The Spirit Keeper Read online

  “So are you going to tell me why you were late to class and what that fat lip is all about?” Priscilla asked once we had gotten settled.

  I took a pull on the chocolate shake, but it was so thick it was like trying to suck up a lemon. I gave up and took off the lid, licking the semi-frozen liquid from the straw. “You’re an intelligent girl. I’m sure you can figure it out.”

  Priscilla sucked the juice and pulp from an orange slice and fixed the naked peel over her teeth. She smiled at me and then burst into a snorting laugh that came out mostly through her nose.

  I rolled my eyes. “Forget what I said about being intelligent.”

  She spit the peel into her hand. “Why don’t you just punch her in the face and get it over with?”

  “Don’t think I haven’t considered it,” I told her. I closed my eyes and for one sweet moment envisioned my fist connecting with Katie’s perfect little nose, making her bleed out all over her Ralph Lauren sweater set.

  “Then do it,” she said. “You know you want to.”

  I opened my eyes again and stared down at my feet. “She’s not worth it. Katie and I will be stuck here together for another year, and then I’ll hopefully be rid of her forever. It’s just a matter of hanging in there and putting up with her for a little while longer.”

  Priscilla chuckled, and I looked up to see her grinning, her blue eyes narrowing in amusement. “Yeah, until you go off to college and get stuck with someone exactly like her as your roommate. Face it, you’re just scared she’ll hit back.”

  “I am not!” I said. And then I added sheepishly, “Well, maybe a little.”

  “I’m more than happy to do it for you if and when you change your mind. All you have to do is say the word.”

  “Aw, thank you,” I said, throwing my arm around Priscilla’s neck. “Only a true comrade would offer to beat up the class witch for the sake of friendship.”

  Priscilla wiggled out from under my arm and gave it a light punch. “So do you think Meg will freak out that you’ve got detention this afternoon?”

  “There’s only one way to find out,” I said. “Hand over your phone.”

  Priscilla hefted her bag onto her lap and rooted for her cell. “You know, most kids over the age of twelve have one of these.”

  “Tell that to Meg. She’s convinced they cause brain tumors. And she says I have no reason for one. ‘If you need to make a call,’” I imitated in a motherly-sounding voice, “‘just use the phone in the office.’”

  “But you’re almost seventeen!” Priscilla said, incredulous.

  “I know, right? Don’t even get me started.”

  I dialed my home phone number and got my Uncle David. “Why are you calling?” he said as soon as he heard my voice. “You’re supposed to be in school.”

  “Don’t spaz,” I said. “I’m at lunch. Is Meg around?”

  “She’s with a customer. What’s up?”

  I ground the toe of my sneaker into the pavement. “Well, I sort of have detention this afternoon. Can you tell her I’ll be late for work?”

  David’s disappointed sigh came over the phone, loud and clear, and so I hurriedly told him to save the lecture because this was the first time I’d ever had detention and it would never happen again—blah, blah, blah.

  “Getting detention is not how you get into a good college, Sarah.”

  “Then maybe I’m not college material,” I joked. “Geez, David. I’ve never gotten below a B in any of my classes. That pretty much cancels out this one detention. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  I had him there, and he knew it. “Fine. I’ll let Meg know. Oh hey,” he added, as though he’d just remembered something important. “Tell Priscilla she’s staying the night.”

  He laughed then and jokingly added that they’d put her to work in my place while I was serving detention. I didn’t get the impression that he was really joking, though.

  “Priscilla sort of has detention, too,” I said.

  There was another loaded sigh. “I hope you guys didn’t plan this.”

  “Give me a little credit, David. I have a stronger sense of integrity than that. And anyway, why in the world would we want to stay at school longer than absolutely necessary, especially on a Friday?”

  “How do I know you’re not just ditching work and going out somewhere?”

  “Um, you’re forgetting one minor detail.”

  “Which is?”

  “That neither of us has a car.”

