Night of the Pompon, page 1
Content
Chapter 1: The Floating Legs
Chapter 2: Tina
Chapter 3: The Coyote in Khakis
Chapter 4: A Strange Reward
Chapter 5: The old Mascot
Chapter 6: Some Threats, a Scar, and a Rabid Coyote
Chapter 7: Bad News
Chapter 8: The Vanishing Chrystal
Chapter 9: Lien Hua
Chapter 10: The Initiation
Chapter 11: Beyond the Secret Door
Chapter 12: The Cheerleaders’ Conclave
Chapter 13: More Bad News
Chapter 14: Gray Eyes
Chapter 15: Emery Board of Doom
Chapter 16: Hungry Turkey
Chapter 17: Disaster!
Chapter 18: Dive-bombing Downward
Chapter 19: After Dark
Chapter 20: Disturbing Dreams
Chapter 21: Dancing in the Darkness
Chapter 22: Confessions
Chapter 23: Traitor!
Chapter 24: Judge and Jury
Chapter 25: The Hungry Turkey Strikes Again
Chapter 26: The Great Escape
Chapter 27: Return to the Scene of the Crime
Chapter 28: Eerie Silence
About Sarah J. Jett
For my little sister Merry
(the best Christmas present Mom and Dad ever
gave me)
1
The Floating Legs
Night lasts a long time when it’s winter in Antarctica.
But, unfortunately, I live in Texas, so I never get enough sleep.
Because of this, I frequently have delusions. I think I can do all kinds of crazy, superhuman things.
Like take pre-algebra instead of regular seventh-grade math.
Believe me, that was just about the biggest mistake I’d ever made. I don’t know what I was thinking! My counselor told me, “Jendra, your placement test results are extremely high. I think you can test into Mrs. O’Donnahee’s pre-algebra class.” And then she gave me a peanut-butter cup. So what could I do?
“I think you’ll enjoy the challenge,” she said.
And I was like, “Okay!”
Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
So there I was, sitting at the back of the class one muggy Wednesday morning at about 8 A.M., staring at the equation on the overhead and thinking, That is so fascinating!
Mrs. O’Donnahee makes little lines through her sevens just like I do! Isn’t that just too, too cool? I call them my Eurosevens.
Now, as for the equation . . .
7x + 3 = 24
I stared at it for a very long time. Like five minutes. Until the numbers started to move around and change places. Mrs. O’Donnahee was explaining something about “isolating variables.” But I hadn’t done any homework for about three weeks, so I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.
7x + 3 = 24
I stared at it again. This time I concentrated really hard. Suddenly I had an epiphany!
(My mom’s an English teacher, so I like to throw around literary terms.) An epiphany, in case you don’t know, is a burst of deep, amazing truth in a sudden brilliant, blinding flash.
So I had an epiphany. And I knew . . .
I am never going to understand algebra!
Well, as you can imagine, that was a pretty big relief because then I didn’t have to waste my time trying anymore. I was free to stare out the window and doodle on my paper. Eurosevens are great for starting up a game of hangman, by the way.
The only problem is, hangman isn’t the most entertaining game to play by yourself. In fact, you pretty much can’t play by yourself.
So, after about two minutes of trying, I was getting really bored.
I knew I needed something else to do. I needed some plan of action, some way to escape. Something daring. Something thrilling . . .
“Mrs. O’Donnahee,” I said, raising my hand at the same time, “can I go to the bathroom?”
Mrs. O’Donnahee glared back at me wickedly, her pupils lit up like smoldering coals. “No!” she screamed. “Never! Never! Never!”
Okay, so that didn’t really happen. I just figured that since I’m writing a book and everything, I should at least try to make it interesting and use all that stuff you learn about in language arts—you know, similes, conflict.
Of course, Mrs. O’Donnahee let me go to the bathroom. I mean, I live in Texas, not Siberia!
Have you ever noticed that the halls are really quiet during class? I guess that’s because there’s nobody in them, duh! But, I mean, it’s so quiet it’s almost eerie. It’s like you’re walking through a ghost town, and you’re the only person left alive. Or like you’re escaping from a mental institution or something.
