Keep Your Friends Close Read online

  Thank you to wonderful editor Caroline Fairey and to brilliant artist Claire Manuel for the cover art.

  Special thanks to "Miss" Lillian and Dr. Lily Craton- the beautiful lillies that told me to keep writing.

  And finally, to the very first readers who found Maggie fun, thank you.

  Keep Your Friends Close

  Elsie Vandevere

  Chapter One

  They Should Have Warned You

  From the moment Maggie and her mom rode into town in their moving van, it felt like they had walked over someone’s grave. There was a chill in the air, though summer had not officially ended, and a stillness to things—the grass, the brick buildings, even the wooden sign that read: “Welcome to Masonville.”

  If welcome signs were honest, this one would say:

  “Welcome to Masonville— here at the intersection of the Bread Bowl and the Bible Belt, we are just keeping this little place on its feet. It first sprang up as a railroad town, then lit up along Route 66. This town has died twice, and it’s not looking too good now.”

  It really was not.

  One minute Mags was staring out at green rolling hills and an endless supply of cows. Then, she was staring at a line of nearly identical brick buildings on either side of a grey strip of road. The highway took them through town, serving as Main Street as well as the main way in and out of town. There was one stoplight, and then the road dipped down ahead and disappeared into the low hanging trees in sort of a dappled, green tunnel.

  “There has to be more,” Maggie said, looking behind and ahead and behind again.

  There wasn’t.

  Sure, more cows were beyond, more curves and twists in the road, and patches of skinny trees waving in the wind. But no more civilization.

  “There’s other stuff down these side streets,” her mom reassured her, trying to find one side street in particular: their new address on Mulberry Street.

  This was by far the smallest town they had ever lived in. There had to be more, Mags thought.

  There was at least a high school hiding somewhere among the yellow mums and white front doors; there was always a high school. But for now, there were strangely no students in sight. Maggie didn’t see a single soul as they weaved through the ghost town until they found 204 Mulberry Street.

  It was a small, green bungalow with white trim. Its best feature was a picture window that looked down on the small lawn and short, paved driveway.

  The whole time they moved boxes into their new bungalow, Masonville’s streets remained abnormally quiet, especially for a weekend. There were no shouting kids on bikes, no teens cruising by blaring music, and no nosy welcoming committee. The smell of a greeting casserole or cookies left on the doorstep was missing, and so was the burning scent of neighbors’ grills firing up in the first cool air of fall.

  As she carried in her boxes, Maggie could only hear the hiss and creak of the dogwood trees in the breeze—not in their yard, mind you, because Maggie’s mother knew to get the most hopeless, low-maintenance lawn in town. Otherwise, in a couple short weeks, it would be a forest. She was not going to “keep up with it” she claimed, whatever that entailed.

  Inside, their newest home smelled like fresh paint and takeout food from the only Chinese place in town.

  As the two watched out from their new kitchen window seat, perfect for spying on their neighbors, the only moving things the Brennan women spotted were a solitary cat, a cardinal, and leaves just beginning to fall. The neat streets of modest houses and green lawns were just dead, so to speak.

  In fact, the first time they saw more than two or three people together outdoors once all weekend; they were at the large brick church perched on a hill in town, and they did not look like they would make a joyful noise.

  “They don’t look saved,” Maggie remarked, sneaking cheese out of the grocery bag.

  “It’s a funeral, I think.” Her mom squinted.

  Maggie scrunched her nose in response, a habit she’d had since birth. It was a rabbit-like, pointed little thing surrounded by faint freckles. It was her best feature, in her opinion, and whenever she was uncomfortable she scrunched it. Maybe she had gotten it from her father; she had no way of knowing. It’s not as her mom would answer even if she asked. She had stopped asking.

  She scrunched her nose again like this on Monday when a guidance counselor with massive brown hair handed her another new schedule on another first day. Seriously, her hair was huge.

  “Enjoy your first day at Wilbur Mason!” The counselor beamed.

  “Thanks!” Maggie tried to match her cheer. She must have been unconvincing because the counselor lady gave Maggie an odd sort of look and went on to something else. Maggie had already forgotten her name. She was not great with names.

  She looked down at her schedule with the school name and locker number at the top.

  It would take Maggie a while to remember that name, too: Wilbur Mason High School. Who the heck was Wilbur Mason anyway? Some local politician, she figured. It seemed like high schools usually had some dead man’s name. They all blurred together. Just the way everyone at every school she started thought they were one-of-a-kind, but she’d seen their doppelgangers before. Heck, they even had similar names.

  The coolest guy had good hair, an athletic build, and usually a short name, sometimes a little odd, and masculine, like Chad, Burke, Shaw, etc. The most popular girl had near-perfect teeth, usually blonde, and/or a cheerleader with a name that ended in “ie” or “y”—Stephanie, Brittany, Melanie etc.

  Even the kids who didn’t “fit in” had a perfect match at schools all across the nation—at least one self-proclaimed pagan and someone who always wore black fingernail polish. But that wasn’t all bad. After all, it made the rules simple. Predictable.

