by Sarra Cannon
Maybe He Wasn't a Demon Fan Friday night football at the Peachville High stadium was like going to a fair without all the rides. There was popcorn, cotton candy, music, and practically everyone in town came. Ella Mae gave us each money for admission and snacks, then told us to meet her back at the Shadowford van ten minutes after the final buzzer. Mary Anne, who had yet to say two words to me since I moved to Peachville, took off to sit with Ella Mae. Courtney, Agnes and I stuck together. “So, what do you want to do?” Agnes said. “We could find a spot on the bleachers and watch the kickoff. Or we could get something to eat. We could always walk around and look for cute guys. There's this one guy, Grant, that's in my English class. He's delicious. I'll introduce you to him if I see him. I have a major crush on him. ” We walked along the back of the metal bleachers. Agnes talked nonstop and I tried to pretend I wasn't searching for Jackson in the crowd. He hadn't been with us on the Shadowford van, but his car wasn't in the driveway either. “What about you?” she asked. “What?” “You know, boys. Did you have a boyfriend in Atlanta?” I shook my head. “Not really. There was this one guy, Lucas. He was sort of my boyfriend for a while, but I've moved around too much to stay with anyone. ” “I know what you mean,” Agnes said. “Before Shadowford, I had been in like eight different schools. ” “What about you, Courtney?” I wanted to include her in the conversation, but for the most part, Courtney seemed really shy. “I've never had a boyfriend,” she said. “Is there anyone at PHS that you like?” Agnes asked. “You've been going to school here for what? Four years now?” “Uh-huh. ” Courtney pushed her straight blond hair out of her face, and for the first time, I noticed how pretty she was. “There's no one really special, I guess. ” “I think we should try to find a boyfriend for Harper. ” “Whoa, no thanks,” I said, shaking my head vigorously. It wasn't that I was opposed to having a boyfriend, of course, I just didn't want Agnes picking him out for me. My mind flashed to Jackson's dark green eyes and the way my entire body had gone hot when he came close to me. “We'll see,” she said with a smile. “It won't be hard for a girl like you. ” “Why do you say that?” “Just look at you,” Agnes said. “You're tall, skinny. You have perfect skin. And I'd kill to have such pretty wavy blonde hair. You know, you're pretty enough-” “If you tell me I'm pretty enough to be a cheerleader, I'm gonna punch you in the face,” I joked. She giggled and bumped me jokingly with her shoulder. “Fine, I won't say it. ” As we turned the corner, I scanned the parking lot again for Jackson's car, but there was no sign of him. Maybe he wasn't a demon fan. The announcer's voice boomed through the loudspeaker. “Welcome Demon fans to another night of Peachville High football!” “Come on,” Agnes said, taking my hand. “Let's go down to the field to watch the team break through the banner. ” As we made our way down to the field, I watched as the cheerleaders unfolded a huge banner that said “GO DEMONS! BEAT THE HOGS!” in bright blue letters. The marching band stood in two lines blaring pep music while the fans crowded onto the field, forming a sort of runway for the team. Toward the front, I could see Tori Fairchild standing on another cheerleader's shoulders. She was admittedly gorgeous, and from here she actually looked human. It sucked that after only one week at school, there was already someone who made my stomach hurt when I saw them. Especially when it was one of the town's golden girls. Just then, the band started up the school's fight song and the team broke through the banner, bursting onto the field amid roars from the crowd. I clapped along without enthusiasm. Boys in blue and black shiny football jerseys rushed by, some of them jumping into the air to rile up the fans. Drake Ashworth passed in front of me, and I felt a stab of hurt. He'd been so nice to me when we first met. Flirty, even. But all week at school, he'd treated me like I was a nobody. A social outcast. Not once had he acknowledged our conversation in his sister's store or the fact that he even knew who I was. To make matters worse, he was in my calculus class, the one disadvantage to being put in a senior level course. Once, I'd caught him staring at me during class, but when I smiled, he'd gotten a distasteful look on his face, then turned away. “He's so cute, isn't he?” Agnes said, forcing me to look away. “Who?” “Drake. That is who you're staring at right? And don't say no. I've