WHEN THE STRANGE GIRL CAME INTO THE BAND ROOM, Casey was all the way up near the window, and the room was mobbed with chattering kids from Concert Choir. But Casey saw the strange girl right away, and a ball of fear formed in her chest. She knew the girl was here for her.
Ms. Carlin, the director of the choir, took attendance on her green upholstered stool down by the piano. Everyone was acting like a jerk, as usual. Tom Verdun was shoveling Sweet Tarts into his mouth; Evelyn Greene was dashing up and down the tiers, getting people's music; Heather was doing grotesque movements from her jazz dance class.
Casey sat in front of her music stand and pretended to scan the Timete Dominum by Michael Haydn, but the notes were just squiggles. She was looking at the strange girl, who was going into shell shock at the screaming and pigging out. Half the kids were selling candy for clubs, and the rustle of plastic bags sounded like a forest fire.
Ms. Carlin noticed the strange girl, who was thin and neatly dressed. Casey felt her heartbeat quicken. Faye sat two seats down, leaning over to giggle with Eddie. Casey felt a twinge of sadness when she remembered how she and Faye used to be the buddies of Concert Choir, whispering like cats and pulling everyone apart.
Ms. Carlin looked at Casey and gestured. It would have been pretty useless for Ms. Carlin to say anything in this racket.
Casey slipped her pocketbook strap over her shoulder. With a light toss of her hair, she scooped her books into the cradle of her arms and got up. She knew everyone was watching her, even if they pretended not to. More and more, she hated the kids at school.
She clumsily made her way around sprawled feet, candy bags, books, and music stands and got to the bottom of the room. The strange girl looked at Casey with curious eyes. Ms. Carlin said, "You have to go to Guidance, Casey."
That was a surprise. Casey had figured it would be the assistant principal's office, for cutting. Before the School Spirit Dance, she had met Paul a few times during each school day. "Should I take everything?" she asked.
"Maybe you'd better," Ms. Carlin said.
Casey hefted her books to make them lie more comfortably. With her chin on the topmost book, she slid her music off the pile and gave it to Ms. Carlin. "Here."
"Thanks," Ms. Carlin said.
The strange girl waited politely, then turned and led the way out. Casey followed her.
They walked past the art rooms, hooking a left into the gym lobby. Mr. Gross, her physics teacher, was on hall duty near the glass doors. He looked up and smiled through his beard. "Hi, Casey."
"Hi," she said. It used to give her a warm feeling when teachers recognized her. Now she didn't like it. She knew there was pity behind the smiles.
Casey liked the hallway in the middle of a period. She could glance into the rooms on either side and see kids hunched over or grabbing naps or looking out the window, and teachers walking back and forth or writing on the board. All the voices blended into a soothing babble.
They turned left at the main staircase and headed for the office area. Casey's hand throbbed in its Ace bandage. She was glad it wasn't broken. Her mouth really hurt, and Dr. Irving had said she'd need a bridge. Her rib was doing okay. She wanted to tell Paul that he was a wimp with a flabby punch. He'd laugh and get embarrassed.
She began to feel apprehension as they got to the Guidance suite. The secretary at the desk looked up and nodded. Wow. Nobody got into Guidance without an official pass, but Casey was being ushered right through. Pretty important.
"Mr. Burton's office," the strange girl said.
Mr. Burton was Casey's counselor. Casey saw that his door was closed. Some kids sat on the couches, waiting for their appointments.
She knocked on the door and Mr. Burton's muffled voice said, "Come in."
Casey got a good one-armed grip on her books, flexed her knees, and turned the knob. When she pushed open the door, she saw her mother sitting in a chair. It made no sense. Casey looked for Mr. Burton and saw him standing against the window, and then she saw her dad, in a chair against Mr. Burton's bookcase.
She stopped dead, with her hand still curled around the doorknob. "What's going on?"
"Come in, Casey," Mr. Burton said.
Casey's heart started to pound. Wild lies began to form in her mind. She said to her mom, "What are you doing here? Why is Daddy here? What happened?"
"Please, Casey," Mr. Burton said.
She stepped into the small, carpeted office and nudged the door shut with her shoulder. As the door swung closed, Casey saw Mr. Young in a third chair. She looked desperately from one face to another.
"I don't get this," Casey said.
"You can drop your books on my desk," Mr. Burton said. Casey looked at him, and set her books down on the cluttered desk. She slipped her pocketbook from her shoulder and let it slide to rest near the books. Her bruised face felt like it was flashing on and off.
Mom stared at Casey. Mr. Burton pulled his own chair out from his desk and turned it. "Sit down, Casey."
Casey said, "I want to know what this is about."
