Abandon - Meg Cabot [42]
I’d passed Hannah’s locker on my way to class. It was already piled high with bouquets of flowers and cards and stuffed animals. Especially stuffed horses.
“Yes,” I said, swallowing hard.
“The school’s not planning on doing a memorial service or anything,” Mr. Mueller went on. “They’ve already decided they don’t want to glamorize her death. They just want us to proceed like nothing happened.”
Like nothing happened. I nodded. I could see that Mr. Mueller had decided not to shave that morning. He was sporting a little goatee. It made him look a bit like that handsome actor who played a doctor on that popular television show. The doctor on that show, I suddenly remembered, also often wore shoes with tassels on them. Why couldn’t I stop thinking about tassels?
“So could you do me a favor,” he said in his “We’re such good friends” voice, “and move up a seat? I can’t really leave Hannah’s old desk empty like this. It makes it look like we’re memorializing her and supporting what she did. And we can’t really have that, now, can we?”
I stared at him and the faux goatee he was growing. The next time I went to the city for one of my court-mandated lunches with Dad, I decided, I was going to go through his closet and take every pair of shoes he had with tassels on them and then donate them to the local men’s shelter. Even the Pradas. I never wanted to see another pair of men’s shoes with tassels on them again.
“Sure, Mr. Mueller,” I said, forcing myself to smile. “I’ll sit in Hannah’s old desk.”
Even though she hasn’t been dead for twenty-four hours, and it will be like saying she never existed at all.
I got up from my seat and slid into Hannah’s. It felt the way I imagined being in someone else’s coffin would.
“Thanks,” Mr. Mueller said, grinning down at me in a relieved way. “Thanks for being so understanding, Pierce.”
It was funny that he said that. Because the moment I slid into Hannah’s desk, I did understand. I looked down at the diamond nestled inside my blouse and saw that it had turned as black as that time in the jewelry shop.
And suddenly, I remembered the words I’d seen Hannah writing on her note to Mr. Mueller. Just like that.
Maybe it was because I was sitting in her desk. Maybe it was because of all the caffeine. Maybe it was because of the necklace. I don’t know.
But suddenly, I understood…everything.
Okay, well, maybe not everything. But why Mr. Mueller had always repulsed me so much, anyway.
“Of course…” I swallowed hard again. ”You must know why she did it, don’t you, Mr. Mueller?”
Mr. Mueller, who’d been on his way back up to his desk, froze. The bell had rung by this time, but everyone was still talking and milling around. No one else heard me, or was even paying attention.
That’s the thing, I was starting to notice, now that I’d finally lifted the lid to my coffin and was beginning to look around outside it. People don’t really pay attention, do they?
Of course, I was just as guilty of this as everyone else.
“Why she did it?” Mr. Mueller turned around to look at me, his hazel eyes wide. He was smiling, still in a friendly way. “No, I don’t. Of course, she was a bit of a…troubled girl.”
Troubled. Right. If he thought Hannah was troubled, he better start running. Now.
Because I was going to make trouble like he’d never imagined in his wildest dreams.
“But she left you a note yesterday,” I said, widening my eyes innocently. “I saw it. I saw you read it.“
I watched him carefully. Everything depended on how Mr. Mueller would react.
“Oh, that,” Mr. Mueller said. He didn’t skip a beat. “That was nothing important.” He shrugged. “You know Hannah. Always leaving funny notes. I wish I’d known that one was going to be her last. I might have saved it. Instead, I threw it into the recycling bin.” He pointed to the blue bin next to his desk. Paper only, the sticker on its side read. I could see from where I sat that the bin was empty. “It’s probably on its way to some paper recycling plant in New Jersey by now. Oh, well.