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wavering breath, he looked at Cameryn, locking onto her
eyes as if he was speaking only to her. In his class, we
read F. Scott Fitzgerald. Mr. Oakes told us that Fitzgerald
said, Show me a hero, and I ll write you a tragedy. Kyle s
voice cracked as he finished. Mr. Oakes, losing you is a
tragedy to each and every one of us. I ll never forget you.
None of us ever will.
And then, as Kyle walked away, the room did some
thing it hadn t done for anyone else who spoke. It erupted
in applause. Cameryn swelled with pride as she under
stood this tribute to both their teacher and to Kyle. He
had said what they were all thinking, only better. Kyle
had put words to what none of them could express.
Later, they all crowded in the lunchroom, where the
other kids revealed what was really on their minds:
they wanted to know about the death. Every gory detail.
Cameryn was sitting next to Kyle in a section domi
nated by the team, but this time Lyric and Adam had
joined them, too. It was an odd mix but one that seemed
to be working. The overarching theme was death, a
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canopy that encompassed them all, despite their usual
habitat in different social strata.
Scott Charlton took a bite of cold pizza. So, Cameryn,
he said between chews, you work with your dad, right?
Does that mean you were at Oakes s autopsy?
The eyes of everyone at the table suddenly turned onto
her, and there was a hush. Here they were, the cheerlead
ers and the jocks, with their attention trained exclusively
on Cameryn. She was holding a breadstick, and she felt
her hand slowly drift back to her plate. She felt the full
weight of the obligation. This is what they d been wait
ing for, she realized: the real story. As assistant to the
coroner, she was the show after the commercial break.
Panic welled inside her, but Kyle put his hand firmly on
her knee. He was pressing strength into her through his
strong fingers.
I was there, she admitted. But before you ask, I can t
get into it. It s still an active case.
Nodding, Scott said, That s cool. But I heard some
pretty weird stuff about the way the body looked, like . . .
he didn t have any eyes. Scott held up a hand and flut
tered his fingers as though they were lashes. All I want
to know is if you have any idea about what killed him?
Nope.
His eyes were blown out, right?
She hesitated.
We already know. Kyle told us.
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Yes, but
She didn t get any further. Everyone at the table erupted
with theories of what had happened to their teacher.
Jessica, a thin girl with a model s face, said, I think
it s something like a rare kind of disease from South
America or Africa. Since the rain forests have been cut
down, all kinds of nasty stuff s gotten out.
No, another voice protested, he never traveled
there.
He flew, didn t he? Maybe he caught a disease on a
plane.
The last trip he took was, like, last spring. A disease
wouldn t take that long to show up.
I m wondering if it was a ball of lightning that went
right into his room.
My dad said the sheriff put up crime-scene tape. Do
you think he was murdered?
Who would murder Mr. Oakes? He had, like, a ton of
friends. Everyone in town loved him.
You never know.
Wait, I have a theory, and it s a really good one, a
voice said, one Cameryn finally recognized. It was Lyric.
She had the floor, and she looked as though she was
enjoying it. This wasn t a group that usually paid atten
tion to her.
Lyric slid her fingers through her blue hair and then
squeezed it at her crown, fluffing the locks so they fell
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in ringlets. Her eyes danced as she announced, Okay.
Here it is: spontaneous human combustion.
Cameryn groaned.
Lyric was sitting four people away, so she leaned for
ward to swivel her head toward Cameryn. No, Cammie,
I m serious. It s a real thing. Adam and I looked it up
on the Internet, and there re tons of articles about it.
There ve been people all over the world who, like, just
she snapped her fingers burn up, right in their own
beds and stuff, without any reason at all. Their houses
aren t on fire or anything, not their sheets or their walls
or anything around them. Go look it up if you don t be
lieve me.
I know all about spontaneous human combustion,
Cameryn replied.
Then you know they just find the bodies with the torso
all burned up, and maybe an arm or a leg left in a pile of
ash. I think maybe that s what happened to Mr. Oakes.
Cameryn tried to keep her tone even. It embarrassed
her that Lyric would reveal her bizarre theories in a
group like this. In Lyric s house, with her beads for cur
tains and her psychedelic posters covering every inch
of her bedroom walls while incense wafted, Cameryn
would listen to any wild hypotheses and try to give them
their due. But this was different. She tried to telegraph
this to Lyric, but for once her friend s psychic connection
failed her. Lyric kept right on talking.
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Eyes bright, Lyric began a list of the dead. Dr. J. Irving
Bentley. His body was found in the bathroom. He burned
a three-foot hole though the floor, with only one section
of his leg left intact on the linoleum. Everything else,
even his teeth, turned to ash.
Lyric
Mary Reeser. All they found of her was backbone and
a shrunken skull the size of a baseball, plus a foot in a
slipper I think it was black satin and ten pounds of
ashes. Helen Conway burned up like a Christmas log.
All right, all right. Lyric, you ve made your point. It s an
interesting theory, except Mr. Oakes didn t burn up like
that. He didn t turn to ash.
You told me he was cooked.
Cameryn winced. That part wasn t supposed to get
out, and she could get in real trouble if her father dis
covered she d told Lyric and then Lyric, in turn, had
announced it to a table of A-listers at the school. For an
instant she hoped no one noticed, but then she heard
the whispers buzzing as this new piece of information
got passed down the table. Cooked, she heard some
one say, followed by, No way!
We really don t know anything yet, Cameryn declared
loudly while shooting Lyric a hard look. That was just a
theory. The autopsy results aren t in yet.
Undeterred, Lyric said, Maybe Mr. Oakes had a partial
spontaneous human combustion. Maybe this is some
thing new.
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Yeah, like that s what happened, Kyle murmured
under his breath.
Now it seemed everyone at the table was looking at
Cameryn, trying to read her reaction to this latest the
ory. It doesn t do any good to speculate, she argued.
Not when the results aren t in. She could feel the heat
rise in her cheeks as she saw Lyric as the others must
see her: a blue-haired girl with wild theories, prob
ably believing in the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot.
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