CHAPTER 1
They want me to write it down. All of it. Theyre calling it my statement.
Right. My statement. About how it happened. From the beginning.
On TV, when people have to give a statement, theres usually someone sitting there who writes it down for them while they talk, and then all they have to do is just sign it after its read back to them. Plus they get coffee and doughnuts and stuff. All Ive got is a bunch of paper and this leaky pen. Not even so much as a Diet Coke.
This is just further proof that everything you see on TV is a lie.
You want my statement? Okay, heres my statement:
Its all Ruths fault.
Really. It is. It all started that afternoon in the burger line in the cafeteria, when Jeff Day told Ruth that she was so fat, they were going to have to bury her in a piano case, just like Elvis.
Which is totally stupid, since—to the best of my knowledge—Elvis was not buried in a piano case. I dont care how fat he was when he died. Im sure Priscilla Presley could have afforded a better casket for the King than a piano case.
And secondly, where does Jeff Day get off saying this kind of thing to somebody, especially to my best friend?
So I did what any best friend would do under the same circumstances. I hauled off and slugged him.
It isnt like Jeff Day doesnt deserve to get slugged, and on a daily basis. The guy is an asshole.
And its not even like I really hurt him. Okay, yeah, he staggered back and fell into the condiments. Big deal. There wasnt any blood. I didnt even get him in the face. He saw my fist coming, and at the last minute he ducked, so instead of punching him in the nose, like I intended, I ended up punching him in the neck.
I highly doubt it even left a bruise.
But dont you know, a second later this big, meaty paw lands on my shoulder, and Coach Albright swings me around to face him. It turned out he was behind me and Ruth in the burger line, buying a plate of curly fries. Hed seen the whole thing …
Only not the part about Jeff telling Ruth she was going to have to be buried in a piano case. Oh, no. Just the part where I punched his star tackle in the neck.
“Lets go, little lady,” Coach Albright said. And he steered me out of the cafeteria and upstairs, to the counselors offices.
My guidance counselor, Mr. Goodhart, was at his desk, eating out of a brown paper bag. Before you get to feeling sorry for him, though, that brown paper bag had golden arches on it. You could smell the fries all the way down the hall. Mr. Goodhart, in the two years that Ive been coming to his office, has never seemed to worry a bit about his saturated-fat intake. He says he is fortunate in that his metabolism is naturally very high.
He looked up and smiled when Coach Albright said, “Goodhart,” in this scary voice.
“Why, Frank,” he said. “And Jessica! What a pleasant surprise. Fry?”
He held out a little bucket of fries. Mr. Goodhart had mega-sized his meal.
“Thanks,” I said, and took a few.
Coach Albright didnt take any. He went, “Girl here punched my star tackle in the neck just now.”
Mr. Goodhart looked at me disapprovingly. “Jessica,” he said. “Is that true?”
I said, “I meant to get him in the face, but he ducked.”
Mr. Goodhart shook his head. “Jessica,” he said, “weve talked about this.”
“I know,” I said with a sigh. I have, according to Mr. Goodhart, some anger-management issues. “But I couldnt help it. The guys an asshole.”
This apparently wasnt what either Coach Albright or Mr. Goodhart wanted to hear. Mr. Goodhart rolled his eyes, but Coach Albright actually looked as if he might drop dead of a coronary right there in the guidance office.
“Okay,” Mr. Goodhart said, real fast, I guess in an effort to stop the coachs heart from infarction. “Okay, then. Come in and sit down, Jessica. Thank you, Frank. Ill take care of it.”
But Coach Albright just kept standing there with his face getting redder and redder, even after Id sat down—in my favorite chair, the orange vinyl one by the window. The coachs fingers, thick as sausages, were all balled up into fists, like a little kid who was about to have a tantrum, and you could see this one vein throbbing in the middle of his forehead.
“She hurt his neck,” Coach Albright said.
Mr. Goodhart blinked at Coach Albright. He said, carefully, as if Coach Albright were a bomb that needed defusing, “Im sure his neck must hurt very much. Im quite certain that a five-foot-two young woman could do a lot of damage to a six-foot-three, two-hundred-pound tackle.”
“Yeah,” Coach Albright said. Coach Albright is immune to sarcasm. “Hes gonna hafta ice it.”
