Gracie's Game: Sudden Anger, Accidentally on Purpose

by Parker, Jack

  "It's not bad for institutional food," Gracie said. "And besides, none of us felt like going out for lunch in this weather.

  "Here, Kelly, you can have mine too." Shawna picked up her bowl and handed it to him. "It's been cloudy all day, but naturally it had to start raining right at lunchtime."

  Cheryl handed him her bowl as well. She glanced at the clock on the cafeteria wall and said, "I think I'll visit the ladies' room now. It's always so crowded right before the bell rings."

  "Sounds like a plan," Gracie said.

  Shawna stood up too, prompting Kelly to look up in surprise. "You're not gonna leave me here all by my lonesome, are you?" He did his best to look pitiful.

  Gracie patted his shoulder and reminded him that he was still eating. "We'll be right back."

  They walked away together, leaving Kelly mumbling to himself about the age-old question of why women couldn't seem to manage this basic function alone.

  "Let's stop at the vending machines on the way back," Cheryl suggested. "I want something to take the taste of that chili out of my mouth."

  "You complain about the grease in the chili, then you eat chocolate," Gracie teased.

  "And you stay so skinny!" Shawna added.

  "But the calories in candy taste so much better!" Cheryl explained, laughing.

  They pushed open the door to find the bathroom apparently unoccupied. But they hadn't taken three steps before they heard the unmistakable sound of someone losing their lunch. They looked at each other and grimaced in sympathy.

  "Who's there?" Gracie asked. "Are you okay?"

  At first the only answer was a groan. "Uh, it's Meaghan. Is that you, Gracie?"

  "Yeah, and Shawna and Cheryl are here too."

  "I must've eaten something that disagreed with me," Meaghan said in a weak voice.

  "I told you that chili was gross!" Cheryl said.

  Shawna grabbed a couple of paper towels, wet them at the sink, and bent down to stick her hand under the door. "Here's some wet towels, if you need to clean up or wipe your face."

  "Thanks…unh!" Whatever Meaghan had been going to say was cut off by another bout of sickness.

  "Stay there and we'll help you when we're done," Gracie said.

  "I'll be okay," Meaghan insisted. "Just let me sit here a minute."

  A couple of minutes later Meaghan unlocked her door and they helped her stand up. "Let's get you over to the sink so you can wash your hands," Shawna directed. "You should rinse your mouth out, too."

  Gracie kept her hands on Meaghan's waist to steady her as she cleaned up. Meaghan looked at herself in the mirror and remarked, "I look awful."

  "You want us to take you to the office so you can lie down?" Gracie asked.

  "No, thanks," Meaghan said. "Actually I'm feeling better now." She tried a feeble grin on for size. "You know how it is, sometimes you just have to get it out and then you'll be okay. You can let go of me now, Gracie."

  Emily burst in and headed for the sinks. She stuck her hands under the water, pumped a blob of soap onto one and began working up lather. As she did so she took in the scene with the other girls. "What's wrong?"

  "Meaghan ate the cafeteria chili," Cheryl replied, trying to lighten the mood. "What're you doing, scrubbing for surgery?"

  "It's this horrible poison ivy!" Emily wailed. "It just seems to be getting worse. See, yesterday I found some on the side of my neck." She pointed with a soapy finger.

  "Allison told you not to scratch it," Gracie said.

  "I'm not, I swear," Emily insisted. She held out one arm. "See? It's covered with that pink crap, and there's no scratch marks." She began rinsing her hands.

  "So what's with the hand-washing?" Shawna inquired. "Soap won't make it go away."

  Emily sighed loudly. "I know. But I'm getting paranoid; just in case I've touched it without realizing I figure it can't hurt to wash my hands a lot. Then maybe it won't spread so much."

  "Makes sense to me," Gracie said. She turned to check on Meaghan, who was staring at her hands, turning her little silver purity ring around and around on her finger. "Are you feeling better now, Meaghan?"

  Meaghan's head jerked up as if she were surprised the conversation had turned back to her. "Yeah, I think so, thanks."

  "Do you need to go home or something?" Shawna asked, concerned.

  "I think I'll be fine," Meaghan said, though her tone of voice didn't sound so sure. "Besides, Amy's coming over to hang out after school and I'd hate to disappoint her."

