by Nikki Loftin
“After I swallowed it,” Andrew whispered, glancing at the doors, “things started to make sense. You’ll see. You’ll be able to . . . think about what’s going on, now.”
“What are you talking about?” I said. “I feel like an idiot, if that’s what you mean. But I did it. I ate your stupid sand. Now leave me alone,” I shouted. “Leave the school. Never come back.”
Andrew started to cry again, and I felt sick, like my stomach was turning inside out. I shouldn’t care, but strangely, I did. Why didn’t I hate him? He was disgusting, and rude, and annoying. So why did his tears hurt like they were my own?
“I guess one piece wasn’t enough,” he whispered. He opened his hand and stared at the rest of the sand.
“What did you expect to happen, Andrew?” I hesitated, my back to him, for a moment ignoring the leaves that rustled for me to run inside, get away, stop listening. He didn’t answer, though, and I took a few steps toward the door.
Tight, gripping fingers on my arm stopped me again. I couldn’t believe it.
“What in the—”
I spun around on my heel, mouth open, ready to tell him exactly what I thought of him grabbing me. Instead, I found my open mouth stuffed full of sand, and his hand grinding it in, forcing my jaw shut.
I tried to scream and pull away, but all I succeeded in doing was swallowing a mouthful of the hateful, bitter stuff, and breathing in enough to make my lungs explode with pain. Each grain was a spark, burning me from the inside out.
Andrew let me go, and I fell to the ground. Why had he done this? I closed my eyes against the pain of the sand in my lungs.
When I opened them, Andrew had run away.
Someone must have heard my coughing because one of the kitchen workers ran out and helped me inside. In less than a minute, I was sitting in an office I’d never seen before, lying on a green velvet sofa, and trying not to cough. It felt like my throat was bleeding. Then the door opened.
It was Bryan, and he looked scared.
“Lorelei? Lorelei, are you okay?”
My brother’s voice was quieter, and kinder, than I’d heard in years.
“Not really,” I tried to speak, but no sound came out. I cleared my throat, and fire shot through my chest. I doubled over, my lungs burning. Bryan helped me lie back on the sofa. After a few seconds of coughing, I opened my eyes again.
Bryan was sitting on a chair with legs carved into the shapes of fish, each one a little different from the others. I stared at one of the fish—a salmon?—for a few seconds, catching my breath. I wondered where you get chairs with those kinds of legs. They looked hand-carved.
“They are hand-carved,” a strange voice answered my thoughts. Had I spoken out loud? I looked up.
A lady stood in front of me, smiling. Her teeth were as white as seashells and her eyes were the silver-gray of the ocean during a storm. She was terribly thin, like she hadn’t eaten a solid meal in months. She wore a long silver skirt and a white blouse that made me think of the foam-capped breakers I’d seen at the beach with Mom and Dad years before.
“My name is Ms. Threnody,” she said, her voice rich and soft, like caramel melting.
I wondered where she was from. I wanted to ask her to keep talking, so I could hear her accent, but my throat hurt too much. Bryan spoke up. “You’re the new music teacher?”
“Yes,” she said, and faced him. “My, you are a handsome boy. Bryan, is it?”
He nodded, and turned red. He liked her; he was making the same moony face he had the summer before around the high school cheerleader who lived two doors down.
Ms. Threnody reached out and touched his arm. “Tell me, Bryan. Do you enjoy music class?”
I knew Bryan had always hated music class, but I had the feeling he was going to lie, tell her he loved it. I closed my eyes.
“No,” Bryan said, and blushed. “I mean, yes.” He swallowed. “I don’t know why I said that. I mean to say, I really, really . . . hate music class.”
My jaw dropped. Bryan wasn’t usually this honest . . . or this stupid-sounding.
Ms. Threnody raised one eyebrow. “Really? What a shame. And I was so looking forward to teaching you.” She started to move away. Bryan reached out and touched her skirt and she stopped.
“I’ll come to music,” he said. “Maybe I’ll, um, appreciate it more with you for my teacher.”
