I bring my fingers to my mouth, kiss them, and press them to the desk. I love you Grandpa, and I hope you're doing a lot of bowling up there in heaven.
For an instant I think of another old man, Newt, lying in blood today. I push the thought away. If you don't bring memories out and examine them, eventually they stop visiting you.
A game. I'll take my mind off other things with a game. After logging in to the server, I start playing a new quest, somewhat amused that everything has a Halloween theme tonight. The zombies and skeletons jumping out of shadows, however, are not so amusing. After a few minutes, my heart is pounding. Am I enjoying this? Am I paying a monthly membership fee for the privilege of being terrorized by pale, eyebrow-less monsters?
What's that sound? I click off the speakers to make sure the scratching isn't coming from the game. The sound is irritating, like squeaky chalk on a chalkboard. It must be a branch on the outside of my window. Or is that a branch? A fear starts in my stomach and works up to a thought in my brain, chilling my blood. There are no branches near my window.
My heart goes double-time, and just when I think I can't be more freaked out, a pain-faced ghoul jumps out at me on the screen. Swearing, I turn off the monitor. My bedroom is dark, and all I see is the after-image of the computer monitor and the game's monsters.
Something scratches again. The noise is definitely outside the house, on the other side of my bedroom window. Where there is no tree branch.
I reach for the lamp next to my bed. The room flashes and crackles like a firecracker, white-hot, then all is drenched in darkness. The light bulb, an old incandescent one, not a fluorescent, has dramatically burned out.
Scratch, scratch at the window.
Maybe the tree in the back yard has grown and I haven't noticed until now.
Scratch, scratch.
I jump back into bed, pull the blankets over my head, and wish the sound away. My so-called defensive power involves bees, so could I summon a bee to protect me now? What would a bee do?
Julie's voice echoes in my head, telling me to be a man.
On the count of three, I tell myself. One ...
Scratch, scratch.
Two ...
Scratch.
Three!
I jump up and throw the covers away, forcing myself to look at the window. A crow. My jumping up must scare the hell out of the crow, because it opens its wings and falls away.
Where'd he go? I open the window—just an inch—and listen.
Sternly, I ask the night air, “What do you want?”
The crow flaps up again and perches on the windowsill. He looks annoyed, the way he's bobbing his little head and jerking his wings. Now that I've got his attention, I tell the crow to do something anatomically impossible to itself.
It opens its mouth silently, as though shocked.
Now that my heart is no longer paddling its way up my throat, I notice the bird has something on its leg. Is that one of those tracker things scientists put on birds?
The crow pulls at the thing, which is a curled piece of paper about the shape of the fortune from a fortune cookie. I open the window an inch more and put two fingers out. To my absolute shock, the bird passes me the paper.
“Is this from Hogwarts?” I ask, my spirits soaring with insane hope.
“CAW,” says the crow.
I unfurl the note. When I look up again, the crow is gone.
The moon is only partly full, but bright enough for me to read by if I'm at the window. The note is written with loopy, beautiful handwriting.
The note delivered to me by the crow says: Zan, you must solve my murder. - Newt.
So much for sleeping tonight.
Chapter Four
In the morning, the note doesn't seem any less terrifying or unbelievable. A murdered man sent me a note from beyond the grave, asking me to solve his murder.
Why me? Am I supposed to use my belly button power to solve crimes? My gift only works on girls, so what are the odds a girl I know killed Newt?
I read the note again: Zan, you must solve my murder. - Newt.
Again, though, why me? Isn't it enough that I'm not using my visions for blackmail or illicit financial gain? Now I have to do actual good? What am I, Spiderman? This is not good. My life is horrible. Wait, what's that smell?
Bacon! Yay, bacon!
People are talking in the kitchen. Gran and Rudy. There's life's funny little karmic balancing at work. Yes, there's bacon, but it's because Gran's fiance, Rudy, is over.
