Goodbye, Rebel Blue

by Shelley Coriell

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Coriell, Shelley.

  Goodbye, Rebel Blue / by Shelley Coriell.

  pages cm

  Summary: Rebecca “Rebel” Blue, a loner rebel and budding artist, reluctantly completes the bucket list of Kennedy Green, an over-committed do-gooder classmate who dies in a car accident following a stint in detention where both girls were forced to consider their mortality and write bucket lists.

  ISBN 978-1-4197-0930-2 (alk. paper)

  [1. Conduct of life—Fiction. 2. Self-perception—Fiction. 3. Fate and fatalism—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.C8157Go 2013

  [Fic]—dc23

  2013010046

  Text copyright © 2013 Shelley Coriell

  Title page type design by Christian Fuenfhausen

  Book design by Maria T. Middleton

  Published in 2013 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

  Amulet Books and Amulet Paperbacks are registered trademarks of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

  Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact specialsales@abramsbooks.com or the address below.

  115 West 18th Street

  New York, NY 10011

  www.abramsbooks.com

  To the three who died

  bucket list (noun)—A list of things you want to do before you die; comes from the phrase kick the bucket (to die)

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINTEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  THE MAKERS OF INSPIRATIONAL KITTY POSTERS should be disemboweled.

  The posters cover one wall of the detention room where I sit after school with Macey Kellingsworth and some girl with a perky blond ponytail. Ms. Lungren, one of the Del Rey School’s guidance counselors, stands in front of a poster of a fluffy white kitten sitting in a teacup under the words Everyone needs a daily cup of cuteness.

  I need a puke bucket.

  “Each of you received detention today for behavior that can be described as dangerous”—Lungren’s eyes bulge—“even deadly.”

  This morning Lungren caught Macey and me smoking in the girls’ bathroom near the auto shop building. “Is that smoke I smell?” Lungren had asked as she burst through the bathroom door, her cat-eye glasses perched on the end of her twitching nose. She spent most mornings prowling about campus searching for bad people doing bad things.

  Who was I to disappoint? I puffed out a smoke ring and, with the tip of my finger, slashed through the circle, creating a smoky heart shape. “Consider it a belated valentine.”

  A ghost of a smile sickled Macey’s lips.

  Lungren snatched the cigarette from my hand. “Both of you, detention!”

  Smoking = Bad. I get that. I took my first drag at age twelve and found the whole process as pleasant as licking soot from a chimney. I would have quit, but it bugged the hell out of Aunt Evelyn, and at age twelve, bugging the hell out of Aunt Evelyn was the only thing I did well.

  Four years later, I still puff on the occasional cancer-emphysema-coronary-disease stick, not so much to piss off Aunt Evelyn, but to deal with her. The latest blow: This morning Aunt Evelyn took away my phone and computer privileges. My crime: I failed my Algebra II exam. Aunt Evelyn doesn’t get that some people just don’t get asymptotes.

  “A good detention program doesn’t punish you,” Lungren continues. “Detention helps you, gives you the opportunity to examine bad choices and explore ways to improve your lives.”

  I try to exchange eye rolls with Macey, but she’s tugging at the cuffs of her hoodie and staring into Maceyspace. Some brain trust nicknamed Macey the Grim Reaper our freshman year. With her black hoodie, skeletal frame, and pale hair, she looks like death. We met more than two years ago in detention, and while we’re hardly best friends, we both like dark places and uncrowded spaces. The other juvenile delinquent in detention today, Ms. Perky Ponytail, darts her gaze around the room as if terrified the kitty will lunge from the teacup and tear apart her flesh. Clearly a detention virgin.

  “For the next two hours you will contemplate your inappropriate and potentially deadly behavior,” Lungren says.

  Perky Ponytail rockets her hand into the air and does one of those Pick me! Pick me! waves. She doesn’t look like a smoker. I wonder what landed her in kitty hell.

  “Yes, Kennedy?” Lungren asks.

  “I appreciate what you’re doing for me, and I see the long-term value, but I have a 100 Club project this afternoon. Then I need to go to the prom-decorating committee meeting and a fundraiser for endangered leatherback turtles. It’s a crazy-busy day. Is it possible to make other arrangements?”

  “Someone else will have to save the turtles today,” Lungren says, and the girl’s ponytail slumps. “Each of you will spend the next two hours thinking about the types of experiences and activities you would choose when faced with the limited time you have on Earth.” She waltzes down the aisle and hands us each a cheap spiral notebook. “Here is a brand-new journal, and in here I want you to write things you want to do before you die.”

  Kennedy raises her hand and waves. “Like a bucket list?”

  “You can call it a bucket list or to-do list. The key is to make it thoughtful, make it meaningful, make it you.”

  Kennedy’s hand bolts skyward. Wave-wave. “How long does it need to be?”

  “As long as you want, but keep in mind, the more time you spend on your list, the deeper you get into your heart.”

  Macey snorts.

  Agreed. What’s in my heart is none of a school counselor’s business.

