Undercurrent (17 page)

This is my chance—my only chance. I leap over the coffee table, sending a stack of empty beer cans flying, then dive through a gap in the wide-eyed onlookers. Hunter shouts after me. But I don’t look back. Like a rat with a broom at its ass, I flee toward the kitchen, scurrying under and over anyone in my way.

From there I make it through the half-open door leading outside. I run down the back porch and across the lawn. Unfortunately I discover it’s a dead end, fenced in high on all sides. And now I’m really scared, because I’m wasting time trying to find a way out. The gate that leads to the front yard is padlocked shut. Swearing, I shake it in frustration.

“Cal went out the back!” I hear someone say. “Like a second ago!”

Well, I’m done. I put my forehead against the gate. The scrawled words from the trailer are written in fire on my brain:

SCREW IVY AND YOU’RE DEAD!

So that’s it—it was Hunter with the lampshade on his head. But no, that guy was smaller, I’m certain. I remember how I first chased the hooded figure, running across the field and vaulting over the fence after him.

Wait . . .

Go over, go over, go over!

But in the dark backyard, it’s not quite that easy. My sneakers squeak as they slip on the planks of the fence. Come on, come on!

“Yo, there he is!” a voice shouts.

I can hear my sprinting pursuers just as I find a foothold. My adrenaline spikes—I propel myself upward and clear the top. But I land hard, falling on my side. There’s a bang as someone runs straight into the gate, the crack of splitting wood.

The lock holds though.

I scramble to my feet and take off, as fast as I’ve ever run in my life. No burning lungs, no heavy legs. Run or die, my body knows.

I bolt straight out into the road, nearly getting hit by a pickup. Was it Mr. Guise’s? I think so—I saw a dented bumper. It was moving so slowly, I thought it was parked.

I don’t confirm. I keep running. Because the last thing I need is another enemy on my tail.

I see Ivy’s car ahead, gleaming like a jewel under a streetlight. I have her keys, I remember.

And I am the designated driver. . . .

I’m forced to slow down in order to get the keys out of my pocket, which are luckily on the left and not stuffed under the roll of bills. I glance quickly over my shoulder as the automatic locks open. No one on my heels. I jump into the car.

Despite what Ivy believes, the only actual driving experience I remember having is lumbering my dad’s van around a parking lot four or five times. But that’s not a big concern right now. More pressing is locking the doors and getting this heap into Drive.

Looking in the mirror, I suddenly see Hunter and his friends. But they are surrounding that pickup for some reason, shouting and slamming their palms against the side panels. I hear the sharp sound of breaking glass.

Whatever, I think, and start the engine. Before they realize their mistake, I’ll be out of here. I floor it.

Dad’s van does not accelerate with anything near the power that Ivy’s little sports car unleashes. Barely missing the bumper of a parked car in front of me, I’m thrown back against the seat as I struggle to keep the car pointed straight down the road.

Once in some sort of control, I breath out in relief. It occurs to me that Ivy is going to be pretty unhappy at finding her brand-new car missing. I know I would be. Remembering how drunk she was, I wonder if I’m actually doing her a favor.

But about a mile away, when I take a corner too fast and crash the car into a pole, I wonder no longer.

CHAPTER 16

An air bag is not something you want exploding in your face, it
turns out. This time, it’s the Harris nose that takes the brunt of it. Still, I guess it beats being dead.

And now I have to get out of here. For all I know, Hunter and company are already chasing me down in another vehicle.

I manage to get the door open and pull myself out. After tossing the keys inside, I ditch the hissing wreck, clawing my way through some woods until I arrive on another street. I then start hoofing it back, sticking to the shadows and the backstreets as much as I can.

It’s a long journey on foot. By the time I arrive home, my parents are in bed, and the house is dark. I fall into bed, exhausted.

