Sally's Bones (8 page)

“Save it, Simplesmith,” Viola fumed. “I wouldn't go to your house if there was an earthquake and it was the last place standing. Enjoy tonight, because soon this will all be over. I told you not to cross me. Now you're going to be sorry. Now you're going to—”

“Viola, stop,” Sally interrupted. The mean girl gasped. Sally held her ground. “I won't let you scare me. Not anymore. I really don't want to be your enemy, but I won't be your whipping girl either. We need to find a way to live together, especially now that we have the same friends.”

“Friends?” Viola snorted, loading up with fresh ammunition. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me. You're still a freak, Sally, now there's just a show attached. But go ahead, embrace this new cult of your personality. Just remember, the higher you climb, the farther you'll fall.”

A car horn blew. Vivienne Vanderperfect stood beside her top-of-the-line SUV, which she had parked next to Mr. Simplesmith's slightly rusted station wagon. The two old friends seemed to be chatting up a storm. Seymour smiled at Vivienne as she waved to Viola and her friends.

“Ready?” Chati asked both girls when she returned.

“You know, I think I'm going to skip the slumber party tonight,” Viola announced.

“Oh, no, Viola, you can't!” Chati exclaimed, distraught.

“I am super tired, and I just realized I have a ton to do tomorrow. It's really better if I get a good night's sleep so I can conquer it all in the morning.” She glared at Sally. “You girls have a great time at Sally's without me.”

“If you're sure,” Chati wavered.

“Positive,” Viola confirmed. She hugged each of the girls good-bye, finishing with Sally. Holding her in a tight embrace, Viola whispered, “I told you if you crossed me it'd be your funeral. Now your time is up.”

Releasing her prey, Viola sauntered over to her mother, who was in the middle of a spirited conversation with Mr. Simplesmith.

“Well, wasn't that clever of you, Seymour,” Sally heard Vivienne say with a giggle as she and the rest of the girls arrived at the parked cars. “Not that I'm surprised. You always were the best at finding unlikely solutions to absurd problems. We'll have to get together soon so I can hear more about it!” As she returned to the driver's seat of her car, she offered Sally a quick wave. “And hello–good-bye to you too, Sally! Kiss kiss!”

Sally blushed as Mrs. Vanderperfect blew kisses at the air and smiled at her with more warmth than she thought Viola would ever be capable of. But the color drained from Sally's cheeks when she saw Vivienne's reaction to all the girls turning away from her beautiful SUV and piling into Seymour's old wagon. Though Viola remained perfectly poised in the passenger's seat as she explained the sleepover shuffle to her mother, Sally felt a pang of regret thanks to the look of disappointment on Mrs. Vanderperfect's face. But it was the brave, friendly smile Viola's mother gave Sally as they drove away that truly broke her heart.

On the first day of school after her slumber party, Sally entered the building braced for Viola's attack. Her entire weekend had been spent imagining horrifying scenarios, each worse than the next. Sally knew that she had never asked for this. All she ever wanted was a friend. But with each new waking nightmare came the same crystal-clear revelation: though she might not deserve Viola's cruelty, she wasn't going take it lying down. Sally would field anything Viola threw at her, and she would not go down without a knock-down, drag-out, kicking-and-screaming fight.

Unfortunately, Viola's wartime tactic was something Sally was entirely unprepared for. The armor she built was useless. The strategies she laid out, irrelevant. Viola's attack was brilliant, and had she not been so utterly unraveled by it, Sally might even have been impressed. To Sally's shock, terror, and awe, Viola Vanderperfect did the one thing she would never have imagined: absolutely nothing.

On Monday, Viola completely avoided her nemesis, finding clever ways to pass unnoticed in the halls. On Tuesday, she made a point of ignoring Sally, refusing to make eye contact when their paths did cross. But by the end of the week, the teenaged terrorist had actually acknowledged Sally on one occasion. And after ten days of shared lunch periods, Viola seemed resigned to her enemy's presence in her social circle, even addressing Sally directly in conversation twice.

By the time one month had passed, Sally was a complete wreck. If Viola had come at her directly, Sally could have handled it. She would have fought back, with truth and justice on her side. But the anticipation was killing her. Not knowing when Viola was going to strike or what she was truly plotting behind those arctic-blue eyes quickly became too much for Sally to bear.

She began missing school, and when she was there, she made regular visits to the nurse's office. When she was not in class, Bones was always at her side, but they played less and less. The anonymous notes had stopped altogether now, but even that was little comfort to Sally. It was all about Viola.

Sally wanted only to hurry home each day, lock the front door tight, and barricade herself in her room until it was time for dinner. Late evenings were spent listening to depressing emo-pop-rock until, mercifully, it was time for bed.

