It had already been decided that, on the night of the Spring Concert, Charlie, Ethan, and I were going to sneak into Principal Wyatt's office and find the proof we needed.
Hopefully, Ethan's new lock-picking skills would work; maybe he could even hack into Wyatt's computer itself. I thought of bringing gloves and a plastic bag to find that knife Wyatt had. I'd seen movies and detective TV shows; I was sure Wyatt's fingerprints would be on the hilt and… I don't know, skin flakes or DNA could be found on the blade part.
What we hadn't really thought about was the Spring Concert itself.
Mr. C decided that we would do a small pattern: whole class singing, then two solos, and the group again, two solos and repeat until we'd finished. There would be a ten-minute intermission, which did not seem like enough time to do anything.
"Why don't we get the group songs out of the way?" Charlie suggested.
Mr. C had just finished explaining the schedule. "What do you mean?"
"We should sing the songs from the whole class first, and then it's just the solos."
The music teacher frowned in thought. "I don't know."
"It'd be less chaotic," I added. "We'd have to switch back and forth between our songs and the solos, and that could be a hassle on whoever's working the instrumental tracks or providing accompaniment."
"And maybe we won't be as nervous," said a younger boy, maybe a freshman.
"Yeah," an equally younger girl agreed. "We won't be so nervous about singing in front of crowd by ourselves if we get used to it first with a group."
"Assuming there is a crowd," said a senior. That earned him a few chuckles.
Mr. C glanced at everyone who spoke, and then addressed who didn't speak. "And you all feel the same?"
There was a small chorus of agreement.
"Okay, then, if it makes it easier for you, we'll do that." Ethan and I glanced at Charlie in appreciation, solving a problem for us. I couldn't believe our luck.
"Now that we've decided that, we need to figure out which solos are going first."
"Me and Charlie first," I said, shooting my hand up.
Mr. C looked surprised at my enthusiasm. "Alright, since you beat everyone to it. Now who's s—"
"I'll go second," said Ethan. That earned him a few looks, given that he often didn't speak in class.
"Wow, a lot of enthusiasm," Mr. C noted.
"I'll go third, then," said Cynthia, raising her hand. She gave me a friendly smile before turning back around, but then I glanced around at Charlie, who didn't look very pleased.
In less than five minutes, we had the order of the solos, and even three new volunteers. After class, Charlie, Ethan, and I decided that we would have plenty of time after our solos to get in and out of Wyatt's office.
*
At home, Mom seemed really excited about the Spring Concert. She couldn't stop gushing about it during dinner.
"I just can't wait to hear you and Charlie."
I looked up from my plate. "How do you know we're singing together?"
"Celia told me. Charlie's parents are going to be there too." Mom did a little girly squeal that rarely came out of her. "I can't wait!"
"Yeah… me neither." Bella's first solo and B&E…. How exciting.
"Oh," Mom said suddenly, "my publisher called. They're already getting the tour for the summer ready. We'll be going to New York first!"
"You know, you never told me what the book is even called."
She frowned. "I didn't?"
"No."
"I titled it Cheshire Girl." Mom even did that thing with her hands like she was going to make a banner out of it.
I raised my eyebrows. "Cheshire Girl?" It made me think of Gossip Girl, and not in a good way.
"I based it here. You type in 'Cheshire' and the state… and you don't get anything. You get all kinds of other Cheshires in the country, more populous ones, but it takes a lot of digging to find this one. And, besides, a small town is easy to write about. It's just like Forks, Washington—small and virtually nonexistent."
"Twilight put Forks on the map.
"Well, yes, because Meyer chose one specifically. Everyone knows what it is and where. But I'm doing what Matt Groening did."
"Who?"
"The man who created The Simpsons?"
"Oh. Right."
"He based the family in Springfield, and there are many of those. People always wondered which Springfield was the one the Simpsons lived in. In the end, he revealed he'd mostly based the town off of the one he'd lived in while he'd thought up the story. Somewhere in Oregon, I think…."
"Not too far from here," I noted.
"Don't you see? I'm keeping the air of mystery! Sophia Grimes… you don't know who or where she is at any given moment."
"And if people find out? What're you going to do?"
Mom shrugged. "I'll tell them the truth. I want to write books, but I still want to live anonymously with my daughter. Simple."
It was nice to see that Mom had everything all figured out. Now I had to see if I could do the same.
*
There was no dream that night to speak of. I found it odd, but maybe it was that Beatrice knew that I had other things to get in place first.
For instance, the next day in Algebra II, the teacher took my advice and decided to try my idea of peer-reviewing. Naturally, I hated group work (I think I mentioned this many times before), but now there was an actual point to it. I'd also had Charlie and Ethan help go over my math homework in my car before the bell rang, and they told me everything was fine. Now I had to see if they were right.
As expected, Catherine Connor entered the class just before the bell rang. I couldn't believe how everything seemed to align. I had guessed she would try to sit closest to the door—the First One Out business—but I didn't know that corner seat would be the only one left available. I had hoped so, since I'd chosen to sit behind it, and she ended up sitting in front of me.
