Circle of Secrets

by Kimberley Griffiths Little

  This time the handwriting is different.

  CHAPTER SIX

  JUST THE MERE THOUGHT OF A NEW SCHOOL MAKES MY stomach tilt and whirl.

  Two weeks after I arrived, I stare at the muddy, cocoa-colored water and try not to throw up.

  I wish school didn’t start until September so I could just hang out under the blue bottle tree, play with Miss Silla Wheezy, and find all the secret notes inside the bottles. I hope there are more. I’m desperate to know who wrote them and what they mean.

  Like secret notes passed back and forth in class.

  Mirage spends most of the trip to town pointing out meadows of purple hyacinth, duckweed, and a flock of herons. I let out a tiny yelp when I see a gator watching us from the banks, but he doesn’t move as we pass, even though my heart stops for about five minutes.

  “Won’t hurt you, shar,” Mirage says in a calm voice. “He’s more ’fraid of you than you are of him.”

  “Can we move more to the middle?” I ask, flapping my hands to get the boat to move away from the bank. Quick as I can, I pull down my long-sleeved blouse to hide the charm bracelet I snapped around my wrist before I left the house. I know I’m not supposed to wear it, but I can’t bear to leave it at home. Long sleeves is hotter than heck, and I’m already sweating, but I don’t want Mirage to know I’m wearing the bracelet.

  “’Course, we can,” Mirage says, then pulls her oar to move the boat deeper into the center of the bayou. The current ripples against the sides of the boat, and I make sure not to look at that big ole gator watching me like he wants to eat me up in one big gulp.

  After we tie up at the town docks, I unclench my aching fingers. My palms have red, puffy blisters from gripping the paddle so hard and my arms feel ready to fall off my shoulders again. But I was ready to knock a gator in the head if he tried to take a bite out of the boat.

  “Pick you up right here after school. There’s a lunch in your pack, too.”

  My hair is wet and stringy as I hunch inside my jacket, the paddle high over my head. When I step out of the skiff, I’m grateful once again that I’ve made it to civilization. “Do I have to do this boating thing every day until Christmas break?”

  “You’ll survive,” Mirage says as she steps off the swaying pier and ties the rope.

  I feel sick. “You going with me to school?”

  She grabs a pack from under the seat of the boat. “I gotta sign them registration papers. Your daddy gave me your shot records, stuff like that.”

  I freeze like a Popsicle when I see the line of yellow buses and the clusters of kids on the sidewalks. Wish so bad I could hide out in a washtub at Ozaire’s Laundromat. Ducking behind a hedge of rain-speckled shrubbery, my heart thuds so hard I’d swear I swam the bayou to get here.

  “Come on, Shelby Jayne. Might as well get it over with.” Her lips are pressed tight and Mirage almost looks more scared than I am.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, even though I don’t want her thinking that I care all that much.

  “Don’t like comin’ to this part of town much. Too many sad memories lingering around these parts.”

  “Like what? How can a town be sad?”

  “Oh, there’s the bell,” she says, ignoring my question as the school bell sounds.

  Students stream through the front doors. Within seconds, the school grounds are empty. The rain comes down harder, like punishment for being tardy.

  The Bayou Bridge Elementary School is muggy, smelling of old barbecue sauce and rotting carrots, like someone forgot their lunch in their desk over the summer.

  My jeans are soaked by the time I step inside the school office and a blast of moist, warm air hits my face.

  The office is small and quiet, emphasizing the sound of my squeaky, wet shoes. I swipe a hand across my bangs and discover that the ends of my hair are dripping like melting icicles. I’m sure I look like a drowned nutria and I can feel the red stain of embarrassment creeping up my face.

  A woman in a swivel chair uses her feet to wheel across the floor from a desk to the copy machine to retrieve the stapler. She rides that swivel chair all over the office.

  She clicks her tongue sympathetically. “I’m sorry to say, but you look like someone dunked you in the bayou, honey. Did you miss the bus? You must be new because I know everybody here since before they were born.”

  “This here’s my daughter,” Mirage says, fidgeting with the zipper on her backpack. “Shelby Jayne Allemond.”

  “Nice to meet you, Shelby Jayne.”

