Fear Street 5 - The Fire Game (10 page)

And most disturbing of all--what did she mean that it had to do with Gabe?

The night before, Andrea had accused Jill of being jealous because her date with Gabe had gone badly. But Jill suspected that the opposite might be true--that Andrea was jealous of Jill, because Gabe had asked her out first.

Was that why she was accusing Gabe of setting the fires?

But wait, Jill thought. Andrea hadn't accused Gabe of anything--she had just said that the fire had to do with him.

What could it all mean?

By the time Jill reached school, she was more confused than ever.

She wasn't used to being at school so early. There were only a few cars in the teachers' parking lot and none at all in the students' lot. The flower beds along the front walk were full of daffodil buds, their yellow tips showing the promise of flowers just about to bloom. At the end of the driveway, Mr. Peterson, the head custodian, was hosing off the sidewalk. No one else was in view.

Jill knew that Andrea often came to school early to practice gymnastics.

Andrea said she liked it because it was peaceful and she didn't have to worry about anyone watching her. She did it so often that she had her own key to the gym.

Jill went up the familiar front steps into the main hall. Her footsteps echoed in the quiet as she walked toward the gym.

The door was open a crack, and she slipped into the huge wood-paneled gym. The lights weren't on, but enough sunlight filtered through the windows to show all the equipment in relief. At first glance the room seemed empty.

"Andrea?" she called. "Andrea, I'm here."

There was no answer. She looked around more carefully, but obviously no one was there.

Frowning, Jill crossed the polished wooden floor toward the girls' locker room. Maybe she overslept, she thought. After all, when Andrea had called, she'd said that she hadn't been able to sleep a wink the whole night.

Or maybe, Jill suddenly thought, this is just a practical joke, to get back at me for what Diane and I said last night. Or maybe Andrea was talking in her sleep, or maybe she's in the locker room.

She opened the blue door and stepped into the locker room. Even empty, it held the familiar scent of sneakers, dirty socks, and sweaty bodies.

"Andrea?" she called. "Andrea, are you in here?"

"Jill?" a voice called to her from the far corner, where the stalls were.

"Diane?" Jill was startled.

"Hi," said Diane, putting down a magazine. She was wearing one of her long-sleeved leotards, this one a brilliant blue that matched her eyes.

"What are you doing here?" Jill asked.

"I could ask you the same thing," said Diane. "I got a call from Andrea in the middle of the night. She said she was sorry she blew up at me and asked if I'd come spot her this morning while she practiced her routine."

"You're kidding," said Jill.

"I thought it was a little strange," Diane admitted. "Especially since she called so late. But I thought maybe it would be a good way of getting her to talk about--well, you know."

"So where is she?" asked Jill.

"Home asleep is my guess," said Diane. "She asked me to be here at six-thirty. So I've been waiting around ever since, but no Andrea."

"She called me too," said Jill. "Do you suppose this is just a trick to get even with us for last night?"

"Maybe," said Diane doubtfully. "But it doesn't seem like something Andrea would do. Besides, we didn't really do anything to her last night.

We were just trying to help."

"Except she didn't see it that way," said Jill. She frowned, as she glanced around. "I guess she must have just--wait a minute."

"What?" Diane followed Jill's gaze to the locker area.

"She is here," said Jill. "Look--her locker's empty."

The girls went over to the locker bank. And sure enough, Andrea's lock was missing from her locker, which was open and empty. A lock--presumably Andrea's--hung on the nearest large wardrobe locker.

"So she is here," Diane said. "Maybe she's out jogging. Sometimes she does that for a warm-up."

"I don't think so," said Jill. "I was just outside. Let's go back to the gym. Maybe she just stepped out for a minute."

The two friends went back into the gymnasium, half expecting to see Andrea practicing on the mat. The big room was still empty.

"Well, she's here somewhere," said Diane. "We might as well just wait."

"Right," said Jill. "I think I'll practice a little while we do." She walked over to the tumbling mat and warmed up with a couple of cartwheels. She was about to practice a forward roll when she saw something that didn't belong next to the balance beam.

Something red and crumpled.

