Freeze Frame (17 page)

I
tried to find Chase at school, but Mike told me he was home sick. “Do you maybe wanna come around anyway?” Mike scuffed his boots in the snow. His ears turned red. “Just, you know. So you don't lose practice at being a bodyguard.”

I smiled. “I'll be here, Mike.”

“Really?”

“Sure.”

“Wait a sec.” He pulled a sweaty dollar bill out of his pocket. “This is all I've got.” He looked worried. “Will that cover it?”

“Keep it, okay? I'll be here.”

Mike wrapped his arms around my waist and squeezed. “Thank you, Orange Dragon.”

“Don't miss your bus.”

“I won't!” He skipped to his bus and waved at me from the window. Real discreet.

Every time I saw Kohana taking pictures, I thought of the stories that went with each one. He showed me a picture he had taken of my backpack, my notebook poking out the top. “I want this story,” he said, pointing to the notebook.

I laughed it off. Nobody could have those stories.

Jase had a bunch of stories because he had a shitload of stuff: his art supplies and favorite jeans. And his secrets—the leftovers that Mrs. Bishop would've found.

The secret stash.

You forgot about it, huh?

Yeah. You still got everything?

Yeah. Mom'll probably flip out when she finds the stuff.

Maybe she'll get them to change your headstone. Turn WALKS WITH GOD into ROAD TO PERDITION.

Ha ha. Quite the comedian.

I do what I can. And the book?

Yep. The book.

You're so screwed when Brooke finds out it was you.

A little late now, huh?

I guess.

 

UNTITLED: SCENE TWO—The List FADE IN: Kyle and Jason are whistling tuneless songs while rollerblading up and down Elm Street. They skate, pause in front of Jason's driveway, and continue to skate.

 

CLOSE-UP: Jason's front door. Brooke and Mel leave the house. Off camera we hear laughter and car doors slamming. Camera remains focused on the front door.

 

CUT TO: Jason motioning to his eyes, military style, and back at the house.

 

CUT TO: Kyle nodding.

 

FADE IN: Larry Mullen Jr. and Adam Clayton's score from Mission: Impossible. Jason and Kyle slip ski masks over their faces, and their Rollerblades turn into climbing shoes. Jason and Kyle elbow-crawl up to the house. Jason opens the door and the hinge creaks. The Mission: Impossible music ends with the sound of a needle scratching across a record.

FADE IN: Mission: Impossible sound track. Kyle sneaks past the den, where Mrs. Bishop is watching TV, and slips up the Bishop staircase. He stands in front of a door.

 

ZOOM IN: to sign on the door. “KEEP OUT. That means you!” Kyle slips his library card into
the doorjamb and clicks it open. Soundless. (Homage to classic Mission: Impossible scene where Ethan Hunt/Tom Cruise dangles from a cord while retrieving information from the computer.) Kyle dangles from a bungee above a dresser. Sweat drips from his brow as he plunges his hand into the top drawer.

CUT TO: Jason and Kyle in Jason's room. The door is bolted with seven locks, and a chair rests under the doorknob.

 

ZOOM IN: The book and the first page, written in curvy letters. “HOT LIPS LIST.” Shot from view of Jason holding the book.

 

ZOOM OUT: Kyle is looking over Jason's shoulder at the book.

ZOOM OUT: Jason and Kyle laughing.

 

I laughed. Brooke and Mel tried to torture us into telling them about where we hid that dumb book. But we never gave it up. Honestly, it wasn't even that interesting. They had rated the “kissable” guys from their class with lipstick kisses: one being “good enough for practice”; five being “steamy tongue-twisting.” And the highlighted entries were the ones they'd actually hooked up with—with the corrected lipstick kisses to the side. Big deal.

I wondered if Mrs. Bishop had found the book and sent Brooke to do extra church time. Maybe she found all of Jase's stuff. What did she do with it? What happened to Jason's locker? What does the school do with a dead kid's locker?

It was the last day before Christmas break. The day before any school vacation is a waste. In most classes, we
just hung out and ate candy. Mrs. Beacham decided to have a Shakespearian insult competition. I won a box of caramel chocolates with “Swim with leeches, thou gorbellied, codpiece-sniffing maggot pie!”

After the bell rang, I walked down the empty hallways. Carson High had become a ghost school. Everybody—students, teachers, custodians, secretaries—had run for home as fast as possible. Mr. Cordoba sat alone, working at his desk, like it was another regular day at the library. I opened the door a crack.

“Mr. Caroll, it's nice to see you here. What with all the holiday festivities.”

“Yeah. I wanted to return
The Catcher in the Rye
before the break.” I'd re-checked it out twice, just to hold on to it.

He scanned the book. “What did you think?”

“I liked it. A lot.” I wondered if Jase had liked it as much as I did.

“You sound surprised.”

“Well, you wouldn't think a story about some kid's weekend in New York would be so good, but it was.”

“Why?”