“Im certain it was very traumatic for him,” Mr. Goodhart said. “And please dont worry about Jessica. She will be adequately chastened.”
Coach Albright apparently didnt know what either “adequately” or “chastened” meant, since he went, “I dont want her touchin no more of my boys! Keep er away from them!”
Mr. Goodhart put down his Quarter Pounder, stood up, and walked to the door. He laid a hand on the coachs arm and said, “Ill take care of it, Frank.” Then he gently pushed Coach Albright out into the reception area, and shut the door.
“Whew,” he said when we were alone, and sat back down to tackle his burger again.
“So,” Mr. Goodhart said, chewing. There was ketchup at the corner of his mouth. “What happened to our decision not to pick fights with people who are bigger than we are?”
I stared at the ketchup. “I didnt pick this one,” I said. “Jeff did.”
“What was it this time?” Mr. Goodhart passed me the fries again. “Your brother?”
“No,” I said. I took two fries and put them in my mouth. “Ruth.”
“Ruth?” Mr. Goodhart took another bite of his burger. The splotch of ketchup got bigger. “What about Ruth?”
“Jeff said Ruth was so fat, they were going to have to bury her in a piano case, like Elvis.”
Mr. Goodhart swallowed. “Thats ridiculous. Elvis wasnt buried in a piano case.”
“I know.” I shrugged. “You see why I had no choice but to hit him.”
“Well, to be honest with you, Jess, no, I cant say that I do. The problem, you see, with you going around hitting these boys is that, one of these days, theyre going to hit you back, and then youre going to be very sorry.”
I said, “They try to hit me back all the time. But Im too fast for them.”
“Yeah,” Mr. Goodhart said. There was still ketchup at the corner of his mouth. “But one day, youre going to trip, or something, and then youre going to get pounded on.”
“I dont think so,” I said. “You see, lately, Ive taken up kickboxing.”
“Kickboxing,” Mr. Goodhart said.
“Yes,” I said. “I have a DVD.”
“A DVD,” Mr. Goodhart said. His telephone rang. He said, “Excuse me a minute, Jessica,” and answered it.
While Mr. Goodhart talked on the phone to his wife, who was apparently having a problem with their new baby, Russell, I looked out the window. There wasnt a whole lot to see out of Mr. Goodharts window. Just the teachers parking lot, mostly, and a lot of sky. The town I live in is pretty flat, so you can always see a lot of sky. Right then, the sky was kind of gray and overcast. Over behind the car wash across the street from the high school, you could see this layer of dark gray clouds. It was probably raining in the next county over. You couldnt tell by looking at those clouds, though, whether or not the rain would come toward us. I was thinking it probably would.
“If he doesnt want to eat,” Mr. Goodhart said into the phone, “then dont try to force him.… No, I didnt mean to say that you were forcing him. What I meant was, maybe he just isnt hungry right now.… Yes, I know we need to get him on a schedule, but—”
The car wash was empty. No one wants to bother washing a car when its just going to rain. But the McDonalds next door, where Mr. Goodhart had picked up his burger and fries, was packed. Only seniors are allowed to leave campus at lunchtime, and they all crowd the McDonalds and the Pizza Hut across the street.
“Okay,” Mr. Goodhart said, hanging up the phone. “Now, where were we, Jess?”
I said, “You were telling me that I need to learn to control my temper.”
Mr. Goodhart nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, you really do, Jessica.”
“Or one of these days, Im going to get hurt.”
“That is an excellent point.”
“And that I should count to ten before I do anything the next time I get angry.”
Mr. Goodhart nodded again, even more enthusiastically. “Yes, thats true, too.”
“And furthermore, if I want to learn to succeed in life, I need to understand that violence doesnt solve anything.”
Mr. Goodhart clapped his hands together. “Exactly! Youre getting it, Jessica. Youre finally getting it.”
I stood up to go. Id been coming to Mr. Goodharts office for almost two years now, and Id gotten a pretty solid grasp on how things worked from his end. An added plus was that, having spent so much time in the reception area outside Mr. Goodharts office, reading brochures while I waited to see him, I had pretty much ruled out a career in the armed services.
“Well,” I said. “I think I get it, Mr. Goodhart. Thanks a lot. Ill try to do better next time.”
