Sloth

She might have made it out safely if her phone hadn’t rung. Harper had persevered through the morning and made it to lunch-largely because her mother had driven her to school and she didn’t have any way of getting home early that didn’t involve throwing herself on someone’s (read: Miranda’s) mercy. But class was torture, as was lunch, a silent staring contest between Miranda and Harper, ensconced across the room from their usual table-the better to avoid Kane-neither commenting on the change or on much of anything beyond that night’s history homework and the possibility of their gym teacher having another nervous breakdown.

By the time the bell rang, Harper had resolved to get out, somehow. She didn’t want to drag Miranda along, as that would involve offering some kind of explanation- painful but true, or false but exhausting-and her leg still hurt too much to make the long walk home. But surely, if she could just sneak off campus, she could find a nice, quiet place to hide and wait for the day to officially end. Thanks to the senior auction, the end would come more quickly than usual, and her mother wouldn’t think anything of it if Harper called home asking for an early pickup. (An even earlier pickup, courtesy of a never-fail headache-cramps-dizziness combo and a trip to the nurse’s office, had crossed her mind, but she’d quickly vetoed it. These days, her mother would just drag her straight to the doctor for excessive testing and monitoring, a fate worse than school, if such a thing were possible.)

So she got rid of Miranda, tossed her uneaten lunch, and followed the crowd out of the cafeteria and down the hall, hoping to slip outside unnoticed. She had just stepped outside, smiling at the rush of cool air against her face, when her phone rang.

Harper cursed, knowing she shouldn’t have turned it on after class, but she hadn’t been able to resist.

Restricted number.

She didn’t need caller ID to tell her it was Detective Wells-and if she just answered now and told the truth, all this would be over. But she couldn’t do it. She stopped walking and slouched against the wall, staring at the flashing red light on the top of her phone; part of her wanted to throw it against the concrete pavement as hard as she could and watch it shatter, as if that would be the end of anything.

It was her own fault that she didn’t hear him coming.

“Harper Grace? Is that you? What are you doing out here?”

Mr. Grady was a round little man with a rapid-fire smile and a walrus mustache who’d never forgotten the glory days of his high school drama career and now never missed the chance for a performance, onstage or off. Harper avoided him whenever possible.

She slipped the phone back into her bag, only half grateful that the decision, for the moment, had been made for her.

“Good lord, Harper, whatever has come over you, you look pale as a ghost!” Mr. Grady boomed, his voice tinged with a vaguely British, entirely fake accent that he claimed to have picked up during his “time abroad.” (Harper and Miranda had always suspected he’d picked it up from one too many nights on the couch in front of Masterpiece Theatre.)

“Just getting some air,” Harper said with a sigh, already resigned to her fate: school.

“Good, good,” Mr. Grady said, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. “Always best to energize yourself before a performance, I always say. Now, you’ll need a pass so you don’t get in trouble for being late.”

“Uh… performance?” She realized as soon as she said it that she should have just kept silent; he was already fumbling with a pad of hall passes, and she didn’t want to endanger her Get Out of Detention Free card by pointing out that he was possibly insane, certainly mistaken.

“Well, perhaps not in the technical sense of the word,” Mr. Grady admitted, winking at her, “but I won’t tell if you won’t. After all, people like you and I know that any public appearance is a performance, don’t we?” He handed her the hall pass and then, before she could escape, placed a hand on her shoulder. “I have to admit, Harper, I’m surprised to see you getting back on the horse so quickly, after your rather… unfortunate turn at the podium last month. And to put yourself out there in the service of your fellow students? Magnificent, young lady, simply magnificent!”

At the thought of her “unfortunate turn,” Harper almost gagged; she remembered little more than the glare of the spotlight, the murmurs of the audience, and the sense that everything was spiraling out of control. But the days before her speech were still clear in her mind, and they’d all been colored with an overwhelming fear of public speaking; for a million reasons, it wasn’t an experience she was planning to repeat anytime soon.

“What are you talking about, Mr. Grady?” She pulled away from him; it was bad enough when anyone touched her, these days. But nothing skeeved her out more than the familiar well-meaning shoulder grip, usually deployed by middle-aged men barred-by decorum, circumstance, Harper’s hostile glare, or their own awkwardness-from anything more openly affectionate. “How exactly am I serving my fellow students?”

“At this afternoons auction, of course!” He tapped his clipboard. “I’ve got you down right here: dinner date with Harper Grace. Should go for a pretty penny, I’d wager, a popular girl like you.”

“What?! No. No way. That’s a mistake. I never signed up for-”

“Now, now, don’t be nervous. It’s a little late to back out now.”

Her stomach churned, waiting for her to decide on an emotion-she was torn between fear (of having to go through with it) and loathing (for the demonic loser who’d signed her up). But neither of those would be of much help now. “Actually, Mr. Grady, I’m really going to have to-back out, I mean.” She gave him a weak, brave smile and put her hand to her head. “I’m just not feeling very well, and actually, I was headed off to the nurse.” Better to be fussed over by her mother and a team of hack doctors than to have to parade around on an auction block in front of the whole senior class, most of whom would undoubtedly be hoping-and waiting-for her to humiliate herself once again.

The sympathy ploy might have worked on some teachers, but the oblivious Grady was too intent on insuring that everything followed his script and the show went on. “Nonsense!” he cried, flinging his hands in the air. “Stage fright, preshow jitters, that’s all. I’ve seen it a million times before. Nothing to worry about. This will do you good.” He put one hand on each of her shoulders, squeezed tight, and steered her firmly back into the school. “I expect to see you backstage in an hour, Harper. No excuses. This is going to be just the medicine you need.”

“But Mr. Grady-” she protested, cursing the pleading tone in her voice and wondering what had happened to the authoritative, autocratic Harper Grace who could have any teacher wrapped around her little finger in under ten minutes. Another by-product of her “unfortunate turn” at the podium, she supposed, and the “unfortunate” events that followed. The teachers all looked at her with pity now, and a bit of wariness; they watched her, as if last month’s disaster had just been the beginning, and the full saga of destruction had yet to play out.

“I’d hate to have to give you detention for backing out on your responsibilities,” he warned her in a jolly voice. “But I will, if need be. It’s for your own good, after all. Now, now, nothing to be afraid of,” he said, depositing her in front of her classroom. “As the bard says, ‘All the world’s a stage’! So really, we’re all performing, all the time. Even now.”

Thanks for the heads up, Harper thought bitterly. Now tell me something I don’t know.

“I’ve got thirty, do I hear thirty-five?”

“Thirty-five!” a high, desperate voice shouted from the back.

Mr. Grady beamed and waved his gavel in the air. “That’s thirty-five from the lovely lady in the back. Do I hear forty?”

“Forty!”

“Forty-five!”

“Fifty!”

“Fifty dollars!” Grady boomed. “We can do better than that.” Silence from the crowd. “Let me remind you ladies that you’re not just purchasing a lesson in driving a stick shift, you’re purchasing the company of this handsome young man for one entire afternoon. Now that must be worth at least fifty-five dollars!”

It was worth twice that, Miranda thought, smiling at Kane’s obvious discomfort up onstage as Mr. Grady whipped the crowd into a frenzy. But if even if she hadn’t maxed out her allowance for the last few weeks, she wouldn’t have allowed herself to place a bid. That was most definitely against the rules.

“Seventy-five dollars!” someone yelled. Miranda whipped around to her left and spotted Cheryl Sheppard, a ditzy brunette with a double-D chest and an even bigger wallet, waving her hand in the air.