Gina hoisted herself up onto her elbows and gaped at Spike. "So that's the famous Spike I've been hearing so much about from your brothers? Damn, he is ugly."
Jesse, who'd stayed where he was, looked defensive. Spike was his baby, and you just don't go around calling Jesse's baby ugly.
"He's not so bad," I said, hoping Gina would get the message and shut up.
"Are you on crack?" Gina wanted to know. "Simon, the thing's only got one ear."
Suddenly, the large, gilt-framed mirror above the dressing table started to shake. It had a tendency to do this whenever Jesse got annoyed – really annoyed.
Gina, not knowing this, stared at the mirror with growing excitement. "Hey!" she cried. "All right! Another one!"
She meant an earthquake, of course, but this, like the one before, was no earthquake. It was just Jesse letting off steam.
Then the next thing I knew, a bottle of fingernail polish Gina had left on the dressing table went flying, and, defying all gravitational law, landed upside down in the suitcase she had placed on the floor at the end of the daybed, around seven or eight feet away.
I probably don't need to add that the bottle of polish – it was emerald green – was uncapped. And that it ended up on top of the clothes Gina hadn't unpacked yet.
Gina let out a terrific shriek, threw back the comforter, and dove to the floor, trying to salvage what she could. I, meanwhile, threw Jesse a very dirty look.
But all he said was, "Don't look at me like that, Susannah. You heard what she said about him." He sounded wounded. "She called him ugly."
I growled, "I say he's ugly all the time, and you don't ever do that to me."
He lifted the eyebrow with the scar in it, and then said, "Well, it's different when you say it."
And then, as if he couldn't stand it a minute longer, Jesse abruptly disappeared, leaving a very disgruntled-looking Spike – and a confused Gina – behind.
"I don't understand this," Gina said as she held up a one-piece leopard print bathing suit that was now hopelessly stained. "I don't understand how that happened. First the beer, in that store today, and now this. I tell you, California is weird."
Reflecting on all this in Father Dominic's office the next morning, I supposed I could see how Gina must have felt. I mean, it probably seemed to her like things had gone flying around an awful lot lately. The common denominator, which Gina still hadn't noticed, was that they only went flying around when I was present.
I had a feeling that, if she stuck it out for the whole week, she'd catch on. And fast.
Father Dominic was engrossed in the Gameboy I'd given him. I put down the obituary page and said, "Father Dom."
His fingers flew frantically over the buttons that manipulated the game pieces. "One minute, please, Susannah," he said.
"Uh, Father Dom?" I waved the paper in his general direction. "This is them. The kids I saw yesterday."
"Um-hmmm," Father Dominic said. The Gameboy beeped.
"So, I guess we should keep an eye out for them. Jesse told me – " Father Dominic knew about Jesse, although their relationship was not, shall we say, the closest: Father D had a real big problem with the fact that there was, basically, a boy living in my bedroom. He'd had a private chat with Jesse, but although he had come away from it somewhat reassured – doubtless about the fact that Jesse obviously hadn't the slightest interest in me, amorously speaking – he still grew noticeably uncomfortable whenever Jesse's name came up, so I tried to mention it only when I absolutely had to. Now, I figured, was one of those times.
"Jesse told me he felt a great, um, stirring out there." I put down the paper and pointed up, for want of a better direction. "An angry one. Apparently, we have some unhappy campers somewhere. He said they're looking for someone. At first I figured he couldn't mean these guys" – I tapped the paper – "because all they seemed to be looking for was beer. But it's possible they have another agenda." A more murderous one, I thought, but didn't say out loud.
But Father Dom, as he often did, seemed to read my thoughts.
"Good heavens, Susannah," he said, looking up from the Gameboy screen. "You can't be thinking that these young people you saw and the stirring Jesse felt have anything to do with one another, can you? Because I must say, I find that highly unlikely. From what I understand, the Angels were just that … true beacons in their community."
Jeez. Beacons. I wondered if there was anybody who'd ever refer to me as a beacon after I was dead. I highly doubted it. Not even my mother would go that far.
