Midnight Games

  I had it raised a foot or so from the driveway when I heard the loud shriek from inside:

  “Stay OUT! I mean it! STAY OUT!”

  14

  “Jamie, it’s me,” I called. “Are you okay?”

  I heard running footsteps. The garage door rolled up a few feet. Jamie slid outside and pushed the door down behind her.

  Her face was red, and she was breathing hard.

  I jumped back. “Sorry. Why did you scream like that? You . . . you scared me.”

  She had a towel in one hand, covered with brown and red stains. She used it to wipe a spot of clay off one cheek.

  “I’m sorry too,” she said. “I didn’t mean to scream. It’s just . . . well . . . I don’t allow anyone in my sculpture studio.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “Excuse me?”

  “It’s kinda my own private space,” she said, balling up the towel between her hands. “It’s my therapy. After the accident . . . after I fell into that excavation hole last year, I was home for months. I needed a lot of rehab time. I turned this studio into my own private world.”

  I still didn’t understand why I couldn’t come in and see what she was doing. But no point in arguing with her. She had a rough year, after all. She’s entitled to her own space.

  She studied me for a moment. “Dana, how was your first day at our lovely school?”

  “Just lovely,” I said. I grabbed the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “Can I talk to you for a minute or two?”

  She nodded. “Sure. Give me a sec to clean up. I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

  When she joined me at the kitchen table a few minutes later, she still had a spot of red clay on one cheek. She dropped down across from me and rolled up her sweatshirt sleeves.

  “You’re sweating,” I said.

  “It’s hot in there,” she said, mopping her forehead with the back of her hand. “It’s the kiln. Dad went a little crazy. He got me the biggest kiln they make, I think. It’s like a blast furnace.”

  She jumped up, jogged to the fridge, and came back with a bottle of water. After downing half the bottle, she turned to me. “So? What’s up? Your first day at Shadyside High. Details, please.”

  I told her about being lost and a little overwhelmed by the size of the place. And I told her about a couple of cute guys I met in the library.

  She stuck her finger down her throat and made gagging sounds. “I know those guys. They’re not cute once you get to know them.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, I know they’re not the clean-cut, straight-arrow type like Lewis. But I like punky guys.”

  She shrugged. “Whatever.” She brushed her wavy, dark hair off one eye. “So what did you want to talk to me about?”

  “Well, I found out something kinda bad after school,” I began. I told her about running into Ada and Whitney on my way to my audition with Ms. Watson. And I told her how I’d applied for the Collingsworth Prize.

  “Uh-oh,” Jamie muttered, squeezing the plastic water bottle in her hand. “Ada and Whitney applied too.”

  “You got it,” I said.

  Jamie took another long slug of water, keeping her eyes on me. “Ada has to be furious,” she said. “She thinks she has that scholarship prize aced.”

  “I know,” I said. “That’s strike two for me with your friend Ada.”

  Jamie frowned. “Or maybe strike three,” she said. “Ada looks like a little mouse, but she has an awesome temper. Red hair, you know.”

  “I got off to a horrible start with Ada,” I said. “I know she’s your good friend. I don’t want her to hate me. But I have to win that prize, Jamie.”

  Her mouth dropped open. I guess I was a little intense.

  “Don’t you understand? If I don’t win that prize,” I said, “I’ll have to go to work. I won’t be able to go to college.”

  Jamie nodded. “Yeah, I know, Dana.”

  “I feel bad for Ada,” I said. “But I’ll do anything to win.”

  Jamie stared hard at me. “Anything?”

  “Well . . . ,” I replied. “Yeah. Anything.”

  15

  I guess I had a few beers. I was feeling pretty good. I mean, there I was at a table full of guys. It was about one A. M. on Wednesday night, and none of the other girls had come into Nights yet.

  I was kicking back, having a nice time, flirting with all of them. Nate had an arm draped over my shoulder. Shark kept pulling out his cell, calling that girl Nikki, asking why she wasn’t coming tonight. Lewis and Galen kept tossing popcorn in the air, trying to see who could catch the most in their mouths.

