Overnight (3 page)

M
ARTHA NOTICED THAT GRAY
had been gone for a while.

“Where is Mouse?” she asked. Mouse was Martha’s special behind-her-back name for Gray, because she was so small and squeaky.

Caitlin smirked. “Who cares? The fun is here, and the Evil Queen shall win all.”

Martha rolled her eyes. Caitlin was getting on her nerves, using too much time on her turn and cackling, “I’ll get you, my pretty!” when it was anyone else’s. Enchanted Castle sucked for anyone who wasn’t the Evil Queen, and it looked as if Zoë was going to win. Zoë, as usual.

“Gray!” Martha shouted so loud that Serena, sitting next to her, had to cover her ears.

“Gray went upstairs to get me some juice,” called Ty from the couch. “But that was a long time ago. Like half an hour ago.”

“Shut up!” yelled Caitlin. “You’re breaking the rule! You butt in and say one single more thing and I’ll make Mom send you out of here to watch TV in your room forever!”

Zoë pointed to Martha. “Your turn, Mar.”

Martha rolled doubles and moved her princess into the Hall of Mirrors.

“I’ll get you, my pretty!” screeched Caitlin for the thousandth time. “And your little dog, too!”

“Caitlin, do you know how goddamn annoying that is?” asked Martha.

The table hushed. Martha smiled. Bad words were plentiful as rocks and just as easy to throw; they hardly took any nerve at all and she didn’t know why people found them so startling.

But they did.

All the noise left in the room was the sound of the television, of race cars roaring around the track.

“Girls! Ty!” shouted Mrs. Donnelley. “Pizza!”

“I’m gonna eat all you girls’ pizza!” Ty stretched his arms. “Chomp chomp chomp! I could eat sixty gazillion slices right now!”

“That’s it, Ty!” Caitlin sprang from her chair, knocking it over, and rushed her brother. She flung herself over the back of the couch to cuff Ty hard from behind with the flat of her hand. “Shut up, shut up, dumb third-grader vomit face!”

“Caitlin, come back,” implored Zoë.

Zoë was two turns away from winning, and Martha could tell Caitlin was glad for any interruption.

“I hate you, Ty!” screamed Caitlin at the top of her lungs.

“Ha ha ha ha ha! You’re not s’posed to say
hate!
I’m telling!” Ty jounced up from the couch to yank a fistful of his sister’s hair so hard that he came away with loose strands like shucked corn. “Painful, ainnit? Painful, ainnit?” he yelled, lunging for more.

As Caitlin started screeching loud as an ambulance siren, Ty changed his mind and jumped off the couch and up the stairs. Martha watched him leap out of reach before Caitlin could bite or scratch him. She gave chase anyway.

“I guess the game is over?” asked Zoë. “I guess I won?”

“Nuh-uh, nobody won, stupid.” Martha despised how Zoë sort-of pretended how she didn’t care about winning when really she wanted it more than anything.

Mrs. Donnelley and Topher were in the dining room, working on the table’s finishing touches. Topher was a hottie, Martha thought. He had not been noticing her nearly as much as she wished. She half closed her eyes and tilted her head and put her hands on her hips, but still he didn’t notice.

Mrs. Donnelley had prepared the room with a pink paper tablecloth and pink napkins. There were pink paper plates and cups and pink plastic forks and spoons. Seven pink crepe-paper streamers tied from the chandelier looped a path to a goody bag at each place setting. Pink, pink, pink, because Caitlin was born on Valentine’s Day, which would be tomorrow.

Mrs. Donnelley began ticking off names as the girls settled into their seats. “Serena, Zoë, Martha, Leticia, Kristy, and Caitlin, my birthday girl!” She pointed to the empty place setting and asked, “Who is missing?”

“Gray,” Martha answered promptly.

“Oh, yes!” Mrs. Donnelley smiled. “Where is Gray?”

“She’s in the kitchen, getting me some juice,” said Ty. He was standing at the sideboard, scooping Valentine red hots into his mouth and pockets.

“No one’s in the kitchen,” said Topher as he plowed through the swinging door with a soda bottle in each hand. Diet grape and diet orange.

“I’m not allowed to drink anything carbonated,” said Leticia.

“I’m not allowed to drink anything diet,” said Martha. This was not true, but she liked to see the anxiety pulse in Mrs. Donnelley’s face.

“That’s why there’s lemonade on the table.
My pretty!”
squealed Caitlin, protected by her mother’s presence and staring Martha down.

“I’m allergic to peanuts,” said Zoë. She reminded people of this constantly.

