“Oh . . . really?” I’d thought the buzzing was purely hormone-related. I could practically hear my hopes shattering.
“Yeah. I think I absorbed a lot of your power but without even trying to link up the way we did the other day.”
Ethan had forced me to practice linking my power to his to strengthen the
reverto
spell like ten million times on Thursday
,
even though I’d done the exact same thing with Monica when I was barely ten. That was how we’d banished the zombies who’d attacked me, so I obviously knew how to get the job done. But Ethan had still been obsessive about it.
For a guy who was trying to convince me there wouldn’t be a large-scale attack, he was doing a fairly lousy job of it. Sure, when I was a kid I’d needed Monica’s help to banish the RCs. But there was no reason for second-stagers to link power unless they were dealing with a hell of a lot of zombies.
“So does that mean I wasn’t shielding firmly enough?” I asked, straining to sound normal.
“No, I don’t think so. It felt like your shields were still strong.” He finally finished messing with his back pocket. “I’ll ask my liaison about it, but until then it’s probably best we don’t practice any of the combat stuff I was going to show you today. Too much physical contact doesn’t seem like a good idea if it makes me draw Unsettled during the day.”
“Yeah, totally. I’ll just . . . ask my dad to show me some more self-defense stuff.”
“Cool. I mean, you probably won’t need it for zombies, but it’s always a good idea for a girl to know how to protect herself,” he said, running his hand through his hair before glancing at his watch. “Hey, I’ve gotta get going. I’m meeting some friends in an hour.”
“Sure, cool. I’ll just . . . bike home,” I said, my voice not sounding nearly as perky and normal as I wanted it to.
I was just so disappointed and achy inside. It was stupid, really. I mean, Ethan was my friend and I was obviously attracted to him, but there was no reason to get so angsty. It wasn’t like I was in love with him or anything.
Oh. No. I wasn’t? Was I?
“No, let’s put your bike in my trunk and I’ll drive you.” Ethan grabbed his sweatshirt from the ground and shrugged it on. “I want to make sure that you’re home safe and that your parents know I won’t be back for babysitting duty until Tuesday morning so they’ll need to keep a closer eye on you.”
“Where are you going to be until Tuesday?”
“I told you, plans with friends.”
“Plans that last all the way until Tuesday?” I realized how stupid and weirdly possessive I sounded and tried to backtrack, but Ethan spoke first.
“Yes, Schmeg, when you’re a big girl and go away to college, you’ll learn all about—”
“Oh, please. Spare me. I know all about those kind of plans,” I said, rolling my eyes and trying to affect a blasé attitude even though I was inwardly raging. “I’m almost sixteen, Ethan, and I was dating the hottest guy in school before you showed up and ruined it. Believe me, I know a thing or two about plans.”
For a second, I would have sworn Ethan looked jealous, but then he smiled, making me think I’d imagined it. “Good for you, Megan. Aren’t you a big girl?”
The patronizing tone was the last straw. “Screw you, Ethan. And screw your ride home!”
“Oh, come on, Schmeg. I’m sorry, I—”
“And don’t call me Schmeg.” I ran the rest of the way to my bike and unlocked it with shaking hands, doing my best not to give in to the ridiculous urge to cry. I didn’t care if Ethan had plans with some girl until Tuesday morning. I didn’t care that he didn’t care if I had ever fooled around with Josh. And I certainly didn’t care that he thought I was nothing but a little brat he enjoyed teasing.
I knew I wasn’t the joke he acted like I was. I had a brain, and it was about time I started using it for something other than obsessing about him.
Starting tomorrow, I was getting serious about finding out what was going on at Carol High School. Ethan could spend the next day or two shacked up with some college girl drinking beer. I’d spend mine profitably and by Tuesday be well on my way to proving to everyone I wasn’t a stupid child.
CHAPTER 9
“So what’s up? You find out anything?” Jess asked, handing me my cup of white chocolate mousse frozen yogurt. She’d hit the TCBY while I’d hit the dry cleaner’s.
Carapelli’s was the only cleaner I’d trusted with the world’s most perfect dress. In return, they’d allowed my dress to be stolen and used to cross-dress a zombie. Carapelli and all his umpteen-million relatives were
so
on my poo list.
I hadn’t told Jess the real way the dress was destroyed, of course, just that it had disappeared from the cleaner’s and they were refusing to reimburse me. Not that it would have mattered even if they had given me money to buy a new dress since there wasn’t another size four at the store in Little Rock or any of their Arkansas locations. Even with all the other stuff going on in my life, this still inspired a brief period of mourning Monday afternoon.
“No,” I said, digging into my extra-large cup, wondering if I could eat my way to a size six in less than a week. “But I think the guy is lying so he won’t get in trouble for giving someone my dress without the claim slip.”
“Well, since you still have the claim slip . . .”
I grimaced around a bite of white chocolate mousse. “I threw it out. I never keep them; I just give them our phone number.”
“Hmm . . . okay, so whoever stole your dress must know your phone number too.”
“You’re right,” I said, following Jess as she turned back toward school. We only had about ten minutes before the pom squad clinic, so we had to walk while we scarfed yogurt. “And we’re unlisted, so that would narrow it down a lot. Man, why didn’t I think of that before?”
I should totally have asked Jess for help earlier. She wasn’t in the Honor Society or any of the advanced classes, but she was way more gifted than I was when it came to good old common sense.
