Dead Silence

by Norah McClintock

  I turned to Rebecca. She reached across me and pulled some napkins from the dispenser on the table. She wiped her tears, but more kept coming. I had never seen her so upset. Well, who could blame her?

  “Do you know what happened?” I said.

  “Not exactly,” she said. “We were at band practice, and we heard all this commotion out in the hall. Everyone was talking about it. So I came outside.”

  “You said there was a fight.”

  “That’s what I heard someone say. I heard it was Teddy and his friends. I heard Staci was involved. But that’s all I know.”

  “Teddy killed Sal?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” Rebecca said. She wiped more tears.

  Riel came back to the booth, but he didn’t sit down.

  “I’m sorry, Mike, but I have to go,” he said. “I don’t think much is going to happen at school for the rest of the day. The police are trying to get statements from people who were out on the street when it happened. Why don’t you go home? I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

  I nodded. After he left, Rebecca and I just sat there in that booth. We were both stunned. Finally, we got up and went back outside. Riel had said to go home, but we headed back in the direction of the school instead. I don’t even know why. Habit, maybe. I kept wondering how Sal had ended up in a fight. Why hadn’t he gone straight downtown to take his test like he’d told me he was going to? Had he changed his mind because he didn’t want to go alone? Written tests really made him nervous. But, boy, I hated to think that he’d decided not to go because of me, because if he did, then it meant that I could have prevented what had happened. If I hadn’t gone home instead of meeting him like I was supposed to, he would still be alive.

  I felt like I was going to throw up. This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t.

  Rebecca said something to me when we got close to school, but I wasn’t really paying attention.

  “Mike,” she said. “Did you hear me?”

  I nodded, even though I had no idea what she had said. We were in front of the school now. There were kids everywhere, most of them talking.

  Rebecca hugged me and then disappeared through the crowd. I sank down onto the curb. My brain kept screaming no, no, NO!

  I heard bits and pieces of conversation. Everybody was talking about the same thing—what had happened to Sal. After a few minutes, I got up and stumbled over to the nearest small group so I could hear what they were saying. Then I made my way through the whole crowd, listening. But it was hard to get a clear picture of what had happened because there had been a lot of kids outside at lunchtime, and there had been a lot going on. Most of the kids who were talking hadn’t actually seen what happened. Most of them had only heard things second- or thirdhand from other kids, so I wasn’t even sure if what anyone said was true. But what I pieced together was this: A whole lot of kids from school had gone out onto Gerrard Street that day at lunchtime, like they did every day, to eat and hang out.

  It was cool out, but not cold—the perfect kind of day to get a slice of pizza and a pop, whatever, and then hang out on the sidewalk, eating, talking, chilling, horsing around. That’s what a lot of kids were doing. So were some kids from another school in the area. A lot of the storekeepers and restaurant owners didn’t like that. They were always complaining because sometimes the horsing around got out of control, and they thought that was bad for business.

  Riel had said it wasn’t clear yet who had done what or said what. He said there were so many people out on the street by the time the cops showed up that the cops weren’t sure exactly who had been there when it happened and exactly what everyone had been doing or even exactly where they had been. But the kids I talked to all said what Rebecca had said. They said it had started with Teddy and his friends and that it had involved Staci. They said that Teddy and the rest of them were on the sidewalk on the other side of the street from my school, and Staci came along.

  I knew Staci, but I didn’t really know her. It was more like I knew who she was. She used to go with Teddy. She’d been with him forever. I never hung out with Teddy. I didn’t like him, and I knew he thought I was a loser—first because of my uncle Billy, then because I was living with a teacher at our school who used to be a cop, and now because I was living with a cop. Because of that, I never had much to do with Teddy. So I never got to know Staci. But I had a picture of what she must be like, based on her having been with Teddy so long and based on what the other girls who hung out with Teddy and his friends were like.

  But Staci wasn’t with Teddy anymore. Rebecca said that Staci had dumped Teddy just before school started. The way Rebecca put it, “She finally opened her eyes.” I didn’t care one way or the other who Staci went with. Like I said, I didn’t know her, and I didn’t like Teddy. But Teddy sure cared. I guess he didn’t like getting dumped, because he gave Staci a hard time every chance he got. He made fun of her. He talked really loud in the cafeteria and in the halls at school about stuff she used to do with him—at least, stuff he said she used to do. Rebecca said she bet most of it was lies. I heard he even e-mailed pictures of her to people. I heard they weren’t nice pictures, but I never saw them. And, like I said, I didn’t care. I thought, if you spend that much time with a guy like Teddy, you pretty much get what you deserve. At least, that’s what I had thought up until the beginning of last week. Since then, I’d been thinking that maybe Staci didn’t deserve quite as much as she was getting.

  Anyway, it didn’t surprise me when I heard what people were telling me out on the street, which was that as soon as Teddy saw Staci coming down the sidewalk at lunchtime, he started giving her a hard time.

  And then, people said, Sal got involved. I didn’t find anybody who had actually seen it. They had all just heard about it. They all said that Sal was there and that he’d got involved. That didn’t surprise me, either.

