Are You Still There (23 page)

“I've been calling all night. Waiting for you.” His voice is thicker than usual. I try to match his voice to that preppy wrestler boy's body. Maybe. I'd think that guy's voice would be huskier than this one's, but who knows.

“So we're talking.” I hear an edge in my own voice. “What do you want to talk about?”

“I want to talk about why you've got a cop guarding my favorite pay phone.”

My heart stops for a moment. It figures that Dad would station a plainclothes policeman in an unmarked car by the pay phone, to see if the bomber came back. But wouldn't Dad know that this kid wouldn't be fooled by that? “I'm not sure what you're talking about.”

“I guess I'm not too surprised.” He goes on like I haven't said anything. “But it makes me wonder how much you're telling Daddy Dearest.”

Ridiculous, but I feel like I've betrayed him for a moment. Like I have some loyalty to this nutcase? I ignore the twinge and pick up a pencil to doodle on my note-taking paper. I'm not making anything meaningful, just a series of tiny circles. Around and around and around.

“Did I insult you?” he asks after not too long in this strange, eager sort of way that makes me remember he probably doesn't have any real friends. I might be the closest thing this kid has to a friend.

“Look. You're putting me in a tough position here,” I tell him, and it's honest. “I don't know what to do. But I do want to help you find a way out of this mess.”

“What makes you think I want help?” he asks softly.

“I can tell.” I match his tone. “I don't want anyone to get hurt. I don't think you do either.”

I can hear him breathing. “How do I know I can trust you?”

“You don't.” I blacken in a circle so there's not a speck of white. “How do I know you're not going to blow up this building right now with me in it?”

“I wouldn't hurt you.” He says quickly, and it feels real.

“Thank you.” The politeness makes it seem like we're setting up a movie date. “You've got to give me something to work with here. How can I help you?”

“I put something in your locker.”

“Yeah?” My heart catches.

“I want you to share it with the rest of the school. Will you do it?”

“What does it say?” Now my heart is pumping again, but at double speed.

“Doesn't matter, does it? If it will get me to call this game off?”

“Will
you call it off?” I grip the phone with both hands.

“Take a freaking look.” There is an edge to his voice again.

And before I can ask another question, he clicks off. I realize then that I've ripped the note-taking paper to shreds. My friends are staring at me like I've lost my mind.

Janae stands in front of me, gathering my hands in hers. “You've got to have your dad trace that call.”

“No. I think he trusts me. I can stop him.”

“Are you completely
insane?”
Janae's voice is shrill enough to shatter glass. “You were just talking to a terrorist. You
have
to trace that call.”

“No.” I say, standing up. “I've got to get something out of my locker.”

Janae blocks my path. “More than two thousand students go to this school. We're all at risk. You might think you're big shit because your dad's a cop, but you don't get to call all the shots.”

I move toward the door. “I need to get something out of my locker,” I say again.

Miguel grabs my arm, hard. “You aren't going alone.” And what might have once felt protective now feels intrusive. “I'm going with you.”

I ignore him, as much as a girl can ignore a boy twice her size gripping her arm. I push out the door into the darkened hallway. As the door clicks shut behind us, I hear Janae whispering loudly, “Its official. She's losing it.”

Except for playing cards, my locker is completely empty.

The bomber took everything out. All my books. All my scraps of paper and notes and crumpled-up lunch bags.

Instead, the walls are covered with playing cards. I tug one and realize they have been taped to the sides of the locker. They're arranged in an orderly fashion, in neat little rows. Like they're watching a show. And all queens, kings, and jacks. There's got to be at least forty of them, staring at me.

“Holy shit,” Miguel curses from behind me.

I scan the cards, looking for some clue, some explanation. My eyes catch on one. A joker. The solitary joker in the bunch. Crossed out with a big, fat X. This bomber dude is getting too creepy for me.

I rip the cards off the walls of the locker, in a hurry. Miguel's breath puffs against the back of my neck. “What the hell?” he whispers.

