Finally she spotted Benny a ways off, talking to a man and a woman. She recognized them immediately. It was that pair of detectives who always showed up whenever anything at Winship got weird. She started walking toward them. Then she felt a hand on her wrist.
“Virginia.”
She turned around, startled. It was Calvin. The red lights from the ambulance flickered on his pale face. His eyes were completely focused on her, like he didn’t notice the craziness around them at all. Or maybe he just didn’t care. She tried to think of something to say, but he spoke first:
“It’s almost time. Are you ready?”
The courtyard, 9:45 p.m.
I have a gun. I have a gun.
He kept thinking it over and over while Mr. Rashid and four other teachers plus the two detectives made him explain what had happened for the eighth time:
“I saw him, and he was obviously intoxicated. I tried to prevent him from entering the dance. He fought me, and I fought back in self-defense. I didn’t mean to injure him so severely.”
Now would be the time to mention the gun, if he were going to. But he didn’t. Why would he help these two idiot detectives? It still felt weird, lying. But it was only the anxiety of being immoral, not the anxiety of actually getting caught. Adults didn’t know anything—that was suddenly very clear. They didn’t have X-ray vision. They weren’t psychic. They weren’t going to strip-search him. He was the good guy here, after all. He’d saved the dance from a drunken, suspended interloper! No one had caught him when he pulled the fire alarm, and no one was going to catch him now. It was a spectacular illusion, the authority of adults.
Only Detective Disco didn’t seem to be entirely buying it. He gave Benny a suspicious look and said, “I’m getting pretty used to seeing your face, Benny Flax. Wherever I am, you seem to appear.”
“Maybe we’re soul mates,” Benny said back, feeling mildly astonished at himself. He’d never been sarcastic with an adult before. He’d been raised to be respectful.
The detective’s female partner snorted. “Let’s get out of here, Disco.”
“You’re a good man, Benny Flax,” Mr. Rashid said, slapping him on the back in a way that made Benny feel more like a good dog than a good man.
Suddenly a huge, cheering crowd surged out the lobby doors into the courtyard. For a second Benny thought the cheering was for him. But then he realized no one was even looking at him, which made him feel foolish and egotistical. They were cheering for someone else. They were cheering for . . .
Calvin?
“God save the king!” people were shouting. Calvin towered in the middle of the crowd, smiling hugely while they herded him toward the horse and carriage.
Benny felt a soft hand on his wrist. He turned around, hoping it was Virginia. It was Chrissie. She kissed him on the cheek—a quick, incredibly soft and graceful kiss.
“I heard what you did!” she breathed. “You’re amazing.”
“What’s going on?” he asked her, shouting over the noise. “What are they doing with Calvin?”
“He’s Homecoming King!” she squealed.
Benny watched as Calvin was hoisted by the crowd into the carriage. Was this for real? In what universe was Calvin Harker the Homecoming King?
Chrissie was clapping and giggling. “Isn’t it funny? It’s Opposite Day!”
Benny shook his head. “He . . . he must have rigged it.”
“What did you say?” Chrissie shouted.
“He rigged it!” Benny shouted back, not sure why he was even explaining this to her. “Why would he do that?”
Chrissie shrugged. “Maybe he just wanted to be a king for a day. Wouldn’t you?”
Benny shook his head. “No. I believe in democracy.”
“You’re just like my grandfather!” Chrissie said, which at first Benny assumed was an insult. It was like Virginia calling him a ninety-year-old man. But when he looked at Chrissie’s face, her wide eyes were full of . . . awe. Apparently it was a compliment. She sighed deeply and leaned against him. Benny adjusted himself so that she wouldn’t feel the gun in his pants, which she seemed to take as an invitation to plaster herself even closer to him.
In the carriage, Calvin extended his freakishly long arm toward the crowd. As if she weighed nothing, a girl was lifted up in the arms of the crowd. Benny watched as her small hand was engulfed by Calvin’s long, bony fingers. It was Virginia.
“God save the queen!”
“Long live Opposite Day!”
Look at me, Benny pleaded with her in his mind. But he was lost in a sea of people, and she wasn’t searching for him. She was laughing—not the mean, smirking laugh he was used to seeing. Her smile was radiant, and her pale skin shined as if glowing from within. On top of her head sat a delicate silver tiara. It looked perfect, nestled in her thicket of curls. Calvin’s crown looked goofier, plunked on his gaunt head like he was the king of the skeletons. But his smile was so genuine and warm, it was hard to mistake his handsomeness. The two waved together, and Benny noticed a corsage of red roses tied around Virginia’s cast.
She hates red roses, you idiot.
They looked like a bizarre pair of newlyweds. Benny felt a pain in his chest like someone was hitting him with a metal pipe.
“It’s so romantic,” Chrissie said, nuzzling her face into Benny’s shoulder.
As the carriage pulled away from the curb, the cheering swelled to a new height. Calvin’s grim Russian friend was standing at the edge of the crowd, watching the hoopla with a surly expression. Evidently Benny and Olek were the only ones who were not amused by the spectacle. Everyone else was smiling and hugging and laughing. Benny saw Corny Davenport giggling with her friends. Even she thought this was funny, even though the crown on Virginia’s head belonged, by all rights, to her.
The carriage grew smaller and smaller as it traveled down the road. Then, just as the horse was about to circle back, there was a loud collective gasp from the crowd.
As if alighting onto a soft cloud, the King and Queen leaped from the carriage. Benny watched, slightly stunned. Virginia stumbled. Don’t hurt yourself! he screamed in his mind, watching her arm. In a swift motion Calvin swooped down and helped her up. Then they were running into the forest.
Olek swore loudly in Russian, “Tchyo za ga`lima!” Then he took off running.
