“Have you ever heard of taking responsibility for your actions?”
“I swear, Tim, sometimes I think you were born a grown-up. Maybe that’s why you were such a failure as a kid.”
“Sticks and stones can break my bones. If I had them, of course.”
The graveyard was still and quiet, bathed in moonlight. The tombstones gleamed in alabaster and looked as fragile as glass candy. The grass was dark and smooth, and the surrounding stone wall and the trees beyond gave the impression of a curved glass dome. The graveyard was like an old friend, something you could trust. It never got better or worse.
“The coast is clear,” Tim said, grabbing her hand and pulling her onto the spongy turf.
“Wait,” she said. “There’s something I need to check first.”
She broke away and headed for the far corner of the graveyard, where the tombstones were tallest. Despite the sales pitch that all were equal in the afterlife, some were apparently more equal than others.
The moon was bright enough to make out the chiseled letters, and she passed “Gable, Clark” and its obligatory epitaph “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
Then Marilyn Monroe’s and “This time around, I’m wearing only pants.” Humphrey Bogart’s marker warned against the dangers of tobacco, while the final resting place of Bette Davis proclaimed “My eyes weren’t all that weird.”
The marker she sought was a little apart from the others, short, squat, and topped with a mossy granite race car.
“James Dean,” she said. His epitaph read “Is it Eden Yet?” but that barely caught her attention. The turf over his grave had been peeled open, and the gash in the ground exposed the substance below. It was milky in the moonlight, and Bone wondered for a horrible moment if the underpinning of Darkmeet was guardian-angel goo.
“Somebody’s been in,” Tim said.
“Or gotten out.”
She knelt in the spongy grass and dipped a hand into the open grave. She scooped up a palmful of Styrofoam packing peanuts. “Is this somebody’s idea of a joke?”
“It’s all a joke,” Tim said, standing over her and glancing around nervously. A Poot Owl hooted in the near forest.
“Like the whole place is one big fake package?”
She wondered which package the UPS driver had been so intent on delivering when he’d smacked into her and shattered her skull. She hoped it was a pacemaker or a wedding dress. She would have hated to die over an instant coffee maker or a stupid stack of Death for Dummies books.
“Maybe that’s how they solved their recycling problem,” Tim said. “Bury it all.”
“That’s not helping.”
“I’m 12 years old. What do you expect?”
Bone tossed the peanuts back into the hole. “It’s one of two things. Either Jimmy Boy clawed his way out and is pretending to be Royce, or Royce did this to desecrate his hated rival’s grave.”
“From what I know of Royce, he wouldn’t want his brother to get bonus limelight. In cases like this, it’s usually the third alternative. You know, the twist that nobody sees coming.”
“You mean, James and Royce are both running loose and you’ll never be able to tell them apart?”
“Bingo, bimbo.”
She weighed the possibilities. Another hunky actor with make-out potential versus dealing with a jealous Royce. And Crystal would be sure to give her a hard time if she ended up in a love triangle with two brothers. The very idea was icky.
But a little bit shivery all the same.
Poot-pootie-hoo. Poot-pootie-hoo.
The nearness of the Poot Owl caused Bone to jump. She glanced at the crippled, bare tree branches that hung overhead. The owl’s head was twisted sideways, as if it were looking past the graveyard at some approaching calamity.
“You’d better scram,” Tim said. “If they catch you in the mausoleum again—”
“Actually, it might be a good idea to let them catch me. Because I think the Judge wants me going back and forth.”
“Sort of like a special dispensation from the Pope?”
“That’s a Catholic thing. Parson’s Ford is Methodist and Baptist. Unless you count Dempsey.”
“Dempsey?”
She detected jealousy in his tone, so she played it up. “Yeah. This guy with dreamy eyes who uses French words.”
“Did he call you an escadrille, by chance?”
Bone considered a moment. She couldn’t remember the phrases Crystal had mentioned, but it sounded sophisticated enough. “Sure. In a whisper.”
