Buzz Kill (2 page)

Only my best friend, Laura Bugbee, seemed unhappy about what most of us accepted as a stroke of good luck. I mean, I was okay with not running laps for one day. But Laura's conscience, at least, couldn't rest.

“Millie . . . Don't you think we ought to tell somebody that Mr. Killdare didn't show up?” she fretted. “Like Principal Woolsey? Maybe Coach had a heart attack in his office!” She looked toward the guys' locker room with genuine concern in her brown eyes. “Maybe he's
dying
in there. He looks like he has high blood pressure!”

Laura was probably right about Coach Killdare's constricted veins, especially since his one positive claim to fame—off the football field—was consuming, in one sitting, a sixty-ounce porterhouse at the local Sir Loin's Steakhouse—a feat I aspired to myself someday. But my friend's imagination was definitely running away with her.

“Think about it, Laura,” I said, shutting my book reluctantly, because I'd been very intrigued by Montaigne's arguments
against
formal education. “If Mr. Killdare was dead or dying in his office, don't you think the guys would've noticed when they changed? I mean, I doubt the boys' locker room is a model of order or hygiene, but I don't think somebody could die in there without attracting some attention.”

Laura seemed somewhat reassured, but she still scrunched up her eyebrows, scanning the gym through her wire rims. “Maybe. But we could ask one of the guys to check. Just to be safe.” She frowned. “I wish Ryan was in this class. He'd do it.”

She was referring to our friend Ryan Ronin, who
was
a nice guy. However, Ryan was also a football player and complained endlessly about how Hollerin' Hank treated him. “I don't know if even Ry would get off his butt to save Mr. Killdare,” I noted. “I'd say it's fifty-fifty.”

Would
anybody
bother to save Coach Killdare if he ever really was in trouble?

All at once—although I was still pretty sure our teacher was probably stuck in the long morning drive-through line at Dunkin' Donuts or something like that—I recalled a list I'd made the previous year, when I'd been bored at a football game. A roll call of people who might actually want to kill the coach, and not just by failing to resuscitate him. If I remembered correctly, I'd been able to think of at least six—or possibly sixty—individuals, including my own dad, who'd probably like to stick a knife into Hollerin' Hank's overtaxed heart.

Then that weird thought was interrupted by the sound of a ball being dribbled, and I realized somebody had finally started using the equipment.

Laughing, I nudged Laura. “Hey, Chase is up and full of energy. Why don't you ask him to check the locker room?”

I believed Laura was genuinely concerned about Mr. Killdare—but obviously not enough to approach a guy she'd worshiped from afar, ever since his transfer to Honeywell. “No, that's okay!” she sort of cried, her face getting red.

“Oh, come on,” I teased, grabbing her arm, like I was going to drag her over to where Chase Albright was alone, shooting hoops. He was a one-man team, sinking a shot, retrieving it, and going in for a lay-up—all with the lazy, I-don't-give-a-damn-who's-watching, but-don't-ask-to-join-me vibe that he always managed to give off. Chase was, I thought, the embodiment of aloof. Which apparently didn't bother Laura or a lot of other girls, who seemed perversely drawn to his inaccessibility—and, I supposed, the way he looked in his T-shirt and shorts. Even I—who had
nada
for Chase—couldn't deny that he filled out a gym uniform pretty well. And his face, with those blue eyes that gave away
nothing . . .
There wasn't much to criticize there, either.

My grip on Laura loosening, I studied Chase as he did another lay-up, his hair managing to gleam under the fluorescent lights, just as it had on a sunny day when I'd doodled his picture with a question mark on his chest.

And I still don't know much about Chase—except that he likes to watch moody foreign films that no other kids go to. But I can't seem to ask him what's up with that when I sell him his single ticket from my claustrophobic booth at the Lassiter Bijou . 
.
 .

“You think he's amazing, too.” Laura's accusation brought me back to reality, and I realized I was still holding her arm. She pulled away, giving me a smug look. “You practically went catatonic, watching him!”

