Know what’s turning out to be really useful to have around? Three shoeboxes filled with drugs. Do I feel great about doing what I’m about to do? No, no, I don’t. But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, even if it means framing her asshole classmate for murder. Does that sentence even make sense? It’s hard knowing what makes actual sense.
When Mather is asleep, I sneak out, scurry through the Narnia hole, and walk all the way to town, where I find a twenty-four-hour internet café. I buy a cup of surprisingly decent coffee and use a VPN just in case. Then I look up how to unlock a combination lock. According to the internet, there are several ways of doing this. I jot them all down before scrubbing the browser’s history and going back to Draycott.
I stop by my room, take out the shoeboxes of drugs, and slip out again. It’s one in the morning, and I’m very nearly delirious from exhaustion, but I have to keep going. It’s harder sneaking this time round. I’m painfully, excruciatingly aware that I’m carrying three shoeboxes full of DRUGS, and if I got caught now, there would be no saving me.
Luckily, the gym’s locks are so old and rusty that all I have to do is insert a bobby pin and jiggle a little before they give. I guess there’s not much you could take from the gym, so they don’t really care about the security. Still, the tiniest clicks and clacks I make sound awfully loud in the silence, and by the time I get to the girls’ changing room, I’m sweating a river and jumping at the slightest breeze. My hands are so sweaty by now, I keep almost dropping the boxes. I wish I could say I’m keeping my cool, but nope. If I hear a sound right now, any sound, I’ll literally die.
The girls’ changing room is eerily dark and silent. I knew, obviously, that it would be, but knowing and actually being here are two different things. My footsteps echo in the silence. I swear there are eyes in the darkness, watching me. There’s a sense of a breath being held. I can barely see where I’m going, but I’m too scared to turn on the lights. Finally, I compromise by using my phone screen to create a bit of light, just enough for me to locate Mandy’s locker. I set down the boxes and get to work. My sweaty hands keep slipping from the lock, and I botch my first few tries. I take a few deep breaths. They come out all shaky. I don’t want to do this. To my surprise, I’m sort of crying a little. Mandy is awful, but this is—god, am I really going down this road?
A flash of Danny’s fist slamming down onto his desk. That animal anger on his face. His insistence that Stacey has something to do with it. Or that it’s whoever owns those shoelaces.
I can’t afford not to do this.
Somehow, I manage to will my trembling fingers into fiddling with the lock again, following the instructions I got online. It’s not going to happen. They’ve made it sound too easy, but in reality, it’s too—
With a defeated click, the lock opens.
For a few moments, I just sit there and stare stupidly. It worked. I can’t believe it actually worked. Something, some strange instinct, makes me turn around sharply. I swing my hand round, the glare off my phone bouncing wildly in the room, but there’s nothing. Just empty benches and lockers.
Still, I can’t shake that feeling of being watched. Quickly, I wipe down the shoeboxes before putting them carefully in the very back of Mandy’s locker. I rearrange her stuff so it covers the boxes. Then I step back and look at my handiwork.
No. Too obvious. With shaking hands, I remove two of the shoeboxes. Just one lonely box sits in the far corner. Okay, that’ll do. It’ll have to. I pile her clothes on top of it. That looks okay. Shut the door and lock it, give it another wipe down, and take a step back, trying to get my breathing under control. I’ve done it.
I should feel glad, victorious. I only feel sick.
I take the other two boxes, briskly walk into the bathroom, and rip the baggies open one by one, watching as the pills rain down into the toilet. So slow. I need to move faster. Five bags’ worth of pills per toilet. Flush. More pills. Flush again. I feel soiled and I’m never going to get through the entire stash.
Ages pass, and when I reach into the shoebox for more bags, I find that they’re all empty. A grateful sob wobbles out of me. I hurry out of the stuffy gym and gasp in the cool night air. God, the breeze feels so good against my skin. But I don’t have time to stop and savor it. I tuck the shoeboxes under my arms and make my way across campus toward the Narnia hole. The entire time, I can feel eyes crawling over me. But whenever I look over my shoulder, there’s nothing but a deathly quiet school. Everyone is sleeping by now.
By the time I make it through the Narnia hole, I’m exhausted. I make myself keep going until I get to a nearby gas station, where there’s a huge trash bin at the back. I dump the shoeboxes in there, trudge to the pay phone up front, pull my shirt up over the receiver, and dial the local police department’s number.
An automated voice says, “You’ve reached Draycott Police’s Nonemergency line. For emergencies, please hang up and dial nine-one-one. Please leave your name and contact number and we’ll get back to you.”
The sound of it makes fireworks go off in my head. This is not a dream. I’m actually doing this. I’m making the call. Oh god, oh g—
“Um.” I clear my throat and try again, making my voice as gruff as I can. “I—uh, I’m calling about, um, a suspicious activity. At Draycott Academy’s athletics department. I think, um, one of the track girls has drugs in her locker.” Does that sound too obvious? I’ve never made one of these calls before. What do people even say? Snitching is a lot harder than it seems. “Um. Okay, that’s all. Thanks.” I hang up hurriedly before I say something idiotic that would no doubt give me away. Then I rush back to school.
By the time I get back to the dorms, I’m running on fumes. I practically crawl into my bed, not even bothering to brush my teeth or anything. I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.
