Fade to Black (7 page)
Authors: Alex Flinn
“I come after school. Or I could bring you books if you like books better?”
I nod. “Books are good. I like fantasy, magical worlds, stuff like that.”
She smiles. One of her top teeth is a little sideways, and it just works on her. “Those are my favorites too. I just finished a good one by Garth Nix. I’ll send it tomorrow.” She looks at her watch again. “I really have to go, though. My break’s been over for five minutes.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’ll come back tomorrow, okay?”
She turns to leave.
“Jen… Jennifer?” I put out my hand to stop her, and I notice she backs away. When she realizes what she’s done, she moves closer again, but not close enough to touch. She turns red, too.
Still I say, “My mom said they caught the guy who did this.” I gesture at my face. “Who is it?”
She gives me a funny look. “I thought you knew. It was that football player, Clinton Cole.”
Monday, 3:00 p.m., Cole residence
The doorbell rings. I jump. What if it’s the cops?
It’s not the cops. It’s not the cops.
Calm down. Chill!
They said they had to talk to Crusan first. But he’s in the hospital, all doped up. Probably Girl Scout cookies or something. I almost laugh at that. Who’d sell cookies at a time like this?
“Are you gonna go downstairs?” Melody asks.
“Nah. Mom will get it.” I try and sound casual. Right.
But I’m not casual. I stare at my math book and chomp my pencil, which I have been trying really hard not to do anymore.
A minute later, there’s footsteps on the stairs, then Mom’s voice calling Melody.
I follow her down.
It’s not the cops. It’s Carolina Crusan. She looks tired and sad. When Melody sees Carolina, she runs and hugs her. I stay back.
“I missed you,” Melody says. “I wanted to call, but they wouldn’t let me.”
She says
they
like my mom and I are involved in some big conspiracy against her, and she’s still hugging Carolina.
Carolina says, “My parents wouldn’t either. Someone threw a stupid rock through my window, and now they’re holding me prisoner. It’s no fair.”
“We’re going to have to call your parents,” Mom says. And the way she says it, I know she’s dreading it.
“No!” Carolina starts crying. “They’ll kill me. I wasn’t supposed to leave the house. I wasn’t supposed to ride my bike. I wasn’t…” She keeps talking, but it’s all lost in a flood of tears.
My mother stands, watching. Then she says, “Clinton, why not take the girls to the kitchen for a snack.”
I don’t want to. But on the other hand, I’m glad Mom’s even speaking to me, so I figure I better do it. I gesture for them to follow me.
Once we get there, Carolina quiets down a little and they start arguing about what to have for snack. I wonder if they even told her about Alex yet.
“Can we make slice-and-bake cookies?” Melody demands.
“We don’t have any.” Even though I know we do. I just want to throw some Oreos at them and get it over with.
“Sure we do.” Melody opens the door and takes out a roll of cookie dough. They’re Halloween cookies with pumpkins in the dough. “See?”
I don’t want to eat anything Carolina’s had her hands in. But I figure they’re just slice and bake. I decide it’s probably okay. “Wash your hands first.” I grab a handful of Oreos from the refrigerator before the door shuts. My mom keeps Oreos in the fridge since it’s Florida and humid. My dad always said, “Never trust a woman who’d put cookies in the fridge. She’ll be weird about other things too.” I don’t know, but it makes sense to me. I mean, who wants Oreos that got all gummy from the heat?
While they preheat the oven and cut the dough, Carolina gripes about her parents. “They only care about Alex. They’re so mean. Everything’s about Alex, Alex, Alex. He’s like a prince, and he ruins everything. And if I say that, I’m bad for thinking it.”
“My brother’s the same way,” Melody says.
“Um, am I in the room?” I joke, though I don’t feel much like laughing. I’m thinking about what Carolina said about her brother. I go to open the oven door, and I catch my reflection. Funny how, when you see your face by accident, it looks different than when you look on purpose. I seem like I’m ten pounds heavier than I thought—my chin is like a turkey’s. I peel one of the raw cookie dough pieces off the sheet and shove it in my mouth.
“Pig,” Melody says.
“Yeah, like you’d never do that,” I whisper. “Fat slob.”
Melody glances over at Carolina but doesn’t say anything. I say, “I didn’t mean that.”
She sort of nods. But that doesn’t stop her looking like she’s about to cry.
I am a big, fat jerk
.
After they put the cookie dough in the oven, the girls sit down.
“My mother’s gonna kill me,” Carolina says again. “She’ll freak. She was calling me before, telling me lock the doors and stay in rooms with no windows.”
Windows.
“Because of the rock?” Melody says.
“Yeah. I stepped on some broken glass and hurt my foot.”
I notice for the first time she has a bandage on her foot under her sandal. I wonder how bad she got cut. Like, did she get stitches? God, I just wanted to scare them. I didn’t want to hurt a little girl. Maybe Mom’s right not to trust me. Maybe I really
am
a bad person.
But I can’t stop wondering if she could bleed on our kitchen floor.
“I was so scared to stay in the house by myself,” she’s saying. “Mom’s with my brother, and Dad’s at work. I mean, what if someone came to the house and did something?”
“I don’t think they’d do that,” I say.
“They threw the rock. They do all sorts of stuff to Alex. My mother calls them animals, and if they’re bad enough to do those things, maybe they’d do other stuff too.”
“I’m sure they…” I stop. I was about to say I’m sure they aren’t that bad, but I can’t get the words out.
Is
throwing a rock as bad as smashing someone’s windshield? I don’t think so, but Carolina cut her foot. I did that to her. That’s something. “You’ll be fine,” I say finally.