“I did not,” I protested, my cheeks getting warm. A propensity to blush for virtually no reason was the curse of being a redhead. “I find him
interesting,
” I explained. “How can a guy who should be the most popular person in school—a guy everybody
wants
to be around—seem to have zero friends, let alone a girlfriend?”

At least, Chase had never brought a date, or anybody else, to the theater where I worked, as required by my father, who insisted that earning minimum wage “built character.”

“I heard there's a picture of a girl in his locker,” Laura informed me, both of us again observing Chase, who'd switched to taking shots from the free-throw line. “A very pretty girl.”

“Really?” I turned to Laura, intrigued. “Who is she?”

Laura shrugged. “Nobody knows. Probably a girlfriend at his old school.”

Interesting.
And where, exactly,
is
that school . . .?

I was just about to voice that question when somebody behind me butted into the conversation, saying in a supersnarky, high-pitched voice, “Dream on, ladies! Especially you, Millicent. Because Chase Albright is exactly one million miles out of your league.”

Knowing that things were about to get very, very bad—probably for me—I slowly, reluctantly, turned to see who had joined us.

Oh, crud . 
.
 . Here we go!

You may have phenomenally dumb luck with some things, Millie Ostermeyer, but you will never be with
my
future boyfriend,” Vivienne Fitch advised me. She towered over me, having already changed out of her gym clothes and into a pair of heels that were forbidden on the polished floor, like she was sure Mr. Killdare wouldn't make a last-minute appearance. Because, seriously . . .
heels?
He'd make her run ten laps in her stilettos, then force her to rent a power sander to buff out the scratches. “Because no twist of fate,” Viv added, “short of an accident with sheep shears, can save you from that mess on your head. It's like a flag that says ‘I will always be alone.'”

I wasn't sure he understood the joke, but her simian sidekick, Mike Price, snorted a laugh. Viv treated Mike like dirt—right down to openly expressing interest in Chase—but he continued to serve her like a butler and shamelessly sucked up because he was desperate to get in her pants. “Good one, Viv,” he grunted. “A flag. That's funny.”

Ignoring him, I peered up at Viv. “First of all, I don't give a rat's derrière about Chase Albright. And no offense, but I don't think you should get your hopes up. I seriously doubt he's dying to date a girl who just showed up on national TV getting trampled by a giant bee—in slow motion, no less.”

Indeed, an amateur cell phone video of Viv getting crushed on the sidelines of a football game by Stingers' mascot Buzz had resurfaced after going viral the year before. Just when it had seemed like “Cheerleader BuzzKill” had gone dormant forever—after upward of a
million
YouTube hits—ESPN had resurrected it for a bloopers show celebrating the start of the high school football season. Talk about national exposure—of Viv's butt.

She jabbed a finger at me, a murderous gleam in her eyes. “I swear, if you had anything to do with that—”

“Viv, I do not spend my time videotaping you,” I promised her. “That whole thing was Mr. Killdare's fault. He's the one who kicked Buzz. Go threaten him!”

“Speaking of which,” Laura interrupted, “have you seen Coach Killdare, Viv? Because I'm kind of worried about him.”

Viv seemed to think Laura'd lost her mind. “I have no idea where he is,” she snapped, “and I don't care if Hank Killdare fell through a wormhole into another dimension!”

I had to admit I grudgingly admired her grasp of time-space portals.

“Not only did he humiliate me,” she continued, her voice rising, “but if he gives me one more D for not climbing that stupid rope, I might not get into Harvard. I don't care what the hell happened to him!”

Ouch.
That was harsh. And why was she assuming that something had really “happened”? Had there been, say, a four-car pileup that the rest of us weren't privy to yet?

“If you'd just eat something,” I suggested, not unkindly, “maybe you could climb the rope—and be in a better mood.”

“Not all of us have freakish metabolisms and can stuff our faces all day,” Viv countered. She glanced at my chest. “Although if I were you, I'd wish I could gain weight
somewhere.
”

Ooh, a flat-chest wisecrack. Those never got old.

Grabbing my book, I finally stood up, as did Laura. “What do you really want, Viv?”

