CHAPTER ONE: SLEUTH, NINJA AND BOMB
“You look like a total geek. A complete, comprehensive, and spherical geek,” Jennifer Xuan Jones said to her friend Rupert Treen.
“I am a geek,” Rupert said. “And I will take that as a compliment coming from someone dressed as an anime character. But what do you mean by calling a spherical one?”
“I mean you are a geek from every possible point of view,” JX said.
“Thank you,” Rupert said. “It’s good to know I got this costume right.”
Rupert was wearing a grey trench coat, an equally gray fedora, and sunglasses. This would have been odd dress for a ninth grader at any time, but the sunglasses were especially unusual, since it was after dark. It was also, however, Halloween.
“I think Rupert looks quite good,” JX’s mother Teresa Tuyet Jones said. “The two of you look fine together.”
JX was wearing a close-fitting black body stocking and boots. She was supposed to be Jin-X, Future Warrior.
In Japan, Jin-X was white, blue-eyed and blond. She was in high school and had a black belt in karate. JX was Vietnamese and African-American. She had dark gold skin and shining black hair. Although she was in high school, too, she didn’t have a belt of any color in anything. More importantly, she was real. But there was a similarity of attitude, JX thought. And, of course, in initials. And that was good enough for her.
“Thank you, Ms. Jones,” Rupert said. “But I’d appreciate it if you could call me by the name of my avatar.”
“Your avatar?” JX’s mother said. “When I was a girl and we dressed up for Halloween, we just went as something generic. A witch. A nurse. A princess. Why do you need to have an avatar?”
“Because my avatar is not just for Halloween,” Rupert said. “My avatar can be called on to emerge at any time. Indeed, my avatar is me, and I am it. Him.”
JX rolled her eyes, and her mother giggled.
“You’ve been weird since you were three,” JX said. “But now you’re veering into full-blown neurosis.”
“What about you, Jenny, with that whole thrift store jumpsuit?” her mother said. “Is Jin-X turning into your avatar?”
“Mom …”
“I’m just asking.”
“Unlike Rupert, I can tell reality from fiction,” JX said. “Stop insulting me.”
“Well, that’s reassuring,” Ms. Jones said. “I wasn’t looking forward to being Jin-X’s mother, even if you happen to share initials.” She hugged her daughter. “All right, Rupert, tell me the name of this avatar.”
“Niles,” Rupert said, almost grinning. “Niles Hollywood, private investigator.”
JX put her finger down her throat and pretended to gag. “You said you were going to the party as Supervillain Kraken,” she said. “That’s why I dressed up as Jin-X. We were supposed to be a team. From the same show. Geeks. But coordinated.”
“I know, but Supervillain Kraken just isn’t me. I was looking at myself in the mirror today and I just looked like a kid in a costume.”
“You are a kid in a costume,” JX said. “You’re supposed to be a kid in a costume.”
“No,” Rupert said. “I am Niles Hollywood.”
“It’s all those stupid old nore movies you watch –“ JX began.
“Noir movies,” Rupert said. “And I’ll thank you not to call them stupid. I don’t make fun of anime.”
“Noir or nore, you’ve broken your promise,” JX said. “We were supposed to be a team. Now I look like half of a salt-and-pepper set, and you look like someone in hand-me-downs in an evacuation center. Or ready for rain. Or both.”
“Who is Niles Hollywood, Rupert?” JX’s mom asked.
“Thank you for asking, Ms. Jones,” Rupert said. “‘Niles Hollywood’ came to me this afternoon. He’s a detective who’s looked into the darkness of existence and found a way to live with it. You know, like Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon, Orson Welles in Lady From Shanghai, or Charlton Heston in Touch of Evil. And yes, Jin-X, they are all from the noir genre, noir being the French word for black.”
“Those movies are ancient,” JX said. “They weren’t even in color.”
“They existed in a grey world,” Rupert said. “Men against a world that was trying to break them into pieces. They had fury.” He pushed up his glasses. “And yet they still did what was right. Mostly.”
“Jedis look into darkness all the time,” JX said. “The ones not on the Dark Side mostly do what’s right, too. Why didn’t you just bring a lightsaber?”
“Everyone brings a lightsaber. I may start dressing like this all the time.”
JX just shook her head. Ms. Jones laughed. “Don’t you dare try to come to Aunt Ishawna’s wedding dressed like that,” she said.
“Of course not,” Rupert said. “I’ll put on a tie. Though it may be loose.”
JX’s Aunt was coming to town in a couple of weeks to marry her partner Margaret. JX’s father was going to perform the wedding service at his church, and Rupert’s family had been invited.
“Do avatars get hungry?” Ms. Jones said. “I have some pumpkin cookies.”
“Avatars get busy,” Rupert said. “Right now, Niles Hollywood is here to escort JX to the Halloween dance.”
