I don’t want to talk to Ryan about the rumors, but I don’t see that I have a choice, either. He’s the only one who can make this right.
Up ahead, I see a dark figure standing near the gym. At first, I think it might be a Guardian, but then I realize it’s someone else.
In fact, it’s the Hooded Sweatshirt Stalker. And he’s fifteen feet from me.
He turns slightly, but it’s too dark for me to see his face. He sees me and he pauses a second.
“Heathcliff?” I whisper, although he’s too far away to hear me. I stop in my tracks, as if worried that any sudden movement will send him running off to the woods. I try to glimpse his face, but I can’t. The size and shape of him could be Heathcliff, but then again, it could also be someone who has the same build.
Before I can decide for sure, he takes off at a sharp angle off the path at a trot. I run after him, but it’s no use. He’s faster, and it’s dark, and he’s into the woods before I even cover half the distance between us.
I can’t help but wonder, if it is Heathcliff why won’t he talk to me?
On the path to the gym, where he’d been standing, I find another scrap of paper on the ground. It looks like another piece of the same drawing I found the other week. Absentmindedly I put my hand into my Bard blazer. Sure enough, the piece is still there. I’d totally forgotten about it. I take it out and the pieces fit together. It’s definitely an ear, and an eye. It could be a cat, I think. Strange. Why do I always find these in the wake of the Hooded Sweatshirt Stalker? I put the two pieces of paper back in my pocket, as I swing open the gym doors and go in.
I find Ryan inside. He’s shooting hoops with Derek Mann, which makes me cringe. As I approach, Derek gives me a leer, making me want to go take a shower.
“Miranda!” Ryan cries, surprised.
“Can I talk to you…alone?” I ask, looking at Derek.
“Whatever you have to say in front of Ryan, you can say in front of me, sweetheart,” Derek says.
“Mann, come on.” Ryan gives Derek a playful shove.
“Anyway, practice is going to start soon,” Derek says.
“I don’t think Coach H is showing up. He’s never late, and it’s fifteen past,” Ryan says. He tosses Derek the ball. “Come on, Miranda. Let’s go.”
I fall into step beside him.
“Coach H skipped a practice?” I ask Ryan. “That’s not like him. He lives for sports.”
“I know, it’s kind of weird. Maybe he’s sick or something,” Ryan says.
“Yeah, maybe,” I say, not adding that ghosts don’t get sick.
“Did you walk here alone? You know it’s not safe.”
I shrug.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Ryan says. “Parker really thinks this guy is for real. She really thought he was going to hurt her.”
“I know, but…about Parker,” I start. And then stop.
Yeah. This is the hard part. I’m not sure exactly how to tell Ryan about the rumor, and my face is bright red just thinking about putting it into words. This is worse than fifth-grade sex education when I was called upon to answer the question “What is a testicle?”
I decide the best approach is a direct one.
“Parker Rodham is spreading the rumor that I had to do you and the whole basketball team as a condition of wearing this jacket,” I blurt out at once.
Ryan stops in his tracks, looks at me, then bursts out laughing.
“This isn’t funny!” I say.
“It is kind of funny,” Ryan says. “Who would believe that?”
I’m temporarily relieved that Ryan has such faith in the power of my reputation as a good girl. “Derek Mann, for one. And lots of others,” I say.
“Well, that’s just stupid,” Ryan says.
“I know it’s stupid and you know it’s stupid, but everyone else thinks it really happened,” I say.
“If people want to make stories up, who cares? We know it isn’t true.”
“But you have to say something. People are talking about me in restrooms. It’s got to stop.”
Ryan gives me a puzzled look.
“What am I supposed to do? Stand up at morning assembly and announce that I haven’t laid a finger on you? And that you haven’t, as rumored, slept with the basketball team?”
“That would be a good start.”
“Miranda,” Ryan says, exhaling a frustrated sigh. “You can’t be so concerned about what other people think. People who are envious of what we have are going to spread rumors. If you start to let them get to you, then you’re only going to make yourself unhappy. If I stop this rumor, there will just be another one, sooner or later. That’s how people work. You just have to ignore them.”
