Free Hallowed by Bryant Delafosse Page B

slot next to mine.
    “Looks like you’ve become popular,” I observed.
    “Yeah,” he grunted.  “A lot of morbid dudes at this school.”
    I went about the rituals of putting my horn together, then asked, “You’re okay, right?”
    “Me? Yeah.  I’m fine.”
    Figured I should change the subject.  “You gonna take another run at Brent Jacobs after school?”  Brent was first chair cornet.  Good grades.  Student council president.  You know the type. Born to overachieve.
    “That’s today, huh?”  He closed his locker and waited for me to walk out onto the field with him.  “Nah, I better get straight home.  The funeral’s tomorrow and then we have to go to my aunt’s and sit shiva.”
    “Do what?”
    “Sorry, it’s a Jewish thing.  Sit shiva.  It’s the seven days of mourning after the funeral.  Friends and relatives just sorta hang out at the house, y’know, just to keep everyone company.”
    “I didn’t know you were Jewish, Martin?”
    “We are and my aunt is, but Grace didn’t practice.  Not since she left home six months ago.  She was into all kinds of things, just not Judaism.”
    Funny, how I’d kinda assumed everyone was Christian, like my family.  It occurred to me how little I really knew about the world outside my little bubble.
    During marching practice, I kept checking the bleachers for Claudia.  She never showed.  I looked for her during the day, but didn’t see her in the hall once.  I was starting to wonder if she’d even gone to school that day.
    During the course of the day, I began to feel bad about the things I had said to Claudia and regretted letting her walk away Saturday evening.  When the final bell rang, I passed by the counselor’s office to see Mrs. Wicke on the way out to my car.  I was planning on going in and asking if Claudia had stayed home sick, when I saw Claudia herself leaning against the counter in the inner office, staring out into the hallway.  I raised a hand as I passed.  Not only did she ignore me, but she turned her back on me.
    That evening instead of going straight home I went to the library.  If I got home too early, I got sucked into whatever recipe Dad was experimenting with that Monday.  Since he’d been retired, Dad had volunteered to cook every night.  After a couple of weeks of chili and grilled steak, Mom let him off the hook, though she still gave him Monday as his day to go nuts.
    So far, if his success ratio of good to bad was a major league batting average, he would been sent back to the minors.
    When I was done with my geometry and American History homework, I looked up “serial killers” in their system, just for kicks. I figured I should educate myself just in case Grace Fischer’s death was indeed murder and not just Claudia’s paranoia.  In response to my query, I got “See Abnormal Psychology .”  The ones I found were essentially textbooks, as dry and clinical as rubbing alcohol.  So, I resigned myself to trying the Internet.
    When I got over to the pair of ancient computers with internet access, I found Claudia’s dark shape slumped over the first keyboard, her head propped up atop the heels of both hands and eyes cemented to the glowing screen not five inches in front of her.  Since there were only two computers, I pulled out the chair next to her.
    “Let me guess.  You’re avoiding your mother again?”
    She stiffened but refused to look up.
    “This library has absolutely nothing on serial killers.”
    She cocked her head at me and scoffed.  “Of course not.  That’s why I’ve had to build my own collection.”  She sat up and stretched her back out.  “But you didn’t come here to do research, because that would be a waste of time... and gas, right?”
    “I came here to do homework,” I said, ignoring her snipe.  To make my point, I sat my backpack down on the floor with a thump.  “Just curious about this whole serial killer thing, s’all.”
    Continuing to face the monitor,