Westcott High

by Sarah Mello

  “JC said they don’t,” I replied, reaching for the keypad. I slowly punched the numbers, and the garage door rolled up.

  We both looked at each other, unquestionably more terrified than we were while breaking and entering at the pool.

  “Let’s go,” he said as he walked inside.

  I followed.

  We opened the side door to the house, and I punched the alarm code in. The wealth met us at the door. Perhaps Kyle was used to a home so beautiful, but I was taken aback. My father did well for himself—but not this well. And my mother? Not even close.

  We walked through the kitchen and then into the living room toward the staircase, which curved upward toward the second story. The room’s modern furniture sat on a polished wood floor. The walls were off-white, and the white-and-gray chevron area rugs had vacuum marks across them. The matching white drapes framed the windows, and the moonlight reflected off the glass furniture.

  “Wow.” Kyle looked around the room. “Cozy.”

  I was too nervous to laugh. “Come on!”

  We walked up the stairs; each creak I heard sent a rush through my blood.

  “JC said Piper’s room is the first one on the right.” I pulled up a text from Winston. “And Piper’s still at the dance. Winston has his eye on her. And Clemmons.”

  We got to the top of the landing, which could accommodate a herd of elephants. The walls were covered in photos of Piper, some of her dad, and none of her mom. Apparently, the divorce was worse than anyone knew. We made a right turn and entered Piper’s room.

  “I could’ve sworn we just came from here,” Kyle said.

  I looked around. The décor was the same off-white walls, chevron-patterned rugs, and glass furniture from before. The only color in sight came from the rows of books lining the two tall bookshelves.

  “At least they’re consistent,” I said. “Let’s just look for the envelope and get out of here.”

  I rushed into the dark room, turned on a glass desk lamp, and began searching through Piper’s desk drawers. Stacks of sheet music and homework were piled everywhere. A Princeton mug sat center of the desk, with color-coordinated ink pens stuffed inside. One of her many violins sat in the corner of her room next to a wooden stool, and on top of the stool sat a black folder. I walked over and picked it up.

  “Look at this,” I said as I lifted the folder toward my face. “It says Westcott Awards. This must be her piece.”

  Kyle walked up behind me as I opened it.

  “ ‘Puppet,’ ” he read aloud. “Random title.”

  I ran my fingers over the sheet music. The pen marks, scribbles, and music notes meshed together to create a whole lot of gibberish. I couldn’t understand it if I wanted to. Perhaps her musical piece wasn’t the only thing I couldn’t begin to understand.

  “Maybe that title is not so random,” I mumbled as I looked around Piper’s lifeless room.

  “Can I ask you something?” Kyle said.

  “I don’t know.” I walked back to Piper’s desk and began searching through the stacks of papers. “Can you?”

  Kyle tipped a book off the shelf and mindlessly flipped through the pages. “Do you have to correct everyone’s grammar?”

  “Do you have to fight it?” I asked, squinting at each paper. “What’s your question?”

  “What’s the deal with Casey?” he asked.

  My frantic search became slower as his question took me aback. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean—it seems like she’s hiding something.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Okay, for example, she didn’t want me to pick her up tonight, which was super weird.”

  “Not weird,” I replied. “I didn’t let Jacob pick me up.”

  “That’s because you play hard to get.”

  “Maybe I am hard to get.”

  “Or maybe you’re a control freak.”

  “Or maybe both,” I said.

  “But then Casey parks on the opposite end of the school. Parking lot C is almost a quarter of a mile away from where we were supposed to meet.”

  “Maybe she wanted the exercise.” I skimmed through a third stack of papers.

  Kyle closed the book and picked up another one. “You do know I can tell when you’re lying.”

  “I’m not lying. I’m just passively responding to your statements.”

  “Come on, Sonny. What gives?”

  I slammed a drawer closed and looked up. “Look—Casey’s just—she’s just not like the rest of us.”

  “What? She’s a Cobalt?” He shrugged his shoulders. “I already knew that.”

