Normally, I would have loved this assignment. And I sure could've used the extra credit points. But after I whipped past the basics like I and a and am, I started finding words like ill and kill and shame and liar. And pretty soon I was obsessing about Tango again, seeing him crunched in the door, rotting under old clothes, dangling from the wall by a wing. I tried to shake it off, but the images kept coming back, and pretty soon I was sick to my stomach again.
At the end of class Miss Pilson told us, “How many of you would like more time to work on these at home?”
Instantly all hands went up as kids glanced at each other slyly like, You wanna share answers?
Then Miss Pilson said, “Fine. And any word that nobody else has is three extra credit points.”
The glancing suddenly stopped.
So I packed up my twelve words and went to math, where Mr. Tiller gave us a sheet of brainteasers to solve while he called us up individually to discuss our grades and what we could do in the next week and a half to raise them. And of course, I couldn't care less what the Roman numeral LMXI is equal to if CXV is six and CMLMI is seven. Or what number in a series of numbers is least like the others, or what ABCD is when ABCD times nine equals DCBA. All I could hear was the clock.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
The more I listened to it, the louder it seemed to get. And maybe it was the combination of nausea, fear, anxiety, and dread, I don't know, but pretty soon the ticking started sounding like the clicking of a roller coaster. You know, when they're pulling you up the incline. You're pressed flat against your seat. You can't really see the top, just the seats in front of you. And you're click-click-clicking up, up, up. Then there's that moment of balance at the tippy-top where a scream starts to gather in your throat, and then wham you're off.
Only the tick-tick-ticking didn't stop. So it felt like I was click-click-clicking up, up, up in torturous slow motion. There didn't seem to be a top. I just kept going higher and higher.
“Sammy!”
“Huh?”
Mr. Tiller smiled at me. “Your turn. Come on up.”
I was all light-headed. Shaky. Ultrapukey. And that's when it hit me that the longer I let the ticking go on, the steeper, harder, and faster I was going to drop.
So I decided. Right then, I decided.
It was time to make the clicking stop. “It's not that bad!” Mr. Tiller joked as I stumbled to his desk. But then he looked at me better and lowered his voice. “Are you all right?”
I shook my head. “May I use the restroom?” It came out all breathy. All chalky-mouthed.
He nodded. “Of course. Go!”
So I escaped the ticking, skipped the bathroom, and went straight to Mrs. Ambler's room.
I don't know what I was expecting. She's a teacher. She's supposed to have students. What was I planning to do? Barge in in the middle of class and ask her to step outside?
I guess I was hoping she'd be alone. You know, having her prep period or whatever they call it. But when I looked in the window, there was nobody there. And Tango was down from the wall.
I kind of tisked and whined and stomped a foot all at once.
And then around the corner from the service alley comes Cisco, the school's head custodian.
“Sammy!” he says to me, 'cause Cisco's cool that way. He knows everybody. “You forget something again?”
“Uh, no. I'm just looking for Mrs. Ambler. Do you happen to know where she is?”
“Sure. She's in the special-needs room.” I guess I was looking pretty clueless because he says, “You know, next to the cafeteria?” I still must've been looking out of it because he scoops a hand through the air and says, “Come on. I'll show you.”
So he leads me across campus, around the cafeteria, to the ramp of a propped-open door and says, “Right here.”
Now, before I just barge in, I've got to check the situation out. So I head up the ramp and hang back a bit from the door as I look inside.
There's a woman I've never seen before working at a table with a girl in a wheelchair, plus three or four other kids and Mrs. Ambler, who's trying to calm down a gangly boy with jabby black hair.
“It's mine!” the boy is shouting. “It's mine and he took it from me!” His voice sounds like it's coming through foam. Like when you're in the middle of brushing your teeth and have to shout, I'll be there in a minute!
“It's okay, Josh,” Mrs. Ambler tells him in a soothing voice. “Calm down and I'll get it back for you.”
“But it's mine! It's mine and he took it from me!”
