A Girl Called Dust (10 page)

I didn’t understand why she was in such a
hurry to change into her pajamas, but whatever. She seemed to be done eating,
so I carried our plates back down to the kitchen. Mom told me to cut the
brownies into squares and put them on a plate. After Paige and Quinn grabbed
their share and we set a few aside for Dad, I carried the remainder up to my
room for Bailey.

As I changed into my pajamas Bailey came
out of the bathroom looking as if she’d just stepped out of a music video. She
wore a tight black tube dress with black ankle boots and silver accessories
going up one arm. She had her hair pulled back into a chic low ponytail.

I looked down at my ensemble—an oversized
T-shirt that used to be my Dad’s and an old pair of PE shorts. “What’s going
on?”

Bailey stood in front of my full-length
mirror adjusting her dress. “Oh, I hope you don’t mind. I’m meeting Trent. He’s
a few years older than me, so my parents don’t like him, and we kind of have to
sneak around. He’s going to get me into this club where his friend works.”

I felt so stupid. I should have known she
wasn’t genuinely trying to rekindle our friendship. She only needed me for a
cover.

“So you used me? I thought we were really
going to hang out tonight.”

Bailey stepped away from the mirror
looking slightly apologetic. “I didn’t think you would mind.”

“Well, I do. You lied to me.”

“I’m sorry about this, but I would like
for us to start hanging out again. I mean that. I really do.” She sprayed
herself with some body spray from her bag. “Your Mom probably won’t check in,
but if she does, tell her I’m in the bathroom.”

“Are you coming back?”

She shook her head. “I’m staying at
Trent’s. Don’t look at me like that.”

It seemed as though I had missed a lot.
When had Bailey started clubbing and spending the night with boys? “Why didn’t
you just tell me up front? Why’d you have to pretend to want to sleep over
here?”

She stepped close to me and pulled me into
a hug, but I didn’t hug her back. “Sorry for lying. I didn’t want to hurt your
feelings.”

I pushed her away, and she let me go.
“What do you think you’re doing right now?”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, “but I just
can’t spend the night over here again. Our sleepovers were always fun until . .
. well until it was time to go to sleep.”

“What does that mean?”

Bailey looked at me as if I should have
known what she was talking about. “You do weird things in your sleep, Arden.”

I plopped down on my bed, just ready for
her to leave. “What?”

“Yeah. You wake up in the middle of the
night and crawl around on all fours. You growl and bark and scratch at the
floor. It was really scary. You didn’t always do it. It started when we were in
the seventh grade. I thought maybe you were just having nightmares or
something. You’d crawl back into bed and fall asleep like nothing had happened,
so I just ignored it, but the last time I spent the night over here was the
worst.”

I didn’t believe anything she was telling
me, but I wanted to know where she was going with this. “Really? What happened
the last time?”

“You tried to kill me.”

I hopped up. “What the hell are you
talking about?”

Bailey backed away and put her hands up as
if I were going to hurt her. “I was asleep, and I woke up to you choking me.
You had your hands wrapped around my neck and were squeezing so hard that I
couldn’t breathe. I thought I was going to die that night. All of a sudden you
just let go and crawled back into your bed. After that I was afraid to go to
sleep. I sat up the rest of the night just watching you. The next day I didn’t
say anything because your mom was always mad at you about something and I
didn’t want to get you in trouble. I chalked it up to another nightmare.

“I wore a scarf that day, but when I got
home, my mom saw the scratches and bruises on my neck, and she said I couldn’t
hang out with you anymore. She’s the reason we stopped being friends. Well,
actually you were. You really hurt me that night.”

I studied Bailey, wondering why she was
making up such lies. What did she have to gain from it? I knew. She needed an
excuse for why she had flushed our friendship down the toilet, and she actually
had the nerve to blame it on me with some outlandish story.

“Just go.” My voice had barely been a
whisper.

She grabbed her leather jacket from the
back of my desk chair and slid her arms into it. “I’m sorry. I really am. Look,
next week we’ll really hang out. I promise.” Her cell phone dinged, and she
fished it from the pocket of her jacket. “Trent’s outside. I should go.”

I sat back on my bed and didn’t speak
another word to my lying ex-best friend. My room had double doors that led to a
balcony, and from the balcony you could shimmy down the rose trellis, which was
pretty sturdy. Getting down was easy enough. My parents might have been worried
about it if they actually had a daughter with a reason to sneak out of the
house.

After Bailey grabbed her backpack and
disappeared, my eyes settled on the patch of scratches on my hardwood floor.
You
growl and bark and scratch at the floor.
I thought about all the mornings
I’d woken up with red, sore fingers. Then whatever I was thinking, I pushed
those thoughts away. Sheba was the reason for the scratches on the floor. Bailey
was a liar.

