by Catie Rhodes
“I’m sorry, Ms. Brent.” Stubblefield picked up his paper again and began crossing off names. A frown creased his face.
My stomach tightened into a hard ball. I knew what was coming but was powerless to stop it.
“There’s an empty chair in group one, so I guess that’s where the fates meant you to be.” Stubblefield grinned at his mistake. I wanted to wipe a booger on his nice, clean shirt. He’d managed to screw both me and Rainey.
Felicia walked right past the empty chair next to Tubby, its back facing the rest of the class, and did a slow circle around our desks. Finally she stopped behind Chase and me. We turned to keep a watch on her. Mr. Dowthitt’s ghost appeared behind her, his almost invisible lips moving as he chewed out some long ago student.
“What are you staring at, you ghost-seeing Satanist?” She spoke loud enough so the whole classroom could hear.
“Somebody whose bra strap is showing.” Chase pointed at the offending strip of white elastic. Tubby made monkey sounds at Felicia.
Felicia turned purple and slapped at Chase’s hand. He giggled at her reaction and turned away, ignoring her. I followed suit. Maybe Felicia would go away.
“One of you needs to move so I can sit here. Preferably you.” She pushed on my shoulder.
I turned back to face her. Touch me again, you pig-eyed bitch. She deserved a fat lip for her little show in the hallway. My head still ached from slamming into those lockers, and I bet I’d have a knot by the end of the day. Chase turned around. He ran his gaze up and down Felicia and rolled his eyes.
“I don’t want to sit by you.” He narrowed his eyes. “You peed yourself in fifth grade.” Like Felicia, Chase spoke loudly enough for the entire room to hear.
There was a second’s stillness. Then laughter rang out. Chase grinned at me. We both turned around, and he put his arm over my shoulders. Mr. Stubblefield clapped his hands again. The classroom slowly quieted.
Felicia reared back and kicked Chase’s seat. Her toe connected with the metal support and rang like a bell. She cried out and knelt to clutch at her wounded foot. Chase sucked in his lips, but his sides vibrated with laughter. Tubby laughed so hard his face turned red and tears squeezed from the corner of his eyes. Part of me wanted to laugh, but I knew mine was the laughter Felicia would remember and resent.
“Now, for those of you who want their projects judged by the City Council, there’s one little catch.” Stubblefield glanced at Felicia and nodded toward the empty chair. I heard her shift around behind me, but she made no move to sit there. “You’ll be assigned your project topic by lottery. Each topic will pertain to a concept we’ve discussed in this classroom. Who wants to play?”
Rainey raised her hand without consulting any of us. Typical. Mr. Stubblefield walked over, shaking a wicker basket filled with folded slips of paper. He held it in front of Rainey. She withdrew a slip and unfolded it. The stony expression she always wore grew a little more chilly.
“Go on and tell the class what your project is.” Stubblefield beamed. He must’ve made up the project topics himself.
“The Chris Leeland disappearance,” Rainey read aloud. She frowned at Mr. Stubblefield and shook her head. “For one thing, I don’t get how the Gaslight City Council would be interested in this. For another, how does this pertain to things we’ve discussed in this class?”
“It’s your job to create a project that will impress the City Council, not mine.” Stubblefield raised his eyebrows. “Now I’m happy to help you brainstorm if you need it. As for the subject matter, we discussed this country’s fascination with true crime just last month.”
Rainey nodded slowly, refolding the paper.
“Ms. Brent, you need to sit down right now.” Stubblefield walked away to let another group pick from his basket.
“Peri Jean?” Felicia had recovered from her injury enough to speak again. “I’m serious, you little freak. Get up now.” She kneed me in the back.
I spun to glare at her and raised one fist. Chase turned and caught my fist.
“You’ll get into trouble.” He gave me a sweet smile. His hand flashed out and tugged on the edge of Felicia’s notebook. Her books all fell on the floor.
“Pick ’em up, dummy,” Tubby Tubman hollered. He and Chase both bent over their desks laughing.
Felicia stared down at her scattered books, mouth open. The bell signaling the end of class rang. I felt a smile growing on my face and did nothing to stop it.
