Out of the Ashes (2 page)

“Oh, for sure.” Betts was laughing now. “Your life is just so full of exciting things and all. I can see why big news to everyone else is of no importance to you.”

“Mmmmmm.” Nick was touching Jane now! His hand was resting on her shoulder. I silently put the curse of a thousand zits on her, something that usually cheered me but didn't seem to help today. “So, tell me what's so weird about this guy's dad then, since you're just dying to force this information on me.”

“He goes around town quoting poetry!” Betts' eyes were triumphant as she passed on this bit of news. I guess she figured it was pretty darned interesting.

“So?” I knew I was taking out my misery over Nick and Jane on her, since my tone of voice was getting nasty, but I couldn't help it.

“So, you don't think that's kind of odd?” Betts was picking up her lunch tray, and her face had a hurt look on it. I felt sorry right away and offered her one of my mom's chocolate chip cookies to make amends.

“I guess that is weird,” I said. She brightened up and told me a few stories about this stranger moving to town and breaking into poems on a number of shopping trips.

“Mrs. Wells said she was half afraid of him. She said it was downright scary how he came in for a grocery order and started going on like a crazy person, reciting some poem about birch trees when she complained that there were kids climbing the trees in the town square.”

“Robert Frost,” I named the author automatically. “What are you talking about? Who is this Robert guy?”

“Never mind.” We'd taken one of his poems the year before, and I liked it so much that I read some others he'd written, including “Birches.” But I knew Betts thought poetry was stupid and wouldn't remember it.

“Where does he work?” I asked, bringing her back to what we'd been talking about. I couldn't help wondering how she'd managed to hear all these things about someone I hadn't even known existed. Betts and her family had been away visiting relatives for the whole month of August and had just arrived back in town a few days before the start of school.

“That's another thing. He doesn't work. He only leaves the house when he goes to a store or to the post office. No one knows where he gets his money. Maybe he's some sort of criminal and he's hiding out in Little
River!” Betts seemed excited at that idea, as if it would be a great thing, but I found it a bit much.

“Well, in that case, we'd better steer clear of the criminal's offspring,” I whispered ominously, nodding toward the new kid.

I had no idea how much I'd come to mean those words!

Betts is like a dog with a bone sometimes. She just grabs onto an idea or bit of information and never lets go until she figures she's gotten as much as possible out of it.

I knew that she wouldn't rest until she had the complete lowdown on the new boy in town, and I was right. She'd make a great investigative reporter if she ever had the opportunity.

It was the very next day that she had more to tell me. Goodness only knows where she gets her information, but she sure does get it.

“Shelby. Shelby!” I heard my name called from somewhere in the crowded hallway of the school. Her face appeared a few seconds later, and I could see right away that she was fairly bursting with news.

“Hey, Betts. What's up?” I asked, knowing full well she didn't need any prompting.

“I was right!” Her eyes were lit up, just like my Aunt Milly's get when she has that important air of someone with something to tell. “His father is the crazy person who bought the Carter house. And he has no mother. I don't know what happened to her.”

“Maybe they killed off the mother and are living on the insurance money,” I suggested. I knew it was a rotten thing to say, especially to Betts, who can take an idea like that and turn it into absolute fact in about two minutes.

She seemed to be considering this for a second, but other news pushed the thought aside. “His name is Greg Taylor, and he just got a job at Broderick's gas station. He works there after school on Tuesday and all day Saturday.”

“How do you find these things out?” I wondered out loud.

“Easy, my mom was talking to Old Man Broderick's wife at the hairdresser's yesterday, and she told her all about Greg. Mrs. Broderick said that Greg came in looking for a job last week, and her husband hired him.”

“I thought you said they were rich or something, that his father didn't have to work.”

“All I said was that he didn't work. I didn't say they were rich. I wish you'd get things straight every once in a while,” Betts smirked at my apparent inability to grasp things.

Thank goodness the bell rang then and spared me from a more detailed explanation of my shortcomings in the gossip department.

It was later in the week that I actually had my first encounter with Greg. At that time I still just thought of him as just the new kid and had no idea of the problems that lay ahead, so there was no reason not to be nice to him.

Thursday afternoon Betts and I stopped at The Scream Machine for orange floats. The Scream Machine was someone's idea of a catchy name for a soda shop. I think it came from the old saying “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.” The teens in Little River hang out there evenings and weekends, so we were lucky to get a booth all to ourselves.

I was stirring the ice cream into my float and half listening to Betts, who was going on about Victor Mallory. Victor was the Man of Her Dreams at that moment, though his turn in this lofty position would be short-lived.

Anyway, right in the middle of sighs and comments about how absolutely perfect he was, she got this startled look on her face, leaned forward, and whispered, “He's here!”

I thought she meant Victor, since she was talking about him, but when I glanced up I saw it was the new kid. Not wanting to seem nosy, I pretended to be engrossed in the menu as he headed past our table on
his way to the counter. And then Betts opened her mouth!

“Hey there.” She was smiling up at him.

“Uh, hi.” He offered a shy smile in return and then stood there as if he wasn't sure what to do next.

“Wanna join us?” Betts slid over as she spoke, clearing enough room in our booth for him to sit down.

“Sure.” He sat down and immediately held his hand out toward Betts. “I'm Greg Taylor.”

“Betts Thompson.” She shook it quickly, then pulled her hand free and waved in my direction. “This is my very best friend Shelby Belgarden.”

“Hi, Shelby.” He offered me his hand then, and I shook it, but it felt strange. It seemed like something only adults did, and I was half worried someone would see me.

“So you're new in town,” Betts commented. I felt almost sorry for Greg at that moment. I knew she was going to try to weasel information from him, which she would then pass on to anyone who would listen.

