Riley's Ghost

1

RILEY FLYNN REFUSED TO MAKE THE CUT.

Sure, it was already dead, but she wasn’t about to mutilate it further, impaling its feet with sharp pins, stretching its spindly legs to the corners, exposing its leathery belly to the glinting blade. She knew others around her secretly relished the thought of splaying it, teasing out the organs, slicing its shriveled stomach to see if they could find any leftovers from its last meal. She could see it in their eyes. Sadists. Barbarians. Seventh graders.

They would poke and prod, making faces as they severed its aorta and stabbed it repeatedly in the heart. They would laugh and squeal and fake gag, despite everything they’d been told about self-control and acting their age and respecting the scientific enterprise.

But not her. Riley had gotten out of it. There was a Northridge Middle School permission slip with My son/daughter does not want to participate checked off, and the Amanda Flynn scrawled on the line beneath looked close enough to her mother’s real signature to pass. It looked like the other signatures the school had on file, at least: on permission slips and missing homework forms, on detention slips and on tardy notices, of which there were . . . some. Riley had learned to perfectly imitate her mother’s rushed A’s, lolling N’s, and flourishing capital F. It was a talent of hers. If this whole middle school student thing didn’t work out, she figured she could always drop out and find work as a check forger. And some days this middle school student thing really felt like it wasn’t working out.

Today we start our dissections, Mr. Bardem said, clearing his throat to get the class’s attention. Mr. Boredom, as some kids—not her—had dubbed him, was wearing his lab coat, the one with the too-noticeable mustard stain on the lapel. At least Riley figured it for mustard. Some of the other students had a different theory, except what they were thinking wouldn’t be that yellow. But around here, anything could inspire whispered ridicule; every little past indiscretion, real or rumored, could be dredged up to haunt you while you were walking through the halls. Even teachers weren’t immune.

Honestly, Riley didn’t think Mr. Bardem was that bad. He fell into the category of teachers who no longer liked spending time with kids but had an unkillable passion for their subject that Riley could appreciate. Mr. B could go on for hours about the wonders of evolution and the marvelous machine that is the human body, and don’t even get him started on the carbon atom. Each year he found a few devotees, students who cared about science as much as he did, and that alone seemed to motivate him to make it to summer and come back again in the fall. That and being four years from retirement. Rumor had it he wanted to move to Key West so he could save the sea turtles and write his novel about a middle school science teacher who uses his superior intellect to solve crimes.

Riley was not one of Mr. Bardem’s devotees. Science was fine. Better than math. Not quite as good as language arts. But it certainly wasn’t something she felt passionate about. She was content to just sit quietly in her corner and earn her B without complaint.

At least until the dissection unit came around. Then she decided to stand her ground.

"I’m handing out your kits, which contain your specimen, your tray, and your tools. Do not touch the scalpel until I give you further instructions, understood? I see anyone holding a blade before the frogs are properly mounted and they will be immediately excused from the lesson and sent to Principal Warton."

Some of the students oohed. Others laughed as they repeated the phrase properly mounted. Riley kept her mouth shut. She wouldn’t mind being excused from the lesson, but she certainly didn’t want to see Theresa again.

Being on a first-name basis with the principal wasn’t something to be proud of.

Okay, they weren’t really that close, but she could describe the interior decor of Theresa Warton’s office in detail, down to the tarnished eight-year-old Administrator of the Year award and color of the thumbtacks holding up the cheesy motivational posters on her wall. The one showing the kitten with its head stuck in the glass was her favorite: the poster said PERSEVERANCE, presumably because the kitty was angling for those last drops of milk at the bottom of the glass. To Riley, though, it looked like the poor thing regretted its decision and just wanted to get out.

When you remove your specimen, you may notice a rather pungent odor.

That’s what she said, Chris Winters quipped, low enough so that Mr. Bardem couldn’t hear but everyone within the surrounding tables could, including Riley.

"Could you be any more disgusting?" Grace Turner said, slapping him lightly on the arm.

Riley’s thoughts exactly, except if Riley had said it, she wouldn’t have smiled coyly, and she certainly wouldn’t have added the playful little slap. Grace’s flirting was as subtle as an atomic bomb. Of course, if Riley had said it, Chris would have given her a dirty look and told her exactly what he thought of her opinion—which was that she wasn’t entitled to one. That’s how it had been all year. Grace and her friends had made it clear what they thought of her, and Riley had returned the favor, mostly through cutting side-eyes and behind-the-back gestures of the single-finger variety.

