I WAS KIDNAPPED, AND NOW I am on a sports team. It was a hell of a first thought to have in the morning when she woke up. But have it Bett did, and the weirdness of the previous day stuck with her through the morning bus ride. On the one hand, the team was about running, which was too Plus. But on the other, equally awful hand, it was more exposure to Eddie and his wanting to talk to her. He had a better chance of that if he had time with her every day after school. And Bett was scared enough already of the impending Plus running, because if that was wrapped up in some Eddie plan about her weight, too, what was she going to do?
Her mother was acting like this was the best thing to happen to their family since they’d moved into the SIM card house.
“You’ll get back to yourself,” she had told Bett at dinner last night. “Girl, you got talent, and you’ve been wasting it. Do what God put you on this earth to do.”
Bett sighed, but inside she was terrified. If she did what she was good at, so many Pluses would build up that the aftermath would be hell.
* * *
After the morning bus ride, Ranger and his little group of friends ran into the school building, all of them talking together in fierce whispers. As they moved inside and muttered in their intense way to one another, one of them held his left hand high in the air, only to have it slapped down by Ranger, who looked around as if to see if anyone noticed. Bett had no idea what he was up to, but it was something. Cakes.
* * *
Paul was at Bett’s table in English class, along with Hester and Hester’s best friend, Lily, and a couple of others. Doug, one of Mutt’s meat-minions, was at the table behind them. “Let me explain the first part of our semester today. We’ll start with our first author study,” Ms. Peters, the teacher, said. They had had Ms. Peters last year in tenth grade, too. “Virginia Woolf. She’s one of my favorites.”
It all sounded very dull. Bett zoned out until Ms. Peters ended her drone about Virginia Woolf’s life and books and overbearing father and having rooms of one’s own. “She was very depressive,” Ms. Peters told them, going around the tables, passing out books. “In the end, it was too much for her, and she filled her pockets with stones and walked into the water and drowned.”
“Damn,” said Paul. He was tall and thin and dressed in a wild way, in a lavender checked suit and bow tie. Bett supposed he was glad he was at their table and not with the homophobic Doug. But Doug was sitting too close for comfort anyway. “What a way to do it.”
“God,” said someone else from the back of the room. “Why would you?”
Hester shuddered. “It must have taken forever. She must have breathed in water for, like, ten minutes before she died.”
But Ms. Peters was going on now about language and alliteration. Bett looked at her knees and wiggled her hematite toes a little in her sneakers.
“Everybody read the first few pages of the book,” Ms. Peters said. “See what you think about the language. Can you find any alliterative moments?”
This was why English class bit. Teachers sucked the life out of a story before you could even get into it with all the analyzing. Why couldn’t the kids just read something and then talk about what they thought of it?
“We have a psycho in our school, and all she wants to talk about is alliteration?” Doug said to the kids at the table behind her.
“Shut up, Doug,” said Lily, turning around. “I’m, like, trying not to think about all that.”
“Don’t worry, Lily,” Doug continued, throwing a crumpled-up piece of paper at her. “We got you. We’ll smash the person behind this.”
“Not if they kill us first,” said Hester. “Jesus.”
Ms. Peters went on rustling papers at her desk as if she’d heard nothing. Bett hated her.
* * *
“Did you hear?” Dan caught up with her at her lunch table again.
“I’m not deaf,” said Bett.
Dan started. “What are you talking about? And besides, aren’t you?”
“What the hell?” said Bett as they plopped down at the table. “My hearing is fine. Mostly. Sometimes my left ear goes out. But yes, I heard what Doug and Lily were talking about in English class, and it’s nothing we aren’t all thinking anyway.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Dan. “Why are you such a grump?”
Bett stared at her lunch, stomach churning from all her talking. Then: “Doug and Lily? Talking about the psycho? Why do we all keep coming back here if someone’s about to go off at any minute?”
Dan looked at her. “I know,” he said. “You’re right. But what I meant was, did you hear about the boys’ locker room?”
“No,” said Bett. “What are you talking about?”
“What I’m talking about is that there was another one of those devil-breathing-fire pictures. Hung up over the lockers. We all saw it in gym second period.”
“What?” Bett asked. “You’re freaking me out even more!”
“We’re all freaked out,” said Dan, who was apparently not freaked out enough to stop chomping down his grilled cheese.
“Who the hell is doing this? Who would?”
“Someone who wants attention?” said Dan.
Bett shook her head. “No,” she said. “Because it’s anonymous. It must just be someone who wants to, like, have an effect on people. In a shitty way.”
“Like that ass who called in the bomb threat last year.”
“Yeah,” said Bett. “My mom investigated that one and she said that was the psychology. Didn’t help, though. She never caught whoever did it.” Whatever the reason for all her speaking now, Bett was grateful that even if it wasn’t Normal Girl talk, she was at least able to talk cop talk to Dan.
“I don’t know if I’d want to catch who’s doing these stupid pictures,” said Dan. “The asshole would probably pin me to the ground and draw that devil on my face.”
“Don’t even,” said Bett, glad that the main part of her lunch was eaten so she could start in on her cookies.
“A slasher-burner devil-drawer,” said Dan. “What a weird combo.”
* * *
Bett let Dan get ahead of her on the way out of the lunchroom. But both of them stopped when they saw Anna making repairs to some of the paper feathers she had made. At least the principal hadn’t made her take the wings down in the end. Anna’s work really was lovely. Why can’t I be more like her? Bett thought. Why couldn’t she be normal like Anna and speak reliably whenever she wanted to, and not just like some kind of cop in training? And Bett had to admit, as Twinkler as Anna was, she had balls.