  “She’s more than a Cobalt. Or less, rather. She’s—”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  I dropped my head. “Casey’s dad is in prison.”

  Kyle’s eyes descended toward the chevron rug.

  “He was arrested for drug trafficking, amongst a list of other charges. Her mom is also a user. And an alcoholic. She sent Casey and her brothers to Westcott to live with their aunt.”

  “So she doesn’t want anyone to know about her parents?” he asked.

  “Or the fact that they’re broke. Her aunt works tirelessly but can hardly afford to take care of the three of them. They struggle—to say the least.”

  Kyle stayed quiet, looking lost in his own thoughts.

  “She parked in parking lot C because that’s where she always parks,” I said. “So nobody will ever have to see her beat-up car. And she didn’t want you to pick her up because she probably didn’t want you to see her house.”

  I watched Kyle as he tried to understand something he never could.

  “Why didn’t she just tell me?” he asked. “We’ve been talking every night. That wouldn’t have come up?”

  “That definitely wouldn’t have come up,” I replied. “Besides, did you tell her everything about your parents?”

  Kyle ran his hand through his hair, brushing off my question. “I heard you reached out to Dean,” he said.

  I opened Piper’s bottom left desk drawer. “Who told you that?”

  “Dean,” he replied. “I caught him crying in the bathroom.”

  “Caught him? Well, thank God you were there to stop it.”

  “He showed me your letter.”

  “He showed it to you?” I asked.

  “I didn’t read it,” Kyle said, lifting his hands in the air. “But it looked like you pulled out the big guns. He was pretty torn up.”

  “Well, I really cared about his mom.”

  Kyle nodded. “And Dean too, right?”

  I peered at a stack of papers. “I don’t want to hear another lecture about Dean.”

  “Who gave you the first one?”

  “First . . .” I smiled. “If only I were so lucky.”

  “Shouldn’t that be a sign? That multiple people are expressing concern?” Kyle asked.

  “Look, I know he made some mistakes. And he regrets them. But Dean . . . well, Dean is my soulmate.”

  “I thought I was your soulmate,” Kyle replied.

  I reached into the drawer and grabbed another stack of papers. “I only agreed to marry you if I was still single at thirty.”

  Kyle lifted up his fingers and pretended to count. “Fourteen more years.”

  “That’s it?” I pretended to look horrified.

  “Very funny,” said Kyle. “Look, Sonny, I support you. Just like you support me and my dumb decisions, but—”

  “Dean is a dumb decision?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he replied. “The dumbest. But I still support you, as long as you promise to always be mindful. And I’m not so sure falling for two guys at once is a good idea.”

  I smirked. “That’s rich coming from you.”

  “I’m serious, Sonny. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Why does everyone think Jacob and I are anything more than friends?” I asked.

  “Jacob might be your friend . . . but you’re not just a
friend to him.”

  “And what makes you so sure that he likes me?” I opened another drawer.

  “He asked you to the dance, didn’t he?”

  “So? You asked Casey.”

  “I like Casey. Point proven.”

  “You also like Ari,” I said.

  “And you also like Dean. Looks like we’re in the same boat.”

  “The same unmindful boat?”

  Kyle let out a deep breath and looked toward the ceiling. “Just be careful.”

  Just then, I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my buzzing cell phone. “You have nothing to worry about.” I opened my text messages. “I’m always careful.”

  Kyle tossed a book into the air like a football. “Sure.”

  “Oh no,” I whispered, staring at Winston’s text. “He’s lost eyes on Piper.”

  Kyle ran over to help me, ransacking through Piper’s mountains of papers.

  “We have to find the envelope,” I said.

  “It’s not here,” Kyle replied, panic rising in his voice.

  “It has to be! Keep looking.”

  “Maybe she hid it somewhere,” Kyle suggested.

  “Like where?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, tossing his hands behind his head.

  I made my way over to Piper’s nightstand and searched the drawer, where I found an array of prescription medications. “What is all of this?”