“That would be lovely,” she replied and turned the door handle. “Lorelei? I’ll need you to answer some questions about what happened on the playground after your throat feels a bit better.”
When she left, it was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. I took a deep breath, ready to tease my brother, but regretted it. My lungs felt like they were lined with splinters. Bryan smacked his hand against his head.
“I can’t believe I said that.”
I struggled to take a breath and rasped out, “Yeah. Smooth . . . move . . . Ex . . . Lax.”
Bryan laughed, but then he stopped, shaking his head. “It was the weirdest thing. I didn’t mean to say that. I wasn’t going to tell her I hated music. It just . . . came out. Like in those spy movies, where they inject the guy with truth serum.” He paused. “Did you see her eyes? I’ve never seen eyes so . . . deep.”
I wanted to tease my brother about Ms. Threnody’s truth-inducing eyelashes, when I remembered.
“Andrew.” I whispered the name, then coughed into my hand. I felt a tear slip down my face from the pain, and looked into my hand, sure there would be blood there, though there wasn’t. I had to know. “Andrew?”
“That jerk the waiters saw shoving your face into the sand?” Bryan asked. “What a freak. They caught him trying to run away from school. Ms. Morrigan took care of him. They disappeared into the principal’s office right when I got here—oh, she tried to call Dad and Molly, but their phones must be off or something, so I’m all the family you got.”
I wasn’t surprised that Molly wasn’t answering her phone. Most mothers watch their phones for the school phone number. I had a feeling she turned hers off the minute we walked out the front door. But I didn’t want to think about her right now, or Dad. I was worried about Andrew.
“Why’d that kid start messing with you, anyway? You give him a hard time ’cause he’s such a slob?”
I shook my head. I had been so cruel to Andrew. I knew he’d hurt me with the sand, but he’d had a reason. I couldn’t remember exactly what—but it was coming back to me in flashes. Something about food, and bones.
Bone. A secret Andrew knew. That I had known. Why couldn’t I remember?
“Andrew?” I asked again, ignoring the fire in my windpipe. “Where?”
Bryan shrugged, and pulled a handful of candy out of his pocket. “I dunno. Still in with her, I guess. I wouldn’t be surprised if they kicked him out of Splendid. It’s not public school, you know. They don’t have to keep him.” He held out a handful of candy. “Want one?”
It was so bizarre to have Bryan being nice, talking to me, that I didn’t even hesitate. I grabbed a few of the candies and popped them in my mouth, unthinking. When I swallowed, the cracked chocolate shells sliding down my throat felt like broken glass. “Ouch,” I whispered.
“You should have seen your teacher going off on that kid.” Bryan kept stuffing his face, talking through the chewing sounds. “If she hadn’t already decided to eat Andrew alive, I’d do it for her.”
Eat Andrew alive? For some reason, those words rang in the back of my mind.
Something was wrong at Splendid Academy. Something that had to do with the food, and how much the kids were eating. Something no one would ever suspect. And I had a wild, crazy idea that I knew what it was, and who was responsible.
As if I had summoned her there with my thoughts, Ms. Morrigan walked in, tapping a stick across her palm.
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I wanted to scream, but it hurt. Bryan let out a yell for me. “A stick?!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
SUSPICION
The stick was small and plain, just a sanded-down tree branch, but in my teacher’s hand it looked like a weapon.
“Are you kidding?” Bryan jumped up, smiling. “You beat that jerk with a stick? Awesome. Wait until I tell the guys.”
Ms. Morrigan’s laughter chimed, but it sounded angry. “Beat Andrew? Of course not. That wouldn’t be very progressive, now would it? What would the principal say?”
They both laughed like she had told a great joke.
Bryan gave her a thumbs-up. “I guess Lorelei’s going to be okay. Other than the not talking thing. Kind of nice for a change. But I hope that kid got his. She is my sister and all. I don’t want anyone else beating her up. That’s my job.” He gave me a quick side hug, and they laughed again.
I cleared my throat, ignoring the shooting pain the sound produced. Bryan asked for me. “Is Molly coming to pick her up?”
