Moonlight Secrets

  “You’ll pay. You’ll all pay. . . .”

  PART THREE

  9

  A week after I broke Candy’s car window, the weather changed, and the air started to feel wintry cold. The clouds hung low, gray, and gloomy.

  Shark’s mouth was still swollen. He looked like he had a duck beak or something. His lips were all black and scabby, but he said it was healing okay.

  He was still raging about Candy. “I could have her arrested,” he said as we walked to my house after school. “That was assault. A definite assault. Look at this. I had six stitches.”

  His big lips formed a lopsided grin. “Think she’d like that, Nate? Think Candy would like having a police record? That would look good on her application to NYU, wouldn’t it?”

  “But you can’t do it, man,” I said. “If you turned her in, everyone would find out when it happened. We’d be totally busted. Everyone would find out that we all sneak out at night.”

  Shark frowned. “Think I don’t know it? But, man, I’d love to get her. You believe this? Every time I pass her in the hall at school she turns away. Like she’s the hurt one.”

  He pounded his fist into a corner mailbox. “First she dumps me. Then she practically rips my mouth off. And she’s the one who’s hurt.”

  I hated when Shark went into these rages. Sometimes he’d go ballistic for hours. It was really scary.

  He was a big, strong guy, very athletic. If he wanted to, he could really hurt someone. He was my best buddy, and I knew he was a really good friend. But, whoa—I was afraid of his temper.

  Not so much for myself. I was afraid of the trouble he might get into if he ever really lost it.

  I unlocked the kitchen door, and we went into the house. No one was home.

  We grabbed Cokes and a bag of tortilla chips and went up to my room. We played Grand Theft Auto—the original game—on my PlayStation for a while.

  Shark’s cell rang. It was Nikki. He talked to her for a while. She said she might sneak out and come to Nights tonight.

  I had a chem final the next morning. I didn’t plan to go out tonight. I planned to cram for the test until I dropped. But you never know . . . sometimes I’m already in bed, and I wake up at one or two. And the urge hits me. No way I can stay in bed. I think, I’ve got to go out and see what’s up with everyone at Nights.

  We played the video game a little more, and then my cell rang. It was Mom telling me she wouldn’t be home till late. I had to get my own dinner. I asked her what she was doing, and she got kinda giggly and weird. Finally she said she was going out on a date.

  Cute, right?

  I’m sixteen and I don’t go out on dates. Nobody I know goes out on dates. We all pretty much just hang out.

  And my mom is going out on a date.

  It made me feel a little weird.

  I suddenly thought about my dad. He moved away from Shadyside after the divorce. Now he lives in an apartment on the ocean in Santa Barbara. Man, it’s beautiful there. I visited him twice, and I didn’t want to leave.

  I suddenly wondered if he was going out on dates.

  Whenever I think about Mom and Dad, and how it used to be when we all lived together, and how it is now, with them not speaking and all . . . well . . . it makes me feel kinda sick to my stomach.

  Shark and I pulled chairs over to my computer, and we went online. We like to go to this one Web site called meetup-place.com. It’s a big chat room with guys and girls meeting up and coming on to each other. And mainly telling lies.

  I got into this conversation with someone named Wildgirl345. My screen name is Straydog.

  Wildgirl345: What do U like to do, Straydog?

  Straydog: I’ll do anything once. Especially with you. lol

  Wildgirl345: U sound hot. What do you look like?

  Straydog: People say I’m like a young Brad Pitt.

  Wildgirl345: Ooh, I HATE Brad Pitt.

  Straydog: Yeah. Me too. He totally sucks. I don’t know y people say that about me. I don’t look anything like him!

  Wildgirl345: How old r u, Straydog?

  Straydog: I was 22 last week.

  Wildgirl345: Hey, that’s neat. I’m 22 too!

  See? Shark and I loved to go on this Web site and tell lies. Of course, Wildgirl345 was lying too. She was probably fourteen. She said she lived in a penthouse in New York City and she was a fashion model.

  Yeah. For sure.

