it straight-edge now. Started dressing in all black.” Mr. Chandon leaned back in his chair and stretched. “Well, when we got back to school, my friends started makin
g fun of me for dating Steph. Things were different. A couple weeks into school we walked towards each other in the hallway. We locked eyes. And we both turned away and walked right by one another without saying a single word. From then on, whenever we saw each other we didn’t say anything. And it’s been that way to this day. We don’t speak. At a meeting recently we made a connection. A smile. It meant something to Steph. She started following me. She followed me to the reservoir one night. I wanted to get a sample of the drinking water on a hunch that it was being tampered with. As I was leaving we drove towards each other. She’d taken a lap around the block so I wouldn’t see her and when I saw her expression I knew that she was following me. We decided that we weren’t going to live ninth grade over again. We weren’t going to ignore each other. And …. we crashed into each other. She says it was me. A minor fender bender. We got to talking. About the ninth grade this year. The Avocadites. The graffiti. One thing led to another.”
Rey nodded and smiled. “Cool.”
“There’s a rumor. Some people think Claudette Laurie started it. I never bothered to ask. It’s about this list of Avocadites. A list for the ninth grade. None of us faculty care about who is or isn’t an Avocadite. But this year, after a while, it started to seem to matter. Between Der on the loudspeaker, the graffiti, you giving me the vial of purple fluid. So I did some research. Now you and your girlfriend are caught up in this Avocadonine business. And it sounds like the ninth grade is deep into it. So I got the chemical analyzed. It’s lemon juice and purple dye. It sounds as if this substance, for whatever reason, has taken on a life of its own. It’s taken on unique properties.”
“It might be lemon juice and purple dye. But we injected a gerbil with it and put it on a Ouija Board. We talked to this girl named Spring Stone. She was a student here in 1975. And there’s also this woman called Alexa Bartlett.” Rey told Mr. Chandon everything he knew about Spring and Alexa. He told Mr. Chandon he was suspended, but didn’t get into any theories about a conspiracy involving the faculty. He couldn’t count on Mr. Chandon not to decide his loyalties lay with the administration. Rey said, “The ninth grade is walking over to the three lemon trees in a field near Pemota High. And they’ll probably find out that all the lemons have been taken and that the trees have been cut down. The ninth grade is going to do what Alexa wants. Not everyone. But we can’t let it happen. We can’t let them screw up the whole world.”
“I’m with you. So what’s next?”
“A little while back Viola told me that Brianna Lane came to see her and told her that if she made honor roll she would feel better.” Rey rubbed his knees. “Alexa has plans. But maybe Spring has plans too. So I think it’s Spring’s idea to have the three lemon trees represent not the whole grade but like three people. I think the Avocadonine is psychic so the three students representing the archetypes are psychic too. I think the reason Brianna Lane told Viola to make honor roll to feel better is because Brianna Lane is the Achievement Child.”
“I’ve got some old yearbooks.” Mr. Chandon said, as he stood up. He walked across the room to a three foot stack of books. “I’m on the Alumni committee this year and I bet I have one from 1975.” He pulled out a yearbook from the center of the stack. He began shuffling through. “Spring Stone? 9th Grade?” His finger scanned over some pages. “Got her.”
Rey took the yearbook from Mr. Chandon and Mr. Chandon pointed to her. She had unkempt dirty blond hair, like the article had said. The photograph was in black and white. Rey pictured a gold medal around her neck -- what might have been. He stared at her for a short while, trying to understand her. Then he handed the yearbook back to Mr. Chandon.
“You know,” Mr. Chandon said, “I got suspended also and turned out just fine.”
“Thanks,” Rey stood up, and smiled. “That makes me feel better.”
“I want you to call me and tell me anything you do or find out,” Mr. Chandon said. “I’m gonna keep an eye open around school. See if I can learn anything. All right?” Mr. Chandon took a card from his desk and handed it to Rey.
“All right,” Rey said.
Rey stood up and looked at the clock. It was 2:40. He had some time before Isabel would pick him up. If his guess was right, most of the students were probably just reaching the trees now. Would they be cut down? It occurred to him that he could call Tristan and ask. That made him nervous though. He was a senior. He’d save the call for a time when he really needed it. He waited outside until Isabel drove up to the curb. He opened the red door of the Saturn Ion and got in.
Isabel looked tired. “I had a fact checker look into all the information on Alexa Bartlett today. It wasn’t that difficult.” She put the car in drive. “She’s the 39th richest woman on the planet. There is no School for the Gifted. In 1975 … Alexa Bartlett was the principal at Pemota Regional High School.”