Slam Book

  The minister began to speak, and the mourners sat up straighter, turning their attention to him, or at least pretending to. Anna never listened to sermons or speeches, and she didn’t listen to the minister that day either. She let her mind wander and was thoroughly startled several minutes later by the sound of a sob tearing itself from someone’s throat. Who was crying? A teacher?

  Anna turned around with great curiosity. Then she drew in her breath sharply. Paige Beaulac was sitting alone at the end of a pew, hunched over, her shoulders heaving.

  Anna felt dizzy. What was Paige doing at the funeral? She’d had more contempt for Cheryl than any other student. There was no reason for her to be there … unless she felt guilty.

  Anna slumped down. She tried to concentrate on the minister’s words, but it was hopeless. Outside, the rain beat on the roof of the church. Soggy leaves slapped against the windows. In front of her, Bud put his head in his hands and wept. Anna shivered.

  Paige began to cry harder, and Anna was tempted to go to her. But she couldn’t make herself. After a while, Paige’s sobs lessened.

  For the millionth time since Anna had first heard the news about Cheryl, she wondered what had happened on Saturday night. Cheryl must have gone to the Beaulacs’. She had probably talked to Paige. How much had she said? Had she brought the note with her? What had Paige said? Anna had no answers.

  Finally the service was over. The people filed outside for the burial. Going to the burial was the very last thing Anna wanted to do, but she had no choice. The teachers were staying. It was miles from the church to school.

  Both Anna and Paige hovered at the back of the little crowd gathered under the plastic awning in the cemetery. Anna was surprised to realize that while Paige seemed grief-stricken, she herself was feeling nothing but vague fear.

  She stood still, watching as the coffin was lowered into the grave, as Bud, still weeping, limply tossed a handful of earth onto it, and as the minister said a few more words. Wasn’t there some old saying about a sinner having to be buried outside the walls of a church graveyard? And wasn’t it a sin to take your own life? Not that Anna wanted to see Cheryl given a sinner’s grave. It was just something to think about.

  At long, long last, the people turned and began to leave. The minister put his arm across Bud’s shoulders, but none of the others, not even the CHS teachers, so much as looked at each other.

  Anna found herself standing next to Mr. Roscoe and asked him for a ride back to school.

  “Was Cheryl a friend of yours?” Mr. Roscoe wanted to know as they pulled away from the church.

  “No,” replied Anna. “She didn’t have any friends.”

  “None?”

  “Not one.”

  “And you …?” Mr. Roscoe’s unasked question hung between them. What were you doing at the funeral, then? he wanted to know.

  “I—I don’t know. I just felt I should be there.”

  Mr. Roscoe nodded. “Not one friend,” he repeated to himself, as if he couldn’t believe it.

  Chapter Seventeen

  HALFWAY BACK TO SCHOOL after the funeral, Anna suddenly realized that she was going to throw up—soon. She told Mr. Roscoe she didn’t feel well and asked him if he could please drive her home instead of back to school.

  Mr. Roscoe’s parting words as Anna dashed into her house were, “Feel better, Anna. It’s hard when friends die.”

  Friends. Mr. Roscoe just couldn’t believe that Cheryl truly didn’t have any … had never had any.

  Anna ran inside and did throw up. Twice. Mrs. Wallace pronounced her a victim of the stomach flu and sent her to bed. Anna knew better but was glad for the privacy of her room.

  She crawled under the covers with the slam book in her hands.

  It was lunchtime. In the CHS cafeteria, the students would be clamoring for the slam book.

  Anna heaved a sigh and leaned back against her pillow. Was she the popular one, or was it the slam book? How popular would she be without the slam book? The book was a crutch, a prop. Without it, Anna might fall over.

  Owning the slam book was kind of like being rich or having famous parents. You never knew whether kids liked you because of your money or parents—or because you were you.

  Now was Anna’s chance to find out, and she was afraid.

  And yet … Cheryl’s body was, at that moment, being buried beneath the earth of the Church of the Covenant cemetery. The soil was clumping down and the rain was chilling it, and Cheryl’s body would be cold and unforgiving.

