The Amanda Project: Book One

The Amanda Project: Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

I felt as if Mr. Thornhill hadn't spoken so much as he'd just slammed me in the head with a piece of wood from my dad's workshop. Amanda had disappeared?

"But-" I was about to say that Amanda hadn't disappeared, that she'd just been over at my house yesterday, but before I could finish my sentence, Nia cut me off.

"But you don't seem to understand, Mr. Thornhill. None of us is even friends with Amanda Valentino."

I jerked my head to stare at her. On the one hand, I knew Nia was telling the truth. I knew it. How could Amanda have been friends with someone so . . . well, so weird? And she'd never even mentioned Nia, not once. Of course they weren't friends.

But there was something about the way Nia's face was whiter than the school mascot and how tightly she was clutching the arms of her chair that made it seem as if she were lying. Which would mean she and Amanda were friends. Only that was . . .

"Impossible, Nia," said Vice Principal Thornhill, and now he sounded almost tired. "That is simply not possible." He walked over to the window and opened the blind. "First of all: look."

The sky had cleared after last night's rain, and the bright sun on the wet pavement of the parking lot was nearly blinding. I squinted against its rays as the three of us stood up and went over to the window.

"What are we looking at?" asked Hal, and I realized I was so lost in my own thoughts I hadn't been looking for anything to look at.

"My car," said the vice principal.

As soon as he said it, I saw which car was his. Which car had to be his. Parked slightly off to one side of the faculty parking lot, it was the brightest thing in sight. Actually, it could have been the brightest thing in the entire world. Even from a distance, it seemed to throb with color-I couldn't decipher all the designs, but there was a gigantic rainbow that extended from the front wheel to the back wheel and a huge peace sign covering most of the passenger side door. I could just make out what looked like a group of stars on the back door and a bright yellow sun on the hubcap below it.

The whole thing was so outrageous that I suddenly burst out laughing. I couldn't help myself-it was like the car was some huge joke of Amanda's. Only once I started laughing, I couldn't stop. I was sure everyone else was going to laugh too, but they didn't, and I started to get freaked out, like maybe I was getting hysterical or something. I almost wished someone would throw a glass on cold water in my face.

"I'm glad you find this funny, Callista," said Mr. Thornhill.

It wasn't a glass of cold water, but it worked like one. As if I had an on-off switch, I stopped laughing immediately. Mr. Thornhill left the blind up, walked back to his desk and sat down. I wasn't sure if we were supposed to sit down also, but since neither Nia nor Hal made a move to go back to their chairs, I stayed with them by the window. I didn't look back at the car, though. I was afraid if I did I'd just start laughing again.

"Even if Amanda did paint all over your car," said Hal, "what makes you think we had something to do with it? Like Nia said, we aren't even, you know, friends with her."