“Where are you going?” Trish asked him.
“The choke on the lawn mower sticks,” he said. “I’m going to start it for her.”
“Don’t bother,” I said. “I’m going to Gracie’s.”
63
“Tell me this is a nightmare.” I sat heavily on the swing, making the chains jingle. “Maybe that bacon we ate last night was spoiled. Maybe food poisoning is screwing up my brain.”
Grace moaned. “Please don’t talk about food.”
“It’s like Halloween got stuck or something,” I said. “I wake up and there’s a witch in the living room and my dad is wearing a mask that almost looks like him, but not totally. Everything is weird.”
“I don’t know why you’re so surprised.” Gracie carefully sat at the bottom of the slide. Her little brother was playing with his friends over on the new climbing equipment. We’d headed for the old stuff to get away from the noise they were making. “Trish and your dad were together for a long time, right?”
I spun the swing in a circle, twisting the chains around each other. “That’s not the point.”
Gracie’s little brother, still wearing his Iron Man costume, came running over. “Kegan’s mom brought oranges. She said I can have one if you say yes.”
“Yes,” Gracie said. “But eat them over there, okay?”
“Can I have a bologna sandwich, too?” he asked loudly.
“Shh!” Gracie hissed. “My head hurts, remember?”
Garrett leaned close to her face and whispered loudly, “Can I have a bologna sandwich, too? Kegan’s mommy makes them with mayonnaise and ketchup.”
Gracie blew out a slow breath. “Eat what you want, buddy. Just don’t tell me about it.”
I waited until he was out of earshot. “You should puke and get it over with.”
“I hate puking.” She licked her lips. “What’s the point about Trish?”
I spun in one more circle. “The point is that she’s a terrible person.”
“Fix her up with my dad,” Gracie said as she leaned back on the slide. “That would solve both of our family’s problems.” She groaned. “Can a person die of a hangover?”
“If that was true, Trish would be dead by now.” I unspun quickly, the ground whirling beneath my feet. “Dad, too, I guess.”
“I can’t believe I did this to myself,” Gracie said.
“The worst part is that she’s in our house.” I dug my toes into the dirt and spun in the other direction. “Why can’t he see what she’s trying to do?”
“Stop stressing. You can’t change anything.” Gracie winced as the little girls chasing each other around the sandbox shrieked. “Parents get to do whatever they want. Will you stop talking and let me die now?”
“I didn’t realize what a whiner you are. Be grateful you didn’t get arrested.”
“I wasn’t going to drink anything.” She covered her eyes with her hands. “What was I thinking?”
“You weren’t thinking, dumbass, you were drinking. They’re opposites. Now focus: How do I get rid of her?”
“You don’t.” Gracie sat up, grimacing. “The world is crazy. You need a license to drive a car and go fishing. You don’t need a license to start a family. Two people have sex and bam! Perfectly innocent kid is born whose life will be screwed up by her parents forever.” She stood up carefully. “And you can’t do a damn thing about it.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Then you’re the dumbass.” She sat on the swing next to me. “Maybe this is a sign.”
“Of what?”
“A sign that you need to look ahead. At college and stuff. You gonna apply to Swevenbury?”
“Funny,” I said.
“Too close? What about California, lots of schools there. Get as far away as you can.”
“What about our commune?” I spun in another circle, bringing the twisted chains so far down that I had to lean forward so my hair wouldn’t get caught in it.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“Last night you said the four of us—you, me, Topher, and Finn—should raise goats on our commune.”
“Liar,” she said. “I don’t even like goats.”
“Sissie!” Garrett ran over to the swing set and shoved half of his bologna and mayonnaise and ketchup sandwich in Gracie’s face. “Want some?
“Oh, God,” Gracie said, lurching for the trash can.
“Give it to me, buddy,” I said. “Sissie doesn’t feel so good.”
64
Finn was less Finn-like in the days after Halloween, distracted and quiet. His junkie sister was playing head games with his parents, but he didn’t want to talk about it. His phone was usually turned off (or maybe he was screening my calls), but he showed up faithfully to drive me to school every morning and home in the afternoon. We didn’t joke as much in the library or in the halls. Sometimes we barely talked, but his arm was always around my shoulders and my hand liked to slip into the back pocket of his jeans.
(Honestly? I was relieved. The secrets we’d shared at his house belonged in the dark. Seeing him in the light of day or the light of the cafeteria made me feel like my skin had become transparent and the whole school could see inside me.)
Wednesday morning, he picked me up late, yawning and bleary-eyed. He said he hadn’t gotten any sleep, but when I asked why, he shrugged and turned on the radio. I leaned against the seat belt strap and tried to doze.
Having Trish around was making Dad worse. He’d woken up screaming around two thirty that morning. It was the third time in four nights that he’d woken up like that, hollering that the truck was on fire or trying to call in air support to take out a hornet’s nest of insurgents. After he settled down, he and Trish had spent the rest of the night talking in the living room. I tried to hear what they were saying, but the ticking of that damn clock made it impossible.
I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew we were at school.