“We’ve tried to reach her,” Ms. Morrigan said slowly. “We’ve left messages at home and on her cell. I’m sure she’ll get back to us soon.”
“Well, she’s useless. Try Dad again,” Bryan said. “He’ll come, even if she won’t.”
Ms. Morrigan shook her head. “It’s you I’m worried about. Don’t you need to get back to class? Lorelei will be fine. It was just a little sand.” She shooed him toward the door. “Hurry now, or you’ll miss afternoon snack.”
When Bryan left, Ms. Morrigan sat down next to me on the green chair.
“Feeling better?” she asked, her smile dropping away as soon as the door swung shut.
“Where’s . . . Andrew?”
“Oh, your little friend? You don’t need to worry about him anymore. I—what’s the expression you kids use?—oh, yes. I really chewed him out.”
She smiled wider, and I thought I saw something—a bit of salad? Or was it a strand of dark hair?—stuck between her front teeth. She ran her tongue over her teeth, and touched the corner of her mouth lightly with a fingertip, as if she were wiping the tiniest bit of chocolate away.
No one would ever believe me, but I had a feeling I knew exactly what had happened to him.
I was afraid I might throw up, and I was plain old afraid as well, as scared as I had ever been in my life. There was no one to help me here, no parents at home to call. No adult who cared about me, except maybe . . .
“P-p-p-principal Trapp,” I managed, and the door swung open again. Like magic, the principal walked in, and I heaved a silent sigh of relief.
The teacher couldn’t hurt me, not with her boss right there. I had to get Ms. Morrigan out of the room, though, so I could tell the principal what I suspected.
No, Lorelei, I reminded myself. You can’t tell anyone what you suspect. Because it’s crazy. Ugh. I hated it when my inner voice spoke up, and was right.
Principal Trapp smiled gently at me. “Alva, dear, thank you so much for your concern. I can handle this now. You had better get back to class.”
Mission accomplished and I hadn’t even spoken a word. Ms. Morrigan left, but she didn’t seem happy about it. Principal Trapp turned to me, her face creased with worry. I must have looked really bad.
“You have had an exciting day, haven’t you, dear?” she said, shaking her head slightly. She reached for me and I smelled the same perfume Ms. Morrigan wore. Lilies. I couldn’t help it; I flinched. Her hand stopped and hovered over my forehead, then settled on my hair, lightly stroking a stray piece behind my ear.
“Rest now,” she murmured. I coughed again, trying to act like I had just been responding to some sand in my airway.
Sand, I thought, my mind going fuzzy for a minute. Sand didn’t feel like that, didn’t stick to the inside of your mouth, to your windpipe. It wasn’t sand in my throat at all.
“A-Andrew?” I managed, feeling dizzy. Maybe I had imagined it. Maybe Ms. Morrigan hadn’t gotten him? I had to ask, even if my throat bled from the effort. Had to warn Principal Trapp, somehow. “Wh-wh-whe—”
“Yes, I need to ask you about that. He said you tripped, and that he was helping you. But the wait staff said something different. They said he was hurting you. Which was it, Lorelei? You can tell me.”
“Not . . . on . . . purpose . . .” My lungs exploded with fire again as the words set off another wave of coughing.
Principal Trapp stroked my hair, over and over, and I felt my eyes closing. No, I thought, I can’t sleep. I have to tell her. I heard her voice. “Hush, now. It doesn’t matter. I’ll stay with you. I won’t leave you.”
I slept until Molly got there, a few minutes before the end of the school day. I couldn’t talk, couldn’t tell anyone what I suspected. That night, I tried to write it down, but writing was harder than ever, and I was tired from coughing and from listening to Dad and Molly yell about who was supposed to pick me up if I “got sick” again. I stayed in my room through dinner and fell asleep crying. I dreamed of chocolate brown eyes that became candies, and a dinner party where all the plates were heaped with sand.
