Scary Mary (7 page)

"Was that your grandma?"

"Yeah, she drove me over."

"What, to apologize?"

"No, I told her we had to work on an English
project together."

"But you’re here to apologize, right?"

"Not really."

"Then why are you here?"

"I wanted to get out of doing chores?" Yes, this
was going well.

He shook his head. "And you thought you could
just come over here and hide out like last night didn’t
happen?"

"No, I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t think she’d
insist on driving me over. I wouldn’t be here otherwise."

"So you lied to your grandmother. My picture of
you just keeps changing."

"Look, I’m sorry for just showing up, but we do
need to talk. Last night was a big mistake, but we have to deal
with it."

"Deal with it? Us? No, it was your mistake. You
scared everybody. You did it on purpose, and it wasn’t cool."

"But I didn’t do it on purpose. I mean, yeah, I
asked Ricky a really bad question, which I shouldn’t have,
but--"

He threw up his hands to stop her. "I cannot
believe you. You’re still going on with the hoax? With me?"

"What? It wasn’t a hoax. Your house is--"

He slammed the door in her face.

"Cy!" She banged on the door. "I can
explain!"

"Go away!"

"It wasn’t a prank! I swear!"

He jerked the door back open. "Shut up! This is
my home. You’re messing with my home--The place where my folks
sleep at night, and you’re trying to ruin it with your ghost talk.
Go away. We don’t know each other anymore." He slammed the door
again.

"Cy!" she shouted, but there was no
response.

She stepped off the doorstep with wobbly legs.
He wasn’t going to listen to her. He wasn’t going to let her
explain. He didn’t want to hear.

Mary walked to the park and lay on a bench until
the sun was low. She didn’t think. She didn’t cry. Those weren’t
tears she wiped off her face.

When she went home, Gran was busy reading Tarot
cards for some giggling college girls. Mary fixed herself a bite to
eat and stayed in her room. Gran called up to her and asked her if
she needed anything. She called down that she didn’t. She must’ve
sounded normal because Gran didn’t come up to check on her, but she
didn’t look normal. For some reason, her eyes were red and
puffy.

Monday came, and Mary got up early and slipped
out of the house before Gran was dressed. She was avoiding her. If
she didn’t know what had happened, then nothing was wrong. She
walked slowly to school so she would arrive late. She was not going
to spend a minute longer than she had to there. She slipped into
class quietly, but as soon as everyone saw her, they began
whispering. She murmured an apology to the teacher and took her
seat. Those around her either moved or made it very clear that they
didn’t want her near them. She stared down at her textbook as the
teacher droned about parallelograms. A piece of paper floated to
rest in front of her desk. On it was written, ‘What rhymes with
“bitch”?’ She stared down at it and wondered when the burning at
the stake was scheduled.

Her day didn’t improve as it progressed.
Everyone gave her a wide berth in the halls, and conversations were
cut short as soon as she was spotted. She walked in a bubble of
silence and loneliness that entire day. Rachel was still in Aspen,
the lucky dog, but without her, she didn’t have a single living
soul to talk to.

When the last class of the day finally came,
Mary wasn’t eagerly anticipating it. She was dreading it. She got
to class early and sat in the far corner. Everyone took her hint
and sat several seats away from her. The room filled up quickly.
She watched Vicky take a seat on the other side of the room, but
before she sat down, she scanned the class and found her. She gave
Mary a cool once over then sat down. She put her books on the seat
beside her. Mary didn’t need a ghost to tell her who that seat was
for.

A second before the tardy bell rang, Cy arrived.
Vicky didn’t even need to call to him. He walked straight over to
her and took the saved seat. Mrs. Myers handed out a worksheet for
the class to do. For twenty minutes, Mary worked on it diligently
but distractedly. After the second time that she had to erase what
she’d written, she looked up, and her eyes went to Cy. Vicky was
saying something to him, and he was nodding his head. She saw him
sigh and glance away. The only place his eyes could go was to her
side of the room. Their eyes met for a second. He looked away
without a reaction. She realized with a sickening gulp that Cy
wasn’t sitting with Vicky because he wanted to but because he
wanted to stay as far away from her as possible. That hurt.

