And Then There Were Four

  Dr. Lee is trying to hold your gaze but you look away.

  Today you are not his only guest. Five matched chairs with the school emblem are arranged in a small arc, and in them are your—you can’t say friends. The carriage house kids, left to right: Antoine, Evangeline, empty chair, Saralinda, and Kenyon. Kenyon is standing behind her chair with her hands on it. She wears a back brace, and her crutches lean on the wall nearby.

  Evangeline directs a faintly wobbly smile your way. You have a flash of memory: her kneeling in the debris beside you, digging Kenyon out, her movements fast yet careful, with her soaked hair sticking to her cheeks and tears streaming unchecked from her eyes.

  You nod at her.

  You sit in the empty chair between Evangeline and Saralinda.

  Dr. Lee remains standing. “I have something very serious to say to all of you. I have spent the last couple of days conducting an investigation. The five of you each received a text message inviting you to the carriage house for the first meeting of Leaders Club. It turns out that Mrs. Allyson did not send you those invitations.” Dr. Lee’s voice rises, incredulous and enraged. “Someone unknown wrote and sent those messages, hacking Mrs. Allyson’s account.”

  You blink.

  You don’t know the first thing about hacking! It’s all you can do to download an app—you fat-finger everything, and half the time something freezes or sends an error message. Plus, the text messages came during the day.

  You had no blank time during that day. You were yourself.

  The relief is so strong—you really didn’t do it, this is proof—that at first you completely fail to notice the corollary.

  Somebody else did.

  You dare to look at Saralinda. She sits leaning forward, with her wizard cane held loosely in one hand and her head tilted so that her long braid hangs over her cheek.

  Her eyes are huge.

  “Something else,” Dr. Lee says heavily. “The carriage house was scheduled for demolition. We knew it was unsafe. There were large signs on it warning people to keep out, and the door was padlocked. Padlocked! But the lock was cut, and it and the signs have now been discovered in some bushes.”

  Antoine says, “They were deliberately removed?”

  “Yes. They were.” Dr. Lee looks searchingly from Antoine to Evangeline to you to Saralinda and finally to Kenyon. “You all see where I’m going? The bogus text messages that led the five of you to the carriage house in the storm . . . the unsafe carriage house. This is beginning to look like some kind of sabotage that was aimed specifically at one or more of you.”

  Saralinda makes a tiny noise of dismay.

  Antoine and Evangeline look at each other.

  Kenyon shakes her head.

  “But the roof,” says Saralinda at last. “We were only there a short time—nobody could have anticipated the roof would collapse while we were there.”

  Dr. Lee shrugs. “Probably this wasn’t originally meant to be as dangerous as it turned out to be.”

  His gaze goes to you for a second.

  Okay, in fairness, your evil self has the skills to remove a sign and even a padlock. But really, you don’t have the skills of a hacker.

  “I am postulating that this was meant as a harmless prank, which went awry because of the storm.” Dr. Lee actually says awry. “I’m considering an announcement to the school at large to see if someone will come forward.” Again his troubled gaze rests on you.

  You stiffen, because you guess what he might be thinking: that you did this to set yourself up as a hero, instead of a villain.

  Antoine leans forward. “Have you traced the hacker from the phone records?”

  Dr. Lee shakes his head. “The police could do that, but I have not yet involved them. I would prefer to describe this incident publicly as an accident and handle any disciplinary matters privately.”

  Saralinda frowns. “But what would be the point of a prank like that?” Her chin lifts. “You know what? I thought it was weird that I was invited to Leaders Club. I thought it was some sort of joke. I’m not a leader.”

  “You’re an excellent citizen of this school,” says Dr. Lee, heartily but too hastily.

  Saralinda rolls her eyes.

  You say flatly, “I’m no school leader either. I figured I was invited as a joke too.”

  There is silence.

  Dr. Lee says, “All right. At the risk of, er, melodrama, do any of you have enemies here? Classmates who dislike you?”

