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  Audrey’s heart pounded. She forced herself to put her hand on the doorknob. She turned it slowly. The door eased open. And the bearded dragon waddled out, leaving behind its woody, leafy, closet-sized terrarium. Audrey had never in her life been so happy to see a reptile.

  “Hiya, Animal,” she said, and watched it waddle across the floor toward a low open drawer. The bearded dragon, in a surprisingly agile move, pulled itself up over the drawer handle, hung on to it, dragged itself up, and flopped inside.

  Audrey walked over and looked in. The bearded dragon was wedged between one side of the drawer and several wrapped reams of paper. Audrey reached in and carefully lifted the lizard free, and felt it immediately snuggle its head into her armpit and relax there, which Audrey thought not unpleasant.

  She leaned over to close the drawer, but stopped. The outer wrappers of the reams were white, but something made her peel back the end flaps of the top package. The paper inside wasn’t white. It was yellow. She peeled open all three reams. They were all yellow.

  So it was Brian.

  With the bearded dragon still tucked against her body, Audrey took out the top package of paper and shuffled through it. Yellow pages, smooth and blank, like a new fence before some tagger got to it with his spray can.

  Depressing. It was all so depressing.

  Audrey sat down at Brian’s computer and set the ream of paper on her lap. The bearded dragon snuggled between the package and Audrey’s stomach. She stroked its head, then scrolled up the computer screen to the sleep option, and a second later the screen was dark. All that glowed now was the pinhole.

  Through that pinhole were facts, mistakes, and fantasies: numberless Web sites full of highlighted blue words you could touch with an arrow to find more facts, mistakes, and fantasies. If you knew the right codes, you could find drunk-driving teachers, dead-in-your-bed husbands, and terrible car wrecks. The thought made Audrey tired; staring at the dot of light and stroking the plump lizard, she felt almost hypnotized by it.

  Three little maids is the total sum. . . . Nobody’s safe, for we care for none!

  A downstairs noise: the back door.

  Audrey’s eyes blinked, but she didn’t otherwise move. She just sat with the ream of yellow paper and the bearded dragon, whose head was now raised in awareness of the new presence in the house.

  She heard the hard, hollow-sounding footsteps on the limestone entry; then, softer, on the staircase carpet. The footsteps slowed on the hardwood upstairs hallway as they approached the door.

  Three little maids who, all unwary, / Come from a ladies’ seminary . . .

  The door didn’t make a sound when it swung open, but there was a slight difference in the light cast in the room.

  Audrey didn’t turn. She sat with the yellow papers and stared at the screen. Except for the low hum of the computer, it was quiet; then, finally, Brian said, “So, dudette, the question is this: What took you so long?”

  Audrey didn’t answer.

  “I mean, the trail leading here was littered with gigaclues.”

  She almost imagined Brian would look different to her when she turned, but he didn’t. It was the same old goofy Brian, standing loose-jointed in the doorway.

  “So why’d you do it?” she said.

  He shrugged. “The first year, it was a little free-speech experiment. But this year, it was mostly for you.”

  “Me?”

  He nodded. “And Lea, too, I guess, and C.C.” He let his eyes fall on Audrey. “But mainly for you.”

  She supposed he hoped this would trigger some response from her, but in fact all she felt was clammy. Not clammy the way she’d felt with Theo, but still clammy. Brian was C.C.’s funny little brother, and she knew she’d never think of him in any other way. “It was nice of you, I guess, but . . .”

  Brian, who’d been watching her face, took her meaning and looked away. The lizard wriggled and wanted free. Audrey set it down and watched it waddle toward Brian.

  “You have to stop The Yellow Paper,” Audrey said.

  Brian shrugged. “Sure,” he said, “that can be done.”

  “And you have to make this right, at least with Mrs. Leacock.”

  Brian turned now and, seeing the bearded dragon, picked it up and draped it over his neck, where it settled easily. He looked at Audrey. “Make it up by doing what?”

  “I don’t know, Brian. That’s up to you.”