  Kyle peeked over my shoulder. “Whoa . . .”

  We stared down at the plastic orange bottles in a daze.

  “Where, uh, where would you hide something in your room?” Kyle asked me, attempting to look away from the drawer full of pills.

  “What am I hiding?” I closed the drawer.

  “Anything,” Kyle said. “A love letter? A magazine?”

  “Do you think I’m twelve years old?” My eyes skimmed the room. “I guess if I needed a good hiding spot I’d pick under my mattress.”

  We stared at one another until the light bulb went off in both of our heads. I fell to my knees and shoved my hands underneath her mattress, frantically moving them around in circles.

  “Oh my God!” My hands came to a stop.

  All the way in the middle of the box spring was the item in question—the manila envelope.

  “I found it.”

  Kyle kneeled down beside me, placing his hand on my back. “Open it. Quick!”

  I pulled the envelope toward me as sweat began to emerge on my forehead.

  “What’s inside?” Kyle asked as he tapped my back and glanced at the bedroom door every five seconds.

  I brought the envelope to my lap and carefully opened it. My hand slipped inside, and I pulled out a catalog.

  “A Princeton catalog,” I said, dropping the envelope to my lap.

  “That’s it?” Kyle grabbed it from my hands, flipping through the pages.

  I dropped my shoulders in defeat. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Hand me my cell phone,” Kyle said. “I want to take some photos just in case.”

  I stood, grabbed Kyle’s phone out of his back pocket, and tossed it to him. He began snapping pictures at a speed that Buckets himself would envy.

  “Are we sure that’s the right envelope?” My eyes floated around the room.

  “I’m guessing so,” Kyle replied.

  “But why would Piper need to hide a Princeton catalog underneath her mattress?”

  He glanced at me. “Good question.”

  I shook my head and exhaled. “Let’s just get out of here.”

  Kyle dropped the catalog back inside the envelope and shoved it under the mattress.

  Without much thought or words, we both walked to the door, stopping in our tracks when we heard a noise from downstairs.

  “What was that?” Kyle whispered.

  We stared at one another with wide eyes as we heard another loud noise.

  “Shit,” he whispered. “She’s here.”

  “Or he,” I said, looking around the room.

  “Let’s jump out the window,” Kyle said.

  I knew the suggestion was idiotic, but I peeked through the blinds just to check. “We can’t,” I whispered. “We’re too high up!”

  All of a sudden, we heard the sound of high heels slowly clicking against the stairs. The sound echoed—each step sounding louder and more final than the last.

  “What do we do?” Kyle asked.

  My breathing became heavy. It wasn’t an option for us to get caught, to get written up before we proved JC’s innocence. But with nowhere to go besides through a window, and nowhere to hide besides underneath glass nightstands, we waited in the middle of the room to meet our fate. I tightened my mask, hoping to offset my loosened standards.

  Kyle placed his fingertips on my thigh as he stepped in front of me.

  Suddenly, the bedroom door creaked open.

  “I think you have the wrong house.” Norah peeled back her hot-pink masquerade mask, revealing her smudged makeup and puffy eyes.

  “Jesus, Norah!” Kyle exhaled, turning his head toward the window in disbelief.

  I stepped forward. “What are you doing here?” I whispered sternly.

  “Really, Carter?” Norah’s crossed arms wrapped around the waist of her tight pink dress. “You’re asking me that?”

  “How did you get in here?” Kyle asked.

  “You left the garage door open,” she replied. “Seriously, Winchester, if you’re going to go breaking into people’s houses—at least cover your tracks.”

  Norah walked to Piper’s desk and ran her finger over the glass surface.

  “How’d you know we were here?” I asked.

  “I saw you two rushing into the parking lot toward Kyle’s car,” Norah replied. “Looked like you were up to something. So I followed you.”

  “What were you doing in the parking lot?” Kyle looked through the blinds.

