The Throne Page 16

  Seconds passed before Meredith got going again. It wasn’t that she had expected Morey to greet her like a bosom buddy; the few times they had encountered each other previously in the halls, they had nodded but hadn’t stopped to chat. Still, when she had initially caught sight of him, Meredith’s response had been upbeat—the thought that here, coming toward her, was a chance to say, “Fuck you,” to Seymour’s invisible omnipotence, possibly enact a minor revolution. And so to see Morey react in this manner, refusing even to look her in the eye when the Mol was nowhere to be seen ... well, it’s unbelievable! she thought, staring after Morey’s disappearing backside. More than unbelievable—it was pathetic.

  At that moment, a brief, familiar, come-and-go pressure yanked Meredith out of her thoughts and back to the crowded school corridor. Realizing what had probably taken place, she went into a slight sag, then sighed and started for the nearest girls washroom.

  “Hey!” said a voice beside her. “They got you again.”

  Glancing over, Meredith spotted Cathy Kotelly. “Yeah,” she said resignedly. “How big is it? And can you tell me how glommed on it is?”

  “Come over here for a sec,” said Cathy, taking her by the arm and pulling her toward the wall. Stepping behind Meredith, she took a discreet look. “It’s not too bad,” she said reassuringly. “Got a Kleenex?”

  “I’ve got one,” said another voice, and a hand appeared, dangling a loose tissue. Cathy took it and, after a second’s furtive fumbling, presented the gum wad for Meredith’s inspection. Cherry red, it appeared to be about average in the size and oozability categories.

  “Thanks, you guys!” exclaimed Meredith, gratitude spurting through her.

  “No prob,” shrugged the girl who had offered the tissue. “There’s a stain, though—red like the gum. And there’s some other stuff on your butt, too. What is this—writing?” Leaning in close, she scrutinized Meredith’s posterior.

  God! thought Meredith. As a small audience began to gather, she explained the situation yet again. “So, y’see—I started to date the wads,” she told the girl who was still hunched down, busily reading, “because I couldn’t catch the kids who were sticking them on me, and it was a way of tracking it, I guess. Dumb, maybe, but ...”

  “Butt?” quipped the girl, straightening. Older than Meredith, with several lip studs, she looked to be in Grade 11. “I do calligraphy,” she said, breaking into a smile. “I’m on the Poster Committee. I can document this latest stain in gothic if you’d like.” Opening her pencil case, she took out a fancy-looking marker-pen.

  “What—right here?” stammered Meredith.

  “Sure,” said the girl. “We’ll get it done before your next class.”

  Meredith swallowed, then decided to go for it. “Okay,” she said. Depositing her books on the floor, she turned to face the wall and placed both hands against it, as if about to go through a body pat-down. “Do your thing,” she said over her shoulder.

  “By the way,” said the girl as she uncapped her pen, “my name is Naslini. Just so you know who to go after in case you decide to sue.”

  “Thanks,” mumbled Meredith, as visions of some of the nastier graffiti she had seen danced through her head. Behind her, scattered giggles could be heard from the growing audience as Naslini’s pen poked and prodded.

  “Sweet!” said someone.

  “All right!” agreed another.

  Finally a smattering of applause erupted, and Naslini gave a triumphant “Ta-da!”

  “What does it say?” demanded Meredith, twisting to catch a glimpse of her handiwork.

  “September 19, 12:55 pm,” grinned Naslini, returning her pen to her pencil case. “I’m not stupid. There were way too many witnesses.”

  With an airy wave, she headed down the corridor, and the watching students began to drift away. Retrieving her books from the floor, Meredith was about to head off to her class when she caught sight of someone observing her from across the hall. A senior, he was familiar—in fact, she was certain he had been part of the group that had been gathered around Seymour by her locker last week. One eyebrow raised, the guy was watching her now with the same expression he had been wearing the moment he had turned to let Seymour know she was approaching.

  Instinctively, Meredith glanced around, but Seymour was nowhere in sight. When she returned her gaze to the senior across the hall, he had moved on and was ambling casually toward the cafeteria, but Meredith wasn’t fooled—the guy’s brain was in overdrive and, before the afternoon was out, she knew Seymour would have heard every detail of what had just taken place.

