Dead Rules (8 page)

Chapter Eleven

JANA STEAMED.

She was mad at herself for being dead. When Jana woke up she was already on the bus. She had fresh clothes, clean hair, and evil thoughts.

Jana wanted Michael here. She was incomplete without him. She hated being dead and incomplete at the same time. Without Michael, Jana was on a bus to nowhere.

She stared out the window, mad at everything she saw. Mad at her school uniform skirt. And blouse. And shoes. Mad that her cell phone was as dead as she was. Mars sitting at the back of the bus staring at her pissed her off. Henry looking straight ahead in his seat pissed her off. The smell of Ivory soap really pissed her off.

Jana opened her cell phone and snapped it shut so hard it almost broke. She plunged it back into her skirt pocket and cursed.

“It's going to be today,” Arva said with a touch of excitement in her frogged-out voice. She was talking about Jana's field trip. “It's usually your second day.”

“Mars already told me,” Jana spewed. “I get to go to a funeral. Oh boy.”

“You don't go alone, Jana. You get to take one of us with you. Most people choose their orientation roommate.”

“And that would be you.”

“Yes,” Arva chirped.

“Whose funeral is it anyway? Doesn't someone around here die every day?”

“Yours, Jana.”

Jana was amazed that she hadn't realized this sooner. Of course it was her funeral. She began to grin. She'd get to see Michael.

She wouldn't need her cell phone. Jana would sit in Michael's lap and tell him everything that was new. She would hold on to Michael with both arms and stay that way. Once she had Michael, there was nothing anyone could do to pull them apart.

Whatever happened next, it would be the two of them seeing it through to the end.

“I'm sorry,” Jana finally said.

“About what?”

“My attitude. I didn't mean to take it out on you. It isn't your fault that I'm here.”

“It's okay,” Arva said. “A lot of us are angry at the beginning.” Arva patted Jana's knee. “It gets better,” she added. “I promise.”

It didn't happen first hour.

Jana glanced at Mars when she could, avoiding eye contact with everyone else, including Arva. Mr. Fitzgerald assigned another in-class essay by writing the topic on the chalkboard. She wrote her essay in seconds, it seemed.

She was too excited to think about anything but Michael. She barely noticed the taste of strawberries in her mouth. Or Christie saying “ouch” over and over. Or Beatrice's yellow dart fins pointing forward as she leaned over her notebook.

When the Virgins sang the bell, the Sliders were out of class like a shot. Jana was right behind them.

As she hurried to second period, Arva had to skip along beside her to keep up. Mars lingered in the hall, staring at her as she passed. A girl had her arm on him. She was a Slider. She wore a tiny tee and her navel was pierced. Mars was ignoring the girl as best he could.

It didn't matter, anyway. Obviously Mars liked her, but Jana wasn't available. Jana was leaving Dead School today and she was never coming back. Michael would keep her warm from here on out.

Second period, Mr. Skinner drew more boxes on the blackboard. The chalk squeaked. Despite her desire to be out of class, and out of Dead School, Jana stared at the boxes and tried to figure out what Skinner was up to. Maybe he had died drawing boxes and kept doing it for eternity.

Jana was careful not to look around. She didn't want to make eye contact with anyone. Not with Arva. Not with Mars. Not with Beatrice and her upside-down smile. Not with Christie. If Henry turned around in his seat to pass her a note, Jana wanted him to see the top of her head. She wasn't going to be one of them for much longer, not once she and Michael were together.

The first box was complicated. There were two gaps in the lines that formed the box, one at the top and one at the bottom. Mr. Skinner put an X at the bottom opening. He had filled in the rest of the box with short horizontal and vertical lines, sometimes connected to one another, sometimes not.

To kill time, Jana sealed her lips into a straight line and copied the first box Skinner had drawn into her notebook. She placed an X at the bottom of the box and left an opening at the top. She drew in the short horizontal and vertical lines. The box, she finally realized, was a puzzle. It was a maze. Just like the kind they have on the back of paper place mats at IHOP.

It was a puzzle she could solve quickly, without error, but she was well behind Mr. Skinner's progress with the chalk. Jana copied the second box from the blackboard. Like the first, it had an X at a gap in the bottom. It was the entry into the maze. The other gap was high on the left side of the box instead of at the top. It was the way out.

Jana flipped the page in her notebook and started copying the third box. She looked at Mars once. But she did it with her head ducked, peering carefully from behind the edges of her hair that fell forward over her work.

