Rebel Belle

Chapter 5

I GRABBED the top of the fence, my hands tangled in the pyracantha bushes, my feet dangling off the ground. Okay, so far, no proof of my superhero-ness. Sure, it had been a great jump, but I was a cheerleader; jumping was not new to me. At least I’d missed the thorns this time.

I took a deep breath. Whatever happened next meant I’d know for sure whether or not what had happened tonight was real. Either way, I figured, life was about to get pretty different.

Slowly, I curled my legs up to my chest and lowered my forehead to the top of the fence. Then I pulled with all the strength in my arms until the top of my head was resting on the gate. My arms didn’t even tremble as they held all my body weight.

I uncurled my legs and pushed until I had both arms fully extended and both legs straight up in the air. My dress fell down over my head, so if any of our neighbors were up and about, they saw more than just me going all Russian gymnast on our fence.

Then I brought my feet down to rest on the top of the fence by my hands, so I was basically doing the world’s most extreme backbend, a move I’d never been very good at despite all of my years of cheerleading. But now I did it with no problem, feeling like my body was almost out of my control, the same way I’d felt fighting Dr. DuPont. Planting my feet, I let go of the fence with my hands and pulled my torso up so that I was standing, looking down into the garden, my dress falling back down around my knees.

“Well,” I murmured, “that answers that.”

But just for good measure, I did a front flip off the top of the fence.

I landed in our pool, which was kind of bad planning on my part. I’d jumped just a little too hard and overshot the small patch of grass between the fence and the ridiculously huge expanse of aqua water. Of course, on the bright side, I’d also missed slamming into the concrete patio.

I came up out of the super chilly water not even caring that my new, really expensive dress was ruined. There was a huge smile on my face.

I was a superhero.

“HARPER JANE!”

The smile fell from my face instantly. Oh, crap.

Mom stood just inside the back door, wearing a robe and pajamas. She must have been right in the kitchen to have made it outside so quickly, but Mom had never waited up for me before. Why did it have to be the one night I was diving off the fence?

But Mom must’ve missed that part of the show because all she said was, “What on earth are you doing in the pool?”

As I hoisted myself up the ladder, she came rushing down the steps of the deck, her bare feet slapping on the wood. “I’m fine,” I told her, climbing out of the chilly water.

“You clearly are not,” she fired back, whipping off her robe and throwing it around my shoulders. “You’re practically blue, and your dress is ruined. Have you lost your mind?”

“No,” I said, pulling the lapels of the robe closer around me. It was warm and smelled like Lancôme lotion and coffee. “I just decided to come in through the back door so I wouldn’t bother you and Daddy. I wasn’t looking where I was going, and I tripped.” I gave her what I hoped was a sheepish smile and nodded toward my heels which, thankfully, had landed on the pool deck. “Stupid new shoes, you know how it is.”

But Mom wasn’t an idiot. She frowned at me. “And, what, you just . . . didn’t see the pool?”

I glanced over at it, noticing that all the underwater lights were on. It gleamed like a giant turquoise jewel in the darkness of the backyard. There was no way anyone could miss it.

“Mom—”

But she already had me by the shoulders, turning me to face her. “Harper, have you been drinking?”

“No,” I said, reaching up to squeeze one of her hands for emphasis. “You know I wouldn’t do that. I promise.”

Mom watched me for a long time. There were new wrinkles around her eyes, and in the dim, greenish light of the pool, she looked almost sickly. All the euphoria that had just been coursing through me seemed to drain out. I had almost been killed tonight. I pictured Mom, sitting at the kitchen table in her robe, waiting for me when I was never coming home, and suddenly, the whole superhero thing didn’t seem so great.

“I’m fine,” I told her again, reaching out to hug her before remembering that I was soaking wet. “Just . . . distracted and clumsy.”

I wasn’t sure how convinced she was, but she finally smiled and tucked a piece of wet hair behind my ear. “Okay. But you might want to work on that, or Mary Beth won’t be the only one taking out an entire row of debutantes.”

Relieved, I laughed. “She’ll get better.”

Mom and I walked back into the house, and I saw that the coffeepot was on and nearly empty. “How long have you been up?” I asked. It wasn’t even midnight yet, and that was my curfew.

“Awhile,” was all Mom said, but then, from the doorway, I heard Dad say, “She hasn’t been to bed yet.”

