Locked (The Heaven's Gate Trilogy) (3 page)

I looked up at the boy
demanding my attention.  His long bangs fell into his eyes which were full of
undisguised curiosity and mischief.  He shook his hair and darted a look into
the back of the bus.  His friends shouted, egging him on.  I hugged my backpack
more tightly and waited with a sinking feeling for him to continue.

“Watch this!”  He plopped
down on my seat, deliberately crashing into me, and proceeded to belch the
alphabet at me.  My face burned with embarrassment.  The entire bus seemed to
be laughing at my discomfort.  I huddled next to the window, trying to make
myself as small as possible.  Emboldened, the boy snatched my hat and began
playing keep away with his friends.  Instinctively, I felt for my scarf, making
sure it was still wrapped safely around my neck, its ends tucked away where
nobody could get them. 

What if I’d made a mistake
coming to this school?  How would I ever fit in if I couldn’t even handle this?

 As soon as the bus
lurched into its parking spot, I dashed out of my seat, climbing past the boy
and into the aisle.

“New girl, wait up!”

I pushed through the
door, not bothering to respond to the moronic boy.  Dunwoody High was bigger
than I thought – two stories of gleaming glass and clean brick, surrounded by
massive parking lots and playing fields.  Buses were disgorging kids and a
steady buzz was already building from the crowd.  I squared my shoulders and
walked through the set of double doors, willing my stomach to be calm. 

A tide of students
rushing through the hallways swept me into its current.  People jostled about
me, not paying me any notice as they bumped and pushed me aside.  I looked
around and realized with relief that I’d lost the horrible boy from the bus.  It
would be easy to get lost in the shuffle here, I thought, in a good way.  I resisted
the temptation to pull out any of the detailed lists and maps my mom had
compiled for me – too conspicuous -- and instead felt my way to the front
office.

“What is it, sweetie?  Do
you need the nurse?” the bustling woman at the front counter demanded as I
crossed the threshold.  It was an oasis of quiet compared to the hallway, and I
felt wrong interrupting it.

“Um, no, ma’am, I’m just
checking in.  I’m a new student starting today – Hope Carmichael?”

I braced myself for the
knowing look of recognition and curiosity that always came after I announced my
name, but the woman gave no sign of having heard of me.   Instead she started
shuffling through piles of papers.  Maybe this wasn’t a mistake after all.

“Carmichael…Carmichael…ah,
yes, here it is, Carmichael!” She triumphantly produced a clipped set of pages
from the bottom of the pile.  “Your mother was in here last week.  Quite a
handful.  Very on top of the details, shall we say.”  She rolled her eyes at
the memory.

“That sounds like her,” I
said, smiling to myself.

“You probably have your
entire schedule already, don’t you?” she said, shaking her head
disapprovingly.  “Your mother wouldn’t leave until she had that.  All your
papers were in order; she made sure of that well in advance.  So just run along
to your homeroom.”  She ran her finger down the page in front of her.  “Home
economics, Mrs. Raburn.  Second floor.”  

As I was swinging my
backpack over my shoulder, though, she called out, “No, wait.  Post-it note
here says here there’s been a change.  Wait over there on the bench, honey, and
let me see what this is all about.”  She bustled away into a back room while I
stood, waiting.

She came bustling back,
clucking like a mother hen.  “I don’t know what happened, dear, but you’ll just
have to make the best of it.  Room 107 – past the gym.”

“What is it?” I said, peering
at the slip of paper she handed me.

“Shop, dear.  Now run
along, and be sure to give Mr. Reynolds that hall pass or you will get a
tardy.”

Of course I got lost when
I tried to find my locker.  The bell had rung, sending everyone scurrying into
their classrooms like cockroaches fleeing the sudden light, leaving me to
wander until I accidentally found the gym and then, Shop.

I stood outside the door
to room 107.  The smell of grease and tar wafted out to me, making me want to
gag.  I rewrapped my scarf, like a ritual, and pushed through the doors.