  For instance, sometime on day one, Maggie knew she’d spot that guy. He’d be good looking, mysterious in a way, preoccupied with his friends. She’d want to get to know him. That was how it started anyway.

  But this new high school struck her as a depressing place right away, even more so than the average high school.

  The halls were quiet even though it was Homecoming week, according to the banner at the entrance. There was no disgusting amount of streamers in school colors, the lockers weren’t vomiting glitter, and even the cheerleaders looked subdued, their pep definitely lacking before the pep rally.

  It was in the gloomy hall first thing in the morning that she noticed him—the one she’d have a crush on, no point in fighting it. He had dark hair and bright eyes despite his downcast mood. What caught her eyes was the sight of his strong forearms exposed by his rolled-up plaid sleeves. He seemed clean and quiet. Yep, he was the one. She passed by him on her way to locker 327.

  She was used to the stares locked on her every movement, the whispers following her like a shadow, but this time, people seemed to glare.

  She glanced down at her clothing just to see if maybe she was wearing something offensive. Cream sweater, fitted, brown pants, Chuck Taylors. How was that offensive?

  Maggie was standing at her locker, setting her books down on the green-and-white checkered tile floor, when she heard everything fall silent. For a moment, fiddling with the lock, she told herself it was all in her head, but it persisted, until she stopped and looked up.

  The entire hallway was hushed and had turned to watch her.

  How rare was it to get a new student around here? Could it be the hair? She was the only redhead in sight. It was more of a dark red and some dark auburn in her under layers, but classified as red nonetheless. She flung a long red lock behind her shoulder defiantly.

  Among the crowd of twenty or so lingering, she found the sparkling eyes of dark haired guy from earlie
r, but he was staring too, openly glaring, slack-jawed, as if she had just kicked his dog. No, she wasn’t crazy. Even some of the – what were they? Wilbur Warriors or Wildcats or something? – even some of them noticed it, eyeing him and murmuring something she wished she could hear.

  She tried looking back at them, but they still did not look away.

  At that point, a tall, thin teacher walked into the hall, heels clicking, to say something, and stopped short when she spotted Maggie too. The lady looked like she was going to cry.

  Maggie Brennan turned back to her locker, not wanting to snap at everyone on her first day. She was tempted to shout, “What are you looking at?”

  But first impressions were very important, and she did not want to spend her time there as the “yelling girl,” so she bit her tongue.

  Her frustration with her stubborn lock grew. Eagerness to exit the awkward situation caused her hand to slip. he should have the hang of these stupid things by now, but she was prepared to swear they were all a little different—some built in, some hanging, some notches, some round—and she always ended up with the difficult one that was left over.

  The awkward pause lasted only a couple seconds, and then the first bell broke the moment and sent people moving in different directions. It was about this time she usually met the Nice Kid.

  Nice Kid noticed or heard about the New Kid pretty soon. They offered to show where at least one class was and warned about a risky lunch option or a tough teacher. Nice Kid liked helping someone who knew no one, for different reasons. They would normally jump on the chance to help with a locker combination. It was Nice Kid 101.

  Maybe this school with its depressing hallways and apparent hostility to new people didn’t have a Nice Kid, she worried. Maybe this place actually was different.

  Maggie was about to be late to her first class, and to make matters worse, her fate of popularity was foreshadowed when a girl wearing a short cheerleader uniform, with two friends in tow wearing the same, opened and closed her locker nearby and gave Maggie a look. Although Mags couldn’t define it completely before the girl walked away, it was definitely a negative look. Technically, her social status wasn’t sealed until she sat somewhere at lunch, but that look—whatever it was—boded poorly for her chances at the A-team this round.

  Hopefully Nice Kid—if they existed—was not a loser who needed friends. Sometimes they would latch on to her immediately and hang on for dear life. That would make it worse.

  Another bell rang. She surmised it was the warning bell as the nearby classrooms still had open doors and student conversations buzzing within, and by then she was willing to take Desperate Kid and become their new best friend as long as she wasn’t wandering the halls late.

  Again, she looked at her schedule. The first class was math, and it was in room 104. The nearest room looked to be 84. She decided she could try to carry all her stuff the short distance, so she bent over to get them and her backpack swung down, smacking her on the cheek.

  It wasn’t the worst ever start to a new school, but it was bad.

  Just then, she saw shoes next to her as she bent over to lift the books. She held her breath while above her head she heard metallic clicks and then that awful clamor of a locker opening. She exhaled, welcoming the unpleasant sound, and stood to meet who she assumed would be the Nice Kid.

  Instead, she found herself face-to-face with the morose, yet no longer glaring, beautiful-eyed boy.

  “Thanks,” she breathed.

  He simply nodded and walked away.

  She should have left it at that, really. That wasn’t so bad. But that’s when Maggie noticed the schedule with her locker combination was still in her hand, crumpled, where he couldn’t have seen it. “Hey!” she called. “How did you do that?”

  He turned. “That was Amanda’s locker.” His deep voice was thick when he answered, as if it took a lot of effort. “My girlfriend.”

