The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

  “I’ll take it under advisement.” I opened the door to the office and Daniel followed behind me. I signed in on the clipboard and waited until they called my name. It was better than the hospital, but the same smell—that medical smell—made my breath quicken and my throat close. When the nurse took my blood pressure, my pulse thudded against the cuff as it constricted my arm. I gasped for breath and the nurse looked at me like I was crazy. Little did she know.

  She led me into a room and pointed to the vinyl bench covered in doctor’s office paper. I sat down, but the rustle and crunch of it annoyed me. The doctor walked in to see me a few minutes later.

  “Mara?” she asked, reading her clipboard. Then she met my eyes and extended her hand. “I’m Dr. Everett. How’s that arm?”

  “Feels fine,” I said, holding it out for her.

  “Have you been changing your dressings every two days?”

  Nope. “Mmm-hmm.”

  “How’s the pain?”

  “I actually haven’t noticed it much,” I said. Her eyebrows lifted. “I’ve been really busy with exams and school stuff,” I said, by way of explanation.

  “Distraction can be good medicine. Okay, Mara, let’s have a look.” She unwrapped the gauze from my elbow first, and worked her way down my forearm. Her forehead creased and she pursed her lips as the bandage unraveled further and further, revealing my pale, intact skin. She glanced over at her clipboard. “When did this happen?”

  “Two weeks ago.”

  “Hmm. The ER doctor must have made a mistake. Probably an intern,” she said to herself.

  “What?” I asked, growing nervous.

  “Sometimes first-degree burns are mistaken for second-degree, especially on the arms and feet,” she said, turning over my arm and inspecting it. “But even so, the redness usually lasts for quite some time. Any pain when I do this?” she asked as she extended my fingers.

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong, Mara,” she said, staring at my arm. “It’s completely healed.”

  40

  nOT HAVING AN ITCHY, SWEAT-COLLECTING bandage under my sleeve was the only bright spot in the next two days. Without Noah, and especially without Jamie, I had even less patience for school, and it showed. I snapped at my History teacher, who I loved, and came very close to punching Anna in the face when she walked past me and banged her bag into my shoulder. She’d gotten my only friend expelled. It would be the least I could do.

  I resisted. Barely. But my dire mood followed me home. I just wanted to be alone.

  When I walked in the house, I whipped out my sketchbook and went to the family room to draw. Working on the floor was always better for sketching, and my carpeted bedroom was not conducive.

  About an hour after I’d started, Daniel peeked his head around the archway. “Hey.”

  I looked up from the floor and smiled without feeling.

  “Have you thought about going to Sophie’s party tomorrow night?”

  I went back to smudging. Self-portraits are tough without a mirror. “Isn’t there some kind of theme?”

  “No,” Daniel said.

  “Oh.”

  “Does that mean you’ll come?”

  “No,” I said. “Just wondering.”

  “You know Mom and Dad are going out tonight, right?” Daniel asked.

  “Yup.”

  “And Joseph is coming with me to help get things ready for tomorrow.”

  “Yup,” I said, without looking up.

  “So what are you going to do?” Daniel asked.

  “I am going to sit here. And draw.”

  Daniel arched an eyebrow. “You’re sure you’re all right?”

  I sighed. “I just prefer my wallowing with a heaping dollop of self-pity, Daniel. I’ll be fine.”

  “If it’s your grades, I can talk to Mom for you. Soften the blow.”

  “What?” I hadn’t really been listening before, but Daniel sure as hell had my full attention now.

  “You haven’t checked your grades?”

  My heart started pounding. “They’re up?”

  Daniel nodded. “I didn’t know you didn’t know.”

  I shot up from the floor, leaving my sketchpad behind, and darted to my bedroom. I dove into my desk chair and swiveled around to look at the monitor. Anxiety skittered through my veins. I’d been confident a few days ago, but now …

  As my eyes scanned the screen, I started to relax.

  AP English: A

  Bio: B+

  History: B

  Art: A

  Spanish: F

  Algebra II: B

  I did a double take. Then scanned the screen again. F. Falls between D and G on the keyboard. F for first. F for failure. First failure.

