Fatality

by Caroline B. Cooney

  “Why would I write about you?”

  “Because we’re interesting and you’re not.”

  Regular brother and sister stuff. Exactly the way Alan talked to his sister. Eventually Tabor would reduce Rose to tears and she’d leave.

  “Where does she keep the diary?” Verne asked once. Verne had started the group but proved to be incapable of memorizing two chords in a row. Verne’s idea of practice was to be on the phone ordering pizzas. But he’d had his driver’s license and an old Volvo wagon into which they managed to fit drums, speakers, wires, cord, keyboard, and band members. Alan, the youngest, had been forced to sit with the drinks cooler under his feet and two guitar cases wedged under his chin.

  Tabor shrugged, not because he didn’t know where Rose kept her diary but because he didn’t care. “In the headboard of her bed,” he said. “She keeps the key on the hook behind her bathrobe and thinks nobody knows.”

  “Let’s steal the diary,” Verne suggested.

  It was at that moment that Tabor became the leader of the group and not Verne. “That would make us twelve years old, too,” Tabor said. “That’s what little boys do—torment little girls. We’re trying to be musicians here, Verne. Although it’s a struggle for you. Okay, everybody, take it from the top.”

  One day, Tabor actually mentioned his sister. She was going to visit the Loffts for a weekend. They had all been impressed. The Loffts were exciting people and Anjelica seemed much older than twelve. The boys discussed what Anjelica’s figure would be in a few more years. Nobody cared what Rose’s figure would be.

  The weekend was chaotic. Musically, the band changed forever when Verne called up to say he was quitting because he had better things to do. They not only had to find another musician, they had to find other transportation. Furthermore, Alan had had a major paper due and had to stay up all Sunday night to pull it off. He slept through class Monday, ended up in the principal’s office to discuss whether he had a drug problem, and Monday night heard about the murder of Milton Lofft’s partner. By Tuesday it was known that Milton Lofft had been the last person to see the victim alive.

  Tabor called practice on Wednesday and the entire band happened to be in the cellar while the police interrogated Rose. Well, except for Verne, who never did come back. Alan still thought it was unprofessional of him.

  Rose, who could write five pages sitting on the top step watching the band, could not come up with one sentence about an entire weekend with the Loffts. The band knew because they were standing on the pool table with their ears literally pressed to the ceiling, trying to hear every word spoken in the room above.

  “But what about—?” said the police, “and how about—?”

  “Nothing,” said Rose.

  “I can’t remember,” said Rose.

  “I didn’t see,” said Rose.

  Tabor was embarrassed. Everybody had been hoping to get in on hot police activity and glamorous crime, and his sister was a complete dud. They played softly, so Mr. Lymond wouldn’t come to the top of the stairs and yell at them and so they could get over their embarrassment at having listened in to start with.

  Alan’s fingers moved automatically on his keyboard while his mind fixed on Rose. She’s so smart, he thought. Much smarter than Tabor. Twice as smart as me. Smart enough to have seen and understood everything. Her brother believes her lame little statements. I don’t.

  A few nights later, during band practice, Alan ran upstairs to the kitchen for a cold soda. Rose was standing in the middle of the room doing nothing, holding nothing, and as far he could tell, seeing nothing. “Hey, Rose,” he said cheerfully. “No diary tonight?”

  Her head snapped back as if he had struck her. He actually looked down at his hand to see if he’d done that, and then looked at her cheek to see if it was bruised.

  She was not breathing. Her entire body, including her eyes, was rigid. It was like a motionless seizure. “You okay, Rose?” he said uncertainly.

  Her body turned in his direction. A few beats later she looked in his direction. She still had not blinked. “I outgrew keeping a diary,” she said. She backed away from him.

  Outgrew it when? thought Alan. Last Thursday you were sitting on the cellar steps, scribbling away.

  Rose fled from the kitchen. She literally ran away from him. The sensation of having slapped her lived on in the flat of Alan’s hand and the muscles of his arm. You may have stopped writing in a diary, thought Alan, but I bet you didn’t stop keeping it. I bet you still have it. And you wouldn’t have a silent seizure unless you had a serious secret written down in that diary.

