Are You Still There (19 page)

Besides their durable nature?

And how easily they slip through the slats of a locker?

Or under a windshield wiper?

Because they're a metaphor, you dumb ass!

Don't get it? No big surprise.

Let me spell it out for you.

There are Winners and there are Losers—

Just like Life
.

BIG cards trump the puny ones,

And Top Dog takes all, a true popularity contest.

Just like Life
.

Or they're grouped by suits,

Segregation at its finest.

Because if you think those hoity-toity Hearts would be caught dead

Hanging out with them stupefied Spades …

You got another think coming.

Solitaire's my game

For obvious reasons.

28

Janae's backpack clunks as she sets it down. And when she goes to the bathroom ten minutes later, I do something so totally sneaky. I unzip her backpack and peek inside.

I immediately wish I hadn't. Because her backpack is stuffed with empty alcohol bottles.
Oh my god
. She's back to being a drunk. And it's all because I took her to that stupid party.

I zip it back up real fast. Should I confront her? Tell her dad? Tell my parents? But then they'll never let me hang out with her again.
Crap
.

She comes back in the room slowly, watching me. I hope she can't read the expression on my face. I try to smile, but I've never been a good faker.

“What's wrong, Gabi?” she asks.

“I, uh … I'm wondering how you're doing.”

She laughs, and it feels so out of place that I almost fall over. “You can't lie to save your life, can you?”

“What?”

“You look totally tortured. I don't want to be
that
mean. This is your prank. To make you think I'm drinking again.”

“What?” I'm confused.

“You looked in my backpack, didn't you?”

Then it dawns on me. She planted those bottles, knowing I'd look when I heard them clanking and she acted all secretive.

“That's
mean.”

“I know. Garth's idea.”

“You told him?

“Yeah, I told him. You were right. He doesn't care that I went to rehab and that I can't drink anymore.”

“I don't know whether to attack you or hug you.” I cross my arms.

“Oh, hug. I totally vote for hug.”

An hour and a bag of pretzels later, I'm lying on my bed. “Do you ever wonder who you can trust?” I ask Janae. She's plucking my eyebrows. Chloe and Mel are downstairs.

“Uh, Gabi? You better trust me. I've got your life in my hands. Do you have any idea how bad botched eyebrows look? A hundred times worse than the most god-awful haircut you've ever had.” She pauses with the tweezers midair. “Why do you ask about trust?”

I take a deep breath. “This is ultra, ultra, ultra confidential. I might have even committed a crime.”

“Seriously?” She sets down the tweezers and I sit up. “This is the most exciting part of my day.”

“So when my dad is working on a case, sometimes he brings home copies of evidence to mull over. He keeps it locked up.”

“No way!” Janae's eyes are wide. “You're breaking into his files?”

I sort of shrug, and she goes on, “Shit. Why're you telling me? I don't want to be an accomplice.”

“You said I could trust you,” I remind her. She nods, her face hesitant. “I keep finding these playing cards in strange places, like someone's leaving them for me.” I pull out the queen with the hearts floating.

“Funky.” She reaches for it.

“I found photocopies of cards just like this with different messages, threatening ones, in my dad's lockbox. It's got to be the bomber guy.”

Janae flips her hair out of her eyes. “What makes you so sure it's a guy? You still thinking about that one caller who freaked you out so bad?”

I nod.

She scoots up close and examines my forehead. “Okay, so it's possible. But we've had so many crank callers. How could you know what's real and what's fake? You know all the crazies get off on copycat shit. All someone has to do is want to freak you out. It doesn't mean it's the real dude.”

“I don't know. I just have a feeling.” I touch my eyebrow. The skin underneath stings. “Did you know Jo Moon?”

She pulls back and considers me. “I knew
of her
. Did anyone really know her? She's practically an urban legend. Besides, what does that have to do with anything?”

“I think it has everything to do with this bomber.”

Janae laughs. “What? Is she a ghost coming back to haunt us by bombing the school? Did she fake her own death and she's really lurking around, ready to punish us all?”

