Period 8 - By Chris Crutcher Page 0,51
foyer. “How’d you get in?”
“Mr. Branson was just finishing up in your office.”
“Well, since you’re sitting next to my door, I’m guessing you want to talk with me.”
“This is why you’re my favorite teacher. You’re so smart.”
Logs unlocks his door and they go inside. “What can I do for you?”
“Mr. Logs, I think I might have made a big mistake.”
“Tell me.”
“With Paulie.”
Logs’s eyebrows go up involuntarily.
“You think so, too.”
“Look, Hannah, I love you both, I do. And I’ll be honest: I used to think there weren’t two kids more perfect for each other. But life ain’t predictable and things happen. We all have to figure out how to negotiate them.”
“I was being a bitch hanging out with Arney.”
“Your words, but I know.”
“I can’t tell you how stupid that was.”
Logs smiles. “You don’t have to.”
Hannah takes a deep breath. “Actually that’s not why I’m here—the stuff with me and Paulie, I mean. I can deal with that.”
Logs waits.
“It’s Arney.”
“What about him?”
“I told him I’d go out to his family cabin last weekend to help get it ready for summer. I thought it would be nice to just get away, and he and I had been getting along okay. Like friends.” She looks at her feet. “And I guess I wanted Paulie to think we went there for a different reason.”
Logs’s face is expressionless. It’s not his job to judge, but he’s had a trace of ill will toward Hannah for choosing Arney of all people to rub Paulie’s nose in. Not that Paulie didn’t have it coming. . . .
“I know, I know. Like I said, I was being a bitch. At any rate, Arney seemed cool enough, but he was saying things about Paulie that couldn’t be true.”
“Such as.”
“Mr. Logs, something’s seriously wrong with Arney.”
“Did he get out of line?”
Hannah laughs. “You think there has to be something wrong with a guy to make a move on me?”
“I meant . . .”
“I know. Yeah, he made a move, but I expected that and it wasn’t going to happen. But we had a few beers and he got into this fancy scotch his dad keeps hidden up there, and he said some things . . . he was like, hateful.”
“Mel Gibson Syndrome. Get plastered and out comes the real you.”
She tells Logs about the birds following their mother across the two-lane. “He swerved right into them,” she says. “It was creepy. I looked at his face and he was . . . I don’t know, proud, or smug or something. Then when he saw how horrified I was he blurted out this stupid story about how he thought they were going to reverse direction, but Mr. Logs, they couldn’t have. They were full-speed ahead trying to get out of the way. I didn’t think it was so weird right then because I wanted to believe him, I guess.”
“And that was before he was drinking?”
“Only coffee,” she says. “We were on our way up.”
“That’s troubling.”
“On the way home we stop by to see Justin and some other kids and he goes way off, calling people—girls—horrible names and saying things . . . worse than earlier. He even started going after me. Justin took me home.” She breathes deep. “How in the world did we elect him student body president?”
Two sharp knocks. “Hey, man . . .” Paulie stops cold. “Hey, Hannah.”
“Hey, Paulie.”
Logs watches them lock eyes. Hannah blinks first. “Paulie, I’m sorry about the other day in The Rocket.”
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Paulie says. “You know me, when things start to go bad I gotta speed them up.”
Logs winces.
“I probably had it coming,” Hannah says.
Paulie studies her a moment. “Well, this is awkward,” he says finally. “I’ll leave you two to your sordid affair.”
“Actually we were finished with that,” Logs says. “Pull up a chair.” He holds up a slip of paper. “Got the numbers we needed. Thought I’d give Mr. Wells a little time to wake up.”
Hannah crinkles her nose. “What’s going on?”
“Mary Wells seems to be AWOL again,” Logs says. “We’re trying to find out if she’s with her family.”
“Doesn’t Mrs. Byers take care of that?”
Logs nods at Paulie as if to say, “Bring her up to speed,” while he punches Victor Wells’s cell number.
While Paulie shows her the text message on his own cell, Logs speaks into his.
“Mr. Wells? This is Bruce Logsdon . . . from the high school? I’m calling in reference to Mary’s attendance. Is your family out of town? . . . You and