The Secret of Grim Hill

by Linda DeMeulemeester

  “Is there a school choir or band?” I asked.

  “Not enough students signed up, so those activities were canceled.” She smiled apologetically. “We’re looking for lunch monitors and library helpers.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said unconvincingly. Okay, so I couldn’t meet other students by joining any activities. Maybe if I acted super friendly, people would talk to me.

  When I walked down the hall, I smiled at everyone. Perhaps I was overdoing it a bit, because I got some strange looks.

  In science, I tried hard to have a positive attitude, but things were only getting worse. Still no one volunteered to be my lab partner, so once again I was stuck on the stool at the back of the class. And then Ms. Dreeble announced, “Sorry class, but the photocopier and projector are broken. You’ll have to copy all the notes off the board.” She began to scribble, and chalk dust filled the air. She covered blackboard after blackboard with tiny notes. I had to keep getting up from my seat to read the board.

  “For goodness’ sakes, Cat,” said Ms. Dreeble. “Stop hopping up and down. You’re disrupting the class. Find a seat closer to the board if you need to see better.”

  There weren’t any seats closer to the board, so I had no choice but to stay on the same stool and finish copying all the notes until my eyes ached from the strain and my hand cramped from all the writing. “Positive attitude,” I kept chanting to myself right up until the class was over.

  During history, Mr. Morrows announced, “Our field trips have been canceled, and there’s no money to upgrade our video machine to a DVD player. That’s what I’d planned for all the movies, so we’ll have to stick to extra readings.”

  Everyone sighed and opened their workbooks.

  “Where’s your workbook, Cat?” He came up beside me and checked over my shoulder.

  No one had said anything about a workbook. Shuffling through my pile of books, I discovered a sheet of paper that listed all the extra materials I was supposed to have bought for this term.

  “You’re going to lose even more marks today,” Mr. Morrows said as he walked away.

  It was getting more difficult to stay positive, but I didn’t crack. This time, I didn’t mutter or sigh, and at lunch I kept my cheerful smile. But I made sure I didn’t smile at every single person, only every other person.

  It worked! At one table, maybe the cutest guy at Darkmont – I think his name was Zach – waved for me to join his group. My heart beat in relief. This was more like my old life.

  Saying hi to everyone, I walked toward the table. But the second I started to slide into the empty seat, a girl came out of nowhere and sat down. She’d been right behind me. Zach had been waving at her – not me.

  Everyone at the table giggled as I crouched beside her with my tray in my hand. I turned quickly to leave, lost my footing, and watched in horror as my tray tipped and a plate and glass smashed to the floor, shattering. Of course, ketchup and grape juice spattered all down my white pants. Everyone in the lunchroom began pounding the tables and laughing while I backed away. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted my neighbor, Jasper, who wasn’t laughing. Instead, he winced in sympathy, but his pity didn’t help.

  When I ran outside into the courtyard, a wind was blowing drifts of crunchy dry leaves into little tornadoes. A half-torn poster fluttered by and stuck to the ketchup on my capris. Just great. I pulled the flyer off and turned it over. The witch’s face now dripped with ketchup blood. Her wicked smile stared up at me – it seemed as if she had joined the cackles that rattled around the room behind me. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that underneath her creepy face was the notice for Grimoire School soccer tryouts.

  Nothing was going to stop me from making the team, winning the scholarship to Grimoire, and getting out of this stupid school! Nothing.

  ***

  That night at dinner, after I’d replayed my day in gruesome detail, my little sister asked, “You mean, the teachers here think you’re a troublemaker?”

  “I think so,” I said feeling miserable.

  “Every kid laughed at you when you slipped?” asked Sookie.

  I nodded. “And I had to go home and change yet again. And even though I ran both ways to make it back in time, I got one more demerit for wearing jeans.” My voice broke.

  Sookie brushed a blond strand of hair from her face and slammed her fork onto her plate. “That’s despicable!”

  Sookie had an interesting vocabulary for an eight-year-old.

