Backwards. Part 5

Still no reaction. He grabbed her wrist and dragged her to the door - or at least to where the door might be. It was hard to see anything now.

He b.u.mped into the kitchen counter and felt along the cabinets, clutching Cat's arm in his other hand. At last they made it out, but Dan still wouldn't let go. He led her down the driveway. Cat resisted. I was afraid she might run back into the house. Did Finn mean so much to her that she'd rather die than be without him?

Dan doubled over, coughing. When he could stand again, Cat was several steps away, staring at the house.

Smoke poured between the cracks in the boards on the windows and under the front door. A few flames licked through a broken window by the porch. Once the fire reached outside, things spread quickly. Flames climbed the shutters, skipping along s.h.i.+ngles to the roof. Dan began to curse. "We have to go," he said.

Cat didn't reply.

Sirens wailed in the distance. "The cops are coming." He tugged her arm. "Cat, come on."

Cat looked at him, orange light glinting off her eyes. "You ruined it," she said. "It's all ruined."

The sound of a screen door slamming rang out from across the street. Dan glanced over, spotting movement on a porch and the glow of a phone.

When he turned back, Cat was running across the field next to the burning house. Dan sprinted after her, but after a block he must have remembered his car because he slowed.

"Cat!" He seemed torn between chasing her and fetching his car.

She kept going. After what he'd done - wrecking her meeting with Finn, attacking him, starting the fire - I couldn't blame her for running away. A police cruiser roared past, and more sirens pierced the quiet dark. Dan finally made up his mind and sprinted back to the road. He ducked into his car, started the engine, and pulled onto a side street.

His vision wavered with every squeeze of his heart. I think he was searching for Cat, but he didn't find her. After a while, he gave up and drove home.

His mom was lying on the couch watching TV when he came in. He hurried down the hall, pretending not to hear her questions about where he'd been. Then he locked himself in the bathroom and doused his head in the sink. He washed his face and hands several times. Still, the smell of smoke wouldn't leave.

By the time the zombie settled down and lost consciousness, it was late.

"Took you long enough," said TR the moment I slipped out. "I've been waiting forever for you."

"I have to find Cat," I said, rus.h.i.+ng past him.

"Nice to see you, too, dude."

I explained that the zombie had burned down a house and I needed to see if Cat was all right.

TR's eyebrows lifted. "That sounds better than my day."

We found Cat curled up in bed. Her eyes were closed, and she kept making this low, strangled, whimpery sound, but I couldn't see any sign of an injury.

"What's wrong with her?" asked TR.

"I don't know," I said. "I think she lost something."

TR frowned. "Like what? A puppy?"

I thought of Finn, only I didn't want to say that was it. Then I remembered the self-portrait she'd destroy tomorrow. "I think she lost herself," I said. "I think that's why I'm supposed to save her."

TR gave me a perplexed look. "Dude, how do you know that's what you're supposed to do?"

"Because the zombie messed things up for her," I said. "So I need to change things."

"How?" pressed TR.

"That's what I have to figure out."

"But how do you know that's what you're supposed to do?" he repeated.

I wasn't ready to tell TR about the message carved into Dan's wall. He'd probably question it or claim it could mean anything. "There has to be a reason I'm here."

TR snorted and drifted about Cat's room, kicking a pile of smoky clothes on the floor. His foot went right through them, not moving a thread.

"This is boring," he said after a while. "Let's jump off a building."

Cat shuddered. I knelt by her, afraid that I'd let her down. What if I was supposed to stop Dan from going into the house and ruining her chances with Finn, and I'd already failed? "I think I'll stay here."

"Whatever." TR looked disappointed. "I'll find you tomorrow. Or yesterday. Or whatever it is." He paused before stepping out and smirked at me. "Good luck trying to save her, dude."

When Dan woke the next morning, the wound on his forehead looked worse. It was like watching a black spot on a banana grow. The faint yellow-and-blue tinge of the bruise had spread around the oblong scab. I probably shouldn't have been eager to find out how Dan had gotten injured - especially since I'd feel it, too - but I couldn't help being curious. The wound looked bigger than I'd initially thought. It might have been healing for a week or two to get to this point. For all I knew, someone really had smacked him with a shovel. But who? And why?

Dan tried, with little success, to get his hair to cover the wound. He ended up wearing a baseball cap to breakfast. The rim of the cap grated against the scab, which sent a jolt of pain through him every now and then - a brisk reminder that the wound was still there.

Teagan greeted him with her usual silent treatment at breakfast. She asked their mom to take her to school again. After some discussion, their mom finally agreed, but not without commenting on how it would make her late. No wonder Teagan felt like a burden.

"Your brother still goes to school, doesn't he?" quipped their mom.

"Unfortunately," said Teagan.

"Is there something going on between you two?"

Good question, I thought, wondering how Dan would field this one, but the zombie simply froze, spoon poised halfway to his mouth.

