“Ohh.” I uttered a helpless cry as my attacker bumped me hard from behind, wrapped his arms around my waist, and tackled me to the ground.
25.
I landed hard on my shoulder. Pain shot down my arm, down my whole body. I groaned.
He slid off me. I squirmed away, rolled onto my back. And stared up at my grinning friend. “Diego—you really are a jerk.”
He reached both hands down to help me up. “Thought I’d give you a little thrill, Scout.”
I shoved his hands away and jumped to my feet, both fists tight at my sides. “That wasn’t funny. We’ve got a real problem here.”
“Sorry,” he said, but the grin was frozen on his face. “The suspense was killing me. So I thought we needed some action.” He laughed. “Love that gurgling sound you made. Could you do that again?”
I swung my fist at him, but he dodged it easily. It made him laugh harder.
Gabe shook his head. “Michael is right. That wasn’t funny, Diego. If that creep is out here…”
I rubbed my shoulder. The pain still throbbed down my arm. I glared at Diego. “Why do I put up with you?”
He shrugged his big shoulders. “Because I’m funny?”
I shoved him with both hands. “Because I have no taste in friends.” Still trying to rub the pain from my shoulder, I led the way back into the house.
Lizzy was still in her coat. She stood tensely at the front door. “Well? Did you see him?”
“He must have run when you arrived,” I said.
Mom was back at her place at the dining room table. “Why did you boys run out?” she called.
The three of us exchanged glances. “I … uh … thought I left something in my car,” Gabe said, thinking quickly.
Mom raised her gaze from the bracelet she was polishing. “And all three of you had to go out to look for it?”
Gabe hesitated. “Well … it’s hard to find things in the dark,” he said finally.
Mom stared at him. “What was it you forgot?”
“I don’t know,” Gabe said. “We couldn’t find it.”
I laughed really hard to try to cover up what a stupid answer that was.
She narrowed her eyes to study us. She sniffed the air. “You didn’t go outside to smoke, did you?”
I rolled my eyes. “Sure, Mom. We like to smoke in the freezing cold and the snow without any coats on. I smoked a whole pack while I was out there.”
She made a face at me. “Sarcasm is the lowest form of humor. Did anyone ever tell you that?”
“You have,” I said. “But only a hundred times.”
Shaking her head, she returned to her jewelry. Gabe, Diego, and I sat down at the other end of the table by Gabe’s drawings. “Let’s get back to Macbeth,” I said. “We’re up to the murder, remember?”
A chill rolled down my back. I raised my eyes to the window. No one peering in at us.
Do I have to be afraid every day now?
Lizzy tossed her coat onto the living room couch and came into the room, brushing down her hair with both hands. She walked over to my mother and gazed at the jewelry spread out on the table. “Can I help you?”
“Sure,” Mom said. “Let me go get another cloth and you can help polish some of these.”
As soon as Mom was out of the room, Lizzy turned to us. “I saw Angel earlier today, too,” she confided in a low voice. “He was standing across the street from the high school. Leaning against a tree. Just standing there in that long black overcoat, watching everyone leave the school building. I could hear him cursing to himself. He didn’t see me. I turned and hurried the other way.”
“We need to call the police,” Gabe said. “I keep saying this over and over but no one listens to me.”
“I’m with Gabe now,” Diego said. “I’ve changed my mind. That nut has already hurt Lizzy. He—”
“We have to think of our future,” I interrupted. “I’m as scared of this guy as you are. But we don’t want the police to know—” I stopped because my mom returned to the room.
Lizzy took a chair near her and began polishing a silver pin. Us three guys tried to get back to our game storyboards, but it was hopeless. We’d lost the mood. And maybe the whole thing wasn’t such a hot idea anyhow.
“What if we mix Macbeth with something else?” Diego suggested. “You know. Like The Avengers. We could probably make a better game. More action.”
“Ms. Curdy loves Shakespeare,” I said. “I don’t think she’s into The Avengers.”
