Wickedpedia Page 10
“You hate your father.”
“Correction: I am over my father,” Gavin said. He was also over Cole’s bellyaching. “I reserve my hate for others. You, on the other hand, did hate Scott. The guy was your friend, once upon a time. But I don’t remember you throwing yourself on his coffin after he got hosed. You didn’t even go to his service.”
Cole shut up.
“Exactly. Are you gonna finish that?”
Cole sat back, abandoning his untouched pizza. Gavin was wrong. Cole had gone to the service. Well, he tried, anyway. He just hadn’t gone inside. He’d dressed in a plain white shirt and a tie, as soberly as his wardrobe allowed, and walked to the church by himself only to stop a block away. Scott’s parents stood outside receiving mourners, and Cole was seized by a new, unsavory terror.
The terror of not knowing what to say.
We were good friends and I’ll miss him was a half-truth.
I think I may have inadvertently caused his death was inappropriate, to say the least, and not necessarily true.
Cole could have just said I’m very sorry for your loss, but by the time that had occurred to him he was already blocks away and committed to mourning Scott in his own private way. He kept on walking until he was home, his shame trotting alongside him like a stray dog he’d made the mistake of feeding once, now bonded to him for life.
Gavin hadn’t gone to the service, either, but he didn’t seem to feel bad about it, or even care that he didn’t feel bad about it. Cole wasn’t sure if he envied Gavin or was disgusted by him.
“You make it sound like I wanted Scott to die,” Cole said.
Gavin lowered his voice and looked deeply at Cole. “No, I don’t. But if that’s what you actually hear in that messed-up head of yours, I’ll change my tune. Because neither one of us can afford to sound like we wanted anyone to die. So just keep your mouth shut, okay? We did the right thing.” He finally seemed to grasp that his lighthearted policy of laughing in the face of violent murder didn’t help Cole remain calm. “Chetley’s caught, Josh is off the hook, and Winnie is safe. It’s too bad about Drick. I wish he hadn’t died. I really do. But there’s nothing to be gained by telling the cops the truth.”
“Did you recognize the detective? I think he was the same one we saw at Andrea’s, when I went to deliver her cookies. What if he’s picked up on the Wikipedia entries? What if he’s onto us?”
“Then he might have asked us questions that probed deeper than, ‘Was Mr. Drick chill?’ and ‘Did he and Chetley have beef?’ Taylor Swift was asked tougher questions in the last issue of Teen Vogue.”
Cole’s eyes narrowed. It sounded like a joke, but at the same time, it didn’t. “Since when do you read Teen Vogue?”
Gavin actually reddened. “Just for the quizzes. Guess what, Harry Styles is my 1D love match.”
Cole pushed back from the table. “I’m not sure about this.”
“You’re telling me. I’ve wasted years crushing on Louis.”
“I mean about Drick. Scott. Andrea. The Wikis. Keeping quiet about all of it,” Cole said. “If we come forward now, we’re responsible citizens who want to aid the investigation. If we say nothing, we run the risk of looking like we have something to hide when someone figures it out and comes forward for us.”
“Like who?”
Cole was about to remind Gavin that someone was already close to doing that when she sat down at the table and did the reminding for him.
“Guten Abend, Jungs,” breezed Lila as she dropped into the booth next to startled, frozen Cole. Today’s ensemble featured bright red jeans, suspenders over a crisp white shirt, and a green Alpine hat, tilted at a jaunty angle.
“Well, if it isn’t Miss Hipster Oktoberfest,” Gavin drawled. “Tell me something, why do you dress the way you do?”
“To give people who have nothing to say something to talk about.” She’d answered this question before. “I think the real question is, why don’t you dress the way I do? Some lederhosen and short pants would really make those chicken legs pop.” She faced Cole. “Scooch over, will you?” He could feel her breath on his face. “Or don’t. I can do up close and personal.” Cole hopped his butt toward the wall, trapped. Gavin slid out, ignoring Cole’s silent pleas for rescue.
