The Scarlet Letterman

by Cara Lockwood

  “I ate the foul goopy stuff they called dinner. That’s the very definition of adventurous.”

  “Shhhhhhhhh,” Blade hisses at us. A light at the end of the hall comes on, sending us all scurrying to find hiding spots.

  I duck behind one of the giant shadows — a couch, thankfully. Blade flattens herself against a bookcase, and Samir, caught without a place to hide, simply stands in the corner of the room near the fireplace with his chin jutting out, like some kind of pajama-wearing statue.

  The light flicks off, but then a flashlight beam bounces along the floor. It’s being wielded by a Guardian, who is patrolling the halls, looking for curfew breakers. He must not be looking very hard, because he passes by the living room with only a cursory look, managing to miss Samir, who is standing in the corner with his hand inside his pajama lapel like he’s imitating Napoleon.

  After the Guardian disappears around the corner, I let out the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.

  “A statue?” Blade hisses at Samir, sounding disapproving.

  “What? It worked for Shaggy on Scooby-Doo.”

  The three of us move down the hall — in the opposite direction of the Guardian — toward Coach H’s room.

  The door is locked.

  Blade whips out what looks like a Swiss army knife and proceeds to pick the lock.

  “How did you learn how to do that?” I ask her. “Is that in your Wicca training?”

  “No, you dummy. I got busted for breaking and entering. I picked our neighbor’s garage and stole their set of lawn gnomes.”

  “That’s why you got sent here?” Samir asks. “Lawn gnomes? You have to be kidding.”

  Blade shrugs. “That and my dad is a pastor. He thinks pagan worship is the devil’s work.”

  “Wait. Rewind. Your dad is a pastor?” Samir can’t believe his ears. Neither can I.

  “I’m going to guess that your Satan poster didn’t go over really well with him,” I say.

  “Definitely not. He thought I might be possessed by demons,” she said. “Anyway, are we going to snoop, or what?” Blade asks, pushing open the door. She lights her mini skull lighter, which casts a flickering glow to parts of the room.

  Coach H’s room looks normal. No papers are out of place. There’s nothing that would suggest a struggle. Like all teachers’ rooms, his doesn’t have a bed. Ghosts don’t need to sleep.

  “So what are we snooping for exactly?” I ask Blade.

  She gives an exasperated sigh. “Clues,” she breathes, as if it’s obvious. I’m not sure how she expects us to find them. I can barely see two feet in front of me. Straight ahead, there’s a window, and it shows a perfect full moon hanging above the tree line. We’re on the first floor, so the window also has a view of the chapel, about fifty feet away. The moon outside makes it look brighter out there than it is in here. While I’m considering this irony, a big black shadow moves quickly across the window.

  “Did you guys see that?” I ask Samir and Blade.

  “See what?” Samir asks, suddenly sounding nervous. I was wondering how long his fake-bravery act was going to last.

  I look up at the window, but there’s nothing there. Maybe I just imagined it. Like you imagined the red eyes in the woods? a voice in my head tells me. Against my better judgment, I take a few steps closer to the window to get a better look. If I were in a horror movie, this is the point where you’d tell me I was an idiot for putting my nose up against the glass when something most definitely is going to jump up suddenly and scare the bejesus out of me. But this isn’t a horror movie. At least, not that I know of.

  I put my hand on the desk to peer out the window, and that’s when I feel a bit of paper. It’s the only thing on the desk and it sticks to my finger. When I inspect it, I see that it’s about the size of a quarter, and it looks like another ripped piece of paper, like the one I found outside the gym and on the path near the commons. It’s too dark to see exactly what the piece is, but I’m pretty sure it’s part of the same picture. Before I can compare it to the other two bits, it dawns on me that this is Hooded Sweatshirt Stalker’s calling card. He was here at some point. And if he was here, in Coach H’s room, maybe he did have something to do with Coach H’s disappearance.

  And then, suddenly to my right, the entire wall seems to move. It’s only belatedly that I realize the big shadow next to me isn’t the bureau I thought it was. It’s a man. A big, brawny guy. In a hooded sweatshirt.

