The Big Splash (21 page)

“Morning, Matt.”

“Liz.”

“Heard you came to the restaurant last night.”

“Yeah. I wanted to see the specials.”

“What happened with Kevin?”

“I was upset you were out of shrimp.” I pulled out the picture of her and Joey. “Recognize this?”

“Of course.”

“Want to tell me about it?”

“Not much to tell. We went to a spring dance together. Someone snapped a picture. We both moved on with our lives.”

“Why him?”

“He asked me. Nobody else did,” she said accusingly.

“You went by the name ‘Beth' then, right?”

“I still go by Beth when someone calls me that. It's part of my name.”

“What about this?” I asked, pulling out the note signed by “B.” “Recognize it?”

“No.”

“Here. Maybe you're not looking close enough.” I handed it to her.

“‘Do it or get out of the way. —B,'” she read. “You think I'm ‘B' because I sometimes go by the name Beth and I'm in an old photo with Joey?”

“These two were in an envelope together. Joey had them on him right before your brother took care of him.” She winced, but I pressed on. “You never liked Nikki after what she did to Kevin.”

“You're wrong about that. I didn't like her before then.”

“This is serious, Liz.”

“I know. And I'm being serious, Matt,” she said in a mocking tone. “By all means, continue your accusation.”

“Did you do it?” I asked.

“Did I do what?”

“You know what.”

“I do, but I want you to say it.”

I ran my hand over my mouth.

“It's hard for you,” she said. “Good. It should be.”

“Did you take Nikki out?”

“No.”

“I don't believe you,” I said.

“I know, but I wish you did.”

“Come on, Liz, don't make this harder than it has to be.”

“Oh, I'm not going to make it hard. I'm going to make it really easy.” Her tone of voice was sad, but her eyes were
furious. “If that's the best you've got for evidence, then get lost. Katie'll never go for it, no matter how much she hates my brother and me.”

“I could convince her of the truth.”

“Is that really what you think of me, Matt? You think I could take someone out in cold blood like that?”

“I believe you can do anything you set your mind to.”

She slapped me hard across the face. “Hey, what do you know? You were right.”

I rubbed my jaw. Unlike Jenny, Liz packed a wallop. One of my loose molars popped out of its socket.

“Until you apologize or get more evidence, don't talk to me. Got it?” She stormed off without waiting for an answer.

I was still rubbing my jaw when Jimmy Mac came up behind me. “Man, that looked like it hurt.”

“You have no idea,” I said, then spit out the tooth. “Looks like I'll be getting a visit from the tooth fairy.”

“Yeah. Well, before I forget, here.” Jimmy handed me a bunch of newspaper clippings.

“What are these?”

“Yesterday, you asked me for anything I had on Melanie Kondo. I dug these up.”

The top article was from the Ellie paper a few years ago, introducing the newest batch of hall monitors for the year. Melanie was mentioned.

“What grade was she in when she joined the monitors?” I asked.

“Third. Youngest ever selected.”

“She was that good?”

“Just the opposite. She was running with the wrong crowd, and Katie tried to straighten her out.”

I nodded. “It's a hard life, especially when you're young. You've really got to love the sash.”

“I think it's fair to say that Mel doesn't,” Mac said. I nodded in agreement.

I flipped through the other articles in the pile. Melanie was mentioned as the hall monitor on the scene for some minor incidents, most involving crackdowns on runners in the halls. The last one was the one I wanted. It was a pretty big story about the Fourth-Grade Parade.

“You found it?” I said.

“Don't sound so surprised,” Mac answered.

It was a run-of-the-mill Ellie puff piece, talking about who the girls were, where they got their ideas, which songs they'd performed. At the time of the article, the most
recent song they'd done was “You Are My Sunshine.” A memory I forgot I had popped into my head. I remembered trooping into the cafeteria/auditorium/gym in the middle of the day, glad for any break in the daily routine. I remembered how the room had a weird, musty smell, like old clothes and paste. I remembered how cold and uncomfortable those metal folding chairs were. They had to be. The heat was cranked up to 85 degrees. If the chairs had been comfortable, I'd still be asleep there.

I remembered the first few notes of “You Are My Sunshine” blaring out over the P.A. system. The acoustics of the room were so bad that it took a minute before you knew what the song was, even though the title was written on signs all over the place. When the song started, Big Bobby Wetner came out on stage dressed as the sun. The audience almost erupted into laughter. Almost. Big Bobby was in fifth grade at the time, and he was almost twice the size of everybody else. The look on his face dared anyone in the audience to laugh at him. Nobody took him up on it. The rumor was that someone had caught Bobby with a cheat sheet in Math, and they gave him a choice: be the sun in the pageant or face the consequences. It had to be a kid who caught him. No teacher would ever give him a
deal like that. Still, watching him on stage, his legs bulging in tights like bright yellow sausages, I wondered if he had made the right decision.

Soon the stage was full of little girls dressed as various things in nature: flowers, birds, insects. I recognized a few of the girls: Jenny was a dragonfly, Liz was a butterfly, Mel was a— I stopped reminiscing for a second and hit the rewind button on my memory. I remembered watching Melanie dance and thinking how much she looked like a smaller, more relaxed version of her sister. She was dancing around the stage with a look of complete joy. Her face was just barely poking out of a costume that was a little too big for her … a costume that I had completely forgotten about until this very moment. A quick scan of the news story confirmed it.

“You okay, Matt?”

“Here,” I said, handing Jimmy the article. “Read the fourth paragraph out loud.”