It was on a Thursday, almost five weeks after Viola's silent war had begun, when Bones seemed finally to have had enough. He was trotting behind a pitifully plodding Sally when he spotted their archenemy loitering beneath a cherry tree. Before Sally knew it, Bones had charged over to Viola and was giving her a piece of his mind.

“Grwoof Rara…Rararara…Rara…Ra,” Bones said as Sally scooped him up in her arms.

“Bones, stop!” she pleaded. “Viola, I'm so sorry. I don't know what's gotten into him.”

“It's OK,” Viola said, and she turned to enter the school.

“What do you mean, ‘it's OK'?” Sally asked. Her voice cracked, and she realized she was on the verge of tears. “Please, Viola, can you stop doing this? Can't we just get it over with?”

The beautiful bully looked at Sally with convincing confusion. “Get what over with? Sally, I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Of course you do,” Sally hollered in exasperation. “Why haven't you exacted your revenge already? Destroy me, make me miserable, pay me back for all the terrible things you think I've done. Just please do it now, because waiting has been torture. I don't care whether I deserve it or not, I just want it over with.” She looked Viola squarely in the eye. “Here I am. Come and get me.”

At first, Viola regarded Sally with uneasy disbelief. Then, quite suddenly, she began to laugh. “Do you mean to tell me that for over a month you've been totally stressed out, thinking I was plotting some huge punishment?”

“Well…yes?” Sally answered, suddenly unconvinced.

“And all this time, I was actually making an effort to leave you alone. To
not
let
you
bother
me
; to give up on putting you in your place. Ha!” she crowed. “Isn't that just the funniest thing you've ever heard?”

“Yeah,” said Sally. “Hilarious.”

Viola shook her head. “Listen, I can't imagine I'm ever going to like you, but I'm not sure I have the energy to bring you down either. I'm busy enough being beautiful and popular. So, I think I'd like to put the past behind us. Let's move on with our lives. What do you say?”

Sally contemplated Viola's proposal so intensely that her eyebrows nearly touched. “You're really going to leave me alone?” she asked.

“Leave. You. Alone.” Viola emphasized each word. “Yes. Now, if we can consider the hatchet buried, I have to make a stop before class. See you in homeroom?”

“Sure,” said Sally. “See you there.”

Viola hurried off, and Sally walked Bones to the schoolyard in silence, completely lost in thought. “I don't know, boy,” she finally said. “I just can't shake the feeling that that was too easy.”

Bones stiffened and refused to take another step.

“You think I'm being paranoid?”

“Gruff,” he told her plainly.

“Yeah. You're probably right. I'll try to take her at her word. I mean, what other choice do I have?”

“GGGgggrrr-uff! GGGgggrrr-uff!” Bones exclaimed and spun around in two circles. Sally smiled for what seemed like the first time in ages.

“Ha ha, OK. Point taken. I guess I have been a bit of a downer lately.” She scratched her dog on the top of his head and led him to a grassy area by the tire swings, not far from the shed. “Guess I'll see you back here at recess. Same bat time, same bat channel?”

“GGGgggrrr-uff!” he agreed and lay down, stretching out in a sunny spot. Sally relaxed her shoulders and headed into the school building. Even though she told herself not to be too trusting, she already felt lighter. She was daydreaming about a long-overdue trip to the graveyard with Bones when she knocked into Chati, who was running into class.

“Sorry, Chati. I was spacing. I didn't see you,” Sally said.

“Omigosh, omigosh, Sally, have you heard?” Chati's eyes gleamed, and she shook all over. Sally knew this look well. Chati Chattercathy was like a geyser about to erupt when she had a brand-new bit of gossip. Pulling Sally over to their gathered friends, Chati blew out all the air in her lungs before taking a deep breath. Then she was off.

“So, remember how I told you that my cousin, Vani, heard from our granny, Nanny, who was talking to the Fooleries, who knew about it from Greenly Thumb, who is best friends with Officer Stu, that someone has been stealing all the neighborhood dogs' bones?”

“Duh,” said Susannah. “Everyone knows about the bone snatcher. There isn't a dog in Merryland who isn't totally whacked-out.”

“Well, guess what?” Chati paused for effect. “They finally know who did it!”

The girls gasped in unison.

“Good day to be a dog,” said Danny Boi, who had been eavesdropping.

“You should know,” Chati cracked before shooing him away with her hands.

“No, I'm serious,” Danny continued. “My dog's been going nuts, snapping at everyone. It's like he looks at me and all he sees is a supersized boy-shaped bone.” A shiver ran through his body. “Even my brothers are freaked, and they're not afraid of anything.”

