Chapter 10

The Incident in the Alley

As much as she hated to admit it, Heather followed Burton’s advice by asking her mother for an early ride to school, making up a story about tutoring freshmen in the library, something she’d done from time to time to build up volunteer hours for her application to the National Honor Society. What she didn’t tell her mother was that stuffed in her backpack, the one with the ripped zipper from Friday’s bus ride, was her notorious trophy, its weight a burden in more ways than one. Her mother agreed to drive Heather to school early—very early—on her way to work. As soon as Ruby’s babysitter arrived, the two of them left. Mother usually left earlier than that, with Heather waiting for the babysitter, so she was in quite a rush. In the car, Mother’s anxiety practically strangled Heather. “Morning meeting,” she explained, and checked her teeth and her smile in the visor mirror at every stoplight. But even her mother’s quirks were better than the alternative: riding the bus and allowing everyone to see her once again with the trophy.

“I have an important meeting late this afternoon,” her mother said as she pulled in to the school parking lot, “so you’ll have to make dinner for you and Ruby. I’ll call you on my way home.”

“You always have an important meeting,” Heather mumbled.

The car barely stopped long enough for Heather to get out; an instant later, it was speeding down the street toward the highway. As the forlorn junior watched her mother pull away, she felt as she had the first day of kindergarten. As her mother disappeared out of sight, she wanted to break down and cry.

But she vowed not to.

Her mother had dropped Heather off at the front of the school. For a moment, Heather thought it was early enough to use the main entrance. But a group of swimmers appeared out of nowhere and headed toward the front door. They were here for their morning practice. That meant lots of students to see Heather with her trophy of shame.

She shuddered as she followed Burton’s advice and headed toward the alleyway at the side of the school. The alley shared access to the student parking lot. On Thursdays, a large and noisy truck backed up to empty the dumpster. Otherwise, the alleyway was largely abandoned, used only by students skipping class or sneaking a cigarette behind the smelly dumpster.

A portion of the alley was visible from the principal’s office, which was located in the corner suite of the main office. The other side of the principal’s office overlooked the senior courtyard, a fully-enclosed and lush garden paid for by senior class funds and maintained by the environmental science club. Seniors were allowed to eat lunch there, and even though Heather was only a junior, she had been spending her first-period study hall in the courtyard writing or tutoring other members of the study hall.

Now, as she smelled the sweetly putrid scent of the dumpster, she wished more than anything that she could go back in time and never publish the blog. How wonderful anonymity would be. How little she appreciated the sweet oblivion of it when it was hers.

Heather stepped deeper into the alley. There, on the other side of the dumpster, was the entrance to the main office. Only one of the secretaries was in at this hour, and a light shone from Principal Elders’ office. Heather rehearsed her plan: she’d hurry into the office, bring the trophy to the principal, and leave it on his desk—hopefully without saying anything.

She took another quick glance to make sure she was alone. Then, she hurried toward the office. Autumn was in the air, and the smoky scent of wood-burning stoves tickled Heather’s nose. A crisp breeze picked up, swirling a pile of golden leaves in a whirlwind around Heather’s feet. Heather pulled her sweater-jacket tighter around her frame, and she shuddered from more than just the cold. The wind brought something else, too.

It brought the scent of a cigarette. Or maybe several.

Heather was not alone.

A series of footsteps echoed on the alley pavement as a group of three girls stepped out from behind the dumpster.

“Well look who’s here,” one of them said. Heather recognized her as a cheerleader, though she didn’t know her name.

“We were just talking about you,” said another girl. This one Heather had often seen in the hallways conducting interviews for the school paper. She tossed a lit cigarette onto the ground and stomped it out with her foot.

The third Heather knew well: it was the newspaper’s assistant editor, Melanie Williams. “Jared, like, why don’t you come out here?”

To Heather’s horror, Jared Winters stepped out from behind the dumpster. He tossed a cigarette—though it didn’t smell like an ordinary cigarette—onto the ground and didn’t even bother to stomp it out.

“Well if it isn’t my old buddy from the bus!” he said.

Heather rushed for the parking lot, but the four of them had already blocked her into the alley. The three girls stood with arms crossed as Jared approached Heather. “Your trophy was not very nice to me on Friday,” he said. He held up a bandaged hand. “I think you owe me an apology.”

“You were the one who looked through my bag,” Heather said. Her voice shook more than she expected it to.

“You mean like this?” he shouted, charging her and taking her bag.