Dad’s hair—what little he had left—was sticking up and his eyes were blurry with sleep. As he shuffled into the kitchen, I smiled at his familiar plaid pajama pants and University of Alabama T-shirt. “Why are you soaking wet?” he asked.

“She fell in the pool,” Mom explained. Unlike her, he seemed to take that in stride. “Gotta be more careful, kiddo,” he told me, walking up to Mom. He put a hand on the back of her neck, pulling her toward him to kiss her temple.

I guess I should be icked out that I have parents who are obviously still so in love—and to be honest, sometimes, I am—but there was also something . . . comforting about it. I thought of Ryan, wondering if we got married, would we be like this in twenty years?

“So did you win?” Dad asked, and it took me a minute to remember what he was talking about.

“I did,” I told him. “But I left the crown in Ryan’s car.”

Dad squinted. “That doesn’t sound like you. Hope you weren’t distracted. Do I need to get my shotgun?”

“Ew,” I said as Mom nudged him with her elbow.

“I don’t think any firearms will be required to get Ryan and Harper down the aisle one day,” she said, winking at me.

Mom loved Ryan, especially since he’d been so great after everything with Leigh-Anne.

“So now that she’s home, will you finally get some sleep?” Dad asked Mom.

The lines around her eyes deepened as she smiled. “Sure will,” she said, but rather than heading back to her own bedroom, she walked me up to mine.

“You’re sure you’re all right?” she asked, hovering in the doorway.

“I will be once I take the hottest shower in the world.”

Mom smiled again, but it was faint and kind of sad. And then her eyes drifted to my open closet, where my Cotillion dress was hanging in its plastic bag. “It’s such a gorgeous dress,” she said softly. “I just wish . . .”

I held my breath, waiting for the tears. But this time, Mom gave a tiny shake of her head and said, “Anyway. You’ll be beautiful. Oh, and Miss Saylor called tonight. There’s an extra—”

“An extra rehearsal on Monday, I know.” Twisting behind me, I reached for the dress’s zipper. “Amanda and Abigail told me.”

Mom crossed the room, helping me unzip. “You know I think Cotillion is a wonderful thing, but sometimes I wonder if Saylor doesn’t take it a little bit too seriously. Before she took it over, the girls had maybe three practices for the entire thing. Now it seems like you have three a week.”

Last week we’d had four, but I didn’t say that to Mom. “Miss Saylor just wants it to be perfect.”

Mom pursed her lips, and for a second, it was like she was Old Mom again. The mom who laughed more, who had a weakness for gossip, who didn’t wait up for me before it was even my curfew. “Pine Grove’s Cotillion has been going on for nearly a hundred years, and there was never one hiccup until Saylor Stark took it over. Do you know how much mistletoe she makes the Junior League pay for? I tried to tell her that just because our town’s Cotillion takes place a month before Christmas, there’s no need to rechristen Magnolia House ‘Mistletoe Manor.’ That stuff is expensive.”

Saylor Stark, with her gorgeous clothes and her silver hair and her impeccable manners, was kind of my hero. I mean, I put up with her nephew because I liked her so much. But it was nice having old, gossipy Mom back, so I nodded in sympathy. “She’s also really strict about where we stand. That’s what all the rehearsals are about. Making sure we’re all standing in a perfect circle.”

“Ridiculous,” Mom said on a sigh. “Anyway, go take your shower and get some rest.”

“Will do!” I said brightly, waiting until she shut the door to drop my grin. As soon as I heard her footsteps heading downstairs, I shimmied out of my wet dress and dashed into the shower. Once I was out, I threw on some flannel pajamas, snatched up my laptop, and headed into my walk-in closet. There was little chance of my mom coming back, but I didn’t want to freak her out any more than I already had tonight. I was not going back to Dr. Greenbaum.

The first thing I did was Google “superhero,” but that just got me a bazillion way too detailed Wikipedia entries on Marvel comics. A search for “Mr. Hall, janitor, Grove Academy” turned up absolutely nothing, which wasn’t too surprising. What was surprising was that a search of “Michael DuPont, history teacher, Grove Academy” brought up only his faculty page on the Grove Academy website. That was weird. All of the Grove faculty are super accomplished; most of them are former college professors, and Googling any of them brings up either a book or paper they’ve published, or a lecture they’ve given at some academic conference. But there was nothing for Dr. DuPont. Almost like he hadn’t existed before he came to the Grove last year.

