Getting to my other
classes was nearly impossible with the crowds that gathered in the halls,
but the teachers understood, no one was counted tardy.
In my last class of
the day, geometry, I sat down in my usual seat next to Cassie. "Hey," I
greeted her.
"Hi," she said quietly.
I looked over at her.
"Oh, no. You knew her?"
Cassie nodded and sniffed.
"We had French together."
I walked around the
desks and bent down to hug her. She sobbed quietly into my shoulder until
the teacher started the lesson. We got our exams back, checked over them
and then we were told to start working on our notes for the next chapter,
I don't' think anyone did, though, Cassie and I didn't anyway. We opened
our books, but mostly we talked. Well, Cassie talked, I was just listening.
I'd never heard Cassie talk so much, but it was obvious she needed to so
I just listened and the teacher didn't say anything.
"How do we know it
was a snowmobile accident?" Cassie asked after a break in the conversation.
"What do you mean?"
"We've been busy with
the Yeerks all weekend. What if she was a controller? Or Visser Three got
mad and..."
"First of all, we don't
talk about that in school, remember? Secondly, it's supposed to be open
casket visitation, they wouldn't do that if we were involved."
"Yeah...I guess you're
right." The final bell rang and we all gathered up our things. "Have you
seen her locker?" she asked as we left class.
"I've kind of avoided
it," I admitted. "It's where all the people who knew her have been hanging
out. I didn't want to intrude."
"Would you come with
me quick over there? I want to leave a note, but don't want to go alone."
"Um, sure." I felt
kind of awkward going over there, like I was a spectator at some gross
sporting event, but Cassie was my best friend, I was doing this for her.
Amanda's locker was
amazing. Drawings and newspaper articles were taped to her locker and flowers
were piled on the floor around it. The wall across from her locker had
several cards-the pieces of poster board I'd seen earlier-where people
had left messages for Amanda. As Cassie taped a letter to the locker, I
read some of the messages. Most were just saying how much they'd miss her,
but they were so heartfelt I felt tears stinging the back of my eyes. It
was almost too much. I've seen a lot of death, but the fact that people
my age had to make such a beautiful tribute to their friend wasn't fair.
"You okay?" Cassie
asked, putting an arm around my shoulder.
I shook my head to
clear it. "Yeah, I'm fine."
"C'mon, let's get out
of here. I need to hurry if I'm going to catch my bus."
I walked home sullenly
that afternoon, still thinking about the tribute to Amanda. I came home
to an empty house since Mom was at work and Sara and Jordan were still
in school, so I went up to my room, opened the window in case Tobias stopped
by and logged onto the net.
I'd just started to
read through my e-mail when I heard the sound of a bird landing on my windowsill.
"Hey, Tobias."
< Hi, Rachel. >
"what's up?"
He fluttered over to
my desk. < Saw you on the way home from school, you looked pretty depressed.
What's wrong? >
I felt the tears resurfacing.
"A girl at school was killed over the weekend. In a snowmobile accident."
< Oh, Rachel, I'm
sorry. >
I shook my head and
wiped away the tears before they could fall. "It's okay, I didn't really
know her, I just passed her in the hall occasionally. But it's still a
shock, you know?"
< I can imagine.
>
"School was a mess
today. Everyone was crying, but I couldn't. Not only didn't I know her,
but I'm big, strong, brave RAchel. I'm not allowed to cry." I sniffed.
"But this is different. This isn't something I should have to be strong
about. No one should have to be strong about the death of a classmate,
but I've had to spend the day as a shoulder to cry on and I'm sick of it!"
I hate to admit it, but I started crying then. I felt a hand on my shoulder
and looked up to see Tobias, who'd morphed human while I was lamenting.
He knelt down and put his arms around me and I unashamedly cried into his
shoulder.
We stayed like that
for at least half an hour, until I didn't have any tears left. As my tears
dried, I pushed away from Tobias. "I"m sorry. That wasn't very becoming,
I'm sure."
"It's okay. You've
been listening to people all day, you needed someone to listen to you."
Isn't that sweet? That's
why I love the guy.
I heard a door slam
downstairs. "That's probably my mom, you'd better go. If she catches you
up here, she'll kill me."
"All right. Bye." He
began to demorph.
"Bye." He finished
the morph quickly and flew away, just before my mom knocked on my door.
"Rachel? You talking
to someone in there?"
"No, Mom. Just myself."
