My Side

by Norah McClintock

  Because she’s a princess, I’m sure she’s going to say something bitchy to me. But she doesn’t. She gazes across the table at Addie with a thoughtful expression on her face. Addie doesn’t notice. She is alone now, her nose in a book. If I know her, she’s trying hard to hide herself in its pages.

  Chapter Ten

  “Mom,” I call as I come through the door the following week. “I’m home.”

  My mom pokes her head out of the kitchen. She looks surprised to see I’m not alone. Kayla, Shayna and Jen are with me. I introduce them. They sound polite enough when they greet her, but there’s something snotty in their voices and in the way they gaze around, taking in the furniture we’ve had forever, the framed needlework on the walls that my mother is so proud of, the wear marks on the floor. I’ve never been to their houses, but something tells me everything in them is newer and shinier and more expensive.

  “We’re going up to my room,” I say.

  “I’ll bring you some lemonade and cookies,” my mom says. “I made them this afternoon.”

  Kayla makes a big fuss about that, telling my mother how she’d love a homemade cookie because her mother is always far too busy to cook, and anyway she’s not very good at it because when she was married and they were living with her dad, they had a housekeeper who took care of all that. Now my mom makes a big fuss.

  “Imagine that! I could use some help around here.”

  “I’m sure you could,” Kayla says, smiling.

  Up we go to my room, which suddenly seems too small and too shabby. My mom appears a few minutes later with a tray. She passes it around as if she’s a maid. She beams when Kayla nibbles a cookie and pronounces it “divine.”

  We’re sitting on the bed and the floor, and Kayla’s on my desk chair. The talk is halfhearted and jumps around. Then Kayla glances at the computer on my desk and says, “Oh my god.”

  Jen and Shayna turn to look at her. They always do when Kayla seems upset about something.

  “The spring review,” Kayla says.

  “I forgot.” She glances horror-stricken at Jen.

  The high school does a review every year. You have to try out to be in it.

  “I’m supposed to get the word out about auditions.”

  Jen looks up at the computer.

  “I bet Neely won’t mind if you use her computer.”

  I shrug. “Go ahead.”

  “You do it, Jen,” Kayla says. “You’re the computer nerd.”

  It’s true. Jen’s dad is a hot-shot programmer. He worked for years in Silicon Valley. Now he consults from home, another big house up near where Kayla lives. I doubt Kayla would admit it, but I’ve heard that Jen’s parents are even richer than Kayla’s.

  Jen changes places with Kayla. While she starts tapping away on the keyboard and clicking with the mouse, Kayla tells us what she’s thinking of doing for the review. She asks me about the kids I know, whether any of them have any special talents. She reaches for another cookie. She seems nice now, like a normal person. When suppertime rolls around and the three of them get ready to go, Kayla stops by the kitchen to thank my mother and to ask for her cookie recipe. My mother promises to send it to school with me the next day. She sounds pleased.

  “It’s nice to see you bring home friends again,” she says later. She’s at the kitchen table, writing neatly on a recipe card that has a gingham border. “You should invite them back again.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Two days later, I’m looking around the cafeteria. I see Kayla sitting by herself at a table near the back, and I make my way toward her. She’s bent over the table, hard in concentration as she copies something from a paper in front of her.

  “Hey,” I say.

  She almost jumps out of her chair.

  “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” She grabs the paper she was copying and jams it into her pocket. I see that it’s a note of some kind, but I have no idea who wrote it or what it’s about. She’s also flipped her notebook shut. Whatever she’s been doing, she doesn’t want me to know about it.

  “Well, you might as well sit down,” she says, sweeping the notebook into her bag.

  I sit, and pretty soon the rest of the gang is there. Kayla relaxes.

  “So,” Jen says, “what about the movie?”

  “Movie?” I say. “What movie?”

  “Shayna wants to make another movie,” Kayla says. “She’s made a bunch of them.”

