Invisible (10 page)

I stare at the completed sigil and feel my anger drain into it.

As I stare into its twists and curves I imagine licks of flame and searing heat. I look over at the school and imagine the bricks and steel melting into slag.

And I see someone walking toward me.

It's Andy.

“Hey,” he says, sitting down next to me. “Watching the game?”

“I'm processing my anger,” I say.

“Is that like processing cheese?” He grins.

A few minutes ago I was mad at him, but now I see his smile and listen to his incredibly stupid joke and all my anger melts away. How could I stay mad at Andy?

“Yeah, it's like cheese,” I say.

“What are you drawing? Is that a fire?”

“It's a flaming sigil.”

“Oh, cool!”

“So how come
you're
here? I thought you had Spanish class.”

“I looked out the window and I saw you sitting out here, so I told Mrs. Garcia I had to go throw up.” He laughs. “You know what she said? She said, ‘You don't look so sick to me, but okay, you go
vómito
.'”

“What if she looks out the window and sees you?”

“She won't. So, I guess you're pretty mad at everybody.”

“You could say that. I'm thinking about burning down the school. Only I don't think brick is flammable.”

“You're quite mad, you know,” he says in a British accent, doing James Bond.

“Not mad, disturbed.”

“Okay, disturbed. But let's not burn down the school. I've got a better idea.”

“What's that?”

“You got any change?”

I dig in my pocket and come out with a quarter and three dimes.

Andy stands up. “C'mon.”

T
his is power: You drop a metal disk into a slot in a metal box, speak a few carefully chosen words into a black plastic contrivance, and minutes later seventeen hundred people (give or take a few) instantly drop whatever they are doing and file out of a huge red brick building into the sunlight.

Andy and I watch from across the street, then slip into the throng. Several teachers are trying to herd us toward the stadium. Everybody is talking and moving and bouncing off each other, tossing misinformation back and forth:

“… just a drill …”

“… fire in the basement …”

I get separated from Andy in the confusion of bodies and am absorbed into the crowd.

“… somebody got shot.”

“Omigod, who got shot?” says a dark-haired girl to my right.

“It's a bomb threat,” I say, getting into the spirit of it, enjoying being part of the crowd, bumping against her with my shoulder.

She gives me a nasty look and moves away, but I hear her tell someone there's a bomb in the school.

“… gonna blow up the school …”

“… probably a gas leak …”

“… I feel sick …”

I am craning my neck, looking for Andy, when I see Melissa Haverman. I move toward her, but she sees me coming and her eyes go wide and she moves away. I'm cut off by a tight clot of sophomores.

“I heard there's a bomb,” I say, trying to break through.

They don't hear me. There are too many voices.

“… fire in the chemistry lab …”

“… practice drill …”

“… terrorists …”

“… I heard it was gas …”

“… poison gas …”

“… explosion …”

“… killed …”

The shouts of the teachers are lost in the shuffling and chatter, and I lose track of Melissa. Two police cars show up just as the last people leave the building. They
get out their bullhorns and help herd us to the stadium. We squeeze in four abreast through the gates and spill onto the field. Kids are looking for their friends, trying to gather into their cliques and clubs and friends and subcultures—jocks looking for jocks, boyfriends seeking girlfriends, pretty girls looking for the other pretty girls, goth seeking goth—but we are being herded mercilessly, the cops and the teachers teaming up to organize the mass of students. It takes about twenty minutes to get us all into the stands and seated. I can't see Andy anywhere.

I am sitting between two guys I don't know and who don't know me.

One of them says, “This is so stupid.”

“How do you know?” I ask him.

“It's just some sort of prank. Somebody pulled the fire alarm or something.”

“It's not a fire alarm,” I tell him. “It's a bomb threat.”

“How do you know?”

“I heard one of the teachers say so. I think it's serious.”

“Seriously stupid, maybe. When's the last time you heard of a school blowing up?”

“That doesn't mean it couldn't be real.”

“It's just some jerkball with a phone. It's
always
some idiot with a phone.”

“You don't know what you're talking about,” I say, a bit nettled. “You don't know who it was, and you don't know if there's a bomb.”

“You'll see,” he says.

One of the teachers—no, it's Principal Janssen—has borrowed a bullhorn from one of the cops.

“ATTENTION … could I have your attention,
please!” He gives the chatter a few seconds to die down. “As you all probably know by now, we received a phone call from someone claiming to have planted a bomb in the school—”

“I told you,” I say to the kid on my right. He ignores me.

“In all likelihood,” Principal Janssen continues, “this is a misguided prank. The police are going through the building right now. The process will take them about two hours, which will take us to the end of the school day—”

A weak cheer emanates from parts of the stands and several students stand up as if to leave.

“Sit DOWN. This is NOT cause for celebration, and NO ONE is leaving until two fifty. This is a serious matter. It is serious any time there is a threat to our safety. And I promise you, we will find the person or persons behind this, whether or not that threat is real, and they will be held accountable.”

He goes on for a while but eventually winds down. Conversation in the stands is mostly speculation about who might have phoned in the bomb threat. The most popular theory is that it was a student from St. Andrew Valley High, our rival school. A couple of the goth kids are also mentioned, just because they wear black and act spooky.

I don't hear anyone mention me or Andy.

N
ews of the bomb threat does not make anything easier at home. My mother sees it as another excuse to put me in a private school. My father, naturally, is opposed. He uses logic to make his point:

“DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THOSE PLACES COST?”