Later that morning, track practice is a total and utter nightmare. I’m completely exhausted, for one. I can’t remember the last time I felt this tired. But maybe it’s a blessing, being this tired, because I have no energy to be nervous. I watch blearily in the changing room as Mandy, chatting to Elle, opens her locker. My heart rate blips up a bit, but Mandy doesn’t even bother looking inside her locker when she grabs her shirt. She catches me looking and snaps, “What’re you looking at, bitch?” There’s still bruising around her nose. I look away, my insides crawling guiltily.
“You okay?” Stacey says, plopping down next to me.
I nod. I don’t trust myself to say anything.
“Do anything fun last night?”
I stare at her. That’s a weird question to ask. Is it a weird question to ask? I don’t know, my brain is running on fumes. “No,” I mumble thickly. “You?”
“Well, I—”
But she doesn’t get to finish her sentence before the door bursts open and Coach marches in, followed by Detective Mendez. Coach looks like she’s about ready to choke a deer. Her hands clench and unclench by her side. Mendez, on the other hand, looks like the cat that swallowed the expensive can of tuna. Or the salmon. I dunno, something more delicious than a stupid canary.
“Alright girls, line up!” Coach calls out. “Random locker check.”
“What the hell?” Mandy says. “Why?”
My cheeks go hot. She’s going to look even guiltier than I expected. Which is good. But wow, does it ever feel shitty. I stand up and follow the other girls to form a line. My legs tremble a little.
Mandy stays where she is, arms folded across her chest. “I don’t think you have the right—”
“Mandy, shut up and fall in,” Coach says with a sigh.
Someone telling her to shut up? That shut her up. She stomps over to the line and says, “I’m telling my mom about this. You’re violating our privacy.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Coach says. She turns her head and glares at Mendez. “You wanna take over from here?”
“With pleasure.” Mendez steps forward. “When I call your name, please lead me to your locker and open it.”
“Jesus,” Mandy says.
Detective Mendez’s head snaps to face Mandy. “Let’s start with you,” Mendez says.
Oh god. This is it. It’s happening now. I watch, frozen, as Mandy leads the detective to her locker. Half of me is screaming to stop them, to call it off. The other half is rubbing its dirty, red hands with glee. Once they open the locker, there’s no going back. I step forward.
“Wait—” I say.
The locker swings open and Detective Mendez plunges her hands inside.
I step closer, but Stacey catches hold of my arm. “What are you doing?” she whispers. “Stay here, dumbass.”
“But—” I turn back and—this can’t be right—Detective Mendez is straightening back up, empty-handed.
“Alright, you’re clear,” she says to Mandy.
What?
I look at Mandy and back to her locker. Could she have found it beforehand and gotten rid of it? No, she doesn’t look relieved or smug or anything. She just looks pissed off as she kicks her locker shut, still grumbling about the cops not respecting boundaries. Have I put the drugs in the wrong locker?
I scan the rows of lockers frantically, retracing my steps. I’d been half-delirious from lack of sleep. It’s possible. Did I stop at the correct row last night?
The second girl—Arjuna—leads Mendez to her locker. My heart stutters again. Would it be in there?
Clear.
Then Yoshi has her turn, and then Elle, and then three other girls, and they’re all clear. And now a dark feeling is worming its way through my stomach. Something’s gone very, very wrong. And when Mendez makes eye contact with me, I know now, where the drugs will be found.
I lead her, my throat dry, each step taking me closer to my doom. I stop in front of my locker and stare at the lock for a moment. Does it look like it’s been broken? I take it in my hand, trying to squeeze an answer out of it.
“Everything okay, Lia?” Detective Mendez says.
I nod and turn the lock, its little clicks reverberating through my hand, each one a bullet being loaded. One final click, and it snaps open. I pull it off and—one final breath—I open my locker. Nothing looks moved. I’m about to reach in when Detective Mendez grabs my arm.
“I’ll do that,” she says and pushes me gently but firmly to the side. She ransacks my locker as I watch, helpless, but as the seconds go by, it’s clear there’s no shoebox to be found.
I practically melt into a puddle. I just. What’s happening right now? Did I imagine it all? The world takes on a dreamlike quality, and I watch wordlessly as Detective Mendez goes through the rest of the lockers and finds nothing. Maybe I’m so sleep-deprived, I dreamt the whole thing. Maybe instead of putting a box in Mandy’s locker, I actually threw it all away. Maybe there are three empty shoeboxes in Safeway’s trash bin and not two.
Whatever it was that just happened, Mendez is not happy. Down to the last two girls, and she ransacks their lockers like she’s got a personal vendetta against them, then she whirls around and snaps, “Okay, which one of you kids made the call?”
We all look at her blankly. Well, I try to look as blank as I can, which is easy because I still have no clue what just went down.
“You guys think this is funny?” she says, her eyes hard as flints. “You prank call the police department, make us waste our fucking time—” She slams the last locker shut as she says the word time, making everyone jump. “I don’t know what you kids are playing at here, especially when we’ve got a murder investigation going on, but this isn’t a fucking joke, you hear me?”
Coach goes ballistic. “Hey!” she thunders, and when Coach thunders, she goes full-on Zeus. “We’re done here,” she bellows. “Girls, haul your asses to the track now. Warm-ups. Go, go!” As we hurry out, I turn and catch one last glimpse of Coach and Detective Mendez having some kind of staring showdown, and I hear Coach saying something about lodging a formal complaint and Mendez saying something along the lines of bite me, and then the door swings shut and I can’t hear anything else, and I stagger to the track, wondering what the heck just happened.