Bridget Tyler's Blog

Last night, I found to a good stopping point in Alex Bell's The Ocean Squid Explorer's Club (This is the fourth book in her extraordinarily fun series. Start here if you are looking for an exciting but not terrifying fantasy for your small humans... or yourself). It's not that easy to find a place to stop reading Alex Bell's books - sometimes, it's the kid demanding a few more pages. Sometimes I sit there and read to myself after she's fallen asleep because, you know, they're good books. But, last night, I found a nice moment in which our heroes were not in immediate danger and closed the book. I turned out the light. I got my six-year-old and an improbable number of stuffed animals settled. Then, as I do every night, I sang. I started with Simple Gifts. Then I moved on to Amazing Grace. After the first few lines, my six-year-old started to sing along. We lay there in the dark, under the stars projected on her ceiling from an aged-stuffed turtle, and sang together. 

It isn't the first time this has happened. I hope it won't be the last. But this time, I really noticed it. I felt the moment with every cell of my body. The dark and the slightly out-of-tune child voice twined around my own. The hard head, rubbing tangled kid hair against my shoulder. The little foot wiggling inquisitive toes against my shin. It wasn't a perfect moment - I was tired and thirsty, and it was later than it should have been. But it was a small pleasure. Forty seconds that transformed a long, vaguely annoying day into a Good Day in my memory. 

Don't touch me.

I don't mean that in a bitchy way. Just don't touch me. It's for your own good.

You wouldn't believe me if I told you why. Why should you? No one else does. Let's just say I'm different. You could say special, I guess. Or gifted.

Or cursed.

They all mean the same thing: I'm dangerous.

Just ask my mom - she hasn't given me a hug since I was 11. I don't blame her. In fact, I'm glad she’s cautious. I don't want to lose her too.

It's not so bad. My life is normal, mostly. I get decent grades. I'm in the choir. I run track. I have friends. I mean, not a whole lot of friends, but I have them. You can hardly expect someone who compulsively avoids touching other people to be popular. But I do okay. Or at least, I did, until Matt Irons showed up.

Matt's dad is a journalist, so they travel around a lot. A new city almost every year, he says. This year it's my city. My high school. My biology class. My lab table.

Why me?

It's not that I don't like Matt. That's the problem. I like Matt in a way that makes me want to obsessively doodle his name all over my notebook with little hearts and flowers. I always thought that was a stupid, made-up movie cliché. Then I found myself getting detention for doodling Abigail Irons all over my copy of "Pride and Prejudice" instead of listening to Mrs. Holsing's lecture on Jane Austin's use of irony and humor.

I actually wrote the words "Abby + Matt Forever."

In PEN.

Who does that?

Apparently, I do. I've managed to get through three years and a month of high school without giving a crap about boys. Not even a crush. It was so much easier that way. I ignored them. They ignored me. Everyone was happy. Well, happy might be a stretch. But at least nobody’s life was in danger.

If Matt thought I was hideous, boring or dumb this whole crush thing wouldn't be a problem. Sadly, I'm not that lucky.

"Hey Abby, can I...um... can I walk you home?" He's standing there, by my locker. Looking sooooo cute. I just can't say no.

"Sure." I think I actually just giggled. What is WRONG with me?

We start walking. Nobody's talking. Awkward. Super. Duper. Awkward.

And weird. We always have something to talk about. What the hell, Matt? Is he going to tell me he has cancer or something? Or that he's dating some other girl? Or he's an alien from Zorg?

Or maybe he's about to tell me that he's found the Los Angeles Times series from 2006 about the mysterious little girl who was linked to all of those disappearances.  Her name was withheld to protect her family's privacy. The police could never quite figure out how to blame the little girl for the fact that five people seemed to have just fallen off the face of the Earth.

We moved anyway.

My hands are shaking.

            "So Homecoming is, um, next week."

"Huh?" I'm too wrapped up in my own panic for a moment to realize what he's said. Then, "Oh, um, right, yeah."