  “Ack” is the only sound I can manage as I jump back from the figure. Part of my brain tells me it’s Heathcliff and I have nothing to be afraid of, but the other, louder part of my brain says Hooded Sweatshirt Stalker could plan to hack me to pieces. He did something to Coach H, and he could do something to me.

  “What the hell…?” Blade starts, whipping her head around and seeing Hooded Sweatshirt Guy.

  It’s too dark to see his face, but the stalker turns and looks at me, then at Blade and Samir, and then bolts straight out of the room. I try to follow, my legs coming to life a few seconds too late. By the time I get my feet moving, I nearly collide straight into Mr. B, who reaches into Hemingway’s room and flicks on the light.

  “The Hooded Sweatshirt Stalker,” Blade says. “He just went that way. Did you see him?”

  Blake eyes me, then Blade and Samir.

  “I didn’t see anyone,” he says.

  “But he was right there,” Blade sputters.

  “Yes, well,” Blake adds, clearing his throat. “He’s not here now. Are you trying to tell me you’re out, after curfew, searching through the room of a faculty member because you’re trying to trap the campus stalker?”

  “Well, uh, no,” Blade says.

  “Did you students find what you were looking for?” he asks us calmly.

  For a full minute, we’re entirely silent. We’ve been busted by Blake, the teacher on campus voted most likely to have run out of his antipsychotic drug prescription, because of his habit of seeing things that aren’t there. Unfortunately he does see us.

  “Um…we were just, uh…” Blade stammers, desperately trying to think of an excuse.

  “We were looking for our homework assignment,” I say. Okay, so this is totally lame. But it’s better than “we were snooping around pretending to be Veronica Mars because Blade has this idea that we should form a mystery society.”

  “Yes, right, well then,” Blake says, clearly not believing us. “I’m not certain, but I believe you all have beds to go to.”

  “You’re not punishing us?” Samir says, bubbling to life next to me. Blade promptly kicks Samir in the shin and gives him a look that says, “thanks for reminding Blake of his options.”

  “No, I’m not going to punish you,” Blake says. “But I suggest you get back to your rooms as soon as you can. I’m sure our friends the Guardians won’t be so lenient.”

  He doesn’t need to tell us twice. In seconds, the three of us scatter.

  “What the hell was the stalker doing in Coach H’s room?” hisses Blade as we trot back to our room.

  “I dunno,” I say, but now I’m really not so sure it’s Heathcliff. I’m not so sure at all.

  That night, I drift into a fitful sleep, where I’m running through the woods, lost, looking for something, and it’s only middream that I realize I’m looking for Heathcliff. In the woods, I find that church by the river. In front of it, there’s a big boulder and that tree again — the one that’s shaped like a horseshoe.

  And inside, I hear Heathcliff calling me.

  I wake in a kind of panic, my heart racing. Why am I dreaming of Heathcliff nearly every night? And what does the church or the horseshoe-shaped tree mean?

  “Maybe it’s your lucky tree,” Hana suggests at morning assembly.

  “I don’t know, but I think the dream is telling me Heathcliff is in trouble,” I say.

  “How can he be in trouble? He’s back in Wuthering Heights,” Hana says as she looks straight ahead and pretends to be listening to Head
master B give morning announcements. She turns and looks at me. “Isn’t he?”

  “Right,” I lie, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. I should tell Hana the truth, I know. I just don’t know how.

  “Anyway, maybe it’s just the stalker stories that are getting to you,” Hana says. “Is it true about last night? Samir said you guys saw the stalker — up close and personal.”

  “Yeah, for about two seconds, then he bolted.”

  “Still, creepy,” Hana adds. “And all this time I thought Parker was just making him up.”

  “Yeah, weird, huh?” I say, just as a Guardian to our right shushes us.

  With only three hours of sleep after our little snooping adventure, I pretty much bomb my geometry test, and manage to walk through the rest of my morning classes like a zombie. This is the last time I let Blade talk me into anything.