  Real fast, I say, “Just Shelby.”

  She smiles and picks up a mug of steaming coffee and skims the top with her lips. It reminds me of the way my daddy drinks his and I don’t want to think about him so my eyes roam across her messy desk. Stacks of green files, papers and memos, a spilled box of paper clips, and a stapler she’s in the process of refilling. A nameplate sits askew: MRS. FLORENCE BENOIT.

  “Got her paperwork right here,” Mirage says, handing the envelope across the desk.

  Mrs. Benoit uses her heels to push her chair to a filing cabinet. “Go ahead and sit in those chairs while I see which class has space.”

  I sink into a chair next to Mirage, who frowns over the blank registration papers and gets out a pen.

  A few student aides go in and out, running errands. A couple of other women dressed in pantsuits walk out of the principal’s offices discussing something boring.

  I close my eyes and pretend I’m not really here at Bayou Bridge Elementary School, but back home in my new class with LizAnn.

  A few minutes later, Mirage hands over the paperwork and Mrs. Benoit’s eyes dart across each line like a speed reader. “I plopped you into Mrs. Jenny Daigle’s class. The students like her real well.” She looks up at Mirage. “You forgot your address on this line, dear.”

  Mirage turns a little red. “I — I don’t really have an address.”

  “Oh, dear,” Mrs. Benoit says, and her face goes even redder than Mirage’s.

  “We ain’t homeless,” Mirage says quickly. “Jest don’t live on a street. Bayou Teche swamp out near Cypress Cove instead.”

  Mrs. Florence Benoit sizes up my limp clothes and my straggly hair and I’m ready to run straight back to New Iberia — even if I have to use my own two feet to get there. I’d planned on starting sixth grade with LizAnn in Mrs. Bergernon’s class this year.

  I chew on my cheek and taste blood. My eyes get all watery so I stare at the wall until I can see straight again. Where’s Grandmother Phoebe when I need her? I know she has to have surgery, but I wish so bad I wasn’t in this dinky little town in this pathetic school in the middle of nowhere.

  Mrs. Benoit says brightly, “I’ll make you up a file right quick, Shelby Jayne, and request your records from New Iberia. Meanwhile, here’s a map of the school — we only have two main halls, cafeteria here in the middle, and fields and track behind us. Mrs. Daigle’s classroom is just a couple of turns away. You better scoot on over — and oh! If you get lost, come back here and I can get some students to escort you.”

  I see one of the women from the rear offices start to walk toward us, and Mirage quickly reaches a hand out to me but stops when I take a step back. In a low voice, she says, “See you this afternoon, Shelby Jayne. You’ll be jest fine.”

  Mirage is out the door and gone before I can hardly turn around. After a year, she’s perfected her talent at leaving. A mix of mad and sad tangles up inside my chest. I never knew homesickness was a real disease before. It’s like a stick is stabbing at my heart, although I suppose a stick jabbing at your heart isn’t a disease, more like a terminal condition.

  The woman in the pantsuit stops in front of me. “New student?” she asks Mrs. Benoit.

  “Mrs. Trahan, this is Shelby Jayne Allemond,” the secretary says. “Daughter of Mirage Allemond.”

  The woman’s eyebrows lift so high on her forehead, they’re lost in a poof of teased curls and hairspray. She extends her hand for me to shake, which m
akes me feel like I’m here for a job interview. “I’m Maureen Trahan, the principal. So you’re the traiteur’s daughter.”

  I feel a little ping of surprise. “You know Mirage — I mean — my —?”

  Mrs. Trahan searches my face. “You look just like her. All that dark curly hair and those big brown eyes. She and I went to high school together.”

  “Really?” All I can do is stare at her and blink. Mrs. Trahan seems normal. Mirage used to have normal people friends. ’Course, I knew that already. At least I knew that a year ago, but not anymore. Everything is so different, so strange now, Mirage most of all.

  “It’s a small town and everyone knows everybody else, Shelby. She’s a wonderful traiteur. With your grand-mère passed on, we really need her. She’s helped a lot of folks lately, ’specially the Mouton family down the bayou.”

  I’m so surprised I can’t think straight.

