0.5-Stone and Spark

by Sibella Giorello

  I speak to the window. "If you think I'm going to apologize to Tinsley Teager, you can let me out right here."

  I don't hear anything for another block. Then he says, "How about I tell her you feel bad about it?"

  "Is that absolutely necessary?" I ask the window.

  He laughs.

  When I look over, his profile is so perfect--so proportional--that it's like each feature was designed mathematically. Straight nose. Strong but not jutting chin. Smooth forehead. His looks actually freak me out: he's too good looking. I find myself searching for flaws, anything that will make him seem more human. More like me.

  He downshifts at the light on Libbie Avenue and coasts to a stop.

  "Okay," he says, "if you really, really don't want me to, I won't say anything to Tinsley."

  Now I feel worse. What kind of a creep takes back an apology? The whole idea that I could be like that makes me want to confess even more. So I do.

  "You should also know I'm not headed to school right now."

  He keeps his gaze on the red light. "Oh."

  "Yes, and the project isn't for school either."

  The light turns green, he shifts into first. Our silence is way too uncomfortable, but I have no words to add that will make it better. All I can think is: he just praised my parents for being genuine and true, and I just pulled a fast one on my mother. Who is crazy? Nice. Really nice.

  "DeMott, you can let me out here. It's okay. I was going to get my bike—that's what I planned to do and—"

  "Where are you going, if you're not going to school?"

  “To look at a hole in the ground.”

  He keeps driving. “I better come with you.”

  “Why?”

  He looks over and smiles.

  “In case you fall in,” he says.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  On both sides of Teddy's house, his neighbors work in their yards, raking leaves, sweeping driveways—and stealing glances at DeMott and me sitting in his truck.

  DeMott hasn't cut the engine yet. And he can't take his eyes off the house. The window shutters hanging slanted on busted hinges. Gutters choked with leaves and moss. The wheelchair ramp smothered with even more leaves.

  "This the hole in the ground?" he asks.

  "No." I climb out of the truck and stomp as noisily as possible up the wooden ramp, announcing my arrival to Teddy, and getting even more stares from the neighbors.

  I knock on the door. Six times.

  When it opens, I don't wait for "hello."

  "Petersburg Batholith."

  He nods, rubs an odd hand over his red whiskers. "Afternoon to you, too."

  "You could've just told me."

  "Where’s the fun in that?"

  "Fun? Drew’s missing. Why can't anyone get that through their heads?!"

  "Because she brought this on herself."

  "Once. She ran away once. And that was—"

  "Also, it doesn't help that she makes the other girls feel so dumb. And half the teachers. The girl doesn't exactly breed sympathy."

  "Stand up."

  He blinks. "Say what?"

  “Stand up. Take a jog around the block.”

  He holds my gaze, his green eyes gleaming.

  “Right,” I continue. “You don't get up and go running because you can't. The same way Drew can't help making other people feel stupid—because compared to her, they are.”

  “Point taken.”

  “And now you owe me.”

  He frowns. "For what?"

  “Insulting her like that.”

  He takes another swipe at his whiskers, but this time cranes his neck, looking toward the truck. DeMott sees him and raises his hand, a gesture of hello.

  “Who you got driving,” Teddy asks, “Prince Charming?”

  "Show me exactly where that batholith is exposed."

  "Now?" he says, shocked.

  "Right. Now."

  ***

  Teddy sits on the passenger side of the bench seat, held in tight by the seatbelt. DeMott follows his directions and takes River Road down to the Huegonot Bridge. But we don't cross over the water.

  "Turn here," Teddy says.

  "Here?" DeMott says.

  The road is rutted gravel, lined on either side by wild aspens. The wind blows a hail of yellow leaves from the trees. They flutter through the sunlight like hammered gold.

  "What are we doing here?" DeMott asks, bouncing over the road.

  "You mean, besides giving me a pain in the butt?" Teddy says.

  I sit sandwiched between them. And I remain silent. Every time the truck bumps into another divot, I brush up against DeMott's right shoulder. I'm wearing a sweatshirt and he's got that jacket on and still I can feel heat from him. It's making it hard to breathe.

