A Whisper To A Scream Read online

  “That doesn’t matter, Ellory. You broke the rules. And her nose. She had to be taken to the hospital. Her mother already called and requested that action be taken. She even threatened a lawsuit. You’re lucky that I was able to talk her out of that.”

  I sigh, defeated. “How many days?”

  “Three.”

  “Three days,” I squawk and cover my mouth.

  He nods. “Three days.”

  “Can’t you make some sort of exception?” I protest. “Technically this is only my first offense.” Sure, I’d been to the office lots of times, but never for fighting. I usually got sent to the office for being tardy or acting up in Mrs. Winkle’s class.

  I give him the most honest, pleading look I can give. “Please, Mr. Anderson. I swear it will never happen again.”

  He pats down his blue-striped tie and runs his fingers over his chin. He seems to be thinking it over. “Okay,” he says. “One day.”

  The gust of air I’ve been holding in exits my lungs. I shouldn’t be relieved for a one day suspension, but I am. If I would have gone home and told my Mom that I got a three day suspension she’d rip me a part piece by piece. Then she’d scatter my body parts throughout our front yard. And we own a farm. So we have a big front yard. Hmm. Maybe I won’t tell her.

  I take my punishment accordingly. “Fine. One day. But which day?”

  “Tomorrow. Thursday,” he says. I rise from the chair. “Stop by the front desk and pick up your suspension slip from Carla,” he instructs. “It has to be signed by your mother.”

  Then I remember my detention. I pause in the doorway. “What about my detention?

  Mr. Anderson exhales and shakes his head. “You can serve it Friday.”

  I nod and walk out of the office.

  There was one good thing about my brawl with Katie aside from her broken nose. I missed almost all of seventh period. By the time Carla gave me my papers and I made it to my locker the bell was ringing.

  Eighth period I have art and I slept through most of it, so I don’t know what we did.

  At the end of the day, I sulk through the parking lot towards Wren’s car. I can’t get over what happened today. The whole situation is screwed up. Really screwed up. What makes me feel the worst is that I got punished and Katie didn’t. It’s just not fair. Who goes around dumping milk on people and gets away with it?

  Blake Forrester laughs and I turn my attention to my left. He’s talking to the new kid. Adam leans against a brand new yellow Camaro and as the sunlight hits the fresh paint job the car sparkles and gleams like a canary yellow diamond under fluorescent lighting.

  I freeze, mid-step. My stomach swirls and a breath gets stuck in my throat. Wren wasn’t lying about him being hot. In fact hot might be an understatement. He vaguely reminds me of James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause.

  A beautiful cocky grin curls on his lips. A grin that tells me just from looking at him that he’s already broken a million hearts.

  I wait for him to turn toward me so I can get a good look at his face, but when he does I’m disappointed. He’s wearing sunglasses, but they fit his heart-shaped face perfectly adding a whole sexy appeal to his persona. Then he tosses a black leather jacket over his shoulder and turns in my direction.

  Our eyes lock and for a moment the whole parking lot whirls around me. It’s abandoned. It’s just me and Adam, staring at each other.

  He lowers his sunglasses, bites his bottom lip and nods. I’m convinced I look like an idiot because I can’t look away. I just stand there gawking. I’m mesmerized.

  Cars whiz past me exiting the parking lot. Someone even honks. I barely notice.

  Adam contorts his body as Megan comes up behind him and Blake. I snap out of my trance-like state when I notice Megan point at me and then the three of them start laughing. Laughing at me.

  Blood floods my cheeks. I’m sizzling. I’m embarrassed.

  Adam throws his head back and slaps his leg, laughing harder. He looks over at Megan and she says something else and he clutches his side.

  Part of me wants to storm over there and ask them, what’s so funny? I want to know what kind of joke they are laughing about at my expense. But I don’t. I’m drained. Today took a lot out of me.

  Wren hangs out of her car window and honks her horn. “Come on Ells! Let’s go!”

  I scowl over my shoulder at Adam one more time before getting into Wren’s car. What a tool. Now, I don’t care how hot or cool he is. Right now, I loathe him. Plus, if he was going to hang out with Katie Halston and her minions, I decide that he’s not worth my time.

