The Throne Page 3

  And she got up to get some ice cream.

  chapter 3

  It was the following morning. As Meredith strode through Polkton Collegiate’s corridors, shouts and whistle shrieks could be heard resounding from the gym. Other than that, the building was unnaturally quiet, the open doorways of classrooms revealing only the odd teacher or maintenance staff. Several minutes earlier, she had arrived at her usual entrance to discover it still locked, and had been forced to reroute through the school’s front door. Now, glancing at a nearby wall clock, she quickened her pace. “8:10 am,” she whispered under her breath. “Please God, please don’t let him already be there.”

  Heart in a steady thud, she descended the stairwell to the tech wing’s first floor and turned the corner. Empty! she thought, her relief so tangible she had to stop momentarily to absorb it. Ahead stretched the corridor that led to Home Form 75, its walls a dull yellow and a single row of closed olive-green lockers to her left. To her right, the door to her home form also stood closed; for an instant, Meredith wondered what she was going to do if she found it locked. When she tried the doorknob, however, it turned easily in her hand and, swallowing hard, she edged open the door.

  There it was, directly across from her—the drum set, perched on the back riser in a completely vacant room. Either Mr. Woolger was in one of the adjoining practice rooms, or he had temporarily stepped out. Feeling a trifle shaky, Meredith crossed to the three risers and climbed them, then paused beside the drum set, studying its gleaming, steel-ribbed outline. What on earth was she doing here? she wondered. What, after all, did she know about the drums, Nerve Central, or the kind of popularity that went with such a position? Bitter and stinging, doubt swamped her, but she pushed back and it gave way. With a deep breath, she stepped forward, intending to finally, gloriously park her butt, when she heard a sound behind her. Startled, she glanced around to see Seymour walk into the room. As he caught sight of her, he let loose with a loud hiss and stopped dead in his tracks. Their gazes locked; their breathing froze. Quickly, in an explosion of determination, Meredith sat down.

  Seymour’s eyes narrowed and he took a step forward, but then another sound from the doorway caused him to whirl around just as Mr. Woolger entered, carrying a stack of music folders and his ever-present conducting baton. Eyebrows lifting, the teacher glanced from Seymour to Meredith, and a knowing expression flashed across his face.

  “My, my—aren’t you the early birds,” he said, his tone slightly mocking. “Looking for the worm?”

  Seymour flinched visibly. Then, without speaking, he ducked past Mr. Woolger and out into the hall. Alone by the door, Mr. Woolger stood gazing through the classroom windows, a smug expression on his face.

  The gum wads! thought Meredith. He’s always suspected it was the Mol.

  “So, Meredith,” said Mr. Woolger, walking to his desk and setting down the music folders. “You have ascended the throne.”

  His words brought Meredith a moment of intense headiness, followed by a flicker of satisfaction like a ripple across the surface of a lake. Power, she thought, almost overwhelmed—it was a smooth, cool, snake-slither kind of feeling, there and gone, but once you experienced it, you wanted more, you knew you wanted more.

  “Yes sir, I have,” she said, trying to sound offhand.

  “Well,” he replied, waving his baton vaguely as he spoke. “Rule wisely and well.”

  Then, crossing to one of the practice rooms, he went in, leaving her alone with her decision and the memory of Seymour’s expression just before he had turned and left the room—angry at an assumption that had been overturned; betrayed, as if he had felt Meredith owed him obedience to that assumption; and ashamed ... the latter an emotion he probably rarely felt, and even more rarely displayed. The Ruler of the Underworld, Meredith realized with dismay, would not be happy about the fact that she had seen him in such a humiliating moment; he would not be happy at all. And, as Reb had said, he could carry a grudge—a complicated one. So while she still had it—the drum set, the throne, and her self-respect—she had just made an enemy, and a complicated one at that.

  With a sigh, she eased her knapsack to the floor. Tell me your secrets, she thought, splaying both hands lightly across the largest horizontal drum’s surface. Every single one of them. But tell me especially how I’m supposed to ride this damn thing out.

  It was going to be a long year, sitting high above the world behind the Mol’s rigid back, but she wasn’t ready to give up yet—not by a long shot.

  Tap tap, went her fingers, wandering across the drum. Tappety tappety tap tap tap.

