Maddy said that she thinks Justin joined some cult during the summer that made him take a vow of silence.
And then my friend Aubrey said she heard that Justin went to Bosnia or somewhere all weird like that and he ate the food and his tongue got all infected and they had to amputate it.
I’d seen him lick his lips in art class, so I was pretty sure he still had a tongue.
I looked over at him and watched him stare at his sketchpad, at the chalkboard, at the lights, and back at his sketchpad.
“So did you hear about this John X guy?” I asked.
Allison Northing slid into her seat just then. “Hi, guys. Oh my gosh, I heard that the school board decided to repaint all the lockers a horrible green color next year, can you believe that? I mean, green. Green? Our school colors are black and red! It totally doesn’t fit.”
She pulled her sketchpad and pencils out while she talked. Allison has always been slightly fascinated with the lockers. Every time we had to draw something freestyle, she drew a row of lockers.
Everyone went through an “Awed with the Lockers” phase when we first got to SWF High, because our one and only junior high did not have lockers, but still. It had been three years — maybe she could start finding other stuff more interesting.
Justin just looked at her. I opened my mouth to be polite and respond, but Miss Yeager walked in right then.
“Okay, class, get settled.” She had this super-excited look on her face and her cheeks were all flushed like she just made a homemade organic face mask with strawberries. My mother said that the antioxidants in strawberries could do wonders for your skin.
Miss Yeager said, “I have a very important visitor here today. We’re going to be discussing how art can be used in the real world and so I asked Detective Masterson to share a little bit about the field of criminal sketches.”
She turned and nodded to the doorway, where a tall guy who looked vaguely like a tougher and less-girly-looking Orlando Bloom stood.
That explained the strawberry face mask.
“Uh, hello,” Detective Masterson said. He stepped all the way inside the classroom and took the seat of horror in front of the class. Pete Faraelli picked up his pencil to start sketching him and Miss Yeager told him not to.
“We’re not sketching Detective Masterson, Peter. You can put the pencil down.”
“Right, right, right,” Detective Masterson said. “Don’t draw me.” Only he said it like don’t drawl me, because Detective Masterson was apparently not from around here.
Missourians had their own weird way of saying things, but we didn’t stretch words out that weren’t meant to be stretched.
“So I’m supposed to, uh, talk about criminal sketches. I’m a detective with the SWF police, but I actually spent my first five years with the force doing criminal sketches. Kelly … uh, I mean, Miss Yeager, asked me to come down here and give a little example of what a criminal sketch artist would do.”
He looked nervously at Miss Yeager, and she smiled too brightly. Miss Yeager was very passionate and excited about art, but she was not usually overdramatic about it.
“Yes,” she said. “And today we have a special exercise, so everyone get your pencils ready.” She looked expectantly at Detective Masterson. “Would you like to explain a little bit of the nuts and bolts of this procedure?”
“Yeah,” Detective Masterson said. “Forensic sketch artists, or criminal sketch artists, are usually part of the interview team when we are talking to witnesses. Uh, you need to know how to ask good questions, because usually the witnesses are so emotionally battered they can’t really think straight.”
“Wow,” Miss Yeager said.
Allison raised her hand. “You mean questions about the bad guy?”
Detective Masterson almost flinched at the words bad guy. “Yeah. Uh, so, I’m going to show you a quick demonstration, and then Miss Yeager is going to have you guys do an exercise, I think.”
Miss Yeager nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”
Detective Masterson picked up a Sharpie and walked over to the huge sketchpad that covered almost one side of the classroom. “Typically, you want to start with the gender and an approximate age. Next, work your way down from the forehead to the chin, ending with the details.”
He wrote each point out on the paper. “If you’re observant and you’re skilled at drawing, this can be a great job. Uh, I had a lot of fun with this back when I was forensic sketch artist. You feel like you’re really contributing to the case, you know? I once helped slam a guy who used to be a pharmacist and then sold drugs on the black market.”
I raised my hand. “Better money?”
Detective Masterson nodded. “Fewer hours too.”
“More nights and weekends, though,” I said.
“True.” He gave me kind of a half-grin. “So, I think you guys are going to do some kind of a practice of this.”
“Yes, you are going to have a chance to practice this.” Miss Yeager picked up a folder from her desk. “I want you all to pay attention and do your best. This is a very valid field for those of you who are talented at art.”
“Definitely valid field,” Detective Masterson hummed.
Miss Yeager started reading. “Male. Around thirty-five.”
Allison immediately started drawing.
I kept listening.
“Short dark hair, widow’s peak. Wide forehead. Wide eyebrows. Brown eyes. Five o’clock shadow and a square chin. High cheekbones.”
Silent Justin began sketching.
“Nose is long, but not skinny. Lips are thin, but not too thin.” Miss Yeager looked at me now. I glanced back, but mostly I just kept staring at the floor in front of Detective Masterson’s shoes, listening.
Miss Yeager continued. “Eyes are small in comparison to the rest of his face. Wears wire-framed glasses.”
Allison began erasing.
Miss Yeager looked around the room and everyone was already sketching. Except for me.
“Do you need to know anything else, Kate?” she asked.