Of course part of the problem was that Grace had friends. More than some. And Riley . . . Riley had a history.

Chris whispered something in Grace’s ear, earning him another arm slap. If the smell of preserved frog didn’t make Riley sick, watching these two stumble through each other’s hormonal fogs would. All around the room, students were prying open their Ziploc bags containing their corpses and dumping them in their wax-lined trays. Riley started breathing through her mouth.

It smells like the fish sandwich they serve in the cafeteria.

Smells like the boys’ bathroom.

Grace pinched her nose and spoke in a nasally whine. "This is actually the grossest thing I’ve ever seen in my life." Actually was Grace’s favorite word. She used it in place of literally because she said she was tired of people using that word wrong, even though she used actually the same way. It drove Riley nuts. Not actually nuts, but almost.

Mr. Bardem told everyone to stop complaining—the smell really wasn’t that bad and they would get used to it, which seemed to Riley to be a much better caption for the stuck kitten poster in the principal’s office: LIFE STINKS. GET USED TO IT.

"The diagram on the board shows how the specimen should be pinned in the tray. Remember to put your gloves on first, and please, please, please, do not stick each other or yourselves with the pins. They will draw blood. Take five minutes to get set up. And Mr. Standler, do not let me see you trimming your bangs with the dissecting scissors again. This is not preschool and you are not four."

Jarret Standler put down his scissors. The girl next to him rolled her eyes. At the next table over, Chris was pretending to be the psychopath in a slasher movie, making screechy violin sounds as he mock murdered his already-dead frog. Riley looked at the empty space on the marble desk in front of her—the only one without a tray and a dead amphibian. Mr. Bardem grabbed a bag from his desk and then circled around the room, checking to make sure that everyone was more or less following directions, making grotesque X’s out of their shriveled frog bodies, ready to slice and dice.

Finally he got to Riley, sitting by herself at the back of the room. I have something for you, he said. He reached into the bag and removed a pair of VR goggles, the black chunky kind that look like something out of a bad 1970s science fiction movie. I was going to just let you do the walkthrough on your laptop again, but this will be a much more immersive experience. As he talked, Mr. Bardem took his phone out of his back pocket and attached it to the goggles, clicking it into place. It’s an app called VR Dissection, he continued. They have all kinds of specimens. Pigs. Cats. Even human cadavers. But I think we will just stick with frogs for today.

He handed Riley the headgear. Suddenly she was acutely aware of the many sets of eyes on her.

Hey, how come she gets to use the cool tech while the rest of us have to futz around with Croakers McCorpsey here? Marcus Colson whined.

You worry about your own performance, Mr. Colson. It should be a full-time job by this point.

That was one reason Riley tolerated this class: Mr. Bardem was at least quick with a burn. Of course Riley was prepared to tell Marcus Colson and anyone who would listen why she refused to do the dissection. How it was unnecessary and wasteful, in the age of modern technology, for seventh graders to chop up dead frogs just to figure out where the liver was located. This VR app she was about to use was proof. If Riley had plans to grow up and become a herpetologist, then maybe an actual dissection would be useful, but how many budding frog scientists were there in this room? Half of these kids probably wouldn’t even make it into college.

Riley fully intended to go to college. Provided she survived middle school. And the four years after that.

Just press play and put the goggles on, Mr. Bardem informed her. Pause it if you need a break. It’s a little slow, but the narrator’s pretty good. He reminds me of James Earl Jones.

Who? Riley asked.

Mufasa? Darth Vader?

Riley nodded. She was going to watch Darth Vader dissect a frog instead of doing it herself. Well worth forging her mom’s signature. Maybe he would use a lightsaber. She put the earbuds in, hoping they’d been sanitized since the last kid had used them, and settled the goggles on her head, pulling her wavy auburn hair through the back. At least she wouldn’t have to watch her fellow classmates make fools of themselves, though she’d hate to miss it if Marcus or Chris or even Grace screwed up and accidentally scalpeled off a finger.

