Firegirl

  So, okay, I thought. Okay. It’s cool that Jeff doesn’t care that I skipped going to his house and went to see her instead. So maybe we will drive by Courtney’s house. She’ll think I’m cool. Maybe she’ll even go for a ride with us. It’s possible. There are only two seats, but we can squeeze. That would be cool. And when I nominate her for the election next Monday she’ll thank me. We’re back to that, now. The Courtney thing.

  It was me and Courtney, after all. How long had it been since I even thought of that? With all the craziness going on, I’d almost forgotten to think about it. All the adventures. The earthquakes. Volcanoes. Marauders. Our pockets full of money and stuff. Tearing off in the car. That’s what everything was about. That was the main thing. Tom and Courtney.

  Not Tom and Jessica. What was that?

  A warm feeling came over me, like something familiar was happening. I thought of roaring away in the Cobra, from Courtney’s house. Of rolling uphill to a lost temple of terror. Of leaping from a crashing plane, holding hands.

  No Jessica. Courtney.

  When I slammed my locker door, the sound echoed down the hall, and I thought about all of it. I crossed the hall to the water fountain and took a long drink, letting my mouth fill with cold water. I closed my eyes.

  Yes. The car and Courtney and me. Saturday bright and early. No. Noon. Noon was Cobra time, right? I smiled. I breathed in slowly, swallowing the water in small gulps. Things were simpler already.

  “Thank you, Tom.”

  I almost spit the water out on my shoes.

  Thank you?

  I lifted my head from the fountain and turned to face the light shining in the hall from the doors at the end.

  Only, it wasn’t Courtney. It was Jessica’s bulky shape silhouetted against the light coming from behind her. Suddenly, I don’t know, my heart sank. It was her again. Farther back beyond the doors stood her father, looking so tiny as he leaned in to watch her go.

  “Thank you,” she said again.

  I stood all the way up. “Okay. But for what?”

  “For the homework. I never thanked you for bringing it over. I ended up taking the math quiz today because I’ve been out all week.”

  I wiped my lips on my shirt cuff. She seemed tired. “Oh. Sure. No problem.”

  “I’ve had stuff to do every day at the hospital. I’ve been pretty out of it.” She paused. “You look happy.”

  “What?”

  “You’re smiling really big.”

  “Oh, yeah, well …”

  I was happy. I felt good. I had brought her the homework. I did that. Now it was my turn. The Cobra was coming. I would take my ride in it. That was the thing I had been waiting for. Nothing could mess that up now. Jeff had promised me.

  I decided I was going to be big about it.

  “You know what?” I said, trying hard to be casual. “Are you going to be around tomorrow at about noon?”

  “I think I’ll be in French class. Where will you be?”

  I thought for a second. “Not tomorrow. Saturday. Will you be around. I mean at your house?”

  “Unless I’m at the beach,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  “It’s a joke.”

  What? What’s with all the jokes?

  “Actually,” she went on, “I was going to ask if you wanted to go to New Haven with me and my dad on Saturday. I have to see a doctor, but you could … I don’t know, hang out on the green or something with him. For a little bit. Then we can have lunch. There’s a place we go to where they know us —”

  “Saturday?” I said, confused to hear her talk about the day of the Cobra.

  “Around ten. Just for a couple of hours and then back.” She made a little shrug with her shoulders that reminded me of the girl in the photograph. Of her, the way she used to be.

  “I can’t,” I said. “I can’t. I’ll be … I’m waiting to ride in a Cobra. I was going to say that if you were around, you could check it out. It’s so cool.”

  “A Cobra?” She just stood there.

  I hadn’t planned for this. A Cobra? Who doesn’t know what a Cobra is?

  “It’s a sports car,” I said. “There aren’t a lot of them. It’s really fast. Jeff’s uncle has one, and he’s going to drive by and take me for a ride. If you’re back from your doctor you can see us cruising around. I’ll ask him to drive by your house.”

  She looked at me. What was in her eyes just then? Suddenly, I’d felt just as stupid as when I told her about the superhero thing. What was I doing? And what was she, bored? Disappointed? Never mind; I knew what it was. She didn’t like Jeff. That was it. She hated him because he wouldn’t hold her hand. And, of course, she hated cars.