I notice black envelopes scattered all over the bottom of the locker. In the darkness they sort of blend in. There must be twenty of them. I gather them up in my arms and shove the playing cards in my sweatshirt pockets.

“Here. Help me carry them,” I hiss. I wonder if the bomber is here watching us, feeling betrayed that I brought someone with me. “We can't look through them here.”

“This is crazy, Gabi. Did that guy put all this crap in your locker? Then he's been watching you. Watching us!”

“Shut up,” I tell him, harsher than I mean to. I touch his arm to soften it, because I see the sting on his face. “We can't talk now. We can't, okay?”

He nods and helps me carry the envelopes back to the office.

Riiiiiing. Riiiiiing
.

“It's him again,” I tell Miguel. I am sure he is calling to chew me out for letting Miguel see the envelopes.

I'm only half right.

“Helpline—”

“Back-stabbing bitch!”
He cuts me off, and I hear pain.

“Excuse me?”

“You traced my call?” His voice is shaking, probably with anger. “I thought you were different. I thought you cared. But no—you're just like everyone else.”

I glare at Janae. She must've called my dad when I was searching my locker. Note to self: he was not watching me at the locker. He's somewhere else, and he saw the cops show up. He hasn't been captured.

He speaks again, and his voice is still shaking, but the quality has changed. It sounds tight, as though his throat has constricted, like maybe he is crying. “I thought you wanted to help me.”

“I do,” I protest, feeling desperate, as if he's slipping away from me.

“Bullshit.”

35

There is no way to open the envelopes in private. Miguel is breathing down my neck like a gorilla bodyguard. He's got his arms all crossed and huffy. I'm crouched in my bedroom, with the envelopes surrounding me.

The police traced the bomber's calls to a cell phone discarded in a trash can at the library. The bomber had stolen it, used it, then dumped it. Dad texted my cell and informed us that he'd send a plainclothes officer to the helpline office to escort us to our cars. We were all going home early.

I drove Miguel home, only we made a detour—to my house. Dad was still at work, Mom was asleep. Now it's ten thirty and there's a boy in my room. Unsupervised. If Chloe was awake, she'd be proud of me.

“How do you know there isn't anthrax on these envelopes?” Miguel is too close.

“I
know.”
I fight the urge to push him away from me.

“How do you know there isn't some kind of bomb you're going to trigger?” Too bad this particular boy is annoying the crap out of me.

“Look, Miguel. I
know
. If you're worried about it, you don't have to watch.”

“You don't get it, do you? I can't let you do something that might hurt yourself. I love you. I'm staying.” He pulls my desk chair up to my bed and sits down.

I freeze for a moment when I hear him drop the L word. I peek up at him, at the way his eyebrows bunch together when he's worried. Then I get back to work, slipping my finger through the slit in the first envelope and ripping it open. A picture falls out. Black and white. I hold it by the edges and lay it right side up on the rug. It's an action photo. A picture of a scrawny freshman, arms flailing and hair wet with sweat, being shoved into a trash can. The photographer blurred the freshman's face somehow, swirling the image where his face should be, leaving an unsettling, haunted mirror-like face. The faces attached to the hands shoving him in the trash can, however, are crystal clear. I can even see a zit on one of their noses.

I open the next envelope. Same thing. A circle of girls laughing as another walks by, their faces screwed up with something ugly. The photo is taken directly in front of the girl who's walking, and it captures how she hunches forward, how she holds her books to her chest, but her face is swirled, leaving her mostly unrecognizable. I gasp when I see my own face in the background, looking irritated and biting my lower lip. I seriously don't even remember being there. How many times have I watched people be rude to other people and just minded my own business?

I pick up the next one. Kids snickering as a boy points and gestures. Even though the gesturing kid is swirled out, I can tell by his backpack and his stance that it's Petey Plumber, our resident tattletale.

