The Shells Of Chanticleer (20 page)

“How can I explain this to you so you won’t fret about it and draw attention to us? It’s a funny thing about Chanticleer. It runs better when there is a mix of students. Fear can be so contagious. We can pass it on to each other, especially to our best friends, unwittingly and that can just make everyone’s job harder, and make some people stay much longer than they should. So you should be glad that you have a friend like me who is more advanced, who can support you, and who is a good example. I won’t pass anything bad to you whereas others might. So because I am farther along, I get to stay without worrying about tipping back home. I don’t have to worry about becoming a shell. I’m safe from all that. I’ve proved myself.”

Oh,
I thought, digesting his words.
That makes sense.

“When did you stop doing coursework?”

“Oh, I don’t know the exact date.”

I didn’t press. So that’s why he wasn’t worried about tipping back and leaving. “How come you never told me that?” I hadn’t realized he had secrets. Well, I had my own as well. I had to admit that I hadn’t been completely open with him either.

“I’m not supposed to talk it up too much. Not everyone gets the chance to stay, so I have to be circumspect. But I want you to know so you won’t worry. Don’t pass it on though,” he asked.

I nodded. Of course I wouldn’t. I didn’t want to get him in trouble.

Then changing the tone, he asked, “You are doing well here, aren’t you? I hope you aren’t tipping home soon either. I wouldn’t want that for selfish reasons.”

“No,” I admitted. “I’m not really reading that fast. I was hiding out this week in the library.”

“How about your coursework? Anything new there?”

“Only that I failed at it the other day.”

“Really?” Sebastian was interested. “That doesn’t sound like you. What happened?”

“Oh, nothing.” I avoided the details. I didn’t want to explain about my escape from Crispin Sinclair’s estate or Bing’s creepy conversation about making pretty shells. The less said, the less chance I had of being overheard. “I freaked. It won’t happen again.”

I splashed him to lighten my mood. “I learned a good lesson about creating my own nightmares.” I swam up to him, tired of the conversation and the distance between us. He locked his arms around me.

“I’m glad,” he said. “You are a smart girl. I can see it in your eyes, in the way you question some of the things you don’t understand. You always look like you are thinking hard about something. I think you are an old soul Macy. I think that’s why you fascinate me so.

“But,” he added, and his voice took a serious turn, “you will never be smarter than me,” he teased, and then he playfully, but purposely, pushed me straight down under the water. The dark green water flooded my nostrils and I swallowed a disgusting mouthful of it and a little bit of something that felt like a leaf.

I sputtered as I resurfaced; my wet hair was slapped against my face and a loose stem of hare’s foot fern stuck on my shoulder.

“Ha,” he laughed and pointed. “Got ya!”

Score one for him, I thought. I didn’t mind being dunked in that beautiful tropical setting.

I teased him back. “What, is this a new way to dip someone? Are you intent on making a shell of me too?” I laughed at the idea. “Where are the computers? I know they are here somewhere. Probably behind those ferns.”

I splashed him back, hard. He ducked under and swam away fast and I followed after him, determined to jump on his back and bring him down, but when he resurfaced he wasn’t smiling. I had seen that dark look on his face once before, when he’d warned me about Bing. Seeing it again stopped me in my tracks.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing. No, wait. How do you know about the computers?”

Oops.
I had said the wrong thing. I was so comfortable with him that I was having a hard time keeping track of what I was and wasn’t supposed to say. No, that wasn’t right. I just wanted to tell him everything. I didn’t want to keep my secret anymore. In the forest I’d told him that I trusted him, and that had been the truth.

“Bing showed me. He took me to the museum one day when I was new because I had asked him to explain about the shells. Did you know there is a whole museum filled with shell people, and a tank to dip us in and computers that make the shells so lifelike and realistic? Did you know about that? Did you ever see it?”

“You went inside? So that was it! I told them he couldn’t be trusted,” he fumed, his cheeks flushing. He seemed so mad about it. Too mad.

“Don’t be mad at Bing. Why should you care? I shouldn’t have told you.”

“You were right to tell me,” he said. “That is just the kind of thing we want to know about. Too much information does not help you. Seeing the displays and the tank? No wonder you ping more than anyone about the shells. We couldn’t figure it out. You were off the charts.”

