Havoc & Happiness

Chapter One

I

t’s the first day at my new school, and so far I’ve checked off every plot point from the opening scene of a teen movie. Met the principal and had my own file read to me, conveniently filling in my backstory? Check. Got stared at in the halls, hopefully because I’m new and not because there was toilet paper on my shoes? Check. Teacher pronounced my name wrong so I conveniently had to repeat it for the audience? Check. And now here we are, three classes under my belt, readying for the most classic of all high school stereotypes: lunch.

Between the amount my mom moved when I was a kid and bouncing around foster homes after she died, this isn’t exactly my first rodeo. That’s not to say it didn’t occur to me, briefly, to just eat my lunch in a bathroom stall, but I’m here for the long haul so I might as well get it over with now. I scan the area, debating which table to sit down at. This could define the rest of my year. I want small but not too small, hopefully with a connection from earlier in the day that I can exploit.

Except this is probably the first time I’m actually starting a new school on the first day of class in September, and that’s making things muddy. There’s a lot of milling around and people moving from table to table, and most people are clearly drifting around, catching up after summer vacation. I don’t want to interrupt that energy, since I’ll be worse than left out of a group bonding session, but I also don’t want to stand here with my reheated lunch like an idiot any longer, so . . .

I pick a table based solely on the fact that I kind of recognize one of the guys from my history class. He’s got shaggy dark brown hair and skin that almost matches the off-cream walls of the cafeteria, paired with a leather jacket and a bit of a smirk. He seems like more of a bad boy than I usually hang out with, but he also clocks me with something like recognition, and he’s in a group of two that doesn’t look like a couple. I throw caution to the wind, doing the head nod as I walk over. He head-nods back and then glances at the empty bench seating in front of him, like he’s not invested enough to actually ask me to sit, but won’t mind if I do. I slide in.

We have history, right? I ask. I’m quite the exciting conversationalist.

Yup, he says. Ooh, he could give me a run for my money.

Michaela.

Cade.

Head nods abound. Is this going well? I can’t tell.

I’m Nadia, the girl next to him volunteers. She’s got a really sweet, almost round face, but with a hint of steel in her dark dreamy eyes. She’s carefully put together, with clothes that scream, I got this in New York, bright gold jewelry that offsets her dark black skin, and a mass of thick braids caught in an elaborate knot at the side of her head. I hope she’s better at this whole talking thing than Cade and I have proved so far. Are you new? Yes! She’s kicking verbal butt already.

Yeah, I just moved here from Nebraska.

No shit? Cade volunteers.

None, I agree, which makes Nadia laugh.

Why Bozeman? she asks.

It’s one of the top ten greatest towns in the U.S., I say. I literally picked it based on a Google search of the best small towns in the country, but they both think I’m joking, so I go with it. Someone has to show me the scenic foothills.

We’re surrounded by mountains, Nadia says. Was there one the guidebook suggests is especially more scenic?

Any mountain will do, I say with a dismissive wave. I’m not one of those scenery snobs.

What classes are you in? Nadia asks, and I dutifully hand over my schedule. We pour over it together, Cade volunteering the odd quip here and there, while Nadia gives me the low-down on my teachers. It turns out Nadia and I share three classes, Cade and I two. That smells good, Nadia adds half-way through the conversation, and she snags a forkful of my red beans and rice. She chews and nods.

My mother stopped making me lunch when I was like ten, Cade snorts.

I made it myself, I retort proudly.

Way to go, Martha.

How’s your pizza? I counter. Looks soggy.

Nadia smirks as Cade rolls his eyes. She pokes her salad. Blame our cafeteria. Look at this! Nadia holds up a soggy piece of lettuce before dropping it. It’s gross. I think this tomato is already decomposing.

Cade picks up the offending tomato and hurls it experimentally upward. It hits the ceiling and sticks. We all kind of stare at it, expecting it to fall . . . but it just hangs there. Everyone laughs.