  She got up, and he stepped from the doorway to let her pass. But she felt such a strange combination of sadness and fondness that she turned and took both of his dangling hands and set them around her waist, then let him pull her close. The bearded dragon, jostled, adapted by wedging itself between both their shoulders. In a low voice, Brian said, “I think we’ve been reptilinially bonded,” and Audrey laughed and said she didn’t think that was a word. She closed her eyes and for a second or two let herself imagine that he wasn’t Brian at all, but Wickham Hill. Still, when she felt his male body begin to respond, she eased the bearded dragon back onto Brian’s shoulders and said, “I’ve got to go.”

  He smiled. “You don’t, but you will.” Then, as she started to leave, he said, “Where’re you going?”

  Until that moment, Audrey hadn’t given it any thought. “I think I need to find C.C. or Lea. Are they somewhere together?”

  Brian’s expression went vague. “C.C.’s Christmas-shopping with my mom.”

  “Then I’ll try to find Lea.”

  She’d gone a few steps when he said, “I wouldn’t do that if I was you.”

  She shot Brian a quizzical look. “Why not?”

  The bearded dragon stared unblinkingly at Audrey, but Brian’s eyes seemed to slide away. “I just wouldn’t,” he said.

  Chapter 68

  In Which the Three Maids Cease to Sing

  Audrey drove first to Wickham’s, and even though the house was dark, she went to the door to leave another note. She’d brought a notepad and pen with her, and a penlight she could hold between her teeth while she wrote. But as she was getting ready to write, the fine beam of the flashlight hit a crumpled piece of white paper in a corner of the porch.

  She bent, picked it up, and unwadded it. There, before her, were her own words, written two days earlier: Wickham, please, please call me.—A.

  Someone had found it—Wickham? his mother?—and had been annoyed enough to wad it up and throw it down where . . . Audrey could find it the next time she made another pathetic trip to his front door?

  It was horrible. It was all too horrible.

  As she backed away from the door, she stepped into an icy drift of snow. Bits of ice fell into her left shoe and had begun to melt before she reached the car.

  She put the key into the ignition, but didn’t know where to go. She stared straight ahead for perhaps a minute; then, resting her forehead on the steering wheel, she began to cry. She was still crying when a flashlight beamed suddenly into the car.

  Audrey wiped her cheeks with her gloved hands and looked up. It was Horrid Earl, looking as if he’d just cornered a serial killer.

  “Okay!” she shouted. “I’m leaving!” And she hit the accelerator so hard that the old Lincoln fishtailed before achieving traction and lurching forward.

  She headed toward Lea’s. C.C. was shopping, but Lea was probably home doing her whole Zen birthday thing and wanting to be alone. Still, this was an emergency, and they were friends. That’s what she would say when Lea came to the door: something like, “I’m sorry, Lea, but I’m going through kind of a crisis here,” and Lea would smile her soft smile and, in her soothing voice, help her figure out what to do next.

  That was what Audrey pretended to believe.

  But the truth was, when she got to Lea’s brightly lighted house and walked up the curving brick walkway and saw the large living Christmas tree in the front room, wrapped in popcorn garlands; and when she saw, through an archway beyond the tree, a candlelit table with Lea sitting in a black dress with her hair pinned up and looki
ng unfamiliar and beautiful and even older than eighteen; and when she saw a male arm reach past Lea to light the candles on a birthday cake, and saw that this arm was attached to the boy she’d loved and hoped to marry, Audrey was not surprised.

  She felt betrayed, but not surprised. The trail to this scene, like the one to Brian’s room, was also littered with gigaclues.

  Audrey watched Lea lean over the cake and take a deep breath. From three little maids take one away . . . Wickham was standing behind Lea with his hands on her waist. Two little maids remain, and they . . . Two of the candles stayed lit, and Wickham leaned over to help her.

  In the dimmer light, he said something and smiled.

  Won’t have to wait very long, they say . . .

  Lea turned and gave Wickham a long kiss. Audrey stumbled back down the salted steps and the crooked path. She slipped and picked her way to the car over frozen tire tracks in the street. The air smelled of ice and car exhaust. Audrey dropped her car keys and fished for them with slippery gloved fingers. When finally she got the engine started, the cheerful sopranos began to sing—“Three little . . . !”—but Audrey quickly switched them off.