  More silence before Kenyon says, “Who knows if there’s somebody out there hating someone else for some reason they made up in their own head? Or no reason at all? This discussion is pointless.” Her voice is high, tense. “I have to go.” She grabs her crutches and lurches toward the door.

  Evangeline snaps, “Oh, so there goes Martha McKenyon, rushing out again. What is this feeling I have? Déjà vu?”

  Even with the crutches, Kenyon manages to slam the door behind her.

  Saralinda hoists her wizard’s cane and points it at Evangeline. “Why are you so mean to her? Don’t you know what happened to her?”

  “What, the thing with those kids at her school? Of course I know!”

  “No, I mean with her mother!”

  “What about her mother?”

  Saralinda’s eyes widen. “Okay. Listen to me. Before you say another word to her ever, go google what happened to her mother. I’m saying this for your sake.”

  “Wait,” says Evangeline. “What?”

  The bell rings for lunch.

  Antoine puts his hand on Evangeline’s arm. “Later, Evan.” He turns to Dr. Lee. “Can we go now?”

  “I guess so,” Dr. Lee says unhappily. “But if any of you think of something . . .”

  You catch yourself feeling sorry for Dr. Lee, who has a few hundred kids to look after. This is a new thought, and a surprising one, but then, it’s been a surprising few days. Also sometimes thoughts take shape deep inside and emerge only when fully grown.

  “You can go,” says Dr. Lee resignedly. “All of you.”

  Chapter 10. Saralinda

  It’s lunchtime, so after the meeting with Dr. Lee, we head to the cafeteria. I say we because we go as a group which feels weirdly natural. Caleb lopes along behind me and Antoine and Evangeline, I am super-aware of him maybe because he saved Georgia. I have to thank him by the way which I have not done yet. Anyway, as we walk we overtake Kenyon who is moving slowly on her crutches, and we absorb her. Even Evangeline slows her pace. I give Kenyon a smile but she is busy narrowing her eyes at Evangeline.

  I sneak a quick look at Evangeline, whose face is subdued. I see her look at Kenyon and bite her lip and then Evangeline takes a deep breath.

  Go on, I think at her. Apologize. Do it do it do it.

  She says nothing.

  At least I said something to Evangeline, I was not silent. Kenyon is my friend and nobody messes with the friends of Saralinda (okay, friend, singular), especially when they are being rude and unfair.

  How could Evangeline not know? Then I feel a stab of pity for her because when she finds out what happened she will feel terrible, who wouldn’t?

  Although before I get to feeling too great about myself, I must note that I am walking next to Antoine, and I cannot think of the right thing to say to him, or indeed any thing.

  He is frowning. He looks anxious.

  So I blurt the wrong thing which is: “Antoine? Are you okay?”

  He doesn’t hear me because he has taken his phone out, providing direct evidence that my mother is right about humanity voluntarily embracing the zombie apocalypse in the form of our phones, hello, when life is all around you. Then Antoine shakes his head and puts his phone away, still apparently unaware that I spoke, and he reaches out and puts a hand on the cafeteria door, holding it shut so that instead of going in we all have to stop there i
n a clump.

  He says, “Evan.” He has to repeat it because she is looking down at her phone. “Evan.”

  Evangeline looks up which is when I see that her phone’s face is blank which means she was staring at nothing. Also there is a deep furrow in her brow. “What?”

  “Nobody could have expected the roof to collapse.”

  “Right,” she says. “Although the storm made it more likely.”

  “But my mother,” Antoine says, and then he shakes his head and makes a motion with his hands as if he’s pushing something away. “Let’s get lunch.”

  He holds the door open.

  I wonder what he was about to say about his mother, and about the fact that the two of them were continuing an earlier conversation about the roof that did not include the rest of us, but then I am distracted because Evangeline slips ahead of Kenyon and takes two trays. Without looking at Kenyon, she says, “Tell me what you want.”

