Wish You Were Dead

announcement. “Quiet!” Ms. Skelling suddenly snapped. “Listen!”

“Please pay close attention.” Principal Edwards’s voice came over the PA. “School has been cancelled for the remainder of the day. If you have a cell phone and can reach a parent or caregiver, please call them and have them come to school to get you. After you’ve placed your call, please allow someone who doesn’t have a phone to use yours. Parents and caregivers are to come as soon as possible. No one will be allowed to leave school alone, even if you came by bicycle or walked this morning. This order has come directly from the chief of police. Teachers, we are depending on you to make sure no student leaves unless accompanied by an adult. Students, if you cannot reach a parent or caregiver, please remain in your homeroom until further notice.”

The PA clicked off. There was a moment of silence, as if no one could quite believe we’d been told to use our phones in school, and then kids began calling. I got Mom on her cell. “You have to come get me.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Are you sick?”

I explained that something bad had happened and that school been cancelled. Mom was silent for a moment. Then she said, “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

It wasn’t long before a line of cars was snaking into the school driveway and kids were being called over the PA. “Carley Applegate, Jason Prine, James Row, Lacey Williamson. Your rides are here. Students who have not been able to reach parents or caregivers, go to the auditorium. Stuart Davies, Melissa Sloat, Randal Ellison, Benjamin Carlucci, please meet your rides.”

We watched silently as the kids whose names were called rose and left the classroom.

Tabitha raised her hand. “Can I go to the bathroom?”

“No,” said Ms. Skelling.

“But I have to go,” Tabitha insisted.

Ms. Skelling rolled her eyes. “Maura, please accompany Tabitha to the young ladies’ room and make sure she doesn’t go anywhere else and comes right back.”

“I don’t need a chaperone.”

“If you don’t like it, you can sit there and pee in your pants,” Ms. Skelling said.

Murmurs rippled through the classroom. While Tabitha and Maura got up and left, the rest of us exchanged glances. We weren’t used to teachers speaking to us that way, least of all Ms. Skelling. But some in the class suddenly saw an entertaining opportunity to make the time pass.

“What do you think’s going on, Ms. Skelling?”

“You’ll know soon enough,” she replied.

“You think it has something to do with the missing kids?”

“You’ll know soon enough.”

“You think there’s a killer going around killing kids?”

“You’ll know … soon … enough,” Ms. Skelling grumbled through clenched teeth. “No … more … questions.”

Another list of names was announced over the PA and mine was among them.

Outside in front of school, Mom was waiting in her car. Her eyes were red and watery. The radio was on: “… Miss Cunningham, a senior at Soundview High, was first reported missing on November second. Two other Soundview High students are still missing. This morning’s chilling development greatly increases the concern for their lives.…”

Using one hand to wipe her eyes, Mom turned off the radio with the other. Tears welled up and spill out of my eyes. It had happened … the worst thing imaginable.

She drove out of the school driveway and parked on the street, then undid her seat belt and leaned over, doing her best to hug me while I cried.

“I’m so sorry, hon. This is just a terrible thing for someone your age to have to deal with. It’s terrible thing for anyone to have to deal with. And when I think about Paul and Dana …” She didn’t finish the sentence. Instead I heard her choke up and start to cry again.

Alternating between wanting to cry and not wanting to, I sobbed, hiccupped, and blew my nose, then cried some more. This morning’s chilling development … Lucy was dead. My friend. Someone my own age. Someone I’d grown up with. Someone I knew … had been murdered.

If you’ve never known someone your own age who’s died, you can’t imagine what it feels like. It’s as if you were walking on a glass floor and it suddenly shatters and now you’re falling and falling and there’s broken glass in the air all around you and no bottom in sight.

I sat with Mom in the car and cried for a long time. Soon I wasn’t just crying for Lucy, but for Adam and Courtney as well. Were they also dead?

“How can this be happening?” I sobbed.

Mom wiped her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t know, hon. I’ve never experienced anything like this before. I’ve never heard of anything like this before.”

Rap! Rap! The sound of knuckles on the window made us jump. Mom and I swiveled our heads. A woman with straight black hair was gesturing for me to open the window. She was holding a microphone, and behind her was a man with a video camera.

“Cover your face and put up your middle finger,” Mom said.

“What?!” I asked in disbelief.

“Just do it,” she said. “Then they can’t use it on air.”

I did as I was told. The reporter and cameraman left. I turned to Mom. My eyes burned and my cheeks were wet, but I felt a smile on my lips. “God, Mom, I never thought the day would come when you’d tell me to give someone the finger.”

We shared a brief grin that quickly dissolved into more tears. My grandmother had died of cancer, and in third grade a girl in the year ahead of me had died suddenly from an asthma attack. But this was different. This was … murder. Something that only happened in movies and on TV, and in places far away. Something that no one ever imagined happening in a place like Soundview.

I spent the rest of the day at home, texting, talking, IMing, and thinking about Tyler. He wasn’t online, but he was there in my head, gnawing at my thoughts. I didn’t want to believe he was involved in Lucy’s death, but I couldn’t be sure he wasn’t.

And then there were the tears, which were never far away as the whole reality of Lucy’s death hit me again and again. Each time I finished crying, I’d go downstairs and find Mom on her computer and phone, and we’d go into the kitchen and make tea. Dad was in London, but Mom reached him and he left a dinner with some important people to speak to me for a while. The TV stayed off. Mom said we’d had enough bad news for one day (although I had a feeling she was checking the news while I was upstairs).

I was sitting in the kitchen, gazing at the Sound. The water was steel gray, reflecting the sky. The breeze drove row after row of small waves across the surface, but all I could think about was the cold, still darkness beneath.

“Honey?” Mom asked.

“Yes?” I raised my head.

Mom smiled crookedly as she came toward me with a jar of honey in her hand. “I meant, for your tea.”

“Oh, sure, thanks.” She set the jar down and I transferred a spoonful of the amber syrup into my mug. The phone rang and Mom answered. “Yes? Uh-huh. Yes, I understand. I’ll tell her.” She hung up. “No school tomorrow.”

That didn’t come as a surprise. Everyone was beyond freaked. School the next day would have been a waste, and there was a good chance a lot of parents would keep their kids home anyway. Mom sat down and cupped her hands around her mug. “I guess what I’m wondering is how in the world they’re going to have school the day after tomorrow?”

* * *

When I went back upstairs there was a message from PBleeker:

I guess you must be pretty upset, unless maybe you’re happy about what happened because Lucy stole Adam from you. But people don’t deserve to die just because they steal someone’s boyfriend, do they? Besides, you’ve never struck me as the vengeful type. Can you believe what they did to her eyes?

The first rule of dealing with cyberstalkers is to never, ever respond. But this felt different. Even if I wasn’t