“That’s my cue. Toodle-loo, Cole. You too, Heidi.”
Lila reached for the pizza. “Gonna eat that?” She didn’t wait for him to wave her on. “Thanks. I’m famished. Chasing down a red-hot story all day long sure does burn calories. I hear you and Gavin had an even longer day.”
Cole wasn’t going there. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Lila sighed. “Are you really going to shrink from me like I have cooties and pretend you and Gavin did not just this morning happen upon the gruesome death of SHS’s most notorious grader? Because a certain chatty Cathy on the custodial staff puts you on the scene.”
What point was there in denying it? “The police told us not to say anything about it.”
“The police can ask you not to say anything about it, but they can’t order you not to say anything about it.”
“Well, they asked nicely. And my parents raised a polite boy. So if you’re asking for my comment, I can’t give you any. Now if you’ll excuse me …” Lila made no move to get out of Cole’s way. “I will climb over you if I have to.”
“A polite boy like you? I think not. I think you’re going to agree to give me an exclusive instead.”
“And if I don’t?” Cole was done. Enough. He’d cowed to Gavin, been toyed with by Winnie, and been manhandled by Josh and Scott. He refused to let Lila push him around, too — even if a small but growing part of him kind of liked it. “You’ll cobble together a story with your other sources with or without my quotes. You’ll put Gavin and me on the scene and mess with the police investigation. The cops will get pissed, want to know who the heck this Walda Winchell person is, and I’ll be happy to give them your number.”
Lila coiled a string of cheese around her finger. “You could do all that. And when they come to me I’ll blow their investigation wide open by pointing out the Wiki pages they’ve yet to notice.” Cole stopped cold. “I imagine they’ll be pretty keen on tracking down whoever created those pages. I imagine they’ll be even keener to do so when they realize there are other still-living members of the SHS community who happen to have strange deaths foretold on their Wikipedia profiles.”
Cole was glad he hadn’t eaten anything. If he had, he’d have barfed it all up right then. “What other pages?” was all he could muster in response.
“Tomorrow night. You. Me. Schnitzel. The Blue Danube in Hartford at seven p.m. We’ll talk all about Drick, Andrea, Scott, the Wiki pages … and whatever else we can think of.” Cole realized he needn’t have eaten anything to get the dry heaves. “Don’t look so down, Cole. The food’s great and I’m good company. I promise. Are we agreed?”
Cole swallowed. “Fine.”
Lila flashed a starry smile.
“Good,” she said. “It’s a date.”
A succession of texts early the next morning insisted Cole open his eyes well before he was accustomed.
But this was not a rude awakening by any means. Cole welcomed the relief from his dreams. He couldn’t remember them specifically. Just moments after regaining consciousness they were already vanishing, sucked out of sight like an unlucky animal swallowed in quicksand. Cole knew by the thrum of his heartbeat that these dreams were bad. That was all he needed to know.
He reached for his phone, but paused. Maybe the texts were from Lila. Maybe she was in touch with special instructions. Maybe she wasn’t kidding about that lederhosen stuff. Or maybe she had to cancel their plans — their date, and no, her choice of words was not lost on him. But would Lila postpone dinner with a text, or tell him in person, the better to make him squirm? And did he really want her to cancel? Good schnitzel was surprisingly difficult to come by this side of the Alps.
And then there was Lila. She probably wasn�
�t the worst person to spend time with. Bizarre, sure. Baffling, most definitely. But beyond the German affectation and the habit for daily transforming her look like a gamer always bored with his avatar, she had a quirky, spirited appeal. And when Cole was with her, he was on his toes. There were worse ways to be.
Another text rolled in. Cole was thinking too hard. And about the wrong girl. Winnie was the goal. He took his phone with the resignation of the damned.
Gavin
wake up
check it out
spring showers on twitter
chetley released
to trade places with your nemesis
time to saddle up whinny
unless you have better things to do
german things
Cole tumbled out of bed, springing for his laptop. In his haste he failed to fully detach foot from sheet and fell over, greeting the floor with his forehead. Cursing the pain, he dialed Gavin while stoking the computer to life.
