Rumors (11 page)

I stopped for a second when I noticed a beautiful sight. We'd come to a spot in the trail where there was one lone mushroom poking up through the dead leaves. Unlike the little orange ones I kept seeing, this one had a thick stalk and a wide, flat crown, and it was a deep shade of purple.

“Oh, cool,” I gasped, bending down to look at it. I really wished I'd brought my camera along. It was so perfect. I stood up slowly and walked away from it.

And then I heard a stomp. When I looked around, I saw Katherine standing right over the spot where the mushroom had been. She had an evil grin on her face, and she slowly raised her muddy sneaker up to show me the squashed mushroom underneath. She was staring right at me, daring me with her eyes to say something.

I stood there in absolute shock. “Why did you do that? I tried to be nice to you, and that's the way you treat me?”

Katherine's face changed. Her eyes dropped down to the squashed mushroom, and she didn't look at me again. “Sorry.”

I turned away and kept walking. We fell back into our pattern of bringing up the rear of the line, with
the two of us so far behind the others that at times we almost couldn't see them.

We'd been walking that way in complete silence for at least ten minutes when Katherine called out to me. “Kayla? Here's another purple one.”

Up until that moment, I hadn't even realized that she knew my name. I turned around to see Katherine pointing with her walking stick to a bright purple mushroom growing just off the trail. Was she getting my attention so she could whack it with her stick? I waited and watched, but she just stood there pointing to it.

“They're so pretty,” I said finally. “And the little orange ones, too.”

“Yeah,” Katherine agreed, still staring at it. “Sorry about the other one.”

“It's okay.”

We kept walking, the two of us far behind the others. That's how we spent the rest of the hike. Birds flying over our heads must have seen a funny sight. A line of people all pretty close together, followed by one straggler, followed by a second straggler.

When we finally reached camp, Katherine didn't say anything to me as she walked away, but she did give me a faint smile.

Laurel-Ann came up to me with a worried look on
her face. “Kayla, are you mad at me for some reason?” she asked.

“No! Of course not! Why would I be mad at you?” I asked.

“How come you just left me and spent the rest of the hike with her?”

I shrugged. “I don't know. Something was wrong with her. Somebody needed to make sure she didn't just stay in the woods while we hiked off and left her. I guess I feel sorry for her,” I tried to explain.

“Did you talk to her? Are you friends with her now?” Laurel-Ann looked completely panicked. She grabbed my arm and squeezed it. “Did she tell you what Rainbow Trout means?”

“No, we hardly said more than three words to each other. All I did was slow down so she wasn't left behind.” We were dragging ourselves slowly up the hill on our way to the cabin. My sweatshirt was hot and sticky, and it smelled like the smoke from last night's fire. I couldn't wait to get this backpack off and take a hot shower. I also wanted to find out from Shelby if anything else had happened with Boo.

“Well, if she ever does tell you the Rainbow Trout story, I just want you to know it's a lie.” She'd finally stopped squeezing my arm.

“Really?” I asked. “If you told me it first, the true story, then I'd know for sure Katherine was lying.” I glanced at her quickly. “I swear I'll keep it a secret.”

Laurel-Ann let out a loud sigh. “I know you would. I trust you.” She shook her head back and forth. “But I don't want to talk about it.” And by the way she kept her mouth closed, I could tell she meant it.

“So all we have to do is wait until a time when we know her cabin will be empty, like during activities. Then we just go inside and find Katherine's trunk. That part will be easy, because I know what hers looks like from last year. It's red, and there's lots of peeling-off stickers all over the top of it. And then we'll just open her trunk and see if we can find it.”

Laurel-Ann was describing the elaborate plan of how we should go about finding the book. Earlier today, a big group of us had gone on a hike to Lookout Point, and Katherine had come along. She'd teased Laurel-Ann as usual, calling her Rainbow Trout, and that had started Laurel-Ann worrying about the book again.

It had just been a day hike, and Katherine hadn't brought her book along, but seeing her again was enough to remind Laurel-Ann about it. She was absolutely convinced that this mysterious book had all kinds of horrible things about her inside it.

“It sounds like breaking and entering to me,” I told her. It was late in the afternoon, and activities were over now, so that meant free time was starting. We were walking back from the tennis courts, and I wanted so badly to have this time alone so I could visit Samantha and then get my practice time in. But Laurel-Ann was stuck to me like one of those prickly burrs that I was always pulling off my socks any time I came back from hiking in the woods.

Laurel-Ann smacked the strings of her tennis racket against her palm. “No, we're not breaking into anything. I know you think it's snooping, but maybe it's not even in her trunk. It might be out on a shelf in plain sight, and then we could just take a quick look inside to see what they've said about us.”

“Listen, you're never going to convince me to go into Katherine's cabin and look for that book.”

“Well, how are we ever going to find out what they said about us otherwise?”

“Why don't you just forget about it?” I suggested.
“That was days ago. I can't believe you're still so obsessed about this.”

“I'm not obsessed, it's just that …” She stopped talking and glanced around. “Where are we going?” she asked, because we were heading in the direction of Junior Line.

“Well, I'm going to see my little sister,” I said. “I haven't had a chance to talk to her in a couple of days.” I handed my tennis racket to Laurel-Ann. “Would you mind taking this back to the cabin for me? I'll see you at dinner, okay?”

Laurel-Ann took the hint. And she also took my racket. “Okay. I'll save you a seat beside me if I get there first!”

