Rhymes With Witches (27 page)

That night I dreamed of a mouthless kitten. As in, no mouth where the mouth should be. Just a knob of fur. I reached to pet it—poor little thing—and a mouth yawned into being with a terrific snap. It latched onto my hand with tiny sharp teeth, and I couldn't shake it off. Its body was warm and pulpy.

I awoke with a gasp and knew I had to go back. I didn't want to, more than anything I didn't want to, but I knew I had no choice. I had to return to Lurl's office and straighten everything up, and hopefully Lurl wouldn't notice that Camilla's things were missing, at least not right off the bat. Then I would leave, and it would all be behind me.

So after breakfast—during which Mom asked if I had a good time at the Fall Fling, and I answered, “Uh-huh”—I dumped out the contents of my backpack to find my key. But the key wasn't there. My pulse accelerated, and I riffled through the contents again. Kleenex, a smushed Mike and Ike box, a couple of tarnished pennies. But where else could it be? I'd unlocked the door, the tomcat had attacked, and—
shit
.

I must have left the key in Lurl's lock, where it would be sitting in what was now plain daylight. Yet another reason to get over there before anyone else came along.

I dragged my bike out of the garage and pumped hard all the
way to school. I used the basement door, same as before, and rushed up the stairs to the third floor. It was easier with the sun streaming through the windows. It was easier, in the light, to push aside thoughts of cats in the walls.

I opened the heavy door that led to the rarely used corridor, and by the baseboard I spotted my teddy bear. I scooped it up and scanned the floor for the J pendant, but the floor was bare. The cat must have run off with it.

I approached Lurl's office, and I felt a sudden hollow rush in my chest.
No,
I prayed.
Please, no.

The door was locked. My key was gone.

My first thought was Bitsy. She'd one-upped me again, and now she was going to hold it over me to make me sweat. Or maybe it was Keisha? Maybe she'd sensed something was up and trailed me for the sake of damage control. Good ol' Keisha, always the worrywart. And in this case it had paid off.

Or shit, maybe it was Lurl. Maybe she'd made a midnight jaunt to her shrine, maybe only minutes after Camilla and I left. I got the heebie-jeebies thinking about it. What if she'd lurched in on us? I couldn't imagine what she'd have done.

My bike jounced over a bump, and I tried to focus on the road. But my mind was too busy conjuring up possibilities. Lurl with the key. Mary Bryan with the key, which wouldn't be
so
bad. Everyone yelling at me. The kittens' frantic hunger.

Bottom line, I'd screwed up.
Bad Jane. Naughty, naughty girl.

But whoever had my key would have to give it back, even if they punished me for it first in some stupid way. Because for the Bitches to exist, there had to be four.

“Keisha!” I called out when I saw her the next morning. I jogged to her locker. “Thank god. I ran into Mary Bryan on the front stairs, and she cruised by me without even saying ‘hi.' I mean, obviously she must not have seen me, but it made me paranoid. But everything's good, right?”

Keisha's eyes flew to mine, then away. She focused on filling her backpack.

“I know I pissed her off,” I said. “I maybe, you know, said some things I shouldn't have. But she's not
ignoring
me, is she?”

“Jane …” Keisha said.

My muscles tightened. Still, I pulled my mouth into a smile shape. “What? Are you pissed, too? I'm
sorry
, okay? Throw me in the chokey. Feed me to the dogs.”

Keisha closed her locker. The look she gave me was sad, not angry, and she said, “I wouldn't have let anything happen, you know. At Camilla's.”

“Oh, I know,” I said. “I
totally
know. And I guess I was, like, overreacting or whatever. But that doesn't—”

Keisha walked away, leaving me talking to nobody.

After homeroom, I hunted down Mary Bryan. I felt bad about my picnic table comment, and I wanted to apologize. She would try
to stay aloof, but she'd relent despite herself. And then she'd give me some answers.

