Skycam VI


“You roughed him up a little?” the big man said.

“Sort of,” the jock said.

“But you didn’t touch him,” the big man said. “Right? You had somebody else do it.”

“I had Gordo do it.”

“And?” the big man said.

“Novak broke Gordo’s nose.”

The big man sat back in his chair behind his desk and shook his head.

“Never send a boy...” he said.

“Gordo’s my age,” the jock said.

The big man shook his head.

“It’s a saying,” the big man said.

“Yes sir,” the jock said.

“So, I guess you didn’t send a good message.”

“He got him with a lucky punch,” the jock said. “Kid’s a ninth grader.”

“Do you think it will make him back off?” the big man said. The jock shook his head.

“I shoulda done it myself,” the jock said. “If you hadn’t told me not to, I'da kicked his butt.”

“No,” the big man said. “You don’t touch him. You get in trouble and they tie you to me... You keep your hands to yourself.”

“Maybe we scared him enough anyway,” the jock said.

“I’ll bet,” the big man said. “Keep an eye on him just in case he isn’t terrified.”

“He’s nothing,” the jock said. “He got a lucky shot in on Gordo is all. You give me the go-ahead, I’ll clean his damn clock.”

“Do not swear in this office,” the big man said. “This isn’t about who can win a fight with who. You don’t think he could get a lucky shot in on you?”

“No sir, I can take him easy. He’s a punk.”

The big man nodded.

“You do what I tell you,” the big man said. “You watch and you wait and you report back to me. I don’t want you laying a hand on him. We need to ratchet up the pressure, we’ll do it when I say so.”

The jock nodded.

“You want to play Big Ten football?” the big man said.

“Yes sir.”

“Name in the paper, a hundred thousand fans every Saturday? Pro scouts?”

“Yes sir!”

“Then do what I tell you and make sure you don’t tarnish this office.”

“Yes sir.”

“You been seeing the nurse regularly?” the big man said.

“Just like you told me,” the jock said.

“Good,” the big man said. “You keep doing what I tell you, and everything will be smooth as new ice. Okay?”

“Okay,” the jock said.

“Okay, what?” the big man said.

“Okay, sir?”

“Thank you,” the big man said.

Chapter 20

At the drugstore, Gary Sarkis gave them ten photocopied pages of a medical update about steroids from a big HMO.

“Lotta medical language,” he told them. “But you can wade through it. You need help, call me.”

“Do you take steroids for asthma?” Terry said.

“Of a sort,” Gary Sarkis said. “In very small amounts. But it’s not the same stuff that athletes use.”

They took the pages to the Wall and sat and began to read them. Terry would read a page and hand it to Abby. When Abby read it, she underlined things in yellow.

When they had both finished, Terry said, “Yikes.”

“It does take some wading,” Abby said.

“You get anything out of it?” Terry said.

Abby giggled.

“If you take some of these things, your... testicles might shrink,” Abby said.

“Come on,” Terry said.

“Says so right here,” Abby said, and marked the passage.

Terry read it again.

“ ‘Testicular size may decrease if androgen is taken for many years,’ ” he said. “I missed that first time through.”

Abby giggled again.

“I didn't,” she said.

“So androgen is another word for steroid,” Terry said.

“I think so.”

“So here’s the psychological effects,” Terry said. “That’s what we want.”

“It doesn’t say anything about suicide,” Abby said. “‘Major mood disorders and aggressive behavior’ is what it says.”

“Suicide is a major mood disorder,” Terry said.

“But if they meant suicide, they’d say so, wouldn’t they?”

“I guess. Jason certainly wasn’t aggressive.” He pointed. “What’s this mean, you think?”

Abby read aloud.

“ ‘Most psychological descriptions are uncontrolled.’ ”

“Uncontrolled how?” Terry said.

“Like the studies aren’t, um, careful, you know?” Abby said. “They’re more just what people say about steroids. The doctors are, like, not sure if it’s true. A lot of this stuff is like that.”

“Well, hell,” Terry said. “Who’s going to tell their doctor they’re on ’roids?”

“I guess that’s the problem,” Abby said.

They read the pages again.

“Lot of stuff they think might happen to you from juicing,” Terry said.

“And over here it says they’re not all that sure that it does you much good.”

Terry nodded.

“Look at this,” he said. “If women take it.”

Abby looked down and read where he pointed.

“Oh wow,” she said. “Acne, facial hair...”

“Sounds great, doesn’t it?” Terry said.

“Can’t wait to try it,” Abby said.

“All of this stuff is written about jocks,” Terry said. “Doesn’t talk about ordinary kids like Jason.”

“Maybe because ordinary kids like Jason don’t take steroids,” Abby said.

“Nothing here makes me think he did,” Terry said.

“No,” Abby said. “Sounds more like Kip Carter All-American to me.”

“Yeah,” Terry said. “Maybe you should date him.”

“Me?” Abby said.

Terry gave her a straight-faced serious look.

“Give you a chance to find out if anything’s shrinking,” he said.

“Oh ugh!” Abby said.

And they both began to giggle.

Chapter 21

George was wrapping Terry’s hands.

“Little swollen,” George said.

“I had a fight.”

“How’d you do?” George said.

“I broke the guy’s nose,” Terry said.

“So you won?”

“Yeah.”

“Better than losing,” George said. “Why’d you fight?”

“Other guy started it,” Terry said.

“How?”

“Was gonna beat me up,” Terry said.

“Front of other people?”

“Yes.”

“You know why?”

“I think it’s about that kid, Jason, who died a while ago?”

“The one you been wondering about,” George said.

“Yeah.”

“Why somebody want to beat you up ’bout that?” George said.

“I don’t know.”

“You looking into it?” George said.

“Yes.”

“Maybe they want you to stop,” George said.

Terry shrugged. George looked at him for a moment. He looked like he wanted to say something. But he didn’t.

“What?” Terry said.

George shook his head and finished wrapping Terry’s hands.

“You gonna tell me mind my own business?” Terry said. “‘Cause I’m a kid, and I don’t know what I’m doing?”

“Nope.”

“You were gonna say something,” Terry said. “What?”

George slid the gloves onto Terry’s hands and cinched the Velcro closers shut.

“I was gonna tell you to be careful,” George said.

“I can take care of myself,” Terry said.

“Mostly,” George said. “Nobody can do it always.”

“So I just quit and go hide?”

“Nope.”

“So,” Terry said. “What?”

“So, nothing, that’s why I didn’t say it.”

They looked at each other.

“I don’t get it,” Terry said.

George nodded.

“Kid mattered to you,” George said.

“I felt sorry for him,” Terry said. “Got no father. Mother’s a drunk. Everybody thinks he’s a fag.”

“You?” George said.

“Yeah, I guess he was.”

“You don’t care.”

“No,” Terry said. “Got nothing to do with me.”

“You not gay,” George said.

“No,” Terry said. “You care?”

“No,” George said. “I don’t care. But that little girl might be awful disappointed.”

Terry smiled.

“I hope so,” he said.

“You doing what you think is the right thing to do,” George said. “Maybe be some risk. Smart to be careful. Don’t want to hide all your life. If you gonna face up to it, might as well start now.”

“You saying I should go ahead?”

“Yep.”

Terry didn’t know what to say.

“So this guy comes at you,” George said, “swinging, and you hold him off with your jab.”

“Yeah.”

“And he tries a big John Wayne roundhouse punch,” George said.

“Yeah.”

“And you block it with your left?”

“And hit him with my right, straight on.”

“Broke his nose.”

“Yes.”

George smiled.

“Fight over,” he said.

“Uh-huh.”

George smiled more.

“Just remember,” he said. “You fight somebody knows a little something, won’t be so easy.”

“Thanks, George,” Terry said.

“For what? Teaching you left block, right punch?”

“Including that,” Terry said.

George picked up the big round punching mitts.

“Come on,” he said. “You gonna be street fighting, may have to teach you some other things.”

“You’ve already taught me a lot,” Terry said.

“You learned a lot,” George said. “Which ain’t always the same thing.”

Chapter 22

They were on the rocks at the beach, in their place, on the point of an outcropping where the waves broke beneath them and left lacy patterns of foam on the surface of the water. Abby had her big notebook on her lap.

“I’ve been organizing,” she said.

“I bet you have,” Terry said.

“I got Otis,” she said. “Tank, Nancy Fortin, a friend of Jason’s that Nancy got, Perry Fisher.”

“Don’t know him,” Terry said.

“Me either,” Abby said. “But Nancy says he wants in. I got Bev and Suzi. Steve Bellino says he’ll help.”

“Bellino?” Terry said. “He’s a really good ballplayer.”

“I know,” Abby said. “I think he hates Kip Carter All-American.”

“Not a bad thing,” Terry said.

“And I think he’s going to get some other guys,” Abby said. “Maybe Mitchell, maybe Carly Clark.”

“Carly Clark?”

“The basketball player,” Abby said. “The guy who just transferred in.”

“I know who he is,” Terry said.

“So we already got a pretty good spy system set up.”

“Thanks to you,” Terry said.

“Can I be known as the Spymaster,” Abby said, deepening her voice as much as she could.

“You bet,” Terry said. “Think they’ll keep quiet about this?”

