Slide (14 page)

I
look in on Mattie before I leave for school. She doesn’t stir. She sleeps the dreamless sleep of Ambien, but that’s a good thing. Without it, I don’t know what she’d dream of. Dying cheerleaders, broken bodies. She’s better off blank. For a moment, I pause, wondering if I shouldn’t stay home to watch over her, but I figure she’ll be safe with my dad.

In the driveway, Zane waits. I buckle my seat belt, though it won’t do anything to protect me from the wreck that awaits us at school. The principal has dismissed regular classes for the day and arranged an assembly.

When we arrive at school, we have to park across the street because the football field and most of the parking lot are blocked off with yellow police tape.

A couple of kids from Wise Choices usher everyone into the gym. They wear T-shirts that say
feeling blue? tell someone
. The bleachers are packed with antsy students and a few concerned-looking parents. I stand at the bottom for a moment, eyeing the stands. Rollins is nowhere to be seen. Neither is Scotch, for that matter.

The air buzzes with rumors. Everyone has their own theory about what happened to Amber. Some kids whisper that she was jealous of Sophie’s affair with Mr. Golden. Others say she killed herself out of guilt for pushing Sophie to the edge. Everyone knows how she sent that naked picture of Sophie to the entire football team.

I want to scream my suspicions out loud.
Sophie didn’t kill herself. Amber didn’t kill herself. There is a murderer among us, and everyone better watch out.
Instead, I concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other as Zane and I climb the bleachers. We find seats in the back, overlooking the entire student body and the nervous, shuffling teachers.

Zane squeezes my hand. “Everything is going to be okay.” Even though I’m sure he’s wrong, I appreciate the effort.

Three gigantic screens are set up on the gym floor. The middle one is parallel with the bleachers, and the other two are angled inward. Suddenly, the lights go out, and a projector begins flashing images and words onto the screens to the beat of a loud rock song. The pictures are of attractive, yet depressed, teenagers. A redhead fights with her friends. A guy in a baseball cap mopes on the steps in front of his school, his head in his hands. A beautiful blonde stands in front of a mirror, contemplating a bottle of pills.

Words like
sadness
,
loneliness
, and
depression
are interspersed with the pictures. The show goes on for about five minutes, and then one last slide pops up, stretching across all three screens. It’s the number for a suicide hotline.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” I mutter.

It’s gotten so hot. I can’t breathe. I Need. To. Get. Out. Of. Here.

Releasing Zane’s hand, I rise to go. He stands, as if to come with me, but I push him away. I just want to be alone. I just need the space to breathe. Somehow, I manage to pick my way down the bleachers and slip out of the gym.

The air in the hallway is much cooler. I lean against a trophy case filled with polished gold footballs and basketballs and squeeze my eyes shut, trying to figure out what bothered me so much about the assembly—beyond the obvious fact that it was arranged under completely false assumptions.

I think, though, that I still would have been sickened, even if Sophie and Amber really had committed suicide. There was something so commercial about it, something contrived. It was like the slide show was designed by MTV. I’m on
True Life: Someone Is Killing All the Cheerleaders and Making It Look Like Suicide.

When the vomity feeling passes, I wander away from the display case, down the hall, toward the girls’ bathroom. I round a corner and stop dead in my tracks.

Halfway down the hall, Scotch is shuffling some papers inside a locker.

I take a step backward, out of sight. What would Scotch be doing in the freshman hallway? After a few seconds, I hear a locker door slam. I tense up when I hear his footsteps, but they get softer and softer. He’s going the other way.

Cautiously, I poke my head out to see if he’s gone. I glimpse the back of his jacket as he turns a corner and heads toward the student exit. Something black is crumpled on the floor about halfway down the hallway.

I count to ten, in case Scotch realizes he dropped something and comes back for it. When he doesn’t, I come out from my hiding spot and make my way toward the black thing. It’s a leather glove.

A thought flashes through my mind:
Maybe I can use this.

I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. I’ve always thought of my sliding as a disability, something that happened
to
me without my consent. But what if I could somehow force myself to slide while holding that glove?

The idea of entering Scotch’s head chills me. Every time I see him, I feel physically ill. I was barely able to handle my encounter with him when I slid into Amber. Would I really be capable of purposefully sliding into him?

I picture my sister—at home, in bed, in an Ambien coma. Helpless. If I don’t do something to figure out who the killer is, she could very well be next.

I make my decision. I swoop down, pick up the glove, and stuff it into my pocket. Once it’s there, I get a little paranoid that Scotch will realize he dropped his glove and come back, so I backtrack toward the gym.

All the classrooms are dark and empty, except for one—Mr. Golden’s room. When I passed by it before, I hadn’t noticed the light on, but now I realize someone is inside. I approach it cautiously and stand just outside the door, peeking in. Principal Nast is standing with his back to me, and Mr. Golden is sitting at his desk, looking down at his folded hands. I step back slightly so that he won’t see me if he looks up.

Mr. Nast speaks first, sounding kind of embarrassed. “Joe, is it true that you knew about Sophie Jacobs’s pregnancy?”

A pause.

“Yes. She came in on Friday to talk to me about the situation.”

Nast clears his throat. “Can you tell me who the father is?”

“I’m sorry, Steve, but I just don’t feel comfortable giving you that information. The girl is dead. Shouldn’t she have some privacy?”

“Here’s the thing. I’ve been getting some complaints. All these rumors are making parents nervous about you teaching their kids. Any information you gave me at this point would help me to clear your name. Otherwise, I’m going to need you to take a leave of absence until this thing blows over.”

Another pause.

“Joe, I’m trying to help you here.”

Mr. Golden says nothing.