Topher took one look at the two of us, bleary-eyed and yawning, and bought us both huge cups of coffee to go with our deliciously greasy breakfast burritos. He waggled his eyebrows. “What were you guys doing last night?”
“Nothing fun,” I said.
“We had a family Skype meeting.” Finn blew on the coffee. “Chelsea and Dad in Boston, me and Mom here.”
“Really?” It was the first I’d heard of it. “Sounds nice.”
Finn shook his head. “It wasn’t. Chelsea wants to go to rehab, but there isn’t any money. Mom is thinking about selling her jewelry and her car.”
“Dude,” Topher said.
Gracie scratched at a piece of gum that had hardened on the table. She was short on sleep, too, from eavesdropping on her parents’ custody arguments. Her father was demanding Sundays through Wednesdays. Her mother was demanding that he not be allowed to introduce his girlfriend to Gracie and Garrett.
“What happens then?” I sipped the coffee and burned my mouth. “Will she take your car?”
“She said she’ll take the bus to work.”
“What about grocery shopping and stuff?”
“My car,” Finn admitted.
Grace looked up. “Did you trying saying no to her?”
“What about the insurance bullshit?” Topher asked. “What did she decide about that?”
“Something’s wrong with your insurance?” I asked, confused why Topher knew more than I did.
“Last week she said I have pay for it. Gas, too. Yesterday, Coach hired me to lifeguard during swim practice. I start this afternoon.”
“When were you going to tell me?”
“Sorry.” He looked into the coffee cup. “I forgot.”
“Sounds stupid if you ask me.” Gracie stole a sip of my coffee. “Your mom’s enabling your sister and screwing you over.”
&nbs
p; Finn shrugged and bit into his burrito.
“Not to mention the obvious holes in her plan,” Gracie continued. “What if she gets fired? What if her boss doesn’t want employees who ride the bus, ’cause they’re always late?”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” Finn said.
“You should,” Gracie said. “You’re enabling your mom the way that she enables your sister.”
“Your family calls it enabling, we call it taking care of each other.” Finn looked at Topher. “Changing the subject now. Did you hear about the shooting at the middle school in Nebraska?”
“The news is too depressing,” Topher said. “You should watch more cartoons.”
“Why do we have to change the subject?” Gracie asked. “We all have crazy parents, except for Topher.”
“They are pathetically well-adjusted.” Topher shook his head. “It’s so embarrassing.”
“Shut up, goof.” Gracie punched his shoulder lightly. “Shouldn’t we talk about this stuff and help each other?”
“She has a point, Finn-head,” I said.
“No, she doesn’t.” Finn turned to face me. “She’s being nosy and pushy. So are you. I seriously do not want to talk about this anymore.”
“Nosy?” I asked.
“So!” Topher said loudly. “Sports! Who wants to talk about sports?”
I should have stopped there, but I couldn’t. I was tired, frustrated, possibly a tiny bit in love and horrified by the thought. Plus, I was tired. (Did I mention that already?) My irritation was growing fast, the way a cartoon snowball gets bigger and bigger as it rolls down a mountain.
“The first thing you did when we sat down was to tell us about your family’s Skype visit, Chelsea wanting rehab, your mom selling her car and jewelry,” I said. “You told us that without anyone sticking their nose in your business.”
He didn’t say anything.
“And then you casually mention that you got a job that starts today, not that my life could possibly be impacted by that at all.”
“I already apologized for that.”
The snowball was the size of a dump truck.
“Apologies mean nothing if you don’t mean it.”
“So what am I supposed to do?” he asked.
“Not yelling at her would be a good start,” Gracie said.
Finn pointed at her. “Nosy and pushy, see?”
“Don’t yell at her when you’re pissed at me,” I said.
“I’m not pissed at you, but you’re picking a fight.”
Conversations at the tables around us were dying down. Zombie heads turned, smelling blood. My irritation had snowballed big enough to crush an entire village.
“I’m not picking a fight!” My fist pounded.
“Stop yelling,” Finn said.
“Okay, kids,” Topher said. “Time out.”
“Stop lying and I will!”
“I didn’t lie,” Finn said.
“You didn’t tell me about the insurance or the job, or the latest Chelsea disaster.”
“You don’t exactly give me minute-by-minute updates about your dad, but I don’t make a big deal about it.”
“Don’t talk about him,” I said. “Not here.”
He acted like he didn’t hear me. “I figure when you’re ready, you’ll tell me what’s going on. Why can’t you do the same thing for me? My family’s not half as crazy as yours. It’s not like you have to worry about my mom swinging an ax around or getting wasted and doing something stupid, right?”
“Stop it!” I stood up and pushed the table, sending the coffee cups flying and everyone scrambling to rescue their burritos and books.
“That’s enough!” called a cafeteria aide, pushing his way through the crowd to our table. “You boys need to move.”
“Whatever,” Finn muttered as he walked away.
The aide handed me a roll of brown paper towels, the kind that don’t absorb anything. “You caused the mess,” he said. “You clean it up.”
“Whoa,” Gracie said after the zombies in the cafeteria stopped staring. “You guys just had a fight.”
I ripped a useless handful of towel from the roll. “Shut up, G.”
