Last Meeting of the Gorilla Club

by Sara Nickerson

  With the big building boom, developers had been trying to buy the land for years. It was a prime chunk of forest that already separated two big housing developments. But even though her family had moved to California, they’d held on to the property, renting out the house and keeping the land intact. Because while they couldn’t live there—the memories were too painful—they didn’t want the house leveled and the trees chopped down. And as much as Lucas avoided the place, he was glad it was there, wild and wonderful, with the old trees holding a sort of magic.

  His friends were waiting for him. “I’ll catch up with you,” Lucas called. He watched Josh Duncan swing his backpack over his shoulder. The note felt heavy in his pocket. How could a small slip of paper feel heavy? Lucas wondered. Marvelous Mystery.

  The kid slipped out the door. He would follow him. He would give the kid the note but with a warning. He would tell him, “Don’t do what it says.”

  Lucas started to follow and then Mr. K said, “Lucas, can I talk to you for a moment?”

  Lucas hesitated. “I’m sort of in a hurry—”

  “It will only take a minute.” Mr. K came around to the other side of his desk. “I just wanted to check in about Monday. You really all set with your project?”

  “Yes,” Lucas said, staring straight into his eyes and not blinking.

  “And you don’t need any help or want to let me know what you’ll be presenting about?”

  Lucas knew that his best chance for a quick getaway was to tell Mr. K his topic. Even though he didn’t have one. So he blurted it out, the first thing he could think of.

  Mr. K sat back and crossed his arms. “Excellent choice. I’ve always been fascinated by that, too.”

  “Great—bye—gotta run.” Lucas shot for the door.

  “See you Monday. I’m looking forward to it.”

  “Me too,” Lucas called back. He ran into the hallway, searching for the very specific color of red. But it was gone. Josh Duncan had, once again, slipped away.

  SIBLINGS

  Josh sat on Dead Melanie’s bench, but he couldn’t eat his lunch. He had too many questions to be able to shove food in his mouth and swallow. As far as questions went, these were the biggest:

  Would he ever find Great-Aunt Evelyn’s nephew?

  Would he ever tell his mom about Big Brother and the sparkly girl?

  Would he ever see a real banana slug?

  He was shivering because of the damp chill in the air, or because of the questions, or because of the proximity to a dormant volcano, or because the pepperoni piled on his plate wouldn’t stop staring at him. He peeked around the giant rhododendron bush to see the alien-ship library hovering above the Hello Walk. He couldn’t tell his mom, not yet. He would wait until his dad came home—his rational, poster-quoting dad. There would be a perfect inspirational poster for this strange time, and Josh would hang it on his wall, and then—

  And then what?

  Josh couldn’t think that far ahead. When he pulled out his haunted library book, Land Snails and Slugs of the Pacific Northwest, Big Brother appeared. He leaned over Josh’s shoulder and asked, “Is there really a slug that looks like a banana?”

  “Yes,” Josh said. “Where have you been?”

  “Busy. Any luck finding one?”

  “What?”

  “A banana slug.”

  “No. I think you need to go deep into the forest.”

  “Are you going to do that? Go deep into the forest?”

  Josh set his book down. “Are you kidding? There are bears around here. And possibly Bigfoot. It’s bad enough just riding my bike next to the forest.”

  “Fair enough,” Big Brother said.

  Josh shuffled his feet back and forth. “Sorry. I guess I’m sort of freaking out. It’s just—some stuff seems weirder than normal. Even weirder than back when it was weird. Also, did you know a group of crows is called a murder? I forgot to tell you that.”

  “I didn’t know. What else is weird?”

  “Well, there’s you. You are back. That’s sort of weird. I need to tell Mom and Dad about you.”

  “I know. And you will. When you’re ready.”

  “Yeah, but Mom is weird, too. She’s not unpacking the boxes, even though that’s what she says she’s going to do every day. And her rash is really bad. I don’t want to tell her about you until those things are better.”

  “That’s probably smart. So in the meantime, as long as I’m here, I’m still going to give you some big brotherly advice.”

  “Some more? I liked it better before when we just played games.”

  Big Brother nodded. “I know. I liked that, too. But we’re both older now. And there’s something I want you to do. There’s a football game tonight. A high school football game. Lots of kids from your school will be going. The whole town will be going—”

  “I know. I already heard. It’s all people talk about. The Panthers. But how do you know all this?”

  “I’m in high school now.”

  Josh laughed. “Right.” He sort of hated Big Brother, but in the normal sibling way that came and went. It had been lonely without him. Sad-monkey lonely. And no one understood him like his brother did.

  To change the subject, Josh pointed to his book. “Did you know that banana slugs are the largest slug in North America, probably the second largest slug in the world? They are only found in the western Pacific Northwest coastal lowlands and—”

  “What about the game?” Big Brother interrupted.

  “I don’t like stadiums. What if there’s an earthquake? Or a volcanic eruption? Look—” He pulled out his other book from the haunted library and opened to the picture of the blasted mountain. “In 1980, Mount St. Helens blew up. Fifty-seven people were killed.”

  “That doesn’t seem like a lot of people. For a volcano.”

