Just Wreck It All

by N. Griffin

  Bett’s mother grabbing a paper cup and a pen from the cop, writing BETT CAN YOU HEAR ME? on the cup, which was so hilarious because did her mom mean can you hear the words she’d just written down was Stephanie still by the gas tanks this was going to be a laugh

  OH—

  Stephanie over there lying completely still with Bett’s dad leaning over her why wasn’t he over here checking on Bett and there was an EMT and Mrs. Roan screaming at her father with no sound.

  PART TWO

  15

  Autumn, Monday, Day Three of This Already God-Awful Year of Eleventh Grade

  MONDAY MORNING, BETT WOKE IN her room, which was freezing again, regardless of September and regardless of the endless walls of books. That’s what the wind would do, she guessed. Her shower was blistering cold, too—her mom hadn’t figured out how to get the water heater to work well enough to heat the water all the way yet, so first come, first to get the better, tepidish stream, while the second shower-taker always stood under the water purpled with goose pimples. But today Bett didn’t care. She had bigger things to worry about, such as how was she going to avoid that Eddie and that bus? Because the more she thought about it, the more weirded-out she was. What kind of talk could pamphlet-flinging Eddie possibly want to have that wouldn’t be mortifying, upsetting, or angrymaking in some way? Well, a big old no to that. The bus was to be avoided at all costs.

  She didn’t hear any movements in the teeny house, but if her mother hadn’t left yet, there was no way Bett could skip the bus, because, from the small tower she had made as her own room, Bett’s mom could see the bottom of the slope where Bett was supposed to wait. But if her mom was already gone and at the station house, Bett might have a chance to skip the bus and go through the woods instead, and then meet the road and make her way to school on foot. She’d be super late, but who cared? Anything was better than getting on that bus with Eddie. Even going to school through the woods with a picture-slashing fire-burner lying in wait at Salt River K–12.

  It was so chilly, Bett had a good excuse not to wear shorts, but she wore them anyway. She knew that if she walked or, God help her, ran in the cold, her thighs would turn purple and blotchy like a plucked chicken ready for the oven, so she grabbed another old-man thrift-store sweater, brown this time, to wear on top, and called it a day because there was no way she was getting on that bus with that snarp of a bus driver who wanted to talk to her, because she knew what the topic must be—fathers or food—and there was no way she was going to discuss either.

  * * *

  “Well, well, well, my princess is woken by the pea and comes downstairs.” Shoot. Her mother was still home, in uniform, and in fine form. Damn. Come on. “Good morning, toots.”

  “My room barely fits a twin bed with one mattress, never mind a stack,” said Bett.

  “Next time I’ll build a mansion,” said her mother, dumping yesterday’s cold coffee from the pot down the sink. “Remind me to do that the next time I do touch-ups on the place.”

  “It’s freezing in here,” said Bett.

  “If only there were some way to get wood into the woodstove and build a fire,” said her mother, glancing at the woodpile in the corner. “Ah, well. Some dreams are meant to be unfulfilled. Speaking of fire, watch out at that school today. You text me right away if anything else happens. I’ll be up at the school myself later, working the case.”

  Great.

  Bett shrugged with nerves and impatience. “Whatever,” she said. “I have to go.”

  “Not before you eat some oatmeal at least,” said her mother.

  “I’ll bring a Pop-Tart,” said Bett, and before her mother could argue about oatmeal, she was out the door and on her way down the slope, having expertly palmed three foil casings of Pop-Tarts out of the box and taken her three sodas out of the fridge. The nervejangle inside her was growing, and she knew the Pop-Tarts could quiet at least enough of it to get her to school on this stress-morning.

  Now that her mother was still there up in the house, would Bett have to come up with some kind of backup plan for escaping the bus unnoticed? She thought for a minute.

  No, she would just have to chance it.

