Fire Girl Part 1 Read online

  It didn’t matter, I reminded myself.

  None of this mattered.

  Sleek black and red lines leapt off the white canvas and caught my eye. Two people, wrapped in vines that pulled them apart were woven together and suspended in the air, with nothing to ground them except each other.

  He scowled ferociously. “What are you looking at?”

  I put back on the glare face, in case he’d missed it, and gestured to the paper. “Nothing, obviously.” What kind of football guy painted anyway? Especially a picture like that.

  His lips puckered in distaste, then went instantly back to his previous mocking smile. “You’d be wise to stay out of people’s business around here.”

  I pointed to his picture, dramatically. “That could not be classified as anything except a terrible piece of art.”

  Zac flipped the front of his hair back. The gray in his eyes took on a bored film. “You can’t insult me.”

  “And that’s your insult?”

  He tapped the end of his paintbrush against his lip. “Look, it’s hard not to miss a train wreck when you hear it coming at you. And I’ve heard all about you. I’ve heard about your parents and this last stint you had with mental problems. And—”

  “Shut up.” I said it too fast and hated that he would know he’d gotten the better of me.

  The edge of his lip turned up. “Don’t worry, I know the best thing to do is never get near the track.”

  My heart raced with fury. I dug my heel into the waxed linoleum and turned. “Don’t worry, this train will never get near you again.”

  “Yeah, whatever.” He called out after me.

  I bit into the bottom part of my lip. I hated his smug smile. I hated his scar that creased into his lip. And I hated him. I could not be happier to leave this place.

  I made a beeline for the bathroom so I could wipe off food splatters. I needed to get myself cleaned up and get out of here.

  I turned my bag to the side and dug for my cell phone. It flew out and dropped to the bathroom floor with a sharp, plastic crack.

  I picked it up and pressed the on button, annoyed at the crack in the screen. Five missed calls and one text from Carrie.

  Jimmy’s source backed out. Sorry! Will get it soon! I promise! XOXO

  Chapter 7 Stuck

  I watched Ms. Love from the back row of the choir room, estimating how much cash I could plausibly steal from AJ’s Pharmacy. How much cash would really be in the register in this town? I had to get out of here.

  “Time is something that you don’t realize how important it is, until it’s left you standing there without it.” Ms. Love smiled.

  I thought about Chance. I’d searched for him between classes to recover the letter, but he hadn’t been anywhere near his locker.

  “You are all so young.” Ms. Love paused. “As many of you know, I studied music in many different cities and countries. I had the opportunity to sing with some of the best musicians in the world. But, it wasn’t easy. It was something I had to grab hold of and run with as hard as I could.” Tears glistened in her eyes.

  She had left Sugar Valley?

  “The point of my lecture is to tell you that if you have a dream, take it. Take it and never look back.” She looked around the room. “Don’t forget to check the back wall for partner assignments on your first project.”

  A hand shot into the air from across the room.

  Him. The pit of my stomach churned.

  Ms. Love nodded. “Zachary.”

  “My partner dropped the class this morning. It’s not a big deal, I just thought I would let you know.”

  Ms. Love’s head twirled to me. “That works. Maddie, you’ll be teamed up with Zac.”

  ***

  The front office didn’t have the same homey feeling as it had yesterday morning. Principle Schmidt set his face into a grimace. “Maddie, I pride myself on being a good Principal. In fact, in the last twenty years, I have never had a student light anything on fire.” His cheeks looked as if he were carrying more water weight today, the white shirt and tie cutting into the flesh around his neck. “I’m letting you be part of my student work program as a favor. Your grandparents have been through a lot in the last year.” He held out a vile piece of orange clothing.

  I shook my head. “I’m not wearing that.”

  “Don’t be smart with me.” Principal Schmidt’s eyes narrowed. “You better knock this attitude right out the door. Look, I know you’ve been through a lot. I understand that. In fact, the meeting I have with your grandmother at four o’clock is to discuss just that issue.”

