Black Halo (Grace Series)

by S. L. Naeole

  My eyes widened at this tidbit of information and I looked at Graham who was grinning like a muppet on uppers.

  “What else?” he prodded.

  “There’s a rumor going around that Mr. Chen in Advanced Physics is about to propose to Mr. Paulson in Accounting’s daughter this summer, which Mr. Paulson is supposedly furious about. He doesn’t think Mr. Chen makes enough money, and doesn’t think a teacher’s salary is enough to take care of his daughter, can you believe that?”

  I shook my head slightly while Graham’s head twisted from side to side almost too enthusiastically. He urged Mrs. Mayhew to continue with her gossiping, revealing some details about a few teachers that made me either gasp or giggle before she grew very serious.

  “It came to my attention yesterday that August Branke’s putting in for a transfer next year.”

  I felt the pit of my stomach bottom out and I asked her why, though I could have probably made a very accurate guess on my own.

  “Well, I’m still catching up to the news, but apparently he was accused of running over some poor girl and that’s tarnished his reputation amongst the students here. He said that he can’t teach them the way that they deserve and so he wants a new start, said that he’d be moving back to his home state—Nebraska I think it was.”

  “Wow,” Graham and I both murmured.

  Mrs. Mayhew’s eyes grew shifty then, her head leaning closer so that we could hear her. “I also heard that he’s got a daughter and a wife up there, and that she ran away from home some time ago. His wife blamed him and kicked him out, which is why he was teaching here instead. I think he’s going to try and reconcile with them or something.”

  “What was the daughter’s name?” Graham asked in a conspiratorial whisper.

  “I don’t know.”

  With surprising speed, she pulled herself back behind the counter and began to fiddle around with some papers as Mr. Kenner suddenly appeared with a stack of sheets in his own hand.

  “Okay, Miss Shelley, I have some release forms here for you, as well as an incident report that will go in your file.”

  I took the papers he held out to me and began to look them over, ever suspicious of his actions since he had tried to convince me that there was no need to suspend Erica for assaulting Stacy shortly before Valentine’s Day.

  “Why does this form say that I won’t sue the school?” I asked, pointing to the release form that lay at the top of the pile. “You don’t seriously expect me to sign this, do you?”

  Mr. Kenner’s posture grew stiff and angry almost instantly at my insinuation, and I knew right away that he in fact did. “That’s a standard release form, Miss Shelley, and all students must sign it after an altercation such as the one you had with Miss Hamilton has occurred.”

  My grunt of displeasure was quite loud as I began to tear up the off-white sheet of paper. “Sorry, Mr. Kenner, but I’m not going to sign this when you had been warned about Erica before and chose to do nothing. She attacked Stacy not even two months ago and all she got was two days worth of suspension. Now that she’s tried to kill me you want to just sweep this under some rug? Sorry—it isn’t happening.”

  “Now see here, Miss Shelley, I have Erica’s statement that you started the altercation this time, and I’m wont to-”

  “You’re ‘wont’?” I cut him off. “Who even uses that word anymore? Look, I don’t care if you have Erica’s entire family’s statement, Mr. Kenner; I’m not signing that form. She shoved me down the stairs as I was walking to the bathroom. I dislocated my shoulder and cracked two ribs because of her. Those will be in the hospital report that the police picked up yesterday, just in case you were wondering whether or not I was faking my injuries, and I’m fairly certain that I can get the attending physician to come and verify my injuries if you still don’t believe me.”

  I looked over the other forms that he’d handed me and only signed the form that stated that I had left school early yesterday to go to the hospital. Everything else was worded in such a way that made me seem complicit in Erica’s shoving me down the stairs.

  “Did you make Stacy sign forms like these?” I demanded to know as I handed Mr. Kenner back the papers.

  He glanced at me from beneath hooded lids and shook his head. “She refused to sign them, too.”

  “Well, good. Is that it? Can we go now?”

