Chapter Two
It wasn't enough that someone had put a bomb in her English classroom, Anne thought despairingly. No, the police had to question every single one of the students. Again and again.
When the fire had been gotten under control, the firemen had found that the bomb had been hidden in the bottom drawer of Ms. Sanders' desk. They thought that the bottom drawer had been used because it was the biggest, and the bomb probably had been too large to fit in the other drawers.
The FBI had questioned Ms. Sanders first, and she'd said that she had no idea how a bomb had gotten in her desk. She admitted that she didn't usually lock her desk drawers, since she didn't keep anything particularly valuable in them.
She'd also broken down crying, and the principal had given her the day off. But she'd refused to take it, saying that she wasn't guilty of anything and that she wasn't going to go away and hide. Anne thought that was very brave of her, until she actually went to English class and saw her teacher's pale, strained expression. They didn't really get through any lesson that day, and everyone was subdued and nervous.
The FBI had not only questioned Ms. Sanders but also all the other students in the class. They'd particularly focused on Ivy Smith and Jamal Beasley, both of whom had been out sick that day. Anne heard that Ivy and Jamal had been required to go to see a doctor to prove that they really had been sick. She didn't know if the rumor was true or not.
But the FBI had questioned them all, systematically. Apart from one another, and in small groups, and all together. Anne couldn't believe that they suspected that one of the students had put the bomb in the classroom. If the principal hadn't unexpectedly decided to hold a fire drill, they'd all have been hurt. Maybe even killed.
But the FBI talked seriously to them about groups that they might have gotten involved in, suicide pacts and cults and feeling like an outsider and deciding to do something violent to respond to the teasing, and she felt the same sick feeling at the pit of her stomach that she'd felt while watching the black smoke rise from her school to mingle with the cold gray clouds above. The feeling that said that this was real, even though it was a nightmare. A nightmare from which you couldn't wake up.
No one had been killed, though. The school had been lucky. Some students who had been the first to return into the building had inhaled some smoke after the bomb had gone off, but no one had been so near Ms. Sanders' English classroom as to have been really hurt. Most of the parents agreed that it was a miracle that the principal had called a fire drill just then.
Anne's mother had volunteered to pick up Anne after school, but Anne had said she'd be okay and would ride the bus as usual. She hated the bus, but she knew that her mother couldn't get off work easily. Their family was just the two of them, and her mother always said that they needed every penny she could make.
She almost wished she'd given in now and let her mother pick her up. It was a sunny day, though the air was still November-cool, and the other kids packing into the bus were keeping a little away from her. Well, they knew that the FBI had questioned her and every other student in Ms. Sanders' class that day. If the FBI thought she might be a mass murderer, she wasn't surprised that all the other students seemed to be thinking along the same lines.
She was so busy telling herself that it didn't really matter that she'd become a social pariah that she nearly jumped out of her seat when someone sat next to her.
"Hi," the other girl said.
It was Amaranth Klein. Anne knew her only vaguely, as they only had chemistry together, and they sat on opposite sides of the room.
"Hi," she said, trying to pretend that she hadn't just been startled half out of her wits.
"Mind if I sit here?"
"Um. No. Fine."
Amaranth smiled brightly and tossed her blonde hair over her shoulders. She was wearing it loose that day, although Anne knew she usually had it tied back in a braid or a ponytail. Amaranth wasn't one of the athletic girls at the school who played team sports, but she always seemed to have a determined preference for the outdoors. Anne had overheard her sometimes talking about the hikes she took on the weekend. "Sturdy" seemed the best word to fit Amaranth. She wasn't overweight, but everything about her body seemed thick, and her blonde hair was coarse and her face lightly freckled.
The two girls sat together in silence while the rest of the students climbed on the bus. The driver closed the doors and swung out of the parking lot.
Anne's stop was one of the first. Two other guys who lived on the same street usually got off at the same time. When the bus slowed and braked wheezily to a halt at the corner, she grabbed her books and stood up.
"Excuse me," she apologized to Amaranth, who was between her and the aisle.
"Do you mind if I come with you?" Amaranth asked.
"Hunh?" was all Anne could think of to say.
She saw Amaranth's fingers twitch in her lap, and suddenly it occurred to her that it was rude of her to say no. Amaranth had never been nasty to her, and if the other girl wanted to talk to her, there was probably a good reason for it.
"Sure," she said.
With a smile, Amaranth got up. The two girls left together. Some of the other kids gave them curious looks, but Amaranth ignored them, and Anne decided to do the same.
