IT BEGINS
The room is as cold as a secret, but nowhere near as dark. I see their faces clearly, and I recognize them, and it’s strange because they’re all looking directly at me, too, as the door closes firmly behind me.
It smells like hunks of clay in here. I know the smell because I took an art class in this room last semester. It’s a damp, earthy, springing aroma that adds to the weirdness of things.
The others are sitting at a round tabletop near the chalkboard. It’s the table where the art teacher, Ms. Hanover, lays out samples during class. I’ve never seen it empty of artwork before.
It’s not totally empty now. In the middle of the paint-flecked wooden surface stands a deck of cards and a small brown box. And everyone’s hands, resting loosely around the edges.
There are four people seated, plus two empty chairs. They are all juniors and seniors.
Janna Collins, co-captain of the Spirit dance team, holds out one hand, palm up, indicating that I should join them. Her hair hangs perfectly, a dark curtain around her face. No bangs, just a part down the middle like one of those seventies pop singers my sister got really into right before she went off to college. Totally randomly, I picture Janna’s would-be album cover—featuring pom-poms and a really short flouncy skirt. My sister’s voice pops into my head: She’s got the looks all right, but can she sing?
I shake off the thought and slide into the chair Janna indicated, which is next to Simon Rogers. He’s a year ahead of me, a junior. I don’t know him well at all. He’s on the chess team or math league or something geeky like that, and he was voted junior class treasurer, so he must have a lot of friends.
The others are Celia Berman and Patrick O’Halloran. Celia’s a junior, and that’s all I know, although she has clay under her fingernails and brown stains on the tips of her fingers so maybe she’s in art class, which tells me she’s not a lost cause. Patrick’s a senior. He plays football and runs track or cross-country or something, I think. He’s a big deal in the school sports world, which is far on the other side of what I know.
They all look at me. Celia picks at the remnants of clay on her hands. Simon drums his fingers on the table. Patrick remains perfectly still, hands folded. Maybe it’s an athlete thing. Janna gazes at me, quiet and steady, and the whole thing gets weirder by the second.
“Hi,” I say.
No one answers.
All told, this is one of the more surreal things that’s happened to me this week. Which is saying something.
The deck of playing cards on the table is the traditional kind, with the familiar red design on the back. My eyes stray to it, over and over, and away from everything—everyone—else.
The small brown box is similar to the file on our kitchen counter where my mom is supposed to keep her recipes neatly organized and printed on index cards. Really, most of them are in a Tupperware case on the middle shelf of the pantry, torn loose leaf out of magazines or scrawled on scraps of paper where she or my sister jotted something down while watching TV or surfing the internet.
I’m scared to speak again, into the silence. It isn’t really silent, though, because outside the art room door, I can hear lockers slamming and kids talking and sneakers squeaking and the after-school bell ringing for reasons I’ve never understood. Does it ring every forty-two minutes all night long?
I reach into my pocket and pull out the index card I found in my locker this morning, with its cryptic message. I read it again, for the thousandth time, fold and unfold it. Try to remind myself that I was summoned here, and there must be a purpose. Plus, they all outrank me by like a dozen rungs, popularity wise. So I keep my mouth shut and sit and wait and try not to think too hard about things like pickup trucks and funerals.
The door blasts open, bringing a fresh wave of outside noise. “I’m so sorry, guys. So sorry. I got held up after class. I mean, geez, once Mrs. Markey gets on a roll there’s just no stopping her.”
My throat clogs instantly at the sound of his voice. Oh God. Oh God. It chokes me like a prayer, although I stopped believing in God six and a half days ago.
Matthew Rincorn tosses his gorgeous, sculpted self into the empty seat next to me. “Why is nobody talking?”
Still no one speaks. Janna reaches for the small brown box and flips it open. Sure enough. Index cards. A very thin stack.
“Geez, you guys,” Matt says. “Are you trying to freak him out?”
“It’s a ceremony, Matthew,” Janna says super seriously. “Get with the program.”
“You sadistic freaks,” Matt says. Simon and Celia start to laugh.
Matt touches my shoulder. Actually touches me. I get goosebumps all over. “Hi, Kermit,” he says. “Welcome to the Minus-One Club.”
SEVEN HOURS EARLIER
There’s something abnormal about how normal everything is. The noise in the hallway is the same as always, annoying and constant and full of people laughing and sparring and going over algebra notes, as if there isn’t a cloud in the sky. There’s still a stain that looks vaguely like Cheez Whiz crusted on the linoleum at the base of my locker. My locker still opens with the same three-digit number; my fingers do it without me even having to think about it. The guy with the locker next to mine—Stew—still smells like falafel and mint.