Teagan looked at him, then glanced away. "No."

His shoulders relaxed.

"It's just so hard to follow in my big brother's footsteps," continued Teagan with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

"Oh, well," said their mom. She gave Teagan a thin smile. "You'll have to make your own footsteps, then. Right?"

Teagan rolled her eyes and headed to the car.

After downing the rest of his breakfast, Dan returned to his room. He looked at the calendar, with its lame advice on courage. Then he lifted up the bottom half, as he'd done the other day. I almost didn't read the words etched in the wall since I already knew what they'd tell me. SAVE HER. But what if I couldn't save her? What if I'd missed my opportunity?

At first, I didn't believe his eyes. Dan dragged his fingers over the words, feeling the coa.r.s.e scratches in the drywall that formed them. This wasn't possible. There hadn't been anything else etched into the wall before - no crossed-out words or s.p.a.ckle filling in previous messages. The calendar was in the exact same place where it had been, or would be. So how on earth could the message have changed? It was carved into the wall, for G.o.d's sake.

He released the calendar and made sure it covered the words. That was the other strange thing - Dan didn't act the least bit surprised that the message had changed. Then again, in his world, maybe it hadn't changed at all.

School that morning pa.s.sed in an uneasy blur. I kept thinking about the new message, and what it could mean.

The only thing I knew for sure was that things were different. Something I'd done had caused the zombie's past to s.h.i.+ft, if only slightly. How else could words carved into a wall transform? So maybe the messages were clues about what I should do. It would have been nice, though, if the clues could have been more specific. For all I knew, "Fear will cause what you fear" meant that my aversion to mucus would cause the zombie to pick his nose.

Things didn't get interesting at school until after lunch, when Dan went to biology cla.s.s. He sat in a different seat from the one he'd sat in the other day and stole glances at the door while pretending to draw in his notebook. At last, Cat walked in, wearing a green skirt, striped tights, and a purple long-sleeved T-s.h.i.+rt with black cats on it. I loved her style. While everyone else dressed like dull imitations of store mannequins, Cat wasn't afraid to be wholly original.

She sat near the front of the room, which was also different. Once cla.s.s started, Mr. Huber read names off a list and pointed to tables where students were supposed to go for their lab groups. I already knew where everyone would end up.

After students settled into their "new" seats, Mr. Huber lectured about proper dissection techniques and how lucky they were to get to work with real frogs tomorrow. He threatened a pop quiz on the five main systems of the body if people didn't pay attention, but I knew he was bluffing. He'd dedicate the whole period tomorrow to slicing open frog bellies and scolding students for chucking livers and eyeb.a.l.l.s at one another.

Dan surrept.i.tiously watched Cat during cla.s.s, but her attention stayed fixed on Finn. He sat at the table in front of her now, whispering to Kendra - the blond girl in his lab group.

The muscle on the side of Cat's jaw flexed as she watched Kendra and Finn together. At one point, Finn turned in his seat and noticed Cat staring. He gave her a warm, welcoming smile, as if he'd been waiting all day to see her and no one else mattered. He even winked, but Cat didn't wink back. She looked upset. Did she think Finn was flirting with Kendra?

I remembered the conversation I'd overheard in the house and how Finn would tell Cat that he didn't feel the same way about her that she did about him. And now here he was, winking at her. No wonder she was confused.

Later, when Kendra went to sharpen her pencil, she slowed by Cat's table. "Give it up," she said, in a voice loud enough for half the cla.s.s to hear. "He'll never be interested in a freaky s.l.u.t like you."

Before I could see Cat's reaction, Mr. Huber called Dan to the front to get his group's lab a.s.signment. He pa.s.sed behind Cat on the way back. She looked pale and forlorn. It's not true, I wanted to tell her. You're better than Kendra. You're better than all of them. But Dan said nothing What if I'm supposed to help Cat win over Finn? I wondered. That could be the way to save her.

The thought tormented me. Finn seemed like a great guy. I could understand why Cat liked him, but how was I supposed to help them be together? Even if I could influence Dan into doing that, why would he? And why would I, since I wanted to be with her myself? It wasn't fair. Then again, if I was too selfish or jealous to help her, something bad might happen to Cat. Like the wall said, fear of losing her could cause her to be lost.

It wasn't until last period, during history cla.s.s, that I got to see Cat again. Mrs. Pepper let Dan go to the library to work on a research project. It was my first time in the library, and the place brightened my mood. The zombie barely looked up, but the room felt airy and open - a pleasant change from the claustrophobic cinder-block cla.s.srooms.

Dan leaned over a sign-in sheet on the front desk and wrote his full name, Dan Franklin, followed by the time, cla.s.s, and the reason for his visit. Then he checked the other names signed in, spotting Cat Slater a few lines above his.