She scribbled some nonsense onto the worksheet
and looked at the clock. Another twenty-five minutes until this
torture was over. She didn’t know if she could survive another
twenty-five seconds.

When the last bell rang, Mary hurriedly
collected her things, but Vicky wasn’t going to let her escape
without one last pass over the flames. “Hey, you’re coming over
tonight, right? I could really use a little tutoring.”

“
Yeah, I’m not doing anything else,” he
replied without any feeling. Vicky caught her gaze and smiled
triumphantly. Her friends took the cue and snickered together. Mary
left the classroom without a backward glance.

She arrived home in record time, too upset by Cy
and Vicky to think about dawdling. Gran was waiting for her in the
living room when she opened the door. She stopped short when she
saw her. “Don’t you have an appointment this afternoon?”

“
And good afternoon to you too. Mrs. Polk
cancelled. How was your day at school, dear?”

“
I have homework to do,” she
mumbled.

“
Sit.”

She looked at the couch. That was the last spot
she wanted to be. Staying in class and letting Vicky lord it over
her some more was preferable to this. Gran pointed at the spot
beside her. There was no getting out of this. Her heels dragged as
she moved over to the couch. She sat down but couldn’t face Gran.
She didn’t want to talk. She wanted to go up to her room and listen
to loud, angry music. She hunched over and stared at the floor.

Gran reached out and ran her hand down her back,
right over her spine. Unable to stop herself, Mary’s back uncurled,
and she leaned back into the sofa’s back. A small puff on annoyance
escaped her lips. She wished that trick didn’t work on her. Gran
didn’t pay any mind to her irritation. Instead she began to softly
comb the back of Mary’s hair with her hand. It was soothing but
Mary didn’t want soothing. She wanted to go be miserable.

“
What’s wrong? You’ve been down in the
dumps lately. Was there a problem at school? Did you and Cy have a
fight?”

“
Yeah, and now he knows what a freak I am
and has wisely decided that hanging out with me would be
detrimental to his mental, social, and physical health.”

“
What in the world happened? He sounded
like such a nice boy, nothing like most of the children around
here.”

She crumbled. He had been nice. He’d been cool
and funny and he’d like her. Large tears welled up in her eyes.

“
What happened?” Gran put her arm around
her and plucked a few tissues from the box on the coffee table.
Mary leaned into her and let the tears slip. Gran rubbed her back
and murmured soothing words as she quietly hiccupped as she cried.
Gran dabbed her face.

“
Honey, tell Grandma,” she
said.

She leaned back and looked at the ceiling. She
took a deep breath to collect herself. “I heard a ghost in his
house.” She didn’t want to tell the story. It made her sick when
she thought about it now, but Gran would at least understand.

Gran squeezed her shoulders to give reassurance.
“Did you tell him about it? Did that upset him? I’ve told you that
those who don’t believe in the spirits wouldn’t understand your
gift.”

She shook her head and sat up. “No, I didn’t
tell him that there was a ghost in his house. It was worse. We were
watching a movie when Kyle, Cy’s older brother, showed up with two
girls from school. One of them was Vicky. They’d brought a Ouija
board with them, and Vicky wanted to have a séance. I’d heard the
ghost before they arrived. I knew he was trouble, but I didn’t want
to leave Cy alone to deal with them. They set up the Ouija board
and started asking questions, and the ghost answered. He scared
everyone, but Vicky thought I was tricking them. So to call me out,
she told me to ask it a question, so I did. I asked him bad
questions. Questions to make him angry.”

“
Mary, why didn’t you just
leave?”

“
Because it was Vicky. She’s always made
fun of me and picked on me as if I didn’t have enough problems. I’m
sorry, Gran, but I had to give them a little taste of what I go
through. I just wish Cy hadn’t been there.” She started to hiccup
again. “I scared him, Gran, and now he doesn’t want to be around me
anymore.”

