Autumn Falls (12 page)

“Oh my God,” I hear a girl say.

Everything’s black. Then it’s grainy and I hear thundering noise all around me.

“I have no idea, Coach Branley.” It’s Reenzie. “She ran out and punched me. I just tried to get away.”

“Autumn? Are you okay?”

Sean is hovering over me, concern filling his beautiful
blue eyes. I wonder if this would be a good time to kiss him. I lift my head a little closer.

Ow. Lightning bolt through my brain. Moving bad. Kissing not on the agenda. Better to keep my head down.

“Are you serious?” It’s Reenzie again. “You’re worried about
her
? She
attacked
me.”

The coach now leans over my other side. At least, I assume it’s the coach. All I can really see is the whistle dangling a millimeter above my eye, dangerously close to whacking me in the nose. He puts a hand over my eyes, then pulls it away. Over my eyes, pulls it away.

“What’s your name?” the coach asks.

“He’s checking you for concussion,” Sean says, reading my mind. “Making sure your pupils constrict and dilate. Happens in football all the time.”

“Autumn Falls … ow …”

“You’re okay,” the coach says. He and Sean work together to help me to my feet. “You can walk? You’re not going to fall over or anything?”

I take a couple steps. I’m woozy and my head is killing me, but I’m okay and I tell him so.

“Great. Head up to the principal’s office. I’m gonna call so she’ll be expecting you. Gotta report this.”

“I’ll take her,” Sean offers.

“Nope, need you on the field. You.” He gestures to some girl sitting on the hill with her friends. She’s a freshman named Geena, but that’s the full extent of what I know about her. “Can you get her to Dorio’s office?”

“Sure.”

Geena hops up and practically skips to my side. She’s small, perky, and eager to be a part of the drama. Sean gives my hand a squeeze before Geena leads me back to the main building, and she spends the whole walk peppering me with questions about my storied past. I don’t have the energy to make her shut up. I pretend I’m more out of it than I really am just so I can avoid talking.

Mrs. Dorio is waiting for me in her office. She’s in what’s apparently her favorite Dealing with Autumn position—arms folded, standing in front of her desk, leaning on its edge, glasses lowered just enough to peer over them.

“I believe one of the very first things I said to you is battery’s an expellable offense,” she notes.

“I didn’t batter anyone,” I say. “The only one who got battered was me.”

“But you tried to start a fight,” she says. She looks me up and down. “You don’t strike me as the fighting type.”

For all her drill-sergeant posturing, Mrs. Dorio has a sympathetic look in her eyes. “I’m not,” I say. “Remember how I told you I knew who posted that picture of me on the student portal? The same girl spread a rumor about me. A bad one. About my dad. When I found out, I got angry.”

“And you lashed out.”

I nod, feeling as if I’m going to start crying. I really hope I don’t.

“Then we’re lucky you’re a very poor fighter, or I’d have to take action. As it is, I think we can more or less call it a
wash. Unless you have proof this person you think started the rumor really did?”

I shake my head but it hurts, so I just give a halfhearted shrug. Of course I don’t have proof. Reenzie’s smarter than that.

“I’ll have to give you detention. And I’ll need to talk to your mother. Do you think she’ll be available to come in right now?”

I nod. Even if she’s in the middle of a dog rescue, I know she’ll drop everything if I call and say I need her. Not that I want to call her, but better me than Mrs. Dorio.

Two hours later, I’ve been checked out and given the all clear by the nurse, and am sitting in the waiting area outside the office with Erick while Mom finishes up with Mrs. Dorio. I haven’t said a word to Erick. He tried to talk at first, then retreated to his DS. Now he’s kicking my chair as if it’s just an inadvertent effect of swinging his legs.

Clunk … clunk … clunk …

“What?” I finally snap.

“Are you in trouble?” he asks.

“Hmmmm. Take a guess,” I say sarcastically. “Do you want me to be in trouble?”

“Depends. Are you in trouble for something cool?”

I lean back against the wall. “I’m not in trouble. I mean, I shouldn’t be.”

“Oh.”

Clunk … clunk … clunk …

I’m about to grab his leg, twist it, and
get
in trouble when Mom comes out of Mrs. Dorio’s inner sanctum. She doesn’t say anything until I’m with her in the front of the car and Erick’s belted into the back. Mom makes him put on his headphones to play his games, then tunes the radio so it’s all in the back speakers. I know he’ll still listen, but I appreciate her effort.

“Why didn’t you tell me you’re being bullied?” she asks.

Ugh. Even the word is embarrassing. “I’m not being
bullied
,” I say. “I’m being annoyed. Badly.”

“Is it because you’re new?” Mom asks. “Maybe if we make an effort to get to know people here … we could have a big party, invite whoever you think is causing the trouble.”

“Mom, I’m not eight. You can’t fix this with playdates.”

She doesn’t say anything for a while. When she does speak, her voice is so low I have to strain to hear it.

“So what was the rumor?” she asks. “Mrs. Dorio said she didn’t know … but you said it was something about your father?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Yes, I do.”

I look out the window. “Believe me. You don’t.”

There’s a road crew stopping traffic and we come to a halt. “We could switch schools,” Mom offers, turning to me. “Maybe a private school?”

“That’s crazy. I’m not going to run away over this.”