  I’m still feeling a little out of it by the time my counseling session with Ms. W rolls around, but at least maybe she’ll have some answers. I want to tell her about the stalker, and about finding him in Coach H’s room. I can’t shake the feeling the two are linked somehow.

  But Ms. W seems even more distracted than I am during our session. I try to talk about how we snooped around Coach H’s room and about the stalker, but I get the distinct impression that she’s not even listening.

  I decide to test her.

  “So,” I say, as she glances off into space, “my dad sent in that permission form. He’s so happy with my progress here at Bard that he’s going to buy me a brand-new Maserati.”

  When Ms. W doesn’t react, I know I’ve got her.

  “Um, hello? Ms. Woolf?”

  “Ms. W,” she corrects absently. The teachers here don’t like to go by their real names, since they’re famous ones. Not that most of the Bard students would pick up on them anyway. Most of them aren’t exactly voracious readers.

  “Are you even listening?” I ask her. For once, I’m in the mood to talk about real problems and Ms. W isn’t paying attention.

  “Sorry, Miranda,” Ms. W says, shaking her head. “I’m a little distracted. We’re all a bit worried about Coach H.”

  “So something is up then?” I ask.

  “What do you mean? What have you heard? Do you know something you’re not telling me?”

  “Whoa,” I say, holding up my hands. “I don’t know anything. Blade suspects foul play. Do you?”

  “I don’t know what to think. You’re sure you didn’t have anything to do with Coach H’s disappearance?”

  “Me? No! Why?”

  “And you haven’t been near the vault, have you?”

  “No. Now what’s going on?”

  Ms. W hesitates, as if not sure she wants to confide in me.

  “Coach H’s book is missing from the vault. And some faculty suspects you may have taken it.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “So you could trap Coach H because of the F he gave you,” Ms. W adds, looking down at her lap. “I don’t think it’s true, but it’s hard to convince the others…”

  “What! But how does everyone know?”

  “Plagiarism must be reported to the entire staff,” Ms. W says. “It’s Bard policy.”

  “Okay, but I’d never do anything like that. Is this just about me and my friends knowing about the vault? Because you can trust us, really.”

  “I know that, but some of the other faculty have reservations about you in particular.”

  “Why?”

  “To be honest, they don’t trust you. Because of your, uh, fictional roots. Few faculty members feel fictional characters can be trusted. Especially a descendent of Catherine Earnshaw. Who could be willful, and possibly, selfish.”

  “But I’m not Catherine Earnshaw. I’m Miranda Tate. We’re two different people.”

  “I know that, and you know that, but the others…well, they aren’t so easily convinced. You have a motive, Miranda. And the means.”

  “I’ve never been near the vault since last semester. I don’t even know how to open it!”

  “Just be careful. They’re looking for a reason to come after you. The only reason they haven’t is because they can’t prove you were in the vault. But Coach H’s disappearance is very serious. It’s scared a lot of us, and we’re not sure what to do. I could get into trouble just by telling you this.”

  “I understand,” I say, appreciating Ms. W’s trust in me. “What do you think happened to Coach H?”

  Ms. W gets a faraway look in her eye. “I don’t know, but some souls can’t make it,” Ms. W says. “He might have decided to end it.”

  “End it? Like suicide? But he’s a ghost. How is that possible?”

  “There are ways,” Ms. W says, mysteriously. “Anyway, that’s our time for today.”

  I stand up and Ms. W catches my arm. “Miranda, there’s one more thing…” she starts. “It’s about your future here at Bard.”

  “Yes?” I ask her.

  She looks at me and then hesitates. It seems there’s something she wants to tell me, but decides not to.

  “Just watch yourself, okay? Because people are watching you.”

  Twelve

  After my talk with Ms. W, I’m beginning to feel like everyone is watching me. I’m becoming extremely paranoid, and it doesn’t help when I walk into theology and see that Coach’s H’s replacement is none other than Blake, the very teacher who caught us snooping around Coach H’s room.

  Nothing about this is good. Is he going to turn me in? Or has he been assigned to keep a closer eye on me?