"May I come in?"
"Sure."
She came inside and
sat down on the bed. I turned my chair around so I could look at her. "Why
in the world do you have this window open? It's the middle of January!"
She closed the window. "No wonder the heating bills have been so much lately."
"Sorry."
"Anyways, how was school
today?"
"Awful. But I'd rather
not talk about it." I'd already had my big cry, I wasn't going to have
another.
She nodded sympathetically.
"Anything you do want to talk about?"
"No."
"When's the funeral?"
I thought back to the
morning's announcement. "Visitation's from three to five and seven to nine.
The funeral's tomorrow at one."
"Do you want to go
to either? I have tomorrow off so I could take you out of school."
"No, I didn't know
her, I'd feel out of place at her funeral, or even visitation. I don't
even really know anyone who knew her, except for Cassie and I think I saw
Melissa by Amanda's locker."
"How were they holding
up?"
"How do you think?"
I asked, suddenly defensive. I told her I didn't want to talk about
it, why was she pressing it? "I seriously don't want to talk, Mom. I've
had enough of it today."
"Okay, okay. I'll leave
you alone. You can stay up here this afternoon, I'll keep Sara and Jordan
from bugging you."
"Thanks, Mom."
She gave me a huge.
"Anytime, sweetie."
I spent the rest of
the evening in my room, only going downstairs to get a sandwich for dinner.
I spent the time catching up on overdue homework, surfing the net and listening
to music. For once I had an evening to myself, but I couldn't enjoy it.
I couldn't escape the memories of the day, from finding out about Amanda
to crying on Tobias' shoulder.
Around ten, just as
I was starting to feel tired, there was a knock at the door.
"Come in," I called,
turning off the computer.
Mom stepped into the
room. "Hi."
"What's up?"
She sat down on the
bed and motioned for me to sit beside her. I did so and she wrapped me
in a tight hug. "You okay?"
"How many times are
you going to ask me that today? I'm fine."
"Sorry, it's my job
as a mother. I'm just worried. I'm not sure how to handle this, I can't
even imagine how you must feel. I never lost a classmate. Your father did,
I think, but we met in college." She paused. "So you're sure you're fine?"
I felt the all too
familiar feeling of tears behind my eyes. "No, I'm not. But I'll be fine,
I have to be."
"Oh, Rachel, no you
don't! No one has to be 'fine' when someone dies."
I wanted so badly to
tell her right there all the reasons I had for why I had to be fine, but
a few of those reasons could very well have gotten me killed if Mom was
a controller. But I didn't want to think about that at the moment. Controller
or not, she was my mother right then. My mother, who was giving me a way
to stop being fearless Rachel for an evening and just be a scared and sad
teenage girl. I felt the tears coming back and this time I didn't resist
them. I laid my head on her shoulder and cried, not only for Amanda, but
for all the times over the past year when I wanted to cry but, being Xena,
I couldn't.
School the next day
was only slightly less chaotic than the day before. People were still clogging
the hallways, giving eachother hugs, but made more of an effort to get
to class on time. My first hour, once everyone was there, was a bit of
a shock. Alot of people were dressed up in skirts and suits, even people
who generally lived in jeans. I felt extremely underdressed compared to
them, since I was just in jeans and a T-shirt. They were all leaving school
early to attend Amanda's funeral, most car pooling with teachers or friend's
parent's at the end of lunch.
I sat with Cassie and
the others at lunch, a definite security risk, but Cassie needed the support.
She was still a bit of a wreck and kept smoothing her skirt self consciously.
Yes, skirt. She'd called me that morning and asked if I could bring a few
skirts and dresses to school for her to try on before going to the funeral.
It took a little work, but I got her into a skirt and blouse we could both
agree on.
Lunch was eaten pretty
much in silence. Marco tried to crack a few jokes, but none of them
seemed really funny. Not that his jokes ever are, but these seemed strained.
The bell rang, signaling
the end of lunch. We all stood up to leave, almost grateful lunch was over.
Cassie and I threw away our trays and I gave her a final hug before she
joined the throng of students waiting outside the office to sign themselves
out. I didn't see many people I'd consider friends among them, but I did
see Melissa. I hadn't talked to her in a while, so since I had a few minutes,
I went up to her.
"Hey, Melissa."
She looked at me, surprised.
"Hi, Rachel. Are you going, too?"