Or maybe I’m just weird. Who knows.
But the point is, as I walked through the empty halls to the bathroom, I had the strangest feeling that something really, really weird was about to happen.
Of course, I always have that feeling. I think it’s because I’m bored a lot, and I just really want something to happen. And then, sometimes, I get lucky, and something actually does happen.
And that day was one of those times because as soon as I stepped into the bathroom, I noticed that something was seriously wrong. I had the eeriest sensation that I wasn’t alone in there. Then, as I was shutting the stall door, I happened to look up and see two legs dangling above my head.
I thought that was a little unusual, especially since it was a girls’ bathroom, and the legs were wearing pressed khaki slacks and men’s loafers. In fact, as the legs started moving higher and higher up, one of the shoes slipped off and fell into the toilet. Meanwhile, the legs floated away, up and out of sight. For the first time I noticed that one of the white ceiling panels had been removed. That was how the legs had made their grand exit—through the square hole in the ceiling. As soon as the legs disappeared completely, the ceiling panel mysteriously slipped back into place. Good-bye, legs. Good-bye, hole. Good-bye, hall pass.
I say “good-bye, hall pass” because while I was craning my neck, staring at the ceiling like a big moron, I accidentally dropped Mrs. O’Donnahee’s paper hall pass into the toilet, too.
I winced. Good thing it’s laminated, I thought as I reached into the toilet bowl to snatch back the pass and fish out the shoe. A split second later, holding the drippy shoe and the slick pass in my wet hand, I suddenly felt a wave of utter ickiness.
I tried to fix things by setting the shoe on the toilet paper dispenser and rinsing my hands off (in the sink), but that didn’t really help. Now that the legs were gone, I was just stuck with that stupid shoe. And I didn’t have a clue what to do with it. Actually, I didn’t know what to do at all. Going to the bathroom suddenly seemed kind of anticlimactic. Know what I mean? And what else can a person really do in a bathroom?
After thinking about it a minute, I decided that the best plan was to sit on the bathroom counter and stare at the shoe until I figured out what was going on. Now, that may not sound like such a great plan, but think about it this way—my runner-up plan was to go back to class.
Why would some guy’s legs be floating up through the ceiling? I asked myself. The first answer that came to mind was alien abduction. Gee, I wonder why! Maybe because every single thing in bookstores, and on posters, and on TV, and in the movies now is about aliens? My friend Leah keeps telling me that people who believe in aliens are just stupid and immature (like me). But whenever anyone brings up the subject of aliens invading the Earth, she suddenly gets real quiet and starts to tremble a little. Leah scares easily.
Personally, I’m not expecting an extraterrestrial invasion anytime soon. I mean, sure, sometimes, I think it might be kind of fun if aliens came to our school. I don’t really know what we would do exactly if they did, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be pre-algebra, and that’s a good enough start for me.
But in the meantime, I couldn’t quite bring myself to believe that aliens had abducted some guy from a stall of a second-story girls’ bathroom. Even though that would have really been cool.
It’s easy, and even kind of fun to believe in all kinds of mythical creatures and extraterrestrial beings. But, really, most events, no matter how weird they seem, actually have a very normal, rational, humanly possible explanation. And to me, that’s what’s really amazing and really scary. People do some pretty weird stuff for some pretty strange reasons. People you think you know. People who know you.
Who pulled those legs through the bathroom ceiling? I didn’t know then. But I do know now. And the way I found out had a lot to do with the crumpled piece of pompon I found stuck to the bottom of the soggy shoe.
2
Tina
For a long time I really wanted to live in Paris so I could go to a sidewalk café and eat lunch on the banks of the Rhine. Then my dad told me the Rhine was in Germany. But it doesn’t really matter because I can’t speak French anyway, so this whole fantasy really doesn’t make much sense. I just like the idea of eating croissants outside in the sunshine and ordering lunch from a waiter with a little mustache and a lopsided beret.
Eating in the cafeteria just isn’t the same. I mean, the lunch monitor lady does have a little mustache, but the similarities stop there. Sad but true.