  For the first part of class, my stomach is in knots, waiting to see what he’s going to do. But he doesn’t do anything.

  Well, nothing, that is, except spending most of the class talking to his invisible friend “Gabriele.” Just like Mr. Garrison’s hand puppet on South Park. Wow, Blade was right. This guy is crazy.

  I can’t tell if he’s seriously hallucinating or if he’s just using “Gabriele” (he calls him “one of the Lord’s angels”) as a teaching tool. Either way, he does have a magnetism and charisma that keeps most of the class interested. That’s not easy with a group of delinquents. But I suppose, given the high rates of past drug use among the Bard student body, they have a healthy respect for the bad drug trip.

  “Ms. Tate,” Blake says to me suddenly, his eyes brightly, lit with a fire that’s usually reserved for people with fevers or psychological problems. “Gabriele would like to know why you think chastity was so important to the Puritans.”

  There are a few snickers in the class. Great. It figures I’d get the chastity question.

  “They were trying to live sin-free lives, according to their beliefs in the New Testament and Calvinism,” I say.

  At “sin-free,” other people laugh. I am really trying to be a bigger person here, but it’s really getting difficult.

  “But Gabriele says they believed in predestination, which means that God had already decided who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. So why try to lead a pious life?”

  Blake has me there. I really don’t know.

  Before I can answer, a Goth girl in the back raises her hand. Blake nods in her direction.

  “Because no one knew for sure if they were predestined for heaven, duh,” she says. “Only God knows for sure.”

  “Very good, Ms. Kelly,” Blake says. “Now, for everyone else, Gabriele has assigned you some homework. Why, if God is omnipotent, does he allow the devil to exist? And does the devil exist? Eight pages. By the end of the week.”

  There are groans around the classroom.

  “Gabriele doesn’t like pouters,” Blake says, giving us all a look. He settles on me last. “God is watching you all. No cheating. Gabriele will know.”

  “I think he means you,” Parker says, leaning over and whispering into my ear just as the bell rings, signaling the end of class. She’s so close to me that I’m surrounded by the scent of some expensive perfume. Parker always smells like she rolled in a few issues of Vogue.

&nb
sp; “By the way,” she adds as I’m packing up my backpack, “did you know that today was the anniversary of Ryan’s accident?”

  My head whips up. It is? “How did you know about that?”

  “You know I knew Rebecca,” Parker says. “Our families both had summer houses at Lake Geneva. We were the best of friends.”

  Unfortunately, I did know this. Parker has told me many times.

  “Ryan was so devastated after she died,” Parker continues. “You know, I think it’s why he’s in this mlut phase, honestly. He was so in love with her. He used to call me all the time to talk about her, after the accident.”

  “He talked to you about it?” I sputter without meaning to. I’ve given away too much. I’ve literally just admitted to Parker that Ryan hasn’t talked to me about the accident.

  Parker’s lips curl up in a gloating smile. “I wonder why he hasn’t talked to you about it,” she muses. “Maybe he’s afraid to tell you that you don’t measure up.”

  I’m so mad now that I’m pretty sure steam is coming out of my ears. I have a sudden urge to smash Parker’s face in with my theology book.

  “Anyway, Ryan might be late to dinner. He’s got to walk me to cheerleading practice,” she continues. “But I’m sure you won’t mind.”

  “No — of course not,” I say, my voice dripping sarcasm. “But by the way, if you do see Ryan today, you might want to know that he hates your cheap perfume. He told me so.”

  “It’s not cheap! It’s Chanel,” Parker exclaims, sounding indignant.

  “Really? Because it smells like a department store farted in here,” I say as I cough and wave my hand.

  “Snap! You didn’t!” cries Samir in an exaggerated voice when I tell him, Hana, and Blade about my conversation with Parker. The four of us are sitting in study hall in the library.

  “Sounds like you got her good,” Blade agrees, a little smile on her face. “I only wish I was there to see it.”

  “You realize that you’ve now declared war on Parker,” Hana says. “I don’t think anyone who’s ever dared insult her actually lived to tell about it for long.”