Just Wreck It All

by N. Griffin

  31

  Wednesday Late Afternoon, Still

  THAT IS NOT WHY! THAT is not! I’m not friends with girls because they hate me.

  That’s not true.

  Insistent as a cat, the thought came into her mind and Bett couldn’t take it. She knew her mother was right. After the explosion—so many girls inviting her over, asking her to eat lunch with them, hang with them, but Bett always said no until they stopped trying. But so what. She was fine, and besides, Stephanie was alive, not dead, no matter what Midnight Bett’s mind and its hidden Tastykakes believed, which was stupid and she knew it, but it was hard to shake that thought, either. The only thing that could shake it was eating and not dreaming about Fizzicle Feets, but even that was getting messed up because everything was getting too Plus now with the way she was all turned around with this stupid cross-country team and being chased by buses and dreams of climbing up the rope in gym class instead of sitting like a lump against the wall and her mother knowing the truth and what if Bett killed someone else?

  Else?

  No.

  Just someone. Stephanie may not be dead, but Bett knew she was dead to Stephanie. Missing her right eye because of Bett, for God’s sake. Who would let a person like that stay alive in her mind?

  What else could she take away from herself? Bett had learned to be still, and now she had a madman with a bus shaking her into motion—more than motion. Action with danger and talking to people. What was she going to do? Her left ear dimmed as her hunger grew.

  32

  TWO YEARS AGO . . . Living in the house they had lived in with her father was hell. Bett and her mother hated it silently, each knowing the other felt the same way. At first Bett hoped they would move right away so she wouldn’t have to see her father’s crap stuff and smell his crap smell. But then she decided it was only what she deserved.

  The first few months helped because of the not-hearing part. Bett’s right ear recovered first. It was bizarre, because the world went from muted nothing to too loud almost overnight. Everyone else was ecstatic, of course. Bett could hear! She was healing!

  “Now she’ll get back to being herself,” Aunt Jeanette kept saying.

  But Bett would never get back to being herself.

  It was slow, realizing all the things she didn’t deserve. Obviously, no Fizzicle Feets. No running. No doing anything that might make her muscles feel used or her pent-up feeling released. Then no letting herself think about anything to do with moving, even, not any part of her body. She did not deserve to. She didn’t deserve a thing. All she knew was her sole on that hose and she didn’t deserve a thing. Only to live in this hell house of memory and her dad’s shoes and make herself remember, every day, what she had done, what she was capable of doing.

  33

  Thursday Morning, Day Six of Eleventh Grade

  THIS MORNING BETT WASHED HER hair and did her bangs. Then she hesitated.

  Why not? Who said she had to wear her hair up every day? For practice, maybe, but not in the day. She got the blow-dryer back out and blew her long hair dry, too, letting it wave and curve like ribbons down her back.

  It’s not like anyone looks at my head anyway.

  But by the time Eddie pulled up, Bett’s hair was back in the messy topknot, although her bangs still looked kickass. Someday, though. Maybe.

  “The perp must be tallcakes,” said Ranger on the bus.

  “Ranger, quit being a detective about this whole thing,” said Dan.

  Ranger was startled. “How did you know?”

  “Only maybe you talking about perps and your little posse racing around like madmen,” said Dan. “We all know. And you should quit it, because the perp, as you say, is probably insane, and you are not, like, physically safe pursuing them.”

  “But I’ve been coming up with more theories since last night,” said Ranger. “They must be tallcakes because a lot of that art was hung up highcakes.”

  “Ranger, the perp could have just stood on a chair,” Bett couldn’t help herself from pointing out.

  Ranger was silent. Then: “Maybe there are two of them!” he cried, positively glowing. “One tall, and one short, and the tall one hoisted the short onecakes! I like detecting.”

  “Ranger,” said Dan, and Bett could tell he was at his wits’ end. Ranger was tenacious, and plus, the “cakes” thing was really getting legs, and Bett knew it was driving Dan crazy. Bett still kind of loved it. Why? she wondered, but then she knew. She loved focus and single-mindedness, and Ranger had both in spades. Yay, Ranger. But even so:

  “Ranger,” said Bett. “Be careful. You don’t know what kind of person this is.”

