I turn to Will. “You know Becca Thornton?”
His answering grin reveals a row of perfectly straight teeth. “Who doesn’t?”
Around town, Becca’s famous mainly because of her parents. They’re primatologists who film award-winning documentaries about baby gorillas. Mr. and Mrs. Thornton spend most of their time in Africa, leaving Becca with her grandmother and her little sister.
“I meant that I-I didn’t know you were friends,” I stammer. Because Becca and I are friends. And she’s never mentioned one word about hanging out with Will Gamen.
Will blasts the horn loud enough to wake up everyone in a three-block radius. Becca’s large house rivals my new digs, though, so I don’t think anyone actually lives close enough to be bothered. Still, I tighten my grip on the door handle.
Following horn blast number two, Becca darts out of the house, a flurry of her loose brown curls bouncing behind her.
“Hey, Gamen, did you ever hear of knocking? I should kick your tires! And who gave you my number? I get this middle-of-the-night text saying you’ll pick me up, like you’re some sort of stalky creeper and … ” Becca’s eyes light up when she notices me sitting in the passenger seat. “Hello, stranger. Welcome to the hood.” She crams in beside me because Will’s backseat isn’t going to fit anyone with legs long enough to play high-school basketball.
“Brian knows Will’s dad,” I fill Becca in. “Golf buddies.”
Becca’s eyes dart to Will. When she’s sure he’s not looking, she scowls.
“Shut the door, Becks. We’ll be two minutes if I hit the light,” Will says, checking out his hair in the rearview mirror before driving away.
“Did you just call me Becks?” she asks.
“Sorry. Rebecca.”
Becca raises a fist in the air. Will diverts his eyes from his reflection and laughs.
He revs the engine. We all shift and settle.
I turn to Becca. “I was looking over the Out of Tune sign-ups last night and saw your name. Do you want to cover sports?”
She waves her hand. “Sure, whatever. I needed some non-athletic extracurriculars on my college apps. I figure I can squeeze in a few articles around soccer practice this fall. Mom called last week, and we reviewed my goals for junior year.”
Will coughs.
“What’s up with that, Gamen?” Becca asks him, irritated.
“Nothing. It’s just that I’d like to offer some assistance with goal setting.”
“How so?”
“I’ll send you a list of my current activities. Feel free to join.”
Becca rolls her eyes and looks out the window. “I won’t make the football team.”
“I hear you’re a tough-ass toe punter. Also, we could use a team manager.”
“Thanks, but I’ll stick to soccer. I hate football. Brutal sport.” Before she goes off on our driver, I bump her with my elbow. “We can shoot for one basic article about each of the fall sports. We’ll run a feature each week through homecoming.”
Becca shrugs. “Sure. I think I know someone on every team.”
“Including football,” Will adds with a Big Bad Wolf grin.
We veer around an empty back road until the one traffic light preventing our nonstop ride to school appears. Will accelerates, ready to blow through the intersection, but the driver in front brakes, and we skid to a tire-shredding stop, leaving a trail of black marks behind us.
That’s when I notice the cop car on the far side of the street and duck my head. I want to report the news, not be the news.
“Sergeant Friendly over there knows my dad,” Will says, sticking his hand out the window to acknowledge the officer. The cop car’s red and blue lights blink on and off. “Dude probably thinks big Bill is racing to court.”
“Your dad drives like a snail,” Becca comments. “I followed him out of the neighborhood last week. My gran drives faster.”
“Yep. In his hands, this baby is a total waste of machinery,” Will agrees.
As they banter back and forth, my eyes land on the monstrous wall running the length of the block ahead of us. What was once red brick has now faded to ashy gray and tan, adorned with splotches of green lichen. To me, the Westerly Estate has always looked completely out of place in Harmony, like someone froze time and plunked a long-forgotten fairy tale castle in the center of mid-town Manhattan.
Becca’s renegade curls swat the side of my forehead when she turns away from Will. “I’m sure you’ve heard the story behind the Westerly wall.”
