Freeze Tag (6 page)

“Hey, Lannie,” said West easily. As if it were quite ordinary to bump into her in his car. As if it meant nothing now, and was not going to mean anything later. “Want a ride home? We’ll drop you off.”

But it did mean something, Lannie being there in Meghan’s place. Meghan could not quite get in the front seat and sit next to Lannie. Not after she had remembered the dog.

West did not look at Meghan. She could not exchange thoughts by eye. What shall I do? thought Meghan, as if her life depended on it. After a moment she got in the backseat by herself.

Lannie smiled victoriously and rested a hand on West’s thigh.

Meghan was outraged. That’s my place! she thought. Don’t you touch him! He’s mine!

But she did not say anything.

None of them said anything. Meghan did not think she had ever driven down these roads and kept silent. She did not think she had ever come out of school without a thousand stories and complaints and jokes to tell.

West seemed to sit very casually in the driver’s seat, rather like a van driver who’d been giving rides for a hundred years and drove with a single fingertip, a slouch, and a shrug.

They reached Dark Fern Lane without having uttered a word. And it was Lannie, taking control, who spoke first. “Drop Meghan off,” said Lannie. Her voice was as cold as January.

Meghan pressed back against the upholstery. Lannie seemed to have lowered the temperature in the whole car, just by speaking. As if her breath carried frost with it.

“Aw, come on, Lannie,” said West. “I had lunch with you.” As if that were enough. As if Lannie Anveill would settle for that. “Meghan and I have plans.” As if Lannie cared. As if Lannie were going to allow those plans to be executed.

Outside was very January. Cold and waiting, the weather hiding behind a gray sky, waiting to blast them out of their safe houses. The ground hard as iron, expecting snow, needing snow.

In the backseat, Meghan felt queerly numb. She lifted her hands, to be sure she still had them. Drop me off, she thought. Off what? A cliff?

And suddenly she knew.

A glaze frosted her eyes, like the day she had been frozen in the yard.

A glaze of knowledge.

Lannie turned around to glare at Meghan for taking so long. Her hooded eyelids lifted and the dark irises glowed like the Northern Lights. “Get out of the car, Meghan,” said Lannie, in a voice as flat as a table.

“Lannie,” breathed Meghan. She was trembling so hard she did not see how she could pick up her bookbag, or find the door handle.

Lannie smiled her smile of ice and snow.

“Did you freeze your own mother?” said Meghan. “Is that why the car crashed? Because she was frozen?”

Because that’s why I didn’t go to the funeral, thought Meghan. I remember it now. I was sure Lannie made her mother pay for loving the dog more.

The bleached eyes swung from Meghan to West.

West’s big hands tightened on the steering wheel.

“Look at me, West,” whispered Lannie.

“Don’t look at her,” said Meghan. But Meghan couldn’t look away. Nor could she move. She was afraid to lean forward and so much as rest her hand on West’s shoulder. She was afraid to touch the door handle, for fear that Lannie had infected it, and it would be a carrier, as wires carry electricity.

“Is that why the car crashed?” said West. His voice, too, was flat. But his throat gave him away. It gagged.

Lannie’s smile was as sharp as a splinter. “Maybe,” she said. And then she laughed, and the laugh pierced Meghan’s skin and hurt.

A few houses down Dark Fern Lane, the school bus stopped.

Children poured out.

Tuesday, who had a generous and romantic nature, and therefore usually let West and Meghan ride home by themselves, got off last. She separated from the little ones. Her dark blonde hair bounced against her neon pink windbreaker. She swung her yellow bookbag in a circle and jumped successfully over an ice-crusted puddle in a driveway. She was laughing. She must have had a great day, or a funny ride home, because even though she was on her own now, the laugh was still carrying her.

“Why, it’s Tuesday,” said Lannie sweetly. “Dear Tuesday. I’ve never liked her either, really. Wouldn’t it be unfortunate if …” Lannie smiled. Then she said once more, “Get out of the car, Meghan.”

Tuesday hurled her bookbag toward her own front steps — missing by a hundred yards — and headed toward her brother and her best friend. “Hi, Meggie-Megs!” shouted Tuesday.

It was a very old nickname.

Meghan hardly knew which person it meant: she felt at least a century older than the little girl who had once been called Meggie-Megs by the neighborhood.