  “Yes, I do,” said Ranger. “I just said. A tall one. Maybe with a short friend.”

  Undivertable. Still, though, who could it be? Who hated the school or Salt River so much they’d do these things? Besides Bett?

  Stop.

  “You kids better take it easy today,” said Eddie. “I got quite a plan for your workout this afternoon.”

  “He’s not kidding,” Mutt added.

  “I got quite a plan, too,” muttered Ranger, just as he had yesterday.

  Bett’s phone buzzed, and she took it out of her bag, one eye on Eddie in the mirror in case he noticed.

  I can’t get Ranger off this. Help me. He likes you. He’ll listen to you if you tell him to quit it with this BS.

  It was from Dan. Bett’s eyes went wide. How did he even have her number? How did she have his? Oh, yeah. That ninth-grade Social Studies project. He’d kept her number since then? Bett texted back:

  I’ll try. But I don’t know how to get him away from it without scaring him.

  Maybe that’s the way to go.

  “Who are you texting?” asked Ranger in his clear, high voice.

  “WHAT!” Eddie slammed on the brakes, but this time Bett was ready for him and she put a hand against the seat in front of her to minimize impact. “Who! Who’s texting on my bus?”

  There was silence. “Me,” said Bett finally.

  “And me,” said Dan.

  “Well, that’s it,” said Eddie, grinding the bus into gear again. Mutt just shook his head by the window. “I’m writing you two bozos up.”

  “We’re sorry, Eddie!” said Dan. “Don’t write us up. We won’t do it again, will we, Bett?”

  “Promise,” said Bett. “Please, Eddie. Detention is so boring.”

  “And besides,” said Dan, “if we’re in detention we can’t come to cross-country practice, and it’s just you and Ranger and the grim reaper over there.”

  “Shut up,” said Mutt.

  “You are not to disrespect the rules on my bus,” said Eddie. “You want me to throw your phones?” And it was true they were at the row of basement holes again.

  “No,” said Bett and Dan together.

  “Then I’m writing you up. Insubordination.”

  34

  Still Thursday, Day Six of Eleventh Grade

  WHEN THEY WALKED INTO THE school, the air was charged and electric, and not just because the graffiti had been washed off the wall where Anna’s wings had hung. A few kids were standing by the ghost of the letters still left on the wall, but most everyone else was gathered around the art room door, looking down, then up, then down again.

  Bett chose down. The floor was pebbled with broken glass.

  “What the hell?”

  “AGAIN?”

  “What’s going on?” Dan asked as he approached the group.

  “The cherub!” Anna cried. “The cherub was smashed!”

  “What cherub?” Dan looked puzzled. Bett looked up. What the HELL?

  “The one that was over the art room door!” Anna pointed up at the transom. And indeed, where the cherub had just yesterday faced into the hallway, there was nothing now but the wood of the transom frame edged with broken glass. “I need a broom,” Anna said, and a kid took off for the janitor’s closet. “I’m keeping all this.” She waved her hand out over the shards.
/>   “What for?” Paul asked.

  But Anna was too distracted to answer. The kid returned with the broom, and Anna began gently sweeping up the glass.

  The din grew louder as Mr. McLean came around the corner.

  “Everybody back,” he said loudly. “Anna! Stop that! That glass is evidence!”

  “Who cares!” cried Anna. “You’re not going to find fingerprints on pulverized glass!”

  “In my office! Now!”

  The other kids roared in protest. But Bett looked down at the floor again. There was dirt—a lot of it. She left the group yelling at Mr. McLean as he led Anna down the hall, and followed the dirt along the floor in the opposite direction, up the stairs to the second-floor landing.

  A dirt path.

  Bett thought about it. Hard.

  35

  Thursday, Day Six of Eleventh Grade

  ANNA PASSED BETT AND DAN coming into the office as she was heading out of it.

  “What’d he give you?” Dan asked her.

  Anna rolled her eyes. “Detention. But I don’t care. I have the glass.” And she let the office door bang shut behind her.

