BETT WAS ALONE AT LUNCH today. Ranger was a couple of tables over, waving his lunch cake about and talking animatedly with a group of his friends, most of them, she couldn’t help but notice, on the smallish side like Ranger. Bett was glad he was with friends, even though she missed the little bug. His conversation was something. Somethingcakes.
“Where were you this morning?” Dan asked, startling her as he plopped beside her at her table.
Talk like a normal person. Talk like a normal person this minute.
“Missed the bus,” Bett said finally, and stared at her pizza. Was Dan sitting with her because he felt sorry for her for being alone?
“Oh,” said Dan. “Well, you were lucky. You missed rendition six million and twelve of the Eagles’ ‘Hotel California.’ Do you know how long that song is?”
Bett did. It was, of course, a staple in her mother’s playlist.
“Though it can’t be any longer than ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,’ ” said Dan, “which my dad blasts at all hours.”
Was this a conversation? Was Bett trapped in an actual conversation? Did she have to say something or could she just get the message across that she didn’t want to talk by being silent?
“Don’t get me wrong, it’s good song,” said Dan. “But not after the six million and twelfth time you hear that one, too.”
“I bet they’re going to take Anna’s art down,” Bett said awkwardly. A non sequitur, but at least it was speech.
“Maybe,” said Dan. “I think they’ll give her detention at the minimum.” He swallowed. “That picture-fire thing keeps making me think about loners and kids with guns in high schools and all that shit.”
Bett couldn’t respond out loud. But she nodded.
Dan took out his pocketknife and expertly trimmed the crusts of his pizza off the slices. “No more carbs than necessary.”
Bett started before she could help herself.
“I was only doing an impression of my mom,” said Dan. “I just hate the crust.”
Bett picked up her own lunch cake and began to eat. Please make him stop talking, she thought as she bit off more and more cake.
“You’re good with my brother,” said Dan abruptly. “The little dude really likes you.”
What? Bett coughed. “He’s cute,” she said finally. “I like him, too.”
“Well, I think it’s nice.”
And now Bett couldn’t think of another thing to say. All her words were spent.
* * *
She left the lunch table before Dan was done. She didn’t want him to think he was stuck with her, and plus, she had to see if the wings were still there. And they were, their bright, burned colors transforming the dark, old hallway into something better than the smell of kids and books and teachers that had seeped into its bones. Anna and Hester and a couple of their Twinkler friends were there, too.
“Two days of detention,” Anna was telling them.
“No way!”
“Come on!”
“Is he going to make you take it down?”
“He said he isn’t sure,” Anna answered.
“WTF?” said a Twinkler.
WTF is right. That’s insane, thought Bett. This is the loveliest thing we’ve ever had in this school. He should be, like, paying her.
“Wait,” said Hester. “Look. What’s that?” She pointed above the flowering wings.
Above Anna’s work was a new picture, done on regular 81/2 x 11 school paper. It was very rough and in Sharpie and who knew what it was supposed to be, but it looked like a devil head breathing out a cone of fire, only with the flames drawn out smooth rather than jagged as one would normally depict them.
WARNING, it said under the devil head. WE’RE WATCHING YOU.
* * *
“Who would do that? Why?” It was Anna, being led away from her wings and to the main office by her friends. Bett knew her mother was in that office with McLean, talking about the vandalism. Bett hoped the case would be solved soon, and her mother tucked safely back at the station house, where she belonged.
“What’s Anna’s problem?” asked Dan, who had left the caf as well and was standing beside Bett. “And where’d you go? I thought we were talking.”
Bett said nothing, but she gestured at the picture above the wings.
“What?” Dan looked up but remained mystified. “At least the principal didn’t do a psycho himself and tear Anna’s project down. She must have stayed up all night making those feathers.”
Bett pointed again. “Not the wings,” she managed at last. “That picture thing. Above them.”
The devil breathing fire really was intensely creepy. It was clear Dan thought so, too, frozen in place and staring.
“Fairly psycho,” said Dan at last. His eyes followed Anna across the foyer. “But I bet it’s harmless.”
“It’s not harmless,” said Bett. All those school shootings in the news, and here was some maniac destroying art and then putting up a devil image over the new piece that was made to replace it. “That’s a signature.”
“What’s a signature?” asked Dan.
“Something a perp leaves at the scene of the crime to mark their work.” Why was it easier to talk cop talk than to talk like a normal teenage girl? If she was channeling her mother, that shit better stop right now.
Then: We can’t let Ranger see, but she knew there was no way of protecting him from it.
Dan look puzzled. “What do you mean? You think Anna signs her work with devils? Not exactly in character, no?”
“No. Not Anna. The destroyer left the signature.”
“Oh,” said Dan. He paused. Then: “That’s effed up but . . . sort of interesting.”
So the picture-slasher-burner had a signature. Huh.
Well, I know one perp who ought to have hired out the job, Bett thought. That is a hell of a badly drawn devil. She knew she was fronting, though. Things were only going to escalate from here.