  Chapter 69

  Over Cucumber Sandwiches

  Audrey fell asleep that night around 4 a.m., and when she awoke she was turned sideways in bed, with the sheets and blankets twisted and bunched. She felt sick, or perhaps more precisely, physically sickened by the thoughts of everything real that she wished were not. Lea and Wickham were at the top of the list, of course, but it didn’t stop there. Oggy was never coming back. She hated where she lived. She hated that she’d been caught cheating by Mrs. Leacock, who had trusted her, and she hated that she’d betrayed Clyde Mumsford, who had liked her.

  She tried to go back to sleep, but her thoughts wouldn’t leave her alone, so she dressed without showering, without even looking at herself in the mirror. It was Thursday, two days before Christmas break. She didn’t look for Wickham at school. She didn’t look for anybody. She kept the hood of her sweatshirt up and her eyes down, and within her numbness and unkemptness felt oddly protected.

  After third period, as Audrey walked toward her locker, C.C. slipped her arm through Audrey’s and said, “Guess what?”

  Audrey turned and said the first word she’d spoken all day: “What?”

  “I brought cucumber sandwiches, your personal fave, and plenty of them.”

  C.C. seemed so pleased that Audrey couldn’t bear to tell her she wasn’t hungry. They found a quiet corner of the cafeteria, and Audrey was trying to eat a little and talk a little when C.C., gazing over Audrey’s shoulder, said, “Hey, there goes Lea.” As the word don’t formed in Audrey’s mind, C.C. called her name.

  “Lea! Over here!”

  Lea Woolcott hesitated just an instant before turning and coming their way.

  “Cuke sandwiches at this kiosk!” C.C. said, pulling another one from her satchel and setting it, neatly wrapped, in front of Lea’s place across from them.

  Audrey, who didn’t think she wanted to see Lea, found she couldn’t take her eyes off her. She looked different. Happy.

  Lea glanced nervously at Audrey, then directed herself to C.C. “I can’t stay—I’ve got to get on a library computer, if any of them still work.”

  “The big if,” C.C. said, and the two of them chatted and ate while Audrey, in silence, regarded Lea. Something had flowered in Lea. It was as if her dormant beauty, hidden until now, had suddenly come to the surface where everyone could see it.

  “I thought you were going to be absent today,” Lea said to C.C. “Aren’t you headed for the hermitage?”

  C.C.’s family always spent Christmas at a cabin in the Adirondacks. There was no phone, no TV, no VCR, and you had to approach it on snowshoes in the winter. Audrey thought it sounded like fun, but C.C. said it was like vacationing in Siberia.

  “Tomorrow night,” C.C. said. “Brian has a test tomorrow he can’t miss. So how was the Zen birthday? Was it beatific?”

  A faint blush rose in Lea’s cheeks, and she looked down at her sandwich. “It was, kind of.”

  At one of the other tables there was a sudden disturbance that drew C.C.’s and Lea’s attention, but Audrey kept her eyes fixed on Lea. When the distraction was over and Lea had taken another bite of her sandwich, Audrey heard herself say, in a dead voice, “So how far did you go?”

  Lea gave Audrey a startled look, and C.C., confused, laughed and said, “How far did Lea go with what?”

  Audrey kept her eyes on Lea. “With the Zen birthday.”

  Lea laid her pale eyes on Audrey for a long second, and then looked down.

  “I saw him at your house,” Audrey said.

  Lea swallowed and looked at her hands.

  Audrey said, “How could you do that to me?”

  Lea didn’t look up. In a soft voice she said, “You might’ve kept him if you hadn’t been so clingy.” Then, raising her eyes and looking evenly at Audrey, she said, “That’s one thing. The other is, I’m eighteen, a legal adult. I get to make my own decisions.”

  Lea rose and stepped away, but stopped for one last word. “By the way,” she said in her soft voice, “how did you expect someone else to care about you when you don’t care about yourself? Have you even looked at yourself in a mirror lately?”