“Why is my best friend a weird old-movie-loving geek?” JX wailed. “Why can’t you just be a normal stupid boy interested in sports and videogames or maybe even Jedis?”
“If I were the kind of guy who loves sports and videogames, we wouldn’t be friends,” Rupert said.
“What about the Jedis?”
“You would still despise me. You would roll your eyes at me, and sigh and snort, and just walk away, shaking your head.”
“I do all that now. I just haven’t walked away yet.”
“Well don’t forget who gets you all those bootleg episodes of Jin-X: Future Warrior to watch on your phone.”
“What bootleg copies?” Ms. Jones said.
“Nothing, Mom,” JX said. “And my eyes still roll at you, geek.”
“May I offer you my arm, Ms. Future Warrior?” Rupert said.
“Mom, have we got anything else I could wear?” JX said.
“Well, there are the Christmas costumes at church,” Ms. Jones said. “I guess you could go as a sheep.”
JX took Rupert’s arm. “Remind me to kill you tomorrow, stupid geek.,” she said.
“Please call me ‘Niles,’” Rupert said.
“Like hell,” JX said.
“Jennifer,” her mother said.
“Like heck,” JX said. “The heck where demons live.”
“Last chance for cookies,” Ms. Jones said. They each had one. Then they walked out to the car and got in.
“Tonight feels very special,” Rupert said.
“Halloween is always special,” JX said.
“But this year is different,” he said, as Ms. Jones backed into the street and started off across town. “This is the first year since we were four that we haven’t gone trick-or-treating together. We are opening a new chapter in our lives.”
“High school is a big change,” Ms. Jones said. “We leave our childhoods behind there.”
“You said that about middle school.”
“Well, you’re leaving it even further behind.”
“Less drama, Mama,” JX said. “It’s not that big a deal.”
“Oh, yes it is,” Ms. Jones said. “You’ll see.”
When they reached Octavia Butler High, the old-fashioned Spanish-style buildings were dark except for the gymnasium where a huge plastic sign hung over the entrance: HALLOWEEN DANCE 7-MIDNIGHT. The doors were open and light fell from them across the broad parking lot.
“I love these old buildings,” Ms. Jones said. “I wish they still cared enough to build schools like this.”
“Well, at least they renamed it,” Niles said. “Used to be Peter Burnett, California’s racist Indian-killing first governor.”
“Yes,” Ms. Jones said. “I guess that’s about all they could afford. But it’s a good name. I actually used to read some of her books. You should read Kindred, Jen.” She slowed to turn a corner. “I don’t recall dressing up as any of her characters, though.”
Ignoring the last comment, JX said “It’s old and smelly and the floors creak. They had to retrofit it for earthquakes twice. Plus, it’s haunted by all the kids who died of boredom here.”
“These buildings were here when they were making Dial M For Murder and The Dark Corner,” Rupert said. “Though I suppose they could’ve named the school for Dashiell Hammett, too.”
“Agh, stop,” JX said. “Anyway, who’s that again?
“He--”
But before Rupert could finish, Ms. Jones gave a deliberately hard tap to the brakes when she pulled up to the curb.
“Books don’t need to compete with each other, “ she said. “They just need to be good. Meanwhile, I will be back precisely at ten minutes to midnight,” she said. “You will be here.”
“We will,” Rupert said.
“Of course,” JX said. “When am I ever late?”
Ms. Jones waved and drove off.
“I can’t wait till I’m old enough to drive,” JX said. “I think Jin-X started driving when she was thirteen.”
“”I can’t wait either,” Rupert said. “Especially if I can afford one of those really old, really cool cars. Something like Robert Mitchum drove in The Racket, or Out of the Past .”
“Shut up,” JX said. “Besides, those old cars needed a ton of gas. And they all spit out smoke, and killed the Earth we were supposed to grow old on.”
“Well, no one ever told him about hydrogen fuel cells, or electric charging stations. But I bet he would’ve approved.”
Arm-in-arm they went into the gym.
The ceiling was hung with black and orange streamers and gigantic crepe paper spiders and bats. Music blared over the public address system. The floor was crowded with dancers in every kind of costume. Pale vampires danced by, bumping into blood-stained zombies.
“It’s so pathetic that they tried to make this place look scary,” JX said.
“How would you even know?” Rupert said. “You’ve never been scared of anything.”
“Do you think it’s scary?” JX said.
“Not as scary as it is when it’s full of sweaty guys and Coach Ryan is screaming at us,” Rupert said.
“Let’s get some punch,” JX said.
They moved around the edge of the gym to the long tables of cookies, drinks, and candy set out under one of the basketball hoops. They got cups of orange punch.
Rupert raised his. “To Halloween,” he said.
“To Halloween,” JX agreed.
“My dad has a theory that when people put on a costume they’re really trying to reveal a hidden self,” Rupert said.