“Yeah. My dad and I came here last month. It's a nice place.”

“Where did you live before?” Betts asked.

“Different places,” he replied. “Say, what do you recommend here? Is the food good?”

I wondered why he'd answered so evasively and if changing the subject right afterward had been deliberate.
I knew that Betts was thinking the same thing and that it would only make her more determined to find out anything she could about him.

I suddenly wanted to rescue him from her prying and started talking about just about everything they had on the menu. He looked at me oddly, and I couldn't blame him, as I raved about how nice and crisp their fries were, how juicy their burgers were, how I didn't favour their chowders but their homemade soups were usually not bad, and on and on.

Betts gave me a positively murderous look as I rambled endlessly. Greg just sat and stared and made an attempt to appear interested in each and every food item I talked about.

The waitress came before I was finished, and he ordered a burger and fries. As she turned from the table he added, “Make that to go, please.”

“Are you leaving?” Betts asked, with the look of someone who had been cheated.

“Uh, yeah, I have to get back to the house. I promised my dad I'd give him a hand with some bookcases tonight.”

“Bookcases?” Betts asked as though it was a new word to her.

“Well, we have a lot of books to unpack, and he needs some of them right away, so I want to help him get them ready. We've been putting it off while we got settled in, but it can't wait any longer.”

Betts looked puzzled, as though she knew there was something she ought to ask about this urgent need for books but couldn't quite figure out what the question should be.

“Well, it's nice that you're helping your father,” I said. “My mom has a lot of books too. My dad keeps saying that if she keeps buying more, we're going to have to build a few extra rooms just to hold them all.”

“Do you read much yourself?” Greg asked me.

“That's all she does,” Betts said before I could answer. She was rolling her eyes. “I keep telling her there are other things in life, but she's always got her nose stuck in some silly book.”

“You think books are silly?” Greg asked her.

“It's bad enough that your teachers make you read a bunch of stupid stories for school,” Betts replied. “I don't know why anyone would waste their time reading stuff they didn't have to.”

“There's nothing wrong with reading.” I felt my face getting hot. “It makes me feel as though I'm sort of escaping for a while.”

That sounded pretty dumb, even to me, and I knew Betts was going to poke more fun at me for saying it. But before she got the chance, Greg spoke up and said, “I know exactly what you mean, Shelby. I read a lot too. In fact, I'd rather read than watch television.”

“Oh, great, I'm here with a couple of freaks of nature,” Betts moaned. She looked around and with a teasing laugh, added, “Are there any normal people in here that I can go sit with?”

Greg ignored this and said to me, “It looks like we have something in common. Maybe we can lend each other some of our favourite books.”

I should have refused right then and there, but it seemed like a harmless suggestion, so I told him that would be nice. Just then the waitress came with his order, and he paid and left. As he went out the door he waved to me and called out, “Don't forget!”

In spite of the reminder, I soon forgot about his suggestion. How was I to know that something as innocent as swapping books was going to become a source of school gossip?

When I got home that night there was a surprise waiting for me. It was a shelf unit Dad had made to hold all my stuffed animals, which had been piled all over the place. There were three sections: one in the middle, with two lower shelves on each side. It was really cool, painted blue with pale purple flecks to match my walls. Once we put it up I spent hours rearranging and organizing my room.

With all the activity, I never gave another thought to Greg or sharing books until school on Monday. I was at my locker getting my things ready for first class when I heard his voice.

“Shelby! I have some books for you.”

I turned to see him standing beside me with four books in his arms. In fact, everyone around turned and looked. There was a sudden silence in the locker area.

“These four are great.” He was smiling and didn't seem to notice that there was a very interested audience in the background. “I figured you've probably read most of the classics, so I picked more modern books.”

“Uh, thanks.” I mumbled, taking them from him. I noticed that the one on top was Frank McCourt's
Angela's Ashes
, which I'd read not long ago. I'd loved it and found myself irrationally annoyed at the thought that his taste was apparently similar to mine. Then I realized he was standing there waiting.

“I haven't had a chance yet to pick out anything for you,” I tried to keep my voice low so that the other students couldn't hear. “It was a busy weekend.”

“That's okay, no rush,” he said pleasantly. “I just hope you enjoy these as much as I did. I couldn't put them down.”

Giggles started then, along with oohs and aahs. He became aware of the stares we were getting. Instead of getting embarrassed, like any normal human being, he got an intense look on his face and said, “Perhaps they have never been where we have been. They laugh because they don't know our secret places. Don't let them bother you, Shelby. To thine own self be true.”

Our secret places! To thine own self be true! I could have crawled into my locker and stayed there for the rest of the school year! The teasing started then and went on all day. It spread through the school faster than
you can imagine. Everywhere I turned I heard those two phrases repeated. I did my best to ignore the whispers and hoped it would just go away.

Betts cornered me at lunch. “What is all this talk about you and Greg and secret places? Are you holding out on me? Where did you two go this weekend? And why didn't you tell me about it?”

“Honest, Betts, I swear I didn't see him again until today. I never even gave him another thought. He brought me some books this morning and made some remarks that everyone took the wrong way.” I didn't know how I could explain to her that the secret places he mentioned were in the books. I knew what he meant, but there was no way I could make her understand.

“Okay, if you don't want to tell me, that's fine.” She looked hurt and kind of angry.

“Betts, wait!” I implored, but she was walking away and didn't even turn around.

I started to eat my lunch alone amid snickers and comments that were loud enough for me to hear. The worst part of it was that Nick looked at me and laughed a couple of times. He was leaning over and whispering to his friends, and I knew they were all talking about me and Greg. It wasn't fair. And there was no way for me to clear myself.