by Tish Cohen
“Actually, the bell’s about to ring and—” I step back and she pulls me close again.
“That bell can ring and ring and ring. But if I were you, I’d listen.”
I can’t breathe. I suck in air but somewhere between my lips and my windpipe, it seems to vanish.
“Your father is not a brain surgeon, is he? Not unless tying the trash bags into seven thousand knots is called surgery. Your dad is the crazy new janitor. I saw you with him in the science lab.”
“Just because I helped another human being doesn’t mean—”
“Does ‘I’ll see you at home, Dad, okay?’ sound familiar to you? I’m surprised you didn’t ask for an increase in your allowance.”
“But how did you—?”
“I was at the restroom door across the hall. Did you know it has a perfect view into the science lab? It’s like being front-row center at the Old Vic Theatre in London. But then, you wouldn’t know that. You’re not from London either, are you, Saint Sarah?”
It’s as if I’ve been painted over with cement. Concrete. I can’t move a single body part other than my eyelids, which are blinking with panic. Finally I dislodge my mouth, knocking flakes of dried-up concrete to the ground, and whisper, “Please don’t say anything, Izz.”
“Now you’re asking me to lie?”
“No. Yes. Please.”
She narrows her eyes and purses her lips. “There is one thing you can do for me that might convince me to keep quiet.”
“What? I’ll do anything, I swear.”
“Does your dad have keys to every room in the school?”
I think back to the huge key ring he stuffed into his pocket the first day of school. “I guess.”
“Take them.”
“What?”
“Take the keys, break into the office, and steal a copy of the calculus test for Carling. I’m going to give it to her to save her grade.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Yes, you can. Just wait until no one’s around. Sniff around the file cabinets in the principal’s office and take it. It’ll be our little secret. Carling will think I did it for her.”
So that’s what this is about. Isabella likes Carling completely dependent on her. It’s the only way she feels secure.
I know exactly where the tests are, and they’re not in the principal’s office. They’re in that tall wooden filing cabinet in the storage room—the one I caught my mother’s sweater on when I was raiding the Lost and Found with Mrs. Pelletier on my first day of school. The keyholes stand out in my memory. I remember they were so tiny I couldn’t imagine a key small enough to fit. “I don’t know. What if I get caught?”
Izz starts to walk away. “Never mind, then. I must go find Carling and Sloane. And Willa and Griff. Ooh, and the lovely Leo. We all have so much to talk about.”
I grab her sleeve. “No, wait!” I swallow the acid that’s bubbling up into my mouth. “I’ll do it.”
The door closes behind her and I’m alone outside, just me and what’s left of the windstorm, small bits of garbage and crushed leaves swirling around my feet.
It’s Monday morning and on my bed is the smallest key from Dad’s key ring. It’s been nearly a week since Isabella stopped me on the steps. She’s given me the evil eye ever since, but I had to wait for a safe time to go through Dad’s key ring. During the week, the keys stayed hidden in the pocket of his Anton jacket, which hung in his closet at night. But on the weekend, he emptied his pockets and left the contents just lying there on the hall table for anyone to see. I went through the key ring during my two a.m. study break Saturday night. Or, rather, Sunday morning. No other key seemed old enough, tarnished enough, or small enough to fit, and I’m praying I’ve got the right one. All I need now is about five minutes alone in the Lost and Found.
Standing in front of my mirror, rubbing granules of sleep out of my eyes and dressed in the same underpants and neon yellow Dubble Bubble T-shirt I wore to bed, I call out to Charlie to say I can’t find my English essay, to go ahead without me. He tells me to have a nice day, then the front door thumps shut.
I pull on my kneesocks, then my plaid skirt, which seems to have shrunk from Dad taking it to the dry cleaner. It’s hard to suck in a really good breath when your abdomen is being crushed, and today I need the O2. Which is when it hits me. The only real way to be alone in the Lost and Found closet.
