Death Whispers (Death Series, Book 1) (16 page)

“What do you mean, Mr. Morginstern?” I asked.

Jonesy
was busy giving me the wide-eyed,
figure
this out
.

Morginstern's
eyes narrowed, looking right into mine, I held his gaze. “I think
you know exactly what I mean. I have to go teach class now, with the
two of you, but,” he stabbed a finger in my direction, “I know
there is discord between you, Carson Hamilton and Brett Mason. I
know.”

The
laser eye fell on Jonesy (equal-opportunity lecture), “... and
you...
you're always around when these situations erupt.”

Jonesy made some vague effort to look innocent but
I had to admit, he almost always looked guilty.

“Get to class boys and no more loitering, I'll
be watching.” He walked back to class and we followed, our tails
tucked between our legs.

We
went through the door, the last bell already rung and every kids'
eyes on us. John was making strangling motions around his neck when
our eyes connected. I gave him the slashing index finger across the
throat gesture,
can
it
,
I mimed.

Jonesy and I sat at the round table and
Morginstern went to the front of the room explaining that he was
unexpectedly delayed due to an incident out in the commons that
needed his personal attention.

All
eyes swiveled to us. I hated that
.

I was in a foul mood because of the rough start.
Jonesy caught my grumpiness like a cold and gave it to John. All
three of us grumped together in silence, sanding our boxes.

Finally, John said, “Listen... I know it wasn't
cool for Morginstern to break that up but would it have gone to plan
if you guys had let it fall apart before the cemetery?”

No,
it would definitely not
have
been cool, it would have ruined the Aqua Net Payback.

Jonesy
looked abashed. “I
so
want to do this on Sunday.”

“I knew that, it's why I made an executive
decision,” John said.

“A what?” Jonesy asked.

“
He
means he decided, on his own, what was best for our group.” I
looked at John as if to say,
come
on.

“No,
you guys have to learn idioms.”

Jonesy was utterly confused. I was gonna show off.

“It's not really an idiom, ya know.”

“Yeah, it is,” John shot back.

“No, an idiom is an expression that is not
literal to its meaning.” Mom was a word-freakazoid and had drilled
this stuff into me.

John
looked perplexed but rallied. “Okay... so what you're saying is
that I really am the executive of the group and my decision was
allowable.”

Uh-oh. I hadn't thought about the consequence of
taking on John's Undeniable Logic.

“
Well,
Jonesy and I,” Jonesy nodded solemnly as if he understood and was
in complete agreement with my thought process, “have not appointed
you
the executive formally.” I hesitated here, “but the expression,
executive decision is not opposite to its real meaning.”

I then leaned back in my chair, mirroring Johns
crossed arms.

A slow grin spread over John's face.

He began nodding. “Pretty damn clever, Hart.”

We bumped fists and that sealed our coolness. We
resumed the Dreaded Sanding.

Friday droned on without further incident. Jade
and I hung with the Js while eating lunch. Jonesy got Carson on
board, giving him the time to meet Sunday. We whipped out our pulses
and set our reminder chimes, synchronized and ready or kinda ready.

The
speakers began blaring out a message about the upcoming tests. Mrs.
Calvert was reminding us that all eighth grade students' Aptitude
Testing would begin on Monday morning so, “... be sure to get a
good night's sleep and a proper,” who ever said that, I wondered,
“breakfast.”

We rolled our eyes. I was the only kid that
actually ate breakfast. Most of the kids would show up on Monday
morning starving big time.

I
gave Jade a hug as she walked off to her class and watched her
progress. The Js watched me
watch
her.

Jonesy shook his head. “Man, you got it bad.”

John nodded in agreement. “Yeah he does.”

I was kinda disgusted with them.

“Oh
and you two are going to be different when you like somebody?” I
dismissed them with a wave of my hand, heading to class.

After
suffering through English and PE, we were ready to jam. It was lame I
really couldn't talk to Jade in those classes. Even Miss Rodriguez's
hotness didn't entice. Now that Jade was the GF, it was so just
English now, except when she pulled out all the stops with a
righteous outfit.

I told John this and he looked at me in horror.

“Miss
Rodriguez is still completely hot. You having a girlfriend so does
not change that,” he said with real reproach.

“
Well,
maybe she
is
still pretty hot,” John gave me the,
ya
think?
Look.

I
rolled my eyes, “... but, there is Jade and she's plenty
distracting. I bet all I'll pull out of that dumb class is a 'B'.”

“Yeah, your parents will have a shitfit if you
get a 'C'.”

John
was laughing but I didn't think it was that funny, not all of us
could just have a heartbeat in class and get an 'A'.” I mentioned
that most obvious fact and he shrugged. That was John, he wasn't
going to admit he was smart, no-oh.

Mr. Cole came over and asked John to play a
measure or two on the piano to see if he could sub for Alex sucking
at a measure. John stared at the sheet music and began playing and I
listened. The adults called John a natural.

The notes floated out, he used all the dynamics,
gaining volume and softening at the correct times. When he approached
the fifth measure, Cole stopped him with a hand.

“Okay, today I want you to work with Alex, he
needs some fine tuning.”

John went over to where Alex was sitting and they
looked over the sheet music. Meanwhile, I bent over my piece and got
my fingers in position to play my chords.

I was jammin' out a good set and then that cop
from the accident walked in. My heart began hammering in my throat,
blood rushing to my head making a faint roaring in my ears. What in
the hell was this? John looked up from helping Alex and saw Garcia
and about crawled up his own corn cob. My fingers stilled.

