“Do you hear that?” she cried in awe, beaming.
My eyes grew wide. I couldn’t find my voice.
“I said, do you hear that!” Trista extended her arms above her head and rocked her hips slowly. “My butt!” She cupped a hand to her ear and leaned toward her backside. “My butt is singing!”
Even though Trent and his boom, boom buddies had fallen silent, Trista closed her eyes and continued to sway, dancing to a groove only she could hear. Kids in line exchanged looks. A few giggled.
She stopped dead, pretending she’d just caught sight of Trent Spinner standing in line behind me. He smirked at his buddies. They nudged him as Trista stepped toward them. She spoke her next words slowly, jabbing her finger at Trent’s chest as she enunciated each one.
“Does. Your. Butt. Sing?”
Trent opened his mouth to speak.
“Wait!” She held up her hand and made a show of looking around to investigate the back of his saggy jeans. Then she turned to the rest of us in mock bewilderment. “I forgot! He doesn’t have one!”
A peal of laughter rang out at the head of the lunch line. It was Rod Zimball and his friend Peter. Trent glared at them. Even his buddies were fighting to hide their smiles.
“That’s right,” Trista said, lips pursed. “Be glad I can’t find your butt.” She leaned into Trent’s face like a baseball umpire and yelled, “Because if I could, I’d kick it!”
The lunch line’s Plexiglas sneeze guards were still rattling as she sauntered off. She turned back to me. My mouth hung open. I’d never felt quite as short as I did just then.
“You coming or what?” she asked.
“Me?” I said.
“Yeah, you!” she said. “Got any better options?”
Ripples of laughter rang out behind me. Did I really need any more convincing?
Trista and I walked to the far corner of the outdoor lunch patio, where she always ate alone. Stacy Pedalski and my usual lunch crew spread themselves out at their table in case we were even thinking of sitting with them.
Trista frowned at my lunch as she sat down. It was Pizza Boat Day. Teetering on a cardboard plate was a massive piece of French bread oozing grease and cheese. It was topped with pepperoni and paper American flag “sails” held up by toothpicks.
“I don’t even want to think about your cholesterol levels,” Trista said.
“I like nautical themes.”
“And seasickness, I guess?” Trista said.
I shrugged and bit into the pizza boat’s bow. Trista speared a piece of broccoli. Was there really such a thing as slow metabolism? It occurred to me that I’d been at school with Trista since sixth grade and never wondered anything about her. I knew of her—the same way everybody knew of her—but sitting across from her now, I had a hundred questions. Trista didn’t look like she wanted to talk, though. She ate her lunch and looked out over the bluffs. Strangely, the loser section of the patio had the best view of Luna Vista’s coast. The ocean looked calm that day, but whitecaps flared in the water. Seagulls flew overhead in the strong breeze.
“Uh-oh,” Trista broke the silence. She caught sight of something behind me before putting down her fork and fixing her eyes on a splat of seagull poo.
I turned around. Marissa Pritchard and S.M.I.L.E. were gliding directly our way, Marissa’s head tilted like Agford’s. She waved overenthusiastically. Alissa and Clarissa pouted at us as if we were sad, abandoned puppies. Whatever Agford had whispered to them had inspired a complete attitude makeover.
“Don’t make eye contact,” Trista chided. I stole a glance before turning away.
S.M.I.L.E. sat down not far from us. They began to unfold brightly colored heart-shaped cardboard boxes and spread themselves out over several tables, forming a sort of assembly line.
“Phew! Close call,” Trista said. “Looks like assembling care packages is on the agenda.” Trista cut up her carrots into perfectly proportioned pieces. “They got me last week,” she explained. “Just sat down and started knitting sweaters for the troops. Someone forgot to tell them it’s 105 degrees in Peshawar.” She chuckled. Her chuckle was as loud as my loudest laugh.
I looked over at S.M.I.L.E., who, in between bites of their lunches, were marking off items on checklists as they packed their cardboard heart boxes. “Why would they . . . ?”
“Want to sit with me?” Trista finished.
