What's Your Status? (21 page)

Dr. Trent massaged his temples. “Part of the bequest of the crown has always involved letting the students take possession of it so they might learn to manage responsibility. I have never agreed with the philosophy, but there it is. But I am not happy that the responsibility has passed from the chairperson to you, and also not happy that you have shirked this responsibility.”

“I didn’t shirk it,” I protested. “I just didn’t have time….”

“Take it to the Hyatt immediately after school,” Dr. Trent said. “And I will hold you personally responsible if it is not delivered safe and sound. Should something happen to the crown, I will consider it destruction of school property, an offense that carries severe penalties. Do we understand each other?”

I looked across the desk at Dr. Trent, who was glaring at me. I suddenly got an inkling to why Turtell was always defacing Dr. Trent’s bench. Something had clearly shifted. Whatever the reason, Dr. Trent no longer saw me as the responsible student I’d been—at least in his eyes—for the past three years. Somehow, I’d crossed over into the troublemaker category with Turtell, and I had a feeling there was no coming back from it.

Dr. Trent didn’t like me.

I didn’t like him, either, but that was beside the point.
He’d basically told me that if I did anything to give him the opportunity, he would punish me. It was a position I’d never been in before. And I didn’t like it. “Yes,” I said after a moment.

“Yes what?” Dr. Trent asked.

I stared at him, figuring that he couldn’t be serious. There was a piece of me that kept expecting this to turn out to be a big joke. But his expression was stony. “Yes. We understand each other,” I finally said.

“Good,” Dr. Trent said, standing, crossing to the door, and opening it for me. “Stephanie will write you a late pass. Good afternoon, Miss MacDonald.”

I picked up my bag and stepped through the door he was holding open. It closed immediately behind me, and I turned to Stephanie. “So, um,” I said. I was feeling shaken by the whole interaction. It was a lot to process—the Dell bombshell, the information that Dr. Trent was reading my status updates, that he knew about the crown, and the fact that I’d suddenly become persona non grata to someone who could potentially do a lot to influence my future. “I guess I need a pass….”

“Here, hon,” Stephanie said, sliding one across her desk at me. She looked at Dr. Trent’s closed door, and for a moment I thought she was going to say something, but then she just shook her head. “I signed you out for the whole period. Thought you might need a moment.”

“Thank you,” I murmured. I was incredibly glad that I wouldn’t have to return to class and discuss James Bond’s irresistible attraction to strangely named foreign women.

“Take care,” she called after me as I left the office and headed up toward the student center. My thoughts were spinning, but the one thing that I couldn’t stop turning over in my mind was the Dell situation. Because it seemed like he might not suffer any consequences for his actions, in the long run. And that I might actually get in trouble because he’d done his best to wreck my life.

As I reached the student center, I looked around for Schuyler—I knew she had an open this period. But she was nowhere to be seen. I checked the time on my phone and realized that I had twenty minutes before class ended. I decided to beat the rush out of the junior parking lot and just take the crown over to the Hyatt now. That way, I could get Dr. Trent off my back for one thing at least, and I could stop worrying about it.

I walked out to the junior parking lot and headed toward Judy. I had just reached in my bag for my keys when a movement ahead of me caught my eye. I looked up and saw Schuyler, walking very quickly across the parking lot, her expression determined. “Schuyler!” I called, glad to finally have the chance to see what was going on with her. But she didn’t appear to hear me, because she just kept walking. I followed after her, walking more quickly to try and catch up. “Shy!” I called, a little louder this time. But Schuyler, with her mile-long legs, was making very good time and must have been out of earshot.

For some reason, she seemed to be heading out of the junior parking lot and toward the empty lacrosse
field. I was totally confused by this, and had no idea why Schuyler would choose to spend an open there. Unless she and Connor were meeting for an al fresco makeout session. As this thought occurred to me, I slowed down a little bit—also, the speed-walking was giving me a stitch in my side—but kept following her.

Schuyler was now cutting directly across the field, where I could see that someone—definitely not Connor—was standing. I squinted, and saw that the person on the field was wearing high heels and a skirt—and it looked like she had blunt-cut bangs. As I got closer, the person came into focus. It was Isabel Ryan. She was standing in the center of the field, arms crossed, watching Schuyler with a smile on her face.