  Another wave of nausea swept over Anna.

  Cheryl was dead, and Paige needed a straitjacket, and Anna and Gooz weren’t speaking, and none of it would have happened if it weren’t for the slam book. Anna stared at its mottled cover. Most of the white blotches had been filled in. They were red or green or blue. The binding on the side was coming off. The edges of some of the pages were soft from being thumbed through. The book looked old and warm and friendly. It was well disguised.

  Anna threw back the covers. She carried the slam book to her closet and hid it in an empty box. She put the box under a stack of Seventeen magazines and covered the magazines with a quilt.

  It didn’t seem safe enough.

  She unburied the book and looked around her room.

  Nothing seemed safe enough. Anna wanted the book out of sight and away from any place her mother might find it, but not quite gone. She couldn’t bring herself to be completely unconnected to it. The slam book was a parasite, yet Anna felt sure she’d be dead without it.

  At last, she pulled a row of books away from their shelf, slid the slam book behind them, and shoved the books back.

  There. The slam book was gone (sort of). No one would find it. But Anna hadn’t cut herself loose from it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ANNA RETURNED TO SCHOOL the next day. For the first time since ninth grade had begun, she didn’t take the slam book with her. She checked its hiding place twice before she left the house, afraid it would be found, afraid it would disappear.

  At school, the kids easily accepted Anna’s excuse that she had forgotten the book. Most of them were busy talking about Cheryl anyway—speculating, wondering. Not a single Sutphin joke circulated.

  Anna felt numb and disassociated from her friends, although she sat at her usual table.

  Randy, uncharacteristically somber, accompanied Anna home that afternoon. They sat in Anna’s room and listened to tapes, not talking. When the phone rang, Anna reached for it as if she were in a slow-motion dream.

  “Hello?” she said. “What?” She motioned for Randy to turn off the tape deck.

  “Who is it?” Randy whispered loudly.

  “Jessie,” Anna replied quickly, holding the receiver away from her mouth. “She sounds hysterical. I can barely understand her.”

  “Do you want me to talk to her?” asked Randy.

  Anna shook her head. She listened, anguished, for several more seconds. “Jess—Jess—” she said, trying to break into her friend’s unintelligible torrent of words. At last there was a second of silence on the other end of the phone. “Jessie,” said Anna, “I can’t understand you. Talk more slowly. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing!” came the excited reply. “Mom’s back! Can you believe it?”

  “Your mother’s back?” cried Anna. “Oh, Jessie, that’s wonderful!” Anna cupped her hand over the receiver and whispered to Randy, “Her mother’s back!”

  “So I hear,” said Randy, smiling.

  “I have to go!” said Jessie. “I have to talk to her!” Jessie hung up the phone with a clunk.

  Anna hung up, too. “Wow,” she said. “I really didn’t think this was going to happen.”

  “Me neither,” said Randy. “If I were Mrs. Smith, I wouldn’t go back.”

  “I wonder what happened,” mused Anna.

  “I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.” Randy’s gaze traveled around the room and lit on Anna’s bulletin board, where a wallet-sized school photo
of Gooz was tacked up.

  “Hey, Anna?” said Randy.

  “Yeah?”

  “What’s going on with you and Gooz? Anything?”

  Anna shook her head. “We haven’t spoken since … that day. But you know how he hasn’t been sitting with us at lunch?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, it’s not like he’s really mad. I mean, he’s not going out of his way to avoid me. He and Tim sit just one table over. And he hasn’t changed any of his routes to and from classes, even though we see each other in the halls a lot. I wonder if he would talk to me if I called him now. That first night, he was definitely avoiding me, but I haven’t tried calling him since then. And we do have to finish our project.”

  “Do you want me to leave?” asked Randy.

  “Oh, no. I didn’t mean that. If I call him, I’ll do it in the evening.”

  “You know, I think Gooz is really pretty down to earth,” said Randy. “He doesn’t seem like the type who’d play games.”