I’m going rogue, Cade declares, and steals his own forkful of my lunch. He makes a face. That smells way better than it tastes, he complains through a half-chewed mouthful.

I like it, Nadia says.

You’re wrong, Cade says.

I like it too, I say.

You’re equally wrong.

Nadia flicks a piece of carrot at his face, which he dodges easily.

You might not want to start something you can’t finish, he warns, and she holds up her hands in surrender.

I’ll finish for you, a voice purrs, and I turn to see someone leaning over Nadia. They have long black hair past their shoulders, and a scattering of freckles over their slightly tanned skin. I blink and look again. The long hair made me think they were a girl, but their jaw is really cut. Their clothes are so androgynous I have absolutely no idea, which is something I wasn’t expecting to see in Montana. I’m immediately impressed; it takes courage to be yourself in high school. Maybe I won’t have to worry so much about people finding out I’m pan.

Cade glowers at the newcomer. Hey Devin. Get any good STIs this summer? he asks.

Devin smiles, as if the insult is a friendly one. I know safe sex is as foreign to you as regular bathing, Cade, but some of us have standards. They double-cheek kiss Nadia, who returns the ritual affectionately.

How was the lake house? Nadia asks.

You should have come. It was a riot. Rose and Jasmine got smashed on coolers, and Rose threw up in Jasmine’s purse. I thought for sure she’d be sitting at the reject table this year, but somehow she seems to have recovered. They wave a hand at a table near us, where four cute girls are comparing manicures. I know Rose from my science class this morning—she abandoned her lab partner and came to work with me because her partner was her ex-boyfriend, who she told me, can fend for himself since he’s so good at helping himself when I’m not around. She talked pretty much non-stop for the entire class—and not about science—but she seemed nice.

Wish I could have gone. The parents went on a whole Roots voyage, dragged me to . . . Nadia shudders. Canada.

I mentally downgrade the capital r and chide myself for preconceived assumptions. I met a Canadian once, I volunteer. She kept claiming she was a refugee, but I don’t think she was.

You can’t be a refugee from another state, Cade says.

Let me guess—you spent geography class lighting something on fire? Devin asks.

You totally can’t, Cade objects.

It’s a different country, you tool, Nadia says with an eyeroll.

I know, Cade says, and everyone lets it slide.

I know everyone, Devin says to me, and I don’t know you. How is this possible?

Michaela. I just moved here.

From Nebraska, Nadia says.

Devin shudders. The only thing worse than Montana is Nebraska. I can’t wait to move to L.A..

Oh yeah? What do you want to do in L.A.? I ask.

Be young and rich? Devin suggests.

Please. You’d barely be upper-middle-class in L.A., Nadia says. I’d rather be a big fish in a small pond than a tiny nothing in L.A..

Like I would stay nothing for long, Devin scoffs. With this bone structure?

You could definitely be a model, I agree, and then wince and wonder if that came off as trying too hard. These kids are nice, and I don’t want to mess it up.

So, Nebraska, Devin says, inserting themself onto the cafeteria bench between Nadia and Cade. Nadia slides down a bit, but Cade just growls, which leaves him pressed up against Devin so close they look like they’re dating. Neither budges. Why Bozeman? Do your parents work at the university?

No, it’s the greatest—

—small town in America, Cade and Nadia finish with me. We all laugh.

Oh, sure, Devin agrees with one perfectly raised eyebrow. There’s the university, the museums, the creepy disappearances, the skiing . . .

Creepy disappearances? I ask. I’m pretty sure they’re joking . . . but Nadia kind of goes quiet, and Cade gets a glint in his eyes.

Haven’t you heard? Cade asks. It’s been happening all over the city. No one knows exactly when it started—no one knows when it will end.

They disappear from their locked houses. Devin takes up the thread. Their voice is pitched low, deliberately creepy. It sends a shiver up my spine. They disappear on the walk to work. No sign of struggle—no sign of blood. Just . . . gone.

They say it’s Simple Paul, Cade says, and Nadia smacks him.