Unhooking the waistband, I let my skirt drop to the ground, peel off the socks, and kick my little clump of Ant armor under the bed. Out of sight. My old jeans are hanging on the back of my chair. I pull them on, stuff bare feet into my battered red Docs, slip the key into my pocket, and head out the door.
Stomping through the foyer of the school, I’m nothing but a crumpled piece of neon flotsam being swept along in the wave of woolen vests and tartan skirts and tailored trousers streaming toward their homerooms. From every direction, kids are staring at my T-shirt and boots, nudging their friends, snickering. I couldn’t stand out more if I had a strobe light strapped to my forehead.
I couldn’t care less.
Just before I’m sucked down by the undertow of the navy-vested workday that exists inside these walls, I fight my way to the edge and slip through the office doors.
“Sara Black,” says Mrs. Pelletier, catching my eye and crossing the room to rest her impressive bosom against the counter. A thin gold cross lies on the pillowy shelf. Leaning forward, she whispers, “How’s your father?”
“He’s doing better. Thanks.”
“Good.” She smiles and pats the back of my hand, raising an eyebrow at the sight of my outfit. “You have your schedule mixed up, my dear. Grub Day’s not for another three weeks.”
“I don’t know what I was thinking.”
She glances up at the clock. “You can’t go to class that way or you’ll be given a demerit point. And if you go home to change, you’ll miss first period entirely.”
“Actually, I was kind of hoping I could dig through the Lost and Found real quick. I have Honors Math first period with Mr. Curtis.”
“Ah, Mr. Curtis.” She smiles, nodding her understanding. “Say no more. Your big test is coming up.”
“Exactly.”
She motions for me to come around the counter and follow her in the direction of the storage closet … and Mr. Curtis’s exam. I don’t know if it’s her kind eyes, the cross, or her motherly bosom, but as I follow her into the storage room, I’m suddenly exhausted. I want to drop, wrap my arms around her, and confess to the growing list of lies I’ve told and crimes I’ve committed that are now threatening to swallow me whole. She opens the doors to the cupboard and starts going through the row of ties hanging from a small rod. “Now, let’s start with the tie. Maybe we can find you one that looks brand-new.”
The way she’s so nice to me, the way she thinks I’m a good person, it makes me sad.
I reach for a tie. “It’s okay. I can dig through these and find one. I like my ties a certain way—worn out enough that they aren’t stiff, but not so soft they’re floppy. Pretty weird, huh?”
She turns around and sets her hands on her round hips. “Not really. I’m that picky about gloves. I can’t stand when they’re brand-new.” Walking toward the door, she says, “Go ahead, dear. But don’t take too long or you’ll be late for class.”
And, just like that, it’s me, a few hundred cartons of message pads and copier paper, a rack of used clothing, and the old wooden filing cabinet. As quietly as I can, I pull out the tiny key and hold my breath as I try to insert it into the lock on the top drawer.
It fits.
chapter 27
missing polynomials
Here sits the former model student and one-time valedictorian hopeful at her desk with a stolen calculus exam stuffed up the vest of her hastily assembled uniform. As I was pulling the test out of the file, I was relieved to see two more copies because there was no way I was going to be able to photocopy this and get it back into the drawer without detecti
on. Will anybody miss one exam out of three? I have no idea. But leaving two behind has to be a whole lot less suspicious than leaving none. My next problem is how to get the exam to Isabella without raising any questions from Sloane or Carling. I lean forward over my desk—directly behind the three of them—and whisper, “I have to pee.”
Isabella snorts. “Thanks for the internal update. Just don’t do it in a South American river.”
I say nothing until Carling turns around, then I reach out to Isabella’s chair with my foot and give it a gentle nudge. She doesn’t turn right away. First she makes sure the others aren’t looking, then glances in my direction. I pat my vest and nod, then put up my hand.
“Yes, Sara,” says Mr. Curtis from the blackboard.
“May I go to the restroom?”
