Thirty-seven

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I ATE BREAKFAST WITH Tori. I’m sure, yesterday, she’d been hoping to see me carried from the house, tied to a stretcher, ranting, driven mad after hours bound and gagged in the dark. Yet this morning, she just sat there and ate, eyes forward, expression empty, like she’d given up.

If I’d told the doctors what she’d done, she’d have been booted out, no matter how important her mom was. Maybe, when I came out of the crawl space and didn’t tattle, she’d realized how close she’d been to getting transferred. Maybe she’d realized her stunt could have been fatal.

Maybe she even felt bad about it. That was probably too much to hope for, but from the look on her face this morning, any feud between us was over. She’d gotten it out of her system and seen how close she’d come to making a very big mistake. As hard as it was for me to be near her, thinking of what she’d put me through, I wasn’t giving her any satisfaction. So I sat down and struggled to eat like nothing was wrong.

Every mouthful of oatmeal I forced down sank to the pit of my stomach and congealed into a lump of cement. Not only did I have to eat with someone who could have gotten me killed but also now I had to figure out what to do about Rae. How would I tell the guys? Derek would blame me for sure.

I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that it wasn’t until I was coming back down after my shower and heard the weekend nurse, Ms. Abdo, talking about a “door” and a “new lock” that I remembered our dry run the night before. Had we been caught?

“Dr. Davidoff wants a deadbolt,” Mrs. Talbot replied. “I don’t know whether they make them for interior doors, but if you can’t find one at the hardware store, we’ll call Rob to replace the door. After yesterday, Dr. Davidoff doesn’t want the kids getting into that crawl space.”

The basement door. I breathed a sigh of relief and continued down. I reached the bottom just as Simon peeked from the dining room.

“Thought I heard you. Catch.” He tossed me an apple. “I know you like the green ones. Derek’s been hoarding them.” He beckoned me in. “Sit and eat with us. You’ll need your energy. It’s Saturday and around here, that means all chores, all the time.”

As I passed, he leaned down to whisper. “You okay?”

I nodded. He closed the door. I looked at the empty table.

“How’s Derek?” I asked, keeping my voice low.

“He’s in the kitchen, loading up. I hear you guys had a little adventure last night.”

Derek had insisted on telling Simon that contacting the zombie ghosts had been his idea, so if Simon was put out by being excluded, the blame would fall on him. I thought he’d been trying to grab the glory—pretend he’d figured out what my ghost wanted. But Simon’s expression told me he felt he had missed out on something. So I was kind of glad he didn’t think I’d been the one who left him sleeping.

As I settled at the table, Derek came in, glass of milk in one hand, juice in the other. Simon reached out for one, but Derek set them both down at his plate with a grunted, “Get your own.” Simon pushed to his feet, slapped Derek’s back, and sauntered into the kitchen.

“Are you okay?” I whispered.

Derek’s gaze shot to the closing kitchen door. He didn’t want Simon knowing he’d been sick. I wasn’t sure I liked that, and we locked glares, but the set of his jaw told me it wasn’t open for discussion.

“I’m fine,” he rumbled after a moment. “Tylenol finally kicked it.”

His eyes were underscored with dark circles and were faintly bloodshot, but so were mine. He was pale, his acne redder than normal. Tired, but recovering. There was no fever in his eyes and by the way he attacked his oatmeal, he hadn’t lost his appetite.

“Do I pass, Dr. Saunders?” he murmured under his breath.

“I guess so.”

A grunt as he spooned more brown sugar into his bowl. “Some kind of reaction, like I said.” He ate three heaping spoonfuls of porridge. Then, gaze still on his breakfast, he said, “What’s wrong?”

“I didn’t say a word.”

“Something’s up. What is it?”

“Nothing.”

His head turned, gaze going to mine. “Yeah?”

“Yes.”

A snort and he returned to his bowl as Simon came back.

