I have no clue how much time has gone by. All I know is that it’s hot in here and I’ve bitten all my nails down so far that my pinky has started to bleed. I wish Fynn still had his Band-Aids.
Speaking of Fynn, he’s currently huddled in the back of the shed with Scarlett, being absolutely no help. I’m sure he’s probably imagining every germ in this place. Beans, though, he’s next to me, peering through a crack in the wall, surveying the area. I hope his brilliant brain is spinning a way out of this.
The Masons are sitting around their campfire, and now that I’m not being dragged along the ground, I have a chance to get a better look at them. The woman is indeed enormous. She’s taller than my dad, and he’s six two. She’s bigger than my Aunt Susie, who I heard Mom say is three hundred pounds. And her red hair sticks out all over the place, looking like it hasn’t been brushed in the past year.
Two of the boys are short and pudgy, and the third one is tall and skinny. That one, the skinny one, sits off by himself over on the porch steps. The man is skinny, too, with a long ponytail and a mustache so bushy, I seriously would not be shocked if something crawled out of it. He’s sitting on one of the stumps around the fire, whittling a stick with a pocketknife.
Hey, wait a minute. That’s my pocketknife!
And then I see it. All of our stuff. Sitting in a pile behind the woman. From the looks of it, they’ve already picked through everything. How dare they! That’s ours!
Then I notice the silver dusting the roof of their shack, and I suddenly remember the bear. I give Beans a nudge. “Check out the roof. That silver dust was on the bear, too. It’s the same stuff that was in our hair when we climbed down from the silo. From the meteor, right?”
Beans frowns for a second while he thinks. “Yeah, it must be. Like the meteor is leaving a bread crumb trail for us to follow.”
I turn around and look at everything crammed in the shed with us. It’s just more of what’s outside. Junk. Where do they get all this stuff? Do they steal it? And what do they do with it? By the looks of the rust and dust, nothing.
Crawling across the dirt, I start picking through the pile, looking for… I’m not sure what. A weapon, maybe? My stomach pitches at the thought. I never imagined I’d want to use a weapon, but I’m not going to let these people hurt my friends.
“Help me look,” I say to Fynn and Scarlett. There’s got to be something in here that can help us escape.
I come across a book bag and my fingers pause. The Mason Mountain Clan are rumored to kidnap and eat kids. Maybe they throw the kids’ stuff in here afterward? Who did this book bag belong to? I wonder, as I swallow a sudden lump and imagine what people might find of us one day: Fynn’s inhaler, my pocketknife, Scarlett’s lip gloss, Beans’s compass, and Rocky’s muscle tee.
I hope Rocky’s out there looking for help.
With shaky hands I slide the book bag closer, unzip it, and look inside. It’s empty. I hold it up to a shaft of light filtering through the slats in the shed, looking for a name tag or something, and feel oddly relieved there’s nothing identifying whom it once belonged to. Like if the book bag is anonymous, then maybe the Mason Clan just found it. They didn’t actually kill a kid to get it.
Something over to the right catches my attention next, and I reach past several hubcaps and pull it free. The hubcaps clank together as I do, and I put my hands on them to keep them quiet. For a second I don’t move, my ears tuned to the outside, but I hear only the crackle of the fire.
“What’d you find?” Scarlett whispers.
“I don’t know.” It’s a long, dusty, brown leather case. I lay it down on the dirt floor, unsnap it, and flip it open to see a shotgun lying inside. My eyes snap up to Beans, and his go wide as he stares down at the gun.
“Is it loaded?” Fynn asks.
I shake my head. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about guns.”
Beans scoots over and leans in to study the silver engraved tag. He squints and rubs his finger over the dirty writing. “‘Basinger,’” he whispers, and I suck in a shocked breath. They really did kill him.
“They’re responsible,” Fynn says. “This is proof. Why else would they have his gun?”
I think of that time I saw Old Man Basinger on his farm, holding a shotgun propped on his shoulder and looking for us. My friends and I were giggling and hiding behind a wall of trees. We knew we weren’t supposed to be there. We were playing our own ridiculous version of Basinger hide-and-seek.
Yeah, we can be real idiots.