  Well, so what? she told herself, fighting a wind-flare of nerves. I don’t need the Mol’s permission to talk to other kids. I’m going to do whatever I want, and you can just suck it up, Seymour.

  Turning into a stairwell, she headed up to the third floor. But as she neared the top of the steps, Ronnie Olesin unexpectedly appeared in the doorway, apparently headed downward. Hastily, Meredith deked left, trying to avoid the other girl but, catching sight of her, Ronnie grabbed Meredith’s arm.

  “Wait a sec, bitch!” she ordered, her grip tightening. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “Let go of my arm!” cried Meredith, pulling back in alarm.

  “I’ll let go when I’m good and ready!” snapped Ronnie, her eyes narrowing.

  “Let go or I’ll scream!” insisted Meredith, pulling harder.

  “Hey!” said a guy, coming up the stairs behind Meredith. “What’s going on?”

  Ronnie let go. “I’m warning you, bitch!” she said, her face contorting as she jabbed a finger at Meredith. “You got my friend into trouble yesterday over nothing. I’m telling you now—you’re going to the office today after school to tell Bishaha you lied about Lana putting gum on you, or you’re looking at your own grave.”

  Bright fear swept Meredith, and she almost choked on the clutch in her throat. Then, without warning, something tore open inside her and she was fiercely, savagely angry. “Who the hell d’you think you are?” she shot back, knocking away Ronnie’s jabbing finger. “You don’t run me or anyone else at this school. Just fuck off—you and your bubblegum-brain buddy.”

  Veering around Ronnie’s enraged face, Meredith forced her wobbly-edged joints to carry her up the last two steps and out of the stairwell. “You wait!” Ronnie shouted after her. “You just wait and see!”

  Her words were a grenade going off in Meredith’s head. Heart sinking, she knew she had done it then, but there was no going back, and all she could do was suck in the rampaging, demented things she wanted to yell in reply. Grimly, she continued onward, the corridor slipping past in a blur—nothing she could distinguish or later remember. But as she reached the open doorway to her history class, one particular sound penetrated the roar in her brain—a nearby rapid-fire clicking that could only be coming from someone’s mouth. Whirling around, Meredith scanned the crowd, but no one looked suspicious; she didn’t see anyone she would peg as being a cohort of the Mol.

  Did I really hear that? she asked herself confusedly. Or is my brain in overdrive?

  Shoving the matter out of mind, she entered her history class.

  That evening, Meredith knelt beside her aunt in the kitchen doorway, staring out at the freshly painted porch. Ceiling, floor, walls—all of it gleamed with dandelion-yellow gorgeousness, the glow of it so intense, Meredith could feel it lighting her up from the inside. Home, she thought. The color of home. Sighing, she laid her head on her aunt’s shoulder.

  Aunt Sancy’s arm came around her and squeezed. “It’s the exact perfect shade,” she said warmly. “You sure know how to pick a color swatch. I ... Oh—damn!”

  “What?” asked Meredith, lifting her head.

  “The light switch,” said Aunt Sancy, annoyed. “How are we going to turn it off? It’s five steps from here to that wall, and the floor’s wet. We’ll have to leave it on all night. And if this paint isn’t dry by morning, we’ll be climbing out of the living room window. Won�
��t the Altgelds love that?”

  But the paint was dry by morning, and after her aunt had left for work, Meredith stood a moment, alone in the porch, letting its dandelion glow sink into her. She couldn’t believe how happy the color made her—how simply seeing its rich gleam from inside the kitchen brought an instant smile to her face. The color of home, she thought again, turning to take in every angle. Of Aunt Sancy and me.

  An intense shiver of delight ran through her. “I love you, Aunt Sancy,” she whispered. Then, pulling on her windbreaker, she headed down the stairs and toward whatever the day was holding for her. As for an exact definition of whatever, she figured that was pretty much wide open. She hadn’t told her aunt last night about Ronnie’s hallway threat—next to the excitement of finishing off the porch, everything else in her life had simply faded away. Besides, telling Aunt Sancy about Ronnie would have meant having to tell her about the ongoing gum-wad saga, which would have led inevitably to Seymour’s involvement. In spite of her aunt’s contrition earlier in the week, Meredith wanted to avoid anything that might trigger further discussion about the Boggs, the Polks, and their various genetically inspired evils. Neither she nor her aunt needed any more of that. Besides, thought Meredith as she strode along the street, today was the last day before the weekend; she could easily avoid Ronnie and Lana for seven hours, and Saturday and Sunday would give them time to calm down.