I fidgeted with my backpack. “I really liked Holden, you know?”

“What did you like about him?”

“Well, he's funny. And real.”

“Real?”

“Yeah. Honest. He definitely isn't the type to have to hang out with the popular kids just to be cool.”

Mr. Cordoba tapped his fingers on the desk. “Do you know anybody like that?”

I thought about Kohana. “Yeah. I do. But he doesn't have a lot of friends. Funny, huh?”

Mr. Cordoba shut down his computer and looked at me. “Does Holden have a lot of friends?”

I shook my head. “No. It seems like he could use one.”

Mr. Cordoba waited and leaned on the desk. He hadn't scratched his temple yet, so that meant I wasn't done talking about the book. He always scratched his temple when he didn't want to talk anymore. He probably wasn't a very good poker player.

“Why?”

“I dunno. He seems kind of lonely.”

“That must be hard.”

“It is…I guess.” I blushed.

Mr. Cordoba scratched his temple. “I agree.”

“You think Holden would be a good friend?”

“I think
you
would be a good friend to Holden.”

I stood there stunned until Mr. Cordoba said, “So—what book are you taking home for the holidays?”

“Um, I dunno. Could you maybe pick out a book you like—really like, though? One you read not because you
had
to read it? Maybe I'll like it, too.” I scuffed my shoe
against the carpet. I'd already had to change the duct tape twice. I'd used Dad's because I didn't want to bug Chase about it.

He pulled a book from the shelves and handed it to me. “This is one of my favorites. Let's see if we have the same taste.”

I flipped to the front. No Jason.

He took it back and registered it in the system while I fished for my library card at the bottom of my pack.

“Mr. Cordoba?”

“Yes?”

“Did you know Jason? Jason Bishop?”

He nodded.

I turned away from Mr. Cordoba's steady gaze. “Did you know him well? I mean, did you talk about books a lot?”

“No. I didn't know him well.”

“That's too bad.” I sighed. “Did he check out a lot of books?”

“Some.”

I looked around the library. “What other books did he like to read? Do you remember?”

“He spent a lot of time looking at the art books,” Mr. Cordoba said, pointing to the reference section. “And he used to check out graphic novels every now and again.”

I stared at the flecks of brown in the worn library carpet.
I didn't want Mr. Cordoba to think I was stalking a dead guy. “Okay. Just wondering, you know.”

“I understand.”

“You do?”

“What people read says a lot about them.”

“Yeah. I guess it does.” I looked at the book in my hands. “So what does this book say about me: kid who doesn't know what to read?” I laughed.

“Or what does it say about me?”

“Oh. Oh yeah.” I looked at the title:
Chronicle of a Death Foretold.

“Merry Christmas, Mr. Caroll.”

“You, too. And thanks.” When I walked down the hall, I felt like I carried the secret to who Mr. Cordoba was in my backpack. But I wasn't sure if I wanted to know what that secret was.

S
ince the day with the poinsettia, I hadn't seen Mr. Bishop's car. Snow piled on the Bishops' walk and driveway. I started to get up early to shovel it. Then I shoveled both their next-door neighbors' walks and driveways, too, so Mrs. Bishop would think it was one of them. It was hard to do with a broken hand and in the dark. At least my cast hand had healed quick. Sometimes it took me a couple of hours.

I cradled a hot chocolate against my fingers after one morning of shoveling, inhaling the smell of sticky-sweet marshmallows. I opened
Chronicle of a Death Foretold,
and an envelope dropped out.
Mr. Caroll
was scribbled on the front.

I hadn't gotten a Christmas card from anyone. My Secret Santa in math class never even gave me a present. I
took out the card. It was simple, with a small tree on the front, encircled by the words
PEACE ON EARTH
. I opened it.

I held the card in my hand, unable to believe that we had ever thought Mr. Cordoba was a heartless assassin. The guy handed out
PEACE ON EARTH
Christmas cards. No mafia guy ever sends cards. What would Capone have written on his cards?

I turned the card over. It smelled like books. Do people always smell like their jobs? If so, it would totally suck to be a proctologist.

Good one, Kyle.

Thanks, Jase.

I smiled and put the card back in the novel.

Christmas Eve loomed over us like some kind of black cloud—like that 1978 horror flick
The Swarm
, where a
mass of African bees invades and kills thousands in Houston. Mel and I were anxious. Mom had baked three kinds of desserts to calm her nerves. And it was all Dad's fault. He had invited Uncle Ray and Aunt Phyllis. Having to spend any amount of time with Aunt Phyllis topped Jason's and my “what's worse” list.

“I want everybody to be on their best behavior tonight,” Dad said. He looked at Mom when he talked. “I mean everybody!”

When we heard Uncle Ray and Aunt Phyllis's car in the drive, Mel and I bolted upstairs. Mom met us at the top of the stairwell and growled, “Don't you
dare
think of escaping tonight. Now get downstairs and
be nice
.”