“Ty, go find Gray,” ordered Mrs. Donnelley. “Hurry, hurry! And don’t eat those!”

Ty shook one more handful of red hots into his mouth and galloped out of the dining room. Mrs. Donnelley turned a proud eye on the table.

“Doesn’t this look wonderful? As soon as Gray is here, we’ll be perfect.”

Martha smiled a tiny closed-lips smile, and her heart flipped pleasantly. She had a feeling that something was going wrong. Gray really should have come back by now.

In a few minutes, everyone was shouting for Gray.

Everyone except Martha.

She stayed in her seat as the room emptied.

As soon as she was alone, Martha switched her goody bag for Serena’s bag, which was stuffed fat as a pincushion with the most candy. To make sure Serena didn’t trade back, Martha opened the bag, selected a heart-shaped chocolate, and dropped it into her mouth. The chocolate smeared on her fingers because the Donnelleys’ house was too warm.

The heart tasted plasticky but was liquid on the inside. Martha let the chocolate muddle over her tongue and bleed down her throat, warm and thin and sweet.

Nice, nice enough.

Mr. Donnelley came home.

“I’m home!” he shouted. He kicked the front door shut with his heel, twisting the corner of the carpet runner as he did so, a rude guest in his own house.

Martha, nauseated from having eaten three more chocolate hearts, had slid out of her chair when she heard his car in the driveway. Now she leaned against the dining room door, half hidden by it, watching.

The family rushed Mr. Donnelley from all sides as if he’d just caught the pass in a football game. Nobody saw Martha.

“Daddy, my friend Gray is missing!” yelled Caitlin.

“Daddy, Topher says we should call the cops!” yelled Ty.

“I’ve been trying the car! I’ve been trying your cell phone!” Mrs. Donnelley nearly tripped and fell as she rushed down the stairs. “Go, go on, Caitlin, Ty. Leave me to talk to Daddy alone.”

Martha hardly dared a breath. She made her eyes stony and unblinking. On their mother’s push, Caitlin and Ty slipped away into the kitchen and then could be heard outside, shouting for Gray again.

Now it was just the three of them.

Mr. Donnelley’s arms were weighted with his overcoat and his briefcase, so Mrs. Donnelley could not touch him. Her hands twisted together and she spoke in a jabber.

“One of the girls has wandered off. You know Gray. Into thin air. I was up in the attic, cobwebs all over me, on any chance she might have—”

“Maybe she’s asleep somewhere in the house. By the way, we lost the appeal.”

“Honey, I’m so sorry.”

Mr. Donnelley handed over his overcoat with a grunt. “Do you mind? I’m dead on my feet.”

“Yes, you look exhausted.” Mrs. Donnelley took the coat and opened the hall closet. “I’ve searched the house top to bottom, the attic, everywhere. Topher is trying to keep the girls from running down the street. It’s chaos. And I can’t get hold of the Rosenfelds.” She selected a heavy wooden hanger from its bar and hung the coat, smoothing it carefully into place with the others. “Should we call the police? What should we do?”

“Let me shower and change. Then I’ll decide.”

Martha thought Mr. Donnelley resembled an old professional wrestler. He was big and ruddy and balding, with the same wide clown mouth as Caitlin. Bad luck for Caitlin.

After Mr. Donnelley went upstairs, Mrs. Donnelley spied Martha. A wisp of frown crossed her face, though her tone was pleasant as she asked, “Martha, sweetie, do you have any idea where Miss Gray might have wandered off to?”

Martha pretended to think. “Maybe she walked home? She seemed…depressed. She didn’t want to play Enchanted Castle with us. Gosh, I hope she didn’t try to walk along the highway!”

She watched this bright new fear touch down in Mrs. Donnelley’s eyes. Martha enjoyed the game of digging to the secret fears inside people.

In fact, today had been a great day for secrets. Today, Martha had caught hold of her best secret yet. And it had been Mrs. Donnelley’s fault, sort of. Mrs. Donnelley, who, earlier this afternoon, after directing all the girls out of the minivan and Topher’s car and instructing them to put their overnight and sleeping bags in Caitlin’s room, had exclaimed, “Oh, gosh! The mail! Darn! Could someone run down and get the mail?” She had pointed to Martha. “Sweetie? Do you mind?”

Martha did not mind. She had run outside again, all the way down to the edge of the lawn, to the mailbox tied with bobbing pink balloons, and collected the mail.

The lady had been standing right at the bottom of the driveway. She had long thick hair like yarn and her face and lips were sparkly and she was wearing a feathery orange coat. She waved at Martha.