“I think so,” Abby said. “They all hate Bullard, and they all hate Kip Carter All-American, and I think this is their chance to do one or both of them some damage.”

“Any of them doing it for Jason?” Terry said.

“Nancy, probably,” Abby said. “Probably Perry Fisher. The rest of us are doing it for you.”

“You too?”

“Of course, me too,” Abby said. “I’ll do anything you want to do, you know that.”

“Anything?” Terry said.

“Except that,” Abby said. “Yet.”

“Yet,” Terry said.

“Yet,” Abby said.

“What are we waiting for?” Terry said.

“I don’t know,” Abby said. “It just seems too soon.”

Terry was quiet for a moment and then he nodded.

“I think so too,” he said.

“Do you know why?” Abby said.

“No. You?”

“No,” Abby said.

Terry shook his head. They were quiet, watching the foam patterns slide backward out of the inlets in the rock. It was the first time they’d ever spoken seriously about it. It made him nervous. Kind of exciting, though!

“They going to, ah, report in to you?” Terry said after a time.

“Yes,” Abby said, “and I’ll write it down and try to like find a pattern or something. And we’ll talk.”

Terry smiled at her.

“Will we ever,” he said.

Chapter 23

Terry saw Gordon in the corridor between classes. Gordon was wearing sunglasses, which didn’t fully succeed in covering his two black eyes. His cheeks were puffy too. Gordon either didn’t see him or pretended not to. In the cafeteria, Kip Carter looked right through Terry. When he went to English class, he saw Mr. Bullard standing by the door.

“I want to talk with you,” he said.

Terry stopped and waited. Mr. Bullard took his arm and steered him away from the door and into a stairwell.

“You are getting a pretty bad reputation around here,” Bullard said.

Terry nodded.

“I understand you got into a fight,” Bullard said.

“Not at school,” Terry said.

“Don’t give me any smart mouth,” Bullard said. “You got into a fight.”

“Yes sir,” Terry said.

“You start it?”

“No sir.”

“I heard you did,” Bullard said.

“No sir,” Terry said.

“What’s your story?” Bullard said.

“Gordy wanted to see if I could box,” Terry said.

“And you broke his nose?”

“Yes sir.”

“He says you sucker punched him,” Bullard said.

“He swung on me,” Terry said. “I blocked it and countered.”

“Kip Carter supports Gordon’s story,” Bullard said. “You think he’s lying.”

“Yes sir.”

“Well,” Bullard said. “I don’t think so. And I’ve already given this as much time as I’m going to. The next time you step out of line, you’re suspended. You understand that?”

“Even if it’s not my fault?” Terry said.

“You’re a troublemaker, Novak. You’ll keep your nose clean or I’ll lower the boom on you.”

Hulking before him, Mr. Bullard reminded Terry of some kind of animal. A rhino, maybe. Thick and short and massive and ugly and mean. His eyes were kind of small, and they looked even smaller because his face was so wide. Made him look sort of dumb. Terry smiled to himself for a moment. Maybe he is dumb, Terry thought.

Bullard saw the smile.

“There’s nothing funny going on here,” Bullard said.

There’s a lot funny going on here, Terry thought. But he kept his face blank. There was no point taking Bullard on direct. What was it George said? Something about deciding early in the fight whether it was one you could win or one where you mainly tried to avoid getting hurt. He knew that this was that kind of a fight. He wasn’t going to win, right now, at least. And he wasn’t going to win alone. But on the other hand, the fight wasn’t over. And every day he seemed a little less alone. Pick your spot, he said to himself. Pick your spot. Right now he knew that he was in a position to get kicked out of school anytime Bullard wanted to. He got kicked out, he got kicked out. He wasn’t going to stop. He was in too deep. It wasn’t even about Jason anymore. Something bad was going on, and he wasn’t going to be chased off by a pig like Bullard until he found out what it was.

Things were developing.

Chapter 24

Abby was sitting in a booth in the Coffee Café with her legs tucked under her. There was a book bag open in the seat beside her, a green manila folder open on the tabletop. She had a ballpoint in her hand and was drinking coffee with the same hand and talking on her cell phone. She grinned at Terry as he slid in across from her. She put the coffee down and wrote in her green folder and nodded and wrote some more.

“Okay,” she said. “Thanks, Otis.”

She broke the connection and looked at Terry.

“AIA headquarters,” she said.

“AIA?”

“Abby’s Intelligence Agency,” she said.

Marcia the waitress brought Terry some coffee and freshened up Abby’s.

When they were alone, Terry reached across and took the green folder and pulled it to him and turned it around so he could read it.

“What have you got?” he said.

“My spy log,” Abby said.

“Who are all these people? No names? Just numbers?”

“Some of my friends,” Abby said. “Some friends of my friends. Some friends of their friends. Lots of people are in on this. I give them each a number. I’m the only one who knows what number is who. They like it. It’s fun.”

“They could get in trouble,” Terry said.

“Half the school?” Abby said. “And for what? We’re just keeping track of people. What’s wrong with that?”

“Bullard wouldn’t like it,” Terry said.

Abby grinned.

“I think that’s why a lot of kids are doing it,” she said.

“And if Bullard catches you?” Terry said. “What will you do?”

Abby smiled widely and stuck out her tongue.

“That’s what you’ll do?” Terry said.

“Uh-huh.”

Terry stared at the list of numbered entries in the folder.

“Well,” he said. “At least we got him surrounded.”

“Yes,” Abby said. “What I did was, I gave all these people my cell phone number, and whenever they see either Mr. Bullard or Kip Carter All-American, they call in and tell me about it. A lot of time they leave it on my voice mail and I, you know, compile it in my room, after supper.”

“And you keep track of it all?”

“On this chart,” Abby said.

She took a piece of lavender-lined white paper out of the folder and held it up for him. He took it and they leaned toward each other across the table as she explained it. The top of her head touched his. Her hair smelled of shampoo.

“See,” she said. “I do one for Bullard and one for Kip Carter All-American. Everyone they saw. Everywhere they went. Everything they did. And the date and time.”

“How about when no one saw them?” Terry said. “Like if Bullard went to some meeting in Boston or something.”

“That time is left blank,” Abby said. “Sometimes we find out later and we fill it in. After a while we’ll get a pretty good idea of what they do all day, you know?”

“Kip Carter too?” Terry said.

“Yes.” She held up another sheet of paper. “Same thing for him.”

“Lot of work,” Terry said.

“You can help me. We’ll sit down at the end of the week and see if we see a pattern. Like we’re detectives.”

“Abby Hall,” Terry said. “Girl Detective.”

“And her trusted companion,” Abby said. “The Boxer!”

Terry put his hands up in his boxing stance for a moment.

They both laughed.

“You know,” Terry said. “We really are going to find out what happened to Jason Green.”

“Yes,” Abby said. “We really are.”

Chapter 25

Abby sat at her desk in front of the window in her upstairs bedroom. The messages started in the morning.

“Hi, Abb, it’s number seventeen,” a girl’s voice said.

That would be Suzi.

“Mr. Bullard drove by a minute ago while I was waiting for the bus... I assume he’s going to school like the rest of us poor convicts... Why doesn’t the cheap creep get a real car... He looks so funny all squeezed into that little sardine can he drives...”

“Hi, Abby, it’s Otis, I forgot my number... anyway I saw Bullard at that place, near me, where the tech arts kids are building a house... Kip Carter was there too.”

“It’s number eleven,” a boy’s voice said.

Abby checked her list. Number eleven was Jason’s friend Perry Fisher.

“I don’t even know if it matters, but you said to report everything... I saw Kip Carter riding in Mr. Bullard’s car with Mr. Bullard... I don’t know where they were going.”

Abby made her notes.

“Number seven reporting...” It was Bev. “Mr. Bullard’s car was gone from the school parking lot from two in the afternoon... It was still gone when I went home after school.”

Abby wrote it down.

“Hey, babe.” It was a boy’s voice. “It’s number three... I don’t like being number three... you know I’m number one... Ha, ha!... Anyway it’s seven o‘clock at night. Bullard just went into the Trents’ house.”

Number three was Carly Clark. He was black and had gone to school in Cabot as a Metco student since first grade. He was a really good basketball player, good enough for a scholarship, and his parents had rented a house in Cabot, right across from the Trents, so they could keep him in school here, and let him practice, and not waste half his day coming back and forth from Boston. When they moved in, there were some people that didn’t like it. But there was no real trouble.

“Hey, Abby... you know who this is... I seen Mr. Bullard talking with Mr. Malcolm, the construction teacher, for, like, half an hour outside Bullard’s office this morning.”

Abby did know who it was. Tank’s voice was still boyish and sort of high for a kid so big.

Abby put the information down. She used a Sharpie with lavender ink that matched the lines on her notepaper. Alone at night in her bedroom with an earpiece plugged into her cell phone, she wrote carefully, in a nice hand, the trivial information about Bullard and other people. It was engrossing. And she felt a little edge of excitement as she wrote and watched the shape of Bullard’s behavior begin to form. If you knew enough about a person, every day, if enough people watched him, you could figure out a lot of stuff.

But for now she wasn’t doing any figuring. She was merely recording. Later, with Terry, maybe all that she’d written down would form a pattern that mattered. She could sort of feel it starting to. Who he saw the most, where he went the most, what he did the most. It was all going to mean something sooner or later.

