A murmur starts up across the hall. A throbbing begins to resonate behind my right eyeball.
Deputy Davids hacks into her sleeve. ‘To the person responsible for those goings on, I have two things to say. One. If you have an issue with a teacher –’ here she glances across at Coach Hadley and Miss Fowler, who are sitting together to the far right of the stage, ‘the proper thing is to raise it with that teacher or with the school directly. Two. Principal Croon and I have discussed this matter and we will be watching the student body very closely for further inappropriate behaviour. Very closely. You stand warned.’
My eyeball feels like a balloon that’s being squeezed.
‘What was that all about, do you think?’ Beth asks as we file out of Assembly. Or at least I think it is Beth – it is difficult to tell because I have my hand across my pounding eye and am concentrating very hard on keeping my lunch down.
‘Amelia Westlake, of course,’ Liz Newcomb says.
‘The Dep was just making the point that it’s better to raise things directly with the school. Like you did, Beth, through your father,’ says Millie.
‘How good am I?’ says Beth.
‘The best,’ Millie tells her.
That evening Edie has to cancel our planned date for the second day in a row, which is absolutely fine. I want to see her, of course. It seems like ages since I’ve spent quality time with my Number One Gal. But Edie has an essay due the following day, and I couldn’t bear to be the reason for her underperformance. At any rate, I could use the time. Deputy Davids’ speech has left me with a growing knot of panic in my gut.
I go home and get changed, unpinning my badges from the lapel of my blazer. I take out a cloth and the bottle of Silvo I keep in my bottom desk drawer. Carefully, I polish each one. When I have finished I line up the badges on the desk and reattach them to my uniform.
There is something soothing about this ritual – feeling the weight of them, seeing the polished shine, pinning them back onto the fabric so that they sit just right. I think of Bianca Stein from St Margaret’s beating Edie and me at Tawney. I thread my Tawney badge through my lapel and it is like I’ve put a skewer through the thought. I pin on my house badge, thinking of Coach Hadley. Its symmetry and shine keep him at bay. I imagine Principal Croon discovering that Will and I are behind Amelia Westlake and press my school badge into my palm until it leaves an outline.
It is clear that if we are going to keep Amelia Westlake safe from discovery, we need to be especially careful about covering our tracks.
It begs the question: how does one cover one’s tracks? Given I am basically a very honest, open person who has never had to conceal anything from anyone, I have no idea. I conduct an online search for clues and up pops an article about how to evade tracking dogs, which I initially dismiss as being off the point. But when I read on, I am fascinated to learn that dogs track humans by following the scent of the dead body cells that continuously fall from our skin. The only way to truly evade them is to enclose one’s entire person in a hermetically sealed suit.
I sit back from the computer. After everything Will and I have done with Amelia, it is definitely too late for a hermetically sealed suit. With the cartoons, the online profile, the graffiti, the sign-up lists, and the initialled essay cover sheets, we’ve left our trace everywhere.
But what if there is another way?
Of course, I have promised Will I won’t do anything Amelia-related without her agreement.
Then again, after that speech from Deputy Davids, we need to act fast. And I can hardly check with Will before taking action when she has forbidden any contact. She has left me no choice but to continue without her okay.
This is why, in lieu of catching up with Edie over a Moroccan tagine and Persian love cake, I spend our date night littering Amelia Westlake’s tracks with the dead body cells of as many other people as I can think of.
From: [email protected]
Dear Daphne,
Thank you for your kind invitation to your eighteenth birthday party at Catalina’s. I accept with delight.
Love, Amelia
(To the untrained eye this is a perfectly innocuous response. Therein lies its subtle beauty. Millie is renowned at Rosemead for ‘accepting with delight’. I know therefore that Daphne will instantly suspect the email came from her.)
From: [email protected]
Hi Liz,
Today I saw your looking for sugestions about a theme for this years Junior School spelling bee. I really think it should be Outer Space, with an emphasis on human colinization.
Cheers Amelia
(This one suggests authorship by Janine Richter, known for recently entering the international lottery to be a part of the first human colony on Mars, and for being the worst speller on planet Earth.)
From: [email protected]
Dear Eileen,
Thanks for helping me stand up to Miss Fowler. I hope we can work together again, and be friends. My friends are my estate. Forgive me then the avarice to hoard them.
AW
(The quote from Emily Dickinson embedded in this email points the finger at Rosemead’s star English student, Nakita Wallis, a well-known Dickinson die-hard.)
When I have sent off the emails, I text Edie to