  It was only an hour before Mr. and Mrs. Lymond and Rose drove off to visit relatives and the rest of the band drove off to pick up pizzas. Alan claimed he wasn’t in the mood to get off the couch. He stayed by himself in the basement.

  How silent was this house that usually rocked with percussion. He could hear newly made ice cubes clunking inside the refrigerator. A clock ticking.

  Alan walked upstairs. He entered Rose’s room. The key was where Tabor said it would be. Against the slanted wooden headboard of Rose’s large bed were a dozen frothy pillows. He imagined slumber parties, with girls leaning on pillows to eat and giggle and watch TV. He shifted the pillows carefully so he could put them back in order. His fingers scrounged around the cubby, closing on a leather book as pretty as any volume he had ever touched.

  How well he remembered Rose’s handwriting, the graceful slope of each letter. He remembered the final pages where her handwriting disintegrated into a frantic blotchy scrawl. Over and around the words he read in such shock were odd puckered circles.

  Dried tears.

  In his remembering, Alan forgot the present. Now it returned in the voice of a cop. “We’re wondering, Alan,” said Craig Gretzak softly, “if Rose saw something else that weekend. Nothing to do with Milton Lofft. Something to do with Tabor. Or you.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  IT WAS NOW THURSDAY. Rose’s father drove her to school. Her parents were rarely willing to drive her, since there was a perfectly good bus, and anyhow, it cramped their work schedules. But Rose’s father was afraid of her choices now. For all he knew, a daughter who stole a car at the beginning of the week might be headed toward drugs and prostitution by the end of the week. Rose had thought of her silence as a way to keep the family together, not tear it apart. “Bye, Dad,” she said softly.

  He tried to smile, but nothing came of it. He actually seemed more gray and more lined in only a few days. He was certainly more upset than she had ever seen him. Mom, too, was raw and frayed at the edges. Even Tabor’s shenanigans had not disturbed her parents like this, perhaps because they saw Tabor’s actions as nonsense, whereas they had expected Rose to grow up neatly and without bringing pain to their hearts.

  She had not yet shut the car door when Augusta spotted her, flung her own book bag down, and leaped like a crazy woman to greet Rose.

  Rose liked Augusta enormously and would have liked to be closer friends, but Augusta always seemed to be with somebody else or interested in something different. Rose had not actually been around Augusta since fourth grade, when the teacher fixed their little desks in sets of four, facing in, and Augusta had sat directly opposite Rose.

  “It cannot be true,” said Augusta, plowing to a halt. “Science project star, history-loving, never-swearing Rose Margaret Lymond? Stealing police cars?”

  If Augusta knew, everybody knew. Rose smiled at Augusta out of leftover fourth-grade memory. “Actually, just one police car,” she said. She shut the car door and walked off without looking back to see how Augusta’s greeting had played with her father. Oh, Daddy, she thought. I’m doing this for you, and you’ll never know, and I can never let you know.

  Augusta fell into step with her. They ignored the long, slanted ramp and took the steep stairs. Quietly and seriously Augusta said, “Do you need help, Rose? I don’t know what’s happening, and I’m not asking, but there must be something radically wrong. Your
father looks terrible. Rose, if you need me, I’m your friend.”

  People who hardly knew him could tell that this was destroying her father. “Thank you, Gussie.” She ignored the tremor in her voice, hoping Augusta would be kind enough to ignore it, too. “I think everything will work out.”

  Augusta nodded without saying more and Rose wondered whether she had crushed or opened a future friendship with Augusta. But there was no time to continue the conversation. Ming arrived. “Is it true?” she demanded.

  “Is what true?”

  “Rose! Don’t be difficult. That you stole a police car, of course.”

  “Oh. That. Yes. It’s true.”

  Ming howled with delight. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

  “And me,” said Emma.

  “And us,” said Caitlin and Halsey and Richard and Keith and Alex, grinning and waiting.

  They seemed to find Rose and her car theft rather cute. They seemed, in fact, to regard her as an episode in a good TV show. Only Augusta realized that there must be something very wrong.

