Getting REVENGE on Lauren Wood (19 page)

“I know,” I said.

“I’m not interested in being friends with you if you’re going to be all CIA.
I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you
. I don’t even know if you
want
to be my friend.”

My throat felt like it was getting more and more narrow. It felt like she was asking me to step out onto the window ledge of a tall building.

Brenda rested her hand on my arm. “I don’t want to do all this back and forth. Friends one minute and then not the next. If you want me to understand that there are things you can’t do, you should be willing to understand there are things I can’t do.”

“So where does that leave us?” I asked.

“What do you know about space walks?” Brenda said.

“Space walks? Is this your subtle way of changing the subject?”

“Stick with me and it’ll make sense. What do you know about space walks?”

“My knowledge here is pretty slim.”

“Here’s the thing, space isn’t built for humans. It’s freezing cold;
there’s no air. So the astronaut gets all dressed up,” Brenda said.

“I’m not a complete idiot. I know people don’t just go walking around in outer space.”

Brenda ignored me. “So the astronaut goes into an air lock. It’s sort of a waiting room. They suck the oxygen out, and then when the pressure is equaled they can go outside the spaceship, and then they do the same thing in reverse when they want to come back in. It isn’t instantaneous. The transition takes some time. Go too fast and someone could get hurt; go too slow and you could run out of time.”

“What does this have to do with us?” I asked.

“You asked where we are—we’re in the air lock.”

“Waiting for the pressure to equalize,” I said.

“Exactly, and hopefully before we run out of air.” Brenda turned around, and suddenly my chest felt tight like it was going to burst, and I had to do something to release the pressure. Before I knew it the words flew out of my mouth.

“My name isn’t Claire.”

Brenda turned around and looked at me with one eyebrow up.

“My name is Helen.” My voice shook as I said my real name.

The first bell rang. Lunch was over.

“I’m guessing this isn’t the kind of story that can be wrapped up in the next three minutes, huh?” Brenda said with a sigh.

Chapter Thirty-Four

One of the benefits of being generally good is that the teachers trust you. Brenda marched down to biology and told Mr. Wong that we needed some time to work on our bacteria project. He gave her the keys to the lab and wrote us a pass in case anyone wondered why we weren’t in class.

The biology lab was dark. The blinds were drawn so everything had that sort of hazy shadow lighting. Brenda and I sat on opposite sides of one of the lab tables facing each other. I held on to one of the microscope cords, winding it up one finger and then letting it go so it hung like a giant spiral curl, and then I would do it again. If you were going to film a horror movie, the empty lab would be a great place for it: posters of eviscerated frogs on the wall, strange chemical smells, trays of dissection tools off to the side, and microscopes casting giant shadows on the far wall like a line of marching Tyrannosaurus rexes. Then
again maybe the room wasn’t scary and it was just the fact that I was scared out of my mind.

“So …” Brenda’s voice trailed off.

“I don’t know where to start.”

“Why don’t you start with why you’re calling yourself Claire if your name is Helen.”

“Would you believe me if I told you I busted up a mafia drug ring and that I’m in the witness protection agency?”

“No,” Brenda said, sitting perfectly still.

“Okay, I’ll tell you, but you have to promise that you will never tell another soul.”

“You want me to swear on a Bible or something?”

I grabbed a copy of our biology textbook off the table and passed it over to her. “I want you to swear on science, on Mr. Darwin here. It’s that important to me.”

Brenda placed one hand on the science textbook and raised her other hand. “I swear on this science textbook that I will keep whatever secret you tell me.”

I took a deep breath and tried to sort out the story in my mind. “It started from the moment I was born.”

It took me nearly forty minutes to tell her everything, how Lauren and I had been friends, what she did to me, and my master plan to get revenge.

“
You’re
the Snitch Bitch?” Brenda asked sounding almost impressed. “I remember hearing about that freshman year.
Everyone was talking about how you had screwed over the seniors.”

“I’m not the Snitch Bitch, Lauren is. So do you see now why I had to do this?”

“So you broke up her relationship with Justin?”

“Sort of. I mean, I put the pieces into place.”