  Kenyon gives her a wary look. “Are you buying me lunch?”

  “Don’t push me,” Evangeline snaps. “I’m just helping you get your food.” There is a pause and then she adds, with her gaze on the hot entrees: “All right. I owe you an apology, Martha. I was mean.” She flicks her eyes briefly at me, and then back to the entrees.

  Kenyon says, “If you want me to think you’re sorry, then don’t call me Martha.”

  Evangeline nods. “Kenyon. Sorry. Do you want this soup? It’s vegetable noodle. Or there’s chili.”

  I don’t hear how Kenyon responds because Antoine is next to me, and he says, “You told Evan off. Good for you. I’m impressed.”

  Now is the right moment to say something witty and improve the good impression I have already made on Antoine.

  I say, “Where are the trays?”

  I picked something up not from first-year French but from my reading, it is a phrase called esprit d’escalier, spirit of the staircase, which refers to the moment (le moment) when you think of the just-right thing to say (le mot juste), only it is too late to say it because you are already on the staircase leaving the party. (There must be lots of upstairs parties in France. If we were invited, Georgia and I would have to go slowly on the stairs which would give me ample time to regret the witticisms I did not think of before.)

  The trays by the way are located directly in front of me, which I knew, because (1) I can see them and (2) it’s the same place they have been since I started at Rockland. There is misery ahead for me on the staircase (metaphorical, but I may seek out a staircase after school and make it literal) figuring out what I ought to have said. I hate French, what was I thinking by taking it? I don’t need a romance language. What I need is woodshop so I can make more friends like Georgia since I can’t make them the ordinary way through interpersonal communication.

  “You can share my tray,” Antoine says. “So you don’t have to carry one.”

  And he smiles at me.

  A heavenly choir begins singing in my head and I discard the idea of woodshop: so dangerous anyway, power tools.

  Then Caleb, about whom I had entirely and completely forgotten, says, “She’s not helpless. In case you haven’t noticed, she hardly uses that cane.”

  I would hit him with Georgia except I fear it would injure her.

  But then what he said penetrates and I wonder if Antoine offered because he thinks of me as disabled, and then I wonder if Caleb thinks I’m faking it, and I have to bite my tongue not to burst into an explanation about my foot and about Georgia, who I need to lean on sometimes, I need her, and if he doesn’t understand that (although why should he) then why did he rescue her for me?

  I grab my own tray and catch up with Kenyon and Evangeline.

  Evangeline’s tray has a green smoothie on it and a veggie burger with salad.

  Kenyon’s tray has lasagna and a Honeycrisp apple. She is now eyeing a giant salted chocolate-almond bar, which is crafted by Vermont artisans and packaged with recycled brown paper and twine, I have noticed these myself in the past, although in favor of drug store chocolate brands such as York Peppermint Patties it must be said that they do not intimidate you into not eating them.

  Then to my surprise Kenyon looks away and points instead at Evangeline’s green smoothie. “What’s in that?”

  Evangeline’s face lights up. “Kale, spinach, half a cucumber, half an avocado, green apple, and peach. Iced. It’s my own recipe—they make it for me here every day.”

  Antoine snorts. “Even my mother makes it for her.”

  Evangeline holds up her glass for Kenyon. “Do you want some? It’s delicious!”

  Kenyon mock shudders. She points at the Vermont chocolate bar. “I want that.”

  Evangeline picks it up with thumb and forefinger and deposits it on Kenyon’s tray as if the chocolate were poison. Then she moves to the register.

  Kenyon looks at me and at my tray, which I suddenly realize is empty.

  “Aren’t you going to eat anything?”

  I have already passed through the entire food line. Caleb is behind me, and Antoine. If I go back I will look even more like an idiot. If you care, the French word for idiot is the same: idiot or idiote. I myself do not care. I feel finished with French even if I do not take up woodshop.

  I grab one of the Vermont chocolate bars.

  Kenyon lowers her voice. “Are you supposed to eat that? As a diabetic?”

