The Amanda Project: Book One

The Amanda Project: Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

My heart pounding, I yanked at the handle of the door, but of course it wouldn't open.

Suddenly Hal's voice was at my shoulder. "What?" he asked. "What is it?"

"Nothing," I said quickly. I turned my back to the car and leaned against it, smiling up at him in what I hoped was a normal way. "It's nothing. I . . . wanted to see what music Thornhill listens too. But it's just classical stuff."

I hoped Hal wouldn't have a passion for classical music, one that would make him desperate to know the titles of the VP's favorites. He took a step closer to the car, and for a minute I feared he was going to try and see the CDs for himself, but then he stood next to me and leaned his back against the window.

My heart was still racing. Could what I had seen been a note from Amanda? But why would she have written him? She hated Thornhill. How many times had he dressed her down for an article she had written or was writing, or an interview she'd tried to schedule with someone he didn't want her "bothering," or a document she'd demanded to see? The argument I'd overheard them having that day in the office was only one of at least half a dozen they'd had.

"So, what do you think it means?" asked Hal.

For a minute I wondered how he knew what I was thinking, but then I realized he was just talking about the car in general.

"I don't know," I said. And the truth was, I didn't know. Not why Amanda had done this or why I didn't want to tell Hal and Nia about possibly seeing the piece of paper with Amanda's totem inside the car. It was like there were so many things I was suddenly being forced to share with the two of them, but the note from Amanda (if that's even what it was) was just mine.

Well, mine and Vice Principal Thornhill's.

"I feel like she wants something from us," said Hal. "Like she's . . . talking to us. All those peace symbols. The totems . . ."

Nia was still on the phone with her mom. She sounded frustrated, and I couldn't help being jealous. I remembered that feeling of frustration when I wanted to get off the phone and my mother kept talking to (well, at) me.

Was I ever going to have that feeling again?

When I didn't say anything, Hal continued. "You know, Amanda had a lot of personas. She could have done the car in goth or punk or ante bellum. But she picked this whole sixties hippie thing."

I wasn't sure what ante bellum was, but I knew what he meant. It wasn't like Amanda was a hippie. Or like she was a hippie more than she was anything else. Or wasn't anything else.

"This car," said Hal definitively, "is a happy message. I'm sure of it."

I turned to look at him. Under his chiseled jaw and tousled hair, I could just make out the soft cheeks and bowl-cut that belonged to the geeky kid he'd been back when we hung out. Back when we'd been friends.