Chapter Ten (Part One)

When Melody walked into the school auditorium on Monday morning, she knew things were different. For starters, she saw an important-looking, well-dressed man seated next to Miss Hanover in the front of the school. Then, she was asked to sit next to the student body president, a polished blonde named Tracy Glick who seemed like she was born in charm school. She didn't know exactly what, but something was going on.
Miss Hanover walked up to the podium and introduced the gentleman as Louis Harrow, superintendent of the Sim City school system. "Is this about the art show?" Mallory Tessacka, a bespectacled freshman, whispered to Sarah.

Superintendent Harrow was a tall, mustachioed man with thick glasses and a dark suit. He began his speech by complimenting Miss Hanover on the 'fine institution' she ran. "Ladies, I'm here because of the accomplishments of one of your classmates," he spoke. "Presenting, the winner of the district student art show and this year's recipient of the Quigley Visual Arts award, Miss Melody Tinker."
Now standing in front of one of the back chairs, Wanda Tinker had somehow sneaked into the school through one of the back doors. When she heard her daughter's name called as the Quigley award winner, all the hurt feelings from the weekend argument immediately went away, replaced with pride. No matter how temperamental Melody might be, she was still her daughter, and nothing would change that.

After loud applause, the other girls listened carefully to what Melody had to say. Miss Hanover watched the scene unfold with decided interest.

Melody didn't know what to say, inexperienced as she was with public speaking. She began by thanking the superintendent and Miss Hanover, but then when she spotted her mother in the audience, thanked her too. Wanda couldn't help but glow all over.

"Say," gossiped Jill Vance to her best pal, Andrea Seavey, "I wonder what that weirdo painted to win the art prize..."

"Probably a portrait of her girlfriend." Both girls burst into laughter, but neither of them even noticed Melody scowling directly behind them. All too familiar with schoolmates gossiping about and teasing her, Melody pushed this out of her mind, though, as she walked to her next class.

Afterwards, Melody met up with Sarah for lunch. "C'mon, Mel," Sarah laughed, "will you lighten up? Admit it. I knew you'd win, and deep down, you knew you'd win, too."

"Sarah, I looked like a total spazz. What was I supposed to say?"

"You were great. But I really wanna know, what did you paint? You're keeping this prize winning painting top secret from everybody."

"Why'd you want to know?" Melody asked in-between bites. "An artist's work is usually quite personal to them."

"I'm sure it is," retorted Sarah, "but that painting is the talk of the town. I gotta know, as your roommate and best friend, what's on that painting. I swear, Mel, you've been acting strange ever since you got back from your visit home. What's going on?"
Melody said nothing, continuing to pick at her plate of green beans.

Melody sat nervously in Miss Hanover's office that evening after classes, waiting for the headmistress. She didn't know why she'd been summoned, but figured it had to be important. Within moments Miss Hanover arrived. "You blew the judges away, Melody. Positively blew them away. I knew you could do it," she told Melody. "I knew that out of all the students here, you had the best chance of winning the Quigley award."

"But why me, Miss Hanover?" Melody asked.

Miss Hanover took a deep breath. "Melody, you remind me so much of my best friend in school. Her name was Jenny. Until I met you, Jenny was the most talented student artist I'd seen. Her sketches seemed to leap off the page. But Jenny was -- ashamed -- of her talent. She hid her stuff from everybody. "

Liesel struggled to blink back tears. "One day I found her sketchbook. She'd done sketches of caskets, tombstones, even the Grim Reaper. I went into the girls' bathroom to find Jenny, and the next thing I knew, she was lying on the floor in front of the stalls, with a pill bottle in her hand. I ran to the school nurse's office and called her, but she was dead by the time the nurse got there."

Melody was stunned to hear this. Rendered speechless by Miss Hanover's story, she filed it in her mind. All she could utter were hollow-sounding condolences to the headmistress.
Miss Hanover continued. "To this day I still feel like I could have done something. I don't want to see another talented artist's gifts go to waste. That's why I insisted that you enter the student art contest. " After catching herself, Miss Hanover took a deep breath, deciding to take the topic in a different direction. "Darren Dreamer said your entry for the contest was, intriguing, to say the least. He said you depicted an abduction of some sort?"

"Well," Melody began, searching for a way to describe her painting without revealing the truth behind it, "I suppose it could be seen as that, but the subject is simply looking through the telescope."

"Melody, I get the feeling that there's something you're not telling us," replied Miss Hanover. "I need to know what's on that painting like I needed to know what was in Jenny Lindheim's sketchbook. Unfortunately, I found out too late what was in there, I hope I'm not too late here."

"You know, Miss Hanover," replied Melody in that mode of biting sarcasm she could slip into whenever she was annoyed, "you could always ask Darren Dreamer what's on it. He seems to have told you a lot already."

As Melody left the main school that evening to walk to the dorm, thoughts of Jenny Lindheim permeated her mind. She hated the constant, intrusive questions about the contents of her painting, but realized that she was not going to be able to keep her "secret" a secret much longer.