Scary Mary

Scary Mary

S.A. Hunter

Smashwords edition

© 2010 S.A. Hunter

ISBN 978-1-4523-7085-9

Visit the author online at
www.sahunter.net

Smashwords Edition, License Notes:

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment
only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people.
If you would like to share this book with another person, please
download an additional copy for each person or direct them to the
author’s website for free reading options.

Cover design by S.A. Hunter.

Original photo by Dave Parker. Used in compliance of
terms of Creative Commons liscence. Dave Parker retains ownership
of original photo. Photo manipulated by S.A. Hunter.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Chapter 1

Hello, Leave Me Alone

Mary’s steps echoed down the locker-lined
hallway. Doors whisked shut as she passed. She caught snippets as
the doors closed: Welcome back for a new school year; hope everyone
had a nice summer; please turn to page sixty-four. She’d been in
one of those classrooms, bored out of her mind and doodling
pentagrams onto the cover of her spiral notebook. She wished that
she still were.

When she shoved the door to the guidance
counselors’ suite of offices, it bounced off the door stop and
startled the attendance secretary Mrs. Higgins. Mary marched past
the scowling secretary to Mr. Landa’s office. She raised her hand
to knock, but it opened before her fist could fall.

Mr. Landa greeted her with an already weary
smile. "Welcome back, Mary."

Mary put her fist on her hip. “Who gets called
to the guidance office on the first day of freaking school?”

Mr. Landa’s smile didn’t falter as he held the
door open for her. She rolled her eyes and ducked by him.

From behind the desk, a disembodied female voice
said,
“I’m so sorry, Mary. I tried to stop him from summoning
you. I hid his pass pad. Made all of his pens leak. I even banged
his knees with the desk drawers. I can’t believe he had the office
secretary call you over the P.A. system. Whatever happened to
student confidentiality?”

As she took a seat, she flashed a smile toward
Mrs. Brown, or at least, where she thought Mrs. Brown was judging
from where her voice emanated. Mary couldn’t tell exactly because
she couldn’t see her. Mrs. Brown was a ghost. She haunted Mr.
Landa’s desk.

Mr. Landa didn’t know his desk was haunted. He
just thought it was a vexing piece of junk. Mrs. Brown had been a
school nurse. The desk had been hers when she’d been alive. It
wasn’t unusual for schools to reuse furniture. It also meant that
it wasn’t unusual for schools to have ghosts.

Once, Mr. Landa turned on the white noise
machine by the door and flipped his sign to ‘In Session’, he took
his seat. “I called you down here because we need to talk. Ready
for the new school year?”

She slouched down into the chair. “No, but ready
or not, right?”

Mr. Landa shuffled the papers on his desk. “I
hope this year is good for you. What did you do over the
summer?”

“
The usual. Talked to ghosts. Cavorted
with demons. Worked on my tan.”

Her answer made him pause. He took a moment to
process it and looked at her. Her skin was pearly white. “Well…I’m
glad you had a productive summer. I called you in today because I
wanted to touch base with you on a few things.”

She frowned at him. “And you couldn’t wait until
after the first day of school?”

He gave her a wry smile. “I did wait. It’s
second period. I thought about calling you out of first.”

“
He’s not joking.”

Mary slouched down further in her chair. Mr.
Landa flipped open her file. “All right, let’s not have a repeat of
last year, shall we? First, no beaning boys in the head with soft
balls.”

She shrugged. “I can’t help it that he didn’t
duck.”

Mrs. Brown tsked.
“You broke that boy’s
nose.”

“
No spiking girls’ milks with
Ex-Lax
.”

“
Did the janitors ever manage to unclog
that toilet?”

“
No more threatening to shrink freshmen’s
heads.”

Mary’s eyes snapped up. “Now come on! You’ve got
to leave me something!”

Mr. Landa closed the file. “This is a warning
Mary, either shape up, or you’ll be expelled and that would be a
terrible shame, seeing how you’ve made it to your junior year. Your
grades are good. We know you deserve to be here. Try to work with
us.”

“
I heard Mr. Landa talking to Principal
Hoke. She wants to expel you. He had to promise to keep a very
close eye on you.”
This was one of the problems with Mrs. Brown
haunting Mr. Landa’s desk. Sometimes there was justification for
the guidance counselor’s meddling, though Mary would have been
happy not knowing it.

“
I’ll do my best,” she said, but her voice
didn’t hold much promise.

Not all of Mary’s transgressions were strictly
her fault. Her bad deeds were not done to innocent victims. She’d
broken the football player’s nose with the softball because he’d
been ragging on her for the past four days. He’d been asking her if
she liked corpses. Did their cold bodies make her hot? Did she
drink her own menstrual blood? Disgusting stuff like that. The
coaches had heard a lot of it, but they didn’t tell him to quit it.
Fact was some of them had snickered at his comments. When she’d
seen her chance to shut him up, she’d taken it. He never asked her
any more questions. Ditto for the girl and freshmen. They should’ve
listened when she told them to shut up.

“
Very good. You know people would be a lot
nicer to you if you let them.” Mrs. Brown gasped. Even she knew
that was a lie.

Mary’s eyes narrowed, and her jaw tightened.
“You want ME to be nicer? Nicer to the teachers who ignore
everything until I do something? Or the vice principals who always
assume I’m the troublemaker? Or maybe you mean my classmates who
are all oh so friendly and nice as they sneer and insult me?”

“
Mary...”
Mrs. Brown
warned.

He crossed his arms and leaned back in his
chair. “Have you ever tried just telling those that upset you to
stop? I know it sounds too simple and couldn’t possibly work, but
maybe you should try it.”

“
Oh, just ask nicely and say
please?”