I go out to the kitchen, intending to ask them why they're here and not enjoying a buffet breakfast at the casino.
“Good morning, Rudy,” I say cordially, the way Gran would want me to.
“Danny-boy,” he says, and when I give him a dirty look, he corrects his pronunciation, “Zanny-boy.”
Gran doesn't turn from the stove, where she's flipping pancakes, her black and white hair pulled back into a tight bun. She's wearing a satin robe with a floral pattern of big, purple and red flowers mixed with hummingbirds. Gran's name is Flora, and either she loves clothes and furnishings with floral patterns, or people think she does and keep giving them to her.
I grab for some crunchy bacon from the plate on the counter, but Rudy whacks me on the hand. My karate training kicks in and I take a defensive stance, arms up in front of me.
Rudy doesn't even twitch. “Manners,” he says calmly.
Even though we've been getting along well enough lately, right about now I'd be worried about punching him in his jowly face if we'd been covering more punching at my Intro to Karate classes. I suspect our teacher may be a pacifist.
Ignoring any signs of conflict, Gran hums to herself and brings the stack of pancakes over to the table.
“Why are you here?” I ask.
“Your grandmother didn't like the room I booked,” Rudy says. “We drove all the way back last night, got here at about two.”
“You were conked right out!” Gran says. “I tried to wake you to get my goodnight kiss, but you were dead to the world.”
“Buddy!” Rudy says to my cat. Mibs jumps up on Rudy's lap, enjoying a chin rub and flicking his tail with joy.
Traitor.
“What do I owe you for the groceries?” Gran asks Rudy. Even though they're engaged to be married, so far they're planning to keep their separate houses, and I guess separate finances too. Makes me wonder why they'd even bother getting married, but what do I know.
The three of us sit at the table, and Rudy tells Gran, “Don't worry about it. Breakfast is on me! I've got way too much money to ever spend in one lifetime. Make sure Zan gets a big glass of that juice. He's a growing boy.”
Something about his bravado provokes a contrary suspicion. He's lying. I've always had the feeling Rudy's got something to hide, and this must be it: he's broke. He's probably got three mortgages on his house, and only once he's married to Gran, the truth will come out.
Gran asks me if the pancakes are to my liking, and I tell her they are. Her special pancakes are made with cornmeal, and they're my favorite food in the world, with crispy bacon a close second.
Gran is the most wonderful person you could ever hope to know. She never lets anything get her down—not being saddled with her grandson to raise, not losing her husband to stomach cancer, and certainly not little things like a flood the basement.
Last year, the pipe broke and we discovered four feet of water in the pantry downstairs. I was in a panic, but Gran took one look, then calmly instructed me to inflate the camping boat and row over to get her a jar of pickles while she called the plumber.
I feel bad that I didn't call Gran yesterday to tell her about discovering the dead man at the pawn shop, but I didn't want to worry her. She's on a gluten-free diet now to help with her digestive problems, but the doctors said she should avoid stress. That's one of the main reasons I haven't told her about my strange power, and why I'm not going to tell her about the eerie note in my pocket.
The second
reason is I don't trust her to not tell Rudy. She tells him everything, and he's so attentive to her, as though he's compiling data. I truly love my grandmother, but her stories about the gardening club are not that interesting.
The third reason is I don't want to get dragged into church to have my demons exorcised. Actually, that should probably be my top reason.
* * *
At school, I show the tiny little note to James and Julie, asking what they think I should do.
“Offer your psychic skills to Officer Weirdo. Uh, Detective Wrong,” Julie says. “You guys could team up. You'd be the good cop, of course. She's more of a bad cop type, I think.”
“No way,” James says. “You'll be taken to a special room for questioning, they'll stick a needle in your arm, and the next thing you know, you're on an operating table at a secret government underground lab, having your brain sectioned.”
Julie rolls her eyes. “He's not E.T. And we're not living in an '80s movie.”