The oven timer goes off at the same time the doorbell rings.
“Oh, no.” Carolina starts to cry again.
It’s Mrs. Crusan. Even though she’s sort of a dark-skinned Cuban, her face looks white. She rushes toward Carolina.
“Oh, Lina, I was so worried. How could you do this?”
“I was scared at the house. Please let me stay here, Mommy. Just today.”
“No.” Mrs. Crusan gives me a look like I’m a serial killer or something. “No. You cannot stay here. You cannot come here ever again.”
Monday, 3:00 p.m., Bickell residence
Policeman
here
in our kitchen
.
Scary
.
Mama is
mad
.
“I don’t like
what you’re implying.”
“I’m not implying
anything, ma’am.”
“My daughter
has no reason
to lie.”
“It’s not a matter of lying
,
ma’am
.
Just if she might be
mistaken somehow.”
“She’s not,”
Mama says
,
standing up
.
“Any witness can
make a mistake
.
It’s not just because she’s—”
“She didn’t
make a mistake.”
“The boy’s mother says
he was home.”
Mama
looks mad
,
looks at me
.
“Did you see him
,
Dari?
Did you see?”
I don’t know
what
to
say.
How to say.
“Daria, listen,”
Mama says
.
“Listen.”
“Bike,”
I say
.
“What?”
the policeman
says
.
“On a bike,”
I say
.
“On a bike?
Clinton Cole?”
I nod
.
“Green one,”
I say
.
“We can check
that out.”
He leans down
.
“Did Clinton Cole have
a baseball bat?”
I don’t know.
“Dari,”
Mama says
.
“It’s important
.
Did the boy
have a bat?”
I saw
Clinton
on a bike,
green bike.
I saw a baseball bat
smash
Alex Crusan’s
car.
I don’t know.
“Daria?”
“Dari?”
“Did you see Clinton Cole?”
“Threwarock
.
Broke
brokeawindow.”
“What?”
the policeman
says
.
Mama sighs
.
“Not a rock
.
A baseball
bat.”
Slow down,
Mama always says
,
Slow. Down.
“Threw
a
rock,”
I say
.
“House.”
Mama says
,
“I’m sorry
,
Officer
.
She seemed so sure.”
“No.”
The policeman
nods
.
“No, she’s right.”
He looks at me
.
“Someone threw a rock
through the Crusans’ window last night?”
Mama looks
.
“Daria
,
were you at Alex Crusan’s house
last night?”
She will
be
mad.
I nod
.
The policeman says
,
“Did Clinton Cole
throw a rock
through
the window?”
I nod
yes
.
“Girl’s
room.”
Monday, 3:45 p.m., Memorial Hospital
Just what I wanted: parents in surround sound.
“He must listen to reason,” my mother says.
“Let the boy think, Rosario.” That’s my father.
“But he didn’t do it,” I say to the phone.
My mother is home now. Turns out my sister, Carolina, pulled some stupid stunt, running away to her friend, Melody’s house (which also happens to be Clinton Cole’s house). Mom had three heart attacks and is out for blood. Now Carolina’s home with Mom, and Dad’s here live and in person with me.
But that doesn’t stop Mom from invading my ears.
“There was a witness, Alejandro. She saw him.”
“I saw the guy who broke my windshield. It wasn’t Clinton.”
“Who was it then? Who?”
“I… I don’t know.”
I gesture at Dad like,
Help me, puh-leeeeze
. He shrugs and mouths,
What is she saying?
I hold the phone away from my ear so we can both hear her loud and clear.
“A boy in a letter jacket, though. You say a football player. It was dark, Alex. Maybe you don’t see so well. It was such a terrible thing. Maybe…”
She keeps going, but I’ve stopped listening.
“She is very upset, Alex,” Dad says.
No kidding?
I mouth.
“What?” Mom says. “What did he say?”
“Nothing,” I say into the phone. “Look, I know it wasn’t Clinton. Clinton’s …
mas gordo
.” I can see the guy with the bat’s outline, tall and slim.
Mom’s voice starts again, like a scratched CD that plays over. “Do not do this, Alex. Do not let being afraid keep you from saying what is right.”
Jennifer said something like that, about me quitting the baseball team. I wonder if she’s gone for the evening, or if she’ll come back to say good-bye. It’s almost eight. She probably left. She probably does have a boyfriend—maybe some big, dumb football player who needs her to do his homework for him, so she rushes home.
Doesn’t matter.
“I’m not scared, Mom. But I know it wasn’t Clinton. If it was him, I’d say it—I can’t stand the guy.”
But I wonder if maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I don’t want it to be Clinton because that would mean there’s someone I know, someone I sit next to in class, who hates me enough to want me hurt bad. Is that possible? Somehow it’s easier to think it’s a stranger.
“No,” I say aloud. “No, that isn’t it.”
“This boy does other things,” Mom continues. I look at Dad, and he shrugs. “The police just called. They say there is a witness who saw him throw the rock in Carolina’s window.”
“Who is the witness?”
“A girl—Daria someone.”
“Daria Bickell? She lives around the corner. But she’s not … maybe she just made a mistake.”
I can picture Mom at home, pacing, talking with her hands. “She has eyes, Alejandro. And she knew about the rock. The police didn’t tell anyone about it. She knew. She told them about it all on her own.”
So Clinton threw the rock. I believe
that
. Probably he’s one of the people who left notes in my locker, too.
I want to kill him for hurting Carolina. For hurting my family. Even if Clinton didn’t attack me this morning, maybe he would have, given the chance.