“This is pretty hard to ignore. Derek nearly assaulted me in the hall,” I say.
“He what?” Ryan cries, and now I suddenly have his attention.
“He thought the rumor was an open invitation,” I add.
Ryan’s mouth settles into a thin line. “I’ll take care of him,” Ryan says. “Okay?”
“Okay.” I feel a little better. Still, I can’t shake a minor annoyance. Why isn’t Ryan as upset about this as I am? He seems to take it all in stride. Then again, he is a boy. Having a rumor about how you can get girls to do your sexual bidding for the privilege of wearing your jacket doesn’t exactly reflect badly on him. Instantly I banish that thought. Ryan isn’t that kind of guy. He’s a good guy. A nice one. Isn’t he?
“Come on, let’s not let a dumb rumor spoil our evening,” Ryan says, sliding his arm around my waist and tugging me closer. “Hey, let’s go to the pit. We’ve still got half an hour till underclassmen curfew.”
I guess he’s right. I shouldn’t let Parker spoil all my fun.
“Lead the way,” I tell him.
Unfortunately we don’t make it two steps outside the gym before we run straight into Parker Rodham. Speak of the devil, and she’ll crash your hot date. As if I should be surprised.
“Do you guys know it’s almost curfew?” she says in a singsong voice, as she puts herself between me and Ryan, and Ryan’s arm falls away from my shoulders to let her in.
“We have nearly a half hour,” I say, but Parker ignores me.
“I didn’t want you to get in trouble, Ryan,” she says, laying a possessive hand on his arm. She doesn’t even acknowledge me and I’m standing inches from her.
“Um, thanks, Parker,” Ryan says.
“Am I interrupting anything?” Parker asks, when she clearly already knows the answer to that question. “I mean, I was going to go to the pit, but I hate walking alone. With that rapist out there. Do you think you could walk with me?” She hangs on Ryan’s arm, still ignoring me.
“You made it this far by yourself,” I say, but she continues to ignore me. Ryan, however, chuckles, and then quickly swallows the laugh when he sees how earnest Parker is being.
“I was nearly killed,” Parker says, her face somber.
Ryan immediately looks sympathetic. “Sorry,” he says.
I roll my eyes. Sometimes Ryan is far too gullible.
The three of us start walking, and Parker has effectively staked out the territory between me and Ryan. As we walk, Parker loops her arm through Ryan’s possessively.
“I’m cold,” she explains, cuddling up to him. I don’t think I can take much more of this. Seriously. “And didn’t Miranda see something in the woods? A monster, I heard someone say.”
Parker gives me one of her most innocent-looking evil smiles.
Ryan gives me a funny, sidelong glance. Did Ryan tell her? Ryan told her I’d seen something in the woods? How could he do that?
“I never said it was a monster,” I say, feeling a bit betrayed. Ryan looks a little sheepish. He mouths to me “sorry.” He did tell her. I could kill him.
“That’s not what I heard. I heard you thought it was going to eat you.”
“I saw a big animal, that’s all.”
“Where did you see it?” Parker
asks. “Wasn’t it near here somewhere?” Her voice sends a chill down my spine. She knows I don’t want to go anywhere near the woods. Who would? It’s pitch-black, and I’m not nearly as dumb as I was when I first got here. I know there are things living in the woods. Big things. With fangs. Parker takes a step closer to the woods. “Why don’t you show us?”
“It’s too dark to see now,” I say.
“What are you? Afraid?” Parker taunts. Right now, I really, really hate her. What are we? Ten?
I should let her taunts roll off me, but I can’t. I don’t like being told I’m afraid in front of Ryan. It doesn’t seem right. Besides, he already thinks the whole thing is a big joke. He didn’t see the glowing red eyes. He doesn’t know about half the things that go on around here. Neither does Parker.
“I can show you, but it won’t make a difference,” I say.
“It’s too dark anyway,” Ryan says, trying to save me. “Let’s save it.”
