It was time to get down to business. "Wanna see why I don"t wear white? Wanna fly with me?"
"Yeah." He smiled, sort of startled, but very eager. "I bet you fly like Supergirl!"
I urged him over the picket fence into the woods. I could obviously see better than he. My nocturnal habits had always made me a great observer in the dark. Not as good as a cat, but close. I felt safe and secure, with the beautiful moon now guiding me. I looked up and saw several bats fluttering over the trees. I"d never seen bats in Dullsville. But I didn"t go to that many parties, either.
"I can"t see," Trevor said, removing a branch from his hair.
As we walked on, he flailed his arms like he was going to hit something. Some people are violent drunks; some are s...o...b..ring drunks. But Trevor was a terrified drunk. He was really becoming quite unattractive.
"Let"s stop here," he said.
"No, just a little bit further," I said, following the bats as they flew into the woods. "It"s my sixteenth birthday. I want this to be a night I"ll never forget! We need total privacy."
"This is plenty private," he said, groping around and trying to kiss me.
"We"re almost there," I said, tugging him on. The lights from the house could no longer be seen, and we couldn"t walk five steps without hitting a tree.
"This is perfect!" I finally said.
He squeezed me hard, not because he loved me, but because he was afraid. It was pathetic.
There was a gentle wind blowing through the trees, and the smell of autumn leaves. I heard bats chirping high overhead. The full moon illuminated their wings. It would have been romantic, if only I had had a real boyfriend with me.
Trevor was completely blind in the darkness, feeling everything with his hands and lips. He kissed me all over my face and touched the small of my back. Even blind, it didn"t take him long to find the b.u.t.tons on my shirt.
"No, you first," I told him.
I lifted off his sweater, as unclumsily as I could. I had never done this before. He was wearing a V-neck T-shirt underneath and an undershirt underneath that. This is going to take forever, I thought.
I felt his naked chest. Why not? It was right in front of me. It was soft and smooth and muscular.
He pulled me closer, my lacy black rayon shirt touching his naked torso.
"Now you, baby. I want you so bad," he said, straight out of some skin flick on cable.
"Me too, baby." I sighed, rolling my eyes.
I leaned him down slowly on the damp earth. I slid off his loafers and socks. He eagerly took off the rest.
He lay propped up on his arms, completely naked. I stared down at him in the faint moonlight, savoring the moment. How many girls had Mr. Gorgeous laid out by a tree, only to cast them aside the next day? I wasn"t the first and I wasn"t going to be the last. I was just going to be different.
"Hurry up-come over here," he said. "I"m cold!"
"I"ll just be a minute. I don"t want you to see me undress."
"I can"t see you! I can"t even see my own hands!"
"Well, just hang on."
I had Trevor Mitch.e.l.l"s clothes in my arms. His sweater, V-neck, undershirt, khakis, socks, loafers, and underwear. I had his power. His mask. I had his whole life. What was a girl to do?
This girl ran. I ran so hard, like I had never run before. Like I had been training every day in gym cla.s.s. If Mr. Harris could have seen me then, he surely would have put me on the track team.
The bats flew off, too, as if they were in sync with my movements. I quickly reached the house, Trevor"s ensemble wadded in my arms. The sn.o.bs drinking on the back porch were too busy talking about their shallow lives to notice me emptying a trash bag half filled with beer cans and stuffing in Trevor"s clothes.
I carried the bag into the house and grabbed a startled Becky by the arm. She was delivering beer to a table of poker players.
"Where were you?" she screamed. "I couldn"t find you anywhere! I was forced to wait on these creeps! Back and forth-beer, chips, beer, chips. And now cigars! Raven, where am I supposed to get cigars?"
"Forget about cigars! We"ve gotta run!"
"Hey, toots, where are those pretzels?" a drunken jock demanded.
"The bar is closed!" I said in his face. "Great service demands a great tip!" I grabbed his poker earnings and stuffed them into Becky"s purse. "Time to go!" I said, pulling her away.
"What"s in the bag?" she asked.
"Trash, what else?"
I pushed her out the front door. The nice thing about not having friends was there was no one to say good-bye to. "What happened?" she kept asking as I pulled her across the front yard. Her ten-year-old pickup truck sat at the end of the street, waiting for us like home base. "Where were you, Raven? You have leaves in your hair."
I waited until we were halfway home before I turned to her with a huge grin and shouted, "I screwed Trevor Mitch.e.l.l!"
"You did what?" she shouted back, almost swerving off the road. "With who?"
"I screwed Trevor Mitch.e.l.l."
"You didn"t! You couldn"t! You wouldn"t!"
"No, I mean figuratively. I screwed him so bad, Becky, and I have the clothes to prove it!" And I pulled them out of the trash bag one by one.
We laughed and shrieked as Becky turned a corner near Benson Hill.
Somehow Trevor would find his way out of the darkness. But he wouldn"t have his rich threads to mask himself. He"d be naked, cold, alone. Exposed for who he really was.
I would remember my Sweet Sixteenth birthday for the rest of my life and now Trevor Mitch.e.l.l would, too.
