Betrayal - By Lee Nichols Page 0,20

my locker. Thatcher’s lockers were clustered in lounges—with leather club chairs, potted plants, and oil paintings—that were meant to be study rooms, but were more like hangouts. There was a certain cachet to each lounge, and heavy negotiating for the best of them. Since I started the school year late, I’d been assigned a nerdy lounge offering little in decor beyond an uncomfortable vinyl couch and a molting fica tree, which discouraged lingering.

Today I was grateful for the solitude when I found a Barbie doll hanging inside my locker. Someone had sheared its blond hair to look like my choppy, short haircut, dressed her in a plaid school uniform—and strung her tie into a noose.

It bothered me more than it should’ve. It was malevolent and cruel and whoever had put it there (Harry!) had no idea how close I’d come to death that night Coby had been killed.

I untied Barbie and buried her in the trash. Then I thought for a second and wasn’t sure if trashing my likeness was a good idea. So I dug her out, straightened her uniform, and tidied her hair. She looked pretty unimpressed by the rough treatment, so I put her in my bag, and decided to emulate her self-confident serenity.

6

Much to my chagrin, Fencing was a required course at Thatcher. Not that I wasn’t good with a sword, but I fought like a barroom brawler. There’s nothing elegant about fighting a wraith, which was why I was terrible at fencing. Sure, I could beat anyone in class in a real swordfight, but I couldn’t get a feel for the rules and intricacies of the exhibition sport.

I trudged downstairs and into the only room at Thatcher that looked like it belonged in a regular school: the girls’ locker room. The floors were gray concrete, the lockers public-school brown. I was late, and slipped into my fencing whites as the bell rang.

In the gym, the coach paired me with Sara. “She’ll go easy on you.”

“Oh!” I said. “No. Actually, she’s—”

“Delighted,” said Sara, prowling in front of me.

She was beautiful in her anger, mahogany locks twirling about her shoulders as though they were mad, too. Her color was high and her voice low—even rougher than usual, like she’d worn herself out crying over Coby.

She lowered into en garde position, and I made a half-hearted effort to defend myself.

She lunged and I riposted, back and forth down the mat. Well, mostly back, because I wasn’t attacking, just defending.

“Would you fight?” she said.

“I don’t want to fight you.”

“You promised”—she executed a perfect coupé—“you wouldn’t hurt him.”

I fell back. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry? He’s dead, and you’re sorry.”

“I couldn’t—” I swallowed. “There was nothing I could do.”

“Do you really believe that?”

The point of my foil drifted downward. “No.”

“Neither do I.”

And with that, she stabbed me in the chest … and then she just lost it. A horrible, wracking sob burst from her chest, and she started flailing at me with the foil like it was a riding crop.

I guess I just stood there.

In a minute, Coach noticed and started screaming at Sara. She banished her to the bench, threatening disciplinary action, but Sara just hurled her foil across the room and shoved into the locker room.

The ghost jocks—two teenage boys whose mission in death seemed to be heckling me—shimmered into being on the bleachers.

That Sara has great form, the dark-haired one said.

Indeed, the other agreed. And she fences well, too.

Then they high-fived each other over their smarminess.

I slunk over to the bleachers on the other side of the room, and in a minute Natalie came and sat beside me.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“You could’ve defended yourself.”

“I deserved it,” I said.

“No, Emma, that’s where you’re wrong.”

Someone stole my lunch. My locker had definitely been compromised, and I vowed to carry a bigger bag, so I wouldn’t have to use it anymore. Anatole always packed loads too much, so Natalie shared with me.

We sat in the corner of the cafeteria, which was nothing like the cafeterias I’d grown up with. It was more like a quaint dining room. There were no gray-haired lunch ladies slopping peas into trays, just the unscrewing of thermoses and quiet tinkling of silverware brought from home. Not wanting to call attention to myself, I answered Natalie’s forays into conversation with monosyllables. I was reminding myself of Bennett.

“I like the lemon dressing on the salad.”

“Mm.”

“Good grapes.”

“Yup.”

“Want some more chicken?”

“Nope.”

“You’re thinking about Bennett, aren’t you?”

“Maybe.”

I glanced up and saw Sara and Harry frowning at me from