by Diane Hoh
“I think she’s in love,” Alex said. “With Bennett.”
Julie nodded. “I know. When she calls me, that’s all she talks about.” Her voice softened. “It’s like she’s having all the fun she missed in high school. I had it, but Jenny never did. It’s kind of weird that I had to get hurt for Jenny to have fun, don’t you think?”
Alex hadn’t thought of it that way. But then she remembered Jenny twirling in front of the mirror in Julie’s clothes, her hair curled, makeup on…To hide the odd sensation that image suddenly created, she said hastily, “I’m sure Jenny would take away the accident if she could.”
But, remembering the look on Jenny’s face when Bennett threw that pass, Alex wondered how sure she was about that.
Julie brightened then, and said, “Gabe was in this morning, before the game. And he said he’d like me to wear his gold football. You know, those little ones the guys got when they made the team?” Julie smiled, and for just a second, in spite of the roadmap of tape on her face and the stitches and bruises, Alex saw the old Julie. “It’s kind of like being engaged to be engaged to be engaged, right? It comes on a chain. I’ll wear it around my neck.”
Even as Alex hugged Julie, she was thinking, But Gabe told me he’d lost his football. He must have found it. That was fast.
Maybe mentioning it to him at the dance had given him the idea to hunt for it and give it to Julie.
She was still thinking about Gabe’s gold football when she arrived at the intensive care unit to meet Marty. And she thought about it when she looked through the glass window and saw Kyle still lying there, motionless. Marty had gone to grab a Coke from the machine before leaving the hospital, and when Alex’s eyes caught sight of the familiar brown envelope lying on the counter behind the nurse’s station, she looked around to see if anyone was watching.
She loved Gabe Russo. Everyone loved Gabe Russo. But that little gold football she’d found in the plant on the deck was the only clue she had to who had pushed Kyle over that wall. Gabe had told her he’d lost his football. Now, suddenly, he’d found it? He’d been right here in the hospital for quite a while, and still came in for therapy. Gabe would have known that Kyle wore his football around his neck, and that it would be in the envelope with the rest of his belongings. All he had to do was open it, as she had, and reach inside…
Gabe? No, not possible…
But if he had Kyle’s football, no one could accuse him of having lost his own up on the tower.
Hardly able to bear what she was thinking, Alex knew she had no choice. She had seen for herself that Kyle’s football was safely inside that envelope. If it was still there, she would hate herself later for doubting Gabe.
She darted around the corner, yanked open the envelope flap for the second time, and thrust her hand inside.
And although her fingers searched and probed as long as she dared, and although they met the soft leather of a wallet and the hard metal of jangling keys and the round smoothness of coins, they never touched anything even faintly resembling the oval shape of a tiny gold football.
It was gone.
Chapter 16
ALEX WAS JUST ABOUT to replace the envelope when a voice cried from behind her, “Just exactly what do you think you’re doing?”
Cringing guiltily, Alex yanked her hand free and dropped the envelope. And whirled to face an angry nurse.
“I…I just…” Thinking quickly, Alex took a deep breath and said, “Kyle Leavitt is my boyfriend. I was wearing his little gold football and then we had a fight and I gave it back to him, but now that he’s sick, I want it back. I thought it would be in here, with his things. But it isn’t.”
The nurse regarded her with suspicion. “Listen, I don’t know what you’re up to, Miss, but you’re wrong about the football. It is in there. Put it in there myself, the night he was brought in.”
“It’s not there now.”
“Let me see.” The nurse dumped the envelope’s contents onto the desk. There was no tiny gold ornament. Frowning, she looked up at Alex. “You sure you didn’t already take it out of here?”
“No. If I had, I’d be wearing it around my neck.”
“Well, I don’t know then. Like I said, it was here. Should have locked this envelope in the cupboard in back, but I never got around to it. I’ll do it now.” And the envelope was whisked away.
Alex spent the rest of the weekend wondering what had happened to Kyle’s charm. She had felt it, inside that envelope, with her own fingers. It had been there. Now, it wasn’t. Why would someone take it?
