Rivals Read online

  He opened his mouth but he had no idea what to say in reply.

  Chapter 23.

  Back at home Brent and Lucy hid out in his room, with the blinds down and the door locked. Despite the court order that was supposed to keep reporters away from his house there were people all over his lawn, some of them with cameras, some just holding notepads and pens, waiting for something to happen. Waiting for him to come down and tell them how he felt about saving people.

  He’d already learned they didn’t want to know how he really felt. They wanted him to say something like, “All in a day’s work!” or “Anybody would have done the same.” They didn’t want to hear that he was struggling to get his homework done or that Grandma still couldn’t get dressed by herself in the morning.

  “Hold still,” Lucy said. She had a measuring tape in her hands. He lifted her arms and let her loop it around his chest.

  “Are you going to tell me what that’s about?” he asked, nodding at the tape.

  “No. It’s a surprise.” She smiled up at him, then measured the length of his leg from hip to ankle.

  “I mean, I can probably guess—”

  His cell phone rang. He sighed and pulled it out of his pocket. Most likely the screen would say UNKNOWN CALLER or just list some local phone number he wouldn’t recognize. He’d learned never to answer those calls. Instead, though, this time it said the call was from Ryan Digby.

  He frowned. Why would the freshman be calling him? How had Ryan even gotten his number? But it could be trouble. Maybe Matt Perkins was at it again. “Hello?” he asked, flipping the phone open.

  Lucy wrote some measurements down in her Chemistry notebook, then brought the tape up to measure around his neck.

  “No,” Brent said. “I’ve got nothing to add.” He held the phone away from his ear. “This is a new one. A reporter stopped in at Ryan Digby’s house to interview him, then asked if he could use his phone. He knew I would answer if it was from Ryan’s number.” He put the phone back to his ear. “What? No. Dana’s not my girlfriend. No. I don’t have a girlfriend! Well, of course I like girls. That’s a—that’s a really personal question, but no, I’m fifteen years old and I’ve never—wait. Wait, I didn’t say—”

  He growled and started to throw the phone at the wall. Then he thought better of it. It might go right through the wall and hit somebody out in the yard. So instead he tossed it lightly onto the bed.

  “What’s tomorrow’s headline?” Lucy asked.

  “‘Super Kid is Saving Himself… for Marriage.’” Brent scowled. “Probably. I don’t think they would run with ‘Brent’s Still a Virgin!’”

  Lucy brought her hands down. She turned her face away but she couldn’t stifle the laugh bubbling up out of her mouth.

  “Ha ha. Very funny. This media stuff is getting out of control. It’s not like I’m getting anything out of it. Grandma won’t let me do commercials or let them make a movie about me, and honestly, I don’t want that either. Why should I bother talking to them at all? Who even listens to the things I say? Who—”

  He stopped in mid-rant and stood very still for a second.

  “Brent?” Lucy asked, when he didn’t say anything more.

  “Wait here,” he told her. Then he headed out of the room and down the stairs. Grandma called out to him but she just wanted the TV remote—he found it for her, then headed for the front door.

  Nobody was standing on the porch. There were maybe two dozen reporters on the front steps, though, and a pair of news vans were parked illegally in the street. When the reporters saw him come out they all flooded in, moving closer to get a better look at him, to get pictures, to ask him questions.

  He held up his hands for silence. For once, he got it. “I want to say something,” he told the reporters. “Can we get some TV people up here? I want this to go out on every network tonight.” He felt like an idiot as he waited for them to set up their blinding lights and all their microphones. He felt like a pompous jerk, acting as if the whole world was just waiting, holding their breath to hear what he said next. But they kind of were—and anyway, this was important.

  He needed to talk to Maggie, but he couldn’t find her. Maybe there was another way to get through to her.

  “Are we ready?” he asked. One of the camera men gave him a thumb’s-up. He chewed on his lower lip for a second, then he looked right at the cameras and started.