  “You’re up,” said Mrs. Schlovsky to Bett and Dan, and they headed into Mr. McLean’s inner office.

  “What’s this I hear about you two kids being insubordinate to the bus driver?” Mr. McLean was one of the hairiest men Bett had ever seen. He had a mustache and a beard, so much beard, in fact, that you could tell he just made a decision to shave a certain part of his neck so it wouldn’t count as chest hair as well.

  “We texted,” said Bett. Might as well come clean.

  “Why?” asked Mr. McLean.

  “Um,” said Dan.

  “We had . . .” Bett swallowed. “We had stuff to say.”

  “Well,” said the principal, “why don’t you say it out loud right now?”

  Bett looked at him. The principal looked at her. Bett won. He looked away first.

  “Detention,” he said. “This afternoon. Not smart, kids. This is junior year. It’ll go onto the records we send to your college choices.”

  Dan gulped.

  “Can we go?” asked Bett.

  “When I say you can,” said Mr. McLean evenly. “How about this . . . this destruction around the school? You two know anything about that?”

  “No,” said Bett. Dan said nothing and Bett knew he was thinking of Ranger.

  She was right.

  “Do you all, like, have any leads?” Dan asked Mr. McLean finally. “I’m worried about kids trying to track this psycho down themselves and getting hurt.”

  “Who?” asked Mr. McLean sharply. “Who are you worried about?”

  “No one in particular,” said Dan hastily.

  “We take this very seriously,” said Mr. McLean. “Destruction of school property is a serious offense. Not to mention hate speech on the walls. If you have any information, we need to know.”

  “I don’t,” said Dan.

  There was a silence.

  Then: “Now may we go?” Dan asked.

  “Please do,” said Mr. McLean, and Bett was aware of Mr. McLean’s eyes on their backs as they left.

  “I’ve never had detention,” said Dan. “Can you do homework?”

  “No,” said Bett. “You can only sit.” She dreaded it. She knew the forced stillness would only make her brain churn faster.

  But Dan was clutching at his hair, and it stuck up at all angles, so she said, “It’s really no biggie. And no more of a pain in the ass than cross-country is. Same amount of time until we take the late bus home. With Eddie.”

  “But I’m supposed to . . .”

  Dan trailed off, and Bett knew what he meant. He was supposed to keep an eye on Ranger, and Ranger needed that eye on him.

  36

  Autumn, Still the Endless Sixth Day of Eleventh Grade

  ART WAS THIRD PERIOD TODAY, and once again, as Bett approached, there was a crowd around the door, necks craned upward this time.

  Oh, no. Not more crap destroyed!

  But it wasn’t that.

  Hanging from the ceiling was an explosion of light: shards of glass painted gold and silver and glowing like a star, a mobile shining like a vehicle for a god. Anna. She had taken the shards of glass from the cherub and made this. She must have skipped her first two classes to do it, McLean and his detention notwithstanding.

  “Jesus,” said Mutt. “When is she going to stop making stuff out of the crap getting busted?”

  “Never,” said Anna, whirling around to face him. “I will never stop.” And, standing on one of the art room stools, she reached up with her thin hands and anchored the sculpture more firmly in place over the empty transom.

  Bett’s heart beat loud as a drum. She was surprised Anna couldn’t hear it.

  * * *

  Dan was in this class with her. So was Doug. Fabulous.

  Anna walked up to Dan and sat down next to him, looking shaky. He put his arm around her.

  “Your piece is gorgeous,” he told her.

  “It is,” Bett added. There. I can, too, talk to girls. Take that, Aunt Jeanette.

  “Thank you,” said Anna. “That’s nice of you.”

  “It’s true,” Dan insisted. “How did you do all that without cutting yourself to ribbons?”

  “I did get cut to ribbons,” Anna admitted, showing her hands to him. They were covered in tiny cuts.

  Stop it this minute, Bett told herself, hand over her wrist.

  “I can’t stand that you can still see those horrible graffiti words on the walls by where my wings used to be,” Anna said.

  “They’re scary hateful,” Bett started to say, but now Mr. Thorne, the art teacher, was talking.