65
When the announcement came, Ms. Rogak was reading the scene where Athena tells the Dawn to show up late so Odysseus can enjoy a long night with his wife.
“This is a lockdown,” said the principal’s voice. “Anyone in the hall must find a room now. Staff please follow all lockdown drill procedures.”
Ms. Rogak rolled her eyes, closed her book, then locked the door and pulled down the blind to cover the window. By the time she got back to her desk, we all had our phones out, trying to connect with the outside world, just to make sure. I texted Finn first, Gracie second.
There was a 99.99 percent chance this was another drill, but we’d all seen security camera footage of armed lunatics and small bloody bodies on stretchers being raced across playgrounds. Memorials of soggy teddy bears and dead flowers. Sobbing friends. Catatonic parents. Graves. Even with a 99.99 percent chance, it felt like I’d just stuck a fork into an electric socket and someone had turned the power on.
“It’s a prank,” said Brandon Something. “Someone called in a threat to get out of a test.”
Threat
“Wish they’d done it earlier,” a guy on the far side of the room said. “They would have canceled school and I’d still be in bed.”
“Quiet,” Ms. Rogak said.
Gracie texted me back; she knew nothing. Finn didn’t answer.
I thought I heard a siren. My heart thumped hard. Was it headed for the school? I couldn’t tell.
Assess
The door was the only entrance. In theory, we could escape out the windows, except that we’d need a crowbar to break the thick glass, and we’d have to survive a three-story fall. I texted Finn again:
what’s going on?
???
Still no answer. The siren had stopped.
“What if it’s real?” a girl asked.
“Don’t get worked up, it’s just a drill,” said Ms. Rogak.
Jonas Delaney, sitting in front of me, gnawed on his thumbnail like he hadn’t eaten in days.
BANG!
The sharp noise in the hall made everyone hit the floor. I curled into a ball next to Jonas.
“It’s okay,” said Ms. Rogak, “it’s okay, um, but let’s stay on the ground for a minute. Okay? Stay quiet.”
My adrenaline screamed, rocketing me into hyperawareness, senses cranked to the max. Time fattened and slowed down so much that each second lasted for an hour. I could smell Jonas’s sweat, the mold growing in the old books on the shelves, the dry-erase markers at the board. I could feel the hum of the building under me, the air moving through the heating ducts, the electric current that tied the rooms together, the Wi-Fi signal pulsing in the air.
Jonas rocked back and forth, his lips pressed together, his eyes squeezed shut. I replayed that noise over and over. The more I thought about it, the less it sounded like a gunshot.
BANG!
The second noise made Jonas shake, but I was convinced.
“Don’t worry,” I whispered to him. “It’s not a gun. That’s some idiot kicking a locker, trying to freak us out.”
“Shhh,” he warned.
Static burst from the loudspeaker. “All clear,” the principal’s voice announced. “That was much better than last month. Thank you.”
Ms. Rogak stormed to the door muttering about suspending the chucklehead in the hall. The room held silent for a second after she left, then exploded into nervous laughter and loud conversation. A girl showed her shaking hands to her friends. Brandon Something joked about who had been afraid and who had been cool. I crawled back into my chair, pulled up my hood, and tried very
hard not to puke.
Jonas stayed on the floor.
“Dude!” Brandon shouted at him. “Get up.” He walked over and nudged Jonas with his foot.
Jonas rolled and leaned against the front of Ms. Rogak’s desk, his knees tucked tightly under his chin and his head down. I smelled it then. Unfortunately, so did Brandon.
“He pissed himself!” Brandon’s face lit up with horror and delight. “He literally pissed himself!”
Jonas wrapped his arms over his head as Brandon and his trolls laughed. A couple of girls said, “Eww!” The rest of the class looked away. Jonas was a quiet freak, not a zombie. The horde would not protect him. They’d stand by and watch the culling.
“Get up.” Brandon pulled on Jonas’s arm.
Before I knew what I was doing, I was out of my seat. “Leave him alone.”
“Shut up.” He grabbed Jonas by the shirt and hauled him to his feet so everyone could see the soaked crotch of his jeans. “The Urinator, ladies and gentlemen!”
Jonas thrashed, trying to break free.
“Really,” I said. “Let him go.”
Brandon sneered. As he shoved me backward, I grabbed ahold of his wrist and pulled him off balance. This allowed to Jonas break free. He sprinted for the open door and disappeared down the hall.
Then Brandon came for me.
Action
* * *
Hours later, after letting the nurse check me out and meeting with Ms. Benedetti and the vice principal and talking to Dad and turning down the chance to go home early, Finn found me at my locker.
“I just heard what happened,” he said, panting. “Are you okay? Oh my God, did he do this?” His fingertips hovered above the swollen bruise on my cheek.
I pulled away from him. “It’s nothing.”
“Nothing? Some douche bag tried to beat you up.”
“He pushed me, I pushed him, we both fell down. Rogak walked in before it got serious.”
“I heard you kicked his ass.”
“It lasted two seconds.”
“I heard he’s suspended.”
“I guess.” I closed my locker. “I feel bad for Jonas.”