  But when she arrived at her locker, she discovered the situation was hardly in calm-down mode. Taped onto the front was a piece of foolscap. Across it, someone had scrawled a lopsided sketch of a bomb, with angry vibration marks scribbled on both sides and tick! written several times in the margins.

  “D’you know who put this here?” she asked some nearby students, but no one had noticed anything of significance. Jerkily, Meredith tore the sketch from her locker, wadded it up, and tossed it onto the floor. If this was Seymour’s latest move, she thought as she set off down the hall, he was getting derelict for ideas. The bomb sketch was grade-school, something to be expected from a ten-year-old. Why someone with his brains would have bothered with something like that—

  Without warning, the memory of Ronnie’s contorted face flashed across Meredith’s mind. You wait! she heard the girl shout again. You just wait and see! Halfway along the corridor, Meredith faltered, her stomach corkscrewing as she considered the possibility. Yeah, she concluded reluctantly—a scrawled picture of a ticking bomb was Ronnie’s style. In fact, it had her Neanderthal modus operandi written all over it. The only question was: How had she discovered the location of Meredith’s locker? Not that this information was top secret but, to date, Meredith had never seen Ronnie in the tech wing, and it hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since yesterday afternoon’s confrontation.

  For a second, Meredith contemplated backtracking down the hall to retrieve the wadded-up threat and take it to Ms. Bishaha in the front office. But then she ditched the thought. When all was said and done, she had no proof Ronnie had drawn the picture, and even if she had—so what? A picture was just a picture; anyone should be able to handle something like that. Sure, Ronnie had a rep for fighting, but only with her fists—she wasn’t known to carry a knife. And anyway, here on school property, Meredith figured she was safe enough. After all, in spite of endless scheming, even Seymour and his Underworld buddies hadn’t managed more than a few gum wads and some bizarre mouth sonics. No, she resolved, the best thing to do was simply walk away from the whole thing. Given space, Ronnie would cool down. Anger was like ping pong—if you refused to pick up the paddle, your opponent couldn’t play the game.

  Satisfied with her reasoning, she turned into the music room and headed toward the third riser. Most of the class was already in their seats and, in the far corner, she could see Mr. Woolger fussing with something in an open cupboard. Stepping up onto the third riser, she slipped into place behind the drums. Directly in front of her, Seymour and Morey were engaged in what appeared to be yet another lively, scintillating conversation, while to her right slouched a silent, brooding Gene.

  “Hey,” said Meredith, glancing at him. “Party pooper.”

  Gene stuck out a morose lower lip. “Don’t like the party,” he said. “Hey—what’re you doing at lunch?”

  Heat blew fleetingly across Meredith’s face. “Nothing,” she shrugged.

  “I have Jazz Band practice,” said Gene. “But there’s something I want to show you. Can you meet me at the north tech exit right after morning classes?”

  “Sure,” said Meredith, intrigued. “Where are we going?”

  Gene’s eyes darted toward Seymour and he shook his head. “Wait until lunch,” he said, and impatient as Meredith was, she had to settle for that.

  She was en route to math class when she first heard it that morning—rapid-fire clicking, there and gone in the press of the hallway crowd. Whirling around, Meredith scanned the area, but no one looked particularly suspicious—of the fifty or so nearby students, the clicker could have been anyone or no one. When the sound came a second time, however, just after she had taken her math-class seat, Meredith immediately narrowed down the possibilities to a several-desk radius, then even further to the smirk on one student’s face—Barry Otash. But just to make sure, she leaned forward and poked Reb, who was hunched over her own desk, getting in some last-minute work on a mystery equation.

  “Have you heard any weird sounds around here lately?” Meredith asked, trying to make the question as open-ended as possible.

  “Yeah,” groaned Reb. “It’s Barry. He’s been madly clicking away since I sat down. I heard him tell someone he has a cavity ticking like a bomb in his mouth.”