  "Well, if all the crises are over, we'd better get back to Kelly," Cheryl said. "He's gonna wonder if we all fell in!"

  Cheryl was still licking the chocolate off her fingers as she settled in to her seat in 4th hour. She pulled the appropriate book from her backpack, added a notebook, and then began rummaging around in search of a pencil. Having found one, she opened the book, pressing her hands against the pages to keep them open. She stared in dismay at the resultant brown smudge her sticky fingers had left on the page, then began licking the fingers again.

  "Didn't your mother teach you to wash your hands after you ate?" Serene said snidely. She sauntered over towards Cheryl and looked down her nose at the smear on the book. "Looks like someone's been eating chocolate. I never touch the stuff because I know what it'll do to my face and figure."

  Another time Cheryl might have returned the rudeness but right now she was doubly embarrassed to be noticed as well as harassed. "It doesn't seem to bother me." She glanced at the clock. "Help me out here, do you have a tissue so I can wipe my fingers?"

  That was the right response, as it served to point out that Serene had to work at looking good while Cheryl seemed able to eat anything and not gain weight. "Gimme a minute and I'll see – but only because I don't want you touching me and getting me all sticky."

  Serene turned her back on Cheryl and took a step forward to her desk; Cheryl reached over the back of the chair and rubbed her fingers across the wooden surface, sticking her tongue out as she did. She pulled her hand back quickly as Serene sat down, and pasted an innocent smile on her face. The girl across the aisle smothered a giggle with one hand while giving Cheryl a thumb's-up with the other.

  Serene dropped her backpack on the desk with a heavy thump. She'd opened her mouth to make another nasty comment when suddenly the entire writing surface of the desk flipped forward under the weight of the book bag. Both desktop and bag fell on Serene's outstretched legs and she screamed with surprise.

  Everyone stared in shock for a moment. Austin jumped up to pull the heavy piece of wood off Serene's legs, then stood there holding it awkwardly, unsure quite what to do with it. He finally put it down on the teacher's desk.

  The teacher rushed up, having seen the accident as she walked into the room. "Serene, are you all right? My goodness, I've never seen that happen before."

  Serene looked down at her feet and said in a stunned voice, "I'm bleeding."

  The teacher bent down to take a closer look. "It's just a scratch, dear. Stand up and see if you can walk." She extended a hand to help Serene up, which gesture was ignored.

  Serene took a cautious step and announced that it hurt a little but she didn't think anything was broken.

  "Why don't you go clean up and we'll get you another desk. Austin, bring up one of those in the back, no one sits there this hour." She pushed the broken desk into the front corner of the room as Serene left (limping) and Austin showed off his strength by picking up an empty desk rather than pushing it.

  The teacher pushed on the replacement to make sure it too wouldn't fall apart. "All right, class. Everything's under control; let's get started and Serene can catch up when she comes back. Though what with poor Mrs. Lane and Travis' fall the other day and now this we certainly seem to be having a lot of accidents around here lately."

  Gracie and her girl friends had gone to the mall after school. Kelly professed a sudden interest in homework; anything was better to him that wandering around the mall looking at clothes! Cheryl ha
d bought a new pair of skinny jeans, but Gracie and Shawna were more interested in chili-cheese fries and chocolate malts. The three girls staked out a table where they could watch people walk by and dug in.

  "Did you hear about Serene?" Cheryl asked.

  "What about her?" Shawna said, obviously not terribly interested.

  "Her desk fell apart in 4th hour," Cheryl said. "The top just came right off and whacked her legs."

  "Was she hurt?" Gracie asked, only mildly interested.

  "She had a little cut on her ankle, and she limped when she left to take care of it. But I doubt she was really hurt."

  "How could a desk fall apart?" Shawna asked, curious now.

  Cheryl shrugged. "I don't know, but it did. The whole top just came off when she dropped her backpack on it."

  "But they're bolted on, or something," Shawna protested.

  "The nuts must've worked loose, maybe some guy was playing with them the hour before lunch," Gracie suggested.

  Cheryl shrugged. "The teacher did mention there'd been several accidents lately."

  "Like what?" Shawna wanted to know.

