by Isobel Bird
Sasha smiled. “Sure,” she said. She sat down in the chair beside the bed and rested Mallory’s hand on her knee, their fingers still entwined. Mallory closed her eyes and settled into the pillows. A few moments later she was breathing quietly.
“Will you be okay alone?” Kate asked Sasha.
Sasha nodded. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “Just make sure the rent-a-cop outside is awake when you leave, okay? I don’t think I could take Ray by myself.”
The others waved good-bye to her, then they left, shutting the door behind them.
“Hey,” Cooper said to the burly security guard who was leaning against the wall. “You keep an eye on that door. If anything happens to those two, I’m coming back and kicking your butt.”
The guard stared after them as they walked away, an expression of confusion and surprise on his face.
“One of these days you’re going to say that to the wrong person,” Annie told Cooper as they headed for the elevators.
“Maybe,” Cooper said. “But by then I’ll have learned how to knock a guy out cold with one punch.”
CHAPTER 16
Kate took a deep breath before pushing open the door to the science lab. I will not kill Sherrie, she repeated over and over. I will not kill Sherrie.
It was Monday afternoon. After the exciting events of the weekend, the beginning of the new school week had been refreshingly uneventful. Kate had been glad to get back to the boring routine of classes. Her day had gone smoothly, with no surprises. She wanted to keep it that way. All she had to do was make it through one period with Sherrie and then she was home free. Derek Lowell had phoned Annie to say that he would be arriving that evening, and the girls had agreed to meet him at the hospital. But Kate could handle that. It’s all working out perfectly, she thought happily as she entered the room.
Sherrie was already there. She had taken the trays of seeds—which had sprouted into tiny seedlings recently—out of their respective resting places and placed them on the table. When Kate walked up she was peering at them closely.
“Hey,” Kate said, not friendly but not hostile. She was feeling pretty good about things, and she was determined that even being forced to work with her worst enemy was not going to spoil things for her.
“Oh,” Sherrie said, “it’s you.” She gave Kate a cursory glance and went back to staring at the plants.
Kate gritted her teeth but didn’t say anything nasty in response. “How are the plants?” she asked.
Sherrie looked up. “A lot better since I put the plant food in them.”
“Excuse me?” Kate said, not sure she’d heard correctly.
“Plant food,” Sherrie said again, as if talking to a child or a dog. “You know, food for plants? It makes them grow.”
“You put plant food in the pots?” asked Kate, wanting to make sure she’d heard correctly.
“Yes,” said Sherrie sharply. “So what?”
Kate slapped her forehead with her hand. “Sherrie,” she said, “do you understand what this experiment is supposed to be about?”
Sherrie put her hands on her hips. “I’m not stupid,” she said. “We’re studying how plants grow.”
Kate nodded. “Uh-huh,” she said. “That’s right. We’re studying how plants grow—under very strict conditions!”
“Don’t yell at me!” said Sherrie.
Kate felt herself getting madder and madder. She glared at Sherrie. “By putting plant food in the pots, you ruined the entire experiment,” she said. “We were supposed to be studying the effects of water and sunlight on the growth of marigolds. Now, thanks to you, we’ll have some very healthy plants but absolutely nothing we can use.”
She was breathing hard and her heart was pounding. Sherrie just stood there, looking at her with a defiant expression on her face. She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t see what the big deal is,” she said.
That did it for Kate. She slammed her notebook on the table and picked up one of the trays of seeds. Turning it upside down, she dumped it on the table, dirt and all. It made a mess, scattering dirt everywhere.
“Hey!” Sherrie said, jumping back. “Watch it!”
“Why?” asked Kate. “Those plants were useless.” She picked up the second tray and dumped it on the table as well. “So are those.” She swept her arm over the remaining trays. “They’re all useless, Sherrie. All those seeds—useless. All our data—useless.”
“You should have told me,” said Sherrie. “This is your fault.”