  “That angel head over the transom was blown glass,” he announced. “Made by a student here in the nineties who survived an IED explosion in the Gulf War but ultimately died of his wounds after he came home. He made that when he was in tenth grade, before the war, when we still had glass-blowing equipment here.”

  The room was quiet. “Is his name on the soldier’s coat outside?” asked Anna finally.

  “Yup,” said Mr. Thorne. “Michael Lorde.” He lowered his head a moment. “Good kid,” he said finally, looking back up at them. “Anna, I love what you made. If anyone gives you trouble for making it, tell them to see me.” He shook his head. “Okay, you all. Let’s get started. This was going to be the start of our clay unit, but you should feel free to make it a free draw period instead if that suits you better.”

  “Can I say something first, Mr. Thorne?” asked Anna.

  “Sure,” said the teacher.

  Anna stood up. “A lot of you know this already,” she said, “but some of us have formed a group to kind of, like, stand up to whatever crazy person this is, wrecking the art. We’re having a meeting tonight. If you want to come, see me or Eli Gonzales. We’ll give you more details then.”

  “I think that’s great, Anna,” said Mr. Thorne. “Keep fighting destruction with creation.”

  “That’s pretty much the idea,” said Anna, and sat down again. Then everyone got busy drawing, rain slanting against the windows.

  At least Dan and I won’t have to run in that wetness, thought Bett. What with detention and all.

  Dan took up a pencil and began to draw his sun. Bett watched.

  “Why don’t you draw something?” Dan asked her, making a careful layer of sunbeams.

  “I don’t draw,” said Bett.

  “You must be able to draw something,” said Dan. “You were, like, so good with your makeup.” This time he was the one who looked away.

  “I could only draw on my own face,” she said, trying to keep the surprise from showing. “And it was pretty much the same every time.”

  “So are my sun and my cheeseburger,” Dan pointed out.

  “I think I’ll get some clay.” Bett went over to the clay bucket sitting at the bottom of the shelves Mr. Thorne used for works-in-progress for the little kids. On the lowe
st shelf were rows of tiny goblets. Most were endearingly awkward and clunky, with hearts etched on them or skulls. One was particularly lovely, though, smooth, with three snakey, pointy swirls curling around themselves on the clay. Bett reached out a finger to trace them.

  MRS. LEDGER’S GRADE 3, the sign next to them said. NORSE UNIT.

  But before she could think any more about the goblets:

  “FUCK!” Across the room Doug was standing up, holding a piece of paper in his hand.

  “Don’t you dare swear in here!” said Mr. Thorne.

  “Look at this!” Doug yelled. “It was in my pocket! Look!”

  He held up the paper so everyone could see. There was no mistaking it. It was another one of those devil pictures, horned and terrifying.

  In Doug’s pocket? In his pocket? In Doug’s pocket meant . . . meant that the art psycho had been near enough to a person to actually plant a picture on him, in his clothes, without him knowing!

  “It’s a death threat!” someone cried.

  “Shut up!” Doug threw the paper on the floor and kicked it away.

  “What the hell is going on?” someone else said, voice wavering.

  “Calm down, everyone, calm down,” the art teacher said, holding his hands up as if to soothe their thoughts. But he was clearly freaked out, too. “Doug, hand me that paper. I’m going to turn it over to the principal. I think it’s time for us to step things up another notch.”

  Despite her hatred of Doug, Bett found her arms were goose-bumping. Whoever was doing this wasn’t playing.

  For once, she was glad her mother was involved.

  37

  Autumn, Thursday, Sixth Day of this Weirdass Eleventh Grade Year

  “THAT WAS TOTALLY CREEPY,” DAN said as they left art class.

  “No kidding,” said Bett. She found herself eyeballing every kid they walked by. One of them was doing this, and it felt like it was leading up to a kid in the news who went crazy and then shot everyone at school. Bett had a serious, petrified pit in her stomach. That bomb threat last year—who was it? The same nut? Why hadn’t her mother been able to find that one? Maybe her mother was as shitty a detective as Ranger.