Haunted (11 page)

“Huh,” Anthony grunted.

Whatever that little babble fest was, it was not any kind of intro into talking about a learning disorder. Rae took a
swallow of her Coke/ so going to quit / -then another one, then she tried again. “I was reading this interesting book
the other day. It was about dyslexia.”

Not too smooth. But acceptable. At least she thought so until she saw Anthony’s face. It was blank, a total mask of
a face. Whatever he was thinking or feeling, he wasn’t going to let her in. And since he wasn’t saying anything, he
definitely wasn’t going to open the door she’d knocked on.

But too bad for him if he didn’t want to hear it.

This was too important to just drop.

“Remember when you figured out where I was getting all my psycho not-me thoughts?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Anthony said. She was surprised he could get a word out past his mask face. “So?”

“It totally changed my life. Really,” Rae said.

“And, um…” This was the tricky part. “Um, there’s something I want to do for you. A thing like what you did for me.

”

“Like what?” Anthony asked, with exactly zero amount of interest.

“Like in that book I was telling you about, it gave some exercises for people”-Rae lowered her voice-“people who
have trouble reading. I thought maybe you and I could-”

“I never told you I had any problem reading,”

Anthony interrupted, his voice as low as hers but rough with anger.

“You said you were in a slow learners class, remember?” Rae asked, forcing herself to look him in the eye.

“I never said anything about reading,” Anthony repeated. “You got it off my workbook, didn’t you?” he demanded.

“You touched it when you were going through the glove box, before I got it away.”

It would be easier just to say yes. Easier, but not the way to go. The one thing she and Anthony had always been
able to do was be honest with each other. “I didn’t touch it that day,” she answered. “But when we were in the motel
and I went down to get my purse out of the car… it was an accident. I hadn’t put the Mush back on. I was feeling
around under the seat and-”

“And now you want to do your good deed and play teacher,” Anthony spat out, his eyes flashing with anger. “All
you prep school girls do volunteering and crap. Looks good on your college applications.”

“That’s not-” Rae began to protest.

Anthony shoved away his fries. “These things are cold. They’re making me want to hurl.” He stood up.

“If you want to talk to more people with me, fine. But that’s it. One word out of you about anything but Jesse and
you can find your own way home.”

“Fine,” Rae snapped. “I was trying to do you a favor, but fine. I’ll stay and help you out. For Jesse.”

*

*

*

I’ve been watching you, Rae. And I don’t think you’re enjoying the game I arranged for us to play together. You
looked so confused when you tried to find out the truth about what happened to Jesse. It didn’t even occur to you
that I’d put thoughts into the heads of the “witnesses” you found.

Innocent Rae. If you knew that your mother had the same ability, the ability to make people think what she wanted
them to think, you might have a clue. But you only know what Daddy’s told you.

I thought that maybe you’d inherited your mother’s ability.

But I was wrong. If you had, you wouldn’t have looked so pitiful and puzzled. And you would have implanted a
thought of your own, a thought that would have negated mine. Then you would have realized that none of the
people really saw what happened to your Jesse, that it was all just smoke.

So we’ll continue our game. Our game of What Power Does Rae Have? And once I know what you can do, then I’ll
decide what kind of revenge I’ll enjoy the most. I’m looking forward to that.

Anthony checked the clock, always a big mistake at school. English still had another twenty minutes to go. And
there were hours and hours before gym, the only class that didn’t make him want to puke. Wonderful.

He noticed a few people flipping the page in the ancient People magazine they were reading-Ms.

Goyer, the teacher, had decided that they needed more interesting reading material-so he flipped the page, too. For
a couple of minutes he actually listened to Phil Amagast read aloud about the latest Hollywood supercouple
breakup. That was about as much as he could take because not only did Amagast read incredibly slowly, like all the
Bluebirds, he had allergies or something and he kept sucking snot back into his nose. Plus was Anthony actually
supposed to care that some big-shot actor and his plastic wife had split up a while ago? The magazines were so
old, everyone already knew what had happened, anyway.

Amagast paused to pull in what sounded like a truckload of snot, then he went on-word, wet sniffle, word, um, um,
word, wipe nose on sleeve, word, uh, um, word…

A craving came over Anthony, like hunger, like thirst, like the need to piss first thing in the morning.

He wanted a doobie. He could almost taste it, the thick smoke in his lungs, the world becoming just a little bit nicer.

He glanced at the clock again. Only three minutes had passed. Get a bathroom pass, he told himself. Mike or Gregg
might be in the can. Or at least somebody who could give him a toke. He didn’t need a lot. Just enough to take the
edge off… so blood wouldn’t come gushing out of his ears after his brain imploded, which was sort of what it felt
like was happening. Anthony started to raise his hand, then lowered it and gripped the side of his desk until his
fingers ached. If he let himself get a little buzz to get through the day today, then he’d be back to getting high all the
time. And that was not the best way of getting out of this friggin’ place for good. He wanted to graduate, and he was
barely making it through his Bluebird classes pot free.

In that book Rae was talking about, was there really a way that Stop, he told himself. Remember fourth grade –
getting on the moron bus, going to that place where all everyone wanted to do was help little Tony?

Freaks couldn’t even get his name right. And the crap they made him do-it just made him feel even stupider.

And then there was the seventh grade. Mr. Leary.

Discipline means a disciplined mind. He couldn’t breathe in that guy’s room without getting the dictionary
treatment-standing in front of the class, arms out, with a massive dictionary balanced on each palm until his
muscles quivered, until he had to drop the books no matter what Leary said. Friggin’ Leary.

Anthony’s skin started to get hot. Hot and itchy.