It isn’t funny! she complains. My neighbor disappeared. She has two kids! She turns her attention to me, totally earnest, and my heart kind of plummets when I realize they aren’t kidding around. Single mother. She comes home from work one night, and when her kids get up in the morning for school . . . no one’s there. She’s just gone!

Simple Paul got her, Cade insists, and I rise to the bait.

Who’s Simple Paul?

He was the kid of some farmers, back in the eighteen-hundreds, Devin explains. Their voice is careful, cold, precise. Probably had Downs, but in those days everyone just called him ‘simple Paul, the farmer’s boy.’ He was a local nobody until a string of creepy murders.

Aren’t all murders creepy? I point out, laughing.

One woman strangled on her way home from church. Broad daylight, but no one hears a thing. Three days later, a dude drowns in a well he’s lived beside all his life, Cade says, with lightly less pomp than Devin and an easy shrug. People said it was the Devil’s work, Satan was in the village, whatever.

Devin starts up again, doing a much better job of freaking me out with their smooth storytelling cadence. And then this sweet little girl claimed to have seen Simple Paul by the well, the day the farmer was killed. Soon the baker’s wife remembered seeing him leaving the church before the service was over . . .

So a bunch of people lynched him, Cade interrupts.

I shiver, and Devin grins with macabre good humor. Hung him on a tree in the graveyard while his mother cried. But then the day after . . . another woman was found dead.

It wasn’t him? I gasp. I’m a bit ashamed of how caught up I am in this local legend.

Indeed, it was not. Devin pops a carrot from Nadia’s salad into their mouth and chews deliberately. Some farmer was caught trying to kill a teen on her way home from school. She got away. He was arrested, tried, and hung.

But they say Simple Paul still haunts Sunset Hills, Cade says, with a spooky shrugging of his eyebrows. Seeking justice . . . seeking revenge . . .

Okay, you guys are seriously creeping me out! I admit with a tremulous giggle.

Simple Paul is just a stupid legend, Nadia says. The story has been around since ever, but people have only been disappearing for like six months.

How many people? I ask, and everyone kind of looks at each other and shrugs.

Twenty? Devin suggests.

I think it’s like thirty, Cade says.

No way, it’s only fifteen, Nadia says, and they all shrug again. I guess no one really knows. I mean, how do you even prove someone is missing and not just, like, out of town?

I nod. And I guess people go missing, like, normally, I say, though I don’t really know what the missing person rates are like in a town as small as Bozeman. Twenty people in six months seems . . . high. Like, call-in-the-FBI, Jesus-God-why-did-I-move-here high.

Don’t worry, Cade says, knocking his shoes again mine. I’ll keep you safe from the ghosts.

I grin. Thanks, that’s very comforting. Don’t suppose you’re carrying rock salt?

I don’t know, I thought that was salty enough, he says, making a face and indicating my lunch. I wrinkle my nose at him.

Insulting a woman’s cooking is almost as bad as calling her fat, I warn him with a smile.

Cade knows very little about how to treat a woman, Devin says. Or any human, frankly.

I know how to treat you. With safety mitts, Cade says, holding his hands up as if he’s wearing protective gear.

Well. This has been a treat. Nadia, drop by when you’re less . . . encumbered. See you around, they direct at me, with a wink.

I do the head nod. I think I’m pretty good at it. See ya.

Cade mutters and scarfs down the rest of his pizza, and Nadia turns her full attention on me. I feel my cheeks heating up. She sure does . . . sizzle. Do you want to come to the mall after school? she asks. It’s kinda what we do.

Because there’s nothing else to do, Cade says. Other than try to sneak into college parties.

Ooh, speaking of, you should definitely come with us this weekend, we usually just drive around until we hear good music. Do you have fake ID?

I shake my head. Sorry.

Whatever, we’ll aim for a dorm party or something, she says, with a wave to indicate she’s not fussed about it. But we should definitely buy you some new shoes.