“I know, Josh, but first you must sit down and calm down.”
“But it's mine! It's mine and he took it from me!”
“I know, Josh. Sit down and calm down.”
“But it's mine! It's mine and he took it from me!”
“I know. And how do you get your spaceman back?”
“It's mine! It's mine and he took it from me!”
“You get your spaceman back when you sit down and calm down.”
Less than a minute of this and I was ready to shout, Sit down! Shut up! She'll get you your stupid spaceman! But Mrs. Ambler just kept at it, calmly, patiently, saying it over and over again, “Sit down, calm down. That's how you get your spaceman back.”
Finally, finally, he sat down.
And, thank God, he shut up.
Thirty seconds later Mrs. Ambler had gotten the space-man from another kid and had it back in Josh's hands. “See?” she said. “You got your spaceman back. You got it back because you were calm and sat down.”
“I got my spaceman back!” Josh shouted at the other kid. “You took it but I got it back.”
The other kid just stood near a wall, sort of swaying, rocking side to side.
“I got my spaceman back! You took it but I got it back!”
“That's enough, Josh,” Mrs. Ambler said, but it wasn't the way I would have said it—it was soothing. Calming.
Then the other woman noticed me and said, “May I help you?”
“Oh, uh, no. I'll talk to her later.”
But Mrs. Ambler looked over, and I could see her eyes light up as she realized that I was there for a reason.
“Sammy!” she said, hurrying over to me.
I could feel my knees start to wobble, and I had that light-headed, dizzy feeling again. The clicking had stopped. Sheer panic set in. But there was no turning back. No getting off this ride. I was strapped in by my own conscience, about to catapult over the edge, hard and fast.
I held my breath, closed my eyes, and prayed the drop wouldn't kill me.
TWELVE
“Is this about Tango?” Mrs. Ambler asked.
Like it had a life of its own, my head bobbed up and down.
“Come in,” she says, grabbing me by the arm, looking both ways outside to make sure no one's watching. Then she says to the other woman, “I'm going to be in the office for a few minutes,” and leads me through the special-needs room to a little cubicle, where she sits me down in a chair. “Talk to me,” she says.
“It's a … it's a really long story,” I tell her. “And I can't just jump to the end.”
She looks at the clock on the wall, and just then the passing bell rings. I look at the clock, too, not believing what I'm seeing.
“It's okay,” she tells me. “I've got special-needs kids for another period and I'll write you a pass.” She pulls up a chair so that our knees are practically touching and says it again, “Talk to me.”
So I take a deep, choppy breath and say, “You know what you told me before about Heather being vicious, right?”
“Is she threatening you? Because if she is …”
I shake my head real fast. “But she does have a certain power on campus. I don't really get it, but she does.”
“So you're afraid of her.”
I kind of look to the side and take another deep breath, trying to figure out how to word what I want to say. Finally, I decide on, “I'm afraid of what might happen if she find
s out.”
She leans back a little and says, “Oh, Sammy, you have nothing to worry about! No one has to know you've told me anything.”
I hesitate again, then say, “It's not just that. I mean, I want to tell you, but only you. Will you promise that you won't tell anyone else?”
“But … why?” She leans forward. “And how will we ever get rid of Heather if I can't share what you know with the administration?”
“Please, Mrs. Ambler?”
She looks at me a minute, then finally shrugs and says, “If it's that important, okay. You have my word.”
So I take another deep breath and say, “You know that Heather has tried to sabotage me all year, right?”
She nods.
“You know that she's a vicious gossip who can somehow work people into believing that she's turned over a new leaf when what she's really doing is angling for Friendliest Seventh Grader, right?”
She cringes.
“You also know that if she had the opportunity to pin something on me, she would, right?”
Mrs. Ambler gives a little shrug. “Impossible with Tango, seeing how you were absent that day.”
Now it's my turn to cringe. “But I wasn't absent, Mrs. Ambler.”
“You … weren't?”