He was watching her. Jana wondered if he was staring at her every second. Maybe he was trying to drill a hole in the back of her head with his piercing blue eyes. Tough luck. She already had one of those.

She had drawn the sixth box of Skinner's when two Virgins entered the classroom. They sang one soprano note together lightly and everyone in class looked up. Then the shimmering Virgins did something absolutely beautiful. They sang Jana's name in alternating high and low notes in delayed harmony. Jana had never heard her name sound so pretty.

Jan-ah Web-ster.
It sounded like a lullaby.

In their ephemeral white gowns, with arms that seemed to float on the air, the Virgins motioned Jana forward. Their hair lifted softly on a breeze that wasn't there. Jana stood from her desk and walked to the front of class. She felt clunky.

The Virgins were at the classroom door, Jana eager to follow them. They turned and held up the palms of their hands in unison. Jana stopped. The Virgins moved their outstretched arms to encompass the classroom, their fingers undulating.

Jana was supposed to choose a student from her homeroom to accompany her to the Planet.

She looked over the class. Arva grinned at her. Jana's roommate had closed her notebook on her desk and was ready to go. Christie, knowing she wouldn't be selected, smiled at Jana, wishing her well on Jana's visit to her real life.

Henry Sixkiller looked hopeful. Beatrice did not. Yellow fins sticking out of the top of your head really wasn't the sort of thing you wore to anyone's funeral. Mr. Skinner tapped the blackboard with his chalk, waiting to do another box.

Jana pointed to the back of the room and said, “Mars Dreamcote.”

A murmur passed through the classroom. Students leaned toward each other to speak in whispers. Christie's and Beatrice's mouths fell open. Arva dropped her hands on her desk in disgust.

Wyatt, leaning sideways from his seat on his good leg, gave Mars a little shove. The dreadfully handsome blue-eyed Slider, who had seen Jana in her underwear and socks on her first day in Dead School, made his way to the front of the room. Jana tugged her hair behind her ear and followed the Virgins out the classroom door. Mars quickly caught up.

Chapter Twelve

MARS SURPRISED JANA.

He didn't get on the bus when she did. Jana found a seat in the middle and watched him out the window. Mars circled the side of the bus and darted through an opening in the chain-link fence that surrounded Dead School. With her thumb, Jana played Michael's ring back and forth on the third finger of her left hand.

Mars bent over to retrieve something in the grass at the base of a tree across the road. He tucked it inside his shirt and hurried back.

Jana watched him carefully. There was restrained power in his movements. It was there when he stood still too, when he leaned against something in the hall or against the rail of the fire-escape balcony.

Like the sky, she thought. It was always about to move, about to act. Jana wished she could copy the unreleased power that was in his every moment. If she could move like that, stand still like that onstage or in front of a camera, no one would be able to take their eyes away from her when she performed.

Jana was old enough to be honest with herself. She was attracted to Mars. And he was attracted to her.

She wasn't pretty enough to attract every boy she met. And she rarely sought to sparkle in person. She'd just come up short. Jana kept her brown hair in a simple cut so she could hide, when she needed to, by ducking her head. She almost never wore earrings or a necklace. She never tied her hair back to show off the long clean line of her arching neck.

When she was acting, it was different. Jana held her face upright, her shoulders back, her entire self on display until what beauty she possessed sparkled like a star. She didn't mind being plain. Or ugly. As an actress, Jana could be either one. That's why she liked acting. She didn't have to be as beautiful as her mother.

Mars wasn't attracted to Jana the way men were attracted to her mother. Yet something drew him to her. Jana could feel it, but she couldn't put her finger on it. It was deeper than some boy thinking she was cute. It was more like she was food and he was hungry. It was as if Mars needed her to survive.

This was why she had selected him to come with her today. He needed to see Jana with Michael. With Michael, she was more than Jana Webster. She was bigger. Bigger than life. Bigger than death. Jana and Michael were forever.

Mars needed to know, to see it for himself.

“Got your cell?” he asked, sitting next to her on the bus.

Jana fished her phone from her skirt pocket and handed it to Mars. She didn't need it as urgently as before. She would be seeing Michael soon. She could say everything she wanted to say in person.

As the bus began to move, Mars pried the cover off one side of her phone and flicked out the flat square battery. He reached inside his shirt and removed a fresh battery from a plastic Baggie. He slipped it into place and snapped the cover back on to her phone.

