by Rachel Shane
I nodded. “And this time, I went out there because I heard the commotion and slipped on the mud.” I made my eyes wide and innocent. “I was trying to help.”
She pursed her lips. “Well, that does seem like something you would do.” She balled her hands into fists. “That’s it, I don’t care how much energy it uses up, I’m turning the security cameras back on. We could have caught them by—never mind.” She waved her hand away. “Did you see anything suspicious?”
A blast of air conditioning made me shiver. “Suspicious?”
“Anyone else out around the creek before you got there?” Principal Dodgson undid her bun and wrung the water out of her short, brown locks. “Come to think of it, how did Whitney rescue you? Was she already there?”
“No, of course not,” I said. Her question sounded like an accusation, and the last thing I needed was Whitney taking the fall for my mistake. “She came afterward. Why?”
“The English wing is flooded. We can’t hold a school day if the students need life vests to swim to their classes. And I don’t believe it’s the rain. Someone tried to get school canceled the other day with the vandalism. And I bet that same someone was fooling around with the dam today. Probably to get classes shut down.”
“Nonsense. Have you checked the dam?” I held my breath.
“That’s my next order of business.” Mascara ran down her face, making her look more like a sweaty circus clown than a school principal. “Well, this isn’t your problem. Whoever did this will be punished. But I am keeping my eye on you.”
My skin prickled. I could only hope the rain and the overflowing creek had washed away my backpack with my neatly-typed homework inside, the telltale evidence linking me to the crime.
CHAPTER 7
It took three days for the utility department to declare the school arid and no longer prime for surfing thanks to my little stunt. Students dusted off their alarm clocks and treaded into the halls, whispering that Mother Nature hadn’t caused the flood.
My eyes darted from classmate to classmate, desperate to catch any indication that anyone suspected my involvement in the act of environmental-social suicide. I hoped no one would notice my missing trademark backpack or the lame excuse that I’d forgotten my textbooks at home. I tried to wear the Model Student skin suit, but it didn’t fit as snugly as it used to.
I wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or not that Di and Dru ignored the fight we had in English and acted like nothing—including helping me out with my environmental goal—had happened. Selective memory loss comes in handy when you’re unpopular. I’d failed with Whitney, and unless I wanted to eat lunch alone in a bathroom stall, I had no choice but to keep up the same pretense.
The gym locker-room door burst open and smacked into the wall. “I know who did it!” Quinn Hart rushed toward the girls still lingering by the lockers. Anything to get people to listen to her and stretch out her fifteen minutes of high-school notoriety.
She did have a great sense of rumor.
I dropped the sneaker I’d been holding, fingers going from still to earthquake before Quinn even finished speaking. Please let her be talking about two people having sex in the janitor’s closet or something.
“Did what?” Dru piped up before anyone else could play the “Who’s there?” role to Quinn’s knock-knock joke.
Di’s eyes flitted toward Dru, then Quinn. “Yeah, I want to know!” Quinn wasn’t speaking specifically to us, so I eyed Di sidelong.
Quinn flicked her long, red curls out of her face. “The creek, silly! They found evidence.”
She rushed over to her eager audience of Di, Dru, and me. The girls across the way inched closer.
“Wh . . . who was it?” I managed to get out of my dry throat. I thought of my abandoned backpack.
“Whitney Lapin, right?” Di asked, turning pure speculation into the hottest rumor. Her tone was competitive, like she could one-up me with a better question.
Dru nodded. “She complained about the dry grass in English the other day.”
“She didn’t!” I blurted. It sounded like a counterattack, but I had no desire to win the role of Quinn Hart’s new minion.
“I don’t get why you keep sticking up for her.” Dru brushed her sandy hair into a quick ponytail.
“Contrariwise, why you keep talking to her.” Di used her fingers to pull her loose strands into an almost identical hairstyle.
“I don’t.” Not by choice.
“Whitney Lapin?” Quinn’s brows knitted together. “As in Kingston Hatter’s sister?”