“What’s his hidden self?” JX asked. She pointed to a student wearing a t-shirt that said “This IS My Costume.”
“Maybe he’s disguised as somebody who pretends he doesn’t like costumes, but secretly does,” Rupert said.
“Okay, what’s her hidden self?” JX said.
She pointed to Esther Shazad, who was either dancing alone or with three guys at once. It was hard to say. She was wearing a shimmering blue dress and matching shoes and a silvery helmet with a unicorn horn.
“Either nothing is hidden with Esther, or there are so many layers to her I wouldn’t know where to begin,” Rupert said.
“All I know,” JX said. “Is that unicorns are always male. Always.”
Rupert sighed and shrugged. He had actually worked up the courage to ask Esther to the dance, but she had turned him down. She had turned down JX, too. That was why they were together tonight.
“Whoa,” Rupert said. “What’s he doing here?”
Standing taller than anyone else on the dance floor was a boy in a biker helmet and a camouflage shirt. The helmet was black and resembled the kind the Nazis had worn. The boy had red stubble on his cheeks and wire-rimmed glasses. He wasn’t dancing with anyone.
“Don’t know, but I’ve seen him around,” JX said. “He’s in some kind of high school program for dropouts or losers or something. Some kind of police trouble. He’s around here sometimes doing community service. Cleanup mostly.”
“Surprising they’d let him in,” Rupert said.
“Unless it’s something to do with his community service,” JX replied.
“I know his name’s Kyle,” Rupert said. “He works at The Last Picture Show, cleaning up, like you said. I’ve never talked to him, but he’s been there about half the times I’ve gone.”
The Last Picture Show was a hole-in-the-wall theater on a downtown side street. It specialized in showing old movies, usually to audiences of about a dozen. On good nights. On really good nights, maybe they got two. How it stayed open was a bigger mystery than anything it showed on its small, patched screen. Rupert loved it there.
He tossed down the rest of his punch.
“Care to dance, Ms. Future Warrior?” he said.
“Stay off my feet,” JX said.
They moved out onto the floor and found a space to sway in, together. It was the first time either of them had been to a dance, and they weren’t sure what to do. It didn’t take long for them to decide there was nothing much to it; just keep moving and stop when the music did.
After they had had three dances, Rupert said, “I have to take a break. This coat is making me sweat.”
“Thanks so much for that information,” JX said. “I guess boys always sweat in this gym, no matter what.”
“Not just the gym. Coming with me?” Rupert asked.
Together they went out to the parking lot. Small groups of kids were standing around, werewolves whispering to princesses and witches laughing with ninjas.
“Hey, Treen, come on,” a boy named Frank Delmert called. “This party sucks. A bunch of us are going trick-or-treating.”
“No, thanks,” Rupert said. “We just got here.’
“Come on, let’s get some candy and stuff,” Frank said. “We’re in costume.”
“Want to?” JX said.
“Trick-or-treating is for little kids,” Rupert said. “Your mother is right. Childhood is becoming a closed door, and we can’t pick the lock anymore.”
“Lots of high school kids do it,” JX said. “And why are you talking like that? Is that one of your movie lines?”
Rupert sighed. “Look, I might go trick-or-treating, but Niles Hollywood would not.”
“Will you stop?” JX said. “You’re creeping me out. You are not Niles Hollywood. You. Are. Rupert. Treen.”
“I may not be Niles Hollywood,” Rupert said. “But Niles Hollywood is me.”
“Treen, are you coming, or not?” Frank called.
Rupert shook his head.
“Your loss,” Frank said, and headed back into the gym to grab a few cookies for the road.
“I wish it was tomorrow and your stupid costume was back in your dad’s closet,” JX said. “No, I wish it was next week, and you were on to whatever your next weirdness is going to be. You are not just creeping me out, you are annoying me. I’m going to the bathroom.”
“Bring me back another punch, okay?” Rupert called after her.
JX disappeared into the gym and Rupert opened his coat to the cool night air.
It was then that the bomb went off.
At first, Rupert didn’t understand what he was seeing. When the doors to the gym, which were propped half-open, flew back like the wings of a desperate bird, slammed against the wall, and fell off their hinges; when the loud, dull sound of the explosion hurt his ears so that he automatically put his hands over them; when the shock knocked him over -- he didn’t ask himself why. He just lay where he was, hearing only the ringing in his head, and looking up at the sky.
Then he thought of JX.
He pushed himself to his knees, then to his feet.
“JX? JX? You okay?” he yelled.
His voice sounded a thousand miles away. So did the screams, filling the cool air.
Smoke was pouring out of the gym. Someone, a teacher Rupert didn’t know, came staggering through the empty doorway. He was holding a cell phone in his hand, yelling “911, 911” over and over.
There was no sign of JX. Rupert started to move toward the screams.