“You were totally right!” Chati shouted in Sally’s ear as the band played their number one hit, “Hearing Impaled.” “Tone Death is the most awesomest death rock band ever! And the lead singer is a super hottie.”
Sally laughed. “Frank Winston? I’m more of a Stein Whatley girl, myself.” She blushed as she pointed to the shirtless guitarist, whose pasty skin glowed hauntingly under the blue-gel lights.
“Omigosh, that’s perfect!” Chati screamed. “I’ll take Frank, and you can have Stein.”
“Yeah, in my dreams,” said Sally.
“No, I mean now. When they take us up onstage, I get Frank, and Stein is all yours.”
Before Sally could process what was happening, two large security guards had lifted her and Chati onto the stage. Chati, who had clearly done this before, ran over to Tone Death’s lead singer and giddily giggled as he serenaded her. Sally, on the other hand, stood stock still, frozen in a spotlight while the guitarist glared angrily offstage at his manager.
She looked to the audience for help. Susannah shouted something and motioned for her to move right. The other girls displayed an array of uncomfortable expressions, from cringe-worthy grimace to embarrassed laughter. Viola, meanwhile, had finally found something worth getting to her feet for. Staring Sally down, she smiled triumphantly.
“Hey, kid,” said a voice beside the frozen fan. “Don’t think about the crowd. Just look at me.”
Slowly, Sally turned to face the kindly stranger, but when she looked into Stein Whatley’s graveyard-gray eyes, she felt her knees knock, her body sway, and her vision go a bit blurry. Instantly, she was short of breath.
Had this been the old Sally, she surely would have passed out right there, her moment wasted. But this Sally had a trick up her sleeve, an ace in the hole, a skeleton in her closet.
“GGGgggrrrr-uff!” Bones popped up from his carrier and planted his front paws on Sally’s shoulder. He smiled brightly at the guitarist, who gasped in shock. Stein Whatley stumbled backward and would have fallen into the crowd had it not been for a dainty, pale hand that instinctively reached out to stop him. Pulling him toward her, Sally steadied the rocker, who stared at her in stunned silence. By now, the rest of his band had stopped playing and were looking at Sally and Bones, center stage, caught in a follow spot. Someone from the audience screamed, “What is that?” and Sally searched for the nearest exit.
She wondered how she could have been so stupid. Of course it had been too good to be true. The girls she had so desperately wanted to call friends must have set her up. Had they been waiting for the right moment to embarrass her all along? Sally tightened the straps of Bones’s carrier and prepared to bolt. But before she had the chance, Bones leapt down onto the stage, spun once around the spotlight, and collapsed on his back. Stretching his legs high in the air, he rolled his head to one side. His limp tongue spilled out of his motionless mouth.
“Seriously, Bones?” Sally whispered. “You think this is an appropriate time to play dead?”
With nowhere to run, Sally moved farther into the spotlight. She reached out to Bones, prepared to protect him to the bitter end. But it wasn’t the smooth skeleton of her pet that she suddenly felt against her skin. It was soft, human flesh. Stein Whatley had grabbed her hand in his. He raised it high.
“That,” he shouted, “is rock and roll!” The audience erupted. Stein went on. “This next song’s for the little lady who knows how to bring some afterlife to the party!” Chati ran to Sally and hugged her as the band began her favorite song, “Resurrection Complexion.” Bones jumped to his feet, and the trio danced around the stage to the wild cheers of the crowd.
“Her skin’s corpse white/She’s out of sight/She’s calling me into the light,” Frank Winston warbled into the mic. He held his hand out to Sally, who boldly took it. As he twirled her around the stage, Bones barked and chased his own tail in a never-ending circle.
“Got the kiss of death…” Frank let go, and Sally giggled her way back to Chati. She watched Stein play his guitar. She was losing herself in his amazing fingering when Bones’s bark snapped her out of her trance. Tone Death’s guitarist was moving toward her, his lead singer close behind.