“Something about Old Man Westerly building it because he hated his daughter’s boyfriend?” The memory is fuzzy, but I recall my father telling me about the local legend when I was younger.
Will laughs. “Dude must have been a fun parent.”
Becca nods. Finally, they agree on something. “Judging by the state of the wall, the estate behind it must be a total wasteland. I wonder why the mayor doesn’t force whoever owns it now to fix it up.”
I straighten my spine, searching for tall stone turrets, perhaps the tower of London, or at least a mansion like Brian’s. Only the top floor of a tired-looking manor house with faded clapboard siding and a shingled roof pokes over the top of the brick barrier. In the distance, I spot a redwood barn and two corroded metal silos.
“Old Man Westerly built the wall a long time ago—maybe the seventies,” Becca says. “According to the story my gran told me, he completely despised his daughter’s boyfriend.”
“Yeah, and I bet the wall was his bright idea to separate them,” Will cuts in.
“All that to keep out one guy?” I ask.
“He was probably her one true love.” Becca enhances the mood by fluttering her eyelashes faster than a crazed hummingbird’s wings. “Then, right after the wall was finished, the Westerly family moved away and sold the land. Apparently, there was some sort of accident.”
“So the place is cursed,” Will says.
“Supposedly haunted,” Becca adds.
Will huffs. “No one believes the ghost stuff. But whoever bought it made a bad investment. Must be a toxic-waste dump or something if you can’t build on it.”
The light switches to green. Will punches the gas, and Becca slams into me, her shoulder knocking mine.
“You’re out of control, Gamen,” Becca gripes. “Sorry, Mel.”
Two cars roll through the intersection before the light shines yellow and then red. Will swears under his breath. “First-day-of-school traffic. Everybody wants to show off their new wheels.”
“Do you really think there’s a ghost?” I turn to Becca.
“Of course there’s a ghost,” she says. “People see her all the time.”
“Like who?” Will asks, arching an eyebrow.
She shrugs. “Just people.”
“Name one person. Have you seen her?”
“No, Will,” she answers with a sigh. “But everyone knows about her, so the story must be true. She’s waiting for her true love to come back and rescue her.”
Will barks out a laugh. “True love. Right. More like a sex fiend.”
“Awesome. We’re talking about ghost sex now,” Becca says.
“I wonder what the real story is,” I say. “The truth could make a great headline for the paper. If I find out what really happened to the estate, maybe someone would clean the place up. I’m sure it was beautiful, back in the good old days.”
“Don’t you have enough to worry about this year?” Becca asks. “You can’t spend time researching a story like that. You’re assistant editor of Out of Tune. You’re on student council. You play basketball and run a whole bunch of other clubs. Our school would not exist without you.”
“You’re exaggerating.” My face flames.
The light flips to green, and Will floors the gas. As we pull away from the Westerly Estate, I glance at the second story of the old manor house. A shadowy profile appears in the left window. I blink, stare hard, and blink again. It’s gone.
Chapter Four<
br />
My pulse quickens when we turn into the parking lot and Will’s tires bounce over the cracked asphalt. Harmony High is an overcrowded, windowless block of beige bricks, but I still love going there every day. School is the most consistent home I’ve ever known, the place where I spend most of my time.
Will screeches to a dead stop at his assigned space in the junior section, smack in the center of a sea of teenager-mobiles and dented minivans, making it impossible for Becca and me to step out of the car unnoticed.
With a wave, he charges off in the direction of a posse of football players calling his name.
“Ugh. Now that we’re here, I should look at my schedule,” Becca says with a sigh.
I veer to the left, aiming for the less crowded side entrance. “This way. Most of the upper-level classes are in the far wing.” There was talk of splitting the school into two and building something shiny and new on the far side of town. For whatever political reason, it never happened. Instead, the large student body is crammed into the original building along with six portable units set up behind the school, housing most of the freshman homerooms.
