by Meg Cabot
I slammed the car door shut and started across my yard, into the house. The snow that the Weather Channel had been talking about still hadn't appeared, but there was a thick layer of grayish-white clouds overhead. Not a hint of blue showed anywhere. And the wind was pretty nippy. My face, the only part of me exposed to the elements, practically froze during my twenty-foot walk from the driveway to our front door.
"Hey," I yelled, as I came in. "I'm home." It was safe to yell this, as Ruth and I had beaten my mom and Great-aunt Rose home from the mall. So the only people who might have heard me were people I didn't actually mind speaking to.
Only nobody answered my yell. The house appeared to be empty.
I walked over to the hall table to look at the mail. Christmas catalog, Christmas catalog, Christmas catalog. It was amazing how those Christmas catalogs piled up, starting before Halloween, even. Ours all went straight into the recycle bin.
A bill. Another bill. A letter from Harvard, addressed to my parents, no doubt begging them to reconsider letting Mikey drop out. Like they'd had any choice in the matter. Mike had purchased a one-way ticket home the minute he'd heard his lady fair had been hospitalized on account of almost being murdered, and then had refused to go back once Claire turned the full force of her baby blues on him. (It's way cooler, Claire told me, to have a boyfriend in college than one who is still in high school. I guess even if that boyfriend is a Class A-certified geek.)
There was nothing in the mail for me. There is never anything in the mail for me. All of my mail—such as it is—gets sent to me secretly from my friend Rosemary at 1-800-WHERE-R-YOU via Ruth, who then smuggles it over. But Rosemary was in Rhode Island visiting her mother for Thanksgiving, so I wasn't expecting anything from her this week. The missing kids were just going to have to wait until next week to get found.
Except for Seth Blumenthal, if he really was missing.
Sighing, I pulled off my hat and gloves, stuffed them in my coat pockets, and went to hang up my coat by the door to the garage. A perusal of the fridge revealed that no one had been by recently with any interesting offerings in the form of food solace. I nibbled on some leftover persimmon pie, but my heart wasn't in it. You would think I'd have been standing there thinking about what was going on across the street. I mean about Nate, and all. A sixteen-year-old kid, killed before he'd ever even gotten his driver's license, and for what? Wearing the wrong gang's colors?
But of course I wasn't thinking about Nate at all. I was thinking about Rob, and how hurt he'd looked when I hadn't introduced him to my mom. Well, how hurt did he think I felt when I found out about that wedding he hadn't invited me to? He couldn't have it both ways. He couldn't insist that we can't go out because of our age difference, then be hurt when I didn't introduce him to my mom.
The two of us definitely had some problems in our relationship that needed working out. Maybe we needed to go on Oprah, and talk to that bald doctor dude she's always having on.
"Doctor, my girlfriend is ashamed of me," I could almost hear Rob saying. "She won't introduce me to her parents."
"Well, my boyfriend doesn't trust me," I would retort. "He won't tell me what he got arrested for. Or invite me to his uncle Randy's wedding."
Yeah. The two of us on Oprah. That was so going to happen.
It wasn't until I got upstairs that I heard the voices. I have to admit that my brother Douglas, even when he isn't having one of his episodes, has a tendency to talk to himself.
But this time, someone was talking back. I was sure of it. The door to his room was closed, as always, but I pressed my ear up to it, and there was no doubt about it: There were two voices coming from Douglas's room.
And one of them belonged to a girl.
I assumed it was Claire. Maybe she was consulting with Douglas over what to get Mike for a Christmas present. Or had gone to him for advice because their relationship had run into trouble. . . .
But why would she go to Douglas with something like that? Why not me? I was clearly the logical choice. I mean, I may be a freak and all, with my psychic powers, but I am way less of a freak than Douglas, much as I love him.
I couldn't help it. I knew I shouldn't, but I did it anyway. I thumped, once on the door, then threw it open.
"Hey, good lookin'," I started to say. "What's cookin'?"
Only it wasn't Claire in Douglas's room. It wasn't Claire at all.