I didn’t know what to say to him. I only wished with all my heart that I could take it back because it felt like we were fighting and I didn’t know why.

“Why are you mad about it? What do you care?” Sebastian was acting as if I had broken some rule, but he had never cared about rules before.

He calmed down and said, “I’m sorry. I’m not mad at you. It’s not your fault. Now we will just have to undo the damage that Bing did to you. We just had you around the wrong person, that’s all. Never mind. You are great, you know that Macy?”

Then to distract me, he asked, “Aren’t these flowers amazing?”

“Yes, they’re pretty,” I nodded, acutely aware he was changing the subject.

He closed his eyes and floated in the sun. We were quiet. I twirled away from him in the water and floated apart on my own, our afternoon idyll going downhill fast. He was acting strange and not making sense. What did he mean that I was around the wrong person? He must mean Bing. But why did he say we? Sebastian wasn’t in charge of me. Why would he care?

Something wasn’t gelling and I needed to figure it out. So the powers that be had noticed me freaking out, losing sleep, pushing my chair in front of the door. I was off the charts, Sebastian had said. Well, they were right. I wasn’t a newbie anymore; I shouldn’t be surprised. I knew too well that I couldn’t hide my fears there.

But it surprised me to discover that Sebastian knew about me too. They must be talking about me to Sebastian. Of course they knew we were friends—I just never imagined they would go behind my back with him. I assumed there was a code of confidentiality, but maybe there wasn’t. Did they ask him to try and find out what was going on with me? I bet they did. Stealing a look back at him, he was still floating quietly in his own world.

It sounded as if Sebastian would tell them that Bing took me inside the shell museum. That meant Bing would get in trouble and it would be my fault. I had broken my promise to Bing and he had every right to be mad. I dreaded the idea of Bing being angry with me like he had been with Paolo. Maybe I could ask Sebastian not to say anything. From what I had observed between them I didn’t think he’d keep quiet to protect Bing but I hoped he would protect me from Bing’s ire. I swam back to Sebastian.

“Can I ask you a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Are you going to rat out Bing for that?”

“Maybe.”

“Can you not, please? I don’t want him to get in trouble. I pressured him to take me there. It’s not really his fault. I don’t blame him, and I don’t want him to get mad at me.”

“He’s a bad influence on you,” Sebastian said. “I don’t like him.”

“But I don’t want to get him in trouble,” I pleaded. “Can’t you do this one thing, just for me?”

He looked at me without any sympathy and I wondered where my friend had gone, all of a sudden.

“No, I can’t sweetheart. Don’t worry, it’ll be okay.”

But it wasn’t. I couldn’t understand his eagerness to tell on Bing. If Sebastian thought I would automatically side with him, he was wrong. Bing was my friend too. I felt loyalty to Bing, and that didn’t just disappear the minute Sebastian kissed me.

“Bing’s not a bad guy,” I said, “no matter what you think.”

“You have no idea what you are talking about, Macy.”

“I would never have confided in you if I thought you would tell on him,” I snapped. “I thought I could trust you. I guess I can’t.”

“You can trust me to do the right thing for you but the right thing isn’t always what you think it is.”

“How would you know what is right for me?” I was starting to lose my temper, a first with Sebastian.

“I’m not going to argue with you,” he said, and turning his back on me, floated off.

Tears sprang into my eyes and I blinked them back. We were fighting, and over Bing, of all things! Maybe Sebastian just didn’t understand how awful it felt to be tattled on in Chanticleer. I thought we should all stick together and support each other. It was hard enough knowing that the staff kept tabs on what we said. I was still reeling from ending up in Sinclair’s house, still wondering who had overheard me confess my fear of him in that town square. I hadn’t said it very loud because I wasn’t feeling well at that moment. Sebastian wouldn’t have told them.
Or would he have?
No, we had only just met. They could not have identified him as my friend at that point so they couldn’t have asked him to spy on me then. Since then, however, our friendship was common knowledge.

That was nonsense, anyway. He had asked me to trust him and I did. I didn’t have to worry about him betraying me. Then again, I had thought I trusted Bing, and then he surprised me by asking me to consider becoming a pretty shell.

