7 Clues to Winning You

by Kristin Walker

  “The dead dude,” he said. “For the clue? You know exactly what I’m talking about. I don’t know why you’re even pretending … God, you are the worst liar!” He laughed out loud and I saw genuine delight on his face. I could tell right away that it wasn’t something he let slip very often. He was more guarded than that. So I have to say that I was kind of proud to make him react that way.

  Jenna tugged Cy by the arm toward the grave. “Here, we’ll show you.”

  “Unless …” Cy stopped her. He held out his open hand to me and feigned sympathy. “You need more time to mourn your beloved Ebenezer.”

  I burst into fake tears and covered my face. “How could you remind me of that? Oh, Ebenezer.” I gently laid my hand on his headstone. “Oh, my love. How I miss thee.”

  “Thee?” Cy mocked. “Okay, I’m sorry, but you are way too much of a dork to be seen with us anymore. We’re going home. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s started to rain.” He turned to go, but of course he was only kidding. Jenna pulled him along and they showed me the right gravestone, so close to the foot of an oak tree that the tree must have been planted after the burial or else the roots would have prevented digging. The headstone itself was small, but the grave was lined with white fist-sized rocks set into the earth. I knelt down and read as rivulets of water streamed down the stone and collected in the bottom of each carved letter and number.

  William Caleb Symons

  1812–1903

  “And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

  Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

  Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”

  I wrestled my iPhone from my wet jeans pocket as the damp denim fought to hold on to it. The pink rubber sleeve had kept the phone dry enough. I kneeled down and snapped a picture, and then I checked to see if it was okay. The words were in perfect focus. The headstone seemed larger than it had appeared at first. It was banked with white rocks, cradled in roots, and awash in tributaries of rainwater. Stones, trees, and running brooks. Exactly as it should be. I couldn’t help but think that William Caleb Symons would’ve been pleased.

  I saved the photo and wriggled the phone back into my pocket. I stood up and tried to brush some of the mud off my knees, but it just smeared down my shins. Another secret load of laundry I’d have to do before Mom saw.

  The rain was finally starting to ease up. I had to bolt before anyone else from school got there. “Thanks, guys,” I said to Jenna and Cy. “I owe you … uh … well, actually, I guess I owe you a couple.”

  Cy waved me off. “Consider it payment for having my back with your dad.”

  “But you had my back with that Weeble-headed yogurt douche bag.” I looked down and muttered, “That’s what I call him.” Not exactly the picture of charity, but oh, well. Cy and Jenna were the type of people you might as well be honest with because they could spot a fake a mile away.

  “Because that’s what he is,” Jenna said. She gazed at Cy. “You were so heroic that day. It was so hot.” She went in for more kissing with plenty of tongue action as the last of the rain slicked down their faces and over their lips.

  “Seriously?” I said. “Again?”

  They dragged themselves apart as Jenna playfully rolled her eyes and Cy leered at me, saying, “Come on, you love it. You know you do.” He flicked his tongue in and out at me like he was tasting my air.

  “EW! NO!” I grimaced and squeezed my eyes shut.

  Jenna purred, “I know I love it.”

  When I opened my eyes, they were throat-deep in each other again. “You guys! Are you kidding? For real? God, I feel like I need a condom just to stand near you.” Without breaking their kiss, Cy pulled a gold foil-wrapped condom out of his back pocket and flung it at me. I shrieked like a two-year-old and sprang out of the way, but I slipped on a patch of mud and did a completely humiliating backward-running-man for a few steps before falling flat on my butt. I heard the mud squelch beneath me and felt it seeping into my jeans. Naturally, the sight of my sweet comedy stylings made Cy and Jenna completely lose it. At least I’d put my iPhone in my front pocket, not the back; otherwise it’d be shattered. Which might be iRonic, but I’d be iRate. That was a little Apple humor. Be sure to add something to my tip jar later.

  I gracelessly heaved myself to my feet as Cy and Jenna struggled to recover from crumpling in hysterics.

  “Oh, yes. Laugh away,” I said, pulling on the seat of my ruined $150 jeans to dislodge some of the mud clumps. “Go ahead. Enjoy it, please. I exist only for your amusement, after all. Oh, crap, doesn’t that girl go to Ash Grove?”