"Sit down first."
Casey hated when people did this. Mom and Dad had pulled this crap when Grandma Esther died. She came home from fourth grade and Mom and Dad were sitting on their bed. They made Casey sit in the green velvet chair and get hives while they had their big dramatic moment.
Mr. Burton said, "Casey, Mr. Young came to me with something very disturbing. I thought it warranted a conference with your parents, and I thought it might be best to have it here, on neutral ground, with Mr. Young and myself present."
"What did I do?" Casey asked desperately.
"This is not because you did anything wrong," Mr. Burton said. Now he smiled a little, under his moustache. "Casey, you've been dating a boy named Paul VanHorn."
Rage and terror spiraled through her so fast it left her breathless. "Is that what this is about?"
"Calm down, Casey."
Casey shot to her feet. "I can't believe this. What kind of stupid crap ... ?" She looked at Mr. Young. "Who the hell do you think you are, sticking your nose in my personal life ... "
"Sit down, Casey," Mr. Young said. His brusque words stopped her cold. She stayed on her feet, her mouth open, staring helplessly.
Mom began to shake. "I can't believe it," she said in a shivery voice. "I can't believe any of this is happening. It's a nightmare."
"Calm down, Ellen," Dad said. His voice sounded exhausted, like he was dying.
Mom turned on Dad like an attack dog. "Don't you dare tell me to calm down. Are you a total idiot?"
"Shut up," Dad said.
"Don't tell me to shut up. You're a waste, Ron. You've been a waste since she was born .... "
"That's enough," Mr. Burton said. His own voice sounded uncertain, and his face was red. Casey shook convulsively now.
Mr. Young stood up, and he seemed to fill the whole room. He said, "Casey, you can hate my guts, but do it sitting."
Casey couldn't help a tiny, reflexive smile. She sat down, fighting nausea. Mr. Young looked for a moment at Mom and Dad. If you were freaking out, Mr. Young could just look at you and make you really uncomfortable. He said, "I know this is a nightmare. But what's happened to Casey is not rational, so we've got to be rational."
Mom subsided, and fished for a tissue from her purse. Dad twiddled his fingers in his lap and looked down. Casey was fascinated; she'd never seen anyone get the best of Mom. It looked so weird to see both of them here in school.
Mr. Burton gave Mr. Young a grateful look. He said, "Casey, Mr. Young came to me because he was very concerned about your health and your well-being. He's pretty certain that you've been abused by Paul VanHorn."
"He's out of his mind," Casey said softly.
"Have you been abused?"
"No."
Mom gave a disgusted sigh. "This is 'worthless. The girl needs psychiatric help."
Mr. Burton gave Mom a filthy look. Mr. Young, back in his seat, said, "Casey, you know that I'm pretty good at diagnosing injuries, yes?"
Casey didn't answer. She tried to focus on the millions of yellow Guidance passes and other papers on Mr. Burton's desk, and on the hard white sunlight against the window and the big shiny calendar on the wall.
"Casey?"
"Yeah."
"You know I'm a trained EMT."
"So?"
Mr. Young leaned forward just a little. He always did that, too, when he knew he'd broken down your defenses. "So I know that your bruises and cuts came from being hit. I've seen enough kids in fights to know that. You didn't fall after the dance. You were beaten up. And those other times you came to school with black and blue marks, they were beatings, too. You can't lie when your body is telling the truth."
Casey felt ice-cold inside. She pulled the sleeves of her yellow knit sweater over her hands and hunched over. "What do you want me to say?"
Mr. Burton said, "Tell us what happened the night of the Spirit Dance."
She sighed, and a cold, black wind rushed through her heart. She wanted to be with Paul, so badly. "Nothing happened."
"Nobody hit you?" Mr. Burton said.
She turned away, but there was nowhere to turn. "I got into a fight."
"With who?" Mr. Burton said.
Mom shifted and her wool suit rustled. Dad cleared his throat. They were so close to her right now that she felt suffocated. "Some girl."
"Did you know her?" Mr. Burton asked.
"No."
"How did the fight start?"
"I don't know."
"No memory at all?"
Casey exhaled with open disgust. With the fingers of her right hand, she traced the wrapping of the Ace bandage on her left hand. She pressed down at times to make pain shoot through her wrist. "She made some remarks and I told her to screw off and she said she'd be waiting for me outside."
"That's where you had the fight?" Mr. Burton said.
Casey nodded. "I forgot about the whole thing but she was waiting with a couple of her friends."
"So you fought her?"
"Yeah," Casey said. "It wasn't exactly a fair fight. If I got in a punch, one of her friends kicked me down. They left me lying there."
"Did anybody witness the fight?"
