But Becca was leaning forward, watching. Becca who drove her to school every day. Who first invited her to sit somewhere at lunch, at a table where people didn’t pick at their acne or talk crap all day. She asked Maggie for this one thing, so Mags forgot her hesitation, throwing her hands up literally as if to say what the hell and covering it with a hissing shake of plastic pom-poms.
She did the dance routine, each 5, 6, 7, 8 remembering she was counting down to this horrible phase of her life being over. The truth was out: she was not a cheerleader.
“Great job, Maggie. See you tomorrow at the pep rally!” Sarah congratulated jovially.
Mags scoffed, making the team look up. “Well, I tried but I really am not good enough to cheer with you guys…or with anyone really. I guess I just didn’t want to let you down. Thanks for your time.”
No one said anything. They were dumbfounded.
She laid down the pom-poms as if surrendering her weapon and made straight for the showers. Her face could not have been redder. That shower hid her tears but could not wash off her shame.
She did not lie often, but she had told a couple little white lies since starting Wilbur Mason and one had just blown up in her face.
When she exited the showers, some of the competitors for the open spot and some of the cheerleaders were chatting on the bleachers. Maggie stood nearby and waited for Becca and the team to finish so she could go home and wallow in ice cream. Hopefully they would still want to be friends with her.
“Nice try, Maggie,” Mazy smirked. “Don’t worry if you don’t make it. Ashley has been cheering for years, and even I tried out three times before I ever got on the team.” So that’s what that was about. Maggie had never had so many girls staring at her before. They looked angry, but she hadn’t done anything except compete against them. She did not understand. But it did not sadden her. It made her mad.
“I mean,” Mazy continued with false concern dripping off her every word as she scooted down the bleachers towards Mags. “I can imagine it was especially hard to concentrate after what happened this morning. Having your locker vandalized like that.”
“Yeah,” said Maggie coldly. “Whoever did that is a real jerk.”
“Why do you say that?” She sounded a little defensive, Maggie noticed.
Maggie laughed, trying to seem unbothered. “I mean, they need to get a life.”
“Ha. They need to get a life?” Mags didn’t get what she was trying to imply. “You need to get a life, Brennan,” Mazy said.
“I have one, thanks,” Maggie snapped back, turning to leave the second she saw where this was going. Mazy was jealous, so she was doing what she did to Ashley. Trying to start a fight.
“I meant your own,” she called across the gym to Mag’s back. Maggie stopped mid-step and whipped around.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well,” Mazy said, shrugging one shoulder and feigning innocence. “It’s just weird how Amanda’s gone, and then you show up. You got her locker, then you’re besties with her bestie, you want her spot on the team, you’re even sleeping with her boyfriend.”
“What? I am not!” she couldn’t help but shout.
“Mark told us how you went home with him your first day and Tyler found you in Tommy’s bedroom.”
“It wasn’t like that,” she tried to explain. Mazy cut her off.
“Whatever. It’s creepy. It’s like you want to be her.” Everyone was looking, staring. That wasn’t how it was. It wasn’t fair that it looked that way. “Is that why you tore up the poster?”
“I didn’t do that.”
“Then who did it? Just tell the truth!” Maggie froze at her words. The same words as the note.
“Did you start that rumor?” Maggie took a step forward, her voice low. “Did you vandalize my locker?”
“No. Why would I do that?”
“Well, obviously you have something against me.”
“Relax. I’m not the one out to get you.” She brushed it off, turning and grabbing her purse with a smile. “Clearly, you’ve made an enemy, though. Good luck.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“With the team, Maggie,” she snapped. “Geez.” Rolling her eyes, she disappeared with a swish of hair and ribbons. Her perfume didn’t smell anything like the first note, Maggie noticed, mystified. Maybe Mags was overreacting again, being paranoid. Maybe Mazy wasn’t being M, she was just being Mazy.
Again, everyone was looking at her, hair still dripping on the gym floor. She blew a stray piece of it from her eyes and rolled them, shouldered her bag and headed out. She would wait for Becca out front. She remembered sitting on the sidewalk out front on her first day, waiting for her ride. This time, the parking lot was dry and deserted, although she still felt low. Everything she had achieved, status and friends, was about to trickle out of her hands. She couldn’t break the high school code after all.
How did it go? -Tommy
Horrible.
Good. She couldn’t help but laugh a little at that.
I know, right? Guess I can sit next to you at the pep rally tomorrow. Her chest fluttered hopefully.
That would be nice. Yeah, that would be nice, she thought.
She shoved her phone away as Becca trotted down the steps behind her.
“Ready?” she asked cheerfully, shouldering her own bag.
“Yep.”
Becca gave her a play-by-play run down of the try-outs, each person. Maggie looked out the window and tried to tune her out. She was delusional. “I really think you have a chance. The only one who did better was Ashley and no one wants her on the team.”
“I think you should prepare yourself for disappointment,” Maggie warned her. “Mazy jumped my case today.”
“What? When?”
“After try-outs.”
“About what?”
Maggie hesitated. She didn’t really want to point out the connections Mazy had drawn; wrong as they were, Becca might start to wonder.