The only sound inside the car was the sound of West trying to swallow and not managing.

For a moment Meghan was furious with West. What was the matter with him? What did he think those big wide shoulders were for? They were for taking control and throwing people like Lannie Anveill out into the street.

But muscles meant nothing.

Not against a touch like Lannie Anveill’s.

West’s and Meghan’s eyes met. This time the message they exchanged was very clear. They were trapped. “You better get out of the car,” said West, his eyes going helplessly to his little sister.

Meghan got out slowly, holding the door open, as if nothing more could happen until the door was closed: The car could not leave, Lannie could not have him, nobody could be frozen, all was well, as long as she held the door open.

“Get out,” said Lannie, “or I’ll freeze Tuesday.”

Meghan slammed the door. She ran forward to deflect Tuesday from her path toward the car.

Lannie shifted her insubstantial weight closer to the driver. She said something. Her tongue flickered when she spoke. Snakelike.

West drove away.

“West is going somewhere with Lannie?” Tuesday said. “What is he — a mental case? Nobody goes anywhere with Lannie.”

“Lannie needs to talk,” said Meghan. This was an accepted teenage reason for doing anything: if people needed to talk, you needed to listen.

“Lannie?” said Tuesday skeptically. “Talk? Right. Lannie doesn’t
do
talk, Meggie-Megs, you know that.”

Meghan changed the subject. “You’re pretty bouncy, Tues. What happened today?”

“Well!” said Tuesday, beaming. “You’ll never guess!”

“Tell me,” said Meghan, linking arms with her.

What would West and Lannie do on this afternoon? Where would West drive? What would Lannie want from him? Meghan tried to imagine what it would be like for West, sitting in that front seat, Lannie inches away, with her contented chuckle and her pencil-thin arms and her terrible touch.

But from the way Lannie had moved, she was no longer inches away. She was there.

The emotions ripped through her all over again: the fear, the panic, the rage … and even a very little bit of the understanding.

Meghan followed Tuesday into the Trevors’ house. There was always a lot of food at the Trevors’. Nobody ever dieted there. There was chocolate cake and rocky road ice cream and mint candy and cheese popcorn and onion bagels and sliced strawberries. Meghan’s family had things like diet Coke and celery sticks.

The kitchen was entirely white: Mrs. Trevor had redone it a few years ago and it reminded Meghan of a hospital room. It looked like the kind of room you’d hose down after the autopsy.

But the family left debris everywhere: on the counter were a bright plaid bowling ball bag, a pile of trumpet music, a stack of old homework papers, a folder of phone numbers, two pairs of sneakers, folded laundry, and breakfast dishes piled with toast crusts.

It was so real.

So ordinary.

So comforting.

Meghan knew right away that her worries were false and exaggerated.

Nobody freezes anybody, thought Meghan. I can’t believe that West and I let ourselves fall for Lannie’s silliness. No wonder she was laughing at us. We fell for her dumb story. Poor old Lannie needs to be the center of attention and did she accomplish it this time! I’m such a jerk.

Meghan helped herself to a handful of cheese popcorn and then a dozen chocolate chips from the bag — nobody ever got around to making cookies in this family; they just ate the chips straight — and then a glass of raspberry ginger ale and finally some of the strawberries. Tuesday meanwhile had strawberries on Cheerios with lots of milk, tossing in a few chocolate chips for variety. For quite a while there was no sound but the contented intake of really good snacks.

“They chose me to hostess the JV cheerleaders’ slumber party!” said Tuesday, sighing with the joy and the honor. “It’s going to be here, Meggie-Megs! Isn’t that wonderful? They want to have it at my house.”

It did not necessarily indicate that Tuesday had become the most popular girl on earth. Mrs. Trevor was probably just the only parent willing to have a dozen screaming ninth- and tenth-grade girls overnight. Plus Mrs. Trevor would certainly have the most food and be the most liberal about what movies they could rent.

But Tuesday didn’t see it that way. Nobody ever sees popularity that way. And Lannie probably didn’t see that she had blackmailed West into driving away with her; Lannie probably thought she was just getting her fair share of popularity at last.

At that moment, Mrs. Trevor came home. She was a very attractive woman. Heavy, but the kind of heavy where you would never want her to lose weight: she was perfect the way she was. All the neighborhood children called her Mom even though everybody but Lannie had a mom of their own. “Hi, Mom,” said Tuesday happily.