The teacher asked us to take out our homework and trade with a partner and ask each other questions or see if we had any issues in common. Simple enough. I had to employ a certain amount of stealth; I couldn't seem too eager. And I wasn't supposed to appear happy that everything was going according to plan… somehow.
Catherine turned around to face me. "Want to work together?" she asked half-heartedly.
I'd never heard her speak before. It surprised me how… flat her voice was, and her expression to match. I could already see how messed-up she was.
"Sure," I said, sounding bored. We traded homework; she had done a lot more than I had. I opened the textbook and started looking for the answers when I happened to glance at Catherine. "Whoa, wait. What're you doing?"
She'd had her own pen—a green one—and had already slashed around on my first page of work. "A lot of these are wrong," she said tonelessly… like a robot.
Some help, Charlie and Ethan. "Well, maybe a few, yeah—but not everything." There was a lot of green already. And she wasn't even looking at the textbook!
"It's mostly the formulas. You're using them wrong. The steps are out of order."
Great. I had one job. I was supposed to be the smart one. "Yesterday was an off-day, that's all. I normally know what I'm doing."
The second I finished speaking, a test appeared on my desk with a red 22 on it—out of 40. The teacher continued passing out graded tests throughout the room, having ruined my plan without so much as a blink.
Catherine raised an eyebrow at me.
I took the test, clearing my throat. "This was an off-day too."
She just nodded, clearly not believing me—maybe even pitying me—as she continued slashing at my homework. "My sister says that you wanted to tutor me."
I cleared my throat again, trying to get my brain to work with this. "Actually… I, uh… I was hoping if you could tutor me…. Yeah, that." Catherine looked a little surprised. "I was just embarrassed," I went on. "I was going to ask her, but I just couldn't. Then I was going to ask Charlie or Ethan, but they already laugh at my horrible math skills. I'm actually retaking this class. You know it's a graduation requirement, right? I need to pass this class."
"So… you want me to tutor you?"
I leaned back. "You sound like you don't want to." Not too eager….
"I don't know…."
"Ah, it's okay," I said, waiving my hand. "You're probably too busy after school and stuff… other homework." I hated saying that so much. I didn't want to remind her where she was probably spending a lot of time… but I only had one week! If we somehow managed to get Wyatt caught, we needed more than one person coming forward and admitting what he did, and Catherine Connor was the only other victim we knew of.
"I'll think about it," she said. "We have a test next week. I need to study for that too."
"There's a test next week?"
She actually smiled… even if it was because I was being dumb. I honestly didn't know about the test.
*
I relayed my possible success to Charlie and Ethan during lunch, and they were quiet pleased… at my expense.
"Shut up already," I said, once they'd had their allotted time to laugh. "Now, let's get on with your guys' part."
"Don't be mad, Bella. I'm not good at English," Charlie offered.
"That is neither here nor there."
"I'm going to my cousin's house after school today," said Ethan. "He's going to show me how to pick locks and stuff. He seems happy about that."
"Is something wrong with your cousin?" I asked. "That's a weird thing to be happy about."
"His family is weird," said Charlie, "let's just leave it at that. What we need to worry about, Bella, is our song."
"What about it?"
"We don't have one."
"Oh. Right."
"I want to pick a good one, but I want to practice it. I want us to sound good."
"It's not a competition," said Ethan.
Charlie blanched. "The hell it is! Cynthia is back in. I overheard her in the hall after English that she's doing Adele."
Even I was surprised.
Ethan frowned. "Who's that?"
….
"I know it might not seem like a big deal to you guys," Charlie went on, "but I take this stuff seriously." She took out her cellphone and tossed it to Ethan. "Look her up."
"It seems like you want to stress about this," I said quietly.
"I do," Charlie answered seriously.
"How do you spell it?" Ethan asked.
"Well, you pick a song," I said, "and I'll just sing back-up to you."
"No, no—sing with me! I'm sure I can find a duet with two girls."
"That sounds hot," said Ethan. Charlie jabbed him in his side with her elbow. He retaliated by licking her phone, and then it became a tickle fight/phone rescue mission.
I only watched them for a second before looking out the library window. I couldn't help thinking that, on the surface, everything seemed fine. Charlie and Ethan were happy together. Cynthia seemed to be happy too, though, I wasn't sure about what exactly.
But I knew that, next week, Charlie, Ethan, and I were going to try and uncover the ugly side to all this. I hated thinking it—disgusted that I could think it—but Charlie and Ethan wouldn't be messing around in the library if Charlie had never been…. And Cynthia was only happy because she didn't know what was probably happening to Cynthia…, on top of what already happened in their home….
Cheshire High School seemed like a really nice place during the day, a really nice school. But only few knew that it was sprinkled with Principal Wyatt's victims and atrocious acts. We were going to expose the dark underside.
***********
Small developments that don't seem big enough. I've got the end in mind---everything is planned out. The really problem is adding in all the details, rounding out the story it's not just one event after the other. Everything has to flow into the next event... which is getting tougher the closer I get to the end. I'll keep writing nonetheless.