Chill bumps broke out all over my body, and I reached up to pull a fluffy pink robe from a hanger. Wrapping it around me, I thought back to my fight with Dr. DuPont. He had called me something, some weird word I’d never heard before. “Pal” something.

I typed “superhero pal” into Google, but that just brought up some truly disturbing Batman/Robin fan fiction. So I tried “warrior pal.” That got me a bunch of World of Warcraft sites. I sighed, scrolling down, about to give up when a word caught my eye: “Paladin.”

That was it. That was the word he’d used. I clicked on the link and a definition popped up. “Paladin: an honorable knight; defender of a noble cause.”

“Laaaaaame,” I whispered. I much preferred superhero.

An hour later, I’d read pretty much everything the internet had to offer on the subject of Paladins and I was more confused than ever. The word was used to describe everything from high officials in the Catholic church to French knights to a class of warrior you could use in—ew—role-playing games.

But even with all the definitions, one thing remained the same. Paladins were warriors and protectors, charged with safeguarding a specific person or place.

That didn’t sound particularly super. I slumped against the wall of my closet, pulling the robe tighter around me and burying my chin in it. Shouldn’t I get to fly? Or at the very least, shoot laser beams out of my eyes?

Feeling like a complete moron, I stood up and focused as hard as I could on my closet door. No matter how hard I stared, no laser beams. I even tried muttering “laser” under my breath, but nothing.

That done, I gave a few experimental hops, trying to see if I could levitate even for a second. When that didn’t work either, I briefly considered trying to jump out the window, but then I remembered Mom’s expression when she’d found me in the pool.

So no lasers, no flying, but superstrength and an ability to kick some major ass. That was something.

I sat back down on the floor of my closet and turned to my computer. I had a couple of tabs open, and when I went to close the one about superheroes, a boldface paragraph caught my eye: “Perhaps the most defining characteristic of the superhero is a willingness to sacrifice for the good of others, even to the point of laying down his or her own life.”

A shiver went through me. Mr. Hall had done that, apparently. And I knew that whole spiel about great responsibility coming with great power, but dying . . . that didn’t seem worth a few measly superpowers. Even laser beam eyes weren’t worth getting gutted by a scimitar-wielding history teacher.

But, I reminded myself, technically Mr. Hall hadn’t been a superhero. He’d been a Paladin, and that was . . . different, right? And what—or who—had been his noble cause?

What was mine?

The next morning, I woke up early and drove to the library, checking out a bunch of DVDs. I spent the rest of the weekend holed up in my room with all three Spider-Man movies, the new Superman, and X-Men 1–3. I already owned Batman Begins, so I watched that, too.

Bee and Ryan both called my cell, and while I talked to Ryan, telling him I wasn’t feeling so hot, I let Bee’s calls go to voice mail. I felt awful doing it, but it was too risky to talk to her. Lying—okay, not lying, exactly—to Ryan was one thing, but Bee was tougher. She’d bought my whole “I got sick” thing Friday, but I’d been lucky. Normally, her Best-Friend Sensor was a lot more finely tuned than that. Besides, it might be too tempting to spill everything, and until I had a better handle on what was going on, that didn’t seem like the best idea.

So I dedicated myself to my mission, and by the time Monday morning rolled around, I had definitely figured some stuff out. First of all, I had gotten totally screwed on the “origin story” front. All superheroes have origin stories, like how Bruce Wayne’s parents get killed and he goes to Tibet or whatever, and Superman is an alien, and Spider-Man had that radioactive spider. Me? I kissed a janitor in the school bathroom. Also, from X-Men, I learned that the people who seem to know what the eff is going on usually come find you, take you to a secure location, and tell you . . . well, what the eff is going on. So the way I saw it, some organization had clearly sent Mr. Hall to the Grove to protect something or someone. And Dr. DuPont had clearly come to the Grove to take that thing/kill that someone. And then that shadowy organization had fixed the bathroom with . . . um . . . magic or something (okay, so I wasn’t clear on everything) so no one would know what happened.

Now, all I had to do was go to school and act normal and wait for them to find me.

Easy. Provided no one else tried to kill me, of course.

Usually, Ryan drove me to school, but when I called him Sunday night, I told him I was going to drive myself Monday.

“Okay,” he replied, a little hesitant. “Is . . . Harper, is everything okay? I mean, I’ve hardly heard from you this weekend; you said you weren’t feeling great . . .”