The next one looks oddly familiar. It's from the other day, when I waited at Eric's locker. When I saw those football types picking on a scrawny freshman. The photo must have been taken moments before I threw that apple. The scrawny kid's face is swirled out, but I can see the boxy faces of the football players as they loom behind him.

It's photo after photo of this. All black and white. All with the victim's faces swirled, and all with the other faces in clear view.

Miguel sits next to me, picking up the photos by the edges. “This makes our school look really bad. Like nobody cares about anyone else.”

“Yeah, but think about it.” I touch one of the swirled faces with my fingertip. “Do any one of these pictures surprise you?”

“No one single shot surprises me. Seeing them all together surprises me. I guess I didn't realize how often people do shitty things.”

“Wait a sec.” I feel like the pieces of the puzzle are coming together for me.

I spread out all the taped-up cards from my locker. I place the crossed-out joker in the center, where he'd placed himself before.

“What does this look like?” I ask Miguel.

He snorts. “Like somebody built a house of cards and it crumbled.”

“No, be serious. If this kid is trying to recreate a scene to give me a clue, what does it look like?” I pause while Miguel thinks. “Here, imagine them the way they were in my locker, with some of them placed above each other in rows. Where in our school would kids be sitting in rows like that?”

“The football bleachers or the school theater?”

My thoughts exactly. “Maybe he's at a school assembly.”

He repeats that slowly, the words rolling off his tongue. “A school assembly?” He turns to me, his eyes wide. He curses in Spanish with words I don't recognize.

“And maybe the joker's dead,” I add. “But no one else appears to be. He'd have x'd out everyone else if he intended to hurt everyone. Right?” I say this partly to reassure myself.

I think back to all the other cards he's planted. I'm pretty sure the joker has always represented him … leaving the queens and kings to represent others. All the joker cards held threats, saying things like I
hold a thousand lives in my hands. I am invisible. I can obliterate an entire school. Comprende, amigo?
The joker drawn to look dead. Like a skeleton.
Would anyone care? Granted, I'm a jaded piece of shit, but I sure as hell wouldn't
.

Everything's pointing to the moment of silence. Something will happen then. I'm sure of it. That means I have two days to figure this out.

The bomber, this joker, he asked me to help him. To share the photos. I play back his words in my mind: “Doesn't matter, does it? If it will get me to call this game off?” I know he's pissed that his call got traced. But can I earn his trust back?

I have the power to stop this.

If I play by his rules.

If I gain his trust.

I can save everyone.

Including him.

Stranger's Manifesto

Entry 20

Enough with hearts.

Enough with rummy, spades, and even pathetic pinochle.

Enough with goddamn solitaire.

I say it's about time for some freaking 52 pickup!

Just watch the cards scatter …

Watch the imbeciles scramble to pick them up.

Watch me bring this school to its goddamn knees.

Teach it a lesson.

Trust me … I will leave lives changed forever.

This moment of silence

Is like putting a Band-Aid

On a gushing wound.

Everyone's rushing around

Trying to get that Band-Aid to stick

When what they really need

Is a tourniquet.

36

Eric is sitting on my front steps when I pull up to the curb after sneaking back out to take Miguel home. Normally I park in the driveway if there's a space, but I don't want to take the chance of waking Mom up. The porch light is on, but I'm still a tiny bit creeped out. Like, why couldn't Eric wait until morning to come say whatever he has to say? It's got to be at least eleven thirty.

I sit in the car for a moment, engine off, deciding what to say. I know why he's here.

It turns out I don't have to say much.

“Gabi.” He stands up. His face is tight and I know he is at least ten times more uncomfortable than I am. “I want to apologize.”

“It's okay,” I tell him.

“No, it's not.” His voice comes back strong, and I step back. “But it's also not cool to lie to me.”

Big lump in throat.

“If you're not into someone, you should just tell them that.”

He's in my way. I want to walk around him, but that would be rude. “I didn't want to hurt your feelings.”