“Well, we have to do something. I’m supposed to protect you, not send you someplace to get harassed every day.”

“Not harassed. Annoyed.”

Mom blows out a breath. “Fine. But I don’t like it.”

“Me neither,” I admit. “But I’ll take care of it. Not in a dumb way. I promise.”

The foreman is holding up a
SLOW
sign and we start moving again. As we approach the house, I notice an SUV pulled up to the curb in front. I squeeze my eyes tightly for just a second to make sure I’m not seeing things. When I open them, it’s still there.

“Mom, that’s a friend of mine,” I say, tilting my head toward the car. “Mind if I sit out here and talk? I promise we won’t go anywhere.”

Mom thinks it over as we get out. “Just for a little while. Then I want you inside. It’s late, and you still have to eat and do homework.”

“Okay.” I wait for Mom and Erick to go inside; then I walk out to the street and open the passenger-side door of Sean’s SUV. I’m guessing he’s been here a while, because his seat’s tipped back and he’s asleep. I pull myself onto the duct-taped seat, pull the door closed behind me, and shake his arm until he startles awake.

“Oh!” he says. “Hey.”

“Hey. How did you know where I live?”

“Online student directory,” he says. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m fine,” I say. I’m also amazed he’s here. “Not that I’m complaining, but you could have texted.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “I just was worried you might be mad at me.”

“Because you knew?”

“I’d heard the rumor, yeah.”

“And you didn’t tell me.”

He shakes his head. Maybe I should be mad at him, but he looks so pained and worried I can’t.

“Why not?” I ask.

“Because it was ugly. And I didn’t believe it. And I didn’t want you to hear something horrible like that from me.”

I believe him.

The SUV is parked between streetlights. The battery’s on, so the dashboard lights glow dim. The radio plays softly. I have a feeling I could lean in close and try to kiss him, and he’d kiss me back. I can practically feel it, and it’s absolutely perfect … but I can’t do it until I ask him something, even if it kills the mood.

“Do you know who started it?”

“No idea.”

“You don’t think it was Reenzie?”

He jumps back a little and scrunches his eyebrows. The soft caress leaves his voice and instead he scoffs.

“Reenzie? Why?”

Because she’s in love with you and hates that you seem to like me
will only ruin the moment completely; plus, it’ll probably kill any shot for moments in the future. He already
told me Reenzie’s like a sister to him. Obviously her evil side isn’t on his radar.

Sean might be interested, but he’s just like Mrs. Dorio. He won’t believe me without proof.

“No reason, really,” I say. “I was asking around. Her name came up.”

“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear,” Sean says. “I don’t.” He puts his hands on the steering wheel like he’s ready to drive away. If I tried to lean over and kiss him now, I bet he’d duck and I’d end up with my forehead pushing down the horn. Instead I open the door.

“I should get going. Thanks for checking on me.”

At least I get a smile. “See you tomorrow.”

I watch him as he drives away.

This would all be much easier if Reenzie weren’t in the picture. I wish …

Oh my God.

I walk across the front lawn and sit on the stoop. I pull out the journal from my canvas tote bag.

Dear Dad,
I write,

I read over that section twice to make sure I didn’t mess up any letters and actually wish for her to be hit by a bolt from the sky. I did not.

I shut the journal and smile, completely satisfied.

How did I not think of this before?

Now everything will be simple.

Finally.

As I enter Ms. Knowles’s classroom the next morning, Reenzie waves, smiles, and pats the chair next to her. I turn to see who’s behind me.

“Autumn,” Reenzie says, and does the whole show again.

Sean’s on Reenzie’s other side. He’s smiling too.

Subtly, so they won’t see, I wipe my hand over the seat. No tacks, no glue, no ketchup. Okay, then.

When the bell rings, Reenzie gets up, smiles wide, chirps, “Bye, Autumn! See you at track practice!” and zips out of the room before I can even stand up.

That can’t possibly be from the journal. The journal grants wishes; it doesn’t brainwash people.

“I talked to Reenzie on the way in to school,” Sean says as we walk down the hall.

I’m dying to ask if they stopped off for a quick brain transplant, but I’m kind of walking on eggshells. “Oh, yeah? What did you say to her?” I ask instead.

“I asked her to be nice to you.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. But not because I think she had anything to do with starting that rumor. I don’t.”

I look at him. “Then why bother?”

He smiles and the corners of his mouth twitch and it’s hard to stay on my feet. “I like you. So I want her to like you too. See you later, Autumn.”

He lopes off to class.

Sean likes me. The fear slips off me and I relax. The Reenzie thing’s more complicated, but I have faith in the journal. Maybe the forced-by-Sean nice-itude is simply the first step to her getting over him and giving up her evil ways.

Now if I can just avoid monkey’s-paw backlash, everything will be fine.

I watch my back for the next few days, but it looks as though the journal really did do its job. Reenzie isn’t as sickly sweet to me after that first day, but she does something even better: she ignores me. She doesn’t stare, sneer, or laugh. It’s not even like she goes out of her way to turn up her nose and snub me. If she happens to meet my eye, I get the same bland nothing she might give a freshman.

It’s like I don’t even exist.

It’s a little slice of paradise.

Then I see something on the way into school one morning
that’s so shocking, I grab J.J.’s arm hard enough to leave a bruise.