  “Come on, tell us!” cried Ming.

  I can hardly say I don’t remember, thought Rose. It was this week. If I say, “It’s a long story,” they’ll be twice as happy and settle in for all the details. “It’s under litigation,” she said finally. “I can’t talk about it.”

  “Bosh. Rot. Balderdash,” said Ming.

  Everybody laughed.

  Rose tried to walk toward class but they were clinging to her. It was like walking through a department store, brushed by clothing displays and countertops.

  “Come on, really,” coaxed Ming.

  Rose was saved by, of all people, the principal’s secretary. Dr. Siegal and Mr. Burgess wished to see Miss Lymond, said the secretary.

  Last week, her friends would have assumed Rose was being summoned because she had won a prize, placed in some essay contest, was sought after by the university for her phragmites data. They’d have been bored. But now that Rose was in trouble—lots of trouble, oceans of trouble—they were delighted.

  Why had Rose not realized how much attention stealing a cop car would bring?

  It was funny, in a dreadful way. You spent your whole life trying to attract attention, trying to be interesting and pretty and smart and graceful and wanted. Then you got the attention and it was like being hit over the head with a baseball bat.

  First period bells rang.

  Reluctantly the crowd around her dispersed and went on to class. Ming was slow to depart. She gave Rose plenty of time to say, Of course I’ll tell you; you’re my best friend; I wouldn’t leave you out.

  Rose did not say it.

  She could see no point in hurrying to meet with the principal and vice principal. She walked so slowly that both men had appeared in the office doorway by the time she finally arrived. Star students always got to know the administration. She liked the two men well enough, although they were pompous and played favorites.

  She did not go into the office. “I expect you have received a report from the police,” she said courteously. “This is a delicate family situation. I cannot discuss it with you. It has nothing to do with school and I do not want to be late for botany.”

  “Rose, we’re so concerned. Come into the office and share with us,” said Mr. Burgess.

  I don’t share well, thought Rose. I think we established that when I refused to share my diary. And if I’m not going to share with Dad or Mom or poor old doing-her-job Megan Moran, I’m unlikely to share with you two. “You’re welcome to talk to the judge,” she said politely.

  “You’re a juvenile. He won’t talk to us,” said Dr. Siegal grumpily.

  Rose kept her voice so courteous she sounded like Nannie in an earlier century. “I’m afraid I will have to follow the same rule. Please excuse me.” She turned stiffly like a doll made from a wooden spoon and neither of them intercepted her.

  Ignoring two principals turned out to be rather like stealing a police car.

  Do it quickly and cleanly. It’s over before they can stop you.

  On her way to botany, Rose happened to pass the library. She walked in and tapped a few keywords on the nearest computer screen. There actually was a book on the subject that concerned her: Dewey decimal number 070, a shelf in the library where Rose had never gone. She preferred 500s—biology, botany; or 973—American history.

  The book was in, of course; who would check it out?

  Rose browsed through a history of diary writing.

  Five million diaries were sold every year in America, which seemed like enough. How surprising that even with e-mail and handheld computers and laptops and computer disks and instant messaging, people were still sitting down and laboriously scribbling in paper books.

  Diaries were a rather recent concept, the book said. For most of literate time, people didn’t think of writing about themselves every day. Then, in the sixteenth century, ministers began to keep daily track of whether they had been pure of thought.

  Why did I write? wondered Rose.

  I wanted to be sure Grandfather and Nannie knew what a nice present they’d given me. So I wrote to be polite.

  I wrote because I loved my handwriting. I loved the shape of my letters and the way I dotted my i’s with a circle.

  I wrote because I felt important. I, Rose Margaret Lymond, would be a red leather book with gold edges.

  The question is not why I wrote it. It’s why I kept it.

  It was Alan Finney, not Ming, who met Rose at her locker after school. Their paths did not usually overlap. He had had to search her out.

  Her pulse skyrocketed. I still adore him, she thought. She could not manage an attractive, relaxed smile. Her lips stretched as if she were wearing braces that had just been tightened. Immediately she wondered about her hair.

