Rattled (11 page)

The whole way home, I noticed Mrs. Swicker's eyes hardly ever left the rear-view mirror. She was trying to monitor Sam and Jilly, who were sitting together in the back seat, and of course now it was dark, making it harder for her to spy. When she almost drove us off the road, I finally let loose my pentup hysterical laughter. Everyone in the van looked at me as though I was a raving lunatic.

If Jilly had some scenario in her head of a romantic goodbye neck fest under the porch light, she was sooo out of luck. Mrs. Swicker barely let them say see ya before she marched Sam and Megan up the driveway. Once again, Jilly and I were left standing there, just watching them.

Jilly followed me to my room and collapsed onto my bed. “Ohmygod, was that the most brutal evening of your life or what?” She had her arm flung over her eyes. “By the time I realized what was happening, that the Swickster was actually coming, it was too late to do anything.”

“It wasn't that bad, was it?” I wasn't sure if I should agree with her or not.

She rolled over and sat up on her elbows. “Oh come on! That woman
honestly
needs help.”

“At least she didn't sit with you.”

“She might as well have. I could feel her eyes drilling into the back of my head the whole time.”

No, that was me
. I nodded sympathetically.

“Anyways,” she continued. “It's never going to work.”

“What? Why?”

“God, all he talked about was his violin and music. Mozart this, Beethoven that. Like seriously, shoot me now. All I know about Beethoven is from that movie with the dog…yeah, I have to end it.”

“Um, Jilly, you've been to one movie, and that was with his mother. Is there really anything to end?”

“Look, Lydia, I've been down this road enough times, with enough guys to know it only takes one date, and they fall head over heels. I just have this magnetisism or something.”

“Magnetism,” I corrected.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Back to what I was saying,” she sighed. “I'm nipping this in the bud right away.”

“Well, you tried, Jilly. If he's not for you, he's not for you. I mean you gave him a good three hours of your life. What more can you do?”

“I know,” she said sadly. “I'm never getting those three hours back, either.”

I sat down beside her and rubbed her back in the most comforting way I could muster, the whole time thinking that sometimes things just work out.

Chapter 15

“H
oly crap! What's that smell?” I squished up my nose as I entered the kitchen.

Jilly was standing in front of the oven looking puzzled. “I dunno. Mom left us this frozen pizza for supper. I followed the directions.”

Smoke began to fill the inside of the oven. I hip-checked her out of the way and whipped open the oven door. “Jilly! You're supposed to take it off the cardboard!” I grabbed an oven mitt and a flipper and pulled out the smoking pizza, tossing it on the stovetop. “God, Jilly, next time just leave the plastic wrapper on so we can laminate the damn thing!” I fanned the air with the oven mitt.

“It didn't say anything about the cardboard!” she said, grabbing the box and scanning the directions.

“Look,” I pointed, “
Place pizza directly on rack
!
”

“Still doesn't say anything about the cardboard! You know, that's kind of like false advertising or something. It's obviously not as easy as they make it seem on the box!”

I seriously didn't know if I was going to be able to hang in another year until my parents shipped her off to some university. Halifax is a university town, and I lived in constant fear that she'd want to go to one here and, you guessed it, live at home. I'd gotten into the habit of dropping little tidbits of information here and there, like, “You know, Jilly, Mount Allison” (three hours away) “was voted best party university.” Or, “I think Mom would be so touched if you went to Acadia,” (an hour away) “it being her alma mater and all that.”

I heard a clunk as Jilly frisbee'd the empty box across the kitchen and it hit a chair.

“Well, what are we going to do now?” she whined.

I peeled the pizza off the cardboard. The crust was totally raw. “I'll try putting it on the lowest rack, maybe the crust will catch up to the top.” I slid the pizza back into the oven and pulled my butt up onto the counter. I looked out the window, across the street to the Swickers' house. I squinted, looking for signs of movement.

Jilly was watching me. “You better knock it off. Mom's really ticked at you. I heard her talking to Dad. They're thinking about sending you away to boarding school.”

“What?!”

“Okay, they're not, but still…I'd watch it if I were you.”

I gave Jilly a dirty look, but she was right. For all I knew, I was on double secret probation at this very moment. Mom loved springing that one on us when we least expected it. It was so secret it wasn't even
on
the punishment pyramid.

Jilly opened the oven to check the progress of the pizza. “This is totally gross. I'm
not
eating this.”

I rolled my eyes and continued watching the Swickers'. I wanted so badly to get back into their basement, to go through that box again. I couldn't stop thinking about it. Megan hadn't asked for the key again. I just needed to hold onto it till tomorrow. Tomorrow was Thursday, Sam's thing at the conservatory. But I didn't want to go in alone. I needed a lookout.

“I'm ordering out!” Jilly slammed the phone book on the table.

But who?

“If you want some of my pizza, you're paying for half !”

I need someone I can trust.

“I mean it. Go get your wallet. I want the money up front!”

Someone who's smart.

“You know, it's so weird that there's no T in pizza. No one says peeza or pieza
,
everyone says peetza.”

I swung my head to look at Jilly. She was still flipping through the phone book.
I need someone besides her.

“Quit staring at me and go get some cash,” she ordered.

I slid off the counter and headed to my room. The hamster in my head was going a mile a minute, round and round on his wheel. There was no way it could work. The number of things that could go wrong with Jilly as my accomplice was endless. If only Vicki and William weren't at their cottages…but they were. I really had no other choice. The upside was, at least Jilly agreed with me that Mrs. Swicker was a nut job.

