Absent (12 page)

Too bad I get stopped on the way by Principal Bosworth, who, it turns out, knows that Heath has Algebra II this period, located nowhere near the gym. He walks me all the way back to class, where Mrs. Kearny ignores me huffily, like I’ve personally wronged her and will now be punished with the silent treatment. It takes half the hour and repeated pleas before she hands over the hall pass.

“Two minutes,” she says.

“Two,” I agree, wrenching the pass from her pincer fingers.

I run all the way to the other end of the school in a minute flat, and as I run, I think about the note tucked in Heath’s pocket. I think about how everyone else saw Lucas as this perfect specimen: gleaming smile, transcript, and trophies in the case. And I’d seen him that way, too, emphasis on the surface sparkle. Until I’d started to see him as someone else, someone who’d fix my physics project for me, someone nice, someone I might be able to like. But we’d been wrong about Lucas, my classmates and I. Or at least we’d been working with incomplete information. Turns out, Lucas is also the type of guy who has secret meetings with the school drug dealer. Turns out he’s the type of guy who’ll pretend he didn’t know you, even after you’re dead.

I round the corner and see the bathroom door in front of me. I push through it at a jog and am three steps in before I realize that my steps are splashing. I look down at my feet.

Water.

I hadn’t noticed it at first, the
shhh!
of the faucets running. When I turn the corner, there’s Lucas, standing in front of the overflowing sinks like he’s guarding them from potential harm. The sinks wobble with the shine of water that pours over their sides. This is no simple paper-towel-stuffed drain; this is a full-on flooding.

“Did you do this?” I ask Lucas.

His smile is like a fishhook, and his voice has a sharp, sarcastic edge to it. “Nah, I just
happened
to walk in on it.”

“Really?”

“Of course.”

“We should go,” I say. “The water’s almost out the door.”

Lucas tilts his head, his hair falling over one eye. “No. Let’s stay.”

“But they’ll think we did it.” I pause. “They’ll think
I
did it.”

“That’s probably true,” Lucas admits, shaking his head. “Karma, man. Sucks when it finally comes around again.”

“What are you talking about? Why are you acting like this?”

“Like what?” he says.

“Are you
on
something?”

He laughs at this, a dry, narrow laugh. “Just high on life.”

“I’m going,” I tell him. “And I think you should, too.”

“Really, Heath? Is that what
you
think I should do?”

“Yeah, it is,” I say. “But stay if you want. I’m going.”

I’m good as my word. I turn and splash back out of the bathroom and straight into Mrs. Morello and Principal Bosworth.

Three days’ suspension for Lucas and Heath, and no one will listen when I protest that I, Heath, wasn’t part of the flooding. As I’ve
predicted, Mr. Bosworth fingers me as the ringleader. In fact, he keeps saying to Lucas, “You can tell us if you weren’t a part of this, son.” Lucas doesn’t deny his guilt, but he doesn’t exonerate Heath either. Guess Heath is the same as me, some guy Lucas doesn’t know.

We sit in the office for two full periods waiting for the adults to fill out the requisite paperwork and make the parent-or-guardian phone calls. Our classmates peer through the glass walls as they pass, double-taking at the sight of Lucas and me awaiting punishment together. And so the rumors will be shifting again. Heath practically lives in the office, but I wonder what they’ll say about Lucas, the school Boy Scout, the school hero, hauled in for the same crime. Mrs. Morello makes an impassioned plea for Mr. Bosworth to consider
where
the vandalism took place, that Lucas might be grappling with some very understandable issues around Brooke Lee’s death.

“Yeah, right,” Lucas says, only loud enough for me to hear it.

It’s not until Heath’s stepfather drives him away—as he turns out of the parking lot, I’m yanked from the backseat of the car and deposited on the school roof—that I remember Usha and the mural. The bell for sixth rang nearly half an hour ago. By the time I reach the hallway by the student parking lot, it’s too late. Usha is standing on a ladder, drop cloth pooling on the floor below her. Any questions I might have had about what she would do with the mural are answered. She brandishes a paintbrush, dripping white, and swipes over the lines of Brooke’s and my faces, turning them back into blank wall.

“No,” I whisper.

It’s gone, my connection to people, to life. She’s erasing it, sweep by sweep. Erasing me. I stand there staring.

Maybe we should be trying to forget
.

Until I feel someone staring just as intently at me.

Both Usha and I turn at the clang.

Greenvale Greene has dropped a can of paint. She kneels to pick it up, but she keeps glancing at me, her eyes wild under the brush of her bangs.

“What happened?” Usha says, and when Greenvale doesn’t answer, she begins to climb down the ladder. “You okay?”

I step toward Greenvale. “Can you see me?”

She turns back to the paint, but a small moan escapes her mouth.

“Greenvale?” Usha says.

“You can,” I say. “You can see me!”

I take another step.

Greenvale bolts.

I FIND HER IN BROOKE’S BATHROOM, CURLED UP IN THE
handicapped stall. It takes a good ten minutes of cajoling to get her to unlatch the door. When it swings open, she stares at me for a moment and then slides down the wall again, clasping her hands around her legs, tucking her knees to her chin. The floor is still damp from Lucas’s flooding, but Greenvale doesn’t seem to care.

“Hi,” I say.

She expels a meek “Hey.”

“You can see me, can’t you?”

Just when I think she’s not going to respond, she nods. “I can see all of you. You and Brooke Lee and that boy who sits in the art room.”

“She can see us?” a voice says from over by the sinks.