“No—listen. One of these cards, a queen, was drawn to look like her, with a noose around her neck.” I don't mention that I saw this one in my sister's hands. “Maybe the bomber was a friend of hers.”

“Hello?” Janae knocks on my head. “Anyone home? Jo Moon didn't have any friends. That was part of the problem.”

“I remember there being this one guy. This scrawny little guy, no color, like he's made of milk.”

“I don't remember a guy.”

“Are you sure? Think hard. Because I remember him being there, sitting with her at P.E., maybe eating lunch with her under the far tree in the quad.”

“What's his name?”

“That's the problem. I don't know his name, and when I see him in my mind, he has no face. My guess is that he's someone we just don't notice. Someone who flies under the radar. Maybe that whole bomb thing was for revenge.”

“Yeah, but it's over. Bomb disassembled. End of story.”

“Maybe not. The cards are like threats.”

“Why would someone leave them for you?”

I run my fingertip over my raw eyebrow skin. “I don't know. I haven't figured that out yet. Maybe because my dad is the cop investigating all this?” I have another thought that I don't want to say out loud.
Maybe because it's someone who thinks I can figure it out?

“Maybe. Still don't get the link with Jo Moon though. I don't see why someone would want to blow us all up because of her. That whole mess wasn't our fault. None of us tied that noose for her.” Janae flips the ring in her lip around. “The only ones to blame are those irritating cheerleaders.”

“Yeah, but we all knew it was happening and nobody stood up for her. Nobody tried to be her friend.” My voice sounds intense even to my own ears. “What did she die for? To make a point?”

“Maybe. But her point to make.”

“Here's the thing. Her point didn't stick. We all thought about her and cried about her for a week or two, right? And now it's as if she never existed.”

“That's because none of us ever knew her.” Janae speaks louder and slower, like I'm hard of hearing. “We only knew her when we saw that video and when we read about her hanging from that tree. What did we have to remember?”

“So I think her friend, whoever he is, is trying to make her point again. And this time make an impact people won't forget.”

“By
bombing
the school?” Janae says this like it's the craziest thing in the world, and of course it is.

“Maybe. I think he did that whole bomb threat to scare us. To put us on alert. To make us realize we better start being nicer to the underdog.”

“Twisted.” Janae is quiet for a moment. “So he's like an activist? He never really intended to bomb the school?”

“Maybe. But I also think he's sending these playing cards to the cops, and maybe to other people besides me, as some kind of warning.”

“Of what?”

“I think he's going to try again. Maybe he thinks the only way to make people really care is to make them hurt.” Saying it out loud makes me shiver.

“You're scaring me.”

“I'm scaring myself too,” I admit. “I have to figure out who he is so we can stop him.”

“Or maybe we should just leave it to your dad. We're talking serious shit here, Gabi. Life-and-death shit. No offense, but you are not qualified.”

“Maybe,” I say. But inside I'm thinking that the cops are doing everything they can. It can't hurt to have another pair of eyes on this.

Janae spins her lip ring round and round, and she must be thinking along the same lines, because finally she says, “Can I see all the cards? Maybe the wording or the handwriting will help us figure him out.”

I run down, unlock Dad's safe, and grab the cards. Chloe and Mel are watching music videos. Then I jam back up the stairs.

Now Janae is cross-legged on my bed and all intense. “I'm surprised the cops haven't found a way to trace these cards,” she says after a while. “Like, you'd think the guy would leave fingerprints or have analyzable handwriting or something.”

“He's too smart for that.” I go up to the mirror and examine my eyebrows. The skin is bright red and raw around where she plucked. I pull out the tweezers to clean up the hairs she missed.

“Creepy. They're all the people cards. The jack, the queen, the king, the joker. He's the joker, right? And the rest are us.” She's quiet for a moment. “Huh. Most card games are games of strategy.”

“And some luck, in whatever card you draw.”