  I couldn’t catch my breath and dropped my head between my knees. I should have known. God, was I stupid. But in my defense, I had never, ever failed a class before, and those things just don’t seem possible until they actually happen. How was I going to explain this to my parents?

  Shamed though I was, I hoped Daniel was still around. I sprinted to the kitchen, my face hot. He’d left me a note on the refrigerator.

  Went to set things up.

  Call me and I can come back and get you.

  I swore under my breath and leaned against the stainless steel, getting fingerprints all over it. And then it hit me.

  Jamie.

  He recorded my exam. He had proof that I aced it. I withdrew my cell phone from my pocket and pressed the picture Jamie installed for himself on my phone. A ram’s head. Weirdo. I tilted my head toward the ceiling and prayed that he would pick up.

  It went straight to voice mail.

  “Grounded likely means no phone or computer,” Jamie had said. “But if I encounter an owl, I’ll try to smuggle a message to the outside, okay? “

  My eyes filled with tears and I threw my cell phone at the wall, scuffing the paint and smashing the phone. Couldn’t have cared less. There was an F on my transcript. An F.

  I put my head in my hands and tugged on my face. Dark thoughts swirled in my brain. I needed to tell someone, to figure out what to do. I needed a friend—I needed my best friend, but she was gone. And Jamie was gone too. But I did have Noah. I walked over to my decimated phone and collected the pieces. I tried to put it back together. No luck. I took the house phone off the cradle and pressed the talk button, but then realized that I didn’t even know his number by heart. I’d only known him for a few weeks, after all.

  The tears dried on my face, making my skin stiff. I didn’t finish my sketch. I didn’t do anything. I was too upset, furious with myself for being so stupid but even angrier at Morales. And the more I stewed, the angrier I became.

  It was all her fault. I’d never done anything to her when I started at Croyden, and she went out of her way to screw with my life. Maybe I could find out Jamie’s address and get the MP3 from him, but would it help? Did Dr. Kahn even know Spanish? The exam was, as Jamie said, subjective. And even though I knew I nailed that answer, I also knew that Morales would lie.

  I stared out the kitchen window at the black sky outside. I would deal with it tomorrow.

  41

  THE NEXT DAY BEGAN ABNORMALLY. I AWOKE starving at about four in the morning and went to the kitchen to make toast. I withdrew a halfgallon of milk from the refrigerator and poured myself a glass as the machine heated the bread. When the slices popped up, I ate them slowly, turning last night over in my mind. I didn’t notice Joseph until he waved his hand in front of my face.

  “Earth to Mara!”

  A white drop fell from the triangle lip of the milk container. Joseph’s words were muffled, invading my brain. I wanted to turn off the sound.

  “Wake up.”

  I jumped, then slapped his hand away. “Leave me alone.”

  I heard a second person rummaging around in the kitchen and swiveled my neck around. Daniel withdrew a granola bar from the pantry and took a bite. br />
  “Who peed in your Cheerios?” he asked me, mouth full.

  I leaned over the table and put my throbbing head in my hands. It was the worst headache I’d had in weeks.

  “Is Noah picking you up? His suspension should be over today, right?”

  “I don’t know. I guess.”

  Daniel looked at his watch. “Well, he’s late. Which means I’m taking you. Which means you have to get dressed. Now.”

  I opened my mouth to inform Daniel that we had hours until school started, and to ask him what he was doing up so early, but caught sight of the microwave clock. Seven thirty. I’d been sitting at the kitchen table for hours. Chewing … for hours. I swallowed the cold bread and my panic over losing so much time.

  Daniel looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “Come on,” he said softly. “I can’t be late.”

  I didn’t see Noah’s car in the parking lot when we arrived at school. Maybe he decided to take an extra day off. I drifted towards the campus, half-conscious. I didn’t see Noah in English, or wandering the halls between classes, either. He was supposed to be there. I wanted to find out where Jamie lived and even though they hated each other, I didn’t know anyone else well enough to ask.