Chapter Eleven

I’d spent all weekend mulling over
Bailey’s words and Sunday afternoon in the park trying to dodge Fletcher’s
questions about Bailey. The last thing I wanted to do was tell him he had been
right and Bailey had been using me.

Monday morning’s biology class found
Bailey sitting next to me at my station. Lacey kept shooting us dirty looks,
and Bailey looked slightly uncomfortable. I had planned on not speaking to
Bailey, but a question popped into my head that I had to ask.

“Did you tell Lacey what you told me about
the barking and the scratching and stuff?” It would have made sense. Lacey
started being mean to me around the time Bailey claims that I choked her.

Bailey reddened, and I knew. “How could
you?” I demanded. It was bad enough to make up a lie, but then to spread it
around . . .

“I didn’t, Arden, I swear I didn’t. My mom
told her mom and her mom told her. You know how they all talk. I had nothing to
do with Lacey finding out.”

I believed her. My mom, Bailey’s, Lacey’s.
I called their group the Real Housewives of Everson Woods. They were
stay-at-home moms with housekeepers and kids who were in school most of the
day. Bottom line, they had too much time on their hands, and all they did was
stay in other people’s business.

“I’m sorry,” Bailey whispered as Ms.
Melcher began class, but I wasn’t listening to either of them. I was too busy
wondering how many people Lacey had told.

That day in class was a lecture day. I
much preferred the days when we did hands-on activities, but after the crayfish
incident, I longed for those days when I could sit quietly at my station and
blend into the background. Blending in was safe. Ms. Melcher was busy talking
about genetics and random chromosome segregation—whatever that meant.

That made me think of my family and our genetics
and how I seemed like the thing that didn’t belong. Fletcher’s words echoed in
my head.
Those aren’t your parents. They can’t be. They smell different.

My thoughts were interrupted by Ms.
Melcher, who had suddenly developed a light purple haze around her. It was
beautiful, but it didn’t belong there. I looked around at the others. Bailey
scribbled notes, furiously trying to keep up. Lacey twirled her hair with a
stupid vacant expression on her face. Everyone else was either jotting down
notes or staring into oblivion. Clearly no one saw the purple cloud around our
teacher but me.

Maybe something was wrong with my eyes and
they were playing tricks on me. After a minute the haze turned to gray, then
black. The deepest black I had ever seen. It swirled around Ms. Melcher faster
and faster like a whirlpool, then it closed in, looking as if it were
swallowing her. The haze disappeared. Weird.

On the walk home, Fletcher was going on
and on about dodgeball. For some crazy reason, he had never played it before he
moved to Everson Woods. I told him he was lucky because it was the worst game
on the planet, and it seemed like a punishment when Coach made us play, but he
was intrigued by it. “And then the ball hit Brandon right in the head. He ran
into the locker room saying he had to pee, but we all knew he was crying.”

I smiled at his recollection of the event.
It was rare that Fletcher got excited about anything. When he was done, I told
him about Ms. Melcher.

“I saw this weird purple swirly light
around her. It turned gray, black, and then went away.”

Fletcher stopped dead in his tracks.

“What?” I asked. The look of shock on his
face frightened me. I don’t know what I had expected him to say but I hadn’t
been expecting that reaction.

“You need to meet my parents. Tomorrow.”

“Oh, okay. Why all of a sudden?”

He stared at the ground as we continued to
walk. It was strange seeing him go from joy to fear so quickly. “It’s just
time.”

I didn’t bother to argue with him because
I knew he wouldn’t tell me anything else. I had been looking forward to meeting
the Whitelocks for a long time anyway.

The following day, Fletcher told me his
mother wanted me to come over for dinner. I hoped things turned out better than
when Fletcher had come to my house.

I’d had to tell my parents that I was
having dinner at Bailey’s because there was no way they would have approved of
me setting foot in the Whitelocks’ house. Taking a deep breath, I rang the
doorbell. Fletcher opened the door about ten seconds later. “Hey.”

“Hey.” I stepped inside. Fletcher’s house
seemed surprisingly normal. I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting to see, but
the Whitelock home looked just like any other.

“Mom’s in the kitchen.” Fletcher led me to
the back of the house, where his mother stood over the sink washing glasses.

Exploding microwave

Mrs. Whitelock’s long braid could get
caught in the garbage disposal

The running blender is sitting awfully
close to the sink

Fletcher’s mom, with large blue eyes and
auburn hair pulled back into a messy braid, appeared to be a normal mom on the
surface. If she’d produced a strange kid like Fletcher, there had to be some
weirdness lurking under that ordinary appearance.

“Mom, this is Arden.”