“Yes, but his school is receiving bomb threats. How can he learn properly in such an environment?”

“THERE WAS NO BOMB!”

My mother starts shaking, but she doesn't give up.

“The Catholic school isn't that expensive—”

“WE AREN'T CATHOLIC!”

“You don't have to be Catholic, and they have a very good program—”

“WHAT DID I JUST SAY?”

And so on. Of course, my father has logic on his side, and he can yell louder, so I'm pretty sure I'm not going to Catholic school anytime soon.

That night I dream of fires and explosions and student bodies moving in great masses from one building to another and bumping into Melissa Haverman. I bump her again and again, but she won't look at me. And then Andy is there, floating like a ghost, laughing at me. I wake up. The room is dark. My clock reads 3:17, the same number as my room at the hospital. Seventeen everywhere. I am seventeen. Seventeen is the seventh prime number. I sit up in bed and listen. All is silent. I go to the window and open it. Andy's window is shut. The blinds are closed. I call out his name once, but I know he won't hear me. After a time I return to bed and close my eyes and imagine a train passing. The engine has long passed; the end of the train is nowhere in sight. I count the cars: boxcar, container car, Pressureaide freight car, tank car, tank car, tank car, Coalveyor, boxcar, boxcar, passenger car, passenger car, passenger car, passenger car, passenger car, passenger car, passenger car, passenger car, passenger car, passenger car, passenger car, passenger car, passenger car, passenger car, passenger car, passenger car, passenger car, passenger car, passenger car, passenger car. …

In the morning everybody at school is talking about the bomb threat. I weave through the crowded halls, everyone
ignoring me. I stop at my locker and spin the combination lock. …

Something is wrong. The lock feels wrong. It turns too easily, without the usual faint clicking. I pull up on the handle and the door swings open and I stare at the contents.

Someone has been in my locker.

I sort through my stuff to see what is missing. My books are there, and my extra sweatshirt, and my file folders full of old papers. …

Someone's hand comes down on my shoulder and I jump.

“Easy, Douglas.” It's Principal Janssen.

“Someone broke into my locker,” I say.

“It's okay, Douglas. We need you down at the office.”

His hand is still gripping my shoulder.

“Somebody was in my locker!”

Kids are stopping in the hall, staring at us. I guess I was yelling.

“Come along,” says Principal Janssen, pulling me away from the locker.

“My stuff!”

“No one will bother your stuff.” He shifts his grip to my upper arm. I see flashes of faces as he moves me quickly down the hall, I try to keep up, but my feet barely touch the floor. Everyone we pass is looking at us. Looking at me.

P
rincipal Janssen's office is on the east side of the building. The morning sun slices through the aluminum blinds, puncturing my skull like a bright yellow knife. Their eyes are cutting at me too. Six eyes: Janssen, Ms. Neidermeyer, and the cop. The same cop who accused me of spying on Melissa Haverman. The same mustached cop who visited me in the hospital and who refused to put my attackers in jail where they belong.

“Douglas, this is Officer John Hughes. He is with the Juvenile Affairs Division of the Fairview Police Department.”

Officer Hughes gives me a small nod.

“We've met,” I say.

Principal Janssen clears his throat. “We'd like to talk about yesterday afternoon, Douglas. Do you have anything to tell us?”

“What do you mean?” I say, all innocent and bewildered.

The three of them exchange glances. Ms. Neidermeyer leans forward in her chair.

“Douglas, we know who called in the bomb threat yesterday.”

For the next seventeen seconds there is much staring and waiting. I finally break the silence. “Well? Are you going to tell me who it was?”

“Douglas, you know who it was. You were seen.”

“Seen where?”

“Several students saw you in the football stadium just before the phone call.”

“I was in the stadium,” I say. “It was my study hall period. I was working on an art project. Do you want to see it?”

“No,” says Principal Janssen. “What we want, young man, is for you to come clean with us. We know you called in that bomb threat.”

“No I didn't,” I say, looking him straight in the eye.

He seems surprised by that. Leaning forward, he ticks off several points on his fingers.

“You were seen in the stadium at one thirty. A few minutes later you left the stadium. At 1:39, the bomb threat call was made from the pay phone outside of Gunnerson's Market, one block from the stadium.” He pauses, fixing his muddy eyes on me. “You made that call, Douglas.”

“It wasn't me.”

“Yes, Douglas, it
was
you. A cashier at Gunnerson's Market recognized you.”

“You're lying,” I say. I was keeping a lookout when Andy made the call. No one saw us. The cashier must be lying—or Janssen is lying about what the cashier said—because if somebody had really seen us at the phone they would have seen us both. I feel myself getting all scrambled inside, like my thoughts are getting tangled in my intestines. Are they letting Andy off the hook because he is on the football team? Or do they have him in another room? Maybe he is being interrogated right now by the vice principal, the football coach, and the chief of police. I've seen it on TV: divide and conquer. But Andy would never betray me. He wouldn't.

“We're not lying, Douglas. We're giving you a chance to own up to your actions. This is a serious matter, and I'll be straight with you—you will not be allowed to continue as a student here at Fairview Central. Our zero tolerance policy is quite clear on that.”

“But I didn't DO anything!” My voice sounds weird. Am I shouting? I try to bring it back down. “How do you know it wasn't somebody from St. Andrew Valley?”

“Douglas, the question is not who made the phone call. We know it was you. The question now is whether you will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. You are seventeen years old—you're not a little kid anymore. An offense such as this could result in jail time.”