  After I leave the office and follow the map to my classroom, I wonder about the principal in her regular pantsuit and hair fixed real nice knowing Mirage and talking about her like she’s any other normal town citizen.

  I can’t think about all that anymore because Mrs. Daigle’s room looms in front of me.

  I hate walking into a new class by myself.

  I gear up my nerve and take lots of little breaths and right then the door swings open and almost smacks me in the face. A boy with a round face and streaked blond hair darts out. “Sorry!” he calls back at me as he runs down the hall.

  I grab the door before it closes and every student looks up from their desk as I cross the threshold. My stomach cartwheels. Sweat breaks out on my palms.

  Everyone stops working and I can hear a buzz of murmurs. The teacher, a woman with dyed red hair and glasses perched on the lower half of her nose, puts down her grade book and walks over to reach for my paperwork. “You’re Shelby Allemond then?”

  A fresh burst of whispers breaks out behind me and Mrs. Daigle cocks her head at the class. “You should be writing, class, not talking.”

  The room goes quiet as Mrs. Daigle retrieves a textbook from a metal cabinet and points to an empty chair in the middle of the room. “That will be your seat. We’re writing our first essay. Something unusual you did over the summer. Write at least a page by the end of the hour. We’ll share our stories tomorrow.”

  My sneakers keep squeaking as I make my way to my assigned desk. I cringe, slipping off my backpack where it thuds loudly to the floor.

  No sooner have I taken out a notebook and a pencil than the boy who almost knocked me over whooshes back into the classroom like he’s been sprinting the whole way. He grins around at everybody, then takes his seat in the far row.

  The girl behind me taps me on the shoulder. Her breath is in my ear, and I see a flash of long brown hair and baby-blue eyes from the corner of my vision.

  “That boy there is Jett Dupuis,” she tells me.

  “Oh.”

  “Jett’s Bayou Bridge’s school track star. He bumps into everybody, so don’t take it personally. He can’t do nothing slow. He’s also the cutest boy in the whole sixth grade.”

  “That’s nice.” As if I’ll be here long enough to care. “Where was he going?”

  “Forgot his lunch and his mom brought it to the office. He probably burns a thousand calories a day with all that running so he eats constantly. I mean, constantly. You’ll be amazed.”

  I can’t help smiling at the way she talks but any second now Mrs. Daigle is going to yell at us.

  The girl switches sides and attacks my other ear. I swear she’s as good as a ventriloquist because her lips barely move. “Jest in case you get any ideas, Tara has already claimed him, so stay away.”

  Oh, so this was a warning message, I realize, and my stomach sinks just a little. “Who’s Tara?”

  “Only the prettiest girl in sixth grade. And the daughter of the president of Bayou Bridge Garden Club. And my best friend.”

  “Oh.” I’m not sure what to say so I whisper, “Congratulations.”

  She snickers and taps me again. “Me, I’m Alyson.”

  “Twenty minutes,” Mrs. Daigle says. “When you’re finished, drop your essays in the basket and do silent reading for the remainder of the period.”

  “I gotta get started,” I tell Alyson, not wanting her to quit talking to me because I like that someone has noticed me. Maybe this tiny little school won’t be so bad if all the girls are this friendly.

  “Um, Shelby. Take this.” Alyson rummages in her pack and hands me a tissue. “You’ve got black drips under your eyes.”

  “What is it?” I hiss.

  “Just a moldy leaf or something streaked down your cheek. Spit on that and wipe,” she advises.

  I rub at my face, feeling heat shoot up my neck, knowing everyone saw me walk in like that.

  I do a quick glance across the room. Jett Dupuis isn’t even out of breath. I catch a flicker of his smile toward a girl sitting across the classroom from me on the far row.

  She gives him a slow smile, and then bends over her paper again. Silky dark hair spills like a waterfall over the edge of her desk. She looks like a girl in a shampoo commercial.

  Jett taps his pencil as he stares off into space, his right knee shaking up and down a hundred miles an hour as if he’s about to explode out of his chair.

  The girl with the waterfall hair finishes writing, puts down her pencil, and rises from her chair. She places her essay in the basket on the teacher’s desk and glides back to her seat.