He could feel each spot where a hair connected to his skin. If he didn’t get out of hereJesse. Think about Jesse,
Anthony ordered himself. What could the deal be? He and Rae had talked to a bunch more people in Little Five
Points yesterday. Some of them had seen Jesse. But all of them had a different story about what happened, just like
the first few people they’d talked to. What could that mean? Some kind of drugs in one of the coffee bars in the
area? A blast from an alien mind-altering laser beam after Jesse was abducted? Hypnosis? Mass hysteria?

Anthony knew his theories were getting way out of control. But the whole situation was insane.

There has to be an explanation, he told himself. But he had no freaking idea what. And why? Because he was so
friggin’ stupid. How was he supposed to get Jesse back when he could hardly read two words in a row and basic
math problems made his head turn inside out?

Cut it out, Anthony ordered himself. He hated it when he started getting all snively and self-pitying.

Okay. Jesse. An image of the kid flashed into his mind, followed almost immediately by an image of Rae, her face
pale and scared.

Somebody tries to kill Rae, he thought. Then Jesse disappears. Could there possibly be a connection?

What did Rae and Jesse have in common? They both were in group therapy at Oakvale. What else? They’d both
helped clear Anthony of setting the pipe bomb.

Which meant they’d both helped put David Wyngard away. So, some kind of revenge thing? But with all those
people involved? It made no sense. It “Anthony, do you remember?” Ms. Goyer asked, bringing him out of his
thoughts. “Without looking at the magazine, can you tell me what the name of their youngest son is?”

“Uh, Booger?” Anthony answered, because he had no idea. It was a totally lame joke, but the Bluebirds laughed
anyway. They were probably all bored out of their skulls.

“No,” Goyer answered, with her usual poor learning-disabled-child smile. “Want to try again?

I’ll give you a hint. It has nothing to do with bodily functions.”

“I know,” Andi McGee volunteered. She lived to volunteer answers, even though she got them wrong as much as
the rest of them did.

“Let’s let Anthony try first,” Goyer answered.

Then-holy freakin’ miracle-the bell rang.

Anthony was out of the trailer the class was held in and down the aluminum steps before anyone. His steps
slowed as he headed toward his math class. Just three more until gym, he told himself.

He gave himself the new score after every class.

Just history and two more until gym. Just drafting and one more until gym. Just freaking tutorial with freaking
head-too-big-for-his-spindly-little-body Anderson.

Now gym.

Anthony made it from the tutorial to the locker room in less than thirty seconds. The instant he was inside, he
pulled in a deep breath. God, he loved the smell of old sweat and feet and mildew. It was almost as good as weed. It
actually gave him a minor buzz.

He headed over to his locker, used the key to open it-he hated combination locks-and changed into his sweats.

Then he strolled into the gym with five minutes to spare. He decided to run the bleachers until everybody else
showed up.

A couple of stretches and he was off, running straight up to the top of the bleachers, then back down, across the
basketball court, and right up to the top of the opposite bleachers. Back down. Back across. Back up. Back down.

Back across. All the hours of bull he’d had to endure that day faded, then disappeared. His body became his whole
world.

“Fascinelli,” he heard Coach Meyer shout.

Anthony spun halfway toward the voice, taking the bleachers sideways. A football came spiraling toward him.

Anthony caught it without breaking stride.

When he heard Meyer on the bleachers behind him, Anthony swerved right, then left, faked another swerve right-which totally fooled Meyer-and angled up to the top stair, then plunged back down, feet pummeling the wood. When
he reached the floor, he turned back and did a little victory dance with the football.

“Not bad,” Meyer said. But he grinned, and Anthony could tell he was at least a little impressed.

“If you’d just apply yourself-”

Anthony’s buzz disappeared. He knew what was coming.

“To your classes the way you do to sports, your GPA would be off the charts. More than high enough to qualify
you for a spot on the team,” Meyer continued.

“Uh-huh,” Anthony muttered. Like it was just laziness keeping him in the moron brigade.

“I need a strong running back on the team,”

Meyer continued. “You’re my first choice. I could talk to your teachers. If they can tell me you’re progressing-”

“I’m not a joiner,” Anthony interrupted, noticing that about half the class had shown up in the gym and was
listening to the exchange.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Meyer demanded.

Anthony tossed him the ball, then turned away.

“I don’t understand you, Fascinelli,” the coach muttered.

You and Rae both, Anthony thought. If there was a way he could change, didn’t they friggin’ think he’d have done it
by now?

Rae headed straight into Oakvale. Usually she waited for Anthony, but she had the feeling he still wasn’t done
giving her attitude for daring to try to help him, and she didn’t see any reason she had to put up with that. She was
going to help him with Jesse, but that was it. Unless he managed to pull his head out of his butt.

She hesitated in the main hall, then decided to go upstairs. She had to pee, and the downstairs bathroom gave her
the creeps. She knew it was ridiculous. She knew that the odds of someone planting a second pipe bomb in there
were billions to one. But she’d still rather not use it.

Not that it’s totally creepy free up here, she thought. The second floor was deserted. But at the same time Rae kept
getting the prickly-back-of-the-neck feeling that somebody was watching her, through a crack in one of the doors or
on some kind of hidden camera. It was a feeling she got a lot lately.

Not just at Oakvale. Everywhere.

“Get a grip. You’re imagining it,” she muttered as she stepped into the bathroom, using her elbow to open the door.

She peed, washed her hands, did minor makeup repairs, brushed her hair, put on a little more perfume, just
basically stalled, ignoring the old thoughts touching her stuff brought into her mind, then headed back down to the
group therapy room with about four seconds to spare. The only seat that was empty was next to Anthony. Figured.