Wuthering high: a bard academy novel (13 page)

“I tried to escape,” I lie. Well, technically, it’s not exactly a lie. I did try to escape once. It’s just not the reason I’m doing dishes.

“You did!” he exclaims. “Wow. I’m impressed. What route did you take?”

“The woods,” I say.

“Really? Despite the Kate Shaw legend? You’re braver than I am.”

Um, yeah, I think, nodding, even though I didn’t know about that before I tried the woods on my first night. Still, no point in letting Ryan know that. Let him be impressed.

“I’m not scared by the woods,” I say. “You know, I never met a tree I didn’t like.” I think I might not be making any sense. It’s time to dial it down a few notches. I’m having trouble being my usual breezy self. I think it has something to do with the fact that my hands and arms are covered in blobs of watery gravy and bits of spinach. Not exactly the right accessories for a look of flirty seduction.

“Well, I’m impressed,” Ryan says, and he smiles at me, which makes my stomach feel a little like warm oatmeal. He’s sort of hanging here a little longer than he should. I’m starting to feel eyes on us. In particular, Parker Rodham’s. She has taken notice of us, even though she and her group of friends are sitting down halfway across the cafeteria.

“So,” Ryan says.

“So,” I say.

An awkward pause ensues. I wonder if he might be trying to tell me I have dish soap on my face.

“Listen, I was wondering, I mean, I guess…” Ryan seems a bit flustered. Surely, it can’t be that hard to tell me I have soap on my face. Just blurt it out, man!

“I mean, would you, uh, like to go out with me, sometime? I mean, not out out, because you know, we’re stuck here, but maybe just hang out or something?”

I’m not positive, but I think in all that babbling somewhere Ryan Kent just asked me out on a date.

“Um, yeah, sure, I mean, yeah, that sounds great-tastic,” I blurt. What? What the hell did I just say? “Okay, I think I just combined the words ‘great’ and ‘fantastic,’ which makes no sense at all.”

Ryan Kent laughs, and so do I, and everything is fine.

“So about dinner Saturday night?”

“Perfect. Should I meet you at the cafeteria…or at the cafeteria?” I ask, holding up two soapy gloves.

“How about we eat out for a change? Meet me at the chapel at six.”

“Eat out? How can we eat out?”

“It’ll be a surprise,” he says.

“This I have to see,” I say.

“Great-tastic,” he says, making me laugh.

Sixteen

Who knew that the best
and worst day of my life could happen in one week? Go figure. Start out with a haunted room, a séance gone bad, and dish duty, and end up with being asked on a date by Ryan Kent. It just goes to show that even the worst luck has got to turn around sometime.

It’s Thursday, technically, so all I have to do is stay out of trouble and make it to Saturday. No more séances. No more communing with ghosts. Out with the Kate Shaw Mystery Society. In with the the Ryan Kent Admiration Society.

My try-to-be-normal plan, however, is strained when Blade puts a clove of garlic under my pillow and it smells like a family-size lasagna has died on my sheets. This also makes my hair smell the same way. I don’t know if there’s enough Pantene in the world to get out the stink.

“What did you put this here for?” I ask her.

“It’s for your protection,” she informs me.

“Protection from what? A social life?”

“From the vampire — duh,” she says. “I think he’s what killed Kate Shaw. It was a vampire. It’s all in here.”

She holds up her copy of
Dracula.

“That’s it,” I say, standing up and taking the book out of her hand. I’m losing my Zen self in a hurry. “I am tired of vampires. I’m tired of ghosts. And I am really starting to get tired of you. I just want everything to be normal for five seconds.”

“Jeez. Touchy,” Blade says. “If you don’t want the garlic protection, then I’ll take it. You’ll be sorry when you wind up with that bloodsucker on your neck.”

“No more vampire talk!” I cry. “It was your séance that got me dish duty, and I don’t want to hear anything more about vampires or ghosts or anything that isn’t
normal.
If I hear you talk about anything like that, I am taking away this book.”

“I’m done reading it, you can have it,” Blade says. “I don’t really care.”

“Fine, I’m taking it then,” I say, and put it in my backpack.

“You sure you don’t want —?”

“Good night, Blade,” I say, jumping into bed and pulling the covers up to my shoulders.

“Suit yourself,” Blade says, settling into bed.