I look down at my sneakers, surprised. They seem fine to me—I’ve only had them for three years. They don’t even have any holes or anything. I mean, some of the edging is coming off, and they’re not exactly white anymore . . . You think?

Oh, honey . . .

I agree to meet Nadia and Cade at my locker after class, and we split up for the afternoon. I see Nadia again in my AP Literature and Drama class, and Cade and I have Industrial Arts. He acts completely shocked that I’m taking that and not Home Ec, but I already know how to bake a cake. I want to weld things! And my last two schools didn’t have shop—so much for standardized national education.

Cade and I leave class and head down the hall towards my locker together. We’re stopped on the way by Rose and another girl who doesn’t introduce herself, just starts chatting at Cade a mile-a-minute about all of the gossip that happened over the summer. I try to pay attention, because it’ll help me learn the lay of the land, but it’s hard when it’s the names of a bunch of people you don’t know. It sounds like Ross and his girlfriend broke up, and Heath came out of the closet and then moved to Chicago to live with his mother, and everyone knows Nancy is seeing a college guy but she still says she’s a virgin, and Mr. Hopper was fired. No one knows why, but rumors abound.

Cade seems surprisingly interested in gossip for a guy who acts so much like he doesn’t care about anything. He even offers her a few bits of new information.

That’s when she turns the eagle eye on me.

You’re new! she exclaims.

Tiffany, Michaela. Mac, Tiff.

Don’t call me that, Tiffany tells him in an off-hand way, like she’s said it a hundred times before. So what’s your story?

Um—well, I moved here from Nebraska.

Mm-hm? Michaela what?

Why? I ask with a laugh. Are you going to Google me?

Not just Google, a whole background check, she says. It doesn’t sound like she’s joking.

I kind of choke on my laugh, and it turns into an awkward cough. Um. Right.

Tiffany knows everything about everyone, Rose explains. Her brother is, like, a computer wizard, and even though he’s a dork and they’re twins somehow she came out, like, totally normal. It’s weird, right?

Tiffany shrugs. I think I took all the cool. And the pretty. And he took all the smart. So, Michaela . . .?

Peters, I say with a sigh. There’s no fighting this.

Great! From Nebraska.

Well, I move a lot. I give Cade a desperate ‘help me’ look, but he either doesn’t understand or chooses to ignore it. I knew it was going to come out soon, but did it have to come out this soon?

Military? Tiffany asks.

My mom was. But, um . . . she’s . . . I hate this part. Everyone always gets so awkward. I can already see the horrified realization blossoming on Rose’s face, Cade’s uncomfortable shoulder clench, Tiffany’s . . . Actually, no, she’s still looking like she’s taking notes for the local newspaper. She . . . passed.

Oh, I’m sorry, she says, the way most people would if they heard you lost a pet. Killed in action?

I nod again. The awkwardness is palpable, but I’m actually kind of relieved she’s being so normal. It beats the usual reactions, where people stumble over their feet to change the subject, or tell you about their dead dog, or just go totally silent and wait for you to say everything is okay. I get it, though. Death is . . . hard. People are just trying to do their best.

What about your Dad?

Geez, Tiff, Cade objects. Sorry, he adds to me.

I nod. It was awhile ago. But, thanks.

So did your Dad move here to, like, mend his broken heart? Because that’s so romantic. Wasn’t there a TV show about that?

I latch onto anything that will steer the conversation away from my father. It’s not a topic I like to discuss. I don’t think I know that show! Do you remember what it’s called?

Oh, Ivy! Rose calls, and she waves wildly at a group of three girls coming down the hall towards us. There’s a new girl. What was your name again?

Michaela, I say, even though it’s like the third time I’ve said my name in the last three minutes. The trio of girls approaches, but only one looks up from her phone, so I assume she’s Ivy. She’s beautiful, but in that intimidating way where you know it takes her an hour to look this good every morning. Her hair is gently flouncing, her skin is flawless, and her push-up bra would look natural to an untrained eye.