“No,” Parker says. Her voice is steely and resolved. “I want to see it now. I want Miranda to show us.”
I glare at Parker and she glares back. She knows she has me. She’s not going to let this go.
“Fine,” I say. I walk off the lighted path toward the woods. I stop about ten feet from them. “It was about there,” I say, pointing to the old oak tree where I saw the animal.
“Here?” Parker says, stepping in front of me. She walks boldly up to the tree. “Right here?”
“About there.”
“So why don’t you come over here? Are you scared to be close to the tree?” she says, and touches it with one hand.
“I’m not scared,” I snap, but I sound like a kindergartner. “This is childish,” I add, before walking over to the tree and standing by Parker. “There? Are you happy now?”
Then, deep in the woods we hear a wolf’s howl. I glance quickly in the direction of the sound, but Parker just looks at me and laughs. “Do you sleep with the light on, too?”
“Why don’t we go inside?” Ryan says, glancing at me with a worried look on his face. I can’t tell if he thinks I’m a total idiot or if he’s uncomfortable that I’m uncomfortable.
“How much would you pay me, Miranda, to walk five feet into the woods right now?”
“I wouldn’t pay you anything, Parker.”
“What if I paid you one hundred dollars to do it. Would you?”
“Parker, quit fooling around. Let’s go inside.” Ryan sounds less patient now.
“What? I’m just saying. Look,” she says. She walks into the woods and is quickly enveloped in shadow. We hear her footsteps in the leaves and then, suddenly, they stop.
I glance over at Ryan, and he looks over at me.
“Why don’t we just leave her in there?” I whisper to him. He laughs.
“Parker?” Ryan calls. “Parker, come on.” She doesn’t answer. Ryan tries again. “Parker! Seriously. Quit it. Come on.”
Still no answer.
“Parker. Come out, already. We’re cold,” Ryan says.
I have that eerie feeling. You know the one. Like Parker’s been slashed into a million pieces by some chain saw–wielding maniac or a monster with red eyes, and we’re next.
“Parker?”
The next thing we hear is a scream.
Ten
Ryan leaps into the woods, because he is ridiculously brave and good-looking. He is so going to be a firefighter one of these days. I go in after him, not because I want to save Parker, but because I really don’t want to be left alone.
We only make it a step or two before Parker nearly collides with us. She has something dark and sticky on her hands.
Blood.
She’s mumbling inconsolably, pointing backward. That’s when the clouds covering the moon lift and it suddenly gets brighter. There, lying only five feet away, is the carcass of a dead bear. Its mouth is open, and its tongue is out, and it has a big bloody gash down the side of its neck.
Instantly I think of the creature with red eyes I saw in the woods. Could it have done this? I shiver.
I look at Parker and realize she must’ve tripped over the bear, or fallen into it. She’s got bear blood on her hands and a big dark smear down the front of her white Bard shirt.
She buries her face in Ryan’s chest, and he folds his arms around her to comfort her. My stomach shrinks, and not because of the dead bear. I don’t like Ryan hugging Parker.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s get out of here.”
The next morning, everyone is talking about Parker’s run-in with the bear. I’ve about decided that it doesn’t matter what Parker does. People will still want to talk about it anyway. I can just see the next Bard Weekly headline: “Parker Pops Zit, Entire Campus Watches.”
“Don’t look now, but Parker has co-opted your boyfriend again,” Hana says, nodding in the direction of Parker and Ryan, who are standing in a group of Parker’s clones and relating the bear story. “I have a feeling we’re going to be hearing about this all day.”
“Did you hear about the bear?” Blade asks me, finding us in line. Hana rolls her eyes.
“Duh — Miranda was there.”
“Really? Why don’t you tell me these things?”
“I would’ve, if you’d been awake.” Blade was fast asleep when I got back to my dorm. And that was at eight o’clock.
“So did Ryan kill the bear with his bare hands like they say?” Blade asks as we take our seats at a table near Parker’s. I try to get Ryan’s attention, but he’s too busy pantomiming the act of saving Parker from a bear carcass. I’m still peeved he told Parker about my monster sighting. How could he have betrayed my trust like that? And to Parker, of all people?