Casey shrugged. "I don't know. Nobody helped me. And it was out where the fence ends, at the end of the parking lot."
Mr. Young said, "Why did you walk all the way out there if you knew someone might be waiting?"
Casey looked up at him. "I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"I wanted to be alone. I wanted to run for a while. I don't know, I just walked out there. Give me a break, huh?"
Mr. Young leaned back. Mr. Burton sighed a little. Mom said, "What is this leading to? Was there a reason for my taking time off from work to come here?"
Mr. Young said, "Casey, why did you neglect to mention that Paul VanHorn crashed the dance?"
Casey lowered her head. "I didn't think of it."
"Or that he publicly insulted you, cursed you out, in front of everybody, and called you a slut."
Mom sucked in a sharp breath. "What?"
Casey rocked back and forth in the chair, shutting her eyes. "What's the difference?"
Mr. Young kept on, relentlessly. "Or that he told you to follow him outside?"
Casey couldn't answer anymore. The questions tormented her because they made her sound so stupid.
"And you did follow him, didn't you?" Mr. Young asked.
Casey bit hard on her lower lip.
"We know you followed him because everyone saw you follow him. And then, a half hour later, they found you beaten up, lying on the track. There wasn't any girl, and there wasn't any fight. Paul VanHorn beat you up because you went to a school dance and he didn't want you to go."
Her throat wrenched as she cried. Mr. Burton said, "Take it easy, Casey."
"Let her go," Mr. Young said. Casey could hear Mom crying softly. She began to be terrified. She visualized Paul and kept his face in her head, not ever wanting to forget it. She vowed that she'd tie bedsheets together and escape from the nuthouse if they put her there. She'd run barefoot in the snow and cut her feet and die and then they'd understand that it was her life and not theirs.
Dad spoke. "What do we do about this?"
Mom said, "You aren't ashamed to ask that? What in God's name is wrong with you? Why aren't you hunting that animal down and breaking his neck? He beat up your daughter, and you sit there asking what to do? I want him dead. I want his hide nailed to the wall. And if you don't have the guts to do it, I swear to God I'll hire a hit man."
Her voice had risen higher and higher and the little office sang with it. Mr. Young said, "I know that makes the most sense right now, but it won't work. If you, or Mr. Gordon, or anybody you hired, were to hurt Paul VanHorn his parents would sue you and they would win."
Mom gave a vicious little laugh. "But we can't do anything to him?"
Mr. Burton said, "That depends. If you wanted to have Paul VanHorn arrested for assault, Casey would have to testify before a judge that he attacked her." He paused, and the silence framed his embarrassment. "The court might ask a lot of personal questions ... if there was any intimacy ... "
Casey looked up, her head stuffed from crying. Mom stared at her. "What does that mean?" she asked. "Sex?"
Mr. Young said, "Only she can tell you."
Mom kept her eyes on Casey. "How about it, little girl? Did you?"
Dad said, "Take it easy, Ellen."
"Keep quiet," she said. "I'll handle this, just like I handle everything else. Answer me, Casey."
Casey absorbed the hatred from her mother's eyes, and shook with it. "Yeah," she said nastily. "We did it everywhere. And I did it with sixteen other guys."
"You little piece of garbage."
"Same to you," Casey said.
Mr. Young said, "Mrs. Gordon, Casey has been abused by her boyfriend. If you attack Casey for being attacked, she's going to run back to the guy pretty quickly."
"No, she won't," Mom said coldly. "She won't go anywhere near him. If she does, I'll have her institutionalized, and she knows I'll do it."
"For Christ's sake," Dad said.
"I'm not even listening to you."
Mr. Burton sighed heavily. "Well. I'm sorry it's turning out this way. We want to help Casey. I'd like her to see our school psychologist first, and then she can recommend further counseling."
Mom snapped her purse shut and primped her hair. "Yes. I agree about the school psychologist. In fact, let's make that a condition for Casey to remain in this school."
"That's your prerogative," Mr. Burton said.
Mom said, "Do you understand that, Casey?"
"Yeah," Casey said.
Mom turned to Dad. "Do you have anything to say at all, or do you just intend to hide your head in the sand?"
Dad's face was frozen and he sat very still. Casey could see so much in his eyes. There were major hurricanes going on in there. "No," he said. "I don't have anything to say. I have to think about this."
Mom shook her head and turned away. She looked at Casey again, but this time with bewilderment. "How could you let him touch you? How could you allow that, Casey? You're intelligent and talented and ... I don't understand. It's so horrible .... "
Casey huddled in the chair, feeling more bruised and beaten than after Paul had finished. "You wouldn't understand."
"I'm trying to understand. I really want to."