How did everyone else know that info but me?
“Yeah. She pulled Alice out of the creek,” Dru said. “Seemed like a forced alibi.”
“Which, by the way, is so weird that you were out there.” Di shook her head at me.
“Oh, well, it wasn’t her,” Quinn said. I let out a breath. “But speaking of her, I heard Kingston went to jail!” Quinn’s eyes widened like camera lenses as she turned to me.
I tugged on ratty gym pants. “He does seem like the jail type.”
“For the creek?” Dru asked. “No how.”
“Contrariwise,” Di said. “That would make sense.”
“No, not the creek!” Quinn playfully slapped at the air directly in front of Di. “It was a prank pulled on us by Neverland High. Some Homecoming-rivalry bullshit or something.”
“That’s great!” I resisted the urge to do a victory dance, mostly because I couldn’t dance.
“I know. Now we have an excuse to get them back!” Quinn yanked open her locker and removed a red gym shirt embroidered with little hearts. My faded, gray hand-me-down wasn’t nearly as cute . . . or peppy.
“Wait . . . how do you know it was a prank?” I jammed my foot into the sneaker.
“Some graffiti and streamers and stuff stuck to a rock. So lame. We can do much better.”
I fidgeted with my shoelaces. Whitney obviously had gone to a lot of trouble to cover for me. No wonder she wasn’t interested in my help. And, ugh, did I just start a war with a rival school?
Dru cracked a smile directed at Quinn. “Are you planning something? To get them back?”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said with more force than I’d meant.
“Contrariwise—I do!” Di hopped in place with excitement.
Quinn turned her back to me and focused on Dru and Di. “I’m moving tomorrow, so I kind of have to focus on that first, but we’ll talk about it in a few days, ’kay?” Her voice was practically giddy with mischief.
The smile that spread over Di’s face was like a punch in the gut. Even though we weren’t on the same page anymore, it sucked to know your best friend preferred others over you. Dru had stampeded into our friendship over the summer, grabbed the reins, and steered Di away from me. Directing her right into Quinn’s path. Though I guess you could make the same argument about Whitney taking the reins over me.
Di tilted her head to me. “So are you in?” She pleaded with her eyes. I got the message loud and clear: I better agree and shut up about my ho pas.
“Um, sure.”
I’d lost my chance with Whitney; I couldn’t carry out anything myself without it resulting in disaster. And yet . . . my old life fit me about as well as an outgrown pair of pants that squeezed my flesh and cut off my circulation.
I knew I’d have to work harder. Either at finding a way into Whitney’s group or at forgetting they existed.
Our gym teacher blew his whistle to start class. “We’re running laps today, people.” Apparently a student had gotten injured earlier in the day on the flood-warped gym floors, so the teachers were forced to switch the curriculum to the Presidential Fitness test we usually did in the spring. “If you have to walk, that’s fine for today. But do your best. It’s a caucus race. No winner, no beginning, no end, just running.”
The athletes didn’t waste any time, charging for the track and competing against each other. I jogged at a comfortable pace with Dru and D
i. And Quinn.
“So are you moving out of town?” Dru asked Quinn.
“Nope.” There was a hop in her step. Odd. Most people didn’t get excited about staying in Wonderland. I was curious what she had to say, but then Chess swept past me in a quick run, his hair as messy as ever. No one ran beside him. “My parents are building—”
I may have failed with Whitney, but maybe there was still hope with Chess. “Be right back.”
I launched into an Olympic-speed run to catch up with him. Something rattled in my pocket, but I ignored it. My heart woke up from a nap and rammed against my chest. Since my legs were so short, I had to run a lot faster, but I had extra motivation now. I sped past other students, who watched me like I was crazy for participating in class with such enthusiasm.
Maybe they were on to something.
By the time I caught up with him three-quarters of the way around the track, my breath came in punching gasps and my blonde hair stuck to my neck. I wished I’d had the foresight to bring a ponytail holder. Or my game.
