"Oh my God!" Mallory said, and began wringing her hands in desperation.

"What's wrong?" I asked. "Why are you so upset?"

"Because," Mallory said, sniffing, "when Miss Overmore hears about this, I will be expelled."
She looked as if she was about to cry. "They won't let me come back. No one will laugh about this,
and no one will forgive me. My parents will KILL me. This school is supposed to be my last chance.
I don't know where I can go if I get kicked out of here."

---

 
10. Pure Sherlock
 

The scolding from Mr. Fisby really unnerved me. I desperately needed to talk to someone about it.

If I could hear somebody say Oh, my God! and Are you kidding!? and He said WHAT? I'd feel a whole lot better.

But what I really wanted was for someone to tell me You were right and Don't beat yourself up over it.

Obviously, my mother wouldn't say that. I could hear her downstairs, pottering around the kitchen. She was probably coming up with more material to add to the scolding she already gave me. The last thing I needed to do was give her an opening to unload them on me.

Susan was out of the question, because her parents don't like her using the phone, especially on school nights.

I tried calling Maisie, but her phone didn't even ring. It went straight to voicemail. She must have turned it off... or maybe she was out of range... off hiking with Chrissie or something. Her phone stayed that way all night. I gave her one last try after I got into bed, but she still didn't answer.

I considered the other people I knew in California... I thought about Jerry, Eden, and Aunt Jane. Jerry and Eden wouldn't have understood about Ponzi schemes — at least I hoped they wouldn't! — and I knew I couldn't explain... I tried Aunt Jane a couple of times but she didn't answer, either. I didn't bother leaving a message. She was probably at work, anyway.

I even considered calling Mrs. Earshon, the psychic. It would have been nice to get some good news. At the very least she'd tell me something puzzling and weird that would take my mind off what was happening. But I didn't call her. She would have made me pay, and I didn't have an appointment, anyway.

In the end, I spent the evening stewing in my own juice, replaying what I said to Jordan and what Mr. Fisby said to me. It ran like an endless loop, repeating over and over inside my brain. Some moments would jump out at me, especially when he said You've been telling somebody about my business, haven't you! It wasn't a question, it was an accusation. Worst of all, it was true. I *had* talked about his business: with Maisie, with Susan — even Mallory and Blair heard something about it.

My face burned with shame and guilt. Was there any way Mr. Fisby could find out that I lied? If Mallory or Blair made a mistake and talked to Jordan... I groaned aloud, I hadn't even considered what Jordan would think or say. After all, she got in trouble for repeating what I said. How would she act toward me tomorrow? Would her father convince her that I was a troublemaker who didn't understand anything?

Then I felt angry. Mr. Fisby shouldn't have yelled at me. He really was in danger. Something was wrong in that little tea shop. Jordan knew it. Maisie and Susan both saw the problem instantly. I wasn't wrong. I wasn't!

And then I felt scared. Even though Mr. Fisby told me I wasn't fired, I was still worried about getting fired. Maybe Jordan would get him angry and he'd blame me. I worried about getting into more trouble, even if I couldn't imagine what that trouble could be.

I kept turning over and over in my bed. I couldn't get comfortable and it took me forever to fall asleep. It was not a restful night at all.
 

---

 

When morning came... early morning... I dragged myself out of bed an hour early. Even though I hadn't gotten slept very much or very well, I got dressed and ready in no time at all.

I wasn't awake though. My brain was only up to zombie level: I could shuffle my feet and mumble, but I wasn't capable of anything more than that. It was still dark out. It felt so indecently early that I couldn't even think about breakfast. As far as my stomach was concerned, I was still fast asleep.

We got in the car and Mom drove through the dark streets to the nose doctor's office. By the time we got there I was blinking and looking around. My belly was beginning to wonder when breakfast would come. But that would have to wait: Today, right now, I was getting the bandages off my nose and the packing out of my nostrils. I was ready to put up with any inconvenience and indignity as long as I got my nose back.

The nose doctor sat down in front of me, all wide awake and cheery. I rubbed my eyes. He said to me, "Before we start, I want to remind you that you had a very nice nose to begin with. We agreed that we weren't going to change it. We were just going to fix the break and nothing more. We didn't change anything. It should still look fine, just like before."

It was still too early in the day to talk. I made a noncommital noise. The doctor frowned. "I don't want to start until I know you understand."

I took a deep breath and sat up straighter. I was still half-asleep, but I managed to say, "Yes, Doctor, I understand. I don't want a different nose. I just want to breathe."

"Good!" he replied, and he got down to work.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone work so gently and carefully. He would cut a little, and pull a little, tossing the bits of bandage and tape onto a little steel tray. Sometimes it hurt a little, but I didn't complain. I tried to not whimper. I'd been praying for this day; I wasn't going to complain, now that it was here.