  He looked at Graham and me and then nodded his head before turning on his heel and storming into his office. I felt a rush of anger flow through me as I looked at the sheets of torn paper that lay on the ground by my feet and nearly screamed in frustration

  “Oh dear, he’s really trying to save his tush, isn’t he?”

  I looked at Mrs. Mayhew who had come back to lean over the counter. “Save his what?”

  “His tush, dear, his tush. You know, his rear end? His bum, his meat seat, his ass?”

  “I know that, Mrs. Mayhew, but why?”

  She crooked her finger and motioned for us to come closer. Graham and I sidled over to the counter and bent our heads as she whispered, “Student injuries at Heath have quadrupled since he’s become vice-principal.

  “Add on to that allowing an alcoholic to come to school drunk everyday and what happened to Mr. Branke and you’ve got a man standing on the edge of suspension and perhaps a revocation of his teaching license. If he can keep this thing with you and Miss Hamilton hush-hush—or at least make Miss Hamilton’s parents happy—he’ll be able to keep his job long enough to be promoted to principal somewhere else and leave all of this behind him.”

  “No offense Mrs. Mayhew, but I think you’re far more aware of what’s going on than you let on, which makes you a pretty bad liar,” Graham joked.

  “Oh Mr. Hasselbeck, I’m just the registrar. Nothing more.”

  We said our farewells to Mrs. Mayhew and walked out of the office, nearly walking into three relieved individuals standing outside the door.

  “So you didn’t sign them?” Stacy asked anxiously.

  “No, I didn’t sign them,” I replied, relieved that Graham’s warning last night wasn’t being proven right. “I know better than to trust that man.”

  “Hey, were you guys listening?” Graham asked, eyeing Lark and Stacy’s conspiratorial smiles.

  “Yes. Get used to it,” Stacy answered before Lark could get a word in, and then frowned at the office door. “That small man is weak. Weak-weak-weak! He’s more concerned with furthering his career than keeping us safe from psychos like Erica.”

  “Hey, did you guys hear that bit about Mr. Branke leaving?” I asked, needing to say something to avoid paying attention to the pair of silver eyes that watched me silently from behind Lark.

  “Yeah—who knew he had a family!” Stacy exclaimed.

  “He’s got a wife and daughter in Nebraska but he’s living here in Ohio. He’s got to have screwed up pretty hugely to be this far away from them,” Graham remarked as we began to walk down the hallway.

  “His daughter ran away, remember? That’s what Mrs. Mayhew said—she ran away and the wife blamed him for driving their daughter away,” I reminded him. “I wonder what he did or said to have made her hate being at home so much.”

  Lark shook her head and sighed. “She didn’t run away.”

  Stacy, Graham and I stopped walking and looked at her. “What do you mean she didn’t run away?” Stacy asked, voicing the question that we all were wondering.

  Lark closed her eyes and her head bobbed up and down slightly, her fingers pressing against her temple. “The registrar had it wrong—that’s what she gets I suppose for listening to idle gossip—Mr. Branke’s daughter did not run away from home. She was angry at her father, that’s true, and she did leave the house in anger, but she did not run away—her parents just thought she did.”

  We stared at her, intrigued by this new bit of information. “Why did they think that?” I asked.

  “Because she didn’t come home,” was the reply.

  Stacy huffed, annoyed by L
ark’s answer. “Isn’t that the definition of running away? You leave your house and don’t come back?”

  Lark shook her head. “It would be if she had intended on not coming home.”

  Graham’s hand reached out to wrap around Lark’s shoulder, his hand rubbing her arm in a comforting motion. “What happened?”

  “Her body was found on the side of a road two days later. She had been badly injured, and the police suspected she had been hit by a car and left to die. Mr. Branke’s wife blamed him for their daughter leaving and accused him of being partially to blame for her death. She kicked him out of the house a few weeks after the funeral and he moved here after accepting a job offer for a teaching position.”

  It was difficult to feel anything but sympathy in that moment for Mr. Branke. It suddenly made sense now why he kept so close to the female students in his class, and why he had gone out of his way to come to my home after I had been hit by Mr. Frey. “Mr. Frey…he admitted to running over another person in Nebraska,” I whispered. “It was him.”

