by Diana Wagman
Dad tried to cheer me up the whole way to school. He told a string of terrible jokes continuing right up to when he dropped me off. “Hope you remembered your lunch,” he said. “You know what’s the worst thing in the school cafeteria?”
“What?”
“The food!” He was howling with laughter as he drove away.
I was glad I’d told him I’d take the bus home. I couldn’t take his cheerfulness. Not that morning, not that day. It didn’t seem fair that it was an absolutely beautiful spring day. The sun was warm, the air was soft, the grass in front of the school looked incredibly, shockingly green. How could it be so beautiful out when Luisa was missing and I was hearing voices, possibly losing my mind. Where were the clouds, the ominous sky? It wasn’t right to see kids laughing and taking off their jackets and chasing each other around like kindergarteners. I sat on a bench with my head down, waiting for the bell to ring. Someone sat down beside me. I smelled flowers and sure enough, when I looked up, it was Walker.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Didn’t you hear? Luisa is missing.”
He reached for my hand, but I slid away from him. “Two days until you’re eighteen.”
“So what? Tell me about Hayden College. What’s the campus like? Who’s your favorite teacher?”
“Well…” he began and stopped.
“Do you even actually go to college?”
“I’m here because…” He stopped again. “Listen. You can’t worry about Luisa.”
I picked up my backpack and stood to go into school, but he took my hand and just like the first time, I felt it all the way up my spine. My muscles went loose and I had to sit back down. “Walker.”
“October. Please. Stay away from that new kid. That Trevor. And don’t look for Luisa. Sometimes you have to sacrifice the one for the good of the many.”
“You’re crazy. That doesn’t apply here. It doesn’t.”
But for the first time there were clouds in his blue sky eyes. There was something he wasn’t telling me. I stood up again. Touch or no touch, warm, cozy feeling or not, I was out of there.
“Wait,” Walker said. “I’m sorry. Sorry. Jed told me Luisa’s with her father.”
“Her mother doesn’t think so.”
He frowned, swallowed hard. For once I knew something he didn’t. “When did you talk to her?”
“Last night—actually very early this morning. I went over to Luisa’s. Her mother’s really scared. She thought I might know where Luisa is. Why would she think that? Plus I found Luisa’s favorite Frisbee in front of my house. Something is going on and it seems I’m involved whether I like it or not.”
“You’re not,” Walker said. “You can’t worry about it. Listen to me.”
“Why should I listen to you?”
“Tomorrow at midnight this will all be settled.”
“You’re not making any sense.” In the bright, spring sun, I suddenly got the chills. I put my hands over my eyes. I swayed, nauseated. Walker put his hand on my arm and the nausea went away. Everything went away. I was weightless, floating.
“Oh.” Walker said. “I wish… I wish—”
“Leave her alone.” It was Trevor. I crashed back to earth, opened my eyes.
“I’m not doing anything.” Walker jumped to his feet.
“Then why is she crying?”
I didn’t know I had been. “I’m crying for my friend!”
“I heard about Luisa,” Trevor said. “Everybody’s talking about her. I’ll help you find her.”
“You will?”
“We can drive around. We’ll find her. Come on.”
“Right now?”
He nodded and just like the day before I was ready to skip school and go with him. His mischievous smile, his smooth skin, his shiny eyes made me want to go, do, try new things. He shook back his shaggy hair. “Right now,” he said.
“Don’t go anywhere with him.”
“It’s none of your business,” I said to Walker.
“None of your business,” Trevor repeated.
Walker’s angry words came out in a growl. “You don’t care about her. This is about you and what you want.”
“She knows how I feel.” Trevor stood in front of me. “Don’t you, October? You know how I feel about you.” He looked into my eyes and cupped my face with his large hands. His touch didn’t make me go warm and relaxed. Instead, my palms began to sweat. My heart began to race. And then the itch returned. My arm, my neck, between my shoulder blades. I put my hand on Trevor’s arm. It was like a rock. But I had to scratch. It wasn’t attractive, but I had to. I stepped away from both of them and my head cleared although the itch continued. I scratched. I had to.
“See what you did?” Walker said.
Trevor just grinned. “I see what’s happening to her. What’s about to happen.” He turned to me. “October. Let’s go.”
It was more a command than an invitation and that didn’t make me happy.
Walker frowned. “Please stay with me.”
That was nicer and he was sweet, but so weird and half the time I couldn’t understand what he was talking about. At least Trevor was my age. I’d never had any guy seriously interested in me. Now it seemed I had two. I looked from one to the other. Trevor’s face was broad, his hands large, and his fingernails were not exactly clean, but his eyes were like a puppy’s and his olive skin was perfect. Walker was so handsome, almost too handsome—he made me feel inadequate—and, as I’ve said before, he felt familiar in some way. The morning bell rang and everyone began to file into school. I had to go. Walker put his hand on my shoulder. I gave a little jolt as I felt myself flow into him. I can’t explain it any other way, but it was as if my blood was a river rushing toward him, impossible to stop or slow down.
“Let go of her,” Trevor said.
“Make me,” Walker challenged.