  Mom said, “Cat, I’m sorry you had another rough day. I can see you’re even more determined to try out for the soccer match now, but remember, it’s more than that. You would also have to win the game to get the scholarship.” Then Mom got an odd look on her face. “Grimoire has unbelievable facilities and amazing resources. I can’t begin to list them, but …” She hesitated and didn’t finish what she was going to say. Instead she said, “You know what I always tell you two.”

  “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” Sookie chimed.

  “Cat?” Mom waited.

  I nodded, but I didn’t mean it. I’d given Darkmont a chance. Grimoire had to be a hundred times better. The soccer match was the only thing that mattered. I was going to put all of my eggs in the Grimoire basket.

  Later that night, Mom helped me bleach my white pants and promised she’d buy me a few more pairs soon. My alarm was set extra early to give me plenty of time to get to school, and my binder was stuffed with every possible worksheet. In order to make it to the tryouts on Monday, I had to stay detention free for the rest of the week.

  ***

  All went well until Friday morning when Mom was called into work early.

  “You’ll have to take Sookie to school,” Mom said. She grabbed her purse, kissed us goodbye, and hurried out the door before I could say a word.

  My little sister crunched her frosty oats, one oat at a time.

  “Gulp that down,” I told her. “My school begins fifteen minutes earlier than yours.”

  She didn’t eat any faster.

  “C’mon Sookie, we have to go!” I checked the clock.

  “I have to find my hamster ball. I need it for show-and-tell.” Sookie left the table and spent ten minutes rummaging in her room.

  “Hurry!” I shouted.

  “I can’t find it!” she called down.

  I leaped up the stairs – two at a time – to help her. We found the hamster ball under her bed. She grabbed it, and we hurried out of the house and down the street.

  After I dropped Sookie off at school, I raced all the way to Darkmont. If I cut through the custodian’s door at the back, I’d make it to my locker before the second bell. We weren’t supposed to go in that way, but I checked to make sure no one was watching.

  When I came up out of the basement, I bumped straight into Ms. Sevren.

  “That door’s an out-of-bounds area, Caitlin. That means you get two demerits instead of one. That’s five demerit points now.”

  My heart banged against my chest.

  “You’ve got a week’s detention, beginning today,” said Ms. Sevren.

  Detention? How was I going to make it to the Grimoire soccer tryouts now?

  CHAPTER 3 Dying to Make the Team

  THAT WEEKEND WHEN I slept, I dreamed of glory. I’d kick, and soccer balls would fly off my feet and go straight into the goals. Crowds would cheer. Girls on my team would pound me on the back and high-five me. Then I’d wake up and the cold, cruel reality – that I had detention on Monday, the day of the Grimoire soccer tryouts – would settle in.

  When Monday morning came, I squirmed in my desk seat. I couldn’t concentrate as I thought of a million excuses to skip detention – that I had a sore throat, or I had to pick up my sister from school, or I had a dentist’s appointment. The problem was that there was no guarantee anyone would believe me.

  Then it occurred to me. Maybe it was easier to beg for forgiveness after skipping detention than to ask for permission to back out.
/>
  At the end of last period, before the principal announced my name for detention over the loudspeaker, I asked the teacher if I could get a drink of water. When I left the classroom, I kept walking down the long hall and out onto the street without looking back. In all my school years, I’d never disobeyed a teacher, let alone a vice principal. But I was happy to pay the price, which of course was going to be high because there was also the small matter of skipping the last fifteen minutes of school as well as a detention. Now I understood what people meant by a “slippery slope.”

  “Is school already over?” asked Mr. Keating, the grocer, who was standing outside his store.

  I started running.

  “Hey!” he said gruffly. “What are you up to?”

  Blood was still rushing through my ears after I’d arrived home. I went to Sookie’s room and started tossing boxes out of her closet, looking for my soccer cleats. It took awhile, but I finally found them.

  When I heard Mom and Sookie come in downstairs, I looked up at the clock. I had to rush if I wanted to be on time for the tryouts.

  “What’cha doing?” asked Sookie as she ran up the stairs. She didn’t even mention the horrible mess I’d made on her bedroom floor.