“Go ahead. But be quick, we’re going to be covering polynomials in a few minutes.”
Isabella raises her hand. “Can I go too? I don’t want to miss a minute of the polynomial discussion.”
He plants one chalky hand on his waist and tilts his head. “The perfect loophole to my one-at-a-time rule. Well timed and well executed, Miss Latini.”
“Thank you,” she says, unfolding herself and following me out of the class.
We lock ourselves into the handicapped stall and I pull out the exam. All the answers are right there in red ink. She starts to take it from me, but I don’t release it immediately. This is it. My last crime.
“Give it,” she says.
“We’ll be even with this, Isabella. Do you swear?”
“Yes. Even.”
“This means everything is as it was, right?”
“Right.” She tugs on it, stronger than she looks, but I hold tight.
“And no one is to know where you got the test. I don’t want my father implicated in any way. Not ever.”
She rips it from my hand and backs away, stuffing it into her waistband and heading for the door. “Don’t get tough with me, London. I’ll win every time.”
Knowing full well I could snap that spindly neck like a fresh carrot, I walk away.
chapter 28
someone deserves rocky road
Brice Burnack’s new Broadway musical opened on the weekend. Not only was the theater half-empty, but the scalpers—the ones with the uncanny, near-canine ability to sniff out a play’s success—got stuck with the tickets they’d gobbled up. And it seems even the critics felt invincible enough to defy Brice’s finely sharpened claws and fiery hair. While reviewers applauded the lead actors’ performances, calling them “brilliant” and “hauntingly soulful,” they ripped Brice’s music score into finely ground tiger meal. The New York Times said the musical “might better have been sung by muppets.” USA Today suggested it might be “adopted by nursery schools across the country as perfect music for pulling on rain boots.”
According to Brice they were too simple-minded to see the irony in his work.
Carling hasn’t been seen without a mouthful of antacids all week. Unfocused and rumored to have been caught smoking in the girls’ locker room at recess, she has taken to wearing Isabella as a coat of armor. Not that Isabella minds.
There isn’t the tiniest part of me that wants to be at Carling’s house after school. Not a fingernail, an eyelash, or a pore. With people like these, at a time like this, anything could happen. Brice himself might open the door, Carling might jump off the roof, and Isabella might find herself permanently glued to Carling’s skin. Again, not that she’d mind. But there’s a certain wisdom in keeping your enemies close, and I’m afraid to let Isabella Latini out of my sight.
No sign of Brice, the throbbing tiger, when the door swings open. It’s Gracie herself. From the look of things I can only assume that their housekeeper, whatever her real name was, has quit. The floor is unswept, there’s a stack of unopened mail spilling off the hall table, and a basket overflowing with laundry sits at the bottom of the stairs. Gracie, her hair unstyled, dressed in sweatpants she might have slept in, tries to smile. “The girls are in the basement.”
Music thumps from the rec room speakers and Carling, Isabella, and Sloane are at the bar; Isabella on a barstool in a spa-like white robe and Sloane bent over doing Izzy’s toes. Carling is behind the bar—wearing my mother’s sweater—stuffing things into the blender and looking happier than she has in days.
Carling grins as I enter. “London. It’s Pamper Isabella Day. Grab a pumice stone and start filing the girl’s bunions.”
“You don’t file bunions, you cow,” says Isabella, adoring all the attention. “A bunion is a swollen bursal sac with an osseous deformity at the mesophalangeal joint.”
“Stay still,” says Sloane. “You’re messing up your pedi.”
I sit down and watch Carling pour frozen berries into the machine. “Carling, when am I going to get my sweater back?”
“You’re too uptight, London. I’m not keeping it.” But she makes no move to take it off.
I know why everyone is treating Isabella like the queen, but have to ask, “What’s the occasion?”
“Izzers just got me into med school,” Carling says with a happy squeak. “She stole Curtis’s math test for me, and I decided she deserves some juice.”