  Maggie just stood there dumbly.

  “They didn’t tell you?” He took a step forward, his smooth voice a little incredulous. “She, um...” It became even lower, thicker. “She died. Last week.”

  “Oh my god.” Maggie slapped herself with her palm, hitting her already pink cheek.

  “I just cleaned it out for her family on Friday—”

  “Oh, my god. No, they-they didn’t say.” It all made sense then.

  “They should have warned you,” he said.

  She looked at the locker as if it were the girl’s new headstone. “They should have given me a different locker.” She felt like she was intruding.

  And then it got worse.

  It wasn’t that she was really sad about it, though it was sad. It was the embarrassment. That always got her. She didn’t tear up during sad movies, but if she got embarrassed, her eyes burned and stung, and the next thing she knew, she was praying the warm pools of water didn’t fall down her burning cheeks into her dimples because that would make it worse. Then when she was introduced to her first class, her nose would be red, swollen, and runny. She’d be known as the weepy girl. The weepy girl. That would be a first.

  Another first: it seemed Nice Kid was none other than beautiful-eyed boy. His concern shifted to her at once. He couldn’t help it; he walked towards her, hand out for no real reason. She tried to shake her head, turn and put her books in, and slam the locker shut.

  “Hey, it’s okay. It’s not your fault,” he tried.

  Great. Pity, the most seductive of all first impressions. Maggie wiped her face angrily.

  “Sorry.” She looked up to explain, but his eyes were shimmering too. Tucking her math book under her arm like a football, she made a swift exit, moving around him. “Thanks. I gotta go,” she blurted as one word.

  Berating and composing herself as she walked quickly down the hall, she heard him call just before the final bell rang: “Have a good first day!”

  And that was how she first met—or did not meet—the dead girl in Masonville.

  Chapter Two

  Unatural Disaster

  “Welcome, Miss Brennan.” The hairy sort of man with a sweet face and an argyle sweater introduced her. He did not ask her to say something about herself or anything stupid. She appreciated it. “She ’s new,” he added, as if that needed to be pointed out.

  “Hey,” she offered, without the big smile that made it look like you were trying too hard. She was practically a professional, after all. “I’m Maggie.”

  She did give a little crooked smile, showing off a dimple before she sat near the front next to the window. Outside this part of the building, everything was green and flat except the sky, which loomed an ugly, churning grey.

  Mags took out a notebook and filled it with the type of notes that always fill the first couple pages of a notebook and are never seen again as the school year sets in. Even though she wanted to, she did not raise her hand on the first day. It was sort of a rule. This was her day to watch.

  There was a delicate and complex social map to memorize, or she would be more lost than just turned around in a hallway.

  After math, the teacher called her over and told her how to get to the science class she had next.

  “Thanks, Mr. Garrett.” She used people’s names a lot at first, a little trick to help her remember them. Mr. Garrett looked like a more handsome version of an English teacher in California named Mr. Walsh.

  “Good luck.” he told her.

  She really wished people would stop saying that as it seemed to be having the opposite effect. Maybe something along the lines of “break a leg” would work better, as her mom liked to use. Her mom said Being a private investigator was a lot like stage acting. Maggie felt she was getting the hang of acting too, in her own way.

  And as a sort of understudy, she knew New Girl only had one more period to find someone to follow to lunch.

  Time was ticking down as she tried to get to her next class without tripping. She had enough on her mind when she saw him on the stairs—the guy with those smo
ldering eyes and dark hair.

  He was walking with friends. She pretended not to see him, heading to science, but he kept looking at her while his friend talked. He probably wanted to see if she was still crying, she thought. She died a little inside again at that thought just as she got to the second floor and found her class.

  The chemistry class was hard, and she didn’t care for the teacher with the high, grinding voice either. Maggie got called on, and when she didn’t give the answer Penderghast wanted, the lady made a comment about her catching up that made Mags want to roll her eyes. No one else seemed to judge, though. They must have been accustomed to Penderghast. She didn’t seem to like anyone else’s answers either.

  In the back, Maggie noticed the unhappy cheerleader from before doodling distractedly in a notebook. This time, the girl looked up and threw her a sympathetic glance. Had she seen the mini meltdown? Or maybe Nice Guy had texted her…maybe the whole school knew already. Super.

  Maggie would find out soon enough; the bell rang for lunch. She could tell without looking at the schedule based on how everyone exited the room—eager to get where they were going. She took a risk that probably no one would remember. She approached the cheerleader, a pretty girl, thin and tallish, with dark olive brown skin and even darker jet black hair. “Hey,” she said.

  “Hi.” The girl seemed surprised, but not yet disgusted. Maggie figured, If you act like you belong and aren’t totally awkward, no one would assume you had the balls to accost popular people if you weren't popular where you came from.

  “I’m Maggie.” Throw that “ie” out there, make her look like one of their own. “Can you point me to the cafeteria?”

  “Sure,” the girl offered brightly. “I have lunch now too, if you just want to follow me.”

  “Cool.”

  The cheerleader started to say something, then stopped. “You mind if we just go straight there?”