  So, backpack on, Bett shifted her way through the woods, following the route of the road but parallel to it. The familiar chug of diesel filled the air, and Bett panicked like a five-year-old and wondered how to hide. This section of the woods had had a fire some years ago, so all the trees in it were new ones like birches and aspens, not exactly wide enough for a Bett to hide behind. She settled for luck and crouching, and kept moving steadily down through the trees. Her brown sweater was smart, actually, kind of like camo, even though the birches were white and gold and silver. Never mind. She heard the bus wait and wait, and then give her up for absent and go on its way, passing her with its diesel stink and Ranger’s concerned face looking blankly out the window.

  * * *

  It took Bett longer to reach the school than she’d thought it would, mainly because by the time the bus had passed and she could get on the road, there was no way to get there fast enough because if she ran, she knew from yesterday it would be too Plus and she’d spend all day having to undo it. The Pop-Tarts were a good way to undo today’s walk if she ate all six on the way to school, which she did, hating herself with every bite even as she popped the last one in her mouth as she climbed the stairs to the entrance to Salt River K–12.

  But being late to school didn’t matter today. Everyone was crowded in the main hall and Bett went into instant panic mode. What the hell was going on? She saw Dan’s loose-boned, easygoing self, in his gray hoodie with the skull on the back, standing in the crowd, and made her way over to stand a ways behind him. At least Dan didn’t look terrified, so maybe it wasn’t anything bad.

  It was the opposite of bad. Anna was on a stepladder. Around her shoulder was a clear plastic bag of papers, covered in color and shadings, papers she had clearly dipped in paint and something more that made them stiff and curled at the ends. She was placing the paper slices carefully on the wall, building them up until she was almost done and everyone could see that the wall in the hallway was now filled with a giant pair of wings. They were gorgeous—green, blue, purple, red, yellow. Bett pressed forward with everyone else.

  What was that? The edge of that wing looked familiar, colors bleeding into each other but curled and crisped brown at the ends. Then Bett got it. These were all the slashed, burned-up pictures from the first day of school, and Anna had transformed them into this glorious, feathered explosion of color flight.

  Not with permission, though. The principal picked his way through the crowd. “Anna Reed,” he said, “what do you think you are doing?”

  “Fixing things,” said Anna, her thin caddis-house body all in black layers, with some bits of the curled drawing-feathers stuck in her hair.

  “Who gave you permission to take student materials? Those destroyed pictures were evidence,” said the principal. “In my office. Now.”

  The roar of protest surprised even Bett, who agreed with it but didn’t expect everyone to care.

  “That ass better not make her take them down,” said Dan. He was firm but still so calm. It almost irritated Bett. Hadn’t he been full of scaredish commentary about all this on the bus? But now Bett thought about him from when they were younger, even then so calm and peaceable in most situations. He had been the same way in ninth grade when their group had fought during some Social Studies project or other. And when she thought about it, even when Dan argued with Ranger it was small, calm waves that actually seemed to move their brotherhood forward.

  To be honest, it all kind of pissed Bett off.

  16

  Autumn, Monday, Day Three of Eleventh Grade, Gym, of All Things

  IT WAS AFTER HOMEROOM AND Anna and her wings. Time for gym, and Bett was not going to have anything to do with that.

  “I have my period,” she lied to Mrs. Brewster when attendance was over. Mrs. Brewster raised her eyebro
ws, but short of making Bett prove it, what was she going to do?

  “You should probably get that checked out,” said Mrs. Brewster. “You had your period almost all the time last year, too.”

  “I’ll talk to my mom,” Bett promised mendaciously, and took a seat on the bleachers to watch the class. The day’s activity was rope-climbing, and Bett couldn’t stop herself from remembering the rough feel of the rope in her hands, feet twisted and pumping up and holding her so she could get the next hand grasp, flying up up up until she touched the ceiling with one hand, always the first kid up, always the fastest, always the fastest to touch the ground after flying back down, too. But nope, no more of that. Bett leaned away from her own competence like some people leaned away from working hard in gym because sweat would mess up their hair.

