“But I—”
“No,” she says, putting a hand up. “You know what? I don't care. I thought you were freaking out about the dance or… or something else, I don't know. You've been acting so spacey that I thought it was something real. I was even worried that you were mad at me! But no. You'd just rather play hotshot cement mixer than spend two minutes talking to me.”
“Hotshot cement mixer? Wait a minute!”
“Forget it!” she says, then spins around and storms away.
I call over my shoulder to Hudson and the others, “Sorry, I've got to go!” Then I climb the back fence and tear through the trees and down the embankment toward the ball fields, calling, “Wait up!”
She just keeps running toward the backstop, where she's locked up her bike.
“Marissa!” I call after her, and finally catch up in the middle of left field. And I start to pant out, “Look, I'm sorry…,” but when I see her face, the words catch in my throat.
She's not just mad at me—she's crying.
“Why don't you just tell me you're sick of hanging out with me?” she says, flinging tears off her cheeks. “Why do you have to go make up excuses and act like you've got tons to do?”
“What are you talking about?” I ask, but I know darn well what she's talking about.
She spins on me. “I'm talking about the way you've been acting and the excuses you've been making!”
“Excuses? What excuses?”
She hmphs and rolls her eyes and snaps, “Homework! Let's start with homework—who gave you homework last night?”
I look away.
“Exactly.” She puts her fists on her hips. “You think I'm stupid? You think I can't tell you're avoiding me? We've known each other since the third grade. You're like my sister. And now all of a sudden you treat me like you can't stand me!”
“I do not!”
“You do so!”
I look away again, and finally I choke out, “It's just … I've been …” But I can't finish. What am I going to tell her? More lies?
The truth?
No, not the truth.
It's too awful.
Too embarrassing.
Too… cowardly.
And all of a sudden I just can't take it. I don't know what to do. Inside it feels like I'm imploding. Exploding. Coming apart in every direction. And before I can find a way to hold it all together, I buckle up and fall to my knees, crying, “Aarrghh.”
Marissa grabs my arm, saying, “Sammy! Sammy, what's wrong?”
I'm all folded up, holding my head, rocking back and forth. I can't seem to stop rocking back and forth. I feel angry. Helpless. Possessed.
And that's when it flashes through my mind that there's the me I'd always been, and the me I was turning into. They were both afraid, but of completely different things.
One was afraid of what I was becoming.
The other was afraid of what I'd done.
And I could feel that this was it—this was the point where I had to choose.
The truth—or the lie.
My head felt heavy. My whole body was shaky. My stomach felt like it was ready to hurl.
“Sammy?” Marissa whispered. She shook me a little. “Sammy!”
“I killed him,” I choked out, but it was so quiet that I almost couldn't hear it myself.
“What?” She shook me harder. “Sammy, look at me!”
It was strange. Even though she hadn't heard me, saying the words out loud had caused a little jolt inside me. A rumble in the distance, a flash of light through a pitch-black sky. And the words …the rumble …had been quiet, way off in the distance, so the light felt distant, too. But inside me, in my heart, I could feel the light. And all of a sudden I wanted the rumble to be louder. Stronger. I wanted lightning to strike hard and bright inside me.
I looked up at Marissa and said, “I killed him!”
“What?”
“I killed him!” I wailed. “I … killed…Tango!”
And with that the skies inside me opened up, and tears flooded onto the outfield grass.
We sat there cross-legged, facing each other, for at least an hour. And after we'd finally hashed the whole thing out, Marissa shook her head and said, “You are so hard on yourself, Sammy.” She held my forearms. “It was an accident.”
“I know, but now Heather's on the hook for what I've done—”
“And this bothers you? You don't think Heather would be in total revenge heaven right now if the roles were reversed?”
“Yeah, but don't you get it? It seems like I'm trying to frame her. So it seems like it wasn't an accident.”
“Look,” she said all conspiratorially, “she deserves it. What we've got to do, though, is tell Mrs. Ambler about the Class Personality ballots.”