  “Who started this idea of sneaking out late at night?” I asked.

  “Is it night?” Shark joked. “No wonder it’s so dark!” He’d had more beers than I had.

  “Jamie and I started it,” Lewis said. He was the only one drinking Diet Cokes. “We called ourselves the Night People.”

  “Clever name,” Galen said. “Did you think of that all by yourself?”

  Lewis ignored him. “Jamie and I started sneaking out before this bar was built. We used to meet inside the old Fear Mansion, right on this spot.”

  Galen rolled his eyes. “Tell us something we don’t know.” He slid out of the booth and walked up to the front to get another beer from Ryland O’Connor.

  “Pretty soon these copycats started sneaking out too,” Lewis told me. “Jamie and I can’t get any privacy.”

  Shark jabbed Lewis in the ribs. “And why do you need privacy?” he teased.

  We all laughed.

  “Well, this is so cool,” I gushed. “We have secret night lives no one knows about.”

  Shark leaned into me. “Tell us some secrets, Dana.”

  “No way,” I said, pushing him away.

  “Come on. Give us a break. Tell us some dirty secrets.” He took a long pull from his beer bottle.

  “Shark, you always act like this after half a beer?” I said.

  Everyone laughed again, even Ryland from behind the bar.

  Galen brought refills for everyone. Nate lowered his hand from my shoulder to take his beer. “So you didn’t do this back home?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “My parents would have killed me. I can’t believe your parents haven’t found out.”

  “My parents are divorced,” Nate said. “That means I have only one parent to fool. And she works all day, so it would take a bomb blast to wake her up.”

  “My parents drink themselves to sleep,” Shark said. “It’s not much of a challenge to sneak out.”

  “Lucky,” Galen said.

  Lewis kept gazing at the front door. Maybe he was expecting Jamie to show.

  Nate squeezed my hand. “So what did you do for laughs back home?”

  I shoved his hand away. “None of your business. You’re too young.”

  The other guys hee-hawed at that one.

  The five of us kidded around for a while. I could tell Nate was really into me. Just by the way he kept touching me and giving me looks.

  I was attracted to him too. But one thing bummed me out—the way he kept getting serious, asking me questions about my life back home and what it was like being a Fear.

  What was his problem, anyway?

  Finally, he told me about some weird things that had happened to him in October. The stories were totally bizarre. He said one night at the bar, cockroaches started pouring out of his mouth. And then one day in school, both of his ears started spurting blood for no reason at all.

  Yikes.

  He said everyone believed Candy Shutt was using Angelica Fear’s amulet to cast spells on him. But it turned out not to be true.

  Was someone else doing these things to Nate?

  Was there someone out there who knew how to put curses on people? Someone who really wanted to hurt Nate and his friends?

  The whole idea sounded crazy to me.

  “You’re a Fear, right?” Nate said, squeezing my arm. “Do you know spells and sorcery and stuff? Do you know how to do things t
o people you hate?”

  I just stared at him. My head was kinda buzzing from the beers I’d drunk. And my eyes weren’t totally focusing.

  But I could think straight enough to know that I didn’t like his questions.

  I shoved my beer bottle in front of him. “Drink some more,” I snapped. “Maybe you’ll make more sense.”

  “No. Really—,” he started.

  “Nate, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told him. “How would I know anything about that? Just because I’m a Fear doesn’t mean I’m interested in—”

  “Sorry. Sorry,” he said. He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “Sorry. Really. Sorry. Umm, did I say I was sorry?”

  Shark laughed. “Kiss her again, Nate.”

  I glanced up—and saw Ada staring at us from the middle of the room.

  Did she see Nate kiss me?

  Yes. It was easy to tell from the angry scowl on her face.

  “Hey, Ada—,” Nate started. “Scoot over, Shark. Make room—”

  But before anyone could move, Ada grabbed Nate by the arm and pulled him from the booth. He had a goofy, confused look on his face. He half-stumbled, half-shuffled after her. I saw her pin him to the wall next to the bathrooms.