I’ve already resigned myself to the fact that today is going to suck. On the upside, it would be hard for any day to suck as bad as every single day of the past week of my life. Logic suggests I should be on an upswing.
I fiddle in my locker longer than necessary. If I leave now, I’ll be ten minutes early for first period. Usually I’m racing along with the last-minute crush. I’ve never been early to school. But it beats another day holed up in the house, losing all sense of time and listening to Mom cry.
Here’s how it happened.
Saturday night: Terrible awful no good very bad car crash.
Sunday: House phone rings in the wee hours, pulls me to the surface of a dream in which Tom Holland is doing unspeakable things to me with his mouth. I’m pissed at the interruption. Then Mom starts screaming really, really loud, this harsh, bloodcurdling noise, and I pee myself in my half sleep because I know something hideous has happened.
Monday: A mess of hollow noise.
Tuesday: Sitting in the funeral home lobby, wanting nothing but to talk to my sister, who I’ve barely talked to in half a month and will never talk to again.
Wednesday: Viewings. Family in from out of town, taking my face in their clammy hands.
Thursday: Graveside. Damn. Throw a rose. God damn it.
Friday: How many times can you hear the words I’m sorry before your mind begins to implode?
Saturday: Watch TV under the covers in the den. All day. Mom comes in every half hour to kiss me and I suppose to make sure an intoxicated pickup truck driver hasn’t crossed a double yellow line and smashed my Toyota Corolla into the two-foot-thick trunk of an oak tree, causing my instantaneous death.
Sunday: TV again. No tears. Tears would be too simple.
Monday: Today. My first day back at school since IT happened.
HOLDING UP
Alex comes up to my locker as usual. He squeezes between me and Stew and launches into the laundry list of everything I’ve missed in the past week, school gossip wise. “Hey, I’m really glad you’re back,” he goes. “I’ve been having these weird conversations with Cindy and it’s going pretty well, I mean, weird, but pretty good, right? And I wonder what you think, you know, I mean about me asking her out and everything, but then of course there’s Crystal who’s always standing right there with her, giving me the stink eye, and maybe you could fend her off this time while I talk to Cindy, and see if she, you know…”
I stare into the green metal abyss, at the fishhooks that are supposed to be holding up my jacket, which I’m still wearing. I shrug out of it and hang it inside.
“Hey, man,” Alex says. “How you holding up?”
I slam my locker. “What does that even mean?” People keep saying it to me and I don’t know how to respond.
Alex flinches backward, bumping into Stew, who doesn’t seem to notice. “I don’t know,” he says. “It’s just what you say.”
“Sorry,” I mutter. I pinch the bridge of my nose as if it’s going to help something.
“It’s okay,” he says.
“Maybe I should just go back home.”
Alex groans. “No. You have to stay, man. I need you. This whole thing with Cindy is killing me. Oh, crap. I shouldn’t say things like ‘killing me,’ huh? I’m such a dick. I’m really sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“I feel really bad now.”
“Don’t. It’s not like what you say is gonna make it worse.”
He runs his hand through his hair. “Well, just give me a little time, and I’m sure I can come up with something. You know I can’t keep my trap shut. I’ve finally perfected exactly how wide I need to open it to fit in my foot.” He lifts up his leg really high.
I can’t help but smile. “Finally. You nailed it. It’s taken you years.”
Alex settles a hand on my shoulder. “Seriously, you’re like my brother,” he says. “You know, so whatever I can do.”
The little surge in my chest is full of things. I’m grateful, because he is a good friend, even when I’m not treating him like it. I’m pissed, because he’s not my brother; I don’t have a brother. I had a sister, but now I don’t and the vacuum of that is everywhere.
“Okay.”
We walk in silence down the hallway toward my first-period class.
“Just be normal,” I tell him. “Say ridiculous crap.”
He looks offended. “Why do you gotta diminish me, man? Every raindrop off this tongue is solid gold.”
“You’re mixing metaphors again.”
“Mix Master Flash,” he says. “Wikka-wikka,” which is supposed to be the sound of a DJ mixing a turntable.
I roll my eyes. “You’re a freak.”
“Right back at ya.” We slap hands and bump shoulders and then peel off our separate ways to head to class.
Copyright © 2023 by Kekla Magoon
