“Who wants Kool-Aid and cookies?” Mrs. Ziegler called, coming up the stairs.
Claude and I both jumped, but he recovered first. “Thanks, Mom.”
“Yeah, thanks, Mrs. Z.”
“Heavens, why are the two of you standing in the doorway? It’s because Ziggy’s room is a pigsty, isn’t it? I told you to clean it.”
His parents always called him by his current preferred nickname. Being reminded of that eased the tension in my shoulders. This was Claude I was looking at, not some perv.
He snatched a chocolate chip cookie and a sweating plastic glass of grape Kool-Aid off Mrs. Ziegler’s tray. I grabbed the other glass and two of the remaining three cookies. It’s a Minnesota rule that you never take the last piece of anything. We’d shave it down to molecules rather than be the rudenik who finished it off. Mrs. Z knew the score as well as anyone, so she brought that last cookie downstairs with her. I followed Claude into his room. He sat on his bed, one leg bent under him, and I dropped into the chair by the window. Our usual positions.
“I thought Father Adolph would’ve mentioned Maureen was missing,” he said, taking a drink. He didn’t wipe the Kool-Aid smile from his mouth, so I pointed at my own. He took the hint.
“They think she ran away,” I said, telling him what he already knew. “They probably don’t want to advertise it to the rest of the kids.”
I thought of Beth McCain, the missing Northside waitress. I could form a vague picture of her from some church group: curly red hair, freckles dusting a perfect button nose. A nice laugh, sort of chocolaty and welcoming. I’d been so callous when Brenda told me she’d disappeared, so gratified when Dad confirmed my hunch that it was no biggie. It felt like a very big deal now that it was happening to someone I knew. Then I remembered something else. “I can’t believe Father Adolph called us out for camp, right in front of everyone.”
Claude made a face like his stomach was hurting him. “I’m not going. You shouldn’t, either.”
His forcefulness surprised me. “Why?”
“Didn’t Ant tell you?” he asked.
“Tell me what?”
“That camp is bad news. Ant said Father Adolph picked on him the whole time. I thought Maureen or Brenda would at least have told you.”
I opened my mouth and closed it. They hadn’t. Had they? They’d been so quiet when they got back, but Mom had been in the hospital on one of her visits. “They don’t tell me as much as they used to,” I said.
Claude cocked his head. “What do you mean?”
I tried to look relaxed, but I was suddenly so conscious of my body. “They don’t seem to want to hang out with me as much, is all. I don’t really mind. And it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we find Maureen.”
Claude wouldn’t be distracted. “Heather, the three of you are best friends. You’re in a band together.”
“That’s only because I made them!” I said, my worst fear spoken. My voice dropped. “Not because they wanted to.”
He set down his drink and his eyebrows knit together, his eyes clear and honest. “That’s not true. You’re real friends. All of us are. Nothing can change that.”
He looked so serious that I didn’t want to disagree with him, but I knew what my heart was telling me. “We don’t like the same things anymore.”
“Growing pains,” he said. “Did you tell either of them how you felt?”
A burst of anger heated my throat. This wasn’t my fault. “Did you tell your parents what you heard about Father Adolph and Ant?”
His face reddened. “Yeah. They said I don’t have to go to camp, but that’s it.”
I drew in a deep breath. I hadn’t meant to hurt him. “I’m sorry, Claude. You’re right. I should just talk to Brenda, and Maureen when we find her. I’m being silly.”
He smiled crooked, looking so much like Robby Benson I was tempted to ask him for his autograph. “You’ve always marched to the beat of your own drummer.”
I groaned. “Don’t start telling your dad’s jokes.” Claude’s father was one of those guys who thought if you didn’t laugh, it was because you hadn’t heard the joke clearly enough.
Claude’s grin widened, and suddenly, his hand was coming for my bad ear, like he was going to push my hair away from it or something. It was so intimate that I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind to stop him.