Student Body (Nightmare Hall)

by Diane Hoh

  “I know. It was mean. But the police are going to be coming around and she’s our weakest link. She can’t stand the thought of lying about Hoop. I don’t like it, either, so if you have any better suggestions that will get us out of this mess, I’d be happy to hear them.”

  We rode upstairs in the elevator in silence.

  To find two uniformed Twin Falls officers and one state police officer waiting for us in the hall outside our room.

  Chapter 8

  THE FIRST QUESTION WAS directed at me. “What happened to your face?” the younger of the two Twin Falls officers asked as we ushered them all into our room. “Looks like you burned it some. How?”

  I explained. I didn’t want to. It sounded hopelessly stupid even to me, and I’d been there. But I was afraid that if I didn’t explain, they’d assume my face had been seared by the forest fire, proof that I’d been with Hoop. So I had to tell them. I didn’t even hint that I was suspicious about how it had happened, though—that would have kept them there longer, and I just wanted them to go away.

  I found myself wishing our room were neater, as if that would convince the officers that we were fine, upstanding citizens. Then again, a perfectly neat dorm room would probably have made them even more suspicious.

  “I imagine your friend, the basketball player who was injured in the park fire, hurts a lot worse than you do,” the older officer said sternly, moving forward, small notebook in hand. “Could we ask you about that, please?”

  That’s when I realized that we’d made one big mistake when we decided on the “story” we’d be telling. We had decided that we would say Hoop had lost his temper and run off in the direction of the state park.

  But what we hadn’t discussed was what we were supposed to have been doing when the fire started, and where, exactly, we were doing it. How could we have neglected to come up with those very important details?

  Those were the first questions we were asked.

  Nat and I looked at each other as if someone had just asked us to describe the Pythagorean theory.

  I began stammering an answer before she did. “Well, uh, we were … we were here when Hoop took off. Right … right here, in this room.”

  “And after that?” the officer asked, his eyes never leaving my face for a second. “Where were you the rest of the night?”

  I couldn’t think. With him looking at me like that, my brain balked. Count me out of this one, it said, and promptly ceased to function. Suddenly brainless, all I could manage was, “Here. We … we stayed here.”

  His eyebrows rose sharply. “You stayed here in the dorm room on a night when everyone else was out celebrating Salem’s win in the semifinals?”

  “Well, we didn’t stay here the whole night,” Nat said, coming to my rescue. “We thought you meant where were we when the fire started. We were here,” she lied easily. “But then we went out.”

  “To?” His eyebrows were still arched, fat, furry caterpillars inching toward his hairline.

  Instantly, I felt Nat’s dilemma. If she said we’d gone to Vinnie’s or Johnny’s, or any one of a dozen other hangouts, the police would make the rounds, asking if we’d been there.

  “Down by the river,” she said. “We took some sandwiches and went down and sat on the riverbank.” She’d thought fast enough to substitute sandwiches for our hot dogs. Hot dogs required a fire. It was absolutely essential that we not be associated with fire in any way.

  “Anyone see you there?” the state police officer asked. He was big and burly, could have used a uniform one size larger than the one he was poured into, and his tie was crooked. But his voice was gentle as he asked the question.

  “Gee, I don’t think so,” Nat said, pretending to think about it for a minute. “We didn’t see anyone, did we, Tory?”

  “No. Not a soul.” I looked directly into the eyes of the policeman who had asked me the first question. “We wanted to have our own private celebration. That’s what we argued with Hoop about,” I added, improvising as I talked. “He wanted to go where the crowd was, and we didn’t.”

  Mistake. I thought I was being so clever, volunteering information that would fortify our story. But I was underestimating the intelligence of our questioners.

  “He wanted to be where there was a crowd, so he opted for running alone in the state park?” the state police officer said skeptically. “Seems to me he’d have gone on into town to find his crowd.”

  “Not without Mindy, he wouldn’t have,” Nat said hastily. “That’s his girlfriend, Mindy Loomis. And she was here, with us.”