After the Blade blowup, I regain my Zen self. The one who isn’t letting Blade, or the Kate Shaw mystery, or Bard academy get to me. All I want to think about is my date. And what I’m going to wear on said date. I don’t even want to think about my parents — Dad in particular — or Mom, or how unfair it is that I’m here. I am putting that all aside for the moment. But things aren’t Zen for very long.

Friday morning in the bathroom, I bump straight into Parker Rodham and about four members of her clone posse. The Parker Clones look just like Parker Rodham, from their highlighted hair to their Tiffany jewelry. I get the distinct impression this isn’t a call from the official welcome committee. Hostility is rolling off them in waves.

This is not something I’m used to. At my old school, the Parker Rodhams loved me. Well, I mean, most everybody loved me. And what’s not to love? I’m a nice person. I give free makeovers. But I can tell Parker doesn’t want to play nice. This feels like a scene from
Mean Girls.

“How do you know Ryan?” Parker asks me.

Ryan? Is that what this is about?

“He went to my old school,” I say.

“So you must know Rebecca Devon.”

Rebecca Devon was Ryan’s girlfriend. The one who died in the car crash. Ryan passed an alcohol test, but people still thought it was his fault. He had been the one driving.

“I know of her,” I say.

“Well, she used to be my best friend. We saw each other every summer. Her parents and mine owned houses in Nantucket. We were summer neighbors. I grew up with her
and
Ryan. Our families know each other.”

She says this smugly, as if she has the advantage. She’s known Ryan longer. Okay, then. I mean, what does she want? A trophy? Congratulations — you played with him in the kiddie pool when you were three? I’m sure that means you’re destined to get married.

Okay, I realize that Parker somehow sees me as competition or something, and I’m going to diffuse this situation right now. It’s time to be the charming negotiator that I used to be at my old school — the one who managed to convince our old principal to let students leave campus at lunch. I remind myself that I am, after all, the only noncheerleader/nonhonor-student type who had a class president write-in campaign in her honor. I am not the girl who other girls usually hate. I’m the nonthreatening, best-friend type, not the steal-your-boyfriend type. I don’t compete for guys. I don’t believe in screwing other girls over. I have a strict code of girl ethics. If she has dibs on Ryan, she has dibs. As much as it would pain me to give up my date with him, I would if I thought I was on the wrong side of the girl code.

“Listen, Parker, if this is about Ryan, let’s talk about it. I don’t know about your history. But I’m a fair-minded person.”

Parker’s brow furrows and she frowns at me. I guess I said the wrong thing. Usually, when you find yourself in the middle of a boy turf war and you call a truce, the other girl is relieved. Parker just seems pissed.

One of her clones actually barks a laugh. “You can’t honestly think Parker is
worried
about you,” she says.

“Look at those shoes,” another one says, as if this says it all. I glance down at my own brandless ballet flats, and then at their shoes, and realize that they’re wearing the shoes I saw in
Teen Vogue
last month. And they’re all carrying bags that I dream about: matching Juicy Couture.

They all take a step closer, surrounding me like a pack of hyenas, that is if hyenas wore designer perfume and eight-hundred-dollar shoes.

“Nice leggings,” says another girl, of the stretchy black leggings I’ve started to wear under my skirts. I’m trying to infuse the Bard uniform with style, but it’s sort of like trying to give my au natural sister a makeover. It’s a losing battle. Luckily, I have lots of hats and jewelry and scarves. I’ve been rotating through them, trying desperately to look different. If there’s one thing I hate more than anything, it’s wearing what everybody else is wearing. I’m no clone.

“And nice backpack. What is it? Eddie Bauer?” Another of the clones grabs my backpack off my shoulder and turns it over to see the label. When I try to grab it back, she hands it off to the next clone.

“Come on, guys, are we in a bad made-for TV movie? You can’t be serious,” I say, reaching for the backpack again just to have it whisked away. Are they going to try to put me in a locker next? I mean, really.

“Just stay away from him, okay?” Parker says. She nods to one of her clones, who drops my backpack in the toilet and then flushes, making sure my backpack gets completely drenched in toilet water.

That is so not cool.

Then the lights above our heads flick off. At first, I think it’s Parker’s doing and now she and her posse are going to jump on me, but they don’t. In fact, they seem as surprised as I am.