It was Tasha Thompkins.
My jaw sagged so loose at the sight of her, sitting all primly on the end of Douglas's bed, in her black turtleneck and gray wool jumper, I swear I felt my chin hit the floor.
"Oh," she said, when she saw me, her tear-filled brown eyes soft as her voice. "Hi, Jess."
"Wh …" I said. I couldn't think of a single thing to say. Never in a million years would I have expected to open Douglas's bedroom door and find a girl in his room. Much less one to whom he wasn't related by blood, or who was dating his younger brother. "Wh … wh … wh …"
"Close the barn door," Douglas said mildly to me, from where he sat in front of his desktop computer. "You're letting the flies in."
I snapped my mouth shut. But I couldn't think of anything to say. I just stared at Tasha, looking neat and pretty and strangely not out of place in Douglas's book- and comic book-filled bedroom.
"I just couldn't take it anymore," Tasha said, helping me out a little. "At our house, I mean. It's just so … Well, Coach Albright is there right now."
"I saw his car," I managed to croak.
"Yes," Tasha said. "Well. I couldn't stand it. Then I remembered that the last time I'd seen Doug, he'd said he had some really early issues of a comic book I like, and that I could come over sometime to see them." She shrugged her slender shoulders. "So I came over." When I didn't say anything, and just continued to stare at her, she said, looking vaguely troubled, "That's all right with you, isn't it, Jessica?"
I tried to say yes, but what came out was some kind of garbled noise like Helen Keller made in that movie about her life. So I just nodded instead.
"Don't worry about Jess," Douglas said. "She's just shy."
That made Tasha laugh a little. "That's not what I heard," she said. Then she looked guilty. For laughing, though, not because of what she'd said.
"I was asking Tasha about Nate," Douglas said casually, as if he were continuing a conversation that had gotten interrupted.
I tried to make an effort to speak intelligently. "I'm sorry," was all I managed to get out. When Tasha just looked at me, I went, "About your brother, I mean."
Tasha looked down at her shoes. "Thank you," she said, so softly, I could barely hear her.
"It turns out," Douglas said, after clearing his throat, "that Nate had a few unsavory friends."
Tasha nodded, her expression grave. "But they wouldn't have done this," she explained. "I mean, killed him. They were just a bunch of hop-heads who thought they were all that, you know?"
When both Douglas and I looked at Tasha blankly, she elaborated. Apparently, it isn't just that Chicagoans say hello instead of hey. They have a whole separate language unto themselves.
"They were the bomb," Tasha explained. "They ruled the school."
"Oh," I said. Douglas looked even more confused than I felt.
"It was all so lame," Tasha said, shaking her head so that the curled ends of her hair, held back in a second clip at the nape of her neck, swept her shoulders. "I mean, the only reason they wanted Nate around was because of Dad. You know. Prescription pads and all. Oxy makes for a wicked weekend high."
I nodded like I knew what she was talking about.
"But Nate, he was flattered, you know? I tried to tell him those guys were just using him, but he wouldn't listen. Fortunately it wasn't long before my dad found out. Nate had always been a good student, you know? So when his grades started to slip …" Tasha stared at a Lord of the Rings poster on Douglas's wall, but it was clear she wasn't seeing it. She was seeing something else entirely.
"My dad was so mad,"
she went on, after a minute, "that he pulled us both out of school. He took the job down here the very next day. We moved that week."
Whoa. Talk about tough love.
But I guess I could understand Dr. Thompkins's point of view. I mean, my family's had problems for sure, but drugs have never been one of them.
"So." I didn't want to bring up what was clearly going to be a painful subject for her, but I didn't see how it could be avoided. "Is that what happened to him, then? Your brother, I mean? Those, um, hopheads got him? For not giving them any more prescription pads, or something?"
Tasha shook her head, looking troubled.
"I don't know," she said. "I mean, those guys were bad news, but they weren't killers."
I thought for a minute.
"What about that symbol?"
Douglas, over by the desk, was making a slashing motion with his hand beneath his chin. But it was too late.