“What happened?” asked Cole.
“I told you, read Twitter.”
Cole called up the website and added Spring Showers to his feed.
Winnie Hoffman @WinWin100
@ABrindleDocent where’s the “report abuse” button
5 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
Rabid Doc Lenten @ABrindleDocent
@WinWin100 @OTruffleShuffle oooooooh somebody is in trouuubleee #SHS
11 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
Spring Showers @2WSPG_Spring
@ABrindleDocent Look for a student? #SHS
12 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
Rabid Doc Lenten @ABrindleDocent
@2WSPG_Spring enquiring minds want to know #SHS
14 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
Rabid Doc Lenten @ABrindleDocent
@2WSPG_Spring what person of interest #SHS
15 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
Spring Showers @2WSPG_Spring
Person of interest sought for questioning? #SHS
18 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
Spring Showers @2WSPG_Spring
Police don’t lack for suspect? #SHS
20 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
Spring Showers @2WSPG_Spring
Sources say #SHS teacher freed, cleared of colleague’s murder?
20 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
Cole’s fingers streaked across the keyboard.
Cole_Redeker @
PainAuChoCOLEat
@ABrindleDocent not cool
26 seconds ago Favorite Retweet Reply
“Wow, look at Spring Showers go! Who knew our hometown girl had a future laying local-Emmy bait back when she was campaigning for Miss Springfield in her bikini?”
“Who is this ABrindleDocent and why are they harassing Winnie?”
“Who cares?” asked Gavin.
Cole had seen that Twitter handle before, issuing condolences in the wake of Andrea’s accident. Whoever was the force behind “Rabid Doc Lenten” had given up asking about Andrea’s condition to troll Josh and Winnie. Cole made a mental note to scroll through the Tweeter’s history later. Right now he had his work cut out for him deciphering Spring Showers’s broadcast. “Everything this lady writes ends with a question mark. Is she reporting news or asking us if there’s news to report?”
“I think we’ll find out come first period?” Gavin chortled and hung up.
Cole dressed in a stupor, his mind thudding from the headache and questions combined.
Chetley, released? Josh, targeted? Winnie, single? School, on?
“What did you expect, another week of memorializing?” Gavin asked when they later met at Cole’s locker. “The district only has so many snow days to play with, and it burned a couple so we could grieve for Scott. We can’t afford to blow any more on a geezer teacher nobody will remember come next fall.” There was sarcasm in Gavin’s voice, but Cole knew he wasn’t far from the truth. “Who dressed you this morning? You’re all misbuttoned.”
First period commenced. Little was learned. Lesson plans were mailed in. Few spoke, and fewer listened. Cole had never heard the school so quiet, and just the morning before he’d been one of only a handful of people inside it. Students and teachers alike drifted blankly from one classroom to the next as if standing on moving sidewalks. Minutes ticked by and Cole’s pulse gradually quickened. A kind of dread wormed through his insides, gnawing at his guts. He didn’t know where the feeling came from until he realized where he was headed next.
History.
A prim, dusty woman stood in the entry, recognized by Cole as a standby substitute. She welcomed each student to class with a timid smile. Cole headed for his seat, skirting Drick’s desk. The dead teacher’s trademark rubber-banded bundle of red pens and dog-eared textbook still sat there, a gravestone, impossible to disregard. Cole sat down and waited as classmates filed in. He watched the door. Through it came Winnie.
Her eyes were shadowed, but not with makeup — this was the natural result of little sleep. Her face was pinched and washed out, drawn with just a few tints of pale. Her hair normally swung around in a wide swathe, a thick brown veil. But today it was controlled, swept up in an artful tangle and pinned behind her head. Her expression was blank. She could have been in shock or deep concentration or on automatic pilot.
She was beautiful.
Winnie took her seat and let her bag plop to the floor. It slumped and a few papers slipped out. She didn’t notice, and Cole suddenly found himself at her feet, collecting them.
“Oh. Thanks,” said Winnie, surfacing.