  I don’t even know why, but I kept going.

  “There really aren’t a lot of Cobras around,” I said for the second time, “but it’s definitely the coolest thing on the road.”

  More looking. Those heavy eyelids. What is she waiting for? I’ve done the tough thing already. Wasn’t I even talking with her now? Do I have to go to the hospital with her? Do I have to keep doing more? Do I have to feel bad about riding in a car and thinking about Courtney?

  “Have fun, she said, turning to go into the classroom.

  Does everything have to be about being burned?

  Chapter 16

  She was wrong about being there on Friday. She was out again, as usual. So that was all we said to each other the whole week. I thought about calling her Friday night to remind her that I’d be driving by, which I was still going to try and do, but what else could I say that I hadn’t already said? Besides, she had made me feel so stupid about still hanging with Jeff and thinking that a car was really cool. And Jeff was my friend, wasn’t he? At least I had history with Jeff, all those afternoons at his house. I decided to just forget about the whole thing and not bother her.

  Saturday morning dawned bright and warm.

  I called Jeff early to nail down the exact time he’d be there, but his phone was busy and, besides, he’d told me like a thousand times that they’d drive by at noon.

  Cobra time. Yeah.

  It was actually good his phone was busy. Preparations were being made. Wheels were in motion. Cobra wheels, flashing in the sunlight. Ha. I pulled out my car magazines and looked at the pictures, reading my favorite parts again. I needed to be able to talk to his uncle when I met him.

  At 11:30 there was nothing else to do, so I camped on my bed and peered out my little window to watch cars passing the house. The air coming in was warmer than it had been the day before. Summer was hanging on for another day. It was so much warmer than it was supposed to be. Perfect weather for a convertible. I wondered if Courtney was waiting for us. Jeff had told her we were coming. Then I thought of Jessica maybe looking out her window, too. No, it was probably too soon. She was still in New Haven. She wouldn’t be home yet.

  I closed my eyes and tried to imagine gliding out over the yard the way she had talked about, but I kept peeking whenever I heard a car drive by. It wasn’t working. Flying wasn’t my thing anyway. It was too big. Never mind. It’s Cobra Day.

  Back to Courtney. What was she doing? She lived in a big green house not too far away. I smiled when I thought of flicking my indestructible finger at marauders and roaring off with her in my fast red car.

  Noon came and went. Jeff said they’d be here at noon. It was after twelve o’clock. Then 12:15 came, then 12:25, 12:40 … I called him again. There was no answer this time.

  Finally. They’re on their way.

  One o’clock. Had I gotten the time wrong? The day? I mentally checked to see if it was really Saturday, running through the last few days — doofus, of course it was Saturday! Still, I checked the other three clocks around the house. It was just after 1:10 on all of them.

  Positioning myself on my bed again, I waited some more. At twenty after, I made another call. No answer again. Something began to start inside me. Was I surprised that Jeff was so late? I wanted to be, but I wasn’t rea
lly surprised. This was Jeff, after all. It wasn’t practical to think he could do stuff by a clock or be on time for things. So, okay. Jeff was just late as usual. And uncles, of course. You can’t count on them being on time, either.

  Car after car passed by. Almost two o’clock. I called Jeff’s house again. No answer. So, okay, I could have gone with Jessica if I’d wanted to, which I didn’t.

  The something inside me was oozing into my stomach now. What was it? Not anger, not yet. Almost, but not yet. It was something else.

  Was Jeff mad at me? Was he getting me back for the whole Jessica-homework-lying thing by being late? No. That meant that he had to plot it all out. He had to promise that we’d go for a ride in my favorite car and then not do it. He had to think up a big plan about the car and his uncle and give me times and things. You had to put a lot of thought into getting back at somebody that way.

  I looked out the window. No cars passed by for a few minutes.