Tasha looked at me blankly. "What symbol?"
I had blown it. Tasha didn't know. Tasha didn't know the details of her brother's death.
"Nothing," I said. "Just … um. There's been some graffiti popping up around town, and some people were speculating that it was a gang tag."
"You think my brother was in a gang?" Tasha asked, in an incredulous voice.
Douglas dropped his forehead into one hand, as if he couldn't bear to watch.
"Well," I said. I couldn't tell her the truth, of course. About the symbol having been carved into her brother's chest. "That's kind of the rumor."
Tasha may not have been able to see things up close without the aid of prescription lenses, but she could see things far away without any problem. She glared at me pretty hard.
"Because he's black," she said, in a hard voice. "People assumed Nate was in a gang, and that he was the one going around tagging things, because he's black."
"Um," I said, throwing an alarmed look at Douglas. "Well, not exactly. I mean, you even said he was hanging out with, um, a bad element. . . ."
"For your information," Tasha said, standing up. Like almost everyone else in the world, she was taller than me. "That bad element happened to be, for the most part, white. We did not, as you seem to think, move here from the ghetto, you know."
"Look," I said, defensively. "I never said you did. All I said was that it's weird this symbol would start cropping up around town the same time that you happened to move here, and I was merely wondering if—"
"If we brought the criminal element down with us from the big, bad city?" Tasha reached down and grabbed her coat, which had been draped across the bed beside her. "You know, the police have been asking us the same kind of questions. They all want to believe the same thing you do, that my brother deserved to be killed because of who he associated with. Well, I've got news for the cops in this town, and for you, too, Jessica. It wasn't some evil street gang from the big city that murdered my brother. It was a homegrown killer all your own."
With that, she stomped from Douglas's room. It wasn't until we heard the front door slam shut behind her that Douglas started to applaud.
"Way to go," he said to me. "Have you ever considered a career in the diplomatic corp?"
I sank down onto the spot on Douglas's bed Tasha had vacated. "Oh, bite me."
Noting my dour expression, Douglas said, "Aw, cheer up. She'll get over it. She just lost her brother, after all."
"Yeah, and I really helped," I said. "Implying he was a gang-banger who might have had it coming."
"You didn't imply that," Douglas said. "Besides, I was basically asking her the same thing when you walked in."
"Yeah, well, I notice she didn't fly off the handle at you."
"Well," Douglas said. "Who could? Considering my personal charm, and all."
But I noticed a slight redness to his cheeks that hadn't been there before.
"Whoa," I said, sitting up straight. "Douglas!"
He looked at me warily. "What?"
"You like her! Admit it!"
"Of course I like her." Douglas turned back to his computer, and began to type rapidly. Douglas can out-type even Mikey, when he puts his mind to it. "She seems like a very nice person."
"No, but you really like her," I said. "You like like her."
Douglas stopped typing. Then he turned around in his computer chair and said, "Jess, if you tell anyone, I will kill you."
I rolled my eyes. "Who am I going to tell? So, why don't you ask her out?"
"Well, for one thing," Douglas said, "because thanks to you, she now hates my guts."
I took umbrage at that. "You said she'd get over it!"
"I was only saying that to make you feel better. Face it. You ruined it."
"Oh, no way." I got up off the bed. "You are not pegging her not wanting to go out with you on me. Not when you haven't even asked her yet. Why don't you ask her to go to a movie tomorrow night? One of those weird independent films comic book freaks like you are always going to."
"Um," Douglas said. "Let me see. Because her brother just got murdered?"
"Oh, yeah," I said, crestfallen. Then I brightened. "But you could ask her as a friend. I mean, she must be going crazy over there, with Coach Albright hanging around. I bet she'd say yes."
"I'll think about it," Douglas said, and turned back to his computer. "About your symbol. I've been researching it all day, but I haven't been able to come up with anything about it. Are you sure you drew it right?"
"Of course I'm sure," I said. "Douglas, I'm serious, you should totally ask her out."
"Jess," he said, to his monitor. "She's in high school."
