Inferno (8 page)

“Are you guys sure about this?” I ask. “I mean, I don't see how...”

Jamie ignores me. “We'll need the crow bar, Leo,” he says. “Did you bring it?”

Leo nods. He shrugs off his leather jacket and tosses it on the driver's seat.

I realize he hasn't spoken a word since I first got in the car and he made that comment about choices. I look at him, curious despite my nervousness. He has surfer hair— brown streaked with blond, shoulder length—and a skinny face with dark eyes and a nice mouth. Not standard-cute the way Jamie is, but interesting-looking.

“Wait here a moment,” he says. He's talking to all of us, but he's looking at Parker. She nods and grins at him like she's not worried about a thing. He walks over to the sign and inspects it closely. Then he looks at the building and the bright lights. “Get back in the car.”

Just like that. All of us, even Jamie, do what he says. Leo starts the engine and quickly pulls out of the parking lot.

“What the hell, Leo?” Jamie turns to face him. “Did Dante get you spooked or something? We could've done it. We could've pried it off the posts and been gone before anyone knew anything was going on.” He shoots me a dirty look. “I knew we shouldn't have let someone new join us.”

“It's not Dante's fault,” Parker protests.

Jamie is pissing me off. I want to hang out with Parker and her friends, but he's being totally irrational, and there's a limit to how much crap I'm prepared to take. I turn and glare at him. “You want to do it, go right ahead. I'm not stopping you.”

Leo's voice cuts across our argument. “They had video cameras, okay? They'll have our license plate, our pictures...we're not doing this one.”

“That sucks,” Parker says. “It was such a great idea.”

There is a long silence. Disappointment settles over us, so heavy and thick you can almost see it. When it comes down to it, I am actually kind of relieved about not having to steal anything, but it is hard to imagine simply going home now. And I have to admit I'd loved the idea of going to school tomorrow and seeing everyone's faces when they saw the sign. “Hey...,” I say slowly.

“What?” Parker asks.

I find myself glancing over at Leo, but I can't see his face. “I was just thinking...well, what if we made a sign that said
Juvenile Detention Center
? And put it up at the school? Wouldn't that work almost as well?”

Jamie snorts. “What, like with paper and colored markers or something? That's lame.”

My cheeks are hot, but I'm not going to let Jamie make me look like an idiot. “Whatever,” I say. “Markers, paint, whatever. I mean, it's the message that's important, right?”

Parker nods excitedly. “I think it's a great idea. We could make it really big—like a banner, you know? And hang it right across the doors.”

“It's not a bad idea,” Leo says. He looks uneasily at Jamie; then he shrugs. “Let's do it.”

“Jamie?” Parker's voice is soft. “Come on. It's better than nothing.”

“Fine. Whatever.” Jamie doesn't look at her.

Leo grins. “We'll go to your place then, okay? Do you have paper and stuff?”

“We could use a couple of white cotton sheets,” Parker says. “We've got some old ones we used as drop sheets when we painted the apartment. Oh, and we've got leftover green paint too.” She grins at me. “Dante, awesome idea. See, guys? I told you she rocked.”

Leo laughs. Jamie doesn't say anything. An uneasy feeling shifts and settles in my stomach, but I ignore it.

Leo heads downtown and pulls up in front of a twenty-four-hour pizza joint. Jamie opens the door beside it, and we all troop up two flights of narrow stairs. At the top are two numbered doors. Jamie pulls a key out of his pocket and lets us into number four.

I look around the living room with its dark green walls and dirty gray carpet and feel a surge of excitement.
In the past, when I've gone to friends' places, their homes looked more or less like mine: parents hovering close by, offering us snacks; little brothers and sisters hanging around annoying us. I've never known anyone who had their own place.

“This is great,” I say.

Parker laughs. “It's a dive. But at least my parents don't live here.” A shadow flickers behind her eyes. “At least I don't have to take orders from them or listen to them fighting all night.”

I don't know what to say.

“Sheets.” Jamie dumps a pile of white cloth on the floor. “I'll get the paint.”

Parker follows Jamie. Leo kneels on the floor and starts spreading out the sheets. “I'm glad you've joined our group,” he says. He sits back on his heels and looks at me for a long time.