“Anyone see the chore list for this morning?” he said, handing me a glass of orange juice. He sat down and reached for the sugar bowl. Derek took it from him, paused, then spooned more onto his oatmeal. A look passed between them. Simon gulped his orange juice and said, “We’re on leaf-raking duty. Van Dop wants the dead leaves from last fall cleared…”

As he talked, Derek’s gaze lifted to mine again, studying. I glanced away and bit into my apple.

***

Saturday was indeed chore day. Normally, I’d have been groaning at the thought—and wishing for school instead—but today it worked out perfectly. With Dr. Gill, Ms. Wang, and Miss Van Dop gone, Ms. Abdo out running errands, and Mrs. Talbot doing paperwork, we had the run of the house and I had an excuse for getting Simon outside alone, by offering to help him with the raking while Derek was upstairs changing the bedding.

***

“You’re having second thoughts,” Simon said when we were far enough from the house to not be overheard.

“What?”

He bent and retied his sneakers, face down. “About running away. You’re afraid to tell Derek because he’ll give you a hassle, get up in your face.”

“That’s not—”

“No, that’s okay. I was surprised you offered in the first place. Surprised in a good way but—If you’ve changed your mind, that’s totally cool and I don’t blame you.”

I continued toward the shed. “I am coming … unless you’re having second thoughts about taking me.”

He swung open the shed door and motioned for me to stay as he vanished in its dark depths, dirt and dust swirling in his wake. “I should probably say I don’t need any help. But honestly?” His words were punctuated by rattles and clanks as he hunted for the rakes. “Though I don’t expect trouble, a second pair of eyes would really come in handy if I’m on the run.”

“I’d rather be that second set of eyes than sit here waiting for rescue,” I said as he emerged holding two rakes.

“Like Derek you mean?”

“No, that wasn’t a slam.” I shut the shed door and fastened the latch. “Last night he told me why he was staying. Because of what he did. Which I already knew about because I kind of—”

“Read his file?”

“I—I was—”

“Checking up on him after he grabbed you in the basement. That’s what he figured. Smart move.” He motioned for us to start in the farthest corner, where a layer of decomposing leaves from last year blanketed the ground. “Don’t let him razz you about it. He read yours.”

I shrugged. “Fair is fair, I guess.”

“He read yours before you read his. Bet he didn’t mention that when you confessed.”

“No, he didn’t.”

We started raking. For at least a minute, Simon said nothing, then he glanced over at me. “I bet he didn’t mention how it happened either. The fight, that is.”

I shook my head. “He just said the guy didn’t pull a gun on him. He wouldn’t discuss it.”

“It happened last fall. We’d moved to some hick town outside Albany. No offense to small towns, I’m sure they’re very nice places to live … for some people. Hotbeds of multiculturalism, they are not. But my dad hooked a job in Albany and this was the only place he could snag a sublet before the school year started.”

He raked his leaves into the pile I’d started. “I was hanging out behind the school, waiting for Derek to finish talking to the math teacher. They were trying to come up with a special curriculum for him. Small school; not used to guys like Derek. Or, like me, as it turned out.”

A mouse scampered from under a tree root, and Simon crouched to squint into the hole, making sure there weren’t any more coming out before he raked around it. “I was shooting hoops when these three senior guys came strolling over. They’re wearing Docs and beaters, and they’re sauntering my way and I smell redneck trouble. I’m not going to bolt, but if they want the hoop, I’ll get out of their way, you know?”

A blast of wind scattered the top layer of our pile. He sighed, shoulders slumping. I motioned for him to continue while I tidied it up.

“Only they didn’t want the court. They wanted me. Seems one guy’s mom worked at this 7-Eleven before it was bought by a Vietnamese family who gave her the boot. This was, like, a year before but, naturally, I must be related to them, right? I pointed out that, shockingly, not all Asians are related and we don’t all own convenience stores.”