Back to awkward silence. I think I might be holding my breath.

Matt stops and turns to me. I think he might be holding his breath too. Until he blurts out: "Abby will you please come with me to Homecoming dance? Like a date? Like a real date because I like you. I like you a lot and I really want to... I want to go to the dance with you."

“Yes.”

The word is out of mouth before I have the chance to think.

He grins at me like an idiot. A really adorable idiot who just asked me to Homecoming. Then he leans in and kisses me on the mouth. Lightly. Slowly. My first ever kiss. I feel like I’m glowing. Sparkling. Like I could float right up, through the blue sky into the blackness of the stars.

Then I realize what I'm doing and I shove him away so hard that he nearly falls.

He's still there, thank God. He's staring at me like I'm a crazy woman, but he's still there.

I run all the way home.

I try really, really hard not to let my mother hear me crying. It doesn’t work, of course. Sometimes I think my mom has actual radar. Or maybe she’s part bat and she can hear through walls.

I ignore her knocking, but she comes in anyway.

"Oh honey." She says. "What happened? Do I need to call dad?"

"No." I sit up and swipe at my eyes. "Don't worry, it’s not that. Nobody's gone. I just..." I'm sobbing again before I can get the words out. "I got asked to homecoming."

The expression on her face is a really irritating combination of confusion, relief and amusement. “Oh. I see. And this is making us weep uncontrollably because…”

"Because Matt Irons asked me to homecoming and I said yes and then he kissed me and I totally forgot everything! I just kissed him back for like five whole seconds before I remembered I’m a freak and then I ran away so now I’m sure he thinks I’m a freak and that’s good because I am. He didn’t go away this time, but I know if we go to homecoming I'll kiss him again and what if it happens again what if I what if he... what if..." I feel the hysteria flowing out of my body along with the torrent of words. Replacing itself with that heavy empty feeling of a crying jag that hasn’t actually solved any problems.

"Maybe you should tell him the truth." Mom says, quietly.

"Oh, sure. That’s a great idea. I’ll just go find him after Chem and say: 'Hey, so, thanks for the invite and the kiss and stuff but I actually have this super unfortunate tendency to occasionally make people travel to random locations in time and space when they touch me and sometimes they just don't come back.’ Then everything will be just peachy keen. Right."

"Someday you're going to have to tell someone, you know."

She’s right. I know, she’s right. But… "What if I can't?"

Mom looks at me for a long time. Then she reaches out, cautiously, and strokes the hair away from my sticky, tear streaked face.

"You'll never know if you don't try."

Two weeks, ten hours of dress-try-oning and one perfect turquoise green satin number that's just enough to make dad nervous without making him decide to lock me in my room and suddenly Matt is ringing the front doorbell in a suit.

This is it. This is when I try.

"Just remember," Mom says, handing me the tiny little beaded purse that I've borrowed from her for the occasion. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. Just have fun, and don't get carried away."

"What if I --"

She cuts me off with a feather light hand on my shoulder. We both look her hand, resting on my bare skin, for a few cautious moments. Then she tweaks my nose. "Don’t you think it’s time to go rescue that poor boy from daddy?"

Holy shit. Matt Irons is downstairs. In my house. With my DAD.

The obligatory photo in front of the door takes up fifteen more minutes. Matt doesn't seem to mind. In fact, if I didn’t know better I’d suspect that he was enjoying trading corny jokes with my dad. When he puts his arm around me for the picture, I don't breath until the camera flashes and he steps away.

So far, so good.

Matt’s friend Jake is driving us and two other couples to the dance in his mom’s van. It smells a little like spoiled milk and goldfish crackers and the couple in the seats in front of us are sucking face so hard I think they might swallow each other. It’s kind of gross, but Matt is sitting next to me, and every once in a while when he thinks I’m not looking he smiles at me in this way… I can’t describe it. It makes me feel fizzy inside, like someone replaced my blood with Dr. Pepper.