I start to squirm under his gaze. I clear my throat and grab the other end of the sheet to help straighten it out and to give me an excuse to look away. “Sure,” I say. “Me too.”

“Do I make you uncomfortable?”

“No. It's fine. I'm fine.”

“Sorry. I do, don't I? Parker says I make too much eye contact.”

I look up at him, surprised. “She does?”

“Yeah. She says I freak people out. That I'm too intense.”

“I don't think you're too intense.”

“Me neither. I think most people aren't intense enough.”

I laugh.

He laughs too; then he shakes his head. “I mean it. Most people are like...diluted. Anaesthetized, you know? They go around all numbed out by
TV
or religion or trash media, brainwashed, not thinking for themselves.”

“My mother's like that,” I blurt. “She's all about scrap-booking and keeping our house looking like a show home and making sure her nails are perfectly manicured. Like that's what she thinks is important in life.” I feel a twinge of guilt. I know I'm not being fair to my mom.
Appearances are what people judge us by
, she says.
It may not be fair but that's the way it is
.

“Exactly.” Leo holds my gaze again. “People don't really connect with each other. They're all in their own little bubbles.”

“Yes. Yes!” The words tumble out. “That's just how it is.” I think about how I move through my days at school, feeling so alone half the time even though I'm surrounded by people. “Like we're all on separate islands and we don't ever meet up at all. We just sort of...float on by.” I've mixed up his bubble metaphor with my island one, but he doesn't seem to notice.

Leo starts to roll a joint. “Smoke?”

“No. I don't do drugs.”

“It's totally natural, you know? And it's way less addictive than alcohol. Shouldn't be illegal.”

I shake my head. “You don't have to convince me. I don't have a problem with it or anything; I just don't like how it makes me feel.”

“How's that?”

I think about the handful of times I've tried it with the stoners at school. “Um, sort of anxious, I guess.”

“Probably bad stuff. Not pure, you know?”

People who smoke pot always want you to join them. Like Linnea and her friends at school. I don't get it. I'd be happy to hang out with them and not smoke, but it's like they take it personally or something. Like I'm criticizing them. I get tired of explaining that I'm just not into it. “I'm a runner,” I say instead. “I like to keep my lungs clean.”

“Hey, slackers.” Jamie puts down two large paint cans, long ribbons of dried paint caked on their sides. Parker steps into the room behind him and looks at Leo and then at me. Her arms are full of assorted paintbrushes.

“Well,” Jamie says. “Let's get to work.”

It is two in the morning
when we finish the sign.

“I'd better get home,” I say reluctantly. The room is smoky and my eyes are stinging. “My mom gets up at six.”

Parker stands up and stretches. “I'll drive you.”

Leo folds up the sign, careful not to smudge the still tacky paint. “How about Dante and I go? We can hang the sign, and then I'll run her home.”

“Cheers,” Jamie says. “Parker and I should hit the sack. We both have to work in the morning.” He yawns. “Flipping pancakes.”

It is weird driving through the empty streets with Leo, and even weirder pulling up to GRSS in the middle of the night. Dark, quiet and oddly unfamiliar.

“So this is where you spend your days,” Leo says.

I nod. “This is it.”

“And?”

“It's boring. Really boring.” I can't quite meet his eyes. Parker's right: He makes too much eye contact. There's something about the way he holds my gaze that makes it hard to breathe. “Where did you go to school?” I ask, pushing my feet against the floor of the car.

There's a long silence. Finally Leo nods out the window. “Right here,” he says.

“Here? You did? When?”

His hands are white-knuckled around the steering wheel. “Quit two years ago,” he says. “I did grade nine and ten here, quit part way through grade eleven.”

I do the math. “So you must have left right before I started.”

“I guess so.” He shakes his head slowly. “I hated it.”

I remember his comments about the suburbs. I guess he hates it not because he's an outsider but because he knows it all too well. I glance at my watch: two thirty. I know we should get moving and hang the sign, but I don't want to stop talking. “Did you ever have Mr. Lawson?”

“Nazi,” he says. “Power-tripping Nazi. I hated him.”