  “As everyone is aware by now my sister Maggie has run away from home. She’s not showing up for classes at school and she avoids anyone who tries to talk to her. I think she’s scared, mostly. I think she’s worried about what will happen if the police catch her. And maybe she’s ashamed of what she’s done. I hope she is, because that means there’s still a chance for her to make it all okay.”

  He turned to face a different camera. “Maggie. If anybody knows what you’re going through, it’s me. If anybody could understand, I’m the guy. I really want to talk to you. I need someone to talk to about what’s happened to us. About what happened to Dad. About what you did, and how we can make it okay. It won’t be easy, but I think that together we can work everything out. Come to some kind of solution.”

  He looked over at a reporter from the local newspaper. He wanted this to go out in print, as well. “Just come home, Maggie. Or if you’re not willing to do that, come find me somewhere. Somewhere neutral. So we can just talk. I’m not going to cause trouble for you. I just want us to be a family again. I want us to be okay.”

  Brent lowered his head. Would she listen? He didn’t know. But he knew it was what Dad would have wanted. Dad had believed in giving people second chances.

  “Thank you,” Brent said. “That’s all I have right now.” As the reporters surged up the steps and started climbing over the porch railing, he stepped back inside the house and closed the door behind him.

  Please, Maggie, he thought. Just come talk to me. Mom and Dad are gone. I can’t lose my big sister, too.

  Chapter 24.

  Maggie was amazed at how easy it was to hide in plain sight. You’d think a girl in a rumpled plaid field hockey skirt with a look of desperate villainy in her eye would stick out on the street, and that every person she passed would turn and point and scream, “There she is!” But in fact all she had to do was spend five minutes shoplifting at the Gap. She put her hair up under a baseball cap and threw a lightweight hoodie and a backpack over her jersey and suddenly she was invisible, or close enough. No one gave her a second look. No one shouted for the police.

  Even when she walked into the bank building, right past the security guard.

  As she surveyed the red marble lobby of the bank—the rank of ATMs on her left, the four teller windows on her right, people streaming in and out, carrying out their business, living their happy safe normal lives—she told herself over and over again that this was going to be the last time, the last bad thing she would ever do.

  She had spent most of the day psyching herself up for this. Convincing herself she had no choice. There were some things, after all, that you couldn’t just steal. She needed to find a place to stay, for at least one more night. She needed a car. Sure, you could steal a car, but she didn’t know how to hotwire one and carjacking seemed too risky. It would be too easy to hurt somebody that way.

  She needed money. She told herself if she could get some money together then she could leave town. Drive off into the sunset. Find some place where nobody knew who she was and start life over. Do it right this time.

  But first, she needed money. She’d chosen the bank for a pretty simple reason. If you were going to get in trouble for a robbery, it seemed to make sense to rob the place where all the money was.

  This would only take a minute, she told herself. And then she would be free.

  She waited until one of the teller lines emptied out. Then she headed over to the window and smiled at the woman behind the bulletproof glass. The teller was maybe forty-five years old, pretty in a commonplace way. She had a mole on the side
of her nose. Maggie couldn’t stop staring at it.

  “What can we do for you today, miss?” the teller asked.

  Maggie pulled off her baseball cap and dropped it on the floor. Then she unzipped her hoodie and let the teller see her jersey, with the team logo and her number on the front. “Do you know what this means?” she asked.

  The teller screamed. Which Maggie guess meant that yes, she did.

  A second later an alarm started going off, a bell ringing in the back of the bank. More people screamed. All around Maggie people started running, heading for the revolving door behind her. She figured that was for the best. The teller tried to duck under her counter. Maggie punched the bulletproof glass window that separated them and it cracked in half. She punched it again and one piece fell away to thunk on the floor behind the window. Then she reached over across the counter and dragged the teller back up to her feet.

  “Just give me some money,” Maggie said, “and I’ll go away. Nobody needs to get hurt, okay?”