“And you poisoned her mascara?”

“Poison is a bit harsh. That stuff is just an irritant,” I pointed out.

“But you also ripped her jeans.” I nodded. “Took her shoes.” I nodded again. It was only one shoe, but whatever. “You’re sabotaging her friendships and trying to make sure her crush ignores her.” Brenda looked vaguely in shock. I wasn’t sure what she thought my secret was going to be, but I was pretty certain this wasn’t it. “So everything you’re doing this year is designed to get revenge on her.”

“Yeah.”

“What about me? Where do I fit in?” Brenda asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean how do I fit into your revenge plan?”

“You’re not part of the plan. We met and I liked you,” I said.

“So you didn’t give me a makeover and get me to try out for the play with the goal of keeping Lauren from getting the part?”

“Uh,” my voice stuck in my throat. “That wasn’t just about revenge. I mean, I did think you would be really good, and you are. Really good.”

“How lucky for you that you could help me out and screw over Lauren at the same time. Very efficient.”

“Don’t be mad. I should have told you, but I swear I thought it was a killer idea for you to do the play. I still do.”

“Because it helps you out?” she asked.

“No. Honest now, are you liking it?” Brenda gave a deep sigh and I pressed on. “See, you do like it, don’t you? It’s fun,” I said. “Not to mention it’s going to look great on your applications.”

“Yes, it’s fun, and yes, I’m glad I did it, but you should have told me there was more to it.”

I stood up and paced up and down the aisle. “You wanted to know, you made me tell you, and now you’re mad.”

“I think I’m entitled to be a little annoyed to find out you’ve used me.”

“I am not using you,” I said, my voice rising.

“I want you to leave me out of this plan from now on.”

“Deal.”

“I am sorry about what happened, the whole Snitch Bitch thing. What she did was lousy. You didn’t deserve that,” Brenda said.

I felt my eyes fill up. One nice word from her and I was ready to burst into tears. I shrugged instead of saying anything because I was pretty sure I would start crying if I opened my mouth.

“So when will you be done with this plan?” Brenda asked.

“When I’ve got revenge.”

“How much is enough?”

“I don’t know. It seems like I’m close. She’s starting to fall apart. If I can push her just a little bit further then I think she’ll crash and burn.” I crumpled up a bunch of extra handouts that were on the table and chucked them into the trashcan.

“You want her to suffer.”

“Exactly!” I pounded my palm down on the lab table. At last someone understood.

“What if she doesn’t? What if you do your best to make her life miserable and it doesn’t work?”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“I’m being serious. How do you even know if you’ve won? What does revenge mean? It’s just a vague concept. It doesn’t mean anything,” Brenda said.

“It means a lot to me.”

“Okay, say you win, whatever that means. What in your life is going to be different after you get your revenge?”

I looked at her and opened my mouth, but I didn’t know what to say so I went back to pacing back and forth for a minute while Brenda watched me. I looked over at the periodic table poster on the wall just in case there was an answer in there for me.

“What I’m trying to point out is that I totally understand why you would want revenge on Lauren, but it doesn’t gain you anything,” Brenda said.

“Satisfaction. A sense of justice,” I offered, but in the back of my mind when she had asked what I wanted to gain, an image of Christopher floated in my mind.

“And then? I mean, unless you’re willing to kill her, then whatever you do, she’ll just get over it eventually. She’ll move on.” Brenda paused, giving me a careful look. “You aren’t planning to kill her, are you?”

“No, I’m not going to kill her. Maim her maybe, a nice amputation or something.” Brenda’s eyes grew wide and I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes. “I’m not going to maim her either. I want to do something that will hurt her like she hurt me.” I didn’t mention that I already had put something into place that might just do the trick. Something that would get Lauren kicked off the cheerleading team and humiliate her all at the same time. I had the sense Brenda wouldn’t want to know the details. Besides, I’d already planted the evidence in Lauren’s purse.

Brenda sat at the lab table without moving. She had her hands folded on the table, and she was looking at them like they were a crystal ball with all the answers.

“I’m glad you told me.”