  I rolled my eyes. Not this. Not the whole ‘let’s get her to talk’ routine.

  “Your dad and I were good friends. Ya know what he told me one time?”

  I wanted to lash back with a quip, but I didn’t.

  “He told me that a real man faces the consequences of his actions. I bet he learned that from your grandpa.”

  Why did he always insist on talking about my father? I reached for my sunflower. I touched the front where the diamond met the silver. A few years ago one of the edges had started to lift. My mother had said we needed to take it to a jeweler to have it fixed, but we’d never gotten around to it. I pushed my thumb into the lifted side. I wanted to feel the hard, sharpness of pain. Why did he always insist on talking about my father?

  He shook his head. “I can call the police and file formal charges against you if you’d rather go that route.”

  I yanked the outfit out of his hand. “Fine.”

  Principal Schmidt lifted one eyebrow. “When you’ve changed your clothes, you can come back and get your assignment from Shirley.”

  I stalked out and turned for the girls’ locker room.

  It didn’t take long to change, but I drew the process out for a good fifteen minutes. I knew Chance would be on the football field by now for practice. It worried me. Something didn’t feel right. Not that anything had been right before. But, it somehow felt worse. A silent buzz. I didn’t want Chance to know the truth.

  When I stepped out of the locker room the front hallway sat abandoned. I entered the office and Shirley gave me a cursory glance then went back to her typing. She wanted me to know I wasn’t important. She smacked her gum and let tiny pops into the air. “Madeline Sue Haven. A fire? Please, could you have done something more original to get noticed?”

  It took me aback that she spoke out my official name so tersely. I didn’t know how to respond.

  She continued typing.

  “Schmidt said you’d have my assignment.”

  Her big hair shook as she shot to her feet and pointed a long, pink-painted nail at me. “You address him as Principal Schmidt, you got that? He’s earned that respect and you—do you know how many calls he’s taken today about that little dumpster stunt of yours?”

  I tried to look remorseful, but I could tell it didn’t surface. They wouldn’t understand. I wasn’t supposed to be here.

  She moved to the small divider that separated the waiting part of the office from the secretary part. “You watch yourself.” She leaned over and poked me in the shoulder. Hard. “You got that?”

  I grabbed my shoulder. My temper flared. “I didn’t think school officials were allowed to touch students.”

  Shirley’s anger smothered into a smile. “You’re not in Kansas anymore, Sweet cheeks.”

  That didn’t even make sense. Not really.

  Shirley walked backwards, suspicion in her eyes as though I would knife her in the back if given the chance. She opened a small closet and procured a big, black trash bag. She flung it at me over the divider. “Start at the football field and make your way toward the back parking lot. When it’s full, the kind of full that means you’ve stomped the crap out of it, then you can stop.”

  ***

  Endless trash clung to the fence next to the football field. Seriously, did every piece of land in this town have manure spread over it? I held a piece of trash and tried to fight my ga
g reflex. Every time I picked one up near the bottom the manure smell would surface like a dead body in a shallow grave—putrid, musty, disgusting.

  I thought about part-time jobs and how much I could earn. But that would mean time. Time didn’t mean fast.

  I scanned the circumference of the field. Bonnie and her crew practiced to the side of the football field, their toe touches and hand springs enough to put me off balance. I spotted something next to a gnarly, oak tree. The tree looked completely out of place. I squinted and then recognized her.

  Wheelchair girl.

  I walked closer and picked up pieces of trash along the fence. I couldn’t stop myself from looking at her. Who was she? Why was she sitting here watching football? Did she like it that much?

  Her face looked calm and serene and the relaxed way she watched the field made it look like a luxury, instead of a chore. Weird.

  I followed her intent gaze. The sleek lines of his uniform and the powerful way he cocked back his arm and then released the football into the air, took my breath away. For a second I almost forgot that I hated him.

  Zac.