Jake decides to stop at the Quickie Mart on 7th and Main to buy beer for later, at his house, after the dance. He says the night clerk there doesn't ever card, no matter how young you look.

Matt leans over and whispers in my ear, "We don't have to go to Jake’s, if you don't want to. We can walk home, like always."

I smile at him. “That sounds good.” I try not to look too relieved, but I am. I've never been drunk, but it doesn't seem like a great idea. You know. Because of the whole uncontrollable time travel thing.

We park at the liquor store and walk in. The others are holding hands. I pretend that I'm cold, and wrap my hands inside my coat. It’s so unfair. I want to hold Matt's hand so badly that my fingers almost ache with it.

I'm studying the different varieties of gum when I catch something, out of the corner of my eye – a tall guy, slipping out of the employee's only door at the back of the store. There's something about him, something about the way he moves that's familiar. And there’s something wrong about him too. Something I can’t quite put my finger on, like a thread of thought caught on a splintered surface somewhere in my head that I can’t see.

"Hey Abs," Matt calls from the front counter. "Let's go, we got dancin' to do!"

I clatter up the aisle.

"Miss." The tall, skinny kid behind the cash register with a nametag that says Edward calls out to me. "Miss."

He's talking to me.

"Um, yeah?" I turn to him, still edging backwards towards the door. I don't want to be rude, but I also don't want to be the girl who got her ID checked and got everyone in trouble. Especially since I’m not going to actually drink any of it.

"Someone bought this for you." He holds out one of the plastic wrapped red roses that sit, wilting, in a display beside the counter. He winks at me and nods not too subtly at Matt, who is still holding the door, looking confused.

Matt keeps looking confused as we walk back to the car. "Um, I didn't buy that. I mean, I would have, if I thought of it... but I didn't." He says, under his breath so the others won't hear.

"You didn't? But he acted like..."

"I know. I saw." He shrugs. "Maybe I did it psychically. With my miiiinnndddd" He makes little wavy motions around his ears. Abruptly I am so happy that I feel like I could burst into a million tiny little pieces and float away.

This must be what falling in love feels like.

I carry the half dead, psychic rose with me into the dance.

Punch. Crepe Paper. Poorly chosen dresses and ties that clearly belong to someone's dad. A DJ playing songs from his own high school glory days, at least a decade ago.

It's perfect.

Matt grabs my hand and pulls me out on to the dance floor.

We dance through four fast songs, singing along and bouncing like maniacs across the floor. I could do this forever.

"It's time for a slow one! Grab that special girl, boys, this is your chance."

Stupid DJ.

Matt pulls me close. I try to remember to breath. Stay calm, Abby, it'll be fine.

And then he's kissing me and calm is not a thing my brain or my heart or my skin remembers how to do. The kiss is light, at first. Just soft lips against mine and strong hands on the small of my back. My brain is screaming. This is a terrible, terrible idea. I have to push him away. I’m going to do it. Now. On three. One... two... three!

Instead of pushing Matt away, my arms come up and wrap around his neck. Pulling him closer. My brains still shouting but I'm not listening. I’m feeling. Sparkling. Bursting. Flying. Sinking.

For a few seconds, I forget that I'm different. Special. Gifted.

Dangerous.

A few seconds is all it takes.

Between one breath and the next, Matt's gone.

Vanished. Just like all the others.

I feel the tears pouring down my face before I even realize that I'm crying. This can't be happening. How could I have let this happen? I knew what would happen, I knew it the first day that he sat down next to me in bio and asked me about the Molten Death Kiss sticker on my binder. I knew I'd do this to him, but I couldn't stop myself.

I’m a monster.

I’ve always known it. How else would I have this awful, terrible thing inside me? I’m a monster. A greedy, terrible monster who wanted to be kissed so badly I destroyed the only boy who ever might maybe have loved me a little bit.