  My elbow made its way into Nat’s ribs. She shouldn’t have mentioned Mindy. Mindy was so shaky. Liable to say almost anything.

  “So what you’re saying,” the younger officer said, pencil poised on his notepad, “is that you weren’t anywhere near the park last night?”

  Oh, damn. There it was. Talking about lying to the authorities is one thing. Now that I actually had to do it, I couldn’t. I’d done it before, in high school. It had never worked. I wasn’t very good at it and something always tripped me up.

  “Well, like we said,” Nat said, saving me again, “we were on the riverbank. I guess you could say that’s near the park, right?” Her eyes had never looked more innocent. “We wouldn’t want to mislead you, officers.”

  What could they say? I wasn’t sure they believed us, but they couldn’t prove that we were lying, so they left, telling us they might be back and to “be available.”

  “That means,” I said as I closed the door after them, “don’t leave town. Funny, since we’re only lying so that we can stay. If we wanted to leave town, all we’d have to do is spill our guts and the administration and the townspeople and the police would be only too happy to escort us out of town. We should write a book: How to Go from College to Prison in One Easy Move.”

  Nat was shaking. “You shouldn’t have said we were here last night,” she accused. “What a dumb thing to say! Like we’d be sitting around the room while everyone else was out celebrating. Who’d believe that?”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have mentioned Mindy, either,” I snapped. “They’re probably heading for her room right this minute. What if she folds?”

  “Oh, you sound like someone in a bad movie.” Nat flopped down on her bed and buried her face in her pillow. “She’s not going to ‘fold.’ She’s not giving up everything now. She’s as determined as any of the rest of us.”

  I hoped Nat was right.

  I had just slathered a greasy coating of salve onto my stiff, aching, skin when Bay called.

  “A lot of people are really ticked about the fire,” he informed me, speaking in a low voice. There must have been someone else in his room at the Quad. “They’ve closed the whole park, even the sections that didn’t burn. There was supposed to be a ten-K run through there tomorrow. Had to be cancelled. And a bunch of people had planned a midnight picnic there tonight. That’s cancelled, too. No fishing allowed off the riverbank, either, until the arson investigators come up with some answers.”

  I groaned silently. We really had screwed up. For just a second there, I hated Bay with a fierce passion. He was the one who had insisted that we make a campfire. If he hadn’t been so stubborn, so insistent, none of this would have happened.

  But we could have voted Bay down, and we hadn’t.

  “Then there’s Hoop,” Bay continued into my silence. “Everyone’s really bummed about Hoop. We had a good chance at taking the finals. But without him, we’re lost.”

  Of course there would be no way Hoop could play. The game was Tuesday night. We didn’t even know if he would live until Tuesday night. And no one had to tell us that if he had a future at all, it wouldn’t be in sports. He’d be lucky if he ever walked again, never mind running up and down a basketball court.

  “So everyone’s mad about that, too, although they don’t come right out and say so. They know that thinking about a trophy sounds pretty shallow when they should be thinking about Hoop. B
ut you can see it in their eyes: kiss the championship good-bye.”

  Everyone hated us. Only they didn’t know it was us they hated. They just hated whoever had been stupid and careless enough to start that fire.

  I did, too.

  Bay wanted me to meet him, just to talk for a little while.

  I said no. I knew he wanted me to make him feel better. We’d sit on the Commons somewhere and tell each other that we hadn’t meant it, we’d blame the high wind and the dry winter, we’d say that it could have happened to anyone. And then maybe we’d hold each other and kiss and try to make it all disappear.

  But it wouldn’t disappear.

  Besides, I had something else I wanted to do, and I didn’t want Bay to know. He’d disapprove, and try to talk me out of it.

  So I told him my burned skin hurt too much and I was going to go to bed.

  And I did. Nat and I both did.

  I waited for her to fall asleep. It took forever, and I almost dozed off myself.

  As soon as I was positive that she was really out, I got up quietly, threw on a pair of jeans, sweater, sneakers and jacket, and left the room.

