Needless to say, I didn’t enjoy spending time at home. But school wasn’t much better.
In March, I began to notice people pointing at me as I walked by in the hallway, ignoring me when I tried to talk to them, and blatantly not believing things I said. I wouldn’t have cared so much if it hadn’t been exactly what had happened at Hillpark after they’d found out.
At the end of March, the entire club was assembled in the main gym for the band competition. The bleachers were full with spectators, along with the bands from other schools. McCoy employed half the students in seventh-period gym to string up golden ribbons around the scoreboard and create a “tribute table” where people could sign a petition to finally get the scoreboard plated in gold and pick up a complimentary tiny scoreboard magnet. (Obviously, it was a smashing success.)
From what I saw, most people thought this was a joke: honoring the scoreboard like this was a quirky little thing we East Shoalers did to cover up the fact that it had killed someone. I never got wind of anyone accusing McCoy of losing his marbles.
When the competition started, we were kicked out of the scorer’s table by the guy announcing the bands. We stood next to the main doors with our backs pressed to the wall. I stuck close to Miles, because there I didn’t feel the need to check every instrument for contraband items and Communist propaganda. If something strange was actually going on, Miles would tell me.
One band finished their set, and another came in to take its place. The announcer left his post, complaining about never getting restroom breaks. In the relative quiet, I began to nod off against Miles’s shoulder.
“Excuse me, everyone?” Celia’s voice filled the gym. I jerked awake. The room went silent.
“Hi,” she waved from the scorer’s table. “I just wanted to take a moment to remind everyone that all proceeds from today’s concession sales are going to benefit the American Schizophrenia Association.”
You’re the obstacle, idiot! the little voice roared.
“Alex,” Miles said urgently, pulling me toward the door. “Alex, you have to get out of here—”
But I was rooted to the spot, my brain frozen.
“All of this is in honor of our own paranoid schizophrenic, Alexandra Ridgemont, who transferred to our school after graffitiing the Hillpark School gymnasium.” Celia turned at looked at me, along with everyone else. She waved, smiling. “Hi, Alex.”
Her last words were lost in the empty air of the gym; Miles had shot across the bottom of the bleachers and ripped her microphone’s power cord from its extension. He charged up to the scorer’s table and took the microphone itself away from her, but the damage was done.
I was in a tank full of sharks.
Eyes bore down on me from all sides. The band members stopped moving their instruments. A few people on the other side of the bleachers stood up for a better look. Theo had come in from the concession stand and now hovered by the far doors with Evan and Ian, their faces pale.
My hand fumbled for the door. The push bar slipped under my fingers once, twice—finally I was able to push it open, and I sprinted for the nearest restroom.
I locked myself in a stall, threw up, and curled into a ball on the tile and squeezed my eyes shut. I tugged on my hair, wishing it wasn’t so damned red, wishing my mind worked the way it should, wishing things would go back to the way they were when I was seven, when everything was real and I didn’t know any better.
When I finally calmed down enough to open my eyes. I was still sitting on the floor in a bathroom stall in a public high school, I was still crazy, and my hair still looked like I’d dunked my head in a tank of ketchup.
Miles must’ve been keeping people out of the bathroom, because no one came, and every so often he would pound on the door and call my name and say that he hadn’t told anyone.
I wanted to tell him that I believed him, that Celia could have found out other ways. But I couldn’t get myself to move, and I couldn’t open my mouth.
“Lexi?”
I pushed myself to my feet, wiping away whatever tears were left, and cracked open the bathroom door. Dad stood there, smelling like freshly dug dirt and wild herbs. Behind him, the hallway was empty. Miles had gone. Dad didn’t say anything, just pulled me into a hug and walked me out to the car.
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Chapter Forty
My dad was better at calming me down than I ever gave him credit for. I think some of it was the way he smelled. The other part was his choice in movies.
“Dad, you could be Indiana Jones.”
“You think so?” he replied. “I’d have to grow a bit more scruff than I have now.” He rubbed his unshaven face. “Ooh, I could go as Indiana Jones for Halloween next year. Think your mom would agree to dress up as my spunky yet sexy female companion?”
“I dunno. You’d have to look really good. And probably bribe her with chocolate.”
He laughed, and the doorbell rang. He went to answer it while I settled into the couch with the bowl of popcorn. Charlie had avoided the living room since we’d returned, and my mother—thank God—had been at the grocery when Miles had called my house.
I tried to ignore what was going on in the hallway. Dad would scare away anyone, unless it was Miles. But I had a feeling Miles was going to give me some space.
“I wanted to check on Alex and make sure she was okay. I heard about what happened at school.”
Tucker.
“Yes, she’s fine,” Dad replied. He peeked into the living room. “Hey, Lex Luthor, you feel up to guests?”
I pushed myself off the couch and peered around the doorframe into the hallway. Tucker stood on the front step, worry on his face. His hand brushed nervously through the huge pot of fresh white geraniums my mother had set on the porch. Behind him, the trees along the street were in full bloom, bursting with the colors of spring.