  There was a slight pause, as if David was trying to determine whether or not I was really telling the truth. “All right,” he finally said. “But come straight home when you’re done.”

  I ended the call and handed the phone back to Priscilla, shaking my head. David was worse than my father, or how I sometimes imagined my father might be.

  “Crises managed,” I said. “Oh, and apparently you’re spending the night.”

  Before Priscilla could respond, the distinctive clip-clop of sandals on pavement made us both turn around.

  “Well look who we have here,” Katie said. “If it isn’t Bozo the Clown and her loser friend Pocahontas.”

  Priscilla didn’t exactly share my philosophy of grinning and bearing Katie’s harassment, but she was smart enough not to do anything too reckless or impulsive. She bristled, however, and I reached out to put a restraining hand on her arm.

  “She’s not worth it,” I reminded her under my breath.

  “Buzz off,” Priscilla said to Katie, despite my warning. She pointed at Danielle and Devon Dixon, who we privately referred to as the Double Ds. “And take Dumb and Dumber with you.”

  She raised her eyebrows at me and gave me an I-can-be-good sort of look, as though I should congratulate her for not resorting to violence.

  Katie wrapped her hands around her hips, flipping her hair over her shoulder with a practiced shake of the head. “I know you’re not telling me what to do.”

  Priscilla clenched her jaw and turned to face Katie again. “I realize you were born with only half a brain, so let me rephrase that in case you misunderstood the first time: Get lost.”

  Katie squared her shoulders. “What did I ever do to you?” She looked at Danielle and Devon, and the three of them began to laugh as if she’d just cracked the funniest joke ever.

  “You’re hilarious,” Priscilla said. “Now leave. In case you’re as blind as you are dumb, we’re having a private conversation here.”

  Katie rolled her eyes and stepped forward until she was towering over Priscilla where she sat on the concrete step. “Chill out. In case you didn’t notice, this is a public space.”

  Priscilla shot to her feet, all five feet and ten inches of her, causing Katie, who was quite a few inches shorter, to stumble back. She would have fallen flat on her butt if Devon hadn’t reflexively reached out to steady her.

  Priscilla laughed. “What are you so nervous about? I wasn’t going to hit you. I would never do such a thing.” And then she added pointedly, “On school grounds.”

  Katie narrowed her eyes until they were angry slits of blue. She pointed a finger at Priscilla with the obvious intent of saying something nasty, but then flinched when Priscilla raised her hand.

  Priscilla laughed again and very deliberately scratched the top of her head. “Get a grip. I only had an itch. See?”

  Katie tugged at the hem of her pink cami and lifted her chin. “I’m amazed you can actually find your thick head beneath that mess you call hair.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest, her brow rising as she gave us a taunting sneer. “You know I can make your lives miserable these last few weeks of school. You’d better not forget that.”

  Then she pivoted on her heel and snapped her fingers, and Danielle and Devon took off after her.

  “Great,” I said to Priscilla. “That’s all we need. Way to get us even more on her bad side.”

  “Does she even have a good side?” Priscilla said, gathering our trays to dump them.

  �
�Not really,” I said, all the while wondering what Katie would eventually do to get back at us. I had a feeling this wouldn’t be the end of it.

  The bell rang then, signaling the end of lunch.

  “Don’t worry about her,” Priscilla said, nudging me in the shoulder when she saw the expression on my face. “And don’t be late to detention.”

  Chapter 2

  The teacher in charge of detention gave Priscilla and me the death stare the minute we walked through the door, probably assuming we were just another couple of teenage degenerates. We handed her our slips, and she seemed to take a lot of enjoyment in informing us that a copy would go into our permanent files (her emphasis on permanent). If I were Priscilla, I might be worried at the thickness of that file. But since it was my first time getting in trouble in my entire academic history, I wasn’t sweating it. At least not too much.

