It definitely didn’t look like Gigi and Celeste were comparing prom dress notes. Gigi was drawn up to her full five foot nine; but even though she was bearing down on Celeste, my friend had her face right up in Gigi’s as if she were examining her dental work. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the faraway muffle of their voices reminded me of that conversation I’d overheard on the other side of Mrs. I.’s door.
Celeste is going to get herself in SO much trouble if she loses it, I thought, and I shot across the yard with my backpack pounding against my spine. I was about 30 feet from them when somebody stepped right into my path and put his hands on my shoulders. The way I stopped, which involved stumbling forward and falling right into his chest, it wasn’t hard to see that it was Duck. Up close and personal.
“Hey you,” he said.
I felt like I was being torn in half. Behind him Gigi and Celeste were still going at it verbally, and I had to stop them. But then there HE was, smiling down at me with that look in his eyes.
“Hi, Duck, nice to see you,” he said.
I blinked and tried to focus on his face. “It IS nice to see you. I just—”
“Your voice is getting worse,” he said. “You’ve gotta go to the doctor. You want me to take you?”
“No—Duck, I need to talk to Celeste. Didn’t you see her—”
“Who?”
“Celeste! The girl who introduced us! She’s over there about to—”
Duck pulled me into his chest with one hand behind my head. “Did somebody introduce us?” he said in a voice not much louder than mine. “I feel like I’ve always known you.”
I momentarily forgot the impending catfight.
He held me out to look at me, his hands still on my arms. “I’ve been thinking about a lot of stuff over the weekend, and I want to talk to you about some things.”
“Okay,” I said. “Like what?”
“Not here.” He took my hand like he was about to lead me away.
“I have rehearsal,” I said. “And I need to find out what’s going on with—”
“Meet me after,” he said. “And in the meantime—just think about this.” He pulled me close again, up into his face. “Think about going to prom with me. That’s not the only thing I want to talk to you about—but just think about that first.”
I didn’t have a millisecond to even start. From across the lawn I heard Celeste’s voice slashing the air. The words were clear this time.
“Nothing you say can hurt us, Gigi!” she shouted—into Gigi’s nostrils. “So why don’t you knock off the harassment?”
Gigi’s voice was no less loud and no more controlled. “You and your little friends are the ones doing the harassing—and we CAN hurt you—in a MAJOR way.”
I wrenched myself away from Duck and tore over there. By the time I got to Celeste’s elbow, Gigi was waving a piece of paper—which I snatched out of her hand.
“Give me that!” she screamed, this time at me.
I only had a second to look at it before she ripped it away from me.
“What is that?” I said. “It looks like a petition.”
“Well, aren’t you just the valedictorian?” she said. Her glossy lips were curled into their usual sneer. There was something very sure and triumphant about it.
“A petition for what?” Celeste said. She made a grab for it, but Gigi was too fast for her and dangled it over her head, out of Celeste’s reach.
I was tall enough to snatch it back again, but this time I turned away from her so I could read it. Just before she managed to reach over my shoulder and pluck it up, I saw the words that Mrs. Isaacsen be removed.
That wasn’t all I saw. There must have been 500 signatures at the bottom of the page.
“You really think that’s going to get Mrs. Isaacsen fired?” I said.
“No stinkin’ way!” Celeste lunged for the paper again, but Gigi quickly stuffed it into her bag.
“If we could get rid of a teacher just by signing a petition,” I said, “there wouldn’t be a faculty member left in this school.”
“It isn’t just the signatures,” Gigi said through her nose. The hair flipped over her shoulder. “It’s what she’s done.”
“What did she supposedly do?” Celeste said. She was matching Gigi sneer for sneer. I’d always known Celeste had it in her; I’d just never seen it before. She wasn’t our sunny little beach bunny at the moment.
“You really think I’m going to tell you so you can run to her and she can start covering it up?” Gigi laughed. It was the most purely ugly sound I’d ever heard.
“You witch!” Celeste said.
She threw herself at Gigi, fingernails bared, and I had to put both arms around her from behind to keep her from clawing Gigi’s face. Not that I wouldn’t have relished the sight of that.
“Don’t bother, Celeste!” I said, though I was sure she couldn’t hear me over her hissing and spitting. “It doesn’t mean anything because it isn’t true.”
“It’ll mean something when the school board gets ahold of it,” Gigi said. “And that’s where it’s headed.”
“You TRAMP!” Celeste cried.
I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to hold her back for much longer. She was wrestling against my arms like somebody straight out of WWE.
“Go away, Gigi!” I shouted hoarsely. “Just leave!”
“I’m not afraid of her!”
“You should be!” Celeste pulled up her wrists and got them under my forearms, giving a heave that would have put Joy Beth to shame.
I was sure my arms were broken, but I was still clawing out to get hold of her again when somebody stepped in and shoved the two of them apart. Mr. Howitch used his stocky arms to hold them at bay while BOTH of them flailed and shouted obscenities. Let’s just say that Celeste was no longer stringing benign words together.
Then someone else appeared and pulled Celeste back. Duck was too strong for her to get away from HIM.
“Knock it off, both of you!” Mr. Howitch said.
Celeste went slack against Duck. Gigi was still pummeling the air.
“Gigi—I mean it,” Mr. Howitch said. “You can’t afford to get a detention.”
I actually wished she’d keep on fighting. If she got busted, it would solve a lot of our problems.
But Gigi dropped her arms and stepped back, giving Celeste a look meant to rip out her cheekbones.
“Now both of you,” Mr. Howitch said, “get as far away from here as you can—and in opposite directions.”
Gigi dug her heels in until Celeste glared up at Duck, who let her go. She retrieved her bag and stomped off toward the parking lot.