  After that it got kind of fuzzy because, like I said, I couldn’t find anyone who had actually seen it. What most people said was this: Teddy and his friends were making so much noise that some of the storeowners and restaurant owners started to look out of their windows. They were losing their patience because there was so much shouting going on and there were so many kids on the sidewalk right outside their businesses. I heard that one storeowner even came out onto the sidewalk to yell at the kids to move on, move on, or else he was going to call the police. Maybe if he had called the police, things would have turned out differently.

  Then there was a big bang and the sound of metal crashing into metal and glass shattering and car horns blowing, and everyone who was standing on the sidewalk on both sides of the street turned to look. And what they saw were those two cars smashed into each other at the next intersection. It wasn’t long before they heard sirens, in the distance at first, and then closer and closer. An ambulance showed up. Then a cop car. Then another cop car. Boy, that really got people’s attention. Everyone was looking down there to see what had happened. Some people even started to drift in that direction.

  Then, a minute or a couple of minutes later, depending on who I was talking to, a woman—nobody seemed to know who she was—ran out of an alley near where Teddy and the rest of them were standing. I heard someone say the woman was wearing a blue smock over her clothes. I heard someone else say she probably worked at the hairdresser’s across the street from the school. The woman ran down the street, screaming for the police. A kid who saw her decided to go into the alley to investigate. A couple of other kids followed. One of them must have come out and said something, because more kids went into the alley to see what was going on. One kid threw up. Another kid fumbled in her pocket for her cell phone and punched in 911. But by then the cops were already racing up the street.

  As soon as the cops showed up, some of the kids took off. The rest of them milled around until the cops ordered them out of there. I bet 90 percent of those kids watched CSI at least once a week. They should have known better. They should have known to stay back and not to
touch anything.

  The ambulance came. Then more cops. But by then it was too late. Sal was lying in the alley. He was dead before the paramedics got to him. He had been knifed in the chest.

  I was shaking all over now. Things would have been different if Sal hadn’t called me last night. They would have been different if I hadn’t told Rebecca that I’d forgotten her history book and if I hadn’t gone home at lunchtime. They would have been different if I’d met Sal and had gone straight downtown with him to take his driver’s license test.

  Everything would be different.

  Sal would still be alive.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I was standing in a daze outside the school. The whole area was blocked off, and there were cops everywhere. There were lots of people, too, standing, talking, watching. I looked around—I couldn’t believe what a nice day it was. It was cool out, definitely jacket weather. The sky was deep blue, with fluffy white clouds, like something a kid would draw in a picture. I bet there were little kids being pushed in swings and whizzing down slides in playgrounds all over the city. I bet there were people smiling while they walked their dogs, grateful for such a nice day because pretty soon it would be getting cold and it would start to get dark in the middle of the afternoon. It just didn’t seem right that it was such a bright, sunny day. The way I felt, I wanted it to be pouring rain, with thunder and lightning and the wind whipping the leaves right off the trees.

  I had lost track of Rebecca. She’d said something to me when we’d got close to the school, but I hadn’t been listening. I didn’t know if she had told me where she was going or even if she was coming back. Then I spotted her. She was coming toward me, and she had two of her friends, Luci and Kim, with her. When they got to where I was standing, Rebecca said, “I found them.”

  I looked blankly at her.

  “Kim and Luci,” Rebecca said. She looked at me and looped an arm through mine. “I went to see if I could find them, remember?” she said softly.

  I had no idea what she was talking about.

  “I heard someone say—” she began. Then she shook her head and turned to Kim. “Tell Mike what you told the police,” she said.

  “You talked to the police?” I said.

  “She saw what happened,” Rebecca said.

  I stared at her. Finally, someone who actually knew something. “You really saw it?”

  “I was walking by,” Kim said.

  “And?”

  “I was on my way to the mall. I saw Teddy and the rest of them hanging out on the sidewalk outside the pizza place across the street.”

  I knew the place she meant. A lot of kids went over there at lunchtime for a slice and a pop. It had the best price around, what it called a student special.

  “What were they doing?” I said.

  “They were just hanging out, you know, the way those guys do. They were being really loud—that’s why I looked over there. They were all crowded around Staci, making fun of her. Teddy was teasing her about hanging out with the retards.”

  Rebecca winced when she heard that.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “What did he mean?”

  “Staci tutors some of the special ed kids,” Kim said.

  That surprised me. It was hard to picture someone who’d been so close to Teddy for so long doing something like that. Then I thought, Maybe that’s why Sal got involved. Even with everything else he was doing, Sal tutored special ed kids, too. Maybe he and Staci had gotten to know each other. It made sense.

  “I guess Staci didn’t like what Teddy was saying,” Kim said. “She hit him.”

  “Staci hit Teddy?” She must have been really mad to do that, especially right in front of all his friends.

  “She slapped him,” Kim said. “Then the rest of them all started giving her a hard time. Matt”—Matt Levin, another one of Teddy’s pals—“started making fun of the way some of the special ed kids walk and talk. He put his arm around Staci, you know, like she was his girlfriend, and he was trying to give her a big slobbery kiss. He was grunting and everything. What a dork! Staci tried to push him away, but he wouldn’t let go.”

