Death and the Girl Next Door
Page 32“Yeah, a crazy one.” He raked his fingers through his spiked hair.
“You weren’t there, Glitch. You didn’t see what I saw. What kind of entity can stop time?”
Glitch’s face softened. “Lor, you said it yourself. You had been hit by a truck.”
“And I don’t have a single bruise to prove it.” Despite my best efforts, I was getting frustrated.
“Have you looked at your ribs?”
“Do you honestly believe a delivery truck would only bruise my ribs? I told you how that happened. I was being torn through a tiny sliding glass window.” After a moment, a shocking realization burrowed into my thick head. I eyed him, dismayed. “You don’t believe me.”
Guilt lined his face as he tried to convince me otherwise. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” I stood and strode out the door with the yearbook, searching my pockets for change for the copier. As Glitch approached, I turned to him.
“Of course I believe you,” he said softly. “It’s just—”
“Don’t worry about it.” Though the revelation hurt, I could hardly blame him. It was an incredible story. Seriously. Stopping time? Jared shot at point-blank range without a single bullet wound to show for it, then rolling from a truck going sixty only to land on his feet and sprint up a mountain? Yeah, incredible.
His sincerity squeezed around my heart. So did his lost-puppy expression. He was such a cheater.
“And besides,” Brooklyn said as she walked up, “when you’re mad at him, he totally ignores my insults. Those insults serve a social function. They reinforce the hierarchy of our little threesome here.” She opened her hands, indicating our merry band of misfits.
“I’m not mad in the least,” I said, offering Glitch a half smile. “But when I prove I’m right?”
He grinned. “Then I’ll be your love slave forever.”
Brooklyn chortled, “You’re grounded forever. And a couple of days beyond that. How can you be anybody’s love slave?”
“And just think,” I added as I turned to make a copy of the memorial page, “when your parents find out you skipped again today, they’re going to be even more upset. You may have to do yard work. Or worse,” I said with a soft gasp, “the dishes.”
“That’s not funny.” Glitch’s grin evaporated. “If you’re gonna crack jokes, they should really be funny.”
“I thought it was funny,” Brooklyn said with a shrug.
“You think the Teletubbies are funny,” he said.
“I know,” she said, her tone flat. “I hate when that happens.”
I wrapped a supportive arm around her shoulders. “Cheer up, kid,” I said, brushing a fist across her chin in jest. “Even a broken clock is right twice a day. It was bound to happen eventually.”
“Of course,” she said, brightening. “I feel so much better.”
“Here.” Glitch grabbed the yearbook, feigning annoyance at the jokes made at his expense. “I have some change.”
He didn’t fool me. He loved every minute of it.
As he turned to make a copy, Brooklyn asked, “So what’s next?”
That was a good question. I could only come up with one answer, the only trail we had to follow. “Don’t they keep all the old newspaper articles on eight-track tapes or something? We could try to look up the report on Elliot Davis’s death. Find out what happened.”
“Good idea. We can see if there was anything suspicious about it. Not that we’d actually know if it were suspicious, but it wouldn’t hurt to check.”
I nodded my head in agreement, then lowered it, almost afraid to ask my best friend’s thoughts on the matter. But I had to know. “So, what about you, Brooke? Do you believe me?”
Relief washed over me. I needed Brooke to believe me. It surprised me how much I needed it. “And where do I stand?”
“Stand?” Her huge brown eyes looked at me, confused.
“Yeah, you know, in your social hierarchy.”
“Ah,” she said, propping an arm on my shoulder, “the way I see it, we’re co-presidents, and Glitch there is on the bottom rung of the political ladder. He’s pretty much pond scum.”
“Perfect,” I said as Glitch growled over his shoulder. “Nothing like a society with two heads of state and one poverty-stricken, uneducated, mentally ill constituent to back us.”
“Exactly,” she said, polishing her nails on her blouse, quite proud of her governing hierarchy.
THREE LAWS AND A SUBARU
It took a while, but we managed to find a newspaper article on an ancient cell of microfiche that described the sudden death of Riley High’s star quarterback. He’d apparently died of an aneurysm while sitting in his car after school, waiting for his brother, Alan.
Elliot Davis, the oldest child of James and Anne Davis, died moments after his brother found him. A later article explained that he spoke to his brother right before he died, but that Alan Davis was in shock and couldn’t tell his parents what their son had said. How awful his father must have felt. How awful Principal Davis must have felt as well, his older brother dying in front of him, so suddenly, so tragically.