The Morning After (Sweet Valley High Book 95) Page 2

  Then she noticed her friend Amy Sutton a few rows ahead of her. Amy had turned around in her seat and was looking straight at Lila. Her expression was concerned; her eyes were questioning.

  Lila tried to smile reassuringly. "I'm all right," she mouthed, answering Amy's silent question.

  Amy was a good friend, but Lila found herself wishing that Jessica Wakefield was there. For the last few days, Lila had been wanting to call her best friend. Even though they bickered a lot and sometimes got on each other's nerves, Jessica could almost always make Lila laugh. Either way, talking to Jessica would take Lila's mind off her problems.

  But Jessica had her own problems. Her boyfriend, Sam, was dead, and Jessica's own twin seemed to have caused the accident that killed him. As upset as Lila was now, she knew that Jessica's situation was worse.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Lila saw Jean West, one of the Sweet Valley High cheerleaders, watching her from across the room. Lila noticed the expression of sympathy on Jean's face, then looked down at her hands and pretended not to have seen the petite, pretty girl. She pulled out a notebook and a pen from her oversize leather bag, intending to work on an English assignment on Moby Dick. Anything to keep from having to face people. But when she touched her pen to the paper, she forgot all about Melville's book.

  Everybody's looking at me, she wrote quickly, without thinking. My friends seem worried, but I don't want their sympathy. I don't need their sympathy. I just want to be left alone. The rest of the kids don't even believe me. I know they don't. They must think the whole thing was my fault. After what John Pfeiffer did to me, nobody will believe it could happen again.

  She paused and chewed on her pen, blinking back tears. Lila had never liked to write. She had always thought that people like Elizabeth Wakefield, who wasted time writing when it wasn't even required for class, were real nerds. Elizabeth wrote for the school newspaper and actually claimed to enjoy it. But now there was nobody Lila could talk to. And she couldn't keep everything inside for much longer.

  I trusted Nathan Pritchard, she wrote. After John nearly raped me, Nathan helped me a lot. I couldn't have gotten through the last few weeks without his counseling sessions. I never thought he would try to hurt me like that. She felt that nameless terror again, and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, to push it out of her mind.

  Maybe it was all a misunderstanding, she continued. Or maybe the whole thing was my fault. I just don't know anymore.

  It was better not to think too much about what had happened to her on Saturday night. Otherwise she would never make it through the day.

  I wish Jessica was here, she scribbled. Why is all this happening to us? It's so unbelievable. Elizabeth is the biggest goody-two-shoes in town, but I'm sure she was drunk at that dance. And then she drove off with her sister's boyfriend. Poor Sam! Poor Jessica!

  She looked up at the clock. Fifteen minutes until her first class started. She hadn't bothered to call in to get her homework assignments for the last two days, but she didn't think it would matter. Her teachers would feel sorry for her—or embarrassed about the whole situation. They probably wouldn't call on her.

  The whole school seemed subdued that morning, she suddenly noticed. It had probably been this way all week, ever since the fight in the football field and the accident that had killed Sam Woodruff.

  At least Jessica has someone to talk to, Lila wrote. She can tell her mother anything. I don't even know my mother. All I've got is a housekeeper and the direct number for my fathers car phone!

  Her father still didn't know about the events of Saturday night. He had been away on business—as usual. He'd come home late Sunday, but had left the next day on yet another trip, before anyone could tell him about everything that had happened the night of the prom.

  She turned to the next page of her notebook and continued writing: My father called last night from the Chicago airport. He said his flight home would be late. He asked how I was, but he didn't really want to know. He hardly said a word to me. Why can't I have parents like my friends'? Why can't I have a father who's more interested in me than in his business? Why can't I have a mother who lives here with me, instead of a mother who left when I was a baby, to live in Paris with some guy?

  The words smudged as tears fell on the page. Lila wiped her eyes with one hand and glanced around to make sure nobody had noticed.