However, it was very surprising to find out that Sebastian didn’t have to worry about leaving Chanticleer. I wondered why he’d held that fact back from me for so long. There was no reason to. His words flooded back into my mind. The right people, keep a mix, fear is contagious. It was an interesting approach to mix us all up. A little tricky, deceptive even, but no harm done.

I wondered how Sebastian knew who to be a good influence to? Did he just float around being nice to everyone? ‘You should be glad to have a friend like me who won’t drag you down,’ he had said. I was lucky, I guess, to have befriended someone who happened to be more advanced than me, but how did it work for others, I wondered?

Did they ask him to target certain people? Did he have to just worm his way into the group, or manufacture friendships with shaky, nervous boys? I wonder when he did it? I was around him most of the time; I didn’t see him mix with others too much. But the idea made sense and I could understand why they would let him stay on. After all I had stopped a lot of my own worrying ever since he befriended me, so I could understand how that would work.

Ever since he befriended me.
“Befriended me,” I said. Was that even the right way to describe it? He had come on awfully strong. One minute he was a stranger and the next minute he was my fast friend. Too fast maybe. Suspiciously fast.
Oh my gosh.
Was he doing it with me?

The Sebastian in the pond, angry with Bing for showing me the shells, was new to me. My friend Sebastian said, “Who cares and why worry?” Today’s angry version was unsettling. Could he be the one spying on me and reporting back? Someone had, at least once.

I thought back to when we first met, in that dark dance hall at the Cornish Manor, and how he already knew my name. I had wondered about that, but never hard enough. I was pinging like crazy about the shells by then and they knew it. Then the next morning he was there again, finding me outside of Paolo’s place, standing next to me in the town square. Was he there to keep an eye on me and handle my hysteria when I saw Poppy’s shell? After that day, we always ate together, but he had been in Chanticleer for a long time; surely he had other friends to eat with? Where were they? Why the sudden interest in me?

I bet he wanted to find out what went wrong at Crispin Sinclair’s. To find out why, for the first time ever, I had failed my coursework. Could it be?

I had assumed our meeting at the festival had been a happy accident, but he could have been trailing me all night, finally catching up with me when we were caught in that impassable dance hall. It was the perfect set-up for boy meets girl. If he was only with me to spy on me, if it was all pre-arranged, then their plan had gone down seamlessly. I played right into it. I had grabbed his hand first, and he had been more than happy to run with it.

He had done what they wanted, executed their plan perfectly and efficiently. It took him a few weeks of effort, not that long, but eventually I spilled the beans about being in the shell museum. ‘We’ll have to fix you now,’ he had said.

I looked at his face, floating there in the pond, slyly smiling as he sunned himself. There were too many coincidences for my comfort. Why hadn’t I been more cautious with him? Why did I think I would be the one to bag the cute guy? Why didn’t I at least stop and question his sudden interest in me?

I stood up in the water and splashed him right in his face.

“Am I crazy or are you spying on me?” I asked. Whatever he said, I wasn’t sure I could believe him.

“Hey,” he sputtered, wiping his eyes clear with both hands. “What the heck? Yes, I mean, no Macy. I wanted to ... we are friends.” He stammered, and when he looked at me I wanted to believe him and say, ‘Just kidding.’ But I would die inside if I did that.

“What did I say wrong?” he asked, looking honestly confused.

“Everything. Who is the “we” Sebastian? What does “We couldn’t figure you out” mean? Who are you talking to about me?”

“It doesn’t mean anything. Don’t worry about it.”

His brush-off was the last straw. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I kept calm but spoke my suspicion plainly. “Don’t brush me off here. Did they send your pretty face over to charm me and did I fall for it? Do you think I am that stupid?”

“I don’t think you’re stupid, Macy. Don’t say that about me. Bing shouldn’t have done what he did, plain and simple. He knows better.”

“Answer me. Did you tell them Sinclair makes me nervous? Are you the reason I ended up in his house all alone?”

“Babe, stop it. You are talking nonsense. No one is reporting on what you say. We don’t need to do that. Settle down.” He reached out for me, trying to pull me in, but I would have none of it. He had said “we” again and it made me more convinced than ever of my suspicions.