  “I’m heading to soccer tryouts.” I had to hurry.

  “Mom’s going for groceries. She wants you to watch me.” Sookie’s dimpled face turned into a worried frown.

  “How about you watch me at the tryouts?” I managed a half-smile, worrying that Mr. Keating would tell my mother I’d run off early from school.

  Sookie nodded excitedly and tucked her short hair behind her ears. “How old do you have to be to play?”

  “More than eight,” I said.

  Sookie frowned again. “I’m never old enough for anything fun.”

  Sookie and I left the house and hiked up Grim Hill to the soccer field. A pale mist flowed through the tree leaves, which were turning into a kaleidoscope of rusts, reds, oranges, and yellows. Like cotton candy, the wisps of gray mist floated down the hill and collected in patches.

  Once we got to the top of the hill, the air was perfectly clear. Red-berried bushes poked through patches of dark fir trees. Golden sunlit paths circled around the school.

  “Wouldn’t you love to go to this school?” I asked as I tugged Sookie along. Sookie slowed down.

  “I don’t think so,” said Sookie. “No, not one bit.” Sookie had stopped in front of a little shelter between the school and the soccer field. It looked as if it had been a picnic area once. But now the table and benches were covered with thorns and weeds.

  “I’d especially stay away from this spot. It feels all wrong,” Sookie whispered. Her blue eyes widened. She turned and looked into the tall stained-glass windows of the school. It was as if she could almost see something there, something she didn’t like very much.

  “Hurry up!” I pulled her away, not thinking about her strange comment. The tryouts had already begun and the field below swarmed with about fifty girls chasing after soccer balls.

  “C’mon, Sookie!” I collapsed on a bench and started to lace up my soccer boots. “Ouch!”

  “What’s wrong?” asked Sookie. She walked over and sat down on the bench beside me.

  “My boots,” I said as I bent over to loosen the laces. “My feet must have grown a couple of sizes since last season. These things are squeezing my toes.”

  “Just wear your shoes,” suggested Sookie.

  “They’re too smooth on the bottom. I’ll slip without cleats.” I said this kind of sharply out of frustration, but it wasn’t Sookie’s fault; she was just trying to help. I felt a pinch of guilt, but not as big a pinch as when I walked in my dumb cleats. I loosened the laces some more, then left Sookie behind on the bench. I raced out onto the field where I was just one more girl chasing after the ball.

  I had made it onto the best soccer team at my old school last year, but I was starting to realize that whatever I’d accomplished in my last town didn’t count for much now. As if to prove this, my foot cramped, my legs tangled under me, and I went flying. I sat up and brushed the moist grass from my shirt, wanting to explain to anyone who would listen that this wasn’t really me, that I was a good soccer player. They’d want me on the team if they only knew!

  The coach, a thin woman with long, black hair and chalk-white skin came up to me. “Do you think sitting on the field is the way to play the game?” She checked off something on her chart.

  I got a sinking feeling.

  The coach then raised a whistle from around her neck and blew a shrill blast. “Girls, form a line. I want to see your kick shots.”

  I hesitated, and she looked down at me.

  “You do know how to kick the ball, don’t you?” The coach shook her head and went over to stand with the rest of the girls who were quickly lining up.

  I stood, shook my arms and legs, and imagined getting rid of the bad energy. I’d heard that somewhere: Think happy thoughts. Well, no happy thoughts rushed into my brain, but I was moving again, and I joined the lineup of other hopeful players. I noticed the two girls I’d seen in the lunchroom studying the witch-face flyers. Guess I wasn’t the only one who wanted out of Darkmont.

  Every girl began to take shots on the goal, but when they kicked, no one got any balls into the net. When it was my turn, I squared off in front of the Grimoire goalie. She wore shorts and a jersey that had the school colors of black with orange and purple pinstripes, and although she wasn’t that big, she leaped so high and fast, she almost flew.

  I swallowed the butterflies that tried to jump out of my stomach, and I gave one of my old soccer tricks a shot. I stared at the girl guarding the goal. First I imagined she was one of those kids who’d laughed at me in the lunchroom. But that just got me mad so I saw her for what she was, the person trying to keep me out of the school of my dreams. Then the strangest feeling came over me.