His mother lowered the glass she held into
the sudsy water and stared at me. “Oh, wow. It’s nice to finally meet you,
Arden.”

I nodded. “Likewise.”

After drying her hands off on a dish
towel, she stepped very close to me—too close—and held my face between her damp
hands. That was quite forward for a first meeting. Fletcher stood beside us,
watching. Mrs. Whitelock’s eyes bored into mine. It was so awkward I eventually
looked to the refrigerator on my left.

After what seemed like forever, she let my
face go. “She’s a late bloomer,” she told Fletcher, who nodded.

I looked down at my scrawny, frail figure.
Rude. Who said something like that right to someone’s face, and why was
Fletcher agreeing with her?

“What?” I asked, and then I reminded
myself that this was Fletcher’s mother. He must have gotten his bluntness from
her.

“She’s not ready,” Mrs. Whitelock added.

“Excuse me? Ready for what?” I asked.

“Okay,” Fletcher replied to his mother.

“Ready for what?” I repeated.

Mrs. Whitelock paused. “Honey, trust me.
Knowing is no walk in the park. Savor every moment of your ignorance. The truth
is a doozy.”

Well, that totally did not help at all.

Fletcher moved toward the small table and
pulled out a chair. He turned and looked at his mother. “What are we going to
do about Ms. Melcher?”

“Leave it alone,” Mrs. Whitelock replied
briskly.

Fletcher frowned, and his shoulders
slumped. “Mother, we can’t—”

“I said leave it alone, Fletcher!”

“What about Ms. Melcher?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he replied, glaring at his
mother. He pulled the chair out farther. “Sit here.”

I took my seat at the table, trying very
hard not to feel insulted by Mrs. Whitelock calling me a late bloomer.

Fletcher and his mother placed several
dishes on the table. Everything smelled great, but the selection was a bit
strange. A pot roast, a tray of pork chops, a whole chicken carved into pieces,
giant turkey legs, and some kind of beef in gravy. Everything was meat.

I had just served myself a pork chop when
a man joined us at the table. The man had white hair and gray eyes and looked
nothing like Fletcher. He said nothing as he dumped food onto his plate and
began eating as if he hadn’t seen food in a month. The way he shoveled food
into his mouth was barbaric and almost animalistic.

“Dad, this is my friend, Arden.”

Mr. Whitelock looked up from his meal.
“Oh, hello, Arden. Nice to meet you finally.” He looked over to his wife.

“Not ready,” Mrs. Whitelock said.

“Not ready for what?” I asked again.

No one answered me for a moment. “It’s
best your parents tell you,” Mr. Whitelock said.

“It’s best my parents tell me what?”

“They won’t,” Fletcher said as he inhaled
a slice of pot roast.

Mrs. Whitelock poured herself another
glass of water. She had downed three glasses already. “They will. Soon they
won’t have a choice.”

My head was about to explode. Why was
everyone—my parents, Fletcher, Mr. and Mrs. Whitelock—keeping secrets from me?
Why was Bailey making up lies? Was there really something wrong with me? I lost
my appetite and pushed my plate away. “Can someone please tell me what’s going
on?”

“I’ll speak to your parents,” Mr.
Whitelock said.

I couldn’t picture my parents having any
kind of interaction with them. Besides, Dad had gone away for business as he
did every October, and Mom was, well, Mom. She wouldn’t give them the time of
day.

After the remainder of the silent, strange
dinner, Fletcher and I went into the backyard. I knew he wouldn’t tell me
anything, but I needed to tell someone about what Bailey had said. Fletcher
didn’t seem surprised.

“Why would she make something up like
that? She says that’s why we stopped being friends, because her mom didn’t want
her around me anymore.”

“You should record yourself. When you
sleep.”

“What? Why do I need to do that? Bailey’s
lying. Right? She has to be.”

Fletcher lay back on the lawn chair. “You
said it yourself. Why would Bailey even think to make up something like that?
What would she get out of lying about it?”

“It gives her a reason not to be my
friend.”

“If she didn’t want to be your friend, she
just wouldn’t be your friend. She wouldn’t have to think up a crazy story like
that. Do you have a video camera?”

“My dad has one somewhere.”

“I mean it. You should record yourself.
You need to know what you do in your sleep.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

That night I followed Fletcher’s advice. I
dug Dad’s old camcorder from the hallway closet. I charged it and set it on my
dresser before I went to sleep. The following morning, I woke up extra early to
check the footage. I watched for a moment and soon had to fast forward because
nothing was happening. I slept peacefully the entire night. I wasn’t crawling
around, scratching the floor, barking, or growling. I knew Bailey had been
lying, and I couldn’t wait to call her out on it. What was her motive? Why was
she trying to make me think I was crazy?