The phone rang. It was late. She looked at her clock—after eleven.

“Number three again, babe. I’m going to hit the sack, but I just wanted to tell you that Bullard’s still over at Trents’ house.”

“You’re sure?”

“Sure. I can see his car. He parked it around the corner, up the street, but I can see it from my bedroom window.”

“I wonder why he parked it up the street?”

“Hey, I just the spotter here, babe. You and your boyfriend s‘pposed to do the thinking.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Abby said.

“Uh-huh,” Carly said.

“Was there space to park closer?”

“Sure,” Carly said. “Park in the driveway like most people do who’re visiting.”

“So what do you think?”

Carly laughed.

“Well, maybe they got some hanky-panky going on,” he said.

“You think he’s visiting Mrs. Trent?”

“Can’t tell,” Carly said.

“Well, keep an eye on them,” Abby said.

“Sho‘,” Carly said, and hung up.

Hanky-panky, she thought.

Abby sat looking at the darkness outside her bedroom window.

We’ll find out, she thought.

Chapter 26

“Today we going to do some fists of fury,” George told Terry. "We going to move round the heavy bag to the left and we going to keep hitting it as fast as we can... Left-right combo, bang, bang.”

George hit the bag left-right. The second punch was almost synonymous with the first.

“Like that,” George said. “Bang, bang.”

Terry started.

“Punch quicker,” George said. “The right should land a half second after the left.”

Terry punched left-right, left-right.

“Better,” George said.

Terry kept punching.

“Feel it?” George said. “There’s a rhythm to it.”

“Bang, bang,” Terry said.

“Keep your feet under you,” George said. “Keep them spaced, push off the floor.”

Terry moved left as he pounded the bag. He could feel the sweat begin to gather along his arms and shoulders. George was right, once he began to feel the stuttered rhythm of the punches, they came faster. It wasn’t so much bang, bang as ba-bang, ba-bang.

“Okay, now move round the bag to the right, same deal. Bang, bang.”

Terry was breathing hard.

“Easy for you,” he gasped.

The change in direction had messed up his rhythm, and it took him a couple of circuits of the bag to get it back. Then he made one full circle of the bag in good ba-bang.

“Okay,” George said. “Round one, take a seat.”

Terry sat on the folding chair in the corner, his chest heaving, his arms and shoulders glistening with sweat. The sweat beaded on his face. George toweled him off and squirted a little water into Terry’s mouth.

“Don’t want to dehydrate,” George said. “You get dehydrated and it take the zip right out of you.”

Terry nodded.

“Funny, just changing directions got me screwed up on the fists of fury thing,” he said.

“Why you have to do it so much,” George said. “Get your muscles grooved into it.”

“And nobody’s even trying to hit me,” Terry said.

“Time for that will come,” George said. “Now we just getting grooved in.”

“But... I mean in a real fight some guy comes at you throwing them as fast as he can... Don’t you kind of feel like wait a minute, wait a minute?”

“Couple answers to that,” George said. “One, that happen whether you know how to box or not, so you may as well know. Second thing is you get enough training you can maybe weather that first couple minutes until the guy runs out of steam.”

Terry nodded.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I know. Backpedal. Keep him off with your jab. Cover up.”

“And maybe move around him a little, try not to get cornered,” George said. “He gonna be pretty tired after a minute or two. ‘Less you fighting Smokin’ Joe Frazier, your man can’t keep throwing them like you talkin’ about for very long.”

“You ever just wanted to run?”

George shrugged.

“Boxing be mostly about training,” he said. “Remember what I tol’ you about the three thousand punches. Time you get in the ring, you might be scared, but you trained so much, you sort of can’t think ’bout running.”

“But what if you do run?”

“Then you need to do another business,” George said. “Nothing wrong with that. Boxing ain’t exactly normal anyway. You know, it ain’t normal to get into a thing where you and somebody else try to beat each other unconscious. Don’t mean you a coward or anything if you can’t do it.”

George paused and framed his words and smiled.

“Probably just mean you too normal for boxing.”

“Aren’t some fighters scared?”

“Sure,” George said. “And you can be a pretty good fighter even if you scared. Technique take you a long way. But it don’t take you all the way.”

“What does that?” Terry said.

“Heart,” George said.

“Heart?”

“Heart make you get up when it be much easier to stay down,” George said. “Make you go out for the next round when you can’t hardly see and you not sure where you are. We don’t know yet, you got heart. But I’m thinking you might.”

Neither of them spoke. George seemed to have gone someplace out of the little gym across from the Coffee Café in the fancy town. Someplace Terry had never been. Then he came back and smiled at Terry.

“Maybe just another word for not normal,” he said.

Chapter 27

It was a warm Saturday morning and they were sitting on the rocks near the ocean, looking at what Abby called her spy chart.

“These are all the people we’ve seen him with in a month,” Abby said. “And the places he saw them.”

“That whole list?” Terry said.

“Yes,” Abby said. “But they’re in order of frequency. That’s what the numbers in parentheses mean. See, he’s seen Kip Carter All-American twelve times. He’s seen Mr. Malcolm the construction teacher ten times, and so on.”

“So the end of the list doesn’t probably mean much.”

“Probably not,” Abby said. “But I put them in. Just in case.”

“Damn,” Terry said. “You’ve been putting in a lot of work.”

Abby nodded.

“And these are the places we’ve seen him go,” she said, “where he just went there and we didn’t really see him with anybody.”

“Like the supermarket,” Terry said.

“Exactly.”

“Or the Trent house. You don’t know who he sees there?”

“Carly never knows,” Abby said.

“But he’s been there, what, eight times?”

“That Carly has seen.”

“And Carly can’t tell if it’s Mr. or Mrs. or both?”

“No. Carly thinks it might be hanky-panky, but he doesn’t know.”

“Carly thinks everything is hanky-panky,” Terry said. “It’s kind of hard to imagine.”

“I could imagine her,” Abby said. “You even said once she was kind of hot.”

“With him?” Terry said. “That’s what I can’t imagine.”

“God no,” Abby said. “I can’t imagine him doing it with anybody.”

“And don’t want to,” Terry said.

“Grown-ups do have affairs, though,” Abby said.

“But Bullard is married.”

“Married grown-ups do have affairs, though,” Abby said.

Terry nodded, looking at the way the light glanced off the moving ocean.

“I guess we need to find out,” he said.

“You think it’s important?”

“I think we don’t know, so we need to find out.”

“Yes,” Abby said. “That’s the right way to think.”

Terry looked at the list again.

“Wow,” he said. “You been doing this, like, full time.”

“Pretty much,” Abby said.

“How you gonna stay on the honor roll?” he said.

“Oh, phoo,” she said. “You don’t have to do much to make honor roll.”

Terry laughed.

“You got that right,” he said. “Tank made it this term.”

“I rest my case,” Abby said.

Terry was still studying the list.

“Okay,” Terry said. “He’s seen Kip Carter the most and Mr. Malcolm the next most.”

“That we know about,” Abby said. “We don’t see him all the time.”

“I know,” Terry said. “I just don’t want to keep saying ‘as far as we know’ every time.”

“Just so you remember,” Abby said.

“I remember,” Terry said. “I remember.”

“Well,” Abby said. “Aren’t we grouchy.”

“I’m sorry. I just feel some stress, I suppose. I mean Mr. Bullard’s always looking at me, and Kip Carter is always looking at me. And, you know. I mean what are we doing?”

“We’re trying to find out what happened to Jason,” Abby said.

Terry nodded.

“Maybe what they say happened, happened,” he said.

Abby was quiet for a moment. Several seabirds lingered in the area, in search of food. Sitting close so they could both look at the charts, Terry could feel the slight pressure of Abby’s thigh against his own. After a time, Abby shook her head slowly.

“No,” she said. “We already know whatever happened wasn’t. what they say.”

“Like Mr. Bullard telling me not to ask about it...”

“And Kip Carter All-American telling you to back off,” Abby said.

“I’m not crazy,” Terry said. “There’s something going on, isn’t there?”

“Yes,” Abby said. “There is.”

“And we’re the only ones who know it?”

“We’re the only ones that know it and are willing to do something about it,” Abby said.

“And we’re kids,” Terry said.

“I guess,” Abby said. “Sort of.”

They were quiet again. The sun was warm. The ocean smelled fresh. One of the gulls hopped close and cocked its head and stared at them with its blank black eyes.

“If we’re together when we’re grown,” Terry said, “I will never have an affair.”

“Except with me,” Abby said.

“That wouldn’t be an affair,” Terry said.

“You never know,” Abby said.

Chapter 28

Terry stood in the dark with Abby among some evergreen shrubs in back of the Trent house.

“Carly says Bullard arrived here at seven,” Abby said. “That was his car around the corner, right?”

“Yep,” Terry said.

“Why would he park there if he wasn’t trying to sneak?”

“Don’t know,” Terry said.

“Are you scared?” Abby said.

“No.”

“Nervous?”

“No,” Terry said. “I’m trying to think.”

“Oh,” Abby said. “So maybe I should shut up.”

“Uh-huh,” Terry said.

They stood in the dark looking at the house.

“I feel like a peeping Tom,” Terry said.