The answer came several times: to replace one that was missing. Each time, she rejected that answer. Because Marty had lost his. So had Gabe. And Bennett didn’t seem to know where his was, either. If any one of them had lost their own golden football up on that sixth-floor observation deck, they wouldn’t want anyone to know it. So they would want it replaced, wouldn’t they? And they would know that Kyle had been wearing his when he went over that wall, and where to look for it. Gabe had been right here in the hospital. So had Marty. And Bennett came here for his therapy.
But every single one of them was a good friend of Kyle’s. Why would they have done something so terrible to him?
They wouldn’t have.
Reminding herself that there were other guys who owned those football charms, Alex pushed the nasty thoughts out of her mind, and called the police to see if they’d made any progress.
They hadn’t. No fingerprints on the bus, no trace of anyone in the woods…no luck at all.
They wanted, she was told, to put a guard on her, but they couldn’t spare the manpower right now, in the middle of a big investigation like this. The police department in the town of Twin Falls was not a large one. “Best that you not go out alone,” the desk sergeant told her sternly, and she promised that she wouldn’t.
He promised to let her know the minute something solid “came up.”
At lunch in the dining hall on Sunday, Alex was sitting with Jill and Amber when Kiki walked in. The change in her was shocking. Her hair hung lank and oily around her ears, her face was pale and wan, her eyes shadowed. And her clothes hung on her.
“What is it with that girl?” Jill said, watching as Kiki loaded a tray with food. “She eats like a horse, but she looks like a twig. I don’t get it. If I ate like that, I’d look like the Goodyear blimp.”
“I think there’s something wrong with her,” Alex said, her eyes on Kiki as she moved lethargically toward a seat in the corner and sat down. “I think she’s sick. She really should see a doctor.”
The words were barely out of her mouth when Kiki’s eyes rolled back in her head and she slid out of her chair onto the floor, landing in a soft, limp heap.
When she had been taken to the infirmary, Alex said quietly, “Well, at least she’ll get help. They’ll find out what’s wrong with her now.”
It wasn’t until later that night as she was teetering on the edge of sleep that she remembered Kiki’s wish at Vinnie’s the first night they’d seen The Wizard, the night of that wild lightning strike. Kiki had wished she would lose weight, just as Julie had wished for a different face and Gabe had wished he didn’t have to walk so much.
Alex turned restlessly in her bed. If it wasn’t the most idiotic thing in the world to think, she would think The Wizard had been listening when they spoke that night. Wishes Granted….said the sign on the front of the red booth. And what had her grandmother always told her? “Be careful what you wish for, Alexandria. You just might get it!”
In a perverse, twisted way, Julie, Gabe, and Kyle had all got what they’d asked for. Not in the way they’d wanted it, of course. Maybe her grandmother had been right.
Crazy way to think…The Wizard had no power to grant wishes. He was just a mechanical figure, an old, fraying one at that.
The only thing I wished for, she thought uneasily, was to forget about The Wizard.
Then Alex heard in her head, the song, The wheels on the bus go round and
round, round and round, round and round, the wheels on the bus go round and round, all through the town.
No one but she and her hijacker had known about the terrifying bus ride. So how did that card get into the fortune-telling booth? Unless…unless…
No! Crazy, crazy….Be careful, Alex, she warned, rolling over and thrusting her face into her pillow, or you’ll be the next one carted off to the hospital. The mental hospital.
She fell asleep and dreamed she had been fastened into a white straitjacket, her arms tied behind her.
When she awoke, both arms were hopelessly tangled in the sheets.
She tried to laugh, and found it impossible.
She didn’t want to go to class. The idea of staying in her room with the door locked made more sense than ever. And she could afford to miss a few classes.
But Marty was giving his speech today in sociology. She couldn’t miss that.