Scarlett reaches for the shotgun. “I know about guns.”
I look up to Fynn to see if she’s telling the truth, and he nods. “Her mom takes her shooting.”
Wow, a dad who’s a band manager and a mom who shoots. That’s gnarly.
Scarlett lifts the shotgun out of the case. “Let me see if there’re any bullets.”
Any bullets. Meaning we may use this to defend ourselves. We may have to shoot this thing. We might even have to shoot one of the Masons.
I think I’m going to be sick.
Scarlett presses something, slides something else, and cocks open the gun. I watch as she looks it over, and I am filled with both hope and dread and a little bit of awe that she actually knows what she’s doing.
Then she clicks the gun back together and puts it in its case. “No bullets.”
I feel more relief than anything as I close the case. I really didn’t want to have to shoot someone. As I slide the gun back toward the pile of junk, voices filter in from outside, and I scoot back over to the crack in the shed and peer out.
“Ya think they’s looking for that thing that fell from the sky?” asks one of the chubby brothers.
“It’s called a meteor,” answers the skinny one.
“‘It’s called a meteor,’” the first one mimics, and then gives him a hard shove. “Shut up, Junior!”
The third brother laughs. “Maybe we should teach you just how smart you really ain’t.”
“Yuns all shut up,” the woman snaps. “Fact is, them others are after it, too.”
I look at Beans. Others? What others? I mouth, and he shrugs. We go back to looking through the crack.
The woman plants her hands on her hips and looks over at the shed, and I duck back. “Otis, I’m tellin’ ya. Them kids know somethin’ they’s not supposed to.”
We do?
She pulls our map from her front dress pocket and snaps it against her palm. “You seen them Xs?” she says to the man, who I now know is named Otis. “Yep, I’s got a feelin’ some’in’ else is going on. Why’s so many people looking fer this thing?”
“Who else would be looking for it?” Beans whispers, and I shrug. The big woman’s right. Something’s going on.
“We’s gonna leave ’em right here and go find this thing,” she tells the man.
Otis strikes my pocketknife against that stick of wood and turns his beady eyes over to the shed. “Maybe they just after our moonshine,” he says.
The woman snarls, and I swear I hear a growl. “Wouldn’ be the first.”
“We’re not after your moonshine!” Beans yells.
I slap him on the shoulder. “Would you shut up?”
“We’s gonna find out.” The woman stomps over to the shed, and the four of us scramble into the back corner, next to all the junk. She fiddles with the lock and throws the door open, and fresh air rushes in.
Towering in the doorway, she glowers over at Beans’s pile of throw-up. “Which one of you brats did that?”
I resist the urge to jab my finger in Beans’s direction. Fynn does instead, and I shoot him a warning glare.
She plants her fists on her meaty hips. “Now, which one of yuns we gonna work on first?”
Fynn’s entire body begins violently shaking.
Scarlett’s nails dig into the skin of my arm.
Beans scoots farther back, up and over the junk.
The woman’s eyes track across each one of us, before landing on Fyn
n.
“N-n-no. Please.” He wheezes, and I know he’s about to go into a full-on attack. “Please leave us alone.”
She points at him. “You. Get out ’ere.”
“Please,” I beg her. “He has asthma. Leave him alone.”
Her narrowed gaze slides from Fynn over to me. “Then you. Come on.”
CHAPTER 10
My throat tightens, and I swallow. “Wh-wh-what are you going to do to me?”
She snarls, like she’s some kind of rabid ferret. “If you don’t git out ’ere right now, I’ll string up every one of yuns kids.”
I don’t immediately move. I don’t think I can.
“You hear me, girl?”
I make myself nod, and as I stiffly go to get up, Beans clings to me. “No, Annie.”
“I-it’s okay,” I mutter, pushing the rest of the way to stand, and digging my fingertips into my palms, I shuffle my feet across the dirt floor toward the woman.
She snatches me as soon as I reach the doorway, slams shut and locks the metal shed, then drags me across the leaves and sticks of their yard. I stumble behind her, my blood hammering, desperate to scream, to fight, to do something, but trying so very hard to be brave.