“…She’s out of breath…” Frank Winston held the mic to Sally’s lips, cueing her to finish the lyric she knew by heart. Her mouth went dry; her lips felt chapped; her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Sally looked to the audience. There were more faces than she could ever count, but only one stood out. Though her arms were still crossed and her features were frozen in a scowl, Sally could have sworn she saw Viola nodding her head along to the beat.
In a quiet but confident voice, Sally sang, “…She hits the spot like Miss Macbeth!”
The audience roared. Chati squeezed Sally tight. Stein Whatley winked at her as he took her hand and held it up again. Bones stood on his hind legs and barked, and Sally’s porcelain-white skin turned a rarely seen shade of red.
When the song was over and the girls and Bones had returned to their seats, Sally realized she was gripping something in her right hand. “Stein Whatley’s guitar pick,” she gasped.
“Nowaynowaynoway!” Chati cheered as her fanatical friends gathered round. The rest of the concert was a fabulous blur, which Sally decided to remember as the second-best day of her life.
“The first-best day was when I met you,” she whispered to Bones. The little corpse snuggled into her arms and howled in harmony with the music.
At the end of the show, Chati and her party floated out to the parking lot to wait for their respective rides.
“That was, without a doubt, the coolest concert ever,” Sally said. “I mean, if this is a dream, I don’t ever want to wake up!”
“I don’t ever want to go home!” Chati echoed. “I could have totally danced on that stage all night.”
“Me too,” Sally agreed. She scanned the parking lot for her father, but his station wagon was nowhere in sight. Instead, a group of picketers across the street from the venue caught her attention. “Who are they?” Sally asked.
“Oh them? That’s PAD,” Chati replied. “It stands for Parents Against Death.”
“Seriously?” Sally asked. “Isn’t that kind of an obvious choice? Why don’t they just call themselves Mammals for Breathing?”
Chati shrugged. “They show up at any event they think promotes being dead. Museum exhibits, concerts, book signings, you name it. If it’s deadly, they’re there.”
“Really? But I’ve never even heard of them,” Sally said, tightening the straps of Bones’s carrier.
“We don’t see them much in Merryland,” Chati continued. “Except at concerts. There’s always a new song or a group they find offensive. Just last winter, my dad booked a choir of monks from the west coast to do a holiday concert. They’d just released an album that was actually decent called Christmas from the Coast, but someone made a mistake and printed up hundreds of posters that called it Christmas from the Ghost. PAD came to protest, but when they realized their mistake they stayed for the show and even waited at the stage door for the monks’ autographs. My dad says they’re harmless, so he lets them picket across the street.”
Though Sally wanted nothing more than to believe Chati’s representation of PAD, she couldn’t help but feel uneasy about a group of people who took issue with dead things. When Viola chimed in, Sally’s unease became deep concern.
“Harmless here,” Viola said.
“Huh?” Sally asked.
“They’re harmless here, Sally,” Viola repeated, addressing her enemy for the first time. “I saw some of their protests when I lived in Watta City, and wow! Let me tell you, there was nothing harmless about those mob scenes.”
“Oh, no?” Sally tried to ask nonchalantly, though she knew the quiver in her voice betrayed her rising anxiety.
“Oh, yes,” Viola replied, her eyes sparkling. “I’ve
seen them come out in the thousands. When they find something that really glorifies death, they stop at nothing to bring it down.” Viola glanced at Bones’s carrier, out of which two wide black eyes peeked. “Sure, PAD’s local chapter isn’t anything to have nightmares about, but I bet all their big city members would come for a visit if they got wind of something really deadly. Or really dead.”
Sally gulped loudly. She felt so exposed. Where was her father? Why was he so late? She suddenly wanted nothing more than to get Bones back to the safety of her own home, lock him in her room, and protect him, just like her father had told her to from the start. She looked back at the protesters and could have sworn one of them was waving at her. Just as she was about to make a run for it, she heard three beeps and caught sight of her father’s station wagon pulling into the lot.
“There’s my dad.” Sally’s sigh was heavy with relief. “Guess Bones and I should get going. Does anyone need a ride? Seems like everyone’s parents are running late.” Sally smiled politely at the gang, but Chati, Susannah, and the others looked away. Viola, on the other hand, not only matched Sally’s grin but raised her a chuckle.