“Like I thought. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
As they strolled across the graveyard, Tim glanced wistfully at the grass. “I wish our graves were side by side.”
“You should hang out with kids your own age.”
“Do you think you would have gone out with me? You know, if we’d lived to be seniors?”
She flopped an arm around his shoulder, hoping he took it as sisterly affection. “I like you, kid. But let’s keep it in the ‘friend zone.’”
The Poot Owl swooped down from the branch and stirred a few strands of Bone’s hair. She swatted at it. “Dang. I think it’s trying to tell me something.”
“Owls are messengers and guardians,” Tim said. “They help transport people from one stage of their lives to another.”
The owl flew through the open gate at the mouth of the cemetery, its wings a milky blur in the moonlight.
“Gotcha!” someone shouted, and the Poot Owl let out a frantic screech, then an interrupted squeal of pain.
The Judge entered the graveyard, dabbing his wet lips with the folds of his robe. He belched, and a small feather floated out.
“So this is the stage of my life where I get eaten?” Bone said.
Chapter 17
Crystal hated Wednesdays.
For normal teens, Wednesday meant the middle of the school week and the beginning of party time. But for Crystal, it meant she had to check in with the school counselor, Beverly McMarkus. That part wasn’t so bad, because Miss McMarkus generally chatted about new movie releases and the horrible portion sizes of modern candy bars.
Then she’d ask Crystal about her GED studies, and Crystal would make up stories about George Washington’s teeth and the shape of a rhombus. She had no idea whether a rhombus was an African mammal or an element of the periodic chart, or maybe one of those symbols used in diagramming sentences.
All she knew was the walk from the high school parking lot to the office was about seven thousand barefoot miles over burning sand and broken glass.
Most of the kids remembered her. Everybody knew everybody in a small-town high school, and the cliques had long been established. In many cases, they were generational. The jock dads who drove front-end loaders had jock kids who played football. The kids of the insurance agents were in drama and band. Moms with SUV’s and plastic surgery spawned cheerleaders. The brainiac kids of the alcoholic college professors were making A’s and sneaking vodka to school in their water bottles, just like they were expected. The losers were already collecting in-school suspensions and misdemeanor charges, killing time until they could legally drop out and smoke cigarettes all day.
Nature had created a perfect system, with all the cogs and wheels turning in their proper grooves. But when Crystal stepped in, all balance was lost and the entire system ground to a halt.
“Hi, Crystal,” said Mitzi, the cheerleader co-captain, flashing all ninety-four of her perfect teeth. “Are you back in school?”
Crystal shook her head and marched grimly onward, though Mitzi’s minions stared holes in her back as they snickered.
“Yo,” said Barry Lane, the editor of the school newspaper who’d once copied her test during English. They had both made C’s on it but he never held it against her. The test was on Moby Dick and the only kid who’d actually read the book was Melvina Stark, who smelled of cat urine and always wore the same gray sweater.
“Yo,” Crystal said back to Barry.
“Still going out with the tow-truck boy?”
She didn’t slow down, because other kids were listening, and even with the ruckus of a class change, she didn’t want any private conversations. “Once in a while.”
“Well, if he ditches you, I’ll give you the hook,” he said, and then brayed like a donkey with a carrot up its nose.
She was almost to the office, carrying her books in front of her as if they were a shield, when Rance and Snake exited. “It’s the movie chick,” Rance said.
Snake tugged at the rim of his black toboggan. “Thought you dropped out.”
Crystal’s cheeks burned with humiliation. She could have been on the B Honor Roll, earned a shot at class secretary, and probably made the volleyball team, but her stupid best friend had to go and get pancaked by a big brown van.
“I’m on an accelerated schedule,” she lied. “I graduated last year.”
Rance and Snake gave their red-eyed gape. The word “accelerated” was likely beyond their vocabulary. If you couldn’t smoke it, snort it, or put it on a fishing hook for bait, they could care less.
“That was a purty good movie,” Rance said.
“Yeah,” Snake agreed. “Got any more like it?”
