The Amanda Project: Book One

The Amanda Project: Chapter Nine

CHAPTER NINE

I was glad when Hal's voice interrupted my thoughts. "We can't help Amanda if we don't work together."

Nia whipped around to face him. "You know what, Hal? Just shut up already. You don't know that she wants our help. You don't know why she did this. So why don't you stop with your whole I-can-read-the-tea-leaves-guru thing, okay? Because it's starting to get on my nerves."

I gave Hal a look like, What can you do with a lunatic like that? but he was looking intently at Nia, which kind of annoyed me.

"Hey," he said quietly. When she didn't meet his eyes, he said it again. "Hey." I couldn't help being jealous of his gentle tone. It was like even though she'd just yelled at him, he really cared about her.

She covered her face with her hands for a second and breathed in deeply. "I just don't understand. Nothing makes sense. I thought I was . . . never mind. I am so freaking out."

Hal took a step toward her and put his hand on her shoulder. "You thought you were what?"

"Nothing," said Nia, and she shook her head, like it was a door she closing. "Anyway, why won't she call us back?"

"I don't know," said Hal. He briefly touched his pocket, where I could see the outline of his phone through his jeans.

"It's not like her," said Nia, her statement a question, like things had gotten so topsy-turvy that she needed Hal to confirm something she already knew.

"It's not like her at all," agreed Hal.

It was weird to be standing there with no one to talk to while the two of them had their little moment. I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt like such an outsider. That's the thing about being an I-Girl: you're never on the outside. Of anything. I went back to taking pictures of the car, but I couldn't focus on anything, and I knew none of my shots were going to be any help if we were trying to decipher a message. When my phone's memory was full, I just stood there. Nia and Hal were talking quietly on the other side of the car. For something to do, I went up close to one of the windows, but I'd looked at the design on it (a rainbow with a huge, puffy cloud at either end) so many times, that I didn't really know what the point was of looking at it again.

What was Mr. Thornhill's car like inside? I was sure he was a total neat freak, and I pushed my nose against the window to see if I was right, but it was impossible to see past the stripes of the rainbow.

"Okay, we should probably start cleaning," said Hal, standing up and addressing me over the roof of the car.

I couldn't help being annoyed. What, now that they'd had their little chat we could get on with our work? Did they get to decide everything?

Without saying anything, I went over to my bucket, got the spray bottle and started shooting cleaning fluid at the car. Almost the second the stuff hit the drawing, the chalk began to dissolve. I barely had to rub at the surface to get it to disappear. For a minute, I found myself thinking that it was nice of Amanda not to make us work too hard, but then I was irritated with myself. Whatever Amanda's purpose, she so clearly was not trying to show how deeply she cared about me, Hal, or Nia. Maybe she thought it was hilarious to play a trick on us or maybe she just wanted us to know that each one of us was an idiot. But the idea that she'd wanted to do us a favor of any kind was nothing short of hilarious.

None of us spoke as we wiped away the brightly colored surface of the car, revealing the dark blue paint beneath. When I could finally see inside the car, I was surprised to discover how messy it was. Empty takeout cups were lying in the back on a bunch of folders and a pile of newspapers on the passenger seat. At least a dozen CDs were scattered on the floor of the passenger seat; I put my nose up against the car, trying to read the titles. On one I could make out the word Mozart, but the others were either upside down or had the writing covered up. I tried the car door because, hey, you never know, but it was locked. Whatever. It wasn't exactly like I needed to know what music Thornhill listened to.

It felt like we'd been cleaning for years by the time we wiped the last streak of color off the car, but when I looked, it was only a little after five. Without speaking, we all stepped away from the car and surveyed our handiwork.

Suddenly a phone rang. Amanda. It had to be Amanda. We all jumped, fumbling for our respective cells.

It was Nia's. "Hi, Mom," said Nia, and she gave us both an apologetic look, like it was her fault we'd gotten our hopes up briefly. "Nothing."

I looked back to the car, surprised at how dull and normal it appeared now that all of the artwork had been cleaned. Suddenly I had this really bad feeling about my life, like I was the car and Amanda was the artwork and now she was gone . . . but I pushed the thought away. Thornhill was being a total drama queen. Everyone knew Amanda cut school all the time. She'd be back tomorrow and all of this would be explained.

Nia was still talking to her mom. "Model Congress," she said, then added quickly, "it was a last-minute meeting."

There was a streak of purple left on the driver's side window, and I headed back to the car to wipe it off, but when I got up close, I realized it wasn't on the driver's side, it was on the passenger side. I went around the car; now that we'd spent all this time cleaning it, I wanted it to be perfect.

"Hey, Mom, it's me." Hal's voice this time. Now I was the only one not talking to her mother. Well, no surprise there. I went up to the passenger side window, but there wasn't any purple that I could see. Still, I was sure I'd seen some color here a minute ago. It was getting dark, and it was harder to see into the inside of the car.

Hal was still talking. "No, I just decided to stay for a while, hang out." So they weren't telling their parents about what had happened. Would I? I couldn't exactly imagine my dad being in any state to care by the time I got home. You didn't have to be in an advanced math class to know that one bottle of wine per hour times three or four hours equaled someone who wasn't able to keep tabs on his daughter's whereabouts.

"Well, the building's unlocked if she wants me to get it for her," said Hal, and I remembered his little sister, Cornelia, who must have been in the sixth or seventh grade by now. Even though the middle school and high school are in the same building at Endeavor, their classes are in separate wings from ours, so we almost never see the younger kids. The last time I'd seen Cornelia, she'd been about nine; I wondered what she looked like now.

I pressed my nose up to the glass again, not really looking for anything.

Which is exactly when I saw it.

In the middle of the pile of newspapers was a piece of purple paper. Or was it an envelope? In the fading light, I couldn't tell. But one thing I could tell was that in the corner of the mysterious purple object was the outline of an animal.

And the animal was almost definitely a coyote.