He nodded. “What could it hurt?”

She straightened and dropped her jaw in fake
amazement. “Wow! Why didn’t I think of that? I’ll just say please
and thank you, and the world will be a better place!”

He peered over his glasses at her. “Tell me, has
what you’ve been doing worked any better?”

She crossed her arms and looked away.

“
Just try it once and see what happens. If
it doesn’t work, you’ll at least know for sure.”

“
I have tried being nice. ‘Please don’t
call me that. Please give me my teddy bear back. Please don’t push
me. Please don’t kick me. Please stop throwing rocks at me.’ They
just laughed, and the teachers just watched.”

“
And how old were you when all that
happened?”

She hunched over and stared at the floor. “I was
six.”

“
Don’t you think they’ve changed by
now?”

“
No, they’ve just gotten bigger
rocks.”

“
Now, I know children didn’t actually
throw rocks at you while your teachers watched.”

Her jaw tightened. This was another reason why
seeing Mr. Landa was stupid. He rarely believed her when she told
him real stuff. “They did.”

“
No teacher would stand by and watch a
child be abused like that.”

“
You’re right. Mrs. Haversham turned away
when it began.”

He shook his head. He didn’t believe her.

She clenched her fists to keep herself in check.
It wouldn’t do to get emotional. He would only make a note in her
file. “It did happen. Just like everything else I’ve ever told
you.”--Except for the cavorting with demons, the abduction by
little green men, and the Elvis sighting. Mary told Mr. Landa
outrageous things because he insisted she tell him something. She’d
tried to tell him the truth at first, but like now, he always
refused to believe her. She wished she hadn’t tried to tell him
something truthful now.

He waved away the disagreement. “It’s long in
the past now. We should focus on this school year. Don’t antagonize
the other students. Don’t talk back to the teachers. Don’t cause
trouble.”

She stared at a spot over his head and gave him
a clipped nod. She just wanted to get out of there.

“
Okay, we’ll talk more next week. Go and
get a pass from Mrs. Higgins. I’ll see you next Wednesday during
third period, okay?” He pushed himself to his feet and moved to
leave his desk but tripped hard over a side drawer that had slid
open. He banged his leg and had to grab the desk to stop himself
from belly flopping to the floor. His face went maroon. She knew he
was biting his tongue to not curse. Mrs. Brown didn’t like it
either that Mr. Landa didn’t believe Mary. Mary stood up with an
unrepentant cheery smile.

“
Mary, hang in there. High school isn’t
forever. It won’t always be like this.”
She knew what Mrs.
Brown said was right on one level, but she was wrong on another.
She would always hear ghosts and that meant she would always be
different.

With a vague wave to Mrs. Brown, though Mr.
Landa thought it was for him and nodded goodbye while nursing his
bruised shin, she exited the office. She weighed the pros and cons
of skipping school next Wednesday. If she skipped, no meeting with
Mr. Landa. On the con side, she would possibly get written-up for
ditching, and Mr. Landa would reschedule and lecture her on
skipping school. The pro side still edged out the con side.

Mrs. Higgins was busy with a student. Mary
leaned against the wall to wait. She needed a pass if she didn’t
want to get into trouble when she returned to second period. From
her vantage point, she saw that Mrs. Higgins was showing the male
student a map of the school.

Mrs. Higgins’ voice droned like an old automated
message. “All even numbered rooms are on the first floor, and all
odd numbered rooms are on the second floor. Stairways are here and
here. Any room with a letter connected to it is in the gym wing.”
Mary crossed her arms and tapped her foot. Mrs. Higgins didn’t even
glance at her to acknowledge her presence. She really wished she
had some forged hall passes.

As she waited, she scanned the new guy to
identify his destined clique. He had on a loose pair of jeans, a
pair of scruffy
Nikes
, and a faded green T-shirt.
Surprisingly, the ratty baseball cap required for all teenage boys
was absent. He had wavy dark blond hair. The absence of hat, nice
hair, and all right looks tipped the scales to Shiny person. Shiny
people were the ‘in’ crowd. They were always happy, got the car for
their sixteenth birthday, had girlfriends or boyfriends, always got
invited to the party, and were the people everyone else wanted to
be or date. The exact opposite of Mary.

The guy glanced over his shoulder at Mary to
give her a rueful smile. Mary was flustered by being caught staring
and dropped her eyes to the floor. When Mary peeked up at the guy
through her lashes, his smile had changed to a good-humored grin.
Mary’s mouth twitched in response, but she pressed her lips
together to keep from smiling back. Mrs. Higgins snapped her
fingers to get the guy’s attention back on the map.

Mr. Landa came wandering out of his office with
an empty coffee mug dangling from his fingers. He stopped when he
saw the new guy, then he looked at Mary. She could see the wheels
turning in his head. He was plotting something and that was never
good for her. He moved over to stand beside her and waited for Mrs.
Higgins to finish with the new guy. She tried to edge away, but he
dropped his free hand onto her shoulder to keep her from
leaving.

While the secretary wrote the guy a pass, Mr.
Landa stepped forward and dragged her with him. “Are you a new
student?” he asked. The guy nodded. Mr. Landa let go of Mary to
extend his hand for a shake. He pumped the guy’s hand like a
used-car salesman. She began edging away again.

“
Welcome to Eastern Snyder High, I’m Mr.
Landa, one of the guidance counselors. I’m here if you ever need to
talk.”

“
Hi, I’m Cy. I mean Cyrus Asher, um, new
student,” said the guy.

“
If you think you’re balanced, he’ll
convince you, you’re not,” muttered Mary. The new guy glanced at
her in surprise, and then shot her a grin. Mr. Landa heard her too
and grabbed her shoulder again to pull her back into the impromptu
group.