I walked right into the
middle of the lecturing teacher, who had drawn up the entire class in a
semi-circle around him.  My entrance provoked a multitude of stares, hoots and
snickers.  I looked around at the students.  They all wore dingy denim or
canvas aprons, heavily stained with greasy handprints.  I was the only girl.  I
clutched the hall pass in my hand a little tighter, crumpling the paper.

“Can I help you?” Mr.
Reynolds turned to me, annoyed that I’d interrupted his class.  His eyes bugged
out behind the safety glasses he wore, making him look like an overgrown
insect.

“Um.”  I started,
uncomfortably frozen in his stare.  “Um.  I’m a new student assigned to your
class.  Which is crazy, because I’m not supposed to be in here,” I said, unable
to stop the nervous chatter from escaping my lips.  “I mean, I was supposed to
be in Home Ec.  Or AP chemistry now.  Not Shop.” 

Mr. Reynolds glowered at
me from behind his safety glasses.  I realized I’d inadvertently insulted him. 

“Not that there’s
anything wrong with Shop,” I added lamely, thrusting my hall pass up at him.

He pushed his safety
glasses up onto his forehead and read the pass.  “Carmichael, eh?  Nobody
informed me you were joining my class.  I take it you have no experience with
the mechanical arts?”  He pinned me down with a glare as I shook my head, no.

“Well, you’re just in
time.  I was just about to demonstrate the proper use of a blowtorch.  You can
be my model.”

The entire class erupted
into catcalls.  Over the din I heard someone shout, “New girl!” With a sinking
feeling, I peered into the crowd.  There, in the back of the class, I spotted the
obnoxious boy from my bus.

“Come over here,” Mr.
Reynolds commanded, enjoying my discomfort.  “What’s the first rule of Shop,
class?”

“Safety first!” The class
roared in unison, adding chest beating and more hooting to the din.  Mr.
Reynolds grinned and held out a big helmet, beckoning for me to come forward.

I shifted my backpack to
one side and stepped to the middle of the semi-circle.  I stared at the big
helmet.  It looked like it belonged on a space suit from the 1950s.

“Go on, Miss Carmichael. 
Demonstrate proper safety technique to the class.”  Mr. Reynolds thrust the
helmet at me again.

“But, I just…” I looked
helplessly at the door.

“C’mon, how hard can it
be?” Mr. Reynolds taunted me, tossing the helmet up in the air and catching it
deftly with one hand.

I reached for it and he
dramatically let it go, leaving me with the helmet’s entire dead weight.  It
went crashing to the floor.  The entire class roared with laughter as I cradled
my fingers.

“Oh, is the helmet a
little heavy for you?” Mr. Reynolds said solicitously.  “I forgot these older
models aren’t quite as lightweight. Go ahead, pick it up and put it on.”

I started to protest, but
snapped my mouth shut.  There was no way I was going to let him intimidate me. 
I dropped my backpack and bent over to retrieve the helmet.  I heaved it up
with both hands before trying to force it down over my head.  When it got to my
ears, I got stuck.  I twisted and turned the thing around on my head but only
succeeded in mangling my own ears.

“Ow!” I cried as someone
banged it down, hard.

I could barely see out of
the tiny, dark window.

“Next time you might want
to open up the helmet,” Mr. Reynolds said drily as he flipped up the top,
exposing my head to the foul air of the Shop room.  “You might want to pay
attention to the rest of the safety tips.”  My humiliation complete, he
dismissed me.  I hurried to the edge of the room, trying to be as inconspicuous
as I could be with a giant tin can on top of my head.

From that inauspicious
beginning, my day went downhill.  The school itself was like a maze, so I was
late for every class, instantly earning the ire of every teacher.  It turned
out that all my classes were wrong -- nothing matched the schedule my Mom had
so carefully prepared for me.  By the time the day ended, I was exhausted from
having to explain myself to the endless parade of teachers who also had
apparently never heard of me.  In one class, there wasn’t even a desk for me;
I’d had to sit on the radiator up against the wall and nearly burnt myself. 

Everywhere I went, I
could feel the blatant stares of my curious classmates.  I smiled politely at
their questions, giving the most minimal answers while I died inside from
mortification and wished a hole would open in the floor and swallow me up.  I
almost relished my escape to the bus, hoping to forget my woes in a good book,
when someone plopped down uncomfortably close to me.

