Peeled (15 page)

“I’m sure Elizabeth would like to know that,” Mom said encouragingly. “Do you have any of Laurie’s drawings?”

“Maybe. I’ll have to look later.” Felix got up to head to the fields.

“Daddy, wait.”

Elizabeth was standing in the doorway in her pajamas. She didn’t look at me.

“Morning, honey,” he said.

“What kind of blue did Mama like?” Only an artist would ask that.

Felix looked confused. “How many kinds are there?”

Elizabeth sat down as far away from me as possible and ticked them off. “There’s azure blue, and teal, and robin’s egg, and sky blue, baby blue, midnight, navy, cobalt…you know…”

Felix didn’t know. “Well… I’m sure she liked them all.”

Elizabeth’s face fell.

Felix gulped. “What’s your favorite blue, honey?”

“Sky blue,” she whispered.

Felix leaned against the back door, relieved; sky blue is something a grower can connect to.

“Well now, it seems to me I remember your mama taking you outside all the time and pointing up to the sky.”

“You do?” Elizabeth grinned.

“Yes, ma’am. You two had cloud blue in common.”

“That’s sky blue, Daddy.”

He coughed and headed out the door to the orchard.

“That’s a nice memory,” I said to Elizabeth, but she wouldn’t look at me.

That afternoon at school, Mr. Grasso stood on the stage in the cafeteria flanked by Bobo Liggins and Dave Hargrove, two large, ferocious football players, and announced to one and all the Homecoming Queen winner.

Mr. Grasso shouted, “Lacey Horton, come on up here. You’re our new queen!”

A cry of joy rose in the cafeteria as Lacey came forward.

Elizabeth and Jackie sat there shocked.

“Long live the queen!”
Darrell shouted.

I was standing and clapping next to Zack, who was shouting and whooping.

I looked over at Bonnie Sue’s face; it was flushed with fury. The in-crowd girls crowded in around her.

But mostly I was looking at Elizabeth, who was sitting there with Jackie, not clapping, not entering in. I walked over to them.

Jackie’s eyes were red. Elizabeth was pressing her temples like she had a headache.

“I’m sorry,” I told them.

Elizabeth looked up angrily. “Aren’t you going to say you told me so, Hildy?”

“I didn’t come over for that. I came over for this.” I hugged her. She didn’t hug me back much. That was okay for now.

We’d work our way through this.

“Okay, we are going to rock it tonight and we are going to get down and out and over and all around, so get ready!
”

Lev shouted it into the DJ’s microphone. Lev had painted half his face orange and the other half blue in honor of our school colors, because this, after all, was the homecoming dance.

Orange and blue balloons hung everywhere in the gym. The basketball hoops had been decorated like huge trees with hanging crepe paper apples.

True, the Beasts lost the football game by a field goal, but there was something much more important to celebrate.

The dateless had moved into the seat of power.

True to her word, Lacey Horton had come to the dance alone.

“Everybody dance,” Lacey shouted from the stage. “Alone, together, whatever!” She ran to the floor and
started a line dance. Pookie, all dressed up in a sequined dog outfit, ran across the dance floor. Elizabeth and her boyfriend, Roddy, did the Electric Slide. Lev did his strutting rooster as people clapped. Tanisha, T.R., Darrell, and I did some swing-dance moves. No one knew if Bonnie Sue was coming. Jackie had stayed home.

The music pounded. I was surprised to see Zack here. He’d told me he hated dances. He seemed paralyzed on the dance floor.

“I don’t exactly dance,” he whispered to me.

“Can you sway?” I asked him.

“I’m not really a swayer.”

“But the universe is always moving, right? Planets in rotation, atoms bouncing around.” I danced around him a little. I was wearing my great blue dress from last year. It hugged my hips and had a superb twirling skirt.

He stood there. “Well, actually, atoms move and bond with each other faster than we can imagine—one trillion times faster than the blink of an eye.”

“Really?” I blinked my eyes fast and laughed.

“And the atoms we’re made of move with us,” he added.

“So I’m not just dancing here with myself,” I said. “I’m dancing with my atoms.” I raised my arms.

Zack looked embarrassed. “I’ve never thought of science quite this way, Hildy.”

Neither had I!

Suddenly, the music changed to a fast Latin beat.

Zack couldn’t handle it. “I’m going to stand over there and be inconspicuous.”

A hand rested on my shoulder.

“Come on, Hildy. Dance with me.”

It was Lev. I shook my head, started walking away. “No…”

Lev was already moving to the rumba rhythm. We’d taken salsa dance classes together last year. “Come on.”

Kids formed a circle around us, clapping us on.

Oh, why not? I shook back my hair and strutted toward him.

Lev was grinning. My hips were swinging. He twirled me fast and bent me back low.

“See, you can trust me.”

Only in public. Back on my feet now.

Lev took my right hand with his left, put his right hand firmly on my back.

I put my left hand on his shoulder; we looked each other in the eye.

“I don’t trust guys with blue-and-orange faces,” I told him.

He laughed.

Step forward…

Step back…

Rock forward…

Hold the beat…

He dipped me back, did a toe-heel swivel.

I danced away and danced back to him as the crowd cheered.

I don’t know how long we were dancing; my heart was beating fast. Finally the music ended. Everyone applauded. Lev bowed dramatically and kissed my hand. Then he headed to Jenny Johns, his date, who was not amused.