  Cy and Jenna’s heads swiveled in unison. “Ella Chambers,” Cy muttered.

  “Fake, evil bitch,” Jenna added.

  I stepped nearer to Cy and Jenna. “I don’t want her to see me. I don’t want anyone to know I’m doing the Senior Scramble.”

  Without demanding a reason or even hesitating, Jenna took my hand and the three of us ran. I couldn’t believe how much noise came out of my squelching sneakers. Shlurp-shlurp-shlurp-shlurp. If Ella Chambers couldn’t see me, she probably could hear me at least. We ducked into an open mausoleum close by, out of sight of Ella but with a perfectly hidden view of William Caleb Symons’s gravestone.

  After all they’d done for me, I felt I owed Cy and Jenna an explanation. I told them that even though it was my suggestion to resurrect the scavenger hunt, I wasn’t ready to assume the role of career delinquent yet. “Plus,” I said, “a lot of people still hate me enough to turn me in, just so I’d get in trouble. I wouldn’t care about that, but the hunt would be found out and spoiled for everyone, and that’s what I really don’t want. I’m trying to earn people’s respect, not make them even angrier.”

  “Why?” Cy asked, aghast. “Who cares what they think?”

  I swiped a wet lock of hair off my cheek. “Look, you two have been outsiders for … how long? I’m guessing pretty much forever. It’s part of who you are. And you have each other. But you’ve got to understand something: I’ve never been an outsider. Over in Meriton, I had a ton of friends. Pretty much everyone liked me. But here? Pretty much nobody does, and I can’t take it. I’m not used to being disliked. It sounds shallow, but it’s true.” When I spoke those words to Cy and Jenna, it was also the first time I admitted them to myself. It tied right into the shame I felt earlier. I was ashamed to be so superficial as to want to be well liked. But there it was. “I’m sure that if you two were there, you would’ve hated me.”

  “You wouldn’t have been who you are now, though,” Jenna said.

  “Exactly,” Cy agreed. He slid an arm around Jenna’s waist and touched his forehead to hers. “You are so smart,” he whispered to her.

  “Yeah, but does that make me a better person or worse?” I asked.

  Cy turned to me. “Neither. Both. Who cares? Look, we get it. You don’t have to justify or rationalize why you want to do the Senior Scramble. It doesn’t make any difference because you’re not going to win.”

  “I’m not?” I asked meekly.

  “Nope,” Cy said, looking sly. “’Cause Jenna and I are going to beat your ass.” He grinned at me and chuckled. “We helped you today in a moment of weakness, but no more!” He pointed in the air dramatically. “From here on out, you’re on your own. So you might as well get used to being a loooo-ser!” He turned his fingers into an L and moved it toward me.

  I smacked his hand away playfully. “Hold up, you two are doing the hunt? What happened to ‘We’re not exactly joiners’?” My macho imitation of Cy’s voice threw Jenna into giggles.

  “Are you kidding?” Cy said. “The cops go so easy on Ash Grove juniors doing the Senior Scramble.”

  “Most of them did it themselves in high school,” Jenna added.

  Cy rubbed his palms together. “I’ve been looking forward to the mayhem for months.”

  Jenna leaned closer. “Plus, there’s a rumor going around that the prize this year is two front-row se
ats at the Strokes concert, with backstage passes and a room for the night in the same hotel the band is staying at.”

  “That prize is so mine,” Cy said, grinning.

  “Holy crap,” I said. “Where do they get the money for all that?”

  “Everybody chips in,” Jenna said. “Students, staff, parents, whoever.”

  “People in Ash Grove are pretty tight,” said Cy. “Most of them went to school here.”

  “That’s wild,” I said. “But what if the rumor’s wrong?”

  Cy hiked up the collar of his army jacket and wrapped it snug around his neck. “Maybe it is. But I can’t pass up the chance that it might be right.”

  “So you’re doing the hunt,” I concluded.

  “We’re doing the hunt,” Cy confirmed.

  “Last night, right after we figured out the clue, we came here and found the grave,” Jenna said. “It was dark, but Cy knows this place, so we figured it out pretty quick.”

  “What do you mean, you know this place?” I asked Cy, without thinking.

  He went silent.