“I’m fine,” I assured him. “It’s just supposed to be really pretty tomorrow, and I haven’t driven my car in, like, forever.”

There was a pause, and I waited for Ryan to suggest I just pick him up instead. But then he sighed. “Right, I get that,” he said at last. “No problem.”

Still, when I hung up the phone, I couldn’t shake this feeling that there was a problem. I pulled out my day planner, and on my list of weekly activities, added, “Spend more time with Ryan.”

Seeing it written down made me feel better and I reminded myself that it wasn’t like this was forever. As soon as I understood what had happened Friday night, I could move past it and get back to my normal life. Easy.

Monday was gorgeous, one of those perfect fall days that are kind of rare in Alabama. I drove to school with my windows down, the cool autumn air blowing my hair around my face. Now that I knew I wasn’t crazy, I felt a lot better. Being a superhero, or Paladin, or whatever, seemed like a natural extension of the stuff I already did. I mean, didn’t I work my butt off to make the Grove a safe and fun place to be? Whatever was at the Grove that needed protecting, chances were I was already protecting it.

As I pulled into the sweet parking place I had by virtue of being SGA president, my good mood swelled. The school looked so beautiful under the bright blue October sky. The Grove was made up of four redbrick buildings with a large courtyard in the center. There were stone tables and benches in the courtyard where seniors ate lunch when the weather was nice. The trees surrounding the cluster of buildings were stunning shades of red and orange and gold, and when the bell tower chimed the half hour, I thought my heart might burst with pride.

I got out of the car, smoothing my hair and readjusting my green headband. Even though the Grove didn’t have uniforms, we did have a really strict dress code that ensured everyone always looked nice: no jeans, no T-shirts, definitely no shorts. Today, I had worn one of my favorite outfits, a turtleneck the same green as my eyes, and a plaid skirt with brown knee-length boots and tights. I looked awesome and I knew it.

In fact, I thought it was my awesome outfit that was making people stare at me as I made my way from the parking lot. Then I noticed that they were . . . staring.

That’s when I realized that the starers were all holding a bunch of papers stapled together—the school newspaper.

Clutching my books and tossing my head back, I forced a big smile and approached the nearest group. They were sophomores, so they were still a little scared of me. All three immediately went to hide the papers behind their backs.

“Hi!” I said brightly, hugging my bag tightly to my chest.

“Hi,” they chorused back. The one in the middle reminded me a little bit of Bee, all fluffy blond hair and big dark eyes, and I was sure I’d seen the other two around campus. Yes, the one on the right—a tall redhead wearing a skirt just a little bit too short—had tried out for cheerleading last spring.

None of the three met my eyes.

“So, is there something in that paper that I should know about?” I asked, trying to sound friendly and jokey. “It’s not a hideously unflattering picture of me after cheerleading practice, is it? Or me shrieking at the SGA?”

Translation: I am head cheerleader and SGA president, and I could destroy you all if I wanted to. And that’s not even bringing my superpowers into it. I had never used my popularity for evil before—but I’d never been gaped at either. So I figured there was no harm in putting a little of the fear of God into these girls.

The girl on the left cracked first. She was tiny and had white-blond hair, and her blue eyes were huge as she looked up at me. “It’s just the . . . uh, special Homecoming edition of The Grove News.”

My smile froze in place. Surely, he wouldn’t have.

“Can I see it?” I asked, still grinning, still upbeat.

The one who looked like Bee shook her head ever so slightly at the tiny girl, but she was already handing me the paper. I took it with trembling hands.

My worst fears were confirmed.

There, on the front page of the special Homecoming edition of The Grove News, was a huge, albeit blurry, picture of me leaning on Bee, clearly sobbing my eyes out, as we made our way out of the girls’ bathroom. It looked like it had probably been taken with a cell phone, and the headline read, “It’s Her Party and She’ll Cry If She Wants To?” Under the picture of me and Bee, there was a smaller caption: Homecoming Queen misses crowning under mysterious circumstances. My eyes darted over the rest of the article as my heart started pounding. “. . . hiding in the boys’ room . . . violently ill . . . tension between the ‘Queen Bee’ and her underling, Bee Franklin . . . this reporter . . .”

By now, I had sort of started hyperventilating as my eyes zeroed in on the byline in bold letters.

David Stark.

Who I was now going to murder.