“But wait, don’t get too excited. Didn’t you write your phone number on the sign-up sheet for pom tryouts last week?”
“Crap, I did.” And those had been up on the gymnasium bulletin board, where anyone could see them. Back to square one.
Well, not exactly square one. Since Sunday, I’d added another suspect to my list. Oddly enough, Mrs. Pierce had made the cut when she still couldn’t find my journal by Monday morning. Not only had she allegedly “lost” my list of suspects, she’d also proceeded to give me the third degree about homecoming.
Was I going? Was I sure I had a reliable ride? Did it seem smart to waste time at a dance when I was falling behind on my studies? It was just . . . weird, and enough to get her added to my new list—which I kept safely out of sight during English, of course.
Still, there was only one real suspect in my mind. And now I totally had a motive for her. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t figured out why Monica might want to ruin homecoming earlier. But then, it wasn’t until the homecoming court was announced at school on Tuesday that the lightbulb illuminated.
For the first time in her entire high school career, the Monicster was
not
one of the homecoming princesses.
Neither was Beth Phillips, Josh’s ex. Instead, the senior class princesses consisted of London, her friend Alana, and two of the biggest nerds in the entire school. The football and the basketball team had banded together to vote in the nerds, thinking it would be a hysterical senior prank.
So far, however, no one was amused. Not the nerd girls and definitely not Beth or Monica. Beth was actually crying in the girls’ locker room after school on Tuesday as we changed into our dance clothes for the second day of pom tryouts, and Monica . . .
Well, Monica had looked ready to kill someone. Maybe several someones.
If she’d somehow gotten a look at the voting results before the announcement—which was entirely possible since she was on the student council and they were the ones who counted the votes—then she could totally have been responsible for the attacks on Josh, Ethan, and my homecoming dress. She wasn’t a princess and therefore couldn’t be voted homecoming queen, so she’d probably decided to sic a few Reanimated Corpses on the gym and ruin the dance and didn’t want me there to sic the RCs back on her with the
reverto
spell.
She was whacked enough to kill, I was sure of it. Anyone who had ever been on the receiving end of one of her arctic glares could see that, and she would consider Josh expendable now that he wasn’t dating one of her best friends. I could imagine her sending an RC his way and not feeling an ounce of remorse, and God knew she had no love for me or my poor dress.
The attack on Ethan was a little harder to justify since they really were good friends, but Monica had been right there to hear him say he was taking me to the dance. She definitely wouldn’t have wanted
two
Settlers at homecoming, and she knew Ethan could handle himself well enough to fend off one RC. Especially if it was already on fire and thus could be completely incinerated by a flame spell without much effort.
Basically, all things considered, I would have been ready to approach Ethan and the Elders with my suspicions but for two things: One, Monica had been at dance practice the entire time Ethan and I had been at Sonic, and therefore I couldn’t figure out how she could have summoned the zombie wearing my homecoming dress from its grave, let alone stuffed it into my dress. And two, I knew the whole “not a single case in Settler history of a Settler using black magic” thing would make the Elders completely unwilling to see the situation with Monica clearly.
I could, however, totally see Monica being the first Settler to go bad. She
was
exceptionally evil.
“Wow, Megan. Do you know how many calories are in an extra large?” The first words to greet us as we entered the gym were enough to give me acid reflux. “I mean, it’s fat free, not
sugar
free. Better watch it or you won’t fit into any of the uniforms even if you do make the squad.”
Think of the she-devil and she shall appear. “Thanks, Monica. I really appreciate your concern,” I said, my tone so sweet it could have caused a diabetic to go into shock.
“Sure thing. Anytime.” She smiled and I smiled back, wishing I had the guts to growl at her instead.
But I couldn’t afford an attitude. Tryouts were Friday, only three days away, and I
had
to make the team. It was what Jess and I had been dreaming about for years, and I wasn’t going to give the Monicster any excuse to blacklist me—or amp up her RC attacks. Mustn’t forget about that. This wasn’t only my future of pom-pom shaking that was at risk, but possibly my life as well.
“Someone should shoot that girl and put us all out of our misery,” Jess whispered as soon as Monica was out of range.
I laughed as I threw away the last of my yogurt. Only Monica could make Jess’s claws come out. “You ready to go in?”
“Yeah, just two more bites. I need calories if I’m going to dance for an hour and a half,” Jess said, shoveling in another bite. “So, seriously, you have no idea who might have stolen your dress?”
“Not really. I mean, I sort of thought maybe Beth might hate me because of the whole Josh thing, but I mean, it’s not like anything really happened between me and Josh,” I said, hating that I couldn’t tell Jess everything. “He’s still cool in chemistry, but it’s obvious he heard about the Ethan thing, so there’s no more flirting.”
“The Ethan thing?” Jess smiled. “Does your boyfriend know you call him a thing?”
“You know what I mean,” I said, trying to laugh it off but failing. It just felt so wrong to be lying to Jess about anything but especially something as important as who I was dating.
Or
not
dating. Ethan was back on babysitting duty and had, in fact, probably been watching me and Jess as we walked to TCBY and back again, but nothing else was going on with us. Our tutoring sessions were apparently over, and he seemed to be doing his best not to spend any more time with me than absolutely necessary. That meant he drove me to school and home and stayed parked on the couch until Dad and Mom got home from work to take over the babysitting.
Since I was pissed at him, his lack of interest shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. A lot.