“Chair’s yours, Queenie.” I stood and gathered my books. I’d pay later, but I couldn’t help myself.
Felicia’s mouth dropped open, and her cheeks turned the color of a baboon’s butt. She spun to leave.
“Wait a minute.” Rainey raised her voice. “All of you meet me after school at my car. It’s in the front parking lot. I’ll spring for ice cream at Dottie’s, and we can discuss the project.” She raised her thin eyebrows at me. “I’ll call your Memaw to let her know you have a ride home.”
Oh, happy joy. I went off to my next class.
* * *
The bell rang at the end of fourth period. Mrs. Cockerel, whom the students called Mrs. Cockroach, cut short her lecture on chemical reactions and took a step backward to avoid the mass exodus. I grabbed my books and hurried out behind everybody else. I went to the back door of the high school, intending to hit the hidden cove where all the kids smoked on the way to the cafeteria, to make sure Chase wasn’t there. I pushed open the door, and droplets of cold rain splattered on the concrete stoop and sprayed on me. Chase wouldn’t go stand in the rain to smoke.
I hurried back down the hallway. If I went out the front door on the other end of the building, I could take the covered walkway all the way to the cafeteria. The building emptied quickly as students went into their classes or to the cafeteria. Where I’ll find Chase surrounded by all the people who ignored me or made fun of me earlier.
My skin prickled with embarrassment. Maybe Chase wouldn’t play his guitar today and we could talk a little. If we couldn’t leave campus together, I needed a dose of his optimism. Life always felt grim and endless to me. Not Chase. His it’ll-be-okay attitude was with him from the time he woke up until he went to sleep.
I stopped to stow my books in my locker and hurried past the custodian’s closet on the way out. The door hung ajar. Why was it open? Eddie Kennedy, whom I’d known all my life, worked part-time as janitor. Didn’t he know some of these asshole kids would go in and mess things up, get him in trouble? He was probably at lunch, maybe listening to Chase play guitar, pretending he was still a kid himself. I gripped the knob, intending to pull the door closed, only to have it yanked out of my hand. Four sets of hands came out of the darkness, jerked me inside, and threw me to the floor.
Felicia stood over me, giving me a perfect view of the contents of her nostrils. I struggled to get my elbows under me, curling my leg at the same time to propel myself to a position where I could defend myself. Lanelle Wilson stepped forward and shoved me back down with her foot. I clawed at her leg, but my fingernails scraped uselessly on the rough fabric of her pants. There was no way I could bite her. Her leg was too far from my mouth. I took in the rest of the people in the room, a couple of freshmen whose wide eyes nearly filled their faces.
“Hey.” I spoke to the more scared looking of the two. “Help me, and I won’t find you away from school and beat the Jesus out of you.”
The girl’s mouth dropped open. She glanced at Felicia. I knew I’d lost right then.
“Hold her down,” Felicia barked at them. The girls exchanged stares, one of them breathing so hard her nostrils flared. The prettier of the two nodded. They knelt on each side of me. I flailed my arms, grabbing at their faces. I got one girl by the ear and twisted, but Felicia jabbed my hand with a pen to make me let go. The two girls pushed on my shoulders until I lay flat on my back again.
My heart slammed against my chest. A roaring sound filled my ears. What are they going to do to me now? In junior high, Felicia and her
friends held my head down in a toilet bowl full of piss and shit. Suddenly, the urge to vomit came on so strong I actually gagged. I swallowed hard and prayed I didn’t puke in my own mouth.
Felicia, eyes glittering with zeal, reached down and removed one of her expensive sneakers. She waved the shoe in front of my face. I flinched away from it, kicking at the floor uselessly. Felicia turned the shoe’s bottom where I could see all the pieces of grass, the debris and dirt, even a piece of gum mashed into the tread.
“My shoe is dirty.” She bared her teeth in a parody of a grin. “I want you to lick it clean.”
“Let me up, right now.” Despite my shaking insides, my voice came out strong and even.
“Or what?”
I glanced down at my pointy-toed cowboy boots before I thought better of it. Felicia followed my gaze and whipped her head back to the freshmen girls. I lashed a foot out at her, but she jumped out of range.
“One of you take her shoulders. The other one sit on her feet.”
