Chapter 4: Lessons in Normality
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All day, I tried to find Sadie in the halls. I knew she was at school today, since her bag and coat were in the locker, but she was nowhere to be found. By lunch time, I was so frustrated with her skills of avoidance that I skipped eating all together and just went to the library. Books. Books were what I needed to calm me down.
Sitting in the grimy armchair in the far back corner, I cracked open the novel I'd taken from Sadie's locker a few days ago. The Blind Banker, it was called. Apparently, it was some sort of sequel to A Study in Pink, but I wasn't certain, as she'd once again scribbled out every name in the book, including the author's on the front cover.
Nevertheless, it was a good book.
Bing.
I grumbled as I fished my phone out of my jacket pocket. I just wanted to be left alone – why couldn't people see that? Stabbing the buttons with my index finger, I opened the text.
We need to talk. –SH
Sighing, I replied scathingly:
No shit, Sadie. –Liam
As was her way, the next text came almost immediately after I'd sent that last one.
Meet me in the biology lab in five minutes. –SH
Whatever. –Liam
Though I knew, of course, I'd show up anyways.
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"Alright, what d'you need?" I said pushing through the lab doors. "And make it fast. I don't want to get detention again for being in here."
"Don't worry. I've got the teacher occupied for the next forty-five minutes at least," Sadie said, waving away my concerns. She was perched on the edge of one of the lab stations, and a lit Bunsen burner was flickering away next to her – she was roasting a marshmallow over it.
"Do I want to know what you did to the teacher?" I asked wearily, casting aside my backpack and pulling out a chair at a nearby desk.
She shrugged, a diabolical little grin crossing her face. "I put Gorilla Glue in her hair."
"You're actually evil."
"I'm aware." She sighed. "That's why I need your help. I need you to teach me how to be…" Face contorted into a grimace, she trailed off.
"Yeah?" I prompted.
"Nice," she finally managed to spit out.
There was a brief pause of deathly silence, during which my jaw hit the floor. Her marshmallow caught on fire, but she didn't seem to have noticed. "Nice?"
"Nice," Sadie affirmed.
"No."
"Please?"
"It's impossible. Sadie Hooper, you are not capable of being nice. You can't even manage remotely friendly." Shaking my head, I stood to leave.
"Don't leave!" she said. "Liam, my mom said that if I can't learn to be nice, then I'll have to go to boarding school. I can't possibly go there." She shuddered, as if boarding school was the earthly equivalence of Hell.
"First of all, boarding school might be good for you. Second, you have to want to be nice yourself. You can't just be nice because someone else wants you to be."
She bit her lip. "But – and you can't tell anyone this – I do want to be nice. I'm sick of being treated like I'm a… a freak."
"You are a freak," I put in helpfully.
"I know I am," she admitted. "But I don't want to be anymore. Will you please help me?"
I narrowed my eyes. "Fine."
"Thank you. Oh, and by the way, you shouldn't sleep on your side like that. It's bad for your leg."
I rolled my eyes. Of course she'd know I had slept poorly last night. "Step one on being nice: quit making deductions about people."
Her eyes went wide. "I can't just turn it off."
"Well, then learn to keep them to yourself. Now, come on. I'm hungry."
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Day two of teaching Sadie how to be a normal teenager wasn't going so well. Actually, she was adapting quite well, but that wasn't the problem.
I'd nearly bit a hole through the side of my cheek because of a nagging thought that wouldn't leave my mind: I shouldn't try and change who she is.
As hard as I tried to, I couldn't push the guilt aside that I was doing the wrong thing by altering her personality. After all, wasn't her brilliant brain the reason I'd decided to stay friends with her?
Though, I fought back against the war raging in my head, it would be nice to have her act like a regular teenager for once.
"Liam," Hannah said to me as we sat in the commons after school. I barely registered her. "Liam? Liam!" She nudged me in the side painfully.
"Ouch! What?" I snapped, finally looking over.
"What's gotten into you today? You've barely said a word to me. Is something going on?"
"No," I mumbled.
"Did you break up with your girlfriend?" she teased.
"I don't have a girlfriend," I said.
"I know. I was kidding." She paused. "What's up?"
I groaned. Knowing that she'd pester me about it until the day I died, I finally said, "It's Sadie. She's trying to learn how to be normal."
"Is it not going very well?" Hannah asked.
I laughed once. "No, she's doing pretty great. I just feel guilty, that's all."
"Ah. I see." She frowned. "Maybe you should do something to take your mind off of it."
"Like what?" I muttered, absently kicking a crumpled wad of paper that was littering the carpet.
"Like you and I should go see a movie tomorrow night."