“No problem.” Cole set the papers down on her desk. On top was a calculus test. There was no mistaking the three-digit score at the top, a smiley face in number form. She’d aced it. Cole had received the second B of his life two periods before in English, for subpar work comparing and contrasting The Count of Monte Cristo with its modern-day successors. The assignment should’ve been a cakewalk. Any assignment should’ve been a cakewalk. But his grades had taken a backseat to his real-life story of revenge, death, and destruction. From the looks of Winnie’s test, she was handling the stress just fine. Her 105 percent (couldn’t she pass up the extra credit question just once?) was bad juju for Cole’s valedictory prospects.
But so what if Winnie’s grades were stable and Cole’s were bottoming out? Scott was dead. Drick was dead. Fretting over Cole’s place in the class standings felt vulgar, like wondering what kind of food was served at a wake. Winnie discreetly turned over her test, but Cole had the nagging sense that she was pleased he’d seen it.
“This is weird, right?” Articulate as ever, Cole. “I mean, Drick. Gone.”
Winnie agreed. “It’d be one thing if he’d had a heart attack. But to go the way he did …” She broke off and looked away, shaking her head.
Her shoulder faced Cole.
It begged to be touched.
“Are you okay?” he asked. She didn’t answer.
He began to lower into a crouch, prepared to combat her tears with a steady hand and the Ryan Gosling eyes he’d practiced for just this moment. Hey, girl, they’d purr, just letting you know you can talk to me. But when Winnie turned back to him her eyes were dry. There was no trace of vulnerability. Just confusion.
“What are you doing?”
Abort!
“Just tying my shoe.” He looked down. It was tied just fine. “Retying it, I mean. Loose laces make for crooked faces.” Cole flash-fried embarrassment. Above him Winnie seemed not to notice. She inhaled, exhaled deeply, and redirected the conversation back at herself.
“I’m fine. Distracted, that’s all. Busy. Constantly studying. Extracurriculars all the time. Tennis. They don’t hand you valedictorian just because you want it.”
Cole stood up, wobbling. “Yeah.” Wasn’t she forgetting something? “Plus all the stuff with Andrea. And, you know. A couple of murders here at school. That stuff has to take a toll. Right?”
Winnie
shifted uncomfortably, almost as though it hadn’t occurred to her. “Definitely. I just talked to Andrea yesterday.”
“How is she?”
Winnie cocked her head. “How do you think?”
“I mean.” Cole didn’t know how to say it, and quickly browsed his options for a smooth exit from this dead-end topic.
“You mean, what? How does she look?”
Too slow. “I guess. It’s none of my business. I only asked … you know. Because.”
“Because what?”
Because you know why, Winnie. She was not just proficient at Arabic, Mandarin, and English; for all her pretend ignorance, Winnie was fluent in Cole, too. She knew his signals. He’d been sending them in glaring, increasingly desperate waves since the day of their breakup. She just wanted him to put into words what he’d only been able to say with longing looks. Right?
Cole opened his mouth and shut it. From nowhere an image of Lila had sprouted in his head. Looking down at him as she tenderly cradled his head, throbbing after she’d clocked him with her serve. He weeded out the image of Lila and opened his mouth again.
“Because she’s your friend. You care about her.” Two short sentences and somehow he’d run out of air. Cole drew another breath. “And what you care about, I care about. Because I care about you.”
It came out like a word problem, and with less conviction than he’d heard it in his head. But he forgave himself. Cole’s romance was rusty, and Lila’s intrusion into his thoughts had thrown him off his game. Winnie’s response would decide whether he’d have a chance to iron out the kinks.
“That’s really nice of you to say, Cole.” She might have actually meant it.
“Say what?” came another voice.
Josh’s.
Cole was too hopped up on Winnie’s attention to notice the stillness that had gripped the room with Josh’s entrance. All eyes fell on the predator prowling in their midst. Collectively, breathing slowed and heartbeats picked up. Motes of dust hung frozen in the air as if waiting with everyone else for carnage to ensue.