  “They’re all so ignorant,” Rebecca muttered.

  “Then I think one of the girls who was there pushed her or something, because it looked like she stumbled.” I pictured Sara D. She was one of the Saras who hung out with Teddy. I’d heard that she was trying to get close to Teddy. And I knew how mean she could be. “Or maybe Staci just tripped. It was hard to tell. There were a lot of people out there. That’s when Sal went across the street and pulled Matt off Staci and started to walk away with her. He put his arm around her, like he was trying to protect her.”

  “Sal went across the street?” I said.

  Kim nodded.

  “So he was on the same side of the street as you when all this was happening, and he saw it, and then he went over there?” When people had told me that he’d gotten involved, I thought maybe he just happened to be walking by when it happened. But, no, Sal had seen what was happening, and he’d gone out of his way to help Staci.

  “Yeah,” Kim said. “He was with Luci and me on the other side of the street.”

  I glanced at Luci, who hadn’t said anything so far.

  “Sal was with you guys?” I said.

  Luci nodded.

  “We were on our way to Gerrard Square,” she said. “Sal caught up with us. He was on his way to the streetcar stop. But he couldn’t decide whether he was going to take the streetcar or not.”

  “What do you mean?” I said, even though I had a pretty good idea. It sounded like he’d decided to postpone the test until I could go with him.

  “I think he was planning to go somewhere and then changed his mind,” Kim said.

  “He definitely changed his mind,” Luci said. “There was a streetcar coming. He could have caught it if he’d run. But he didn’t. He just shrugged when it went by.”

  “He said it was an omen,” Kim said.

  “What did he mean by that?” Rebecca said.

  None of them knew. But I did.

  “Then he saw Teddy and the rest of them hassling Staci, and he started to go over there,” Kim said. “We told him not to.” She glanced at Luci. “Didn’t we?”

  Luci nodded. “So did Miranda,” she said.

  Miranda was in a couple of Sal’s classes. She lived in the same building as Sal. They’d gotten friendly. Sometimes they walked to school or back home together.

  “It was stupid,” Kim said. “I mean, what was the point of going over there? He was only going to end up getting hassled himself. You know what Teddy’s like,” she said. “Especially when he’s with his friends.”

  I knew exactly what Teddy was like. My hands curled into fists. My stomach twisted up into a knot. I felt like I wanted to hit something or maybe someone.

  “Then what happened?” I said. I had to work at keeping my voice normal or, at least, normal-sounding.

  “I already told you,” Kim said. “He went across the street and he took Staci by the arm, and I think he said something, only I don’t know whether he said it to Staci or to Teddy and Matt and them. Then he started to walk away. He put his arm around Staci. She went with him, but she kept looking back over her shoulder at Teddy. They started to follow her and Sal. There were a lot of them, too, maybe twenty of them—Teddy and Bailey and Matt. I think maybe Jonathan and Steven, but I’m not positive. And some girls, like I said. Annie, I think. And I think maybe Sara D. and Sarah B. Definitely Sara D.” Sarah B. was the other Sarah. “There was a whole bunch of people, Mike. They were making a lot of noise. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but someone said that they heard Teddy went ballistic when Sal put his arm around Staci, because he thinks Staci is interested in Sal. The girl who told me that said it looked to her like Teddy was ready for a real fight.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Then I heard a big bang. I looked to see what it was. We both did, didn’t we, Luci?”

&nbs
p; Luci nodded.

  “Two cars had smashed into each other. Someone must have been hurt, because an ambulance showed up. And—”

  “I mean, what happened with Sal?” I said. I didn’t care about the car accident.

  “I don’t know,” Kim said. “I didn’t see anything. I was looking at the accident. Everyone was looking at the accident. I didn’t even know anything had happened to Sal until all of a sudden I saw a woman run down the street to the cops. She looked like she was hysterical. When I looked to see where she’d come from, I saw that there were hardly any kids on the street anymore. Teddy and them were mostly gone. Then a girl came out of the alley. She was crying. So I went across the street to see what was going on.”

  “You went over there?” I said.

  She nodded.

  “You waited until Sal was dead, and then you went over there?” Boy, I was losing it. I could hear how loud my voice was. I could see the way Rebecca was looking at me—like, what was the matter with me? Luci was looking at me too, with a sort of stunned expression on her face. But I didn’t care. I was thinking about all those other kids who had been out there and who, just like Kim and Luci, had seen what was going on. I thought about them just standing there, like they were watching a movie. I thought about not one of them doing anything, except, of course, Sal. “Did you go right into the alley?” I said to Kim. “Did you go and have a good look? Because that’s what you like to do, right? You like to just stand there and look.”

  “I talked to the cops, Mike,” Kim said. Her cheeks were pink now and her eyes were watery, but not like she was going to cry. No, she was mad right back at me for talking to her like that. “I told the cops what I saw, okay? It’s not my fault what happened to Sal. I didn’t do anything.”

  “You’ve got that right,” I said.

  “Mike,” Rebecca said.

  “You heard her, Rebecca. She didn’t do anything. She was there. She saw Staci getting hassled. Then she saw Sal getting hassled. She saw that Teddy wanted a fight.”