Monday
The assembly hall, 8:01 a.m.
“What is dignity? What is self-respect?”
These were interesting questions coming from a woman wearing the ugliest pantsuit in creation, and who was so short she had to stand on a box to reach the podium.
Mrs. Jewel paused to glare at everyone in the audience. Chrissie sunk down in her seat. She hated getting yelled at. It made her want to crawl into a hole and cry. Everyone was freaking out that Mrs. Jewel might cancel the Homecoming dance on Saturday. Chrissie wished she would just do it already, and skip the part where she made everyone feel horrible.
“I am appalled by the behavior that many of you showed this weekend. In my ten years as principal at the Saint Mary’s School in Connecticut, I never saw as much troubling conduct as I have seen in my two weeks here at Winship. Two of your fellow students spent yesterday in the hospital, one with a broken bone and one with whiplash. Those of you who attended the so-called fundraiser at the Cheek residence—and you know who you are—have disgraced your school, your parents, and most important, you have disgraced yourselves.”
Chrissie felt her eyes stinging with tears. Please don’t cry. Please don’t cry, she begged herself. Why did Mrs. Jewel have to be such a mean old lady? She was probably just jealous, because no one in their right mind would ever do a tequila shot off her troll body.
“The young women of this school are long overdue for a lesson in self-respect. Do self-respecting ladies auction their bodies like chattel? Do young men show their respect for ladies by buying them to use as vessels for alcoholic beverages that are being illegally consumed? No, they do not. And to answer the question I know is burning in everyone’s minds, no, I am not canceling the Homecoming dance.”
There was a collective sigh of relief, and a few people even clapped. But Mrs. Jewel wasn’t finished.
“However, as of this moment, I am declaring all dates heretofore arranged to be void. The women will be in charge. This is not a request. This is not optional. The Homecoming dance is now girls-ask-boys.”
Everyone groaned loudly. There had been one official girls-ask-boys dance in Winship history, and it had been a disaster. In the end, everyone had mostly gone stag. It wasn’t that the girls were scared of boys. It was that there weren’t enough crush-worthy guys to go around, and none of the girls wanted to be selfish and grab the good ones, which would screw over their friends. Girls stuck together at Winship, especially the cheerleaders. Didn’t Mrs. Jewel understand that? It just worked better if the guys were in charge.
Chrissie scanned the sea of heads for Benny Flax and spotted him in the front row. Chrissie had always assumed Benny was with Virginia Leeds; they even had those ugly matching rings. But apparently Virginia was dating that weird vampire Calvin Harker, and Chrissie was glad. She’d never considered Benny Flax dating material before; he wasn’t in her social circle at all, and Chrissie usually only went for athletes. She liked manly guys. But maybe this whole time she’d been going for the wrong kind of manly. Benny wasn’t a football stud, but he was strong in a different way. He reminded her of her grandfather, who had been an important Georgia senator. She’d always loved him and imagined that if he’d been alive, he would have stood up for her after what happened last Fourth of July, instead of blaming her like her father had.
Did I tell Benny about . . . the plane? Chrissie couldn’t remember. She hoped not. She knew she tended to say a lot of random stuff when she was drunk. But hopefully she hadn’t said . . . that.
“Fuckin’ Yankee midget tellin’ us how to do our business,” a guy behind her was muttering. All around, everyone was whispering and complaining.
“Enough,” Mrs. Jewel said. “You know, when I was at Radcliffe, an exceptional woman said to me, ‘As a woman, there’s no greater power than the power you give yourself.’ And that woman’s name was—”
“Hillary Clinton,” everyone groaned. Mrs. Jewel had already told her Hillary Clinton story five thousand times. But at least she wasn’t yelling anymore. Chrissie fiddled with her charm bracelet. She was anxious to hear what Brittany and Angie thought about the girls-ask-guys situation, so she could know what to do.
Did I blend my makeup all the way? She’d forgotten to check her face in natural light before she left the Boarders. What if everyone could see the big blob of concealer on her cheek? She wished Mrs. Jewel would wrap it up so she could go look in a mirror. Chrissie had a weird relationship with mirrors. She constantly wanted to check her face to make sure it looked perfect. Which it never really did. Which just made her want to check the mirror even more. Truly beautiful people probably never looked in mirrors, because their beauty came from within. People like the Native Americans, or Maria from The Sound of Music.