“You may be something special in your world—”
Trevor launched himself at Walker, grabbing him around the waist. Walker fell back against the bench. Trevor punched him hard. Walker brought his knee up between Trevor’s legs. Trevor yelled. Someone across the quad yelled, “Fight! Fight!” I was livid. I hated both of them at that minute. Maybe I should have been thrilled or flattered that two guys were fighting over me, but they just looked like a couple of stupid idiots.
“Stop it!” I said. “Stop it right now!”
I don’t think I had ever stopped anyone from doing anything before, but they pushed apart and both stared at their feet, embarrassed.
Then they each apologized to me.
“I am going to class,” I said. “I can’t go look for Luisa now. That’s ridiculous. I have no idea where she is. And Walker, if you have something to tell me—you can tell me after school.”
Trevor started to protest, but I stuck to my guns. “Nope. Don’t start. I’ll see you in English.”
“But, Princess,” Walker objected.
“Don’t call me that. Do you know how sexist and demeaning that is? Like I’m some Barbie doll.” I shook my head. “I am not a princess. I am a person—just like you.” He put out his hand and I jumped back. I was not going to let him touch me.
Trevor said, “You won’t go with me to find Luisa?”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
He shrugged and gave his shaggy hair a shake. He looked up in the sky. “I’m going,” he said and then he smiled. “You’ll wish you had come with me.”
I watched him jog to the parking lot and get in his car, a dusty red Prius and I did want to follow him. I bit my lip to keep from calling to him to wait and take me along. The quad was empty. The bell had rung and everybody else had gone into school. Walker stood there. He wanted something.
“What?” I said. I was irritated. “Just say it.”
A crow cawed in the distance. Walker looked up. I heard another crow. Again, my imagination, I thought the crow was saying, “There she is!”
“We have to get out of here,” Walker s
aid.
“School.”
“No,” he said firmly. “No time.” He looked at me, and I saw him trying to decide what to tell me. “Those birds—” he began.
“They’re just crows.”
“Trust me.”
Why did he keep saying that when obviously he was not the least bit trustworthy?
There was a sudden swoop above us. A flock or, as they’re officially called, a murder of crows flew toward us and circled over our heads.
“Run!” Walker cried. “Into the trees!”
I ran into the park surrounding school as the birds came after me. Southern California black walnut trees are not very big, but they were all the protection I had. The crows were good at navigating through the trees. I kept tripping over sticks and rocks. I was trying to bob and weave, keep them guessing, but they were agile and more practiced at flying than I was at running. Plus the grove of trees was tiny. I was almost out the other side.
“Here!” Walker shouted at me.
I dodged back to him as he picked up a branch and thrust it at the crows. I refused to act like the dumb girl in the horror movie and just stand there and scream. I picked up a branch too. He and I stood back-to-back swinging our sticks. I got a little wild and managed to hit his arm. I scratched him pretty badly.
“Ow!”
“Oh my god. Sorry!”
A great big crow, the seeming leader of the bunch, hovered just out of reach in front of me. It stared at me and if a bird had lips it would have been licking them. I could hear it saying, “Yes. Yes. I’ve got her. I’ve got her.” Of course that was my imagination, and anyway it was obvious it wanted me bad and thought it had me. But I had a better idea. I pretended I was tired, that my arms could barely hold up my stick.
“I can’t do this much longer.” I lied.
The bird was interested, puffing up its chest, getting ready for the attack.
Walker believed me too. “Don’t stop now. A little longer!”
“I can’t.”
I slumped and rested my hands—with the stick—on my knees. The bird practically smiled. It came straight at me, wings like an airplane. Quick as I could, I straightened, pulled back, swung, and knocked that bird smack into a tree. It fell to the ground and lay there without moving. It was the most satisfying sporty kind of feeling I’d ever had. I actually understood why baseball players loved to hit that little white ball. I was ready to hit some more home runs.
But I didn’t have to. With the leader out of commission the others stopped attacking. They flew over to the stunned—or I hoped, dead—crow lying on the ground and circled randomly like foreign tourists without a guide.
Walker turned to me. I saw the scratch down his arm. It was bleeding.
“Your arm,” I said.
He ignored it and pulled me around behind a tree. “You were amazing,” he said. He inspected me all over, up and down, my face, my arms. He even turned me around, pushed my hair to one side and scrutinized my neck. His breath was warm. I leaned back into him.
“You’re really okay?” he asked.
“I’m sorry about your arm.”
“It’s nothing.”
He felt so good. He didn’t make me all jittery like Trevor did and I didn’t feel like doing crazy things. Did it mean I was a slut because I was thinking about two guys at once? I turned and he put his arms around me. I breathed in his sweet smell. He patted my back. Then he was kind of stroking. From comforting me, he was progressing toward something else. I was ready. I lifted my face for a kiss. An older guy would be good at it, perfect for my first. And Walker was perfect in so many ways.
“No.” He pushed me away. “We can’t do this.”
“You’re not that much older.”
“It’s not that.”
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“C’mon.” He didn’t answer my question. He never answered my questions. “Before that crow wakes up.” He started pulling me toward the parking lot.
“School’s that way,” I said.
“Can’t go back to school.”
“Those crows are done.”