I had almost made it out the door before he stopped me. “Oh, and Jess,” he said, in his friendly way.
I looked over my shoulder at him. “Uh-huh?”
“Thatll be another week of detention,” he said, chewing on a fry. “Tacked on to the seven weeks you already have.”
I smiled at him. “Mr. Goodhart?” I said.
“Yes, Jessica?”
“You have ketchup on your lip.”
Okay, so it wasnt the best comeback. But, hey, he hadnt said hed call my parents. If hed said that, youd have heard some pretty colorful stuff. But he hadnt. And whats another week of detention compared to that?
And, what the hell, I have so many weeks of detention, Ive completely given up the idea of ever having a life. Its too bad, in fact, that detention doesnt count as an extracurricular activity. Otherwise, Id be looking real good to a lot of colleges right about now.
Not that detention is so bad, really. You just sit there for an hour. You can do your homework if you want, or you can read a magazine. You just arent allowed to talk. The worst part, I guess, is that you miss your bus, but who wants to ride the bus home anyway, with the freshmen and other social rejects? Since Ruth got her drivers license, she goes mental for any excuse to drive, so Ive got an automatic ride home every night. My parents havent even figured it out yet. I told them I joined the marching band.
Good thing they have way more important things to worry about than making sure they get to one of the games, or they might have noticed a general absence of me in the flute section.
Anyway, when Ruth came to pick me up after detention that day—the day this whole thing started, the day I punched Jeff Day in the neck—she was all apologetic, since Id basically gotten in trouble because of her.
“Oh, my God, Jess,” she said when we met up at four outside the auditorium doors. There are so many people on detention at Ernest Pyle High School that they had to start putting us all in the auditorium. This is somewhat annoying to the drama club, which meets on the auditorium stage every day at three, but we are supposed to leave them alone, and they pretty much return the favor, except when they need some of the bigger guys from the last row to move part of a set or something.
The plus side of this is I now know the play Our Town by heart.
The minus side is, who the hell wants to know the play Our Town by heart?
“Oh, my God, Jess,” Ruth was gushing. “You should have seen it. Jeff was up to his elbows in condiments. After you punched him, I mean. He got mayo all over his shirt. You were so great. You totally didnt have to, but it was so great that you did.”
“Yeah,” I said. I was pretty stoked to head home. The thing about detention is, yeah, you can get all your homework done during it, but its still a bit of a drag. Like school in general, pretty much. “Whatever. Lets go.”
But when we got out to the parking lot, Ruths little red Cabriolet that she had bought with her bat mitzvah money wasnt there. I didnt want to say anything at first, since Ruth loves that car, and I sure didnt want to be the person to break it to her that it was gone. But after wed stood there for a few seconds, with her rattling on about how great I was, and me watching all my fellow detainees climbing into their pickups or onto their motorcycles (most of the people in detention are either Grits or JDs—I am the only Townie), I was like, “Uh, Ruth. Wheres your car?”
Ruth went, “Oh, I drove it home after school, then got Skip to bring me back and drop me off.”
Skip is Ruths twin brother. He bought a Trans Am with his bar mitzvah money. As if, even with a Trans Am, Skip is ever going to have a hope of getting laid.
“I thought,” Ruth went on, “that it would be fun to walk home.”
I looked at the clouds that earlier in the afternoon had been over the car wash. They were now almost directly overhead. I said, “Ruth. We live like two miles away.”
Ruth said, all chipper, “Uh-huh, I know. We can burn a lot of calories if we walk fast.”
“Ruth,” I said. “Its going to pour.”
Ruth squinted up at the sky. “No, its not,” she said.
I looked at her like she was demented. “Ruth, yes, it is. Are you on crack?”
Ruth started to look upset. It doesnt actually take all that much to upset Ruth. She was still upset, I could tell, over Jeffs piano-case statement. Thats why she wanted to walk home. She was hoping to lose weight. She wouldnt, I knew, eat lunch for a week now, all because of what the asshole had said.
“Im not on crack,” Ruth said. “I just think its time the two of us started trying to get into shape. Summer is coming, and Im not spending another four months making up excuses about why I cant go to somebodys pool party.”
I just started laughing.
“Ruth,” I said. “Nobody ever invites us to their pool parties.”