Otis sucks his teeth. “Now, Mary Jo, don’ go and do anythin’ too stupid.”
She cackles and gurgles up a loogie that she spits.
I cringe. Ick.
Mary Jo shoves me down into the dirt. “Stay.”
Wildly, I look around. I could run. I could totally run. Two of the Mason boys take a step toward me like they can read my mind, but I notice that the skinny one, the one they were picking on, hangs back. Junior, they called him.
But before I have time to react to anything, Mary Jo crams me inside a large canvas sack, leaving my head and arms sticking out the top. She cinches it tight under my armpits and ties my hands behind my back. Then two of her boys hoist up the sack with me in it, and the next thing I know, I’m hanging from a tree limb.
I squirm and kick at the sack. “Let me down!”
Mary Jo crows with laughter and Otis joins in. One of the boys pokes me with a stick.
“I say we ransom ’em,” Otis says.
Mary Jo gives that considerable thought. “Kidnap ’n’ ransom. We’re some real outlaws, you ’n’ me.”
Kidnap and ransom? My heart bangs a terrified beat that goes straight into full-on racing.
“Ma,” Junior says. “You know—”
“Kidnap ’n’ ransom.” Mary Jo steps up and gets right in my face. “Whaddaya think of that, li’l girl? You think yuns parents will pay money for ya?”
I think of yesterday when Mom and Dad were in my bedroom. I had thrown that dress on the floor. I’m horrible. Mom spent money on that dress and I tossed it on the floor. My eyes blur with tears. Ransom? My parents don’t have money to pay a ransom for me.
One of the boys puffs out his bottom lip. “Look, Ma, you made her cry.”
“What is wrong with you all?” I blurt out. “We’re just a bunch of kids. We were out having fun and camping—” My voice cracks, and I can’t stop the tears that fall. I take a few shaky breaths and look at the Masons as they silently stare back at me.
None of them mutter one single word, and while the quiet grows, my mind spirals. What are they going to do to me now? Why are they just watching me?
Mary Jo snaps out of her staring, and she pulls the map out of her dress pocket and shoves it in my face. “What’re the Xs?”
I don’t respond. That meteor’s supposed to save Beans. If these people find it instead, Beans is definitely leaving.
She shoves the map in my face again. “Speak, girl.”
My bottom lip wobbles. I can’t tell them. I can’t.
Mary Jo sneers. “I’ll go get your friends. I’m sure one of ’em’ll talk. The wheezy one will.”
Not Fynn! He’ll have a full-on attack, and these people won’t know to give him his inhaler. The words tumble from my lips. “It’s just a meteor that fell. I promise. We thought we might find it. That’s all. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Just don’t hurt us.”
She glares at me, like she’s trying to figure out if I’m telling the truth, and then she points at the two short boys. “You two come with me. We’re gonna find that one that got away.”
“Run, Rocky!” I shriek so loudly my vocal cords spasm. Please be near and hear me. “Run!”
Mary Jo slaps her hand over my mouth, and I catch my breath and gag. Her hand stinks! She sticks her jowly face right in mine, and my eyeballs zero in on her beady blue ones. A moment thumps by and I absolutely regret screaming for Rocky. Her mouth curls into a dirty grin. I know I’m done for.
Without saying a word to me, she flops her hand out toward one of the boys. “Bandana.”
Bandana? What is she going to do, blindfold me?
In my peripheral vision I see one of the brothers untie a purple bandana from his neck. Hey, that’s mine! He hands it to her and she proceeds to cram it into my mouth. I gag and gasp and shake my head and poke at it with my tongue and gag some more. After being on the boy’s sweaty skin, it tastes like rot, and I can’t get it out of my mouth!
With a chuckle, Mary Jo and two of the boys amble off through the woods, and Otis settles down into a rusted lawn chair. He crosses his booted feet, slides his hat down over his face, and folds his arms over his skinny stomach.
“Go round me up some pork rinds,” he tells Junior.
The boy looks at me for a second in this hesitant way, like he’s trying to figure out what to do. I hold my breath, keeping my eyes locked on his, hoping he’s about to let me go. But then he turns and hurries to the trailer, and I let out a frustrated breath.