  Between classes, I made my way to the administration office to make an appointment with Dr. Kahn, and when the fated hour arrived, I entered his office armed with sound reasoning. I would argue for the grade I deserved. I would tell him about the MP3. I would stay calm. I would not cry.

  The principal’s office looked more like a distinguished gentleman’s nineteenth-century study, from the dark wood paneled walls to the stacks of leather-bound books, and the bust of Pallas perched above the chamber door. Just kidding. About the books.

  Dr. Kahn sat behind his mahogany desk, the green tint of the banker’s lamp illuminating his preternaturally smooth face. He looked as undoctorly as it was possible to look, wearing khaki pants and a white polo shirt emblazoned with the Croyden crest. “Miss Dyer,” he said, gesturing to one of the chairs opposite his desk. “What can I do for you today?”

  I looked him in the eye. “I think my Spanish grade should be adjusted,” I said. I sounded smooth. Confident.

  “I see.”

  “I can prove I deserved an A on the exam,” I said, and it was true. There was a recording of it. I just didn’t have it.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Dr. Kahn said, leaning back in his tufted leather chair.

  I blinked. “Oh,” I said, somewhat taken aback. “Great. So when will the grade be changed?”

  “I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do, Mara.”

  I blinked again, but when I opened my eyes, there was only darkness.

  “Mara?” Dr. Kahn’s voice sounded distant. I blinked again. Dr. Kahn had actually put his wing-tipped feet up on his desk. He looked so casual. I wanted to smack them off and pull his chair out from underneath him.

  “Why not?” I asked through gritted teeth. I needed to stay calm. If I screamed, the F would stay.

  But it was so tempting.

  Dr. Kahn lifted a piece of paper from his desk and reviewed it carefully. “Teachers have to submit a written explanation to the administration whenever they assign a failing grade,” he said. “Ms. Morales wrote that you cheated on your exam.”

  My nostrils flared, and red spots appeared in my vision. “She lied,” I said quietly. “How could I cheat on an oral exam? It’s ridiculous.”

  “According to her gradebook, your first scores were quite poor.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “So I’m being punished for doing better?”

  “Not just better, Mara. Your improvement was pretty miraculous, don’t you think?”

  Dr. Kahn’s words stoked my rage. “I got a tutor,” I said through clenched teeth, as I tried to blink the spots away.

  “She said she saw you sneaking glances under your sleeve during your test. She said she saw writing on your arm.”

  “She’s lying!” I shouted, then realized my mistake. “She’s lying,” I said in a lower, shaky voice. “I had a bandage on my arm when I took the test. From an accident.”

  “She also said she’d seen your eyes wandering during in-class assignments.”

  “So, basically, she can say I cheated without having to submit any proof?”

  “I don’t like your tone, Miss Dyer.”

  “Guess we’re even, then,” I said before I could stop myself.

  Dr. Kahn raised his eyebrows slowly. His voice was infuriatingly even when he spoke. “Christina Morales has been a teacher here for over twenty years. She’s tough, but fair—I can count on one hand the number of complaints from students.”

  I interrupted him. “They’re too scared to say anyth—”

  “You, on the other hand,” Dr. Kahn continued, “have been here for mere weeks, and you have been late to class on multiple occasions, spoke back to your history teacher this morning—yes, I heard about that—and managed to get yourself thrown out of Ms. Morales’s class after causing a huge disruption. Who would you believe?”

  I literally saw red. I tried so hard not to scream that my voice, when I spoke, came out as a whisper. “Just—just listen. There’s a recording of my exam. I’ll get someone to translate it. We’ll play it. Ms. Morales can—”

  Dr. Kahn didn’t even uncross his legs before interrupting me. “Tell you what. I’ll call Ms. Morales in later and I’ll go over everything with her again. I’ll let you know my final decision.”