I was already sitting at our usual table when my best friend, Leah Livingston, glided over to sit beside me. Leah’s been my best friend since fourth grade, and in all those years she’s never really changed. She’s one of those people who likes to do absolutely everythi ng by the rules all the time. And she expects everyone else to be just as perfect as she is; otherwise she throws whiny little fits. It gets annoying sometimes, but I guess it’s not her fault. Her mom’s real overprotective. And Leah’s pretty, so people put up with her.
As soon as Leah put her tray down on the table, I set the shoe down next to it.
Leah cocked an eyebrow. “Jendra,” she said with a grin, trying to be funny, “are you dieting again?”
“I found this in the bathroom,” I told her bluntly.
“You’re amazing,” said our mutual friend Matthew Greyson, plunking down in the seat on my other side. “I can never find shoes I like!” Matt and Leah and I always hang around together, but we’re just friends. People never believe that, but that’s too bad.
“Why did you bring that thing to the table?” Leah demanded. The shoe was pretty grungy-looking. I’ll give her that. She gave it the evil eye and tried to protect her pizza from it by moving it to the far side of her tray.
“Because I found it in the toilet,” I said. It seemed pretty obvious to me.
Leah didn’t say anything. She just gave me a look.
“What?” I demanded. “What’s wrong with that?”
Matt said with a wicked smile, “I’m surprised you didn’t find a whole outfit. You were in the bathroom for like twenty-five minutes.” He swept his auburn hair back out of his eyes and took out a deck of Magic cards to entertain himself while he waited for the line to go down. “But, really, though, what’s up with the shoe?”
I smiled slowly and explained, “I’ve been trying to figure out whose it is.”
Suddenly Matt surprised me by yelling, “Mine!” He grabbed the shoe and shoved it on his foot. “There,” he said triumphantly. “It fits. Now can we get married and live happily ever after?”
“Don’t wear that shoe!” Leah exclaimed in horror, wrinkling her nose in disgust. Matt took it off. “You don’t know where it’s been.”
“Yes, I do,” Matt contradicted, wide-eyed. “Jendra says it’s been in the toilet.”
Leah shuddered. She looked really grossed out. Almost too grossed out to eat. When Leah starts feeling disgusted, she literally cannot eat. As it is, she only eats enough to keep a goldfish alive! At my last birthday party—and I swear to you this is true—Leah whined about eating ice cream. She said it would make her fat. So, instead, she just ate a big bowl of ice.
Leah stared at the shoe. “Don’t you wonder how it got in the toilet?” she demanded.
“It wasn’t like it was spawned there or something,” I said, rolling my eyes. “It fell off some guy’s foot.”
Leah cocked an eyebrow again. She does that a lot. “Some guy who just happened to be hanging out in the girls’ bathroom?”
“No,” I said, rolling my eyes.
Hearing that, Leah guessed darkly, “The boys’ bathroom?” as if I had sunk to some new low.
“No,” I said again. “I was in the girls’ bathroom. And he wasn’t just hanging out in there. Actually, he was hanging right above my head. Somebody was pulling his body up through a hole in the ceiling.”
Leah and Matt did not look impressed.
“Don’t you think that’s kind of weird?” I asked desperately.
“I think you’re kind of weird,” Matt offered, “but we already knew that.”
“I think somebody must be up to something sinister,” I declared. “Maybe somebody murdered this man, and then dragged him up into the ceiling to hide the body.”
“I’ll bet that’s it,” Leah said sarcastically, picking the pepperoni off her pizza. She always gets the pepperoni pizza, and then she always picks the pepperoni off. I don’t know why she does that! (Maybe because of that rumor somebody spread that the plain cheese pizza is made with goat’s milk. Leah will believe anything—unless she hears it from me, of course.)
“You guys don’t believe me, do you?” I asked suspiciously. I don’t know why they never believe me!
