Pretty Furious, page 17
I unscrewed the lid on the gas can and carefully poured gas down one of the huge stakes that supported the billboard. It smelled strongly, but that was hardly a surprise. I took a few steps over to do the other one, and then placed the canister on the ground, where it would get caught in the blaze and melt. I threw my gloves down, too, and then went to stand with Mags. She had the lighter in her hand already, her finger on the button.
“This is insane,” she said. “I regret absolutely nothing, but this is insane.”
“The alternative is nothing,” I reminded her. “We want them to know we don’t approve.”
Originally, we had discussed setting the fire just before a thunderstorm in the hope that it would be dismissed as a lightning strike. The timing was too awkward and there were too many factors left to chance, but to be completely honest, I wanted people to know it wasn’t an accident. I wanted them to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that someone did this because they believed the billboard was cruel and wrong.
It was going to take the fire department about ten minutes to get out here. They were volunteers, so they all had to assemble at the station before they could go anywhere. We’d all been through the fire hall a bunch of times when we were in Brownies, and most recently on Canada Day, when they had hosted breakfast. It had been incredibly easy to get Teddy to ask them questions about how the fire station worked.
“Well,” said Mags, “I guess I should do this before Louise eats her own liver. Do you want to?”
It was a nice offer, but this was as much hers as it was mine. She still thought of herself as Catholic, but it was a tenuous hold at best. I knew she wanted to do it as much as I wanted it done.
“No,” I told her. “It’s all yours.”
The first stake went up immediately, flames racing along the streams of gasoline that were running down the wood from where I’d poured. Mags didn’t stop to watch the fire. She was already moving to the second stake. It went up just as easily, and she tossed her gloves into the flames. We knew from crime shows that most arsonists get caught because they hang around to watch, either the fire or the response. We didn’t care about either of those things, so we were up the ditch before the bottom of the billboard caught, and back in the car before the fire was bright enough to see from any distance.
Jenny put the car in drive, and we headed off on Louise’s route. The impulse to press the pedal and fly must have been excruciating. I was in the back seat, and I could hardly stand how slow we were going. But Jenny’s hands were firm on the steering wheel as she drove farther away from town, and her speed was steady. Louise was narrating the turns, and we were halfway to Londesborough before we started hearing sirens far behind us.
29.
Maddie Carter
After twenty minutes of seemingly random turns in the dark of the countryside, Louise started navigating us back towards her house. We weren’t going through town at all, but we would have to drive along the main highway for a couple of kilometres between gravel roads. The trees that lined the side road we were on now were thick, and so we didn’t see the flashing police lights until after we turned onto the paved road.
“They’ve seen us,” Louise said. “You have to keep going.”
“I’m going to have to talk to them!” Jenny said. “It’s a traffic stop!”
“It’s okay,” Jen said. “You can do this. Just tell them you’re out for a drive with friends.”
“It’s almost three in the morning!” Jenny said. Somehow she was still driving steadily, but I was starting to panic. If we got caught, it would be my fault. This was my wish.
“We’re heading into town from a completely different direction,” Mags said. “There’s no reason for them to be suspicious.”
“And they wouldn’t suspect us anyway,” I said, finally finding my voice. “Remember why we are the ones who are doing this.”
Jenny squared her shoulders, her hands a perfect ten and two on the wheel, and braked for the silhouetted police officer who was waving her down. She put the window down, and I heard Mags breathe a sigh of relief. It was Constable Postma.
“Jenny?” he said. Clearly he had not been expecting a car full of teenagers.
“Hi, Jake,” Jenny said. “I mean Constable Postma . . . Officer?”
I couldn’t tell if she was nervous or acting nervous, but she was perfect.
“What are you girls doing out here?” Constable Postma asked. “It’s so late.”
“Oh,” said Jenny, turning on the customer service voice that had got her through all those years at the grocery store without murdering someone. “Well, it’s silly, but you know, we’re all leaving soon. It’s my birthday and we were hanging out at Louise’s, and we couldn’t sleep, and we just wanted to, you know, go out one more time.”
The constable leaned on the window, looking at us in the back seat. He didn’t flash his light in our faces at least.
“I totally understand,” he said. “I came back, but the magic’s never quite the same.”
He tapped the roof of the car.
“Look, I know none of you were drinking, but there was an incident outside of town tonight, and I’m supposed to encourage people to stay off the roads for the emergency vehicles.” He sounded so earnest I almost laughed.
“Oh my gosh, is everyone okay?” Louise asked, leaning forwards so that Constable Postma could see her.
“Yeah, as far as I know,” he said. “Just some property damage. But it would be best if you girls headed back to the Jantzis’, okay?”
