Everyone’s gone. It’s just me and the lead box. Apparently, no one has touched the box in a few weeks – just got busy, so busy – so I’ve volunteered to clear it out after the others leave.
I fish a lead from the bottom. It’s a page that’s been folded at least ten times. When I get it half open, I see a line that appears to have been written in crayon: top secret. It’s been taped shut. I open it. Inside, more crayon: i hear tricia myers likes girls. please investigate. photo/video evidence required.
I roll my eyes, ball it up and toss it in the trash. Then I take a lead from the middle of the pile, a sheet printed from a computer, which seems promising.
I would like the paper to investigate the cafeteria meatloaf. I’ve heard it’s made from mealworms and that the school is serving it as part of a secret government experiment —
Ball up. Toss out.
Let’s try the top of the box. The most recent stuff.
I pull out a sheet of lined paper and unfold it…
Someone needs to write an article about Skye Gilchrist. There are new kids here who don’t know what her brother did. Kids who don’t know who she is. That’s wrong. It’s like when a kiddie molester moves into a new neighborhood and everyone gets warned. She’s the sister of a school shooter… in a new school.
I start to ball it up. Then I stop. Fold it. Smooth it. Set it aside. The last thing I need is for someone to discover that I discarded messages about myself. Let Tiffany handle it.
I start to reach back to the bottom of the box. I can’t, though. I see those folded papers on the top, and I have to know. I have to reassure myself that this was the only one about me.
It is not the only one about me.
For five minutes, I sit there, reading note after note. I open ten from the top of the box… and six are about me.
Someone NEEDS TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT SKY GILKRIST.
Did they make that Skye girl take a psych test before she came here?
I heard Sky Gilchrist took a gun to her old school, and that’s why she had to leave.
Luka Gilchrist murdered four kids! And they let his sister come to our school?
I hope someone puts a bullet through Skye Gilcrist’s head. And you can quote me on that.
THAT SKYE BITCH SHOULD BE…
I won’t finish the last. Somehow it’s worse than the one about putting a bullet through my head. It’s the kind of stuff I saw in those online comments sections three years ago.
All of it is like that. The sort of thing I have not seen in years, and I sit there, staring at the slips, shaking.
This is not one person badmouthing me. I leaf through different types of paper. Different handwriting. Different spellings of my name.
I’ve kept thinking that everything happening to me here – the petition rumors, the voices in the hall, the video clip, being locked in the office – is clearly all the same person. One persecutor. Otherwise, I’ve had it relatively easy. While I hear whispers and catch glares, actual hostility – like Lana’s – has been rare, so I’ve made the mistake of thinking that means most kids are okay with me being here.
There are other kids who feel like Lana. Many more. They just know better than to complain aloud. Like online commenters, they vent their true feelings under the cloak of anonymity, and they have filled this box with their mistrust and their fear and their hate.
This is what kids really think of me being at Riverside Collegiate.
I’m still staring at those notes when there’s a rap on the door. A single rap, the kind that makes you pause and wonder if you actually heard it. I swivel in my chair and spot a piece of paper on the floor.
It’s blank.
I’m taking a closer look – invisible ink? – when another sheet slides under the door. It’s also blank. I pick it up as yet another whispers across the linoleum. I see words on this one, in fifty-point font.
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID.
Then another, also faceup.
YOU’VE FOOLED THEM.
YOU DON’T FOOL ME.
A third, this one a newspaper headline, blown to full-page size.
FOUR KILLED IN TRAGEDY
AT NORTH HAMPTON HIGH
I lunge for the door and twist the knob.
It’s locked.
Another whoosh, then another, more blank papers shoved under the door, and I’m whaling on the knob like I have superhero strength and can snap it if I try hard enough. And I feel like I could, with my adrenaline pounding. My tormenter is on the other side of this door, and all I need to do is get it open and catch him in the act.
Another whisper. Then another. These sound different. Not the whoosh of sliding paper but more of a chattering. I look down and…
They’re sticks. Tiny sticks with red ends. At least a half dozen of them, zooming across the floor, and I should know what these are but my brain is stuck on the pages and —
A sizzle. One of the pages bursts into flames, and I realize what those sticks are. Matches. Lit wooden matches.
Another sheet sails across the floor, and this time I smell something sharp and astringent, like lighter fluid. The page hits a match and bursts into flame, pieces flying up, igniting others, and I stare, sure I can’t be seeing what I am.
The room is on fire.
Someone is outside that door – right outside it – trapping me in a room and lighting it on fire.
Awesome, Nellie Bly. Are you going to do something about it? Or write your first RivCol Times investigative article, complete with your own obit?
I stamp on one page and then another, but there are so many, all ablaze now, and then the spark catches my stack of leads, and I’m stomping as fast as I can while I shout for help.
A box of paper catches fire, and I can’t believe how fast it’s spreading. I yank off my sweater and smack the flames, but that only seems to fan them, the fire spreading to the discarded leads. I toss my sweater aside. Smoke fills the room. Thick black smoke, and I cough and try to shout for help again, but I end up doubled over, hacking my lungs out.
Stop, drop and roll.
Uh, I’m not actually on fire.
As soon as I think that, I feel heat on my leg and look down to see sparks scorching through my jeans. I smack them out and stay down.
I crawl toward the door, reach up to grab the metal handle and fall back, hissing in pain. Grab my discarded sweater, put it over my hand —
My sweater’s on fire!
Drop sweater. Grab handle. Grit teeth against pain. Bang on door with one hand while twisting the knob as hard as I can and…
The door flies open, and I stumble out. I hesitate, unable to believe I’m actually free. Then I spin. There’s no one around. No one at all.
I break into a run, smoke filling the hall. I spot a fire alarm. I race toward it, and then there’s a shout behind me.
“You!”
I wheel. It’s Owen, running down a side hall.
“The newspaper room,” I say quickly. “It’s on fire.”
He swears and shouts, “Pull —”
I’m already there, already pulling it, and the siren starts. I turn back to Owen, and as I do, I catch a glimpse of someone walking fast down the hallway behind him. I see who it is, and I tell myself I’m wrong.
Don’t jump to conclusions. It’s a guy in a hoodie. Lots of kids wear them.
As the guy veers down the next hall, I get a look at his face, and there’s no doubt who I’m seeing. Who is fleeing the scene of the crime.
Jesse.
Jesse
As Jesse walks to school the next morning he can’t recall the last Friday he actually attended. Other kids skip to start their weekend early. He just skips. Today he even has a good reason to not go. He couldn’t sleep last night, so he took something because he needed to rest up for the track meet. Then he woke up groggy, which meant two cups of coffee, and now he’s on edge, his stomach roiling.
He could say he’s here because of the track meet, but it’s not like anyone’s going to say “Hey, Mandal, you didn’t show up for class – cool your heels on the bench.” He is the star, after all.