She's here! I thought, sinking deeper into Dan. I focused on urging him to look for her.

Several tables occupied the center of the room, but Cat wasn't working at any of them. Dan glanced at the sign-in sheet again. She'd only arrived five minutes before, and the "Time Out" column was blank, so she must still be in the library.

Dan wandered the perimeter, checking study carrels while pretending to search for a book.

"Can I help you find something?" asked Mrs. Gilbert, the librarian.

"No," he mumbled. "I'm good." He slid out an oversized volume wrapped in plastic and held it up for Mrs. Gilbert to see.

"Take a seat, please," she said. "This isn't a gym."

Dan glanced around the library one last time and shuffled to an empty table near the exit. Smart. Cat would have to walk by him to leave. He leaned back and pretended to read the book he'd chosen. The Heroes of D-Day. A black-and-white photo of soldiers charging up a beach graced the cover. He thumbed through the pages, pausing at some of the pictures: young men, packed into boats, looking scared and seasick; soldiers wading through breaking waves, holding their rifles above their heads; other soldiers, crawling over corpses to get a little farther up the beach. Maybe he wanted to be like the men in the photos, risking his life for a cause, and that's why he'd followed Cat into the house. The soldiers were nearly the same age as him. And like so many of the men in the book, he'd die an early death. Only for what?

More students filtered into the library. They huddled around the sign-in sheet, whispering and snickering. Kendra, Bella, and Laney - three popular juniors I'd seen together in a few of Dan's cla.s.ses - were among them. Dan buried his head in his book, trying to ignore them.

It was hard to ignore their whispers, though. After a few minutes, I got the sense that they were talking about Dan. He stared at a photo of a makes.h.i.+ft grave marker consisting of a soldier's helmet perched on a gun, but his eyes wouldn't focus. Every time he glanced up, people looked away.

Finally, near the end of the period, Cat emerged from the stacks. A hush descended on the room as she strode to the front desk to check out some books. There she is, I whispered. Go talk to her.

Dan fidgeted and his pulse quickened. He ducked behind the book, watching as Cat leaned over the sign-in sheet. Then her face fell slack, and she dropped the clipboard. The board hit the desk with a smack that echoed through the room.

Someone stifled a laugh.

Cat hurried toward the exit, leaving her books behind.

Say something, I urged. This is your chance.

Cat pa.s.sed Dan, not even looking at him. She was already to the door.

Come on!

"Wait," Dan sputtered. I think he meant to whisper, only it came out much louder. Several students giggled.

Dan edged between Cat and the door. "I need to talk to you," he said. "It's important."

"Don't." Cat bit her lip and glanced over her shoulder. More people seemed to be watching. "Don't do this now."

He kept blocking the door. "I just want to talk."

"s.l.u.t!" coughed Kendra.

Bella and Laney coughed words as well, as if it were a sick compet.i.tion to see who could say s.l.u.t the most.

Cat's jaw trembled. I realized their insults were directed at her.

Dan reached for her. "Cat -"

"Leave me alone!" She pushed past him and hurried into the hall.

Dan seemed about to go after her when Mrs. Gilbert's voice cut across the room. "Dan Franklin!" she called. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

He glanced back, confused.

"You need to return your book to the reshelving cart and sign out," said Mrs. Gilbert. Then she glared at the center tables, where students were still fake-coughing. "Is something going on here?"

"No, Mrs. Gilbert," said Bella. She cleared her throat. "It's just allergies."

Mrs. Gilbert nodded, satisfied that the students were quieting down. I couldn't believe it. She knew - everyone knew - that Kendra and Bella and the others were taunting Cat, but no one said a word to stop it.

Sweat rolled down Dan's sides. He put his book away and strode to the main desk to sign out. When he saw the clipboard, he froze.

Someone had changed his last name on the sign-in sheet from Franklin to Frankenstein. And they'd changed Cat's name to Cat-Lip. Next to this, filling the margins of the sheet, was a crude drawing of the Frankenstein monster, complete with head wound, embracing a girl with an exaggerated scar on her lip.

People had written things around the figures like Bride of Frankenstein and s.l.u.t wh.o.r.e. There were worse names scrawled there, but I had trouble reading them. Dan's eyes blurred, and a nauseating mixture of anger and pain made his chest ache. It looked like everyone who'd signed in had added something cruel to the page.

He tore off the sign-in sheet and crumpled it in his hand. Several people burst out laughing, but the blood rushed so hard through Dan's head, it was difficult to hear them. He marched to Kendra's table.

"Frankenstein angry," quipped Bella.

Kendra looked up, feigning innocence. "Did your girlfriend leave already? I guess she's only interested in guys who are still on the team."

The zombie clenched his jaw and glared at her, but what could he say? He was the reason they were taunting Cat, and the more he defended her, the worse he'd make things.

"Are you going to fight me, Frankenstein?" Kendra teased.