“Yes, sir,” Jenny said. “We were headed that way anyway. Can we drive past you or do you want us to double back?”
He looked up and down the dark and empty road. I couldn’t see his face, even in the flashing lights, but I imagined he was wishing he had a better assignment than babysitting a mostly deserted traffic stop.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Just remember to drive carefully, and go straight home.”
“We will!” Jenny said.
He stepped away, and she rolled up the window before easing down on the gas and pulling away from him. None of us made any noise at all as we drove. I was holding my breath, and I think everyone else might have been, too. There was complete silence until we turned onto Louise’s concession.
“Holy shit,” Jen said, the words bursting out of her chest.
“No one is allowed to lose their minds until I have put the car in park,” Jenny said. “Hold it together for like three more minutes.”
We managed, but as soon as the car stopped moving, it was like a wave of hysteria breaking through us. Louise finally put her head on the dashboard and breathed hard, but Jenny basically rolled out of the car and lay down on the grass in the front yard. Jen opened the door, and we all slid out behind her. I heard Louise moving, and before long, all five of us were lying on the ground. It was wet and cool, but not too uncomfortable. Above us, the stars were bright.
“Jenny, you were amazing,” I said.
“I thought I was going to vomit,” she admitted. “Though I guess that might have worked, too, in terms of getting rid of him.”
“It was perfect,” Mags said. “We were all perfect.”
“I didn’t even do anything,” Jen pointed out.
“Sure you did,” I told her. “You were here. We were all here.”
We stayed down for a few more minutes, and then all of the adrenaline seemed to run out of us at the same time.
“I’m exhausted,” I said. “Let’s go back upstairs.”
We heaved ourselves up and crossed the yard, and then climbed the ladder back to the rumpus room. The beginning and the end. Where the wishes had started, and where we’d made big decisions.
“Come on,” Mags said. “We have to wash our hands for like an hour.”
I followed her into the bathroom and pulled a piece of hair to my nose to smell it for smoke. That would be harder to wash out.
“That’s why we roasted marshmallows, remember,” Mags reminded me.
“Oh, right,” I said. We all smelled like smoke because we’d had a bonfire. It had been a last-minute addition to the plan, but it was a good one.
I went back into the rumpus room to find everyone sitting on their sleeping bags waiting for us. Mags was right behind me. The girls were looking at me, like they expected I’d have something deep and meaningful to say. Something about how we’d changed in the last year, or how this would make us stronger going forwards, but to be perfectly honest, even though I was tired, I could only think of one thing.
“Louise,” I said. “I’m starving. Can we get the cake?”
A LETTER TO THE EDITOR
We said we were never going to tell anyone. And we haven’t.
The undeniable part is this: the transgressions, the abuses of power, the pretended ignorance, the flat-out refusal to see pain in another person.
There has been too much whispering in the world of girls. You haven’t protected us. You stopped trying the moment we became slightly inconvenient. You let us get hurt. Your hurt us yourselves. It is time to breathe fire. It is time to scream.
You won’t know who we were.
You won’t know how many of us took part.
You won’t even be exactly sure what we did.
You will never suspect us.
But you’ll always wonder. Not why we did it, but how.
After all, you made us.
And we won’t let you ignore that—or anyone—anymore.
Sincerely,
The Good Girls
Acknowledgments
I just want you all to know that nothing in this book actually happened. Except for all the parts that did.
Thank you, as always, to Andrew, who received a list with about fifteen books on it and picked the one I knew he would. It was a hard call, but it was the right one.
Thanks also to Josh, and everyone at Adams Literary, for helping me manage my writing schedule, and for making sure I had a writing schedule to manage.
Team Penguin, you’re awesome. Thank you especially to cover designers Maria Fazio and Theresa Evangelista for being extremely patient while I learned to talk about graphic design and we all realized that EVERYTHING was going to be post-Barbie pink if we weren’t careful.
I’d be stuck forever without the Broken Home, the Trifecta, Leanne Van Loo, Dahlia Adler, Joanne Levy, Ashley Eckstein, and various experts that I was lucky enough to consult.
And finally, thank you to the readers who followed me back to the E. K. Johnston Multiverse for the first time since 2017.
About the Author
E.K. Johnston is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of several YA novels, including the L.A. Time Book Prize finalist The Story of Owen and Star Wars: Ahsoka. Her novel A Thousand Nights was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award. The New York Times called The Story of Owen "a clever first step in the career of a novelist who, like her troubadour heroine, has many more songs to sing" and in its review of Exit, Pursued by a Bear, the Globe & Mail called Johnston "the Meryl Streep of YA," with "limitless range." E.K. Johnston lives in southwestern Ontario.
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E.K. Johnston, Pretty Furious