seen the way you stare at him sometimes in the caf. ” I followed the crowd back toward the bleachers. “I have no idea what you're talking about. ” “Okay, say what you will, but I know the truth, don't I Courtney?” Courtney shrugged and looked at me with an apology in her eyes. Her hair hung over her face again and her shoulders hunched slightly forward. No doubt she had been putting up with Agnes' match-making for a couple of years now. I winked at her to show her that I wasn't bothered by it, and she smiled shyly back at me. “Let's find a seat on the bleachers,” I said. I wasn't surprised when Agnes picked a spot a few rows in front of the cheerleaders. She argued that she needed to watch their cheers closely so she could practice them at home. I for one didn't understand why she was already thinking about tryouts that were still a good seven months away, but I wasn't going to force her to sit somewhere else. Brooke, the dark-haired senior captain, started most of the cheers, and I was amazed at how actively the crowd participated. Sure, most schools had a section that would cheer along with the group cheers. But this crowd? They were obsessed. When Brooke started cheering “Give me a D!”, the entire home side of the stadium roared back, “D!”. It was honestly so loud, it startled me. Talk about team spirit. As the game went on, I started to wonder if more people had come to watch the cheerleaders than the actual football game, which, by the way, the Demons won, 34-10. Much to my dismay, Drake Ashworth was a talented quarterback. There had been a small part of me that hoped he would suck so I could boo him when his passes were intercepted. No such luck. “Great game,” Agnes said on the way back to the Shadowford van. “Thrilling,” I said. “You're going to have to learn some school spirit if you plan to come to the games with me from now on,” she said, teasing. “I have a feeling the Demons will grow on you once you've been here for a while. We've got a great team this year. ” Considering the fact that all of the cheerleaders had it out for me and the team's quarterback had treated me like roadkill, I seriously doubted I'd be donning a Demon tattoo and buying blue pompoms anytime soon. The game's one redeeming moment happened as we walked into the parking lot. I heard laughter erupt somewhere off to my right, and when I looked to find the source, I saw Jackson Hunt sitting on top of the his car with a few guys I didn't recognize. Before I could stop myself, I smiled and waved. Jackson, who had been heckling some poor Demons fan who was decked out in full blue face paint, looked my way. His normally spiky dark hair fell forward over his face slightly, framing his dark eyes. A wave of warmth washed over me as our eyes met. He lifted his eyebrows suggestively, then the corners of his mouth lifted slightly in a smile that made his mouth look oh-so-kissable. I melted from head to toe in a rush of desire. Never in my life had a guy inspired such a raw physical reaction in my body. I felt drawn to him. Did he feel it too? “Who are you staring at?” Agnes asked, standing on her tippy-toes to see around the crowd. Courtney glanced over at me and smiled, then hung her head forward. So she had seen my blush. She knew my secret crush. I wondered if she would betray it to Agnes, but she climbed into the van without a word, leaving Agnes to wonder what she'd missed. “No one,” I said. “You saw someone,” she said, climbing in after Courtney. “Trust me, I know that look. Harper likes a boy. ” I laughed and glanced back over toward Jackson's car, but he was turned away, talking to his friends. Out of habit, I reached up to touch my mother's sapphire pendant. It was a movement I made a hundred times a day without even thinking about it. Only this time, the pendant was gone. Page 12
That Necklace Was Everything to Me “I have to go back,” I said, tears already stinging the corners of my eyes. “No Ma'am,” Ella Mae said. “We need to get going or we'll be waiting in this lot forever. ” “I dropped something important. I can't leave without it. ” My eyes p