“New girl!  What’cha
reading?”  Before I could even look up, grubby hands snatched away my book.

It was the same obnoxious
boy.  He grinned maliciously at me and tossed the book over his shoulder toward
the back of the bus.  “How was your first day at school?”  He asked with mock
sincerity.  Before I could come up with a snappy comeback, he rumpled my hair
like I was a kindergartner and leapt out of my seat to join his laughing
friends.

I shrank into my seat and
felt my hair, comforting myself with the security of the scarf wrapped around
my neck and steeling myself for the ride home.

I’d barely walked through
the door after escaping the bus when there was a knock at the door.  I peeked
out and saw a short, trim woman with perfectly coifed blonde hair wearing a
track suit and an apron.  She held a covered tray and was rocking impatiently,
a fake smile spread across her face. 

Mrs. Bibeau, I realized,
remembering my mother’s note.  The neighbor down the street whom Mom had asked
to check in on me.

I swung the door open,
doing my best to paste a matching smile on my face.

“You must be Hope,” Mrs.
Bibeau declared, stepping through the door uninvited.  “Your mother felt so
horrible about having to go on that business trip.  I told her not to worry,
that I’d be happy to come on over and check on you,” she continued, her voice
honeyed with a drawl I didn’t quite recognize.  “I had six children of my own,
you know, and we had to move five times as they grew up, so I know what its
like.  I thought you might like a little snack after such a big day, so I
brought you my famous deviled eggs and pineapple sandwiches.”  She whipped the
tea towel off the tray to reveal a stack big enough for an army.  “Why don’t we
go sit down in the front room?”

Without waiting for me to
answer, she steered me into the formal living room and sat us down on the
sofa.  I could tell my Mom didn’t use this room very much.  The rest of the
house was so neat and organized it looked like it came out of a magazine, like
no one really lived in it.  But this room held my mom's entire “overflow.”  I
saw Mrs. Bibeau take a mental note of the abandoned stack of Zappos and Amazon
boxes, the pile of clothes set aside for charity, and the scattered piano books
that surrounded Mom’s old upright.

“Mom mentioned you’d be
over,” I said politely.

“Oh, it’s no trouble.  I
just couldn’t stand the thought of your mother worrying.”  She made a small
tsking sound as she brought her attention back to me.  “Why she keeps up that
crazy schedule of hers, I’ll never know.  I remember when you were just a baby
and she’d come home at all hours of the night.  I thought she was going to drop
dead one day, I truly did.  Go on now,” she said without stopping for a breath,
“have a sandwich.”

I realized with a jolt
that Mrs. Bibeau had known us before my kidnapping.  Before my parents split
up.  Suddenly on my guard, I picked up one of the dainty sandwiches and nibbled
at it.

Mrs. Bibeau looked at me
with curiosity.  “We haven’t seen your father in such a long time.  Tell me,
how is he doing these days?”

I took my time chewing,
trying to think of the right thing to say and trying to get over the odd taste
of pineapple with cream cheese. 

“Okay, I guess.  I
haven’t talked with him since I left.”

“Really?”  Her eyes shone
with interest as she seized upon this bit of news.  “He always seemed so…close
to you.  So protective.  I’m surprised he didn’t call you the moment you walked
through the door.”

He can’t
, I thought to myself, knowing the
details of the court order were best kept to myself.

When I didn’t respond,
she tried again.  “Billy and I were so sad when your parents split up and you
moved away.  Such a horrible business.  But I supposed you don’t remember any
of that, do you?”  She leaned in, unable to hide her eagerness.

“No, ma’am,” I said
stiffly.  “Why don’t I get us some sweet tea?”

I jumped from the sofa
and stalked off to the kitchen.  I was livid.  How dare she pump me for
information?  There was no way I was going give her anything to work with.    Didn’t
she know I wanted to keep my past where it was – safely in the past?  I slammed
the glasses down on the counter, making a mess as I poured.  My hands shaking,
I set down the pitcher and took a deep breath.