  “It might seem different if you were one of them.”

  “Good point, Little Bro. And it’s normal to be scared of things. Everyone feels scared of things.”

  “I don’t think that’s true.”

  “It is. And I think that the way you see the world is a good thing.”

  “What do you mean? The way I see the world?”

  “The way you see the gorilla when other people don’t—”

  “Shut up.”

  “I mean it. That’s a good thing. But it makes it hard sometimes, too.”

  Josh closed the book. He couldn’t look at any more spewing ash and lava. He was close to crying, and he worried that if he started, he wouldn’t stop.

  “I believe in you, Little Brother.”

  Josh rubbed his eyes. A few tears had managed to escape.

  “If anyone can find a banana slug, it’s you.”

  Josh laughed.

  “Tell me something,” Big Brother said after a few moments of silence. “Was I right about riding your bike?”

  Josh nodded.

  “Then I’m right about this, too. You should go tonight. To the game. Sit with kids from your class. See what happens.”

  Josh wiped his eyes again and cleared his throat and sat up straight and tried to change the subject by telling Big Brother amazing facts about tectonic plates and earthquakes and about Mount Rainier, which at 14,410 feet above sea level, is the highest place in Washington and also considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world. “The world,” he added again for emphasis. But Big Brother didn’t answer. He was already gone.

  LEFTOVERS

  There was no way Josh was going to a small-town high school football game. No way ever! Until—leftovers.

  Because when he got home and his mom said, “How was your day?” and he said, “Fine. What’s for dinner?” and she said, “Leftovers,” it didn’t sound like leftovers. It sounded like, “Nothing will ever change in your life, n
ot even your dinner. You will be eating meat loaf forever.”

  Josh went up to his room to kill time before the call-of-doom leftovers. While he waited, he finished sorting the red Lego pieces and got started on the white. Building anything good, like the castle world or the ninja world or the pirate world, would require a trip to the garage and digging through stacks of boxes. It would also require that Josh admit to himself that nothing was as fun as it used to be. Even Lego.

  He lay down on his bed. He wished Big Brother would come, but he knew he wouldn’t. Even that wasn’t the same.

  It wasn’t yet close to dark, which guaranteed Friday to be the longest night in all of Josh’s eleven years. Which meant the longest weekend, too.

  He went downstairs.

  “Mom,” he said, stepping into the kitchen. It was a large kitchen, but suddenly it seemed tiny, like a perfect-fitting sweater that got thrown into a hot dryer.

  “Honey? Are you hungry already? Let me just warm up—”

  “No, Mom. It’s not that.”

  Josh was pretty sure that if he took one bite of warmed-over food, his heart would stop from the shock of it. It would be like time travel. His body would know he couldn’t possibly eat food from the day before because the day before already felt like a hundred years ago. That was the problem with the leftovers.

  “I’m going out,” he said.

  “What? Where?”

  It was about him not fitting anywhere, even at home. It was about all the secrets he’d been keeping since the move. If he didn’t get out, he would explode. No, he would erupt. He was an active volcano.

  “Where are you going?” she asked again.

  “To a football game,” he said, because of Big Brother and because it was the only thing he could think of. “Can you drop me off?”

  His mom beamed. “Well, that’s wonderful. What time does it start? I’ll get my keys. And my warm coat.”

  “Mom—”

  She was all flustered, trying to figure out what to do with the leftovers. She was so happy about going out. “Mom, I was hoping you could just drop me off. At the school. I might meet some people. You know.”

  “Oh.” She stopped.

  “If that’s okay.”

  “Of course, honey.” She came close and pushed the hair out of his face. “You look different. Older. Maybe it’s time for a haircut.”

  “Mom!” Josh squirmed out of her grasp.

  “I trust you to be responsible tonight. I trust you to be careful.”

  “You can,” Josh said. “Trust me. I will be careful and responsible.” He couldn’t believe it was happening. That he was actually going to a high school football game. And maybe he would meet some people—some kids. A friend.

  Big Brother had planted that idea, too.

  It was one of those things that snowballed. The snowball effect, or in this case, the meat loaf effect. When one small thing starts moving and builds into something bigger until it’s an actual big thing—something almost unrecognizable.

  GO PANTHERS

  After his mom dropped him off at the Mountain View parking lot, Josh took his time crossing the K–8 playfield to the high school stadium.

  What

  had

  he

  been

  thinking?

  Even from the parking lot he could hear the crowd, the band, the cheers. As he passed the dugout, he smelled pine, that Christmas-tree smell, and he felt something new about this place with its quiet roads and damp air. He remembered hiding out on that first day when he ran away from school. Already that seemed like a lifetime ago.

  The moon pushed round and bright through the cover of clouds, and all the stadium lights were turned on, making it seem like a giant campfire on a dark night. Josh let the lights pull him in to the back entrance of the stadium. He remembered it from the tour day with the assistant principal.

  There was a ticket booth, with a sign that said STUDENTS—NO CHARGE. Josh walked in and went straight to the back of the stadium, where the concession stands were bright and busy, selling things that smelled extra good, like popcorn and nachos and hot dogs. He watched for a minute, all the color of the crowd, and then followed the line of people balancing their sodas and snacks, up the back steps to the heart of the stadium, where the lights were blinding and the bleachers were packed. For a split second he thought he saw Big Brother standing up in the crowd, next to a girl with long hair. But when Josh blinked, he was gone.