“Hi, Mom,” said Meghan.

Mrs. Trevor hugged and kissed and made sure everybody had had enough to eat. Then she made sure she had enough to eat, too. “Tell me that I did not see my son driving around with Lannie Anveill.”

“You did not,” said Tuesday agreeably.

“Yes, I did,” said her mother. “What’s going on?”

“Lannie has a crush on West,” said Tuesday, “didn’t you know that?”

“Of course I knew that. But West is dating Meghan.”

“They’re just going to talk,” said Meghan.

Mrs. Trevor got out her huge coffeemaker, the one that dripped and kept for hours. Meghan was happy. She loved the smell (but hated the taste) of coffee. For a really good kitchen smell, you needed bacon, too. If Meghan told Mrs. Trevor that, Mrs. Trevor would have bacon in that skillet in a second. She would think it was a perfectly good reason to cook some: because Meghan wanted to smell it.

“I feel funny,” said Tuesday suddenly.

“You do?” said her mother, all concern. “In what way, darling?”

“Frozen!” said Tuesday. She rubbed at her own skin, trying to warm herself with friction.

There is such a thing, thought Meghan, as being too understanding. Or perhaps that’s not it at all. Perhaps I’m just too afraid to think about what’s really happening. I’m too eager to put it on the shelf and pretend it’s not there. But Lannie’s come off the shelf. She’s here. She’s not going away.

She has West.

She could have Tuesday.

What am I going to do?

Meghan thought of saying: Mom Trevor, Lannie has evil powers, she can freeze people, she froze me once, she froze the Irish setter, and probably froze her own mother. Now she’s threatening to freeze Tuesday. So since we now both want your son West, what do I do? I can’t sacrifice Tuesday.

Mrs. Trevor would laugh and say, “No, really, what is going on?”

Meghan was a great fan of television real-life shows. She adored
America’s Most Wanted
, and
Cops
, and
Rescue 911
, and all shows of rescue and law and order. She imagined herself calling the police. Hi, my boyfriend is driving around town with this girl who …

Right.

When they stopped laughing (and her call would be taped! Her voice would be forever captured on tape — so jealous of her boyfriend she called the police when somebody else sat in his car!) they’d say, “Okay, honey, get a grip on yourself.”

“Do you think Lannie is capable of love?” asked Tuesday.

“No,” said Mrs. Trevor. She didn’t add to that.

Meghan couldn’t stand it. She liked long answers. “Why not?” said Meghan.

“She never had any. I’ve never seen a child so thoroughly abandoned. Why, even when her mother was alive, I never saw anybody pick Lannie up, or kiss her, or hug her. She put herself to bed, nobody ever tucked her in. She ate alone, nobody ever shared a meal with her.”

The coffee was made. Mrs. Trevor poured herself a big mug and added lots of sugar and milk. Meghan thought anything a Trevor did would always be sweet and warm like that.

“Poor Lannie,” said Mrs. Trevor. “It’s enough to freeze your heart.”

T
UESDAY AND HER MOTHER
discussed the slumber party. Mrs. Trevor agreed to everything.

Meghan was impressed. Her own mother would be thinking up blockades, barricades. Battening down the hatches of the house to protect the Moores against the cheerleader invasion. Her own mother would confine the girls to the yard and the basement playroom. On the night of the party, Meghan’s mother would constantly roam the place, keeping an eye on things and maintaining standards.

Mrs. Trevor didn’t have any to maintain, which streamlined the whole event.

Meghan wished she was a JV cheerleader and could come.

But she was not and, as the afternoon passed, she felt more and more left out of the celebration. When eventually Meghan slipped out and headed home, Tuesday and Mrs. Trevor scarcely noticed.

When Meghan was little, the front yards on Dark Fern Lane had seemed like vast stretches of green grass. When they played yard games, what great distances their little legs had had to pump! When Lannie was It, what terrifying expanses of empty space Meghan had been forced to flee over.

Now the beginner bushes were fat and sprawling. Meghan’s father liked to prune and trim his bushes, and in the Moores’ yard, the bushes were neat and round, like plums. But the Trevors never trimmed, and the long thin tentacles of forsythia bushes arced through the darkness. Icy fronds touched Meghan’s face and twisted cords grabbed her waist.