The realization hit Benny like a truck: Calvin had rigged the election and made himself king so he could use the carriage ride to escape. Virginia had handed him the idea on a silver platter when she told him about DeAndre and Trevor.
“Oh my god.” Benny slid out of Chrissie’s arms and sprinted after Olek. Within seconds he had overtaken him. The two ran down the dark road toward the distant carriage.
“Opposite Day forever!” The shouts behind them grew distant.
The pounding of Olek’s feet slowed, then finally stopped. Benny stopped too, his lungs burning. He bent over, out of breath. His eyes met Olek’s across the darkness, and for a weird moment it felt like he and this Russian stranger were on the same team. The losing team.
Benny squinted toward the edge of the forest. He saw a tiny blur as Calvin darted between two trees and disappeared. Virginia followed him into the shadows.
She was gone.
Two weeks later
Piedmont Hospital, recovery wing, 5:00 p.m.
It was the same room, and DeAndre was the same person. But everything felt different. Before, it was like all the flowers in the room were floating. Or maybe he’d been the one who was floating. Nothing was floating anymore. The snug, warm cloud of painkillers had evaporated and dumped everything back down to the ground.
Every breath was painful. Every movement was agony. The doctors had advised him not to go off the morphine drip so soon. But morphine was basically heroin, and DeAndre didn’t want to be on drugs a minute longer than absolutely necessary. DeAndre’s neighbor was a heroin addict, and DeAndre had seen firsthand the way drugs could hollow a person from the inside out. The way people lost control of t
heir lives, handing the reins over to crack or meth or whatever their thing was. Except now DeAndre was just handing the reins over to pain. The pain was all he could think about. Constant, mind-numbing, unreal pain. Was this really better than drugs?
The antlers had pierced his lungs, abdomen, and spinal canal. The extent of the damage was still uncertain. He’d never play football again. He might not be able to walk for months. And the pain. The pain. The doctors all said the pain was a good thing; it meant he wasn’t completely paralyzed.
I want my heroin back, DeAndre thought, regretting his stupid arrogance thinking he could deal with this torture. But he still had too much pride to call for the nurse. He’d made his choice, and now he had to stick with it. He tried to imagine Cary Grant lying in a hospital bed in this pitiful condition. Would he still be flirting with the nurses and cracking rakish jokes? Would he somehow manage to look debonair in his drab hospital gown?
I can do this, DeAndre told himself. I can do this.
His bleary gaze landed on a white envelope tucked into a bouquet of roses next to his bed.
From the Cheeks and all your biggest fans! Get well soon, champ!
DeAndre knew what was inside. A check for two hundred thousand dollars. And that money was just the beginning. While he was swaddled in the sweet cloud of morphine, the choice had seemed easy: a rich cripple or a poor cripple, which did DeAndre want to be? A rich one, obviously.
But now that DeAndre was back on earth—the hard, cruel ground—he wasn’t sure anymore. How much was his pride worth? Three million dollars had seemed like a perfectly adequate number while he was high on morphine, before he fully comprehended what the Cheeks were truly paying for. Which was not just his silence but his dignity. Money or pride? If DeAndre played the Cheeks’ game, he had to choose one.
But what if I didn’t?
Suddenly another option opened in DeAndre’s mind, as if a guardian angel had appeared to clear the brush away and reveal a hidden path. For a moment all of DeAndre’s pain melted away. He felt excited for the first time since the attack. Money and pride.
I choose both.
There was a phone on the table next to the flowers. DeAndre picked it up—slowly, painfully—along with a copy of the Winship private directory. He flipped through the pages until he found the number he needed.
“Hello?” a male voice answered.
“Benny Flax? This is DeAndre Bell.” DeAndre was shocked by the hoarse, weak sound of his own voice.
“DeAndre? Hi. How . . . um, how are you?”
“Worse in some ways, better in others,” DeAndre croaked. “Listen. I changed my mind. I’m not taking the Cheeks’ deal. I’m making my own deal. But I need your help.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. DeAndre felt nervous. Maybe he was wrong to trust Benny. He barely knew the guy, after all.
“What kind of deal?”
“No. You’re either in or you’re out,” DeAndre said. “Tell me now, or I hang up the phone.”
“I’m in, I’m in. . . .”
DeAndre could feel Benny thinking.
“There’s something you can do for me, too,” Benny’s voice said finally.
“Like what?” DeAndre asked.
“No. You’re either in or you’re out.”
DeAndre tried to laugh, but it was too painful. He’d laugh later.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m in.”
acknowledgments
All my gratitude to Liesa Abrams and Stephen Barr for making me a better writer; and to Nico Carver, Nic Stone, and Chanel Parks for making me a better person.
about the author
Maggie Thrash grew up in the South. She is the author of the graphic memoir Honor Girl (a Los Angeles Times Book Prize nominee). Strange Truth and Strange Lies were inspired by her experiences at an exclusive prep school in Atlanta, where everyone had secrets.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First Simon Pulse hardcover edition October 2017
Text copyright © 2017 by Maggie Thrash
Jacket title illustration copyright © 2017 by John Harwood
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Thrash, Maggie, author.
Title: Strange lies / by Maggie Thrash.
Description: First Simon Pulse hardcover edition. | New York : Simon Pulse, 2017. |
Series: Strange ; 2 | Summary: Benny and Virginia investigate when the student body president is maimed during Winship Academy’s science expo in what may have been an accident, while a mystery man was handing out drugs.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017000956 (print) | LCCN 2017030004 (eBook) |
ISBN 9781481462037 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781481462051 (eBook)
Subjects: | CYAC: Mystery and detective stories. | Drug abuse—Fiction. | High schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Race relations—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.T53 (eBook) | LCC PZ7.1.T53 Wat 2017 (print) |
DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017000956
Strange Lies Page 24