  That’s when I signed off. Shark signed on. His screen name is Shark. Clever, huh? He started talking up three girls at once. It was starting to get pretty hot, when Shark was interrupted:

  Hey, Big Lips—it’s pay up time.

  The message came from Candylishus.

  Shark groaned. “It’s Candy.”

  He didn’t type anything back. Just scowled at the screen.

  But Candy had more to say:

  Pretty Mouth, I told my dad the car got busted when I went shopping at the mall. But you have to pay for the window. It cost $320.

  Shark groaned again. He turned to me. “She thinks I broke her window. Believe it?”

  “Guess she didn’t see me,” I said.

  Shark typed back to her:

  Pay for what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  A few seconds later, Candy replied:

  Read my lips, Big Mouth. You pay for the window. You bring me the $320 by Friday. Or I’ll have no choice. Ever hear the expression “The truth hurts”? I’ll tell my dad the truth. I’ll tell him about the Night People.

  Shark was sitting in my desk chair. I was leaning over his shoulder. We both stared at the screen.

  I could see Shark’s whole body tighten. His jaw clenched. He got really tense.

  I suddenly felt cold all over. Was she serious?

  No way you can do that. You’ll ruin it for everyone.

  Candy wrote back:

  Duh. That’s kinda the point, Brain. I’m totally serious here. Pay up, or you’ll ALL be busted.

  Shark slammed his hand on the desk. He typed:

  You’ll be busted too.

  Candy’s reply:

  Think my dad cares what I do? That’s a joke. He only cares about the window on the BMW.

  Shark swept his hand back over his spiky hair. His jaw was still clenched tight. He stared at the screen. “I don’t believe it,” he whispered.

  Your parents will be thrilled when they find out. And how about our good school principal? Wow. You could all be suspended. What a shame that would be, huh? All those seniors suspended.

  Shark turned to me, his face red with anger. “I’m going to kill her,” he said.

  “That’s way too good for her,” I said. I started pacing back and forth. I realized I was clenching and unclenching my fists.

  I wanted to kill Candy too. I mean, if my mom found out I’ve been sneaking out to a bar with my buddies every night at two in the morning, she . . . she . . . I don’t know what she’d do. She’d be so hurt and disappointed.

  I never thought about my mom finding out. Honest. I never thought about it till Candy’s threat.

  Shark hadn’t moved. He sat there, staring at the screen as a final message popped up from Candy:

  Bring the $$$ to school. c u then. Have a lovely day! :)

  Shark let out an angry cry. He jumped to his feet and turned to me. “What am I going to do about her, Nate? I mean, what am I going to do?”

  10

  We paid Candy. We had no choice. We couldn’t let her rat us out and ruin our lives. So Shark and I scraped up the money. We each paid half.

  Shark handed it to her in homeroom. She didn’t say a word to him. Just grinned as if she’d won some kind of big victory.

  Shark’s face turned bright red with anger when Candy grinned at him like that. I suddenly had a heavy feeling in my stomach. I knew he wasn’t finished with her.

  A few days later he came over to my house again. We went up to my room and started messing around on the computer.

  Shark do
uble-clicked the Photoshop icon and started clicking and typing furiously. The doorbell rang, and I ran downstairs to answer it.

  It was just a package for my mom from UPS. When I returned to my room, Shark was still hunched over the keyboard, working intently.

  I gazed at the monitor. “Hey, what is that?”

  A grin spread over his face. “Check this out, dude.”

  I leaned closer to the screen. It took me a few seconds to recognize it—the senior class Web site. It’s the site where they post homework assignments, news and announcements, special dates to remember—junk like that.

  “It’s the class Web site,” I said. “So?”

  Shark’s grin grew wider. “I found a way to hack into it.”

  “You mean . . . ?”

  “Watch,” he said. He typed some more, then clicked a few things with his mouse.

  A color photo appeared in the Class News Bulletin section. A photo of a humungous hog.

  “What’s up with the hog?” I asked.

  Shark had his eyes on the screen. “It won a prize at the Shadyside Fair last month.”