The really hard part came at the end. He asked me to sit on my hands and tilt my head back. He moved the steel tray under my chin and oh-so-gently pulled the packing out of my nose. It was very uncomfortable, but I clenched my teeth and forced myself to sit as still as a statue and not make any noise. After the big plugs came out, he pulled out smaller pieces. I wished I could see what he was pulling out, because I couldn't believe my little nose could hold so much stuff.

At last he said, "All done!" and, taking hold of my chin, he turned my head left and right and tilted it to different angles. "Lovely!" he concluded, and asked me how I felt.

I drew a deep slow breath. "It's wonderful to be able to breathe again!" I told him. Then I felt a tickle somewhere up inside my right nostril. Oh no! I grasping desperately at tissues and squeezed my eyes shut because I felt a sneeze coming. I expected it to hurt like mad and probably bleed, and... and... ah... ahhh... AAAchooo!

"Ohhhh!" I said in a voice filled with grateful wonder. "It didn't hurt!"
 

---

 

When I got to school, Susan looked at me quizzically. "Your nose looks the same," she told me.

I huffed in indignation. "Susan! I didn't get a nose job! I was hit in the face!"

"Oh, sorry," she said.

Of course, it was the stupid seniors' fault. And when they saw me, the nose-job remarks didn't stop.

"What kind of a nose job is that, Donner? Your nose looks the same! What an idiot!"

"You can't even get a nose job right, you nosejob."

"What a total waste! If you think that nose is going to make you Miss BYHS, you're dreaming!"

BUT, the good news was: I didn't care. The bandages were off. My nose was working again! I didn't have to breathe through my mouth any more.

Eventually the bruises would fade, and everyone would forget. Even if they didn't forget, nose-job jokes wouldn't be funny any more.
 

---

 

On the way to lunch, I gave Susan a hurried version of what happened with Mr. Fisby. I hurried because I didn't want Mallory and Blair to hear. It wasn't a very satisfying experience, because I told it so fast that the humiliation I felt didn't come across at all. Susan took the story as a simple difference of opinion.

"Of course you were right," she said, but she said it in a very matter-of-fact way. "You did what you could. I'm sure that in the near future he'll be sorry that he didn't listen, but what else can you do?"

I dropped the subject, because that wasn't the point at all. I didn't care so much about being right. I wanted to talk about it, about my nerves and fears and bad feelings.

Susan, on the other hand, wanted to talk about something else entirely. As we worked our way through the cafeteria line and sat down at our usual table, I could see that she was excited about something.

"What's up with you?" I asked her.

"I've got a little surprise," she chuckled. "But wait until Mallory and Blair get here."

That irritated me a little. Maybe it was just my lack of sleep, but I wanted to say, If you like Mallory so much, why don't you marry her? But of course I didn't.

Once Mallory and Blair were seated, and Mallory had a mouthful of food, Susan began. She put her hand inside her bag and kept it there. She smiled and waited, until Mallory, her mouth full of food, asked, "What's in the bag, Susan?"

Susan gave an enigmatic smile. "I've solved the mystery!"

"Which mystery is that?" I asked.

"The mystery of the Madonna Dialogs!"

Blair's eyes narrowed. Mallory swallowed the entire bolt of unchewed food. Her eyes bulged and her face turned bright red. She reached for her milk and gulped it down with some difficulty, pounding her chest as if to loosen the lump of food stuck inside and make it move down. It took her about a minute of gasping, swallowing, and sipping milk before she came back to herself.

Susan waited patiently until Mallory had fully recovered. Then she said, "Look at this!" and pulled her hand out of her bag.

In her hand was a hard white plastic card, a little bigger than a business card. It said VISITOR in big black letters. On the back was a clip, and a small black box that I assumed was a magnet, like a kitchen magnet.

"Where did you get that?" Mallory croaked. "Oh, Susan, please don't get me in trouble."

Blair sniffed. She looked annoyed.

"I asked Mr. Theo for it," she answered. "I told him he didn't need it any more."

"I don't understand," I said.

"This black box," she said, "is a bug. It's a tiny microphone and transmitter."

"How did you know?" Mallory asked. She looked miserable.

"I realized that if no one was there to hear Mr. Theo talk, that there had to be a bug. I remembered how you bugged Miss Overmore's bathroom," Susan said.

"But you couldn't have hidden one in the building, because he's always wandering around. And you couldn't have stuck one on him, or he would have noticed," she continued. "It had to be something you could give him; something he'd accept and carry with him." She held up the VISITOR pass.

"Oh my God!" Mallory said, and began wringing her hands in desperation.

"What's wrong?" I asked. "Why are you so upset?"

