Upstander by James Preller (free ereaders .TXT) 📕

living on his own. Yet Mary’s imagination kept her mind racing at night—a nervous, stressed feeling she couldn’t push aside. She woke up in the morning and felt tired. Everywhere she turned, Mary felt disconnected, as if she were fading into the background, as if she were absorbing the colors and designs of the carpets and wallpaper. Could she become a ghost, too? How come no one saw her, really saw her, anymore?

Mary felt increasingly invisible in her own home, a chameleon morphing into the background. There was a movie Ernesto had told her about, something about body snatchers, where pods grew in people’s basements, garden sheds, attics. Eventually the pods slipped in and took the ordinary person’s place. It’s not like the pods killed the regular people—it was more of a transformation. The movie didn’t make total sense, at least in Ernesto’s retelling. You had to go with it, Mary guessed. A lot of movies were that way. Anyway, the pod change was a gradual unbecoming, an unraveling of self, but mostly it was like death, because the original person—we’ll call her Mary, for example—just slowly disappeared like a shadow drifting across a meadow into the dusky woods beyond. Mary longed for the start of school, the busyness of classes and crowded hallways, the sea of faces and the routine of nightly homework. A new beginning, a student’s annual do-over. The summer was too long, too hard. She thought of the boy on the basketball court, his sleeveless shirt and thick eyebrows. That ball thumping on the asphalt like a heartbeat. Or did that rhythm come from within the cage of her own chest?

Water splashed on Mary’s back. She lifted her head. It was Alexis, kneeling at the edge of the pool. She smiled, flashing a tidy row of white teeth. “Are you going to stay in there forever, Mary? Chrissie’s mom brought out wraps for lunch. Come join us, sweetie. We have so much to talk about.”

Chrissie laid out a colorful quilt, and the friends picnicked on the grass. Wraps and grapes and homemade brownies. A cold pitcher of sweetened iced tea to wash it all down. “You should have seen the house, Mary, it was sick!” Alexis gushed. “There were, like, I don’t know how many rooms. Outdoor decks on three different levels. You should have come—it was huge.”

Should have come? That was an annoying thing to say. Mary wasn’t invited.

Alexis prattled on, talking about hipster-themed restaurants and hot tubs and swimming in the ocean at night. “It’s so scary, the way the dark waves roll in, but I loved it so much. The stars twinkling in the night sky, so freaking gorgeous. Have you ever swum in the ocean at night?”

Mary had not.

“You should,” Alexis said.

“Maybe someday,” Mary replied. Her mood was flat. She wasn’t being any fun. What was wrong with her?

“And what about you?” Chrissie asked.

“Kind of boring, quiet,” Mary answered. “My brother moved out, which is good, I guess. Definitely less drama. And I made a couple of paintings that are pretty good.”

“You’re so talented,” Alexis cooed.

Mary paused to look at her for a moment, wondering if there would be anything else. Like what the paintings were about or what they looked like. But nothing. Mary told them about hanging out with Griffin and his friends—and without going into details, how she definitely wasn’t into him anymore.

Alexis squinched her nose in sympathy. “He doesn’t seem like your type. What about Pat? He has potential.”

Mary made a face, signaling she didn’t have any interest in Pat or matchmaking in general. “How’s Project Hakeem coming along?” she asked, shifting the conversation into new territory. “I suppose you couldn’t make much progress while you were away.”

Chrissie exchanged a look with Alexis. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“We’ve been communicating,” Alexis admitted. “And, actually, there’s a snag.”

“With Chantel,” Chrissie said.

“We have an idea,” Alexis stated.

“But we need your help,” Chrissie said.

Whoa. Now they were finishing each other’s sentences like a pair of psychic twins. And if that wasn’t weird enough, now they had concocted some kind of diabolical, mad-scientist plan. “Okay,” Mary said. Not an okay that meant yes. It was more an okay that meant, okay, I’m listening.

Except Alexis and Chrissie didn’t hear it that way. They heard agreement.

“Oh good!” Alexis said.

“We knew you’d save us!” Chrissie said, unexpectedly lurching forward to give a hug at the same time Mary was reaching for the grapes. They bumped heads. It kind of hurt, but Mary laughed to cover the pain.

Mary asked, “What’s the problem with Chantel?”

“She’s been flirting with Hakeem,” Chrissie said. “Sending him pictures, the works. It’s out of bounds.”

Mary blinked, trying to take it in. “I’m surprised. Are you sure?”

“We know what we know,” Chrissie said.

Alexis nodded. “We need to teach her a lesson.”

“I don’t—” Mary held up her hands. “Like how?”

“We were thinking. You know how she has that goldfish pond in her backyard?” Alexis said.

“Yeah, I think so,” Mary said. “Orange carp.”

“She loves those fish—it’s so stupid,” Chrissie said.

“What if we … did something to it?” Alexis wondered.

Mary sat in silence, deciding if they were serious. Did something? Chrissie looked at Mary, waiting.

“Wait, you want to kill some fish?” Mary asked.

Maybe it was the incredulous look on Mary’s face. Or the shock of hearing those words out loud, spoken in that tone, bouncing back at them. It sounded awful, unthinkable—despite the fact that, obviously, they had already thought about it. Alexis pulled both hands through her hair, “No, no! That’s a terrible idea. We’re totally not killing fish!”

Chrissie snorted, “Of course not, ha, ha!”

“Because that would be, like, serial killer–type behavior,” Mary said. “Jeffrey Dahmer stuff.”

“Who’s that?” Chrissie asked. “Is he in our grade?”

“Some guy who killed people and ate them,” Mary said. “He had issues. There’s a graphic novel and a movie.”

“Cool,” Chrissie said.

Mary blinked at that response. A slow blink, like one of those old dolls that clicked when you shut the eyes. Eyes open, shut, pause, open again. Performed with the dim hope