The next day, I don’t even turn on the computer, much less log in and check my messages. My face is a real mess, particularly my nose. I just sit in my room, refusing to come out, expecting the sheriff and Ivy’s parents to pull up in the drive at any moment.

They never do.

Later I pretend I’m sick with a cold so I don’t have to go down for dinner. My mother brings me soup and toast and doesn’t say much, other than to comment on my swollen nose. By the evening, my big, red schnoz looks like I’ve been blowing it for the past two days. I’ve even filled my garbage can with balled-up tissues to complete the effect.

Saturday goes. And then most of Sunday. I’m now wondering if I’m actually going to get away with this—destroying a car and walking off like nothing happened. It seems incredible. But I still have to go to school. What’s in store for me there, I have no idea. Something is.

The phone rings for the first time this whole weekend. I jump out of bed and rush to the door. I can hear my mother answer downstairs.

“Cal!” she shouts, making me jump. “Phone for you!”

I look at the phone. I’m scared to pick up.

“Cal!” my mother calls again.

I lift the receiver and clamp a hand over the mouthpiece. “Got it!” I shout back. I can hear the downstairs phone disconnect as I put the receiver to my ear.

“Hello?” I say.

There’s nothing on the other end—no breathing, nothing.

“Callum?” a familiar voice finally asks.

“Yeah,” I say, overjoyed to hear my full name. “It’s me.”

“Hi,” the voice says. “It’s Willow.”

Monday morning comes. I stand by my bedroom window with a towel around my waist. Rain pounds through the leaves. I’m exhausted, having hardly slept at all.

The conversation with Willow felt like it went by fast, but we must have been on for a while. Because the story I ended up telling her was long.

Willow sounded more like herself, if not as friendly, at the beginning of the call. She’d found my family’s number in the phone book, she explained. She’d been thinking about all the things I’d said about her father’s new family. How could I know all that? she wanted to know. Because, just as I thought, she had never told anyone, not even her best friend, Lizzie.

I did most of the talking after that, trying to explain. The whole story just poured out of me, all of the things I’d recently experienced, from the terrifying moment of my fall to the increasingly dangerous present. I told her everything—about the town’s transformation and the sheriff’s interview; about the figure in the hood and the attack in the trailer. I even told her about the gun I found in my desk, about stealing the whiskey, and crashing Ivy’s car. And finally I told her how sorry I was for hurting that kid in the hallway, that I had never done anything like that in my life before, and how much her horrified face had haunted me afterward.

From time to time, it became so silent on the other end that I’d panic and ask if she was still there. But each time she’d respond, her voice soft but uncertain.

When the story was finally finished, I began talking about her, about all the things I knew about her past and her present. Again, she stayed on the line, mostly in silence, giving me no idea of whether any of the things I said were still true. And then I talked about the friendship that we’d shared.

Finally I sputtered to a stop.

“Okay,” she said. “So what now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, what are you going to do now?”

It was a good question—one I had no answer for.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I really don’t know.”

The conversation ended soon after, when Willow’s mother came home. I put down the phone. It struck me that she’d never once said that she believed any of it. But she did, didn’t she? Otherwise why stay on the phone? Why ask me what I was going to do next?

A jolt of fear went through me as I considered that it might have been some sort of a setup, by the police or someone, to get me to admit to my crimes. If so, I was in a lot of trouble. Willow now knew everything. But I couldn’t believe that. She would never do such a thing.

Still, I was no further ahead. Willow had only listened to me, not magically become one of my best friends again. And she hadn’t given me a shred of advice on what I should do next.

Which means I really don’t want to go to school. But I have no choice, and it’s getting late. I take off the towel and dry my hair some more, careful not to press too hard on my scabs. Then I go through my drawers, pulling out clothes. I pick out a long-sleeved T-shirt and some jeans.

I head down for a quick breakfast—a bowl of cereal and a piece of toast. I drain a cup of coffee and notice my hands shaking as I jam my lunch into my schoolbag. But it’s not the caffeine, I know.