“Hello, you!” said the lady. “Am I late to the party?”

There was something about that lady. She looked messy, like a wild animal, Martha had thought. An animal turned into a human by an enchanted spell but who still had something of the forest clinging to her. Her eyes looked glazed and she was too skinny, and her smile pulled back fierce, revealing long teeth.

“Party?” Martha repeated.

“Isn’t there a party? Balloons mean a party!”

Martha shook her head and ran. Ran as fast as she could. Ran up the lawn and into the house through the garage, and even when she was safe inside the Donnelleys’ house, she had locked the door.

Her breath had burst forward, and she had stood there for a long time, panting, until she had collected herself enough to drop the mail in the living room and rejoin the other girls upstairs.

Now Martha closed her eyes and the knowledge sang in the back of her throat.

The lady is my secret, she thought. Mine to tell it when the time is right, and not a second before.

L
ETICIA COULDN’T HELP THINKING
that it was not all bad that Gray had disappeared. As long as nothing terrible had happened to her. As long as she came back soon. But right now it meant a break from the pink party. Topher was excited about it, too. After he rounded everyone back inside and into the kitchen, he handed out flashlights and spare batteries and ordered the girls to pair up.

“Each of you grab an official buddy, and stay together,” he instructed. “Nobody else is getting lost on my watch.”

“Guess I’ll look with you,” Martha whispered. When Topher had called her out of the dining room, she had slid up on Leticia’s side.

Leticia did not answer. She switched her flashlight from its high to low beam.
Click, click.

“If I can’t look with you, I won’t look at all,” Martha said into Leticia’s silence. Then: “I don’t know what makes you think you can act like such a snot. You were being a jerk during Enchanted Castle, too. If you’re mad at me, you should come out and say.”

“Why would I be mad, Miss A-plus?” asked Leticia in a soft voice that sounded friendly.

She watched Martha’s face go blank. “What are you talking about?”

“You know.”
Click, click.
High, low. “That A plus you got on the earth science test. That grade is a lie, you cheater. After I told you that you couldn’t copy me, you just switched seats and looked off Zoë’s paper. I saw you do it. Now the proof is written next to your name in Ms. Calvillo’s grade book. A plus.”

“That test was a cinch.” Martha covered her mouth as if to stifle a yawn, but her eyes were flinty. “It was stupid easy.”

“Not
that
easy, considering.” Leticia took a deep breath. “Considering I only got a B plus.”

“Sucks to be you,” Martha recited. She smirked. Then shrugged. Then she turned away from Leticia, sneaking back into the dining room.

Leticia unhooked her jacket from the pantry peg. Her throat was dry and her fingers were cold. Going up against Martha was hard. It was easier to be friends. Only three weekends ago, she had spent the night at Martha’s house. It had been fun. Martha had filched her older sister Jane’s diary to read to Leticia. Later that night, they’d phoned Ralph Dewey, a shy boy from Martha’s church, and in spooky voices they had chanted, “You are the son of the devil, Ralph Dewey! You are the son of the devil and you are going to hell!” while he squealed, “Who is this? What do you want from me?”

Then they had hung up and laughed until their stomachs hurt.

Later that night, Leticia had felt bad. The echo of Ralph Dewey’s lonely voice would not leave her ear. And she was upset about Jane’s diary, too, about knowing strange, private things personal to Martha’s older sister.

Not that Martha cared, and Leticia was used to being on guard against Martha’s tricks and pranks. Nobody was spared, not even Leticia herself. “Mar, do Leticia giving her oral report!” Caitlin had commanded the other day at lunch. The other girls had turned to Martha, their eyes gleaming expectantly. Obviously, they had heard this imitation before, Leticia realized, when she was not around. “Now, Teesh, don’t be mad, it’s
funny!”
Caitlin had coaxed. “Come on, do it for her, Mar!”

Martha had not needed to be asked twice. She had launched into a savage impression of Leticia presenting her social studies oral report. “There are, uh, ma-ny In-can sites through-out Per-u, uh, that have not yet been, uh, ex-ca-va-ted.” Martha had it all down—the clogged, wobbling vowels, the gulped breaths, even the way Leticia fixed her eyes on the wall clock—as the other girls exploded with fits of giggling.

Of course, Leticia had to laugh along, pushing past the bead of anger that had lodged in her chest. Too harsh, Martha! she had wanted to protest. Public speaking took guts, even if she wasn’t great at it. Now she had to be mocked for it, too?