  Lark nodded and Stacy and Graham both gasped in recognition. “That must be why he’s heading home. He’s got to tell his wife what happened,” Stacy rationalized.

  “Does he even know?” I asked Lark who shook her head.

  “He doesn’t know yet. The police haven’t revealed what was in Mr. Frey’s statement to the public yet, and I doubt they’ve sent any of it over to the Nebraska State Police to see if they can match up the dates with any hit-and-runs they might have had during that same time period. If and when they do, it’ll be the Nebraska police who inform Mr. Branke, and not Ohio’s.”

  Stacy sniffled. “Poor guy. We know who killed his daughter, and we can’t say anything because they’d want to know how we know.”

  Graham groaned and began to rub his head. “This is going to take some getting used to—all of this information sharing and all of these secrets are giving me a headache. I can’t imagine what it must feel like for you,” he said to Lark just before he pressed a kiss to her hair.

  I turned away, the small gesture bringing far too many memories to the forefront of my mind.

  Big mistake.

  Robert stood with his back against the lockers, his eyes glued to mine. I could see in his face that my memories were his own, and that the feelings they dredged up were equal on both sides.

  “I see you found something that wasn’t too difficult to put on,” he said softly, taking in the overly large shirt that draped over my jeans like a tunic.

  “Yeah, well, I’m pretty resourceful,” I replied, trying with great difficulty to avoid looking at him.

  “I’ve always known that,” his soft voice said.

  I looked down and stared at my feet, saying nothing when they were joined by his.

  Grace…can we talk?

  I raised my head, but couldn’t bring myself to look at him and so turned my face to the side. “About what?”

  I felt his hand brush gently against a loose section of hair that had fallen over my shoulder, and I fought against the automatic urge to lean into his touch.

  Anything.

  I looked at him and opened my mouth to reply but the bell chose that moment to ring and whatever silent truce had been forged between us was gone. I shook my head and began to walk towards homeroom as quickly as my feet could carry me. I paid no attention to the rush of footsteps behind me as Stacy ran to catch up.

  “You know the drill, Grace. You’re supposed to stick with me during the first half of the day, Graham the second,” she panted once she had reached me. “Ugh, I’m out of shape. You know it took me almost a full minute to pin Erica down yesterday? This cancer is doing a number on me.”

  I stopped walking. I looked at Stacy with an intense feeling of concern taking over everything else within me. “You shouldn’t be doing this, Stacy. You should be focusing on getting better and not on who or what’s out there trying to get me. You have your own monster to fight.”

  She shook her head and laughed. “I can’t win this war, Grace. I’ve accepted that.” She began walking again, her feet moving quickly, her ponytail bouncing behind her. She turned around to smile at me. “Are you coming?”

  I nodded and hurried up to her. We walked in silence until we reached our homeroom class. “Stacy, about yesterday,” I began.

  “Don’t say another word, Grace,” she interrupted. “I don’t have the luxury of time to dwell on stupid things said in anger or frustration. It’s not worth it. I’d rather we just be the friends we were meant to be, and leave all of that other stuff behind us, okay?”

  I nodded and smiled. “Okay.”

  “Good.”

  We walked into the classroom and took our seats, the usual chatter around us predictably silencing as we did so.

  Normally I’d turn red from embarrassment and hide behind the curtain of my hair. But today I felt something other than embarrassment. Today, I felt…angry. “Is there a problem?” I snapped, looking around at all of the faces that had turned to stare at Stacy and me. “Have I grown horns since yesterday? Did I suddenly sprout a third eye or something?”

  One by one, heads turned away, their faces flushed this time, rather than mine. I frowned, finding no satisfaction in the result of my outburst.

  “Whoa, harsh,” Stacy said as she watched everyone look away. “I guess they had it coming though.” This last bit she said more loudly than normal as she winked at me.