Riley tried to block out reality—she’d had some practice at this—and concentrated on the virtual one before her eyes. Sure enough, after five seconds of elevator music, a nasally version of King Mufasa started narrating: "You are about to take a journey into the inner workings of nature, exploring the biological wonders that make life of all kinds possible . . ."

She sat back in her chair and watched the virtual dissection. It was just as good as the real thing. Probably better. She had close-ups and diagrams and animations and the voice of a Sith lord walking her through it as she panned across her three-dimensional model. Plus she didn’t have to watch Chris and Grace ogle each other. She could just tune them out. Tune them all out.

The center of the cardiovascular system is the heart.

As she watched the digital frog’s heart pump, Riley thought she felt something touch her lips, fleetingly, just a tickle. She swiped them with the back of her hand. There was nothing there, though now she thought she could hear someone laughing just beyond the edge of her earbuds. It was hard to tell over the narrator describing the intricate network of blood vessels coursing through the frog’s body.

Because frogs, of course, are ectothermic, meaning cold-blooded. Unlike humans.

She felt it again, less fleetingly this time. Something cold and clammy pressed to her upper lip. She was sure of it.

Riley pulled the goggles up with one hand to see a dead frog hovering right in front of her face, the silvery membrane clouding its black marble eyes, its thin mouth set in a disapproving frown.

And Chris Winters holding it there, barely containing his laughter.

Oops, he said, making his voice unnaturally throaty and guttural, Kermit the Frog if the Muppet was a heavy smoker. Thought you were a beautiful princess. My bad. He made the frog’s face bounce up and down like it was talking, only an inch from Riley’s own. Laughter rang in Riley’s ears, coming from all directions, at least a dozen people watching.

Riley’s blood boiled. She took a step back, ripping the VR goggles off her head, snagging them in her hair, which only caused her to pull harder. They slipped out of her hands and hit the cement floor with a sickening smack.

Mr. Bardem, who was looking over the shoulders of two students at the front, spun at the sound. The dead frog retreated from in front of Riley’s face, as did Chris, quickly turning back to his table and tossing his specimen into his tray. Riley glared at him, her laser eyes set to disintegrate.

What is going on back there? Mr. Bardem said, clearly annoyed.

Riley looked down at the goggles on the floor with Mr. Bardem’s phone inside, then over at Chris, who was desperately trying to keep a straight face. Heat rose to her cheeks. She was not ectothermic, obviously, though she was tempted to go thermonuclear. She wanted to take that dead frog and shove it straight down Chris’s throat until he choked on it.

She was about to say something to that effect when Mr. Bardem hustled to the back of the room, mustard-stained coat flapping behind him. He wasn’t looking at Chris, though; he was looking back and forth from Riley to the goggles on the floor. The room was silent, all eyes pulled in her direction again. The center of attention. Just never in a good way.

I’m sorry, Mr. Bardem, Riley began. It wasn’t my fault. Chris made his dead freaking frog kiss me and I kind of panicked.

She’s lying, Chris protested. My stupid frog’s lying right there. He pointed.

Mr. Bardem looked at Chris’s dissection tray. His frog sprawled in a heap, belly down. Everyone else already had theirs pinned and was working on the first cut. Riley wasn’t sure what Mr. Bardem had seen, but it must have been enough; he pointed to Chris. You. Out in the hall. Now. And take your backpack. You aren’t returning.

What?

You heard me. Out! Mr. Bardem commanded. He bent down to retrieve the goggles but kept his eyes on Chris, making sure he followed orders. For his part, Chris made sure to kick an empty stool on his way, just in case anyone was unclear how he felt about this clear injustice.

Mr. Bardem removed the phone from the headset and inspected it, sighing in relief. Not even scratched. Riley sighed as well—this would have been the second phone she’d broken this year—though her sigh was tinged with disappointment. If she had to put a wager on it, Riley would say that Mr. Bardem was more worried about his phone’s screen than why she had dropped it in the first place.

"Maybe it would be better for you to stick to the video tutorial," he said, putting the phone back in his pocket.

I didn’t mean to, Riley protested. Seriously, he had that frog right up in my face—

I understand, Ms. Flynn, Mr. Bardem interrupted. And I promise I will deal with Mr. Winters. But you need to be more careful with the school’s equipment. A little dead frog’s not going to kill you.