“Just jealous you helped me, I think.”
“Makes sense. Mazy tried several times to make the team. We didn’t really hang out before then.”
“Yeah and…”
“What?” She glanced over to the passenger seat.
“I got a note in my locker.” For some reason, she felt uneasy when she told her. She did not know why. Perhaps all the warnings about who she should trust…but the only people she trusted weren’t Ms and they mostly wanted to know what happened to Amanda. If they thought Maggie was jealous, surely they wouldn’t be so nice to her.
“What did it say?” she gasped.
“It was a dare. Tell the truth. M.”
Could it be Amanda? As bizarre as it seemed why would anyone else say that, especially M? Who else would know about the secret place but M and Amanda? After all, there was no punctuation. Could it mean Amanda wanted her to tell about the note? She thought about how solid the girl on the road had seemed, but why couldn’t Becca see her? Although Mazy might have…she thought about what Tommy had said, about waiting for her to pop out at the funeral like Tom Sawyer, about having never seen the body. Tom and Huck were hiding from a killer, weren’t they?
“I think tomorrow will be a much better day,” she winked. Becca was wrong.
Her mom was typing away at her laptop when Maggie entered. “Don’t look,” Cassidy told her daughter without turning around. “Getting close.” Her mom’s stuff was always very private. Cassidy never had strict rules except no rifling through her files or drawers. It was something Maggie never had a problem following.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” She put down the computer. Maggie hesitated at the door.
“You know the poster?” She fiddled with her nails. She never fiddled with her nails. She barely had nails.
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, someone started a rumor it was me.”
Her mom narrowed her eyes. “And it wasn’t, right?”
“Right!”
“Then, it was the person who did it,” she stated simply. “They are trying to direct attention away from themselves by making people look at you. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because if you’re watching the person who did it, they will slip up, but if everyone is watching you, they won’t notice the slip. Do you know who did it?” she added.
Maggie shook her head. “I’ve sort of got three suspects.”
“Suspects, huh?” she laughed. “Uh-oh. Too much like me. Well then, watch your suspects.”
“You’re not going to tell me to be careful?”
Ms. Brennan looked up again, raising one eyebrow. “You don’t think the same person who killed Amanda would publically destroy her memorial, do you?”
“No, I guess not.” Now that it was said, it did seem unlikely.
“It’s probably not the same person,” her mom explained. “Things are rarely ever that simple. So, yes, you should be very careful. Don’t trust the ones you think might have done it. And don’t get on their bad side,” her mom advised.
“One more thing,” Maggie added as she poured cereal. “Is it possible to fake your own death?”
Without looking up, her mother muttered, “You’d be surprised.”
No, at this point Mags really did not think she would be surprised at all.
Chapter Sixteen
The Cops
“Good morning, Miss Brennan,” the fat one, Officer Cox said, leaning back on the desk of Principal Hash. They used the head office of Wilbur Mason High to take the statements in their investigation. Maggie imagined she was number 242, or something like that. She had been going about a regular Friday morning when her name had finally been called.
Her footsteps echoed dramatically all the way down the hall from Mr. Garrett’s to the principal’s office. She was asked to come in and sit down. Something about a badge and gun made it harder to swallow even when she had done nothing wrong, like K-9 sniffs and metal detectors.
“Good morning.” Maggie glanced at Officer Latchley. He looked back kindly, no smile, as he stirred his coffee.
“Now, you started school here about two weeks ago, right? Monday?”
“The day of the tornado,” she clarified.
“Oh yeah.” He made a note. “Rough first day.”
Maggie nodded noncommittally. She had met Tommy that day, so it wasn’t all bad.
“So when did you move to town?”
“During the week before.”
“What day exactly? Do you recall?”
“We came up a couple times to sign for the place and then to move.”
“Okay.” He paused for a moment. “Did you know anyone from town when you moved here?”
She slowly shook her head. “Not a soul.”
“So you never knew or met Amanda at all,” he concluded.
“Nope. Never.” She felt like she was finally able to breathe, saying it at last was such a relief. The cop just nodded. He did that a lot.
“Have you made friends here?” he asked pleasantly. She twitched her nose. It was an innocent, polite question, so why ask that?
“Yeah,” she answered happily, trying to flash some dimples.
He returned her smile for a second before continuing, “Who?”
“What?” The armchair she was in felt too big for her then, making her feel smaller, childish. She reminded herself of Goldilocks as she shifted in a chair that looked like it would be comfortable, but wasn’t.
“Who are your friends?”
“Well, Tommy and Tyler, Sarah, Mazy, and Becca, I guess.”
“And you’re aware all those people were friends with Amanda?”
Mags nodded. “I take it she had a lot of friends,” she added nonchalantly.
“Yes, but these were probably her closest friends. How do you think you ended up being friends with them all?” He sounded curious, but she frowned.
“I just ended up friends with the people who talked to me first, who were welcoming. Tommy gave me a ride on my first day when we got out early and my mom was stuck at work an hour away. Becca offered me a seat at lunch with Mazy and Sarah.” She shrugged.