People like Benny Flax.
The girls’ bathroom, 9:00 a.m.
Benny’s reflection surprised himself. He looked about thirty years old. There were dark circles under his eyes. He hadn’t slept well since Saturday, and this morning he’d gotten up at 5:30 a.m. to be at school the second Rick the janitor opened the administrative annex. While Mrs. Jewel’s secretary was making coffee in the lounge, he’d snuck into the office to log into the admin software. He was hoping to resolve the remaining Mystery Club cases as quickly as possible so he could concentrate on studying. Usually Benny skated on 90 to 95 percent grades, but right now that wasn’t good enough. Right now he needed to be perfect.
Except things weren’t going perfectly. Mrs. Jewel’s computer was different from the last principal’s, and it was password-protected. Benny had made some guesses, including “hillaryclinton,” but nothing worked. So that had been a bust.
Next he’d gone to the library to look up unsolved homicides and missing persons reports for black men of slim build on the Georgia Bureau of Investigation website. But none of the dates matched the midnight golf game closely enough for any of the victims to plausibly be the nameless caddie.
So now Benny was in the girls’ room, hoping he could at least wrap up the identity of the mysterious drug dealer. This case had involved way too many trips into the girls’ bathroom. But he couldn’t ask Virginia to do it with only one arm in working condition.
The room was brighter than it had been the last time. Benny looked up. The missing fluorescent bulb had been returned to the light in the ceiling. Benny jumped onto the sink excitedly. If the bulb was back, it meant someone had come to retrieve the X10 controller wired into the fixture. And as long as they hadn’t spotted the small camera in the crevice of the ceiling, in five seconds Benny would know who the drug dealer was.
“Oh my god! What are you doing in here?”
Benny jumped, almost falling off the sink. A girl was standing in the doorway, looking at him like he was an escaped mental patient. It was a girl he recognized from the Boarders, Lindsay something.
“I’m—I’m assisting Rick with some electrical issues.” Benny stealthily grabbed the camera and popped the plastic light covering back into the ceiling.
“Are you, like, an assistant janitor?” Lindsay said, a smirk forming on her face.
Oh my god, Benny thought. This was going to be one of those things that followed him to his grave. It wasn’t enough to be Scooby-Doo; from now on he would also be known as a janitor’s apprentice. Benny sighed. There was nothing to do but go along with it.
“Yep,” he said, hopping off the sink. “But it’s all taken care of now. Enjoy your . . . bathroom time.”
“Whatever, Janitor Junior,” Lindsay said, barely suppressing her grin.
Benny squeezed past her and left. He found a secluded spot in the hallway and sat down. He turned on the camera. The icon showed that there were two photos on the memory card. The first shot was of a hand: an abnormally long, pale hand with bony fingers. Benny felt a surge of validation.
I knew you had something to do with this!
The second photo showed Calvin’s face. He was looking directly at the camera and smiling slightly. There was a small piece of paper in his hand with two words written on it:
Hi Benny
The cafeteria, 12:30 p.m.
One great thing about her ugly black cast was that at least no one was trying to sign it. Virginia really didn’t need to stare at a bunch of Neil Young quotes and Bible verses and doodles of hearts for two months. Maybe Calvin would paint one of his poems on it in Wite-Out. Virginia scanned the cafeteria for him. He was a pretty easy person to spot, but she didn’t see him anywhere.
Everyone was talking about Trevor’s party and how Benny Flax had jumped out a window when the cops showed up. Except the story had ballooned from Benny simply stepping out of a first-floor window to Benny making a death-defying leap through a third-floor window like James Bond. It made Virginia feel jealous. She was the one with the broken arm. She was the one who’d almost been killed by Big Gabe’s huge yellow Hummer. But no one was talking about that.
“Is this Scooby’s table?”
Virginia turned around. Winn Davis was standing behind her, looking tired and confused.
“I guess so. . . .” Virginia was pretty sure Benny didn’t believe in cafeteria territory. But it was the place he usually sat.
“Sorry I’m late,” Benny said, appearing out of nowhere and sitting down with a tray piled with textbooks and a sandwich. He gestured to the chair across from Virginia. “Winn, please sit down.”