  There was a dull impact on the back of her neck. Maggie spun around and saw the security guard standing there. He had a wooden baton in his hand, and he was pulling it back for another swing.

  “Seriously?” Maggie asked. “That’s the best you’ve got?”

  The baton came whirling around toward her face. Maggie had plenty of time to grab it as it came around. She flipped it in her hand and then jabbed the guard in the stomach with its rubberized grip. His face went pale and he slumped to the floor, gasping to get his breath back.

  He would be fine, she told herself. She hadn’t hit him hard enough to damage anything vital. She turned back to the teller, who was pulling a long metal drawer out of her counter. “I’m so sorry,” the teller said. “I’m sorry. Please don’t hurt me.”

  “It’s not your fault they didn’t give him a gun,” Maggie said. “What are you sorry for?”

  “I—I just started my shift, and they only.” She stopped talking.

  Maggie raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

  “I think I might be sick,” the teller said. She definitely looked a little green.

  “Look,” Maggie said, “you’re not going to get hurt, as long as you give me the money. I don’t have any reason to hurt you.”

  “It’s the beginning of my shift,” the teller said again, slowly, “and they only bring out cash as we need it. It’s all controlled downstairs, in the vault.”

  Maggie frowned. “I’m not getting the point, here. Help me out.”

  The teller held up the metal drawer. There were a couple of twenties in there, and a handful of fives and ones. The slot for ten dollar bills was completely empty. It looked like there was less than a hundred dollars there. That wouldn’t get Maggie very far at all.

  “People don’t do cash transactions like they used to,” the teller explained. “Most people go to the ATM for withdrawals, and when they make a deposit I send it downstairs right away.”

  “Down to the vault.”

  The teller nodded.

  “Which I’m guessing is locked. Okay,” Maggie sighed, “who has the key? Or the combination, or whatever?”

  “The branch manager. But he.”

  Maggie waited patiently for the teller to start again.

  “He ran out of here as soon as I screamed,” the teller finished.

  Maggie turned around and looked for a way to get down to the vault. There was a stairwell leading off the lobby, with a red velvet rope strung across it. A pair of security cameras watched the stairs and anyone approaching them, but Maggie wasn’t afraid of cameras. She looked down at the security guard on the floor and saw him slowly recovering. His right hand was reaching shakily for his baton. She kicked it away from him, into a corner of the lobby, and jumped over the velvet rope.

  This was only supposed to have taken a minute. If she took too long getting into the vault, the police would surround the bank and she’d have to deal with them on her way out. Well, she thought, as she ran down the stairs, I’ve come this far.

  There was no point in turning back.

  Chapter 25.

  Brent had reached the point of no return.

  On his last algebra test, he’d gotten a twenty-five. Out of a possible hundred points. He’d been holding out hope that if he just tried really hard, really hard, he could bring his grade back from a D to a C. Now it looked like he would be lucky if he didn’t fail the class.

  It was just so hard to focus. So many other things were occupying his mind and even at his best he found algebra confusing and difficult to keep straight. There were all those variables and you never knew what any of them were, it was like playing solitaire except you weren’t allowed to see your own cards.

  Clutching the test paper in his hand he wandered through the halls, wondering what he was going to do. At least his next period was lunch. He was pretty sure he could get through his sophomore year without failing lunch.

  He picked up his tray—meatloaf today, with stewed carrots and apple juice to drink—and looked up to see where there was a place to sit. He didn’t often have trouble finding a seat in the cafeteria these days, but for once it looked like the place was packed. All the usual tables he frequented had students crammed into every available inch of space. He couldn’t see a single open—wait. Over there.

  There was a space right between two girls. They turned to look at him over their shoulders and he saw it was Jill Hennessey and Dana Kravitz.

  “Did you ask everybody to fill up the tables so I had to sit here?” he asked, sliding his tray onto the table between the two of them. He saw that Dana was eating the meatloaf but had a salad instead of the carrots. Jill was eating sushi out of a tiny black plastic box.