As we drove along the desolate country road that twisted around Benson Hill, the headlights shone against the creepy trees. Moths attacked the windshield as if warning us to choose another way.
"The Mansion"s totally dark," I said as we approached it. "Wanna stop for a look-see?"
"Your birthday"s over," Becky said in an exhausted voice, keeping her foot on the gas pedal. "We"ll go next year."
Suddenly the headlights illuminated a figure standing in the middle of the road.
"Watch out!" I yelled.
A guy with moonlight-white skin and spikey black hair, clothed in a black coat, black jeans, and black Doc Martens, quickly raised his arm to shield his eyes-seemingly from the glare of the headlights rather than the imminent impact of Becky"s pickup.
Becky slammed her brakes. We heard a thud.
"Are you okay?" she cried.
"Yes. Are you?"
"Did I hit him?" she yelled, panicking.
"I don"t know."
"I can"t look," she said, hiding her head on the steering wheel. "I can"t!" She started to cry.
I jumped out of the truck and anxiously peered around the front, afraid of what I might find lying in the road.
But I saw nothing.
I checked underneath the truck and looked for dents. On closer inspection, I noticed blood splattered on the fender.
"Are you okay?" I called out.
But there was no response.
I grabbed a flashlight from Becky"s glove compartment.
"What are you doing?" she asked, worried.
"Searching."
"For what?"
"There was some blood-"
"Blood?" Becky cried. "I"ve killed someone!"
"Calm down. It could have been a deer."
"A deer doesn"t wear black jeans! I"m calling nine-one-one."
"Go ahead-but where"s the body?" I reasoned. "You weren"t going fast enough to catapult him into the woods."
"Maybe he"s under the truck!"
"I already looked. You probably just b.u.mped him and he took off. But I want to make sure."
Becky grabbed my arm, digging her nails into my flesh. "Raven, don"t go! Let"s get out of here! I"m calling nine-one-one!"
"Lock the door if you have to," I said, tearing myself free. "But keep the engine and the lights on."
"Raven, tell me this..." Becky exclaimed breathlessly, gazing at me with terrified eyes. "What normal guy would be walking in the middle of a pitch-black road? Do you think he might be a-?"
I felt the pleasant tingle of gooseb.u.mps on my arms.
"Becky, don"t get my hopes up!"
I combed the bushes that went down to the creek. Then I headed for the hillside leading up toward the Mansion.
I let out a shriek.
"What is it?" Becky cried, rolling down the window.
Blood! Thick puddles in the gra.s.s! But there was no body! I followed the bloodstains, afraid bits of his corpse were strewn everywhere. And then I tripped over something hard. I looked down, antic.i.p.ating a severed head. I apprehensively shone my flashlight on it. It was a dented paint bucket.
"Is he dead?" Becky gasped as I returned to the truck.
"No, but I think you may have killed his can," I said, dangling the bucket in front of her. "What was he doing painting in the middle of the night? And where was he going?"
"It was just paint!" Becky said with a gasp of relief, hanging up her cell phone and revving the engine. "Let"s get out of here!"
"What was that jerk doing walking in the middle of the road at night?" I wondered out loud. "Maybe he was going to paint some graffiti or something."
"Where did he come from? Where could he have gone so fast?" she mumbled back at me.
In the rearview mirror I caught the reflection of the darkened Mansion just in time to see a light go on in the attic window.
6
Exposed
The story of Naked Trevor spread immediately through Dullsville High. Some students said he stumbled into Matt"s house in a trash-bag diaper; others said he was found pa.s.sed out naked on the back lawn. No one had a clue I was involved. Only Trevor Boy knew the real story. Apparently he tried to pa.s.s it off to his buddies as an encounter with a cheerleader. Either way, everyone got a laugh.
Trevor left me alone. He wouldn"t even make eye contact with me. Gothic Girl had finally gotten the goods on the popular Soccer Sn.o.b. But I didn"t want him to accuse me of theft. I had to give his clothes back, right?
First there was the shoe. I think it was the left. I strung it on the outside of my locker. At first no one seemed to notice the hanging loafer. Those who finally did looked at it and walked on. But the next morning it was gone. One person had noticed it. Now it was time for others to take notice besides good ol" Trevor.
The right brown loafer was strung up in the same fashion. But next to it was a sign: MISSING SOMETHING, TREVOR?
This time I heard giggles as students pa.s.sed. They didn"t realize whose locker it was. But they"d soon be catching on.
Each day a sock would hang out, or a T-shirt. I started noticing Sn.o.b Girls who would never talk to me suddenly looking over in algebra with smiling approval. They had been Trevor Tree Girls, promised everything, with nothing to show for it. Well, I had plenty to show.
By the time his khaki pants were hung out, complete with gra.s.s stains and dirt, everyone knew whose locker it was. Now kids in the hall were grinning at me. Guys weren"t exactly asking me out, but I was suddenly popular-in a quiet kind of way.
Except, of course, with Trevor. But I felt safe. Now that everyone knew whose locker it was, he would be the prime suspect if anything happened to me.