  “I was dumped.” Norah sat down on Piper’s desk chair and glared at me; her eyebrow was raised to the ceiling. “Had nothing else to do.”

  I looked at Norah’s streaky face and couldn’t help seeing myself in her.

  “So you decided to follow us here?” Kyle asked.

  Norah crossed her legs, her nude high heel pointing back at us. “I don’t know why I’m on the stand,” she said. “The real question is what are you two doing in my friend’s bedroom?”

  “Let’s go.” I looked at Kyle before walking toward the door.

  Kyle followed.

  “You can either tell me”—Norah held her phone in the air—“or you can tell Piper.”

  I stopped in my tracks and clenched my fists; then I jerked my body back around and stood in front of Norah. “You really are a cold little Violet.”

  Norah smirked, twisting herself around in the desk chair. “The coldest.”

  “We aren’t going to stay here like sitting ducks,” Kyle said. “We’re leaving.”

  “Don’t worry,” Norah replied. “Piper went to the music room to practice for the Westcott Awards, and Clemmons is a chaperone, so he can’t leave the dance quite yet.” She looked at her fingernails. “We have time.”

  I exhaled in frustration. “You have to promise you won’t tell.”

  “I don’t make promises,” Norah replied.

  “Piper set JC up,” Kyle blurted out.

  “Kyle!” I shouted.

  Norah’s eyes narrowed. “What for?”

  I sighed, knowing it was too late to turn back. “We don’t know. That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

  “And you thought snooping around Piper’s room would give you your answers?”

  “We thought this would.” I reached back under the mattress and pulled the manila envelope toward me, then handed it to Norah.

  She removed the contents. “And this is?”

  “It appears to be a Princeton catalog,” I replied, glancing back at Kyle.

  Norah flipped through the pages. “Have you called the police?” S
he smirked, handing it back to me.

  “Real funny,” Kyle said.

  “Oh, come on Winchester,” Norah continued. “You think Piper had access to the answer key and planted it in her own boyfriend’s wrestling bag?”

  “JC also thinks Mr. Russell dropped this on his doorstep over the summer.” I reached into my back pocket and handed Norah the riddle.

  With narrowed irritated eyes, she unfolded the paper.

  “We thought Mr. Russell was trying to suggest that there’s something at Geraldine’s,” Kyle said.

  Norah’s eyes left the paper and shifted toward his. “Like?”

  “Like evidence that would link Piper to the setup.” He shrugged. “But we found nothing.”

  “We did, however, see Piper there. Which further confirms our suspicions.”

  “How so?” Norah asked.

  I ran my fingers through my hair. “Not only did she warn me not to get involved, she saw me talking to Cliff at Geraldine’s. The following Monday morning—his video was leaked.”

  “You think Piper leaked it?” Norah asked.

  “To distract us,” Kyle said. “She doesn’t want us looking into it, because if we figure out she framed him, she goes down.”

  Norah took out a compact mirror from her purse and began wiping underneath her eyes. She then slowly uncrossed her legs, stood, and walked toward me. “I should have you ripped from the Chosen Ten for this, Sonny. One meeting with Winchester and—”

  “No!” Kyle stepped forward. “Don’t do that!”

  “Don’t worry, Kyle,” Norah said. “You’re safe.”

  “God!” Kyle ran his hand through his hair with force. “Why does everyone think my dad shows me favoritism?”

  Norah crossed her arms. “Doesn’t he?”

  “Not at all! He left when I was ten. The only time I see him is every other weekend when he leaves me his black card, pats me on the shoulder, and goes to play golf. He can hardly look me in the eye because I took my mom’s side after the divorce. We have no relationship.”

  Kyle and I stood in front of Norah. The silence in the room was heavy enough to shatter the glass furniture.

  “I'm no enigmatologist.” Norah cleared her throat. “But I think the riddle wants you to go through the school’s safe.”

  The school’s safe—a paragon of all things secretive. No student has ever seen it, and if I had to guess, no student ever thought to try.