  “Really?” This is news to me. It also suggests that there is more to Shayna than I suspected. “What kind of movies?”

  “All kinds,” Kayla says, answering for her. “But this one is going to be a horror movie, right, Shayn?”

  Shayna nods.

  “You want to be in it?” Kayla asks.

  “Me?” I glance at Shayna. “You want me in your movie?”

  Kayla answers again. “We’re all going to be in it. What do you say?”

  I say yes. I’ve never been in a movie before.

  Kayla outlines the script. “There’s a place out in the bush,” she says. “Shayna’s going to use that as her main location, right, Shayn?” Shayna nods. “It’s going to be spooky. All dark and creepy. Tons of ambience. Right, Shayn?”

  Shayna nods again, and before I know it, I have a part in a movie. Shayna finally takes over, telling us in her quiet voice what she has in mind and how important it’s going to be that everyone is flexible and ready to improvise on the set. She wants to shoot after school at the end of the week. In the meantime, we need to find costumes. These are going to be mainly black. Someone—naturally, it turns out to be Kayla—has to wear a black cape and wig and a mask. She’s going to be the movie’s slasher.

  “Every movie has to have a slasher,” Kayla says, all excited. “But they’re almost always guys. Shayna wants to turn the genre on its head. She wants to have a female slasher.”

  We talk about what we’re going to wear and where we’re going to get what we need. Kayla volunteers to have her mother scout out some stuff.

  “She’s going to a design conference tomorrow,” she tells us. “She has a friend who’s in the movie business. I bet she can set us up with some great stuff.”

  She’s just as excited two days later. “You guys have to come over after school,” she says. “You have to see what my mom got for us.”

  I could probably take the bus with them after school, but I remind Kayla that I have no way to get home afterward.

  “No problem,” she says. I think she’s going to arrange a ride for me and that I am finally going to see her massive house. But instead she says, “I’ll bring your costume to school with me. I’ll make sure it’s great.”

  She keeps her word. She brings me a black suit, black gloves, a Freddy Krueger-style hat and a black wig with long, scraggly hair.

  “You’re going to look so cool,” she says.

  Chapter Twelve

  We meet after last class and go to a coffee shop near the school to have something to eat while Shayna outlines her plan for the shoot. The sun is starting to set by the time we head out to the bush on the outskirts of town where kids go to have parties, make out and just do whatever they want to do, away from adults or anyone else. We tramp over dried leaves, step over fallen trees and watch for tree roots that have broken the surface and formed hazards on the worn path. Finally Kayla says, “There it is.”

  I don’t see anything but more bush, but Kayla leads on, walking faster now, like a horse in sight of its stable and food. As we get closer, I see that there is something here after all—a rectangular patch that looks different from the terrain surrounding it. But not until we’re actually standing inside the rectangle do I see what it is—the foundation of a derelict cabin. And by derelict, I mean almost gone. All that’s left of the walls is a layer of old rock. The floorboards are covered in moss and leaves. Some have holes in them, and some are missing. But this was definitely a cabin. I’m kind of surprised. I’ve never come out here with other kids, but you’
d think I would at least have heard of this place.

  Kayla leads the way to a hole in the middle of the floor that turns out to be the opening to a flight of stairs.

  “It’s creepy down there,” she says.

  Shayna grins. “It’s perfect.”

  The three of them pull out flashlights, and Shayna leads the way down the stairs. I’m annoyed that no one told me to bring a flashlight. I stick close to Jen, who is the last one down. I’m surprised to find that there are four other kids down there, all of them boys, all of them dressed in black. I’m also surprised to hear hammering and screaming.

  “What’s—?”

  Kayla shushes me.

  “It’s part of the setup,” she says. “Pay attention to Shayna. She’s going to tell you what to do.”

  Shayna lays it out in a hushed voice. She wants to film the most dramatic part of her movie first—the one that will make people gasp with fright. She sets us up around the bottom of the stairs. She says she won’t need me in this particular scene—she has something special in mind for me. But for now, she needs me right beside her, holding a light above her camera so that she can get the shot she wants.