“And why do think it was them that were most friendly to you?” She looked at him. She had thought about that too.
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “I think maybe they were lonely or needed something to do.” She thought about Becca asking her to try out so she wouldn’t be alone or Tommy’s comment about her being around making him feel normal. They seemed to be pleased with that answer.
“Now, you went on a date with Mark, right?”
“Yep.” She fought the urge to cringe.
“And you didn’t list him.”
“Well, the date didn’t end too well. I don’t think Mark likes me very much.”
“What happened?”
Well, that was personal. But they were the cops, and they were doing an investigation. Small talk was over. Maggie tread carefully, trying not to accuse Mark. “He just made me uncomfortable. I wanted to leave.”
“Uh-huh.” Cox frowned and scribbled. No nodding this time.
“And you helped Becca make the poster that was destroyed, right?”
“Becca saw a collage I had made at my house and asked me to help her,” Mags explained slowly and clearly. Officer Cox nodded some more.
“Where were you when the memorial was ripped?” he asked as if he just needed a reminder.
“I’m not sure when it happened, but right before I heard Becca yell, I was dancing with Tommy.” Cox glanced at Latchley who nodded once.
“When did you find out Tommy’s dad was a police officer?”
“Um, when I met him.”
“Yep,” Latchley spoke up. His voice was a little dry.
“Almost finished, Maggie. You tried out for cheerleading yesterday, right?”
“Yeah,” she groaned.
“Did you cheer at your old school?” Maggie blinked.
“No. Becca asked me to try out. Everyone I sit with at lunch was on the team, so I caved. But it went pretty badly.”
“Any idea who vandalized the locker? Hear anything?”
“No.”
“Okay,” he began.
“But I do know something.” They froze. Only their eyebrows lifted. The two exchanged glances. Cox cleared his throat, re-opening his notepad. Latchley looked concerned for the first time, scooting his chair closer to hers. Cox towered over her.
“What’s that?”
“Well, I got assigned Amanda’s old locker.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And my first day, there was a note hidden in the top. It was left in there from before. It smelled like perfume and it was on wide ruled notebook paper. It said, ‘See you tonight, M.’ As in just the letter, M as in marshmallow.”
They gave each other significant wide-eyed looks. She looked back and forth between them. “Do you have it?” they asked.
She shook her head sadly. “I’m sorry! I lost it before I realized what it was. Or what it could be.”
They seemed to consider her point, wondering if they could believe this substantial lead. Surely not solely on her word. “When and where did you lose it?”
“I—” she stuttered, nose twitching of its own accord. She really did not want to implicate Mark. It wasn’t fair. It looked bad, but so did she when Mazy put it out there like she did. She didn’t know anything for sure. But she recalled his eyes up there on the peak, saw again the bleak, gray bottom so far below her, felt the cold wind hit her face. “I lost it on my date with Mark. I don’t know when.”
She debated on whether or not she should hand over the other letter. “But there was another one there yesterday, when I opened it.” And it was gone from her forever, carefully placed in an evidence bag. “I don’t think it has anything to do with him,” she added, feeling more horrible than she thought she should.
They nodded sympathetically. “Thanks, Maggie.”
/>
“You can go,” Officer Latchley told her, hand hovering on her back as he held the door for her. She wanted to help. She thought the whole thing had been a mess, every word coming out wrong, and she desperately wanted to fix it.
But she was alone in the hallway when they shut the door. She meandered a few steps down before stopping, falling against the wall and resting upright there. She took a deep breath and slowly let it out.
The bell rang, making her jump. At least she had missed chemistry. She was the first to make it to lunch, and she wasn’t hungry. Taking her mom’s advice, she approached Mazy right away.
“Look, I just want to say sorry about the other day.” Maggie had to chew the inside of her mouth to say it; she was not the one who should be apologizing.
“Uh, you do?” Mazy had asked, stunned.
“Yeah. I’ve been really grumpy, training so hard for try-outs, and I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I know you wouldn’t do that to my locker. I was just really upset to hear the rumor that I ruined the poster.”
“Yeah,” Mazy said slowly, expecting a trap. “No problem. I shouldn’t have told you I heard it anyway. Or that stuff about you wanting to be her. It was stupid. Like you’d want to be dead!” She gave a small laugh as she turned to get in line, sauntering away with a smile.
Maggie stood there, stunned. She surveyed the cafeteria, considering sitting with Tommy, but he was not there. Anna was surrounded by people Mags did not know. Looked like she would be enjoying one of her last meals at the girls’ table before they added the newest member of the team or asked her to leave and make room.
She tried not to sulk. What did she care anyway? She’d told the truth to the cops and had nothing to be ashamed of, and she had not even wanted to make the team, so what did it matter?
“Got you chocolate milk,” Mazy said cheerfully as she came back over with her tray. She sat it in front of Maggie.
Mags stared at it as if it were a bomb about to go off. Mazy had laughed at someone trying to fight her, at a ghost, and at being dead. She was the least sensitive, thoughtful person Maggie knew, yet she had just brought Maggie her drink. Her favorite drink. Because she wasn’t eating.
Keep Your Friends Close Page 22