"Diane!" she called, her heart going to her throat.

Both girls ran over to the beam. The flash of red that Jill had seen was Andrea's leotard.

Lying just to the side of the balance beam, her arms twisted under her, was Andrea, her body motionless, her face white as paste.

"I don't believe it!" Diane cried. "She's dead!"

"Andrea!" Jill felt as if her own heart had stopped beating. "Andrea!"

Her friend didn't move or respond in any way. The faint outline of a blue bruise was beginning to form on her pale forehead.

"She's--dead?" Diane repeated, her voice a frightened whisper.

"I don't know," said Jill. She placed her head to her friend's chest and relaxed when she heard the even, steady beating of Andrea's heart. "I hear her heart," she said with relief. "And she's--she's breathing."

"Thank God!" cried Diane. "Don't move her. I'll go call an ambulance."

The wail of the siren died away in the distance, and Jill sat shakily on one of the benches in the locker room. Looking totally drained, Diane slumped down next to her.

"She's going to be okay," Jill said. "She's got to be."

"She was so pale," Diane said breathily. "And that bruise--"

"I know," said Jill.

The ambulance had come almost immediately. A few minutes later, the gym had been filled with people--paramedics, police officers, the principal, and eventually Miss Mercer, the gymnastics coach. All of them had wanted to know what had happened. But neither Diane nor Jill could tell them more than that Andrea had asked them both to meet her before school.

Because of the bruise on her forehead, and because of where Andrea had been found, everyone assumed that she must have lost her balance and fallen off the beam.

"How could she have done such a stupid thing?" Diane asked, echoing Jill's thought for the hundredth time. "I told her I'd be here to spot her. Why couldn't she have waited for me?"

"It doesn't make any sense," said Jill. "Even Miss Mercer agrees. Andrea is simply too experienced to try a difficult routine without a spotter."

"Unless maybe she wanted to fall," said Diane.

"What?"

"I don't mean consciously," said Diane. "But maybe deep inside, Andrea felt guilty about the fire. Maybe this was some sort of unconscious way for her to punish herself."

"That's too deep for me," said Jill. "Andrea's not like that, and you know she isn't. She's the most straightforward person we know."

"Guilt does strange things to people," Diane said. "It can muddle their thinking, Jill. It can make them do things they wouldn't ordinarily do."

"Maybe," said Jill. "But I--I don't believe it. In fact, I'm not sure that Andrea's fall was an accident."

"What do you mean?" Diane asked, her blue eyes suddenly wide with horror.

"I don't know," Jill said. Almost as if they had been spoken inside her head, she remembered again Andrea's words that the fires had to do with Gabe. If she had been right, and Gabe knew that Andrea suspected him . .

.

It was almost too horrible to consider, but could Gabe have had something to do with Andrea's "accident"?

"I don't know," Jill repeated. "But I mean to find out."

"You're probably wondering why I called this meeting," cracked Max, standing at the front of the room.

"Sit down, you nerd," said Nick. "Anyway, you didn't call it. Jill did.

And, to tell the truth, I am wondering why."

"I think it's obvious," said Jill. She was sitting in an overstuffed tweed chair in the TV room at Diane's house. Once she had figured out what she had to do and explained it to Diane, it had been easy to set in motion. She had spoken to Nick and Max, and Diane had asked Gabe. Gabe, the last to arrive, was now sitting on the rug in front of the fireplace, a sarcastic smile on his face.

Diane sat across from him, in an easy chair, her eyes big, serious, and sad looking, while Max and Nick both slouched on the leather sofa.

Jill had expected to feel nervous, but instead she felt very much in control.

At last we're going to find out what's going on, she thought. She cleared her throat and continued. "It's obvious why we're here. All of you know what happened to Andrea this morning, and I thought we should get together to talk about it and discuss everything that's happened."

"Discuss who set the fire, you mean," said Nick, already sounding angry.

"That's part of it," said Jill. "But also discuss what happened to Andrea--and why."

"Who knows why someone has an accident?" said Max. "I feel really bad for Andrea, but I don't see what it has to do with the fire."