  “I’m sorry,” I blurted. “I didn’t mean …”

  “My brother’s here,” Cy said to me. He turned to face the rain. “He died two years ago. Car accident.”

  Jenna leaned closer. “It was his older brother, Shane. After Cy’s dad took off, Shane sort of became Cy’s surrogate dad. Now Shane’s gone and it’s just Cy, his mom, and his little sister.”

  Cy’s shoulders stiffened.

  “Wow, Cy,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

  He nodded.

  Suddenly, he clapped. “So yeah,” he said, changing the subject, “we’ve been spying here all day to see who else was doing the hunt.”

  “Who did you see?” I tried not to sound anxious but wanted to know if I was far behind. It was nearly one o’clock. Plenty of people could’ve gotten to the cemetery earlier that morning.

  “Let’s see. You and”—Cy used his tongue to swivel the enormous stud below his lip while he remembered—“Megan McGillicuddy, David Davidson, Biff O’Toole … Who else? Oh, Fabian Bonaventure, Carlito Montoya el Diablo Ramirez, Arizona St. Cloud, Dick Dangler—”

  “So many?” I blurted. “Who are they? I don’t know any of those people!”

  Jenna snickered behind her fingerless lace gloves. “Blythe, he’s messing with you! Nobody’s been here but you and Ella Smella.”

  “Those were all fake names?” I still doubted Cy.

  “Come on,” he cried. “Carlito Montoya el Diablo Ramirez? Dick Dangler?”

  “Well, yeah, when you say them like that, they sound fake,” I said. “Okay, so I’m a naturally trusting person. So sue me.”

  “The word isn’t trusting,” Cy said, “it’s gullible. But don’t bother looking gullible up in the dictionary. It’s not there. Did you know that?”

  I sneered at him. “Oh, ha ha. As if I didn’t play that joke on my brother like a thousand times when he was little.”

  “How old’s your brother now?” Cy asked.

  “Twelve,” I answered vaguely as I tiptoed to the mausoleum door and sneaked a glance outside. I was worried about the time. I had to get home so that the minute the buyers left the house, I could run inside, wash my clothes, and have them dry before Mom, Dad, and Zach got back. I checked for any sign of Ella Smella. I couldn’t see her or anyone else anywhere. “I’d better make a break for it before tons of other people start to show up,” I said.

  Jenna spied around the other side of the mausoleum doorway, toward Jefferson Avenue. “I hope they do. It was so boring until you got here. Wait, hold on. A bunch of jocks are getting out of a pickup truck. Holy crap, how do you fit five football players in the cab of one pickup truck? Idiots. That’s what you call natural selection.”

  I spun toward Jenna and clasped my filthy hands together in prayer. “Please promise me that you guys won’t tell anyone else where the grave is. Please? Ooh, or better yet, tell them it’s in the Catholic church cemetery! That place is huge. They’ll be there for days.”

  Cy shook his head and tsked at me. “My, my, that’s not a very sportsmanlike attitude for the principal’s daughter to have.”

  He was joking, but it still stopped me cold because what he said was true. What I said next was also true. And cold. “I don’t care. I want to win.” To top it off, I added, “The less like my dad I am, the better. So roll that up in your pot pipe and smoke it.”

  Cy scoffed dramatically and chuckled like I was a precious moron. “It’s called a bowl, not a pipe. The thing you roll is …” He hesitated. “Ah, forget it. You know what, Blythe? It’s not information you’re ever going to need.” He poked his head outside and checked all around. “Coast is clear,” he said.

  I thanked them both again and sprinted for the car. And by sprinted, I really mean waddled in my mud-caked jeans like I was wearing a loaded diaper, while my sopping-wet sneakers went shlurp-shlurp-shlurp-shlurp. So sexy.

  I yanked open the car door and searched around for something to sit on to protect my seat upholstery. I didn’t care about the dingy velour fabric; I just didn’t want another mess to have to clean up. I had too many messes on my hands already.

  I spotted the corner of my history textbook on the floor in the back, peeking out from under the seat. It must have slid under there at some point. I hadn’t noticed it was missing. Normally, I didn’t lose track of things like textbooks or other items that don’t belong to me.