Jake looks up, over his date's shoulder. He narrows his eyes in surprise to see me standing in the middle of the dance floor, all alone.

I turn and run. Out of the gym, through the parking lot and down the road as fast as my stupid, sparkly high heels will let me. I hardly feel the rain that starts dripping down, washing away my tears and my makeup and the fancy up-do that mom took ages putting together. I don’t slow down until I’m almost half way home. By then, my feet hurt are so numb I can barely feel the blisters that have burst and sent tiny rivulets of blood through the sequins on my stupid sparkly shoes.

When the headlights sweep past I try to ignore them, but the car stops on the shoulder in front of me.

I try to walk around it, but the driver has other ideas.

"Abby." He calls.

I don't recognize the voice so I keep going.

"Abigail Jones."

"What?" I turn back. The man sitting in the beat up station wagon behind me looks familiar, but I can't quite place him. Younger than my parents, but too old to have ever gone to school with me or anything. Handsome. I know him. I think. But I can't figure out how.

"What do you want?"

 He smiles at me. "God, I forgot how pretty you looked tonight. "

"What?"

"Nothing. Don't worry about it." He says. "Don't worry about anything, Abs. It'll be fine. I explained everything."

"Explained everything? What's everything? And who --"

"You'll understand soon. I promise. You'll understand a lot of things." He reaches over to his passenger seat and pulls out my half dead psychic rose. He holds it out to me.

I can't think of anything else to do, so I take it from him. He smiles. "It only gets better from here. You'll see."

Then he and the station wagon vanish. Like they'd never been there at all.

But the rose is still in my hand.

I take off the stupid sparkly heels and run the rest of the way home in my bare feet.

Matt is sitting on the porch swing.

"What.... how... where?"

"Don't you mean when?" He smiles at me and suddenly I know who the man in the station wagon was.

"That was you?"

"Apparently. He said he knew he had to come back and explain some things to me... us... because he'd, I mean we'd, done it before."

"But that’s impossible,” I whisper, brain spinning. “I mean, I can't control it. I can't send people anywhere on purpose. Much less bring them back. How did he get here? How is he going to get back?"

Matt grins. "I guess we've got fourteen years to figure that out. That's when he's from, you know. I looked good for thirty-two, didn't I? But anyway, he says by then, we've figured out how to control it. The time travel thing." The time travel thing. He just said it. Just like that was a thing that existed and he didn’t think I was crazy.

Matt snags my hand and pulls me up the steps. Out of the rain and into his arms. "Why didn't you tell me before?"

"I thought you wouldn't believe me. Or you'd be scared. Cuz you should be. Not everyone comes back, you know."

"Yeah, I know. He told me. But also I know I'll still be with you fourteen years from now. So I think I'm safe."

"Safe? Seriously?” I try to push him away, but Matt doesn’t let me. Idiot. “Safe??! You get dematerialized to god knows where, then you get a visit from your future self who explains to you that your homecoming date is secretly a freakish human time machine and this makes you feel safe? NO ONE is safe around me. I should just --"

He's kissing me again. This guy must have a death wish.

"I am safe. And I'm not going anywhere." He grins down at me. "I mean, you tried to get rid of me once and all it got you was this lousy flower."

I stare up at him, thunderstruck. "You... it was you, in the convenience store. You did buy the flower, after all. The clerk was right."

Suddenly, I feel the burbling brightness again. Spreading up the column of my spine.

"You traveled through time to buy my flowers."

"Yep." Matt says. "I figure that's worth a dance, right?"

We dance in the rain for a long time.

My head on his shoulder. His cheek against my hair.

Touching.

This story was written after an amazing brain storming session with students at Linus Pauling Middle School. We worked together to build a character whose world was specifically tailored to help them confront their biggest emotional issue and grow. The character we created was a boy named Fred who was green and lived in a black and white world. I wrote my version of Fred’s story, and I hope some of them will do the same. When they do, I’ll share those stories here!