“There’s plenty of action in Macbeth,” Mom said, holding a large brooch up to the light. “You could do a hand-washing game.” She realized that idea was greeted by total silence. “Okay, okay. I’ll shut up.”
A short while later, Gabe and Diego left, discouraged, depressed. We hadn’t finished our storyboards. We didn’t even agree that it was a good idea anymore.
Mom thanked Lizzy for her help. She collected her jewelry and replaced it all carefully in the red box. Then she carried it upstairs. She and Dad watch Law & Order every night at about this time.
Lizzy and I drifted into the living room. I thought she was going to pick up her coat, but instead she turned to me. She pressed her pointer finger against mine. “We’re bloods, remember?” she said softly.
And then she wrapped her arms around me, brought my head down, and pressed her lips against mine. Startled, it took me a few seconds to respond. Her lips moved over mine, pressing harder, a long probing kiss, so long I found it hard to breathe. But when I tried to pull my face back, she held the back of my head with both hands and pushed me against her, and we held the kiss until we were both breathless.
Finally, she let her hands slide from my hair. My heart pounding, I could still taste her lips on mine. She didn’t say a word. She leaned over the couch and picked up her coat.
“Let me drive you home,” I said.
“No, I’ll be fine.”
“No. Really,” I insisted.
“I don’t have far to go, Michael.”
I realized I didn’t know where she lived.
She pressed our fingers together again. I had an impulse to grab her and try to repeat that amazing, endless kiss. But she turned away from me and escaped out the front door without another word.
I watched her trot down the driveway, over patches of snow, to the sidewalk. She didn’t look back.
In my room five minutes later, I got another call from Angel.
26.
“Hello, Michael. Have you been thinking of me?”
“Angel? Were you at my house? Were you here?” My voice came out higher than I’d anticipated. I didn’t want to sound that afraid, but my mouth suddenly felt dry as cotton.
“So you have been thinking of me,” he said in his raspy whisper.
“I want you to leave me alone,” I said through gritted teeth. “I want you to leave my friends alone, too.”
“The way you left me alone in the snow?” he replied. “The way you left me there and rode away after you killed me?”
“Obviously, I didn’t kill you—” I started.
“Listen to me, you jerk.” He began to lose his temper. The whisper became a growl. “You killed me. Why would I lie? Didn’t you and your buddies come visit my new home, the graveyard?”
“That’s crazy,” I said. “I saw you there, but—”
“Shut up and listen. It’s my turn. You all have to pay for what you did. One by one … One by one.”
I took a deep breath. I pressed the phone to my ear. “No! That’s enough, Angel. You have to stop.”
“Stop? Stop?” He laughed, a cold mirthless laugh. “How can I stop? I just got started.”
“No. No way.” Somewhere I found the courage to stand up to this psycho.
“Who will be next?” he said. “I took care of that cute girl you’re so into. But that was just a love tap. I can do better work than that. You’ll see.”
I pictured Lizzy out cold on her back in the hall, her hair spread unde
r her, blood seeping from the cut on her head. “Wait—” I said. “Please—”
“Watch your lunch bag, Michael.”
I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly. “Excuse me?”
“Watch your lunch bag. Watch for it, okay?”
“What lunch bag?” I cried. “I don’t carry—”
“Later, alligator.” He clicked off.
I let out a growl. Then I tossed my phone across the room. It landed on the bed and bounced into the wall. I felt like screaming and punching something as hard as I could. Somehow I felt more angry than frightened.
What am I going to do about him?
I didn’t have time to think about it. A hard knock on my bedroom door startled me and made me spin around. “Yes?”
The door swung open slowly and Mom poked her head in. “Are you on the phone? Sorry.”
“No. I’m off,” I said. “What’s up?”
Mom shook her head. “My amethyst ring is missing,” she said. “I cleaned it and put it aside on the table. Now I can’t find it anywhere.”
I squinted at her. “You mean the ring you wear every day?”
She nodded. “Yes. My favorite.”