  Strength. It made you look so competent, like you were fine and could be left alone. And you were not fine. You were not fine fine fine.

  17

  Monday, Third Day of Eleventh Grade, Lunch

  BETT WAS ALONE AT LUNCH today. Ranger was a couple of tables over, waving his lunch cake about and talking animatedly with a group of his friends, most of them, she couldn’t help but notice, on the smallish side like Ranger. Bett was glad he was with friends, even though she missed the little bug. His conversation was something. Somethingcakes.

  “Where were you this morning?” Dan asked, startling her as he plopped beside her at her table.

  Talk like a normal person. Talk like a normal person this minute.

  “Missed the bus,” Bett said finally, and stared at her pizza. Was Dan sitting with her because he felt sorry for her for being alone?

  “Oh,” said Dan. “Well, you were lucky. You missed rendition six million and twelve of the Eagles’ ‘Hotel California.’ Do you know how long that song is?”

  Bett did. It was, of course, a staple in her mother’s playlist.

  “Though it can’t be any longer than ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,’ ” said Dan, “which my dad blasts at all hours.”

  Was this a conversation? Was Bett trapped in an actual conversation? Did she have to say something or could she just get the message across that she didn’t want to talk by being silent?

  “Don’t get me wrong, it’s good song,” said Dan. “But not after the six million and twelfth time you hear that one, too.”

  “I bet they’re going to take Anna’s art down,” Bett said awkwardly. A non sequitur, but at least it was speech.

  “Maybe,” said Dan. “I think they’ll give her detention at the minimum.” He swallowed. “That picture-fire thing keeps making me think about loners and kids with guns in high schools and all that shit.”

  Bett couldn’t respond out loud. But she nodded.

  Dan took out his pocketknife and expertly trimmed the crusts of his pizza off the slices. “No more carbs than necessary.”

  Bett started before she could help herself.

  “I was only doing an impression of my mom,” said Dan. “I just hate the crust.”

  Bett picked up her own lunch cake and began to eat. Please make him stop talking, she thought as she bit off more and more cake.

  “You’re good with my brother,” said Dan abruptly. “The little dude really likes you.”

  What? Bett coughed. “He’s cute,” she said finally. “I like him, too.”

  “Well, I think it’s nice.”

  And now Bett couldn’t think of another thing to say. All her words were spent.

  * * *

  She left the lunch table before Dan was done. She didn’t want him to think he was stuck with her, and plus, she had to see if the wings were still there. And they were, their bright, burned colors transforming the dark, old hallway into something better than the smell of kids and books and teachers that had seeped into its bones. Anna and Hester and a couple of their Twinkler friends were there, too.

  “Two days of detention,” Anna was telling them.

  “No way!”

  “Come on!”

  “Is he going to make you take it down?”

  “He said he isn’t sure,” Anna answered.

  “WTF?” said a Twinkler.

  WTF is right. That’s insane, thought Bett. This is the loveliest thing we’ve ever had in this school. He should be, like, paying her.

  “Wait,” said Hester. “Look. What’s that?” She pointed above the flowering wings.

  Above Anna’s work was a new picture, done on regular 81/2 x 11 school paper. It was very rough and in Sharpie and who knew what it was supposed to be, but it looked like a devil head breathing out a cone of fire, only with the flames drawn out smooth rather than jagged as one would normally depict them.

  WARNING, it said under the devil head. WE’RE WATCHING YOU.

  * * *

  “Who would do that? Why?” It was Anna, being led away from her wings and to the main office by her friends. Bett knew her mother was in that office with McLean, talking about the vandalism. Bett hoped the case would be solved soon, and her mother tucked safely back at the station house, where she belonged.

  “What’s Anna’s problem?” asked Dan, who had left the caf as well and was standing beside Bett. “And where’d you go? I thought we were talking.”

  Bett said nothing, but she gestured at the picture above the wings.

  “What?” Dan looked up but remained mystified. “At least the principal didn’t do a psycho himself and tear Anna’s project down. She must have stayed up all night making those feathers.”