“I know,” Abby said. “It’s kind of exciting, though.”

“No lights on upstairs,” Terry said.

“If they’re having an affair,” Abby said, “they wouldn’t go right upstairs, for heaven’s sake.”

“What would they do?”

“Have cocktails or something, in the living room.”

“You think?” Terry said.

“That’s where the lights are on,” Abby said.

“How do you know it’s the living room?”

“‘Cause I know,” Abby said. “Want to peek in?”

“I guess,” Terry said.

They walked carefully in the shadow of the shrubs to the back window, where the light was on, and looked in.

“Ohmigod,” Abby whispered.

She stepped quickly away from the window.

“They’re...” she said. “Are they...?”

“They are,” Terry whispered.

“For god’s sake stop looking,” Abby said.

“Why?”

“It’s too embarrassing,” Abby whispered. “What if they catch us?”

“I think we caught them,” Terry said.

“I mean it, Terry,” Abby said. “I want to go.”

She pulled at his arm.

“Wow!” Terry said. “Look at that.”

“No,” Abby said.

She pulled harder at his arm.

“I want to go,” Abby said.

“Okay,” Terry said.

They walked silently away through the dark shrubs to the street. As they walked beneath the streetlights, it seemed very bright to them.

“Mr. Bullard and Mrs. Trent,” Terry said.

“I know,” Abby said.

“I wonder what it means?” Terry said.

“She’s the head of the town selectmen,” Abby said.

“And they’re connected,” Terry said.

“So to speak,” Abby said.

Terry grinned at her.

“Give you any ideas?” he said.

“You and I will never do anything that looks anything like that,” she said.

“I think that’s what it looks like,” Terry said.

“Well, we don’t look like that.”

“I guess not,” Terry said.

They continued on, in and out of the light circles spread by the streetlamps.

“Plus,” Terry said. “I woulda taken my socks off.”

“Ohhh,” Abby said.

She punched him in the arm, not hard... and began to giggle.

Chapter 29

“If that ever gets out, Mrs. Trent won’t be governor,” Terry said.

“I know, but what does that have to do with Jason?” Abby said.

“Maybe nothing,” Terry said. “Wouldn’t help Bullard’s career, either, if this got around.”

They were sitting on the Wall. Across the street, on the town common, two squirrels chased each other around a tree trunk.

“What should we do?” Abby said.

“I think we should focus on him and her for a while,” Terry said.

“Because they’re having an affair?”

“Yeah. If they’re doing that, what else might they be doing?”

“He’s married,” Abby said. “Right?”

“Yeah. I saw her once at school, I forget what she was doing there.”

“What’s she like?” Abby said.

“Mrs. Bullard? She looks like someone who would marry Mr. Bullard.”

“Oh dear,” Abby said. “Are we going to tell anybody?”

“Oh it’s too good to keep quiet,” Terry said.

“No,” Abby said. “We shouldn’t tell.”

“No?”

“Because it’s too good to keep quiet. We tell Tank or Suzi or somebody and it’ll be all over town.”

“And that’s bad?”

“It’s bad if they haven’t done anything else bad,” Abby said. “I mean maybe they’re both unhappily married, you know, and they’ve found each other. I mean maybe they’re in love.”

Terry nodded for a time.

“Yeah,” he said. “We can always use it if we need to.”

“You’re not very romantic,” Abby said.

“Am too,” Terry said.

“Not about Mr. Bullard and Mrs. Trent.”

“No,” Terry said. “Not about them.”

“Would you have stayed and watched if I hadn’t been there?” Abby said.

“Sure.”

“Why?”

“It was sex,” Terry said. “And I’m a guy. I wanted to watch her.”

“That’s it?”

“Sure,” Terry said. “You weren’t interested?”

“I’m interested in sex, I guess,” Abby said. “But not like that. I want, you know, I want some feeling in it, something romantic. I’m a girl.”

“They might have had feeling in it,” Terry said.

“But I didn’t,” Abby said.

“Not all girls are like that.”

“No,” Abby said. “I know. Suzi’s already hooking up. Lotta girls.”

“But not you,” Terry said.

“I won’t hook up just to hook up,” Abby said.

“Because you need to be in love?”

“I guess,” Abby said. “I need to feel something. It needs to matter.”

“More than just the fun of it?”

“Yes,” Abby said. “If it were only about fun, for me, it wouldn’t be fun. Does that make any sense?”

“Not the kind of sense I wish it did,” Terry said.

“I know.”

“You feel something for me?” Terry said.

“Yes.”

“I matter,” Terry said.

Abby nodded.

“Yes,” she said.

“But?”

“Not yet,” Abby said.

“Not yet?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know,” Abby said. “I just know that you and I are about more than just fun.”

“Yes,” Terry said. “I know that too.”

“We’re not very old, we have time,” Abby said.

“We’re old enough to know something about each other,” Terry said.

“Yes.”

“We are sure about each other,” Terry said.

“Yes, we are.”

They looked at each other and then Terry smiled.

“So, sooner or later?” he said.

Abby smiled at him and put her hand on his forearm.

“Sooner or later,” Abby said.

Chapter 30

"Okay,” George said. "You’re fighting two guys.”

They were at the heavy bag.

“You do left jab, right cross, left hook on the bag, you pivot on me, keep your right foot planted, and throw the same punches at me and pivot back.”

George grinned.

“Just in case the guy didn’t go down,” he said.

“Hard to believe,” Terry said.

“Okay,” George said. “First on the heavy bag, then on me.”

Terry hit the bag, left-right, left hook, turning into each punch with his hip.

“Now me,” George said.

He held the mitts up.

“Like basketball,” George said. “Keep your pivot foot.”

They worked on the doubling up for a while.

Then George said, “Excellent. Take a seat.”

Terry slumped onto the chair. George began to help him off with the gloves.

“I need to sort something out, George,” Terry said as his breathing settled.

“Uh-huh.”

“You said that having heart was maybe being abnormal,” Terry said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Talk to me more about that,” Terry said.

“Your breathing get back to normal pretty quick now, you notice that?” George said.

“Yeah, I guess I’m starting to get in shape.”

George nodded.

“You are,” he said.

Terry waited. He knew George had heard the question. He walked over to the shelf and put Terry’s big gloves on the top shelf.

“Heart got something to do with courage, and something to do with being cruel,” George said.

He turned and came back.

“You got to be willing to bash somebody in the face, maybe somebody you don’t even know. You gotta do more than be willing to, you got to want to bash him in the face as hard and as often as you can until you win.”

“That’s cruel,” Terry said.

“Probably is,” George said. “And you got to want to do that while he trying to do the same thing to you.”

“That’s maybe the courage part?” Terry said.

George thought about it.

“It is,” he said after a while. “But you also got to have the courage to be cruel.”

“You don’t seem cruel, George.”

“Just when I fight,” George said. “Got to be able to control the cruel part. It control you and you ain’t a good fighter, and you ain’t a good man.”

“Does it bother you being cruel?”

“Not when I fighting,” George said. “Ain’t a matter of right and wrong anymore. You thought it was wrong, you shouldn’t be doing it. You decided it was right to fight and right to win when you stepped into the ring. Now you got to do the things you got to do to get there.”

“So if you’re trying to do the right thing, you might need to be cruel to do it,” Terry said.

George stared thoughtfully at Terry for a moment. Then he nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “If we talking ’bout fighting.”

“We are,” Terry said. “Sort of.”

Chapter 31

In the early evening, while there was still light, they sat on a stone outcropping on the building site and looked at the nearly finished house. The house was closed in. The windows and doors were in. The front door had a large No Trespassing sign on it. There was still landscaping to be done, and painting, and who knew what inside. But they could see it was a nice house.

“Said in the news today that she’s probably gonna win the election,” Abby said.

“Trent?”

“Yes.”

“Unless we blab,” Terry said.

“Why would you do that?” Abby said. “Just ’cause you saw her with Bullard? That doesn’t mean she shouldn’t be governor.”

“We don’t know what it means,” Terry said. “Yet.”

“No,” Abby said. “And until we do, we have no right to ruin anybody’s life.”

“I know,” Terry said.

“Besides, we’d have to tell we were peeking in their window.”

“We could say it was me,” Terry said. “We wouldn’t have to mention you.”

“And they’d both deny it,” Abby said. “They’d tell everybody you’re a troublemaker.”

“But you’re not,” Terry said.

“No, I’m a good girl. Honor roll. Never in trouble.”

“So if we tell, it needs to be both of us,” Terry said.

“I think so.”

Terry nodded.

“We’ll keep our mouths shut for the moment, I guess.”

“They’re both pretty interested in this project,” Abby said. “They each come here three, four times a week. Sometimes they’re both here. Sometimes one, sometimes the other.”

“I thought this was conservation land,” Terry said.

“So?”

“So I think that means you aren’t supposed to build on it.”

“Probably okay if it’s a school project,” Abby said.

“So what happens to the house when it’s built?” Terry said.

“I don’t know.”

“Me neither.”

“It would be nice to know,” Abby said.

“Depends on who you ask, I guess,” Terry said. “I got in trouble asking about steroids.”

“I know,” Abby said.