“That came out wrong. I meant—”
“They’re spies,” Trista interrupted. She carefully folded her napkin and dabbed at her mouth. “For Dr. Awkward?” she said, answering my puzzled look. “C’mon. Without them scouting for dirt on everyone, she wouldn’t even have a job. You’re one of the crazies now. You’ll see.”
“I’ll see?”
“Even I’ve heard the rumors about you, Psycho Sophie,” Trista said.
I knew that people couldn’t stop talking about Agford and the cops hauling me out of class. And Stacy was always deciding someone wasn’t allowed to eat lunch with us. But Psycho Sophie?
“So what was the deal with the cops at school yesterday anyway?” Trista asked. She might as well have posed her question directly into the school’s loudspeaker.
“It’s a long story,” I whispered, hoping she’d take a volume cue.
“I’ve got time,” she roared back.
Maybe it was the way Trista looked at me—or maybe it was the way her T-shirt threatened me with capital-letter consequences—but I knew Trista wasn’t going to rest until she got a straight answer. Besides, the truth couldn’t be worse than whatever rumors were flying. I took a deep breath and unloaded the story as fast as I could, like those guys rattling off disclaimers at the end of radio commercials.
“You thought she murdered someone?” Trista said when I’d finished.
A hush fell over the lunch crowd. A fork clattered to the patio. If all eyes hadn’t already been on me, they were now. Trista finally lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “She’s no murderer. But I meet with her every week, and trust me, she’s the psycho one. Psy-cho!” She sang the last word as she swirled her index finger by her temple.
“Why do you keep meeting with her, then?”
“They worry about my self-esteem.” She gestured to herself, laughing. “Boom Boom Bottoms?”
I chuckled uneasily.
Trista frowned. “What’s so funny?”
“Uh, I—I guess—”
“Just kidding!” Trista burst into laughter. So did I then—for real. I could feel everyone looking at us doubled over, laughing too hard. But I didn’t care. Not at all. As the seagulls squawked and scattered, I hoped Trista Bottoms liked me. It may have been the first time she invited me to lunch, but I didn’t want it to be the last.
I spent all of science making up fake dreams for Agford to analyze at our first meeting as Trista had suggested. I couldn’t focus on anything else. For one, Marissa’s volcano project—an elaborate scale model of Mount Etna—was seriously distracting. At timed intervals it sent up plumes of smoke and spat red baking-soda lava in case we forgot to glance its way. Mine was overdue, but when the cops bring you in for making accusations, it’s easy to forget to make papier-mâché.
The staircase to Agford’s office felt endless. Luna Vista Middle School consisted mostly of separate one-story buildings linked by outdoor courtyards and hallways, but Agford’s office was tucked away upstairs in the main administrative building. “To ensure student privacy,” she’d explained at our orientation assembly. Because nothing says privacy like walking by the main reception desk and up stairs that lead pretty much nowhere but Agford’s.
“Soph! Welcome.” Dr. Agford’s lips pulled back into her trademark dead-eyed smile as she wheeled around in her office chair. I don’t know how my mom expected me to keep an open mind when the lady had a smile like that.
“Make yourself comfy.” She gestured to a bright purple beanbag chair that matched the shade of her sweater. Nearby a low table displayed brochures such as What’s Happenin
g to My Body? and Help! I Have Hair in New Places!
“Here?” I said. My other option was the purple puffy sofa along the wall, but it was decorated with so many pillows that it couldn’t possibly be for sitting.
“Perfect, sweetie. Now why don’t we get started?”
I sank into the beanbag. When you’re four foot six, the last thing you need is to sit in something that makes you feel two feet tall. I guess sitting in a purple beanbag was supposed to put kids at ease. We were probably meant to reach out and play with the gadgets and toys arrayed on her desk: stress balls, Rubik’s Cubes, windup kangaroos, fuzzy dice. But who could reach them while lodged in a beanbag?
“Today we’re going to work on perception. Do you know what perception means?”
It was funny how Agford thought seventh graders couldn’t understand words of more than one syllable but thought we needed to know everything about sex. I considered reminding her that during last week’s health seminar, she’d made us look at magnified pictures of genital crabs.
