Hyde and Shriek (8 page)

He held up the apple. “Want it?”

“Sure. Thank you very much.” I took the apple from him. What a great kid. As he left, I thought about all the other kids Ms. Hyde had tormented today. There was nothing I could do about the past. But at least I could control the present.

Thinking about the last two days, I understood more of what had been happening to me. There was a pattern. The change from Jackie to Ms. Hyde wasn't random. Any type of goodness—any great act of kindness—could pull me from my evil side. Rory's actions had done it. So had Dawn's kindness earlier. And Lud's actions in the mall.

But it worked both ways: Bad acts drove Jackie away, leaving the door open for Ms. Hyde to return. I knew that if I wanted to keep from becoming Ms. Hyde again, I'd have to stay away from anger and hatred and anything else that came from the dark side of human nature.

That would be difficult. Maybe even impossible. But I had to try. I had to stay as Jackie if I ever wanted to become Miss Clevis again. As Jackie, I could search for a cure. Ms. Hyde would never want a cure. She'd want to stay as she was.

And each time I became her, she got stronger. Worse, she drove the goodness out of all those around her. Look what she'd done to Dawn. Sooner or later, she'd try to destroy Rory.

Poor Dawn. I realized she must have been hurt by all she'd gone through. I had to see her and try to fix the damage that Ms. Hyde had done.

I just hoped she wasn't so filled with anger that she drove me back to being Ms. Hyde. It was a chance I'd have to take.

 

Twenty

FACE-TO-FACE

I found her sitting on her front porch, brushing Newton. Even from a distance, I could tell she was still hurt and angry. This could be dangerous. If she lashed out with her bitterness, I might get flung back into being Ms. Hyde. And that wouldn't just be bad for me. I knew that Ms. Hyde would do whatever she could to destroy Dawn, or to drag her down to that world where everything was anger and hate. And an angry Dawn would have no chance against whatever other attacks Ms. Hyde launched.

“What a beautiful dog,” I said.

Dawn looked up from the dog. “Oh, hi.” No smile.

I hesitated for a moment. But a thought gave me courage: If Ms. Hyde could bring out the bad side of people, maybe I could bring out the good side. And with Dawn, there was already so much goodness. I walked over to the bottom of the porch steps.

“What's the matter?” I asked. “You look upset.”

“That awful teacher,” Dawn said, glaring at me. “She got me in trouble. And I didn't do anything.” She threw down the dog brush. “It's not fair.”

This wasn't going well. I could feel her anger. It splashed over me like acid. I took a step back. What could I tell her? That life was fair? No. That wasn't true. Sometimes life wasn't fair. Good things happened to bad people. And bad things happened to good people.

“Not fair at all,” she said.

I couldn't lie to her. But I couldn't walk away. And if I stayed, I was sure the waves of hate and self-pity would push me back to where I didn't want to go. There was only one thing I could do.

“Hey, I'm really sorry you feel bad,” I said, taking a step back toward her. “You're a good person. It hurts me to see you unhappy.”

She looked right into my eyes. I could almost see her own good and bad sides waging war. Newton lifted his head and licked Dawn's cheek.

“See,” I said. “He's sorry, too.”

She smiled. It was as if a light had been switched on in a dark cave. “Thanks. It's been a rough day.”

“You're telling me.” I smiled back.

Dawn patted the porch next to her. I climbed the steps and sat down. Newton acknowledged my presence by rolling on his back and letting me rub his belly.

“Where'd he get his name?” I asked.

“From the scientist,” she said.

“Do you like science?” I asked.

Dawn nodded. “I don't get the greatest grades in the world, but I really like science. We've got a really good science teacher, too.”

“That's great,” I said, interrupting her. I didn't want to hear praise about myself when she didn't know that I was me. It wouldn't be right.

“If there's one thing Miss Clevis taught us, it's to make careful observations. And to look for connections.” Dawn stopped talking and stared at me.

I glanced down at the steps. “So what have you observed?” I asked.

“Miss Clevis, who's never been sick as far as I can remember, is suddenly gone. At the same time, two new people show up.” She paused again as if she suddenly realized another connection. Then she gasped. “And I've never seen those two together.”

“You never will,” I told her.

“Jackie,” she asked, “what's really going on? Who are you?”

 

Twenty-one

TELLING THE TALE

“This might be a little hard to believe,” I said. It was still hard for me to believe, and I'd been living through it.

“I'll believe you,” she said. “Just tell me.”

So I told her what I knew. I explained about the changes. And about the evil side of me. “Anything bad could make me change back,” I said. “Please, be real careful not to get angry around me.”

“Don't worry,” Dawn told me. “I'll be careful. I don't get angry much, anyhow. I wouldn't even be angry today if it wasn't for that whole stupid thing in the principal's office. I couldn't believe he gave me that lecture. I didn't do anything to deserve it. It's not—” She stopped and clamped a hand over her own mouth.

“I'm okay,” I assured her. But even that small burst of anger had hurt me.

She lowered her hand. “Sorry.”

“Don't worry about it.”

“Hey—if you're aware of Ms. Hyde, do you think she's aware of you?”

That was a good question. “As far as I can remember, she thinks differently. I can accept that I have a bad side. But I don't think she can truly accept that she has a good side. She's too proud to see herself as she really is.”

Dawn sat for a while. So did I. It was nice being on the porch with her and her dog. It didn't solve anything, but it was a good place to be. Finally, she spoke three words that went right to the center of the problem: “So now what?”

“I have to figure out how to become myself again. There has to be a way. If I can be forced to become Ms. Hyde or Jackie, maybe I can be forced back to being Miss Clevis. I just don't know how.”