“It’s frustrating as hell,” Terry said. “We’re pretty sure that Jason didn’t commit suicide. We’re pretty sure that there’s something going on with Bullard, and Trent and Kip Carter. There’s something going on with this house.”

“We’re sure something’s going on between Trent and Bullard,” Abby said.

“And that’s all we know,” Terry said. “We can’t prove anything except that, and who knows if anyone will believe us.”

“Plus we have to fess up that we were spying on them,” Abby said. “And then we might have to explain why and tell about our spy network and... Terry, a lot of people could get in trouble.”

Terry nodded.

It was beginning to get dark. They stood and walked back out the dirt road from the construction site. As they went, Terry noticed some Day-Glo orange painted stakes in the ground along the road.

“Look at the stakes,” he said to Abby.

“What are they for?” Abby said.

“It looks like they’re marking out where to build other houses.”

“On conservation land?”

“I guess,” Terry said.

Chapter 32

Abby asked Nancy Fortin the next day, and Nancy Fortin asked around among the other kids in the technical arts curriculum. But nobody knew what happened to the project houses after they were built.

“If I was you,” Nancy said, “I’d go down to the tech arts office and talk to Mr. Malcolm. He’s the house master.”

So Abby went to the technical arts office and asked for Mr. Malcolm.

He was in.

“So,” he said. “Miss Hall, what is your interest in technical arts?”

“It’s really just curiosity, Mr. Malcolm. I was walking in the woods last night with my dog, and I saw that house that your department is building, and I thought, Wow! I got to find out about this.”

“Why are you interested?”

“Well,” Abby said, “it’s so fabulous. I mean that kids are building something like that.”

Mr. Malcolm smiled and nodded. He was lean and had short gray hair and a sort of healthy outdoor look.

“Yes,” he said. “We’re very proud of the program. It’s one of the few full-scale construction programs in the state.”

“I’m sorry I sound so stupid,” Abby said. “But have you built many?”

“No,” Malcolm said. “It’s a new program. Mr. Bullard brought me in to run it.”

“And you know about construction?”

“Yes,” he said, and smiled at her. “I have been a contractor for more than thirty years. I’m able to hire a lot of my subcontractors on a per diem basis to serve as instructors in various phases.”

“You mean like plumbers for the plumbing part and electrical guys for the electricity part?”

Malcolm nodded happily.

“Exactly,” he said. “Normally skilled tradesmen aren’t available to teach, because, quite frankly, they make too much doing what they do to give it up for teaching. But if I can hire them between jobs and pay them well, but not for very long, we can get expert faculty in all phases of the construction without huge costs.”

“Wow, again!” Abby said. “Is that your idea?”

“Well, I have a part in it. Because of my long experience, I know a great many subs... subcontractors,” he said. “But the plan originated, I believe, with Mr. Bullard. Mrs. Trent, when she was chair of the school committee, and more recently, as chairperson of the selectmen, has been very supportive.”

“Is somebody who’s gone through this program ready to work when he graduates?” Abby said.

She was leaning forward, her eyes wide, giving every evidence of being totally fascinated.

“Absolutely,” Mr. Malcolm said. “They’ve had hands-on training from experts. Incidentally it’s not just he anymore. It could be she, you know.”

“And do you help them get jobs?” Abby said.

“In cooperation with the guidance office,” Mr. Malcolm said. “Plus, I have so many contacts in the building business that I can be quite helpful in a more informal way.”

Abby appeared entranced.

“Fabulous,” she said. “What a fabulous program.”

Mr. Malcolm smiled at her enthusiasm.

“It’s been a dream project of mine for many years,” he said. “And now that I don’t have to devote so much time to my own business, I have the chance to see the dream come true.”

“That’s really great,” Abby said. “What do you do with the house when it’s finished?”

“Finished?” Malcolm said.

“Yes, it’s so great... really fabulous... Do you do something special?”

“We... ah... You’ll have talk to Mr. Bullard about that.”

“Mr. Bullard?”

“Yes,” Mr. Malcolm said. “He would be the one to ask.”

Abby frowned in a cute way and looked puzzled.

“Don’t you know?” Abby said.

“Mr. Bullard would be the one to ask about that,” Mr. Malcolm said, and looked at his watch.

Abby considered that option.

I don’t think so.

Chapter 33

“You going into a fight,” George said. "You know what you trying to do. You got a plan. You need to stay with the plan. Worst thing you can do is get one on the nose and get mad and go crazy and can the plan.”

Terry had the big gloves off and was finishing up on the speed bag, which, as George said, was mostly for show. It was somewhat useful for hand-eye coordination, Terry knew, and it was kind of an aerobic workout.

“What if the plan isn’t working?” he asked.

“Then you come up with another one. What you don’t do is just get mad and start whaling away,” George said. “That ain’t no plan and it will get you hurt.”

“Didn’t you ever get mad?”

“You get mad, you use it for energy,” George said. “You control it and channel it. Otherwise you lose your technique, and you don’t stay over your feet, and you let yourself get off balance and overextended and you get your clock cleaned and your ticket punched pretty quick.”

“What if the other guy is mad too?” Terry said.

“Then the control is gone,” George said. “Then it just a brawl and a lucky punch win it.”

Terry finished up on the speed bag.

“Now deck him,” George said.

Terry got the bag moving again and then hit it as hard as he could with a right overhand punch.

“A devastating punch,” George said. “Now take a seat and breathe.”

Terry sat on the folding chair and began to peel the self-stick trainer’s tape off his hands.

“It’s all about control, isn’t it, George?” Terry said.

“It is,” George said.

He pushed the wastebasket closer so Terry could drop the used tape in it and took the big sixteen-ounce boxing gloves to the shelf.

“Hard for a kid,” Terry said, “to control stuff.”

“It is,” George said. “Most of the time people controlling you.”

“Was that the way it was for you?”

“When I was a kid,” George said, “there was no control. Kid needs some. I didn’t get none ’til the priest started me boxing.”

“Then you could control things, ’cause you could fight,” Terry said.

“I could control myself,” George said. “So can you. It’s the only control matters.”

“Self-control.”

“Sure,” George said. “You maybe want to fight Golden Gloves, fine. You maybe want to go on and fight pro, fine. I’ll stay with you far as you want. But I ain’t teaching you to box so you’ll be a good boxer.”

“Then what the hell are you teaching me for?” Terry said.

“So you be a good man.”

“Not a good man because I can box,” Terry said.

“That’s correct,” George said.

“A good man because I can control myself,” Terry said.

“That’s correct,” George said.

“‘Cause I can stick with my plan.”

“First you learn to have a plan. Then you learn to stick to it until it proves to be wrong. Then you get a new plan.”

“You’re talking about life,” Terry said.

“You need to have the smarts to know your best interest,” George said. “And you need to have the control to stay with it.”

“So,” Terry said slowly, “everything won’t be a brawl that’s decided by a lucky punch.”

George smiled and hit the speed bag, his hands so fast that Terry could barely see them. The movement of the bag was pyrotechnic and entirely rhythmic.

“Badda bing,” George said.

Chapter 34

On her way home from school Friday, Abby passed the dirt road that led to the construction project. She stopped for a moment and listened. She didn’t hear anything. It was after school hours, so there was probably nobody working on the project. Sometimes when you looked at a thing, Abby thought, and tried to keep your mind empty, you would think of something. She turned into the quiet dirt road and walked to the site. It was empty. She stood looking at it, listening to the bird sounds in the empty woods. The house was a big one, and fancy.

Worth a lot of money... to someone... Maybe it got sold and the money went back into the school budget... or the town budget... if the town had a budget... it must, towns cost money... so how come nobody seems to know who got the money? Except maybe Mr. Bullard and she didn’t dare ask him.

She heard a footstep behind her and turned and it was Kip Carter. She felt the little jag of fear flash through the center of her stomach.

“Little Abby Hall,” he said. “Out in the woods all alone.”

Abby stared at him. He was like a grown man, big, with muscles. He looked like he shaved every day. And he was handsome in a pouty self-satisfied kind of way that Abby hated. She also hated that she was afraid of him.

“What do you want?” she said.

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Kip Carter said.

“I don’t want anything,” Abby said.

“Maybe I do,” Kip Carter said.

“I don’t care if you do or not,” Abby said.

He moved closer to her. She felt the fear. But she felt anger too. She started to walk around him. He stepped in front of her.

“Where you going?” he said.

“I’m going home,” Abby said, and started to move past him again.

Kip Carter stepped in front of her again.

“We need a little talk,” he said.

Abby moved to go around him in the other direction. He stayed in her way. It was almost like a dance step.

“About what?” Abby said.

“About why you’re snooping around this construction site. About why you’re asking nosy questions about what happens when it’s done. About what you and your creepy boyfriend are up to in general.”

“Terry’s not my boyfriend and he’s not creepy.”

“Yeah? I say he is.”

“Gordon didn’t think so,” Abby said.

“Gordon.” Kip Carter laughed. “Your creep boyfriend gets in a lucky punch and now people think he’s tough. He’s a kid. He annoys me and I’ll step on him like he’s a cockroach.”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Abby said.

She moved again. He stepped in her way again.

“What are you two little nerds up to?” he said.

“We’re not nerds,” Abby said. “And we’re not up to anything. Now get out of my way.”

Kip Carter laughed.