  “Hey, c’mon, Lea, play nice,” C.C. said, trying to make peace.

  Lea glanced at C.C., then Audrey, and walked away.

  To Lea’s back, Audrey said, “Why don’t you ask him about—”

  Lea swirled and returned to the table. Her soft voice oozed contempt. “Ask him about what? About Jade Marie Creamer? I know all about her. I know what a burden her tragedy has been to him and”—Lea’s gaze seemed to narrow—“I know how bad you made him feel about it.”

  Audrey felt something collapse inside her. “Is that what he said?”

  Lea nodded, and when she turned and left this time, Audrey was quiet.

  C.C. looked bewildered. “So what was that all about?” she asked. When Audrey didn’t reply, she said, “Okay, who was that all about?”

  Audrey looked down at her uneaten sandwich and said, “You know, your mom was only half right. People’s secrets can be what makes them interesting. They can also be what makes them awful.”

  “Audrey,” C.C. said in a sympathetic tone, “tell me what’s going on.”

  Audrey said she didn’t want to talk about it, but Lea could fill her in. Then she stood and gave C.C. a weak smile. “Guess I’m not looking my best today, huh?”

  C.C., because she was Audrey’s friend and always would be, said gently, “You look perfect to me,” and Audrey, afraid she might cry, mumbled a thank-you and quickly walked away.

  Chapter 70

  The Place I’m Going

  It was Friday, seventh period, World Cultures—the last hour before Christmas vacation—and the minute hand on the wall clock seemed never to move.

  Clyde slumped at his desk while images of displaced Indian villagers flashed on the screen at the front of the dim room. Patrice had tried to explain how this documentary “cross-pollinated” with their studies of sub-Saharan tribesmen, but as far as Clyde could see, the connection was pretty sketchy. He stared through the slit of window just below the drawn window shade, watching the ebb and flow of students outside. Most of the teachers seemed to have given up. Even as the video played, the door to Patrice’s room kept opening and closing as kids came and went. He glanced at the door as Sands and Zondra slipped quietly out.

  Clyde thought of some lines he’d heard once on a CD of his father’s: “I do not like the place I’m coming from. I do not like the place I’m going to. So why do I wait for the bus with such impatience?”

  Clyde hated being here, but he didn’t really look forward to going home, where the pleasure of seeing his mother would be immediately swallowed up by the fact that she was dying. But at least today he’d have the vase. It was glazed and fired and dried, and all he had to do was pick it up from Mr
s. Arboneaux on the way home.

  When the kid at the next table put his head down to sleep, Clyde had a good view of Audrey Reed—and what, he wondered, was up with her? She came into class looking like someone who’d been living in a car, and even though she was with her pal C.C., when the pale pretty one came in, C.C. and Audrey cut her cold. Which was exactly what Clyde had done to Audrey when she glanced back at him as she had entered the room, and of course, after he’d cut her, he felt kind of bad about it.

  Through the window he could see Theo sizing up Zondra and Sands. Clyde smirked. There was some golden matchmaking.

  A whispered “Hey!” Then: “Mumsford!”

  He looked up, and a girl with a bored expression handed him a folded piece of paper. He opened it and turned it so it picked up some of the window light. Clyde, it read, I need to talk to you—Audrey Reed.

  He glanced up at Audrey, who seemed to be writing in her notebook in spite of the dark. First she’d avoided him, and then she’d ratted on him and gotten him pulverized in public by Theo Driggs. And now she thought she had the right to lay something else on him. Well, thanks, but no thanks. Under her short note, he wrote:

  I didn’t write the new Yellow Paper, if that’s what you want to know (just for the record, I didn’t write any other Yellow Paper either). Please leave me alone.

  He folded the paper, sent it up the tables to Audrey, and then made a point of looking out the window—away from her—as she read it. A few minutes later, the bored girl whispered, “Hey!” again, and handed him another note, but this time Clyde just wrote, Leave me alone on the outside and returned it unread.

  When, at last, the bell finally rang, Clyde inserted himself in the middle of the outward flow, and once out in the corridor, he headed for Mrs. Arboneaux’s room without looking back.

  Chapter 71