Isabella stares at me. “If only Carling knew what things I do for her when she’s not around.”
My heart thumps in my throat.
“That’s the best kind of friend to have,” says Carling. “One who’s working for me—Round. The. Clock.”
“Can you believe I did that?” Isabella looks at me. “Next I might start telling outrageous lies about myself. I might even start telling people I’m from London. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“A riot,” I say without taking my eyes off her.
She continues. “How about you, Sloaney? If you could suddenly be from anywhere in the world, where would it be?”
Sloane sips from a small bottle of sparkling water and thinks a moment. Then says, “Italy. But only because of the accent and the hot guys.”
“But some people can drop their accents just like that,” says Isabella, snapping her fingers. “Like London.”
“I told you, I wasn’t born there,” I say, wanting to slap her.
“Still,” she says, “you’d think you would have picked up the accent in all your years of going to British schools, riding in British limos, fraternizing with the Royals …”
“I never said I knew the Royals.”
Isabella says, “Don’t some of the Royals have weird obsessions? I wonder if you know anyone weird, London. Anyone with strange quirks who calls attention to himself in crazy ways? Maybe even someone who can’t stop—”
“Can I see it?” I blurt out.
“What?” asks Carling, pushing the juice across the counter to Isabella.
“The stolen test. Show me, I want to know what’s on it.”
Carling roots through her backpack behind the bar. She starts out slowly, then starts pulling out pencil case, binder, Tums bottle in a panic. “Oh my God. It’s not here!”
“What isn’t?” asks Isabella.
“My little purse.” Her nostrils flare and her chest starts heaving. “I must have left it on the floor by my locker. I pulled it out of my backpack because I couldn’t find my lipstick. I must have forgotten to put it back!”
“So you lost your Prada bag,” says Sloane, sticking her finger into Isabella’s juice. “Don’t be so dramatic. You can get another in, like, a couple of days. And I’ll hook you up with a new fake ID.”
“The test was inside my purse. If anyone finds it and opens it up …”
Sloane looks up. “You’re dead.”
Ever since I got home about an hour ago, I’ve been in and out of the bathroom three times, certain I’m going to throw up. We went to the school and found no sign of Carling’s purse, no sign of the stolen test. And Isabella made one thing clear to me as I left: if Carling gets caught, she’s turning me in.
I’m leaning against the sink when Dad pokes h
is head in. “You don’t look so well. Are you sick?”
“No. I don’t know. Probably just tired.”
“Would you like a sandwich? I’m making one for myself. We have the lean turkey you always ask for, and mayonnaise.”
“Please. No food.”
“Why were you so late getting home?”
“I went back to school to help a friend look for her purse. But we couldn’t find it. Some kid probably took it home.” The image of Isabella whispering in Mr. Oosterhouse’s ear while pointing at me fills the air above my head and my stomach lurches. “It was a pretty expensive bag.”
“Was it brown? Canvas and leather with a logo on one side?”
I look up. “Yeah. How did you know?”
“I found a brown purse on the floor beneath a row of lockers. I didn’t want to invade the owner’s privacy by looking inside.”
“Seriously? I’ll call her and tell her we have it.”
He turns away and starts padding down the hall, scratching himself. “It’s not here. I left it with the principal.”
chapter 29
the bottled inferno
While every parent is unique and will psychologically damage his kid in his own special way, most fall into three fairly recognizable categories when faced with the trauma of being called into the office because their child messed up.
First there are the Hand Wringers. They could be dressed in anything from socks with sandals to a power suit, but they have one common trait: they all bought the parenting book that said you should never say no to your toddler. Other parents read this book too, but the Hand Wringers were the idiots who fell for it. These parents are flimsy and unsure of themselves and have that scared-rabbit look in their eyes because their kids now have all the power. After being invited to the office and informed little Ocean or December told the teacher to go bite herself, the Hand Wringer will wonder where he went wrong and ultimately forgive the child for her failure.