  “Big whoop,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I didn’t know you were into hogs, Shark.”

  “Just shut up and watch,” he said. He clicked some more, sliding the mouse rapidly, concentrating hard.

  He changed the photo. Candy’s face replaced the hog’s face. It was Candy’s yearbook photo.

  I stared at it for a few seconds. Candy’s face on the huge, gross hog. And then I burst out laughing.

  It was totally perfect. Awesome!

  “I’m not finished,” Shark said. He typed in a caption. He changed one letter in Candy’s last name. He changed her name from Shutt to Slutt.

  And then he wrote a short paragraph under the photo:

  NEWS BULLETIN

  Candy Slutt may miss second semester because she’s expecting a litter of baby hogs.

  He moved the photo and caption over to the news section of the Web site. It really looked like part of the senior news page.

  Shark and I both laughed. It was a riot.

  “You’re not going to send it, are you?” I asked. “I mean, no one else will see it?”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re kidding, right? Everyone will see it, Nate. I told you. I hacked into the Web site.”

  “But . . . you could get in major trouble,” I said. “Change it back, man. I mean, really. Change it back. If Mr. Gonzalez finds out. Or what’s-his-name, that new vice-principal—”

  “They won’t know who did it,” Shark said.

  “But Candy will know who did it,” I said. “Candy will know, and—”

  “So what?” Shark replied. He shrugged. “So what if Candy knows? What could happen?”

  11

  Shark’s little hog joke worked better than he ever imagined.

  I was at my locker on Monday morning when Candy arrived at school. I heard the kids oinking behind her back. She pretended not to hear it, but I saw her face turn bright red and her mouth tighten in a tense scowl.

  “Oink. Oink.”

  “Runnnnk runnnk.”

  Guys made hog sounds when Candy walked past. People giggled. And I heard some girls whispering about “Candy Slutt” and laughing. Of course, they stopped when Candy came close to them.

  But I knew that Candy heard them. You just had to look at Candy’s face. I mean, she was ready to explode.

  She stopped me in the hall as I was walking into homeroom. She pushed me hard by the shoulders, backing me against the tile wall.

  “Shark did it—didn’t he?” she asked through gritted teeth. Her breath smelled like bacon. No kidding. I almost burst out laughing. I guess she had bacon and eggs or something for breakfast.

  But I pictured that gross hog photo, so totally fat with Candy’s round, smiling face on it. And there she was, smelling like bacon. And I almost totally lost it.

  She shoved me against the wall again. “Tell the truth, Nate,” she growled. “It was Shark, right? He’s the computer whiz around here. I know it.”

  I shrugged and tried to keep a straight face. “I don’t know,” I said. “Really.”

  Some kid down the hall oinked. I heard some other guys laughing.

  Candy let out an angry cry. She had me backed against the wall. I couldn’t get away. “I . . . don’t get it,” she said. Her voice broke. “Why does he hate me so much? I . . . I . . .”

  “Maybe because you dumped him,” I said. I had to say something. I didn’t want her to go ballistic. I couldn’t forget the night she nearly bit Shark’s lips off!

  “Maybe you really hurt him,” I said.

  Her tiny, dark eyes narrowed to slits. “He’s just a vicious jerk,” she whispered.

  “Oink. Oinnnnk.” Someone inside the classroom.

  Candy spun away from me. I slid away from the wall. The bell rang, loud, right over our heads.

  I hurried into the room. I didn’t see where she went. She didn’t show up in homeroom.

  I guess she had a really hard time all day. I heard kids oinking and making hog sounds and calling, “Slutt Slutt Slutt!” all day.

  Shark was very pleased with himself. “Everyone saw it on the Web site,” he told me, his eyes flashing happily. “It’s, like, that’s how she’ll always be remembered. Maybe they’ll even put it in the yearbook.” He laughed and slapped me a hard high five.

  But I didn’t really feel like laughing. I mean, it was pretty funny. But was it worth it?

  As it turned out—no.

  It all boiled over the next day.

  12

  “Shut up! That’s totally mean!” Nikki declared.