leaded with Ella Mae and she took pity on me. “Be quick, alright?” I ran back to the stadium, going over every step we'd taken throughout the night. The bleachers. The field. The concession stand. My necklace wasn't anywhere. I needed more time. “Dammit,” I said. I kicked the wooden light post hard. A sharp pain ran through my big toe and tears rolled down my cheeks. That necklace was too important. I couldn't lose it now, after all these years. “What did you lose,” Agnes asked, coming around the corner to join me. “My mother's necklace. ” I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand and sniffed. I was acting like a baby, but that necklace was everything to me. “Oh no, Harper. I'm so sorry. Was it expensive?” “No, it's not like that. It's not about money. That pendant was the only thing of my mother's I'd ever owned. I never knew my mother,” I said. “She gave me up for adoption when I was a baby. My parents gave me that necklace the day they told me I was adopted. They said my mother wanted me to have it. It's completely irreplaceable. ” Agnes touched my arm. I saw genuine sympathy in her eyes. “That sucks,” she said. “I'm sorry but Ella Mae asked me to come get you. I don't think she's going to wait much longer. ” I knew I couldn't afford to make Ella Mae angry. One bad report to my case manager could land me in kid-prison if I wasn't careful. “Maybe you can come back and look for it on Monday,” she said. I swiped at my tears again, then followed Agnes back to the van. “Did you find it?” Ella Mae asked. I shook my head and climbed into the van. I didn't say another word the entire way home. Later, once everyone was in bed, I tried to fall asleep. I really did, but there was no use. I couldn't stand the thought of someone else picking up that sapphire pendant, and I definitely couldn't stand the idea of it sitting there in the dirt with people's gum wrappers and coke cans. What if someone stepped on the stone and broke it? I tossed and turned, unable to let it go. I only had this one piece of my mother. It was the only thing important enough for her to want me to have it. I needed to get it back. Quietly, I got out of bed and tiptoed to my door. I slowly turned the brass handle, but as I suspected, the door was locked. I cursed through gritted teeth. Agnes was wrong about the doors. Why were they locking us in our rooms at night? And it wasn't every night. Only sometimes. I'd checked. Were they afraid we would have secret meetings or sneak out to meet boys? Granted, sneaking out was exactly what I was trying to do, but a simple locked door wasn't about to stop me. I looked around for something I could use to turn the lock inside the keyhole. On my dressing table, I had a bag of bobby pins. I took one out, straightened it, and pulled off the little rubber tip. Crouching down, I inserted the bobby pin into the hole, going by feel until I was able to slowly turn the lock mechanism inside the door. It only took me a few minutes of trying until I heard the distinct click that released the lock. The dark hallway outside my bedroom door was silent as a tomb. The gentle whoosh of air conditioning was the only sound. I stepped lightly down onto the top step and winced as it creaked beneath my sneakers. Frozen, I didn't make a single move until I was sure no one had heard me. Slowly, I made my way down the stairs and out the front door. Once outside, I searched for a way to get into town. Starting up the Shadowford van would be way too loud. Plus, someone might see me. It was just too risky. What I needed was a bicycle. And there was only one place I could think to look. The barn. I made my way to the back of the house, mindful of every noise that rose above the steady song of crickets in the Georgia night. The motion sensor light above the barn door clicked on as I approached, and I hurried through the lit circle. The door was tough to open, but I finally managed to crack it enough to squeeze inside. I couldn't see much beyond a huge spider web right in the entrance, but it was clear the building was bigger than I first realized. A couple of cars by the far wall were covered up with off-white tarps. A pegboard wall held carefully organized tools. Hammers, wrenches, a hand axe. Then, against the wall near the back, I saw the silhouette of a bicycle. Page 13
Tori Has a Secret The ride into town took nearly half an hour. The air seemed to grow cooler and as I rode, goosebumps jumped out on my arms and legs. High in the night sky, a half moon rose up, giving a little needed light along the deserted road. Never in my life had I seen so many stars. In the city, the stars were hard to see unless it was a super clear night. But out there in the middle of nowhere, the universe opened up to me. I felt small and insignificant as I rode those few miles watching the star-scattered night. And at the same time, I felt free, confident that once I made it to the stadium, I would find my mother's necklace. The parking lot of the school was deserted. I rode up as close to the fence as I could get and looked for a way in, but all of