Authors: Carolee Dean
slammed it in his face.
Damn,
he yelled, turning red with rage,
banging on the wood with his fist.
WARNING
and threatening, but Brianna had
locked herself in her room. He
sat on the bed, trembling.
Darla can’t find out. She’s
VERY
unpredictable.
“I thought she broke up
with you.” He showed me his phone.
SORRY ABOUT LAST NIGHT. I’LL
MAKE IT UP TO YOU.
She’s more
FRAGILE
than people realize,
he said.
I want
to end it, but she has to think it’s
her idea or she’ll make my life
a living hell. You won’t tell,
WILL
you
? “Of course not,” I said.
I was the one who was fragile,
though I didn’t know at the time
just how easy it would be for me to
SHATTER.
in reassurance
and said,
“She’ll
never
know.”
Darla is captain
of the dance team and I
had to see her every afternoon
at practice, but I am
an expert at keeping
my feelings
hidden inside.
“That’s what a good actress does,”
my mother used to say
before she left.
“Keep them guessing. Don’t
ever let them know
what you’re really thinking.”
Davis smiled and his eyes
were filled with such relief
that I felt proud.
Yes, I admit it,
proud.
Like I’d done a good deed.
He kissed me
in gratitude
and his lips
took me in.
“This has to stay
our secret,” he said,
with a promise in his voice
that if I could stay quiet,
I could be with him again.
My heart rose and fell,
danced and crashed.
I wanted so desperately to walk
down the hallway at school
arm in arm with him,
watching all the other
girls cringe in envy.
I didn’t want to be some secret,
tucked away in the back of his bedroom.
“I won’t say a word,” I said.
A little bird tried to warn me.
It was whispering words like
Liar . . . and . . . Cheat . . .
but I couldn’t hear what
it was saying.
At that moment my
heart was beating
too loudly to
hear anything else.
There is yellow crime
scene tape at the bottom
of the stairs to the Fine Arts
Building, in front of the entrance
to Brady Theater. I wonder if the
forensics class has created
another mock murder or if
the crime is real. At this
school it could go either way.
POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS POLICE
Second period.
Kids start buzzing
down the F Hall in
the center of the school,
turning left onto the
G Hall at the front
of the building, and
making their way
outside like wasps
suddenly freed
from a nest.
The hum
is deafening.
They aren’t really free.
They have five minutes
to make it outside
to another brick building,
another pointless class,
another hour of futility.
Not one of them
goes through the door
that leads to the H Hall,
where I sit.
They hurry past it
but they
never enter.
That’s because there
aren’t any classes
on the H Hall. The
rooms are all used
for storage.
Besides, there’s
no way out
of the H Hall except for
a handicapped elevator
at the far end, and you have
to have a special key for that.
But I’ve known kids with
broken legs who would go
all the way to the other side
of the building to use that
elevator, rather than walk
through the H Hall.
There’s a very good
reason for this.
The H Hall is haunted.
I used to walk
all the way
around the building
to avoid it, but I don’t
mind it anymore.
I have ghosts of my own.
A hundred years ago the school was a convent.
Then after a scandal involving a young nun and a
Jesuit priest, the convent was sold and Our
Sisters of Divine Charity became the House of
Fallen Angels
and eventually a military institute. Unfortunately, there
was a tragic incident involving a young private and a
girl from a nearby prep school and it closed down. It’s
hard to follow the rule of no guns in school when you’re
preparing for war.
It was later reopened as a small private university, which
is the reason the buildings have names like Sci-Tech.
Then the head of the English Department made off
with a bunch of money tucked inside a book of stolen
metaphors.
The property sat vacant for ten years and became a home
to migrating birds and vagrants. Eventually the city auctioned
off the land and the buildings. The school board bought it
cheap, thinking it would be the perfect location
for a high school.
I see Brianna
walking across the grass
down on the quad
and my first impulse is to wave.
She looks upset,
and that worries me.
But then I remember
she’s not my friend anymore.
So why do I still care?
I think about how her
Saturday Night Live
imitations used to make
me laugh so hard I cried.
I think about late-night
brownie binges, Halloween
costume shopping sprees,
and Popsicle brain freezes.
But then I remember
how when she became a vegan,
I was supposed to become one too.
And when she boycotted Walmart,
she gave me a two-hour lecture
when I bought a bottle of suntan lotion
from “the corporate oppressors.”
I was worried in middle school
when I started getting all the lead roles
in the school plays, but then she decided
she’d rather be a director, which
ended up being the perfect job
for a control freak.
She’s just like my dad,
always trying to get people to fit
into nice straight lines.
I hate control freaks.