It’s the fear—it’s worse than ever. But it feels like something is pushing me out the door.

Mom insists on driving me because of the rain. “You’re still recovering, Cal. You could get pneumonia in this weather.” So much for my latest plan: to ditch and hide in a park or something. But by the time we get to the car, we’re both already soaked. I couldn’t spend the day out in this; there’s no way.

We set off in the hatchback, wipers squelching across the windshield. It’s really coming down now. I can’t even see the falls as we cross the bridge. I think about Mr. Schroeder fishing for something in the river and the blue thing I saw bobbing up just before. Was that what he was trying to snag? If so, he wasn’t even close to succeeding.

Ten minutes later we pull up in front of school. In this weather, nobody is lingering outside, not even the tough kids who usually steal smokes behind the trees out front.

“Thanks for the lift,” I say to my mother.

My mother smiles thinly. “Be good, Cal.”

“Okay,” I answer. If she only knew the things I’ve done, I think, pulling up the hood on my rain jacket. What I’ve had to do
.
From the look on her face, it’s like she already does.

I enter the lobby dripping wet. I keep my hood up and head to my locker. There I find my timid little neighbor blocking my lock. “Excuse me,” I say. He jumps like I poked him with a stick.

I check the schedule taped on the inside of the door. I don’t want to hang around the halls for long, especially at my locker. But who knows where my books are under all this crap?

Just as I start gently pulling, hoping to avoid a landslide, I spot Ivy heading down the hall. Okay, here we go. Because I’ve decided Ivy is a person I should not avoid, but rather face immediately. And I’ve already figured out how. I’ll say I gave her back her keys, but that she was drunk and waving them around on a pinkie. She must have dropped them, and someone must have gone for a joy ride.

Then, before she gets a chance to argue, I’m going straight on the attack, accusing her of nearly getting me killed. Why are you messing around if you have a boyfriend? As Cole taught me so many times, the best defense is always a strong offense.

As she draws near, I stand up and square my shoulders.

“Did you
crash
my car?” Ivy yells, eyes blazing.

“Ivy,” I say. I feel my shoulders roll forward; my offense has already unraveled. “Listen, I’m really sorry. . . .”

“You crashed my car!” she shouts. “And nearly killed Hunter!”

A crowd is gathering. “What?” I reply, honestly shocked. “I didn’t nearly kill Hunter!”

“Yes, you did!” she insists. “They’re all in the hospital, Cal—Hunter, Ricky, and Dwayne! You beat them up!”

Dwayne? Who the hell is Dwayne? Wait, the name is familiar—he must have been the third goon chasing me. But beat him up? How? The guy is easily two hundred and twenty pounds. And taking out Hunter and Ricky on top of that? Be serious.

Ivy is raging, poking a sharp nail into my chest and screaming abuse at me. I don’t know what she is more upset about, her car or Hunter. Her car, I’m getting a definite sense. But I want to know what happened to the football players, who I last saw swarming that pickup truck.

Unfortunately I don’t get the chance to find out, as I’m clapped by a heavy hand.

“Mr. Harris,” a voice says behind me. “Come to my office, please.”

It’s Principal Fernwood. This can’t be good. Ivy strides off, acting like she wasn’t even talking to me.

“Mr.
Harris
,” the principal says again, with more force. “The
office
.”

“Uh, sure. Okay.”

Ushered along by the elbow, I don’t resist or ask any questions—because, as any fool knows, the principal hates that. Along the way I start noticing looks from students: curious, horrified, gleeful. There is a big story going around about me—I’m just not sure what it is yet. As I’m directed into the principal’s office, even his secretary looks at me like I’m going up in front of a firing squad.

“Sit down,” the principal orders.

