Chapter 5

         Stacy walked into the cafeteria, “Oh, look, the murderer has come to lunch. People, she threatened to kill me when she first got here this morning. Anyone who kicks her ass will be a part of my family.” She looked at Ivy. “Well, little invisible roach, yours is coming. Someone will kill you and then you, little murderer, won’t be feared anymore.” She flicked her hair at her and then walked to her table. Her friends laughed and stared at Ivy.

           Ivy glanced around the lunchroom, everyone was staring and pointing at her. She knew Stacy did that to get more attention, brushing off the feeling of hate she felt from everyone, she opened her bag and grabbed some of her homework. A shiver went down her back, she glanced up and saw a mysterious boy walking towards her.

           “Hey,” an unfamiliar voice said.

           Ivy glanced up, then continued writing. “I'm not killing anyone today, please go away.”

         He sat down and watched her for a moment. She

put her pencil down and looked up at him. “Look, sitting here isn’t going to help with your social skills.”

           His brown hair covered his green eyes, “Who says I want to be social. What if I'm attracted to you?” he joked looking around the cafeteria.

        Ivy rolled her eyes; she knew he was just doing this to keep the attention on her. “What? Because everyone in school thinks I killed my parents? Please, if you don’t mind, I'd like to be alone.”

         He stood up, he was taller than she’d expected, “Well, gorgeous, the name is Nick if you need someone to talk to. Or you want to hang out, hit me up.” He tossed a piece of paper towards her and walked away.

           She looked down at the paper and then at him. Stacy, of course, was all over him as soon as he left. She grabbed the paper and took a closer look. It was his phone number. Probably a number that would get the whole school in on the conversation. Tossing the paper in her bag, she continued to work on her homework.

         The bell rang, lunch was over. Ivy gathered her books and walked out of the cafeteria as fast as she could. No one looked at her, everyone kind of forgot about the whole lunch deal. She decided to head straight to class, to find a seat in the back of the room.

        Grabbing a seat in the back, she finished her English homework before the teacher started the class. 

           “Alright class, we need to get started on the yearly project,” he said, glancing at Ivy. “But first I wanted to talk to you about Halloween, I know a lot of you will trick-or-treat, but please be safe.” He passed papers to each person at the head of the rows. “Now you each get to pick a topic that you feel, oooh so passionately about, and write me a 5,000-word report on it. And if I love it, you get an A and you pass.” He smiled at the end of his speech.

           Looking down at the list, Ivy didn’t see anything that would be fun to write. Everything had to do with history and death, it was one thing that she wished she could skip out on. Closing her eyes, she squeezed the bridge of her nose, a headache was coming and she felt sick to her stomach.

           “Now class, as soon as you figure out what you want to do, please come up and tell me what the topic is, so I can write it down and you can start your lovely little research.” He said sitting behind his desk.

           Ivy looked down at the list one last time, she decided to write a paper on the Witch Trials. Ivy walked to the front of the class, everyone stopped talking and watched her.

           Mr. Mason looked up at her and smiled. “So, Ivy, what is your topic choice?” he asked.

           She looked down at the list again, she didn’t want to tell him what she wanted.

           “She should do How to Kill Your Parents and Get Away with It,” one of the boys said. The entire class burst into laughter.

         Tears swelled in her eyes. Ivy dropped the paper on the floor and ran out of the class. She couldn’t do this, her stomach hurt worse now. The anxiety of the day was getting to her. She wanted to run out the door and never come back.

      Mr. Mason caught Ivy before she was able to leave the hallway. He wrapped his arms around her, she sobbed in his arms. “Just leave me alone. I didn’t kill my parents, I swear I didn’t,” she cried.

           “I know, Ivy. I'm sorry the kids are making your life hell. But if you run away then they get what they want. You have to be strong for your parents. You truly have to be strong.” He said rubbing her hair.

           She looked up at him, the tears in her eyes made it hard for her not to blink. “I can’t be strong. I didn’t want to be brought into this. I wish whoever killed my parents killed me too. Why did they just drug me and let me live? They knew this was going to happen, and it was like they didn’t care.” She finally sat down on the floor. “They didn’t care I would have to live with this the rest of my life!”

           He knelt next to her, “You know your parents loved you very much. Your mother called me a lot to see how you were doing. I never lied to her about you. You are one of my best students, and I wish you would stay here with us and get through this. I can help you.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “But you have to find that strong person inside you and hold on a little longer. Just have faith the police find whoever did this.”

           Ivy looked up at him again, she wiped the tears from her eyes. She took a long deep breath, “Well, what if they don’t find them? Then everyone is going to assume I still did it.”

           Mr. Mason smiled, “Ivy, have faith they will find who did this.” He spoke. “Come let’s go show them how brave you are, things will get fixed.” Mr. Mason stood up and held out his hand for her to take it. She wiped the last bit of tears from her eyes. She didn’t want to take his hand but did it anyway. He pulled her up and hugged her one last time. “Let’s go back to class. Everything is going to be okay,” he whispered.

            He opened the classroom door and looked up as they entered. “Now listen, class, I'm only going to say this once. If you don’t do what I tell you, you will get a write-up and I WILL call your parents,” he said looking at Ivy. “Ivy's parents were murdered.”

         “Yeah, by her, Ivy the murderer,” someone said, the class laughed again.

           “Now listen here, no one knows what happened that day. She was drugged and almost didn’t make it. Her parents were killed. The police are investigating and, yes, they question why she wasn’t killed. But that doesn’t mean she killed them. This nonsense needs to stop. Ivy is your classmate; respect her and you will respect yourself.” He sat down at his desk. “If she comes to me again with complaints about you, I WILL suspend you without asking you if it’s true. Do you understand class?”

           After class was over, Ivy wanted to check out the library and see what kind of books they had on her assignment. She was met by some boys that thought it would be funny to mess with her. Walking past them, they left her alone, at least for the moment.

           “Hey, look, it’s the murderer.” The same boys from before cornered her. She tried to keep reading, but they took the book away from her. “Murderer, murderer, murderer,” he taunted me.

 Ivy’s anger grew. She stood up and pushed him. “Oh, no, the MURDERER is going to hurt me,” he laughed.

           “Don’t push it or I just might have to kill you.” Ivy took a step towards him. “I do have a LONG list of people I want dead and you've just made the list.” She half-smiled at him.

           She pushed past him and kept walking. The books didn’t matter, but she wanted them anyways. She approached the counter; Drake and his friends were there. He watched Ivy closely. “Are these the only books you need?” the librarian asked.

           Ivy took her eyes off of Drake, “uh yeah.” She said pushing the books to the librarian. “Thanks.” She said walking past Drake, his eyes never left hers.

           Walking to her locker, she noticed Nick at the other end of the hallway, he watched her moves, she tried to ignore it. Walking to her locker, she tossed her books in and quickly closed the door. Drake walked past her, brushing against her. Ivy closed her eyes, ignoring the feeling she was getting from him.