  Bett pointed again. “Not the wings,” she managed at last. “That picture thing. Above them.”

  The devil breathing fire really was intensely creepy. It was clear Dan thought so, too, frozen in place and staring.

  “Fairly psycho,” said Dan at last. His eyes followed Anna across the foyer. “But I bet it’s harmless.”

  “It’s not harmless,” said Bett. All those school shootings in the news, and here was some maniac destroying art and then putting up a devil image over the new piece that was made to replace it. “That’s a signature.”

  “What’s a signature?” asked Dan.

  “Something a perp leaves at the scene of the crime to mark their work.” Why was it easier to talk cop talk than to talk like a normal teenage girl? If she was channeling her mother, that shit better stop right now.

  Then: We can’t let Ranger see, but she knew there was no way of protecting him from it.

  Dan look puzzled. “What do you mean? You think Anna signs her work with devils? Not exactly in character, no?”

  “No. Not Anna. The destroyer left the signature.”

  “Oh,” said Dan. He paused. Then: “That’s effed up but . . . sort of interesting.”

  So the picture-slasher-burner had a signature. Huh.

  Well, I know one perp who ought to have hired out the job, Bett thought. That is a hell of a badly drawn devil. She knew she was fronting, though. Things were only going to escalate from here.

  18

  Monday, End of Day Three of Eleventh Grade

  AT THE END OF THE day, Bett was down the steps and in front of the bus before she realized that her plan had been to walk home, just as she’d walked to school. And it would be even easier this afternoon, since her mother was back at the station house and wouldn’t be there to grill her. But instead there was Eddie, hand on his door handle, staring down at her through those filmy eyes.

  “No,” said Bett.

  Eddie was silent.

  “I am not getting on this bus unless you leave me alone.” Bett was startled to hear the words coming out of her own mouth, but glad enough about them to see what she would say next. “I am not talking about . . . anything.”

  Eddie stared at Bett.

  Bett stared at Eddie.

  “Where were you this morning?” Eddie asked. “During the morning ride? You have an appointment or something?”

  But Bett knew that Eddie knew that she hadn’t had an appointment.

  “I got you over a barrel,” said Eddie
finally. “You don’t get on this bus, I place one call to your mother to discuss where you were this morning and what you were doing and that’s it. I know what a tough cookie one Officer Marianne Gaffney is.”

  Bett tried to snort but couldn’t because the man was right, and there was no way Bett was discussing anything about anything with her mom. He did have her over a barrel.

  “I’ll get on the bus,” she said at last. “As long as you don’t talk about—stuff.”

  Eddie looked at her and exhaled sharply. His eyes looked filmier.

  “Fine,” he said. “Get the hell on my bus.”

  Bett got the hell on his bus.

  * * *

  Once the boys were on the bus and they were on their way, Bett let her head rest against the window. Was this how it was going to be, every day, on the bus? Afraid that Eddie was going to open his mouth? Because if he was, Bett was going to tell her mom to forget it. Pretend she wanted to walk to school. She was older now and could handle weirdos, and also Bett knew her mom might even be glad, even hope that Bett would not walk but jog to school and get back to being a badass. But would walking to school, no matter how slowly (which was how Bett would do it), be too Plus? And was that Plus worse than Eddie and his weight noticings or father advice hanging over her head every day?

  First the school crazy and now the Eddie crazy. Too much crazy for one person to bear. Bett rummaged in her backpack and came up with two fun-size candy bars and ate them in quick succession.

  “What’s going on?” It was Dan, but he wasn’t talking to her. Bett looked up.

  What is going on? Because instead of looping to the left down along the river, sloshing brown and hectic, Eddie had banked right and was driving along the other road, the one leading away out of the woods here and into the land area that was still farms.

  “Yo!” said Mutt. “You’re going the wrong way, dude.”

  “No,” said Eddie. “I’m not. We’re doing this.”

  “Doing what?” asked Ranger, draping himself over the seat in front of his.