  Determined to consolidate her claim to the throne, Meredith decided to put off going to her locker until after home form period. With approximately forty minutes to kill, the situation looked bleak, but she passed the time imagining the school’s far-from-noteworthy Concert Band playing songs by AC/DC and Nickelback. Around 8:45, students began to wander into the classroom, and both Kirstin and Sina left their front-row seats and climbed the risers to talk to her. Immediately, Mr. Woolger shooed them off the third riser, claiming too many students crowded in together would damage the percussion instruments. Relegated to floor level, the two girls stood at the riser’s outer edge, gazing up admiringly at Meredith as they chatted.

  About this time, Gene and Morey came through the doorway, engrossed in an argument over whether or not David Beckham was worth his salary. Not a big soccer fan, Meredith kept one ear tuned to their conversation and the other to her floor-level friends. Looking down at Sina and Kirstin from her perch behind the drums, Meredith felt an undeniable flush of importance that faded only with Seymour’s entrance, seconds before the last warning bell. Without a glance in her direction, he strode to the second riser and sat down, then launched himself into Gene’s and Morey’s debate, which had since morphed into a discussion concerning the relative merits of Oh Henry! and Mr. Big chocolate bars. Siding with Gene, he pronounced Mr. Big a “patently obvious second-rate imitation” before falling into the obligatory, if resigned, silence required during the playing of the national anthem.

  After the morning announcements, the three again took up the Oh Henry!–Mr. Big debate, Gene scooting his chair out from behind the xylophone in order to get closer to the action. “Mr. Big’s peanuts are a bust,” he declared, interrupting Morey’s enraptured description of the Mr. Big taste explosion. “Soggy. Inferior. Like chewing wet cardboard.”

  “Rubbish!” cried Morey, waving a dismissive hand. “Mr. Big’s peanuts snap, crackle, and pop between the teeth. They are veritable dining ecstasy. Face it, Bussidor—Oh Henry!’s an Oh Goner. Mr. Big came along, and after that the competition became very smaaaaaaall.”

  “Smaaaaaaall is the size of your brain,” grunted Seymour. “And your taste buds. Anyone who’s taken a nibble of an Oh Henry!, caught a whiff of its delicate scent—”

  It was at this point that Meredith, heart pounding, reached for her knapsack and began rooting around the contents, pulling out her binder, math supplies, and gym shoes. A chocolate-bar addict, she usually had a mound of empty wrappers collecting at the bottom, but try as she might, she couldn’t remember if she had bought an Oh Henry! or Mr. Big recently. Ears glued to the ongoing dispute, she pawed impatiently through the candy wrappers currently inhabiting her knapsack. An Oh Henry!, that was what she was looking for, she decided—an Oh Henry! to bring another smile to Gene’s face, and hopefully appease Seymour. But to her dismay, she couldn’t locate either an Oh Henry! or a Mr. Big wrapper and, finally, in one swift movement, she upended her knapsack onto the surface of the largest horizontal drum, spilling out an entire summer’s worth of chocolate-bar wrappers.

  “Whoa!” said Gene, staring at the mound of Mars Bars, Caramilk, and Big Turk wrappers. Then, with a glance toward the front of the room, he added, “Lucky Woolger just went into a practice room. He’d freak if he saw that.”

  “It’s just chocolate-bar wrappers,” Meredith assured him. “I took everything else out first.”r />
  “Aha!” cried Morey. Leaning forward, he snatched the edge of a bright yellow wrapper and extracted it from the pile. “A Mr. Big!” he proclaimed triumphantly. “A Mr. Big that was eaten by a Grade 10 student—the wave of the future! I rest my case.”

  “Your case needs resting,” grinned Gene. “It needs burying alive.”

  “May I keep this wrapper?” Morey asked Meredith, pointedly ignoring Gene’s last comment. “It will be a ... a ...” Morey’s face screwed itself up tightly as he went into deep thought, chasing the words he was seeking, and then he announced, “a symbol of our mutual pact against the evil Oh Henry! eaters!”