“Who did that?” Parker shouts to the bathroom, her voice echoing back from the tiles. When Parker is met with silence, I can tell she, too, gets a little freaked. It’s not easy to stand in a pitch-black bathroom and keep your calm.

Parker and her clones aren’t used to living in a haunted dorm room like I am. The hand dryers behind them turn on, causing one of Parker’s clones to scream. A trashcan is knocked over, too, hitting the floor with a clang. Now everybody’s good and spooked.

“Come on, girls, we’re done here anyway,” Parker says, her voice slightly unnerved. I can tell by the clatter of shoes on the tile that the girls head quickly for the exit, leaving me and my wet backpack in the dark. As soon as they’re gone, the lights above me flicker on again.

I can’t help but wonder if it’s Kate Shaw’s ghost.

“If that’s you, Kate, thanks,” I say to the empty bathroom.

Reluctantly, I pull out my soggy backpack from the toilet. I hate to even look inside, but I do anyway. Most of my homework is ruined, as well as my spiral notebooks that I use to take notes. There goes pretty much all of my work for midterms. You know, a month’s worth of work literally down the toilet.

I look at my soggy special history report for Coach H that I was supposed to turn in today. The ink has run down the pages, and they’re all stuck together in a great, soggy mess. Somehow I doubt he’s going to believe me when I tell him what happened to my homework assignment.

“My bully flushed it” doesn’t sound too credible.

I try to be Zen about it, but all I can think is that I want to make Parker Rodham the next Bard Academy ghost. With my bare hands.

Seventeen

Hana consoles me by
offering to take me to the Bard Academy bookstore Saturday afternoon, the only shop on campus, to replace my lost notebooks and backpack.

“Unless there’s a fully written report and extra credit to make up for the F Coach H is going to give me for my ruined report, then I don’t think the store is going to help me,” I tell Hana.

“Come on, I’ll buy you a smiley-face sticker,” she says.

“How about some rat poison for Parker Rodham instead?”

“Maybe you need two smiley-face stickers.”

The bookstore is a relatively small room: it makes a Citgo gas station look like the Mall of America. It has pens, pencils, notepads (all with the Bard Academy logo on them, as if you could forget where you are), backpacks, and replacement uniforms. There are also rows of books, divided by class. No money is ever exchanged at the bookstore, because students aren’t allowed to have cash. They think it will tempt us to attempt to run away. So you sign off on everything and I suppose they’ll bill your parents later. I secretly hope the Bard Academy supplies I intend to buy (the folders, notebooks, and pens) cost my dad a fortune. It would serve him right for sending me here in the first place.

Not to mention, if my new backpack costs one thousand dollars then he’d be here tomorrow to get me. Dad has a thing about money. Only he and his newest wife can spend it. Everyone else has to cut coupons and shop at the thrift store.

Dad, by the way, has yet to write. He’s probably in the middle of another divorce proceeding. That, or another affair. Like Mom says, he’s got the emotional maturity of a twelve-year-old. This reminds me that I need to write him a letter. I haven’t made any progress on it at all.

Hana goes off to the pen and pencil aisle to look for a protractor and I’m left studying the other backpacks, trying to figure out which one would be the most expensive, when I hear the faint sound of laughter. It sounds an awful lot like what I heard in the bathroom before someone set fire to my trashcan.

The sound of laughter is definitely getting louder. I step behind the backpack display trying to figure out if it’s coming from the grate or not, when I bump straight into…Heathcliff.

It’s like hitting a wall, he’s so broad and tall.

“I’m sorry,” I say, realizing belatedly that I’m standing on his foot. Literally,
standing
on it. He doesn’t even flinch. It’s like he doesn’t even feel my weight on his foot. This is how tough he is.

Suddenly, the strong smell of burning fabric hits me.

“Do you smell something…?” Before I can finish my question, he’s got his arm around me and is pushing me aside.

“What are you…?” I protest, just as he shoves me into the folders aisle. That’s when I look up and see that the backpacks above me are on fire. The top few topple off the rack like fire bombs, hitting the floor with a crackle and sending off sparks at the exact spot where I was standing before Heathcliff pushed me out of the way.

Someone else in the store screams and then other people start to run. Heathcliff stomps on the backpacks, suffocating the fire. In seconds, the flames are out.