“Speak for yourself,” Ruth said. “And walking is a completely viable form of exercise. You can burn as may calories walking two miles as you would burn running them.”
I looked at her. “Ruth,” I said. “Thats bullshit. Who told you that?”
She said, “It is a fact. Now, are you coming?”
“I cant believe,” I said, “that you even care what an asshole like Jeff Day has to say about anything.”
Ruth went, “I dont care what Jeff Day says. This has nothing to do with what he said. I just think its time the two of us got into shape.”
I stood and looked at her some more. You should have seen her. Ruths been my best friend since kindergarten, which was when she and her family moved into the house next door to mine. And the funny thing is, except for the fact that she has breasts now—pretty big ones, too, way bigger than Ill ever have, unless I get implants, which will so never happen—she looks exactly the same as she did the first day I met her: light-brown curly hair, huge blue eyes behind glasses with gold wire frames, a fairly sizable potbelly, and an IQ of 167 (a fact she informed me of five minutes into our first game of hopscotch).
But you wouldnt have known she was in all advanced-placement classes if youd seen what she had on that day. Okay, in the first place, she was wearing black leggings, this great big EPHS sweatshirt, and jogging shoes. Not so bad, right? Wait.
Shed coupled this ensemble with sweatbands—I am not kidding—around her head and on her wrists. She also had this big bottle of water hanging in a net sling from one shoulder. I mean, you could tell she thought she looked like an Olympic athlete, but what she actually looked like was a lunatic housewife whod just gotten Get Fit with Oprah from the Book-of-the-Month Club, or something
While I was standing there staring at Ruth, wondering how I was going to break it to her about the sweatbands, one of the guys from detention pulled up on this completely cherried-out Indian.
May I just take this opportunity to point out that the one thing I have always wanted is a motorcycle? This one purred, too. I hate those guys who take the muffler off their bikes so they can gun it real loud while they try to jump the speed bumps in the teachers parking lot. This guy had tuned his so it ran quiet as kitten. Painted all black, with shiny chrome everywhere else, this was one choice bike. I mean mint.
And the guy riding it wasnt too hard on the eyes, either.
“Mastriani,” he said, putting one booted foot on the curb. “Need a ride?”
If Ernest Pyle himself, famous Hoosier reporter, had risen from the grave and come up and started asking me for journalistic pointers, I would not have been more surprised than I was by this guy asking me if I wanted a ride.
I like to think I hid it pretty well, though.
I said, way calmly, “No, thanks. Were walking.”
He looked up at the sky. “Its gonna pour,” he said, in a tone that suggested I was a moron not to realize this.
I cocked my head in Ruths direction, so hed get the message. “Were walking,” I said again.
He shrugged his shoulders under his leather jacket. “Your funeral,” he said, and drove away.
I watched him go, trying not to notice how nicely his jeans hugged his perfectly contoured butt.
His butt wasnt the only thing that was perfectly contoured, either.
Oh, calm down. Im talking about his face, okay? It was a good one, not habitually slack-jawed, like the faces of most of the boys who go to my school. This guys face had some intelligence in it, at least. So what if his nose looked as if it had been broken a few times?
And okay, maybe his mouth was a little crooked, and his curly dark hair was badly in need of a trim. These deficiencies were more than made up for by a pair of eyes so light blue they were really pale gray, and set of shoulders so broad, I doubt I would have been able to see much of the road past them in the event I ever did end up behind them on the back of that bike.
Ruth, however, did not seem to have noticed any of these highly commendable qualities. She was staring at me as if shed caught me talking to a cannibal or something.
“Oh, my God, Jess,” she said. “Who was that?”
I said, “His name is Rob Wilkins.”
She went, “A Grit. Oh, my God, Jess, that guy is a Grit. I cant believe you were even talking to him.”
Dont worry. I will explain.
There are two types of people who attend Ernest Pyle High School: the kids who come from the rural parts of the country, or the “Grits,” and the people who live in town, or the “Townies.” The Grits and Townies do not mix. Period. The Townies think they are better than the Grits because they have more money, since most of the kids who live in town have doctors or lawyers or teachers for parents. The Grits think they are better than the Townies because they know how to do stuff the Townies dont know how to do, like fix up old motorcycles and birth calves and stuff. The Grits parents are all factory workers or farmers.
