Eva and I had volunteered to help collect donations at the high school’s recycling drop-off on our lunch break. We sat at a little table at the end of the parking lot. There was a tiny canopy over it to shade us.
“Did you hear?” she asked me.
“Hear what?” Whatever it was, Eva was positively bursting to tell me.
“They identified the body we found,” she said. “It was Scotty Turntable.”
I finally realized where Mr. Bone had seen him. “From Drew Barrymore’s Boyfriends,” I said. “I knew he looked familiar.”
“What do you think will happen to the band now?” she asked. “Will they have to drop out of the Battle of the Bands?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Did you hear anything about how he died?”
She shook her head. “Nope. Not one word.”
Over the course of our shift, a sizable pile of donated cans and bottles accumulated behind us.
Eva yawned. “Did you finish the history homework yet?” she asked me idly.
I started to answer her, but then my tattoo began to burn. I glanced at my bicep and the whirlwind circled furiously. I looked around, but the parking lot was empty. There wasn’t even a cloud in the sky.
A rustling sound came from the pile of aluminum cans behind us, followed by a strange scratching noise. “What is that?” Eva asked. She reached over and grabbed the bag in question. It started to squirm.
“Eva, don’t open that!” I said. But it was too late.
A stream of rats burst out of the plastic bag and one climbed onto Eva’s arm. Her scream rang through the parking lot.
“Get it off me! Get it off me!”
I shuddered, but managed to knock the rat off her arm. But others still emerged from the plastic bag, each one bigger than the last.
“My phone,” Eva cried. “Get my phone!”
I did as she asked. She grabbed it from me and hit a button. “I’ve got to get a shot of this.” She continued to record while I watched her in disbelief.
“Can you believe it?” she said. “It’s like something out of Ben.” Ben was this horror movie from the seventies. I was pretty sure Eva had seen every horror movie ever made. Which meant that I’d seen three-fourths of all the horror movies ever made.
A strange lilting song caught my ear. It came from somewhere behind the school building. “Did you hear that?” I asked.
“Hear what?” Eva said, still absorbed in filming the rodents, who scampered up the pile of recyclables.
Dominic and Evan came running from the boys’ locker room. “We heard a scream. Everything okay?” Dominic asked.
“Everything’s fine, if you don’t count the rats,” I replied.
“Rats? What rats?” Evan asked.
I looked around. The rodents had simply vanished.
Evan and Eva had their heads together while she showed him the little bit of footage she’d managed to take.
Dominic looked at his feet for a long minute. “How have you been?” he finally asked.
“Fine,” I said, but there was an edge to my voice. His head whipped up.
“Jessica, I wanted to say something to you,” he said. “But I haven’t had the nerve.”
“What’s wrong with right now?”
He glanced at Eva and Evan, who held hands as they watched the clip of the rats over and over again. He blushed and looked down. He clearly didn’t think now was a good time. But I didn’t have time for his stalling.
“I should call Flo,” I said abruptly. “She’ll want to know about the rats.”
“Let’s go, Evan,” Dominic said. “We’d better get back or Coach will wonder where we are.”
They took off at a run back to the gym. “Coach?” I looked at Eva for clarification.
“Didn’t you know?” she asked. “Dominic tried out for track. He’s on the team with Evan. They have a meet tonight so they must be practicing during lunch.”
I had a hard time picturing Dominic on the team. He could run, I knew. He had the right build for it: long legs, muscular, broad shoulders.
“It doesn’t seem like something Dominic would be into,” I said.
“Maybe not rocker boy Dominic,” Eva replied. “But there’s more to him than that, right?”
“Right.” There was definitely more to Dominic than just music. I was dreamily thinking of all of his good qualities when Eva said, “I thought you had to call Flo.”
“I do!” I picked up the phone and dialed Flo. When she answered, I told her what happened.
“Rats, huh?” she said. “I’ll let the Nightshade City Council know.”
Fortunately, Eva and I were the last shift for recycling duty. We put the bag of recyclables into the storage shed, very carefully, but there wasn’t even a squeak.
As we closed up, I noticed Hunter Verrat and Mitch Peverell leaving the school.
I nudged Eva. “Wonder what they were doing here.”
She shrugged. “Probably a Battle of the Bands meeting. Ms. Clare is on the committee, after all.”
“Maybe,” I said. I didn’t like Hunter or Mr. Peverell and I didn’t know why. But why would Mitch Peverell be there if he wasn’t even a judge?
Eva convinced me to go to the track meet that afternoon.
“I’ll have to meet you there,” I said. “I have to pick up Katie first. I promised my mom I’d watch her while she takes Kellie and Grace to gymnastics class.”
“Katie will love it,” Eva said. “She’ll get a chance to see Dominic.”
Eva was right. Katie practically tore my arm off in her excitement. “C’mon, Jessica,” she said. “Quit walking so slow. We’re going to miss it.”
“Miss what?” I asked. “The track meet is like eight hours long.”
“But Dominic’s race is soon,” she whined. “And I want to see him.”
I did too but I wasn’t going to say it aloud. I liked him, but did I like him enough to give him another chance to kick me to the curb the next time a chupacabra took a bite out of me?
When we reached the Nightshade High track, Dominic and Evan were stretching out on the grass, but they both sat up and waved when they saw us.
Later, as I watched Dominic hand off the baton to Evan in the relay, I told Eva, “He’s getting faster.” Dominic and I had gone on a few runs together.
“Why didn’t you try out for track?” Eva asked.
“You know,” I said cryptically. “My extracurriculars are already too much.”
“You’re so fast, though,” she persisted.
“I get plenty of running in,” I said. “You know, on Saturday mornings.”
The light finally dawned on her. “Oh, yeah,” she said. “I almost forgot about the virago thing.”
I nudged her hard and glanced meaningfully at Katie.
“She’s not even paying attention,” Eva said.
“I’m not paying attention about what?” Katie said, her eyes still glued on the runners.
“Nothing, kiddo,” I said.
The boys’ relay was over. The Nightshade team came in second place.
Evan and Dominic did their cooldown stretches and then joined us on the bleachers.
Evan greeted Eva with a long kiss. Dominic and I stared everywhere but at the kissing couple.
When they finally finished their lip-lock, Evan said, “Hey, Dom, do you guys want to catch a movie with us tonight? We’ll even let Jessica pick.”
Eva elbowed him in the ribs.
“Sounds good to me,” Dominic replied easily. “Jessica?”
I was so mad. He was pretending like we were still a couple. But that was something he was going to have to discuss with me first.
“I have to babysit Katie tonight,” I said shortly.
“No you don’t,” Katie said. I hadn’t thought she was paying attention to the conversation, but clearly she was.
“Yes, I do,” I said. “In fact, it’s time for us to go home.” I stomped down the stairs. Katie followed me slowly. Dominic Gray was the most insensitive, clueless . . .
“Jessica, wait!” he said.
“Why don’t you call me when you make up your mind,” I snapped. “You broke up with me, remember? You can’t just pretend that it didn’t happen.”
“I’m not,” he said. “I was too chicken to ask you out again, so I convinced Evan to . . .”
“Do your dirty work for you?” I suggested.
“Something like that,” he said.
“Well, it’s not going to work,” I said. “If you want to go out with me, you’re going to have to prove to me that you’re not going to change your mind again and dump me just like you did last time.”
“I can do that,” he said.
“And Dominic, the next time you want to go out with me, ask.”
“I can do that, too,” he replied.
I marched off without looking back.