It took me a minute to find my own locker—because I didn’t recognize it. It had practically been turned into a shrine. Ribbons looped around the bare metal. Dried flowers were stuck through the vents. Cards and notes were taped to every inch of its surface—“Missing You,” “Come Home Soon,” a heart cut out of construction paper with MISS U AMIE written on it in loopy cursive that looked like a kindergartener’s. Someone had even taped a picture of me with sequins glued in the shape of a heart around my face. Where the photo had come from, I had no idea. Pre-Oz Amy glared balefully out at me in her dirty thrift-store jeans, ready for a fight.
The whole thing made me sick. I wanted to pull the cards and flowers off my locker and throw them to the ground, trample them into scraps. None of these people had given a shit about me until they thought I was dead. Until I’d given them an excuse to feel sad, important, useful. Until I’d finally done something interesting by getting myself killed. My stomach turned over and I flipped my lock through its old combination, the numbers coming to me effortlessly. The more things change, the more they stay the same, I thought bitterly.
“Do you like it? I’m the one who organized the decorating committee.”
No matter how much time I spent in Oz, I’d never forget that voice. I turned slowly. “Hi, Madison,” I said. I mean, what else was I supposed to say?
My mouth dropped open when I saw her. Pregnant Madison was now new-mom Madison, and she beamed with pride at me over the wrinkly faced infant strapped to her chest in one of those weird baby slings that always look like they’re designed to suffocate the kid. Baby or no baby, she was still Madison. She was wearing a hot-pink sequin-covered crop top that bared a surprisingly toned postbaby belly, pink velour track pants with a huge, glittery pink heart over her ass, and pink platform sneakers. She also smelled intensely of strawberry body spray and her lips were slicked with a thick coat of pink gloss.
“If it isn’t Amy Gumm, back from the dead,” she said. “We all thought you were a goner, you know.” She giggled. “Of course, once you weren’t around for a while—you know, I almost missed you. Almost. This is Dustin Jr., by the way.” She patted the baby, who made a burbling noise. Madison’s baby was downright ugly. Then again, I guess most new babies are. He looked like a little old man who couldn’t find his dentures. His cheeks were too fat and his face was squashed-looking, as if someone had stepped on his head. Plus, he was bald as an egg. But I felt bad for him. It wasn’t his fault that his mom was the biggest bitch in Kansas—well, second biggest, now that I was back.
Anyway, I’d long since learned I could tackle bitches way bigger than Madison Pendleton of Flat Hill. Although come to think of it, Madison was as fond of sparkly pink crap as Glinda. Maybe when you signed up for Super Evil Archenemy status somebody sent you a gallon of glitter body spray. Or maybe everybody evil just had the same tacky taste. Either way, I was apparently going to be cursed with a glittery pink nemesis everywhere I went.
“He’s, uh, really cute,” I said. This lying thing was getting easier and easier, wasn’t it? I’d slayed monsters in Oz—she’d just given birth to one.
She smiled, and weirdly, it wasn’t her usual cat-about-to-chomp-down-on-the-canary grin. It was a real smile—almost tender. She looked down at Dustin Jr. and stroked the top of his bald head gently with one finger. “I know,” she said blissfully. “It’s kind of crazy how much stuff can change in a month.”
“Tell me about it,” I muttered. I looked back at my locker. “Thanks for, uh, all this,” I said. For some reason, Madison was not moving.
She shrugged. “I mean, it was the least I could do, you know? I know we didn’t always get along, but I didn’t want for you to, like, die. Honestly . . .” She trailed off, chewing at one pink-manicured nail. I raised an eyebrow. “Honestly, I guess I was kind of a bitch to you sometimes,” she said in a rush. “I mean, you made it easy, you know? You were pretty shitty to me, too. And you kept going after my boyfriend.”
“I did not!” I protested.
She rolled her eyes. “Please,” she said. Her voice took on a high-pitched note. “‘Oh, Dustin, of course I’ll do your algebra. Oh, Dustin, let me tutor you.’ You weren’t even trying to be subtle.”
“He kept asking,” I said.
“Dustin’s not very smart,” Madison said. “But he knows a sucker when he sees one.”
I stared at her, not sure whether to laugh or hit her. Was Madison—in her own weird, mean, Madison way—trying to be friends with me? By making fun of her jock boyfriend? I’d always had a soft spot for Dustin—she was right about that. But she was also right that he wasn’t exactly the brightest bulb in the chandelier.
“Look,” she said, shrugging again. “When you disappeared like that I realized that you’re, like, one of the only interesting people around here. It was boring without you, Sal—Amy.” She popped her finger back in her mouth again, chewing away at her nail and grinning at me. “Gonna be late for homeroom. See you around,” she said, and sauntered away as Dustin Jr. trailed spit down her shoulder.
So that was pretty weird. But it was nowhere close to the weirdest thing that would happen to me that day.
NINE
Mr. Strachan had given my mom my old schedule, and in each classroom, the story was the same. A loud buzz of chatter would die down immediately as soon as I walked in the door. Everyone—and I mean everyone—would turn to look at me as I slunk toward my seat, doing my best to pretend I was invisible. A few seconds later, the talk would start again—this time, low whispers I wasn’t meant to hear, although I couldn’t help catching some of it. “Went crazy and . . .” “Totally ran away with some guy, just like her mom . . .” “Was blackout drunk for, like, the entire month and then lied about being in a hospital . . .” Okay, so nobody bought the hospital story. Too damn bad. I sat with my back straight and my eyes fixed on the front of the room, I wrote down my homework assignments, and I spoke when I was spoken to—which was never, conveniently leaving me plenty of time to think about how I was going to start my search for the shoes. Even my teachers wouldn’t meet my eyes. Whatever, I thought. It’s not like I had friends before either. At least this time no one was throwing food at me, or yelling “Get those shoes at Kmart, Salvation Amy?” as I tried to slink by. Being a total pariah had its definite advantages.
At lunch, I made my way through a cloud of silence that followed me across the room and exploded into hissing whispers the moment I passed. I kept my head high and my back straight, pretending I was walking across Dorothy’s banquet hall. I found an empty table by the window at the far corner of the cafeteria and pulled my sandwich out of the paper lunch bag my mom had packed for me. A scrap of paper fluttered to the floor, and I recognized my mom’s loopy cursive when I bent down to pick it up. I love you, Amy. I’m so glad you’re home.
Notes in my bag lunch? She was working her way up to Oscar material for her new role as Concerned and Caring Mom. But even as I tried to shrug off her effort, some part of me was seriously touched. I remembered the mom who’d baked a cake for my ninth birthday party and poured me a bucketful of Sprite to drown my sorrows when no one showed up. But I couldn’t think like that, I reminded myself. I couldn’t. I tucked the note in my jeans pocket.