There are subsets within these groups, like the JDs—juvenile delinquents—and the Jocks—the popular kids, the athletes, and the cheerleaders—but mostly the school is divided up into Grits and Townies.
Ruth and I are Townies. Rob Wilkins, needless to say, is a Grit. And for an added bonus, I am pretty sure he is also a JD.
But then, as Mr. Goodhart is so fond of telling me, so am I—or at least I will be, one of these days, if I dont start taking his anger-management advice more seriously.
“How do you even know the guy?” Ruth wanted to know. “He cant be in any of your classes. He is definitely not college-bound. Prison-bound, maybe,” she said with a sneer. “But hes got to be a senior, for Christs sake.”
I know. She sounds prissy, doesnt she?
Shes not really. Just scared. Guys—real guys, not idiots like her brother Skip—scare Ruth. Even with her 167 IQ, guys are something shes never been able to figure out. Ruth just cant fathom the fact that boys are just like us.
Well, with a few notable exceptions.
I said, “I met him in detention. Can we move, please, before the rain starts? Ive got my flute, you know.”
Ruth wouldnt let go of it, though.
“Would you seriously have accepted a ride from the guy? A total stranger like that? Like, if I werent here?”
I said, “I dont know.”
I didnt, either. I hope youre not getting the impression that this was the first time a guy had ever asked me if I wanted a lift or anything. I mean, Ill admit I have a tendency to be a bit free with my fists, but Im no dog. I might be a bit on the puny side—only five two, as Mr. Goodhart is fond of reminding me—and Im not big into makeup or clothes or anything, but believe me, I do all right for myself.
Okay, yeah, Im no supermodel: I keep my hair short so I dont have to mess with it, and Im fine with it being brown—you wont catch me experimenting with highlights, like some people I could mention. Brown hair goes with my brown eyes, which go with my brown skin—well, at least, thats what color my skin usually ends up being by the end of the summer.
But the only reason Im sitting at home Saturday nights is because its either that, or hanging out with guys like Jeff Day, or Ruths brother Skip. Theyre the only kind of guys my mother will let me go out with.
Yeah, youre catching on. Townies. Thats right. Im only allowed to date “college-bound boys.” Read, Townies.
Where was I? Oh, yeah.
So, in answer to your question, no, Rob Wilkins was not the first guy whod ever pulled up to me and asked if I wanted a ride somewhere.
But Rob Wilkins was the first guy to whom I might have said yes.
“Yeah,” I said to Ruth. “Probably I would have. Taken him up on his offer, I mean. If you werent here and all.”
“I cant believe you.” Ruth started walking, but let me tell you, those clouds were right behind us. Unless we went about a hundred miles an hour, there was no way we were going to beat the rain. And the fastest Ruth goes is maybe about one mile an hour, tops. Physically fit she is not.
“I cant believe you,” she said again. “You cant go around getting on the back of Grits bikes. I mean, who knows where youd end up? Dead in a cornfield, no doubt.”
Almost every girl in Indiana who disappears gets found, eventually, half-naked and decomposing in a cornfield. But then, you guys already know that, dont you?
“You are so weird,” Ruth said. “Only you would make friends with the guys in detention.”
I kept looking over my shoulder at the clouds. They were huge, like mountains. Only, unlike mountains, they werent stationary.
“Well,” I said, “I cant exactly help knowing them, you know. Weve been sitting together for an hour every day for the past three or four months.”
“But theyre Grits,” Ruth said. “My God, Jess. Do you actually talk to them?”
I said, “I dont know. I mean, were not allowed to talk. But Miss Clemmings has to take attendance every day, so you learn peoples names. You sort of cant help it.”
Ruth shook her head. “Oh, my God,” she said. “My dad would kill me—kill me—if I came home on the back of some Grits motorcycle.”
I didnt say anything. The chances of anybody asking Ruth to hop onto the back of his bike were, like, zero.
“Still,” Ruth said, after wed walked for a little while in silence, “he was kind of cute. For a Grit, I mean. Whatd he do?”
“What do you mean? To get detention?” I shrugged. “How should I know? Were not allowed to talk.”