  An ear-to-ear grin split Meredith’s face. She had done it, she realized jubilantly—had broken through the unspoken but constantly assumed barrier that existed between junior and senior students ... and it had been so easy. “Sure!” she shrugged. “I just keep them in my knapsack to make my binder smell like chocolate.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Morey, taking a voluminous sniff of the Mr. Big wrapper. “Exquisite, the scent of the gods—”

  The end-of-home-form bell erupted, cutting him off mid-sentence, and Meredith began frantically scooping the candy wrappers back into her knapsack. Amiably, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Gene and Morey leaned down, picked up several that had dropped to the floor, and handed them to her. “A Mr. Big,” said Gene as he got to his feet. “You’re a bit short to be eating one of those, aren’t you?”

  “Not if I keep eating them,” Meredith shot back and he grinned, acknowledging her scored point before starting down the risers after Morey. Alone behind the drums, Meredith sat for a moment, watching the two of them head out the door. That had been fun, she thought—certainly more interesting than any of last year’s home form periods. In the end, all her concern and advance scheming had been for naught, and the three male seniors had welcomed her easily into their camaraderie.

  No, not three, she realized, doing a quick review of the conversation. From the point at which she had joined in, Seymour had said nothing, retreating into a silence so icy, he had actually turned himself physically out of the discussion and sat facing the front of the room. The debate had been at its most animated, and neither Morey nor Gene appeared to have noticed; nor had they taken note when the end-of-period bell had gone off and Seymour had leapt to his feet, leading the rush for the door.

  Would things have gone differently, wondered Meredith, if it had been an Oh Henry! wrapper that Morey had spotted in her knapsack pile? That would have put her on Seymour’s side, square in his camp for once. But no, she thought, considering, probably not. It wasn’t as if the Mol cared what brand of chocolate bar she favored; it was her butt he was interested in—as in the absence of her butt with regard to its current home form placement.

  Well, she decided, picking up her knapsack and starting down the risers, whatever—if that was the way Seymour wanted to be, she wasn’t going to make it her problem. Ruler of the Underworld he might be, but as far as she could see, that didn’t mean much; she was the one with the throne, after all, and Gene and Morey hadn’t even noticed Seymour’s silent temper tantrum.

  Heading out the door, she booted it to the nearest girls washroom.

  The rest of the day passed without incident, and it was only as Meredith was leaving the school building with Reb and Dean that the events from home form period came back to her. Animatedly, a wide grin on her face, she recounted the entire episode, giving a sentence-by-sentence replay of the Oh Henry!–Mr. Big debate. With the laughter and remarks interjected by her friends, it took several blocks to complete the tale—just enough time to reach the nearest 7-Eleven. “Seymour was sitting there like an ice pick!” declared Meredith as they turned into the parking lot. “I mean, that frozen, like he really wanted to chop me into little pieces.”

  “Psychologically disturbed,” muttered Dean, gearing herself up for another Mount Matsumoto eruption, but was cut off by Reb, who had reached out to touch Meredith’s arm.

  “Don’t look now,” Reb said quietly, “but there he is—the Mol. In that yellow Jeep opposite the store door.”

  Instantly Meredith’s eyes zeroed in on the Jeep, scanning the male driver and female front-seat passenger before settling on Seymour in the back. Sprawled beside a second girl, he was regaling his audience with an apparently captivating tale, and they were all turned in their seats, sucking down Slurpees and throwing in the occasional comment. Rooted to the spot, Meredith stood observing the scene before her so intently, she was practically absorbing it through her skin. Gradually, only gradually, did she become aware of the pounding of her heart and her white-knuckled grip on her knapsack shoulder straps.

  “Big Man Jock,” sniffed Dean to her left. “More like Big Man Jerk.”

  “I told you,” Reb corrected her, “he’s not a major jock. More like a jock sidekick.”

  “Yeah, okay,” agreed Dean. “Big Man Side-Jerk.” Glancing at Meredith, she added quickly, “What’s the matter, Mere? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “A ghost?” echoed Meredith. Letting go of her shoulder straps, she flexed her fingers. “I ... didn’t expect to see him here, I guess,” she mumbled. “Especially when we were just talking about him.”

  “Come on,” said Dean, glaring at the Jeep. “We’ll go in and buy three Mr. Bigs, then come back out eating them and walk right past him. Show him who’s going to take up space!”