I kept my feelings to myself, however. I knew from experience that Father D wasn't going to like what I was thinking, let alone believe it. Instead, I said, "Well, just keep your eyes open, will you? Let me know if you see them around. The, er, Angels, I mean."
"Of course." Father Dom shook his head. "What a tragedy. Poor souls. So innocent. So young. Oh. Oh, my." He sheepishly held up the Gameboy. "High score."
That's when I decided I'd spent quite enough time in the principal's office for one day. Gina, who attended my old school back in Brooklyn, had a different spring break from the Mission Academy's, so while she was getting to spend her vacation in California, she had to endure a few days following me around from class to class – at least until I could figure out a way for us to ditch without getting caught. Gina was back in world civ with Mr. Walden, and I hadn't any doubt that she was getting into all sorts of trouble while I was gone.
"All righty then," I said, getting up. "Let me know if you hear anything more about those kids."
"Yes, yes," Father Dominic said, his attention riveted to the Gameboy once again. "Bye for now."
As I left his office, I could have sworn I heard him say a bad word after the Gameboy let out a warning beep. But that would have been so unlike him, I must have heard wrong.
Yeah. Right.
C H A P T E R
4
"When I got back to world civ, Kelly Prescott, my friend Adam, Rob Kelleher – one of the class jocks, and a good buddy of Dopey's – and this quiet kid whose name I could never remember were just finishing up their presentation on the Nuclear Arms Race: Who Will Come in First?
It was a bogus assignment, if you asked me. I mean, with the fall of communism in Russia, who even cared?
I guess that was the point. We should care. Because as the charts Kelly's group was holding up revealed, there were some countries who had way more bombs and stuff than we did.
"Okay," Kelly was saying, as I came in and laid my hall pass on Mr. Walden's desk before going to my seat. "Like, as you can see, the U.S. is pretty well stocked for missiles, and stuff, but as far as tanks, the Chinese have been way better at building up their military – " Kelly pointed to a bunch of little red bombs on her chart. "And they could totally annihilate us if they wanted to."
"Except," Adam pointed out, "that there are more privately owned handguns in America than there are in the whole of the Chinese army, so – "
"So what?" Kelly demanded. I could sense that there was some division amongst the ranks of this particular group. "What good are handguns against tanks? I am so sure we are all going to stand around and shoot off our handguns at the tanks the Chinese are running us over with."
Adam rolled his eyes. He hadn't exactly been thrilled to be assigned to a group with Kelly.
"Yeah," Rob said.
The grade for the group projects was split, with thirty percent counting toward participation. I guess that "Yeah" had been Rob's contribution.
The kid whose name I didn't know didn't say anything. He was a tall, skinny kid with glasses. He had the kind of pasty white skin that made it obvious he didn't get to the beach much. The Palm Pilot in his shirt pocket revealed why.
Gina, who was sitting behind me, leaned forward and presented me with a note, written on a page of the spiral notebook in which she'd been doodling.
Where the hell have you been? she wanted to know.
I picked up a pen and wrote back, I told you. Principal wante
d to see me.
About what? Gina asked. Have you been up to your old tricks again???
I didn't blame her for asking. Let's just say that at our old school, back in Brooklyn, I'd been forced to skip class a lot. Well, what do you expect? I'd been the only mediator for all five boroughs of New York. That's a lot of ghosts! Here at least I had Father D to help out once in a while.
I wrote back, Nothing like that. Father Dom is our student council advisor. I had to check with him about some of our recent expenditures.
I thought this would be such a boring topic that Gina would drop it, but she totally didn't.
So? What were they? Gina demanded. Your expenditures, I mean.
Suddenly, the notebook was snatched from my hands. I looked up, and saw Cee Cee, who sat in front of me in homeroom and this class, and who had become my best friend since I'd moved to California, scribbling in it furiously. A few seconds later, she passed it back.
Did you hear? Cee Cee had written in her sprawling cursive. About Michael Meducci, I mean?
I wrote back, I guess not. Who's Michael Meducci?
