That night, after we’ve finished the article, my teeth are brushed, and I am in bed, I text her. Good night, my jujitsu justice angel.
And then I get her message back. Good night, my spork-wielding heartbreaker.
THE VINDICATOR
The Official News Blog of Hubert C. Frost Middle School
* * *
Hero Walks Amongst Us
Hooded Stranger Breaks Window in Language Arts Hall, Runs
On Wednesday, at approximately 3:30 p.m., a violent giant an intruder broke a window in the easternmost corner of the language arts hall. Eyewitnesses allege that a man in a hooded sweatshirt drove his fist through the window, shattering the glass, and then ran out of exited the building through a nearby emergency door, setting off an alarm within the school.
The key witness, a valiant and brave eighth grader named Nick Wainwright, chased saw the trespasser down the hall while help was summoned. The subject disappeared into the woods behind the soccer field.
Wainwright describes the man as massive and hulking. tall. He reports that the man was wearing a dark-colored hooded sweatshirt. We should all be proud to go to school with such a hero, who was able to keep us safe through this harrowing event.
When asked why he gave chase didn’t flee the scene with two other students who had been present at the time of the incident, Wainwright acknowledged a sense of justice and safety, and said “I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.”
After-school activities were temporarily suspended while the scene of the crime area was cleared.
The motive for this vicious outburst incident is unknown., but most likely, it was a crime of passion.
Jordan Sweeney reports that her neighbor’s uncle, who works at the state prison, said a murderer did in fact escape the prison on Monday. There is the possibility of a connection to the crime.
Further information and/or reports of suspicious activity can heretofore be reported to Sirina Fein.
IN OTHER NEWS…
* * *
Lunch Workers “Horrified” by Inappropriate Use of Puddings and Jellied Desserts
A team of cafeteria ladies, led by lunch supervisor Mrs. Teagen, declared strong disapproval for students’ varied abuse of desserts, following incidents in which Hayden Dunlop placed a glob of butterscotch pudding on a tissue after a staged “sneeze,” and Nolan McRae began “oozing” green Jell-O from a pretend neck wound. Teagan instituted a mandatory recall of all [click for more]
yo muero
tú mueres
ella muere
nosotros morimos
ellos mueren
“You did what?”
It’s Saturday, and Thad and I are at the mall for our first official heartbreaker meeting, and he’s been shoveling in chips with bean dip for the past five minutes, with his skate gloves on. But now he looks at me, a chip paused in front of his mouth.
“I interviewed him for The Vindicator. About the biggest news that’s ever happened at our school,” I tell him, then ask, “Don’t you ever take those stupid gloves off?”
He doesn’t answer. He just puts the chip down on a napkin and wipes some of the dip off his gloved hand.
“I can’t believe you eat with those things on. I hope you wash them.”
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.
“What’s your problem?” I ask. “You told me to get him to notice me in a new way. That’s exactly what I did.”
“I wasn’t thinking that, though,” he says. “I was thinking more like you were going to do the Mariela thing.”
“Well, I did, but I still couldn’t get him to talk to me!”
“So you got him to talk to you about this whole stupid window thing?”
“It’s not a whole stupid anything. I mean, for one, it’s our chance to win the YoJo!”
He squints. “The YoJo?”
“The Youth Journalism award. It’s like the Pulitzer for middle-school news reporting. I mean, this is the first exciting thing that’s happened in our school in, like, ever, and we’re writing an investigative series—”
Thad’s eyes roll to the ceiling.
“And for two, it’s an actual crime, and he was the only real eye-witness.”
“Eyewitness? What do you mean, ‘eyewitness’?”
“Nick saw the guy who broke the window.”
Thad studies me. “Yeah, well, what exactly did he see?”
“Well, I mean, okay, so not a lot. A guy in a sweatshirt.”
“Right. So it doesn’t sound like Nick saw much of anything.”
“Well, at least he didn’t run away like the rest of them. And you know, sometimes people piece things together later. They remember details.”