“Perception means seeing.” I humored her.
Agford sucked at her front teeth and nodded slowly. “Very good,” she said, fixing her gaze on me so unsettlingly that I had to look away for a second. “Did you know, Sophie, that preteens literally perceive differently than adults do?” She held up a picture of a woman who looked so scared, you would have thought she’d been cornered by an ax murderer. Or by Agford herself.
She didn’t wait for my answer. “Kids look at this picture, and they see anger.” The tone of her voice dropped from her usual falsetto, jarring me. “But this woman is afraid. See the fear in her eyes?”
I saw the fear. In fact, I felt it start to creep from my heels to the base of my neck.
“Your brain is at a tender age. Your frontal lobe, the locus of good judgment, is tiny and of no use against the powerful, primal urges coming from your amygdala.”
I wasn’t quite sure where my amygdala was, but I crossed my legs at the mention of it.
“Soph, I’m trying to understand how you perceive,” she explained. “I’d like you to tell me about the other night. In detail.” She clicked open her pen. “Why don’t we start with what you heard, shall we?”
I hadn’t seen this coming. Weren’t we supposed to talk about my fake dreams?
“What I heard?” I said. The beanbag sighed as I shifted my weight. My sweaty legs stuck to its pleather surface. I wished I hadn’t worn shorts.
“What you heard.” Agford crossed her legs and dangled one red high heel from the tips of her toes. I could tell she was trying to look casual. Why did she care what I’d heard? I’d seen blood-spattered countertops and her silhouette bearing a meat cleaver. If she had been a guilty murderer pumping a potential star witness for details, she would have started with what I saw. So what was she up to?
“Um, I heard chopping sounds.”
“Mm-hmm . . .” Agford’s dangling shoe swayed back and forth, like she was trying to hypnotize me.
“Some thudding?” I offered. “A grunt, I think?” I felt as though any second a trap would snap shut, and I’d find myself in my beanbag cocoon hanging upside down from the ceiling in a net. “I heard you yell at the raccoons,” I added uncertainly.
Agford flinched. “Yes,” she admitted.
“And you were on the phone.”
Agford’s shoe fell to the carpet. Her chair creaked upright.
“On the phone?” Agford cleared her throat. “I don’t remember that at all.” She leaned down and jammed her shoe back on.
“You definitely were.”
“You’re so sure about that, Sophie. Interesting.” Agford scribbled something on her pad. She shifted her weight in her chair and tugged at one of her oversized red hoop earrings. She cleared her throat again. “So. What did you hear me say?”
That’s where she’d been going with all her business about teenage perception. She thought I’d heard something, and she wanted me to doubt it. Better yet, she wanted me to reveal what it was, so she could spin it her way. I suddenly felt as if I were sparring in tai chi class—and I was pretty sure I had the upper hand.
I shrugged. “Oh, nothing,” I said. “The door slammed shut.”
What was it General Sun Tzu said about all war being based on deception? When we are near to the enemy, we must make him believe we are far away. Grace made fun of my Chinese obsession, but ancient Chinese philosophers came in handy when you least expected them to.
“Nothing else?”
“Nope.”
Agford studied me. “I see,” she said.
I might have won the first round, but the battle had just begun. Convinced I couldn’t have acted alone, she grilled me about why I wanted to spy on her in the first place. Weighing each of my words carefully—especially my pronouns—I navigated my way through her questions.
“So you guys entered through my side yard?”
“I entered through your side yard, yes.” If your enemy is superior in strength, evade him, said Sun Tzu.
“Was it your idea to spy?” she asked.
“Yes. It was just me, remember?”
“So you woke up that day and thought it might be fun?” Agford narrowed her eyes.
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Tell me how it was, then.”
“I don’t really remember,” I said.
“Sophie, this was two days ago.” Agford’s voice tightened.
If your enemy is temperamental, irritate him, said Sun Tzu. “Maybe it’s because I’m always watching Law and Order with my grandpa. I don’t remember why I did it. I didn’t expect to see anything.”
