Chapter 31

Ruby the Journalist

Heather noticed Ruby’s backpack on the front stoop. Interacting with Burton, Heather had not only lost track of time; she had not heard Ruby’s bus screeching down the road.

No matter. Ruby loved to play outside, and Heather was sure she would find her sister playing out back near the trail. Heather walked to the backyard. She looked over at Burton, who still worked in his garden. His form stooped over the herbs, and it seemed to absorb energy from everything around him. Even the sun seemed to avoid the garden. It was as if Burton and his plants were shrouded in perpetual dusk.

Watching Burton, Heather realized that she hated him, and not only for what he’d done to Adam. She resented the way he thought that she owed him for the car rides he’d given her over the summer. She thought back to those rides and realized how creepy he’d been the entire time. She thought back to how his eyes stuck to her. How they hungrily lapped up every inch of her body. How he seemed to drive under the speed limit just to prolong his time with her. How the whole thing had been a ploy to insure Burton some social interaction for once.

Burton was right: Heather had so much goodness in her that she couldn’t understand people like him.

She hadn’t realized until now just how much she’d hated Burton. His presumptuousness. His feeling of entitlement to her. The fact that whatever he did, he did not out of the goodness of his heart, but out of self-interest only. She hated herself for ever having sympathy for such a person.

“Yes,” Heather told herself as she glared at Burton’s stooped and shadowy form, “I hate him, and I will never be kind to him again.”

Heather found Ruby a few steps into the trail behind the house. Ruby was not yet allowed on the forest trail by herself, but she would often wander into the woods now and then to look for flowers.

Heather approached her sister quietly so as not to disturb whatever game she was playing. Ruby was crouched down along the edge of the trail. There were a series of large, flat rocks that marked the start of the trail and which Heather and Ruby often frequented as benches before the start of a hike or a resting spot toward the end of one. With Ruby’s back to her, Heather crept along to look over the child’s shoulder.

There were a series of plants organized on each of the large rocks. On the largest of the rocks, Ruby had placed late fall flowers: wildflowers, mums, even white-headed dandelions that had managed to spring up so late in the year. On a second rock, Ruby had placed two plants: one was a prickly burr attached to a stalk. It was dingy and dried. The other was a chrysanthemum that had grown mushy and wet and withered. It had probably once been a bright yellow, but now it was a wilted brown. Ruby had stuck the hard and prickly burr into the mushy chrysanthemum so that the two were now stuck together irrevocably. On the last rock, Ruby had used dried grass to make the shape of the letter T. On that rock she also placed a single flower, a blue-tinged wildflower. Where had Ruby found such a color this late in the year?

As she crept closer, Heather saw that Ruby held out her little notepad, and she was busy jotting down notes. She spoke quietly now and again—as if she were interviewing the plants.

“And what is your opinion on the matter?” Ruby was asking the withered chrysanthemum in her best journalism voice. Apparently it did not reply, for she sat patiently with her notepad.

“I will answer for him,” Ruby said in a deep voice. It was the voice of the burr. “The captain is not strong enough to speak for himself anymore. The captain is deeply ashamed,” she said, using her most adult vocabulary, “but too afraid to admit it.”

Then she paused to scribble down some notes: captain, ashamed.

“Ruby, what are you doing?” Heather asked.

But Ruby did not turn around. Instead, she kept her back to Heather and answered briefly. “Shhh!” she said in her own voice. “You’re disrupting the interview.”

“What interview?” Heather asked.

“The interview about the scar.”

“What!”

“The Ruby Review is trying to get to the bottom of it. I’m interviewing everyone to see what the scar means.” Ruby pointed to the plants on the rocks. “Most’a the kids at school,” she said, pointing to the arrangement of flowers, “think the scar means Traitor, though there are some that disagree.” She separated the flowers into two piles. “See? This pile thinks the scar means Tutor. And some even think it means Truth.”

She pointed to the lone blue wildflower against the backdrop of the letter T in dried grass. “The girl with the scar,” Ruby said, pointing to the blue flower, “will not answer one way or another.”

Finally, she pointed to the wilted mum mashed into the burr. “The only other person who seems to know the truth cannot speak. The bad man has gotten hold of him. And this journalist,” she said, pointing to herself, “cannot count the bad man as a reliable source.”

Heather was speechless. What could she say to the child’s strangely-realistic representation of the high school social scene and her precocious speech? It wasn’t difficult to imagine which people and groups were represented by each of the flowers.

“Ruby,” Heather said, “it’s getting cold out. Let’s go inside.”

At that, Ruby turned around, and Heather jumped backwards at what she saw. On her face, drawn in what was now dried mud, Ruby had drawn the image of Heather’s scar. The mud ran along her forehead and down her nose to her chin.

“Ruby!” Heather screamed. “What have you done?”

“Only the same that you’ve done.” She stood up, looking her sister directly in the eye. “I’m looking for the truth, and it has caused me to have a scar. I didn’t fall.” She smirked, then asked, “Do you have a comment for The Ruby Review? Won’t you tell our readers the true meaning of that scar?”

“I fell—” Heather began.

“Our readers know that you didn’t fall,” Ruby said, pointing to the flowers staring up at Heather from the rocks. “They know that someone gave you that scar. It was for something you did.”

Heather sighed. She had been trying to shield Ruby from the truth, but with Ruby joining her at Orchard Valley High School every day, keeping her in the dark was difficult to accomplish.

“Why did you draw mud all over your face, Ruby?”

“I want to be like you. You always told me to tell the truth. The same thing Daddy always says. Is that why you have the scar on your face? ’Cause you told the truth?”

Heather knelt down to be closer to her sister. She pulled her sweatshirt sleeve over her hand and gently rubbed away the mud from her sister’s face.

“I don’t want you to be afraid to tell the truth,” Heather said.

“So it is ’cause you told the truth? ’Cause of your blog? Is it the reason you don’t update your blog anymore? Tell me!”

But how could Heather even begin to explain the complexities of high school life to her sister?

“Who did this to you?” Ruby cocked her head. “Was it the bad man?”

Heather thought about what to say, but Ruby’s questions were relentless.

“And is the reason you have the scar the same reason the football captain always wears long-sleeved shirts?”

“What do you know about that?” Heather asked.

Ruby shrugged. “I dunno… I was hoping you could explain it to me. And who’s the bad man next door? Did he give you the scar?”

“No,” Heather said.

“Then who?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Heather said.

“I don’t get it,” Ruby pouted. “Why can’t you tell me? Why doesn’t Adam come over anymore? Would he rather spend his time with the bad man? I want to see Adam again. I miss him!”

Ruby’s last plea gave Heather an idea. “Ruby, would you like to see Adam tomorrow?”

Ruby’s eyes glowed. “Yes!”

“Then I’ll make a deal with you. If you stop asking me all these pesky questions, I’ll take you to the football game tomorrow. Then you’ll be able to see Adam on the field. He’s a big football star now.”

Ruby frowned. “I’d like to see him play football, but what I’d really like is just to talk to him the way we used to. If we go to the football game tomorrow, will we get to talk to Adam—just the three of us—the way it used to be?”

Heather looked around. She saw Burton’s creepy form in the distance cutting the leaves off some of his herbs. Then she looked back at the outline of the muddy T still showing on her sister’s forehead. She thought back to the broken trophy lying at the bottom of her closet, and of the even more sinister secret lying in the bottom of Adam’s.

“Heather, tell me!” Ruby crossed her arms. “If we go to the game tomorrow, will we be able to talk to Adam, just the three of us?”

Heather looked right into her sister’s eyes and smiled. “I guarantee it, Ruby. I guarantee it.”