  Jeff didn’t care about that kind of stuff. He didn’t even think that way. It was like his shirt, how he dribbled red juice all over it and didn’t care that he did it or who saw it. Or the Batmobile he torched. Or the things he said about Jessica, or even about Rich and Eric. Or how he treated his mother. He probably said things about me, too. Jeff didn’t care when he did that stuff. He didn’t care now that he was late. He didn’t know what other people wanted, and he didn’t really care. That was it. He didn’t care.

  Three cars in a row, none of them a red Cobra.

  Jeff hated it when his parents broke up two years ago. Now, his father didn’t want him to visit so much, and his mother was always working. They didn’t care, so he didn’t care.

  He lied a lot, too, didn’t he? Was he lying about the blood on his mother’s uniform? I don’t know. I’d never seen it. I’d never really seen the Cobra either. Maybe there was no Cobra. Maybe there was no uncle!

  I lay on my bed still looking out the window but letting my gaze go unfocused. What if Jeff had lied to me about the car? Would that even surprise me? I had a sudden thick feeling in my throat. My chest felt hollow and sick at the thought, but I had to tell myself that the answer was no. I wouldn’t be surprised.

  Jeff was a liar. A liar who didn’t care.

  Two thirty came. Quarter to three.

  Now I got mad. It came boiling up inside me and I started fuming around. Shaking now, I went to the phone in the kitchen and dialed Jeff’s number again.

  “Hicks house,” Jeff chirped into the phone.

  “So you’re home? Where’s the car?” I blurted out.

  “What? Tom? Hey, what’s up?”

  “The car,” I repeated, swallowing back a catch in my throat. “Where’s the car? The Cobra. You said you’d drive by at twelve o’clock. Your uncle was coming over, remember? Are you coming over now? It’s three. Where are you?”

  There was a muffled scratching on the other end of the phone. “Obviously, I’m here. Talking to you on the phone —”

  “Did your uncle come over today?”

  “What? Yeah, he was here.”

  “Well, did he have the stupid car?”

  “Oh, it’s stupid now? What’s your problem?”

  “Did he have it with him?”

  “No. He didn’t.”

  “So you lied,” I shot into the phone. “You said he could — he’d drive by and we’d go for a ride. Well, where are you —”

  “Lied?” he snapped. “What do you mean? That I didn’t come over on purpose or something?”

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “What are you, my girlfriend?”

  There was a pause. I could hear him starting to breathe hard. “So he didn’t bring the car today,” he said. “So what. My mother needed stuff moved. He brought his other car. I told you she needed to move stuff. She says we might have to move to a different house because my dad’s not paying —”

  “So why didn’t you call? You were talking about it all week. You told me like a hundred times that you’d come by with the stupid Cobra. You didn’t say anything about moving stuff. You said we could go see Jessica and pick her up —”

  “Jessica?” snapped Jeff.

  I froze. “I mean Courtney.”

  “What does Jessica have to do with this?”

  I felt my throat closing up again. It was getting out of control now. I should just hang up.

  “You told that girl about the car, didn’t you? And you’re calling me a liar?”

  I could hear voices raised in the background.

  “So what?” I said. “Yeah, I told her. I wanted her to see the car. I love Cobras. I was going to wave or something.”

  This is pathetic. It’s stupid. Stupid. It’s so out of control. Hang up. I hate it.

  “Wave to her?” Jeff said, his voice rising. “The car isn’t here today. This is so weird. Why do you even talk to her?”

  I didn’t have an answer. I tried to swallow. The voices were yelling now and Jeff was moving with the phone.

  “I’ll tell you something,” he said. “I’m glad when she’s not in school. It’s so gross sitting behind her. My uncle wouldn’t let her anywhere near his car, even if he had brought it.” He started to laugh now.

  “Shut up,” I said.

  There was the sound of a door slamming.

  “Yeah, shut up,” he said. “I knew there was something off about you. The Human Dork meets the Human Torch. You went over to her house and now you’re all about her. Freaking firegirl! Why would I take you to her house? I just want to run away, she’s so freaking ugly! There aren’t supposed to be people like that. Why does everything have to be so ugly — ugly, ugly, ugly —”

  I cursed at Jeff and slammed down the phone.