  Chapter 9

  I DROVE MYSELF TO the hospital. The secondhand maroon Escort that my parents had given me as a reward for being accepted at Salem wasn’t as flashy or as new as Hoop’s Miata or as useful as Bay’s car, but I liked it. It got me where I wanted to go, although most of the time I took the shuttle because it was free.

  But there would be people on the shuttle. They’d want to know why my face looked like someone had taken a torch to it, and they’d ask all kinds of questions about Hoop.

  Who needed that?

  Almost from the moment I slid behind the wheel, I had this weird, creepy sensation along the back of my neck. I had checked the backseat before I got in, as I always did, and there hadn’t been any maniacs in ski masks lying there, hiding under a blanket. So why the feeling, as I drove off campus, that someone’s eyes were boring a hole through the back of my head?

  There were cars behind me as I pulled out onto the highway, but that didn’t mean someone was following me. It was Saturday evening. Everyone was going out. If it hadn’t been for last night, I’d be with them: Mindy and Hoop, Eli and Nat, Bay and I, would be headed downtown to Johnny’s or to a movie at the mall, or maybe to a party at Nightmare Hall. The place was creepy, but they threw great parties there.

  Even on the open highway, the feeling of being watched didn’t fade. I kept glancing into my rearview mirror, but all I could see were headlights.

  Quit being paranoid, I told myself, and concentrated on driving. In spite of the salve, my burned skin still felt parchment-dry, and I ached every time I turned the wheel.

  When I reached the Medical Center, I went directly to ICU. Stepping out of the elevator, I found two people sitting in the tiny waiting area. A large, balding man was asleep in a chair, an open magazine in his lap. A small, gray-haired woman sipping coffee sat opposite him, her eyes staring at the white tiled floor. She’d been crying.

  I knew who they were from Parents’ Day. Hoop’s folks. I clenched my teeth. I did not want to talk to them. Was I going to be able to slip by unseen? Mr. Sinclair was no problem, sitting there with his eyes closed, but what if Hoop’s mother looked up? She might remember me, and want to talk. I knew I wasn’t up to that.

  I stepped back into the elevator, returned to the lobby, and took the fire stairs back up to ICU.

  Halfway there, I thought I heard footsteps below me, but decided it was my imagination. And even if it wasn’t, why shouldn’t other people be using the stairs? I kept going.

  I came out of the stairs at a safe distance from the waiting area and waited behind a tall, potted plant until Nurse Lovett left her post. Then I scurried into the ICU unit and went straight to Hoop’s window.

  He wasn’t there.

  The bed was empty.

  They had said he might not make it through the first seventy-two hours. And his mother had been crying …

  I almost lost it right then and there; until my brain said, Get a grip, Tory. Would Hoop’s father be taking a nice, restful snooze if his son had just died?

  Of course not. What was wrong with me?

  I went back out to the desk and waited for Nurse Lovett.

  “You’re not supposed to be here,” she said sharply when she returned and saw me standing there. “Only immediate family. What happened to your face?”

  “Where’s Hoop?” I demanded, ignoring her question about my face. None of her business. And I made no apology for the fact that I wasn’t related to Hoop. I still had a right to be there, whether she thought so or not.

  She must have remembered me from the night before because she didn’t say, “Who? Oh, you mean the Sinclair boy, Michael.” Sitting down at her desk, she said instead, “He’s back now. He was down on the second floor. Consultation about his course of treatment.” She looked up at me. “It’s going to be very rough, you know. If he makes it at all, there will be times during his recovery when he’ll wish he hadn’t. Treatment for burns as serious as his is horribly painful. He’s going to need a lot of support. I hope you’ll continue to come and see him through the long haul. Most people can’t take it and give up after a while.”

  Well, I thought but didn’t say, I’d like to be here for Hoop, but he may have something to say about that. Because when he is alert and recovering, he’s going to remember exactly what happened. And maybe he’ll hate the five people who were once his very best friends, because they didn’t come back and save him from that fire. So he probably won’t want to see our faces.

  “Has he said anything yet?” I asked.