I set the guitar down and stood.

Garcia went right to Cole and said, “Hey Tony, I
just wanted to borrow Caleb for a sec.” His voice formed the
question like it was a request but I didn't think so.

“Sure thing Officer Garcia,” he winked.

They're friends, swell.

Garcia looked at me, crooking a finger. I left my
stuff where it was and followed him out the door into the parking lot

He faced me. “So, how are you, Caleb?”

“Since last week, fine.” I mean, we just saw
each other. We were alone, without anyone hearing what was said, I
was gonna be careful.

“You remember that I said that I'd keep an eye
on you?”

I nodded.

“Well, it's come to my attention that there's a
couple of young men that are becoming a problem at the school.”

I so didn't need this.

“There's
no problem,” I rushed out. Calm down Caleb.

Garcia raised a brow. “Really, because I've
heard different reports.”

Ah-huh, somebody had diarrhea of the mouth. “We're
not great friends or anything, that's for sure.”

Garcia switched topics, tricky bastard. “Doesn't,”
he looked down at his notepad, he still wrote stuff down instead of
pulse-pad, “Jade LeClerc live fairly close to the Mason boy?”

Yes and why did Garcia care? I was liking this
less and less. He was doing more than keeping an eye on me.

“Yeah.”

“There's a situation that has been escalating in
that neighborhood that you need to be aware of.”

Was
he warning me... or
warning
me?

He waited while bees droned lazily, the sun
warming our faces.

Garcia sighed. “Listen, Caleb, I'm here to help,
not run your life.”

I waited.

“Okay, I have a feeling about you and I'm going
out on a limb. I know the Mason kid is under tremendous pressure at
home.”

I just bet he is.

“Miss LeClerc has escaped, by a slim margin, a
similar background, but not the same can be said for Mr. Mason,” he
intoned solemnly. “I was hoping, when there's a huge potential
trauma for kids realizing some form of paranormal ability, if you
might restrain yourself from exacerbating this situation.”

He lost me, what?

Garcia sighed again. “Listen, don't spin Brett
up like a top right now, he's like a bomb waiting for detonation.”

“Gotcha.” The bomb reference I understood.

Garcia's shoulders relaxed and a lopsided smile
appeared.

“Maybe you can mention this to the Js.”

Sunday. At. The. Cemetery.

I
clamped down on my expression, but a little leaked out. Sergeant Raul
Garcia's smile slipped. Him calling John and Jonesy the “Js”
struck me as odd too. I didn't like it
.

“Yeah, okay,” I responded.

The bell shrilled and Garcia glanced down at his
watch. We had that one thing in common. Everyone else had a pulse,
all pulse technology kept world time perfectly.

John lurched out the door, coming to stand by me.
He and Garcia were about eyeball to eyeball, John was gonna be tall I
thought for the millionth time. But Garcia was all-that-is-man, broad
shoulders (he hit the gym pretty hard), with bulging forearms.

John looked sorta unfinished. That was okay, we
were still boys, we didn't have to be men yet.

I didn't know this then, but soon boyhood would
slip away and manhood would arrive like a thief in the night. Inch,
by insidious inch.

****

Jade
came up as Garcia was leaving and gave me the look that I was already
beginning to love, where she
looked
thoughts at me and I knew what she was thinking. No paranormal
skills necessary.

I pressed her head against my chest in a tight
hug. “Yeah, it's the same cop from the accident.”

Jade bent her head back from me, her hands
grasping my forearms. “Garcia?”

I nodded. John stared at Garcia's car as it became
a white dot in the distance.

“What did he want?” John asked, still staring.

“He wants us to lay off Brett.”

John looked at me, then at Jade, then back to me
again.

“Really,” I said.

“
That's
so
not going to work!”

“Yeah,” I agreed.

I looked down at Jade. “He mentioned you too.”

“What? Why?”

“Garcia is keeping track of us. Somebody blabbed
and now he knows we're fighting. He knows about Jade's dad, Brett's
family, that they live in the same neighborhood...” I trailed off.

A cop's interest in our lives couldn't be a good
thing, whatever angle you look from.

“
We
need to get the twins off our backs, at least distract them.” John
shrugged, his palms outstretched,
what
else could we do?

Jade
restated the facts, “I sure don't like Garcia being this interested
in our lives.”

Yeah, ditto.

We stood in the warm sunlight, thinking about it.

John
broke the heavy silence, “I guess there isn't much more we can do.
The plan's set, Jonesy will never back down and it would make things
way
worse if we didn't meet Brett and Carson. They'll think we're cowards
if we don't, un.bear.a.ble.” John enunciated each syllable, like a
guillotine to the head. I smiled, visualizing.

“Right. I hear that, but everyone knows what I
think,” Jade said.

We
had to be brutal with Carson and Brett, so we could be free from
their daily crap. She'd handle it differently.

“We know, but trust us, if there was an easier
way to shut those two down, we'd have done it. Some guys need a
two-by-four to the head before they understand we aren't tolerating
their bullshit.”

Jade's mind-wheels were turning. “I'll be
there.”

That's
my girl. I almost did a fist bump with John but played it cool.

John smirked, he saw my thinly veiled glee. We
were trying to survive until Tuesday.

That reminded me! “I get the dog on Tuesday,”
I blurted out.

John said, “Wow, I didn't think that was gonna
happen!”

“Me either, but the Parental Unit caved! They
think I've been traumatized by this whole AFTD thing... so, I get
him!”