“Did you look under the dining room table?” I asked. “Did you check the carpet. Maybe it fell—?”
“I checked everywhere. Every inch of the dining room. And I’ve been through my jewelry box three times. It just isn’t there.”
A picture flashed into my mind. Lizzy at the grocery store. The first time I ever saw her. Shoving cold cuts into her bag.
So much happened since then. That afternoon seemed like a long time ago. I thought of our long kiss as she held onto me so tightly and wouldn’t let me go.
She wouldn’t steal my mother’s ring—would she?
27.
“Tell me again about your Macbeth project,” Ms. Curdy said.
Kathryn poked me in the ribs. I was lucky she sat beside me in this first period class. She could always poke me and wake me up or shake me out of my daydream.
I definitely hadn’t been listening to Ms. Curdy. I was thinking about Lizzy. I came to school early, hoping to catch her at her locker. But I didn’t see her, and she wasn’t in homeroom. I kept watching for her, thinking maybe she overslept and would sneak into school late. But it was close to nine and she hadn’t appeared in English class.
“Your project, Michael?” Ms. Curdy repeated. Perched on the edge of her desk, she leaned forward and peered at me through her rimless glasses. She is a small, thin woman, in her fifties, I think. She has wavy gray hair parted in the middle, very pale skin, a nice smile. She wears mostly woolly ski sweaters and long skirts that come down almost to her ankles, and everyone likes her because she’s smart and funny and she’s a real easy grader.
I cleared my throat. Kathryn was preparing to poke me again.
“Well … we’re kind of planning a video game,” I said. “Based on the play. Diego, Gabe, and I. We’re doing storyboards. You know. Mapping the whole game out.”
Ms. Curdy twitched her nose at me. The fluorescent ceiling lights reflected in her glasses. I couldn’t see her eyes. “You’re doing that for extra credit?” she asked.
I shook my head. “No. That’s our project. Instead of an essay. We thought—”
“Nice try, guys,” she said. “That’s a very creative way to get out of writing your essays.”
“But—but—” I sputtered. “The game will show our interpretation of the play. You see—”
Ms. Curdy laughed. “Why don’t you sell me the Brooklyn Bridge?” she said.
I leaned forward in my seat. “Excuse me?”
“If you think I’ll buy that bull, why don’t you try to sell me the Brooklyn Bridge, too?”
Now the whole class was laughing. For some reason, Kathryn thought it was hilarious. She has a weird sense of humor. I guess you have to have a weird sense of humor to go out with Diego.
I waited till things quieted down. “So you’re saying…?”
Ms. Curdy smiled her toothy smile. “I’m saying I can’t wait to read your essays. And if you guys want to create that game about the play for extra credit, that would be awesome, too.”
I nodded.
“I only say the word awesome so I’ll sound young to you people,” she said. “I don’t really say it at home.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that. I nodded again. All I knew was, Diego, Gabe, and I had just been shot down. We had wasted a lot of time, and there was no way we’d finish those storyboards now.
I mean, we didn’t need extra credit. We were seniors. We were halfway out of there.
The rest of the morning went okay. We were doing gymnastics in Phys. Ed., and it helped to wake me up. I have lunch fourth period, which is kind of early, around eleven thirty, but I’m usually hungry by then anyway.
On my way to the lunchroom, I stopped to talk to Kerry Reacher and Eric Finn, two friends of mine. They were planning some kind of pregraduation party, like six months early. “To get the partying started,” Eric said. “I mean, what’s the point of waiting?”
Kerry thought it would be cool to have a whole day with the snowmobiles. Except most of the snow melted this week. I told them if we get another really good snow, I could talk to my dad about it.
Thinking about snowmobiles made me feel tense, though. I wondered if I’d ever be able to enjoy being on one again, if I’d ever be able to just have the kind of fun I used to have and not think about that nut Angel and not picture slamming into him and sending him flying.
“You killed me, Michael.”
I could hear his raspy whisper in my head. I heard those words a lot.