  Nurse Lovett shook her head. “Oh, heavens no. He couldn’t possibly talk. His face … well, he hasn’t even been conscious yet. Be grateful for small favors. In fact, it’s really senseless for you to keep making these trips down here. It’s going to be a while before he’s physically able to talk, and even longer before he’ll feel like making the attempt. Just call. We’ll keep you updated on his condition.”

  I knew she was right. It really didn’t make much sense to keep going to the medical center when Hoop was still in such bad shape.

  But I wanted, needed, to see him one more time before I left. I waited until Nurse Lovett’s back was turned, and then did an end run around her. In the ICU unit, I went to Hoop’s window and stood looking in at him.

  I don’t know what I’d been hoping for. A miracle, maybe. To see Hoop, unbandaged, sitting up in bed, watching a basketball game on television and scarfing down hospital food.

  No such luck. There was no sign of life at all in the white-wrapped figure lying motionless in the white hospital bed with tubes running in and out of his body. That’s all it seemed to be from where I stood, a body. It could as easily have been a mannequin from one of the department stores in Twin Falls.

  The sight sickened me. The Hoop I’d known and liked, even loved as a friend, had been replaced by this mannequinlike, lifeless figure.

  At least, I tried to tell myself, he wasn’t screaming in agony.

  “Excuse me,” a soft voice said from behind me, “but aren’t you Tory Alexander? One of Michael’s friends?”

  I groaned silently. Hoop’s mother. I should have beat it out of there the minute I’d seen the empty bed.

  I turned around. What else could I do?

  “Hi, Mrs. Sinclair.” She looked terrible. Her blouse and skirt were wrinkled, there was a small coffee stain on one blouse pocket, and her gray hair needed combing. And I had never seen such sad eyes. “You really should be sleeping, like your husband.”

  “Oh, I can’t sleep,” she said, taking my hand to lead me into the waiting room. The lights were brighter in there and when she turned to look at me, she looked confused. “Tory? Were you … you weren’t with Michael in that terrible fire, were you? I thought the rangers told us he was alone in the park. But your face …”

  “Oh, this,” I said, waving a hand. “No, I
screwed up at the tanning salon today.”

  She looked even more confused. I knew what she was thinking. She was thinking, My Michael is lying in a hospital bed in agony, teetering on the edge of death, and one of his best friends went to a tanning salon? I will never understand young people if I live to be a thousand.

  I didn’t like what she was thinking, but it would have taken too long to explain. “I’m sorry about Hoop, Mrs. Sinclair. I know how worried you must be. But he’ll be fine,” I added lamely.

  Her faded blue eyes clouded. “I keep thinking that any minute now, they’ll come out and tell us that it isn’t really Michael in there, that they’re terribly sorry, but they made a mistake. It’s some other unfortunate person lying in that bed all wrapped in bandages and hooked up to machines, and Michael is right this moment eating dinner at that lovely Chinese restaurant in town.”

  “Hunan Manor,” I murmured absentmindedly. She wasn’t letting go of my hand.

  “Yes, that’s the one. You know, it really doesn’t look like Michael in that bed, don’t you agree, Tory?”

  I wasn’t cruel enough to say that it didn’t look like anyone. “I’m sure he’s going to be okay,” I mumbled again.

  But we both knew he wasn’t. Not “okay” as in he’d be racing up and down a basketball court any day now, and not “okay” as in, he’d be dancing up a storm at Johnny’s by next Saturday night, and not “okay” as in, he would eventually be as handsome and unblemished as he once was. Michael “Hoop” Sinclair wasn’t ever going to be that kind of okay again, and his mother and I knew it.

  Before she could ask the question I’d been dreading—“How did this happen to my son, Tory?”—I said for a third time that I was sure he’d be okay, muttered something about having to study for a test (on Saturday night? Mrs. Sinclair must have been thinking), and ran for the elevator.

  And even though she was no longer looking at me when the doors closed, even though she’d returned to her husband’s side and was instead looking down at him as if she wished desperately that he’d wake up so she wouldn’t be alone, I could still feel the incredible sadness in her eyes, and knew that I would for a very long time.