Kate bit her lip. Her whole body was tense, and she could feel herself on the brink of losing control. How could Sherrie blame her stupid mistake on her? She was the one who not once but twice had ruined the experiment. The last time, Kate had been able to replant the seeds. But it was too late to do that again. They’d already lost a week’s worth of data and time. There was no way they could catch up. Which meant that there was no way they could finish the experiment and get a passing grade. Thanks to Sherrie, she was probably going to fail the class.
She stared long and hard at the remaining two flats of seeds. Slowly she reached out, picked one up, and dumped it over Sherrie’s head. Sherrie gave a shout and jumped back. As she danced around, trying to wipe the dirt out of her hair, Kate started to laugh.
“You think this is funny?” Sherrie asked her. “Let’s see how you like it.” She picked up the final tray and hurled it at Kate. The dirt went flying, spattering Kate’s clothes and clinging to her in wet clumps.
Kate looked down at herself and then at Sherrie, who was still trying to wipe the dirt from her hair. Her face was streaked with soil, and she was looking at her hands in disgust as she tried to shake the dirt from them. Unfortunately for her, the only thing she had to wipe them on was the powder blue sweater she was wearing.
“That’s it,” said Kate. “You’re dead.” She flung herself at Sherrie and pulled her hair.
Sherrie screamed and slapped at Kate. She got a chunk of Kate’s hair in her hand, and the two of them stood there, yanking on one another’s heads and screaming at each other. Each of them slapped at the other with dirty hands, leaving smears of dirt everywhere.
“You’ve had this coming for a long time,” Kate said as she picked up a wad of dirt and ground it into Sherrie’s face.
Sherrie spit the dirt out and tried to retaliate by grabbing some dirt from the counter and throwing it at Kate. But she missed, and accidentally turned on the water in the sink that was sunk into the tabletop. Water splashed out, turning the surrounding dirt to mud.
The two girls grappled with one another, each of them trying to get an advantage. Dirt and hands flew, and so did the insults.
“You and your stupid friends—” Sherrie began, but was cut off by a sharp pull on her hair.
“Think you’re so—” Kate retorted, her words drowned out when she closed her mouth to avoid eating the dirt Sherrie was trying to hit her with.
The mud on the table soon became mud on the floor, and the girls slipped in it, falling down. They wrestled on the ground, getting dirtier and dirtier and madder and madder. Finally, Kate had Sherrie pinned and was thinking seriously about force-feeding her some marigold seedlings when she heard Ms. Ableman’s angry voice.
“What is going on in here?” she asked.
Kate and Sherrie looked up at her. Then Kate looked at herself. She was a mess. Her hair, clothes, and skin were covered in mud. She was still holding on to Sherrie’s hair. The floor looked like a mud pit, and the surrounding area wasn’t much better.
“We had a little problem with our experiment,” Kate said helplessly.
Ms. Ableman walked over and turned off the water, which was still running.
“Kate attacked me,” Sherrie said, clearly faking sounding hurt.
“Kate, is that true?” asked the teacher.
Kate let go of Sherrie’s hair. “Kind of,” she said. “But it was because Sherrie ruined the experiment,” she added hastily.
“I did not!” Sherrie
retorted.
“Yes, you did!” said Kate, ready to start fighting all over again.
“That’s enough,” said Ms. Ableman sharply, making them both stop. “Now get up and go clean yourselves off. Then come back here and clean this place up.” She turned to walk away, then stopped and looked back at them. “You both will receive Fs on your experiment,” she informed them.
Kate got off Sherrie and stood up. Without a word she grabbed her notebook from the table and stormed out of the science lab, pushing the door so hard it banged into the wall outside. She stomped down the hall, not caring that people were staring at her openly as she passed by.
“Whoa, what happened to you?” asked Cooper as she and Annie, coming out of their classrooms, saw Kate and ran to catch up.
“Sherrie,” said Kate shortly. “We had a little trouble with our experiment.”
Annie and Cooper exchanged glances. Cooper bit her lip, trying not to laugh.