  Everyone puts on masks. The hammering suddenly stops. I hear a sob. Wow, I think. It sounds great—like a real, actual, terrified sob.

  I’m standing next to Shayna and her camera, holding a light high up over my head. Everyone has a mask on except me and Shayna, but she’s hidden behind the camera.

  All of a sudden something—no, someone—comes running out of the darkness. The person screams as she makes a dash for the stairs. I’m thinking this girl sounds as terrified as any real actress I have ever seen in any slasher movie. She’s racing through the darkness. Then she trips and falls on the stairs. At first I think it’s an accident, but Shayna doesn’t move. She’s still crouched behind her camera, still shooting, so I think the girl was supposed to fall.

  Someone else—Kayla—in a cape and mask and wig, throws her arms up over her head and growls like a crazed dog as she moves in, towering over the girl.

  The girl looks up, and that’s when I see who it is.

  It’s Addie.

  What is Addie doing in Shayna’s movie? As far as I know, the two of them have never spoken to each other. But it’s definitely Addie. She screams and scrambles, trying to get to her feet. Her terror is so real, I’m amazed. I never knew she could act like that, and I wonder how Shayna knew. That has to be why she asked Addie to be in her movie.

  Addie screams again. Tears are running down her face. So is snot. She shrieks as Kayla gets closer. I see something glint. A knife. Kayla has a knife.

  Addie goes up the stairs on her hands and feet. She’s whimpering. It’s an amazing performance.

  When she’s halfway up, everyone starts to laugh.

  Everyone except Addie.

  She turns her head. Her eyes meet mine. She looks so surprised.

  That’s when it hits me. She isn’t acting. Her terror is real.

  She turns and runs. I look at Shayna.

  She’s pointing the camera at me now.

  Suddenly the whole basement gets light. Everyone has a flashlight—everyone but me—and they all turn them on. They’re laughing as if they’ve seen the funniest thing in the whole world.

  “That’ll teach her,” Kayla says.

  The words echo in my head.

  Bitch, I think.

  What am I doing here?

  That night I get an email from the school. There’s a link to an online video. I click on it.

  It’s Shayna’s movie.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next day at school, everyone is talking about Shayna’s movie. I’m with Kayla and Jen and Shayna when someone comes up to me and says, “That was some production, Neely.”

  I start to tell her it wasn’t me, that I had nothing to do with it. But Kayla answers before I do. “She did a great job,” she says. “I think that’s the best practical joke I ever heard of.”

  “But I didn’t—”

  Jen jabs me in the side with her elbow. As soon as the girl dashes off, Kayla turns to me and says in a sweet voice, “Yours is the only recognizable face in that video, Neely. Except for your loser friend, of course.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t make that movie.”

  “Oh?” More sweetness. The fake type. The type that makes you want to gag. “Well, I’m pretty sure that there’s no one who will back you up if you try to involve me or anyone else.”

  Jen and Shayna are staring at me. I know that they will never betray Kayla. They probably have an alibi all worked out. They’ll deny, deny, deny. I also realize that I have no idea who any of the boys were. Or what Addie was doing in that wrecked old house. Or how they got her there.

  I don’t know anything.

  Except that anyone who sees that video is going to see my face.

  “Don’t worry,” Kayla says. “It’s not like it’s a crime.”

  She’s right about that. It’s a joke, not a crime.

  I keep my head down. I refuse to talk to anyone about the video. I’m glad no one in my family sees it. I keep thinking about Addie. I want to ask her what she was doing out there. I want to find out what happened. But the way she looked at me when she was on those stairs, you would have thought was the one holding the knife and that I had just plunged it into her chest. I decide to wait and see what happens. Maybe the whole thing will blow over. She’ll be back at school, some people will give her a hard time, and that will be that. But that isn’t that. Addie isn’t at school on Monday. She isn’t there Tuesday or Wednesday either. On Thursday, I get called down to the office. The cops are there. So are my parents.

