Slow Dance in Purgatory(63)

Now here he was, cleaning up a mess he hadn’t made. That food fight had erupted at the perfect time, though, Shad had to admit. It was almost enough to make Shad believe there really was a God. Maggie seemed unaware of Shad’s frustration or even of his presence. She hummed as she scrubbed the baseboards in the cafeteria, her big glasses sliding down on her nose, her cute rear end in the air. Shad sighed. Sometimes he felt like the parent. What was he going to do with her?





18


“WHO’S SORRY NOW?”

Connie Francis - 1958





“The next thing I knew, the table was shaking and lunch trays were falling, and milk cartons were exploding – I kid you not! I literally got thrown right off the bench. There has been some really strange stuff going on around this school. Remember that day in the hallway? The lockers just started swinging, man. Crap was flying everywhere. Trevor even got a bloody nose. And we weren’t the only ones who saw it! You can ask Jacob and Tasha and Jordan. We were all there. Then, just before Christmas break, Dara was locking up the dance room, and the lights flickered off and on, and the radio turned on by itself and started flipping through different channels. She thought I was doing it. She tried to get out of the room and the door wouldn’t open. She was pissed, man! But I swear I had nothing to do with it.”

Derek was holding court again, something he always seemed to be doing. A bunch of his friends were gathered around his gym locker in different states of undress, changing their clothes for P.E. Shad was on the outside looking in, of course. He had P.E. with a bunch of the members of the football team and a few members of the basketball team. He had been thrilled about it at the beginning of the year, thinking he could make inroads with the guys, show them he was a gamer, and show them his skills. He became less and less thrilled as the year went on. He was always one of the last to be picked for teams, he and a few other freshmen were treated to almost weekly swirlies – being dunked head first in to a toilet while it’s being flushed, and getting thwacked with wet towels was a daily occurrence.

Shad tried to stay out of Derek’s line of sight and still listen in on the conversation. He didn’t know what they were talking about, but Derek was definitely riled up. Shad pulled his shirt over his head and caught his reflection in one of the locker room mirrors. He sucked in his belly and flexed his arms as hard as he could. Depressing. When was he gonna grow?

“….Maggie chick has been there every single time or involved in some way. Dara says the radio kept flipping over some Rod Stewart song with her name in it. Something is definitely off with that girl. I don’t care how fine she is. Dara says the whole dance team thinks she’s really weird.”

Shad jerked his head up when he heard Maggie’s name. In the process, he dropped his shirt on the wet floor and slammed his locker on his fingers.

“Ouch, man! Sheeeeiiit!” He pressed his hand to his mouth and grabbed up his shirt with his other. Somehow Maggie had gotten drug into Derek’s story, and it didn’t sound good. He pulled his shirt over his head, wincing at the big wet spot that stuck to his back, and walked around the row of lockers to where Derek and his friends were just getting ready to head out to the gym.

“So I’m thinking maybe this girl is into some scary stuff, like the cult, you know?”

“Yo, Derek,” Shad called, trying to be cool, “Maggie’s the nicest girl in the world. She’s not into anything strange, man!”

Derek smirked and slammed his gym locker, closing in on Shad with a few of his friends trailing behind him.

“Hey, guys! It’s crazy Maggie’s little friend. I think little Shad here needs a swirly, whaddayou guys think? Maybe it’ll knock some sense into him.”

Shad danced out of reach, his brain scrambling for a way to distract the conversation from Maggie and swirlies. He snatched up the first thing he could think of.

“You think she’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s freakin’ crazy. My grandpa says fifty years ago there was, like, a murder here inside our school. Two brothers died.” Derek and his friends stopped advancing. Shad continued, encouraged. He was so brilliant!

“One brother shot the other brother, and they fell over the balcony up on the third floor and landed right in the middle of the rotunda.” Shad noticed the guys were actually listening to him. They gathered around him, and he quickly warmed to the story.

“So the police come, and they see the one brother lying dead on the floor. My grandpa said his neck was broken. But the other brother….” Shad let his words hang in the air for maximum suspense. “The other brother was nowhere to be found.” The guys ooh’d and aah’d a little and leaned in.

“And get this. There was this pool of blood on the floor that the police were sure belonged to the 2nd brother. There was a witness, see, and he swears both brothers fell over the balcony and were lying unconscious when he went for help. When he gets back with the police, the older brother is gone. So they searched the school up and down, and they couldn’t find anything. It was like he just vanished. My grandpa says a few days later the kid’s name was written on every chalkboard, like he was trying to tell them something.”

“Whatever, Jasper. Nice try.” Derek was waving him off, dismissing him as he walked toward the door connecting the gym to the men’s locker room. A few of the other guys moved to follow him. Shad tried again, eager to keep the attention he’d held just a second before.