  “No,” agreed Anna. “He isn’t. And he had a right to blow up on Thursday. I wasn’t being fair to anyone that day. Not even to Paige, really, although I can’t forgive her for the things she did.”

  “There’s something about the slam book,” Randy began. She paused.

  “I know,” said Anna uncomfortably. “I put it away. I never thought it could get so …” (Deadly?) “… I mean, Peggy—my cousin Peggy?—her slam book had some jibes at kids, some comments about being overweight and stuff, but ours … well, it started with Paige’s comments, and everyone went overboard.”

  “Maybe you didn’t read Peggy’s closely enough,” suggested Randy quietly. “Maybe there was more in it than you saw.”

  “Maybe,” said Anna miserably.

  “Where is the slam book, anyway?”

  “Hidden.”

  “Where?”

  “Just hidden. Don’t worry. I won’t bring it to school. If other people want to start one, let them. Let everything be on their heads instead.” Anna could feel tears starting.

  “Hey,” said Randy. “What’s wrong? And what do you mean, ‘be on their heads’?”

  Anna hesitated. It would be so easy to get the slam book and show the whole mess to Randy. At times, Anna felt she would burst if she didn’t tell.

  But she was too afraid.

  The moment passed.

  The phone rang again. Anna reached for it. “Hello?” She paused, listening. “Jess—”

  Randy frowned at her questioningly.

  “Jess—” Anna tried again. Then, after a pause: “Come over here. Are you listening? Come over here right now. Okay? … I’ll see you in a few minutes, then.” Anna hung up the phone. “Oh, God,” she said, dropping her head. “Oh, God. I don’t believe it. Jessie’s mother only came back to get the rest of her things. I didn’t understand much of what Jessie said, except that her mother has left again, and this time Jessie thinks it’s for good. She’ll probably want to stay here for a while. I better alert Mom.”

  Anna ran downstairs, followed by Randy. She found her mother in the den, paying bills.

  “Mom,” said Anna. “Jessie just called. Twice. She thought her mother had come back. I mean, she had come back, but only to leave again. Jessie’s on her way over, and she’s really upset. Can she stay with us again? If she wants to?”

  “Of course,” said Mrs. Wallace. She put the checkbook away and went into the kitchen. “Let’s be ready with some tea. We’ll try to talk calmly and find out exactly what’s going on.”

  Randy pulled Anna aside. “Do you want me to stay or to leave?” she whispered.

  “Oh, stay, stay,” replied Anna. “Jessie would want you here. You know that—don’t you?”

  “Just checking.” Randy laughed uncomfortably.

  Anna put her arm around Randy. “You and Jessie and I,” she said. “We’re the Three Musketeers. We’ve got to stick together.”

  “Right,” agreed Randy with a smile. “One for all and all for one, or however it goes.”

  The doorbell rang.

  Anna and Randy looked at each other. “Steel yourself,” said Anna.

  Mrs. Wallace followed the girls into the hall, and Anna opened the door.

  Jessie was standing on the stoop with a duffel bag full of clothes and her schoolbooks. Her hair was a mess, her clothes were rumpled, and her eyes were puffy and red.

  “Here she is,” said Anna shakily. “Miss America.”

  No one laughed.

  Jessie stepped inside, and Mrs. Wallace embraced her. “Come on in the kitchen, sweetie,” she said after a moment. “We’ve got tea ready.”

  “Tea and sympathy,” Anna added, and this time a smile played around Jessie’s lips.

  Four gloomy people sat at the Wallaces’ kitchen table for over an hour that afternoon. Jessie poured out her story. Then they talked and planned and wondered.

  “When I got home after school,” said Jessie, “Mom was sitting in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee. I was so thrilled I didn’t know what to do. I hugged her, then I called you, then Mom and I started to talk. And she said she was sorry I thought she’d come back, that she hadn’t meant to raise my hopes. She said she was just there to get the rest of her things and that she wanted to leave before my father came home.

  “She told me she got a good job in New York and she’s going to move there. She’s already found an apartment.” Jessie paused. “I don’t understand why she didn’t tell me any of this before. I mean, she could have prepared me for it.