She crossed her arms. “I'm here to remind you that you have an overdue story for the
Gazette.
And I want it on my desk, ASAP.”

I knew that Vivienne didn't care about that stupid story, and was, as usual, “reminding” me that as student editor of the paper, she was technically my boss for the year. One who took twisted delight in giving me the worst assignments—including this latest snoozer, about some chinks in a cinder-block wall, for crying out loud.

“Viv, if you honestly think I'm going to schlep out to the football field to look at a few cracks in the bleachers—”

“Oh, I don't just
think
you'll do that.” She cut me off. “I expect to see a story about the stadium's
major structural problems
on my desk by the end of the day. And I want quotes from Mayor Jack Ostermeyer, too, explaining why this boondoggle of a school that he wanted so badly not only gives people cancer, but is already falling apart at the seams.”

Laura sucked in a sharp breath because that was low, even by Viv's standards.

My dad had fought for the construction of our state-of-the-art school, but that stuff about people getting sick because it stood on the site of an old factory . . . That had all been disproved—after nearly costing Dad an election. And my mom had died of an aggressive form of leukemia, back when I was ten. Viv should never even have uttered the word “cancer” around me, after what my family had been through.

“You'll get your story when I feel like writing it,” I growled, feeling Laura's fingers twine around my arm, like she was ready to hold me back. “And if you bug me again, you'll have cracks in
your
head.
”

Viv and I had a long history of pushing each other's buttons, but she seemed to realize she'd gone too far. I could see it in her cold, sharky blue eyes. She didn't back down, though—and certainly didn't apologize. “I'll give you two more days,” she advised me. She summoned her minion. “Come on, Mike. Let's get out of here.”

I'd almost forgotten Mike was there, and he was equally oblivious to me. Following his gaze, I realized that his dull eyes were trained on Chase, who was still shooting hoops.

Mike's a mean kid who's still pissed about Chase getting his quarterback spot—and killing any shot he had at a college scholarship. And he
really
blames Mr. Killdare—

“Mike,” Viv snapped again, so her lackey surfaced from his trance. “Let's go.”

I watched them walk across the gym, Viv's heels clicking, until Laura ventured, “Hey, sorry about what she just said,”

Bending, I grabbed my mat since class was almost over. “You don't have to apologize. You're not the soulless psychopath.”

Laura began to roll up her mat, too. “You know she's really just jealous of you.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “I inspire envy in every Ivy-League-bound cheerleader with long, blond hair and what I swear is a surgically altered nose.”

“You are prettier than Vivienne,” Laura insisted. Before I could protest, she added, “You know she envies how easily stuff comes to you, and your red hair was the first thing she ever got jealous about. Remember how you won that costume contest in third grade, just by wearing a trash bag and making a ponytail on top of your head?”

I grinned. “Yeah, I was a volcano. While Viv's family spent, like, a thousand dollars to dress her up as Snow White.”

I could still picture Viv stamping her crystal-encrusted shoes as I'd accepted a plastic pumpkin full of candy and marched down Market Street, leading Honeywell's Halloween parade.

“And then there was the time you saved that kid at camp when he almost drowned in the lake,” Laura reminded me. “That was
huge.
”

“I was actually begging Kenny Kaluka to stop pulling on me,” I admitted. “I kept trying to pry his fingers off my arm the whole time I was dragging him to shore.”

“Well, you came off like a hero—and got Camper of the Year, even though Viv had dominated pretty much everything all summer, from archery to canoe racing.” Laura frowned. “And then you won that Peacemaker thing last year . . . That was probably the last straw.”

She was talking about the National
Pacemaker
Awards, which were the equivalent of Pulitzer Prizes for student journalists. And she was right about Viv having a conniption when I'd won for feature writing, for a sappy story about our school's blind crossing guard. I hadn't even technically entered—the
Gazette
's eager new advisor, Mr. Sokowski, had filled out the paperwork—but I'd come home with the honors.

“That did tick her off pretty badly,” I agreed. “She didn't even get honorable mention for her piece on bulimic cheerleaders.” I shrugged. “Too clichéd, I think.”