“I’m glad too.” I was about to say something else, but Brenda waved me off. She had more to say.

“I understand why you want to do this, but I have to tell you, I think it’s a bad idea. If you want real revenge then live a great life, prove that what she did didn’t matter that much. The fact that it still bothers you just makes her win last longer,” Brenda said.

“You sound just like my grandmother. I can’t explain it. This is just something I have to do,” I said. Brenda was chewing on
her lower lip. “I’m not going to be able to move on until I finish this. You’re going to keep this secret, right?”

“I really don’t think this is a good idea.”

“You’ve made that pretty clear, but you promised. You promised on Darwin.” I held up the book as a reminder.

“What if she gets hurt?”

“As much as it would give me great joy, I am not going to slip arsenic into her salad.”

“What about what you did with her mascara? What if she had permanent eye damage?”

“Makeup companies have to make their products idiot-proof just in case someone sticks lip gloss in their eye by accident. Having chili pepper extract in your eye might hurt, but it isn’t going to damage anything. That’s why they test all that stuff. Better living through science and all that.”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m not asking for you to help me with it, just to not say anything. I’m almost done. There is just one more thing I have to check off. We don’t ever have to talk about it again. I’ll move on. You can help me apply for colleges and all that stuff.”

Brenda gave this big sigh. “I won’t say anything.” She looked over, meeting my eyes. “I promise.”

I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders. She was right, it did feel good to have told someone. It made me feel less alone even if she did think the whole plan was insane.

“You have to promise me something too,” Brenda said. “Think about the law of diminishing returns.”

“Huh?”

“Is all the effort you’re putting into your plan worth it? In science sometimes researchers have to realize they’ve gone down the wrong path and turn around before they get further from what they really want. And one more thing,” Brenda said.

“What?”

“I don’t feel good about lying to Mr. Wong. We need to put in at least an extra hour on our biology project after school to make up for this hour.”

“I will gladly spend an hour with you and your bacteria.”

“Our bacteria.”

I broke into a smile. “Of course, our bacteria.” I reached over and we shook on the deal.

Chapter Thirty-Five

I took everything off the kitchen shelves. The one downside of my grandmother’s cooking habit is that she never throws anything away. She wants to be sure she has everything she might need to make any meal should all grocery stores across the county suddenly go out of business. She had drawers full of spices (cilantro, basil, fennel seed, coriander), different types of flour (cake, unbleached, whole wheat, enriched, multigrain), sugar (brown, white, castor, powdered, colored), and countless varieties of vinegar and oil. When I had gotten home from school I’d wandered around the house, practically bouncing up and down with nervous energy. The conversation with Brenda kept playing over and over in my mind. That’s when tackling the kitchen occurred to me.

Once I had everything off a shelf, I wiped it down first with warm water to get all the sticky and spilled bits up and then with a quick spray of the kitchen cleanser. I had been at it so long a cloud of bleach hung over the room. While I cleaned I wondered what
Christopher was up to. I couldn’t quite figure out what we were doing. Sometimes it seemed like he liked me. He’d held my hand at the theater and I would have sworn we were close to kissing at least twice. Then there were other times when I wasn’t sure if he liked me at all. He was like this ghost; he drifted in and out of my life. Sure, I could call him, but it seemed like it should be his move next.

It was possible that he was busy with his film and that’s why he didn’t call. Instead of being annoyed, I should have admired him for having so much creative drive. I knew he had interviewed the whole cast because Brenda told me. He hadn’t asked me for an interview, but it’s possible that director flunky wasn’t an important enough role to merit film time.

“What’d you do?” My grandma asked, surprising me. I was standing on the kitchen counter and turned so quickly I almost fell over.

“I thought you were going to the hospital to visit Kay,” I said.

“I’ve been around a long time, kiddo. Don’t think I didn’t notice that you didn’t answer the question.”

“My parents like it when I help out without being asked.”

“Uh-huh. You’re their only kid, so they don’t know any better. I had three, plus six grandkids. You don’t get to be my age without knowing teenagers don’t voluntarily clean out the kitchen cupboards.”