  On the way home, Wren feels like its safe to talk. “So,” she begins, “What happened with Mr. Anderson?”

  “I got suspended,” I say it casually like it’s no big deal.

  Obviously Wren thinks differently. “Suspended!” she squeals. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Nope. No kidding around here.”

  “Your Mom is going to murder you!”

  “Don’t you think I know that? That’s why I’m not going to tell her.”

  Wren glares at me and shakes her head. “How are you going to get away with that? She has to sign the suspension slip.”

  “Forgery is beautiful.”

  Wren slams on the brakes at a stop sign and the car skids, coming to halt. “You can’t forge your Mom’s signature!”

  I chortle. “You act like the school will find out.”

  She presses the gas pedal and the car zooms forward. “That’s because they will.”

  “Really, how? Are you going to tell them?”

  She keeps her eyes on the road, but makes a face like she’s offended that I think she’d ever do something like that. “Of course not!”

  I’ve forged my Mom’s signature plenty of times before this. A suspension slip is slightly different than a tardy slip, but I figure if the school didn’t know then, they won’t know now. “Don’t stress about it, Wren. I’ll handle this on my own.”

  “You know I worry about you.” Her voice is soft. “You’ve been getting into a lot of trouble lately.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I just have a minor case of Senioritis.”

  Wren spins the wheel and makes a right-hand turn. We’re a block away from my house. “You weren’t lying about the new kid,” I tell her changing the subject. “He’s a fine specimen.”

  She laughs. “He’s a total package.” Her lips curl up into a half-smile.

  “How do you know?”

  “I have most of my classes with him. He’s a genius.”

  I’m completely baffled. “Smarter than you?”

  “Yeah,” she gushes. “Smarter than me.”

  I chuckle. “Your babies will be mini Einstein’s.”

  She’s unsure of herself and uncomfortable. I know this because she has a habit of licking her bottom lip when she’s uneasy. And she’s been doing for the last three minutes. “I don’t think I’m his type.”

  “If it makes you feel any better I’m not either.”

  “Ells, you’re every guy’s type.” A weird grunt leaves my throat. Wren quirks an eyebrow. “What?”

  “Wren, I’m hardly every guy’s type.”

  “I hear the way they talk about you,” she tells me.

  “That’s news to me.”

  “Half of the reason Megan White hates you so much is because Blake went around telling everyone that she’ll never be as good of a kisser as you.”

  “No the whole reason Megan White hates me is because I got caught playing tonsil hockey with her boyfriend.” It surprises me that Blake thinks I’m that good of a kisser. Too bad I can’t say the same about him. He really needs some intense practicing sessions. Way too much saliva. Way too much tongue. The thought of our little escapade makes me shudder.

  Wren pulls into my long winding gravel driveway. Our red brick ranch comes into view. The house is at least a mile away from the road and there’s field full of soybeans in the front and a pumpkin patch in the back. />
  Normally, I come home to my Mom riding our big John Deere tractor through the soybean fields. Seeing her working the fields is comical. She looks out of place because handling the farming was something my Dad used to do until he left us.

  My parents had been married for fifteen years. High school sweethearts. Then one day my father decided that he didn’t want to be a husband anymore or a father either. Their separation was difficult at first, but I’m a tough cookie. I got over it. My Mom, she’s still a mess about it sometimes.

  Two years isn’t enough time to mend a broken heart. Sometimes I catch Mom staring out the window and I know what she’s doing. I know what she’s thinking. She’s watching, waiting, and hoping that she’ll see his car drive up our driveway. She misses him. I don’t blame her, but I can’t understand why she’d want him back. She gave him fifteen years, her heart, and a baby. He gave her a mountain of debt, a tempestuous affair, and a post-it note.

  The car rolls to a stop. I pull my book bag strap over my shoulder and hang my legs out the door. “Thanks for the ride.”

  Wren smiles. “No prob. Pick you up tomorrow?”

  I get out and hover above the door. “Nah. Tomorrow I get my vacation day, remember?”