"It might have everything to do with it," said Diane. "Especially if Andrea is the one who set the Fear Street fire." Quickly she explained about the blue ribbon in Andrea's printer. "Jill and I know she did it,"

Diane went on. "And she knows we know. What if her guilt got to be too much, and . . ." She let the thought trail off.

"And she jumped off the balance beam deliberately?" asked Max, his face full of disbelief. "Tell us another one, Diane."

"I don't know," said Nick. "It makes a little sense, except I can't believe Andrea was the one who set the fire."

"What about the notes?" said Diane.

"I'm sure there's more than one person in Shadyside with a blue printer ribbon," said Nick. "Besides, what reason would she have? The competition to set fires was between us guys."

"So you're saying one of you did it?" said Jill.

"I think it's obvious," said Nick. "Just as it's obvious which one it was." He directed his gaze at Gabe, and Gabe returned the look casually.

"Are you accusing me?" Gabe challenged.

"Hey, man," said Nick. "You're the one who's in love with fire. The rest of us just went along with it."

"Is that what you believe?" said Gabe. He was still smiling, but it wasn't a friendly smile, and his voice had acquired a hard edge that Jill found frightening.

"It had to be Andrea!" Diane protested quickly. "She was into the fire game from the beginning. And in spite of what Nick says, we know that she has a blue printer ribbon."

"We can't be sure Andrea wrote the notes," said Jill. "In fact, we can't be sure of anything. But now that something has happened to Andrea, I think our trouble is only beginning."

"What are you talking about?" said Nick.

"I mean--what if it wasn't one of us? What if it was someone else, someone who found out about the fire game and knows that the fire department is investigating?"

"What do you think this is--a James Bond movie?" asked Gabe.

"I'm serious," Jill protested. She hadn't actually considered it before, but now that she was talking about it, she realized that this had been in the back of her mind all day. "Anyone could have found out about the fire game. And what if that person wants to use it against us? Blackmail us or threaten us in some way? And what if they first went to Andrea . . ."

"Pathetic," said Gabe.

Jill realized he was speaking to her, and she was suddenly filled with a sick anger. "What's pathetic?" she demanded furiously.

"You. All of you. Your complicated plots. Trying to explain something that's actually very simple."

"Oh, really?" Jill said. "If it's so simple, suppose you explain it to us." She was so angry that her voice was shaking, and for a moment she thought Gabe looked hurt. Then his face changed, and once again he was smiling that infuriating, superior smile.

"Face it, Jill," he said, shrugging. "All of you enjoyed the fire game--

even you, Di. It gave you a few moments of excitement for the first time in years--maybe the first time ever. You even got to read about yourselves in the paper."

"So what?" said Jill.

"So nothing," said Gabe. "There's no mysterious stranger who wants to blackmail us. There's no one mysterious at all. The Fear Street fire, the notes--it's obvious who did it. It had to be one of us."

A sudden spring wind had come up, and Jill kept her head down against the chill. It was as dark as the inside of a cave, and she began to imagine she saw shapes moving in every shadow.

Maybe she should have accepted Gabe's offer of a ride home. But then she remembered his smug, sarcastic look when he'd said her idea was

"pathetic."

Right after Gabe had said one of the group must have set the fire, the meeting had completely broken down, with everyone accusing everyone else.

Nick was so angry that his usually pale face had turned red. And no one had taken Jill's idea seriously that it might have been someone outside the group. Someone who wanted to get the friends in trouble--or worse.

But what if it was some stranger? Jill thought. What would that person possibly want with them?

A car turned the far corner of the street and began to slow down as it approached her.

Why had she decided to walk? It was still nearly six blocks to her house.

The car was barely rolling now as it drew nearer. She sneaked a glance back. A white Taurus. She had never seen the car before in her life.

Her heart pounding furiously, Jill began to walk faster, staring straight ahead. She heard the car pull alongside her and continue to roll, at the same pace she was walking.

Wildly, Jill glanced around. There was a house just ahead with its lights on. She started to turn into the walk, pretending she lived there, and then the car stopped. The engine cut off and the door slammed.