  Fire Girl. Fury burned through me. What did he know?

  Stupid. Idiotic. Asinine.

  Chance leapt into the air and the football fell into his hands, a lightning rod at Zeus’s feet. He looked beautiful and graceful and exactly where he should be. He landed in the end zone and the coach blew the whistle. Chance let out a loud ‘in your face’ to the other players.

  He couldn’t have read the letter. Could he?

  He looked so normal out there trash talking.

  “He’s taken.”

  My heart sped up and I turned to see Trina.

  I lifted my eyebrows. “He’s my cousin.”

  She let out a low ‘ahh.’ It sounded sarcastic and knowing at the same time. “Right, I know Chance is your cousin, you’re the crazy one, remember?”

  I didn’t know why the tone of her voice put me on edge.

  Trina rolled her eyes. “You weren’t looking at your cousin the way you looked at the promised one.” She said it with sarcastic disgust.

  Zac. She hated him, too? She might be okay after all.

  She strummed another chord. “I see things. And, just so you know, she’s not all goo goo eyes for him, she’s his sister.”

  “What?” I glanced back at wheelchair girl.

  “Pathetic, right? They’re twins and Grace is the one that gets messed over. It's not right."

  Grace.

  “He’s such a . . .”

  Twins? I looked back at Zac on the field and then to Grace. “What’s wrong with her?”

  Trina shrugged. "It's something people like you wouldn't understand."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  Trina let out a cackle. “Why didn’t you just smoke that cigarette?”

  She had that gift of knowing exactly what to say at the worst moment to tick someone off. I knew it well. I had the gift, too.

  I ignored her and bent to pick up more trash.

  She leapt forward and closed the gap between us. “You’re strange. And no one likes strange around here, do you get that? You’re like the city wannabe in the small town.”

  I usually tried to walk away from eccentric, weird, crazy, but it’d been a couple of bad days. “Have you even looked in the mirror? You’re like—goth. But the problem is, no one else is. It’s like not a group here. Do you get that?” I copied her superior tone and flipped my hair as I walked away from her.

  She rushed next to me, so close the fabric of her dress flapped against me in the wind.

  I tried to walk faster and transferred the trash bag to the other hand.

  She cupped my bicep, her fingers like talons.

  “Let go!”

  Trina jerked her hand back.

  I knew there would be nail marks.

  “Come with me.”

  I paused, confused. I moved the opposite direction and reached for tiny bits of a Styrofoam cup ripped into pieces. “Please go away.”

  Her black laced up boot stomped in front of me. “Come on!”

  “Seriously, get away from me!”

  Trina spastically jumped in front of me. “Yes, yes, yes! You should come!”

  I flinched. “What-is-wrong-with-you?”

  “I totally know where to take you.”

  Without warning her face turned to a pout. She acted as though I were some long lost friend. “I’m serious. It’s totally cool. You’re going to dig it. And I know for a fact that Principal Schmidt always just leaves his work people to finish unsupervised. No one thinks he would do it, but that’s what he does.”

  She smelled like lemon and limes and something fruity. I tried to place the smell—skittles. “I happen to know he’s still here.”

  She grabbed my hand. “C’mon. Follow me and we’ll sneak you into the locker room to get your clothes.”

  I pulled my hand back. “Okay, first of all, you’re . . . weird. Maybe crazy, too. And second, I’m not going with you.”

  Trina clamped the talons back into my wrist. “Come with me and I’ll tell you what I said to Antone.”

  I twisted away from her. “I hate to burst your bubble, but I don’t care that much. I won’t be here anyway.”

  She let out another long breath. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Nothing.”

  I noticed Grandma’s brown station wagon pulling into the school parking lot. My heart sped up. I thought of going back to the farm with her. Going back and starting my farm training with Grandpa.

  “Who is that?”

  We both watched Grandma get out of her car and head toward the front doors, purse tucked tightly under her arm. Her hair looked freshly reddened and styled into a perfect, frozen ball around her head. She looked focused, purposeful. The way she had always been.