  “It was a riot,” Shark insisted.

  Nikki shook her head. “But that poor girl—”

  “She deserved it,” Shark said. He took a long pull on his bottle of beer. “Hey, Nate—did she deserve it or what?”

  I shrugged.

  I kinda agreed with Nikki. I couldn’t believe it myself—but I was starting to feel a little sorry for Candy. Well . . . maybe not sorry.

  I guess I just didn’t want the whole thing to explode in our faces. I didn’t want our whole senior year wrecked because of a stupid prank.

  Shark’s hog photo had been a joke. But this morning, Candy had been humiliated in front of everyone at Shadyside High.

  And now it was late that night, about two in the morning. Shark, Nikki, and I were sitting in our back booth at Nights and talking about what had gone down in the auditorium.

  You see, there had been an assembly this morning instead of first period. Some guy from the Green Party came to speak about how he wanted to save the trees in the Fear Street Woods. The woods started at the end of Fear Street and stretched for miles.

  But a lot of trees had been torn down when they built the Fear Street Acres shopping center. And this guy wanted to make sure the rest of the woods were left alone.

  Well, wouldn’t you know it? Mr. Gonzalez chose Candy to introduce the speaker. I guess because Candy had circulated some kind of petition about saving the trees when school started in September.

  So Candy was sitting onstage with Mr. Gonzalez and the speaker, who was young and kinda cool looking. He was dressed all in black and had a shiny earring in one ear and tattoos of birds on the backs of both hands.

  Gonzalez said a few things and told us to be a good audience and to show that Shadyside High really cares. You know. He was really telling us to shut up and pretend to listen to this guy.

  Then he introduced Candy. And Candy got up from her chair. She had a speech all prepared. I saw she was holding it in one hand.

  Shark and I were sitting with our friend Galen on an aisle near the back of the auditorium. Lewis and Jamie sat in front of us. I knew that Lewis was really into saving the woods because he and his family go camping there a lot. At least they did before his accident.

  Candy stepped up to the podium and cleared her throat. And Galen started to oink really loudly.

  That got a
pretty good laugh.

  Candy looked kinda flustered. She just stood there.

  Then some other guys at the side of the auditorium oinked. And someone went “Runnk runnnk” and really sounded like a hog. And now everyone was laughing.

  Almost immediately, more guys started oinking. I mean, the hog sounds were, like, echoing off the auditorium walls.

  Shark touched knuckles with Galen and me, and he joined in, oinking at the top of his lungs.

  Mr. Gonzalez jumped to his feet. I saw the angry expression on his face. He started to the podium. But that didn’t stop the oinking and hog sounds. They got even louder.

  And then someone tossed a pink stuffed pig onto the stage. It bounced off the podium and landed at Candy’s feet. The place went wild, everyone oinking and laughing and busting a gut.

  Even from the back of the auditorium, I could see that Candy’s face was bright red. Her hands were balled into tight fists at her sides.

  She let out a furious cry that boomed through the loudspeakers. She began to sob. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She spun away from the podium and ran off the stage, howling and sobbing.

  The laughter stopped. The oinking stopped with it. A hush fell over the auditorium. Mr. Gonzalez stood at the podium facing the guest speaker. Neither one of them moved.

  I turned to Shark. “She’s going to get us,” I whispered. “It went too far. She’s going to get us.”

  13

  Oinkapalooza.

  That’s what Shark called it. I thought that was pretty funny. But I couldn’t laugh at it.

  The next day I still had a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach, a feeling that we had gone too far.

  And I was right.

  Mr. Grant, the new vice principal, was waiting for me outside the lunchroom that afternoon. He was a tiny, short man with slicked-back brown hair and square, rimless glasses. He wore the same gray suit to school every day.

  He put a hand on my shoulder to stop me. “Nate, could you come with me to Mr. Gonzalez’s office?” He had a grim expression on his face, and his tiny, gray eyes behind the square glasses stared at me intently.

  He kept his hand on my shoulder the whole way to Gonzalez’s office. Like maybe he thought I’d try to escape or something.