Villainous

  Thus far, Johnny had turned down all interview requests, and the academy had made it very clear that the school was a reporter-free zone. Nevertheless, cell phone videos of Johnny began popping up online with the tag Nobleacademy or Johnnylives. But from what Daniel could see, they were all rather disappointing videos of Johnny telling students to run to class, or to put away their phones. It turned out that being a super-principal looked pretty much like being an ordinary principal.

  Meanwhile, Mollie began falling behind again in Smiley’s history class. Although she wasn’t a student at the academy, and therefore Johnny couldn’t punish her for her part in the junkyard brawl, she still seemed depressed. She and Daniel kept up their tutoring sessions when they could find the time, but Mollie’s heart wasn’t in it, and more and more of their study sessions ended with her shouting and Daniel getting bruised. All they did was argue.

  Whether this was because of the pressure of the upcoming final or because of her fight with Louisa, Daniel wasn’t sure. But he couldn’t forget what Louisa had said, or at least what he’d thought she’d said. I hope you two know what you’re getting into. Who? He and Mollie? Did Louisa think there was something going on between them more than friendship? That was absurd. That was ludicrous. That was … all Daniel could think about.

  Without the Nobles to worry about, Daniel’s mind needed something new to obsess over, and that new thing turned out to be Mollie.

  What if? What if instead of hitting him all the time, Mollie kissed him instead? His kiss with Louisa had been nice, if a bit terrifying and sweaty, and he couldn’t help but suspect that kissing Mollie would be even nicer. He thought about it—a lot. He thought about it when he was supposed to be writing down Smiley’s notes from the board; he thought about it when he was yelling at Georgie for playing in Daniel’s room without asking. His imagination was so preoccupied with the dream Mollie that it was always a guilty shock to see the real Mollie in person. Like a criminal with a secret, he became paranoid and worried that she might somehow read his mind and see all those thoughts—those kissing thoughts, those fantasies where he was the one saving her for once. And what would she think then? Something had happened between Mollie and Louisa, and maybe it had to do with Daniel, but then again maybe it hadn’t. How was he to know?

  In the end, and with only one day to go before the big final, Daniel put down his books and consulted the wisest person he knew. It was time for some love advice.

  It was well past dinnertime when Rohan came online. It seemed detention at the academy was no laughing matter. Daniel had just finished spilling his guts to Rohan, and was anxiously watching the little word bubble on his computer screen for his friend’s reply. He steeled himself for any number of possible reactions. It could be disbelief. More likely, Rohan would just laugh in Daniel’s face and hit him with an array of snarky emoticons.

  “So?” Daniel finally typed after a minute of watching the screen for nothing.

  “So what?” came Rohan’s reply. “So, how’s detention? Terrible. Eric pouts while Drake passes notes to his idiot friends. Think they are drawing unflattering pictures of me to kill time.”

  “About Mollie,” typed Daniel. He suspected Rohan was trying to give him a heart attack.

  “Oh. Well, I think I’ve been waiting for this to happen since, like, that first day at the bus stop.”

  “Wait,” typed Daniel. “This is a new thing!”

  “No, it’s not,” came Rohan’s reply. “Doesn’t take super-senses to see that Mollie and you have something between you. Always have. By the way, this chat is boring boring boring.”

  Daniel ignored the last part. “So you think she likes me?”

  “Ask her,” came the reply.

  “You crazy?”

  “Nope. Man up. Ask her.”

  “Ask her?” Daniel said out loud. Was Rohan crazy? Had the academy driven him insane? What a stupid idea.

  “Ask her!” he said again.

  “Ask who what?” said a voice from outside the open window.

  Mollie was floating there with her head cocked at Daniel like a confused puppy.

  “Why are you talking to your computer?” she asked. “You on with Eric and Rohan?”

  “What? No!” said Daniel, closing the chat window just as Rohan was describing the various ways that talking to Mollie might lead to kissing Mollie. Nope, no way Mollie could see that. Uh-uh.

  Then Daniel powered down his computer for good measure.