“You killed me, Michael.”
I could smell the food from the lunchroom. Sometimes they have these really good pizza bagels. They’re so small, I have to grab at least six of them, but they’re really tasty.
I was stepping up to the doorway when Kathryn appeared again and blocked my path. “What’s up?” I said.
Her hazel eyes peered into mine. “It isn’t true—is it?”
I blinked. “Huh?”
“Tell me it isn’t true.”
“Okay,” I said. “It isn’t true. I don’t know what you’re talking about, Kathryn. But it isn’t true.”
I tried to edge around her, but she slid in front of me. “Did you really give that ring to Lizzy?” she asked.
That got my attention.
“Ring? What ring?”
Kathryn tossed her hair back. “The one she’s wearing on a chain around her neck. An amethyst ring. She’s showing it off and telling everyone you gave it to her.”
28.
I must have gone pale or something because Kathryn grabbed me by the shoulders. “Are you okay?”
For a moment, the whole lunchroom and everyone in it became a blur, all out of focus. Then it all turned red. Angry red. I actually saw red!
“She can’t do that!” I screamed.
A bunch of kids turned around to see who was shouting. I didn’t care. I felt so angry, I thought my head might burst open.
I realized Kathryn was still holding onto me, her face filled with concern. “What’s up, Michael? You didn’t give Lizzy the ring?”
“It … it’s a misunderstanding,” I said.
What was I supposed to do? Tell Kathryn that Lizzy stole my mother’s ring? That she’s showing it off now? Telling everyone I gave it to her? Even though it’s a total lie, and she stole it?
Kathryn let go of me, but her eyes kept studying mine. “So are you going to tell me?”
“Later. Kind of a long story,” I murmured. I really didn’t want to go into it with Kathryn. I had to straighten it out with Lizzy. I had to confront her and find out why she would do such a crazy thing. I didn’t say a word the afternoon I saw her shoplifting food. But this was different.
“Have you seen Lizzy?” I asked, my eyes surveying the crowded room, moving from table to table. “She wasn’t in homeroom this morning. Where is she??
??
Kathryn shrugged. “I think she came in late. I ran into her on the second floor near the art room. She was seriously excited. She backed me into a corner and showed me the ring around her neck. When she told me you gave it to her last night, I … well … I didn’t know what to say. I thought you and Pepper … I thought you two would probably make up. I didn’t know you have such a thing about Lizzy.”
“It’s messed up,” I said. My stomach growled. I started to feel weird again. Everything started to blur. “Catch you later, okay?”
Kathryn nodded and made her way out of the lunchroom. I didn’t really feel like eating. My stomach was tight as a knot. But I started to the cafeteria line.
The period was nearly over. Only a few kids in line. A few sandwiches left. Some tired-looking chicken in cream sauce. I was too late for the pizza bagels. That tray was empty.
I was trying to decide what to do when I felt a light tap on my shoulder. I turned to see a girl I didn’t know. She was cute, with round blue eyes and a short blonde ponytail. She must have been a ninth-grader because she looked about twelve.
“Hi,” I said.
She handed me a brown paper lunch bag. “This is for you,” she said. She shoved it into my hand.
I couldn’t hide my surprise. “What? I don’t understand. I—”
“That guy told me to give it to you.” She pointed to the front of the room.
I saw two girls heading to the exit, but I didn’t see a guy there.
“Hey, he’s gone,” she said. She turned back to me. “Guess he brought your lunch?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I raised the bag. It was light. It felt empty. Not heavy enough to have a sandwich or anything inside.
“Well, bye.” She turned and walked away, her ponytail swinging behind her.
Angel warned me about a lunch bag, I remembered. Is this it?
I turned it in my hands as I carried it to an empty table in the corner. Someone called to me from across the room but I didn’t stop to reply.
I dropped onto the edge of the table and unfolded the top of the bag. I saw two words scrawled in big jagged letters in red marker on the side of the bag. You’re next.