Abandon - Meg Cabot [90]
“Of course,” I said. “If you want me to. But why do you need to know where they are?”
“Don’t you worry about it. Like I said.” He grinned down at me. He really did look happy. “We’re good.”
“But you’re not going to tell, right?” I still had a slightly bad feeling about all of this. “Where the you-know-what is? Because that would reflect badly on both of us, I think.”
“Oh, you do not have to worry about that, cuz,” he said, and gave me a wink. “See you at lunch? Don’t screw it up this time. At the flagpole in the middle of the Quad. It really couldn’t be simpler, Pierce. I don’t know how even you could have messed it up yesterday.”
Yeah. Neither did I. Except that I’d been scared of the cafeteria.
Today, I didn’t think I’d have that problem. Today, I couldn’t see myself feeling scared of anything.
My happiness restored, I floated through first, second, and third periods. I was sitting in fourth period — which happened to be econ, the class I shared with Kayla, who’d greeted me with a smile and a “Hey! How you doing? So you and Alex made up, huh? I just saw him in English. Why is he in such a good mood?” — when there was a knock on the classroom door.
That was what roused me from the little doodle I’d been making of a girl in a coffin rocket ship that shot flowers at people. That and the teacher saying my name.
“Pass for you.” She handed me a pink slip of paper with my name written on it. “You’re wanted in the office.”
The New Pathways office. Everyone in the class began to hoot, knowing I’d probably accrued an ISS or OSS somehow. Though for the life of me, I couldn’t think what I’d done. Unless…
“Stop it,” the teacher — I hadn’t been in there long enough to remember her name — chastised them. “Take your things, Pierce. It’s close to the end of the period. You probably won’t have time to come back for them before lunch.”
I scooped up my books and bag. Kayla made a questioning face at me. I shrugged. I had no idea what it was about.
Except of course I did. I only hoped my fear didn’t show in my face.
What had John done now? I’d thought things were finally better. Better? I thought things were good.
And okay, maybe I’d only been fooling myself. Maybe a girl — not even an NDE — can’t have a normal relationship with a death deity.
But why does she have to be punished for trying?
Because as I approached the office, I saw through the windows around it that things were even worse than I’d imagined. Worse than those hoots back in the classroom had indicated.
Chief of Police Santos was there, along with some other police officers. Oh, God.
I broke into a run.
“What,” I said as I burst into the office. “What happened?”
“Whoa there,” the police chief said. He lowered the cup of coffee he’d been sipping. “Who’s this?”
“Pierce Oliviera, Chief.” Tim was looking paler than usual. His button-down shirt looked rumpled and had come untucked in the back. “She’s the one from the cemetery —”
“Oh, right.” The police chief indicated an office. “Follow me, young lady.”
What was happening? The chief of police wanted to see me? Was I being blamed for the cemetery gate after all?
“Do I need to call my mother?” I demanded, staying where I was.
“I don’t know,” Chief of Police Santos said, raising his gray, bushy eyebrows questioningly. “Do you?”
“No, Pierce,” Tim said. He looked exhausted. “You don’t. It’s all right. The police just want to ask you some questions.”
If it had been anybody else but the person to whom I had surrendered my cell phone the day before — I had forgotten to do it that morning. But then, I had forgotten to bring my cell phone to school, I’d discovered a little while earlier, I’d been so caught up in my happy little love cloud — I probably would have insisted, Zack Oliviera-style, that I needed a lawyer.
But since it was Tim, my mom’s future maybe-boyfriend, I shrugged and followed Police Chief Santos into the office, which happened to be filled with cardboard boxes and pamphlets that said New Pathways: A New Pathway to a New You!
A female police officer was sitting at a conference table inside