Inside the junior hallway, I inhale the scent of new paint and floor wax. On the way to my newly assigned locker, I mentally sketch out my day, including all my to-dos for the newspaper. Before shutting down my phone, I pick up a text from Colette Rodriguez, who’s writing the student-features column this year. I had the job last year, so it’s my responsibility to train her in the finer details of writing puff stories.
After I tap out a reply, asking her to meet me in the newsroom at lunch, I duck into homeroom just as the late bell sounds. Mrs. Fretaricks peers up at me from behind large round glasses. Her bleached hair is shorter and spikier than last year, but other than that, she remains an unchanging fixture in my school life because we’re assigned the same homeroom moderator for all four years of high school.
“Welcome back.” She points the pen in her hand to indicate where I should already be sitting before taking attendance. My name is second on the list.
“Melinda Banner?”
Even though she’s already aware of my presence, I raise my hand. “Here.”
“Melinda, you’re this year’s student council representative for our homeroom, correct?”
I nod and then answer, “Yes, Mrs. Fretaricks.”
She piles one stack of papers on her desk on top of another, flipping through the sheets until she locates a pink form and holds it up. I rise from my seat and wade through the disinterested crowd to retrieve it. It’s a message from Kaylyn Kewley, the Senior Council President, about a planning meeting this afternoon. So much for getting a jump on homework.
The bell rings again, and everyone shuffles to first period. Already, the first-day-of-school excitement has died down. I return to my new locker, twice the size of those given to the lower grades, and take a minute to organize. My magnet mirror has already slipped down a few inches, so I move it higher and tape my schedule below it, on the inside of the metal door. Then I gather my notebooks.
AP English Lit. AP U.S. History. Calculus I. Honors Chem. All before lunch.
The morning passes by in a blur of teachers’ welcome speeches and constant note-taking.
I’m still trying to recover when Becca grabs me on the way to the cafeteria. “Let’s talk basketball over pizza dunkers.”
“No lunch for me today. I have a meeting,” I say.
She gives me a playful shove. “You sound like my mother. Want me to grab you a smoothie? You can slurp it down between classes.”
“Thanks, but I packed a snack.” I hold up my insulated bag and wave good-bye.
When I shove open the door to the cramped closet our faculty advisor designated as Out of Tune HQ, Colette jumps like a nervous kitten.
“Ready to write?” I ask her. “Student features is the most fun.”
She pops up from her chair. “Can’t wait! I have some new ideas.”
“Spectacular, but first let me fill you in on last year’s column. We set up an email address for anyone who wanted to nominate someone else to be featured. And since everything’s online now, I don’t have a lot of printed instructions.” I open a filing cabinet and pull out a sample layout. “You’ll have about 300 words per week. Can you fill that?”
“Easily.” Colette breaks out into a wide smile. “Who’s off-limits?”
I tap my pencil against the filing cabinet, considering her question. “Teachers. Administrators. The lunch ladies.”
Colette’s long nails click on her phone screen as she types her notes. “Of course. I meant students.”
“Hmmm … Maybe we give the freshmen a month or two before we introduce them. Let them find their way around first.”
“Definitely. I’ll need time to observe, anyway, and decide who should be featured. Besides, who really cares about the freshmen?”
Colette seems to forget that just last year she was, in fact, a freshman.
We agree to meet for lunch later in the week and work out deadlines for her first draft. Once we’ve settled on some early leads to pursue, she excuses herself, hoping to make it to the caf before the end of the lunch period. Left alone, I soak up the silence with my laptop, sipping a bottled water and munching on a bag of stale chips, decompressing from the frenetic pace of the morning.
When the bell rings, I toss my chip bag in the trash can on the way out of the newsroom and breeze by a mob of underclassmen reconnecting after summer break. Keeping my eyes on my phone, I strain to pick up on any conversation that might generate a lead for Colette’s first feature. So far, no one sticks out.