She quickly showered, and dressed in jeans and her favorite bright red blouse. Then she woke Jenny, who had come in late again, and waited while Jenny dressed. She grumbled crankily the entire time, but she didn’t want to miss Marty’s speech, either.
Grateful that they’d already delivered their own speeches, the two girls hurried across campus to the mixed media lecture hall in the communications building.
The big, square room was packed when they arrived. Bennett and Gabe were already seated on the far side of the room, Bennett’s legs propped up on an old radiator. He was enjoying hearty slaps on the back and shouted “congratulations” for his success in the game on Saturday. “He’s positively glowing with triumph,” Alex murmured to Jenny. “He certainly loves attention.” Alex quickly realized that Jenny, too, was “glowing.”
“I know what it’s like to go without that,” she told Alex, and sat down behind Bennett. Alex sat across the aisle, in front of Gabe.
Marty, in a blue V-necked sweater and jeans, was positioned behind the podium at the front of the hall. Although he didn’t seem at all nervous, Alex flashed him an encouraging smile.
Dr. Taylor-Guinn, a tall, thin woman with thick black hair, had seated herself in front of the massive oak desk behind the podium, her hands folded in her lap, an expectant look on her face.
That’s because, Alex thought, she knows Marty’s speech will be one of the better ones. Everyone in the room who knows Marty knows it’ll be a good speech. There was an air of relief in the room, a sense that while many of the recent speeches had been dry and painfully boring, there just might be a few good laughs in this one.
Marty waited patiently until all of the coughs, the clearing of throats, rattling of papers, and shuffling of feet had ended. Then he stood up very straight, shoulders back, head up, eyes focused on his audience in the stance that Dr. Taylor-Guinn had advised.
Watching him, Alex wished that she and Marty could get beyond whatever was between them lately. True, they’d all been on edge, and with good reason. But she and Marty were snapping each other’s heads off half the time, and she didn’t know why. She didn’t think he did, either.
A respectful silence finally descended upon the room.
Marty cleared his throat one last time, glanced down at his notes, lifted his head, looked at his audience, and opened his mouth.
No sound emerged.
Surprise widened Marty’s eyes. He had expected a sentence to come forth, and it hadn’t.
He tried again, forming his lips to create words.
But the words were stillborn.
Alex had helped him with the research on his speech. She knew what he was trying to say. The title of his speech was Coming of Age with the Computer. It was a lighthearted look at how technology had changed society. And Alex knew the first line by heart: The most significant difference between man, that creature known as homo sapiens, and the computer is, if you can’t stand the way the computer is behaving, you can always unplug it. Don’t you wish we could sometimes do that with people?
But in that entire room, only Alex and Marty knew what he was trying to say. Because he couldn’t say it.
He tried. He tried again and again. His cheekbones flushed scarlet, the cords in his neck strained, and his eyes grew more and more bewildered as his mouth moved desperately to push forth words that refused to come.
Behind him, the communications professor shifted impatiently in her seat, and cleared her throat.
She can’t see his face, Alex thought, sitting up very straight in her chair, wanting passionately to help in some way. Dr. Taylor-Guinn thinks Marty’s stalling, that he’s unprepared. Or maybe she thinks he’s got stage fright. But he doesn’t. I know he doesn’t. Not Marty.
She saw Gabe and Bennett exchange embarrassed glances, and she wanted to slap them. They were embarrassed? It was Marty who was up there in front of the entire class, not them.
She watched in agony as Marty tried several more times, his face deepening in color, his fists clenching and unclenching with the effort.
Twice, his eyes sought Alex’s, as if to beg for help.
For one long moment, she thought about going up to the podium and giving the speech for him. She could do it. She knew enough about the material, and his notes would be well-organized.
But the teacher would never allow it. And, more important, Marty would be even more humiliated if she took over for him.
She stayed put. There was nothing she could do.
He had lost his voice.
People began coughing, clearing their throats, shuffling their feet in embarrassment for him. Alex was grateful that no one snickered.
When, finally giving up, Marty turned in misery to his professor, she took pity on him and coolly dismissed him.