“No!”
“No? You're saying you want Heather to be Most Popular Seventh Grader?”
“Most popular? She wasn't even on the ballot for Most Popular!”
“Like that's going to stop her from writing her own name in? Come on!”
I frowned. “I hadn't even thought about that.”
Marissa rolled her eyes. “It's been a whole year of her, Sammy. How come I've caught on and you, of all people, haven't?”
“ 'Cause I don't think like that, that's why. Who's ever won from a write-in? That's like throwing away your vote.”
Marissa just shrugged.
“And you know what? I don't care. If she wants to be Most Popular Seventh Grader that bad, let her.”
“You have got to be kidding.”
I shook my head. “I'm not.”
“Man,” she said with a snort, “this keeping-a-corpse-in-a-closet thing has really done a number on you.” She looked me square in the eye. “We can't let her get away with it!”
I shrugged. “Is it as bad as getting away with murder?”
“You didn't murder the bird! You accidentally killed the bird.” She shrugged. “And hid it. And framed Heather for it …” She laughed. “But you didn't murder the bird!”
I laughed, too, then took a deep breath and said, “I have to tell Mrs. Ambler.”
“About the bird? Are you crazy?”
I shrugged. “As Hudson says, the truth has an interesting habit of finding its way to the surface. I'd rather she heard it from me than some other way.”
“Wait a minute. Wait just a minute! Who's going to tell her? Not me, that's for sure! I swear, cross my heart hope to die, I won't tell a soul.”
I shook my head. “Marissa, don't you get it? I can't do this anymore. Poor Tango's all decomposing under some clothes in a closet! How long's it gonna be before Mrs. Ambler cleans out the closet and finds him all shriveled up and rotten and full of fly larvae—”
“Stop! Oh, gross! You've been thinking about that? Fly larvae?”
I gave a helpless shrug.
“Okay, okay, whatever.” She shivered from head to toe. “If you've got to tell her so you can get the thought of fly larvae out of your head, then fine. Tell her. But it's a tragic waste of the most perfect payback ever, if you ask me.”
“But I don't want to be like Heather,” I said softly. “I want to be me.”
For some reason that made my eyes get all teary, and when she saw that, her eyes got all teary, too. “Oh, Sammy,” she said, and gave me a hug. Then she sat back and said, “Well, at least you'll be able to tell Mrs. Ambler about the Personality ballots.”
I shook my head. “I can't do that.”
“What?”
“If I do that, she'll think I'm confessing about Tango so I can get Heather in hot water about the ballots.”
“So? She should be in hot water about the ballots!”
“Yeah, but it's not why I want to confess, and I don't want her thinking it's why I'm confessing.”
She threw her hands in the air. “Unbelievable. So you're just going to let her get away with it?”
“I honestly don't care if she does. And, Marissa, just because I'm planning to tell
Mrs. Ambler about Tango doesn't mean you can tell anyone else. You have to swear you won't. If kids find out what I did, I'm going to be—”
“Most Gossiped-about Seventh Grader?”
“There you go.”
She laughed. “Don't worry. I won't breathe a word to anyone.” She stood up and dusted her backside, saying, “Now. Can we talk about something serious?”
I stood up, too. “Serious?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Like what we're going to wear to the Farewell Dance.”
I laughed. And even though I knew confessing to Mrs. Ambler was going to be one of the hardest things I'd ever done, inside I felt light and hopeful.
Almost free.
ELEVEN
The first thing I did when I got home was apologize to Grams. And since I felt so much better after confessing everything to Marissa, well, I confessed everything to Grams, too.
And you know what? The more I talked about it, the more stupid keeping it all inside seemed.
It had been an accident!
Followed by a whole bunch of really bad decisions, yeah, but still—it had been an accident.
So when I was all done confessing everything to Grams and she had forgiven me, I was on a total roll, man. I wanted to go to Mrs. Ambler's house! Knock on the door! Confess all my sins!