A moment ticks by, and then Otis’s snore begins vibrating through the air.
I look over to the shed to see Beans, Fynn, and Scarlett all peering out at me through the gap in the metal slats. I squirm and kick and strain at the ties around my wrists and get absolutely nowhere.
Dipping my head, I run my mouth and the bandana back and forth across the canvas sack, and the friction tugs the bandana loose. I spit it out and spit some more, trying to clean my mouth. Eck. Nasty.
Craning my neck, I look up at the tree limb. It’s really not that thick. It should snap. I bounce my body. Once. Twice. Three times. And the limb merely bounces with me.
Looking back over at the shed, I catch sight of my friends’ fingers sticking out of every gap they can find, trying the slats for looseness, and an idea forms.
“See if you can dig out underneath,” I whisper, but I know they can’t hear me over Otis’s snores.
“See if you can dig out underneath,” I say a little louder, but my friends still don’t hear me.
“Hey!” I call out, and all three of them look through the slats at the same time Otis chokes on a snore.
I freeze, and my pulse ping-pongs around in the canvas sack.
One second goes by. Then another. And Otis bumps right back into sawing up the area.
I swerve my gaze over to my friends again. “Try. To. Dig. Out. Un-der-neath,” I whisper, dramatically moving my lips so they can be read.
I wait, my gaze glued to the bottom of the shed. Then I see it: slight movement, a stirring of dirt. They’re digging. They’re digging!
I crane my neck as far left as I can toward the Masons’ shack, silently praying Junior doesn’t come back out. Then something a little beyond the shack catches my attention. A shadow. A movement in the trees.
Oh, no. Mary Jo’s already coming back!
But it’s Rocky who steps through the trees with his finger over his mouth, and I grin with pure joy and relief, and then grin even bigger when Edge and Hoppy follow right behind him.
The boys both eye Otis as they tiptoe past the Masons’ shack toward me. When they’re right in front, I whisper, “Beans and Fynn and Scarlett are in the shed.”
Edge and Rocky turn to the shed to see my friends’ fingers sticking out of the cracks in
the metal slats. Luckily, they know enough not to make any sound. Or rather, Scarlett knows enough not to screech for help.
“Where’s the key?” Edge whispers to me.
“I don’t know. But hurry. One of the boys is inside the shack, and Mary Jo and the other two went off looking for Rocky.”
Edge pulls a large hunting knife from a holder strapped to his hip. He wraps one arm around me and the canvas potato sack I’m contained within, and as he holds me and saws at the rope connecting me to the tree, I try very hard to ignore the fact he’s holding me.
With a soft grunt and one last whack by Edge, my rope breaks free and Edge lowers me to the ground. He loosens the sack and rolls me over to cut the ties around my wrists.
Otis chokes on another snore, and the three of us jump into action. We sprint around him and the fire pit and start digging at the earth beneath the shed where my captive friends have already put a tiny dent. Hoppy gets into it, too, clawing at the ground. Beans, Fynn, and Scarlett feverishly work from their side, and little by little the ground begins to break free. But it’s taking forever!
I shoot a hurried glance over my shoulder to make sure Mary Jo isn’t by some horrible chance standing right behind me, and I see all the junk strewn across the yard. Racing over, I find a scrap of metal, a rusted spade, and a hunk of wood. I run back to Rocky and Edge, hand out the junk, and we all keep right on plowing.
Otis smacks his lips, and I glance over to see him shift positions before he goes right back on with sleeping.
Dirt kicks up as we claw and dig and scratch at the ground. I don’t know how dogs do it. It’s harder than it seems. It feels like we’ve been digging forever, but the hole still isn’t through to the other side.
“Otis!” I hear Mary Jo bellow in the distance, and nerves punch through me.
“Hurry,” I say.
A cough comes from behind, and I whirl around to see Junior standing behind us, holding the bag of pork rinds. I get ready to lunge and tackle him in defense, but then he holds his finger to his mouth. “Shh.”
I freeze in place, carefully eyeing him as he walks over to a nearby tree, reaches behind it, and brings out a key. “Mom keeps an extra one here,” he whispers.
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