  “A bomb?” repeated Meredith, startled.

  Reb’s gaze intensified, homing in. “Seymour?” she asked significantly.

  “I ... dunno,” faltered Meredith, glancing again at Barry. But before they could discuss the matter further, Mr. Jiminez stood up to begin the day’s lesson. Anything he had to say, however, was lost on Meredith as she sat pondering her own equations: clicking + Seymour = bomb. Or was it: Ronnie + threat = bomb? Whatever—the clicking in Meredith’s brain was about to blow sky-high. When Math ended, she took an alternate route to her next class, where it was less likely mouth clickers would be lying in wait. Unfortunately, her English classroom was situated halfway along a corridor, and as soon as she stepped into this hall, the clicking started up again. Glancing around, Meredith spotted the likely culprits ... two male seniors, their backs to her as they headed down the corridor. Neither had been with the Mol last week during the initial mouth-clicking episode.

  How many kids has Seymour pulled into this? wondered Meredith, as she watched the two seniors recede down the hall. And what are those guys thinking about as they click away like that—a cricket? Gunfire? Or a bomb ticking inside their mouths? Was it Ronnie who drew that bomb, or Seymour?

  Though she pondered these questions throughout English, no answers were forthcoming, and by the time she reached the tech wing’s north exit, she was disgruntled and ravenous. “Okay, Mr. Disgusted,” she called, catching sight of Gene by the doors. “I’ve been wondering all morning what this is about. It better be good!”

  Gene raised a mysterious eyebrow and intoned, “Follow me and all will be revealed.” Then, pushing open one of the doors, he headed out onto Quebec Street. “This way,” he said, setting off along the sidewalk. “It’s half a block down Melrose Avenue. Not too far.”

  “What is?” probed Meredith, quickening her pace to keep up.

  “You’ll have to see it to believe it,” said Gene. “I’m not sure I do yet.” Reaching the corner, he turned onto Melrose. “It’s on this side,” he said. “About five cars down.”

  “Five cars?” repeated Meredith. “So it’s a car?”

  “Sort of,” said Gene. Coming to a halt beside a black four-door, he added, “It’s in a car. This car. Check out the rear-view mirror.”

  The make of the car before Meredith was unfamiliar to her; its only i
dentifying logo, written in chrome, said Soul. Shifting her gaze to the car’s interior, she spotted Gene’s reason for bringing her here—her daffodil rain hat, dangling from the rearview mirror. Indignation exploded across her so intensely she felt slapped. “That’s ... psychotic!” she spluttered. “Deranged!” Taking hold of the nearest door handle, she attempted to open it, then progressed around the car, trying the others without success. “Fuck!” she howled, glaring at the oblivious vehicle. “It’s hanging right there ... and I can’t get at it.”

  “Hardly likely Seymour would leave his car unlocked,” Gene said dryly.

  “Seymour?” demanded Meredith.

  “It’s his car,” affirmed Gene.

  “He owns a car called a Soul?” squeaked Meredith. “And it’s black!” Astounded, she stared at the kidnapped rain hat. “It feels like it’s my butt he’s got in there,” she admitted. “I want it back.”

  “D’you know how to pick a car lock?” asked Gene. “It’s not one of my finely hewn skills.”

  “Hardly,” snorted Meredith. “If only I had a camera on me. My cell’s too cheap to take pictures.”

  “I’d take one for you if I could,” said Gene. “But I don’t carry a cell.”

  Turning, he started back toward the school, and Meredith fell in at his side. “How come?” she asked.

  “How come no cell?” he replied. “Ah—I like living on my own time. If you’ve got a cell, people think they own you.”

  “Oh,” said Meredith, startled. “I guess. I never thought of it like that.”

  “Mr. Disgusted again,” Gene said sheepishly. “As my mom would say.”

  “Does she have a cell?” asked Meredith.

  “Oh, yeah,” Gene said decisively. “Doesn’t yours?”

  Meredith hesitated, then said, “I don’t have a mom. Or a dad.”

  “No?” said Gene. Momentarily his face blanked, as people’s usually did when she presented them with this information. “I didn’t know that,” he murmured almost to himself, and, to her relief, he didn’t follow this up with an apology.