Well, the ones having to do with her munched lovebird, anyway.
Trouble is, there were no Amblers in the phone book. Or at 411.
“Do you know her first name?” Grams asked. “Maybe Hudson could do an Internet search for you.”
I blinked at her. Sometimes my grams astounds me.
But I didn't know her first name. And the more I thought about that, the more strange that felt. Since school had started, I'd seen her every day, I'd said hi to her every day, I'd listened to her every day, but who was she? Until she'd started bringing birds to class, I'd actually known nothing about her.
And the fact that I still didn't even know her name was making me feel pretty stupid. But when I told all this to Grams, she sort of shrugged it off and said, “That's normal, Samantha. She's not supposed to be your friend, she's a teacher.”
“But still. She's someone I see every day!”
“So are neighbors. So are people at the grocery store. So's the postman. You see lots of people every day and you think you know them, but you don't. Not really.”
I thought about this a minute, then said, “I still feel stupid.”
She laughed, then kissed me on the forehead. “I know you're dying to get this bird business off your chest, but it'll wait until Monday. The important thing is you've decided what you need to do and you're actually going to do it.” Then she tried to give me a stern look, and said, “And the next time you're tempted to forge my forgery, call me first — we'll talk things out together, okay?”
I laughed and said, “Thanks, Grams,” and I gotta tell you—at that point I was a total confession convert. I just knew everything was going to be okay.
Trouble is, Monday morning I started losing my religion.
Call it cold feet. Or a panic attack. Or just being chicken. But as I was getting ready for school, I started getting sick to my stomach again, and I played around with the idea of ditching.
“Samantha?” Grams said as I jabbed at my oatmeal.
“I can't do it,” I whispered.
She reached over and held my hand. “Listen to your heart, not your fear.” Then she pulled back and said, “Although I must admit—Heather getting the blame would make keeping it a secret verrry tempting.” Then she added, “Would it be any easier on you if I went along?”
“No!”
“Okay. Just offering…”
So she forced me to eat a little, then coaxed me out the door. But the closer I got to school, the more my heart started telling me this was not a good idea. It was crashing around inside my chest like a cannonball stuck inside a pinball machine, and by the time I reached the walkway to Mrs. Ambler's room, I felt faint. Shaky. I couldn't think. It was like fear had vacuumed my brain right out of my skull.
And then all of a sudden Marissa comes flying out of Mrs. Ambler's room. She grabs me by the arm and yanks me aside, whispering, “You do not want to go in there!”
“Why?” I choke out, and believe me, this is not helping me one bit.
“She found him!”
“Tango?” I gasp.
“Yes! And she's got him clipped to the whiteboard!”
“What?”
“You know—on one of those poster clips? He's dangling up in front of the classroom! By his broken wing! And he smells!”
“Ohhhhh,” I whimper.
“And the classroom's full of kids saying how gross it is!”
“Ohhhhhhhhh,” I whimper again.
“So you can't tell her now. You can't tell her at all!” Then she straightens up, smooths her expression, and whispers, “Be cool. There's Heather.”
Sure enough, Heather's coming up the walkway. And when she spots us, she sneers and says, “What are you two losers doing? Picking your nose?”
“Yeah,” I say out of some primal survival reflex as I stick my finger at her. “We knew you'd be hungry for breakfast.”
“Eeew!” she squeaks, and hurries into the classroom.
“Eeew is right,” Marissa whispers, looking at me with disgust.
I shrugged, and for once I was grateful to Heather. Flinging booger insults had broken the cycle of panic.
Marissa was dragging me toward the classroom door, saying, “Now's the time to go in because all eyes will be on Heather. Just take your seat and be cool. We'll regroup after homeroom.”
So that's exactly what I did. I tried not to look at the heaping mess outside the closet door. I tried not to look at Mrs. Ambler. Or Heather. Or anybody else for that matter.
I especially tried not to look at Tango.