Like the blurry morning, my afternoon flies by. Advanced French is followed by Modern Journalism. I wrap up the day with Intro to Business Technology, an overly complicated name for what turns out to be my easiest class. Just one term paper and a self-guided online tutorial to follow. While I’m on the computer, I check my email and pick up a message from our assistant principal suggesting we print varsity schedules in the paper to encourage higher attendance at the games.
“Need a ride home?” Will calls to me, striding past my locker toward a group of broad-shouldered guys convening further down the hallway.
I swallow my shock and click my combination lock closed. William Gamen is actually talking to me twice in one day. “Student council meeting. I have one.” For some reason, conversing with cute guys causes me to revert into Yoda speech.
Will moves along without breaking his pace, making me wonder if the question was even meant for me.
“Plan on making a few tackles this year, Willameena?” Senior football captain Stu Broudin taunts his teammate. “Or will you just dance around on the sidelines between punts?” When Stu lifts an arm to cut off his teammate, his huge bicep pops out from under his jersey.
“No need to tackle if you pretty guys could find a way to catch the ball after I kick it.” Will ducks around him and stops at his locker, about ten down from mine. He calls my name again. “Is Becca on student council, too?”
“Uh, no. Soccer practice. She’s at soccer practice.”
“Come lift with us now, Gamen,” says a guy we all call Tank, for obvious reasons. He punches his fist against a locker, and the boom shakes the hallway. I check for the dent I’m sure he left in his wake but find none.
“Can’t,” Will says. “Coach says I need to rest my legs.” He fishes a key from his pocket. “After today, don’t count on me for rides home, Banner. My practice schedule is killer this time of year.”
“No problem. I can walk if I need to,” I say.
“Yeah, it’s not far through the woods. Would be even quicker if you scaled the wall and cut through the Westerly Estate,” he says. “I’m sure your step-dude will hook you up with transportation one way or another.”
I shrug off Will’s comment. I’m not sure if Brian really spends a ton of time thinking about my transportation issues. And Mom never seems to care about my walking to school.
Will slams his locker
closed. “Pick you up tomorrow morning. Becca, too.”
I wonder if Becca will be happy or sad about that. “Really, Will. It’s okay. I don’t want to put you out.”
“No big deal. I like the company.”
I can’t tell if he’s serious. So I just nod and say, “Thanks. I’ll take you up on the ride, then.”
***
Kaylyn runs the student council meeting in her usual breakneck style: five seconds of introductions, followed by ten minutes of heated debate over the theme for next Thursday’s spirit day (eighties or Goth punk), ending with a ten-second wrap-up. After casting my vote (eighties all the way), Kaylyn offers to drive me home. She’s a natural leader whose broad smile convinces you she’s personally invested in your happiness. She’s also an awesome delegator. She spends the entire ride convincing me to design the junior-class float for this year’s homecoming parade.
“You’re so good at event-planning,” she insists, smoothing her dark spiral curls with one hand while driving with the other. “The dance marathon you organized last year was amazing. We topped our previous fundraising record by over 50 percent.”
“I’ll think about it. I’ve never put a float together,” I say, feeling my heart sink in my chest. Building a vehicle-powered contraption sounds like a lot of time and effort for twenty minutes of strutting around town.
Before I flat-out turn her down, Kaylyn wisely changes topics. “How’d you get Will Gamen to drive you to school today? He’s cute, smart, and funny. Not a bad football player, either. Total package.”
“I don’t think it’s me he’s interested in. He picked up Becca, too.”
Kaylyn laughs, a loud burst of joy. “You’re talking about two strong personalities right there. Should be fun to watch that relationship go down.”
Down in flames, most likely. I hope Colette doesn’t pick up on this particular piece of gossip I’m spreading and decide to feature Harmony’s newest love match. But with someone as loudmouthed as Will, it’s only a matter of time until everyone learns about his intentions.
My Junior Year of Loathing (School Dayz Book 2) Page 3