The air outside was cool. As the bus pulled away, Anne started to wonder again what Amaranth was doing there. Not that she minded if the other girl wanted to come over and hang out for a while, but the whole way she'd invited herself along was a bit strange. In fact, Anne couldn't imagine why she'd agreed to hang out with Amaranth, without the slightest idea what they were going to do.
She looked helplessly at the other girl, but Amaranth seemed to know what she was doing.
"Where's your house?" she asked, with a little motion of her fingers again.
"Um." Anne realized she was worrying over nothing. "Over there. That direction."
"Cool. Let's go."
"I heard that you're doing genealogy reports for English," Amaranth said casually, as they walked.
"Um? Yes. Actually, it's sort of a history-English thing. Our history class is giving us extra credit if we can trace our family back for six generations. But Ms. Sanders actually gave us the assignment for our English class. Five pages, double-spaced, due next Friday."
"How's it coming?"
Amaranth shrugged. "So-so. I traced my mother's side of the family back to 1826."
"Cool. How about your father's side?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing? Really?"
"Well, I wrote the state vital statistics bureau and got my birth certificate in the mail. It was the first time I've ever seen my birth certificate because up to now I used my hospital certificate for stuff. And it didn't include my father's name. And my mother always said that my father's name was John. But my birth certificate said that his name was Hunter Farmer. If you can believe that."
"That's an unusual name," Amaranth agreed.
"It's not just unusual, it's weird. Hunter Farmer. Who could have given their kid a name like that?"
"He probably got teased a lot in school. Unless he had a different name when he was little, and he changed it when he grew up." Amaranth threw Anne a sideways look that she couldn't quite understand.
"Why would he change it to something that weird? I mean, if I were going to change my name, I'd pick something that sounded better. Romantic, or sexy. Not something as dorky as 'Hunter Farmer.'"
"Maybe it was an alias. Maybe he had a secret life."
Anne snorted. "As if."
"Do you remember him at all?"
"No. I never knew him." Anne suddenly felt a wave of depression, the familiar one that she felt whenever she was forced to confess that she not only lived alone with her mother, but that her father was completely and totally absent from her life.
"Do you think he's dead?"
Anne wondered how she could cut off Amaranth's sudden flow of questions about her father without offending the other girl. "I don't know."
"Does he still communicate with you? Or with your mother?"
"No. I didn't even know his real name was Hunter Farmer until I wrote for my birth certificate. That is, if his real name was Hunter and not John. Maybe it's my hospital certificate that's right, and my birth certificate's wrong."
"So you don't know anything at all about your father, right?"
Anne took a deep breath and stopped. They'd almost reached her house, and she suddenly wasn't sure about Amaranth.
"Look," she said, "I don't mean to be rude, and all—"
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Amaranth's fingers move quickly again in that complicated little knot, but she was too agitated to pay attention.
"—but I really don't like talking about my father much. I mean, I don't know anything about him, and he probably wasn't a nice guy, since he didn't stay with my mother and me after I was born, but he's still my father, and I . . . just don't like talking about him. So I'd really rather drop the subject, okay?"
"I didn't mean to upset you," Amaranth said penitently.
Anne saw the other girl's fingers move again.
Amaranth didn't say anything. They stood there on the sidewalk. Anne began to feel slightly sheepish. Amaranth hadn't really been rude, after all. It was natural to be curious about other people's parents. Anne had been curious herself, many times. But she still didn't want to keep talking about her father.
"I don't know anything about him," she said apologetically. "My mother doesn't talk about him. He's a complete mystery to me. And it's sort of hard that I don't know anything about him, nothing at all. I mean . . . I don't cry myself to sleep at night, or anything like that. I'm used to not knowing. But . . . I just don't like to talk about him. You know?"
Amaranth hesitated. Anne suddenly had the feeling that the other girl was weighing her options and trying to come to an important decision.
"Yeah," Amaranth said finally. "Listen. If you really don't know anything about your father—nothing at all—then I need to talk to you."
Anne must have looked puzzled, because Amaranth said again, "Are you sure you don't know anything about him? Nothing at all?"
"Just that his name was John Farmer. Or Hunter Farmer. One or the other."
"And you've never seen him in your life?"
Anne wanted to roll her eyes. "No, never. I just said that."
"Okay." Amaranth seemed to come to a decision. "Is your mother at home?"
"No . . . she's working."
"Can we go inside and talk?"
Anne hesitated and then shrugged. She wasn't sure what Amaranth had in mind, but there wasn't anything she had to do that afternoon. Whatever Amaranth had to say probably wouldn't be any crazier than the plot of her usual afternoon soap.
"Okay," she said, and turned to take the last few steps toward her house.
And, unknowingly, sealed her fate.