  “I’ll tell the old lady you were trying to light a fire out here.”

  My eyes met hers, the cat-like glow of them making her whole face take on a victorious, evil glee.

  “Go ahead.”

  The side of her lip ring rose. “I will. I so will.”

  I bent down. “Go ahead.”

  She repositioned herself next to me. “Don’t believe me.” She sang it out. “But your life’s gonna be even worse!”

  “Ahh, Ms. Boyce. Doesn’t surprise me the two of you have taken up together.” Officer Justice strode across the fence-line toward us. He looked as though he would protect the small town of Sugar Valley from the world’s greatest super villain if it were the last thing he’d do. He raised a bushier than average eyebrow. “An arsonist and—” He looked back at Trina and his lips curved distastefully. “What do they call you? Goof? Goop?”

  “Goth.” Trina cocked her head to the side and saddled him with a dangerous smile. “Oh, Officer Justice, right, like you’re some kind of bizarre-oh-world super hero?”

  Officer Justice stuck his chest out and scowled. “Watch yourself, Ms. Boyce, insulting an officer of the law is a crime in this town, even if your dad thinks he’s a hot shot attorney up north.”

  “Whatever.”

  His eyes clouded. He turned to me. “Please get back to your duty, Ms. Haven. You’ve strayed from your assigned spot.”

  “Mrs. Haven!”

  I turned toward the school.

  Principle Schmidt puffed down the steps.

  Grandma dashed for the station wagon.

  Grandma—running—in her newly done town hair?

  I took off toward her.

  “Now, wait just a minute, young lady!” Officer Justice called out.

  Grandma peeled out of the parking lot.

  Principle Schmidt turned red cheeks to me. “Maddie, quick, your Grandpa’s had a heart attack!”

  ***

  I rushed through the hospital doors.

  Officer Justice clutched my bicep. “Getting there any faster won’t make things different.” But he walked fast too.

  The hospital smelled—hospitally.
I covered my nose. Ugly beige furniture. Everything grossly sterile and old 1960s kind of hospital looking.

  I couldn’t explain the fear that gripped the outer reaches of my heart. Just because I wanted to leave Sugar Valley, just because I wanted to leave my grandparents, just because I hated my life, didn’t mean I ever, ever, ever wanted Grandpa or Grandma or Uncle Bill or Chance to die.

  Officer Justice stopped next to the nurses’ station.

  “Let me go!”

  He examined my eyes. “You may think people in this town don’t know how dangerous you are, but I do.”

  “Let go!” I struggled away from him. My mind flashed back to that night, the blue curtains, Carrie’s hands pushing me into the car.

  “Can I help you?” A nurse stepped to the counter.

  “Where’s my grandpa?” I stepped away from Officer Justice.

  She paused and looked between us.

  This hospital wasn’t big. She had to know who I was talking about. “Where?”

  She pointed to the end of the hall. “The last room on your right.”

  I took off at a sprint.

  “Madds!”

  Chance.

  I turned back. He wore his football gear and jogged toward me. “Is he okay?”

  “I don’t know. This way.”

  Chance followed.

  I moved into the room. Uncle Bill stood from a couch next to the bed. “Hey.”

  Grandma stood next to the bed, her hand pressed over Grandpa’s chest, her head bowed.

  A swell of emotion swept through my chest. I choked as tears filled my eyes. He could NOT be dying.

  Chance went to Grandma. “Is he okay?”

  Grandma covered her face and released a sob.

  I went to her other side.

  Grandpa opened his eyes. “I ain’t dead yet.”

  Chance jumped. “Grandpa!”

  My chest eased.

  Grandma laughed and mopped her face. “Frank.”

  Grandpa looked at Grandma. “You aren’t lucky enough to get rid of me yet.”

  Grandma gently kissed his cheek.

  He closed his eyes.

  “What happened?” I blurted it out.