by Amy Ignatow
“I texted them,” Addison hissed, eager to call attention to her heroic protection of the friends who hadn’t thought to take her with them, “so they’re on their way back.”
Nick knew that he technically shouldn’t be afraid of Cookie Parker. He was much bigger than her, and he didn’t think she had any secret ninja skills. But still, Cookie could be . . . scary. She had a power that seemed to flow through her like the Force, only it wasn’t a nice, peaceful, benevolent Jedi sort of thing, it was more of a Cross me and I will destroy your face, puny mortal sort of thing. She’d taken down kids before. Izaak might have been the one to start the whole “Terror Boy” thing about Farshad Rajavi, but it was Cookie who started the rumors that made the nickname seem less funny and more real. That kid went from being just a normal dude to being the most hated guy in school, and he hadn’t really done anything wrong besides being better at volleyball than Izaak.
What would she do to Jay?
Then again, what could she do to Jay? Nick asked himself as he watched Jay take photos of the sculpture of Founding Father Richard Dobbs Spaight Sr. Jay was one of those rare, magical people who was able to float through life without any realization of or concern for what other people thought of him. Jay’s complete cluelessness was one of the things Nick appreciated the most about him; it was also the first thing that he’d change, given the opportunity and a magic wand.
But what other kid would surprise his best friend by filling his room with balloons on his ninth birthday? Nick had spent the entire birthday in the hospital with his dad. His mom, aunt Jilly, and aunt Molly had tried to get him to celebrate, but it’s hard to feel festive with your dad attached to a bunch of tubes with wires poking out of him. There had been so many blinking machines around his dad’s hospital bed that it was hard to get close to him.
Nick’s dad had wanted him to have a party at home, but Nick didn’t feel good about doing it without him, so Aunt Molly had brought a small cake to the hospital. Some of the nurses had come into his father’s room to join in singing “Happy Birthday” to Nick. His dad had put on a Yay face, but you could tell that everyone was thinking the same thing: This was probably the last birthday he’d be alive to celebrate. Nick had tried to eat some of the cake, but even though it was devil’s food (his favorite), he had no appetite. After a few bites, he excused himself and hid in a hospital broom closet until his eyes were dry again. Nick was pretty sure one of the nurses knew that he was in there and kept guard at the door so he could be alone. His dad’s nurses were always kind of great like that. Sometimes he missed them a little.
That night, his mom ordered pizza that they picked up on their way home. They listened to the radio while eating dinner. She was tired; he didn’t feel much like talking, and what was there to say? It’s not like turning nine was that big a deal. Nick’s mom had asked if he wanted to watch a movie or something and he’d said, “No thanks, I’ll just go to bed,” and then she did that thing where she hugged him a little too tightly. She stopped only when she realized that his air supply was being cutting off. Nick said good night and trudged up to his room.
When he opened the door, there was a split second where all he could see was this wall of bright colors, and then balloon after balloon came tumbling down on him. “Mom?” Nick yelled as the balloons bounced past him and down the stairs. “MOM?!?”
His mom was halfway up the stairs when she stopped, slack-jawed, to stare at the cascade of balloons tumbling out of Nick’s room. “Oh my god,” she said. “Jay was here when I came home to walk Shelly and asked if he could leave something in your room for your birthday.”
“Did you notice that he was carrying a truckload of balloons?” Nick asked incredulously.
“No! He must have blown them all up himself!” His mom could not look away from the room full of balloons—they reached from floor to ceiling. “He must have been here for hours.”
They stared at each other. Jay Carpenter had been coming over to Nick’s house since he was old enough to pedal his tricycle, and it wasn’t that unusual for Nick’s distracted, upset mom to just leave him alone in the house. They looked back at the room and began to laugh. It looked like a giant gumball dispenser.
It took them about an hour to reach Nick’s bed. Initially they tried wading through the balloons, but there were too many, so Nick’s mom grabbed her long-neglected knitting needles and they went on a badass ninja balloon-stabbing spree. With every POP! they laughed harder. It was a ridiculous amount of balloons, a completely absurd amount of balloons, and popping them had been weirdly satisfying. Nick would never know if Jay had filled the room with balloons because he knew that popping all of them would be kind of therapeutic for Nick or if he’d filled the room with balloons because he was the goofiest kid alive, but it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that Nick’s best friend had spent hours pushing the air out of his narrow lungs to give Nick a happy birthday on one of the worst days of his life, and that was not something that Nick would ever forget.