He closes his eyes. “No, no, no, and no,” he murmurs. He shakes his head and repeats it again. “No, no, no, no, and no. Okay, change of strategy.”
“Great,” I say, and don’t mean it.
He looks right at me. “Are you listening to me, Collins? Ignore him. Leave him alone. That’s your next assignment.”
“So first I was supposed to get his attention. Which I did—”
“Not exactly the way I was thinking.”
“Well, but, I did. And now all of a sudden I’m supposed to ignore him?”
“Yeah, ’cause you’re, like, totally going in the wrong direction. You’re like three degrees from being a stalker.”
“No, I’m not!”
“Where do you think he is right now?”
“Karate,” I blurt out waaay too fast.
Thad lifts his eyebrows.
“I’m just guessing!” I attempt.
“I bet you know what he was wearing to school Thursday, two weeks ago.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, he wasn’t in school on Thursday two weeks ago. He was out with a cold,” I say.
Thad’s face is smug.
Um. Yikes. Maybe he’s right. “But I am not a stalker!” I say.
“No, you’re right, you’re not. Just close. Three degrees from it.”
“Okay, shut up, Mister Helpful.”
It’s not that I’m angry—I’m just a little, oh, I don’t know, horrified. Maybe I’m like Hilda, the woman who was once secretly in love with Luis. She spent several episodes following him around the town and plotting a way to get rid of Cristina. I get a shiver. I am freaking myself out.
“Dude,” he says. “Come on, stop looking like that. I just meant it seems like sometimes you get, you know, obsessed.”
“I prefer to call it intense.”
“Yeah. Intense, okay? Let’s call it that.”
“And focused,” I add.
“Okay, fine. That too. Look, it’s not always a bad thing. If Nick was, like, I don’t know, a lost bag of gold, you’d totally find it. And you’d be a millionaire.”
Well. He is like a treasure to me.
Thad continues. “But the problem is, he’s not a bag of gold, he’s just a bag of—”
I narrow my eyes. “What’s your problem with Nick anyway?”
“I told you—I think he’s a wad.”
“But why? What has he done to you?”
“Collins, drop it, okay?”
“But you seem to—”
“Okay, let’s just say he stole a Star Wars figurine from me back in fourth grade.”
“Are you kidding me?” I snort.
He puffs out his cheeks with an exhale. “Maybe it’s a guy thing. Anyway, laugh if you want, but he’s going to be laughing at you soon. All you’re doing with this news stuff is bringing attention to him. It’s a total one-way street.”
“Well, Luke Skywalker, I got him to notice me for something other than my sappy self, as you put it, and I got him to talk to me. Don’t those two things have to happen if”—he’s ever going to fall back in love with me—“I’m going to get him to ask me to the Cotillion? So I can break his heart?”
“Yeah, but you can’t just chase him down like that. I mean, sure, maybe if all you care about is your yo-yo thing—”<
br />
“The YoJo,” I correct him.
He shrugs. “But not if you care about getting back at him. I mean, the way you’re going, he’s going to break your heart in half all over again.”
I do care about the YoJo, but I also care about winning Nick back. And I also care about my poor heart, and not letting it get broken again.
“Look, Collins, you’re going to have to backtrack. I mean, you can’t do anything to change what you’ve already done. So now you have to ignore him for a while. Don’t screw it up this time.”
Ignore him. “I don’t like this assignment,” I say. “I liked the first one better. I was kind of getting the hang of Mariela.”
“Well, you can still do that,” he says.
“Okay, good.”
“While you ignore him.” He goes back to his bean dip.
“For how long?”
“Till he starts looking for you.”
Right now, I can’t really imagine that happening. But it’s happened before, so it can happen again, right? I look over at Thad and it hits me. I’m taking love advice from someone who has just polished off some refried beans and is now licking the plastic container clean. How did it ever come to this?
He looks up and catches me staring at him.