the gates were locked up. The chain links were small enough for me to fit the tip of my shoe into and hoist myself over. I climbed up the fence, threw my leg over the top, then jumped down onto the dirt below. From the looks of it, the janitor had already done a sweep of the stadium. Most of the popcorn boxes, drink cups, and trash was taken away, leaving only the plain dirt and sparse grass. I prayed the necklace was still there somewhere, or at the very least, picked up by someone and turned into lost and found where I could get it on Monday. I retraced every one of my steps from the second I had entered the gate until the time I left. I walked from one side of the stadium to the other, looked through the metal bleachers, and searched around in the dirt. The pendant and chain were nowhere to be found. The longer I searched, the more frustrated I became. My last ditch effort was to crawl beneath the bleachers and search for it there in the dirt and filth below where Agnes and I sat to watch the game. I walked down to the approximate place, then got on my hands and knees in the dirt to crawl beneath the seats. It was dark out there, but the stadium's emergency lights were still on. I ran my palm against the dirt and grass, pulling up every piece of trash or debris to inspect, just in case. That's when I heard someone giggling. I recognized her right away. After all, Tori Fairchild was one of the first people I'd met at Peachville High, and I'd heard enough of her to last me a lifetime. Geez, it was like she was following me around like a little black raincloud. I froze in place, hoping she wouldn't see me there covered in dirt. I could see her skipping across the field, still in her blue and black Demons cheerleading uniform. There was a guy with her. In the semi-darkness, I couldn't quite make him out, but there was no doubt in my mind who it was. Who else would she be out here with after the game? He was wearing a Demons letterman jacket with a blue Demon on the back and a Demons baseball cap. Foster Adams. Star receiver. They were the perfect couple. I'd seen them together at school all week. Foster was one of the rich kids in town. He drove a freaking Porsche, if you get my drift. He was part of that elite crowd. You know, the one that hated me? Tori rushed into his arms and he spun her around. Her high pitched giggles echoed off the bleachers and into the empty stadium. They both seemed so normal. So all-American high school kids. Would I ever have a normal life like that? My legs were starting to cramp, but I didn't want them to see me crawling out from under the bleachers. I'd never hear the end of it. Plus, if anyone at Shadowford found out I was here, I'd be kicked out on my ass. I couldn't let that happen, so I crouched through the pain. Tori and Foster stopped and embraced in a long, passionate kiss. I rolled my eyes and looked away. As I turned my head, I lost my balance. I let out a whoop as I fell backwards, hitting my head on one of the metal steps. I drew in a nervous breath, my heart pounding like a jackhammer. My head snapped around to see if the others had heard me, and I was mortified to see them looking my way. Oh God, I'll never hear the end of this. The guy took a couple of steps in my direction. “Who's there?” It didn't sound like Foster's voice, but then again, I hadn't heard him speak that many times. Tonight, though, his voice sounded deeper. Older. I bit my lip, not daring to move an inch. Tori leaned over to the guy and said something, but I couldn't quite make it out. She was pulling furiously on his arm, as if she were scared. Not that I could blame her. For all she knew, some maniac with a gun was out here to spy on them or rob them blind. “L
et's get out of here,” Tori said. “I wanna know who's there,” the guy said. His face was still cloaked in shadow, but as he moved closer, I was certain it wasn't Foster. He was a bit too tall and not quite as muscular. Tori has a secret, I thought. Powerful information to have if I ever need it. I strained my eyes to make out the guy's face, but with the cap pulled firmly over his forehead, I simply couldn't tell who it was. “There,” Tori said, pointing toward the bleachers where I was hiding. “Under the bleachers. ” The man came running toward me and out of fear, I bolted, slipping on the loose dirt a few times before I found my footing. I ran as fast as I could to the fence, scrambled over the top, and rode away. Just as I reached the edge of the parking lot, I could see the guy come around the side of the bleachers, too late to see my face. Page 14