  There was zero time to delve into that right now, though. I grabbed the book, opened it near the middle, and splayed it facedown on the driver’s seat. I sat down and got the wedgie of a lifetime, but the book kept the seat clean, and that was all that mattered. I didn’t need perfection; I just needed a temporary solution.

  A strange sensation of hot pride flared up inside me. I wasn’t accustomed to finding quick fixes. Usually I did things the proper way or not at all. Now, all of a sudden, my eyes were open to the benefit and thrill of just squeaking by.

  I drove off as the stubborn sun burst through and sparkled the raindrops left everywhere. When I finally turned down my street, I could see that Marjorie’s and the buyers’ cars were still in the driveway. I pulled over to the curb and parked where I could see my house but nobody would notice me. The rain started misting again, so I switched on my wipers. I wanted to get a good look at the people who might be living in my house. I was suddenly very curious about them. They’d better not be jerks, I thought. I didn’t want jerks walking around my house, cooking in my kitchen, climbing my stairs, sleeping in my room.

  My room.

  Someone was going to take my room. Steal it away from me like a bully snatches a toy. My room wouldn’t be mine anymore. It would belong to someone else. All the dreams I’d imagined and the plans I’d made and the secrets I’d whispered into my pillow at night would be gone too.

  I’d never see my pale pink walls that I helped paint. Never see my fuzzy beige carpet that I loved to dig my toes into after I’d slept late on weekends. Never hang my spring wardrobe in perfect order on the closet rod. Never open or close my linen curtains. Never watch out the window for a boy I liked to walk up the street. Never read inside my closet so Zach wouldn’t bug me. Never see the inner edge of its door where I scribbled I Kevin Bailey in third grade. Never hide secret notes from Tara under the loose corner of the carpet. Never see the crack in the ceiling light from when I tossed up the baton I got for my tenth birthday. Never lock my door and cry.

  Never feel my room keeping me safe.

  All of that would be gone.

  I wondered if Dad had thought about that. If he’d counted all those things when he tallied up the list of sacrifices he would ask his family to make for him. No, not even for him—for his job. Not the whole of him, just one part. Except that lately he seemed more and more “Principal McKenna” and less and less “Dad.” He spoke to Zach and me like we were students. He treated Mom like a staff member. I couldn’t even remember the last time he wore sweat
pants.

  The front door to my house opened and the thieving demon-buyers stepped outside, followed by Marjorie. The buyers were a man and woman who looked like overpaid, underbred yuppies. Mom called them “nouveau riche.” Newly rich people. People with more money than class who flaunted their wealth every chance they got. They hadn’t been rich long enough to learn that wealth was a private matter.

  For example, these two were dressed in designer labels on a Saturday afternoon. Wearing wool and cashmere in the rain. They didn’t even have enough experience with those fabrics to know what wetness does to them. I hoped his wool sweater smelled like dirty gym socks and her too-tight cashmere top itched like chicken pox. Then again, there was a good chance their clothes were synthetic knockoffs. Those two probably couldn’t tell the difference.

  They sauntered down the front walk, talking and gesturing to the roof or the chimney. The man accidentally stepped in a puddle on the concrete and immediately yanked his foot up. He hopped around on the other one while he checked the condition of his fine leather dress shoe. Unfortunately, he accidentally bumped the woman while she was contemplating her manicure and knocked her off balance. She stepped off the walk, and the entire five-inch spike heel of her knee-high suede boot sank deep into the spongy, rain-soaked earth. She let out a little cry, twisted her boot out of the mud, and started hopping around on one foot, just like he was. They’d just managed to clasp each other’s shoulder when her clean boot landed in his puddle and splashed them both again. It was comedy. I had to laugh. Especially since it’s so hard to get water marks out of suede.

  When they finally got into their hybrid SUV crossover and followed Marjorie down the street, I pulled into the driveway and ran inside. I peeled off my filthy clothes and threw them in the washer. I set the machine to Extra-Heavy Wash and switched it on. At the last second I remembered that my phone was in my jeans. I fished it out of the load of clothes, slammed down the washer lid, and sped upstairs. I scrubbed my hands and face in the bathroom. Still completely naked, I dashed to my desk, cleared the properties from the headstone picture, and uploaded it onto the Revolting Phoenix website. One minute later, I had my second clue.