  There were five other kids, all of them known troublemakers, spread well away from each other throughout the room and in various states of zoning out. Priscilla and I made our way to the very back of the class and snagged two seats in the last row. I could feel the teacher’s beady eyes boring into the back of my head the entire time we were walking down the aisle, so it came as no great surprise when she got up and headed straight for us.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she said.

  Priscilla and I looked at each other, and I shrugged my shoulders.

  “Um, we’re here for detention,” Priscilla said, as though it were perfectly obvious.

  “Don’t be smart.” The teacher pointed at the mess of books on Priscilla’s desk. “Pack this up and find a seat up front. No one is allowed to sit together in here, and you two strike me as being particularly,” she narrowed her eyes at us, “chummy.”

  I was slightly offended and felt the need to inform her of my 3.75 GPA, but I kept my mouth shut to keep from making things worse. Priscilla, on the other hand, made a disgruntled face along with some offhand comment about how this was totally uncalled for and went against her constitutional right to sit where she pleased.

  “I make the rules in here,” the teacher said, her lips tight. “I have my eyes on you, so don’t test me.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Priscilla, batting her auburn eyelashes.

  I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. Priscilla was asking for it, in my opinion, and the last thing I wanted was to get in trouble by association. No way was I going to serve another afternoon detention if I could help it.

  The teacher finally took a seat behind her desk and gave the seven of us a silent look of warning. Then she slid her glasses in place, picked up her red pen, and turned her attention to the stack of papers in front of her.

  The hour passed at a snail’s pace, the minute hand on the clock seeming to barely move. But, finally, detention came to an end.

  I was just finishing up the last of my Spanish homework when the teacher called time and told us to pack up and go home. And according to her, that didn’t mean loitering on school grounds if we had no good reason to be there. I shoved my books in my bag and got out of there as quickly as I could.

  Priscilla was already waiting for me in the hall, a wad of purple Bubblicious stuck in her mouth. “Detention is such a waste of time,” she said. “When are they going to learn that?”

  “Nice to see you learned your lesson,” I said with a nod to her gum.

  “There’s no rule that says I can’t chew it outside of gym. Besides, I’m way beyond redemption.”

  We walked slowly down the abandoned hallway and left by way of the double doors leading out to the student parking lot. No one was at the school except us and a few straggling teachers and custodians. Everyone was ready for the weekend, and more than ready for the end of the year.

  “I’m going to be fifty by the time I save up enough money to buy a car,” I moaned, which was my standard gripe for whenever I had to walk in extreme weather conditions.

  Like the cell phone, David and Meg didn’t see why I should have a car when we lived less than a mile from the school and a block from the nearest city bus stop.

  We started across the lot, and after only a few minutes Priscilla began complaining about the oppressive humidity and the fact her hair felt like it weighed a ton. I didn’t disagree about the heat. The end of the school year was just around the corner, and the day was stifling for early June in upstate New York.

  “So cut it off,” I suggested about her hair, and not for the first time. For as long as I’d known Priscilla, she’d worn her naturally curly hair halfway down her back. It was almost as long as mine.

  “Are you kidding? In the third grade my mom got it in her head that I would look cute with a bob. What a disaster that was. I’m telling you, I had a freaking afro until it grew out.”

  I laughed, even though I’d heard some variation of the same story before from several different classmates. “I seriously would have given anything to see that.”

  “Yeah, well. There’s a reason why that particular school photo went missing.”

  Priscilla stopped suddenly and dropped her bag to the ground. She squatted to rummage through it, her hand finally emerging with a plastic bottle of sunscreen.

  “Sunburns and orange hair kind of clash,” she said.

  She squirted a dollop of lotion into her hand and spread it liberally over her exposed arms and legs until she was caked in white, the pasty color not a far cry from her normal complexion. She was easily the whitest person I knew.

  It wasn’t until we started walking again that I remembered I’d been meaning to tell her something all day. I smacked the heel of my palm against my forehead.

