What Mr. Mattero Did (17 page)

Phoebe elbowed me. “But Claire, you're so skinny! And you know, if you went swimming with me, you could eat what you wanted every day!”

She wasn't giving up on me—she really wanted me to join that swim club of hers. I was seriously thinking I'd try it.

Almost three weeks had gone by, and Phoebe and I were getting to be really good friends. She slept over my house three different times—she actually asked me two of those times if she could—and we had so much fun. We watched all three
Lord of the Rings
movies. We painted our nails. And we did silly things I hadn't done in years, like Spirograph with colored pens and Twister, which was nuts. One night, we even hauled out my old Barbies from a box under my bed and dressed them up, just for fun. Another time, Phoebe asked me to trim the ends of her hair, so you know she must have trusted me like a whole lot.

Everything was kind of moving forward.

Then along came Jenna to spoil it all.

18

Melody

JENNA CARTWRIGHT.
Claire Montague. Suzanne Elmore. I knew their names by heart now. And I hated those girls.
Hated
them.

I dreaded going back to school. But after missing so many days, I had to return. Mrs. Fernandez had sent home a note offering to give me a transfer to another school if I was too uncomfortable. But Oakdale Middle School was
my
school. It was where my dad taught. It's where my friends were! I couldn't just give it up.

At least one thing made my return easier: the news that two of the three girls had gone to different schools. Suzanne to a Catholic school and that girl, Claire, to another public middle school somewhere in the county.

Still, Jenna was at Oakdale. And Annie was there, too, constantly trying to get my eye and hanging out by my locker. Maybe I shouldn't say “constantly” because after I completely ignored her a few times, she gave up. Most of my other friends welcomed me back. Jane gave me a hug. Liz and Noelle saved me a place at lunch. And no one said anything—or threw food.

But as time went by, it became more awkward, instead of easier, to be at school because Annie and I had the same friends. Some days, I didn't even go to lunch, but just walked the halls, or sat in the library and thumbed through a magazine. I stopped going to the lit magazine meetings, and the one time I took out my notebook to work on a poem, all I did was stare at the empty page. I even faked being sick so I could stay home on Crazy Hair Day. I was not in the mood for it.

The bruise on Cade's face faded, like Dad's. But the pain of how and why it got there in the first place never went away, not for any of us. It's just that we all dealt with it differently. My brother simply shut himself off. Whenever he was home, he stayed in his room with the door closed and his music on. He was even allowed to take his dinner up there.

My mother worked. Fourteen hours a day and weekends, too. Spring was the nursery's busy time, with so many people planting and getting their gardens ready. Every day, Mom came home exhausted, with dirt under her fingernails and the smell of mulch clinging to her clothes. She made dinner and then—here's the really strange thing—every evening she went out in the backyard and pulled weeds as though she were obsessed.

We had a huge backyard, all of it bordered with ivy, and in the past year a vine called Virginia creeper had invaded and practically taken over. The task of pulling all the weeds out by hand seemed overwhelming, especially since the creeper twisted itself around the ivy vine. You had to practically sit down and untwist the bad vine from the good vine before you could pull it out. Even Cade couldn't believe what Mom was attempting. “It's like taking truckloads of water out of the ocean,” he observed one night, shaking his head as we watched our mother. “Why bother?”

“Maybe she just needs something to do,” I replied. It was good that Mom had something to keep her occupied because there wasn't anything we could act on to make our situation better. We were stuck! We were just waiting.

The waiting was hardest on Dad. Almost a whole month had gone by, and he seemed more and more lost. He had run out of chores, too. Either that, or part of him just gave up. He slept late and puttered around the house. He never touched his clarinet. Both he and Mom dropped out of community orchestra. Eventually, I stopped practicing, too, because there was no one at school to direct the band or the orchestra.