Riley got the message: Chris was wrong and would be punished for acting like a jerk. But this was middle school: mean and stupid came with the territory. You had to learn to deal. To control yourself. Even when someone did something to tick you off. It was a lesson she should have learned long ago. It just hadn’t stuck yet.

Riley looked at the trays full of specimens pinned in place, waiting to be cut up, pulled apart, to literally spill their guts. She sort of envied them.

At least they couldn’t feel it.

2

SHE HID HER FACE BEHIND HER COMPUTER FOR THE REST OF FIFTH period, the only one with a table to herself. Anyone walking by would have seen she had the dissection video pulled up, but Riley was staring right through it, thinking only about what an apocalyptic a-hole Chris Winters had been, was, and would always be. Every now and then she would wipe her lips on the sleeve of her sweatshirt, hoping nobody would see. She was afraid to lick them, certain she would taste the formaldehyde. She could still feel the frog’s cold dead mouth on hers. It was almost as nasty as the looks Grace Turner continued to sling at her from the next table over.

Just ignore it. She’s not worth it. Be better than that.

That last part was her mom talking. Be better. Be bigger. Just float above it all.

Hard to float when people keep dragging you down.

She closed her eyes and waited for the bell to ring, then quickly made her escape, the first to leave, as everyone else still had to bag up their half-dissected corpses, depositing them in the supply room that Mr. Bardem kept locked because he was afraid some half-wit student would sneak in and try to make magic potions out of the chemicals there and end up drinking hydrochloric acid and needing a stomach pump. It was little more than a walk-in closet lined with metal shelving, now a temporary tomb for a few dozen dead frogs.

Riley ducked out of the room and down the hall and straight into the bathroom, where she quickly washed her face, scrubbing her lips with acrid-tasting soap. Then she slipped into the last stall, still shaking from frustration as the door banged shut. She perched on the back of the toilet, feet on the lid, backpack between them. It was a familiar spot. She’d spent an unhealthy amount of middle school in these stalls, so much so that she had some of the graffiti memorized. Sometimes this was the only place you could go where nobody could see you.

She blotted her eyes with a wad of tissue. It wasn’t even that big a deal. A dead frog can’t kill you. Laughter can’t either. And it’s not as if this was the first time Chris Winters or someone like him had picked on her. Riley had been a target from her first day at Northridge. Sideways glances. Little snickers. Rumors that eventually got back to her. That she was depressed. That she was on medication. That she said nasty things about other people behind their backs, which was ludicrous, really. If she had something to say, she would probably just tell you to your face—one of the reasons she’d spent so much time in Theresa’s office, with its rickety leather chairs and its word-a-day calendar and that poor stuck kitten.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Her mother had insisted that middle school would be different. Bigger. More diverse. More opportunities. Sports. Social events. Clubs. Classes. Dances. Leave it to her mother to see school dances as a selling point: a herd of sweaty teenagers in a stuffy gym with stale cookies and Ed Sheeran on repeat. Riley would rather have her eyeballs pecked out of their sockets by a murder of crows.

Then again, nobody had asked her to go to any of the school dances yet, so it wasn’t really an issue.

Oops. Thought you were a beautiful princess. My bad.

She should have punched him. That’s what she wanted to do. Smack the frog right out of his hand and then wipe the stupid grin off his face with a follow-up right hook. Her dad had taught her how to throw a good punch. Hips and shoulders, get your body behind it, use your weight. She could have bloodied his nose. Except knocking Chris Winters unconscious would undoubtedly have led to a suspension, which would have led to her parents flipping out again. It would have gone on her record. Right below the other things she’d said and done.

Suck it up, she told herself. Stop hiding in the bathroom stall like a coward and get to class before you get into any more trouble.

Riley wiped her nose, then gathered herself together and unlocked the stall. She didn’t realize anyone else was in the bathroom until she saw Naomi Watters, a fellow sevie, standing at the sink inspecting a zit on her chin. Naomi wasn’t a friend by any stretch, but Riley didn’t have anything against her either. Most people in Riley’s life fit neatly into that category.

Um, you okay?

Riley sniffed. I’m fine. She went to the sink and splashed cold water on her face.

Really? ’Cause you look like you’ve been crying.

Cryly Flynn. Cryly