Well, actually, I do know why. It’s because I make up stuff all the time and try to convince them it’s true. Like, one time I told them that our PE substitute was an Iraqi spy, and another time I told them I had a twin sister named Claudette, who for some reason lived in France (probably because she liked the croissants there so much). It’s not that I want to tell lies, but, honestly, our life is so boring! I think it would be a crime not to spice it up a little when I can! Besides, sometimes I think that if I make enough people believe something is true, it will become true.
Okay! Okay! So I’m a pathological liar! So kill me!
Leah sighed and batted her eyelashes. With Leah, that’s like a signal. It usually means she’s about to have a fit. “I think Mr. Talbert wears loafers like that,” she offered blandly. I could tell she was just humoring me. “But I’m pretty positive he’s still alive, Jen. I’m sure somebody would have noticed by now if the principal had been murdered and hidden away in a girls’ bathroom ceiling.”
“Well, look what I found stuck to the bottom of the shoe,” I said. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the piece of pompon strand. “I think there’s only one possible explanation here.”
“Oh, my gosh!” Matt exclaimed suddenly. He let his green eyes get really, really big before he gasped, “Mr. Talbert is really a cheerleader! No wonder he decided to make pep rallies mandatory.”
I groaned at him and snatched back the shoe. “Oh, will you shut up! I’m really serious!”
“You don’t think a cheerleader killed him, do you, Jendra?” Leah asked flatly. She was giving me one of her Oh-you’re-being-so-immature-and-just-for-that-I’m-about-to-throw-a-whiny-fit looks.
I shrugged. “Maybe a cheerleader witnessed his . . . abduction.”
That shut her up pretty fast. Just hearing the word abduction made her tremble.
“Look, Jendra,” Matt told me, “if you’re wondering about the cheerleaders, why don’t you just talk to Tina? I’m sure she’ll be happy to answer any of your weird questions, as long as you don’t take up more than five minutes of her busy schedule.”
Tina Sheperd is this gorgeous, popular, smart eighth-grade cheerleader. She’s the one who organizes all the cheerleading functions and makes up all the cheers. And, in her spare time, she’s also Matt’s cousin.
Tina always makes a really big deal about being nice and talking to everybody—the really, really popular people and the rest of us poor slobs, too. But, actually, it’s kind of tricky to spend any kind of quality time with her unless you’re somebody she considers important . . . or unless you’re Matt and can blackmail her by threatening to tell her parents about the time she skipped computer science and hung out in the parking lot behind the school . . . or unless you’re me, and you happen to annoy Matt until he uses his influence to force Tina to talk to you.
Actually, I had only talked to Tina once before. I was at Matt’s house, sprawled out across the couch, playing video games while Matt was upstairs in the shower. And then Tina walked in and said, “Hey, Jendra.”
“Hi, Tina,” I replied shakily.
She smiled. “You’re surprised I know your name, huh?” She had perfect teeth. White, straight, clean. Everything mine aren’t.
“Yeah, kind of,” I admitted.
Tina laughed warmly and said, “I know all of Mattie’s friends.” Then, somehow, I ended up lending her ten dollars, and she left to go to the movies with some tennis player named Jonathan. To date, that had been my only experience with Tina Sheperd.
But when Matt suggested it, I suddenly decided that asking Tina about the shoe was an excellent idea. I needed to talk to a cheerleader, after all. And if she was anything, Tina was a cheerleader. In fact, she was the cheerleader.
So, while Leah finished eating her picked-apart pizza, Matt led me over to the table by the window where Tina and her friends always eat lunch.
Tina looked up almost right away and saw us standing behind her. “Hi, Mattie,” she said with a smile that looked sincere enough. “Hi, Jendra. Do you guys know Jamey, LaKaisha, Martin, Lisa, Andrew, Kevin, Tony, Ryan, and Keith?”
“Of course not,” Matt said bluntly. “I only know you because your mom is my father’s sister. But Jendra needs to ask you a question.”
Tina raised her eyebrows, interested. “Yeah?” she said, smiling at me. She nodded at the girl sitting next to her, who immediately grabbed an empty chair from another table and slid it over next to Tina. Patting the chair, Tina told me, “Sit down. What’s up?”