  Kennedy does the hand thingy again. “Do we turn it in to you when we’re done?” Maybe this is her deadly behavior: sucking up to teachers and suffocating them.

  “It would be more beneficial for you to keep the list—and the whole journal, for that matter. I’ve explained to your parents—”

  “You talked to my parents?!”

  Bad girl, Kennedy—bad, bad girl. You forgot to raise your hand.

  “Yes, I talked to your parents and guardians.” Lungren looks at me on the last word. “They are aware of your choices and the redirection efforts of this assignment.”

  Kennedy cradles her cheeks in her palms. “My parents are going to be so disappointed, and this will go on my school record, and …”

  Ms. Perky Ponytail needs to reread the poster of the kitty hanging at the end of a rope. You know the one: Hang in there! Because Kennedy is luck
y she won’t have to deal with Aunt Evelyn. As I glare at Lungren, Macey rises from her desk and walks to the door.

  “Macey, where are you going?” Without a word, Macey glides into the hall, and Lungren hurries after her, calling over her shoulder, “I’ll be right back, girls. Please start your lists.”

  I yank a pencil stub from my messenger bag. Kennedy sniffles. A drop of body fluid splats on the floor near my right flip-flop. I jerk away. Her shoulders heave. The sniffles grow into choky sobs, and more snorts and snot rush out. Her hands shake.

  I glance over my shoulder to the door. Where the hell is Lungren?

  Shallow, gaspy sounds fall from Kennedy’s mouth. Her face is colorless, bloodless, as if she’s about to pass out.

  “You know”—I lean across the aisle—“it’s not that big of a deal.”

  “It’s … it’s detention,” she says between hiccup-y cries. She sways.

  I grab her arm and keep her upright. “And your point?”

  She blinks and takes a deep breath.

  Good. Breathing is good.

  “My parents will k … k … kill me, my teachers will think I’m turning into a delinquent, my friends won’t want to hang out with me, and I won’t be class valedictorian next year.”

  Excellent. She’s not dying. She’s just a wack job. I let go of her arm. “The only people who will know you’re in detention are Lungren, your parents, and yours truly, and I’m not about to broadcast details of this little tea party over the school radio station.”

  “But—”

  “See this?” I jam my notebook under her nose. “The secret to putting this experience behind you is to complete Lungren’s assignment. If you don’t, she’ll have you here tomorrow and every day after until you finish. You need to shut up and write. Just write.”

  Kennedy opens her notebook. “Write. Just write.”

  My brilliant wisdom is not lost on me. I, too, need to write a bucket list. Unlike Macey, I can’t bolt. I skipped out on detention last month, and Lungren warned me in her singsongy counselor voice, If you skip another detention, you get a week-long suspension, which would not be good for my current math grade. Plus, I’d be forced to stay at home with Aunt Evelyn 24-7, which would not be good for my physical and mental well-being. This time I need to play by the rules.

  I snap open the cover of my journal. The problem is, I’m not good at rules. A let’s-cut-to-the-chase therapist told me years ago that I have problems with rules because I spent the first ten years of my life barefoot. He said if I started wearing shoes, Aunt Evelyn would be in a happier place, she’d stop punishing me so much, and the entire world would make paper cranes instead of nuclear bombs.

  And I’m going to be nominated for Mistletoe Queen.

  I aim my pencil stub like a pistol at my notebook. Bucket list sounds too normal. I lick the tip of my pencil and write, Goodbye, Rebel Blue.

  A shadow passes over the paper. “Uh, thanks for the advice. I’ve never been in detention before.” Kennedy straddles the chair in front of my desk.

  I peek through a streak of blue hair hanging across my face. Her cheeks are no longer bloodless. She isn’t going to die in my presence. Therefore, she is no longer my problem.

  “I was exaggerating when I said my parents would kill me. They have high expectations, but I’m harder on myself than they are. I want to do things right, you know? Be the best me I can be.”

  I draw wavy lines and swirls alongside my notebook’s spiral.

  She places her arms on the chair back and tilts her head. “I’m not sure if you remember, Rebel, but we had art together freshman year.”

  I add design lines to the top of the page.

  “You want to hear something weird?” She edges closer, her ponytail swinging forward and brushing against the top of my desk.

  I sketch more squiggles at the bottom of the paper. They look like waves, and I add shells and a starfish. The starfish flips off Kennedy.

  “Our freshman year I thought it would be kind of neat if we could be friends. You know, the whole color thing, Rebecca Blue and Kennedy Green. Because—get this—blue-green is my favorite color. Not teal or aqua but blue-green, the world’s most perfect color, and here we are again, Blue and Green.”

  I write the numbers one through twenty down the left side of the page.

  “Oh, good! You’re starting your bucket list. It’s a weird assignment but fascinating. You can learn a lot about people when you know the things they want to do before they die.”

  I give her the you-are-annoying-the-crap-out-of-me look I reserve for Aunt Evelyn on her I’m-grounding-you-for-life days.