  “Okay,” said Mollie. “What’d you shut down your computer for? Afraid I’d see your ‘Nerdy Friends of Sherlock Holmes’ website?” Mollie let herself in (through the window) and sat down on the edge of his bed.

  “Ha-ha,” said Daniel. “ ‘Nerdy Sherlock’ website. Good one.”

  “You know, that wasn’t a laugh-with-you kind of joke; that was a laugh-at-you kind of joke. You’re in a weird mood, aren’t you?” She tossed a pillow at him, which Daniel barely managed to catch. He gave her a kind of shrug/nod. Staying nonverbal felt like the best strategy for the time being.

  Mollie didn’t bother to remove her backpack, which she had slung over her shoulder. She just sat there on the bed, watching him. He’d never really noticed before, but her eyes were so dark in this light. It made her look exotic.

  Exotic? His brain needed to shut up.

  Daniel tried to act casual, but he no longer had any idea what to do with his body. It was like an alien thing to him, awkward and ungainly. He stood up and tried to lean against his bookshelf, in the kind of cool, relaxed pose he’d seen Eric use so many times. Maybe it was because Daniel was still holding the pillow she’d tossed at him, or maybe it was just the fact that he would never be cool, but he ended up looking like a toddler sent to the corner, clutching his comfort pillow. His leg was starting to cramp, but he didn’t want to change position again. He was fidgeting enough as it was.

  “Daniel, seriously, are you okay?” she asked. “Why are you standing like that?”

  “Just getting comfortable,” he said as he shifted the pillow to his other arm. Why was he still holding that stupid pillow?

  “Well, I wanted to ask you for a favor.”

  A favor? That was not what Daniel was expecting her to say. He’d hoped, in a wild fantasy-type way, that she was here to profess her undying love for him.

  “Sure,” he said. “What’s up?”

  With a sigh, Mollie dug into her backpack and produced a heavy, well-worn textbook. Doodles of a donkey-faced teacher decorated the sides.

  “Will you help me cram for tomorrow’s final?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Fire

  He woke up the next morning still exhausted from their marathon study session. Over the course of one evening, Daniel had tried to recap weeks’ worth of lessons, and it hadn’t gone well. Daniel was distracted and Mollie turned impatient early on. She’d snap at him for going too slow; then when it came time to demonstrate that she’d understood, she’d miss a step and end up crumpling her paper in anger.

  At first, Daniel found that sitting so close to her, sharing the same book, made it even harder to concentrate on what he was telling her. Those kissing fantasies kept getting in the way. But after she’d lobbed the book at his head in frustration for the fourth or fifth time, his infatuation turned to exasperation, and finally, aggravation. By the end of the evening he didn’t want to kiss her so much as strangle her.

  Worst of all, he genuinely feared she might not pass the test. She’d simply fallen too far behind to catch up now.

  He’d woken up the next morning too late to bike to school and was forced to ride the slow bus instead. He half hoped that he might find Mollie waiting for him at the bus stop, just like old times, but she wasn’t there.

  When Daniel finally walked into Smiley’s class, Mollie was already at her desk, and though she nodded at him as he walked by, they didn’t say anything. Her mood didn’t seem that out of place, however. There was an anxious pall over the entire class. E
veryone knew what was at stake here.

  Smiley set a timer and wrote “90 minutes” on the board. Then they were instructed to take up their pencils and begin.

  At the thirty-minute mark, Mollie put down her pencil and walked her paper to Smiley’s desk. Daniel had to stop himself from whispering What are you doing? to her as she gathered up her things. Any talking during the final would result in an immediate failing grade. Daniel watched her as she slung her backpack over her shoulder. Maybe she’d taken the test at super-speed? Maybe last night’s study session had just needed time to sink in?

  They made eye contact briefly as she headed out the door, and in that instant he saw that he’d been wrong. The tears pooling in her eyes told him everything. She’d bombed the test.

  Mollie Lee wouldn’t be going to high school next year with Daniel after all.