She takes a quick glance from my badly-dyed roots to my three-year-old running shoes, and nods at me in the barest gesture of politeness. Hey. Then she dismisses me, turning the full wattage of her smile on Rose. Rosie! You will never believe what happened in English.

She grabs Rose’s elbow and drags her bodily away from Cade and Tiffany and I. Rose shoots me a half-apologetic shrug as she goes. Tiffany follows, waving a more polite goodbye.

Aaaand, that’s Ivy, Nadia says, appearing out of nowhere like a freaking ninja.

She seems nice, I say. I mean it, but they both assume I’m being sarcastic and laugh. We continue down the hall together.

She’s a junior, but she’s dating a senior and she makes sure you know it. Plus her parents are loaded—her Dad is the dean of the university.

Your parents are loaded, too, Cade points out, and Nadia shrugs with a smile.

Well, I don’t like to brag, she says, in a tone that says the opposite.

What do your parents do? I ask.

Dad’s a doctor and Mom’s a professor of Agricultural Science.

Dad’s a plastic surgeon, Cade corrects. I think he did work on Ivy’s mom, but this one refuses to spill.

Nadia tries to ruffle Cade’s hair, but he ducks violently, refusing to be drawn in. "His father is the Mayor. He’s a huge disappointment to the family."

I try, Cade agrees.

His sister was valedictorian last year.

Are you saying something? he asks.

She got 1480 on her SATs. She’s taking biomedical science at Princeton.

I’m going to Princeton too.

Yeah, because your entire family for like eight generations went, so you’ll get in even if your marks suck, she says, rolling her eyes. Whereas my father went to a non-legacy school that shall not be named— Cade mouths the name of the school, which I don’t catch but laugh anyway. So I actually have to work for it.

Bozeman High is one of the best schools in the country, I say. So that’ll help.

Yet another reason you moved here? Cade asks.

Well . . . I mean . . . why not, right? If you could move anywhere.

I would move to Paris, Nadia says, instantly.

So overdone. I’d go to Berlin. Or Brazil.

Did your parents seriously move here just to give you, like, the greatest education ever? Didn’t they need to move somewhere they could get a job? Nadia asks, backtracking.

Uh. Well . . . I hedge. We reach my locker, so I quickly spin the lock and trade a few books from this morning for what I’ll need for homework, and grab my empty lunch stuff. I close the door and turn to find them both staring at me with raised eyebrows. I kind of wish I was better at lying—or at least more comfortable with it. I hate having this conversation almost as much as I hate celery. I’m an emancipated minor. So . . . no parents.

Wait—seriously? Nadia asks. She starts walking and we both fall in step, heading for the mall.

Is that even legal? Cade demands. And how do I do it?

I laugh. It’s legal, but you have to go to court, and prove financial independence and stuff. It was a pretty complicated process.

What made you do it? Nadia asks.

Where do I even start? It was complicated, I finally hedge, but I was in foster care, and I was ready to be on my own.

Sucks, Cade says with a solemn nod, and somehow the word is filled with meaning, with appreciation.

I smile. It wasn’t so bad. Most people are decent in their hearts.

Do you actually believe that? Cade asks, with a tone of voice that says he can’t fathom the depths of my naïveté.

I consider it for a moment, my nose twitching from side to side like I’m debating the pros and cons. Yeah, I say.

He snorts. You must have lived a charmed life, sister.

I think about my mother, choosing to keep me even though she didn’t want a kid; about the skills I learned to survive indifferent relatives and hostile foster families, which have been invaluable now that I’m on my own; about the miracle of my survival when I should have died; and I smile. Yeah, I say again. I guess I have.

Nadia is insistent about the shoe shopping, and Cade says he’d rather have his brains slowly eaten by leeches, so he heads for the food court while we go diving into a few stores. Nadia keeps suggesting strappy sandals and wedge heels, but I think if I’m getting rid of running shoes, I should be buying new running shoes.

After the fourth pair that she holds up