“Oh, no, Sally. It’s just my mom who’s late,” she cooed sweetly. “We’re all riding together. You’re the only one waiting for someone else to pick you up.”
“Viola!” Chati gasped.
“What, Chati?” Viola snapped. “It’s not like she minds.” She turned to Sally. “Everyone’s coming to my house for an after-party. That is, everyone except you. We didn’t think you’d want to come.”
Suddenly all thoughts of PAD were lost. The anxiety she had felt seemed fictional and baseless. All she could think of now was that, once again, she was being left out.
“Oh, uh, right, sure. Why would I?” Sally said. She tried in vain to maintain her own cheery smile.
“It’s just that we never really see you hang out outside of school,” Chati explained. “So Viola thought, and we just assumed…”
“No, no. It’s okay,” Sally lied. “Thanks for the concert, Chati. It was really great. Happy birthday, again.” Sally turned to the station wagon, ready to make a run for it, but Chati stopped her.
“Sally, wait,” Chati commanded. “Why don’t you come with us to Viola’s? We’d love to have you.”
“What?” Viola rushed over. “No! I mean, my mother’s only expecting five of us.”
Chati looked at her friend, politely trying to mask her confusion at Viola’s rudeness. “But I’m sure she wouldn’t mind including—”
“And we can’t have that dog in our house,” Viola added hastily. “Princess Poopsy would freak. Sorry, Sally. It just won’t work.” Viola smiled insincerely while Chati looked truly dejected.
Whether it was the high of the concert returning to her or the encouragement she felt at Chati’s efforts to include her, Sally decided to speak up. “We could, um, all go to my house,” she said, spontaneously offering to host her very first sleepover.
“What? Why?” Viola snapped.
“So we can all hang out together and no one has to be left out,” Sally replied, her voice growing stronger. “I mean, I don’t have a whole party set up, but we have sleeping bags, and I could order a pizza.” She smiled at Chati. “And I have a ton of Tone Death special edition CDs we could listen to all night.”
Chati squealed and clapped her hands. “Omigosh, Sally, that is the bestest idea ever!”
“But what about my house?” Viola demanded.
Chati took Viola’s hands in hers. “You said yourself we couldn’t have Bones there. And you always have us over to your house,” she reasoned. “Let Sally have a turn. I’m sure it’ll be a relief to your mom, anyway.” Squeezing Sally’s arm, she added, “I’ll go tell the girls.” Chati skipped over to the rest of her party to fill everyone in.
Viola glared at Sally.
“Listen, Viola,” Sally began. “You’re more than welcome to—”
“Save it, Simplesmith,” Viola fumed. “I wouldn’t go to your house if there was an earthquake and it was the last place standing. Enjoy tonight, because soon this will all be over. I told you not to cross me. Now you’re going to be sorry. Now you’re going to—”
“Viola, stop,” Sally interrupted. The mean girl gasped. Sally held her ground. “I won’t let you scare me. Not anymore. I really don’t want to be your enemy, but I won’t be your whipping girl either. We need to find a way to live together, especially now that we have the same friends.”
“Friends?” Viola snorted, loading up with fresh ammunition. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me. You’re still a freak, Sally, now there’s just a show attached. But go ahead, embrace this new cult of your personality. Just remember, the higher you climb, the farther you’ll fall.”
A car horn blew. Vivienne Vanderperfect stood beside her top-of-the-line SUV, which she had parked next to Mr. Simplesmith’s slightly rusted station wagon. The two old friends seemed to be chatting up a storm. Seymour smiled at Vivienne as she waved to Viola and her friends.
“Ready?” Chati asked both girls when she returned.
“You know, I think I’m going to skip the slumber party tonight,” Viola announced.
“Oh, no, Viola, you can’t!” Chati exclaimed, distraught.
“I am super tired, and I just realized I have a ton to do tomorrow. It’s really better if I get a good night’s sleep so I can conquer it all in the morning.” She glared at Sally. “You girls have a great time at Sally’s without me.”