Although he kept his head high and his back straight as he left the podium, Alex could feel his burning humiliation.
“Well,” Jenny whispered sympathetically as another student replaced Marty at the front of the room, “Marty wished he could get out of giving his speech, remember? At Vinnie’s, the night of the storm.”
And Alex did remember then. She turned her head to look at him. He was sitting off to her left, looking totally bewildered. One hand repeatedly rubbed his throat.
He had made that wish, that night at Vinnie’s, just as Julie, Gabe, and Kiki had made wishes.
And now Marty, like the others, had got what he wanted. He hadn’t had to give the speech, after all. Hadn’t been able to.
Then Alex remembered the fortune Marty had received from The Wizard, the same one she’d received.
She could see the small, crisp white card as it lay in Marty’s hand that night of the storm. The print jumped up to meet her eyes.
SILENCE IS GOLDEN.
Chapter 17
ALEX WAS WAITING IN the infirmary waiting room for Marty when Shelley, the tall redhead Bennett had once dated, walked in. She was wearing her drum majorette’s outfit, and she was limping. “That stupid trombone player stepped on my foot,” she complained as she hopped over to the counter. “And I have to march Saturday! Of all the luck…”
Alex sat patiently while Shelley checked in and was told to wait. When she was seated opposite Alex, the temptation to ask a few questions was too strong to ignore. Nonchalantly thumbing through a magazine, Alex said, “Didn’t you used to date Bennett Stark?”
“Who are you?” Shelley asked rudely, rubbing her injured ankle.
“Alex Edgar. I’m a friend of Bennett’s.”
“Bennett…Bennett…oh, the rookie football player. Ex-football player, I should say. Yeah, I went out with him for a while. Why?” Her eyes narrowed. “He hasn’t been talking about me, has he?”
“No, of course not. I just wondered…Bennett’s been dating my roommate, and he wants to give her that little gold football of his,” Alex lied. “You know, the one all the freshmen players received? But he can’t find it. I just wondered if he might have given it to you and then forgotten about it.”
She expected Shelley to say she didn’t have it, that she’d never received it
, that he really had taken it home and left it there.
But Shelley didn’t say that. “Yeah, he gave it to me,” she said instead. “It was cute. Not real gold, of course, but it didn’t look half-bad with my blue cashmere.”
Alex turned a page of her magazine. “Do you still have it?” Bennett could have forgotten that he’d given it to Shelley.
“It wasn’t that cute. I gave it back to Bennett, natch. I knew if I kept it, he’d think there was still hope, and there wasn’t.”
Bennett’s little gold football, identical to the one she’d found in the plant on the deck, wasn’t back home as Bennett had said. It never had been. Not too awfully long ago, he’d given it to Shelley. And she’d given it back.
He couldn’t have forgotten that.
Why had he lied?
Gabe, too, had lied…maybe. He was going to give his football to Julie, after telling Alex that he didn’t know where it was.
Neither one of those things means anything, Alex told herself sternly. Gabe could have simply found his, and maybe Bennett hadn’t wanted to tell her the embarrassing truth—that Shelley had handed his back.
She couldn’t believe either one of them would have hurt Kyle. They were all friends!
But…then she remembered, that boy in the stands had said at the game, “Gabe wouldn’t have played if Kyle was here.”
Oh, for pete’s sake, football couldn’t be a motive for what had happened to Kyle. That was totally ridiculous!
Wasn’t it?
Shelley was called in to be treated. Marty still hadn’t come back out, so Alex decided she’d ask about Kiki. She hadn’t seen her on campus. If she was still here, in the infirmary, she must be pretty sick.
“Yes, she’s here,” the nurse behind the reception desk told Alex. She clucked her tongue. “You kids and your crazy fad diets! That girl is very ill. We’re transferring her to the hospital today.” The middle-aged woman looked at Alex with disapproving eyes. “She was on a diet, am I right?”
Alex nodded. “But she was eating. I saw her eat.”
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