Chati patted Danny on the shoulder. “It has been a trial for our pets, hasn't it? Speaking of trials, do you think they'll have one?” Chati clapped her hands at the thought of it. “Omigosh that would be the most exciting thing to happen in Merryland since, well, since Viola moved back.”

Sally would have rolled her eyes at this comment, but she was too interested in discovering the true identity of the thief. “So who did it?” she asked.

Chati frowned. “I don't have that information right now. Vani didn't think to ask. She's not as thorough as I am. She has so much to learn. But she did find out that they'd been tracking the suspect for a while, and early this morning they caught a big break.” Chati tilted her head thoughtfully. “It still just seems so random. I mean, why would anybody steal from poor innocent puppies? What does someone need with a bunch of animal bones, anyway?”

“That's a very good question, Chati,” a sweet voice singsonged. Viola arrived in the doorway and glided over to her prattling peers. “I would assume that whoever took the bones really needed them for some incredibly important reason. To the thief, maybe it was a matter of life and death.” She turned to Sally and, in her most innocent voice, asked, “What do you think, Sally?”

“About what?”

“Well, who do you think would need so many bones? And why is this suddenly happening now? I mean, if I were going to steal something super necessary to my existence I might stock up on lip gloss…or blood.” Viola put her finger to her lips and looked off into the distance. “Come to think of it, timing is as much a question as motive. Who showed up right around the same time that all those bones went missing? And who do we know that is made entirely of bones and quite possibly needs new ones to survive?”

A fist of nausea punched Sally hard in the gut. She stumbled over to her desk and steadied herself. Though her vision was beginning to blur, she forced herself to focus when she noticed the edge of a white envelope sticking out of her desk. She tore it open and, with shaking hands, read the note.

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice, shame on you too!

And just to be sure you donÕt get me again

Today I destroy both you and your friend!

“No!” Sally gasped and sprinted from her classroom, down the hall, and out the side doors to the playground. There, in the grassy knoll beside the tire swings, was Bones, facing off against the D.C., who was charging at him with the long rod with the metal collar attached to its tip.

“Stop it!” Sally shrieked. “He didn't do anything! Leave him alone!”

At the sound of her voice, Bones turned, letting his guard down for only a moment. The D.C. snapped the collar around the dog's neck. “Gotcha, you little thief!”

“Ow-wooh-wooh-wooh,” Bones howled, and Sally ran to him.

“Let him go,” she commanded as she tried, in vain, to unlatch the collar.

“Not this time, girly,” the D.C. snarled. “This mutt has committed a crime, so now he's mine.”

“But he didn't do it!” Sally cried. By now, a crowd had gathered in the schoolyard.

“It's an open and shut case. Neighborhood dogs' bones start to go missing not long after a dog made of bones shows up in town. Seems perfectly clear to me.” The D.C. turned to Bones and sucked his teeth. “I'm gonna take you apart, bone by bone, and give each unhappy pooch a piece of you as retribution.”

Bones's eyes widened in terror, and Sally fought the urge to faint. She was scanning the crowd for someone who might help her just as Officer Stu stepped forward.

“What's going on here?”

“Officer Stu!” Sally was nearly in hysterics. “He says Bones is guilty of stealing all the other dogs' bones and that he's going to pick him apart and give a piece of him to everyone and you can't let him do that, please, you can't!”

“Oh, no, you don't,” the D.C. barked. “This
thing
has violated the unalienable rights of canine citizens everywhere: to play, obey, and pursue their own happiness. He's in my jurisdiction now. And this time I've got evidence.”

“Evidence?” Sally asked through her tears. “What evidence?”

The D.C. dragged Bones down the alley off the schoolyard, toward the secret shed. Sally, Officer Stu, and the gathered crowd followed.

“Got a call early this morning telling me all about the little devil's demented hideout. So I came to investigate, and I found his stash!” The D.C. threw open the door to the shed, revealing a small mound of animal bones piled in the corner. Bones pulled away, disgusted. “Let's see you talk your way out of this one, kid.”

“But—but it isn't possible,” Sally said, still processing the reality that her dog had been set up. “He couldn't do it, he wouldn't. You must have planted the bones, or someone else did. He's innocent! Bones is innocent!” Sally pleaded.

The D.C. laughed. “Aw, innocent until proven guilty, right? Well, what do you propose we do? Give the mutt a trial?”

“That's exactly what we're going to do,” said Officer Stu.

The dog catcher stopped laughing. He stared at Stu, aghast. “Why, that's ridiculous! It's a dog! Who would defend him?”

“Me,” Sally announced.

“And you can prosecute,” Stu told the D.C. “I'll be the judge.”

“Fine,” the superior little man agreed. “I've got witnesses aplenty. People who can prove this doggie's a delinquent. He won't get away from me this time. This menacing mongrel's going down!”