They’ve definitely been riding the Tijuana Taxi. If Dempsey’s brand of B-movie silliness inspired these two zombo-heads to become fans, then pop culture has definitely hit the skids.
“So you liked ‘The Frightening,’ huh?”
At the mention of the title, both of them went glassy-eyed again, but this time it was like they were staring at a big Snickers bar after smoking a seven-inch rope of marijuana.
“In Royce we trust,” they said in monotonal unison.
“Huh?”
“In Royce we trust,” they repeated.
Some of the students slowed down to look at them, but Snake was the kind who would shank a kid in the ribs over lunch money, so people tended to give him a wide berth.
“Royce,” Crystal said.
“Royce,” they repeated.
“Was he in the movie?”
“In Royce we trust.”
“Right,” she said. “Hope that works out for you. Got an appointment with McMarkus. Better run.”
“Royce,” they said.
She bolted past them and into the office, slamming the door behind her. The secretary scowled but jabbed with her pen toward the counselor’s office. Crystal gave a fake smile and went down the narrow hall. Beverly McMarkus was playing a computer game that involved puppies and gumballs.
“Hi Crystal,” she said. She took up most of the room, tilting the scales at over 300 pounds. The wall featured military recruiting posters and inspirational messages of achievement, with sunlit white kids in their caps and gowns gazing wide-eyed into a bright future. Yet the chair in front of her desk was the cramped plastic kind used by kindergarteners.
Crystal settled into it, hoping it wouldn’t collapse. “Hello, Miss McMarkus.”
“Please, call me ‘Bev,’” she said, same as always. She didn’t understand that kids made up names for teachers but knew better than to get chummy. Bev was better known in the hallways and locker rooms as “McMack Truck” and the less-original “McFatso.”
“How’s home life?” Miss McMarkus said.
“Couldn’t be better.” No gateways to the afterlife so far today.
“And the job?”
“Just fine. Come on down sometime and I’ll give you some tokens for a free suntan.”
Miss McMarkus giggled like the teenager she should have left behind 20 years ago. “Don’t know if my bathing suit would fit anymore.”
Crystal didn’t want to tell her the point was to sunbathe in the nude. Like first names, nudity was off limits when talking to teachers.
“I’ve finished the chapters on algebra,” Crystal said, laying her papers on the desk. “I figured out the x and y, but I’m not sure where the two went.”
With the wisdom of the knowing, Miss McMarkus tented her fingers and said. “Sometimes in life, the x and the y is enough.”
She rummaged in her desk for her big rubber stamp. She hammered it down on the stack of paper and slid the pages back. Marked in red ink on the top page was “ADEQUATE PROGRESS.”
Crystal was tired of being adequate. She’d studied hard. She deserved an ABOVE-AVERAGE, maybe even a SUPERIOR. Heck, even a hand-drawn smiley face would be a welcome upgrade.
“About tomorrow,” Crystal said.
“Halloween.”
“And all the kids will be dressed up.”
“The school can’t officially recognize Halloween, of course,” Miss McMarkus said. “This is the South, and plenty of people get uncomfortable with all these witches and ghosts running around. So we prefer to call it a ‘Harvest Celebration.’”
Crystal knew it was pointless to make a debate about separation of church and state when Christmas and Easter were good excuses for a day off. The real problem was Crystal expected to be plenty busy helping Momma plug the portals. She wondered if they would have enough fingers to plug all the holes in the dike. And she had no idea what gooey miasma was dammed up and waiting to break free.
But how do you explain that kind of thing to a counselor? Like, how can they help with REAL problems?
“I know it’s hard to feel like you fit in,” Miss McMarkus said. She rolled her eyes down to her ample bosom and said with a bitter chuckle, “Lord knows, I have a lot of trouble fitting anywhere. But you’re doing it your way, Crystal, and that’s the only way that matters.”
“I’m a drop-out. A statistic. And when I come to school, I can hear the whispers and feel the stares. Honestly, I wonder if it’s worth it.”