CHAPTER TWELVE:
NOTHING SPECIAL
Andrew wasn’t at school the next day. His empty desk distracted me from everything else. I tried to work on our mythology report, but the words kept getting mixed up when I wrote them. Ms. Morrigan, who I’d thought couldn’t care less about whether or not her students did any real schoolwork, kept peeking over my shoulder, checking up on me.
I wasn’t about to tell her about my dysgraphia. So I told her I couldn’t concentrate, that I needed more protein. While she went to the cafeteria to get me some nuts, I sneaked a peek into Andrew’s desk. His books and papers were all still there.
I wanted to think he was out sick, or that he’d just been sent home—suspended, if they even do that at a charter school—for a while. If he was gone for good, wouldn’t they have cleaned out his desk? He had to come back. Because if he didn’t, if he couldn’t, if what I had imagined was true . . .
I barely made it to the bathroom before I was sick. I stayed there with my head pressed against the cold white basin for a half hour, my stomach roiling.
Allison and her pack of new friends were waiting for me on the playground at recess.
“So, what happened with that kid Andrew? Did he really try to kill you?” She took a big bite of the caramel apple in her hand. I’d already “dropped” mine in the sand. I wasn’t hungry.
“Where’d you hear that?” I asked. “He wasn’t doing anything like that.”
“Your brother told everyone he was trying to suffocate you. I heard you almost died.” She was looking at me strangely, the way mean little kids look at a butterfly with one wing gone, flapping around on the ground. A little sympathetic, but mostly curious. Will it fly? Will the other wing fall off?
“Bryan doesn’t know what went on. He wasn’t here.” I pointed to the spot where I had talked to Andrew. “I tripped on the edge of the jungle gym and fell. I hit my head. Maybe I was suffocating on the sand.” I coughed for effect. “I know I breathed some in. It really hurt. Andrew pulled my head up. He probably saved my life.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What were you doing out here, anyway, Lorelei? Just you and him.” She shot a look at the other girls, and they all smiled the same, sly smile. “Were you and Andrew . . . kissing?”
“Oh my gosh! Why would you even think that? That’s totally not how I feel about Andrew.”
“Oh, how you ‘feel’ about Andrew?” she repeated. “So, you admit you have feelings for the guy? Lorelei, you could have just told me. I am your friend, after all. Or I was before you met Andrew.”
My face burned. “Well, you sure aren’t being one right now,” I said. I didn’t say the other thing I was thinking, that she’d stopped being my fri
end a long time before I met Andrew. Not once I made the mistake of telling her my secret.
Still, I couldn’t afford to lose another friend. “Just drop it, okay? I’ll tell you about it later. Maybe you could spend the night—”
“No, I want to know now,” she said, and took a step closer to me. “We all do, right?”
The other girls nodded.
“How is it, exactly, that you ‘feel’ about Andrew? Do you like him? Or are you just messing with him, giving the fat kid hope?”
I wanted to talk to her alone, but I could tell that wasn’t going to happen. It was almost time to go back in; in fact, the older kids were rushing past us, moving from the football field to the doors in a noisy herd.
My throat hurt, but I had to raise my voice to be heard.
“You don’t get it. I don’t think about Andrew that way. He’s like—a brother, I guess. But a nice brother.” I smiled, knowing Allison would remember what I was talking about. She’d seen Bryan at his worst. “Not a jerk like Bryan. Get it?”
Someone shoved me in the back, knocking me down. I twisted around, wondering if Andrew had come back to make me eat more sand. But it wasn’t Andrew standing there behind me, looking furious.
It was Bryan.
“Harsh, Lorelei. You’re such a—” and he called me a name he had never used before. He kicked a little sand over my jeans before he ran past me.
Allison looked down at me with a sad expression. “You shouldn’t be so mean to your brother. He’s your family. And I would think you especially would know how important it is to be good to your family.”
I felt like she’d punched me in the stomach.
“Ally?” I whispered.
She just tilted her head again. “Just sayin’, Lorelei. Just sayin’.”
She threw her apple core and stick onto the sand and followed her group of friends into the school.
Great. I’d ticked off my brother, and the only friend I had left was missing. Absent, I told myself. He’s just absent. He’ll be back on Monday.