  “Ada, want a beer?” Shark shouted. He grinned at me. The whole thing was a joke to him.

  But I had this heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach. And my head started to buzz even louder.

  The three guys at my table all started talking at once. But they didn’t drown out Ada.

  I could hear her getting into Nate’s face. I couldn’t hear her words because she was speaking in a loud whisper. But you didn’t have to be a genius to figure out what she was saying.

  And then I heard these words from Nate: “I’m just trying to be nice to her. It’s tough being the new kid.”

  Ow. That hurt.

  And then I heard Ada’s furious reply: “Don’t be too nice to her. Hear me?”

  Whoa.

  After that, it got ugly. The two of them started shouting at each other. Ada no longer cared if I heard or not.

  I jumped to my feet when I heard her scream, “She’s trying to take my boyfriend and my scholarship!”

  I saw the smile fade from Shark’s face. He lurched over to break it up.

  But I didn’t care. I’d heard enough. No way I was going to sit there and pretend it wasn’t all about me.

  I turned and ran. Ran down the long bar, pushed open the front door, and darted out into the cold, clear night.

  Breathing hard. My heart pounding. I watched my breath puff up in front of me. And I cried out loud to the empty street, “What am I going to do about Ada?”

  16

  Saturday night a fog settled over Fear Lake, giving it an eerie, dreamlike feel. Pale rays of moonlight poked through the billowing fog, making dappled spots over the ice.

  It was my turn to keep an eye on Jamie’s little brother Danny for a few hours. So the skating party was underway by the time I arrived.

  Some kids had set up tents at the edge of the frozen lake. They were serving hot chocolate from big, silver urns, and I saw cans of soda and beer stacked in another tent. A small bonfire sent up orange and yellow flames into the foggy sky.

  A guy I recognized from school stood behind two turntables and a pair of loudspeakers. He must have had a portable generator. His music blasted out over the voices of kids skating, clustered in couples and groups, and huddled near the tents.

  It hadn’t snowed yet this fall, but the lake appeared frozen solid, and the ground along the shore was crunchy and hard. Chunks of frost crinkled under my boots.

  I wore two sweaters under my parka, a long, striped scarf around my neck, and a wool ski cap pulled down over my ears, but I still shivered from the frigid, damp air.

  “Hey, Dana—yo!”

  I turned and saw Jamie standing with Lewis at the edge of the ice. I hurried over to them.

  I had Jamie’s skates slung over my shoulder. Jamie couldn’t use them because her hip and leg weren’t recovered enough to skate.

  “Nate was looking for you,” Lewis said. He pointed with his soda can to a group of kids huddled under a tree, singing along at the top of their voices with the DJ’s cranked-up music.

  I recognized Nate. He motioned for me to join him.

  Jamie squinted at me. “You’re here with Nate?”

  I just waved my hand. I didn’t answer. I turned and half-ran, half-slid over to Nate and his friends. As I drew closer, I recognized Shark and Nikki, and Aaron and Galen. They all waved and called out to me.

  I slid right into Nate. Laughing, he caught me around the waist. He held on to me for a little while, which I didn’t mind at all.

  “Are we having fun yet?” Shark asked.

  The fog swirled around us. Circles of yellow moonlight slid over the frozen lake. It was hard to see where the shore ended and the lake began.

  “Dana, want a beer?” Nate reached for a six-pack beside him on the ground.

  “No thanks,” I said. I swung Jamie’s skates off my shoulder. “You just going to stand here drinking beer? I thought we were going to skate.”

  “Some of us came for the beer,” Shark said.

  Nikki gave him a hard shove. “You promised we’d skate. You told me you’re a killer skater. You said you made the state hockey finals last year.”

  Aaron and Galen tossed back their heads and laughed.

  “I’m totally shocked,” Nate said. “Shark never lied before!”

  More laughter.

  “Maybe I exaggerated about my skating a little,” Shark confessed.

  Nikki glared at him. “Tell the truth. Have you ever been on ice skates?”