  “I don’t get it. Why do they always have to stare?”

  She looked around at the backs of everyone’s heads and smirked. “You know what happens when you eat the same thing, over and over again, every day for a long time?”

  “Yeah, you get sick of it or bored.”

  “Exactly. Nothing ever happens in Heath, you know that. At least, nothing ever did. Everything here is so…beige, while you’re…paisley, so when you do something, it gets noticed.”

  I glanced towards the front of the classroom, the empty desk where Mr. Frey would recuperate from his hangovers standing out like a silent warning. No substitute teacher that had been assigned his class since his arrest and subsequent death had ever sat there, leaving everything sitting exactly as it had on Mr. Frey’s last day. “It’s kind of hard to not get noticed when you’re the reason why two teachers were arrested,” I mumbled.

  “Oh stop it,” Stacy scolded. “You’re not to blame for any of that. Besides, I think everyone’s more interested in what happened yesterday than what happened last month.”

  “What did happen yesterday, Stacy? What happened with Erica after Graham and I left?”

  Her gaze travelled around the room as she lowered her voice. “That’s the weirdest part about all of this, the thing I think everyone else should be focusing on more so than you. It was like a switch had been turned off inside of her the minute you left. She stopped fighting, stopped yelling, just…stopped. She was so calm when she gave her statement to the police it was creepy. They told her that they would have to take her down to the police station and she just turned around and put her hands behind her back, no fight in her whatsoever.”

  “So basically you’re saying that the only time she showed any emotion was when I was there?”

  Stacy nodded, a grave look appearing on her face. “It’s like you set her off or something.”

  “Or something.”

  “Hey, change of subject, but Lark told me what Mr. Branke’s daughter’s name was.”

  I welcomed this change and eagerly waited for Stacy to reveal what it was that Lark had uncovered.

  “Her name was April.”

  “Not an unusual name. Quite pretty, actually,” I remarked. “It kind of puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?”

  Stacy nodded. “Yeah. If not for Robert, you could have ended up just like April.”

  I hesitated acknowledging her statement, the truth in her words having always been known to me but somehow being made more so by the mere addition of April Branke’s name. I had to live with t
he memories of the pain of my injuries, and the terror of being left to die on that road, but the point that I was alive had always seemed trivial, a given.

  I had taken the fact that I hadn’t died for granted because, unlike April, I had somehow known that things would be okay. I had known that because I had Robert. Who had April had on her side?

  VISITOR

  Unlike yesterday, Robert was in French class and later, Calculus. He didn’t try to speak to me, but I did find several more drawings in my binder. I wanted to admire them, wanted to take the time to look at them and appreciate them the way that they deserved, but I couldn’t. I still felt angry and hurt and those two feelings warred with each other inside of me, leaving no room for forgiveness.

  Final period in theater class was uneventful, save for the non-stop questions by Chad, Dwayne, and Shawn, the trio known as Chips, Dip, and Salsa; the only other boys in school besides Robert and Graham who had ever spoken to me of their own volition. When Erica didn’t show up for class it served as confirmation for all of us that she had probably been suspended, and the floodgates opened up.

  “Do you know why she did it?” Chips asked me, his eyes wide with curiosity.

  “Did she look all crazy, like pet rabbit in a pot of water crazy?” Dip asked, chiming in.

  “Did she look hot?” Salsa added.

  Robert, who had ignored my request to not sit next to me, glared at the three of them while I laughed and tried my best to answer them.

  “I never know why she does what she does, but I do know that she had to have been pretty far off her rocker to push me down the stairs. And I don’t know if she looked hot or not, Shawn. I was too busy dealing with the pain from my dislocated shoulder and cracked ribs.”

  Chips whistled at that. “You’ve got to be related to Wonder Woman or something, Grace. You’ve been hit by a car, cracked your head in Mr. Branke’s class, and survived being pushed down the stairs.”

  Dip shook his head in argument. “I say she’s got to be part Irish—they’re naturally lucky. Shelley’s definitely an Irish name.”