31
THE PHOTOGRAPH
THE NEXT DAY WAS MOST PEGULIBLE, AS MRS. Partridge would say.
Phoebe arrived at school with another message, which she had found on her porch
that morning: We never know the worth of water until the well is dry. "It's a clue," Phoebe
said. "Maybe my mother is hidden in a well."
I walked straight into Ben when I went to my locker. That grapefruit aroma was in the
air. "You've got something on your face," he said. With soft, warm fingers he rubbed the side
of my face. "It's probably your breakfast."
I don't know what came over me. I was going to kiss him. I leaned forward just as he
turned around and slammed the door of his locker. My lips ended up pressed against the cold,
metal locker.
"You're weird, Sal," he said.
Kissing was thumpingly complicated. Both people had to be in the same place at the
same time, and both people had to remain still so that the kiss ended up in the right place. But
I was relieved that my lips ended up on the cold metal locker. I could not imagine what had
come over me, or what might have happened if the kiss had landed on Ben's mouth. It was a
shivery thing to consider.
I made it through the rest of my classes without losing control of my lips.
Mr. Birkway sailed into class carrying our journals. I had forgotten all about them. He
was leaping all over the place exclaiming, "Dynamite! Unbelievable! Incredible!" He said he
couldn't wait to share the journals with the class.
Mary Lou Finney said, "Share with the class?"
Mr. Birkway said, "Not to worry! Everyone has something magnificent to say. I
haven't read through every page yet, but I wanted to share some of these passages with you
right away."
People were squirming allover the room. I was trying to remember what I had written.
Mary Lou leaned over to me and said, 'Well, I'm not worried. I wrote a special note in the
front of mine DISTINCTLY asking him not to read it. Mine was private."
Mr. Birkway smiled at each nervous face. "You needn't worry," he said. "I'll change any
names that you've used, and I'll fold this piece of yellow paper over the cover of whichever
journal I'm reading, so that you won't know whose it is."
Ben asked if he could go to the bathroom. Christy said she felt sick and begged to see
the nurse. Phoebe asked me to touch her forehead because she was pretty sure she had a
fever. Usually Mr. Birkway would let people go to the bathroom or to the nurse, but this time
he said, "Let's not malinger!" He picked up a journal, slipping the yellow paper over it before
anyone had a chance to examine the cover for clues as to its author's identity. Everyone took
a deep breath. You could see people poised nervously, waiting as TENSELY as if Mr.
Birkway was going to announce someone's execution. Mr. Birkway read:
I think that Betty [he changed the name, you could tell, because there was no Betty in our
school] will go to hell because she always takes the Lord's name in vain. She says "God!"
every five seconds.
Mary Lou Finney was turning purple. 'Who wrote that?' she said. "Did you, Christy? I'll bet
you did."
Christy stared down at her desk.
"I do not say 'God!' every five seconds. I do not. And I am not going to hell.
Omnipotent-that's what I say now. I say, Omnipotent! And Alpha and Omega!"
Mr. Birkway was desperately trying to explain what he had enjoyed about that
passage. He said that most of us are not aware that we might be using words-such as God!that offend other people. Mary Lou leaned over to me and said, "Is he serious? Does he
actually, really and truly believe that beef-brained Christy is troubled by my saying God?which I do not, by the way, say anymore anyway. "
Christy wore a PIOUS look, as if God Himself had just come down from heaven to sit
on her desk.
Mr. Birkway quickly selected another journal. He read:
Linda [there was no Linda in our class either] is my best friend. I tell her just about
everything and she tells me EVERYTHING, even things I do not want to know. Like what she
ate for breakfast and what her father wears to bed and how much her new sweater cost.
Sometimes things like that are just not interesting.
Mr. Birkway liked this passage because it showed that even though someone might be
our best friend, he or she could still drive us crazy. Beth Ann turned all the way around in her
seat and sent wicked eyebrow-messages to Mary Lou.
Mr. Birkway flipped ahead in the same journal to another passage. He read:
I think Jeremiah is pig-headed. His skin is always pink and his hair is always clean and
shiny. . . but he is really a jerk.
I thought Mary Lou Finney was going to fall out of her chair. Alex was bright, bright
pink. He looked at Mary Lou as if she had recently plunged a red hot stake into his heart.
Mary Lou said, "No-I-no, it isn't what you think-I-"
Mr. Birkway liked this passage because it showed conflicting feelings about
someone.
"I'll say it does," Alex said.
The bell rang. First, you could hear sighs of relief from the people whose journals had
not been read, and then people started talking a mile a minute. "Hey, Mary Lou, look at
Alex's pink skin," and "Hey Mary Lou, what does Beth Ann's father wear to bed?"
Beth Ann was standing one inch away from Mary Lou's face. "I do not talk on and on,"
Beth Ann said, "and that wasn't very nice of you to mention that, and I do not tell you
everything, and the only reason I ever mentioned what my father wore to bed was because
we were talking, if you will recall, about men's bathing suits being more comfortable than
women's and-" On and on she went.
Mary Lou was trying to get across the room to Alex, who was standing there as pink
as can be. "Alex!" she called. 'Wait! I wrote that before – wait -"
It was a jing-bang of a mess. I was glad I had to get out of there. Phoebe and I were
going to the police again.
We got in to see Sergeant Bickle right away. Phoebe slapped the newest message
about the water in the well onto his desk, dumped the hairs which she had collected at Mrs.
Cadaver's house on top of the message, and then placed her list of "Further Items to
Investigate" on top of that.
Sergeant Bickle frowned. "I don't think you girls understand."
Phoebe went into a rage. "You idiot," she said. She scooped up the message, the hairs,
and her list and stormed out of the office.
Sergeant Bickle followed her while I waited, thinking he would bring Phoebe back
and calm her down. I looked at the photographs on his desk, the ones I had not been able to
see the day before. In one was Sergeant Bickle and a friendly - looking woman - his wife, I
supposed. The second picture was of a shiny black car. The third picture was of Sergeant
Bickle, the woman, and a young man - their son, I figured. I looked closer.
I recognized the son. It was the lunatic.