Abandon - Meg Cabot [47]
And no one yelled a word about his wife. In fact, a respectful — or maybe frightened — hush seemed to fall over the auditorium once again.
Chief Santos did look a little scary. A big man, he had a gray mustache, thick gray eyebrows to match, and a very deep, slightly sonorous voice. He took his time not only in getting up to the mike but in choosing his words.
“Thank you, Principal Alvarez,” the police chief said, not even bothering to glance at the smaller man. His hawklike gaze was on all of us instead. In fact, it seemed to be targeted directly on me.
I felt myself sinking a little lower in my seat. I wanted a soda more than ever.
“Let’s not play games,” the police chief said, sucking a little on his teeth. “You’re not children. And you all know why I’m here.” You could have heard a dolphin break the water’s surface outside.
I hadn’t done anything wrong — not at Isla Huesos High School, anyway. But I felt as if I had.
Wait…was that it? Had he read my file? Did he know what I’d done back at my old school?
That had to be it. He knew.
Except that I hadn’t done anything. Sure, I’d planned on doing something.
But I hadn’t. It had all been John. Nothing had been proven — not in a court of law, anyway. Criminal charges had never even been filed against me, for lack of evidence.
Civil charges? Well, that’s another matter.
“We’ve already begun to see vandalism in a certain area of town, and it’s only the first day of school,” Chief Santos went on in his deliberate voice.
Wait. Vandalism?
I wanted to laugh. What was wrong with me? Aside from the obvious, of course. Why on earth had I thought, even for a second, that this had anything to do with me?
Jade was right: I needed to give myself a break. It was just high school, after all.
“And I think you know what area of town I’m talking about,” the chief of police went on.
A subtle shift, I saw, had occurred in the attitude of the police officers standing at the exits. They, like their chief, had their hands resting on the butts of their pistols.
They meant business.
“When your principal came to me,” Chief of Police Santos said in a tone that was even more carefully controlled than any he’d used so far, “I told him there was nothing in the world that would give me greater pleasure than to come here and speak to all of you. In fact —”
Here, the chief of police leaned forward against the podium and stuck his index finger towards all of us, beckoning us to come closer, as if he wanted to tell us a secret.
He, unlike Principal Alvarez, was such a compelling speaker, I actually found myself doing so before I realized how stupid this was. What could the police chief of Isla Huesos have to say to me? He didn’t even know me.
And if things went the way I hoped, he never would.
“I’d like each and every one of you to go home after this and tell your parents — many of whom also attended this fine institution — that Police Chief Santos came and spoke to you today about an age-old Isla Huesos tradition I’m sure many of them enjoyed when they went to school here. Here’s what I want you to say to them: ‘Mom. Dad.’ ”
His voice rose in both pitch and timbre. Now he wasn’t whispering anymore. Now his words rumbled through the auditorium, making the walls shake like thunder.
“ ‘Coffin Night is canceled this year.’ ”
There was an immediate — and undeniably angry — groan, followed by indignant murmurs. People actually seemed upset that they weren’t going to be able to celebrate something called Coffin Night.
What kind of crazy place was this anyway?
“People,” the police chief went on, holding up his hands for silence. And he got it. “Maybe you should have thought about this before some of you broke into the Isla Huesos Cemetery last night and vandalized it. Not only one of the crypts, but the entrance as well.”
I stared at him, hardly daring to breathe.
The cemetery. Oh, God.
And the gate. That mangled, twisted gate.
“The cemetery