  "Well, she mentioned Maggie and something about Travis," Cheryl replied. "Travis Stephenson? Did something happen to him?"

  "Travis Nichols," Gracie replied.

  "Oh, the nerd," Cheryl said.

  "Cheryl! That's not very nice," Shawna said.

  "Well, he is a nerd, a geek, a four-eyes; what'd he do anyway, break his glasses?"

  "Travis is smart," Gracie insisted. "Just because he dresses a little weird and doesn't socialize much doesn't mean he's not a nice guy. He slipped at the bottom of the stairs the other day, fell and broke his arm."

  "Owww!" Shawna put in.

  "Good thing it wasn't Emily! We'd still be hearing about how bad it hurt," Cheryl said.

  "But we are still hearing how bad that poison ivy itches!" Gracie said, laughing. "You know, come to think about it, there have been several accidents lately. You don't think Emily went out and deliberately got poison ivy, do you?"

  "There's Madison's fall yesterday, too," Shawna reminded them. "That happened because of the broken tail light."

  "Yeah, but they're just accidents," Gracie insisted. "You couldn't plan things like that. I mean, you could deliberately break Madison's taillight but even though you know she's usually skating around on the heelies you couldn't be sure she'd trip over the pieces and fall."

  "And Emily's car just happened to be parked across the row. That was pure luck. Everyone knows they're friends, who'd want to make them mad at each other?" Shawna asked.

  "We all gave Emily a hard time about getting the poison ivy from making out in the bushes, but that's not the kind of thing she does," Gracie said. "Although it does seem weird that she'd get it this time of year." She stared off into the distance with a thoughtful look on her face.

  "You got an idea?" Cheryl asked.

  Gracie shook her head. "It just seems like there's something I should be able to remember that somehow is connected." She shrugged and smiled. "It'll come."

  "Those desks are old," Cheryl said. "Who knows if a bolt is missing or not? Serene dropped her bag down pretty hard, maybe it was hanging together by a thread and that was just too much."

  "Well, at least nobody's been really hurt," Shawna said, trying to see the bright side.

  "A broken arm hurts," Gracie said. "Trust me. I saw Travis right after it happened and he was in pain."

  "You know, I could sort of see someone trying to get back at the popular girls," Cheryl said slowly, as if thinking out her point. "But why would anyone want to hurt a geek like Travis?"

  "Have you heard from your cop friend lately?" Shawna asked. "Has he figured out what happened to Mrs. Lane?"

  "Haven't heard a word since he talked to us on Tuesday," Gracie replied. "Why? Are you thinking that was just an accident too?"

  "He said it could've been," Shawna said. "There's no evidence of foul play, as they say on TV."

  "He did tell us Jake screwed her Friday afternoon, but half the school knows she survived that!" Cheryl joked.

  "I saw him leave the party," Gracie reminded them. "Ken said he'd checked with Jake's parents and is pretty sure he was at home when she died."

  "You also said Maggie was flirting with all the jocks that night," Cheryl said. "You think that made him jealous?"

  "And what, he slipped out of the house and pushed her down the stairs when she refused to stop flirting?" Shawna asked.

  "How hard is it to crawl out a window?" Cheryl asked rhetorically. "My cousin does it all the time. His mother's usually so drunk she never knows."

  "But Jake's mother isn't known for drinking," Gracie said. "Though I guess that doesn't mean he hasn't figured how to get out without her hearing it."

  "Maybe she got jealous of all his girlfriends," Shawna suggested.

  "So he killed her to get her to shut up about it?" Cheryl asked ironically. "Wouldn't it have been easier just to drop her? He's not even in her class, so it's not like he'd be worried about his grade!"

  "Jake could take his pick of almost any girl in school, but that doesn't mean he's sleeping with any of them. Maybe that's why he wanted to keep a, um, relationship with Mrs. Lane," Shawna said.

  "Oh come on!" Cheryl sounded exasperated with Shawna's naïveté. "Do you really think some of them aren't putting out?"

  "But none of that is a really good reason to kill someone," Gracie interceded before her friends' feelings got hurt. "Not cold-blooded murder, anyway. Maybe they got into a fight and she fell, but I can't see Jake killing someone."