Memories of Rob and me, in the barn the night before, came flooding back. But I shoved them firmly aside.
"So?" I said. "She's a senior, and mature for her age. You're immature for yours. It's a perfect match."
"Thanks," Douglas said, deprecatingly.
At that moment, I heard Ruth's voice calling my name. As was our custom, she had let herself into the house.
"I got that stuff," she said, appearing in the doorway a minute later, breathless and covered with flakes of snow. I guess the Weather Channel had been right after all. "On Seth Blumenthal. You know, that kid who disappeared this morning. Oh, hey, Douglas."
"Hey," Douglas said to Ruth, not making eye contact with her, as was his custom.
"Was that Tasha Thompkins I just saw leaving here?" Ruth wanted to know.
"Yes," I said. "That was her all right."
"I didn't know you two were so friendly," Ruth said to me, as she began to unwind her scarf from her neck. "That was nice of you to ask her over."
"I didn't," I said.
Ruth looked confused. "Then what was she doing here?"
"Ask him," I said, tilting my head in Douglas's direction.
He ducked back over his computer, but I could still see the tips of his ears reddening.
"What's a guy have to do," he wanted to know, "to get some privacy around here?"
C H A P T E R
8
When I woke up the next morning, I knew where Seth Blumenthal was.
And where Seth Blumenthal was wasn't good. It wasn't good at all.
Having the psychic power to find anyone, anyone at all, isn't an easy thing to live with. I mean, look at how, just by seeing his picture on the wall of Mrs. Wilkins's bedroom, I now knew this thing about Rob's dad. I would have traded anything in the world not to have been in possession of that little piece of information, let me tell you.
Just as I would have traded anything in the world not to have to do what I knew I had to next.
No big deal, right? Just pick up the phone and dial 911, right?
Not. So not.
Normally when I am contacted about a missing kid, it goes like this: I make sure, before I call anyone, that the kid really does want to be found. This is on account of how once I found a kid who was way better off missing than with his custodial parent, who was a bonafide creep. Ever since then, I have really gone out of my way to make sure
the kids I find aren't better off missing.
But in Seth's case, there was no question. No question at all.
But I couldn't simply pick up the phone, dial 911, and go, "Oh, yeah, hi, by the way, you'll find Seth Blumenthal on blankity-blank street; hurry up and get him, his mom's missing him a lot," and hang up, click.
Because ever since this whole psychic thing started, and the U.S. government began expressing its great desire to put me on the payroll, I've been having to pretend like I don't have my powers anymore. So how would it look if I called 911 from my bedroom phone and went, "Oh, yeah, Seth Blumenthal? Here's where to find him."
Not cool. Not cool at all.
So I had to get up and go find a pay phone somewhere so that at least I could give the semblance of a denial the next time Cyrus Krantz accuses me of lying about my "specially abled-ness."
But let me tell you, if there'd ever been a day I considered giving up on the whole subterfuge thing, it was this one. That's because when I stumbled out of my bed, heading for the space heater I always turned off before I went to sleep, only to wake with ice chips practically formed in my nostrils, I happened to look out the window, and noticed that Lumbley Lane was completely carpeted in white.
That's right. It had started snowing around four in the afternoon the day before, and apparently, it had not stopped. There had to be a foot and a half at least of fluffy white stuff already on the ground, and more was falling.
"Great," I muttered, as I hastily donned an extra pair of socks and all the flannel I could find. "Just great."
With that much snow, there'd naturally be a hush over everything outside. But there seemed to be an equal silence inside the house. As I came down the stairs, I noticed that neither Douglas nor Mikey's rooms were occupied. And when I got to the kitchen, the only person sitting there, unfortunately, was Great-aunt Rose.
"I hope you don't think you're going to go out looking like that," she said, over the steaming cup of coffee she was holding. "Why, you look like you just pulled some old clothes on over your pajamas."
Since this was exactly what I had done, I was not exactly ruffled by this statement.
"I'm just going to the convenience store," I said. I went over to the mudroom and started tugging on some boots. "I'll be right back. You want anything?"