  Josh turned his back to the cheering fans and pressed up against the metal railing. Right below him, on the eight-lane track, was a cheer squad of twelve high school girls and boys. There was also a mascot—a person dressed like a panther—and they all danced around and kicked their legs and did things like pyramids and flips.

  Josh had never been part of a crowd in that way, and before he knew it, he was stomping his feet with the band and clapping his hands with the cheer squad. He laughed at the funny mascot and cheered for the players as they huddled together and then burst apart. One guy hiked the ball and then everyone ran and crashed and fell and got up and huddled again.

  The moon was bright and close—nearly full. Josh smelled that tangy pine again and thought, Somewhere, out there beyond the circle of light, pine trees were standing tall and strong. They were there all the time, even when a person could not see them.

  He stayed like that for the whole game, leaning against the railing, smelling pine and cheering with the crowd. When the scoreboard said fourth quarter with two minutes to go, the Panthers were behind by three.

  The other team—the Timberwolves—had the ball. The Panthers lined up as the Timberwolf quarterback called out his numbers. The ball shot back into his hands and everyone crashed together. Then, a Panther player broke through the line. He leapt into the air and flew straight at the quarterback.

  “AHHHH!” the crowd shouted. But the quarterback stayed calm. He scrambled to his right, kept looking down the field, and finally threw the ball.

  Josh admired his calmness in the face of an oncoming player. The ball rose into the sky. It curved and dropped, just as a player from the Timberwolves was positioning himself underneath it, reaching up with open hands.

  “AHHHHH!”

  The scream came from both sides of the stadium.

  “AHHHHH!”

  Because right then, a Panther also made a leap. And he tipped the ball, right out of the fingers of the Timberwolf. The ball wobbled in the air as it headed for the ground, but the Panther twisted and stretched even farther and then even farther again.

  He actually caught it!

  And somehow, when it looked like he would fall flat on his face, he broke the law of gravity. He didn’t fall. He held on to the ball and landed on his feet and spun around and, as the crowd started to roar, he thundered down the field.

  He was at the fifty-yard line.

  The forty.

  The thirty.

  When he got to the twenty, Josh started to jump, just like the rest of the crowd. They jumped. They screamed. They jumped and screamed to help their very own Panther make the touchdown.

  And he did!

  He crossed into the end zone and the stands erupted. When Josh spun around to look at the stadium, his arms shot straight up. And that’s when he understood why people went to games and screamed until their voices cracked. The players out there—they were his dad’s inspirational posters, come to life.

  “YEAAAAH!” he screamed with the rest of them. Bodies hugged and jumped and danced to the music. The biggest celebration ever was happening all around Josh. And he was a part of it. He was finally in the movie he’d always wanted to be in.

  Down below on the track, the cheer squad was making a giant pyramid. They were making a giant pyramid, just like in the movies. He saw a flash of red. The pyramid was done and the crowd was doing some sort of
chant with the cheerleaders . . . Who are we? Pan-thers . . . and then at the base of the human pyramid, one more person began to crawl to the top. Josh leaned forward. No, it couldn’t be.

  Yes, it was.

  Great-Aunt Evelyn. In her red tracksuit. Stepping onto shoulders and elbows and heads. Grabbing with her gnarled oak-tree hands.

  When she reached the top of the pyramid, she wobbled to her feet and balanced there, on the shoulders of the top smiling cheerleader. She raised her arms and stared across the track.

  “Did you find my Jackie?” Josh saw her mouth moving and heard her voice in his ear. He was pinned against the railing, staring straight across to the top of the pyramid into Great-Aunt Evelyn’s watery blue eyes.

  “Do you still have the book?”

  Josh thought she might go away if he showed her the Robert Frost poetry book. He maneuvered his backpack to his front and unzipped the top. He pulled out the book and held it up, but by then the pyramid had disassembled and Great-Aunt Evelyn was on the ground, kicking her leg. It looked, alarmingly, like she was getting ready to do a cartwheel.

  “Hey!” Josh called and waved the book to get her attention. But a push from behind sent the book flying out of his hands.

  “No!” Josh yelled. The book landed on the track, splayed out and open. He frantically looked around. How to get down there? The crowd was pushing even harder, pinning him to the rail. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned his head. It was a kid Josh recognized from Mr. K’s class. Lucas Hernandez.

  Josh opened his mouth and tried to explain. “My book!” He pointed.

  The kid pressed up next to his shoulder and looked down at the track. “Here,” he said. “Follow me.”

  And he pushed through the crowd, making space for Josh to follow.

  TOUCHDOWN

  If there was one thing that could take Lucas Hernandez’s mind off his problems, it was a football game. Especially a Panthers football game.

  Lucas loved the high school games. He loved how the air was crisp, and the lights were bright. He loved the large rectangle of green field divided by neat white lines. He loved the end zones and the music and the nachos he always shared with his friends. He loved it all.