After dinner, Aunt Phyllis sat down at the piano and started pounding out Christmas carols. At first it was totally embarrassing and lame, but after a while, all of us were singing—even Mom.

“I think she's drinking something a lot stronger than eggnog,” Mel whispered.

Mom's cheeks were pink and her eyes looked droopy. “Maybe,” I agreed.

Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Ray took Mel's room. Mel took my bed, and I slept on the floor. I slipped into my sleeping bag. Sleeping bags are always the same—same feel, same smell. There's something nice about things that don't change.

I peed in my bag once at summer camp in fourth grade. The next morning, everybody knew who had wet their bags because the sleeping bags were hung up on the camp clothesline.

Jeffrey Mason razzed me, but Jason stepped up. “Listen, purple puke face, I wouldn't mess with Kyle if I were you.”

That was a great line: purple puke face. I started to write out the next scene in my head.

 

UNTITLED: Scene ThreeScene Four—The sleeping bag Campers sing “Kumbaya” in the background.

 

FADE IN: Camera pans a typical summer camp in the mountains. There's a bonfire, and one kid's marshmallow goes up in flames.

 

ARC SHOT of boy and burning marshmallow. A dizzying look at the hazards of summer camp.

 

CUT TO: A group stands around the sleeping bags hanging on the line.

 

CLOSE-UP: The blue sleeping bag with green lining. Kyle is written in huge letters across it.

 

The camera swish-pans the faces of the campers using a fish-eye lens. Their faces are blurry and distorted as they laugh and point at the sleeping bag.

“Kyle?” Melanie interrupted the memory while I was thinking about the color of Jason's bag. Was it red or orange? It bugged me that I couldn't remember.

“Are you asleep?” she asked.

“No.” I looked up at Pluto and sighed.

“Can we talk for a sec?”

I propped myself up on my elbow. “Huh?” I hoped Mel wasn't going to start talking to me about Jake Sanders, her latest boyfriend. Everybody called the guy Hoover. Since Mel had started hooking up with him, she wore turtlenecks a lot.

“It's just—Well, you're different. That's all.” Melanie moved to the end of the bed and peered over at me.

Pluto was starting to blur into Saturn. Everything seemed too heavy to hold inside. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe.

Mel leaned over and grabbed my hand. “I wish we hadn't fought that morning, you know? I mean, it was stupid.”

I wished we hadn't fought, too. I nodded.

“I think about it a lot. Sometimes I wonder if things could've been different if only—” Mel wiped her nose. “It's stupid, I guess.”

“It's not your fault, Mel.”

“I sometimes think it is.”

“Why?”

“I was mad at Jason, you know? And I just hated seeing him there that morning.”

I sat up. “What for?”

“He'd totally ditched you for those losers. Then he came over and sat at our table, eating Mom's pancakes like everything was the same. Dad even went out to get syrup for him. Like when would that have ever happened in a normal world? King Jason. I wished he'd go away.”

And he did.

She wiped away some tears. “Now I feel like shit all the time, because…”

I squeezed her hand.

“God, it sucks.”

“Mel, it's not like what you thought made a difference. If you had that power, I would've spontaneously combusted about five years ago.”

She laughed through her tears.

“Do you ever talk to Brooke?” I asked. Melanie had lost a best friend, too. I never told her how bad I felt about that. I just never knew what to say anymore.

She shook her head.

“That sucks.”

“No big deal. She dropped out of cheer—It doesn't matter. Anyway, we were just friends because of habit, you know. It's not like we had a lot in common anymore.”

I knew what she meant. Kind of.

“Hold on a sec.” Mel ran out of the room and came back in. “Here. It's your Christmas present.”

I opened up a gift certificate to Sundance Books. “Sweet, Mel. That's cool.”

“Yeah, you've been reading a lot. Maybe if you have any left over, you can invite me for a coffee there.”

“Like a ten-dollar latte? That's half the certificate!”

“Cheap ass.”

I laughed. Mel brought her hand down on my head and ruffled my hair. She slipped off the bed and sat next to me. “You know, I'm glad you're here. I wouldn't trade you for anything.”

Maybe she was worth that ten-dollar latte after all. I leaned into her. “All right. But make it a small latte without all those foo-foo add-ons. And it'd better not be fat-free decaf shit, okay?”

“Deal,” she said, and kissed me on the forehead. She
climbed back into bed and whispered, “Merry Christmas, Kyle.”

“You, too, Mel.” I listened as her breathing steadied. “Thank you,” I whispered.

When Mel finally fell asleep, I went to sit at the top of the staircase. The house smelled like pine. The glow of the Christmas tree was the only light left. Last year Jase and I would've been stuffed with Mrs. Bishop's caramel cookies and hot chocolate.

What would Jason wish for you now?
Dr. Matthews's question popped into my head and wouldn't leave. I wished I knew the answer.

I went back to bed and listened to the quiet house until the blackness of night lifted.

Merry Christmas, Jase,
I thought.