“‘Playing the role of the sun was fifth grader Bobby Wetner,'” Jimmy read. “I remember that! He looked ridicul—”

“Keep reading.”

“Right. ‘Fourth grader Elizabeth Carling played the
butterfly, the part of the bumblebee was played by'—” He stopped short with a gasp. A small smile creased his face. “Bee,” he said.

“Bee,” I repeated as confirmation. I read the note aloud: “‘Do it or get out of the way. —B.'” It wasn't an initial from a name, it was a shorthand version of a nickname. I looked at the photo of Joey and Liz at the Spring Fling. This time, it looked different to me. Joey looked like he might be more interested in the photographer than in the girl he was sitting with. “Who took this picture?” I asked.

“I don't remember,” Jimmy said, “But the initials of whoever did are written in the back right corner.”

He was right. There they were, written in pencil so faint, you'd have to be looking for them to find them. I smiled again. I showed Jimmy. They matched the initials of the girl who played the bumblebee, the girl who it appeared had set Joey up, and taken Nikki out.

“You ready for your story?” I asked Mac.

“Does a nerd hate gym class?” he replied.

bell had rung. The hallway had emptied out except for one girl in an ill-fitting orange sash, standing at her locker, talking to her sister. Actually, her sister was talking to her, but she didn't seem to be listening. She kept stealing anxious glances down the hallway, almost as if she was looking for someone specific. When she saw me coming, there was a strange expression on her face, a weird mixture of relief and hatred. I was who she was looking for. She had been waiting for me.

“Hi, Bee,” I said to her.

Melanie Kondo sneered back at me. “Don't talk to me.”

“Too late, Bee.”

Katie looked at me, a little slow on the uptake. “What the hell's going on, Stevens?”

“Why don't you ask your sister?”

“Because I'm asking you.”

“Fine. I'll tell it. Melanie is the little ‘B' that put the sting on Nikki Fingers.”

“This better be a joke, Stevens,” Katie said.

“You see me laughing?”

Katie's face turned bright red, like an overripe tomato. “No, but in a second, I'm going to see you crying.” She advanced on me, ready to make good on her promise.

“Better watch it. The press is here,” I said, pointing to Jimmy Mac. “Police brutality stories sell lots of papers, right, Mac?” Mac looked a little overwhelmed, as if he wasn't sure if he should eat his pencil or use it to write something down.

Katie changed tactics. “Melanie, what's he talking about?”

I had the advantage. I had to press it. “It was Joey Renoni's pet name for you, wasn't it? He called you ‘Bee' after you played one in ‘You Are My Sunshine' back in
fourth. He had a crush on you, but you just wanted to be friends. You were saving yourself for someone else: Kevin.”

Melanie didn't say a word. A tear rolled silently down her cheek.

“Joey asked you to the fifth-grade Spring Fling, but you said no, hoping that Kevin would. Kevin never did, so you picked up a job snapping pics for the newspaper.” I pulled out the photo from my bag of evidence. “It was you who took this shot of Joey and Liz. Your initials are on the back. M.K.” I turned the photo and showed her. She didn't look, but Katie did.

“You gave this photo to Joey, with this note that said, ‘Do it or get out of the way. —B,' when you asked him to take out Nikki for you.”

“That's enough, Matt,” Katie said, but her voice lacked any real strength. I ignored her.

“You hoped that Joey still had a soft spot in his heart for you. He did. Unfortunately for you, he didn't have a soft spot in his head. He turned you down. He always talked about taking Nikki out, but he always knew that if he did, there'd be a price to pay. It was too steep a price just to fulfill an Ellie crush. You had to go with Plan B.”

Melanie's tears flowed freely. I felt bad for her, but I didn't stop.

“You had spent enough time with Joey to get his laugh down pat. You knew if you just covered your face, you could pass for him in a crowded hallway, especially with everyone distracted by Nikki. All you had to do was throw out the laugh and hope kids bit. They did.”

Katie looked at her sister as if she wasn't sure she recognized her. “Mel … Tell him it's not true.” Melanie looked at her sister with tear-filled eyes, her breath going in and out in a sharp staccato rhythm.

“It is true,” I said. “When I punched Kevin two days ago, you looked like you wanted to boil me in the lunch lady's chili. What would you do to someone who really hurt Kevin, someone like Nikki, who also happened to be your main competition? Easy. You bought her a oneway ticket to the Outs. And it didn't matter. Not one bit. Kevin still doesn't know you're alive.”

“You're wrong! He loves me! He said we'd be together!” Melanie said, then immediately clapped her hand over her mouth. She had said more than she wanted to, and it was too late for a do-over.

“Did Kevin put you up to it?” Katie asked.

Melanie didn't answer. She just stood there with her
eyes wide and her mouth covered.

“Did Kevin put you up to it?” Katie asked again. “Answer me!”

“
No!
It was
my
idea! He had nothing to do with it!” Melanie yelled back, putting herself between her locker and Katie.

Katie pushed her out of the way. Melanie fell to the ground, butt first. She made a desperate attempt to scramble to her feet, to try to stop Katie from opening her locker. It was too late. The Super Soaker that fell out was almost as big as Melanie. It was a wonder she was able to lift it, let alone fire it. It had once been bright yellow, but had been painted a subtle green to make it easier to hide. Katie stared at it, as if it were an exotic new species of animal, one that she had read about in stories but never thought existed. Melanie tried to get to her feet, ignoring the squirter. She was trying to get to something else, something that was still in her locker. Katie got there first.