QUITTER.

My foot feels like it's on fire.

I don't care. It's working. My toes nails are a kind of summer cloud gray, and my skin is almost white, with a little deeper gray gathering in the creases between my toes. This is the first time my foot has ever looked normal. Ever.

The rest of my body is still a disgustingly vibrant array of greens. All different shades. There aren't even words for all the different kinds of green I am, because they aren't colors that exist in nature. Well, that's not true. I was born this way, so I guess it IS natural. Just really, really ugly.

Humans only started being born in color thirty years ago. My uncle is yellow. Probably cuz of the same genes that made me come out this way. Nobody even had words for what we are, back then. That's what he says. He thinks I have it lucky, cuz they let me go to school and stuff now that we know it's genetic and not contagious.

Lucky.

That's not the word I'd choose.

I go to school, but I can't be on any of the sports teams, or in the school play or on student council or the yearbook staff. The principle says I'd be distracting, and she's totally right. I distract myself, sometimes, when a strand of my almost yellowy green hair falls in my face. Or if I wear shorts and I catch the super dark, almost black green of my legs moving under my desk. None of my colors belong. Anywhere.

That's why I'm learning to drain.

The technique was developed by a purple woman a couple years ago. It turned her into a beautiful marble gray, with black hair and white highlights. She swears it doesn't hurt anymore, once you get used to it.

I can't even drain more than my foot without the pain becoming so unbearable that I quit. My uncle says I should stop trying. I can't. If I do that, I'll be green AND a quitter. And I still won't be on the track team.

 "Fred!" Mom calls. "It's time for dinner."

"Just a sec, Mom!" I call back.

My foot stops hurting.

Crap.

It's green again. 

I hardly touch my dinner. I can't stop staring at the blue-ish green of my toenails inside my white sandals. They're so gross. Especially next to my sister's perfect egg-shell white toenails and storm cloud skin. Why did she have to come out some beautiful, if I have to be like this?

What kind of person am I, wishing colors on my own sister just so I don't have to suffer alone?

After dinner, I go for a run. I run so fast. This is the only time I can forget I'm green, because all I'm thinking about is being fast. Unfortunately, by the time I get back to my house all of my shades of green are brighter. I feel like I'm glowing in the dark, and maybe I am because someone calls out to me from across the street.

"Hey, Fred!"

"Hi, Jack," I call back, trying not to sound nervous. Jack is basically the coolest kid in school. He's also the captain of the track team.

"How far did you go, tonight?" he asks, sauntering across the street to where I'm standing.

"Oh, just a, like, five miles," I stammer.

He raises a charcoal eyebrow. "You were only gone for twenty minutes."

I shrug.

"Is that your usual time?" he asks.

"Yeah," I say. "I guess."

He looks me up and down.

"Too bad you're green," he says.

Then he turns and walks back into his house.

I run into mine, up the stairs, and into my room. I lock the door.

I concentrate.

I drain the color all the way up to my waist this time. But when the cement gray of my drained skin gets to my back it hurts so bad I start crying.

My mom comes in, takes one look at me and walks out again. A few seconds later I hear the bathtub running. Then she comes back and helps me up the hall and into the tub. The color comes back into my legs as I lower myself into the hot water. The pain goes away.

Neither of us says anything.

Two weeks later, I manage to drain all of the color out of my body.

It hurts.

It hurts so much, I can hardly breathe.

But I'm normal.

Cement and eggshell and storm cloud and black.

I walk up the hall at school and nobody notices me. Nobody stares. It feels good.

Nothing else feels good, of course. Even my hair hurts. But it's worth it. I am not a quitter.

I'm also on the track team.

Jack offered me a spot on the team the second he saw that I'd drained.

 Today is my first practice.

I'm almost limping as I walk out of the locker room, but I'm sure I can push through the pain once I start running. Once I start running I can forget everything except being fast.

Jack smiles when he sees me.