Cookie was probably going to try to destroy Jay. But what could she really do to him? How could you destroy a kid like that? Everyone in the school already thought—rightfully—that Jay was a huge spaz. Jay was bulletproof.
But Nick wasn’t.
The rest of the field trip was kind of a blur for Farshad. He went over his study materials, trying his best to concentrate on the information packet that Mr. Friend had given them and to take notes in the margins so he wouldn’t be blindsided by the inevitable quiz on it back at school. But everyone kept buzzing about what had happened to Cookie and Claire. Farshad couldn’t help but listen:
“I heard they got tattoos,” Ramona Piña said to Makaela Jennings. “On their butts.”
“Oh my god, what if Mr. Friend is making them sit down right now?”
“They totally got wasted,” Izaak told his crew, who nodded in sage agreement, because two twelve-year-olds finding a bar in Philadelphia that would serve them at eleven A.M. was completely plausible. It was hard to believe that some of his classmates were the offspring of brilliant scientists. “Claire is so going to barf on the way home.”
“Ewww!” Addison squealed, and Emma laughed.
Whatever theories the kids had, they all sounded cool, like Cookie and Claire had gone on a whirlwind tour of Awesomeness. Somehow, breaking the rules had solidified their popularity, which was ridiculously unfair. Farshad could disappear and return visibly drunk with the image of a beautiful woman’s face covering his entire back and they would probably still think that he was out buying weapons of mass destruction. Not that he would ever get a tattoo of a beautiful woman’s face covering his entire back, because maybe someday a girl would want to look at him without his shirt on and he didn’t want her saying, “Uh, who’s that?” But still.
At least Cookie and Claire would be getting in trouble—that was something. They had to be getting into trouble, right? The world was certainly not so cruel as to just let them off scot-free.
Busted. Mrs. Whitaker and Yo-Yo Sub grimly marched the girls to an administrative office, and Cookie could tell that Claire was having one of her silent freak-outs. It was a very bad sign; a chattering Claire was irritating, but a silent Claire meant that all of her anxiety and nervousness was building up inside of her and was sure to explode all over the place. It was like the time last summer when she’d had that crush on the teenage lifeguard at the Auxano pool. She, Addison, Emma, and Cookie had spent nearly every day at the club, and every time the lifeguard would even glance in their direction Claire would go catatonic with fear. This went on for a few weeks (and Cookie couldn’t help but make fun of Claire’s inability to speak), until finally one morning the lifeguard said, “Good morning” to the girls, and all the words that Claire had been stuffing into the back of her throat broke free and spilled out.
“HI HOW ARE YOU DO YOU LIKE BEING A LIFEGUARD YOU’RE SO BRAVE IT MUST BE SO HARD TO WATCH ALL THESE PEOPLE ALL THE TIME I COULD NEVER DO IT NOT THAT I DON’T KNOW HOW
TO SWIM I TOTALLY KNOW HOW TO SWIM SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT ME BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN THAT YOU SHOULDN’T WATCH ME WHILE I SWIM JUST IN CASE I DROWN I’M JUST SAYING THAT I’M NOT A HIGH PRIORITY LIKE A FOUR-YEAR-OLD OR SOMETHING I’M DEFINITELY OLDER AND MORE MATURE THAN A FOUR-YEAR-OLD AND SO HOW DID YOU BECOME INTERESTED IN THIS PARTICULAR LINE OF WORK YOU DON’T HAVE TO ANSWER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO BUT I’D REALLY LIKE TO KNOW BECAUSE YOU’RE REALLY INTERESTING . . .”
At first, Cookie and Addison could do nothing but helplessly stand by. They had wanted to stop Claire, but it was like watching a train wreck in progress. Finally, Cookie had found her legs and did what any great friend would do—she hurled herself at Claire, sending both of them crashing into the pool. Addison jumped in after them for good measure (or probably to avoid awkwardly standing with Hot Lifeguard), and Emma jumped in after her, because Emma always did what everyone else was doing. Claire had been super pissy at first, which was fair, because no one likes being surprise-shoved into a pool, but as usual she eventually came around to see that Cookie had been looking out for her best interests. She even thanked Cookie, as she should have—Cookie hadn’t even been wearing her swim cap. Her mother had been furious with her when she saw the state of Cookie’s hair. That was the last time she’d had it straightened during pool season.