“Aw, Collins, don’t look at me like that. You’re not hopeless. You just got to break your bad habits. From what Sirina says, you could fall in quote-unquote love with a paper bag if it looked at you the right way. Which explains your whole obsession with Nick.” He pauses and then says, “Hey, you know what you need?”
Yes, I do know what I need. I need to be with the love of my life. I also need salsa lessons. And a C+ in history wouldn’t hurt. But I just say, “What?”
“A burrito,” he says, eyeing the Macho Nacho kiosk. “I promised you a burrito.”
“Well, I don’t want a burrito,” I say. I just want Nick.
“But you need one at a time like this,” he says. “And anyway, like I texted you, I’m buying.”
“Okay, fine.”
It’s a big, ugly, graceless type of food, but I am a little hungry.
Thad orders us two massive burritos the size of our forearms. “I don’t think I can eat all this. We should just split one,” I say.
“I’m not sharing.”
“But you just had all that bean dip!”
“That was just a warm-up,” he says, “an hors d’oeuvre.”
Thad plops the foil-wrapped burritos on the not-so-clean table. They land with heavy splats, and Thad goes to get extra hot sauce. When he comes back, he says, “You didn’t have to wait for me.”
“I wasn’t waiting for you. I was waiting for a fork and knife. And a plate.”
He laughs. “Seriously, Collins? You really don’t know how to eat a burrito?” He rips into the foil and starts with a massive bite.
“I know how to eat a burrito,” I say, “with manners. What kind of burrito did you get me anyway?”
“Seafood,” he says.
“Seafood?”
“Yeth,” he says, and opens his mouth to display all. “See? Food!”
I close my eyes before they burn out of my head. “You’re so obnoxious! What are you, six?”
He takes a swig of his Dr Pepper and clears his mouth and says, “You’re obnoxious. Just eat and stop being such a snob.”
“I’m not a snob!” I say.
He dips his burrito into a mound of hot sauce. “You’re acting like one.” He makes his voice mockingly high and, for some reason, British. “Where’s my fork? And don’t give me a salad fork! Where’s my fancy, fancy napkin?”
“I didn’t say that!”
He shrugs.
“Well, okay, fine, if I’m a snob, you’re a pig.” I try to rip open the foil like he did, and take a massive bite. Through a full mouth I say, “I’m Thad Bell, I’m such a man. Stuffing my face.” I take my burrito and dip it into his hot sauce. “I like lots and lots of hot sauce because I’m such a big, big pig man.” And then I take a big bite. “Yum, yum, yum!” I say as I chew like a rabid animal.
And then I nearly die, because it feels just like heartbreak, if you could take all of the emotional stuff out of it and just leave the physical torment.
The hot sauce is hot. My entire face heats up, including my earlobes, and the backs of my eyes burn. Searing pain fills my throat and chest. I gasp and grab for his Dr Pepper. I take a big sip, which only intensifies the burning feeling. I start to cough. Thad runs off—of course!—and then he has the nerve to come back with a bowl of chips! Oh, yes, pleeeease, sit down and enjoy some refreshments while I asphyxiate, I would say if I could actually talk.
But he pushes the chips in my direction. “Here. This helps.”
I’ll try anything at this point. I take a bite of one and the burning in my mouth starts to subside.
“Dude,” he says, and starts to laugh, “that was pretty impressive.”
I narrow my eyes to slits. It’s a nice, threatening look, I’m sure of it.
“Hey, what’s that?” he asks, eyeing the neckline of my sweater.
“What?”
“I think you just grew some hair on your chest.”
Horrified, I look down quickly, before I realize it’s just a stupid joke, and not a very original one. Still, it kind of surprises me that I feel a little thud of disappointment when Thad pulls out his phone and looks at the time, and says, “Dude, I gotta go.”
“You do?” I ask. He’s already gathering his trash. “Hey, next time, you want to meet somewhere else? You can come to my house or something. Or I can come to—”
“Nah. Here’s good. Anyway, I gotta go. I’m late.”