But when I see
her Girl Power backpack,
her yin-yang tattoo,
and her blond dreds,
my very first impulse
is to smile and wave.
That’s what Ms. Lane,
my writing teacher,
would say.
Spill it out onto
the page.
Sometimes it’s
the only way
for thoughts heavy
as bricks
to become feathers
and fly away.
I could go
to her class.
Get my head
together.
I’d sit next to
Elijah.
I wonder if
he’s heard.
Even if he has,
I know
he
wouldn’t say
a word.
leather biker pants even
though he doesn’t ride
a bike. Total geek. Loose white
shirt and leather boots make him
look like Orlando
from
As You Like It
. He went
to the psych ward last
spring when his brother, Frank, died.
When he came back he kept to
himself. Sat alone
during lunch scribbling in his
notebook and then he
spent a whole month speaking in
iambic pentameter.
He knows what it’s like
to be the campus joke. I
would be safe with him.
The other kids think he’s lost
his mind. I think he’s found it.
Shakespeare is a mask
to hide the pain. I wonder—
if I found a mask,
put it on, and tied it fast,
would I be okay again?
I keep in the back
pocket of my jeans.
It’s just like the one
Hemingway used to write in,
before he blew out his brains.
It’s filled with poems
and letters to Ernest.
I began writing to him
in September,
when everything started
with Davis.
Ernest was dead,
so I knew
he could keep a secret.
Maybe if I tell him what happened,
he’ll help me figure out what to do.
I don’t even know where to start,
but I open the notebook anyway,
because I don’t have anywhere to go,
and I know, it’s gonna be
a long,
long day.
They’re calling all the freshmen
into Admin (aka Watchdog Tower).
It got its name from
the winged wolves
perched on the four corners
of what used to be a church.
We go into the conference room,
one by one, so they can question us
about what happened to Ally.
Officer Richie,
the campus cop,
and some guy in a suit.
It’s the suit who does all the talking.
“How long have you known Ally Cassell?”
It’s the middle of October,
but the room
is hot as Hades. I wonder
if they turned up the heat on purpose.
To make us all sweat.
“Since elementary school,”
I tell the man.
He makes a note on his legal pad.
“How did you meet her?”
I can’t imagine how this is relevant,
but I don’t want to seem difficult.
It’s easy to get a reputation
for being difficult.
Once you do,
they never stop
watching you.
“I was in
A Christmas Carol
with her
and Brianna Connor in the third grade.
Ally was the Ghost of Christmas Past.
Bri was the Ghost of Christmas Future,
and I was the Ghost of Christmas Present.”
“I see,” he says, looking me up and down
as if he’s already made up his mind that I’m
trouble, just because my hair is in a ponytail
and my ears and nose are pierced.
But my comment seems
to have great significance
because he takes copious notes.
Then he peers at me
over his black-rimmed glasses.
“Would you say you were
close
?”
We were in every school play together
from third grade to seventh.
Then my brother died
the summer before eighth
and I sort of went AWOL,
but this is none of the man’s business,
so I don’t say anything.
I remember you, Ally,
out beneath the stars that night
at the party at the end of middle school,
when I finally started coming back around.
Your hair was the color of gold shining in the moonlight.
Your chin turned up to the stars under
the soft glow of the streetlight.
I should have called you afterward,
but I was too afraid.
I’m so sorry.
Maybe things would have
turned out differently if I had.
“I asked if you were close?”
“Off and on.”
“When was the last time you saw Ms. Cassell?”
“In sixth period, yesterday afternoon,” I say.
Ally, remember when I told you
I was taking a creative writing class?
I said I was tired of reading lines
written by someone else.
It felt like my whole life
had been scripted and
directed by strangers.
I said you should sign up too.
But I didn’t really think you would.
When I saw you in class that first day,
I told myself high school was gonna be
a brand-new start.
I wanted so badly to believe
you were there because you had a crush on me,
like the one I had on you,
but then you joined the dance team and
started running with the popular crowd.
Then the rumors started circulating
about you and Davis.
That picture told the rest of the story.
“What was her mood yesterday afternoon?”
You were hiding under your hoodie,
but I could still see that you’d dyed your hair
jet-black, as if that would fool anyone.
You were writing on your arm
with a permanent marker the words,
I HATE MY LIFE. I HATE MY LIFE. I HATE MY LIFE.
I asked if you were okay, and you started to cry.
You seemed so small then. I wanted to hold you.
You are small.
Barely five foot three,
but you have a way
of filling a room
that makes you seem
bigger than life.
Like the day you stood up in class,
did a 2Pac impression,
sang a rap you’d made up,