Cee Cee, when she'd read what I'd written, made a face, and pointed at the kid standing in the front of the room, the pasty-looking one with the Palm Pilot.
Oh, I mouthed. Hey, I'd only started attending the Mission Academy two months earlier, in January. So sue me already if I didn't know everybody by name yet.
Cee Cee bent over the notebook, writing what seemed to be a novel. Gina and I exchanged glances. Gina looked amused. She seemed to find my entire West Coast existence highly entertaining.
Finally Cee Cee surrendered the notebook. In it she had scrawled, Mike was the one driving the other car in that accident on the Pacific Coast Highway Saturday night. You know, the one where those four RLS students died.
Whoa, I thought. It totally pays to be friends with the editor of the school paper. Somehow, Cee Cee always manages to ferret out everything about everyone.
I heard he was coming back from a friend's house, she wrote. There was this fog, and I guess they didn't see each other until the last minute, when everybody swerved. His car went up an embankment, but theirs crashed through the railguard and plunged two hundred feet into the sea. Everyone in the other car died, but Michael escaped with just a couple of sprained ribs from when the air bag deployed.
I looked up and stared at Mike Meducci. He didn't look like a kid who had, only just that weekend, been involved in an accident that had killed four people. He looked like a kid who'd maybe stayed up too late playing video games or participating in a Star Wars chatroom on the Internet. I was sitting too far away to tell if his fingers, holding onto the chart, were shaking, but there was something about the strained expression on his face that suggested to me that they were.
It's especially tragic, Cee Cee scribbled, when you consider the fact that only last month, his little sister – you don't know her; she's in eighth – almost drowned at some pool party and has been in a coma ever since. Talk about a family curse....
"So, in conclusion," Kelly said, not even attempting to make it look like she wasn't reading off an index card, and rushing her words all together so you could hardly tell what she was saying, "America-needs-to-spend-way-more money-building-up-its-military-because-we-have-fallen-way-behind-the-Chinese-and-they-could-attack-us-any-time-they-wanted-to-thank-you."
Mr. Walden had been sitting with his feet propped up on his desk, staring over the tops of our heads at the sea, which you can see quite plainly through the windows of most of the classrooms at the Mission Academy. Now, hearing the sudden hush that fell over the classroom, he started, and dropped his feet to the floor.
"Very nice, Kelly," he said, even though it was obvious he hadn't listened to a word she'd been saying. "Anybody have questions for Kelly? Okay, great, next group – "
Then Mr. Walden blinked at me. "Um," he said, in a strange voice. "Yes?"
Since I hadn't raised my hand, or in any way indicated that I had anything to say, I was somewhat taken aback by this. Then a voice behind me said, "Um, I'm sorry, but that conclusion – that we, as a country, need to start building up our military arsenal in order to compete with the Chinese – sounds grossly ill conceived to me."
I turned around slowly in my chair to stare at Gina. She had a perfectly straight expression on her face. Still, I knew her:
She was bored. This was the kind of thing Gina did when she was bored.
Mr. Walden sat up eagerly in his chair and said, "It seems that Miss Simon's guest disagrees with the conclusion you all have come up with, Group Seven. How would you like to respond?"
"Ill conceived in what way?" Kelly demanded, not consulting with any of the other members of her group.
"Well, I just think the money you're talking about would be better spent on other things," Gina said, "besides making sure we have as many tanks as the Chinese. I mean, who cares if they have more tanks than we do? It's not like they're going to be able to drive them over to the White House and say, 'Okay, surrender now, capitalist pigs.' I mean, there's a pretty big ocean between us, right?"
Mr. Walden was practically clapping his hands with glee. "So how do you suggest the money be better spent, Miss Augustin?"
Gina shrugged. "Well, on education, of course."
"What good," Kelly wanted to know, "is an education, when you've got a tank bearing down on you?"
Adam, standing beside Kelly, rolled his eyes expressively. "Maybe," he ventured, "if we educate future generations better, they'd be able to avoid war altogether, through creative diplomacy and intelligent dialogue with their fellow man."