“Well,” Annie said carefully, “that makes two of us who have gotten into it with her. First I slap her at Banana Republic and now you make her eat dirt.” She looked at Cooper. “You’re next,” she said.
Kate laughed despite herself. It really was pretty funny, when she thought about it. Sure, she was probably going to fail science, but maybe seeing Sherrie all covered in dirt was worth it. Probably. Part of her was still horrified by what she’d done. But perhaps, if she explained, Ms. Ableman would let her do a makeup experiment.
She heard laughing behind them and turned to see Sherrie running through the hall. People were pointing and laughing at her, and she was yelling at them.
“Shut up!” she screeched. “Idiots!”
“Oh, yeah,” Kate said to Annie and Cooper. “It was definitely worth it.”
Kate had to go to the locker room and shower before she could do anything else. And she had to clean up the science lab as well. She told Annie and Cooper that she would meet them at the hospital when she was done.
Showered and dressed, she returned to the lab. Once again, Sherrie was already there. Unlike Kate, who always had a change of clothes in her gym locker, Sherrie had had to make do with cleaning herself off as best she could. That meant she still had streaks of dirt on her clothes. She didn’t even look at Kate when she walked in; she just went on wiping up dirt and throwing the filthy paper towels she was using into a trash can.
Kate joined in silently. For the next half hour neither of them said a word to the other. They just cleaned. When they were done, and the lab looked pretty much as it had before their dirt battle, Sherrie stormed out, leaving Kate alone. Kate looked at the door separating the lab from Ms. Ableman’s classroom. She knew she had to talk to her. As embarrassing as it might be, she had to explain why she’d done what she’d done. She took a deep breath and walked to the door.
An hour later Kate walked into the hospital. Cooper and Annie were sitting in the main waiting room. Kate walked over to them and plopped down in a chair. “He’s not here yet?” she asked.
“He should be here any minute,” answered Annie. “How’d things go back there?”
Kate sighed. “Well,” she said, “you know how we’re always talking about how the energy we send out comes back to us even stronger?”
Annie and Cooper nodded. Kate continued. “I’m living proof,” she said. “I decided to give it to Sherrie, and now I’m getting it right back.”
“No makeup project?” said Cooper.
“No makeup project,” Kate replied. Then she grinned. “But it was still worth it.”
They were all laughing when they looked up and saw a man standing in front of them. He was very tall and very muscular, with short-cropped brown hair, a worried face, and large hands that he was nervously taking in and out of his pockets.
“Is one of you Annie?” he asked.
Annie stood up. “You must be Derek,” she said.
He took her hand and shook it firmly. Annie introduced Kate and Cooper as well. “Mallory is upstairs,” she told Derek. “Sasha is with her, and so is Thea, Sasha’s mother. She works a lot with runaway kids, and we thought it would be good for her to be here.”
What Annie had said was only partly true. They had told Thea about contacting Derek, but only after the fact. While she’d been annoyed at them for doing it without consulting her, she’d agreed that it was probably the best thing to do. Still, she’d insisted on being there when he arrived, in case things didn’t go well.
“We didn’t tell Mallory you were coming,” Cooper told him.
Derek nodded. “I’m not so sure she’ll be all that happy to see me,” he said. “I was kind of the reason she ran away in the first place.”
The girls all looked at one another. They’d been secretly worried that perhaps contacting Derek hadn’t been the best idea they’d ever had. Now they thought maybe they’d been right.
“I was the one who raised her mostly,” he said, as if they’d asked for an explanation. “Gram really couldn’t do much, and since I was so much older than Mal, I kind of had to be her brother and her father. I guess maybe I was hard on her, but only because I love her. When I moved out and got married, it was just her and Gram. I couldn’t keep an eye on her as much. When I found out she was getting into some trouble, I maybe overreacted.”
He stopped talking and put one big hand over his eyes. Annie cleared her throat. “It’s okay,” she said.
Derek wiped his eyes and sniffed. “I hope she’ll see me,” he said. “We all miss her so much. We’ve been so worried. Gram—” He stopped speaking again and took several deep breaths.