  She had told her father on the phone the night before that she was fine. As usual, he had accepted her words at face value. He hadn't cared enough to notice the tension in her voice. 'That's great, honey," he had said. "Look, I've got to go. You'll be asleep by the time I get in tonight, so I'll see you . . . whenever."

  He said he's bringing home a nice present for me, Lila wrote. He's always bringing home a nice present for me. But he's not going to find what I really need in the shop at O'Hare Airport.

  "Lila?"

  Mr. Collins's voice cut through Lila's thoughts. She slammed the notebook shut and looked up at her homeroom teacher. Mr. Collins smiled reassuringly. For once, Lila didn't even notice that he looked like a younger Robert Redford.

  "Mr. Cooper would like to see you for a few minutes, Lila," he said. Lila saw for the first time that the school principal was standing next to her teacher.

  Lila picked up her leather bag and her notebook. She held the notebook close to her as she slid out of her seat and walked past the rows of staring eyes. She followed Mr. Cooper out of the room.

  "Is a meeting with my father really necessary, Mr. Cooper?" Lila asked quietly, staring at a cracked tile in the floor.

  "Yes, Lila. I'm afraid it is," answered the principal. "As I said, we've questioned Mr. Pritchard in great detail, but we need to hear your side of the story too."

  Lila bit her lip and looked off to the side. Mr. Cooper paused for a moment, watching her, then went on.

  "I spoke to your father this morning," he said. "Our meeting will be held a week from today—next Wednesday at four o'clock. I would have liked to handle this situation in a timelier fashion, but your father told me he was leaving for Amsterdam today."

  Lila's head snapped up. "Amsterdam?" she asked, too loudly. "I didn't know."

  How typical, she thought. Her father was always rushing off on business just when she needed him the most.

  Mr. Cooper looked surprised. "I assumed you knew about his trip. He offered to cancel it, of course," he said. "I'm sure he still could, if you want him to."

  Lila chastised herself for having let the principal see her surprise. What was happening to her? She was used to being in control of any situation. She had to get a grip on herself.

  She took a deep breath, smiled broadly, and looked the principal in the eye. "I remember now!" she said glibly, leaning back against a locker in what she hoped was a casual manner. "He planned this trip to Amsterdam weeks ago. In fact, he invited me to come along. He usually asks me to, you know, but I've got this paper to write on Moby Dick—"

  She stopped suddenly. Talking too much was just as bad as not talking at all. Mr. Cooper was watching her with a concerned expression on his face.

  Lila forced herself to smile again. "Of course, he shouldn't cancel his trip to Amsterdam," she said quickly. "He has important business to take care of there. Next Wednesday will be fine, if that's when you'd like to meet with the two of us."

  "Lila," Mr. Cooper began gently. "Along with you, your father, and myself, the meeting will include Mr. Pritchard."

  Lila felt the color drain from her face as she looked up at the principal. That horrible, terrified feeling swept over her again.

  Mr. Cooper put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry, Lila," he said. "You'll have all the help you need to get through this."

  The principal turned to leave, and Lila watched his back as he walked slowly away from her, down the deserted hallway. Then she stood, motionless, at the closed door of the classroom, afraid to open it and step inside.

  The loose shutter was banging again. The noise always bothered Margo. The constant pounding had a different rhythm than the pounding in her head. She was used to both kinds of pounding, but she wished that for once they would beat together. As it was, they made her feel as if something were out of sync, as if someone were trying to confuse her.

  At least the noise drowned out the sound of the Lewinsky baby screaming in the house next door. Margo hated small children. They were noisy and they smelled funny. Some people still called Margo a child, and she hated that even more. At sixteen, she was no child. She could take care of herself. She would prove that very soon.

  Margo pushed her dull, jet-black hair out of her eyes and looked up at the casement window of her basement bedroom. The dirty gingham curtains were the wrong size; they didn't quite close across the filthy, cracked glass. But Margo didn't mind. Through the gap between them, she could watch the outside world without being seen.