  “The thing is,” she went on, “I don’t really feel abandoned. Mom said I can come live with her. She said she’ll let me know when she’s settled, and then I’m free to go to New York. She wants me there.”

  “That’s great!” exclaimed Randy at the same time that Anna exclaimed, “New York! But that’s so far away!”

  Mrs. Wallace looked thoughtful. “What do you want to do, honey?” she asked Jessie.

  Jessie shook her head. “I don’t want to stay here with my father and Jack, and I don’t want to move to New York. That’s for sure.”

  “Why not?” asked Randy. “We’d miss you like crazy, but wouldn’t you like to live in a big city?”

  “Not at all,” said Jessie. “Not for one second. Think of what goes on there. Crime and murder and rape and drugs.”

  “But what do you want to do?” asked Mrs. Wallace again.

  “I want Jack and my father to go to New York and Mom to come here and live with me.”

  The others laughed.

  “Realistically,” amended Anna’s mother. “What do you want realistically?”

  “Realistically, I haven’t the vaguest idea.” Jessie’s voice shook. Anna could see her eyes glistening.

  Then Jessie shoved her teacup aside, put her head in her arms, and began to sob.

  Anna and Randy looked at her helplessly.

  When at last Jessie sat up and dried her eyes, Mrs. Wallace asked, “Does your father know about this yet?”

  Jessie shook her head miserably.

  “Did your mother leave him a note or anything?”

  “A letter,” Jessie replied. “Very official. The envelope is typed, and the return address is a lawyer’s office in New York.”

  “I guess we should wait until your father sees that before we ask if you can stay with us for a while. Don’t worry, Jess. Mr. Wallace and I will talk to your father this evening. We’ll convince him that you need a little time with us.”

  “Thanks,” said Jessie, and wiped her eyes on a napkin.

  Anna looked at her friend, who’d just had the rug pulled out from under her. She thought of Cheryl and Paige.

  She felt as if her safe world were falling apart.

  Chapter Nineteen

  WHEN MR. SMITH HEARD that Jessie had escaped to the Wallaces’, he marched right over. Anna’s father had called him soon after the Wallaces were through with supper. Mr. Smith had just finished reading the letter from the lawyer. “I’ll be right the
re,” he said stiffly.

  “Anna! Jessie!” Mr. Wallace called upstairs. “Can you come down here for a moment, please?”

  The girls abandoned their homework.

  “What is it?” asked Anna as they reached the living room.

  “Jessie, your father’s on his way over.”

  “Oh, no,” groaned Jessie.

  “It’s all right,” said Mr. Wallace. “We’ll talk to him. I just wanted you to know what’s going on.”

  Mr. Smith showed up several minutes later.

  “Jessie,” he said as soon as he stepped inside, “do you know anything about this?” He waved the letter at her.

  “Well, I don’t—”

  “Excuse me,” interrupted Anna’s mother. “Why don’t we sit down? Greg, would you like a cup of coffee?” She ushered everyone into the living room.

  When the coffee had been poured, Anna and her parents and Jessie and her father sat looking uncomfortably at each other.

  Jessie was the first to speak. “I saw Mom,” she told her father. “I don’t know what the letter says, but I can guess. She’s gone for good, Dad. She’s moving to New York.”

  Mr. Smith nodded briefly.

  “Jessie’s pretty upset,” said Anna’s father. “We’d like her to stay with us for a while, if that’s all right with you.”

  “What, again?” said Mr. Smith. “What’s the matter, Jessica? Our house isn’t good enough for you?”

  “Well, you’re hardly ever home, Dad,” said Jessie. “And—and I miss Mom.”

  “I don’t see how imposing on the Wallaces is going to help anything.”

  “Oh, she’s not imposing, Greg. You know that,” said Mrs. Wallace. “We love to have her here. Anna needs a friend around, too. She’s practically an only child.”

  “All right,” said Mr. Smith wearily. “All right.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” Jessie jumped up and kissed her father on the cheek. Then she and Anna ran upstairs before he could change his mind. But they heard the sounds of the adults talking for a long time, their voices rising and falling.