  My eyes zero in on the girl sitting behind Pantene Princess. Pantene Princess acts as if the girl, who isn’t even a foot away, doesn’t exist. Like she’s invisible.

  I can’t help stealing a second look, shocked at the bad scar on the side of the invisible girl’s face. Looks like she had a mess of stitches. Her cheek sort of sinks in right there, too. The girl frowns at her essay, then rubs her eraser across the page over and over again.

  I turn sideways and whisper, “Who’s that girl?”

  “What girl?” Alyson asks.

  “The one behind Pantene Princess.”

  Alyson giggles. “Pantene Princess! Oh, you mean Tara. That’s pretty funny.”

  Alyson said Tara is the prettiest girl in sixth grade. I guess it’s true because she is the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen in my life.

  “So who’s the girl behind Tara? She must have been in a terrible accident.”

  Alyson frowns at her paper. “Don’t know. Just some girl.”

  “She’s sitting right behind your own best friend!”

  Alyson’s eyes flick away as we head into social studies and Mrs. Daigle starts passing out books, enlisting the help of Jett and Tara. “Can’t remember. She was new last year.”

  The next moment, Tara stands in front of me and drops a thick textbook on my desk. Her eyes are so green I swear she received a set of emeralds at birth.

  “World studies. We’re gonna be learning about Egypt and Rome and China.” She’s so cool and elegant. Like she’s already grown-up or something.

  “World History through the Ages,” I say, reading the book’s title.

  Alyson turns around in her seat, jumping into the conversation. “This is Shelby, Tara. And, Shelby, this here is Tara, like I told you a minute ago.”

  “Where you from, Shelby?” Tara asks.

  “New Iberia.”

  Her green eyes narrow at me, like she’s already figured me out. “Thought you were some city girl. Why you here?”

  I’m surprised at the way she says it, as though I’m not supposed to be here. As though she needs to give me permission first.

  Tara gives her head a little shake. “I mean, where do you live?”

  “Uh, sort of near the swamp.”

  “Near the swamp, huh? Near or in?”

  A bell rings and my stomach gives a little jump. “What’s that?”

  “Morning recess,” Alyson says, jumping up to get in the front of the line at the door.

  Ta
ra puts a hand on Alyson’s arm. “When the end of recess bell rings, we gotta come right back to the classroom. You’re bad about that and I don’t want detention.”

  Alyson makes a funny face. “You’ve never had detention in your life, Tara Doucet.”

  “That’s right. And I intend to keep it that way.”

  The class stampedes out the door and I slowly follow, wondering what I’ll do during my first recess here. Don’t know if they play games or have a jungle gym or tetherball or hopscotch.

  I barely take two steps into the hallway when suddenly, standing right in front of me, is the scarred girl from my class. Goose bumps prickle along my arms. I wish I could stop staring at her face, but I can’t. Her skin is red and crinkled around the scar. Looks awful, like it hurts bad.

  “You should stay away from them,” she tells me, her voice dropping. She moves closer and her arms are so skinny, I wonder if she’s eaten in a week.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You heard me.”

  Her hair is brown and thin and floats in a spray around her head. The sides are held down with a row of plain black clips. Which remind me of someone, but I can’t remember who it is.

  “Stay away from who?”

  “Alyson Granger and Tara Doucet. Don’t talk to them. Don’t have lunch with them. Pretend they don’t exist.”

  I take a gulp. “But why? They seem nice.”

  “It’s dangerous, believe me.”

  She’s so intense, I get a spidery feeling in my stomach. Then she steps closer. “And whatever you do, don’t go to the cemetery pier with them.”

  I take a step backward. “What cemetery pier? Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She glances around as if she’s terrified someone will hear her. She’s also clutching her world history textbook in her arms like she forgot to leave it in the classroom. Maybe she reads it for fun during recess. But I notice that her arms are trembling a little bit so I also feel sorry for her. I don’t know whether to hug her or tell her to get lost.

  “It’s this stupid secret the kids in this town have,” she whispers. “But ssh! Bad things happen at that cemetery pier. If I tell you any more, they’ll make my life miserable. But I had to warn you.”