  From the ground-level window, the Long Island neighborhood looked gloomy on this overcast Friday evening. The house next door was only a few feet away. Margo eyed the long crack in its cement foundation and the peeling paint above it. Between the two houses, a broken beer bottle and part of a soaked newspaper lay in a tangle of weeds. A car rattled by in front of the house. From the sound, it was badly in need of a muffler.

  Patience, said a familiar raspy whisper inside her head. Patience.

  Then Margo heard the sound of light footsteps approaching.

  "Margo!" a childish voice called from outside. "Margo!" It was her five-year-old foster sister, Nina. "Where are you, Margo?" Nina asked. The little girl sounded as if she was on the verge of tears.

  Nina's thin, dirt-stained legs came into view, which was all that Margo could see of her from the ground-level window. Nina was barefoot, and Margo chuckled as the little girl nearl
y stepped on a glittering shard of glass from the broken bottle.

  Margo supposed that Nina was all right, for a little kid. At least she was useful. Nina worshipped her sixteen-year-old foster sister. She would believe anything Margo told her, and she would do whatever Margo wanted her to do.

  Margo rolled her eyes. The little girl could be awfully dense. To anyone else, it would be obvious that Margo could be found in her bedroom in the basement. She spent a lot of her time there, alone. But Margo had told Nina she would be outside that afternoon; it would never occur to the little brat that Margo might lie to her.

  Margo imagined Nina wandering around the neighborhood, dodging the cars that always went too fast down Snyder Street. Nina would search for her foster sister for hours, long after it was apparent that Margo wasn't where she had said she'd be.

  Margo laughed out loud after Nina disappeared around the front of the house. She liked fooling people, even five-year-olds. And she liked the idea of watching the world from this hole in the ground, where nobody could see her.

  "I'm like . . . a snake . . . looking . . . at the world . . . from a hole . . . in the ground," she said slowly, in time to the beating of the loose shutter. She considered the matter for a moment before whirling around to face the bed. As a grin spread across her face, Margo announced thoughtfully, "I think I'll be a poisonous snake."

  The grin disappeared an instant later, and her gray eyes turned to ice. Margo threw herself backward across the rumpled bed and stared up at the unfinished ceiling. "I hate snakes," she said, scowling as she began to twist the edge of the stained bedsheet in her fingers.

  Margo hated a lot of things. She hated the cold cement floor and the cold cinder-block walls of her bedroom. She hated the piles of sour-smelling garbage bags splitting open on the curb as they waited to be picked up, through yet another garbage-collector strike. And she especially hated the iron-gray sky and the drab, boring neighborhood.

  Most of all, Margo hated foster families—not that this one was any worse than the other nine she had been in. She was tired of playing the pitiful orphan, pretending to be grateful and doing what she was told. She was tired of people yelling at her and sometimes hitting her. She was tired of being told she was moody and uncooperative and just plain mean.

  That's all . . . about to end, said the voice inside her head, keeping time to the pounding of the loose shutter.

  Margo smiled. The last twenty dollars she had found in her foster mother's wallet had put her over the top. She now had enough for a bus ticket and some living expenses—enough to get her far away.

  She was almost ready. She had been waiting for the right time for months, and it was finally here. Everything that had ever happened to her had prepared Margo for the next week. She was strong; she knew how to take care of herself. She just needed to fill in a few missing pieces of her plan.

  It's too bad about Nina, she thought calmly. She never should have walked in on me when I was counting my savings. She never should have seen the bus schedule with Cleveland circled.

  Of course, Cleveland wasn't Margo's final destination. She eventually wanted to go somewhere warm and green and beautiful. But Cleveland was far enough away so that she could wait there safely until she was ready for the next stage of her trip.

  But she wouldn't be safe if Nina knew she was there, she knew. Her knuckles turned into hard white knobs as she clutched the twisted end of the bed sheet between her strong fingers. Nina would be quiet as long as Margo was there to threaten her, but once Margo was gone, she was sure that Nina would blab to everyone. Then they would probably call the Cleveland police and have her sent back. She couldn't risk that.

  It can't be helped, said the secret voice.

  Margo gripped the sheet so tightly that it tore.