James ruffles his spiky black hair—a shorter version of his sister's hair—and makes a very sad face, his big blue eyes even bigger. “E.T. go home. E.T. no get chopped into sushi.”
“Thanks, guys, for your well-meaning but unhelpful input,” I say. “I was thinking my first order of business would be to check into the Secret Town of any girl who's been acting suspicious. Maybe I'll get some leads.”
“No shit,” James says. “You have a plan? If you put this kind of effort into school work, you could get a scholarship. If you put this effort into girls, you could have … three girlfriends.”
Ignoring her brother, Julie says, “I know! You could go to the office and find out if anyone missed school yesterday or today.”
“Right, I bet they'll just tell me that information. Are you sure neither one of you is a computer hacker?”
James whistles and looks around innocently.
“No way!” I say.
“No, I'm not a hacker,” he says sheepishly. “I just wanted to do that whistle thing. Pretty funny, huh?”
“Not funny,” I say.
“I'd give it a five,” Julie says. “Out of ten.”
“So who's coming with me to the office?”
This time, Julie whistles.
* * *
Sitting in class, I formulate a plan to visit the school's office during the lunch break. Chasing down my first lead, I think to myself proudly. In fact, this detective thing is so exciting, I barely hear a word spoken by a teacher at any of my morning classes.
All I'm listening for is chatter—intel, as they'd call it on a spy show—from other students. Some guys are talking about a couple of idiots in the tenth grade who are planning to make moonshine using stolen lab equipment from the Chemistry room. Good luck with that, I think, since the kids at the heart of this potential scandal could barely make juice if given water and packets of Kool-Aid.
Some people are talking about the murder and telling stories about the times they went into the creepy pawn shop. Several kids say they'd been planning to go there that very afternoon, but somehow their plans had changed and they hadn't ended up going.
Yeah right, I think when the tenth person says the same thing. Is everyone's life so boring they have to make up stories about almost being at a crime scene? Some of the girls get so worked up they start sobbing right in class.
“You so narrowly missed being killed too,” a girl whose name I don't know says to another girl with red hair.
“We all could have been murdered,” the redhead says with a sniff. “Life is so precious.”
Word has not gotten around that it was actually me and Julie who stumbled upon the body, and thank goodness, or by the end of the day we'd probably find ourselves at a candlelight vigil, surrounded by hysterical kids talking about seizing the day.
At lunch, I enter the office timidly, trying to appear innocent. The school secretary, Denise, a perky little blonde, greets me with a smile. She's new here, just started in September, and she's way nicer than the woman who just retired.
I feel terrible about what I'm about to do to sweet Denise, which is lie. I've been deliberating about this all morning, and I've decided a little white lie is almost nothing compared to murder, and I am trying to solve a murder, which should balance out about a hundred lies.
“What can I do for ya, sweetie?” she asks, loudly chewing her enormous chunk of pink gum and grinning, her face full of dimples and trust. Denise and I are the only ones in the office, as most of the faculty is at lunch in the teachers' lounge. The room itself, with its long, high counter and lack of warmth seems designed to inspire fear, to dispel attempts at lying or cajoling by students.
Even the artwork is intimidating. On the wall behind Denise is a framed print of someone staring at the viewer, using binoculars. Next to it is a print of rotting sailboats, washed up on the shores of an island surely named Desolation.
On the counter top in front of me, there's a piece of laminated paper taped to the surface, bearing an image of a bull taking a dump, with a line crossing through the image. B.S. Free Zone, the sign reads.
I tell myself I'm not doing anything wrong by asking a simple question as I say to Denise, “I'd like to know which students were absent yesterday and this morning.”
She chomps the gum slowly. “Why ya want that?”
I catch myself tugging at my left ear and order my hand down, covering the B.S. Free Zone sign casually. “I'm just … curious?”
“Not good enough. Tell me why.” The mood in the office gets a little more serious along with her expression.