“But you're a science teacher,” Dawn said. “You have to figure something out. Look at all the stuff you taught me. Think about the science fair. All those kids learned what they know from you. My project's not great—but it wouldn't be even half as good if you weren't my teacher.”

“But I'm not me right now,” I said. “I mean, I'm not the science teacher.” I guess there was still a science teacher deep inside of me, because I had an idea. I thought about the fair. And about Dawn's project. “Let's go up to your room,” I said. Maybe there was an answer.…

Before we could move, Newton picked his head up from Dawn's lap and looked down the street. I looked, too. Sebastian and Norman were heading our way, walking down the sidewalk in their bare feet. Their pants legs were all wet and muddy, and their shirts were drenched with sweat.

Newton barked. Sebastian and Norman looked over.

“Wow,” Dawn said, calling to them. “You sure look like a mess. What happened?”

“What happened?” Sebastian yelled. “I'll tell you what happened!” His anger washed over me.

 

Twenty-two

HOW TO DRIVE SOMEONE ANGRY

“That stupid, ugly, idiotic substitute. That's what's the matter.” Sebastian kicked the bottom step of the porch. “I hate her!”

“Sebastian, stop!” Dawn shouted. “You're angry.”

“Of course I'm angry, you twit!” he yelled. “You'd be angry too if you'd just spent the day walking barefoot through a dump, a swamp, and a road where every single person in town must have taken their dogs for a walk. Horses, too, from what I could tell. You think a dump is bad? At least most of the stuff is in bags. Do you have any idea what kind of trash people throw out on the road?” He kicked the step again.

“This was unconscionable behavior,” Norman said. “I'm virtually inarticulate with rage!”

I stood up and staggered down the steps, searching around for a way to escape.

“Just shut up, okay?” Dawn said, her own voice tinged with anger. “You're making trouble.”

“I'm making trouble?” Sebastian said. “Me? Who are you to talk? You got to run some errand to the principal's office and miss out on the whole wonderful field trip. Teacher's pet. You had it easy.”

“Easy?” Dawn said. “You jerk.”

The rest was just an angry buzz. I pushed between Norman and Sebastian and raced toward the sidewalk, trying to get away from them before the change took hold of me.

“Wait!” Dawn called. “I'm sorry. We didn't mean to be angry.”

At the corner, I spun back to face them. The world turned dark in an instant. Then everything got clear. Little monsters. That's what they were. I'd take care of them. All of them. And the little brother, too. I'd show them fear and anger. But not yet. Right now, I needed time to plan. I needed time to gather my strength. But that wouldn't be hard. Lewington lay ahead of me, ripe with opportunities, filled with chances to drive people to the depths of misery.

I ran back to the school and got my car. What better way to cause chaos? I roared out of the parking lot entrance, right in front of a delivery truck, forcing the driver to jam on his brakes. The shriek of tires was like a song to me. At the next corner, I got right up behind a woman at the light and honked my horn. She turned and glared at me. I laughed and waved at her. Then I slowed down to a crawl, so the traffic piled up behind me.

For the next hour, I made as many people as I could furious. The thought of all that anger thrilled me. Better yet, I knew each angry person would take that anger and spread it to everyone he met. The truck driver I'd cut off would cut someone else off. The woman I'd honked at would honk at someone else. I'd thrown a rock in a pool, spreading a ripple of rage that went on and on.

As wonderful as the car was for making the world a miserable place, I started to grow tired of it. I needed a change. I needed to do something splendidly awful. Instead of ruining one person's day at a time, I wanted to make the whole town miserable.

I drove home. All night, I thought about the best way to make Lewington suffer. Even in my sleep, I dreamed of schemes. When I woke, it all fell together. What a perfect plan.

I knew just where to go.

 

Twenty-three

A DANGEROUS REACTION

As soon as I got dressed, I hurried out of the house. There wasn't much time.

The lock on the side door to the school had been broken years ago. Nobody ever worried about it, because Lewington is such a nice, safe place. Fools. I slipped inside the building and headed to the gym. Everything was set up for the science fair. I guess other teachers had stepped in to help during Miss Clevis's absence. I looked around, searching for the best way to turn the event into a total disaster.

At first, I didn't see anything promising. There's little chance for disaster in the typical science fair project. Most of them are just made up of wood or wire or papier-mâché. Nothing dangerous. But thanks to one student, this wasn't a typical science fair. And there it was, the answer to my hopes, sprawling across the top of four card tables—Norman's scale-model nuclear reactor. Thank goodness he had so much brilliance and so little common sense. What a marvelous combination.

I went over and examined it. As far as I could tell, it was just like a full-sized reactor. He'd even made up a set of miniature instruction books and a thin book with a bright red cover labeled
DISASTER EVACUATION PLAN
. How charming.

And how appropriate for my plans.

If the cooling cycle failed, the reactor would overheat. Then it would melt down and turn the gym into a radioactive mess. Nobody would be able to go near the school for a couple hundred thousand years. That would certainly ruin a lot of things for a lot of people. Of course, that would happen only if the cooling system failed. And of course, I was going to make sure that it would do just that.

It took me less than ten minutes to find the thermostat and move the probe outside the reactor core. Perfect. Now, no matter how hot it got, the reactor would act like it wasn't overheating.

I slipped back in my car and sat in the driver's seat so when people started to arrive in the parking lot, it would look like I'd just gotten there myself. Pretty soon, they opened up the school. Students and teachers started to show up, along with lots of parents. The more, the better.