The two girls glanced at each other again. Fear moved behind their eyes.
“Now,” Felicia said. “If I get kicked, neither of you will ever get to try out for the cheerleading squad, much less get accepted.”
The girl pinning my left shoulder obeyed. Her lip trembled as she relieved Lanelle from sitting on my legs. I took the opportunity to shove the other freshman away from me, but she had more fight than her friend. She put both knees on my chest, crushing the air out of me.
“Just stay there,” Felicia said. “I can make that work.”
“But I can’t see,” Lanelle whined.
“Then come around to her head.” Felicia held out her shoe again, putting it so close to my face I smelled foot funk. I pulled my head back until it cracked into the cold linoleum. Lanelle and Felicia both laughed.
“Why are you doing this?” My voice trembled right along with every inch of my body. Loathsome, wimpy tears stung my eyes. I begged myself not to cry. Not in front of Felicia.
“Because you suck,” Felicia said. “And because you’re a Satanist. Nobody here wants to go to school with a nasty, witchcraft-practicing Satanist who can see ghosts. But since we have to put up with it, you’re going to have to do something to earn your right to be here.”
“You think Chase’ll be in in your talent show when he finds out about all this?” I hated myself for using my boyfriend as leverage like some weak-assed female in a teen romance, but he was my bargaining card.
“He’ll get over it. Chase is only with you because he feels sorry for you.” Felicia said the words as though delivering some great, undeniable truth. Her words dug in until they found a soft spot.
I thought about the way Chase’s friends ignored me unless he was around. Chase’s parents were our closest neighbors. He and I grew up together. I liked to tell myself he fell in love with me a little at a time, but the truth was he never really noticed I was female until I got boobs last year.
“The shame of the whole thing is you keep Chase from being with someone decent.” Felicia wrinkled her nose.
I was willing to bet her idea of someone decent meant her. Was that what started all this? Did Felicia want to be with Chase? Was this a crush she harbored for a lot of years, or was he just something else she could take away from me? It didn’t matter right then. I had to get out of the situation. Immediately, before something really bad happened. I let my body go limp, willing my heart to slow and taking shallow breaths. If I could gather my strength for a couple of seconds and catch them off guard, I might be able to get to my feet.
“The thing is, Peri Jean, you’re so pathetic, you’re not even fit to lick the bottom of my shoe.” She grinned. There wasn’t an ounce of sanity behind her smile. Fear froze the blood in my veins. This wouldn’t end with me licking her shoe. The shoe licking would be the beginning. “But I’m going to let you do it anyway.”
She pushed the shoe in my face. I turned my head away. She pressed the nasty thing into my clean hair. I forced myself not to make a sound.
“Lanelle? Hold her mouth open.” Lanelle knelt next to me and grabbed my chin, using her fingers to dig into my cheeks.
If I let her open my mouth, it was done. I took a deep breath and jerked my chin out of her hand. Her fingers brushed against my lips. On impulse, I opened my mouth and bit one of them. Hard.
Lanelle screamed and let go of me. She clutched her hand to her chest. “She’s biting!”
The girl sitting on my chest shifted her weight to try to see what was happening. I bucked the way I’d seen Benny Longstreet’s horse do during the last town parade. It dislodged the girl enough for me to get a lungful of air. I kicked my feet. The girl sitting on them got up and backed away. Her gaze cut to the door, and she slipped out without a backward glance. Legs free, I kicked until I could flip over on my stomach and roll to my feet.
Felicia swung at me with her nasty shoe, and I batted it away. It fell out of her hand and thudded on the floor. She launched herself at me, her scary eyes blazing. I grabbed her arm and slung her into a shelf of cleaning products. It made a metallic gong sound. Felicia grunted and staggered away from it, holding her chest. The mean freshman and Lanelle advanced on me. Both had their lips compressed into matching thin, grim lines.
The door slammed open and bounced off the wall. A figure wearing a black three-piece suit filled the doorway. Mr. Dowthitt’s ghost towered over us, his wrinkled mouth moving.
I backed away from the apparition, not sure who was worse—the ghost or Felicia’s gang of meanies. Next to me, Felicia let out a shrill, ear-drum-shattering wail. What did she have to scream about? Mr. Dowthitt was a ghost. I was the only one who could see him. But one look at Felicia’s face told me I wasn’t the only one who saw Mr. Dowthitt.
