Before I Fall Page 0,48
a split second, dropping her cigarette. She takes off behind the tennis courts even though I yell, “Over here!” I see the big blond pouf of Ms. Winters’s hair bobbing over the cars—I’m not sure if she’s seen us or just heard us laughing. I duck behind a Range Rover and cut across Senior Alley to one of the back doors in the gym as Ms. Winters keeps screaming, “Hey! Hey!”
I grab the handle and rattle it, but the door sticks. For a second my heart stops, and I’m sure it’s locked, but then I slam up against it and it opens into a storage closet. I jump inside and close the door behind me, heart thumping in my chest. A minute later I hear feet pound past the door. Then I hear Ms. Winters mutter, “Shit,” and the footsteps start retreating backward.
The whole thing—the day, the fight in The Country’s Best Yogurt, the almost-bust, the idea of Lindsay crouching somewhere in the woods in her skirt and new Steve Madden boots—strikes me as so funny I have to clap my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing. The room I’m standing in smells like soccer cleats and jerseys and mud, and with the stack of orange cones and bag full of basketballs piled in the corner, there’s barely enough room for me to stand. One side of the room is windowed and it looks into an office: Otto’s, probably, since he basically lives in the gym. I’ve never actually seen his office. His desk is piled with papers, and there’s a computer flashing a screen saver that looks like it’s a cheesy picture of a beach. I inch closer to the window, thinking how hilarious it would be if I could bust him with something dirty, like some underwear peeking out of a desk drawer or a porn mag or something, when the door of his office swings open and there he is.
Instantly I drop to the ground. I have to scrunch up in a ball, and even then I’m paranoid that my ponytail might be peeking up over the windowsill. It sounds stupid considering everything that’s been happening, but all I can think in that moment is, If he sees me, I’m really dead. Good-bye, Ally’s house; hello, detention.
My face is sandwiched up next to a half-open duffel bag that looks like it’s full of old basketball jerseys. I don’t know if they’ve never been washed or what, but the smell makes me want to gag.
I hear Otto moving around his desk, and I’m praying—praying—that he doesn’t come close enough to the desk to see me bellying up to a bunch of old sports equipment. I can already hear the rumors: Samantha Kingston found humping driver’s ed cones.
There’s a minute or two of shuffling, and my legs start cramping. The first bell has already rung for eighth—less than three minutes to class—but there’s no way for me to sneak out. The door is noisy, and besides, I have no way to know which direction he’s facing. He could be staring at the door.
My only hope is that Otto has class eighth, but it doesn’t sound like he’s in a hustle to be anywhere. I imagine being trapped here until school ends. The stink alone will finish me off.
I hear Otto’s door creak open again, and I perk up, thinking he’s leaving after all. But then a second voice says, “Damn. I missed them.”
I would recognize that nasal whine anywhere. Ms. Winters.
“Smokers?” Otto says. His voice is almost as high-pitched as hers. I had no idea they even knew each other. The only times I’ve ever seen them in the same room are at all-school assemblies, when Ms. Winters sits next to Principal Beneter looking like someone just set off a stink bomb directly under her chair, and Otto sits with the special ed teachers and the health instructor and the driver’s ed specialist and all the other weirdos who are on faculty but aren’t real teachers.
“Do you know that the students call that little area the ‘Smokers’ Lounge’?” I can almost hear Ms. Winters pinching her nose.
“Did you get a look at them?” Otto asks, and my muscles tense.
“Not a good one. I could hear them and I smelled the smoke.”
Lindsay’s right: Ms. Winters is definitely half greyhound.
“Next time,” Otto says.
“There must be two thousand cigarette butts out there,” Ms. Winters says. “You’d think with all the health videos we show them—”
“They’re teenagers. They do the opposite