“Who you telling to get out of your way?” he said.

They danced the little dance again. Kip Carter seemed to be liking it. Abby felt equal parts fear and anger and both were growing.

“You ain’t going no place,” Kip Carter said. “Until you tell me why you’re asking about this property.”

She tried to dodge around him again and he put a hand against her chest and shoved her. She staggered back and a branch scratched across her face. The pain made her madder. She tried to run past him. He pushed her again and she fell down.

He said, “Bad things can happen to little girls in the woods, you know.”

She scrambled to her feet. Her face felt hot. He put a hand on each side of her face and put his face close. He shook her head slightly.

“Now,” he said, “what’s going on?”

She hit him in the mouth with her right fist. It cut his lip and the blood spurted. He swore and let go of her face and she dodged around him and ran for the street. He stood for a moment, stunned that she had hit him, looking at the blood on his hands as if he couldn’t believe it.

“You cut my lip,” he said.

Then he started after her. He was faster than she was. But the stunned moment cost him and she reached the street before he could catch her.

He screamed at her.

“This isn’t over. I’ll get you. I’m gonna get you.”

There were people on the street. A woman, seeing the boy emerge bleeding from the woods, stopped and spoke to him.

“Are you all right?” she said. “Do you need help?”

Kip Carter shook his head, looking after Abby.

Abby kept going.

Chapter 35

After school on Monday she walked down to the Wall to meet Terry. She had covered the long scratch on her cheek as best she could, with makeup. She wouldn’t tell him, she decided. It would upset him. It might even cause trouble. Kip Carter was three years older than Terry and much bigger. What if Terry felt obliged to fight with him? Plus she didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t even like to think about it. Thinking about it made her want to cry.

Terry was on the Wall when she got there. She sat beside him.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.”

“What happened to your face?” he said.

“Nothing,” she said.

“You got a scratch right across your whole cheek,” he said.

“It’s just a scratch,” she said.

“I can see that,” Terry said. “How’d you get it?”

She felt it coming. She tried to stop it. She couldn’t. She turned her head away and started to cry.

“What?” Terry said.

She cried harder. He felt something like panic.

“Why are you crying?” Terry said.

She shook her head.

He slid off the Wall and walked around so he could look at her.

“Why are you crying?” he said.

She put her hands over her face.

“Don’t look at me,” she said.

“Why?”

He didn’t know what to do. He put his hand on her shoulder. She felt how red her eyes must be, and puffy. Her nose had started to run. She wiped it with her sleeve.

“Don’t look,” she said again.

He went back and sat where he’d been and she cried with her back to him. After a time she fished a packet of tissues from her backpack and tried to clean up her face. Then she got out some makeup and a little mirror and did some damage control. Finally she got her breathing back under control and turned to Terry.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“What happened?” Terry said.

She shook her head.

“Oh for god’s sake, Abby,” Terry said. “You can’t do that. You can’t have a major meltdown in front of me and not tell me why.”

She clasped her hands and looked down at her thumbs for a time. Then she looked up at Terry and nodded.

“No,” she said. “I can’t.”

He waited. She took in some breath and let it out slowly.

Then she told him.

He listened in absolute silence. His body motionless. His gaze fixed on her face. He felt himself slowly getting colder inside, as if he were turning to ice. He thought, I’m going to have to do something about this. He felt threading through the cold a small wiggle of uncertainty. He wasn’t sure what he should do about it... or could.

When Abby got through, they sat in silence, until Abby said, “What do you think of that?”

Terry thought about his answer.

“I... I can’t let it go.”

“Why?”

“I can’t,” Terry said. “I can’t just let him treat you like that.”

“I don’t... I would hate it if you got into trouble with him. I would feel awful, because I told you.”

“But I can’t let him do that,” Terry said again.

“It’s about me,” Abby said. “Not you.”

“It’s about us,” Terry said.

Abby started to speak and stopped. They were quiet again.

“Everything is about us,” Terry said.

Abby nodded.

I’m fifteen, she thought, how the hell am I supposed to know what to say?

“What are you going to do?” Abby said.

“I don’t know,” Terry said. “But I gotta do something.”

“We’re doing something,” Abby said. “We’ll keep doing it.”

“I can’t let him bother you again,” Terry said.

“What do you think George would say?”

“George?” Terry said.

“Yeah, George,” she said. “What would George tell you to do?”

“He’d say I needed to make sure you were safe.”

“How would he say to do that?”

Terry thought about George.

You need to stay with the plan. Worst thing you can do is... get mad and go crazy... You get mad, you use it for energy... You control it and channel it... You need to have the control.

Terry nodded slowly.

“I know what to do,” Terry said.

Chapter 36

They went across the common to the town library and sat at the farthest table back and worked softly on their plan. They stayed until suppertime.

That night both of them made many phone calls.

The next day Abby typed up the whole plan on her computer and ran off a bunch of pages and stapled them together. She liked organizing, being neat, getting everything in order.

That afternoon, when school was over, they gathered, eleven of them including Terry and Abby, at the rocks by the town beach, away from everybody, where no one could hear them or approach them without being seen. It was the inner circle of the spy ring. Otis was there, looking worried, and Tank, and Nancy, who seemed ill at ease with the other kids. Perry Fisher was there and Bev, and Suzi, the wind ruffling her big hair. Steve Bellino stood with Mitchell and Carly Clark, who was taller than the rest of them, and darker.

“Okay,” Terry said. “Like I said on the phone, we’re gonna make our move on this whole thing we been spying. We’re gonna do it today, and Abby and I will do all the hard stuff. Abby will give you your letter packets. Hang on to them. And we need you to stick around with us in case somebody gets nasty. It’s pretty hard to be too bad in front of eleven eyewitnesses.”

“Might be able to do better than be a witness,” Carly Clark said.

“You got that right,” Tank said.

“We’re not looking for trouble,” Abby said. “If we’re together, nobody much is going to give us any.”

“We don’t want people thinking we’re a bunch of hooligans,” Otis said.

Everybody looked at him.

“Hooligans?” Steve Bellino said. “What kinda word is that?”

Otis shrugged and looked at the ocean.

“Hey,” Carly said. “We all in this together. Otis wanna say ‘hooligan’ he can say ‘hooligan,’ you know?”

“You’re right,” Bellino said. “Hey, Otis, I’m sorry. I was only kidding you.”

“It’s okay,” Otis said, and smiled.

“We need to stay together as much as we can,” Abby said. “I got a sort of plan in with the letters packet about where to meet so we can walk to school together, and where Terry and I are going to go, and where to meet us, stuff like that.”

“I know,” Terry said, “that all eleven of us can’t be together all the time. But several of us can.”

“And we all got cell phones,” Suzi said. “One phone call and we all come running.”

“You’re each, like, sort of team captains,” Abby said. “And you each got your list of people you call, you know, like in a snowstorm.”

“You bet,” Suzi said.

Suzi looked like she was planning for her wedding. Her eyes were bright. She was excited. Suzi was adventurous, Terry knew. For Suzi this was fun.

Terry felt a tightness in his throat as he stood in front of them, with the quiet ocean moving behind him, and the mild breeze blowing past. He felt like he loved all these people, some of whom he barely knew, and in other circumstances might have been scornful of. He knew he wasn’t a very scornful guy, but these people covered a pretty good spectrum. Perry was probably queer. Otis was a nerd. Carly was a basketball star. Tank was very big. Suzi was a sex-pot. Bev was some sort of goody-goody. Bellino was mainstream. Mitchell was... hell, he didn’t know anything about Mitchell.

“So if we really have to,” Abby continued, “I figure we can pull about forty people together.”

“Easy,” Tank said. “Everybody likes Abby, and nobody likes Kip Carter. It’s a no-brainer.”

“Anyway,” Terry said. “I just want to thank you for standing up for us.”

“And Jason,” Perry said.

Terry nodded.

“And Jason,” he said.

“Hell, Terry,” Tank said. “This is fun.”

“Yeah,” Carly said, “and who you rather have fun with than Carter and Bullard.”

“And maybe Old Lady Trent,” Bev said.

Everyone turned and looked at her.

“Bev?” Suzi said.

“Well, I don’t like her,” Bev said.

He knew they were right. For most of them this was like a war game, like cops and robbers, but maybe it wasn’t for Perry. And for him and for Abby it had kept getting more serious. But for the rest... cowboys and Indians... Didn’t matter. It was a good feeling to have them there.

Terry smiled.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s saddle up.”

Chapter 37

Everyone knew it was an election ploy. But Mrs. Trent kept open-door office hours at her campaign headquarters on Main Street, from three to six every day. The office was in a storefront a block up the street from the Coffee Café. At 4:10, Terry and Abby arrived with seven other kids. The seven others waited outside. Across the street, standing inside the entrance to the movie theater, Kip Carter watched Terry and Abby go into the storefront. There was no one in the office but Mrs. Trent and some staff. A Cabot police cruiser was parked outside. The outer office was plastered with campaign posters that said:

SALLY TRENT FOR GOVERNOR

and showed a big picture of the candidate in a white blouse and some pearls.

“Do you kids want to see our next governor?” a young woman said to them. She was seated at a table behind a bank of telephones.

“Yes ma‘am,” Abby said.

