Beautiful Creatures (40 page)

But my dad had grown up here and was considered one of Gatlin’s sons. So when my mom died, all the same women who had been
so judgmental of her when she was alive dropped off cream-of-something casseroles and crock pot roasts and chili-ghetti with
a vengeance. Like they were finally getting the last word. My mom would have hated it, and they knew it. That was the first
time my dad went into his study and locked the door for days. Amma and I had let the casseroles pile up on the porch until
they took them away and went back to judging us, like they always had.

They always got the last word. Link and I both knew it, even if Lena didn’t.

Lena was sandwiched between Link and me in the front seat of the Beater, writing on her hand. I could just make out the words
shattered like everything else. She wrote all the time, the way some people chewed gum or twirled their hair; I don’t even
think she realized it. I wondered if she would ever let me read one of her poems, if any of them were about me.

Link glanced down. “When are you gonna write me a song?”

“Right after I finish the one I’m writing for Bob Dylan.”

“Holy crap.” Link slammed on the brakes at the front entrance of the parking lot. I couldn’t blame him. The sight of his mother
in the parking lot before eight in the morning was terrifying. And there she was.

The parking lot was crowded with people, way more than usual. And parents; other than after the window incident, there hadn’t
been a parent in the parking lot since Jocelyn Walker’s mom came to yank her out of school during the film about the reproductive
cycle in Human Development.

Something was definitely going on.

Link’s mom handed a box to Emily, who had the whole cheerleading squad—Varsity and JV—papering every car in the parking lot
with some kind of neon flyer. Some were flapping in the wind, but I could make out a few from the relative safety of the Beater.
It was like they were running some kind of campaign, only without a candidate.

SAY NO TO VIOLENCE AT JACKSON!

ZERO TOLERANCE!

Link turned bright red. “Sorry. You guys gotta get out.” He crouched down in the driver’s seat, so low it looked like nobody
was driving the car. “I don’t want my mom to beat the crap outta me in front a the whole cheerleadin’ squad.”

I slunk down, reaching across the seat to open the door for Lena. “We’ll see you inside, man.”

I grabbed Lena’s hand and squeezed it.

Ready?

As ready as I’m going to be.

We ducked down between the cars around the side of the lot. We couldn’t see Emily, but we could hear her voice from behind
Emory’s pickup.

“Know the signs!” Emily was approaching Carrie Jensen’s window. “We’re formin’ a new club at school, the Jackson High Guardian
Angels. We’re goin’ to help keep our school safe by reportin’ acts a violence or any
unusual
behavior we see around school. Personally, I think it’s the responsibility a every student at Jackson to keep our school
safe. If you want to join, we’re havin’ a meetin’ in the cafeteria after eighth period.” As Emily’s voice faded in the distance,
Lena’s hand tightened around mine.

What does that even mean?

I have no idea. But they’ve totally lost it. Come on.

I tried to pull her up, but she pulled me back down. She shrunk back next to the tire. “I just need a minute.”

“Are you okay?”

“Look at them. They think I’m a monster. They formed a club.”

“They just can’t stand outsiders, and you’re the new girl. A window broke. They need someone to blame. This is just a—”

“Witch hunt.”

I wasn’t going to say that.

But you were thinking it.

I squeezed her hand and my hair stood on end.

You don’t have to do this.

Yes I do. I let people like them run me out of my last school. I’m not going to let it happen again.

As we stepped out from the last row of cars, there they were. Mrs. Asher and Emily were packing the extra boxes of flyers
into the back of their minivan. Eden and Savannah were handing out flyers to the cheerleaders and any guy who wanted to see
a little of Savannah’s legs or her cleavage. Mrs. Lincoln was a few feet away talking to the other mothers, most likely promising
to add their houses to the Southern Heritage Tour if they made a couple of phone calls to Principal Harper. She handed Earl
Petty’s mom a clipboard with a pen attached to it. It took me a minute to realize what it was—there was no way.

It looked like a petition.

Mrs. Lincoln noticed us standing there and zeroed in on us. The other mothers followed her gaze. For a second, they didn’t
say anything. I thought maybe they felt bad for me and they were going to put down their flyers, pack up their minivans and
station wagons, and go home. Mrs. Lincoln, whose house I’d slept at almost as many times as my own. Mrs. Snow, who was technically
my third cousin to some degree removed. Mrs. Asher, who bandaged my hand after I sliced it open on a fishing hook when I was
ten. Miss Ellery, who gave me my first real haircut. These women knew me. They’d known me since I was a kid. There was no
way they were going to do this, not to me. They were going to back down.

If I said it enough times maybe it would be true.

It’s going to be okay.

By the time I realized I was wrong, it was too late. They recovered from the momentary shock of seeing Lena and me.

When Mrs. Lincoln saw us, her eyes narrowed. “Principal Harper—” She looked from Lena to me, and shook her head. Let’s just
say I wouldn’t be invited to Link’s for dinner again anytime soon. She raised her voice. “Principal Harper has promised his
full support. We won’t tolerate the violence at Jackson that has plagued the city schools in this country. You young people
are doin’ the right thing, pro-tectin’ your school, and as concerned parents”—she looked at us—“we’ll do
anything
we can to support you.”

Still holding hands, Lena and I walked past them. Emily stepped in front of us, shoving a flyer at me and ignoring Lena. “Ethan,
come to the meetin’ today. The Guardian Angels could really use you.”