"Congrats, bro," he says. "I know draining isn't easy."

"No," I say, trying to sound like every word doesn't feel like a jackhammer inside my skull. "It isn't. But I'm not a quitter."

"Clearly," he says. Then he raises his voice to include the rest of the team. "Fred here is the fastest kid I've ever seen."

"Wasn't he, like, green or something?" Eddie Lin asks. It's not a real question. Eddie knows I used to be green. Everyone does. He just doesn't want to be on team with a green kid.

"I'm not anymore," I say. "I drained. I'm normal now."

"And you're gonna help us win regionals," Jack says, firmly. "No more chit chat, guys. Five laps. Let's see how bad Fred beats you all."

Everyone starts running.

I fall over.

I struggle back to my feet and try to run again, but it feels like my shoes are full of broken glass and my bones are on fire. Pain snaps through me with every stride.

It's unbearable.

I fall to my knees.

I can't do this. It hurts too much. There's no way I can run. I can hardly breathe. 

"You okay, bro?" Jack calls.

I am not okay.

I can't run and stay drained. I know it the same way I know that two plus two is four and the sky is white. I have to choose. I can be normal. Or I can be fast.

But if I'm fast, I'll be green. I'll have to give up on track. I'll have to give up on draining. I'll have to be a quitter.

If I'm not fast, Jack will kick me off the team anyway. He'll have to.

I stagger to my feet and start running. I just go. At first, it hurts, but I keep going. I focus every single part of me on fast. I run and I run and I run and as I run it stops hurting. I know why. I'm green again. I can feel it, even before I catch hints of yellow-green hair floating in the wind as I hurtle past my shocked classmates. I'm green. All of my hard work to drain has been lost. My skin is black-green and my fingernails are blue-green and I'm sure when I look in the mirror my eyes will be the same old swirls of different green wrapped around the bright green circles of my pupils.

I'm green. I'm going to stay green.

I know that makes me a quitter. I don't care. I quit. I quit forever.

I'm green. I'm always going to be green.

But I'm fast.

I like being fast.

So cool! Check it!

https://amp.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comment...

Love is gentle, love is kind, 
Love is not graceful. 
Love is snot bubbles and inexplicable tears and bright new words spoken in the wonder

Of fresh knowing.
Love is kitchen dancing and three am crying and repetitive conversations about what’s for dinner. 
Love is simple, but it is rarely easy.

Loving someone does not make them good.

Or possible.

Loving a sport or an art or a job does not mean you will be good at it.

Or it will be good for you.

Sometimes love fails.

Sometimes it doesn’t.

Sacrifices will be made. Willingly, perhaps, but do not trouble yourself if they are not made happily.

Life is not always happy.

Love is not always happy. 

This isn't how I thought our class trip to the Smithsonian would turn out.

The dying guard gasps for air like a fish that has suddenly found itself swimming down Fifth Avenue.

"Holy crap.  Jack?  Jack?  You're going to be okay man, you're..." The younger guard hovers over his partner, desperately trying to remember his CPR training.  "Jack?  Oh jesus, I'm sorry man.  My phone's not-- It's the storm, I can't get through. I can't get help. Oh my god. Jack?  Jack?"

Jack is dead.  His body looks like a wax figure stolen from the Hall of Human Origins dioramas and stuffed into a guard uniform.  Like he's not real at all, and he never was.

Sarah lifts the gun again and points it, shakily, at the younger guard.

"Sarah, what are you doing?" Tom asks, staring at his girlfriend like he's never seen her before.  "We can't..."

"We have to," She says.  "You know what they'll do to us if we get caught?"

He doesn't answer.

"Life in prison.  Right?" She's asking the younger guard.  He looks so confused.  Like he can't believe this is happening to him.  I can't blame him.  A high school cheerleader is holding a gun to his head.

Somehow, I feel like this is all my fault.

I really didn't mean to start babbling about the diamond collection this morning.  I just couldn't help myself.