His feet slapped against the ground, and I’m not ashamed to admit I checked out his butt while I evened my breath. At least I wore a smile when I approached him. “Hey,” I said. It was all I could get out between gasps. My lungs were rebelling, but then again, so was I.
“Oh, hey.” He slowed his pace and jogged beside me. “Nice stunt. With the no school, I mean.”
“Yeah, I didn’t actually mean to do that.” I wiped sweat from my brow. “Quick question and then I’ll leave you alone.”
“No, stay.”
Even though my leg muscles throbbed from the torture I’d just put them through, it felt like they were dancing. “Is that what Whitney meant? With her ‘Open the floodgates’ riddle?”
“She thought you were spying on us. This was her way of making sure you’re on our side. But you weren’t exactly stealthy.”
I squinted into the bright sun. “I can be.”
His feet came to a dead stop. “Why are you doing this?”
I stumbled as I stopped short. “I want to help.”
“Yeah, but what’s in it for you?”
You. The word hovered in my mind, but I kept it there, unsaid. Still, I knew that was only a small part of it.
A few students jogged past us, tilting their heads at our association. Chess didn’t seem to notice.
“You guys are making a difference. Right?” Suddenly I realized I had no idea. Maybe I wanted to think they were doing good things.
“Yeah, we are. Sort of. In our own way.” He started a slow jog.
In our own way. Chess had told me the group did stuff they couldn’t exactly brag about, and the “pledge” task they’d given me could’ve gotten me expelled. Which made me wonder . . . “Does what you’re doing with Whitney have anything to do with why you got expelled from boarding school?”
We jogged a quarter of the track before he finally answered. “I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors.”
“I want the truth.”
“You can’t always get what you want.” His smile ignited bad thoughts in my mind. Thoughts of how I could make it even wider.
I focused on the red track beneath my feet, anything to avoid swooning over his lips. “Oh no. Not you too with the riddles.”
He laughed. “That’s not a riddle. That’s the Stones.”
“Oh.”
“Which rumor was your favorite?”
Odd question. “I don’t know.” I recalled the ones about murder. I wasn’t sure how far they would go with everything. Or even what their agenda was. The environmental stuff could just be a cover for something more sinister.
“Pick one.”
Since it was all I could think of, I said, “I’m hoping the murder one is false.”
Two students passed by us, and Chess waited until they were out of earshot. “Well, I promise you I haven’t murdered anyone. Songs, yes. I murder those a lot. Time, too. But Whitney murders that more than I do.”
My step lightened. “That’s good. Murder would be the only thing to dissuade me.”
He clenched his jaw and suddenly got very quiet. After a while he said, “Whitney, Kingston, and me . . . we have reasons for what we do. You don’t.”
I stumbled mid-stride. “So you don’t want me to join your . . . secret society?”
“No, it’s not that. I want— It’s—” He raked his hand through his shaggy hair as a couple more students ran by us, checking us out. “Never mind.”
“What?” I cocked my head to look at him. A hole was unraveling on the shoulder of his T-shirt. Since I was shorter, it was right in my line of vision and I couldn’t stop staring at it.
“It’s just, trust me. I would have noticed sooner if you were into this kind of stuff.”
“I’m not the same girl I was last week,” I said. “So how could you possibly have noticed?”
“I feel like I know who you are.” Chess met my eyes, and I stumbled again.
“You’re going by rumors. And we both know rumors might be false.” I held his gaze even though all the rumors about me had been accurate until last week.
He jerked away from me. “Point taken. There’s a lot we don’t know about each other.”
My feet slammed onto the rubbery asphalt with too much force. He pumped his arms with equal aggression. Silence wasn’t my preferred form of communication, but we were mastering the dialect.
I eased my pace. “But you did know my address the other day . . . ”
He cupped the back of his neck. “Um . . . that was a lucky guess?” The end of his sentence rose in pitch like a question.
“Really lucky. Care to try again with the lottery?”