  Dark thoughts swirled in my mind and time slowed to a crawl. I stood up from the chair, knocking it over, but my hands trembled too much to pick it up. This was—this whole thing was beyond unfair. And I was becoming unhinged. I threw open the door to his office and heard it slam into the doorstop before bouncing back. I didn’t care. My feet felt like they were made of steel as I made my way to Spanish. I wanted to crush the grass into powder. Morales was going to get away with this. I hoped she choked on her lying tongue.

  And I could see it with stunning clarity. Her eyes bulged and she staggered around her empty classroom, putting her bony fingers into her mouth, trying to figure out what was wrong. She turned blue, and made a funny hacking sound. It’s hard to lie when you can’t speak.

  I wanted to face her. I wanted to spit in her eye. But as I flew up the stairs to her classroom, I knew I’d never go through with it. I’d curse at her, though. I rounded the corner and crossed the last few feet to the door, thinking of several epithets I wanted to fling in her direction. Today’s Spanish class brought to you by the letter C.

  There was no one in the classroom except for Jude when I skidded to a stop in front of the doorway. He was lying on the ground, pale with dust. A huge beam of wood lay on top of him, and I saw where the splinters met skin. His torso was all bloody, and some of it trickled down the side of his mouth. Making him look kind of like the Joker from Batman.

  I blinked.

  It was Jude’s body no longer. It was the asshole that abused Mabel, lying on the floor, the side of his skull reduced to pink mush, his leg bent at a funny angle. Like a hick ballerina. The linoleum had turned to dirt and the flies choked his wounds.

  I blinked again.

  He was gone. In his place was Morales. She was lying on the floor, and her face was more purple than blue. This made sense, given my second-grade art lesson in primary colors. Red plus blue equals purple, and Morales was always red-faced. So help me, she now resembled the blueberry person from Willy Wonka. I tilted my head sideways and blinked at the bug-eyed body on the linoleum floor, certain she’d be gone like the others if I looked away. So I did.

  But when I looked back, she was still there.

  42

  THE NEXT FIVE SECONDS FELT LIKE FIVE hours. The second bell rang, and I was pushed aside by a blond girl named Vera toting a guidance counselor behind her. Vera was crying. Hmm.

  “She was choking when I got here but I didn’t know what to do!” Vera blew a snot bubble as she cried, and the muco
us dribbled down past her lips. Nasty.

  “Everyone stand back!” Mrs. Barkan, the guidance counselor shouted. The doorway was overrun by students freaking out.

  I heard a siren in the background and soon EMTs and police were pushing students out of the way, creating a little bubble of space around the classroom door. People were crying and shoving and generally annoying the hell out of me, so I backed out of the throng. I trotted down the stairs two at a time until I hit the ground. I hadn’t eaten lunch. I was starving and dizzy and I didn’t sleep last night and so help me, this could not be happening. Did I even take my pill this morning? I couldn’t remember.

  I stumbled out from under the archway on to the sprawling green. The sun blinded me and I wanted to punch it in the face. And thinking that made me giggle. Then my giggle turned into a cackle. Soon, I was laughing so hard tears streamed down my face. My neck felt wet and I was out of breath and I dropped to the ground beneath a tree at the far corner of the campus, laughing madly and twisting on the grass, gripping my sides because they hurt, damn it, but it was just so funny.

  Out of nowhere, a hand gripped my shoulder and folded me up into a sitting position. I looked up.

  “Mara Dyer, isn’t it?” Detective Gadsen said. His tone was curious and even, but his eyes were not friendly.

  A blur of movement behind him attracted my attention. Noah appeared in my field of vision; when he saw who I was talking to, he stopped. I looked at my feet.

  “How’s the dog?” the detective asked.

  It was all I could do not to look up in shock. I shifted my head to the side and my hair fell around my face in a curtain. The better to hide me with, my dear.

  “What dog?”

  “Funny thing,” he said. “That dog you called Animal Services about a few weeks ago? After I talked to you, it just up and disappeared.”

  “That is funny,” I said, even though it wasn’t. Not at all.

  “Was Ms. Morales your teacher?” he asked, without missing a beat.

  Was? So she was dead, then. That, at least, was real. Impossible, but real. I nodded.