  Cheryl sighed. "You're right, Gracie. I can't see it either. But drunks are usually so relaxed they don't get hurt when they fall down. They survive car wrecks! I'm just not buying that Maggie fell down all by herself; something must've happened to make her fall."

  "Maybe we're looking at it from the wrong angle!" Shawna suggested. "It was all Jake's girlfriends who ganged up on Mrs. Lane and asked her to leave him alone." She giggled at such a silly idea.

  "Like some kind of intervention?" Cheryl asked. "'Why don't you pick on someone your own age', that kind of thing?"

  "They wouldn't be able to keep quiet about it," Gracie said. "Especially after they found out Maggie had ended up dead."

  "Gracie's right," Cheryl said. "Although it does make for a great picture; I'd have liked to see that confrontation. But someone would get scared and talk, and it's been nearly a week already."

  Shawna grinned to show she wasn't taking it personally. "Yeah, Emily would bust if she couldn't reenact the scene; or Meaghan would confess to her priest or something."

  "Meaghan's a Baptist; they have preachers, not priests," Cheryl put in.

  "Close enough," Shawna retorted.

  Gracie had a thoughtful look on her face. "But Meaghan and Jake were having some kind of serious conversation out on the patio that night," she said. "Kelly and I thought maybe they were breaking up, but what if she was mad about him flirting with Maggie?"

  "Was that before or after the queso incident?" Cheryl inquired.

  Gracie frowned, trying to remember. "After, I think; but I'm not sure."

  "Meaghan's such a prude, I could see her getting all high and mighty and telling Maggie to leave Jake alone," Cheryl said.

  "I can, too," Shawna agreed. "But I can't see her pushing Maggie off the steps, or running off without calling the police. She's the kind who'd own up to the whole thing because it was the right thing to do."

  "I still think someone was there that night," Gracie said. "Whether it was murder or manslaughter someone made Maggie fall off those steps."

  "Me, too. But did you hear that?" Cheryl inquired, grinning. "Shawna just called her 'Maggie'!"

  Chapter 37

  Cheryl read the directions to her classmates. "Only use half of what you've got. Put down a layer of noodles first, then the Ricotta stuff, the cheese, and then pour on the meat sauce." This was her 3rd hour class, Home Ec.; today they were making
a quick and easy lasagna. Cheryl watched as the other three girls in her cooking group put the dish together. Personally she thought there didn't seem to be anything quick or easy about this lasagna; so much easier to nuke a Stouffer's and be done with it.

  "Now do it all over again," she directed. "Then put it in the oven and we can pretend to listen to the teacher while it cooks." Her mother had insisted she take this class and she'd hated it from the first. So far they'd just done simple things and she'd thought maybe this would be different – something she actually might like to eat. The class was right before lunch with the idea being they could all stay and eat what they'd cooked but she'd rather hang out with Gracie, Shawna, and Kelly. Even the cafeteria food was better than what they'd been making in class!

  She helped the other girls clean up and then took her seat with them. The teacher began droning on about how all the different flavors and textures combined in the lasagna but Cheryl wasn't interested and besides, the ticking of all the timers bothered her. She felt like they were ticking away her life second by second while she was stuck in this class.

  She began looking around at the other students; mostly girls but there were a couple of guys in the class. They got a lot of flack about that, but Cheryl didn't see anything wrong with it; her uncle was a damn fine cook. Of course he had to be since his wife preferred to hit the sauce instead of cook it. Besides the TV shows had lots of male chefs, like Emeril or that British guy Gordon what's-his-name. Her gaze lit on a backpack sitting partway in the aisle between her table and the next. Sticking halfway out of the front pocket was a big plastic pill bottle, the amber plastic coated with the dust from all the pills rattling around so that she couldn't see how many might be left.

  She glanced over to see that the backpack belonged to Amy, who was studiously writing down something the teacher had said. Having just thought of her aunt's substance abuse problem Cheryl couldn't help but wonder why Amy had such a big bottle of pills. She hadn't said anything about being sick lately. Cheryl twisted in her chair and stretched her long legs out, 'accidentally' kicking the bag. The bottle obligingly popped out of the pocket and rolled along the floor in her direction, stopping with the label up.