Over the Cliff

The humidity is on us like slime as we bike down the dirt road. It’s 10 am and the sun is an inferno. School officially started this morning, but we only had a two-hour assembly before dismissal. After today will be homework and clubs. After today, the temperature will drop. But today’s the perfect day for a swim, because it’s the last day.

Kids are already gathered at the creek. Everywhere, bodies are stripped down to the skivvies as they make their escape from the heat. The musty, moss green smell of the water fills the air. Dante rips his shirt off and tosses it before he even brakes, nearly hitting Drew in the head. “Watch it!” she snaps. “I don’t want your smelly pit stains in my face!”

Teena is pumping her inhaler; the humidity is bad for her asthma. “Guys, can we eat lunch before we swim?”

“No way!” say Dante and Max, jumping off their bikes. They race to the water, ramming into one another. In five seconds, it becomes a wrestling match.

Drew rolls her eyes as she peels off her paisley crop top. “You two are idiots.”

“Especially since I’m going in first!” I say, running past them. I cannonball into the creek, hitting the brown water with a crash. The heat vanishes, and for a fleeting moment I feel human again.

As I pop back up, I can see my friends on shore. Dante has Max in a headlock. Teena has taken off her shorts, but she’s still wearing her massive t-shirt like a dress. She won’t take it off because she thinks she’s fat, even though I’ve told her a million times she’s not.

“You didn’t even take off your clothes!” calls Drew. In response, I lay back and crawl. “Rose, I swear you’re not a real girl.” She says that a lot.

“Of course she’s not,” says Dante. “She’s one of us, right Max?” Max takes the opportunity to slip out of the headlock and knock Dante down to the dirt.

Not a real girl. But definitely not a guy like those two doofuses. What makes a real girl anyway? Just because I think makeup is a waste of time…

The boys jump in, splashing me in the face. I splash them back and then Teena and Drew are right there with us. We swim and splash for an hour, then eat lunch on the shore as the sun bakes our shoulders. It’s the five of us, just like it’s been since kindergarten.

I’m on my back, thinking about what color Harley I’ll have someday (green probably), when Max suddenly says, “Hey Rose, dare ya to dive off the cliff!” The cliff hangs over the creek. The water is deeper there and supposedly the last person who dove it was never seen again. But he was a drunk frat guy, and I know how to swim.

“Gimme a break,” says Dante. “Even Rose wouldn’t jump the cliff.”

I sit up. “Is that a challenge?”

Teena looks anxious. “Don’t do it, Rose. You could get hurt.”

I stand. “I’ll do it.”

The boys cheer, but as I march towards the cliff, I hear Drew say, “Damn it, Max. If she dies, her mom will kill us.”

I climb to the top of the peak. Below, other kids have stopped swimming to watch. They look tiny, like jellybeans I could hold in my hand. The rocks are sharp under my toes, and as I perch on the edge, a few pebbles shift.

“Rose, this is stupid!” Drew yells, standing by the cliff base. Of course it’s stupid. But I’m here and I can’t back out now. Not after a dare, and not with everyone watching.

I take a breath, I leap, and the last thing I hear is Teena. “Rose-”

I’m not expecting to plummet so fast, but it turns out I’m no Pocahontas. The water hits hard and I sink like a brick. There’s nothing but darkness, and for a moment, I’m not sure which direction I landed, until my feet brush a rock. My head is up, my feet are down. Boy, that’s a big rock.

My air won’t last much longer. I angle my body down and grab the rock, tucking it under my arm. I’ll bet no one in Redrock Hollow has ever cliff-dived this deep, and this rock will be my proof. With my free arm and my legs, I propel myself back up towards lifesaving oxygen.

I break the surface. My friends are still at the cliff base. Teena breathes a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness…”

Drew, on the other hand, scowls. “You’re an idiot, Rose!”

I might be an idiot, but I probably just broke a record, and that’s pretty damn good for fifteen. No one here will ever forget the day Rose Puddifoot jumped thirty feet and lived to tell the tale! I hold up my victory rock.

Teena screams. So does Rose. Max loses all the color in his face. “Holy shit!” yells Dante.

It’s not a rock. Rocks don’t have orbital sockets. Or teeth. I’m holding a skull. I’m holding a fucking skull.

The police arrive within twenty minutes. All the other kids have scattered. Meanwhile, the skull sits on a nearby rock like an out of season Halloween decoration.

My damp shirt is still clinging to me and my hair is dripping when the cop approaches us. “Detective Soderini,” he says curtly. “Who found it?” I silently raise my hand. “You’re the one who dove off the cliff?” I can’t tell if he’s disgusted or impressed. “You could’ve broken your neck.”

“I laugh in the face of danger,” I say. Teena gives me a kick.

“Well quit laughing,” says Detective Soderini. “I want names, ages, and phone numbers.”