"Oh no, Tom, the Hope diamond isn't even close to the biggest diamond in the collection, that's the Portuguese diamond. It's 127.1 carats.  They're super luck nobody's stolen it, what with these huge storms we've been having. The flash blizzard thing is nuts. Last time, the power went out on the whole Mall and it completely wiped out the Smithsonian's security systems. Even the generators. Guess that's why they call it extreme weather, right?  Crazy."  

See? Babbling. But I really couldn't help it. I've been completely, hopelessly in love with Tom Jenkins since we built a volcano together for the third grade science fair.  Then, 3092 days, 5 hours and 22 minutes later (otherwise known as this morning), he suddenly noticed that I exist again.  I'm lucky I didn't throw up on his shoes.

I didn't know another flash blizzard was brewing.  I had no idea we'd be stuck here.  With the power out.  And the phones down.  And the alarms off. 

I also had no idea his stupid, psychopathic cheerleader girlfriend was listening.

Speaking of psychopathic cheerleaders...

"Right?" Sarah demands again, insisting that the guard validate her life in prison theory. 

He nods. 

Sarah shoots him in the head.

I can't breathe.

"No. Please. No, Sarah, tell me you didn't just do that.  You didn't. Holy crap."  Tom is panicking.

I still can't breathe.

"Don't be such a baby, Tom." She is shaking so hard she has to hang on to the gun with both hands. "We can't stop now.  Even if we don't get caught, we'd all end up working at McDonalds. Forever. My dad is going to prison because he's too dumb to insider trade without getting caught. And you destroyed your knee, so no college ball for you.  And Marie... you're just... sad.  I mean, you got a scholarship to Saint Mark's, but you are not special. At all. What are the chances that a real college is going to take pity on you?" 

"I... Jesus Sarah, I didn't think we were actually going to steal anything," Tom blurts.  "I thought it'd just be funny, like, sneak around. Pretend we're cat burglars.  Make out in the stairwell or something..."

Tom trails off, eyes glued to the corpses scattered across the gallery floor. 

"Jesus." Sarah smashes the butt of the gun through the display case. "You're useless, you know that?"

She reaches into the case and snatches up the enormous diamond.

"Come on."

As she strides towards the gallery doors, Tom reaches out and grabs my hand.  Hanging on to it like he'll never let go. 

Sarah sees it happen. She stops.

"Actually.  The cops are going to need someone to blame for this,"  She says, conversationally.  "Two dead guards.  Missing diamond.  They're not going to phone this one in."

"They won't suspect a couple of high school kids.  That was the whole point," Tom says.  He sounds exhausted.  Like he can barely get his lips to form the words. 

Ignoring him, she continues, "We need a, what's it called?"  She ponders for a moment.  "Scapegoat. We need one of those."

She's looking at me.

"What?" I can barely hear her over the roar of blood in my ears.

"No one will miss you, scholarship girl," She smiles brightly. "And didn't you just do a project on the Smithsonian?  You'd know all the tricks... how to get in... what to steal... how to get away."

"Get away?"

"Well, you'll actually be in that specimen incinerator thingie they showed us on the tour.  Downstairs.  But nobody else will know that."

She fires before I have time to react. I'd be dead right now, if Tom hadn't thrown himself between me and the bullet.

The dull, fleshy smack of the bullet going into his shoulder is so loud. It seems louder than the gunshot. It can't be, but that's how it sounds in my head.

Tom crumples.  Sarah screams.

Those metal poles they string the velvet ropes on are heavier than they look, but you'd be surprised what adrenaline will do for you.  Sarah is so shocked at the sight of Tom, bleeding on the floor, that she never sees it coming.

Much later I'm alone in Tom's hospital room.

His parents are out of town on business. They're so grateful I volunteered to stay with him. Especially after I saved his life in the museum. 

"Thank God you decided to sneak out of the cafeteria to find a quiet place to study, Marie,"  His mother gushes when I call her to check in.