I decide not to go with the science fair project story, but the more socially-admirable lie, hoping the goodwill points will carry over. “I'm, er, volunteering to bring homework for people. From some of the teachers.”
Chew, chew.
“So people don't get behind just because of a flu or cold,” I say.
Chew, chew.
“It's a pilot project.”
She narrows her eyes. “I can't give out that information.”
I deflate and look down at my shoes. “Thanks anyways.” I turn and start to leave the office. I should have gone with the virus story and my noble efforts to locate patient zero of the sore throat epidemic.
Denise calls after me, “You might check with your friend, Raye-Anne Donovan. She wasn't here this morning. Might have caught the same thing Shad Miller had yesterday. And Rosemary Stonehurt.”
“Oh. Thanks.” I'm calm on the outside, but doing jumping jacks on the inside.
“Zaniel, would you do me a favor.”
I turn, barely able to make eye contact. “Yes?”
“Two pumps. Of the antibacterial hand sanitizer that's in every hallway. We can't be too careful!”
“Yes, Ma'am.”
* * *
I know why Raye-Anne Donovan wasn't at school this morning, and it has more to do with party fun than viral infection. At the Halloween party, while I was bored senseless listening to Julie complain about guys saying one thing but meaning another, Raye-Anne was trying to get everyone to limbo with her. She wore a grass skirt and a coconut bra top, which earned her a lot of evil glares from the girls, and limbo-stick-holding volunteers from the guys.
Someone brought tequila for the limbo contest winner, and wouldn't you know, even with the coconut boobs threatening to topple the limbo stick, Raye-Anne kept winning.
Her absence this morning is due to margarita madness, I suspect.
I used to have a crush on Raye-Anne, with her tiny mouth and just-right-sized everything else, but now she's a friend—one of the gang—though she doesn't know the full story about my powers.
That leaves Rosemary and Shad, and now that I think about it, Rosemary wasn't in English this morning. She's so small, and usually quiet, so it's no wonder I didn't notice her absence until now.
I saw her downtown yesterday, too, with Shad, before they showed up at the party. Could they have seen something suspicious?
Armed with my hot new l
eads, I walk out to the back steps of the school to where a lot of kids eat their lunches on sunny days. I scan the crowd for Shad Miller.
He's easy to spot, with his bright red hair, not to mention his height of six feet four inches. Yesterday he was dressed as a fisherman, and today he's wearing a shirt with a fish on the front. Under the fish illustration, the caption reads: A shad is a bony fish, rich in Omega 3.
As I walk over, I say, “Hey, Shad,” carefully pronouncing his name properly. He hates being called Chad and will give people a five-minute speech if they make the error, even if they're teachers.
He's popping a little hacky sack back and forth between his knees, and he doesn't look sick at all, considering he missed school yesterday. He was well enough to come to the party, which was not something Gran would let me get away with.
Shad's face is very pale, from being a redhead. His lips are rather pink compared to other people's, and the line where his lips meet his face skin is almost red. I wonder what it feels like to be so pale, and if the same sun that shines on us all is less hot on his radiant skin. I bet he burns easily.
Shad-not-Chad squints at me, keeping the sack going back and forth. “Zan, dude. What's up?”
“Since last night? Not much. How about you?”
“Hey, your girlfriend never came to the party last night. Is she real?”
“Quite real, I assure you,” I say.
“Sweet. Can your old lady girlfriend hook us up with beer, like, on a regular basis? I used to have a place, but they're carding now.”
“I could ask,” I say levelly, keeping my annoyance in check. Austin's a few years older than me, but she's no old lady.
I haven't figured out exactly how I'm going to question him about the murder at the pawn shop, so I wing it. “Where were you yesterday during school hours?” I ask. “We could have used you in gym. You're the only one who can dunk.”
Shad's face flushes and he drops the sack. He steps in close to me and whispers, “What did you hear?”
“Nothing. Why?”
Witches and Ghosts Supernatural Mysteries Page 128