Honestly, constantly looking out for everyone else was hard work.
Cookie knew that if Yo-Yo Sub and Mrs. Whitaker focused on Claire, she was going to break. Cookie had to go on the offensive.
“Are we in trouble?” Cookie asked in her most incredulous voice. You have to believe that you’re truly innocent in order for others to believe that you’re truly innocent.
“We’re going to sit down and have a talk,” Mrs. Whitaker said, opening a door to a windowless office with a table and a few chairs that was lit overhead by long fluorescent lightbulbs. Cookie wondered how many other kids had been brought to the Constitution Center Interrogation Room for questioning. Time for the outrage.
“Are we in trouble for getting lost?” she asked, getting a little louder.
Mrs. Whitaker and Yo-Yo Sub looked at each other, and for a moment Cookie could see their doubt. Good, very good.
“How, exactly, did you get lost?” Mrs. Whitaker asked, arching one eyebrow. Cookie had to admire the skill it took to arch just one eyebrow. Maybe Mrs. Whitaker’s professors in Teaching College had seen it and suggested that she would be especially effective as a middle school teacher.
“I don’t know. If I knew how we’d gotten lost then we would have been able to retrace our steps and find the rest of the group. Knowing where we were would have made us less lost.” Cookie looked at them defiantly. It was possible that she and Claire could actually get out of this as long as Claire continued to keep her crazy mouth shut.
“Claire?” asked Yo-Yo Sub. “Did you know where you were?”
Claire shook her head. The crazy was building up.
“No . . . ,” Claire mumbled. “We were lost.” She was totally unconvincing, but at least she wasn’t outright confessing.
“Look,” Cookie said, “when we saw you, we were really relieved, because we had finally found our group. We’re really sorry that we wandered away, even though it was a total accident, and we promise that we’ll stick close by from now on. Can we go back to look at the Story of We the People exhibit? We have to make up for lost time and we don’t want to lose this educational opportunity.”
There it was again. Doubt. Mrs. Whitaker and Yo-Yo Sub might suspect that the girls had left the museum, but they couldn’t prove a thing. Cookie had to stop herself from smiling. This was going to work. She was going to be legendary.
“Ms. Parker,” Yo-Yo Sub said, leaning forward and peering at the mostly empty cup of hot chocolate Cookie was still holding. “The Last Drop coffee shop isn’t anywhere near here. Where did you get that cup?”
Cookie went blank, and Claire exploded.
Jay was very, very, very, very, very, very excited. “The lovely Daniesha Parker is going to ride the bus home with us!!!” he bleated. Nick could practically see the exclamation points above Jay’s head. “This is perfect. First we find out that she’s safe and sound and hasn’t been abducted by aliens or ruffians, and now she’s going to ride home with us! This is our chance, Nick, old boy.”
Was there maybe a way to knock Jay out that would render him unconscious for the entire trip home without causing permanent brain damage? Probably not. “Calm down, Jay,” Nick told him. “She just got separated from her friend, and she doesn’t look like she’s in the best mood.” He watched as Mrs. Whitaker and Ms. Zelle marched a blotchy-faced Claire Jones onto the Auxano bus.
“Poor girl. It must have been so scary for her to be lost in the big city,” Jay mused.
Nick looked at him, incredulous. Sometimes it was hard to tell if Jay willed himself to be clueless or if he was actually just genuinely clueless.
“We should probably leave her alone to process her emotions,” he said weakly as Jay bounded onto the bus.
Mr. Friend had made sure that Cookie was sitting in the front seat behind the scruffy bus driver, and Jay made a beeline to the seat directly behind her. Nick swallowed hard and sat next to him.
“Hello, Daniesha,” Jay said, leaning over the back of her seat. Cookie Parker turned around and regarded him with a look that could only be described as pure, unadulterated fury. It was a little surprising that her eyes didn’t immediately vaporize Jay when he asked, “How are you doing?”
