The Scarlet Letterman

by Cara Lockwood

  “I’m not taking anyone’s side. I just think that maybe you’re a bit oversensitive about sex.” There’s that slightly patronizing tone again, like the one he used when he tried to convince me there is no such thing as the bogeyman. “It’s just not that big of a deal, and I think maybe you are making a big deal out of it because you haven’t had it yet.”

  I cannot believe what I have just heard. Has Ryan just done the equivalent of telling me I ought to go sit at the kid’s table, while the grown-ups talk? Can he be so out of touch not to understand how important and fragile a girl’s reputation is?

  “Is that what you think?”

  “It’s really no big deal, Miranda, it isn’t,” Ryan says. He takes my hand. “I think you’re making a big deal out of these rumors because you’re afraid I’m going to ask you to go to that next step. But I want you to know that we can go at whatever pace you’re comfortable with.”

  On some level, I realize this is his idea of being nice. Understanding. But frankly, I’ve had enough.

  “You know what I think?” I say. “I think you don’t have to talk to me like I’m a baby. And you know what else I think? I think you like these rumors. That they make you feel big or something. And I think that you don’t really want them to stop, because you like being the guy who can make girls do anything.”

  “How can you say something like that,” Ryan sputters, turning red. “What on earth makes you think I like that my girlfriend is supposed to be a whore when I’m not even getting any?”

  The instant it’s out of his mouth, Ryan realizes the mistake he’s made.

  For a few seconds, we just stare at each other in stunned silence. Then I shrug out of his jacket and toss it at his feet, just as the tears start to well up in my eyes.

  “Wait, Miranda…” Ryan calls, but I’m already gone, the gym doors slamming shut behind me.

  Outside, I run straight into two beefy Guardians.

  “You need to come with us,” they say.

  “But I didn’t even do anything,” I say, wiping a few stray tears from my face. “It’s not even curfew yet.”

  “Headmaster B wants to see you,” the other says, grabbing me by the arm.

  My night, it seems, just went from bad to worse.

  Nineteen

  I have no idea what Headmaster B wants with me, but I guess I’m going to find out. In Headmaster B’s office, it’s not just the Headmaster who’s waiting for me. Beside her is Mr. Thompson, the school bus driver and driver’s ed teacher. Thompson (as in Hunter S.) wears orange aviator sunglasses and a green visor. He’s a bit gangly and strange, but his voice sounds like he’s smoked more cigarettes than my grandma Colleen. And next to him is Blake.

  Uh-oh. Maybe he’s finally told on us for sneaking around Coach H’s room. I glance at him, but I can’t read his face.

  “I’m glad you called me, actually, because you really ought to know that there’s a…”

  “Tiger? Yes, we know.”

  “You know? There’s a man-eating tiger roaming the woods and you knew?”

  “Yes, and you can explain to us how you released him now. Mr. Blake is very worried.”

  I glance over at Blake, who doesn’t make eye contact with me.

  “Me? I didn’t release any tiger. You should be asking the Headless Sweatshirt Stalker. He’s the one who has all the drawings.”

  “Headless who?” Blake asks.

  “They guy in the sweatshirt. The guy who’s supposedly attacking Bard students? The guy who doesn’t have a face? You haven’t heard of him?”

  “Of course we have,” Headmaster B says, dismissively. “But you and I both know it’s Heathcliff and he’s causing mischief. We warned you how dangerous he could be if left in this world.”

  “He’s not the stalker,” I say, but even I sound a little unsure.

  “It’s convenient, don’t you think, that his first victim was Parker Rodham, your known rival?”

  “But it’s not him. I saw him and —”

  “So you have spoken with Heathcliff,” Headmaster B says, as if I’ve just fallen nicely into the trap she laid.

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying. I mean that —”

  “We know you did it,” Thompson interrupts in his gravelly voice. “Tell us what you did with them.”

  “With who?”

  “You know who,” Thompson says. “Hemingway and Woolf. Where are they?”

  “But I didn’t —”

  “We know that you had reasons to dispatch them both,” Headmaster B says. “She told you of our suspicions of you, and you had to get rid of her so that she wouldn’t tell us just how involved you were in this plot.”