  I steal one more sidelong glance at his perfect profile. But now his eyebrows are quirked up.

  "What's bothering you?" I ask.

  "That sign back there said ‘No Trespassing.’"

  "Not important," Teddy insists. "Let's talk about Raleigh. She seems tense."

  "I'm right here, and I'm not tense."

  "She just proved my point." He leans forward, straining against the seatbelt, speaking over me to DeMott, "Am I right or am I right?"

  DeMott glances at me. "You do seem a little tense."

  "I'm not."

  "I said ‘a little.’"

  "Not even a little."

  "It's official," Teddy says. "Y'all sound like an old married couple."

  I feel the flush of embarrassment rising up my neck. I hold my breath as DeMott slides in the clutch and coasts to a stop. The blood is reddening my cheeks now.

  But nobody speaks for several long moments. Each of us stares out the windshield. Right in front of us, the massive curve of rock rises fifty feet high and stretches hundreds of feet across. Mining has gouged the thick horizontal layers, including a band of pink-and gray stone that blooms between the layers like a gigantic frozen balloon.

  "Welcome," Teddy finally says, "to the Petersburg Batholith."

  "Wow," says DeMott.

  "Glad you're impressed, son. Now get me outta this noose."

  DeMott climbs out of the truck. He walks to the back, where Teddy's wheelchair sits folded on the flat bed.

  "You could do worse," Teddy mutters.

  "Stop it."

  "Okay, a lot worse."

  "There's nothing going on."

  "Sure sign that something's going on."

  DeMott opens the passenger door. Teddy grins at him wickedly.

  "Is everything okay?" DeMott asks, looking a little concerned.

  "With me?" Teddy asks. "Yeah. I'm great."

  I grab my backpack and slide out the driver's side. If Teddy says something more, I don't hear it because I've already slammed the door and started walking away.

  “So you know what you're looking for?" Teddy calls out.

  I turn around, ready to blast him, but I'm too stunned to speak.

  DeMott stands behind the wheelchair—pushing Teddy forward. Even though this isn't the easiest ground to cover, I know Teddy can handle it. I've seen him operate on our geology field trips. He never lets anyone push his chair. The sight of this fractures something in my mind. I can only stare at them, unable to get one word out.

  Teddy leans back, speaking over his shoulder to DeMott. "What's wrong with her?"

  "Far as I can tell, absolutely nothing," DeMott says.

  Teddy turns, looking at me with that wicked grin. "What'd I tell you?"

  "You told me," I reply, suddenly snapping back to reality, "that you'd show me where Drew could've picked up pink rock in her bike tires."

  "Yeah. Right back to business. Okey-dokey, have it your way, state the hypothesis."

  "The Petersburg Batholith contains pink granite. But the batholith is only exposed at the surface in four places around Richmond. This location is closest to school and the most likely place for Drew, because one: she hates to exercise, and two: you need to
be nice and help me."

  Teddy turns his head again, speaking to DeMott again. "Ain't I nice?"

  "You seem nice."

  "Thank you."

  "You're welcome."

  "Anytime."

  "Okay, look," I say, "if you two are going to just goof around, leave. I don't need your help."

  It's a totally stupid thing to say—obviously I need help—and for saying it, I only feel madder and weirder. Which leaves me with only option for the self-respecting liar: I walk away.

  I head straight for the rock wall. But on my way over, I pass a huge mound of excavated rock, piled beside a backhoe. It looks like half-sand, half-gravel. I kneel down, pinching a sample. The air right here tastes of minerals, earth: Chthonic. The word Teddy taught me this summer. He wants me to use it on Sandbag; our Lit teacher asks for "challenge words"—we give Sandbag a word and see if he knows the definition. He always—and I mean always—does. Grinding the soil between my fingers, I glance toward the truck. DeMott and Teddy are still chatting away.

  "Hey!"

  Their heads snap. But neither makes a move toward the rocks.

  I take a deep, humbling breath and walk back to them, remembering how every time I act proud, I wind up feeling even more stupid.

  "I need some help," I say.

