The Tragedy Paper (10 page)

“I hope this is to your liking,” Mr. Bowersox said, stepping inside and looking so huge in my tiny room. “I don’t get up here as often as I should. It’s good to see.”

“Thank you,” I said. “It’s very nice.”

“Well, sleep tight,” he said. I didn’t want him to leave. I didn’t want to be alone. He told me again that classes were not yet on a normal schedule but that there would be some orientation activities the next day. He promised to see me at breakfast. I reached out my hand, thanking him again. And here is what he said:

“I’m glad to have you here, son,” he said. “I look forward to a great semester.”

Do you think he thought that two months later?

I watched him go down the hall. At one point, he stopped and bent to look under a door. He knocked gently.

“Lights out,” he called, and then he was gone.

I slowly closed my door. For the first time in hours—days, even—I was going to be completely alone. My light was still on, which I assumed was okay because Mr. Bowersox didn’t
mention it. I sat on the bed and let my eyes wander around the room. I debated unpacking but decided it was too late and I worried about not having enough to do the next day. At least I could use the excuse of having to unpack as a reason to stay in my room—though I had no idea who I might have to offer an excuse to.

My eyes caught something green on the floor. It was a strange green, sort of yellowy and kiwi-looking.
Gyellow
, I thought to myself. It was exactly like the green Vanessa had on the day before. It looked like paper rain or confetti leading from under my bed to my closet. I got down on the floor and glanced beneath the bed. The green rain went all the way under to the far dusty corner at the foot of the bed. There was something there. I inched under the bed with my arm out until my hand touched what looked like a crumpled piece of paper. At first I told myself that it must have been left over from the previous student. But to be really honest here, I knew the green was too much of a coincidence. My heart was beating like a jackhammer as I shimmied out from under the bed and sat on the floor with the paper ball in my hand. Slowly I spread it out, and I could see there was writing on it. I didn’t let my eyes focus as I smoothed out the paper on the floor, and then I looked.

Rain, snow, snowballs
, it read at the top in green marker. Was it some sort of nature poem? I turned it over, and on the back it said:

I was careful not to mess up the line of green paper raindrops leading into my closet. I wanted them to stay the way she’d scattered them. I loved the idea of having something she touched right there with me. I opened the tiny wood door and was faced with a small bar to hang clothes on one
side and shelves on the other. At first I didn’t see anything else, but when I bent down, I saw a little cooler below the bottom shelf and a small plastic bag. I pulled out the bag first, and in it was the plastic carrot, the top hat, and a scarf—only this one wasn’t red, it was green. I dragged the cooler out and opened it. Inside, there were three perfectly formed snowballs.

Duncan couldn’t get to the next CD fast enough. This wasn’t quite how he had imagined the scenario playing out. He was actually touched by Vanessa’s kindness, but he couldn’t help asking himself, why? He had to pee, he was going to be late for another class, and yet he felt like the need to listen was almost beyond his control, he couldn’t resist it. So he quickly took the CD out, dropping it on the floor then scooping it up, and slipped in the next one. Sitting straight up on the edge of his bed to prevent himself from getting too settled in, he closed his eyes and let Tim’s voice fill the room.

When I woke up, my bed was wet and I couldn’t figure it out. Then I remembered the snowballs and cursed myself for falling asleep with one in my hand. Before I had a
chance to process what was going on and locate my second set of sheets, there was a knock.

“Well, you must be Tim,” said the person at my door. At first I thought he might be a student, he looked so young and wore those cool black-framed glasses. But then he told me, “I’m Mr. Simon.”

“Hi,” I said. He had a plate in his hand with what looked like a blueberry muffin on it and a glass of orange juice. He handed them to me, his eyes resting on the uneaten plate of cookies from last night. Shoot, I thought, he must have brought those.

“Wow, thanks,” I said, realizing I was starving. “Is this usual? Is there, like, room service or something?”

“Well, I’d like to say yes, but no, you’ll have to make your way down to the dining hall most mornings. But I do like to bake and I live alone, so because you are the lucky winner of this room, I will share my confections with you whenever I can. I figured your first morning here was as good a time to start as any,” he said. “How was your trip?”

Complicated
, I wanted to say,
and I think I fell in love on my way here
. “It was long,” I said instead.

“Well, the bathroom is down there, but you’ve probably figured that out already, and the dining hall is at the bottom of those stairs at the end of the hall,” he said. “The schedule today is irregular, but I suggest heading down to breakfast as soon as you get cleaned up because there will be activities you don’t want to miss. I
think there’s a hike planned, and maybe a game of capture the flag.”

“That sounds like fun,” I said. I wanted to ask if he knew Vanessa—and Patrick, for that matter. But I didn’t dare.

“Is this room special or something?” I asked.

“You mean because I said I’d bring you my baked masterpieces?” Mr. Simon asked me. I was starting to like him already. “It is. This, my fine young student, is where an English teacher was hatched! This was my room when I was at Irving. It suited me well.” He leaned in and lowered his voice. “The trick is that it’s hard to see from outside or under the door if your light is on, so you can get away with reading deep into the night. I did—lots of Shakespeare and Ernest Hemingway. I hope you find it to be at least as grand as I did. I’ll see you downstairs. Welcome to the Irving School.”

“Happy to be here,” I said, surprised to find myself smiling.

The muffin was warm and smelled great. I sat on the edge of my bed and ate the whole thing. Then I did what I was dreading: I opened the cooler to check on the other two snowballs. I had thought about creeping down to the dining hall and trying to find a freezer, but to what end? Someone would find them and throw them away. When I slid the lid to the side, I saw that one had melted completely, and the other was now smaller than a golf ball. I closed the lid, and headed to the bathroom. Don’t worry, I am not going to tell
you about all my trips to the bathroom, but this one has some significance, so please indulge me.