Even though he was home all day, Dad didn't lift a finger to help with supper. One day, he even forgot to take the hamburgers out to thaw, and it was the only thing Mom had asked him to do. I thought it was a real comedown for him when he started watching television—at first, old movies and episodes of
Stargate,
and later, anything that was on. And then, he started taking afternoon naps. One time he locked himself in his bedroom and fell so deep asleep he didn't hear me knock.

One of the only things I looked forward to during that time were e-mails from my sister at college, which never failed to make me laugh. Her e-mails, and my cat.

My job at the barn kept me going, too. My own problems seemed like a drop in the bucket compared to most of the kids who came for riding therapy. Some of them couldn't tie their own shoes, or put one foot in front of the other. There was one little boy who couldn't even sit up on the horse. Mr. Hibbard, one of the volunteers, had to grab him by the back of his shirt to keep him upright while he went around the ring on Daisy Mae. The great thing about the riding, though, is that it gave those kids such a boost. It was fun for them, and I don't think there was much fun in their lives. Plus, it must have given them such a sense of accomplishment riding around the ring on a big horse.

Even Alexander finally got his courage up and sat on Misty for the first time. He was so pleased with himself he practically burst. Quietly, so as not to scare the horse, we all cheered and patted our hands together. We made him promise to try riding around the ring next time. “You stay,” he said, pointing a finger at me. It was the first time I'd ever heard him say a word.

“I'll be right here beside you,” I assured him. On days like that, when I walked home from the barn, it was hard to feel sorry for myself.

My sister called home from Indiana during this time to tell us her exams were over, and not one of us let on what had happened to Dad. We didn't want to drag her down, too. She was excited because a friend at college had invited her to go to Chicago to see a play.

Then Detective Daniels stopped by one night.

“I've interviewed all three of those girls again,” he said. “They stand by their story, one hundred percent.”

My mother sucked in her breath.

Dad didn't say anything.

We understood that his visit was a warning: to get ready for what was going to happen next. We all knew
something
had to happen. Still, I wasn't prepared for what happened next, for the day I came home from school and couldn't find my father.

Dad's car was in the yard, but he didn't answer when I called. He wasn't in the backyard. He wasn't in the garage. The television was off. Right away I had a bad feeling about it.

I started checking each room, the laundry, the music room, and when I entered the bathroom, I stopped. On the counter by the sink were two empty sleeping pill bottles.

“Dad?” I called out as I scooped up the empty bottles.

My heart started pounding.

“Dad! Answer me!”

I felt like I was in a horror movie as I ran from one room to the next, searching, and all the time dreading what I might find. I kept telling myself that my father wouldn't hurt himself. He wouldn't do something like that because of what those stupid girls did.

Would he? Would he do that?

“Daddy, where are you?” I hollered, rushing down the hall.

19

Claire

“I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO
talk to you, Jenna,” I warned. I didn't even open the door all the way. “And I'm not allowed to have anyone over when I'm babysitting.”

Jenna stuck her head in anyway and widened her eyes. “Like I'm really dangerous?”

I glanced at the clock and saw that my parents weren't expected home from their party for another three hours.

“Claire, come
on
!”

I sighed and stepped back. “All right. But just for a little while, okay?”

Jenna squeezed herself in. “You are such a dweeb sometimes, you know it?”

Softly, I pushed the door closed and locked it.

When I turned around, Corky and Izzy ran up to us.

“Hey there!” Jenna greeted them. I have to admit she's really great with little kids, and both Corky and Izzy loved her. Izzy was in her fairy princess outfit and waved her wand at us. “I turning you to frogs,” she kept saying until we both had to crack up.

But Corky wasn't talking. He stood behind me quietly until Jenna bent down and said, “Hey there, Cork!” Beaming, he held up a big rubber elephant for her to see. “Wow!” Jenna responded. “Where's the baby?”

We had a whole bin full of jungle animals, whole families of different kinds. Corky ran off to find the baby elephant, and Izzy trailed behind him.