  Teddy nods. "Take a soil sample."

  "From where?" I spread my arms out wide. "This place is huge."

  "You already forgot," he says, without a trace of accusation. "What did you read yesterday?"

  "You mean that story about the dead German woman?"

  "Right. Strangled with her own scarf, left in the field."

  "I'm sorry—what?" DeMott looks horrified.

  "The reason I wanted you to read that," Teddy continues, ignoring DeMott, "is the whole principle behind transfer of material. Soil got transferred onto that German killer's clothes, right?"

  I nod.

  "So, you found Petersburg granite in Drew's tires. Now you look for any place her bike could've come in contact with the soil. You were on the right track a second ago—" he nods at the pile of sand and gravel. "Go look again. Flag anything that don't look natural. DeMott can help you."

  I stare at the ground, watching the soil as we walk toward the pile of gravel and sand. I don't see any bike treads. But the taupe-beige sand covering the ground does remind me of the other stuff in Drew's tire treads. I see some sharp, pink granite pebbles, but they're all too big for what was in her wheels.

  At the loose soil near the backhoe, I see wheel marks. But they're about a foot wide. Car tires. Not bike. I also see the parallel teeth marks of the backhoe's tread. Yesterday's rain pock-marked and blurred everything, including some shoe prints I find walking around the pile. I kneel down, measuring each shoe imprint. Too big for Drew's feet. And whoever it was, they were heavy enough to compact the loose soil through a half-day of heavy rain. The guy who runs the backhoe, probably.

  I pull out my camera and take pictures of all the tire impressions, the backhoe's treads, the shoe marks. Then I keep circling the mound. I haven't seen one of those blood-red icicle shaped stones. Nowhere. And all this rock is metamorphic—hard rock. Those red things are sedimentary, soft rock that dissolves its shape in water.

  DeMott waits on the other side of the mound.

  "You think she was here?" he asks, looking a little confused.

  I shrug and continue past him, backtracking, again.

  "She's like that!" Teddy yells. "You'll get used to it!"

  Pretending to ignore his comment, I glance up at the rock wall. Could she have ridden her bike on top of it? I don't see how she could've gotten up on that ridge. I lower my eyes, taking in the chunky layers of stone. They look as orderly as Legos, except for that purplish-pink plume of granite. Geologically, we'll probably never fully understand what happened here. We can guess. We can make theories, models, but the unknowing is part of the puzzle of the Earth. I scan the stones, searching for anything sedimentary. Anything that would account for those red icicles. But there is nothing.

  I hear footsteps behind me.

  "I'm not sure what you're doing," DeMott says. "But I'd like to help."

  I nod, scanning the soil at our feet. The treads look different on this side of the mound. I kneel down, pinch the soil and rub it between my fingers. The rain's pummeled the sand but—

  I look up at DeMott. "Can you tell him to come over here?"

  He walks away. I watch his back, just like Friday night, and decide there is definitely something nice about his walk. Straight back, but not uptight. Hands loose at his sides. I feel a flutter right below my stomach.

  He says something to Teddy that makes my geology teacher laugh. The flutter comes back to my belly button.

  Once again, Teddy lets DeMott push his chair. I stare at the narrow rubber wheels, rolling over the soil, gathering grains in their treads. Why would Drew ride her bike down here? I have no answers. Not even a good guess.

  Unless . . .

  I stand up. A heavy feeling sinks into my chest. I can't breathe. What if she came down here for geology? I turn, running my eyes over the whole quarry. For me.

  "You find something?" Teddy asks.

  "Probably nothing." My voice is shaking. I swallow the fear, and then turn back to the mound of soil. "You said to flag anything that doesn't look natural."

  "No, what I said was, anything that don't look natural. But that's why your parents pay hefty tuition, so you don't sound like a hillbilly." He grins.

  I point to the backhoe, the tire treads, the big shoe prints. I stop on the small oblong divots. About six inches long, less than a half-inch deep. But regularly spaced.

  "Does that look like steps, like somebody walking?"

  "DeMott, git me closer."

  DeMott pushes the chair nearer the impressions. Teddy leans forward.