“Are you supporters?” the young woman said.

“Of course,” Terry said.

“That’s great,” the young woman said. She turned to a young guy in jeans and a plaid shirt who sat with his feet up at the next table and said, “Get some pictures of this, Harry.”

She stood and went to the inner office door and spoke. In a moment she nodded and turned back.

“Come on in, kids,” she said. “Mrs. Trent would love to see you.”

As they walked to Mrs. Trent’s office, Harry the camera guy stood and came in behind them.

Abby murmured to Terry, “Let them take their pictures first.”

Terry nodded. They went in.

Sally Trent’s office was smaller than the outer one. Just a desk, two guest chairs, and a phone. On the walls were more campaign posters, including some that said:

LET’S RALLY BEHIND SALLY

As they came in, she stood and walked around her desk. She was wearing a tailored gray suit and a French blue shirt with a long collar. The collar was open over the pearls at her throat. Abby already could see that the pearls, which Terry probably hadn’t noticed, were Mrs. Trent’s trademark. She glanced at Harry, then smiled at Terry and Abby.

“Young supporters, how lovely,” she said.

She glanced at the camera, saw that it was ready, and put out her hand.

“Tell me your names,” she said.

“Terry Novak.”

“Abby Hall.”

Mrs. Trent shook both their hands. The camera clicked and flashed as she was doing it.

“Terry and Abby,” she said with an even bigger smile. “If only you could vote.”

“We will in a while,” Abby said.

“Yes,” Mrs. Trent said. “You are the future.”

They stood uneasily for a moment. Mrs. Trent glanced at the young woman assistant, who nodded slightly toward the two chairs. She made a talking gesture with her thumb and fingers.

“Do sit down,” Mrs. Trent said. “Give me how things look from your perspective.”

The woman stood beside the door. The cameraman stood on the other side.

“Excuse me, ma‘am,” Abby said. “But we have to speak with you in private.”

“Uh-oh,” Mrs. Trent said, and smiled harder. She looked at the assistant. The assistant nodded.

“Come on, Harry,” the assistant said. “Give them a little privacy.”

The assistant and the camera guy left the room. Mrs. Trent sat back down behind her desk, crossed her legs, smoothed her skirt over her knees, folded her hands in her lap, and leaned back slightly in her chair. She smiled at them brightly.

“Okay, what secrets do you have to tell me?” she said.

Here it was. The moment. Terry could feel, in the center of himself, the jagged thump of its arrival. They had rehearsed it twenty times. They had agreed that Abby would start off. It would be easier to hear, they thought, coming from Abby. And Abby was more socially graceful than Terry. She could talk better.

“We need you to help us,” Abby said.

Mrs. Trent was warm.

“I will if I can,” she said.

“We think something bad is going on in town, something to do with Jason Green and the construction near the Eel Pond Woods, and maybe something to do with steroids, and with Kip Carter, and Mr. Bullard.”

Mrs. Trent’s face began to stiffen.

“And,” Abby said, “we know you’re having an affair with Mr. Bullard.”

Mrs. Trent’s face went gray-white. She stared at them. The stiff and pointless smile began to fade away. Terry felt as if he might not be able to breathe. He looked at Abby. She seemed calm and friendly and perfectly able to breathe. Mrs. Trent’s face was now the color of sea ice, the way it got sometimes when it was really cold and the harbor froze along the edges. Her mouth was open as if she were going to speak. But she didn’t speak.

“Could you help us with this?” Abby said.

She stared at them some more, and as she stared, the color in her face began to reverse itself. The blood came slowly back until her face was actually flushed, and she looked almost like she might have a fever.

“How...” She stopped and took a breath. “How dare you come in here and say such a thing.”

“We need your help,” Terry said.

They had rehearsed this, too. The first time she responded to Abby, Terry would answer. After that they’d have to play it by ear.

Mrs. Trent was outraged.

“Everything you have said, everything, is a huge and disgusting lie. I cannot imagine how you think you can get away with taking my time to come in here and behave like this.”

“We saw you and Mr. Bullard making love,” Abby said.

Again the stare, the color shifting in her face. The sense that she might be fighting for oxygen.

“That’s not possible,” she said. “And the accusation is disgusting.”

“You have a small blue butterfly tattooed on your butt,” Terry said.

Again the long awful silence. Mrs. Trent looked at her office door. No help there. She looked at the campaign poster that said, LET’S RALLY BEHIND SALLY. Then she seemed to brace herself.

“Is this what you do?” she said finally. “You sneak around in the night like little rats and peek in windows?”

They waited.

“That kind of behavior is disgusting,” she said.

Neither of them said anything.

“It’s also illegal,” she said. “Do you realize there’s a police cruiser right outside? If I call them in, they’ll arrest you right here.”

They waited.

“Who would believe you?” she said.

Terry shrugged. Abby looked blank.

“It would simply be the word of two idiotic children against mine,” she said.

Abby took her cell phone from her school bag and held it up.

“Why are you showing me that?” Mrs. Trent said.

“Takes pictures,” Terry said.

Abby kept holding it up. Mrs. Trent kept looking at it.

After what seemed a long time, she said in a hushed voice, “You took pictures?”

“Why not,” Terry said.

Again she seemed silent forever.

Then she said, “What do you want?”

Chapter 38

She was so close to being governor.

She was ahead in every poll... Her opponent had been shooting himself in the foot since the campaign began... She was a lock... except for these stupid little kids... How could they spoil it for her... She was smarter than they were, older, wiser... Toughen up, Sally... Think !... Think!

“We need you to help us,” Abby said, with a nice smile. “We need you to help us figure out what happened to Jason, and what’s going on at the tech arts construction site, and what’s up with Mr. Bullard...”

“Besides you,” Terry said.

Abby smiled at his remark and kept talking.

“... and Kip Carter, and steroids, and, things like that.”

Go along with them... Pretend to be with them... Buy some time... These are kids... Don’t give it up... Don’t quit... Come on, Sally, handle it... Play hardball.

She smiled.

“That seems a pretty big order,” she said. “And I don’t see how I can be much help. But if I could help, and did, what happens?”

“All we know disappears forever,” Abby said.

Mrs. Trent nodded.

“And if I can’t help you?”

“We have a letter,” Terry said. “Telling everything we know and suspect. It goes to a whole bunch of newspapers and TV stations.”

Terry glanced at Abby. She looked at her notebook in her lap and read aloud from her list.

“The Globe,” she said. “The Herald. The New Bedford Standard Times, Salem News, Lynn Item, Lowell Sun, Lawrence Eagle- Tribune, Worcester Gazette, Springfield Republican, Channels 4, 5, 7. You get the idea.”

“And,” Mrs. Trent said kindly, “where are these letters now?”

“A bunch of our friends have them,” Abby said. “Sealed, stamped, and addressed.”

“Do they know the contents?” Mrs. Trent said, as if it didn’t really matter and she was just curious.

“No,” Terry said. “But they know to send the letters if anything happens to us.”

Mrs. Trent widened her eyes.

“Happens to you?” she said. “My dear boy, aren’t you getting a little overheated?”

She shifted in her chair.

“Something happened to Jason,” Abby said.

Nice legs, though, Terry thought, for her age.

“I understood that was suicide,” Mrs. Trent said.

Keep talking to them... Work them, Sally, work them... You’ve come too far, Sally, to let yourself be ruined by a couple of high school kids... You’ve got them talking to you... Pretty soon you can have them explaining... You know how to do this, Sally, play them.

Terry looked at his watch.

“We’re going to give this one more minute,” he said. “Then we will get up and go out and tell our friends to mail their letters.”

She stared contemptuously at Terry. Sally Trent, the most powerful woman in the state, being confronted by two stupid little kids. She wanted to spit on them.

After nearly a minute she said, “There are things I can give you.”

Chapter 39

The female assistant stuck her head in the office door.

“Everything going well?” she asked brightly.

Mrs. Trent waved her away. The door closed again.

“Yes,” Mrs. Trent said, “I have a relationship with Paxton Bullard.”

Terry and Abby looked at each other.

Paxton!

“How old are you,” Mrs. Trent asked, “seventeen or so?”

“We’re both fifteen,” Abby said.

“Well, you look older,” Mrs. Trent said. “But even more to the point, you are probably not able to understand this sort of thing. But...” She took a breath. “Paxton is a long-time friend of my husband’s. He and Gerry were friends in college. When Gerry was head of the planning board, here in Cabot, Paxton came to him with a scheme. The school had just instituted an ambitious technical arts program, one of the first of its kind in an, ah, affluent school like Dawes Regional. He had a plan to use the resources of the technical arts program to build houses for nothing, and sell them for a great deal, and keep the money. Obviously he needed the kind of help only town officials could provide.”

Abby was sitting straight in her chair, with her knees and ankles together, fully absorbed in what Mrs. Trent was saying. Terry looked at her profile. He didn’t know if she looked older than fifteen. But he knew she was beautiful.

“My husband is a weak man. But he is loyal to his friends and, sad to say, I guess, is a bit greedy. I was head of the selectmen at the time. He asked me to do some things that seemed innocent, and I did them for him. He did some things. And among the things he did was to imply that he was speaking for me and to sign my name to a number of documents, which, in short, allowed this project to proceed.”