  After Mollie walked out, Daniel very nearly didn’t finish his own test. His instinct had been to run after her, to try in his awkward way to console her, but if he did that, he too would fail. He couldn’t bear to see the disappointment in his parents’ faces if that happened, and besides, he knew what Mollie would do if he did throw the test just to chase after her— she’d break his nose. Nothing would make her angrier than knowing Daniel had flunked history for her. She wouldn’t see it as chivalrous; she’d see it as stupid. So he struggled with the last hour of the final and had to read most questions over more than once, forcing his brain to stop thinking about Mollie and focus on the task at hand. He was filling in the last answer when the bell rang. He hadn’t done as well as he’d expected to, but he hoped he’d done well enough.

  Although he knew she was long gone, he tore out of the classroom the minute the bell rang. In the halls he looked for her face among the crowds, a flash of silver earrings against black hair.

  He made it to the parking lot, but of course she wasn’t there. Downhearted, he had just dragged himself over to the bike rack when he remembered that he hadn’t ridden to school that day; he’d taken the bus. This realization came as the yellow bus was already pulling out of the parking lot, to deliver the survivors of today’s finals like shell-shocked soldiers home from the war.

  What a perfect end to a terrible day. Now he would have to walk the two hours it would take to get home from here, or call one of his parents at work. He was still trying to make up his mind when he heard a car pulling up behind him. A glance over his shoulder revealed a limousine rolling slowly his way.

  Heads turned as the long black car came to a stop just feet from Daniel. He didn’t move. He didn’t try to escape, even though he knew who was in there waiting for him. To the contrary, he walked right up to the car, bold as could be. Herman Plunkett had picked the wrong day if he was hoping to intimidate Daniel. If he couldn’t take out his frustration on Smiley or Mollie or his own awkward, foolish heart, then Herman would just have to do.

  As Daniel approached, the back door swung open seemingly by itself, and he heard Herman’s sandpapery voice.

  “I was afraid we’d missed you.”

  Herman was alone. His black clothes disappeared against the dark leather seats, so that it looked like he was nothing more than a ghostly white head, floating above a pair of curled, arthritic hands.

  “What do you want, Herman?”

  “I want to give you a ride if you’ll let me,” he said. “Unless you’re scared I will kidnap you. It’s not too late to yell Stranger danger, you know.” Herman chuckled at his mean little joke.

  “I’d rather walk,” said Daniel.

  “Fine. Since we’re done being polite,” said Herman, losing all patience, “get in or I’ll have Lawrence up there toss you in.”

  Daniel looked over at the driver’s seat and saw a dragon tattoo crawling up the back of a bald head. Lawrence’s eyes were watching him in the reflection of the rearview mirror.

  “You’d throw me into your car in front of all these witnesses?” asked Daniel. There were at least twenty kids gathered around, struggling to get a good look inside the car.

  Herman smiled and waved at them like some kind of movie star. “I’ll do what I please,” he said, still smiling. “You of all people should know this by now. Come on, my boy. I only want to talk.”

  If Herman had wanted to hurt Daniel, this wasn’t the way he’d do it. Daniel believed him when he said he wanted to talk, but that was the problem. Sometimes with Herman Plunkett, talking was the most dangerous thing you could do.

  Still, his anger over the test and over Mollie was making him feel reckless, and in the end Daniel’s curiosity got the better of him, just as Herman no doubt knew it would.

  He took a seat on the side opposite from Herman, as far away from the old man as he could possibly get without hanging out of the car.

  “You have moxie, I’ll give you that,” said Herman. “Your grandmother had it too. Eileen wasn’t afraid of anything.”

  If Daniel had known they were going to talk about his gram, then he wouldn’t have gotten in the car. Everything Herman did was an affront to her memory.

  Instead, Daniel pointed to the tablet in Herman’s lap. The screen was a field of stars.

  “Nice screen saver,” said Daniel. “You taking up astronomy?”

  “Old men need hobbies,” answered Herman, closing the tablet cover.