  Alan took a deep breath. He looked around to make sure nobody could overhear. He was so furtive that several people stopped in their tracks to see what he was up to. He said, “The police talked to me, Rose.”

  Her cheeks went hot and scarlet. She began turning the dial on the combination lock, gradually realizing she was facing the wrong locker.

  “They told me you stole that police car to buy yourself time to destroy the diary.”

  Rose shrugged. But she remembered that moment in the kitchen, a week or so after the murder, when Alan noticed she wasn’t writing in her diary anymore. Not one other person had ever commented on that.

  Alan seemed at a loss for what to say next. He breathed heavily in and out. Rose felt the same. “They asked how well I knew you,” said Alan. “I said the way any guy knows his friend’s little sister. Not very well.”

  She shrugged again, though it hurt. “I’ve never seen you shrug,” said Alan after a while. “It’s not your style.”

  “I don’t have a style.”

  “Of course you do. You’re dignified and reserved and careful.”

  Rose nearly groaned out loud. She had never heard three more ghastly adjectives. That was how a handsome, wonderful, sexy boy perceived her? Dignified, reserved, and careful? She wanted to rip off her skin and start over.

  Alan said, “I’d help if I could, Rose.”

  “Help the police?” she said, feeling even more exhausted.

  Alan said something extremely rude about the police. “Help you,” he explained.

  She almost smiled. Wouldn’t Augusta and Alan be a nice pair of helpers?

  Alan slouched against the lockers, his height and breadth blocking her from all gazes. He was a foot taller than she was. She knew, because the stats on every player were published. “Tabor called me,” said Alan, and in spite of herself, Rose was deflated. So after all this time, the loving big brother had finally kicked in.

  “He’s worried,” said Alan. “And jealous, I think. His little sister is the one with the guts to steal a police car. Any trouble Tabor ever got into just became minor league. You’re the one playing in the majors.”

  Rose managed a smile, but she did
not manage to direct it at Alan. She was facing the metal louvers of somebody else’s locker, as if it were a mirror and she were trying on lipstick.

  “Rose, you can’t even look at me. How are you going to look at police and attorneys putting pressure on you?”

  He could not know that police and attorneys were easier to look at than he was. At least the police had given Alan no idea of her crush. He didn’t know that all through those casual music-rehearsal hours, a little girl’s hopes had soared whenever he said hello. She sighed inwardly and looked up. But Alan Finney’s face held no worried concern like Augusta’s, no hot fascination like Ming’s, no frustrated ignorance like the principals’. There was no resigned obedience to the wishes of his friend Tabor. In Alan’s eyes was an intensity of emotion Rose had not expected and could not interpret. Helplessly they watched each other flush.

  Maybe he’s just embarrassed, thought Rose. All kinds of people are seeing us together and he hates the conclusions they’re drawing and he’s just waiting for this to end. “Did the police show you the diary?” she said, as if it hardly mattered.

  “No. I think they’re talking to everybody whose name you mentioned in the pages they still have. They’re hoping you shared your experiences with one of us after the murder.”

  “I didn’t have any experiences to share,” said Rose. “It’s very thoughtful of you to be concerned, Alan.” Even though Tabor ordered you to be, she thought. “But this will come to an end shortly, when the authorities accept that I cannot contribute to their pile of evidence.”

  Alan drew a breath so deep that his ribs banged into the tops of the lockers on one side and his book bag swung out into the traffic of the hallway on the other. “Listen, how about going for a Coke with me, Rose? We can talk. I feel as if you need a friend, and I know your family so well—and—you know.”

  She had hoped for this for half of her life. But what would she say when he brought up the sole topic of interest? This is private, Alan. It doesn’t involve you. That contained a clue and she could not give clues to anybody. Alan would phone Tabor and quote her. With a shock, she realized that she had given the two principals a clue. They didn’t hear it, she told herself. They won’t remember it. “Thank you, Alan, but I have community service. I’m on my way to the corner right now to get picked up by the transport van.” Tell him you’ll go out with him another time, she ordered herself. Tell him—