As I hustled to catch up, I saw Schuyler reach Isabel. The two of them were talking, though I wasn’t close enough to hear what they were saying. But then Schuyler nodded, reached into her bag, and pulled something out. She held it for a moment, and I saw that it was a dark blue box. It looked like a jewelry box. A jewelry box that I recognized…

“Oh my God,” I said aloud as I realized that it was the box with the Hayes crown in it. I had no idea how Schuyler had gotten it, but I knew that I had to get it back. Immediately. I broke into a run. “Shy!” I yelled.

Schuyler didn’t seem to hear me. She opened the box and held it out to Isabel, who peered inside and nodded. And then as I watched, horrified, Isabel took the crown out of the box and held it up. “Schuyler!” I yelled, continuing to run toward her.
“NO!”

Isabel held the crown with both hands and gave Schuyler a smile. Then she turned and walked off the field with the crown, toward a black SUV. “Schuyler!” I yelled again, out of breath. While I watched, not close enough to stop anyone, Isabel got into the passenger side of the SUV. It sped away, off school property, as her door was still closing. Realizing that I wasn’t going to catch the car, I kept running toward Schuyler, who was sitting on the ground with the empty box.

As I reached her, I saw that she was sobbing, her face buried in her hands. “Oh my God, Schuyler,” I gasped, looking from her to the dust the SUV had left in its wake, feeling like I was about to start crying myself. “What did you do?”

CHAPTER 12

Song: Tick, Tick, Boom/Lenin and McCarthy

Quote: “DON’T PANIC.”

—Douglas Adams

“I’m so…so…sorry,” Schuyler sobbed ten minutes later. She had said very little else, but had finally stopped crying quite so hard and was now occasionally able to get words out. “I’m so sorry, Mad…. I just…” She shook her head and broke down into sobs again.

I was sitting next to Schuyler on the lacrosse field, one hand resting on the pulse in my throat, wondering if I was going into cardiac arrest, and if so, whether I would know when it happened. “Let me understand this,” I said, feeling very much like I was on the verge of having my very first panic attack. “You gave the Hayes crown to Isabel Ryan. The
Hayes
crown. You just
gave
it to her.”

“I had to,” Schuyler said, taking a big, hiccupping breath. “You don’t understand, Mad….”

“No, I don’t understand!”
I yelled, and Schuyler’s face crumpled and she started crying full force again. I made myself take a deep breath, both so I wouldn’t keep
yelling at Schuyler, and to try and slow my pulse down a little. “Explain it to me,” I said more quietly.

“She…” Schuyler hiccupped. “After we saw her at the Hyatt, she got in touch with me. She sent me a message on Friendverse yesterday, telling me that I had to get the Hayes crown and give it to her.”

“Or
what
?” I asked, trying not to scream. “Why didn’t you say no? Why would you do that?”

“Because she was going to tell everyone,” Schuyler said, looking at me, her lower lip trembling furiously. Her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “She said that if I didn’t get the crown to her, she was going to tell everyone what happened at Choate.”

“And what was that?” I asked. I was still furious—and panicked—but there was a piece of me that was glad to get the answer to a three-year mystery.

Schuyler closed her eyes. “I
can’t.
…” she said.

“Schuyler,” I said, keeping my voice as calm as possible, “you have to tell me. It’s time.”

Schuyler took a shaky breath. “Okay,” she said after a moment, in a small voice. She started ripping up the neatly mown grass in handfuls. “I never wanted to tell you guys,” she murmured. “Because I knew as soon as I did, you wouldn’t be my friends anymore. But…I guess that’s going to happen now anyway.” Schuyler wiped her hand across her face, which was blotchy and puffy, and now had a few blades of grass stuck to it. She was still crying, but not as hard now. Now the tears were just continually, steadily falling.

“It was the first semester of my freshman year, in
November. And Isabel was my roommate. And we weren’t exactly getting along, but I knew we were both really having trouble with geometry. And you don’t know what boarding school is like, Mad. People go crazy about their grades, and Isabel kept telling me that if she didn’t get a good grade on the midterm, it would affect her entire transcript, and entire future….” Schuyler took another hiccupy breath. “So I stole a copy of the answer key from my teacher, and I made a copy for me and I gave a copy to Isabel. I thought it might make things easier between us.”

