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25
Everything returns to normal.
Chiefs.
Gremlins.
Detentions.
Even now, to me, Hallowe’en feels like a strange and particularly vivid dream.
But it had been reality, right? The rituals, the dancing,the unbroken leg…
I run my hand over my head, over the black beanie Danny lent me.
Danny glances at me carefully.
“Maybe you should see someone.”
“What, like a therapist?”
“No, I mean…” His mouth turns up at the corners. “Like a hairdresser.”
“Sure. Because Lochkelvin ispoppin’with the most prestigious stylists money can buy.”
“I once sheared a sheep on my uncle’s farm. It can’t be too different?”
It’s easier than I think, wearing the hat in school. I’d assumed the teachers would flip out, but there must have been discussions, because none of them mentions anything or punishes me for the unusual headwear. The worst that happens to me involves, as always, Rory’s gremlins. They’re always trying to flip the beanie off my head to see the horror of what lies beneath. One of them gets inventive during lunch, managing to hook a bent paperclip through the fabric of my hat, using a length of string to launch it into the air. They almost get away with it, but I clamp the hat down firmly against my ears and growl at them.
Rory lets them do what they want to me, and they seem to have upped the ante since Hallowe’en.
They already thought I’d been faking my injury. My healed leg is now proof of my fakery.
Now that I can miraculously walk again, the gremlins have taken it as fair game to torture me every day. Tripping me up becomes their favorite sport, along with demanding what I saw in the forest.
But I’m not sure Rory encourages it deliberately. Anytime I see him in the halls, he’s wearing a troubled expression. His gaze flits past mine, like he doesn’t even noticeme.
When I resume my detentions with Dr. Moncrieff, I finally understand why.
“They’re going to announce a general election.” Dr. Moncrieff couldn’t look any happier. He’s practically beaming from ear to ear. “We might finally get someaction.”
He’s so giddy about the election that the facade of theobjective politics teachercrumbles in a heartbeat.
“We?”
Dr. Moncrieff can’t contain his smirk. “It’s looking like the only way Munro will get a majority is if he makes a deal with one of the minority parties. Which will add, shall we say, anunexpecteddynamic to democratic proceedings. Although, of course, a lot can happen during the election campaign…”
As I mull this over, I hear Oscar Munro’s voice on the radio for the first time. There’s a twang to his overly clipped English accent that makes him instantly identifiable as a relation of Rory’s.
“At every opportunity, my party has been impeded by those with questionable intentions,” he declares, sounding grave. His voice is authoritative and bell-like, similar to Rory but with more gravitas and no hidden, secret glee. No. Oscar Munro does not sound like a gleeful person at all. “If this government fails to comply with the will of the people, then I have no option but to take advice on the government’s future.”
“I heard what happened to you,” Dr. Moncrieff tells me later, as we shelve books faster than we ever have all term. With my leg healed, I’m zipping around the library, taking thousands of steps like it’s no big deal. “Arabella rescued you?”
There’s an undisguised fondness in his tone that makes me want to wretch.
“Yeah. I guess.” If that’s what chopping off all my hair and forcing me to wear Danny’s totally stylish beanie is. A rescue.
Oh, yeah, and telling me to be thankful for her.