I skipped English to talk to her, because I knew on Mondays she had first period free. I found her on the steps of Hamilton. She was wearing a pale blue sweater that matched her eyes.

“Are you mad at me?” I asked.

“Me?” she said. She kept her expression neutral. “Why would I be mad?”

Fine,
I thought.
Let her get it out of her system.
“Because I just wanted to say I'm sorry,” I said. “I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.”

She gazed at me. Then, in a voice as bland as her expression, she said, “Okay, thanks.” She returned to her algebra.

I didn't know quite what to do. Was that it? Was I forgiven? It didn't feel as if I was forgiven.

“It was just a really bad night,” I said. “I was totally stressed out. Obviously. And then after you guys left, even
more
stuff happened”—I watched for her reaction—“and now it's like,
whoa
, my head is totally spinning, you know?”

Nothing. Not a flicker of an eyelid. But she had to know what I referring to, because somebody had my freaking key.

“Mary Bryan …”

She lifted her head. She smiled her nice-girl smile, the one she gave everyone. “I'm really kind of busy. I've got a math test, and I'm
so
unprepared.” She wrinkled her nose, her cute little show of
we're all in this together
, and my chest constricted.

“Mary Bryan, come on,” I said. I heard how my voice sounded, and my heart beat faster. I nudged her toe. “Mary Bryan!”

“Ex
cuse
me?” she said. Gone was the buddy act. She looked at me as if I were trash.

My face flamed. “I'm sorry. I'm
sorry
, okay? Why are you shutting me out?”

“I have a
math
test,” she said. “I'm sorry if you're feeling fragile, and I'm sorry I can't rub your tummy and make everything all better. But I have to study.”

I backed away.

Something was terribly, terribly wrong.

With Bitsy, my exchange was as stupid and pointless as I should have known it would be. Which I
did
know it would be, but which I convinced myself of otherwise, out of sheer desperation.

Me:
Bitsy, hold up. We need to talk.

Bitsy:
Why, Jane, aren't you adorable. Is that a new shirt you're wearing?

Me:
What? I'm not … I just need you to … Just listen, okay?

Bitsy:
Well, something's different, I just know it. Is it your hair?

Me:
Drop the act, Bitsy. I know you're all mad or whatever, but I also know that you need me. So play your little game if that's what you need to do, but get real: You're nothing without me.

Bitsy, laughing:
Oh, pet. I think you've got it backward.

Me:
You have to have four. You have to.

Bitsy:
How sweet of you to care. Ta, now!

As she made her parting remark, she actually patted me on the head. Then she breezed off in her flippy lime-green skirt, her doggy-ears bouncing with every step.

As for Camilla, the one time I saw her was before fourth period, as I was on my way to French. Camilla was on the quad talking to Sukie Karing, which struck me as odd until I remembered that Sukie, like Camilla, was one of
them
now, at least temporarily. One of the toads.

Still, I paused to stare. Camilla usually kept to herself, her spine ballerina stiff and her nose in a book. But today she had the look of someone wearing a fancy new outfit, both self-conscious and proud. A funny little smile played around her mouth, and real words went back and forth between her and Sukie. At one point Sukie even laughed—and not in a mean way.

Well, whoop-de-do for Camilla,
I thought. I guess our midnight jaunt had upped her confidence after all.

I started across the quad, then stopped, a half-formed thought itching at the back of my brain. A thought I never would have had if not for my crappy day, what with the Bitches' weird behavior. And now Camilla, gesturing with pale hands as she wooed a willing Sukie.

This was not the normal Camilla. There was nothing normal here at all.

I flashed back to the hallway outside Lurl's office, when Camilla and I had made our hasty escape.
Camilla
had turned off Lurl's lights.
Camilla
had shut the office door.

Nausea slammed into me. It wasn't Lurl who had taken my key, and it wasn't any of the Bitches. And it wasn't the cat who had taken my pendant.

It was Camilla.