“Do we need a lawyer?” asks Max.

Drew hisses, “Don’t be a moron, Max!”

Detective Soderini looks over his reflective shades. “Do you think you need a lawyer?” We give him our info, and he writes it all down. Nearby, a forensics officer is photographing the skull. It almost looks like its smiling for the camera. Creepy.

Our parents are called, and none of them are happy. I do feel bad about it; we might have the rest of the day off, but they still have to work. My mom needs all the hours she can get. As I get into the SUV, she begins to lecture me about being too old to act so reckless. I just stare out the window. Forensics is wrapping the skull in cotton now. The creek is being taped off as a crime scene.

It really is the last day.

Mom drops me off at home and then, after I pull my bike off the roof rack, she goes back to the Denny’s. I have a feeling I haven’t heard the last about my cliff diving stunt.

The rest of the day drags on. I take a shower. I eat cold mac and cheese from the fridge. I lay on the sofa and watch the ceiling fan rotate. The blades have nearly hypnotized me to sleep when I hear my phone ding. It’s our group chat:

MaxAMillion: I think I know who the skull was! Mason Nichols!

DrewBee: What are you talking about?

MaxAMillion: You remember Mason Nichols? He was that frat guy who jumped off the cliff and was never seen again.

It makes sense. Local legend says that after chugging four Vodka Red Bulls, Mason Nichols went into the creek and never came out.

Teena_11: Mason Nichols isn’t dead. My brother knows him. He washes dishes at O’Boyle’s Pub.

So much for local legends.

Teena_11: This area used to belong to the Shoshone. Maybe it was an old Indian skull.

MaxAMillion: BORING!

HúRU: I bet if we go to the library, look up some newspaper clippings, we can figure out who it is. There’s got to be a missing person’s report.

DrewBee: OMG Dante, we are not Scooby Doo-ing this!!! The cops will figure it out!

My phone starts to ring. Unknown number. I shouldn’t pick up. I do it anyway. “Hello?”

“Rose Puddifoot?” says a voice that’s all business. “Natalie Westerberg of The Redrock Chronicle. Do you have a few minutes to talk about your discovery?”

I hang up. Discovery? I didn’t find buried treasure. It was a skull. It was a human being once. There was a brain in there. A brain that had thoughts and feelings and memories. Suddenly I don’t feel so well. I wish I hadn’t eaten that mac and cheese.

Today is the first full day of school. As I head inside and to my locker, I can hear whispers. Everyone is looking at me like I’m an escaped circus animal.

Max has the locker next to mine. “What is everybody’s problem?” I say loudly.

“It’s not everyday someone fishes a body out of a creek,” he says. “You’re a celebrity.”

“I did not fish a body out of a creek,” I snap. “It was just a skull.” Somehow that’s the wrong thing to say because the whispering becomes a buzz. I duck my head down. “I will not be gossip fodder!” I hiss.

Max shrugs. “Looks like you don’t have much of a choice.”

My first class is auto shop. My passion is motorcycles, not cars, but Redrock High doesn’t have a bike shop, so cars it is. Besides, it’ll give me good practice working on an internal combustion engine once we move into the garage. Right now, we’re starting with classwork.

The guy behind me pokes my back with a pencil. “Hey!” I grit my teeth and ignore him.

The teacher, hair sticking out like Sam the Eagle, is fiddling with the smartboard. “Does anyone know how this thing works?”

The guy pokes me again. “Hey, is it true you killed someone?”

I finally snap. “Would you like to find out?”

“Oooh…”

The teacher looks up. “What is going on?”

I sink down in my chair. “Nothing…” It’s only 8:37 am. This skull is going to follow me around all day.

By lunchtime, the rumor mill is fully grinding. I hear it all. I planted the skull myself. I’m a serial killer. I’m a former member of the Manson Family pretending to be a teenager. Yeah right! Like I’d choose to be a high school sophomore! I can’t even legally drive a motorcycle yet!

I buy my disgusting pizza and find my friends in the cafeteria. “This day sucks!” I say. “Everyone is staring at me! I feel like a bug in a jar!”

“Yeah,” Drew says. “Must really suck having all that attention.”

I narrow my eyes at her. “What’s your problem?”

She stabs at her fish filet. “Nothing.”

“If you have something to say, say it.”

Drew looks up. “This wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t showing off at the creek,” she says coldly. “You’ve always got to be the center of the universe. Now you are, so stop whining.”

“Drew…” Teena whispers. She looks like a turtle who wants to dive into her shell.

“I’m the center of the universe?” The angry words spill out of me like an avalanche. “That’s rich coming from you, Miss Pep Squad! And this isn’t a popularity contest! People think I’m a freak!”

“She only did it because Max dared her,” says Dante.

“Hey!” says Max.

“Whatever!” Drew grabs her tray. “I’m leaving!”

