Good Neighbors(17)

“She’s hurt?” Ella Schroeder asked.

The Markles heard that and got quiet. Lainee emitted one last, humorless shriek.

“It’s a period. No big deal,” Dave said.

“Does she need a doctor?” Ella whispered. She was built small like her mom, and even though she was upset, her squint expressed anger. She had resting rage face.

“It’s okay. She’s okay. It’s normal,” Julia answered. Her throat hurting, her voice was just a sandpaper whisper.

Ella started crying. She ran for 118 Maple Street. She didn’t shut the front door behind her after she got inside. It stayed wide, offering a full view of the Schroeder hallway. Clean wood floors, a secretary with mail neatly stacked, an indigo and orange Persian rug.

Julia expected a grown-up or big sibling to come out. What the hell? You don’t laugh at someone’s period! they’d shout. What’s wrong with you? She felt she deserved to be yelled at. They all did, no matter what Shelly had done.

The rest of them must have felt the same way, because the Rat Pack stood very still. Seconds passed. A full minute. No one came out of Shelly’s house. Somehow, that was worse.

Sam Singh broke the pause. “I didn’t do anything!” he hollered, then jogged back toward 104 Maple Street, where he lived. Lainee Hestia wandered away next, slow and seemingly oblivious. By the time she was at her house, she was softly humming the Star Wars theme. The Markles climbed back on their trampoline. “She’s gonna pay for this,” Michael Ottomanelli threatened while inspecting the tiny red speck of blood that had, at some point, stained the mesh. “It’s gonna be a huge dry-cleaning bill,” Mark added.

Julia stayed. The heat made beads of sweat along her brow. She stood on one foot, then the other, looking into that silent, open house. She’d never been in a real fight with anybody but her brother before. Never hit someone or gotten hit. Where do you go after something like that happens? Who do you become?

Dave Harrison and Charlie Walsh were the last to go. They looked her up and down. She’d worn her dad’s Hawaiian shirt because she thought it made her look grown up. But maybe it just looked like she couldn’t afford clothes.

“It’s head games all summer with her,” Dave Harrison said. “I can’t take it another second.”

“We’re going to a place Shelly can’t follow,” Charlie Walsh said. “Exploratory mission. Wanna come?”

“Me?” Julia asked.

“You,” said Charlie Walsh, with his bowl haircut and chubby cheeks. When she first moved here, he’d told everybody that he had a crush on her. It hadn’t felt like a real crush. He hadn’t known her well enough. As girls go, she’d been the only option, given Dave liked Shelly, and Lainee was… Lainee.

“Where?” Julia asked.

“The sinkhole. Shelly’s mom would kill her.”

“Is it safe? Should we go?”

Charlie extended his hand. She took it. Held it a little longer than she needed to, because it made her feel calm. “I don’t care if it’s an asbestos mine, long as it’s away from Shelly,” he said.

They started walking. She waved to Larry and he followed. Pretty soon, it was four astride. It felt good to get away from Shelly’s open house, so still and watching, if houses can watch. Accusing, too, if houses can accuse.

“Don’t feel bad. She had it coming. We’re all sick of her,” Charlie said.

“Nobody has that coming,” Julia answered.

“She did,” Dave said. He seemed especially sad, as though he were betraying Shelly by saying this.

They stopped at the curb. It felt momentous. Larry traversed it first. Then they were all on the grass, headed into the place they weren’t allowed, to get away from a girl who’d turned mean, and from themselves, too.

Into Sterling Park.

As they walked, shoulders touched. Arms swung and caught hands and let go again. Cicadas screamed and gnats swarmed. But not the birds. She hadn’t heard birds in a while. The ground got sticky the closer they got. It was strange, but she had the feeling that something out there was watching them. Listening and waiting.

Dave stopped short at the orange traffic cone barrier.

The hole.

It was covered by a giant two-inch-thick wood slab with the rough dimensions of a small bedroom. Beside it was a John Deere truck-bulldozer-kind-of-thing that read COMPACT EXCAVATOR in massive yellow letters across its green side. The crane’s retracted hook had come loose from its industrial-sized clip, so that it swung in tiny arcs just over the slab.

“My dad’s got this get-rich-quick scheme,” Dave said as he walked past the cones and touched the wood. “He thinks the oil companies’ll buy us out and frack.”

“Bitumen’s worthless,” Charlie answered. “Even if they do want it, they’ll just declare imminent domain. No way we’re gonna get rich when some lawyer can steal it.”

“What’s eminent domain?” Julia asked. She was holding her throat. That made it easier to talk.

“Imminent,” Charlie corrected.

Dave unsheathed this sly, super cute grin. “Sam Singh thinks the sinkhole ate his cat.”

Julia chuckled.

“Since when?” Charlie asked.

“Fluffy!” Dave called in an old-lady voice, hands cupped to his face. “Oh, Fluffy!”