Mrs. Ambler acted all perky as she took roll. Like, Gee—there's not a decomposing bird clipped to the wall right behind me, is there? Then she led the Pledge, enunciating clearly and calmly until the end, when her anger slipped out and she said, “and justice for all!” fast and loud—and looked right at Heather.
Then she plastered a great big phony smile on her face and said, “And now for the announcements!” like, Aren't we having such a wonderful, wonderful time! But after a torturous minute of her reading them in a singsongy manner, Cassie Kuo breaks in with, “Mrs. Ambler! Mrs. Ambler, stop!”
“Stop what?” she asks in her oh-so-perky voice.
“Why are you doing this? Why do you have poor Tango up there like that? If we knew what happened to him, we would tell you!”
“Oh, is that so?” she says, still perkin' away.
“Yes!” Cassie cries, and a lot of people in the classroom nod like, We would! Honest, we would!
Then some clown from the back of the class calls, “Hey, she finally clipped his wing!”
Cassie spins around and snaps, “That's not funny!” in the general direction of Derrick Stern and Rudy Folksmeir.
Mrs. Ambler levels a look at Derrick and Rudy, too, but doesn't say a thing. Then she moves her gaze around the room, and when it lands on Heather, Heather snaps, “Don't look at me like that.”
“Like what?” Mrs. Ambler asks.
“Like you're looking at me! I didn't kill your bird, and I think it's sick that you've got him hanging up there like that. I can smell him from here!”
Mrs. Ambler moves closer to Tango and sniffs the air. “Hmmm,” she says with a little nod. “He is a bit ripe, isn't he?”
“Eeew,” a lot of the girls say, but some of the boys are looking at each other like, Whoa, dude! Extreme!
When we were finally free of homeroom, Holly intersected my beeline toward Marissa and said, “Was that intense, or what? I've never seen a teacher act like that!”
Now, I couldn't exactly say, Please. Not now. I have to talk to Marissa! I mean, Holly and I have been through a lot together, and I felt bad that she was totally in th
e dark about what was going on.
Then Marissa says, “Holly, uh, we've gotta deal with something right now. We'll catch you up at lunch, okay?”
Holly tries to hide it, but she's a little hurt. And she says, “Sure,” and starts to walk off, but I hate the way that's making me feel. So I grab her by the arm, yank her to the side, and whisper, “It's about Tango and Heather and…and…and I can't say any more right now.”
“Do you have proof?” Holly asks me, all wide-eyed.
I scowl and say, “Yeah, but it's proof that Heather didn't have anything to do with it.”
Holly gasps, then whispers, “Well…so you know who did?”
I look her in the eye and keep looking her in the eye until finally she blinks, drops her jaw, and whispers, “No!”
Marissa's there, too, and she whispers, “It was an accident!”
I can see the wheels spinning in Holly's head. “Who else knows?” she asks.
“Nobody,” Marissa and I say together. Then I add, “I'll explain the whole mess later, okay? I was planning to confess today, but—”
“Confess? Are you crazy? Everyone thinks it's Heather!”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “I can't live with it anymore. If it was anyone but Heather, I would have confessed a long time ago.”
“There's more,” Marissa whispers. “Sammy saw Heather steal Class Personality ballots.”
“To cheat?”
“Of course,” Marissa says.
“Well, that you've got to tell Mrs. Ambler!”
The next class was starting to file into Mrs. Ambler's room, so I said, “Look, just don't breathe a word of anything to anyone, okay? We'll regroup at lunch.”
So off we raced to our classes, only I couldn't concentrate on anything. In English Miss Pilson gave us a busy-work assignment while she graded essays. “See how many words you can form out of WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,” she said, writing it out on the board, 'cause after a full year with the Bard most of us still can't spell his name. “One hundred words minimum, contractions don't count, plurals don't count, no talking or working in groups. More than one hundred words earns you an extra credit point each.” She turned from the board. “Some of you desperately need points, so get to it!”