Casey pushed hair out of her eyes. She felt hungry, and she wished she'd bought some candy from one of the kids in Concert Choir. "It's not important."
Mom looked at Mr. Young. "This is what I have to deal with, Mr. Young. This girl was tested at the age of four and she's gifted. My aunt was a concert pianist. My cousin is a full professor at Yale. And Casey is willing to trash all that. Every year, we received notes from her teachers saying that she didn't pay attention or work up to her level. And now this. She wants to flush herself down the toilet, and you know what? I'm going to let her. Because I'm too damned tired to fight anymore."
Mom stood up, and Casey heard the vinyl cushion hiss back into shape. Dad got up, too. His face looked white, almost like a china plate. He said to Mr. Burton and to Mr. Young, "Thank you. I'm glad you brought this to our attention."
Mr. Burton looked like he'd run a marathon. "Well, it isn't pleasant, but we have a responsibility toward the welfare of our students."
Mr. Young said, "Try to remember that we can help Casey."
"Thank you," Mom said. To Casey, she said, "How are you? Do you want to come home with us now, or stay in school?"
"I'll stay," Casey said.
"Are you sure?"
She nodded.
Mom said to Mr. Burton, "If she collapses or anything, call my neighbor, Mrs. Dolce. She'll come for Casey. I'll be at work."
"All right," Mr. Burton said. "I think she'll be okay." "Yes, I'm sure she will." Mom looked at Dad. "Ready?" Dad nodded. He coughed into his hand. Mr. Young opened the office door and Mom and Dad left. Dad walked kind of hunched, and Casey felt a throb of worry about him. She'd begun to like him more. He didn't talk to her any more than he used to, but Mom ranked on him all the time now, and Casey felt sympathetic.
The room seemed to take a deep breath and expand. Mr. Burton said, "I have to see someone for a minute. You want to take her back to class?"
Mr. Young said, "Sure."
Mr. Burton touched Casey's shoulder. A shock of static electricity made her jump. "Casey, I know that you're angry at us now, but we're on your side. We're not going to lock you up and we're not going to make this public. Do you understand?"
She nodded. "I'm not angry."
"Good." He patted her shoulder and left the office. Casey didn't want to look Mr. Young in the eyes.
"Want to go back to class?" he asked her.
"In a minute."
She heard him stand up. She felt numb, as if they'd shot her full of novocaine. But she also felt pretty decent. She'd sat here and taken it all. She didn't have to pretend anymore. She loved Paul as much as before, and she knew she'd be with him soon, and always. And once she could live with him, she could love him more. That was the one thing she'd failed to do.
"How are you doing?" Mr. Young asked. He leaned against the open door.
"Okay."
"Want to take a punch at me?"
She looked up at him and shrugged. "No."
"Don't hate me?"
"I guess you had to turn me in."
"I didn't turn you in, Casey. You're not the criminal. He is."
"Yeah, I know that's what you think."
Mr. Young took a tight breath. "You're going to defend him, aren't you? Your sense of values is so twisted now that you truly, truly believe that he's an okay guy and what he does to you is okay."
"It's nothing you'd understand," she said.
"No, I guess it isn't." He glanced out at the crowded office, and back at Casey. "But I'm going to try to understand. I'm going to stick with you, because I care about you."
She smiled. "Thanks."
"You don't believe that. But it doesn't matter. If I can't do anything else, I can show you what caring is supposed to sound like and feel like. I'm going to show you every day that caring doesn't hurt. That if it hurts, it isn't caring. At least you'll know that."
His words bothered her. She fought them off, the way she shivered away the first cold splash of a shower. "Can I go back to class now?" she asked.
"Yup."
She got up stiffiy, her rib burning with pain. Mr. Young gathered up her books. She slipped her pocketbook back on her shoulder and reached for the books.
"I'll carry them," he said. "It's been a lot of years since I carried a pretty girl's books."
She smiled and said, "Thanks."
"Come on." He touched her back with gentle fingers and guided her toward the door. She walked a little awkwardly, trying to minimize the pain in her side. The voices and faces of her mom and dad stayed in her imagination, vivid and threatening. She dreaded going home today. Dinner would be cold and silent, and she'd get all those stupid looks. She'd get grounded and lectured and driven to all kinds of shrinks.
So what? It would be a major hassle, but she'd get through it. All the hurting would be over pretty soon, with Paul at the end of the tunnel. And if they stopped her from reaching him, then she'd make sure they couldn't touch her ever again.
Casey let Mr. Young open the door for her, and she went out into the hallway again. Afternoon sun streamed in through windows and made dusty white slabs on the floor. Tired, Casey walked with Mr. Young back toward the music suite.