It’s only the second time I’ve sat on one of the two chairs positioned along the wall by the principal’s desk, although I wouldn’t be surprised if a full pack’s worth of Cole’s chewing gum was stuck underneath. Made from steel and hard plastic, the seats have painful ridges that dig into the undersides of your legs. It’s almost like they were purposely designed by some sadistic maniac. A cushioned pair faces the desk, exclusively for the use of adult visitors. That’s where my parents sat the other time I was in here, after my beat down by Hunter and Ricky.

It’s funny—even that time I remember feeling like I’d done something wrong. Why did I allow myself to be used as a punching bag on school property? The rules are clear. . . .

Fernwood closes the door. Grunting, he takes a seat behind the desk but doesn’t say anything more. Instead he sits there staring at me with his evil dragon eyes. I squirm in his gaze for a few seconds before deciding that an innocent person would pipe up and say something by now.

“Did I do anything wrong, Mr. Fernwood?”

He doesn’t answer. So I start shifting around in my seat, hoping to get blood flowing down to my feet. Someone knocks on the door.

“Come in,” Fernwood calls.

It’s the sheriff. I swallow what feels like a handful of nails as he saunters in.

“Morning, Tom,” the sheriff says, once the earsplitting bell finally stops. “How’s Wendy?”

“Fine, Marlon, thanks for asking. Hey, how is Roscoe doing? I looked out the living room window yesterday and saw him limping around your yard.”

“Yup. Infection in the paw, the vet says.”

“Poor guy.”

“His own fault. And if he keeps licking it, he’s gonna find himself with one of those plastic cones on his head. . . .”

“Ha! He’ll look like the life of the party!”

I’m getting agitated.

“What’s wrong, young man?” the sheriff says, turning his entire chair to face me. “Can’t sit still for a few minutes?”

“Not really,” I answer. “I don’t want to miss class.”

“Uh-huh,” he replies. “How was the weekend?”

“Not great. I was sick.”

“Sick?”

“Yeah.”

“A hangover?”

“No,” I say. “I have a cold,” I lie, putting on a stuffy-sounding voice. Fortunately my nose is still red and swollen this morning from the exploding air bag. But that makes me nervous. If the sheriff is investigating the car crash, surely he’ll be looking for just such an injury.

“And Saturday? Did you do anything? Day or night?”

“No,” I answer. “That’s when I started getting sick.”

“Gotcha.” This is apparently interesting enough to get noted in a little book the sheriff produces. “And how about Friday night? What did you get up to then?”

Now things are getting trickier. I want to play it safe and stay on the Nothing theme, but I remember that my parents actually saw me leave the house with Ivy. One phone call and I’m done. Plus there were too many witnesses who saw me at the party, some of whom might be looking to get back at me for cutting them out on the whiskey. Selling stolen liquor—another thing I might be in trouble for.

The thought makes me look down at the front pocket of my jeans. To my horror, I see it’s bulging with the fat roll of bills inside. Oh no—the six hundred bucks! I’d forgotten about it. If I’m searched, I’m done.

I need to play it smart. I rewind back to Ivy walking off in the hallway. Angry or not, she obviously doesn’t want to get involved in this. Who knows what story she told to cover up being drunk and lending me her keys?

But what did happen at the party after I left? There was some sort of scuffle around the pickup truck—that much I saw myself. The neighbors would have heard the commotion and called the cops, no doubt. So I’m sure the police already know about the party. I can just imagine the scene, all the drunk and stoned kids scrambling to get away. It’s almost funny.

The cops would have caught a few of them, at least. Still, my gut tells me no one said anything about me. Everyone would be too busy worrying about themselves and how mad their parents would be. Not only that, if they gave me up, they’d only lose their supply of liquor, not to mention making a dangerous enemy, which is how people apparently see me.

Yeah, no one told the police anything, I’m sure. Which means I just need a decent enough story. But I’m certain the sheriff must know about the demolished sports car, which would have been peeled off the pole by now. So there’s no use pretending I didn’t get into the car earlier.

“I went out,” I tell the sheriff, “with Ivy Johansen.”