  “But that’s not true,” I say. “I mean, it’s true she told me that you suspected me, but I would never do anything to hurt her.”

  “I told you she’d be trouble,” Thompson says. He doesn’t like me, I can tell. “We can’t just have students running around knowing about the vault. Especially fictionistas.”

  “Fictionistas?” I echo.

  “Descendants of fictional characters,” Headmaster B explains.

  “There’s more than just me?” I ask, perplexed. Is this true? Are there other people walking around with fiction-turned-real ancestors? And here I thought I was all alone. Then again, if the Bard Academy Faculty Handbook is right, then fictional characters aren’t so strange to this world.

  Headmaster B waves her hand as if dismissing the entire subject. She clearly doesn’t want to elaborate. “Miranda, these are serious charges leveled against you. We’re going to have to have a faculty hearing.”

  I must look puzzled, because Thompson adds, “It’s the most serious judicial proceeding at Bard Academy. You could get expelled.”

  At first, this sounds like my ticket out of here. Expulsion doesn’t seem like such a bad thing. But then I remember Dad giving me a lecture over Christmas break. During one of the only visits where I saw him, he told me that if I don’t make this work, then he’s pressing charges for me wrecking his car, and I could go to juvie jail. I’m pretty sure it’s the only place on earth worse than here.

  “But I’m innocent,” I say.

  “If you are, then you have nothing to fear from a hearing,” Headmaster B says.

  I’m not so sure about that. It feels like there are forces at work here that are out of my control.

  “Miss Tate, the hearing will be held in two days,” Headmaster B says. “I suggest you rally a defense.”

  Twenty

  “This is bad,” Blade says in our room later. Hana is also there, flipping through the faculty handbook.

  “It’s worse than bad,” Hana says, tapping her finger on an open page. “This says that you face ‘figurative expulsion.’ ”

  “The dead-to-us punishment? Ouch,” Blade says, rolling over on her bed. “You know that’s all BS. They ‘expel’ you, but they still get to keep your tuition money. It’s such a scam!”

  “Says here that you can call witnesses on your behalf,” Hana continues, reading more from the handbook. “Maybe we could call Ryan.”

  “Um, yeah, I don’t think he’d be up for it,” I say.

  “Why not?” Blade asks.

  “We kind of broke up,” I say.

  “You what,” Blade and Hana both say in unison.

  “We had a fight. About the sex rumors. He was kind of a jerk about it.”

  “Ryan? A jerk? Are you sure we’re taking about the same guy?” Hana asks.

  Blade elbows her. “All guys can be jerks,” Blade says. “It’s embedded in their Y chromosome.”

  “I still can’t believe you broke up with him,” Hana says, shaking her head.

  “Um, aren’t you supposed to automatically take my side?” I say.

  “I’m sorry. I’m just stunned. I mean, it’s Ryan Kent we’re talking about.”

  “I know. I know.” I sigh. “It’s complicated.”

  “This better not have anything to do with Heathcliff,” Hana says, g
iving me a sharp look.

  “How can it? I haven’t even seen him.”

  “Correction — you haven’t seen his face because he doesn’t have one,” Hana says. “But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t still be the stalker. Maybe he’s just a ghost now, but one that’s still powerful enough to cast his bad-boy mojo spell on you.”

  “He hasn’t, okay?” I say. I’m not even sure if Heathcliff is still alive at this point. And no matter how much I try to explain, I just know the Headless Sweatshirt Stalker isn’t him. “Anyway, can we get back to my trial?”

  “You’re allowed the counsel of your faculty advisor,” Blade says, reading from the open page of the faculty handbook on Hana’s lap.

  “But that was Ms. W, and she’s missing,” I say.

  “You can also have one fellow student defender,” Hana says.

  “That should be Hana. She’s the smart one,” Blade says. “By the way, why don’t you guys wear your LIT shirts for court?”

  Hana and I just stare at Blade. “What? I’m just asking. I think they’re cool.”

