The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door (21 page)

CHAPTER

35

It’s Wednesday morning, and I’m waiting for Drake at our usual spot by the swing sets in the neighborhood. It’s time to leave the quiet weightlessness of suspension and fall back into the noisy, gravity-filled atmosphere of high school. My only hope is that we don’t burn up on reentry.

I haven’t seen him since our secret meeting in the woods, but I know he will be here. I trust it.

I’m wearing my black hoodie, a black skirt, and my black boots with black tights. I guess I’m still dressed for battle, but, I don’t feel Dark. I feel impossibly light, like I might float out of my shoes and over the school, drifting around in the breeze.

After school today, I will not go to the wooded lot with Drake. I will go the principal’s office where I will meet with my Mom, Mandy and her parents, and Sandy and her parents. Hershey High asked for the meeting after my mom and I met with Principal Foster on Monday and I told him the whole story, from eighth grade up to last week. I showed him the Book that Sandy and Mandy made about me in middle school, but I also admitted to stealing Mandy’s phone and writing things about Sandy on the bathroom walls. Hershey High takes bullying seriously; it looks like we might all have some dues to pay. Still, telling my story was like opening a door to a poorly lit room and letting the sun reach every corner.

I submitted five poems to the Hershey High lit magazine, and I’m planning to attend the after-school writing group on Thursday. During my suspension, my teachers emailed my homework assignments so I could keep up with the class. Mr. Pearson finally gave us a creative-writing assignment. The subject was Milton S. Hershey, founder of Hershey, Pennsylvania. I wrote mine in the form of a poem.

HERSHEY

Rolling out chocolate on marble

requires a thermometer filled with mercury.

Cocoa butter can ruin an entire batch.

Mercury is dangerous. One dropped thermometer

and the shop is contaminated. Mercury gets

in your cells and doesn’t get out again, a toxic

river running under your skin.

Making chocolate is dangerous. It is also

delicious, rich and sweet to be the one

to clean the spatula and dip one secret

finger into the bowl.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Writing your first novel is nearly impossible without support. I would like to sincerely thank my brilliant agent Dan Lazar, without whom this book might have included a treasure map. Joy Peskin’s editorial compass was instrumental in keeping this book on course, and the staff at Viking Children’s Books make a superb ship’s crew.

My thanks to Richard Hugo House, Hedgebrook Writer’s Retreat, Cooper Artist Housing, and Write Bloody Publishing for the kind of encouragement that makes artistic invention possible. Thank you to the national and international community of spoken word artists who coaxed my voice out of hiding.

The love of Louis and Judith Finneyfrock and the rest of my family has made everything in my life bloom.

Thank you, Joe Paul Slaby, for your nose for plot. Thank you to my friends, especially the ones who helped me get through high school. And thanks to Warren Austin Leyh. Every Celia needs a Drake.