  “Or are you still searching for your comet?” Daniel asked. Herman had once shown him the paintings hidden deep within the caves beneath Mount Noble. The people who lived there long ago had a legend about a comet of green fire, the Witch Fire Comet, which appeared every few generations.

  “When the comet last streaked through the sky over Noble’s Green, it left eight children and one ignorant woodsman with godlike powers,” said Herman. “Not like these floating firemen, or even your super-friends. Do you think the world’s ready for that?”

  Herman had a way of recasting himself as the hero in these hypothetical scenarios. Again and again he’d rationalized all the repulsive things he’d done as being in the service of some greater good. The old man had said goodbye to reality long ago.

  “I think,” said Daniel, “that you’d sell your soul for a chance to get your Shroud powers back, and I bet you stare at the stars every night just praying to see a glimpse of green light in the sky.”

  Herman’s eyes narrowed and Daniel imagined he could see the hate glittering there, reflecting like a cat’s eyes in the dark.

  “You’d lose that bet,” said Herman after a moment. “I don’t stare up at the stars. I pay other people to do it for me.”

  Daniel laughed in spite of himself. In this at least, Herman was probably telling the truth.

  “All right, Lawrence,” said Herman, calling up to the front of the limousine. “And you, put your seat belt on. Lawrence drives like he just got out of prison. Which, incidentally, he did.”

  Daniel saw Lawrence glaring at them in the mirror as he put the car into drive, but whether that look was meant for Daniel or Herman he couldn’t tell.

  “I think I liked your old nurse better,” said Daniel. He went ahead and buckled himself in, even though it felt a little bit like putting on his own handcuffs.

  “I’m going to pay my dear estranged relatives a visit today,” said Herman. “See about kicking those freeloaders out of my house.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem,” said Daniel. “Theo’s not crazy about living there, especially since he learned what you really are.”

  “He’s a Plunkett. He should get used to disappointment,” said Herman. “But enough about my unsavory relations and phantom comets. How’s your little investigation going? The Case of the Sabotaged Sweets Shop?”

  Plunkett was openly sneering, his disdain for Daniel’s detective work plain to see. But Daniel wouldn’t take the bait.

  “The ones who vandalized Lemon’s shop also tore apart the high school,” said Daniel.

  “And you know who did it?”

  Daniel looked Plunkett in the eye. “It’s out of my hands.”

 
“Then I’m no longer a suspect?” asked Herman. “You found another bad guy?”

  “I think there are a lot of strange things going on in this town,” said Daniel. “And I know you well enough to know that you are probably up to your armpits in most of them.”

  “Hah!” barked Plunkett. “I am no more responsible for those silly acts of vandalism than I am for the sudden and most inconvenient return of my arch-nemesis!”

  Daniel gave Herman a look. With everything that had been going on, he hadn’t stopped to think about what Herman might make of Johnny’s return.

  “Oh yes,” said Herman. “The good Principal Noble. What do you think he’s really up to with that school of his? Certainly you’ve wondered, haven’t you?”

  Herman leaned across the seat and took off his tinted glasses, as if he wanted to get a good look at Daniel. Once again, Daniel was struck by the old man’s eyes. So clear, so bright, like Johnny’s. Only something else showed there as well—something fearful. It was why the old man usually hid them behind a pair of dusty spectacles or tinted shades. Those eyes couldn’t be trusted.

  “Why is Johnny here?” asked Plunkett. “Why now, after all these years?”

  Johnny was teaching. Or at least helping others teach. Daniel believed Johnny now, though whether it would work was another matter altogether. The important thing, Daniel guessed, was that Johnny was trying. And if he couldn’t get Drake and his friends to fall in line, there was always Eric and Rohan. They might get some evidence on them yet.

  Of course, Herman needed to know none of it.

  “If I knew why he was here,” said Daniel, “what makes you think I’d tell you?”

  Herman steepled his fingers under his chin and grinned.

  “Exchange of information,” said Herman. “I’m aware you and Johnny had a talk, and I want to know what it was about. Tell me and I can give you the proof you seek regarding those unfortunate attacks.”