  I ran up to my room and stayed there for the rest of the day. My mother called me down for supper, but I pretended at first to have a headache. She came in later, but I was in bed with my eyes closed and pretended to be asleep.

  Both of my parents checked on me. They came quietly to the door two or three times. Once my father said, “Tom?” But I didn’t say anything. They left me alone after that.

  Waking up on Sunday, I was all achy and exhausted. As soon as I sat up, I remembered that I’d had a dream during the night. I felt nervous, and my stomach got all twisted in knots when I remembered it.

  In the dream, Jessica was in a black car. The car had fins all over it but was crunched up into a mess and was burning. You could see her pounding like crazy to get out … pounding on the windows and then falling down inside the car, out of sight. Everyone was rushing around, but the fire was too huge for people to get close to the car. I tried to get close, too, but kept being pushed back. Her mother was trying to get to the car, too. Then somehow Jessica was out of the car screaming. I turned and pushed my way through the crowd and ran away from her. I ran and ran and ran. Then I woke up.

  Chapter 17

  Monday was class election day. Jeff wasn’t at the bus, and he wasn’t in his seat in class. Maybe he wouldn’t be in at all. I wished he wouldn’t be. But Jessica was. She was sitting quietly in the seat next to mine when I came in. The whole day before, I was worried she might call to ask where I’d been on Saturday after lunch, because she didn’t see me or any awesome sports car. But she didn’t call. Maybe she was at her doctor’s all day anyway. It didn’t matter.

  I was too mad to talk to anybody on Sunday. I barely said anything to my parents, even though they asked me a few times what was going on. But now, in the minutes before class got started, I couldn’t stand it. I turned to her.

  “The whole car thing didn’t happen,” I said. “Sorry.”

  “Neither did New Haven,” she said. “I was at home.”

  How stupid. “Sorry.” That was all we said.

  Mrs. Tracy came in, and we stood for morning prayers. When they ended, Jeff walked through the door and slid into his seat. His expression seemed hard and empty. His jaw was grinding as he stared off at the windows, and his legs were twitching.
He seemed like some kind of animal ready to bolt up and out of there at any second.

  “All right, then. Today is the day we’ve been waiting for,” Mrs. Tracy said, starting the big business of the morning. “The election we’ve been preparing for.”

  Something cold dripped through me. It was like a trickle of ice seeping down my throat and into my chest. I glanced over at Courtney, who was sitting quietly in her seat. This was it. The moment. I tried to put the whole Jeff and Cobra thing out of my mind. And that stupid dream of Jessica. I didn’t even know what that was about. I tried to breathe deeply and slowly. My hands were trembling.

  Okay, Courtney. I knew it would be so awesome if I could really do what I had wanted to do for weeks now. Me and Courtney. It was like swords were suddenly flashing around me, explosions were everywhere, there was a boiling river below me, and an avalanche above. I breathed in and tried to stay calm.

  The door clicked as Mrs. Tracy closed it. “We’ve heard some speeches and seen some posters.”

  “Darlene’s is the best,” said Samantha Embriano.

  “Thanks,” said Darlene, a bright red dot on her chin.

  “And now the time has come for our primary,” Mrs. Tracy said. “When you nominate a candidate, it should be someone who has made a poster that made you think, given a good speech, or somehow proven that he or she would be a good president. Once we zero in on our candidates, we will vote by secret ballot. I’d ask you to keep in mind that this is not a popularity contest. It shouldn’t be. The winner will be our first elected class president, an office which carries a lot of responsibility. Lots of fun, I think. But whoever wins this morning will come to meetings, form groups, and help organize events, so there is a lot to do.”

  She looked around and everyone quieted down. “Are we all ready? Then let’s start. Who wants to be the first to nominate someone?”

  Everyone waited. It was perfect.

  My hand shot up, and Jeff shouted, “Courtney.”

  I gasped. “What —”

  But Jeff didn’t look at me. He just bobbed his head around to the back corner of the room. Courtney’s face turned red at hearing her name, but she was smiling. Lifting her own hand, she said, “I’d like to nominate Darlene Roberts.”