  Shark hesitated. He grinned at Nikki. “Do they go on your feet, or what?”

  Nikki gave him another shove.

  “Hey, I can still skate better than Nate,” Shark told her.

  “No way,” Nate said. “Want to make a bet on it?”

  “Can’t we just skate for fun and party tonight without any bets?” I asked, leaning against Nate.

  “What do you want to bet?” Shark asked Nate, ignoring me. “How about the rest of that beer?”

  He grabbed the can from Nate’s hand, tilted it to his mouth, and drained it. “See? I won the bet already!”

  Nikki shook her head at Shark. “How not funny are you?”

  He kissed her. “You love it,” he said.

  “Well, I’m putting on my skates,” I told Nate. “Are you coming with me?”

  He nodded.

  I pulled him to a bench at the edge of the lake. We strapped on our skates, watching kids already on the ice. They appeared to float through the swirls of fog.

  Couples skated together in graceful circles. One guy took a running jump, dove forward, and went sliding headfirst at full speed over the ice into a group of girls.

  They scattered, squealing and laughing.

  “That’s Dan Nickerson,” Nate told me. “He does that every year.”

  “Cute,” I said.

  Nate pulled me to my feet, and we skated out onto the lake. We made wide circles at first, skating slowly. I hadn’t been on ice skates in years, but it quickly came back to me.

  Nate was a pretty good skater. But he kept grabbing my hand to steady his balance. We were far out on the lake. At least, it seemed far out. Squinting through the fog, I could barely see the tents and the kids on the shore.

  Nate grabbed my gloved hand and held on. We slowed to a stop. He pulled me close and kissed me. I kissed him back. I let him know I was enjoying it.

  How long did we kiss?

  I don’t know. I pulled away from him when I heard someone shouting my name. Breathless, I turned and saw Jamie running across the ice toward us.

  She was limping and sliding, waving her arms to keep her balance. “Dana? Is that you?” she called.

  I broke away from Nate and took a few sliding steps toward her. “Jamie, what’s wrong?”

  “
Ada,” she gasped, struggling to catch her breath. She bent over, pressing her hands on her knees.

  “What about Ada?” Nate asked.

  “She’s here,” Jamie said, pointing to the shore. “She’s looking for you, Dana. She found out you’re here with Nate.”

  I squinted at her. “Excuse me?”

  “I mean, she’s out of control. So mad!” Jamie said. “I just wanted to warn you.”

  “Oh, wow,” I muttered.

  Jamie limped away, shaking her head.

  I saw a blur of movement to her left. Through the curtain of fog, I recognized Ada, bent low, skating fast.

  Nate shook his head angrily. “Forget it,” he said. “I don’t need this.”

  “But, wait—,” I protested. “Don’t leave me here.” My heart started to pound in my chest.

  He skated off, head down, taking long strides.

  “That’s not fair!” I shouted.

  Ada came roaring toward me. She wore layers of sweaters over tight jeans. Her long scarf flew behind her like a flag.

  “Ada—stop!” I cried.

  “You can’t have him!” she shouted. “You can’t come here and ruin my life!”

  Sobbing, she bumped me hard. I toppled backward. But she grabbed me and held me up.

  “Ada—please!”

  She grabbed my shoulders and started to shake me.

  “Let go! Let go!” I screamed, struggling to squirm away.

  But she lowered her gloved hands and curled them around my throat. “You can’t! You can’t!” she uttered.

  “Ada—stop!” I pleaded as her fingers tightened. I suddenly felt dizzy. I couldn’t breathe.

  “Stop! You’re choking me!”

  17

  I opened my eyes. I blinked a few times, trying to focus.

  I felt so dizzy. My ears rang.

  Had I blacked out or something?

  I took a deep breath and gazed around. I was sitting on the ice, with my legs spread. My throat ached. My heart pounded hard.

  I shut my eyes again. Why did I feel so wiped? So weak, I couldn’t raise my arms?

  When I opened my eyes again, I could see kids skating toward me, their faces hidden in the thickening fog. I heard shouts, but I couldn’t understand the words.