“Celeste!” I said. I started after her, but Duck stepped in front of me again.
“You okay?” he said.
“Yeah—where were YOU?” I said.
He put up both hands. “I don’t get in the middle of girl fights. Good way to get your eyes scratched out.”
“No kidding.”
I glanced over my shoulder. Gigi had already disappeared; Mr. Howitch was making his way back into the building, shaking his head.
I snapped myself in the other direction, but Celeste was already climbing into her car. I was pretty sure I couldn’t calm her down. I’d never seen her that way before.
“Hello? Duffy?”
I looked at Duck.
“I said—why don’t I meet you after rehearsal, and we’ll finish what we were talking about?”
I took one last look at Celeste’s car as it peeled out of the lot, and then I nodded at him.
“You okay?” he said.
“I don’t know. ” I said it into his chest as he pulled me in.
“You will be,” he said. I felt him kiss the top of my head before he let me go.
I didn’t know which feeling to land on as I set up for the first act. K.J. worked that out for me when she showed up and asked me to help her with her costume.
“Don’t you have a dresser?” I whispered to her as we headed for the dressing rooms.
“I don’t want her,” she said over her shoulder. “I need you.”
It didn’t feel like a compliment. K.J.’s eyes were so narrow, I couldn’t see her pupils.
She slammed the dressing room door shut behind us and didn’t reach for her Puritan garb. When I did, she grabbed my wrist.
“Mrs. I. got a phone call just when I was waiting for my ride. It was from the superintendent’s office.”
“Superintendent—”
“Of Panama Beach School District. Mr. Big Man. The one who hires and fires.”
“What was it about?” I said. I had to lean against the counter, or I was going to fold to the floor.
“I don’t know. That’s all she would tell me.” K.J. ripped off her shirt, revealing her braless state. She snatched her costume off the hanger herself.
There was a tap on the door, followed by, “You need some help, K.J.?”
“Go away!” K.J. said.
She waited until the footsteps receded before she lit into me again, her back turned toward me so I could button her up. “Deidre was out there honking her horn in the driveway, and I was standing there trying to figure out whether to leave or go back and find out why Mrs. I. was in her bedroom crying like a baby.”
I closed my eyes. I could see Mrs. I. curled up in a fetal position, her head buried in a pillow. It was one of the scarier thoughts I’d ever let myself have.
“Something big is going down,” K.J. said as she turned to me again. Her face was pale, accenting dark shadows under her eyes. “We gotta find out what it is and stop it.”
“We? Do you think you should help?” I said. “What about the play?”
“I’ll find out something, and I’ll tell you—but nobody can know I’m involved.”
“Five minutes!” Benjamin yelled through the door.
“I have to go,” I said. “Eve’ll be having a coronary.”
“If you want to take me home after rehearsal, we can talk about it,” K.J. said. She suddenly looked small—and frightened.
“Okay,” I said, and then I stopped. Duck. Rats!
“I can’t,” I said. “I promised I’d meet somebody. I could try to call him—”
“Nah—don’t worry about it,” K.J. said. She was visibly retreating back into her contained self. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“I’m really sorry—about everything,” I said.
Through the whole rehearsal even Eve was more on the ball than I was. Afterward I thanked her several times for saving me from making a complete fool of myself in front of the entire cast and crew.
“You started it, Duffy,” she said. “You’re the one who has to end it.”
“I didn’t do anything!” she said. But she was beaming—even her bangs were like golden spikes poking out from her scarf. “I’m just glad to see that you make mistakes, too. I thought you were perfect.”
You have no idea, kid, I thought. But maybe I would feel better when I talked to Duck. After the way he held me that afternoon, I felt like I could tell him anything.
I sure didn’t have anybody else at the moment.
By the time I got outside, a lot of the cast and crew had already left. I stood under one of the lights and surveyed the parking lot for Duck.
I spotted his shoulders right away—like I could have missed them—and I was about to head for them—him—when I realized he was deep in conversation with somebody.
That somebody was Gigi.
I was rooted to the sidewalk.
Gigi?
Duck told me he didn’t know her. On the day of the demonstration when he’d supposedly chucked Gigi’s sign and left, he later told me he didn’t even know her name.
But as I watched them with my heart frozen in my chest, I could see that this wasn’t a chance encounter with an acquaintance. He was standing there with his hands in his pockets, but his shoulders were bulging, as if he were half mad and half defensive. Whenever she paused, he thrust his head forward and spewed out something from a mouth so tight I could practically hear it creaking when he opened it. Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I could see his eyes flashing from 50 feet away.
I was now grateful for those 50 feet between us because they gave me the distance I needed to back up toward the building and slip inside without either one of them looking my way.
Go to your locker, Duffy, I told myself as I stalked through the lobby and into the hallway. Get away from everybody so you can think.
Like I could KEEP from thinking. The thoughts were slamming together inside my head by the time I got my hands on my lock.
What is going on?
What’s he doing with Gigi?
Why does she have to take absolutely everything away from me?
And what about the petition? Does he know about that?
Has the whole thing with him been just lies?
I yanked the locker door open, and a parchment envelope fell out. Right behind it was a tiny glass object, which I managed to grab before it smashed to the floor.
My mind was so scrambled, I had to stare at it for a full ten seconds before I realized it was a miniature oil lamp, perfect in every detail—right down to the cloth wick. The only thing missing was the oil.
I ripped open the envelope and unfolded the note. My hands were shaking so hard you’d have thought I was a drug addict.
You are being prepared to be one, it said in that perfect handwriting I had come to know so well. Stay awake, for you must find something you need.
“Oil,” I said out loud.
And then I leaned against the locker and banged my fists into it.
“Would somebody PLEASE give me a straight answer?” I shouted.
But nobody said a word. Not even God.