  “I can’t believe I forgot to tell you,” I said. “I saw your mom on TV last night.”

  Priscilla’s brow arched, and she puckered her lips as though she’d sucked a sour lemon. “Let’s see, would this be the commercial for the yogurt that makes your poop regular, or the ad for the feminine hygiene products? Her career has simply skyrocketed, and I can hardly keep up with her rise to fame.”

  The sarcastic bitterness in her voice made me hesitate to go on. “Uh, neither, actually. It was a commercial for . . .” I stopped mid-sentence, feeling pretty certain I should have kept my mouth shut, after all. “Just forget about it.”

  She grabbed my arm. “Oh, no. You can’t do that. You can’t tell someone to forget something and then expect them to do it. Tell me now, or I’ll have to force it out of you.”

  I snorted. “I’d like to see you try.”

  Priscilla squeezed my arm. “Then you’re not as smart as I thought you were, Miss Braniac. Prepare to die on three, two—”

  I squirmed, not because I believed Priscilla would do me actual bodily harm, but because I realized I wasn’t going to win this argument. “Okay, fine. It was a commercial for, um, a certain major theme park in Florida.”

  Priscilla froze on the sidewalk, her body gone rigid. She was breathing heavily through her nose. “And does this certain major theme park happen to have a mouse as its mascot?”

  “Perhaps,” I said a little warily, tugging my arm free and deliberately taking a step back in case her head exploded.

  She closed her eyes, and I saw her lips moving as she silently counted to five before trusting herself to speak again. “And?”

  “And that’s it.”

  Judging by her obvious restraint, I thought it best to leave out the bit about Priscilla’s mom being cast in the role of happy wife and mother to two adorable children. But I’m sure she was already imagining that part, even without my help.

  Priscilla opened her eyes and began walking again, her back straight and shoulders square. Nevertheless, her voice wavered when she spoke. “That was my dream vacation.”

  I regretted saying anything and wished I had a nail handy to hammer into my eyeball. I decided that if Priscilla wanted to talk about her mother—the mother who’d run off to Los Angeles eight years ago to become a movie star—I’d wait for her to br
ing it up. It turned out I didn’t have to wait long.

  “She still hasn’t called to wish me a happy birthday, you know.”

  “But that was over a month ago!”

  Priscilla shrugged. “I was bummed when she stopped sending presents a few years back, but at least she still sent cards. This year she didn’t even bother. She didn’t even pick up the phone to call me. I mean, what kind of a mother forgets her kid’s birthday?”

  “Maybe it just got lost in the mail,” I said.

  My mother would never have forgotten my birthday; of that, I was positive. When she was still alive, she made my birthday seem like the most important day of the year. I had this awful lump in my throat remembering parties past, and I swallowed hard to force it down. There were some days I didn’t even think of my mom, and there were others when I really missed her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me she forgot?” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “What’s the use of complaining?” Priscilla said. “It doesn’t change anything. It’s who she is. You know, sometimes I think she ran off to LA just to get away from me. It’s like she was tired of being a mom and didn’t want to do it anymore.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. Priscilla shrugged her shoulders in response, like she didn’t really believe me. “At least you have a cool dad to make up for it, right?” I added helpfully.

  She gave me one of her patented you’ve-got-to-be-kidding looks. “I wouldn’t know. He’s never around.”

  My insides felt twisted in knots and like they were slowly dissolving in acid. It was Friday; the start of the weekend. We were supposed to be making plans and having fun, not moping around about stuff we couldn’t change.

  “Let’s talk about something else,” I said.

  “Good idea.”

  Of all the best friends I could have ended up with, I was lucky to end up with Priscilla. She understood exactly what growing up without a mom and dad was like. Priscilla’s mom was out of the picture, and her dad was almost always away on business. She’d practically raised herself, minus supervision from one or another in the long line of live-in nannies. Laura Beth had stuck around the longest, if only because she didn’t put up with any of Priscilla’s crap.