“Teeth. Are they straight?”
Detective Masterson looked at the paper Miss Yeager was holding. “Doesn’t say.” He looked back at me. “But they didn’t mention the teeth either when it came to the pharmacy school guy.”
I nodded. “Pharmacy school is expensive.”
“Nothing compared to braces.” He shrugged. “So I imagined straight teeth. Think about the guy’s face and then see what comes to your mind.”
I closed my eyes.
Pharmacy school was stuck in my head. Mike had a friend who wanted to go to pharmacy school. He was a little straggly guy who looked for all the world like he would blow away with the next windstorm. He always had his hands in his pockets and he talked with a permanent um sound. “Um-hi, um-Mrs. um-Carter, um-Mike um-invited um-me um-for um-dinner.”
It got annoying.
Dad told Mike that if he ever brought “Um-Chris” back to dinner, we would need a full day’s warning.
I started sketching.
I decided to start with his chin. Square chin. Not too many guys have square chins anymore. I like square chins.
I snuck a quick peek and, yup, Silent Justin had a square chin.
For a person to have a square chin and high cheekbones, they would need a seriously dramatic jawline. So I gave the sketch a dramatic jawline. And sprinkled it with some of the five o’clock shadow Miss Yeager mentioned. Sort of à la Matt Damon.
The bell was ringing way too soon.
“Okay, class, please turn in your drawings before you go,” Miss Yeager said. She and Detective Masterson spent the whole class quietly whispering.
She still looked like she had on the strawberry face mask.
“So cute,” Allison hissed, nodding toward Miss Yeager before she left to go turn in her paper.
I packed up my pencils.
It wasn’t that I didn’t think it was cute. It’s just I thought it was overrated. Look at what happe
ned with Maddy and Tyler. Detective Masterson could have been over the age of thirty-two and therefore dateable for Miss Yeager, but still. Was it really worth it?
I had no good luck with guys. My one dating experience was labeled “Do Not Speak of Ever Ever Ever.”
So. I didn’t speak of it. Ever.
I handed my paper to Miss Yeager.
She smiled at me. “Thanks, Kate.”
“You’re welcome, Miss Yeager. You are the best teacher at this school. I appreciate your honest desire to teach us the proper techniques for art.”
Miss Yeager narrowed her eyes at me, but flushed more. “Compliments don’t buy A’s.”
“But they might buy lunch,” I said, nodding to Detective Masterson.
She blushed even more, and this time the detective joined her.
“Kate!” Miss Yeager gasped as I left.
The hallway between classes is always packed. South Woodhaven Falls was quickly becoming one of the best, albeit smallest, suburbs of St. Louis.
I pushed slowly through the throng and finally ended up at my locker. All around me people were talking on cell phones or laughing with their friends.
I grabbed my algebra book.
My mother was always concerned that at school I was a loner. I told her that there were not very many logical people left in my school to talk to, which was when Dad busted into the hallelujah chorus. When I was a freshman, I hung out with all of the juniors and seniors.
Now I was a junior, and all the seniors were so wrapped up in what the theme of prom was going to be, we had nothing in common.
I told Mom that I knew Maddy.
Which was why Mom sent me to that church camp last summer. She said I needed to “make more friends” and “spend a week in a wholesome environment.” Really, I thought Mom and Dad just wanted the house to themselves for a few days and the only other camps I could have gone to were for kids with eating disorders or disabilities. Both fine and good purposes, but I didn’t fit into either one of those categories.
The Christian camp wasn’t bad. I didn’t make a ton of new friends. The guy who led it kept harping on all of us to read our Bible more and stuff like that. I read my Bible the camp handed to us every day for a week after I got home.
It didn’t make very much sense. I didn’t really know where to start, so I started in Leviticus, because I thought that was a weird-sounding word.
I was hoping it was just a poor choice on my part, because if the whole Bible was written like that, I didn’t understand why there were so many churches around.
Mom and Dad weren’t really religious, per se. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in God. I just didn’t know what to believe. Some people claimed “God is love” and all that jazz so He sounded like a heavenly Santa Claus, but then others talked about “God is just” and “God is everywhere” and “We are all gods.”
It got confusing. And to be honest, I didn’t spend that much time thinking about it.
Kyle Barlett bumped into me right as I was walking through the door to algebra.
“Oh,” he said, like he just hit a brick wall. He started rubbing his arm like he was going to get a bruise or something now. I was not that solid — I thought he was being a little dramatic. But I kept my mouth shut.
“Sorry, Kate. Didn’t see you there.”
Then he looked at me real quick in the eyes and darted out the door.
Kyle Bartlett was in that category of “Do Not Speak of Ever.”
Actually, he was a major player in that category.
But, like the category title said, I didn’t speak of it. Ever.
Chapter Three
MADDY CAUGHT ME AS I WAS DIGGING IN MY BACKPACK for my car keys. When I turned sixteen, Mom and Dad bought themselves a car and they let me borrow it. It was a 1962 Volvo and was a puke greenish-yellow color.
Dad said it was so boys would like me for who I was rather than what I drove. Mom said she didn’t know Dad was buying that car, and she thought it would be a horrendous blow to my self-esteem.