  “I think about death sometimes and what happens next. I think people who live good lives on Earth go to good places when they die. Do you ever think about death?”

  Yes. Right now.

  “My grandmother died while she was having open-heart surgery last year. She flatlined for more than a minute, but the doctors brought her back. She said it was the most incredible sixty seconds of her life. She saw a golden light and a lady in gold and a tunnel with glittery gold bricks. Maybe that’s why my heaven is gold.” She’s so close, I smell her shampoo. Sunshine and citrus. “What color’s your heaven?”

  Ignoring Kennedy is clearly not working. “Black,” I say. “The color of a world six feet under, with hundreds of gray squiggles, which would be worms eating at my decaying corpse.”

  She draws closer, not repulsed. She should be repulsed. “You don’t believe in life after this one? You believe that this”—she waves at the kitty posters—“is all there is?”

  “I believe you are a moron.”

  “I understand.” Kennedy uses Lungren’s creepy counselor tone. “Talking about death and dying is hard for most people. Some people are afraid of death and what lies beyond.”

  “I am not afraid of death, because there’s nothing beyond death. No feelings, no fear, no me.”

  Her dopey grin fades away. “What are you afraid of, Rebel? Right here. Right now.” Her voice softens, but the sharpness, the brightness in her eyes intensifies. “Don’t tell me nothing, because everyone’s afraid of something.” I open my mouth, and she points an arrow-straight finger at my chest. “No lies.”

  I almost laugh. Lies? Not in my world. “I’m afraid of being ordinary.”

  Her face remains serious. “You, Rebel Blue, are anything but ordinary.” She settles her spine against the desk and picks at the back of the chair, flecks of brown paint drifting to the floor like sand. “I’m afraid of spiders and twenty-foot squid and phone calls that come in the middle of the night.” She scratches harder, faster. “I’m afraid of disappointing others: friends, parents, teachers, Ms. Lungren, even the clerk at the grocery store. When I pick apples from the produce bin, I rearrange the ones left in the display so there are no holes.” A paint chip wedges under her nail, and she winces. “Pretty creepy, huh?”

  “No, it’s just you being … being you.”

  She toes the bits of brown dusting the floor. “And sometimes being me may not be a great thing.” She tries to smile, but it comes across as a twisted grimace.

  “Never apologize for being you.” That’s what my mom used to say.

  “Really?” Kennedy looks up at me with eyes that care way too much about what I say.

  “You know what?” I add. “This entire conversation is creepy, and it needs to end.”

  Kennedy shakes the paint chips from her fingers, her ponytail once again bobbing. “Not before I thank you for being here for me. People are exactly where they need to be when they need to be there. You were here for me when I needed you, and I’m here for you.” Her hand settles over mine. “Remember that. It’s fate.”

  I stare at our hands, speechless.

  Footsteps clatter in the hall, and I spin toward the door. Please, please, let it be Lungren or anyone to shut up Ms. What-Color-Is-Your-Heaven. Nope. It’s Percy, the head custodian. He rolls in with his cleaning cart and checks the underside of a desk in
the back row. He takes a shiny spatula from his belt and scrapes off a wad of pink. After checking all the desks, he wipes the whiteboard, empties the wastebasket, salutes me with the gum scraper, and walks out, his left eye twitching.

  Kennedy clucks her tongue. “Case in point, Percy Cole.”

  I bang my forehead on the desk. “You’re not going to shut up, are you?”

  “Haven’t you heard his story?”

  “I hate stories,” I say to the desktop.

  “Well, you’re going to love this one. Percy served in Desert Storm and was on a supply mission when a roadside bomb went off. Eleven soldiers, including the men on either side of Percy, died. Why? Why did he live? It’s destiny, I say. A force bigger than all of us kept him here, and he’s alive because he’s still needed here.”

  My head snaps upright. “To scrape gum off desks?”

  “Only the fates know.”

  “The fates know squat. I control my own destiny.”

  “To some degree, yes. We have power over how we respond to events and our attitude about them, but I passionately believe there’s a higher being or unseen force that places us where we need to be when we need to be there. I think you and I, Rebel Blue and Kennedy Green, are meant to be right here in this room right at this moment talking about this subject. Blue and Green. We’re linked. Destined to share each other’s journeys.”

  “I think Lungren was having a PMS kind of morning.” I cover my face with my notebook.

  “You’re pushing me away again,” she says with something that sounds like amused wisdom. “But that’s okay. You have a guarded heart. The glowering looks, the snarky comebacks, even the shark teeth on your bag—they’re all designed to keep people away. But we all need friends, and I consider you a friend.”

  I lower the notebook. “We are not friends! We’re two strangers stuck in detention. I don’t care about your fears. I don’t care about the fates. For all I care, you and your turtles can take a one-way trip to your golden heaven.”

  Her lips form an O, and she turns stiffly in her chair. I jab my pencil into my notebook and scribble all the things I want to do before my butt lands in a casket and starts to decay.