Only slightly less annoying was the stuff people at school would say about me. I’d always been used to people watching me, judging me, because I was the pastor’s daughter. But now I was pretty much the school pariah when my back was turned—which is apparently what happens to you when the captain of the school hockey team gets arrested and then kicked out of school for assaulting you. I mean, seriously, I had no idea HTA was so fanatic about hockey until I got blamed for us losing our chance to win State last year. Never mind the fact that Pete Bradshaw was the one who attacked me.
And I couldn’t even react, because normal people aren’t supposed to hear what others say about them when they’re two rooms away. So I have to admit that when my superhearing decided to act up at school today, I felt only slightly guilty that the masses had a whole new topic of juicy gossip to chew on.
News spread quickly about what happened at Day’s Market, and the speculations about the culprit only heightened when my second-period gym class was cancelled because it was discovered there had been an attempted break-in at the school through one of the gymnasium windows.
And by third period, rumors flew like spit wads across the halls when it was announced that all religion classes were cancelled, too, because Mr. Shumway, the religion teacher, hadn’t shown up for school.
Some people claimed that Mr. Shumway was missing, but as I walked by the main hall I overheard one of the secretaries inside the principal’s office say that Mr. Shumway had up and quit first thing this morning. But that didn’t make any sense at all since Mr. Shumway had been teasing our class with some big surprise for the last two weeks, and he was supposedly going to tell us the details today. I was almost ready to believe the guy about fifty yards down the hall from my locker who said he heard that Mr. Shumway had “seen something” connected with the break-in. And it had freaked him out so bad he refused to come back to the school.
There was so much chatter, in fact, that by the time I got to fourth period all I could do was lay my head on the art table and clamp my hands over my ears.
“That bad?” Daniel asked as he slipped into the seat next to mine.
“Blech. This whole not being able to turn on and off my superhearing whenever I want is getting to be way too nauseating. Oh, and remind me not to walk past the boys’ locker room when my hearing is acting up. For a bunch of Christian guys, they sure have dirty mouths.”
Daniel laughed. The vibration made me want to pound my forehead against the table.
“Sorry,” Daniel whispered. He cleared his throat. “So do you think Jude may have had something to do with the attempted break-in at the gym?” he asked as quietly as possible. “Coach Brown says he thinks whoever did it must have been after the computers in the lab next door. But my guess is that Jude went there after Day’s.”
I lifted my head just as April Thomas flitted past our table and headed for her spot in the back of the room. Her eyes flicked in my direction for a quarter of a second, but then she went straight to the table she shared with Kimberly Woodruff without making any other acknowledgment that I was even alive. I remembered not too long ago when she and I shared a table together—last year, when we were the only juniors allowed in Mr. Barlow’s AP art class. Back before Daniel returned to town and April started dating my brother and everything got weird between us.
“What do you think?” Daniel asked.
I didn’t want to believe it, but it would make sense that Jude would go to the school after Day’s, considering that’s where he went the same night he planted Jessica Day’s body behind the market. He’d gone to the gym looking for Daniel at the Christmas dance.
I was about to comment on Daniel’s theory when someone behind me said, “Hey, guys!” so loud I jumped in my seat.