“Let’s go upstairs,” Cooper suggested.
The four of them took the elevator up and walked to Mallory’s room. The security guard was still there, and he eyed Cooper warily as they approached. Kate stuck her head in, saw that Mallory was awake and seemingly alert, and said, “Hey there. We have a visitor for you.”
Mallory gave Sasha a questioning look. Then Derek stepped into the room, with the girls behind him. When Mallory saw him, her face crumpled up and she started to cry.
Derek ran to her bed and put his arms around his sister. She put hers around his neck and hugged him, sobbing. Tears streamed down his face and onto the pillow while he repeated over and over, “I love you.”
They stood, watching the reunion of brother and sister, until Thea stood up from the chair she’d been sitting in and said, “Come on. Let’s leave them alone.”
They all slipped out of the room and went to the end of the hall, where they stood talking.
“What happens now?” Kate asked Thea.
“The police will want a report,” Thea said. “They’ll have to check to make sure Derek is who he says he is. When that’s done, they’ll be free to go.”
“Do you think Mallory will want to go with him?” Kate asked.
Sasha nodded. “She wants to go,” she said confidently. She looked at her friends. “Most kids on the street want to go home,” she said. “But most think they can’t. Mallory may talk tough, but what she really wants is to be where people love her. Not out there,” she added, nodding toward the street beyond the window they were standing beside.
Thea reached over and put an arm around Sasha’s shoulder. “I’m still a little mad at you all for keeping this a secret from me,” she said. “But you did something really good here.”
“All except for our ritual,” Kate remarked.
“Ritual?” asked Thea.
“We did a ritual,” Cooper explained. “To sort of teach Ray a lesson.”
“But it didn’t work,” said Annie. “He still came back to try and hurt Mallory again.”
Thea smiled slightly. “Tell me a little more about this ritual,” she said.
They described the ritual to her, each of them adding details, until Thea had heard the whole story. When they were finished she shook her head, but not in anger. “It sounds like a great ritual,” she said finally. “But maybe it wasn’t the best idea you all ever had.”
/> “Why?” Cooper asked. “We didn’t ask for anything bad to happen to him. And believe me, he would have deserved it if we had.”
“I know you didn’t,” said Thea. “But it was still motivated by revenge, wasn’t it?”
The girls looked at one another. Finally, Annie shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe just a little bit,” she said.
“The Law of Three is definitely true,” Thea said. “But you can’t go making the universe carry out justice when you think it’s time. Sometimes, even when people deserve something, if you try to bring about what you think is the right end, you’re the one who ends up getting hurt.”
“Tell me about it,” said Kate, thinking about the F she was getting in Ms. Ableman’s class because she’d decided to teach Sherrie a lesson.
“But Ray does deserve to be punished,” said Cooper, sounding frustrated. “It’s not right that he’s running around out there while Mallory is in a hospital bed.”
“No,” Thea said. “It’s not right. But Ray is on his own path, just like Mallory is on hers and we’re all on ours. You can’t make him hurry along his path any more than anyone can make you hurry along yours.” She paused. “However, that doesn’t mean you can’t do something.”
“Oh, yeah?” asked Cooper. “What?
Thea smiled secretively. “Come on,” she said. “We need to make a trip to the store.”
CHAPTER 17
Sophia listened as the girls told her the whole story, starting with the break-in and ending with the arrival of Derek Lowell. Sasha did most of the talking, since in a way it was her story, but the others kept interrupting with details of their own.
“The stone,” Kate said. “Don’t forget the stone.”
“Oh, and the Kali ritual,” added Cooper at the appropriate time.
“Rover,” Annie prompted. “Fido.”
Eventually, after a couple of side trips, Sasha came to the end. She stopped talking and looked at Sophia, who nodded thoughtfully. “So that’s why that bag of jewelry and money was waiting for me the other day,” she said. “And here I thought the thief had had a change of heart.”