“Oh, hey, Alex. Are you okay?”
“Dad, it’s fine. I’ll talk to him outside.” I set the popcorn bowl down and moved past my dad to join Tucker on the porch. “It’s okay, really,” I said one last time, and with a reluctant smile, Dad closed the door.
“So . . . you’re okay?” Tucker said quickly. “Are you coming back to school?”
“No, I’m really not okay,” I said. “But yeah, I am coming back. We only have two months left, after all. And if I don’t go back, things are only going to get worse.”
High school dropout. That was exactly what colleges wanted to see on applications.
Tucker stood there for a moment, running his hand through his black hair, fixing his glasses, spinning his watch around his wrist.
“How’d you find out?” I asked.
“Text message.” He held up his phone. “I think . . . most everyone in the school got one.”
I nodded. I had figured that pretty much everyone knew by now—that’s why they’d been ignoring me, and whispering behind my back the past few days. Celia’d been leaking the information for at least a week now. The band competition was just a way to scare me.
“So . . . now you know,” I said.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what? It’s not your fault I’m crazy.”
“No, I . . . I don’t care about that. My dad has schizophrenic patients. He calls them ‘normal people with more quirks.’ I’m sorry that I got so mad at you. And ignored you for so long. And I’m sorry I didn’t trust that you could handle Miles. I shouldn’t have butted in.”
“But you were right—I shouldn’t have done that to you. Or to anyone. I should’ve stopped him.”
Tucker laughed hesitantly. “Well. I kind of deserved it.”
I waited.
Tucker sighed and sat down on the porch swing. “He got that job from Cliff. I’d been waiting for it all semester. Do you remember Celia’s bonfire, on Scoreboard Day?”
“Yeah . . .”
My stomach sank. I knew where this was going.
He blushed and looked away. “I slept with Ria.”
Before I knew what I was doing, I had his face in my hands and was yelling, “TUCKER. THAT IS NOT TRUE. You are the one source of GOOD in this godforsaken place! You can’t have gone along with Ria’s plans—I’m the one who screwed up and put IcyHot in your underwear!”
Tucker shook his head, and I dropped my hands.
“No, you’re not a bad person,” he said. “And Richter isn’t a bad person, and I’m not a bad person. We’re just people, and people sometimes do stupid things.”
I stared at him. After a few seconds, I said, “So. You and Ria.”
“Me and Ria,” he replied.
“You had sex with Ria Wolf.”
“I had sex with Ria Wolf,” he admitted, raising his hands in defeat.
“And how was that?”
“It sucked,” he said, laughing suddenly. “It was awful. I’ve never felt more awkward in my life. I mean, it was pretty obvious from the beginning that she was using me, but you’ve seen her—she’s hot. Like, beyond hot. Like hotness to the nth power.”
“Tucker, I get it.”
“You’d think hotness would make it better, you know? But it’s kind of hard to enjoy yourself when the other person keeps hitting you and telling you how terrible you are at it and what you’re doing wrong.”
“That would suck.” I laughed only because he did. “Why’d you do it? I mean, it couldn’t have been because she was hot.”
Tucker turned a little red again. “Honestly? Richter and I sort of had a war going over her during middle school.”
“Over Ria?” I laughed again.
“Yeah, that’s why he hates her,” Tucker said. “I mean, we both knew it was pointless, but he never understood why she’d pick brawn over brains. She came up to me at Celia’s bonfire and started flirting with me—”
So it was Tucker with Ria in that bedroom, and I had almost walked in on them.
Peachy.
“—and then it sort of happened. I knew she was just doing it to make Cliff mad—everyone knows that, she does it every year—and I knew I’d have to deal with him afterward. That’s why Richter had you guys break into my house and do all that stuff to me, because Cliff paid him, so really it was my fault in the first place—”
“Tucker, shut up.”
“Okay.”
We lapsed into silence, staring across the street at my neighbor’s bright green lawn. After a few minutes, Tucker said, “So, you still think something is up with McCoy?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I never told you—I got to talk to Miles’s mom.”
I explained everything I’d learned from June. Then I told him about confronting Celia outside the gym, and about Miles being an obstacle.
“I think McCoy’s going to do something. But I don’t know when, or how. And I’m afraid that if I don’t figure it out, something bad will happen.”
“And you’re positive,” he said slowly, “that this is all actually happening?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m never positive of anything, Tucker, I’m just telling you what I know. But you said earlier this year that Celia and her mom didn’t get along, right?”
“I—well, I mean, I’ve seen them come into school a few times before, and I’ve heard things, but it’s not like I’m in with their family.”
“Well, look—even if I am making up parts of it, I know that something is going on. I know McCoy is messed up and I know he’s taking Celia along for the ride. And I feel like . . . like if I don’t do something about it, then no one will.”
Tucker was quiet for a moment. Then, finally, he said, “I don’t know if I should tell you this, but . . . I know where McCoy lives. You won’t find anything incriminating in his office or at school. If there is anything, you’ll find it where he lives.”