I looked around my room for my wallet. I dug through a few drawers. Success. I grabbed a five and a toonie and jammed them in my pocket.

As I walked back to the kitchen, I wondered if I could maybe blackmail Jilly into helping me. Racking my brains, I searched for anything I had seen or heard that I could hold over her, but there wasn't anything. She was nearing the end of Phase Two, and counting the days until she was able to move onto probation. She knew she'd better not step one toe out of line.

I handed her my money. How much I could trust her? How desperate was I?

We both sat at the table and waited for the pizza. Jilly was scraping the mascara off her eyelashes. I couldn't seem to take my eyes off her. Using her thumb and finger, she methodically moved down her lash line, stopping to look at the black on her fingers before flicking the claylike crust onto the floor. It was fascinating in a disturbing kind of way.

“Oh! Get this!” she exclaimed. “I broke it off with Sam this morning. I swear he looked at me like I had four heads or something!”

“Yeah…probably just didn't see it coming.” I could only imagine what he must have been thinking. It was
one
movie. With his
mother
!

“Damn.” Jilly stared at her fingers, a giant frown on her face. “I pulled a bunch out! Didn't I read somewhere that eyelashes take forever to grow back in?”

“I doubt it.” Of course I was referring to the implication that she had actually read something. I didn't have a clue how long it took eyelashes to grow in.

“Yeah, didn't think so.”

I began carrying on a whole conversation in my head. Jilly? Or no Jilly? Weighing the pros and cons.

She was watching me with a weird look on her face. I'd probably been moving my lips.

“Are you having some kind of spell or something?”

I couldn't believe I was about to do this. “Jilly, I think I might need your help.”

The doorbell rang. The pizza was here.

“Hold that thought,” she said.

Maybe that was a sign. It wasn't too late. I could make something up, like I wanted her to highlight my hair or give me a pedicure.

Jilly put the box on the table and opened the lid. She poked the pizza. “It's still pretty hot.” She looked up. “So what do you need my help with?”

That kind of threw me off. She actually seemed interested. “Well.” I paused to swallow, my throat felt dry all of a sudden. “If you really want to know, I want to sneak into the Swickers', when they're not home, obviously, and I need someone to come with me, someone to be a lookout.”

“Sure.” She slid a piece of pizza onto a plate.

“What?”

“I said sure.”

“Don't you even want to know why?”

“No.”

Now this was an unexpected surprise. “What, no ‘What's in it for me?' or ‘How much is it worth to ya?'?”

“No,” she said, as she flicked her finger and broke the foot-long string of cheese that stretched from the slice to her mouth.

This was way too easy. “I don't get it.”

“Nothing to get,” she stated. “I know you think Mrs. Swicker is some crazed, psychotic, killing machine. I actually believe at least two out of those three adverbs.”

“You mean adjectives.”

“Whatever.”

“But you took Mom's side when I told her.”

“Well
yeah
. I know you don't think I'm the
sharpest
pencil in the drawer, but I'm not the
dumbest
either.”

I bit my lip to stop myself from smiling.

“Plus,” she continued. “You can't expect me to take your side while Mom's jumping down your throat, that just puts me in more trouble than I am already. I want that extra hour back on my curfew in this lifetime.”

“If we get caught, though, you're toast. We both are.”

“Pfft, we're not gonna get caught.” She waved a hand in the air. “This is going to be totally awesome. I've always wanted to do something like this, you know, break in under the cover of darkness and all that.”

“I got a key.”

“Dark clothing, surveillance, hiding in bushes…wait. You got a key?”

“From when I fed Peter.”

“Oh.” She seemed a little less enthusiastic now that we weren't
physically
breaking and entering.

“Come on, Jilly, don't you want to hear my plan?” I had to reel her back in.

“Okay, lay it on me.”

“All right. They're not going to be home tomorrow night. Sam's playing a solo. Megan will go too because Mrs. Swicker won't leave her home alone. It's at the conservatory, so that's a good twenty minutes travel time both ways, plus the actual performance. We should have loads of time—a quick in-out.” I picked a piece of pizza up from out of the box and bit off the end.

“So what are we looking for? A knife? A gun? Weapons of some sort?”

I almost choked on a wad of cheese. “No, nothing like that.” I grabbed a napkin and wiped my mouth. “There's a box in the furnace room. Inside are two silver rattles. I have to get a better look at them, see what else is in there. I ran out of time before.”

She gave me a look like she thought I was crazy. “You think she beat her husband to death with a couple of rattles?”

I sighed heavily. “No, Jilly.”

“Well what in the world could a couple rattles have to do with anything?”

“I dunno.” I got up and poured two glasses of milk. “That's what I'm hoping to find out. I can't get rid of this feeling that she's hiding something.”

“Hmmm,” Jilly rubbed her chin, deep in thought (or wiping off tomato sauce). “Okay, I'm in. And by the way, you owe me another loonie for half the pizza guy's tip.”

Chapter 16

T
he Swickers' van pulled away at seven o'clock. We'd have at least an hour and a half. I went to look for Jilly, even though I had told her about twenty times to be ready
before
seven.

She was in her room filing her nails, her hair wrapped up in a towel, turban style.

It felt like my head was going to explode. “Jilly! I told you to be ready! What's the matter with you?!”