Simon shook his head. "She doesn't understand. See, Chloe, it's not Derek's fault. He's superstrong and —"
"And you weren't wearing your kryptonite necklace," Derek said. His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. "Yeah, I'm big. I got big fast. Maybe 1 don't know my own strength yet."
"That's not —" Simon began.
"No excuse, like you said. You want me to stay away from you? Wish granted." "Derek, tell her —"
"Drop it, okay? She's not interested. She's made that very, very clear. Now let's go before someone catches me with her and I get stomped again."
"Chloe!" Mrs. Talbot's voice rang through yard.
"Perfect timing," Derek muttered. "Must have ESP."
"Just a second," I called back, moving sideways so she could see me.
"Go on," Derek said when the back door banged shut. "You don't want to be late for your meds."
I glowered, then turned away, circling wide around them as I started for the door. Simon murmured something under his breath, as if to Derek.
Smoke rose in my path. I stumbled back. It hovered over the ground, like a low patch of fog.
"Simon!" Derek hissed.
I turned, pointing at the fog. "What is that?"
"What's what?" Derek followed my finger. "Huh. Must be a ghost. No, wait, you don't see ghosts. You hallucinate. Guess it's a hallucination then."
"That's not —"
"It's nothing, Chloe." He pushed his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels. "Just your imagination, like everything else. Now run along and take your meds and be a good girl. Don't worry, I'll stay out of your way from now on. Seems I made a mistake. A big mistake."
He meant he misjudged me. That I wasn't worthy of his interest. My fists clenched.
"Watch it, Chloe. You wouldn't want to hit me. Then I'd have to tattle on you."
Simon stepped forward. "Cut it out, Derek. She didn't tattle —"
"He knows that," I cut in, holding Derek's gaze. "He's baiting me. He's a jerk and a bully and whatever 'secrets' he's taunting me with, he can keep them. He's right. I'm not interested."
I wheeled, strode to the wagon, and grabbed the handle.
"Here," Simon called. "I'll take that —"
"She's got it."
I turned to see Derek's hand on Simon's shoulder.
Simon shrugged his brother off. "Chloe —"
I wheeled the wagon back to the house.
Eighteen
WHEN I CAME IN THE back door, I almost mowed down Tori.
"Have fun putting out the trash?" she asked.
I glanced back through the frilly curtains to see Simon near the shed. I could have said he'd been helping or, better yet, point out that Derek was there, too, if she looked closer. But I didn't much see the point.
Derek blamed me for getting him into trouble. Simon blamed me for getting Derek into trouble.
If Tori was going to blame me for poaching her non-boyfriend, so be it. I couldn't work up the energy to care.
Rae was quiet all afternoon. Tori's comments about her parents not visiting seemed to have brought her down. At break, we got permission to go upstairs before classes and move the rest of her photos to our room.
“Thanks for helping with this," she said. "I know, I don't have to clear out right now, but if I leave one of these, Tori's liable to toss it out and say she thought I didn't want it anymore."
I looked at the top photo, one of a blond girl about three years old and a slightly older boy, who looked Native American. "Cute. Friends? Kids you babysit?"
"No, my little brother and sister."
I'm sure my face turned bright red as I stammered an apology.
Rae laughed. "No need to be sorry. I'm adopted. My mother was from Jamaica. Or so I'm told. She was just a kid when she had me, so she had to give me up. That —" she pointed to a photo of a Caucasian couple on the beach "—is my mom and dad. And that—" she pointed to a Hispanic girl mugging for the camera with Donald Duck "—is my sister, Jess. She's twelve. That—" She waved to a solemn-faced boy with red hair "—is my brother, Mike. He's eight. A very multicultural family, as you can tell."
"Five kids? Wow."
"Jess and I were adopted. The others are fosters. Mom likes kids." She paused. "Well, in theory anyway."
We walked to my room. She took the stack of photos from me and put them on her new dresser.
As she moved her Nintendo DS aside, her fingers tapped the scratched plastic. "You know how some kids are when they get a new gizmo? For weeks or even months, it's the coolest, best, most interesting whatsit they've ever owned and they can't stop talking about it. They carry it everywhere. Then, one day, they're all hyped up over some new gadget. There's nothing wrong with the old one. It just isn't cool and new anymore. Well, that's how my mom is." She turned and walked to the bed. "Only with her, it isn't gadgets. It's kids."
"Oh."
"When they're little, they're great. When they get older . . . not so much." Rae sat on the bed and shook her head. "Yeah, I'm probably being too hard on her. You know how it is. When you're little, your mom is so cool and she can't do anything wrong and then you get older —" She stopped and blushed. "No, I guess you wouldn't know what that's like, would you? Sorry."
"It's okay." I sat on my bed.
"Your dad never got married again?"
I shook my head.
"So who looks after you?"
As we headed down to class, I told her about Aunt Lauren, and the endless succession of housekeepers, making her laugh with my impressions, and forgot everything else . . . at least for a little while.
That afternoon, during my session with Dr. Gill, I put on an Oscar-worthy performance. I admitted that, as she'd suspected, I had thought I might be seeing ghosts. Now, after hearing her diagnosis and letting my medication take effect, I understood that I'd been hallucinating. I was a schizophrenic. I needed help.
She totally bought it.
All I had to do now was keep up the act for a week or so, and I'd be free.
When classes ended, Rae and I did our homework together in the media room. Simon passed the door a couple of times and I thought maybe he wanted to talk to me, but when I stuck my head out the door, he'd disappeared upstairs.
As I worked, I thought about that patch of fog in the yard. If Derek hadn't seen it, too, I might have mistaken it for a ghost.
Why had he shushed Simon? Was Simon somehow causing my "hallucinations"? Some kind of special effects?
Sure, that would explain the ghosts I'd seen at school — holographic projections created by a guy I'd never met. Right.
But something was going on.
Or, at least, that's what Derek wanted me to believe.
By refusing to explain and making a big deal of refusing, Derek wanted me to do exactly what I was doing right now —driving myself nuts wondering what he wasn't telling me. He wanted me to go to him, begging for answers, so he could taunt and torment me some more.
There was no way Simon or Derek could have created the ghosts at school, but that fog would be a simple effect to pull off. Maybe Derek had done it. That's why Simon had protested, and Derek had shut him up.
Was Simon afraid of his brother? He pretended to defend him and act like best buds, but what choice did he have? He was stuck with Derek until his father returned.
Where was his father?
Why had he enrolled Simon and Derek in school under false names?
Why was Simon even here, if he didn't have a file?
Too many questions. I needed to start finding answers.
We were clearing the table after dinner when Mrs. Talbot came into the dining room with a man she introduced as Dr. Davidoff, the head of the board that ran Lyle House. With only a thin circle of hair and a huge, sharp nose, he was so tall that he seemed to be permanently leaning down to hear better. With the hair and the nose, he bore an unfortunate resemblance to a vulture, head tucked down, eyes beady behind his glasses.