“But you didn’t see anything, Sophie. You imagined a very disturbing scene that never took place.” Agford tapped her notepad with her pen to emphasize each of her last three words. She crossed her stockinged legs, leaned back, and stared at me.
“So Grace wasn’t involved?” she finally asked.
“Grace?” I asked.
“Your best friend. Your neighbor. The girl I see you with just about every afternoon, Sophie.” Agford slapped the pad on the table and folded her arms. Or tried to. It just created supersized cleavage.
It wasn’t surprising how quickly Agford suspected Grace had been involved, especially after last year’s incident with the misdelivered letter.
“I thought this was about how I perceive things,” I said.
“Friends can be very destructive influences, Sophie. Especially when it comes to perceiving reality.”
She had it wrong. Friends were constructive influences when it came to perceiving reality.
If I showed you a picture of Agford that day, her fake smile and empty eyes would leave you with no doubt about what she felt. It wasn’t joy. It wasn’t caring. This was the smile of a woman scared out of her mind.
And she would do anything not to be scared. That much was clear.
Chapter Five
Shadow of Doubt
“I knew it!” Grace said as she paced my room after dinner that night. “None of it makes any sense if she’s not up to something.”
The Yangs had asked my parents weeks earlier if Grace would be able to come over while they were at some doctor banquet an hour away in Los Angeles. Jake was outraged that my parents still let her. He was sixteen, so he was always outraged. Anyway, when Jake was grounded, apparently he was chained in a dank dungeon and served gruel or something like that. I think he underestimates what it’s like to have a homework session supervised by Grandpa Young. Two hours of reading about the Industrial Revolution while cloaked in a fog of sulfur emissions and war stories, and he’d be begging for quality dungeon time, stat.
“Sounds like she has at least five FBI-recognized markers of suspicious body language,” Grace said. “The jittery foot, especially. I wish I’d been there to see. Did she blink a lot?”
I shrugged. “I try not to look at her eyes.”
The floorboards under the carpet creaked as Grace kept pacing. I stared at her cowboy boots
. If I wore those, I’d look like I was dressed up for Halloween.
“Okay, so we know she thinks I’m in on it. And she’s worried about what we heard? What you heard. I was farther—Ah!” She’d crashed into the wind chimes hanging near my closet. They gonged wildly as she tried to untangle herself.
“Sorry. I’m balancing out my surplus of wood in that gua,” I explained as I freed her.
“What?” Grace asked, rubbing her head.
“My reputation gua. It’s seriously off. The metal balances out the wood?”
“I see,” Grace said. She rolled her eyes.
“Are you mocking three thousand years of Chinese tradition?”
“No. Are you sure you’re not, Hidden Dragon?” Grace patted my shoulder playfully.
Even I could admit I’d gotten a wee bit carried away with the traditional Chinese practice of feng shui. Okay, a lot carried away. What’s not to like about the idea that you can arrange your space to bring good luck and cultivate positive chi, or energy? I’d first heard about feng shui from Grace’s mom at a dinner after they had moved next door to us. Neither she nor Mr. Dr. Yang put much stock in it, but out of respect for Grace’s more traditional grandmother, they’d made sure to move into a house with a favorable address number and street. Mrs. Dr. Yang added a few touches, like stationing small stone protective fu dogs at the front door and giving their pets names involving the word luck. I, on the other hand, not only lived at unlucky number eighty-four, but my parents stubbornly refused to put imperial lions at the front door. With those kind of odds against me, I had no choice but to undertake serious corrective feng shui measures.
I had met Grace at that same dinner at the beginning of sixth grade. She still claims she knew we would be best friends from the very start. But as I remember it, the entire night she looked like she’d rather be doing anything else. Brushing her hair, maybe. Feeding her goldfish. She posed precisely one question to me all evening: did I like the band Nux Vomica? I had never heard of them, but I’d gushed about how awesome they were and how I’d downloaded all of their albums. “They’ve only put out one,” Grace had replied before examining her fingernails for the remainder of dinner.
The Wig in the Window Page 4