  Time felt frozen, as if the world had stopped spinning, and excitement bubbled up inside me. I just knew something good was going to happen. All my senses felt as if they were hooked up to an amplifier, and I was blasted by the autumn day. Colored leaves blazed from the branches. Woodsmoke and the damp smell of wet leaves tickled my nose. A winged rush from a murder of crows flew over my head, and when I licked my lips, I tasted pumpkin pie. The sensations were so overpowering, they blocked out my throbbing toes.

  The goalie could instantly dodge high and wide, so instead, I picked an area closer to the ground and hoped it was a weak spot. My foot launched the ball. Okay, on T.V. the kicks are perfect and the soccer ball drops behind the goalie every time. This was real life. But it didn’t matter. My goal was perfect. A bunch of girls even clapped!

  The two coaches walked toward me, scribbling furiously on their clipboards. They looked like identical twins, except one had straight white hair instead of black. They introduced themselves as Ms. Maliss and Ms. Sinster, and then they both shook my hand. Even though they had an icy grip, I felt warm all over.

  For the rest of the practice, I ran fast, kicked hard, and scored goals. Before the practice finished, the two coaches posted a list on the fence by the dugout and blew their whistles.

  “Here are the two teams for the big soccer game,” announced Ms. Sinster, the one with the long black hair. “The Witches and the Ghosts,” she said as she pointed to the rosters. “The names circled in red have made the teams.”

  We swarmed up to the lists, pushing and shoving – I guess many of us wanted to win the scholarship to Grimoire School. Eventually I made my way to the front and skimmed the list until I spotted “Cat Peters!” My name was circled in bloodred ink and “Witches” had been written beside it. Hope thrilled up from my aching feet and looped through each strand of my brown hair. I’d made it. I couldn’t wait to go home and tell … oops. I remembered what I was supposed to be doing instead of playing soccer. Sookie!

  In the last hour, I hadn’t checked on my sister once, even though I was responsible for her. When I went over to
the bench where I’d left her, she wasn’t there. My heart beat wildly as I raced around, scanning the field – no Sookie!

  I ran to the other end of the field where I spotted her sitting in the bleachers. Relief poured through me. How could I have been so stupid to forget about my little sister?

  Sookie was sitting beside a girl who was about my age. She looked like a goth girl with her jet-black bangs and straight hair, pale blue eyes, and odd, old-fashioned black clothes – really odd clothes: a skirt down past her knees, long stockings pulled up high, pointy ankle boots, and a long striped sweater that was belted low on her hips. The girl stared at me. Not just at me, but right through me. It was as if I would have felt her watching me even if I had my back turned to her. It was nerve-racking.

  “I made the team, short stuff! I played great after all.” I hugged Sookie partly in excitement, but mostly in relief that she hadn’t wandered off.

  “Cindy says she knew the school would pick you,” Sookie said almost in a whisper. “She says that’s why you’d better be careful.”

  “What?” I turned to the weird girl, who hadn’t said a word but kept right on watching me with those freaky eyes. When she finally turned her head, I noticed she had a strange silver hair clip that was like a spider web, and it had a tiny little ruby spider in the middle. Suddenly, the coaches blew their whistles again. They hauled two huge boxes out onto the field and started handing out the most dazzling uniforms I had ever seen. I grabbed Sookie’s hand and we ran up to get a closer look.

  The Ghosts’ uniforms shimmered silvery white – they were wicked! The Witches’ uniforms were even better. The shorts had a front flap over them. Mom called this type of thing a skort. The skirt part had a ragged hem and was a black, silky material. The long, black, witch-fire green striped socks would come up just past my knees. The jersey matched the socks, black with green stripes.

  I bundled my uniform under my arm. The mist started rolling faster down the hill, which meant we had to go before it became too foggy.

  “Sookie, I am about to become a ‘Witch!’”

  “This isn’t such a good idea,” said Sookie. “Cindy says you’d better watch out – that the school has secrets.”