Gran tried to comfort her, but she felt too
guilty to be soothed. She finally sent her up to her room with a
glass of warm milk and told her everything would be better the next
day. Mary drank the milk and fell asleep quickly. She slept like
she wished the dead would.

The next morning, Mary woke feeling somewhat
better. Better being she didn’t want to move to the middle of
nowhere like North Dakota and raise emus. She wouldn’t mind though
spending the whole day curled in a ball with all of her bedding
tightly wrapped around her, but she knew she had to go to school.
She went down to the kitchen and found Gran puttering around making
breakfast. “Sleep well, dear?”

“
I slept.”

Gran reached out and felt her cheek and
forehead. “You look a little pale. Would you like to stay home
today? I could call the school and excuse you."

She shrugged off the comforting hand. “No, I’m
going. Like they say, today’s the first day of the rest of my
terrible life.”

“
Things will get better.” She put a cereal
bowl and the milk down in front of her.

“
Yeah, after I’m dead.”

“
You have to be more optimistic. Things
are never as bad as they appear.”

“
I wish you were right, Gran."

When she said good-bye, Gran told her to be
brave. Mary wished she could, but she just felt numb.

~~ ~~ ~~

She was eating alone on the school lawn when
someone bopped her on the back of the head. “What’s this I hear
about the dead being raised at Cy’s house?”

Rachel was back. She smiled weakly at her. “All
you hear is true.”

“
What? Did you really work some
mojo?”

“
Yeah, but I had some help from
Vicky.”

Rachel sank to the ground across from her. “What
happened?” She gave her an abbreviated version. She’d told Rachel
years ago about her ability, and her friend had accepted it. Rachel
had even said she thought Mary was cooler for her ability. She
hadn’t thought so, but she had sealed her place as her best friend
with the statement.

Rachel let out a deep breath. “Man, I leave for
a long weekend and look what happens.”

“
Yeah, you should’ve been there. It was a
blast.”

“
So he’s avoiding you?” she asked still
digesting what she had been told.

“
Yep. Can’t blame him, really. Weirdness
seems to follow me around.”

Rachel shook her head. “Weirdness didn’t follow
you to Cy’s house. Weirdness was already there.”

“
Nice of me to point it out
though.”

“
So he’s totally avoiding you?” she said,
making a sweeping motion with her hand.

“
Avoiding me so much, he’s tutoring
Vicky.”

“
That sucks."

She laughed hollowly. “That’s my life.”

“
It sounds to me like you need an ego
boost.”

“
What I need is a lobotomy.”

“
We’ll deal with Vicky later,” Rachel
joked. Mary tried to smile back, but she was running out of smiles.
Rachel looked at her in concern. “Mary, don’t beat yourself up
about this. If Cy is really a good guy, he’ll come back to you.
This isn’t your fault.”

“
I don’t know, Rach. I mean, if I hadn’t
spoken up during that stupid séance, he would be here now, eating
lunch with us.”

“
You can’t think like that. Like my mom
says, ‘If’s don’t make a bit of difference.”

“
If you say so.”

“
What do you think about this
ghost?”

“
He’s mean, angry, and
violent.”

“
Have you told Cy that?”

“
I tried. He doesn’t believe that there is
a ghost, and he doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“
We could find proof to convince him. This
guy’s a ghost AKA a dead guy, which means he was once a live guy.
In 1994. It shouldn’t be hard to find his obituary,
right?”

She tilted her head back. Did she really want to
get involved any further with Cy and his haunted house? He’d been
so nice to her at first. He’d wanted to be her friend. That was
until she showed him there was a ghost in his house. She didn’t
really blame him for freaking. She’d freaked a little herself. But
he hadn’t even given her a chance to explain. She still kind of
liked him. What if by trying to help him, she made him hate her
more? That question made her pause. She wanted him to like her
again, but he didn’t believe in ghosts, and if she got rid of the
ghost in his house, that wouldn’t mean anything to him. Right?