"Yeah," Gina said. "What he said."
"Excuse me, but are you all on crack?" Kelly wanted to know.
Mr. Walden threw a piece of chalk in Group Seven's direction. It hit their chart with a loud noise, and bounced off. This was not unusual behavior on Mr. Walden's part. He frequently threw chalk when he felt we were not paying proper attention, particularly after lunch when we were all somewhat dazed from having ingested too many corn dogs.
What was not usual, however, was Mike Meducci's reaction when the chalk hit the poster board he was holding. He let go of the chart with a yell, and ducked – actually ducked, with his hands up over his face – as if a Chinese tank was rolling toward him.
Mr. Walden did not notice this. He was still too enraged.
"Your assignment," he bellowed at Kelly, "was to make a persuasive argument. Demanding to know whether detractors of your position are on crack is not arguing persuasively."
"But seriously, Mr. Walden," Kelly said, "if they would just look at the chart, they'd see that the Chinese have way more tanks than we do, and all the education in the world isn't going to change that – "
It was at this point that Mr. Walden noticed Mike coming out of his defensive hunch.
"Meducci," he said flatly. "What's with you?"
Mr. Walden, I realized, did not know how Mike had spent his weekend. Maybe he didn't know about the comatose sister, either. How Cee Cee had managed to find out these things that even our teachers did not know was always a mystery to me.
"N-nothing," Mike stammered, looking pastier than ever. There was something weird about his expression, too. I couldn't put my finger on what, exactly, was wrong with it, but something more than just typical geek embarrassment. "S-sorry, Mr. W-Walden."
Scott Turner, one of Dopey's friends, seated a few desks away from me, muttered, "S-sorry, Mr. W-Walden," in a whispered falsetto, but still audibly enough for him to be heard by everyone in the room – especially by Michael, whose pale face actually got a little bit of color into it as the snickers reached him.
As vice president of the sophomore class, it is my duty to instill discipline in my fellow classmates during student council meetings. But I take my executive responsibilities quite seriously, and tend to correct the behavior of my more rambunctious peers whenever I feel it necessary to do so, not just during assemblies of the student council.
So I leaned over and hissed, "Hey, Scott."
Scott, still laughing at his own joke, looked over at me. And stopped laughing abruptly.
I'm not exactly sure what I was going to say – it was going to have something to do with Scott's last date with Kelly Prescott and a pair of tweezers – but Mr. Walden unfortunately beat me to it.
"Turner," he bellowed. "I want a thousand-word essay on the battle at Gettysburg on my desk in the morning. Group Eight, be prepared to give your report tomorrow. Class dismissed."
There is no bell system at the Mission Academy. We change classes on the hour, and are supposed to do so quietly. All of the classroom doors at the Mission Academy open into arched breeze-ways that look out into a beautiful courtyard containing all these really tall palm trees and this fountain and a statue of the Mission's founder, Junipero Serra. The Mission, being something like three hundred years old, attracts a lot of tourists, and the courtyard is the highlight of their tour, after the basilica.
The courtyard is actually one of my favorite places to sit and meditate about stuff like … oh, I don't know: how I've had the misfortune to be born a mediator, and not a normal girl, and why I can't seem to get Jesse to like me, you know, in that special way. The sound of the bubbling fountain, the chirping of the sparrows in the rafters of the breezeway, the buzz of hummingbird wings around the plate-sized hibiscus blossoms, the hushed chatter of the tourists – who feel the grandeur of the place, and lower their voices accordingly – all made the Mission courtyard a restful place to sit and ponder one's destiny.
It was also, however, a favorite place for novices to stand and wait for innocent students to slip up by talking too loudly between classes.
No novice has ever been created that could keep Gina quiet, however.
"Dude, that was so bogus," she complained loudly as we walked toward my locker. "What kind of conclusion was that? I am so sure the Chinese are going to come rolling over here in tanks and attack us. How are they going to get here, anyway? By way of Canada?"
The Mediator #3: Reunion Page 3