Hells.
The classroom door moved and a flash of yellow-and-black neared it. Quicker than thought, I ducked into the auditorium and stood there, breathing. I closed my eyes and sighed. Something was deeply wrong with me. Who ducked away from her best friend like that?
As I pondered what combination of nasty ingredients made up my soul, I heard a soft thump above me. I looked up and saw the light in the costume shop was on, up in the back of the balcony.
I had been to the auditorium only a couple times to see Jenah perform, so it took me a moment to remember where the backstage stairs were to the balcony. I banged my shins into a pile of empty paint cans, which clattered all over the black stage floor. Some sleuth I was.
By the time I got up to the costume shop, it was silent. I peered left and right down the crammed length of the shop, but no one was there. I had no idea how creepy costume shops were when you were in one all by yourself. I shoved aside rows of bright polyester dresses from the sixties and satiny poof dresses from the eighties, all the while thinking a boy with a demon inside would suddenly be revealed behind a pink floral gown. Dress … dress … dress … demon, right?
But nothing.
I’d lost Devon, and somewhere the demon inside him was about to do something with those hundred pixies. And I was worried about what that might be.
I was about to leave when a thin draft down my rainbow T-shirt made me look up.
There was a trapdoor open to the blue October sky.
“The theater kids have roof access,” I said softly. “No frikkin’ way.”
I climbed up the scarf-and-necklace-festooned ladder leaning against the back wall and then I was out on a tar-paper roof, staring down at the valley of the city. The city looked oddly small, a mishmash of green yards crossed with gray cement buildings and darker-gray streets, tumbling down the hill toward where I lived with a crazy witch.
But I didn’t look long.
Because on the edge of the roof, arms spread wide, was Devon.
“Hells,” I whispered like a prayer, and then I ran in silent, ever-quicker leaps toward the edge of the second story. Grabbed Devon’s coat and toppled him sideways and backward.
Devon fell down with me, and for a moment we were entangled. He shook me off as he stood. His fingers trembled as he clutched his backpack of pixies, leaning over it like he was going to puke.
“Are you all right?” I said.
He straightened up. Raised one cool eyebrow, and for a moment I thought he was going to laugh me off again. Lie and say he was plain old Devon and then look down my shirt.
But he staggered. His shoulders lifted one at a time, as if he was steadying himself, or stepping out of something. The black faded from his hair as he bent double over his backpack again, and the word groaned from his lips: “Cam?”
“Devon? Really Devon?”
He nodded. He had a weird expression on his face, like he was trying not to barf. You know when you’re concentrating so hard on not barfing that you don’t have any spare attention for anything else? Yeah. That.
“How are you doing?” I put a hand on his shoulder.
“All … all right, I guess.” He sat down hard on the roof, cradling the pixie backpack, stretching his neck from side to side, and the pukiness seemed to pass. “I think he’s asleep.”
I couldn’t say anything more intelligent than: “Again?”
“Yeah.” Devon stared across the city. “Cam, will you tell me the truth about something?”
“Yeah,” I said. The October air was brisk on my bare arms, full of leaf-scented winds that whisked across the tar paper. I sat down next to him, on the alert for any sudden movements. The roof was cold through the seat of my second-favorite jeans.
“Have I been an ass all day today?” asked Devon.
“Don’t you remember?” That would be creepy, if the demon was taking his memory.
Devon grimaced. “It’s hard to explain. I remember most of it. Though I fell asleep a couple times when I just couldn’t stay awake anymore. I tried to time that to those ancient videos in American history. I didn’t want him to be the boss here at school, but really, I didn’t want him to ever be the boss. I’m gonna be snorting caffeine by the time this is over, aren’t I?”
“Me, too,” I said.
“But the thing is, I dunno how much of what I did is stuff I would normally do. When he’s awake, he must have access to my brain and memory or something. Because he knows stuff that hasn’t come up. I mean, I think that’s what’s happening. Because this stuff comes out of my mouth that I don’t think I would want to say, but I don’t think he would know to say. Does that make any sense at all? And then thinking back on it, it’s confusing, like I see it all as a dream.”
“Weird,” I said.
“He’s asleep now,” Devon said. “I guess he knows I want him gone, too, so he thinks he can count on me to take care of these pixies.”