  My hearing takes place in the library, which is closed off to all students Friday afternoon. The panel judging me is led by Headmaster B, Blake, and Thompson. Their stone-faced expressions say they aren’t going to be very sympathetic to my case.

  “You sure you know what you’re doing?” I ask Hana as she shuffles through her notes.

  Hana pushes her black-framed glasses up on her nose. “No, but I don’t see that anyone else is jumping up here to defend you.”

  “That fills me with confidence,” I say.

  “Just relax,” Hana says. “You’re innocent, so they can’t really have any proof, now can they?”

  This makes me feel a tiny bit better.

  Headmaster B bangs a gavel against the table where the faculty are sitting, signaling that the hearing has come to order.

  “Miranda Earnshaw Tate, you are charged with involvement in the disappearance of Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway,” Headmaster B begins, with no preamble. “The evidence against you includes the fact that you had a disagreement with Coach H the day before his disappearance over a grade you felt you didn’t deserve. Is this true?”

  “Yes, but I was framed, it wasn’t —”

  “Please, just answer the question yes or no,” Headmaster B admonishes.

  “Yes,” I say reluctantly.

  “And is it true that Ms. W discovered your involvement with Coach H’s disappearance and confronted you the very week she disappeared?”

  “No, that’s not what —”

  “You deny that Ms. Woolf confronted you?”

  “She thought I was innocent. She was only trying to warn me.”

  “She was trying to warn you?” asks Thompson, who has skepticism written on his face. “Don’t you think it’s more likely that she wanted to prove to herself that you were the culprit, and to gather evidence for us?”

  I look at each of the faculty members’ stoic faces. I glance over at Hana. She stands up.

  “Permission to speak,” she says to the panel.

  “Granted,” Headmaster B says, waving her small hand.

  “I have been good friends with Miranda since she came to Bard last year, and I know much of her relationship with Ms. Woolf. In fact, Ms. Woolf talked to me about Miranda three weeks ago.”

  I glance over at Hana. She never told me that.

  “Before her disappearance, Ms. Woolf confided in me that she was worried about Miranda.”

  “Because of her suspicions that Miranda was plotting against the faculty?” Mr. B asks.

  “No, because she thought Miranda was being framed,” Hana says.

  Other teachers in the library murmur and whisper to one another. Headmaster B frowns.

  “And just who did she believe was trying to frame Miranda?” Headmaster B asks.

  “I don’t know, but we think it has something to do with the tiger…” Hana starts, but before she can finish, she’s cut off by Headmaster B.

  “You mean the tiger that Miranda conjured by using Blake’s drawings? The pieces you showed to Blake himself?”

  “Yes, but I found them. I didn’t steal them,” I say.

  Blake speaks. “I for one agree with Ms. W. I think someone is trying to frame Miranda,” he says. This causes more whispers in the audience. “Gabriele, who is God’s right-hand messenger, who sees everything, has told me so.”

  For once, something for my side. But why is Blake defending me?

  “And, honestly, we really don’t have any reason to seriously suspect Miranda of lying,” he says. “She’s been nothing but truthful with us in the past.”

  Hana gives me a quick glance. I’ve been mostly truthful is what that glance tells me. I can’t help but feel a pang of guilt here. I did keep the news of Heathcliff a secret. I look down and see that I’m nervously fiddling with the locket he gave me. I drop it and put my hands in my lap.

  “We know she has fiction in her blood, but this doesn’t mean that she isn’t trustworthy on her own merits…” Mr. B fades off in the middle of his speech and his attention is drawn to the middle of the room, about six feet in the air, glancing up, as if someone is floating there. “Gabriele?” Blake asks the empty air. “What is it?”

  Blake turns to look at me, as if the invisible angel has told him something.

  “You say that she has misled us?” he asks the empty air. “But how?”

  The faculty, including Headmaster B, all watch with curious faces.

  “Objection!” shouts Hana suddenly. “Relevance of imaginary friend in hearing?”

  “There are no objections in faculty hearings, Ms. Mura,” Headmaster B chides. “And ghostly apparitions are admissible in faculty panel hearings, whether visible or not.”