  "I see it. Good eye, Raleigh." He sits up. "Photos and a sample."

  I take more photos, then swing my pack around, rummaging for my Ziploc bags. Teddy is leaning so far forward again that his thin body looks folded in half. I glance at DeMott, but he's already figured out the risk, leaning his own weight into the back of the chair, counter balancing so Teddy doesn't topple forward. I like it that DeMott already knew to do this. I like it a lot.

  I open a Ziploc bag as Teddy brushes his knuckles over the soil. His head is so low I can see a pale halo in his red hair. He's balding. I look away, pinch the soil, deposit it into the baggie. I hold it up to the sun. Pink granite pebbles. Each covered with a heavy dust of taupe sand. And silt. But again, no red icicles. I seal the bag.

  "Grab it, will ya, DeMott?"

  When I look over, Teddy is sitting up and DeMott is stepping around him.

  "Careful. Here?" Teddy says.

  DeMott pinches something on the ground. Dirty and brown, it looks like a string. He pulls. It's connected to something under the mound because the grains start to fall around it. DeMott tugs harder.

  My heart clenches.

  "No," I whisper.

  He holds the string up. The object dangling at the end . . . it's a shoe.

  Small, covered with soil. But the color, there's no mistaking it. Or the kind of shoe that it is.

  Purple.

  Converse All Star.

  A purple Converse All Star.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  "Listen to me," Teddy is saying.

  DeMott's truck bumps over the rough road. Drew's shoe, sitting in my lap, jumps as if it’s alive.

  "Raleigh!"

  I know things. Things no fifteen-year-old should know. All those many hours in my dad's courtroom, listening to vice cops and detectives and coroner's reports. I know things that should scare kids but that never scared me because I already had a mom who claimed I wasn’t her "real" daughter.

  But now?

  All those things from the courtroom race through my head. And they scare me.

  Teddy leans forward, speaking to DeMott. “Son?”

  “Yes, sir.�
�

  "We're gonna make a detour."

  "To the police?"

  "Yeah, we'll get to them. Right after we check the shoe."

  "Wait—is that the right procedure?"

  On my left I sense DeMott's worried gaze, running over the side of my face. But I can't turn my head. It's like the bad things have hypnotized me.

  "Son, you need to relax."

  "But I thought you're supposed to call the police," DeMott says. "Right away. Not wait."

  "Raleigh?" Teddy asks.

  My mind tunnel visions back to the mound of soil. This is Drew's purple high-top. No doubt in my mind. Buried under all that soil. Why? Why in a quarry I've never even heard of? And how? I look down at the shoe in my lap. Evidence. Just like all that evidence I saw tagged and bagged and paraded through my dad's courtroom, Drew's shoe is evidence.

  "Raleigh?" Teddy pushes his weight against my right side. "You gotta get out."

  I blink. We are parked at the gym at St. Cat's. There is Drew's bike. Still waiting. Waiting for me?

  I feel sick.

  DeMott helps Teddy into his chair.

  "C'mon," Teddy says. "Don't waste opportunity. You know Drew wouldn't."

  ***

  In the geology lab, I bend over the trashcan and puke.

  "Go puke in the bathroom!" Teddy says. "Nobody's cleaning tonight!"

  Saliva pools in my mouth, preparing for another round. My hair falls forward. I reach to grab it, but a hand gets in the way.

  DeMott.

  He holds my hair, at the base of my neck. I close my eyes.

  Please. Make it stop. Make. Everything. Stop.

  "Are you okay?" DeMott asks.

  "Fine," I mumble, spitting again.

  "Fine," Teddy says. "That's what she always says. 'Fine, fine—I'm fine.' And yet, anybody with eyes in their head can see she ain't."

  I force back the saliva, breathe hard and deep, forcing myself to be “fine.” DeMott steps back as I stand. My knees feel soft, weak. My feet wooden. But I manage to walk over to the roll of butcher paper, tear off a sheet and carry it to the counter, all the while keeping my watering eyes focused on the floor. The clean and shiny and polished floor that is nothing like the dirty sand covering my best friend's lost shoe.