Farshad liked learning new words. He was particularly fond of schadenfreude. It was a German word that basically meant “watching someone else suffer and feeling pretty darned pleased about it.” Not that he was particularly proud of himself for being happy about Cookie’s troubles. But, seriously, what was he supposed to be feeling? This was the girl who had taken a stupid, racist comment and blown it up into an identity that had brought him nothing but misery for the past two years. It was nice to see her miserable for a change.
Farshad knew Cookie had been the one to let everyone at Deborah Read Middle School know that he was Terror Boy. On the first day of school, he’d seen her with a gaggle of new girls, all of whom were looking over at him and whispering. He had been feeling pretty good, too—new year, new school, all honors classes, a fresh start—but because of Cookie Parker he’d never had the chance to make a good first impression. Girls like Cookie were very good at getting people to listen to them. She had that . . . something, that special power that drew people to her and made them believe whatever she was saying, even when she was telling outright lies. It was especially pleasing to now see her caught in one.
After fuming for a while, Cookie calmed down and stared out her window, and Farshad turned to look out his own window. The sky had become very dark, and traffic on the highway had slowed to a standstill. Mr. Friend was conferring with the frustrated bus driver about possible alternate routes. It was shaping up to be a very long ride home. Farshad put down his study materials and closed his eyes.
Cookie could feel Terror Boy looking at her. So creepy. She didn’t actually believe that he was a terrorist (get real, he was only twelve), but still, you never knew what kind of person he could turn into. He certainly had what it took to be a terrorist—he was an unpopular loner who gave girls creepy stares. Gross. Being on the little bus was the worst.
The bus wasn’t moving and Yo-Yo Sub was deep in conversation with the driver, coming up with a plan to get off the highway in order to make better time. Yo-Yo Sub wasn’t sure about it, but the bus driver was insistent. He probably wanted to drive them all to an abandoned farmhouse and eat them, or something. Still, it was probably better than sitting in traffic.
No one else seemed bothered when they exited the highway. There was a dark-haired girl a few seats behind Cookie who was scribbling something in a sketchbook—How is she not carsick?— and creepy Terror Boy, who had stopped staring at Cookie and was just looking out the window. Jay’s dumpy friend wa
s directly behind her. Maybe he was actually Jay’s boyfriend or something; they were always hanging out together. They were probably a couple. Gag. Cookie made a mental note to tell Addison about it when she got back home. Addison would think it was hilarious and totally tell Izaak. Izaak wouldn’t let that juicy tidbit go—he was like a big, dumb shark, and once he had a good bite on his victim he wouldn’t let go until they drowned. Cookie smiled. Things were looking up. Jay and his chum really shouldn’t have messed with her.
They were off the highway and driving on some sort of back country road, and the darkness and the driving rain made it difficult to see beyond the reach of the headlights of the bus. For a moment Cookie was actually frightened. Does Weirdo even know where he’s going? Lightning flashed and briefly illuminated the inside of the bus. Yo-Yo Sub was biting his thumbnail and Jay’s friend looked a little queasy. If he was going to barf, that would be just perfect. Worst bus ride ever.
The bus lurched, and for a moment Cookie wondered if she would be the one to throw up—it felt as if the bus were falling onto its side. As Cookie was flung out of her seat it occurred to her that the bus actually was flipping over, and that there would be no time for puking. She instinctively raised her arms to cover her head, and that was when she heard the unfamiliar sound of her own screaming.
Everything was wrong. Cookie saw Terror Boy get tossed across her field of vision like a rag doll and then her head slammed against something hard and sharp. The bus was still moving, and she could see a wave of dirt hitting the windshield. Were they going to be buried alive?
Were they even still alive?
Wet. Nick was very wet. No, wait, it was the ground. The ground was very wet. The wet ground was making him wet. Also, the rain falling on top of the wet ground was making him wet. A very wet blade of grass was sticking directly into his right nostril, but Nick wasn’t moving. Could he move? Nick could feel things, like the mud seeping into the front of his shirt and the rain pounding on his back. Could he see? Thunder boomed overhead, much too close for comfort. He could definitely hear things. Was that a horse? Nick opened his eyes.