I have a bit of a problem with people using the word
Nazi
like that—I mean, much as I hate Lawson, there isn't really any comparison. Usually I say something, but this time I let it slide. “Me too. You know, he pretty much accused me of lying when I said I'd already read the assigned books.”

“He grabbed me by the collar once and shoved me up against the lockers.”

“Jesus. Can teachers do that? I mean, that's...isn't that assault?”

He gives me a shark-like grin. “You'd think. But it was his word against mine. You can guess who the principal believed.”

“Jesus,” I say again. “That's awful.” I think back to my conversation with Mrs. Greenway. “The new principal is okay. I think she believes me. I don't think she even likes Mr. Lawson.”

“Sure.” Leo stares out the front window at the school. “But when it really matters, wait and see whose side she takes. They're all the same.”

I pull my lower lip between my teeth. I've always liked Mrs. G., but it isn't like she's actually taken my side in any way that counts. She hasn't challenged Lawson or let me transfer out of his class. So I don't know. Maybe Leo is right.

He opens his door. “I guess we'd better hang the sign, hey?”

We get out of the car and dump the bundle of sheets on the ground.

“We should hang it so it completely covers the front doors,” Leo says.

I shake my head. “No. The teachers get in early—they'll just take it down.” I look at the school building thoughtfully. “I think we should hang it high. Really high.”

Leo follows my gaze and frowns. The building is two stories high, a sheer gray cliff. “How?” he asks. “We can't climb up there.”

I study the building and don't answer for a minute. A concrete awning juts out over the doors, and above it the wall stretches straight up to join a sloping shingle roof. It's crazy, but I'm overcome with a reckless desire to impress him. “I think we could do it,” I say. “The first part would be hardest. Once we're on top of the awning, it's just a couple of feet over to one side to reach that window. Then from the window frame to the roof...”

“Uh, Dante? That wall is vertical.” He looks a bit embarrassed. “Jamie could probably do it, but I'm not so good with heights.”

I laugh. “I'm nearly six feet tall. I'm used to heights.” I study the building. Not totally easy, but possible. I've done some climbing with my Dad and I'm not bad at it. Of course, I've never actually climbed a building before. Climbing buildings wasn't really in Dad's repertoire.

“This is crazy,” he says. “If we slipped, we'd be dead.”

I just shrug. “I never slip.” I look up at the wall again. He's right. Slipping would be a very bad idea. Then I look back at Leo. “I guess I'm on my own.”

Five minutes later, I'm climbing. I feel like a spider—all skinny arms and legs clinging to the gray bricks. It's physical and it's mental, but it's nothing like running. It's slow, almost agonizingly slow, and instead of pushing myself to go faster, I'm forcing myself to wait, to pause, to think. Instead of switching my brain off, I feel like every neuron
is firing at once. Like my brain is in survival mode and my body is pulsing with adrenaline. If I survive this, I'll be high for a week.

It's a cold night, clear and starry, and there'll be frost in the morning. My fingers ache with both chill and strain, and sweat trickles down my face and stings my eyes. I make it onto the awning and rest for a moment, eyeing the second floor window just off to one side. It's set in a wide concrete frame that sticks out a couple of inches from the bricks. Good enough.

I reach over with one hand and then the other, gripping the top edge with my fingertips. I'm pretty sure I can make it. I hold my breath, stretching...

And my foot slips.

For a split second, I am hanging from my fingers. I can hear my heart beating. I close my eyes and feel around with my foot. There. I pull both feet up to the window ledge and pause for a moment to catch my breath.

“God,” I whisper under my breath. Like I said, I'm an atheist, but it almost feels like a thank-you just the same.

“Thought you never slipped,” Leo says hoarsely. He's trying to sound casual, but I figure I've probably just about given him a heart attack.

“Shhh,” I say. “No problem. I'm almost there.” It occurs to me that none of Dante's circles of hell involved heights. He's got all kinds of other punishments: high winds, stinging insects, ice, fire, even having your head fixed on backward for eternity—but no heights. I'd think having to spend forever balanced on a narrow ledge
would be pretty nasty. Though if you're already dead, maybe falling isn't so bad.