He chuckled. “Actually, I memorized the school directory.”
I squinted at him. “Who does that?”
“It was either that or study for a test.” He eyed me sidelong, like he was waiting to see if I’d buy it.
I hoped the real reason he knew my address and wouldn’t tell me was good, like an endearing crush on me, and not something I should be afraid of, like a favorite pastime of watching girls get changed, through binoculars.
I wiped a line of sweat from the back of my neck. “Good call there. You know what they say. You can’t spell studying without dying.”
“Yeah, see, knowing your address saved lives.”
“You’re a real hero,” I said. The sun beat down, casting him in an angelic glow. “See, I know you’re not a bad person. So why do you let everyone think you are?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” He stopped to tie his already-tied laces, forcing me to bend over to hear him. “I do bad things. That doesn’t mean I can’t make up for it sometimes.”
“Like how?”
“Like . . . ” He rose to a standing position, towering over me and casting me in shadow. “What are you doing tonight?”
A surge of hope rushed through me, bursting through a smile on my lips. “Nothing.”
“How about this. I’ll pick you up, say, around eight?” His voice trickled with temptation. “And we’ll talk about this in . . . private.”
Private sounded dangerous, even if it meant making out and not ecotage. I straightened my shoulders. “It’s a date.” My cheeks flamed at the realization of what I’d said. He raised one eyebrow. “I mean, sounds good.” I fidgeted with my hands, clasping and unclasping them while he watched me. I had to distract him somehow. Remembering the rattling from my pants, I pulled out a pack of mints from my pocket. I offered one to him.
“Is this a riddle? Are you trying to tell me something about my breath?” He grinned as he took one from the pack.
The teacher blew the whistle to signal the end of class. The students raced back toward the school, running faster than they ever did on the track. One stopped when he saw my open pack. “Hey, can I get one?”
I tossed him the pack so he would go away and I could keep talking to Chess. The boy took one and passed the pack off to his friend, who wa
nted one, and so on and so forth until the last student returned an empty pack to me. I shook it to be sure, then fake-pouted.
“Awww, don’t be sad. Here.” Chess stuck his hands in his pockets. “Maybe I can give you something to cheer you up.”
“You don’t have to,” I said. He pulled out one hand and massaged his jaw, so I rushed in with a joke in case I’d offended him. “The moral of that was: don’t be generous.”
“Well, I passed that lesson. Because I plan on being chivalrous, not generous. As coincidental as it is, I think I have some mints on me.” But instead he pulled out a . . . razor. His cheeks turned a shade of red Quinn would be envious of.
“Do you always keep toiletries in your gym clothes?”
“It’s a weapon.” He swiped it through the air like a sword. “Self-defense. Since pocket knives are banned at school.”
“Ah, weapon. Yes, that’s what my mints were, too. Someone has to fight the good fight against halitosis.” Or in my case, coffee breath. My mother always told me to remember two things: Wear clean underwear in case you get into a car accident. And always carry mints in case you talk to a cute boy. I was glad the mint advice was the only one I’d needed so far.
“Well, I beg your acceptance of this elegant razor.” He bowed and held it out to me. “Since I did promise and all.”
“Thanks, but I’d rather have your number.” I said, then caught myself. “In case anything comes up before tonight.”
“Oh.” He rubbed the back of his neck with his palm. “I’d rather you didn’t.”
The smile disappeared from my lips.
He must have seen the disappointment on my face because he quickly added, “I don’t have a cell phone. It, uh, got confiscated. I was using it to cheat on a test, so . . . I won’t get it back for a while.”
“That explains your rebel comment in your car. What about your landline?”
“My dad’s really strict, no phone calls. So eight o’clock?”
I nodded, cheeks unable to contain my smile.
“By the way. Your question before? You were right about part of it. All those rumors are false.” He took a step backward. “But you’re wrong about why I don’t go to boarding school anymore.” He gave me a sharp wave, then turned around and headed for the locker room.