“Mr. Soggy Potato Salad,” I said, putting my hand over my heart. “Are . . . are you suggesting we break into someone’s house?”
Tucker shrugged. “Not to take anything. Just to look around.”
“Should I ask Miles to come with us? He has more experience breaking and entering than we do.”
“He knows about all of this?”
“I figured he could keep himself safer than I could alone,” I said. “Besides, he’s known about me since October.”
“Oh, well.” Tucker thought for a moment. “Yeah, I guess we’d be stupid not to ask him. His house is only a few streets away from McCoy’s.”
“What?”
“Yeah—McCoy lives in Lakeview Trail.”
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Chapter Forty-one
Dad took me to school the next day. In the hallways, everyone stared at me like I’d imagined them doing all year. My hair had become a blight, just like at Hillpark; people saw me coming and jumped from my path.
I tried to perform my perimeter checks like usual, but by the time I’d left my locker, there were so many eyes watching me it became difficult to keep my panic down. The only good place was English, where Mr. Gunthrie seemed to have reined in the class so well they ignored me completely.
Miles ignored me, too. He sat with his head bowed, scribbling furiously in his notebook.
The lines he made were thick and dark, and covered whole pages.
In true Miles the Jerk fashion, he didn’t talk to me until I forced him to, when we were walking together toward the gym. It was the day of the one baseball game I’d been dreading all year—East Shoal vs. Hillpark—and part of the reason I’d decided to come back to school. The other part was a joint threat between my mother and the Gravedigger to burn me in the fires of hell if I stayed home. (I told Dad that; he said I might be exaggerating.)
I had to face this. But before I could even think about it, I had to make sure Miles was okay.
I checked to make sure no one was around, then asked Miles, “What’s going on?”
He ran a shaky hand through his hair, his eyes flicking back and forth over the empty rotunda. “I—sorry—I couldn’t think at all today. Everyone knows. They’ve been talking about it all day, and I can’t figure out how they know. . . .”
They knew about his mom. I grabbed his hand and pulled it away from his hair, holding it between both of mine. “What’s the worst they can do with it, right? We only have a couple months left.”
“It’s that they know,” he said. “I don’t like them knowing things about my mom, because they’re going to start making judgments. And will anyone even take me seriously anymore? What are they going to ask me to do now? Even if it’s ridiculous, I’ll have to do it—I can’t say no, because then I go from die-hard genius back to punching-bag nerd, and no one will be safe anymore. I won’t be safe anymore.”
I looked around again—just him saying he didn’t feel safe made me think McCoy was hiding around a corner with a lighter and a can of hairspray.
Finally he said, “My mom called me. Last night, at Finnegan’s.”
“How come?”
“My dad. He went up to see her. She told me not to visit anymore.”
“Miles . . .” I wasn’t good at comforting people. So I did what I’d done before, and dragged him into my plans.
“I think Celia told everyone,” I said. “Like she told them about me. And I think McCoy was the one who told her.”
Miles’s expression flattened out the way it always did when he was dealing with information rather than emotions. To anyone else, he probably looked bored or annoyed. To me, he looked relaxed. The content cat. “That makes sense. He would have access to records. It would’ve been harder for him to find out about my mother, but . . .”
I rubbed my head. “I honestly didn’t think Celia would hurt you. I thought . . . I thought she still liked you too much.”
“I guess she’s had enough.”
“
Tucker and I think we can figure out what McCoy’s master plan is, but we need your help.”
“With what?”
“We’re going to break into his house.”
Miles brought out the Magnificent Quirked Eyebrow, which made me feel better. That expression meant that things were at least kind of okay.
“Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”
“Tucker said if we’re going to find anything incriminating, it won’t be at school, and he’s right. It’ll be at McCoy’s house. While I’m sure I could just John McClane my way into his house by shooting down the front door, I figured you might be able to do the job a little more discreetly.”
“So basically you’re saying if I don’t agree, you’re going to go anyway, but you’re pretty sure you’ll get caught.”
“Basically.”
“But you know I don’t want you to get caught.”
“Yes.”
“So you’re blackmailing me.”
“Yep.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I can get behind that,” he said. “When?”
“I don’t know. Are you sure you won’t mind it if Tucker’s there? Can you two play nice?”
“Maybe.”
“Would it help if I told you this was Tucker’s idea?”
Now both eyebrows were up. “Well, fuck me.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
He leaned over and kissed my temple. The times he kissed me were so few and far between, I couldn’t help but smile.
“I’ll meet you by the track,” he said, walking away without further explanation.
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Chapter Forty-two
When I arrived at the baseball field minutes later, the visitor stands were already packed full of red-clad Hillpark fans, many of whom I recognized even from a distance. They formed one undulating mass of red, the head of a dragon rising from their midst. Its scales glimmered in the sun and flames licked from its mouth. The Hillpark side was separated from the East Shoal side by the concession stand and press box planted behind home plate.
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