  She rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “It’s hardly a vacation.”

  There’s a cheesy grin on my face. “For me it is.”

  “Do you want me to pick you up Friday?”

  “Sure.”

  “You know if I pick you up, you’ll actually be on time for once.”

  “Yeah. I’m cool with it.” I close the door and wave as she backs out of the driveway.

  Inside, I toss my book bag on the kitchen table and don’t make it an inch further. My Mom leans against the wall and she’s huffing. Her arms folded across her chest. Oh no. She’s pissed. “Suspended, Ellory! You got suspended!” She throws her arms up in the air.

  “So, I got suspended. It’s not a big deal.”

  She marches toward me and points her finger in my face. “It’s huge deal. And not only that, but you got suspended for fighting! And with Katie of all people. She’s such a nice girl.”

  I clench my jaw. “Nice! Nice! That evil witch dumped milk on my head!” I can’t believe the words that are coming out of her mouth. The word nice doesn’t belong in the same sentence when it comes to Katie Halston. After a brief trip to the school bathroom I managed to get most of the milk off my clothes, but it was in my hair for the rest of the day. Trust me, sour milk isn’t a perfume anyone would want to wear.

  Mom backs away from me keeping her eyes on the floor. “I know your father being gone is still hard on you.”

  “Don’t even bring Dad into this,” I tell her. She lifts her head and I see the tears watering up. She’s about to spill. I can’t see her like this. It breaks me a part. And on top of that, I can’t get over the fact that she took Katie’s side. Nice, my ass. “I’m going to my room.” I leave her standing alone in the kitchen.

  In my room, I flop onto my bed and exhale. Anymore, my room is the only place where I want to be. Sometimes I can’t handle life. It’s too complicated. Too unpredictable. Every day I feel like something bad is going to happen.

  Mom pounds on the door. “Open this door, Ellory! We need to talk about this!”

  I’m frustrated. Exhausted. And angry. “Leave me alone!”

  She pounds harder. So hard that I swear her fist is going to blast through the oak.

  “Open this door!”

  “No!”

  “I’m not going to ignore this,” she tells me and pounds on the door a third time. “As soon as you come out of that room, we are going to talk about this.”

  That’s if I ever come out.

  Seconds later I lied in silence, realizing that my Mom had given up, for now.

  My eyes center on the ceiling. Stick on glow-in-the-dark stars are placed sporadically all over the white. I close my eyes, reminiscing about the time my Dad helped me put them up.

  He stood on a step ladder, while I stood at the bottom. I was daddy’s little helper.

  “Hand daddy a big one,” he commanded, extending his hand down toward me.

  I eagerly reached down into the package, pulled out the biggest star, and then placed it on his hand. I searched his eyes for approval.

  “Good job, sweetheart,” he said, revealing a warm smile.

  My lips quiver and my stomach hurts. Damn. Maybe I miss him more than I thought.

  ****

  Not even realizing I’d dozed off, I wake up sometime later. My gaze shifts to the alarm clock on my cluttered nightstand. 6:30. Wow. Some nap. I’d slept for three hours.

  Sitting up, still groggy from my slumber, I survey my room. More like my local landfill. My space is a class five disaster area. All of my clothes are scattered on the floor. There are plates with food stuck on them on all of the surfaces. Remnants of the nights I ate in here alone. I swipe a finger along the powder blue walls that are the home to the posters of my favorite bands. Skynard. Floyd. And Zeppelin, just to name a few.

  I examine the mountain of grey dust on my finger. When was the last time I washed the walls? It had to be months ago. Maybe even a year.

  Still taking in my wreckage of a room, I perk up as the sound of faint voices carry down the hall. The way I see it, I have two options. One I can either go out and face the music now or two, I can clean my bedroom. I choose option one.

  In the hall, the setting sun seeps through the window casting an orange after-glow along the walls. The warmth rests on my cheeks and over-heats my entire body. I stop for a moment, leaning against the wall to bask in the sudden heat. In this part of Ohio, the sun rarely ever graces us with its presence so it’s something that one has to appreciate while they have it.