I looked up in alarm. "Just us? Alone?"
She nodded, her blonde curls bouncing. "That's the idea."
"Like… on a date?" I asked, face flushing red.
Giggling nervously, her head bobbed up and down once more.
"O-oh. Yeah. Okay. I'd like that."
Her face lit up with a huge smile, showing off her braces. "Awesome. Um, well, I should probably go… my mom's waiting out front." She pointed out the front doors to where a minivan was idling by the curb. Swiftly, she pecked me on the cheek and before I could say anything, she was skipping outside.
I sort of felt like skipping myself.
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That evening, I walked over to Sadie's house. The world seemed so much brighter for some reason. It was all I could do not twirl as I went down the sidewalk – but I carefully refrained myself from doing that; I didn't want to give Mrs. Lembas across the street another reason to think I was crazy.
In a daze, I knocked on the door.
A split second later, it opened.
"Hi," Sadie said, looking stressed. "How are you?"
I raised my eyebrows. "I appreciate your attempts at a normal greeting, but that just sounds weird coming from you. You don't have to act this way in front of me."
Her rigid body visibly relaxed, shoulders slumping, and she heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank God. Come in," she said, stepping aside. I followed her up the stairs.
"Where are your cats?" I asked, looking around. It was odd – usually they were waiting right at the door to pounce on me the moment I came inside.
"I've put them away. Apparently, it's not nice to have your pets out and about while guests are over," she explained, leading me down the hall towards her bedroom.
"And where'd you learn that?"
In response, she pulled a small book out of her cotton skirt's pocket and tossed it to me. I glanced down at the cover. How to be a Better Host, the title read. A few pages had been dog-eared and the spine was bent.
"You're kidding me."
"Why would I joke about something like this?"
We passed the bright red door that I knew was her mute little brother's room. I'd never spoken to the kid, in fact, I'd hardly even seen him, but I did know he was called Hamish (Hammy, for short), which also happened to be the middle name of my dad. Sadie'd never explained how her parents had come up with such an uncommon name, even though I'd asked her on several occasions.
"Dunno," I said. "You just don't seem the type to turn to self-improvement manuals, do you?"
"The book also said never to insult your guests," she sniffed, "so I guess today's your lucky day."
Smirking, I trailed behind her into her bedroom.
At first, I thought we were in the wrong room; that's how drastically it had changed since the last time I was in here.
Gone were the newspaper articles that had previously covered every bare inch of wall space. A quick glance into the bin by her bed told me where they'd ended up. I recognized the article on top – Suicide of Fake Genius, dated some fifteen years prior.
The piano that had been shoved into one corner was absent, as was the microscope and test tubes that were once littering her desk. Her ceiling was missing the thousands of plastic stars, and the books about various criminal cases were no longer in her bookcase.
The room felt almost… empty.
"I've reorganized," she said simply when she saw the expression on my face.
Marching over to the trash, I reached in and grabbed the articles. I waved them around at her. "No, Sadie. I'm done with this. You can't just change every aspect of your life. This is who you are."
"Not anymore," she growled, yanking the newspapers out of my hands and replacing them in the bin. "I've changed, and you need to accept that, whether you like it or not."
"What does your dad think about you basically giving up on detective stuff?" I said.
She tensed. "Doesn't matter what he thinks. He doesn't care."
Rolling my eyes, I said, "Oh, don't you give me that. You know he cares."
"Obviously, you don't know him as well as I do. He doesn't give a second thought to anybody," she snapped, collapsing on her bed.
"That's not true." I took a seat at her desk. Then, changing the subject, I said, "So. How's the investigation going with the Ginger Society? I've been doing some research on my own, and a few years ago, there was a similar case in London –"
"I quit the club," she interrupted.
"What?" I looked over at her in alarm.
"I said, I quit the club. I've told you; I'm done with pretending to be a detective. I'm normal now."
"But, Sadie –" I began.
"Nope," she said sharply. "Nothing you can say can change my mind. How about we talk about your date with Hannah Elliot tomorrow night, instead?"
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Author's Note: Hey, everyone. I'm really sorry about the wait. I've been having a bit of writer's block with this story, and plus I'm currently working on another one, so… Yeah. I apologize.
Speaking of the other story I'm writing, it's a Lord of the Rings modern AU, so if you're interested, I'd appreciate it if you would check it out!
But anyways, thanks for all of the reviews for the last chapter, and I'm going to try and be more regular on updates for this. Also, if you haven't noticed, I've changed my penname from SketchbookPianist to DearCassius (I'm having an identity crisis right now).
Please review! Thanks!
-Sketch