Let me just tell you a little bit about where we were walking. Ernest Pyle High School is located on the imaginatively named High School Road. As you might have guessed, there isnt a whole lot of stuff on High School Road except, well, the high school. Theres just two lanes and a bunch of farmland. The McDonalds and the car wash and stuff were down on the Pike. We werent walking on the Pike. No one ever walks on the Pike, since this one girl got hit walking there last year.
So wed made it about as far down High School Road as the football field when the rain started. Big, hard drops of rain.
“Ruth,” I said, pretty calmly, as the first drop hit me.
“Itll blow over,” Ruth said.
Another drop hit me. Plus a big flash of lightning cracked the sky and seemed to hit the water tower, a mile or so away. Then it thundered. Really loud. As loud as the jets over at Crane Military Base, when they break the sound barrier.
“Ruth,” I said, less calmly.
Ruth said, “Perhaps we should seek shelter.”
“Damned straight,” I said.
But the only shelter we saw were the metal bleachers that surround the football field. And everyone knows, during a thunder storm, youre not supposed to hide under anything metal.
Thats when the first hailstone hit me.
If youve ever been hit by a hailstone, youll know why it was Ruth and I ran under those bleachers. And if youve never been hit by a hailstone, all I can say is, lucky you. These particular hailstones were about as big as golf balls. I am not exaggerating, either. They were huge. And those mothers—pardon my French—hurt.
Ruth and I stood under these bleachers, hailstones popping all around us, like we were trapped inside this really big popcorn popper. Only at least the popcorn wasnt hitting us on the head anymore.
With the thunder and the sound of the hail hitting the metal seats above our heads, then ricocheting off them and smacking against the ground, it was kind of hard to hear anything, but that didnt bother Ruth. She shouted, “Im sorry.”
All I said was “Ow,” because a real big chunk of hail bounced off the ground and hit me in the calf.
“I mean it,” Ruth shouted. “Im really, really sorry.”
“Stop apologizing,” I said. “It isnt your fault.”
At least thats what I thought then. I have since changed my mind on that. As you will note by rereading the first few lines of this statement of mine.
A big bolt of lightning lit up the sky. It broke into four or five branches. One of the branches hit the top of a corn crib I could see over the trees. Thunder sounded so loudly, it shook the bleachers.
“It is,” Ruth said. She sounded like she was starting to cry. “It is my fault.”
“Ruth,” I said. “For Gods sake, are you crying?”
“Yes,” she said, with a sniffle.
“Why? Its just a stupid thunderstorm. Weve been stuck in thunderstorms before.” I leaned against one of the poles that held up the bleachers. “Remember that time in the fifth grade we got stuck in that thunderstorm on the way home from your cello lesson?”
Ruth wiped her nose with the cuff of her sweatshirt. “And we had to duck for cover in your church?”
“Only you wouldnt go in farther than the awning,” I said.
Ruth laughed through her tears. “Because I thought God would strike me dead for setting foot in a goyim house of worship.”
I was glad she was laughing, anyway. Ruth can be a pain in the butt, but shes been my best friend since kindergarten, and you cant exactly dump your best friend since kindergarten just because sometimes she puts on sweatbands or starts crying when it rains. Ruth is way more interesting than most of the girls who go to my school, since she reads a book a day—literally—and loves playing the cello as much as I love playing my flute, but will still watch cheesy television, in spite of her great genius.
And, most times, shes funny as hell.
Now was not one of those times, however.
“Oh, God,” Ruth moaned as the wind picked up and started whipping hailstones at us beneath the bleachers. “This is tornado weather, isnt it?”
Southern Indiana is smack in the middle of Tornado Alley. Were number three on the list of states with the most twisters per year. I had sat out more than a few of them in my basement; Ruth, not so many, since shed only spent the last decade in the Midwest. And they always seemed to happen around this time of year, too.
And, though I didnt want to say anything to upset Ruth any more than she already was, this gave all the signs of being twister weather. The sky was a funny yellow color, the temperature warm, but the wind really cold. Plus that wacked-out hail …
Just as I was opening my mouth to tell Ruth it was probably just a little spring storm, and not to worry, she screamed, “Jess, dont—”
But I didnt hear what she said after that, because right then there was this big explosion that drowned out everything else.
© 2001 Meggin Cabot