"Because," Mallory said, sniffing, "when Miss Overmore hears about this, I will be expelled." She looked as if she was about to cry. "They won't let me come back. No one will laugh about this, and no one will forgive me. My parents will KILL me. This school is supposed to be my last chance. I don't know where I can go if I get kicked out of here."

Blair scoffed impatiently. "Oh, stop it, Mallory!" she said. "Don't be such a martyr!"

I stared at Blair, shocked. I couldn't believe she'd be so callous and uncaring. Susan, on the other hand, seemed to have expected it.

"She's right, Mallory. You have nothing to worry about."

Blair looked away, angry. Mallory still looked guilty and afraid. Susan was nearly glowing. She was in a state of pure Sherlock.

"Okay," I said, "Hold on for a minute. I'm obviously the only one who has no idea what's going on here. Could somebody please explain it to me?"

Susan looked from Blair to Mallory, and then to me. "Blair was convinced that Theo is... well, not a good person. She thought he was a creep. You know, the kind who likes school girls. So she talked to Mallory..."

I interrupted. "So whose idea was the VISITOR badge?"

"Mine," Mallory croaked.

"Clever," I commented.

Mallory gave a sad smile, but continued to look down.

"It *was* clever," Susan agreed. "And when Blair told Theo that he needed to wear the badge, he simply agreed."

"So what was the point of putting the conversations in the paper?" I asked.

"I wanted him to know that he was being watched," Blair answered.

"But he never did anything bad or wrong, did he?" I pointed out.

"No," Blair agreed. "My plan worked."
 

---

 

"That Blair is a little nutso," I confided to Susan later on.

She shrugged. "We don't know what's happened in her life," she said. "And I don't think we should ignore anyone's intutions."

"I think she was wrong in every way," I replied.

"I'm kind of sorry I figured it out," Susan said, smiling. "It was an interesting puzzle."
 

---

 

That afternoon Maisie called me. "I saw you called," she said. "You called like a gazillion times!"

"Yeah, I have to tell you something—"

"Yeah, I have to tell YOU something too! Me first! Chrissie is on the phone downstairs, talking to my father. She's going to find out if we can fly you out here for Spring break!"

"Oh my God!" I cried. "Do you think he will?"

"I think so," she said. "He pretty much does whatever Chrissie wants."

"Great!" I said. "I could really use a break from Flickerbridge and BYHS."

"Mmmm," she said. "So what's happening?"

I told her about Mr. Fisby. She knew exactly how to respond. She exclaimed in disbelief, she blew raspberries at things he said. She called him stupid, said he'd be sorry. She asked me how I felt and what I wanted to do about it.

"I don't think there's anything I *can* do," I replied. "I think I'll get fired if I say another word."

"You can still talk to Jordan," she said.

"Yeah, Jordan..." I realized that I hadn't seen her at school today. Well, I saw her, but we didn't have a chance to talk.

"How did she take it?" Maisie asked. "Did her father give her a hard time?"

"I don't know," I said. "I haven't been able to talk to her yet. And I saw her today, but her face is completely unreadable."

"She should be a poker player," Maisie quipped.

"Yeah, probably," I agreed.

We talked for another twenty minutes. I told her about Susan finding the bug and about Mallory and Blair.

Oddly, she didn't agree with me about Blair being crazy. She said the same thing Susan had said: "We don't know what's happened in her life. And you don't know: she might have good reason for being suspicious."

I asked Maisie about school, and she said that now she had tutors coming every day.

"Do you like that?" I asked.

"Well... it's okay. They're... okay. I miss the, uh... wait — hold on a minute... Chrissie is here."

She must have pressed her phone into her shirt because her words turned into soft murmurs. I couldn't hear Chrissie at all. The sounds Maisie was making got loud and angry pretty quickly. It didn't sound like good news. As far as I could tell, she was fighting with Chrissie, or at least yelling at her. It went on for almost ten minutes. I just hung on, listening, but unable to make out any words.

When Maisie got back on the line, she was pretty angry.

"I hate my father!" she declared.

"I know that," I said. "I guess this means I can't come. It's okay, Maisie."

"No, no," she said. "It's not okay. It's the opposite of okay. It's really bad." And she began swearing, calling her father all sorts of vile, unrepeatable names.

I tried to calm her down, but she wouldn't listen. "Maze!" I said. "Listen! It's not a big deal! I can't expect your father to pay for a private jet to come and pick me up. It must cost a fortune! It's okay. It's really okay."

"No," she said. "It isn't that. The problem is that he's a bigoted asshole. He wouldn't let you come even if you paid your own way."

"Huh?"

"He did a background check on you," she said. "Back when you got kidnapped."

"Yeah?" I said. "That's kind of weird." My neck started to tingle.

"I know," she agreed. "I told you: he's an asshole. And the reason he doesn't want you here is that... he said... he doesn't want a T-girl in his house."

© 2012 by Kaleigh Way