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October 7, about 8:00 a trig class, and I just hope Ms Halpern doesn’t see h I wanted to Yesterday was a crazy,Dance Sitting here in school thisthat happened this weekend was a dreas were so very, very good

I’ainst Tyler He’s suspended froh, and off the football tea drunk at the dance Nobody is saying so, but I think a lot of people think he was responsible for what happened to Vickie Bonnie’s sister saw Tyler at the clinic yesterday, and she said he had two black eyes and his whole face was purple I can’t help worrying about what’s going to happen when he and Dick get back to school They have s , "What if it all isn’t true? What if it never happened, or if he’s changed his mind?" And Aunt Judith orried at breakfast because I couldn’t eat again But then when I got to school I saw him in the corridor by the office, and we just looked at each other And I knew Just before he turned away, he smiled, sort of wryly And I understood that, too, and he was right, it was better not to go up to each other in a public hallway, not unless ant to give the secretaries a thrill

We are very definitely together Now I just have to find a way to explain all this to Jean-Claude Ha-ha

What I don’t understand is why Stefan isn’t as happy about it as I am When we’re with each other I can feel how he feels, and I kno much he wants er inside him when he kisses me, as if he wants to pull the soul out of my body Like a black hole that

Still October 7, now about 2:00 pht me She even started to read what I’d written out loud, but then I think the subject lasses up and she stopped She was Not As like flunking trigonoether, or at least ent off into a corner of the field and sat doith , and of course as it turned out I couldn’t eat either We didn’t touch each other much-we didn’t-but we talked and looked at each other a lot I want to touch him More than any boy I’ve ever known And I knoants it, too, but he’s holding back on hting this, why he’s holding back Yesterday in his rooYou remember how I told you that on the second day of school Bonnie and Meredith and I were in the cemetery? Well, yesterday in Stefan’s roo that day I re, and he must have picked it up and kept it I haven’t told him I know, because he obviously wants to keep it a secret, but that shows, doesn’t it, that he cares about me?

I’ll tell you someone else who is Not A hiraphy room for lunch every day, and when he didn’t show up today she went searching until she found us Poor Stefan, he’d forgotten about her completely, and he was shocked at hiht add-he told me how she’d attached herself to him the first week of school She said she’d noticed he didn’t really eat at lunch and she didn’t either since she was on a diet, and why didn’t they go so bad about her (which I think is his idea of entle at all between theotten orse than if he’d thrown rocks at her

I wonder why Stefan hasn’t been eating lunch, though It’s strange in a football player

Uh-oh Mr Tanner just walked by and I slammedbehind her history book, I can see her shoulders shaking And Stefan, who’s in front ofto leap out of his chair any laring I a with my eyes fixed on Tanner up front So if this is a bit wobbly and messy, you’ll understand why

For the last month, I haven’t really been myself I haven’t been able to think clearly or concentrate on anything but Stefan There is so much I’ve left undone that I’e of decorations for the Haunted House and I haven’t done one thing about it yet Now I’ve got exactly three and a half weeks to get it organized-and I want to be with Stefan

I could quit the co the bag And I keep reet Stefan to co around Elena Gilbert"

That isn’t true Or at least, if it has been in the past, I’oing to sound completely stupid, but I want to be worthy of Stefan I knoouldn’t let the guys on the team down just to suit his own convenience I want him to be proud of me

I want him to love me as much as I love hiyh school janitor, Mr Shelby, stood waiting

Elena cast one last glance at the distant figures on the football field, then reluctantly crossed the blacktop to join Bonnie

"I just wanted to tell Stefan where I was going," she said After a week of being with Stefan, she still felt a thrill of exciteht this week he’d co at the door around sunset, hands in pockets, wearing his jacket with the collar turned up They usually took a walk in the dusk, or sat on the porch, talking Although nothing was said about it, Elena kneas Stefan’s way of ether in private Since the night of the dance, he’d ht wryly, and with a pang, because she knew in her heart that there was more to it than that

"He can live without you for one evening," said Bonnie callously "If you get talking to hiet home in time for some kind of dinner"

"Hello, Mr Shelby," said Elena to the janitor, as still patiently waiting To her surprise, he closed one eye in a solemn wink at her "Where’s Meredith?" she added

"Here," said a voice behind her, and Meredith appeared with a cardboard box of file folders and note pads in her arot the stuff from your locker"

"Is that all of you?" said Mr Shelby "All right, now, you gals leave the door shut and locked, you hear? That way nobody can get in"

Bonnie, about to enter, pulled up short

"You’re sure there’s nobodyalready in?" she said warily

Elena gave her a push between the shoulder blades "Hurry up," she et home in time for dinner"

"There’s nobody inside," said Mr Shelby, als yell if you want anything I’ll be around"

The door slammed shut behind thenedly, and put the box on the floor

Elena nodded, looking up and down the big empty room Every year the Student Council held a Haunted House as a fund-raiser Elena had been on the decorating co with Bonnie and Meredith, but it was different being chairman She had to make decisions that would affect everyone, and she couldn’t even rely on what had been done in years past

The Haunted House was usually set up in a lu uneasiness about town it had been decided that the school gy the whole interior design, and with less than three weeks now until Halloween

"It’s actually pretty spooky here," said Meredith quietly And therewas so closed roo her voice

"Let’s measure it first," she said Theyhollowly

"All right," said Elena when they had finished "Let’s get to work" She tried to shake off her feeling of uneasiness, telling herself that it was ridiculous to feel unsettled in the school gym, with Bonnie and Meredith beside her and an entire football tea not two hundred yards away

The three of them sat on the bleachers with pens and notebooks in hand Elena and Meredith consulted the design sketches for previous years while Bonnie bit her pen and gazed around thoughtfully

"Well, here’s the gy a quick sketch in her notebook "And here’s where the people are going to have to come in Noe could have the Bloody Corpse at the very end By the ho’s going to be the Bloody Corpse this year?"

"Coach Lyood job last year, and he helps keep the football guys in line" Elena pointed to their sketch "Okay, we’ll partition this off and ht out of that and into the Roo Dead"

"I think we should have druids," said Bonnie abruptly

"Have what?" said Elena, and then, as Bonnie started to yell "droo-ids," she waved a quelling hand "All right, all right, I remember But why?"

"Because they’re the ones who invented Halloween Really It started out as one of their holy days, when they would build fires and put out turnips with faces carved in them to keep evil spirits away They believed it was the day when the line between the living and the dead was thinnest And they were scary, Elena They performed human sacrifices We could sacrifice Coach Lyman"

"Actually, that’s not a bad idea," said Meredith "The Bloody Corpse could be a sacrifice You know, on a stone altar, with a knife and pools of blood all around And then when you get really close, he suddenly sits up"

"And gives you heart failure," said Elena, but she had to adood idea, definitely scary Itabout it All that blood but it was only Karo syrup, really

The other girls had gone quiet, too From the boys’ locker next door, they could hear the sound of water running and lockers banging, and over that indistinct voices shouting

"Practice is over," murmured Bonnie "It etting all washed up," said Meredith, cocking an eyebrow at Elena "Want to peek?"

"I wish," said Elena, only half jokingly Somehow, indefinably, the atmosphere in the room had darkened Just at the moment shedid wish she could see Stefan, could be with hi more about Vickie Bennett?" she asked suddenly

"Well," said Bonnie after aher a psychiatrist"

"A shrink? Why?"

"Well I guess they think that those things she told us were hallucinations or sohtmares are pretty bad"