“Right. But mostly strategy. I wonder what significance these cards have? Is this a game to him?” She stops and stares at my reflection. “Are you crying, or did you tweeze a nerve?”

“Very funny.” I stick out my tongue at her reflection. “So how do we find him? Go through the yearbook and circle every senior we don't know?”

“And then what? Stalk them? Listen to their voices so we can figure out if they're your mystery caller?”

“We could try to send him a message.” I tweeze out the last stray hair. “And then trap him in some way.”

“Uh, Gabs? This is a kid who might blow us up into little pieces. Who hasn't been caught by the police. This wacko is probably smarter than both of us combined.”

“He's also a kid who doesn't feel heard. Or noticed.” I turn to face her. “Maybe we can figure out who to watch if we can somehow set up a forum for him to be heard.”

“Like what? A peer counseling helpline?”

“Very funny. You don't think he's one of us, do you?”

“Not until I just heard you say that,” Janae says. “We do have a couple weirdos among us. Whoever handpicked our team picked out people from just about every clique. Even the ones who are their own clique because they aren't a clique.” She stops suddenly. “Like what about Eric?”

“People know him—he's not invisible.”

“I'm just brainstorming here. But it's interesting, because what if they created this helpline to watch
us?
The listeners. Like what if their main suspects are on the Line?”

“Are you saying you and I are suspects?”

“No. Who could suspect us of anything?” She bats her eyelids all innocent. “At least you, anyway. They'd have to have regular kids too. Otherwise it would be obvious.”

“This is like major conspiracy theory.”

“Maybe. Do you remember Eric from freshman and sophomore year? Do you remember who he hung out with?”

“No,” I say slowly.

“Here, grab your yearbook from freshman year. Let's check him out.” We flip through freshman year's yearbook. I find his picture on page thirty-three. He looks like himself, only scrawnier. With his washed-out face and shaggy dirt-colored hair.

“Is this the guy you remember? The guy who hung with Jo Moon?”

I stare at the picture so hard it changes shape. “I'm not sure,” I admit. “But it's possible.”

If it is Eric, I've got to stop him. Before he ruins his own life and everyone else's.

29

The gun is gone.

When I go back to put the cards away, I see that the safe door has swung wide open under Mom's desk, open like a dark, gaping mouth. I stick my head nearly inside the safe to make sure I'm not missing something. The smell of metal is so strong it makes me dizzy. I try to remember. Did I lock the safe after I came down to get the cards for Janae?

I don't know. But the gun is gone. And so is my stomach. It has dropped completely out of my body and disintegrated onto the floor.

I run back to the living room. The television is still blaring. I see legs. Covered in jeans. Hanging over the edge of the couch in front of the TV. Not moving. I can't tell whether they are Chloe's or Mel's. Even the thought of Mel in all her Eeyorish gloom makes the little hairs on my arms stand on end.

I stumble forward, trying to see what is attached to those legs. Blame it on too many horror movies, but my brain keeps flashing images of bloody bodies. I almost turn away, but then I remind myself that I have heard no gunshots. There is still hope.

Once I get close enough to see the hair, I know it's Chloe. She's either dead or asleep. I watch, trying not to shake uncontrollably and failing miserably. I hold on to the back of the couch and force myself to watch her chest. I am too scared to touch her hand.

It's moving. Her chest. So she's sleeping. I spin around, scanning the room for Mel. If Chloe's asleep, Mel must have taken that chance to go poke around in Dad's office. Possibly looking for the gun?

My eyes have gone all superhero on me. Maybe it's the adrenaline, but I can practically see through walls. I'm twisting the knob on the door to the downstairs bathroom. It's locked. I shake the handle.

“Mel, are you in there?” My voice sounds like it's coming from somewhere else. I press my ear up against the door, but everything sounds muted. I bang on the door again. “Melissa! Open the door!”

I feel someone come up behind me and I whirl, ready to block. The irony hits me. Ready to block a bullet? This superhero thing has gone to my head.