“It’s not the crows I’m worried about.”
As he said that, we both heard footsteps crunching in the gravel at the edge of the park. I turned. Through the brush I saw a figure. Two figures, then three and four. They walked upright, but they were blobby, brown and gray, their bodies and heads indistinct. People in some disturbing costume. One and then another bordered the park.
I stumbled, pointing, backing toward Walker. He nodded. He had seen them too.
“I didn’t want to do this,” he said. He grabbed my arm, turned abruptly and started running, pulling me, straight for the brick wall of the school building.
I had to run with him or I would fall. “No!”
“Trust me!”
“No!”
He yanked me with him. I was sure we would do a face plant into the brick and I shut my eyes. Just as I steeled myself for serious pain, I fell forward and there was a warm liquid kind of feeling, but dry too, like I was falling through very fine, heated, sand. Walker wasn’t holding me anymore. I was swimming, circling my arms. I began to panic and the try to scream and the sand filled my mouth. I was choking. I couldn’t breathe. I was going to pass out when I landed on my ass on the ground.
I heard someone laughing. I opened my eyes and was momentarily blinded by the sun. When I could see again, I was shocked to discover I was back in the front of the school, sitting in the empty quad.
“Have a nice trip?” Jacob snorted as he ran by. “See you next fall.”
“How original.” I got to my feet.
The late bell rang. I was so confused. My head hurt. Where was Walker? How had I gotten here? What exactly was going on?
And then Trevor was by my side.
“That was quite a fall,” he said. “I think you were knocked out for a minute.”
“I fell?” The last thing I remembered was the wall, and before that those costumed attackers, and before that the crows. The crows.
He pointed at a stone sticking out of the grass. “You hit your head on that. You might have a concussion.”
I reached up and felt the bump on my forehead. Great. Just as my crow scratch was going away.
He brushed the hair off my face and smiled at me so tenderly my knees felt weak. I wanted nothing more than to curl up in his arms.
“I wish I’d been here to catch you,” he said.
“But I saw you get in your car.”
He looked at me like I was nuts. He touched the bump on my forehead and winced. “That is really going to hurt later.”
“But—” I turned to the parking lot. There was his car parked where it had been. And Walker was nowhere to be seen. I was having a definite Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz moment. “But it couldn’t have been a dream. It seemed so real. And Walker was there. And you were. And the crows.”
“Who’s Walker?”
“Wow. I really am losing it,” I said.
I thought about the voice I’d imagined the night before. And then I remembered the rest: that Luisa was missing and that Trevor had asked me to go find her with him and Walker had said some weird things and he and Trevor had fought—over me. That really couldn’t be true. My eyes filled with tears.
“You hit your head pretty hard.”
He kept his arm around me as we went up the steps into school.
“What happened to you last night?” I asked. “You disappeared when Jeb hit my car.”
Ms. Tannenbaum appeared out of nowhere. “October Fetterhoff!” she shouted. “Late again?”
“I fell.”
“It’s always something with you. Detention. Again. Today.”
I opened my mouth, but she crossed her arms, daring me to object. I said nothing. She watched as Trevor and I split off to our respective classes, Trevor whispering he’d see me in English. Of course she hadn’t given Trevor detention. Only me. What a witch. First Luisa, now Trevor. Tan
nenbaum obviously hated me.
I made a quick stop in the bathroom to wipe my tears. I looked at myself in the smeared mirror. I looked good despite the bump on my head, no sleep, a very quick shower, and not doing anything that morning but brush my hair. It was shiny and curled softly around my face. My eyes looked larger than usual and my lashes longer even though I wasn’t wearing any makeup. My leg itched and I pulled up the leg of my jeans and the flower shaped bruise was almost glowing. It was actually pretty, like a sunflower on my ankle. I scratched and scratched and it was warm under my fingers.
I heard the voice again, but this time it was gentler, friendlier. “You know where Luisa is,” it said. “You know.”
There was no one else in the bathroom. I shook my head as I sprinted to class. My very loud inner voice was full of crap. Luisa’s disappearance was not my fault and I didn’t know where she was.
8.
I was surprised when no one in school even mentioned Luisa missing. It was true she didn’t come to class very often, but people liked her when she was there. At least no one was talking about my itch anymore. I went from first period to second and then third and thought about Tannenbaum and detention—again. Okay, gym class was lame, but at least I showed up and I never, not once, used my period as an excuse. Personally, I think that sets women back 100 years. I mean it happens every month—time to deal with it, ladies. But Tannenbaum really did not like me and so I didn’t like her. It was so nice and easy to be pissed off about something so normal like the PE teacher and detention, because when I thought about Walker and the dream or vision or whatever I’d had when I hit my head on the rock I felt sick to my stomach.
As Ms. Lani, the biology teacher, droned on, I looked through the window and saw Walker’s beautiful silver Porsche pull up in the parking lot. I saw him get out of his car. I had to talk to him. Immediately. I had to. I didn’t raise my hand or anything, just said, “Excuse me,” and ran out of the room.
“Walker!” I was well aware my entire class—including the teacher—could see me in the parking lot. I tried not to look like a crazy person, but I was feeling pretty nuts.