“Depression is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s chemical. You want to talk about statistics, let’s go with the three kids in every classroom who are right now thinking about killing themselves. Remember Bradley Cox?”
Of course I do. I kissed him in seventh grade during a game of spin the bottle, and Mitzi poured Sprite on my head because the kiss lasted almost a minute and was still going strong. And four years later Bradley swallowed 27 Codeine tablets.
Hopefully the two events weren’t related.
“Money doesn’t make people happy, Crystal. Good grades and popularity and dates don’t solve the problems inside your own head. The world’s a lot more complicated than when I was a teenager. Social networking, YouTube, Facebook, ‘American Idol,’ ‘Survivor.’ There’s a million ways to get humiliated or screw up where everybody can see.”
“It’s not that—” As usual, a grown-up in a rush to be helpful had no interest in the real issue.
“And you’re an Aldridge. Did you know I was a classmate of your mother’s?”
Crystal’s mouth fell open and she forgot all about Darkmeet and tentacles and Dempsey’s horror movies and Royce Dean. She’d browsed her mother’s high-school yearbook and the rows of earnest faces with awkward hair. Minerva Aldridge’s dark raven eyes stared back at the photographer and the world as if daring either of them to say a word about Roy Reed. Yet beneath the tight lips lay a secret as torrential as any burst dam.
Beneath Momma’s face was the usual list of activities to help people remember the kids who weren’t popular: Future Homemakers of America 11, 12; Volleyball, 12; Chemistry Club, 9. Minerva had been the star of the chemistry club until she’d dissected a frog and it croaked right in the middle of class. The teacher assumed Minerva mistakenly and cruelly performed the operation on a live frog when in fact she’d brought the frog back to life.
Regardless, that was the end of her academic science career and she was quickly shuttled off into the “homemaker” track where the highest aspiration was to become a hairdresser.
“This isn’t about my mother,” Crystal said.
Miss McMarkus leaned back with a mighty squeak of her chair. “The school can’t do it all, and who can trust the community? So it ends up coming down to the parents. I only get you an hour a week, and she has
you 24 hours a day.”
Tell me about it. She’s ruining my life.
Crystal recalled Royce’s ham-fisted quote: “I coulda been a contendah.”
“What’s my mom got to do with me?” she said. “You just said yourself our generation has a whole new playing field.”
“She was an outsider. The sort of person kids played tricks on. You know, slipping stinky sardines in the cracks of her locker, pouring yogurt in her bra while she was showering after volleyball, stealing her homework so she’d get a zero.”
Even lamer than I figured. Don’t go making me feel sorry for her. “At least she graduated.”
“You’ll graduate, too. You’re right on schedule.”
“Except I get my diploma in the mail while the rest of my former classmates cross the stage and shake hands with the principal. Then they go out and get liquored up and crash their cars.”
“You’re special, Crystal.”
That’s the same Kool-Aid Momma’s been serving me. But if I keep on like this, McMack Truck will think I need an extra counselor or two. “Sorry for whining.”
“We all understand.”
Crystal wondered who the “all” were. Maybe they sat around and talked about the girl who’d missed seventeen days in a row after her friend died. And how she lost interest in her studies. And how they found the note in her locker. And how all the do-gooders pitched in and saved her.
As a failure, she was quite a success story.
Crystal reached for her papers. “Well, I better get to work.”
As she was sliding the sheaf of pages into her backpack, she heard a moist plooosh and thought Miss McMarkus had unleashed a stray bodily function. This called for a hasty retreat.
“Did you hear that?” Miss McMarkus said.
“Uh…what? Did the bell ring?”
“No. Something squishy.”
Crystal glanced at the wall clock to further the illusion of haste. That’s when she saw it.
An Orifice had opened on the wall just behind Miss McMarkus’s head and it glistened with dark intent. It was barely large enough to swallow a stapler, but these things tended to get bigger the longer she waited around.
“Crystal.”
October Girls: Crystal & Bone Page 13