  “But imaginary and-or not-seen figures are not allowed to testify in front of a faculty hearing,” Hana argues, pushing her point. “It’s in the handbook.”

  There are a few gasps among the faculty. “Where did you get that, Ms. Mura?” thunders Headmaster B. “Students are not allowed to see that!”

  Guardians step forward and take the book from Hana’s hands.

  “But, Mr. Blake —”

  “May I continue now?” Blake says, cutting off Hana before she can finish her sentence.

  “We will deal with your infraction later,” Headmaster B tells Hana. “In the meantime, continue, Mr. Blake.”

  He turns his head to the side, as if his imaginary angel friend is whispering into his ear. Blake nods, lets out a low whistle, and then nods again. He clears his throat. “Thank you, Headmaster. Now, Gabriele tells me that you’ve been keeping a secret from us. A secret that is contained in that locket you wear around your neck.”

  I swallow, hard. He may have me there. Hana glances over at me, with a puzzled look on her face. Now I really wish I had told her about the locket when I told her about Heathcliff. I know she’s not going to take this news well. Not at all.

  “Hand over the locket for inspection, Ms. Tate,” Headmaster B commands.

  Instinctively I wrap my hands around the locket protectively. “No,” I say. “It’s mine.”

  “Give it here,” she adds, a bit more forcefully. And, even as I’m holding the locket, I feel the chain unclasp itself from my neck and fly, out of my hands on its own power, toward Headmaster B’s outstretched hand.

  “Hey, you can’t do that!” I say, even though it’s clear she just has.

  Headmaster B inspects the locket and opens it. She looks at its contents and then at me.

  “Heathcliff!” she says, and the faculty gasp. Headmaster B holds up the corner of the page of Wuthering Heights with his name printed on it, and shows it to the faculty in attendance. There are more whispers and murmurs. Next to me, Hana goes white.

  “Ms. Tate, would you explain to us how you came to wear the only remaining piece of Wuthering Heights?”

  “Miranda, you didn’t…” Hana says, sounding sad. She slumps in the chair next
to mine and puts her head in her hands.

  “Would you care to explain why you did not tell us of Heathcliff’s return? Or that you had the power to send him back?”

  “I…uh…I think it’s the bad-boy mojo,” I say, because I can’t think of anything else.

  “Bad-boy what?” Headmaster B asks, perplexed.

  “Never mind.” I sigh. I doubt I can explain bad-boy mojo to Charlotte Brontë. “I have no justifiable explanation.”

  “Very well,” Headmaster B says. “Based on this overwhelming evidence of deceit, I’m afraid the faculty board has no choice but to punish you, until such time as you agree to tell us what you or Heathcliff have done with the faculty members who are missing. Faculty, I ask for a vote. All in favor of figurative expulsion, raise your hands.”

  As I watch with dread, most of the faculty in the room raise their hands.

  “Miranda Earnshaw Tate,” Headmaster B continues, “I hearby sentence you to a semester of figurative expulsion. You shall not talk to or interact with any other students until deemed acceptable by the faculty. Your whereabouts will be monitored at all times. This punishment will be in effect until you decide to tell us what has happened to our fellow faculty members.”

  “But I don’t know what happened to them —” I cry.

  “Silence! You are no longer allowed to address anyone on this campus. From here on, you are invisible.”

  Guardians rush at me then, and one of them roughly tugs a red sweater vest over my head.

  Headmaster B slams down her gavel on the table, signaling the end of the hearing and my life as I know it.

  Twenty-one

  Figurative expulsion is even worse than I thought. Hana isn’t even allowed to talk to me when I leave the library. Even as I shout that I’m sorry about the necklace, that I had been meaning to tell her, she’s held by a Guardian, so she can’t even look me in the face. I don’t know if she’s mad or not.

  My red V-neck sweater vest that I now have to wear officially makes me the campus pariah. While I generally love not wearing what everyone else is wearing, this is different. I stand out like a red M&M in a sea of blue ones. And people part in front of me, like I’ve got a contagious disease. No one wants to make the mistake of even appearing to talk to me, and face the same punishment.