“No. I was hiding from Heather.” I look down. “In the closet.”
Her face goes slack. Her color sort of drains away, then comes flooding back. But before she can say anything, I blurt out, “I came in to drop off my skateboard and I saw Tango flying free, making a beeline for the door. So I hurried to close the door, only the hydraulic closer wouldn't budge, and then when it finally did, it slammed shut and poor Tango got caught in the jamb. And I had just picked him up off the floor when I saw Heather through the window and panicked. So I hid in the closet from her, only then Brandy and Tawnee came in, and then you came in, and pretty soon the whole class was there, and you were accusing Heather, and I was … I was trapped! It would have been suicide to step out! Heather would have crucified me! And then when everyone was gone, I ditched school and came in late, and I thought I could live with what I'd done because nobody, nobody knew it was me, but I started lying to everyone that matters to me, and my heart felt like it was just rotting away inside my chest, and then the God of Dead Birds started sending around agents, and I, and I, and I just can't take it! I feel horrible about Tango and about being such a coward and upsetting you so much and letting you down. After all the nice things you said about me, I turn out to be a liar and a sneak, and I wouldn't blame you if you hate me forever! But it was an accident, and I'm so, so, sorry…!”
Mrs. Ambler's eyes are wide, and she's stunned into silence as she tries to absorb everything I've said. Finally, she holds her head in her hands and says, “I am in a world of hurt.”
I whimper, “I'm sorry,” and boy, do I sound pathetic.
“No,” she says, “I'm in a world of hurt because of the way I've been railroading Heather.” She shakes her head. “What am I going to do? I was so sure she was lying to me! How could I have been so wrong?”
I look down, and very quietly I tell her, “You weren't.”
“What's that?”
“She was lying to you.” I peek at her, then look down again. “Just not about Tango.”
“Then what?”
“I…I can't tell you.”
“What? Why not?”
“Because I don't want you to think I'm confessing what I did wrong so that I can tell you what she did wrong.”
“Wait—are you saying you don't want to have mixed motives?”
Just then Marissa's head shoots through the doorway. She's all flushed and out of breath, and when she sees she's found us, her eyes get big and she just stands there sort of sputtering, “I was … Did you …? Is everything… okay?”
“She knows?” Mrs. Ambler asks me.
I nod. “Holly does, too, but they're the only ones.” Then I cringe and say, “And if you can find it in your heart to forgive me, please, please don't tell anyone else. Word'll get out and—”
She waved it off. “Sammy, I forgive you. I would have forgiven you the day it happened. It was an accident, and from what you've explained, I can see that things got out of hand.”
“Oh, Mrs. Ambler, thank you!” I actually jumped up and hugged her but got embarrassed and sat back down. “And I'm so sorry you found Tango yourself. I tried to look you up this weekend, but you're not in the phone book or at 411 or even on the Internet.”
“It's okay, it's okay. But, Sammy, you've got to help me now. What was Heather lying about? I need something! Something to distract her from suing me. Do you have any idea what I've been enduring with that mother of hers? She's a beast!”
Marissa backhanded me softly. “Tell her!”
I thought about it a minute, then said, “What does Heather want more than anything?” I gave a shrug and added, “Besides humiliating me, of course.”
Mrs. Ambler knew the answer in a heartbeat. “Popularity.”
“And if you were Heather, how would you go about convincing people you were popular, even if you really weren't?”
She just stared at me.
Finally, I said, “Okay, how about this: Were you missing anything the day Tango disappeared?”
She hesitated, then shook her head.
“It wasn't so much missing as it was partially missing. You probably didn't think anything of it 'cause you were worried about Tango.”
“Good grief, Sammy, just tell her!” Marissa said.
But a little light sparked to life in Mrs. Ambler's eyes. “Wait a minute …wait a minute! The seventh-grade Personality ballots! I thought I hadn't made enough copies, but … but she stole some of them, didn't she!”
I gave her a little smile. “You didn't hear that from me.”