Winn plunked down and sunk his teeth into a chicken wing. Winn was less overtly Neanderthal-ish than some of his friends, but you could still see by the way he ate his meat that this guy could tear anyone apart if he wanted to. No one knew this better than Virginia—she’d witnessed him beating Min-Jun to a sputtering pulp a few weeks ago, throwing punches like Min-Jun was made of butter. Virginia wondered what it would feel like to be that strong.
She looked around the cafeteria. It was kind of cool, Winn Davis sitting with Mystery Club. It gave her a little buzz, disrupting the social order. Everyone was looking at them, but Winn didn’t seem to notice or care.
“I’m pleased to inform you that Mystery Club has ascertained the identity of the person in the bathroom the night of the science expo,” Benny said in a low voice. He slid a piece of paper across the table. Virginia squinted to read the name on it:
CALVIN HARKER.
Her eyes widened. Then she felt Benny looking at her, and she tried to make her face blank. He’s checking my reaction, she realized. It made her feel vaguely offended, like Benny thought she was suspicious or something.
“Thanks, man.” Winn tucked the slip of paper into his pocket.
“I helped,” Virginia piped up.
Winn gave her a nod. “Y’all are pretty cool.” He ripped off another piece of chicken with his perfect white teeth.
“Can I ask you one thing?” Benny asked. “Strictly confidential.”
Winn nodded.
“What is a ‘red pill’?”
Winn stopped chewing for a second. Then he swallowed and said, “I dunno. I took the blue one.”
“And what was that?”
“I dunno,” Winn said again. “It was . . . happiness.”
There was a short silence that felt long. Then Benny said, “Sounds like ecstasy.”
Winn nodded. “Yeah. That’s a good word for it.”
“No, I mean the drug ecstasy. It creates a sensation of euphoria.”
“Oh.”
“But the red pill was something else? An amphetamine, perhaps. Something that heightens aggressive behavior.”
Winn shrugged. He was looking over his shoulder, obviously ready for the conversation to be over. Benny waved his hand, as if waving the question away. He reached into his backpack and handed Winn an envelope. “Would you mind filling out this client satisfaction survey? Just return to the locker number on the front.”
“Uh, sure.”
“We aim for the highest-quality investigative service.”
“Okay.” And with that, Winn picked up his tray and went to sit down with his friends.
Virginia felt Benny staring at her. “What?” she said.
“I told you it was Calvin.”
“You did not! You said he was a banana-peel-dropping psychopath.”
“Well, he’s a drug dealer. That’s not much better.”
Virginia scoffed. “Since when do you care what people do? We’ve let two attempted murderers go free, but god forbid Calvin gives drugs to consenting people?” She was trying to seem blasé, but on the inside she was freaking out. Calvin was a drug dealer? She was having a hard time wrapping her head around it. Drug dealers were supposed to be scary sleazebags, not poetic, pants-ironing headmaster’s sons.
“Whatever,” Benny said brusquely, opening one of his textbooks. “I need to study.”
“What is wrong with you?” Virginia said, poking his arm with her fork.
“Nothing.”
“I don’t believe that.”
Benny sighed and closed his book. He pulled a camera out of his pocket and turned it on, frowning as if its very existence offended him. And as soon as Virginia saw the image on its tiny screen, she understood why.
“Oh my god!” she squealed. “He called you. He like, called you, Benny Flax.”
“He’s a joker and a drug dealer and an unsafe driver. I don’t think you should hang out with him anymore.”
Virginia balked. “Um, ex-squeeze me?”
Benny opened his book again. “I really don’t have time for this conversation. I need to study.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do?”
Benny didn’t look up from his book. “Do what you want. We still have two open cases. Mrs. Jewel’s computer was password-protected, so I couldn’t get proof of the election rigging. And I haven’t had any luck with the identity of the caddie the golf team assaulted. If you insist on seeing Calvin again, I suggest you make use of it and get some answers out of him.”
“Okaaaay . . .” Virginia waited for Benny to say something else, but he just stared at his book as if she were invisible. She was used to Benny’s random mood swings, and normally they didn’t bother her. But suddenly she wished she could go back in time and relive that brief, weird moment on the golf course where things had felt different between them. Benny with his shiny hair and twinkling eyes, and that smile she’d never seen before or since.
You don’t have five hundred dollars.
You have no idea what I have.
Virginia sighed. Whatever that moment had been, it was dead now. She buried it in a grave, mourned it for five seconds, then picked up her lunch tray and moved on.