  “I can eat whatever I want,” I say airily. This is sort of true although my mother says it is a terrible way to be a diabetic and like playing Russian roulette with your blood sugar. I hand my student ID to the cashier while adding, “I just shoot up insulin to compensate.”

  At this point, though I have not had the benefit of an actual staircase for purposes of reconsideration, I understand that it was nice of Antoine to want to help me even if it was because he thinks I’m disabled. What happened was that Caleb ruined the moment. My moment. My chance. It is his fault that Antoine is not carrying my tray and that I am going to eat chocolate and call it lunch and then later play Russian roulette with a syringe.

  I say grimly to Kenyon, “Where should we sit? With her?” I nod toward Evangeline, who is walking around the perimeter of the cafeteria. “Is that okay with you? She did apologize.”

  “Also she has my lunch.”

  “Please sit with us,” says Antoine, who is behind us again.

  At this the heavenly choir restarts in my head and this time Caleb does not interrupt it. I walk beside Kenyon to the large table where Evangeline has set down the trays. It is located at one end of the cafeteria, in a nearly private nook. I hold out a chair for Kenyon and slip into mine.

  Antoine does not sit immediately however. He shouts, “Hey, Caleb!”

  The name reverberates through the cafeteria.

  Caleb did not follow us. He is seated at another table by himself. His back is toward us and his head is bent down and he is acting as if he can’t hear Antoine, because he doesn’t look up.

  It reminds me of the turret.

  I remember what he said in Dr. Lee’s office about also thinking his invitation was a joke. Something inside me twists.

  “Caleb!” Antoine bellows again, and now the entire cafeteria full of people is quiet, with everyone watching.

  Caleb turns around and scowls at Antoine.

  Antoine points at the empty chair beside him.

  Evangeline stands up, next to Antoine.

  Then without making any decision I scramble to my feet too, clumsily because it is one of those times I need support.

  Quicker than thought, Caleb’s eyes meet mine. Again it seems to me that there is nobody inside him, his eyes are so very blank, but now this makes me want to cry which has something to do with whatever it is inside me that is twisting. I do not cry of course. If I have to cry, I will do it privately on the staircase later (metaphorical—the staircase
I mean, not the crying, I will cry if I need to, sniff, just not now please).

  I am still looking at Caleb.

  He gets up. He gets up and walks over to us and plunks his tray down next to Evangeline without looking at me anymore, and normal sound resumes in the cafeteria like nothing happened although of course something did. What it was I am not sure. I sit myself down very carefully. I unwrap my Vermont chocolate bar so I will have something to concentrate on and not cry for no reason because I am absolutely okay and not sad at all and certainly not scared what is wrong with me I am shaking like my blood sugar is low but it feels different and I stuff my face with chocolate and taste nothing.

  All I want is to look at him, no not Antoine, him. I am hormonally addled or insane or my fairy godmother hates me, whatever whichever, please let it be temporary, a crush on Antoine felt warm and good but this does not does not does not does not.

  Chapter 11. Caleb

  You’re confused by Antoine. He has with deliberation gathered all five of you together, but all he does is hold his burger like it’s a foreign object.

  “Antoine?” prompts Evangeline.

  He looks at her, and then, one by one, at the rest of you.

  “I have a theory,” he finally says.

  With the part of your mind that keeps track of Saralinda no matter what else is going on, you note that she has not looked at you since you sat down at this table.

  The other part of you is focused on Antoine, who is trying to smile.

  He is a guy who smiles often. It is one of the reasons he is so well-liked. Nobody can resist his friendly, engaged smile. But now you see that it is a mask, one that is cracking.

  “What’s your theory?” you say.

  Antoine puts his burger down. He speaks in a rush, his voice low so that it does not carry beyond the table. “My mother is a structural engineer. She knows how to explode a building. And it’s easy to pick out a few random student phone numbers. They’re all listed on the school website in the parents’ section.”