“For what?”
“For home,” is all he says.
“Oh,” is all I say back. Then he skates off, breaking all the rules—not just of the mall, but of proper etiquette in general.
“Rude!” I call out, but he’s long gone. A woman passing by shoots me an offended look. “Sorry, not you, ma’am!” But then I notice the ma’am is actually a sir. And then I see Captain Jerry appear on his Segway, and the sir approaching him, and I realize it’s probably a good idea for me to go home really fast, too.
Thad checks for police cars or other out-of-place vehicles sitting outside the town house when he comes home. It’s only been a few days since he broke the window, but today he’s extra nervous, now that he knows Mabry’s trying to investigate the “crime scene,” as she calls it. It’s like the air has been trapped high in his lungs and he hasn’t really exhaled for hours, not since he amazingly derailed her with the lie about the Star Wars figurine. Did she really believe that?
But the coast is clear. Even from outside, he can hear the comforting whistle of Aunt Nora’s teakettle. It makes him relax a little. The door is unlocked, so he goes right in, happy not to have to fish the keys out of his pocket.
She is at the table, stirring some honey into her tea.
“Hi, Aunt Nora.”
“Hi, hon,” she says. It’s her day off, but she sounds tired. Over this day, like she sometimes says.
“What are you up to?” he asks her.
“Well, I have a friend stopping by soon.”
Somehow he never really imagined Nora having friends. Not that she wouldn’t. Just that she’s so busy. Working here or working at the Buy-It-All. But always working.
Thad takes off his skate gloves and unwraps the thin layer of gauze.
Aunt Nora’s eyes go to his uncovered hand. She winces. “It still looks pretty rough.”
“It’s better,” he says as he reaches for the milk. “I’m taking care of it.” He pours himself a bowl of cereal.
“You don’t have to eat that standing up, you know,” she says.
“I was going to take it to my room.”
“Why would you do that?”
“So you can hang out with your friend.”
“Well, I’m sure he’d love to see you. He was asking about you. He knew your dad.”
“Your friend knew dad?” Thad asks.
“They were good friends when they were kids,” she says. “We all went to school together. But I haven’t seen him or talked to him in, oh, about ten years.”
“And he just contacted you out of the blue?”
“Pretty much. Said your dad’s been on his mind. He wanted to know how he could get in touch.”
Thad swallows the cereal too hard, and it travels down slowly, scraping the sides of his throat.
Aunt Nora starts to tear up. Thad puts his spoon down and regrets every gaping mouthful of the cereal. It sits heavy in his stomach.
He takes a seat at the table. “So you had to give him the news?”
She nods. A tear slips to her cheek, and she wipes it away with the side of her hand and laughs. “Just look at me! Fine company I’ll be.”
He laughs, too, thankful to have something to laugh at, something to loosen the tightening feeling behind his own eyes.
“Anyway,” she says, a little watery. “He’ll be here any minute.”
Thad doesn’t want any tears of his own to slip out in front of anyone, let alone a stranger. “I really should go to my room. I have school stuff.”
“Oh, Thad, just stay for a few minutes, okay? That’s all. He’d like to meet you. You’re half your dad, you know. All the good parts.” She looks at him with birthday-cake eyes that are soft and sweet and hopeful.
The good parts. He feels a jab of guilt. Where are those good parts? Nothing about him feels good anymore. No. Everything about him feels as broken and sharp as the glass he shattered. He should be wrapped in yellow caution tape.
“And anyway,” she continues, “it’d be nice for you meet him, too. He’s a security officer at the school.”
The cells in his body start to pulse with alert, as if an alarm has been pulled somewhere inside. Waaat! Waaat! Waaat! He sits upright. Security officer. School. The words bounce around in his head as he struggles with the proper emergency response. His mouth drops open and words jump out. “Uh, can’t, no—”
How to Break a Heart Page 8