Neither Terry nor Abby said anything. The story was starting to be told and they didn’t want to break the spell. Mrs. Trent seemed almost dreamy as she talked.

“I’m very orderly,” she said. “And very careful. I was reviewing my recent activities on the board when it struck me that some of the decisions I seemed to have signed on to were specious.”

Terry wasn’t exactly sure what specious meant. But Abby would know, and until he could ask her, he had a pretty good idea from the context.

“I confronted Gerry, my husband, and he confessed to me. He begged me to let it go. He’s terrified of Paxton. Most people are, I suppose. He’s so big, and he has all those muscles, and he has such an explosive temper. But I have a conscience, and I have a duty to those people who elected me to represent them. So I went to Paxton, and I said, ‘This has to stop, now!’ ”

She paused for a moment, looking not at them really, more past them, at something that seemed far away. Terry and Abby sat motionless, waiting for her to go on.

“He laughed at me,” Mrs. Trent said. “He is a troglodyte. Some sort of antediluvian beast, I think.”

A couple of other words he’d have to ask Abby about.

“He said there was no paper with his name on it,” Mrs. Trent went on. “He said that if we did anything to expose the scheme, he’d take my husband and myself down with him and that we’d fall a lot farther and land a lot harder.”

Again she paused, again the faraway look of soft sadness.

“My husband is a weak fool, and he’s not terribly bright,” she said finally. “But he’s my husband and I love him. I could not expose him to that, and Bullard knew it.”

She had shifted from “Paxton” to “Bullard,” Terry noticed.

“And then...” She paused again, as if she were fighting off tears. “And then he said that to cement our new conspiracy, our new partnership, so to speak...”

She stopped and put her hands on either side of her face and pressed, as if she were trying to keep herself together.

“He said that I had to become his mistress...”

She slid her hands together and buried her face in them and sat for a long time.

“Does Mr. Malcolm know about this house thing?” Terry said.

Her voice was muffled as she spoke with her face still in her hands.

“I assume so,” she said.

“How about Kip Carter?” Abby said. “Where does he fit in?”

Mrs. Trent straightened and took a Kleenex from her purse and dabbed at her eyes, carefully, so as not to disturb her makeup. Her eyes looked dry, Terry thought. Then she folded her hands, still clutching the Kleenex, and placed them in her lap.

“Paxton uses him as a kind of enforcer with the kids,” she said calmly. “He helped Kip with his scholarship to Illinois. And he, I believe, supplies Kip and some of his pals with steroids. Paxton uses them himself, I know. Perhaps it accounts for his vicious temper.”

“What do you mean, enforcer?” Abby said.

“Make sure all the kids that knew about the project didn’t get nosy or talk about it the wrong way,” Mrs. Trent said. “You know. If they thought something was wrong and it was the principal’s fault, they might tell somebody. But, and you probably know these rules better than I do, they wouldn’t squeal on one of the other kids.”

“Plus Kip Carter is the biggest wheel in the school,” Abby said.

“And the toughest guy,” Terry said.

“So,” Abby said, “yes. You’re right. Kids would much rather not rat out Kip Carter. Loyalty, fear...” Abby moved her hands in sort of random circles as she searched for the right word.

“Tribal loyalty, perhaps,” Mrs. Trent said.

“Yes, that’s right,” Abby said.

“How’s he get away with all this?” Terry said.

“He is both school superintendent and principal of the high school,” Mrs. Trent said. “That’s quite unusual. Not unheard of, but unusual. It gives him unusual autonomy.”

Another one for Abby, Terry thought. Must mean something like power.

“And Jason?” Terry asked. “Do you know what happened to Jason Green?”

Mrs. Trent shifted again in her chair, so that she was facing more toward Terry. She crossed her legs the other way and smoothed her skirt. Then she looked up and gazed hard and straight at Terry.

“No,” Mrs. Trent said. “As God is my witness. I do not know what happened to Jason Green.”

Chapter 40

The posse of kids gathered around them as they came out of the storefront.

“What’d she say?... She tell you anything?... What’d she tell you?... What happened? Do we mail the letters?”

“Hang on to the letters,” Terry said. “Don’t mail them. Don’t lose them. Just stand by on the letters.”

“What’d she say?”

Terry shook his head.

“Abby and me are going to go to the café and go over what she said. Give us some time to do that, okay?”

“To the café,” Tank shouted, and pointed grandly down the street. From the patrol car, the cop looked at them with mild amusement and shook his head slightly. As they trooped down the street, Sally Trent and her assistant came out of the storefront and got in a car. The car took them away, and the police car went with them. In the shadow of the theater entrance, Kip Carter stared after them.

It was a slow time in the café. Too late for lunch, too early for supper, but kind of late for a coffee and a snack. Terry and Abby went to a booth in the back and sat across from each other and ordered coffee.

“Paxton?” Terry said.

“He always signs everything P. F. Bullard,” Abby said. “I never knew his name was Paxton.”

“What do you suppose the ‘F’ stands for?” Terry asked.

“Fauntleroy?” Abby said.

They laughed and sipped their coffee.

“Do you believe what she told us?” Terry said.

“Of course not,” Abby said.

“No?”

“Remember she said there were things she could give us.”

“Yeah?”

“She gave us her husband and her boyfriend,” Abby said.

“What don’t you believe?”

“Most of it,” Abby said. “For instance, say the basic events are true, and Bullard’s making money off the school, and maybe distributing ’roids to some of his jock faves... You think he’s going to risk getting fired, maybe going to jail, and losing, what, a million dollars? On the house-building thing? You think he’s going to risk all that to have sex with Sally Trent?”

“Is that what he did?”

“Sure,” Abby said. “Essentially she said, he said, have sex with me or I’ll turn us all in.”

“She said he said that his name wasn’t on any documents.”

“Maybe,” Abby said. “Maybe it wasn’t. But if he tells his story, you think he won’t get connected to it? You think he would think that?”

“No.”

“Correct. So if we believe her story, he’s willing to risk everything to have sex with her.”

“She does have pretty good legs,” Terry said.

Abby slapped his forearm.

“Stop that,” she said.

He grinned at her.

“Well,” he said. “One thing, when we were peeking in, while you were hiding your eyes and saying ‘eek,’ I was taking a look, and I don’t know all that much about it, but she didn’t act like she was doing anything she didn’t want to do... you know?”

“Yuck,” Abby said.

“But you do know what I mean?”

Abby blushed slightly.

“Yes,” she said. “So you don’t believe her either?”

Terry held his coffee mug in both hands and sipped from it while he looked at her over the rim of the mug.

“Here’s what I think,” he said. “I think Bullard is involved in making money out of the house-building project. I believe he takes steroids, and I bet he gives some to Kip Carter. Mr. Trent’s probably involved too. And maybe something happened to Jason because he found out about this. He was in the tech arts program, you know.”

“But if Jason found out anything, would he tell Mr. Bullard?”

“He might have told Mr. Malcolm, or asked him about it, or something,” Terry said. “And Malcolm told Bullard.”

“Are you saying that Mr. Bullard killed Jason?” Abby said.

“I don’t know. We got this bunch of illegal stuff going on and right in the middle of it Jason dies, and when we start asking about it, Bullard and Kip Carter are on us like a heavy storm.”

“Why not Mr. Malcolm?”

“Possible, I suppose. But he hasn’t been bothering us like Bullard... and not for nothing, but if someone got killed and the two suspects were Mr. Malcolm and Mr. Bullard, who would you guess?”

“Yes,” Abby said. “You’re right. Mr. Bullard.”

“Sure,” Terry said.

“So how much do you think Mrs. Trent was involved?” Abby said.

“She’s in it up to her, ah, blue butterfly,” Terry said.

They both laughed.

“And the rest of it, how she loves her husband, and she didn’t know they were forging her name, and Bullard forced her to...” Abby made a face and shivered.

“Crappola,” Terry said. “That’s the best she could come up with at the moment. By the time it reaches the press, if it ever does, imagine how bad everyone will feel for her.”

“I wonder what she’d say if she found out I didn’t take a picture with my cell phone?” Abby said.

“We never said you did,” Terry said.

“Not exactly.”

“So I think she’s in it all the way, that she probably had the affair with Bullard first, and they thought up this scheme, and she dragged her husband into it, and...” Terry finished his sentence by turning both palms up.

“Yeah, she’s a terrible woman,” Abby said. “I agree with you.”

“So where do we go from here?”

“We got enough to probably ruin her chance to be governor and get Mr. Bullard fired,” Abby said.

Terry nodded.

“But we started this to find out what happened to Jason,” he said.

“And we still don’t know,” Abby said.

“No.”

“And Kip Carter?” Abby asked.

“He’s unfinished business,” Terry said.

“Because?”

“He threatened you,” Terry said.

“It doesn’t bother me,” Abby said. “Why should it bother you?”

“It bothers me,” Terry said.

“So what do we do next?” Abby said.

“I don’t know,” Terry said. “But it’s not over yet. We still have to find out what happened to Jason.”

“And then it’s over?” Abby said.

“Almost,” Terry said.

Abby looked at him silently. He patted her arm.

“Maybe somebody else will do something else,” Abby said.

“We stirred things up enough,” Terry said. “Something ought to happen.”

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