Avalon High Part 21

"No," I said. "I really won't."

"It's so weird," she said, moving to the ladies' room door. "But I totally believe you. And I hardly know you. You must just be one of those people. You know, the kind you feel like you've met before, even if you haven't. Kind of," she added brightly, as we moved out into the hallway, "like Will."

"Well," I was going to say. "Not exactly."

But my voice died in my throat. Because I could have sworn, at that moment, that I heard Mr. Morton, of all people, behind us.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,

Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,

Till her blood was frozen slowly,

And her eyes were darken'd wholly,

Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.

I spun around just in time to see Mr. Morton turning the corner toward the guidance counselor's office, one hand protectively hovering over the center of a slender woman's back. It was hard to tell from behind, but it looked just like Will's mom.

When I heard Mr. Morton's clipped, British tones saying, "This way, Mrs. Wagner," I knew it was Will's stepmom.

What on earth was Mr. Morton doing back at school? Shouldn't he have been on a plane to Tahiti?

And why was he with Mrs. Wagner, of all people?

This, I knew, could only mean trouble.

"I'll see you later," I said to Jennifer, who'd continued down the hallway, oblivious to what was going on behind us.

"Oh," she said, glancing back at me over her shoulder. "Uh, sure."

I whirled around and ran after Mr. Morton, who was holding open the clear gla.s.s door to the counseling office for Mrs. Wagner.

"This way," he was saying. "I'll just see if the conference room is free-"

"Mr. Morton," I said, barging in behind them.

Mrs. Wagner turned and blinked at me. "Oh," she said. Amazingly, in spite of the dozens of people she had to have met the night of Will's party, she seemed to recognize me. "h.e.l.lo, again. I'm afraid I forgot your name."

"Ellie Harrison," I said quickly. "Mr. Morton, can I just have a quick word with you out in the hallway here?"

"No, Miss Harrison," Mr. Morton said firmly. "I'm afraid you may not. As you can see, I am quite busy with Mrs. Wagner, here. Mrs. Wagner, if you'll just come in here and have a seat, I'm sure Mrs. Klopper"-the guidance office receptionist rose from behind her desk obediently-"will find you some coffee while we wait for your stepson to arrive."

"Wait." I stared at Mr. Morton, who was making not very subtle go-away gestures at me behind Mrs. Wagner's back. "You're meeting with Will and Mrs. Wagner?"

"Yes, I am, Miss Harrison, if that's quite all right with you. We have some important things to make clear to Will. Don't you have a cla.s.s you need to be getting to right now?"

Important things to make clear to Will? No way was I going to miss this. I sank down onto one of the blue couches in the outer office, picked up a copy of National Geographic, and said, "Actually, I have a meeting right now with my counselor."

Mrs. Klopper, returning from the coffeemaker with two cups, looked at me curiously. "I don't have you on the schedule," she said. "And Ms. Enright stepped out."

"I need some guidance," I said, trying to look upset. "About something personal. It's an emergency."

Mrs. Klopper's expression turned into one of concern. "Well, I'll see if I can find someone to speak with you, dear." She handed Mr. Morton the cups of coffee and hurried back to her desk to see if there was a counselor on duty who could speak to me.

While she was on the phone, Mr. Morton whispered to me, "I wouldn't be doing this at all if you hadn't guilted me into it. The least you could do is not make it harder for everyone."

"How am I making it harder for everyone?" I started to whisper back.

But at that moment, Will himself appeared in the doorway, holding an office pa.s.s and looking quizzical.

"Someone wanted to see me?" he asked, his voice trailing off as he noticed his stepmother through the gla.s.s walls of the conference room. "Jean? Mr. Morton? What's this all about?"

"Nothing to be overly concerned about, young man," Mr. Morton said, in what had to be the biggest understatement of the year. "Come in here, will you? I just wanted to clear a few things up between you and your, um, Mrs. Wagner."

Will moved slowly past my couch, toward the open conference room door. The eyebrow he lifted at me as he walked by said it all: What is going on?

I don't know, I mouthed at him, from behind the pages of the magazine I held up to shield my face from Mr. Morton's view. Because I really didn't know. At least, not what Will's stepmom could have to do with any of it.

Will grinned, a little lopsidedly, at me, then went into the conference room. Mr. Morton, with a final warning glance in my direction, shut the door. He didn't bother lowering the blinds in the room, so I saw him pull out a chair for Will to sit in, and then take a seat himself. Then, his hands folded on the tabletop, Mr. Morton began to speak.

I couldn't hear a word. I could only see the look on Mrs. Wagner's face (I couldn't see Will's, since he was sitting with his back to me). She went from looking politely alert to genuinely puzzled to defensive in the s.p.a.ce of two minutes.

What on earth could he be saying to her?

"Um," Mrs. Klopper said, dragging my attention away from the scene unfolding behind the gla.s.s. "Ellie, is it? I'm afraid no one can see you at the moment, but Ms. Enright is on her way back and should be here in fifteen minutes. You can wait that long, can't you?"

"Sure," I said, holding up the magazine and pretending to be engrossed in it. But really I was trying to read Mr. Morton's lips. Why had I taken all those useless cla.s.ses like bio and German when I should have been taking lipreading?

I didn't need to have taken lipreading to interpret what I saw next. And that was Mrs. Wagner suddenly throw a hand up to her mouth in shock over something Mr. Morton said. Then she promptly burst into tears. The next thing I knew, she was nodding and stretching out a hand toward Will.