"No, I didn't know
her. I'd feel extremely weird going."
"Oh. Hey, I haven't
seen you at gymnastics in a while. Aren't you still in it?"
I winced. I'd kind
of been skipping out on that for Animorph business. "Um, yeah, I'm still
in it, just haven't been able to make it lately."
"Oh. Are you going
tonight? I'm going to be there after the funeral."
"Definitely." I hadn't
actually been planning on it, since I still had homework to do, but Melissa
was more important.
I felt a tap on my
shoulder. I turned around looked up at my science teacher. "Unless you're
leaving, you still have class to attend," he said, then moved on to collect
other dawdling students.
I sighed and turned
back to Melissa. "That'd be my cue to go. I'll see you in gymnastics."
"See you."
I wasn't concentrating
well in gymnastics, not a good thing, especially when you're out of practice,
but I wasn't alone. More than one girl had fallen off the balance beam
or messed up her vault. I'd just slipped off the former when Melissa came
into the gym from the locker room, her face red from crying. I got up from
the floor, rubbing my elbow where I'd hit it on the beam as I fell, and
jogged over to Melissa. She was me coming and threw her arms around me
in an unexpected burst of emotion. She sobbed quietly into my shoulder.
I caught the coach's eye and motioned that I was going to take Melissa
back to the locker room. He nodded and I carefully guided Melissa back
to the locker room and sat her down on a bench.
"It was so beautiful.
But horrible. You should have seen Amanda! She looked so pretty, but not
like herself at all," Melissa sobbed. "I mean, you know how she was really
pale? They put so much makeup on her she looked tan. And the glitter!
Amanda hardly ever wore glitter, but they'd piled a ton of it on her eyelids.
It looked really cool, but not like her at all." She began to cry again,
I just sat there and let her cry on my shoulder for a few minutes until
her sobs were reduced to occasional sniffs.
"You going to be okay?"
I asked her when she began to calm down.
She sniffed again and
nodded. "Yeah, thanks, Rachel."
"Hey, that's what friends
are for, right?"
"I haven't been much
of one lately. I'm sorry. We need to hang out some more."
I nodded. "That'd be
cool."
She stood up and took
a deep breath. "Let's go back to class."
During the next two
weeks, things began to get back to normal. Amanda gradually began to recede
from my thoughts as the only memorial left to her was a bulletin board
where the drawings and letters left on her locker were being showcased.
School was running
smoothly again, everyone was settled into their new schedules, and while
no one had forgotten Amanda, she wasn't the only thing we thought of day
and night.
Friday afternoon, exactly
two weeks after Amanda was killed, the principal came over the PA system
with announcements. He gave a few about sports practice cancellations,
then moved onto the point of the announcement.
"In memory of Amanda,
some of her friends have created a video tribute to her." He then gave
the channel it'd be on and wished us a good weekend.
The teacher turned
on the TV and we all turned in our seats so we could see it easily, if
not genuinely interested, thankful to get out of the last few minutes of
geometry.
The video started,
spelling out Amanda's name across the screen as the opening bars to a song
played. The video was just pictures of Amanda, from when she was a baby
up to this year. There were a few giggles around the room when friends
recognized the pictures. One girl, Anne, was in her seat lip synching and
playing air guitar along with the song. A few really obnoxious people gave
her mean looks, but she was a friend of Amanda's, most of us just thought
it was sweet.
The video ended with
one of Amanda's poems, I guess she'd been really into poetry. Once the
video was over, a few people clapped. The creator's weren't in the room
to accept the compliment, but it was still a good thought. Whoever had
made it had put a lot of time into it, that was obvious.
Since there was only
a few minutes before the bell rang, our teacher let us pack up and talk
for the remaining time.
"What do you think
they'd do if one of us died?" Cassie asked me quietly as we shoved our
books into our bags.
"What?"
"You know as well as
I that any day now we could be killed. Think any of us will get such a
touching tribute?
"Cassie, none of us
are going to die," I reassured her.
"Really? Remember Visser--John
Berryman? When we were following him? You died then, Rachel. So did Jake.
None of us are immortal. It's getting to the point where I don't think
'Will I die?' it's 'When?'"
"Cassie, I won't let
you die. Or Jake, or Ax, or Tobias. Or even Marco. We're all going to live
long, healthy lives. Okay?"
The bell rang and we
joined the rush out the door.
"I hope you're right,
Rachel. I hope you're right."