“Oh my God.” Lanelle backed against the opposite wall, her face the color of oatmeal. “I’m not seeing this.”
The freshman girl glanced between the ghost and me and back again. She opened her mouth and let out a sorrowful wail. Urine soaked through the front of her khaki pants.
Mr. Dowthitt’s ghost faded away, and Mr. Stubblefield stepped into the room.
“What are you ladies doing in here? This room is off limits to students.” He took in the condition of the four of us. His brow creased. “Is everything okay?”
“Ms. Boatman?” He spoke to the freshman. “Are you okay?”
The girl burst into tears, pushed past him, and ran down the hallway, her footsteps echoing.
“Are you fighting again, Peri Jean?” Strubblefield stared at my hands. “You know another fight means expulsion. No matter who started it.”
I glanced at my hands and realized I had them clenched into fists. I loosened them. “No, sir. I think Felicia and her friends wanted to play a prank on me. It got out of hand.” I swallowed hard.
If Stubblefield wrote me up for fighting, I’d be out on my ass. Memaw would be embarrassed and angry. No telling what she’d do. Maybe make me repeat my senior year. Felicia would no longer be in school, but I couldn’t bear the humiliation.
“Is that true, Ms. Brent?” Stubblefield turned his gaze on Felicia.
My tormenter still stood next to the shelf rubbing one of her arms. She shook all over, and sweat shone on her face. She tried to answer but nothing came out.
“Are you okay?” Stubblefield went to stand next to her, reached out a hand to put it on her shoulder, but stopped himself. “Can you speak?”
Felicia took a trembling breath. “She’s a Satanist for real, Mr. Stubblefield. She summoned a demon and made him…” She trailed off. If she said much more, she’d admit her guilt in the matter.
“Made who do what?” Stubblefield glanced at Lanelle.
The other girl stuttered and stammered, the freckles on her face first darkening and then turning a solid red.
“Ms. Wilson,” Stubblefield said to Lanelle, “do I need to call the principal? Or was this a prank gone wrong? Senior year is an itchy time. You’re ready to get out into the
world and things get wild. I won’t report this incident if that’s all it was. But I need to report it if it was a fight.”
“N-n-no, sir. It was just a prank.” Lanelle’s words tumbled out. Felicia hissed at her to shut up, but it was too late.
Stubblefield nodded. “There’s only five minutes left in lunch period. All of you go get your books and get to your next class.” He turned and left.
“Idiot,” Felicia whispered to Lanelle. “We could have gotten her expelled.”
Lanelle shrugged her shoulders and hung her head. I didn’t wait to see what would happen next. I got the hell out of the closet and hurried to my locker to get my books. My next class was in the special interests building, and I wanted to put as much distance between Felicia and me as possible. I ran down the hallway and out into the rain. I didn’t realize I was crying until I took one of those deep, shuddering, sad breaths.
“Only two more months. I can do this.” I repeated the phrase until I got into the building and into my Family and Consumer Science classroom. I sat down in my regular desk and put my head in my arms. I still had a few minutes until the other students came, so I let the tears come.
Chapter 2
The final bell of the day rang, and I walked to the parking lot. A convertible Mustang passed me, its top down. A boy I’d never even spoken to leaned out.
“Hey, demon girl, can you summon ghosts for spectral sex?” The car sped off before I had a chance to answer, the occupants’ howls drifting back to me.
I wished I could just go home and hide in my room.
“Peri Jean, over here.” Rainey’s voice came from behind several extra-large pickup trucks. I had to squeeze between them to get to her.
Rainey Bruce leaned against a spotless black Cadillac sedan.
“What happened to your Beemer?” I dug my cigarettes out of the hidden pocket inside my purse and lit one because I thought it would look cool. The taste almost gagged me. How does Chase stand these things?
“Daddy made me sell it after the radiator went bad. He said the car would just keep costing me money.” Rainey squared her shoulders and lowered her head to create a double chin. “‘There’s no reason you can’t use one of the Cadillacs too old for the funeral home.’”