Will, for his part, had leaped away from his stepmother's hand, getting up from his chair and backing away from the table. I still couldn't see his face, but I could see that he was shaking his head.

What was happening? Had Mr. Morton just told Will he was the reincarnation of King Arthur? But that shouldn't have made Will jump up, shaking his head. It should have made him laugh, because it was so ridiculous. What had Mr. Morton told him that could have made Will so upset and his stepmother cry?

"You're not supposed to be here!"

Mrs. Klopper's panicked tone was the only thing that caused me to drag my gaze away from the scene unfolding behind the gla.s.s walls. And only because I thought she was talking to me.

She wasn't. She was talking to the guy who, without my having heard him, had entered the guidance office, and was standing there staring at the trio in the conference room, as if no one else in the building existed.

"Marco," I said, jumping up from the couch.

But he didn't hear me. He was breathing hard, his car keys dangling from one hand, as he stared at his mother and stepbrother, his dark eyes filled with something I didn't like. I didn't know what it was, exactly. But I knew it wasn't good.

"You know you're not supposed to set foot on school grounds, Marco," Mrs. Klopper was saying, in a voice that shook with fear as she lifted the receiver on her office phone and started punching b.u.t.tons. "Not after what happened last time. I'm calling the police. You had better leave now."

But Marco didn't leave. Instead, he started toward the door to the conference room.

I don't know what made me do it. I am not, ordinarily, a very brave sort of person...except maybe with snakes. There was nothing remotely snakelike about Marco at that particular moment. Or rather, he was like a snake, but not the half-drowned kind you find curled up in the pool filter; more like the very much alive kind you find coiled at your feet, ready to strike, with poisonous fangs.

But that didn't stop me from insinuating myself between Marco and the conference room door...just as Mr. Morton looked up and noticed Marco's presence for the first time.

"Marco," I said, finding that, oddly, I was breathing as hard as he was. "Hey. How's it going?"

He didn't even look down at me. His gaze was riveted on Will. "Ellie. Get out of my way."

"I don't think you're supposed to be here," I said, throwing an anxious glance over my shoulder. Mrs. Wagner, noticing Marco through her tears, was attempting to dry them. Will just looked stunned. "Mrs. Klopper called the police. You better go."

"Not," he said, his gaze still on his mother, "until I know what they're talking about."

"I think whatever they're talking about is private," I said. "Between Will and your mom."

"And Morton?" Now Marco finally looked at me. And when he did, one side of his mouth twisted in a sarcastic grin. "What's he got to say to my mother?"

"Whatever it is," I said, fervently hoping it wasn't what I was pretty sure we were both thinking it might be-Mr. Morton's belief that Will was the reincarnation of King Arthur, "it's clearly none of our business, so-"

"Wrong," Marco said. "Move. Now. Or I'll move you."

"If you lay one hand on that girl, Marco Campbell," Mrs. Klopper said shrilly, "you'll regret it. You know you're not even supposed to be here-"

Which was when Marco, obviously tired of hearing this, reached out and flung me aside, as if I were a shower curtain that had been in his way.

I fell to the sofa. I wasn't hurt.

But that didn't stop Mrs. Klopper from screaming and rushing to my side. Nor did it stop Will, who'd apparently seen the whole thing, from tearing open the conference room door, and shouting, "Marco! What do you think you're doing?"

"Funny," Marco said coldly, "I was about to ask you the same question."

Then he strode into the conference room, slamming the gla.s.s door behind him with enough force to cause the entire room to shudder.

"Oh, my dear," Mrs. Klopper cried, as she tried to pull me up from the couch. "Did he hurt you?"

"I'm fine," I said quickly. I couldn't hear-let alone see-what was happening in the conference room with her hovering over me. Leaning over so I could look past Mrs. Klopper's broad shoulder, I could see Mr. Morton trying to speak calmly to a very agitated Marco. Mrs. Wagner had stopped crying, and she, too, was saying something to Marco-something Marco didn't look too happy to hear. He kept glancing at Will, who appeared to be experiencing a number of conflicting emotions, if his expression was any indication-rage; disbelief; and, finally, impatience, apparently for something Marco said.

Something Mrs. Klopper and I heard only too clearly, because Marco shouted it loudly enough to be heard even through the thick gla.s.s walls: "I don't believe it!"

It was right then that the cops came bursting into the guidance office, and Mrs. Klopper, still hovering over me protectively, cried, pointing a shaking finger at Marco, "There he is! He attacked this poor girl! He's violating the terms of his probation by even being on school grounds!"

One of the cops, to my horror, reached for his nightstick. He said to his partner, "I know this kid. Call for backup."

The partner reached for his walkie-talkie, while the first cop laid a hand on the conference room door and pulled it open.

And when he did, Marco's voice-his back to us, he was oblivious to the entry of the cops-could be heard, loud and clear, shouting, "You're not his mother! Tell him! Tell him it's a lie!"

To which Mrs. Wagner, her hands clenched to her chest, murmured, "I can't, sweetheart, because it's true. I'm so sorry. But it really is true."

Which is when the cop said, "I hate to break things up here, people, but we got a complaint-"

He never got to finish. Because Marco, wheeling around and realizing, at last, that he was in trouble, made a lunge that would have caused high-jumper Stacy to turn green with envy, propelling himself over the conference room table until he stood in front of the room's single window...

...through which he hefted one of the conference room chairs, shattering the gla.s.s into a million pieces.

Then he leaped.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

For ere she reach'd upon the tide