“Fine! Who needs you?” I yell after her. People are staring. “What are you looking at?” I snap at them. “Get a life!”

Teena and I have our last class of the day together. She’s quiet, but as we walk down the hall, she says, “You know Drew’s always been a little jealous of you.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I say.

“Not really. It’s because Dante and Max both like you.” I stare at her. “You didn’t know?”

“No. Ew.” With his long neck and big front teeth, Max looks like Sid the Sloth. Dante is half black, half Chinese, not bad looking, but he’s got the maturity of a ten-year-old. Last April Fool’s Day, he got kicked out of the mall for putting Mr. Bubble in the fountain! “Drew likes Max and Dante?”

“No, but she wants them to like her,” says Teena. “Everybody wants to be liked.”

“Drew’s prettier than me,” I say.

“But you’re easier to talk to.” We’re at my locker. Someone has written on it in thick red marker:

SKULL FREAK.

After a week, people stop staring. Soon, everyone forgets about the skull. Drew won’t talk to me. She hangs out with her pep squad friends instead. Is this really how our friendship ends, I wonder? Maybe it was inevitable. It was easy when we were little, but maybe we’ve grown up too different. Damn it, I wish I’d never found that skull!

Three weeks go by. One night, I’m in the living room, textbook in front of me. The news is on, but I’m not listening. Not until I hear this: “Police have identified the remains found by teenagers at Duerson Creek…”

A picture flashes onscreen. It’s a girl, curly red hair, freckles, at a bowling alley birthday party. She’s holding a neon pink bowling ball and smiling. The caption reads, Cassie Conway, ten years old. She was a child. My body feels numb as the reporter rattles off details. I hear them, but they sound so far away. Cold case. Disappeared in 1994. Police suspected her stepfather but couldn’t prove anything. An old woman, identified as Cassie’s grandmother, speaks to the press with a lawyer by her side. Her eyes are painfully swollen from crying.

Thirty-two years. She was in that water longer than I’ve been alive. A little girl tossed over a cliff and forgotten. Until now.

Suddenly I don’t care about homework anymore. “Mom, I’m going out!”

The crime scene tape is still hanging by the creek, but it’s dirty and sagging. I slip by it easily. In the full moonlight, I scale the cliff, up to the top of the peak. Up to where Cassie Conway vanished. Was this the last thing she saw, I think as I look down. From here, the water looks black and bottomless. My stomach drops.

“Rose?” I turn. Teena is climbing up the peak.

“What are you doing here?”

“I saw the news,” she says. “I wanted to pay my respects.”

Now Max and Dante are climbing up behind her. “You guys saw it too?” I say.

“Yeah,” says Dante. He shoves his hands in his pockets and kicks a rock. “Poor kid.”

“I guess we all had the same idea,” said Max. Not all of us…

We stand together, watching the creek ripple below. “Does anybody want to say anything?” says Dante.

“Cassie,” says Teena. “I’m sorry you’ll never get to grow up and live your dreams.”

“Cassie,” I say. “I’m sorry you had to wait so long.”

“Cassie, I’m sorry adults suck,” says Max. It’s not exactly heartfelt, but we’re all feeling it.

“Amen,” says Dante.

“Hey!” Drew is on the cliff. She’s clutching something in her hands. “You guys! You didn’t wait for me?”

“We didn’t think you were coming,” I say.

“Please!” She doesn’t look me in the eye, but as she moves closer, I can see the thing she’s holding is a bouquet. Forget-Me-Nots. “The only florist still open is across town!”

“Aw Tin Man, you do have a heart,” says Max.

“Shut up, Max,” says Drew. She holds the flowers over the peak’s edge. “Cassie, we didn’t know you, but we’re all sorry about the way you died. Rest in peace now.” She drops the Forget-Me-Nots over the peak. Silently, we watch the flowers fall into the water. They bob for a moment, then sink.

Are Drew and I still friends? I don’t know. Maybe we’re not the same kind of friends we once were. Maybe friendships change, but that doesn’t mean they have to end. All I can do is wait and see.

I hear footsteps on the cliff behind us. More kids from our school? No, it’s an old woman, short, heavyset, white hair as soft and fluffy as a lamb. She stares at us for a moment. We stare back.

It’s Teena who breaks the silence. “That’s Cassie’s grandmother,” she whispers. “From the news.”

We shouldn’t be here, I realize. We’re not family. We’re intruding on this woman’s grief. “We’re sorry, Ma’am!” I say. “We just…we’ll go!”

“Wait.” Her eyes scan us. “You’re the ones, aren’t you? The ones who found her?”

Drew pulls me forward. “She did.”

I don’t know what to say. Nothing as it turns out. Cassie’s grandmother throws her arms around me. “You brought her home!” she says through tears. “You brought my Cassie home!”