  “Do you believe in willpower, Brent?” Jill asked him. “I do. I believe that through the sheer power of my will I am capable of getting what I want. I find if I want something badly enough, I never have to actually ask for it. Please sit down. We have something to discuss. A mutually beneficial partnership you’d be very foolish to refuse.”

  “O-kay,” Brent said, climbing onto the bench. “You want to—what? Ask me for help with something? If you want me to beat somebody up, I have to tell you I don’t do that. I don’t hit anyone who’s weaker than I am, which is everybody.”

  “Fascinating. But no, that’s not what we’re looking for here. We’re looking to help you, Brent. We’re looking to help you reach your potential.”

  “So, um, hi,” Brent said, turning to Dana. “Does she ever let you talk?”

  “Hi,” she said back. “Of course she does. I just find that—well—she’s better at it than I am. She’s better with words.”

  “As I was saying,” Jill went on, shooting Dana a nasty glance, “you’re a star, Brent. You’re a celebrity. Every boy in this school wishes he was you. And every girl in this school wants your tongue in her mouth. That’s a wonderful opportunity but you need to think carefully before you decide who you want to be with. You could make a horrible mistake and spend all your time with Lucy Benez—”

  “Don’t,” Brent said, squinting. “Don’t you dare say anything about Lucy or—”

  “—or, you could do the sensible thing. You could do the appropriate thing, and date a girl who is already popular. Someone who can enhance your reputation. People in this school can be very judgmental, Brent. I should know. And a man is often judged by the quality of his significant other. It is very important that you be with someone who will make you look good. Now, the most popular girl in this school,” Jill said, and placed one hand over her own heart, “is taken. But the second most popular girl is still available.”

  “I’m not sure I have time for dating,” Brent said, not wanting to hurt Dana’s feelings.

  Jill sighed dramatically. “Listen. I’m a sympathetic and considerate person, so I’ve tried to be subtle and preserve everyone’s dignity. I gave you a chance to ask her out on your own. I tried talking to your sister about this. Big mistake. And yesterday Dana went so far as to embar
rass herself by admitting she doesn’t have a date yet for homecoming, and yet you failed to rise to the occasion. What is it going to take, Brent? Do I have to offer you money? Because I will.”

  “Woah,” Brent said, starting to get up from the table, his lunch completely forgotten, “this is going too far—”

  “Brent,” Dana said, and he sat back down because she had placed her hand on his arm. “Please. Jill can be—overly enthusiastic sometimes. But she’s actually just trying to help me out. I told her I thought you were cute. That maybe I liked you.”

  “You… do?”

  Dana smiled. She had a great smile. “Let’s say it’s a possibility. I’d like to get to know you first before I fall in love with you or anything.”

  “That sounds a little better,” Brent said, “but seriously, I just don’t have the time.”

  “You have to eat, don’t you?” Dana asked. It sounded like she wasn’t sure, as if she was wondering whether having superpowers meant Brent no longer had to do normal things like sleep or breathe or ingest mundane foodstuffs. “Let me make you dinner. I owe you at least that much for saving my life. Don’t I?”

  “I guess it would be rude to say no,” Brent admitted. Wow, he thought. She smells pretty good, doesn’t she? And he remembered how she’d felt lying on top of him when he pulled her out of traffic… “I guess—that would be okay. Maybe—”

  He stopped because out of the corner of his eye he’d seen a paunchy, middle-aged man weaving his way through the cafeteria tables. It was Special Agent Weathers.

  “What’s he doing here?” Brent asked.

  “Tomorrow night. Seven o’clock. You know where I live? I can text you the address,” Dana said, but Brent barely heard her. He was getting up from the table and turning to face the FBI man.

  Weathers looked sweaty. Like he’d run some distance to find Brent. The look on his face could only mean one thing—and then he said it out loud.