“You were going to cheat?” I asked, stunned, since this was so out of character for her.

Schuyler winced and nodded. “But I didn’t,” she said, a little desperately. “I swear. I couldn’t—it just didn’t seem right. And the day before the midterm, I went to my teacher and I told him that I had been planning on cheating.”

“So if you confessed, what’s the problem?” I asked.

“He wanted to know who else had a copy of the answers. He promised me that nobody would get in trouble. So I told him about Isabel.” Schuyler sounded weary. “So I got detention for a month. And an F on the midterm. But Isabel was expelled.” Schuyler closed her eyes, the tears still flowing.

“But you just made a mistake,” I said. “You didn’t think she’d get in trouble.”

Schuyler shook her head. “But nobody believed that.
Nobody.
Isabel thought I’d done the whole thing to set her up. And as she was moving out, Isabel told me how this
was going to affect her whole future—how she’d have to go to
public school.
How she’d never be able to get into a good college now. And she told me that she’d get me back for this, if it was the last thing she did.”

“Oh, Shy,” I murmured. I was still furious with her, but she looked so wretched, I also wanted to give her a hug.

“So the hazing started pretty much immediately after that,” Schuyler said, her voice hollow. “It got so bad that by the time Christmas came along, I told my father I wasn’t ever going back. And I guess he believed me, because he let me move home and go to Putnam.” She looked miserable but somehow resigned to it. “I know you don’t believe me,” she said. “And I know you’re not going to be my friend anymore.”

“Schuyler,” I said, staring at her. “Why didn’t you tell us earlier?”

“Because,” she said with a sigh, “because you would have stopped being my friend. When I came here and met you and Lisa…and Ruth…it was like a miracle or something. And I didn’t want to do anything that would ruin it.”

“I don’t care,” I said. “Seriously,” I added as Schuyler started to shake her head. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You just made a mistake. You were trying to do something right.”

Schuyler blinked at me. “You mean you believe me? Really?” she asked, looking like she was afraid to trust this. “I mean, really?”

“Really,” I said firmly. “I believe you. And also, I don’t
care. And I’ll bet you anything Lisa won’t care, either.”

“That’s…that’s amazing,” Schuyler murmured. “I wish I’d known that, because I…” Some realization seemed to be dawning. “Because then I wouldn’t have done this,” she said slowly. A horrified expression came over her face. “OMG, what have I done?”

“You gave the Hayes crown to Isabel because she blackmailed you,” I said. My heart was still doing funny things whenever I thought about what Schuyler had done. But maybe if I said it out loud enough, I might come to accept it as a reality.

“Isabel said she’d get back at me,” Schuyler said with a short laugh. “And I guess she just did. Because now she’s just gotten me to wreck my life here at Putnam. Because now I’ve ruined everything all over again. I mean, you guys are never going to be my friends after this.”

I thought about it. Schuyler had stolen the Hayes crown and given it away. It was bad. It was very, very, very, very,
very
bad. But I didn’t think the situation was going to get better by never speaking to her again. I couldn’t lose another friend. And I didn’t want to. Schuyler had done something incredibly stupid, but that didn’t change the fact that she was one of my best friends and always would be. “Shy,” I said. I took a breath. “Of course we’re still friends after this.”

Schuyler looked afraid to believe it. “We can’t be,” she said. “Not after…after what I did.”

“Oh, I’m still mad about it,” I assured her. “And, you know, possibly going into cardiac arrest.” I wiggled the
fingers of my left hand, making sure they weren’t going numb. “But…I mean…” I took a breath, feeling on the verge of tears myself. At this rate, the two of us were going to get dehydrated. “I can’t lose you, too,” I said a little thickly.

Schuyler reached over and gave me a hug, and I hugged back. When we broke apart, a thought struck me. “How did you even get the crown?” I asked.

Schuyler, looking ashamed, reached into her bag and handed me my car keys. “Gym locker,” she said. “I’m so sorry, Mad. I’m so, so, so, so sorry. I’m so, so—”

“I got it. It’s okay. I mean, it’s
not,
” I said. “But you don’t have to keep saying it.” I stared down at the keys in my hand, trying to think.