He stopped raking. “When I say I’m not Vietnamese, one guy asks what I am. I say American, but eventually I give them what they want, and say my grandfather came from South Korea. Well, wouldn’t you know it, one guy’s uncle was killed in the Korean War. If this guy ever took a history class, he slept through it. He thought Koreans declared war on Americans. So I set him straight. And, yeah, I was a bit of a smart-ass about it. My dad always says if I can’t learn to keep my mouth shut, I’d better work on my defensive spells. And that day—” he resumed raking, voice dropping “—that day, he was right.

“I’m smart-mouthing but keeping it light, you know? Goofing. Next thing I know, one guy pulls a switchblade. It’s closed, though, and I’m staring at it like an idiot wondering what it is. Cell phone? MP3 player? Then, flick, out comes the blade. I tried to make a break for it, but it was too late. Another guy kicks out my feet and down I go. The guy with the blade is standing over me, and I’m readying a knock-back spell when Derek comes ripping around the corner. He grabs the guy with the knife, throws him aside, punches a second guy, and the third runs. Second guy gets up—he’s fine—runs after his buddy. But the first guy? The one he threw off me?”

“Doesn’t get up,” I whispered.

Simon speared a leaf on the tines of his rake. “Derek was right. There was no gun. But you know what?” He lifted his gaze to mine. “If a guy came at Derek with a gun, he’d have kept his cool and handled it smart. But he wasn’t the one in danger. I was. With Derek, that’s a whole different thing. It’s in his nature, my dad says, the—” He started raking hard, tearing through new grass and dirt. “So that’s how it happened. I was a smart-ass and I couldn’t back down from a bunch of rednecks and now Derek…”

He trailed off, and I knew Derek wasn’t the only one who blamed himself for what had happened.

“Anyway,” he said after a moment, “you didn’t bring me out here to talk about that, and if I keep yapping, Derek will track us down. I get the feeling this isn’t something you want to discuss with him.”

“It’s not.”

I told him about Rae. “I didn’t know what to say and that only made it worse, but she caught me completely off guard. Now Derek’s going to think I let something slip or I was chatting with my girlfriend, telling her my secrets, which I didn’t do, I swear—”

“I know. You aren’t like that.” He leaned on his rake. “Rae’s right about Brady. I used a knock-back spell on him. It was careless and stupid, but after what happened with those other guys, I wanted to be quicker on the draw, you know? When I saw Brady was trying to get into it with Derek, I just … reacted.”

“You wanted to diffuse the situation.”

“Yeah. And if Rae caught you guys coming in last night, that’s Derek’s fault. He should have been on the lookout. He’s got the ears and the—” he stopped “—the eyes. He can see pretty good in the dark, better than us. Normally, he’d have noticed Rae, but he must have been busy thinking about the escape.”

Not preoccupied—sick and feverish. But I couldn’t say that.

Simon went on. “He’s been in a mood, too. Crankier than usual. He broke our shower. Did you hear about that?” He shook his head. “Snapped the handle right off, so I had to tell Talbot it had been loose. But as for Rae, we’re going to have to tell him.”

“Do you think she’s one of us? A supernatural?”

“Could be half-demon. If she is, though, what does that mean, for us, being here? Four out of five kids? Maybe Liz, too, if she’s a shaman? That’s no coincidence. It can’t be.” He paused, thinking. “We’ll worry about that later. For now, I’m more concerned with her knowing about our plan.”

“She doesn’t just know. She wants to sign up.”

He cursed under his breath.

“She’d be useful,” I said. “She’s way more street smart than me.”

“And me. It’s just…” He shrugged. “I’m sure Rae’s cool, but I wouldn’t have argued about it just being the two of us.”

He glanced over at me. My heart started pounding double time.

“There’s a lot I want to talk to you about.” He touched the back of my hand, leaning so close I could feel his breath against my hair.

“What’s this about Rae?” a voice demanded. We turned to see Derek crossing the lawn.

Simon swore. “Anyone ever tell you your sense of timing really sucks.”

“That’s why I don’t play the drums. Now what’s up?”

I told him.