She was putting it together quick now. “Not enough for me to notice, but enough to sway the election!” Her eyes were getting bigger and bigger. “Which explains why she got fifty-two write-ins for Most Popular!”
“No!” I gasped. “She wrote herself in for Most Popular? Like winning Best Style or Friendliest wouldn't have been enough?”
“Told you!” Marissa said, giving me a smug look. Then she added, “And it's Most Unique Style, Sammy.”
“Who cares?”
Mrs. Ambler scowled. “And make that winning Most Unique Style and Friendliest.”
“She won both?” I asked.
“That's right,” Mrs. Ambler said, but then scratched her head and added, “But if I can't say you witnessed her stealing the ballots, on what grounds am I going to get them thrown out and start over?”
“That's easy,” I said. “You ran off extra copies, right? So there are more ballots than there are kids. Just pull out the ones that have Heather written in for Most Popular and you'll probably wind up with the right number.”
She nodded. “Can I say I got a tip from a student?”
“Sure!” Marissa said. “How about I write a note and put it in your box?”
“That'll work,” she said. Then after a quick minute of thinking, she motioned us in like we were huddling up for a football play. “All right. Here's the plan: We don't tell anybody about your involvement with Tango or that Heather didn't kill Tango. I show Mr. Caan the suspicious ballots. He calls Heather in, and the pressure he puts on her will hopefully deflect the focus from my false accusation to her real crime.” She leaned back a little. “I don't get sued, you don't get crucified, and Tango can rest in peace.”
I was so relieved I couldn't believe it. But then I noticed that Marissa had a wicked look in her eye. “What,” I asked her, “are you thinking?”
“I'm thinking,” she said, drawing the word way out, “that it would have a bigger impact on Heather if you kept quiet about everything for now and then announced the real Class Personality winners at the Farewell Dance.”
“Oooooh,” Mrs. Ambler said. “That is diabolical!” She laughed. “All week she'll assume she won, then bam.??
? She nodded, and I could see the wheels racing in her head as she added, “I'm sure I can get Mr. Caan on board …I just hope that I can keep that beastly mother of hers at bay until Friday.”
I think my jaw must've hit my chest. “Mrs. Ambler,” I said, “I can't believe you're being so cool about this. I was expecting you to be so mad at me! Look at the mess you're in, all because of me!”
“Sammy, I loved Tango. He was a sweet little bird. But what bothered me most was not knowing what happened to him … or the feeling that someone — Heather — had played a prank on me. But now that I know what happened” — she gave a little shrug and nodded out to the special-needs room — “well, in the scheme of what I deal with every day, it's minor.” She grabbed a pad and a pencil and started writing us passes to class. “And I'm actually impressed. Most kids would have been happy to let their archenemy take the fall.” She eyed me with a little smirk. “To tell you the truth, I don't know that I would have stepped forward had I been in your shoes.”
When she was finished writing, I asked, “So, uh, how's Hula adjusting?”
She peeled the notes off the pad and passed them to us. “Hula's fine. We got her a new friend, Jitterbug.” She laughed. “She harasses him just as much as she did Tango.”
“Hula does?”
“Oh, Hula acts demure when people are around, but she's a fiend. I wouldn't be surprised if she's the reason Tango escaped.”
My mouth was sort of dangling. “But I thought love-birds seriously bonded to each other.”
She stood up and gave a little shrug. “Lovebirds also fight.”
I couldn't believe how much better I felt. I was all bubbly inside. Lighthearted. Free! And as we hurried over to math to retrieve my backpack, I couldn't help it—I started skipping.
Skipping.
“Wow, look at you,” Marissa laughed. “You seem like a whole new person!”
“I can't believe how nice Mrs. Ambler was. She was awesome.” Skip-a-skip-a-skip-a-skip! “And you know what?”
“What?” She laughed at the complete idiot I was making of myself.
“I cannot wait.”
It must've been contagious because Marissa got in step, skipping right beside me. “For?”