I let out a relieved sigh. That was one way to get rid of her.

Unfortunately, Samantha wasn't in her cabin, and her friend Mary Claire, who was in there by herself, didn't seem to know where I could find her.

So I went straight to the lodge. I didn't have my sheet music with me, and I didn't want to risk going back to the cabin and seeing Laurel-Ann again, so I would just work on scales and pieces that I had memorized instead.

I was surprised to walk into the lodge and see Shelby
sitting on the piano bench. “Hey, I've been waiting for you. I thought you might show up here pretty soon.”

She had her swimsuit on, and a towel was wrapped around her waist like a long skirt. “Are you going to the lake?” I asked.

“Yeah, some of us from the Guard Start class need to work on service hours. But I wanted to give you an update first. Without Bubonic around.”

She scooted over on the bench so I could sit down. “What's the latest?” I asked.

Shelby grinned. “I left the third note in her mailbox today. This one said, ‘Bubonic Boo, we're watching your every move. Don't be responsible for Pine Haven's next outbreak.'”

This week it seemed like the rumors had definitely slowed down a lot, if not stopped completely. None of us had heard any new rumors about ourselves, or anyone else for that matter. I wasn't sure if Shelby's little anonymous notes to Boo were responsible or not. I didn't really care, just so long as she'd stopped talking about us.

“You know it's driving her crazy!” I said, softly fingering the notes of an A scale. “You're sure she's getting them? And she doesn't suspect who's doing it?”

“She's getting them, all right.” Shelby chuckled.
“Whenever I leave a note in her mailbox, I always watch her after lunch to see her reaction. Today she read the note and then wadded it up and threw it in the trash can on the dining hall porch. But you should've seen how red her face was! She has no idea who's leaving the notes.”

“It does seem to be helping,” I admitted. “She's stopped talking about us. At least for now.”

“Yeah.” Shelby plucked out a few notes of “Chopsticks.” “Hey, I better go. Just wanted to keep you in the loop.”

I was glad to have this alone time now. Today I wanted to work on Chopin's Prelude in E Minor. The hardest thing for me about this piece was to remember not to rush through it. The pedal parts were really important, and since the soft pedal on this piano was out, that made it tougher, but I tried to not stress about it.

I reminded myself that it could be worse. I could not have any piano at all to practice on.

I'd been playing for about twenty minutes when I heard someone cough behind me, the kind of cough people make when they want to be noticed. I turned around and saw Katherine standing in the door.

“Oh, hi,” I said. It sort of got on my nerves the way people would come in and listen to me while I was
practicing. But there seemed to be something about the sound of a piano playing that just made people want to come near it.

Katherine and I hadn't really talked on the hike today since Laurel-Ann was around, but she did give me a tiny, almost unnoticeable smile. I guess I'd made a few points with her from the overnight when we'd hiked back together.

“I heard somebody in here playing,” said Katherine. “I thought it was you. You come in here a lot, don't you?”

“I try to practice every day if I can.” I had turned slowly around again and was fingering the keys softly.

“You play really well. Is it hard?” She was now standing right behind me.

“No, not really hard, but it does take a lot of time. You don't learn everything at once. I've been taking lessons since I was eight,” I told her.

“Wow. No wonder you're so good. I'd never be able to play the piano.” Katherine had on a stained, baggy T-shirt. I wondered if the girls in her cabin teased her about her clothes.

“Of course you could. You want to sit down?” I suggested, scooting to one end of the bench. “I'll show you some stuff.”

She looked really surprised by my offer, but she sat
down on the bench next to me. She held her hands over the keyboard without touching the keys. “What do I do first?” she asked nervously.

“Well, see this note beside these two black keys? That's middle C.” I played it so she could hear the tone. “Then here's D, E, F, G, A, B, and we're back to C again. That makes an octave.”

I showed her how to play a C scale because it was the easiest, and how to use five fingers instead of just her index finger, the way most beginners usually started out.

“Wow, that's easy,” said Katherine, after she'd played the scale several times.

“See? Here, I'll show you a really easy song to play as a duet. Do you know ‘Heart and Soul'?” I asked.

She shook her head, so I played it for her.

“That doesn't look easy. I could never play that.”

“Sure you can. Here's the right-hand part.” I plucked out the tune for her with one finger. “See? It's not very different from playing a C scale. Now you try it.”

Katherine tucked her long hair behind both ears and tried to play what I'd just showed her. She needed a little help to find C again after G, but after a couple of tries, she had it down.

“Easy, right?” I asked. “Now while you're playing the
treble part, I'll play the bass, the left-hand part. I'll nod when it's time for you to come in.” I started off, playing it slowly but with some bounce, and then she came in right on cue.

When we finished playing, Katherine had a huge grin on her face. “That sounded really good! I can't believe I know how to play something!”

“Here, let's switch places, and I'll show you how to play the left-hand part.”

“Oh, no way. I can't play that. It's way too hard,” she said.

“No, it's not really. Just try it.”

I showed her how to make the chords with three fingers, but she was getting a little frustrated with that, so I told her to just use two fingers instead. The left-hand part was more challenging for a beginner, and she messed up on it quite a bit, but I liked the way she was concentrating so hard, trying to get it down.

“Wait,” she'd say whenever she made a mistake, and she tried it over and over again till she got it right.

“That's good. You're persistent,” I told her. “A lot of beginners give up too easily if it's hard for them.”

Katherine smiled, but she kept her eyes focused on the keyboard. She seemed so determined to play it well.