  The sound of two people giggling echoes in my ears and I snap to attention. Who is my Mom talking to?

  Entering the kitchen, I glare at an unknown woman sitting at the kitchen table. She faces me and Mom turns in my direction. “Oh, Ellory. Have a seat, dear.” She pats the chair next to her.

  I hesitate, wondering what Claudia Schiffer’s look-a-like is doing in our kitchen.

  The woman gives me a friendly smile. “I promise I won’t bite.”

  Not yet, I think and sit down next to Mom.

  Mom nods to the woman. “This is Isabelle Jacobs. Her family just moved in next door.”

  Jacobs. This has to be the new kid’s mother. Or maybe his sister. She looks young enough to be his sister.

  “Nice to meet you, Ellory,” she says politely.

  Mom purses her lips and widens her eyes. Her you better be nice or you’ll never hear the end of it look. “Nice to meet you,” I reply.

  Mom brings her coffee mug to her lips. “They just moved here from Chicago.”

  “I know.”

  “How did you know?” Mom questions.

  “Adam is in my grade.”

  Isabelle grins. “You know my son.”

  I shrug. “Around here everyone knows the new kid.”

  A giggle. “So I’ve heard.”

  Mom changes the subject. “Isabelle and her husband just bought the old Milton farm.”

  “Really?”

  That stuns me. Back in the day, the Milton’s used to be the wealthiest family around these parts. They owned a chain of supermarkets and one of the biggest farms in the state. But when Old Man Milton got too old, his offspring threw him in a nursing home and let the place rot. The last time I’d seen it the white paint on the siding was chipped and falling off. Two of the circular columns on the veranda were crumbling and the grass hadn’t been cut in so long it was at least five feet high.

  “That place is a dump.”

  Mom grits her teeth and lowers her voice. “Ellory.”

  “That’s okay,” says Isabelle. “We knew it was going to be a lot of work. But we’ve always wanted to restore an old house like this one. You should see it now. It looks very different than a few weeks ago.”

  Is
abelle’s husband has to do something that has a salary above 100K because restoring a house like that would cost a fortune.

  “What does your husband do?”

  Mom slaps my shoulder. “Ellory, that’s not our business.”

  Isabelle chuckles. “It’s fine. He’s a lawyer.”

  That explains a lot. It also explains why their son drives a brand new Camaro.

  “Well, if you need anything we’re right next door,” Mom offers. “Maybe Ellory can show Adam around town.”

  I harrumph. “There isn’t much to show.”

  Mom elbows me under the table and I wince.

  “I’m sure Adam would love that.”

  Isabelle nods graciously. “Thank you for having me over. You’ve been so kind.” Her piercing blue eyes shift over to the clock on the hanging microwave. “Oh my goodness. It’s getting late. I’ve got to get dinner on the table.”

  Mom stands and places her hand on Isabelle’s shoulder. “I’ll show you out.”

  Half-way to the front door, Isabelle peers over her shoulder at me. “It was nice meeting you Ellory.”

  “Nice meeting you too, Isabelle.”

  Isabelle and Mom disappear from my view. Then I hear the front door slam.

  I can’t believe my Mom and the way she threw out my tour services without even asking me. There is no way in hell, I’m showing Adam around. Closing my eyes, I think of his hysterical laughter. Pointing. Clutching his side. I feel humiliated all over again.

  Mom walks back into the kitchen a smile on her face. “Well that was nice.”

  “There was nothing nice about it,” I groan. “How could you throw out my service like that? It’s like you’re my pimp.”

  Mom lets out a frustrated sigh. “It won’t be that bad.”

  “Bad! It’s catastrophic! I don’t even like her son!”

  “Ellory Louise, why do you always have to be so dramatic? It’s just a tour. If you don’t want to be around him after that you don’t have to be.”

  I stand, ticked off. I’m breathing heavy and every limb attached to me tingles. “I’m going back to my room.

  I stalk past Mom and she latches onto the collar of my shirt. “Nah uh. Have a seat young lady. We still need to talk about happened earlier.”