  She narrowed her cold gray eyes until they were slits. There's nothing else I can do, she decided. Nina spied on me. What happens to her now is her own fault.

  Chapter 3

  Elizabeth pressed her lips together and stared at the dashboard while her mother tried to make small talk.

  "You'll love the plans for the new wing of the city building," Alice Wakefield was saying as she drove toward the high school. "We're going with a Spanish-style look, with lots of sunlight."

  Usually Elizabeth would be interested in hearing about the latest project of her mother's interior-design firm. But today she couldn't concentrate on her mother's words.

  It was Monday—Elizabeth's first day back at school since the accident and almost a week after Sam's funeral. The drive seemed interminable that morning, but at the same time, Elizabeth wished it would never end. Every block brought her closer and closer to Sweet Valley High, and Elizabeth didn't know whether she could face everyone at school.

  She blinked her eyes quickly to keep from crying. This was also Jessica's first day back at school, but she had left before Elizabeth was dressed. Thinking of Jessica made Elizabeth feel even more alone.

  "Usually I'm the one who's up and ready to go early," she murmured, breaking in on her mother's voice. More than anything, Elizabeth wished this was a normal morning. She longed to be standing at the bottom of the stairs of their split-level house, yelling for Jessica to hurry. She could almost hear her sister's laughter and her voice calling down, "What's the rush? The fun never starts until I show up!"

  Elizabeth sighed. She felt as if nothing would ever be fun again. Then she saw that her mother was watching her silently, and she realized that they were in the school parking lot.

  Alice Wakefield placed a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "Liz," she said. "I know how difficult it is for you to go in there today. I want you to remember that you're not alone. Your father and I love you, honey. Your family will always be there for you."

  "Most of my family," Elizabeth said softly.

  "Jessica will come around," her mother told her. "It may take a while, but she will eventually. You know she always does."

  "Not this time, Mom," Elizabeth said, looking at her hands. "Jessica can't even stand to be near me. The accident was more than a week ago, and she hasn't said a word to me. This morning she took the car Dad rented for us without even thinking about how I'd get to school. I almost wish she'd let loose like she usually does and tell me exactly how she feels. It might make her feel better."

  "I wish she would too, Liz," said her mother. "But someday soon, she'll realize that you're not to blame for what happened."

  "But what if I am to blame?" Elizabeth said. "I don't know how it happened, but I killed Sam! Maybe I don't deserve to have Jessica ever speak to me again."

  "You're being too hard on yourself," Mrs. Wakefield said. She gestured toward the school. "And you don't have to go in there today if you're not ready—"

  "No, Mom. It's OK," Elizabeth said quickly. She dabbed at her face with a tissue and then met her mother's eyes. "I can't put it off forever."

  Her mother hugged her close. Then Elizabeth picked up her book bag and stepped out of the car. For a minute she longed to jump back in and beg her mother to drive her home. But going back to school would only get harder if she waited.

  Elizabeth turned, waved to her mother, and tried to smile. Then she took a deep breath, walked slowly up the stairs to the school, and opened the door.

  "Liz! I'm so glad to see you!" said Enid Rollins, rushing over. "I've been waiting for you."

  Elizabeth took her best friend's arm gratefully and gave her a weak smile. She could always count on Enid's support. The girls pushed their way through the crowded hallway to their lockers.

  "Enid, everyone's staring at me," Elizabeth whispered. "I shouldn't have come back."

  "I don't think anyone's looking at you at all," Enid said reassuringly. "If they are, it's because they're concerned about you and want to make sure you're all right."

  "I wish I could believe that," Elizabeth said. Enid squeezed her hand, and Elizabeth smiled again at her friend. Good old Enid. At least her best friend hadn't deserted her—even if she was the only person who hadn't.

  Elizabeth looked at Enid's sweet, round face. As long as she carefully kept her eyes on Enid, she decided, she wouldn't have to pay attention to anything else. She wouldn't have to look at the other students. She wouldn't have to see on their faces what they were thinking about her, that she was no better than a murderer.