At the sound of it, Greenvale slides to the back of the stall. I turn to find Brooke crouching on her death spot, peering curiously at Greenvale and me. She hadn’t been there when I came in; she must have just crossed over the school property line.

“It’s okay,” I tell Greenvale. “It’s just Brooke.”

I beckon to Brooke, who peers around the edge of the stall door.

“Brooke, Greenvale. Greenvale, Brooke.”

“You can really see us?” Brooke asks.

Greenvale opens her mouth and closes it again.

“It’s okay,” I repeat. “She won’t hurt you.”

“Yeah,” Brooke agrees amiably. “I can’t even touch you. I’m a ghost. See?” She passes her hand through the metal door, which is probably less comforting than she intends it to be.

Greenvale emits a shaky laugh.

“How can you see us?” I ask.

“No one else can,” Brooke adds.

“I-I don’t know,” Greenvale stutters. “I just can. You’re just there.”

“Could you always?” I ask.

“Not always.”

“How long?”

“Three years ago, my grandpa had a stroke,” she begins, then stops for a nervous swallow. “He moved in with us so my mom could take care of him.”

“What does your grandpa have to do with—”

“Hush,” I tell Brooke.

“He died in his sleep, in our house,” she continues. “Mom sent me down to the basement to get the extra table leaf for the memorial service.” She looks down at her fidgeting hands; they still under her gaze. “He was there, my grandpa, standing right there in the middle of the basement. I ran away that time, too. Upstairs. I locked myself in my room, but it wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t sleep or eat or . . . I kept thinking he was going to float up through the vents.”

“That’s why they sent you to Greenvale?”

“Greenvale Greene,” she says. I wince, but she shrugs at the nickname. “I’m used to it.”

“What did the doctors say?” Brooke asks.

“Nothing. I didn’t tell them that I’d seen my dead grandpa, didn’t tell my parents either. I’m not stupid. I knew what they’d think about that: crazy girl. I mean, craz
ier
girl. My parents didn’t send me to Greenvale because I saw ghosts. They sent me because I wouldn’t leave my room. The doctors diagnosed me with social anxiety. They said it happens in Japan sometimes, teenagers who won’t leave their bedrooms. Maybe there are ghosts in Japan, too. Anyway, they let me out after a couple weeks.”

“And when you got back home?” I ask. “Was your grandpa still there? In the basement?”

“He’s gone.” She looks down. “He never came back. I should’ve talked to him. I should’ve said good-bye.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“Do you know where he went?” Brooke asks.

“He was just gone. He’s not in the basement anymore. Not in the house. Or if he is, I can’t see him.” She shakes her head, then looks up at me through her bangs; her eyes underneath are a light greenish gray. And pretty, I realize.

“So you just watched us?” Brooke asks. “This whole time you’ve been watching us?”

“Not watching. Just . . . I’d see you. The first time I saw you, I ran away. All the way home.” She dips her head bashfully. “It was a few weeks after your . . . your death. You were walking down the hall after”—she turns to me—“Paige, actually.”

“Stalker,” I tease, but Brooke’s attention is fixed on Greenvale.

“Can other people see us?” she asks.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think it’s just me.”

“I know you were helping Usha with the—” I start to say, but Greenvale interrupts me with a squeak.

“Oh, no. Usha!” She puts her hands to her face. “I dropped her paint. I ran away. She’ll think I’m crazy.” She sighs. “Like the rest of them.”

“Maybe not,” I say. “You could tell her about me. You could explain how—” But I stop at the stricken look on her face. “No, I know. Of course you can’t.”

“I’m sorry,” she says. “But I can’t. They’ll send me back.”

“It’s okay. I understand.”

“And I’m sorry I ran away from you.”

“You were scared.”

“And I’m also sorry . . .” She hides behind her bangs again.

“What?” Brooke says.

She whispers, “I’m sorry you’re dead.”

“Thank you,” I say, then add, “Thank you, Harriet.”

EVEN THOUGH HARRIET CAN SEE ME, I FEEL MORE INVISIBLE
than ever. Usha has painted over the mural, and I still haven’t been able to undo the rumor of my supposed suicide. The next morning dawns, and the only not-so-terrible news is that Mr. Fisk has left the drop cloth up to let all that white paint dry. I don’t have much time left until the mural is really and truly gone, only a day or two more when people will pass that drop cloth and think of me. There’s no more time for half measures.

I decide to inhabit Chris Rackham, the roundest of the well-rounders, class president and likely valedictorian. In class, I try to keep a straight face as everyone, including the teachers, turns to me for the answers. When I was alive, I rarely participated in class discussions. It seemed like such an act, so obvious what the teachers were waiting to hear, so easy to say the words to please them. But, hey, I’m a well-rounder now. I’ve always had the answers; now I may as well give them. And everyone is glad that things have gone as expected.

Funny that I am not
un
glad about this. Class, it turns out, goes by more quickly when you’re part of the conversation. I decide that maybe the well-rounders aren’t completely dumb about acting smart. I discover something else, too. If I answer the teacher’s questions, I can sometimes sneak in a question or two of my own.

“I read that Andy Warhol was gay,” I say when Mr. Fisk calls on me (for the fifth time that hour) in art class. “Was he?” This question is for Evan, but I don’t dare glance at him sitting invisibly on the cupboard behind me.

My comment earns a few titters and a shout of “Awesome!”

“Yes,” Mr. Fisk agrees gamely, “and in Warhol’s time, there were actually laws that made it illegal to . . .” And on he goes.

After the bell has rung, I approach Mr. Fisk’s desk, where he stirs a soup of papers between his long fingers.