I didn’t really mind the car as long as it started. So most of the time, I didn’t mind it. But I’d had to catch a ride home with Maddy four times in the past two months.
“So, Kate, I told Tyler that, like, if he wanted to break up with me then whatever, because there was totally someone better out there for me,” she said. She flipped her copper hair over her shoulder.
Maddy was one of those friends who sometimes intimidated you as far as looks went. She was tall, had the gorgeous hair, the perfect complexion.
Me? I broke out at least once a month, my hair was supposed to look like Reese Witherspoon’s hair in Sweet Home Alabama, but it flipped out all weird, unlike hers. And I was five foot one. And my hair was probably the most boring shade of brown there is.
She liked to tell me how lucky I was to be shorter than all the guys at school and how I never had to worry about running into things with my head.
Ever noticed how people who give advice about being short are never short? Sorry, but if you’ve never had to call the dorky bagging boy at Tim’s Grocery to help you with the Fritos on the top shelf, you should keep the advice to yourself.
I found my keys and looked up at Maddy. “Well, that’s good.”
“Yeah.”
I tossed my backpack over to the passenger seat.
“So, can I come study with you this afternoon?” Maddy asked.
I looked up at her again as I started to climb into my car. This would be the third time this week.
And it was only Wednesday.
Maddy was one of those students who didn’t even need to study and could still pull straight A’s. Evidenced by her lack of studying capabilities. When she came over to study, she would spend the whole time talking, watching E!, and filing her nails.
But the house did get quiet with just me and Lolly before Mom and Dad got home, so I always said okay. “Okay,” I said. I slid into the Volvo. “See you at the house.”
“Great! Thanks, Kate!” She ran to her brand-new, jet-black Tahoe.
The differences between us just kept getting more and more glaring.
It took three tries, but the Volvo started and I drove the few minutes back to my house. Lolly was barking and turning in circles when Maddy and I walked in.
“You really need to see more human contact,” I told Lolly.
We settled on the couch. Maddy grabbed the remote and turned on the TV to E! like I knew she would.
I dumped my books and notebooks onto the coffee table.
“Want anything to drink?” I asked her.
“Is your mom still on the health kick?”
Unfortunately, yes. I nodded.
“I’ll have water then. No offense to your mom, but that green tea lemonade or whatever it was, was pretty nasty.”
I didn’t disagree with Maddy. The green tea lemonade tasted like leaves. When you swallowed, there was still this powder-coating stuff all over your tongue. Mom said it was all the vitamins from the green tea. I said it felt like my tongue had a shower cap on it.
I got us two waters and sat down on the floor, pulling my algebra book over.
“Here,” Maddy said. “I brought contraband.” It was a package of Nutter Butters and I grinned.
“Thanks!”
We sat there crunching. I was focused on reading the homework assignment. Maddy was focused on Ryan Seacrest, who was rattling off the day’s “news.”
“Michelle Moriega celebrated her birthday last night with two hundred of her best pals at one of the swankiest nightclubs in New York City …”
I tuned him out after that. I was concentrating on finding x.
Maddy sighed. “I wish I could have my birthday in New York City surrounded by my two hundred closest friends.”
“I don’t,” I said, scribbling down the problem in my notebook. “Two hundred closest friends implies there are more, and I think Michelle Moriega is just a lonely girl who doesn’t know how to deal with her fame. So
she makes friends and parties.”
“Gosh, Kate.” Maddy rolled her eyes. “What do you want to watch instead? The news?” She flicked the remote to the local news station, KCL.
Ted Deffle, the highlighted anchor with the entirely-too-brilliantly-white teeth, was talking. “In other news, yet another victim has been claimed by the man known only as John X.” The view switched from somber Ted to a crime scene. “In Chappell today, located in Jefferson County, authorities found the body of Linda Summers, a forty-seven-year-old preschool teacher, outside of a Chappell grocery store.”
Maddy grimaced. “That’s scary. Jefferson County is just south of us.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing to be worried about,” I said. There are sixty miles of woods between South Woodhaven Falls and Chappell.
“I know. Still …”
Ted continued to talk. “This is the fourth life taken by the still unnamed and unknown killer, currently called John X. Police warn to take extra caution when going in and out of public stores and to keep your doors locked at all times.”
“Are your doors locked?” Maddy asked.
I rolled my eyes. “You worry too much.” I went back to finding x.
Little did I know x would find me instead.
Another morning, another bowl of Crispix. Only that morning I was up a good thirty minutes too early, thanks to a slobbery face washing by Lolly.
I glared at her as I took my first bite.
Mom saw the look. “Oh good grief, Kate,” she said, pulling her two slices of whole wheat toast from the toaster. “Lolly loves you. Don’t fault her for that.”
Dad was halfway through his power breakfast of eggs, bacon, and a half of a grapefruit. Dad claimed power breakfasts were what made him successful. “I would just like to restate that I was completely against getting a dog in the first place,” he said.
Lolly’s head drooped.
Dad had the TV going in the background, half listening to KCL and half reading the paper. Mom was lazily thumbing through a book about boundaries or fences or something relational; I was hurriedly eating the Crispix before they got soggy.