  Giggling nervously, Meredith started across the parking lot in Dean’s purposeful wake. By the time she reached the store entrance, her heartbeat had slowed, but still she was jittery—her voice overly loud, her laughter too high-pitched. Once inside the store, she followed Dean to the chocolate bar display and they each selected a Mr. Big. To their surprise, however, Reb bypassed the candy bars and walked to the rear of the store, where she pulled a bottle of fruit punch from the drinks cooler.

  “I like Oh Henry! better—evil me,” she shrugged at them. “But I won’t betray you by buying one.”

  “I like Oh Henry! better, too!” protested Dean, waving her Mr. Big like an accusing finger. “It’s the point of the thing, isn’t it?”

  “The point is that it’d probably make my boobs bigger,” responded Reb, and the three crowed with laughter as they turned toward the till.

  And saw him—Seymour, a half-empty Slurpee in one hand, coming through the doorway with his friends. Immediately Meredith felt a kind of cloud settle over her—dense, wary, apprehensive. Her reaction was irrational, she knew that. There was no reason for Seymour’s presence to alarm her; this store was regularly frequented by Polkton Collegiate students, and he most certainly was not here today to irritate her.

  On the other hand, he and his friends had already purchased their Slurpees, so why would they all feel the urge to re-enter the store now, just after she had come in? Eyes narrowed, Meredith stood beside the drinks cooler, watching Seymour and his entourage approach the till. The effect of their presence was tangible—all over the store heads turned, conversations faltered, and, when a male student second in line waved Seymour into position ahead of him, grimaces and sighs broke out, but no one further back protested. With a smug grin, Seymour placed an order for several lottery tickets; while the clerk processed his purchase, his friends lounged nearby, their laughter breaking out sporadically as they ignored everyone in the vicinity.

  No, not everyone, Meredith corrected herself. Though no one in the group looked directly at her, she realized that she was being observed as closely as she was studying them. Rapidly flitting glances took in her crumpled T-shirt and shorts; suave peripheral vision assessed the Mr. Big clutched in her sweaty right hand and the two friends standing beside her. By the time Seymour had bought his tickets, pointedly keeping his back to her the entire time, his buddies had not only established that Meredith was right-handed, they knew the brand of her running shoes and knapsack, and exactly how many days it had been since she had last shaved her legs. Their expressions said it all: Minor-ni
ner, graduated by default. Tempest in a teaspoon.

  Then, turning, the group meandered out the door, the swagger obvious both in their voices and hips. Just outside the store, Seymour made a comment, and all four broke into uproarious laughter. Though Meredith hadn’t heard what had been said, and had no concrete reason to believe it concerned her, still, a flush swarmed her face. So what if they’re talking about me? she thought, chagrined at her response. I was just talking about him, wasn’t I? Striding to the back of the line, she took up position, ninth from the till. Behind her, she felt Dean and Reb step into place, and knew without looking that they were staring through the store window, eyes fixed on the yellow Jeep as it pulled out of its parking spot and exited the lot.

  Not me! Meredith decided. Not the butt that owned the throne—she wasn’t going to be caught standing with her gaze fixed on Seymour and his loser lottery tickets as he roared off into the sound of contemptuous laughter. A silent, rigid backside might be all he intended to give her for the rest of the year, but if so, that was his loss, not hers—she was fifteen, this was her Grade 10 year, and she fully intended to take up every millimeter of available space.

  When Meredith got outside the store, she unwrapped her Mr. Big to find she had been clutching it so tightly, some of the chocolate had melted, leaving the indent of her grip clearly outlined on the bar.

  chapter 4

  The following morning, Meredith waited until 8:50 to walk into home form, figuring that having gotten to the drums first three days running had consolidated her butt-rights to the throne. As expected, she entered the room to find the drum set uninhabited; Seymour’s, Gene’s, and Morey’s seats were also empty. To celebrate what she considered her now uncontested status, Meredith spent several minutes talking to Sina in the first row before climbing the risers and taking her place at the peak of the room. A minute before nine, Seymour, Morey, and Gene breezed in, caught up in another of their endless-yet-amicable disagreements, and took their seats. Meredith felt it immediately—a hum in the air, a tangible field of energy the three created between themselves. Just being close to it made her feel buzzed, as if she had been plugged into an invisible circuit.