Mr. Nast makes a frustrated sound and exits the room. As he passes by me, I turn to a random locker and spin the lock. He glares at me before heading toward the gym. When he’s gone, I peer into Mr. Golden’s room. He hasn’t moved. He’s just sitting there, staring at his hands.

The new, proactive me whispers that I should try to get some information from him. Even if he is the killer, there’s not much he can do to me here at school. Maybe I can even sneak something with his imprint on it, something that will help me check up on him later.

“Mr. Golden?” I take a step inside. He raises his head, looking confused at the sound of his own name. “Hey . . . uh, I had some questions about the reading assignment. Do you have a minute?”

He stares at me like I’m from another planet.

“Mr. Golden? Are you okay?”

He heaves an enormous sigh. “I can’t believe this is my life.” He seems to be talking to himself more than to me. He goes to the closet, pulls out a box, and returns to his desk. He starts throwing random things inside—a half-empty bag of cough drops, a stuffed Homer Simpson doll, some
Newsweek
magazines.

“People have been talking. They think I had something to do with the deaths.” He forms his syllables in a simple monotone—no inflection whatsoever. He doesn’t sound angry or upset or anything. Just numb.

“Why would they think that?” I ask carefully.

“Because people want someone to blame,” Mr. Golden replies bitterly. “Sophie came to me for help. I go to her church, and I know her family. When she got pregnant, she asked me for advice. I guess someone saw us together and got the wrong idea.”

I think carefully about his words. Would a teacher drive a student around, even if they were a friend of the family? Even if they did go to church together? It still seems suspicious.

“Now that Amber’s dead, people are making up all kinds of stories. I tell you, people just want to believe the worst.” He mutters something about a “goddamn witch hunt” and then goes back to packing up his things.

“So what are you going to do?” I ask, looking around his room for something that would fit in my pocket.

“What
can
I do? I’m going to go home.”

I hear voices in the hallway. The assembly must be over.

“I should leave,” I say.

“You probably should,” Mr. Golden says, turning back to his desk.

That’s when I see it—sitting right there, in plain sight. It was there all the time. Why didn’t I notice it before?

The desk calendar.

It looks so harmless—just a plain desk calendar that you’d pick up at any office supply store. White pages, the month and date in a thick, black font. Just like the page that was stuck to my front door the day Sophie died.

I feel like I can’t breathe. My heart is hammering underneath my shirt. Somehow, I force myself to turn around naturally and head for the door. I look back once, to make sure Mr. Golden is still focused on packing, and then I dart my hand out and grab a tiny figurine from the bookshelf next to the door.

And then I’m gone.

I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket as I tread my way through the sea of students.

“Hello?”

It’s my father. “Hey, Vee—could you do me a favor and pick up Mattie’s books? I have a feeling she’ll be missing at least a few more days. It’d be nice if she could make up some schoolwork at home.”

“Uh, sure,” I say, and then hang up. When I put my phone away, I pull the stolen figurine out of my pocket. It’s a tiny bronze statue of Sigmund Freud. It seems like the sort of thing Mr. Golden would cherish. Sticking it back in my pocket, I hope he’s left some sort of emotional charge on the object. I really don’t want to return to his room to try to get something else.

Students rush past me, heading for the exit. They chat excitedly, thrilled to get an early start on the weekend. I fight my way toward my sister’s locker. A well-placed punch causes it to pop right open.

I gasp.

Everything in her locker has been tossed to the floor— her textbooks, her gym clothes, the pictures of her and Sophie and Amber that had been taped to the inside of the door. All of it is jumbled at the bottom of her locker in a mess.

Kneeling, I pick up a piece of a photograph that’s been ripped to pieces. Half of my sister’s face, painted to look like a cat, smiles. It’s the picture from the state fair last summer.

I try to drop the picture, but it clings to my fingers. It’s covered with a sticky, red substance. When I realize what it is, my stomach drops, and I cover my mouth, afraid I’m going to vomit.

The bottom of Mattie’s locker is covered in blood.

I open my mouth and scream.

“What’s wrong? Vee?” Strong hands grasp my shoulders. I turn around, see that it’s Zane, and bury my head against his chest.

We’re sitting in Zane’s car, waiting for the parking lot to clear out. He traces circles on my back with his fingertip as I wait for my dad to pick up the phone.

“Pick up, pick up, pick up.”

“Hello?”

“Dad,” I say. “Um, I tried to get Mattie’s books, but I couldn’t remember her combination. Could you ask her for me?” I don’t want to tell my father the bottom of Mattie’s locker was coated with red paint. I need to figure out what it means first. I just need him to tell me that Mattie’s okay.

I listen to him shuffle around, praying that he’ll find Mattie safe in her bed. I hear muffled voices, and I let out a sigh of relief. If the mess in Mattie’s locker was meant to be a warning, the killer hasn’t struck yet.

“She says nineteen, thirty-four, eighty-six,” my dad says. “Thanks for doing this.”

“No problem,” I say, looking at the pile of books stashed by my feet. I tried to clean them off the best I could, but they’re still pretty gross. I’ll have to figure out how to explain that later, I guess. “I’ll be home soon.”

I hang up and sit motionless, staring at my phone.

“When is this going to end?” I wonder aloud.

“When is what going to end?” Zane asks.

“This insanity. When is it going to end? Sophie’s dead. Amber’s dead. And now someone is targeting my sister.” It occurs to me that Scotch was in the hall minutes before me. If he wasn’t at the assembly, what was he doing?

“Do you really think someone wants to hurt Mattie?” he asks.

“Why else would someone do that to her locker? It’s a pretty sick prank to play on someone right after two of their friends die. God. It looked so much like blood,” I say, remembering the way Sophie’s white sheets had turned all scarlet and clotty, just like the stuff at the bottom of Mattie’s locker. My hands haven’t stopped shaking.