“No. The bear was already dead.”
“Was the bear big? I heard it was five hundred pounds.”
“It was huge,” I say. “But what we should worry about is whatever killed that bear. I don’t think it was a hunter. The bear was half-eaten.”
“Ew!” Hana says. “I’m trying to eat my breakfast slop here.”
“Guys! Bear? Did you hear?” Samir says, joining us as he slides his tray down in front of an empty chair.
“Duh — old news!” Blade says, waving her hand as if she hadn’t just heard the story five minutes ago. “So do you think that bear was killed by that monster you saw in the woods?”
“What did you see in the woods?” Hana asks me.
“If you tell me Dracula, I am so going to get a transfer,” Samir adds.
I guess I forgot to mention the red-eyed thing to Hana and Samir. I relate the story.
“Maybe it was just an owl,” Samir suggests. “Owls are way creepy.”
“They don’t have glowing red eyes, dummy,” Blade says, tossing her empty milk carton at him.
“And they’re not big enough to kill bears,” Hana adds.
“Can’t blame a guy for trying to explain things logically,” Samir says. “By the way, did you hear —”
“No, Parker was not bitten by anything, and no, Parker did not vanquish the bear by farting or whatever it is she’s supposed to have done,” Hana says, exasperated. “Now can I finish eating?”
“Parker farts?” Samir echoes, looking puzzled. “Anyway, what I was going to say is that Coach H is missing.”
“He’s what?”
“He was AWOL at basketball practice and for his afternoon classes yesterday, too,” Samir says.
“That’s weird,” I say.
“Yeah. Apparently Headmaster B is going to make some kind of announcement at morning assembly.”
The official excuse for Coach H’s abrupt departure, according to Headmaster B, is that he’s just on a leave of absence, but the four of us know that ghosts don’t just take vacations. And Hana thinks whatever happened to Coach H wasn’t planned in advance.
“Otherwise he would’ve had a substitute teacher,” she points out as we file out of the chapel after morning assembly.
“Something bad happened to him, I know it,�
� Blade says. “This is why we need to form the LITs.”
“Not the club again,” Hana says, exhaling a sigh.
“Maybe he escaped purgatory somehow,” Samir says. “Wasn’t he supposed to help people patch up bad relationships? Maybe he’s done that and moved on.”
“Coach H? Are we talking about the same person?” I say. Coach has a long way to go in the people skills department. “I think it might take him a long time to get out of purgatory.”
“That’s exactly my point,” Blade says. “Something bad happened to him. We ought to investigate.”
“How are we supposed to do that?” Hana asks.
“How else? Snoop around,” Blade says.
Eleven
Blade’s idea of snooping involves sneaking into the boys’ dorm after curfew, armed with nothing more than a book of her Wiccan spells.
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” I whisper as we’re standing in the hallway of Macduff dorm. The dorm hallway is nearly dark, except for small lights near the floorboards. The living room is dark, and giant shadows in the corners are either sofas or bear-eating monsters. Okay, so they’re probably not monsters.
Still, I’d rather not find out. I wouldn’t be here at all, except for the fact that Blade guilt-tripped me. Coach H did save our hides last semester a couple of times when Emily Brontë was on the loose wreaking havoc. She reminded me that despite my recent falling out with Coach H, we had history, and the least I could do was try to find out what happened to him. And she’s right. I only wish she could’ve been right during daylight hours.
“I should’ve listened to Hana,” I say and sigh.
Hana was, at this moment, sleeping in her bed back in our dorm, where we were supposed to be. She was having no part in snooping. She said the idea was stupid, and not worth the risk of dish duty — our punishment should Guardians catch us breaking curfew.
“Where’s your sense of adventure?” Samir asks me. He’s the one who let us into the dorm.
“As if you have a single adventurous bone in your body,” I whisper back. Samir is the biggest coward I know.
The Scarlet Letterman Page 5