I didn’t see anyone along the way, the hall was so quiet. Maybe people were sleeping in since there were no classes. I was glad. I didn’t want to face anyone yet, and I knew I was going to stand out like a polar bear in a grizzly maze. How much had they been told about me? Did they know I was an albino? I didn’t want to deal with that. I decided right then and there that I would skip the hike.

I was relieved to see the bathroom was also empty. I was almost ready to head back when the door swung open. I was facing the mirror and had my back to the person who came in, but I could see he was tall with short brown hair and bright blue eyes. His eyes were so blue, in fact, they were like a flash in the mirror. He was wearing green pajamas and was humming to himself. He looked at me and I registered; I could feel it. There was a long pause while he looked me up and down, and I had no choice. I was about to turn to him and introduce myself. He must have wondered, in addition to how white I looked, what a stranger was doing in the bathroom. But before I had a chance to, he was standing in front of me, towering over me, it seemed.

“I hear you spent the night in a hotel room with my girlfriend,” he snarled.

This was by far the worst-case scenario.
Please let someone else come in
, I chanted to myself.
Please let someone else come in
.

He moved in even closer. His nose was practically touching mine.

“If you weren’t so weird-looking already, I would mess you up,” he said. “Maybe I’d break your nose, or give you a black eye. Nobody—and I mean nobody, except for me—gets to be alone in a bedroom with my girl. Is that understood?”

“Don’t worry,” I said, perhaps a bit too sarcastically. “I can’t imagine she’d let that happen again.”

“Let what happen?” he asked.

I was scared, I’ll admit it. I hadn’t meant for it to sound that way, and I knew once you started trying to dig out of a hole, you only made things worse. In my mind I could still hear her voice saying
Thanks for the last eighteen hours
. Eighteen hours. Eighteen hours. I hoped Patrick couldn’t read minds. For a second I distracted myself trying to think of which superhero could read minds. Just to let you know, it is Professor X of the X-Men, but I was so frazzled I didn’t think of it until I got back to my room.

“Nothing,” I said finally. “I mean, she won’t ever want to spend a night in a hotel again, with me, that is.…”

I didn’t seem to be making Patrick feel any better. I thought about telling him there were two beds and I didn’t even sleep in one of them, but I was fumbling and knew I would somehow mess it up more than I already had.

“Why’s that?” he asked. He could lean over just a bit and bite my nose if he wanted to. It would suck to have to meet new people looking the way I look with a big festering bite
on my nose. But he didn’t, and I should have realized that nobody would want to get that close to me anyway. Just then the door swung open and a redheaded short guy walked in. He was wearing red-checked boxers and no shirt even though there was a sign reminding us to come to the bathroom in more than just our underwear. He smiled at Patrick, then his eyes rested on me.

“Hey,” the kid said, looking from me to Patrick, then back to me.

“Hey,” Patrick said. I think I managed a weak smile. We all stood there for a few seconds, and I wondered if he forgot what he came to do. Then he nodded and went into a stall.

“I’m just joking with you, you know that, right?” Patrick asked suddenly, patting me on the back. “I was just kidding around. Hey, Peter, introduce yourself to our new friend.”

“I’m Peter,” a voice said from inside the stall. We could hear him unrolling the toilet paper.

“I’m Tim,” I said.

“I didn’t mean to scare you. Did I scare you?” Patrick asked. I remember thinking the guy was crazy, he was all over the place. Before I had a chance to say anything, he kept talking. “So, do you want to come to my room later?” he asked. I just stood there and looked at the floor. I assumed he was talking to Peter.

“Hey, you,” he said, nodding in my direction. “We’re organizing this semester’s big Game, and you should get in
on it. It’ll be a good way for you to meet people. What do you say?”

I had no idea what he was talking about. The big Game? But I didn’t want to stick around for an explanation. My head was spinning, and the smell in the bathroom was getting overwhelming. I had to get out of there.

“I’m thinking a little strip poker might be in order,” smelly Pete said from inside the stall.

“No way,” Patrick said. “I don’t need to play a game to get some action. I have other ideas. What’s that game called when you have to off someone and it’s a secret and …”

“Assassin,” I said without thinking.

A slow smile spread over Patrick’s face.

“Okay, then,” he said. “See you in my room after dinner.”

Duncan turned off the CD. He had to work hard to bring his focus back to this year, and stop reliving last year.

As soon as he got to the bottom of the stairs, he could tell something was up. People were talking about an incident that happened on the senior girls’ floor. Nobody seemed to know what it was, but it was
something
. Duncan had a very hard time concentrating on the first classes of the year. He went to math, which was his favorite, but failed to show off in his usual way. He liked to let everyone else know how good he was from the beginning, but the truth was, they already knew. They had been going to school with him for years.

Between math and science—which involved a walk down one hall, then another smaller one leading outside, and finally down a tree-lined path to the science building—Duncan
kept his ears open. He heard the words
sick
and
fire
and
mouse
and
ambulance
, but had no idea if any of them pertained to what had happened on Daisy’s hall. He also kept his eyes open for Daisy—she had to be somewhere. But she was nowhere. He wished he had talked to her last night at dinner and asked about her class schedule. Even more than that, he wished he had let her in this morning. He would give anything to go back to that moment and make the other choice. He told himself over and over that he would apologize for this the next time he saw her. But the whole morning went by—and there was no sign of her anywhere. Just before lunch, he saw Abigail, a girl who knew Daisy but wasn’t deep into the social politics most of her friends were, so he asked if she’d seen her. She hadn’t, and she was still trying to figure out what had happened on the hall that morning. Basically, she was no help at all. He thought about asking other people where Daisy might be, but he didn’t want everyone talking about him, wondering why he was so interested in her all of a sudden.