“If you’re sure,” Chati wavered.
“Positive,” Viola confirmed. She hugged each of the girls good-bye, finishing with Sally. Holding her in a tight embrace, Viola whispered, “I told you if you crossed me it’d be your funeral. Now your time is up.”
Releasing her prey, Viola sauntered over to her mother, who was in the middle of a spirited conversation with Mr. Simplesmith.
“Well, wasn’t that clever of you, Seymour,” Sally heard Vivienne say with a giggle as she and the rest of the girls arrived at the parked cars. “Not that I’m surprised. You always were the best at finding unlikely solutions to absurd problems. We’ll have to get together soon so I can hear more about it!” As she returned to the driver’s seat of her car, she offered Sally a quick wave. “And hello–good-bye to you too, Sally! Kiss kiss!”
Sally blushed as Mrs. Vanderperfect blew kisses at the air and smiled at her with more warmth than she thought Viola would ever be capable of. But the color drained from Sally’s cheeks when she saw Vivienne’s reaction to all the girls turning away from her beautiful SUV and piling into Seymour’s old wagon. Though Viola remained perfectly poised in the passenger’s seat as she explained the sleepover shuffle to her mother, Sally felt a pang of regret thanks to the look of disappointment on Mrs. Vanderperfect’s face. But it was the brave, friendly smile Viola’s mother gave Sally as they drove away that truly broke her heart.
Chapter 11
On the first day of school after her slumber party, Sally entered the building braced for Viola’s attack. Her entire weekend had been spent imagining horrifying scenarios, each worse than the next. Sally knew that she had never asked for this. All she ever wanted was a friend. But with each new waking nightmare came the same crystal-clear revelation: though she might not deserve Viola’s cruelty, she wasn’t going take it lying down. Sally would field anything Viola threw at her, and she would not go down without a knock-down, drag-out, kicking-and-screaming fight.
Unfortunately, Viola’s wartime tactic was something Sally was entirely unprepared for. The armor she built was useless. The strategies she laid out, irrelevant. Viola’s attack was brilliant, and had she not been so utterly unraveled by it, Sally might even have been impressed. To Sally’s shock, terror, and awe, Viola Vanderperfect did the one thing she would never have imagined: absolutely nothing.
On Monday, Viola completely avoided her nemesis, finding
clever ways to pass unnoticed in the halls. On Tuesday, she made a point of ignoring Sally, refusing to make eye contact when their paths did cross. But by the end of the week, the teenaged terrorist had actually acknowledged Sally on one occasion. And after ten days of shared lunch periods, Viola seemed resigned to her enemy’s presence in her social circle, even addressing Sally directly in conversation twice.
By the time one month had passed, Sally was a complete wreck. If Viola had come at her directly, Sally could have handled it. She would have fought back, with truth and justice on her side. But the anticipation was killing her. Not knowing when Viola was going to strike or what she was truly plotting behind those arctic-blue eyes quickly became too much for Sally to bear.
She began missing school, and when she was there, she made regular visits to the nurse’s office. When she was not in class, Bones was always at her side, but they played less and less. The anonymous notes had stopped altogether now, but even that was little comfort to Sally. It was all about Viola.
Sally wanted only to hurry home each day, lock the front door tight, and barricade herself in her room until it was time for dinner. Late evenings were spent listening to depressing emo-pop-rock until, mercifully, it was time for bed.
It was on a Thursday, almost five weeks after Viola’s silent war had begun, when Bones seemed finally to have had enough. He was trotting behind a pitifully plodding Sally when he spotted their archenemy loitering beneath a cherry tree. Before Sally knew it, Bones had charged over to Viola and was giving her a piece of his mind.
“Grwoof Rara…Rararara…Rara…Ra,” Bones said as Sally scooped him up in her arms.
“Bones, stop!” she pleaded. “Viola, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”
“It’s OK,” Viola said, and she turned to enter the school.
“What do you mean, ‘it’s OK’?” Sally asked. Her voice cracked, and she realized she was on the verge of tears. “Please, Viola, can you stop doing this? Can’t we just get it over with?”
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