Heather was too shocked to resist, and she let him pull the bag from her shoulder. The zipper was still broken from Friday, and Jared dumped the contents onto the ground. Papers swirled in a windy vortex around Heather. But Jared saw only one thing: his mouth curled in utter delight as the trophy fell to the pavement, the onyx obelisk splitting into two shards.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Jared said. “Did my action cause you harm? I can’t imagine how that would make you feel. Oh, wait…”

Behind him, the three girls laughed. “Now you know how it feels,” Melanie said. “I’m applying to colleges, and your little stunt, like, totally downgraded our reputation in everyone’s eyes. And, like, I’m not going to forget it!”

The other girls snickered.

“What should we do with her?” Jared asked, grabbing Heather behind the arms and holding her, vulnerable, in front of the three girls.

Heather looked into the main office window, but the office was empty. She looked towards Principal Elder’s office. Just as she did so, she saw his face in the window, looking serious and stern. A moment later, he reached over and closed the blinds. He would offer her no aid.

Heather was alone.

“I don’t know,” the cheerleader said. “What should we do to her? It’s got to be something that’ll make her pay for all the state championship games I won’t get to attend.”

“And for all the scholarship money I won’t get,” Jared added.

“It’s not like she cares. Her admission ticket into college is already written.”

“Let’s make her care!” Melanie screamed. “Let’s make her pay!”

She picked up the broken shard of the trophy. It glinted in the sunshine, its end sharp as a knife.

“Like, what do we call someone who turns against her own school?” Melanie asked.

“A traitor,” Jared answered, his bulk and anger still strong from his recent steroid use. He held Heather with no effort at all.

“Yes,” the other two girls chirped. “She’s a traitor!”

“And it’s time everybody knows it!” Melanie cackled, her eyes far away. She stepped closer and closer, the black shard reflecting the sunlight with blinding brilliance.

“Girls, hold her head straight,” Melanie ordered.

The two girls stood on either side of Jared. The cheerleader held Heather’s chin. The other girl held Heather by the hair. Heather cried out as she heard a clump of hair tear from her skull. Her eyes watered with pain.

“Hold her,” Melanie screamed, her voice now as deranged as her eyes. “Like, this is gonna be good.”

With that, Melanie brought the shard to Heather’s face, cutting a deep gash into her forehead—a horizontal line running above both eyebrows. Blood flowed from the wound, dripping like dark candle wax. The pain of it made Heather swallow a scream.

“Geez, Melanie!” the cheerleader cried. “What the hell are you doing?” She released her hold on Heather.

“Who cares?” Jared asked. “She deserves it. Just hold her steady.”

Melanie laughed. “You’ll see. Hold her.”

The cheerleader held Heather’s face again as if compelled beyond her will. The third girl gripped her hair tightly. Jared squeezed Heather’s arms behind her back so tightly they felt ready to break.

Melanie approached again, this time drawing a line vertically down Heather’s face. It began in the middle of the first cut and ran straight down the bridge of her nose, skipped over her upper lip, and continued down to cut Heather’s bottom lip and chin.

“Melanie, that’s enough!” the cheerleader said. Heather tried to scream, but Jared pulled her arms back violently, keeping her relatively quiet. Heather dry-heaved, and the girls let her go.

“Yeah, that’s far enough,” the other girl agreed.

Only Jared held his grasp on Heather, mouth frothing in delight.

“Don’t you see?” Melanie asked, her eyes on fire. “It’s a T!”

“It’s perfect,” Jared said.

“What do you mean? How is it perfect?”

“It’s a T,” Melanie smiled as she explained. “The perfect brand for, like, a Traitor!” She brought her face close to Heather’s.

Blood ran down Heather’s forehead and cheeks, and she could barely see Melanie for all the blood that flowed into her eyes.

“Now get this straight, Traitor. You tell a single soul who did this to you, and what you experienced here today will, like, totally seem like heaven compared to what I’ll do to you. You got it?”

But Heather could not respond. Instead, she fell limp into Jared’s arms.

Melanie cackled before commanding the group: “Now run!”

With that, Melanie dropped the trophy shard and dashed out of the alley. The two girls followed, and finally, Jared released Heather, letting her fall onto the pavement. The world moved in slow motion as she fell, and Heather was finally able to scream.

From the ground, Heather watched through a slit of clear vision as the principal’s blinds happened to open once again. A moment later, the door to the main office opened, and a secretary ran out, a look of terror on her face.

The last thing Heather saw before she blacked out were the two broken pieces of her trophy, the sun glinting off the shards painfully blinding her already burning eyes.

She regained consciousness as the EMTs loaded her onto an ambulance, and the last thing she saw before the doors closed was Principal Elders. He had a serious look on his face, and though Heather couldn’t see well enough to discern his exact emotion, she knew that it definitely wasn’t anything close to sympathy.