“Now, don't open it and don't turn it on,” Mars said, handing the phone back to her. His fingers touched hers and a river of warmth surged through her arm.

“It won't work on the bus,” he added. “You'll just drain the battery. Once we're off the bus, I'll show you how we can make it work.”

Jana fumbled the phone down into her skirt pocket and leaned back against the seat. Being next to Mars reminded her how cold she felt. Jana wanted Mars to drape his arm over her shoulders. But only for the warmth of it.

She tried to think of something else. Her funeral was on the horizon. Michael was waiting for her. Michael would be warm too.

They stood in front of the funeral chapel.

The street was lined with cars. Classmates stood in the small groups along the sidewalk. There were people Jana thought she recognized but didn't really know. Someone was dressed in a cheerleading uniform.

“It's like that when you die in high school,” Mars said. “Everyone goes to your funeral.”

“Look at her,” Jana said, pointing at the cheerleader. “How stupid is that?”

Mars walked beside her as she climbed the steps to the ornate double doors.

“You don't even know their names,” Mars said. “It's like that.”

“Some of them,” she said. “I know some of them. I've seen them all before.”

Jana reached for the handle on one of the doors but couldn't get her fingers around it. She tried the other one.

Her grasp wouldn't work.

“What's wrong with me?” Jana mumbled to herself.

Mars opened the door for her. She could have walked through the door without opening it at all, but life-conditioned habits died hard.

Jana rushed in. The hallway was filled with flowers. And people. Boys in shirts and neckties, and girls in dresses and heels. A few adults were among them. They spoke in whispers. Someone laughed at something that was said. Some of the girls were crying.

Music played in another room. Jana moved toward it. These doors were open. Inside, she stopped short. Mars stood behind her. Jana felt his hand on her shoulder. She spiked with heat.

Folding chairs were in rows in front of her casket. Not one seat was empty. Kids stood at the back, between the flower arrangements. Flowers also lined the walls to both sides of the rows of chairs. The front of the room, where her casket sat on a raised pedestal draped with white cloth, was also filled with flower arrangements.

Jana's funeral was like a theater. Her open casket centered the stage. Lights shone on the ornate box that held her body. Jana was the star attraction. From the back of the room, she could see her own face.

But it wasn't herself that she had come to see.

There were too many people in the room. Too many kids. It looked like a high school assembly and all the girls had been told to cry. It wasn't like
The Big Chill
at all. Glenn Close, William Hurt. And Kevin Kline.

With Kevin Costner as the dead guy. Now Jana had something in common with a famous actor. They both played dead people. Her memory was back in full stride. Jana could see the movie poster in her mind. Below the title it read, “
In a cold world you need your friends to keep you warm.
”

“This way,” Mars said.

He took Jana by the hand and led her to the front of the small auditorium. Mars knew what she wanted. He'd been to his own funeral and he understood what mattered once life was over. People think you're going to want to look at yourself and listen to the eulogy. Once you're dead, a eulogy is just a bunch of bull. You don't believe a word of it.

Mars led her to the seats reserved for family.

Jana stood in front of Michael, who sat next to her mother. Her mother had collapsed against him. She sobbed as steadily as most people breathed. She never looked up. Michael stared straight ahead. He was staring at nothing. He was looking right at Jana, but he acted like he didn't see her.

Look what I'm wearing
, she wanted to say.
Is this dumb or what?

“Why doesn't he see me?” she asked Mars.

Her mother's hand gripped Michael's thigh as she sobbed.

“Stop that!” Jana said. No one heard her, except Mars.

Michael's arm was around her mother. Her mother's face pressed against his chest.

“Don't fall for it, Michael,” Jana said. “She's always stricken. She always curls up like that.”

The entire room of people was behind or to the side of Michael and Jana's mother. No one else could see. As she watched in horror, Michael placed his hand on top of her mother's.

“No, no, no,” Jana said, tears streaking her face. “She's a drug addict, Michael! Don't do that! Stop touching her!”

Jana sobbed loudly. Her throat burned. Her heart was on fire and it hurt like hell.

Michael wrapped his fingers over her mother's. He was holding her hand.

“Stop it right now,” she said weakly. Jana's words were cloth stripped into shreds. “Stop it . . . right this . . . minute.”

Struggling to find her strength, Jana pushed herself forward. She leaned into Michael's knees and Jana Webster, all alone, slapped his face as hard as she could. Then, without taking a breath, she did it again. Wildly and with all her might, she battered him.