It was the first time she had spoken to me in weeks. I got the message. You’re one of us, last chance.

I pushed her hand away. “That’s just what Jackson needs, a little more of your
angelic
behavior. Why don’t you go torture some children. Rip the wings off a butterfly. Knock a baby bird out of its nest.” I pulled
Lena past her.

“What would your poor mamma say, Ethan Wate? What would she think about the company you’re keepin’?” I turned around. Mrs.
Lincoln was standing right behind me. She was dressed the way she always was, like some kind of punishing librarian out of
a movie, with cheap drugstore glasses and angry-looking hair that couldn’t decide if it was brown or gray. You had to wonder,
where did Link come from? “I’ll tell you what your mamma would say. She would cry. She would be turnin’ over in her grave.”

She had crossed the line.

Mrs. Lincoln didn’t know anything about my mother. She didn’t know my mom was the one who had sent the School Superintendent
a copy of every ruling against book banning in the U.S. She didn’t know my mom cringed every time Mrs. Lincoln invited her
to a Women’s Auxiliary or DAR meeting. Not because my mom hated the Women’s Auxiliary or the DAR, but because she hated what
Mrs. Lincoln stood for. That small-minded brand of superiority women in Gatlin, like Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Asher, were so
famous for.

My mom had always said, “The right thing and the easy thing are never the same.” And now, at this very second, I knew the
right thing to do, even if it wasn’t going to be easy. Or at least, the fallout wasn’t going to be.

I turned to Mrs. Lincoln and looked her in the eye. “‘Good for you, Ethan.’ That’s what my poor mamma would’ve said. Ma’am.”

I turned back toward the door of the administration building and kept walking, pulling Lena along beside me. We were only
a few feet away. Lena was shaking, even though she didn’t look scared. I kept squeezing her hand, trying to reassure her.
Her long black hair was curling and uncurling, as if she was about to explode, or maybe I was. I never thought I’d be so happy
to set foot in the halls of Jackson, until I saw Principal Harper standing in the doorway. He was glaring at us like he wished
he wasn’t the principal so he could pass out a flyer of his own.

Lena’s hair blew around her shoulders as we walked past him. Only he didn’t even look at us. He was too busy looking past
us. “What the—”

I turned and looked over my shoulder just in time to see hundreds of neon green flyers, curling away from windshields and
out of stacks and boxes and vans and hands. Flying away in a sudden gust of wind, as if they were a flock of birds soaring
into the clouds. Escaping and beautiful and free. Kind of like that Hitchcock movie
The Birds
, only in reverse.

We could hear the shrieking until the heavy metal doors closed behind us.

Lena smoothed her hair. “Crazy weather you have down here.”

12.06

I
was almost relieved it was Saturday. There was something comforting about spending the day with women whose only magical
powers were forgetting their own names. When I arrived at the Sisters’, Aunt Mercy’s Siamese cat, Lucille Ball—the Sisters
loved
I Love Lucy
—was “exercising” in the front yard. The Sisters had a clothesline that ran the length of the yard, and every morning Aunt
Mercy put Lucille Ball on a leash and hooked it onto the clothesline so the cat could exercise. I had tried to explain that
you could let cats outside and they would come back whenever they felt like it, but Aunt Mercy had looked at me like I’d suggested
she shack up with a married man. “I can’t just let Lucille Ball wander the streets alone. I’m sure someone would snatch her.”
There hadn’t been a lot of catnappings in town, but it was an argument I’d never win.

I opened the door, expecting the usual commotion, but today the house was noticeably quiet. A bad sign. “Aunt Prue?”

I heard her familiar drawl coming from the back of the house. “We’re on the sun porch, Ethan.”

I ducked under the doorway of the screened-in porch to see the Sisters scuttling around the room, carrying what looked like
little hairless rats.

“What the heck are those?” I said without even thinking.

“Ethan Wate, you watch your mouth, or I’ll have ta wash it out with soap. You know better than ta use pro-fanity,” Aunt Grace
said. Which, as far as she was concerned, included words like
panties, naked,
and
bladder
.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. But what is that you’ve got in your hand?”

Aunt Mercy rushed forward and thrust her hand out, with two little rodents sleeping in it. “They’re baby squirrels. Ruby Wilcox
found them in her attic last Tuesday.”

“Wild squirrels?”

“There are six of ’em. Aren’t they just the cutest things you ever saw?”

All I could see was an accident waiting to happen. The idea of my ancient aunts handling wild animals, babies or otherwise,
was a frightening thought. “Where did you get them?”

“Well, Ruby couldn’t take care of ’em—” Aunt Mercy started.

“On account a that awful husban’ a hers. He won’t even let her go ta the Stop & Shop without tellin’ him.”

“So Ruby gave them ta us, on account a the fact that we already had a cage.”

The Sisters had rescued an injured raccoon after a hurricane and nursed it back to health. Afterward, the raccoon ate Aunt
Prudence’s lovebirds, Sonny and Cher, and Thelma put the raccoon out of the house, never to be spoken of again. But they still
had the cage.

“You know squirrels can carry rabies. You can’t handle these things. What if one of them bites you?”

Aunt Prue frowned. “Ethan, these are our babies and they are just the sweetest things. They wouldn’t bite us. We’re their
mammas.”

“They are just as tame as they can be, aren’t y’all?” Aunt Grace said, nuzzling one of them.