Tanisha came over to me. “You slammed that one, Hildy.”

I was glad I had danced with Lev, but I didn’t want to dance with him anymore. Now I could honestly say I was over him.

I went to find Zack as the cast of
Desperate People
did a lip sync to “I’m Desperate for You.” He was standing at the food table, looking like he’d just seen an alien.

“Hi,” I said, breathless.

“Hi.”

“Lev and I used to go out,” I explained.

“I figured.” He put his food plate down.

“Lev and I are over,” I assured him.

“Are you sure?”

I watched Lev showing off his lip-synching moves on center stage. “Absolutely.”

“I could never dance like that, Hildy.”

I smiled. “That’s okay. You’re an ace at fighting evil.”

Zack laughed. “Maybe I should get a cape.”

Just then the lip sync ended, and Bonnie Sue Bomgartner paraded in with her date, Bobby Most. She was
wearing a hot pink dress and a cold, forced smile. She walked straight to Lacey, clicking off the steps into her stiletto heels. Pookie, ever vigilant, raced to Lacey and jumped up into her arms as Bonnie Sue approached.

Lacey smiled at Bonnie Sue. “I’m glad you came.”

“Is this your date?” Bonnie Sue asked sarcastically, indicating Pookie.

“We’re just friends,” Lacey said warmly.

Pookie yipped and reached out for Bonnie Sue to hold her. Bonnie Sue’s face melted as she held Banesville’s best little white dog.

Just then thunder boomed outside and fierce rain began to fall, just like the National Weather Service had predicted.

After that, the music started; a slow dance this time.

“Come on,” I said to Zack. “This doesn’t require much.” I took him by the hand, and we walked to the dance floor.

I put my hand on his shoulder. He put his hand on mine and smiled. He was really very cute when he smiled.

“I almost didn’t come tonight,” he said, swaying briefly.

“I’m glad you did.”

I’m glad we all did—dateless and dated.

Lacey glided by, happily dancing with Pookie. They won the dance contest hands down.

Go Beasts!

The Bee
reported that a plan that had been months in the making would bring enormous relief to Banesville’s lagging tax base. “We need to move into the twenty-first century,” Mayor Fudd declared. “We’ll be having a Town Hall meeting on November 17 to discuss it. I’ve never been more excited about what Banesville can give to the world.”

I called the mayor’s office to ask what that was exactly.

“The mayor will be issuing a statement in the next few days.”

The Bee
was running a new series of articles about the “run-down orchards on Red Road that were an eyesore,”
and how revitalizing that land could be good for Banesville. They were taking on the high school, too, talking about the fact that fewer kids were getting into good colleges, which, as Zack found out, was true, but only because high school enrollment was down twelve percent.

“You could spin that any way,” Zack explained to us at
The Core
staff meeting. “Fewer high school kids are now getting the flu in October because we have fewer kids at the school. Fewer students are taking the SATs, going to the library, getting their hair cut.” He dropped his voice like an anchorman: “A new report shows that fewer students at Banesville High School are using the bathrooms, prompting town officials to ask
why?”

“That’s our headline!” Tanisha laughed. “And the photo ops are endless!”

I smiled at Zack. He grinned back.

Halloween was getting closer, but then every day was Halloween in Banesville.

There were reports in
The Bee
about moanings heard by the apple grove on the Ludlow property.

I got a statement from Sheriff Metcalf urging people to be “calm, reasonable, and
restrictive.”
We put that on
The Core
’s front page.

In response, the women’s auxiliary decided their annual haunted house fund-raiser wouldn’t cause much excitement and they sold mum plants instead.

The PTA cautioned parents to not let their children trick-or-treat.

Madame Zobeck vowed she’d be on Farnsworth Road all night long to commune with the spirits.

“We’ll be there, too,” promised Pinky Sandusky. The Elders Against Evil were wearing red berets now to go with their team shirts.

“So will we,” the sheriff said and he sent a deputy to watch the Ludlow house. Farnsworth Road was closed to visitors and tourists after 10:00
P
.
M
.

Halloween night in Banesville was a nonevent.

But the next day, Lull’s Cheap Gas had graffiti spray-painted across the station: D
EAR
G
OD
,
WHAT
’
S
NEXT
?

The Internet site Haunted Houses of New York elevated the Ludlow place from #6 to #1 on its list.

Big tour buses barreled in.

Nothing, it seemed, could stop the fear from growing.

I was at Minska’s, an excellent place to be when you’re not sure about the cosmos. I wondered what the world would be like by the time I got to be a paid reporter.

I looked at the pictures of Poland’s push to freedom.

History repeats itself—I’ve heard that so often.

“You know propaganda?” Minska asked me.

“Kind of.” We’d studied it in history. I sipped my hot caramel chocolate drink. You’ve got to drink this
slow.

“Tell me.” She crossed her arms across her chest.

“Well, it’s… it’s information put out by certain governments to oppress people.”

“Yes, but it’s not only the trade of governments.” She
walked to the big wooden bookcase against the wall. She opened the case, took out a big dictionary, and handed it to me. I looked up
propaganda.

The spreading of ideas, information or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person.

Ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause.

Minska walked over to the red
SOLIDARITY
poster. “Propaganda can happen anyplace,” she explained.