Jenna straightened up and put her hands in her back pockets. She was wearing a pretty new V-neck top with colored stripes, and crisp new white capris. Her hair was in a ponytail, and she wore three sets of sparkly green rhinestone earrings that matched her eyes and some of the green stripes in the shirt. I felt pretty dumpy beside her in my cargo pants and a baggy sweatshirt that had a hot chocolate stain on it.

“Those kids are so cute,” Jenna said. “Is Corky still collecting corks? And how's he doing anyway?”

“No, he doesn't collect corks anymore. He's onto rocks. And actually he's doing pretty good. He's been on a special diet 'cause of his allergies, and we think it's helping. He doesn't get so ornery. Or do things over and over, the way he used to.”

Jenna knew what I was talking about. One night when she was at our house, my brother sat on the kitchen floor opening and closing the cabinet door under the sink for, like, an hour.

We followed the kids down the hall toward the family room, where Izzy was curled up on the sofa in her sparkly dress, sucking her thumb and already engrossed in an Elmo video.

“How's your new school?” Jenna asked.

“All right, I guess.” I wrinkled my nose. I didn't want her to know how much I liked the new school and how I was going to swim club the next week. I even had a new navy blue tank suit for it. It was in a bag in my room, with new goggles and silicone ear plugs.

Jenna leaned over and whispered, “Can we go up to your room for a minute?”

“I guess so,” I said. But when we got there, I didn't want her to see my new swimming stuff, so I grabbed the plastic bag off my bed and threw it in the closet, like I was making places for us to sit. Then I sat cross-legged on my bed.

Jenna pulled out the chair at my desk. “What's this?” she asked, picking up an index card. She read out loud what I'd written: “Violence is any mean word, look, or act that hurts a person's body, feelings, or things.”

“Just a saying,” I told her. I picked up my stuffed platypus and hugged him. “It's on the bulletin board in my new social studies class.”

“How come you wrote it down?”

I shrugged. I couldn't tell her how deeply I had thought about those words. Like I didn't realize that just saying something could be considered an act of violence.

Jenna put the card to one side. “So, have you heard?” She had this sly little grin on her face. “Matt Lewis and I are going out.”

“You
are
?” I tried to sound nonchalant, but inside I was thinking,
What a creep! Matt Lewis with his spiky hair and his Goth clothes?

Jenna stroked her ponytail, which had fallen over her shoulder. “Yeah, he's really, really nice.”

So Suzanne and I had already been replaced by Matt Lewis. A
boyfriend.
Was that what she came over to tell me? To rub it in my face that she had a boyfriend now?

“We won't be together long though,” Jenna continued, examining her fingernails, like she was already bored being at my house. “ 'Cause we're moving, my dad and I, to Pennsylvania, near my grandmother in Lancaster.”

I leaned back againt my pillows and stared at her.

Jenna paused. And then the shocker: “I just want you to know I'm sorry, Claire. I never thought it would go this far.”

She didn't have to explain any more. I knew she was referring to the enormous lie we had told about Mr. Mattero. “Me neither,” I said quietly.

“We can't say
anything
now. Right?”

“Right.”
I nodded, agreeing with her. We had to keep our mouths doubly shut because it would be so incredibly embarrassing now.

“I mean, can you imagine if we told everyone what happened? Mr. Mattero would probably choke my dad to death on the spot!” Jenna laughed, but it was a nervous laugh. “Either that, or he might grab one of
us
or something. God, it would be wild. It would be
awful
!”

I shook my head, and I wasn't laughing. “We would never have to say anything in front of Mr. Mattero. He would never even be in the same room as us unless we were in court or something. That's what Detective Daniels said.”

“He told you that?”

“A couple times.”

Jenna sat up and scowled. “What? Did you ask him about it, Claire?”

“Chill!” I said, staring right at her. “I didn't
ask
him anything. It's what he told me. He said no kid would ever have to come forward and tell the truth with a bunch of other people in the room—especially not Mr. Mattero. He said it would be too whatchamacallit—intimidating.”