  “Sit down, Neely,” Ms. LaPointe says. She’s one of the vice-principals. “These officers want to ask you some questions.”

  I glance at my mom. She looks upset. My dad is stone-faced.

  I sit.

  The cops explain to me that the school computer has been hacked and that the school has asked them to look into it. They say they got help from a computer expert from the city and that he was able to trace the computer that was involved. It’s mine.

  “Did you hack into the school computer, Neely?” one of the cops asks.

  “No.”

  “Neely, we know your computer was involved. Did you let someone else use it?”

  I think of Kayla and Jen. I think of them sticking together and of Kayla’s threat. I think about getting into trouble no matter what I say.

  “I don’t know anything about it.”

  “What about that video?” the cop asks. “You’re in it. And the link for it was emailed to the whole school from your computer.”

  “I don’t know anything about that either.”

  My dad clucks in disgust.

  “Your mother tells me you’ve been running with a new crowd. Are they involved?”

  Kayla will deny it. Jen and Shayna will back her up. They’ll back each other up. And no one is recognizable. No one except me.

  “The school is laying charges for hacking the computer, Neely,” the cop says. “If there was some charge for what you did to that girl, I’d pursue that too.”

  “The school has a policy,” Ms. LaPointe says. “What you did is cyberbullying. There will be consequences.”

  The next thing I know, I’m arrested and taken to the police station. Class is still in, but that doesn’t stop kids from looking out the window and seeing me. The news will be all over school in no time.

  My dad calls a lawyer, who doesn’t seem all that interested in hearing my side of the story. He just wants me to keep my mouth shut until he can get me released to my parents. Which he does. My dad takes me home. He doesn’t say a single word the whole way there. He just drives and parks and lets me out of the truck. As I walk up to the house, he strides out to the barn as if he can’t wait to put distance between us.

  I go straight to my room, even though I hear my mother in the kitchen. It isn’t long before she’s knocking
at my door, asking if she can come in.

  I tell her yes. Might as well. She’s going to do it anyway.

  She sits on the end of my bed. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

  “I made a mistake,” I say. What I don’t say is that Kayla planned this whole thing. She wasn’t just out to get Addie—she was out to get me too. And she got me good.

  “I can’t believe you did what they say. Not all by yourself, anyway.” My mom reaches out to touch my leg. I find myself recoiling. I hate myself for it. “Did those other girls have anything to do with it?”

  She asks it as if it’s a question, but the look on her face tells me she knows it for a fact.

  “That girl Kayla,” she says. “She was trying too hard to flatter me. Maybe I’m wrong, but I got the impression she was making fun of me somehow.”

  I start to cry. I throw myself into my mother’s arms. I love her so much.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I tell my mother everything. She advises me to tell the lawyer. The lawyer says, “It was your computer, and it’s going to be your word against three girls who sound like they have their story pretty much together.”

  “Then the police will just have to talk to them,” my mom says.

  The lawyer doesn’t answer. He asks me, “Those boys who were there— do you know who they were?”

  I shake my head. “I didn’t see their faces. It was too dark. And they were wearing masks.”

  “I see.”

  “Those girls know who they were,” my mom says.

  “And they’re not telling,” my dad says. He sounds angry, but I can’t tell at who. I hope it’s not me.

  The lawyer’s sharp eyes are still on me. “Did you actually see that girl, Jen, hack into the school computer?”

  “No.” I didn’t pay the least attention to what Jen was doing. I was too focused on impressing Kayla.

  The lawyer is silent for a moment. He caps his pen and slides his notepad back into his briefcase. “I’ll talk to the school and see if they’re willing to take Neely’s record into consideration. Maybe they’ll agree to drop the charges. I’ll talk to the police, too, and see if they can make any headway with those girls. But I can’t promise anything.”