Of course, I have no idea how he ended up bleeding out on the floor in the Harry Winston Gallery.  Or how two guards ended up dead and a priceless diamond ended up missing.  But the MPDC have a pretty good idea what happened.

Most people will be shocked to hear that Sarah Morris, the queen of St. Mark's Prep, shot three people and stole one of the world's largest diamonds, but the Jenkins' tell me that they have always known Sarah was trouble. Just like her father.        

They hope Tom will be spending more time with me now.           

I hope so too.         

They're all sure Sarah will be caught. A 17 year old girl just doesn't have the resources to fence something as conspicuous as the Portuguese Diamond.           

Unless, of course, she has an uncle in the diamond business in New York who started teaching her how to cut gems when she was twelve, like I do.           

Fifteen or twenty flawless cut diamonds won't be too hard to sell. Not at all.        

And in about a week, after the incinerator has been run a few times, I'm sure anything that might happen to be left of Sarah Morris will be completely gone.

No, I had no idea this field trip would turn out so well. But, then again, you can't predict the weather.

Mary Beth Windsor was nine years old when she walked into her closet, sat down and started to scream. She didn’t stop. She didn’t stop for a very long time. Her mother tried to drag Mary Beth out of the closet. It took half an hour, and Mary Beth drew blood. And when her mother finally managed to force her out of the closet, she let go of Mary Beth for three seconds and the little girl just turned around and ran back into her closet and slammed the door behind her.

Mary Beth didn’t stop screaming the whole time.

Eventually, Mary Beth’s voice wore out. Mary Beth’s mother took advantage of the quiet to bring Mary Beth to a doctor. The doctor ran an assortment of tests. He found nothing wrong with Mary Beth. Other than the screaming, of course. The doctor gently suggested that Mary Beth use her words and tell her parents what was bothering her, rather than screaming about it all day long. But Mary Beth wasn’t listening. She was staring out of the window, up at the clear blue sky.

That night, Mary Beth’s mother insisted that she sit at the dinner table with her family. Mary Beth ate silently, eyes glued to the window and the glittering winter stars. Finally, Mary Beth’s father decided that it wouldn't hurt to ask a simple question. He put down his fork and looked at his silent daughter.

“Mary Beth, why do you sit in the closet and scream all day long?”

Mary Beth had screamed her voice away, so she couldn’t answer. She just stared up at the stars. Mary Beth's little sister, Jane, who was only six, said, in a tone of voice that made it clear that this ought to be obvious, “Mary Beth is screaming because they’re coming, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them.”

Mary Beth’s parents met each other’s eyes across the dinner table. They decided, silently, as parents do, not to ask any more questions. Whatever it was that made their daughter sit in her closet and scream, they didn’t want to know.

A few days later, Mary Beth went back to screaming in her closet. The pediatrician recommended that they ignore the screaming. “Negative attention seeking behavior will only be reinforced if you acknowledge it. Just pretend it isn’t happening.” 

So Mrs. Windsor and Mr. Windsor and little Jane pretended that Mary Beth was not screaming in the closet. They did this for weeks.

It wasn’t so bad, as long as she kept the door closed. Mary Beth’s mother felt a little bad about keeping her oldest daughter closed up in a closet, but Mary Beth didn’t seem to mind one bit.

Then, one day, Mary Beth stopped screaming.

She walked out of her closet, sat down at the dining room table beside her sister and started coloring. Mrs. Windsor was startled. “Mary Beth, you’re not in your closet. And you’re not screaming. What—“

Jane looked up from the very blue flower she was filling in with a colored pencil and said, in a tone of voice that made it clear that this ought to have been obvious:

“She doesn’t need to, not anymore. They’re here now.”

Sometimes, you sit at your keyboard staring at a blinking cursor all day. Sometimes you stay up until 3am doing the final pass on your first novel for Harper Collins. Today was the second one.

And now, we sleep.