Squint

by Chad Morris

  Part of me didn’t want to hike with her. “I probably shouldn’t,” I said. “I’d miss my bus and have to walk home and that’s like twenty minutes.”

  “Twenty minutes isn’t too bad,” she said. “Meet me by the city library after school.”

  “Today?” I asked.

  She nodded. “I’ve got to do as many of these challenges as fast as I—”

  “What’s going on over here?” A voice interrupted. A voice I definitely didn’t want to hear. I looked up to see Gavin. Emma was walking with him.

  My head almost immediately ached and this time my eye didn’t have anything to do with it. This was the moment they’d been leading up to. All of this had been a setup. McKell was a double agent. She was the Loki to my Thor. I shouldn’t have trusted her.

  “Why aren’t you eating lunch with us?” Emma asked McKell, her long hair done up with some sort of clip.

  “Looks like she’s found herself a boyfriend,” Gavin said and wiggled his eyebrows up and down.

  Red. I knew I was turning red. Gavin would even make a joke when one of his friends was setting me up for something worse.

  “No,” McKell said, “It’s not that.” But then she didn’t say anything else.

  Was she flustered? Why? This was the moment everything had been leading to, right?

  I waited a little longer, and she looked down at her food. She didn’t seem covered in a hard diamond shell. Definitely not invincible.

  Maybe she wasn’t a double agent. Maybe she hadn’t been over here because of them. Maybe she didn’t want them to know and now she was busted. That was why she’d kept glancing out at the cafeteria.

  “It’s nothing like that,” I said. “She’s tutoring me in science. I’m not that great at it. Mitochondria. Chlorophyll. She’s helping me out and earning a little money.” I shut my mouth quickly because I could feel myself about to spiral into endless talking and then I’d probably say something stupid.

  McKell’s eyes widened a little, then she grabbed her tray. Had I helped her, or would she make fun of me for actually trying to cover for her? “So, do you understand mitosis now?” she asked.

  I nodded and responded, “I think so. Thanks.”

  As she took her tray and walked away with Gavin and Emma, she looked over her shoulder. I’m not sure what her expression was, I couldn’t really see it, but I’d like to think she was grateful.

  I exhaled silently, but long.

  It wasn’t a joke. She was coming over to eat with me because . . . well, I didn’t know. But it wasn’t to make fun of me. At least I didn’t think so. I couldn’t figure out the rules with McKell. Maybe in some ways she broke them.

  Now I just had to decide whether I should meet her after school or not.

  “I didn’t think you were going to come,” McKell said, standing up from under a tall birch tree. The wind blew her hair around a little, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as Nebraskan winds can get.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d be here,” I said, walking up to the library with my backpack slung over my shoulders and my portfolio case dangling from my right hand. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to McKell again since lunch, so even coming had been a bit of a gamble. I still wasn’t sure if I wanted this to happen or not. I mean, she seemed nice enough, but I wasn’t going to let my heart pound like a herd of stampeding wildebeests again. There was a chance this could be another disaster.

  McKell smiled. “I know this is weird, but thanks for coming with me.”

  She sounded a little different, maybe more relaxed. I followed her behind the library and we started walking across the parking lot towards a wooded area. She pointed ahead. “We’re taking that trail.”

  I couldn’t really see the trail from where I stood. I nodded and followed, telling myself this would turn out fine. It’s just a walk on a trail through some trees, not even that far from houses. It wasn’t like a hike through the mountains. We don’t really have many of those in Nebraska.

  But as we walked, I couldn’t keep my mind from spinning with the possibilities. Finally, I blurted out, “What are we doing? This isn’t leading to some crazy prank is it? Because that’s about the last thing I need right now. Are Gavin and Travis going to sneak up and drench me with buckets of water? Or jump out wearing bear costumes and scare the bazaam out of me? I mean, I don’t think so after what happened at lunch today, but I’m not sure.”

  I stopped walking.

  She looked back over her shoulder at me, her eyes wide.

  I just word-vomited all over the poor girl, and my pulse was racing.

  “Maybe I should go,” I said, and started to turn back.

  “You can’t leave,” she said, grabbing my shoulder. “We had a deal and I promise there’s no prank.” She paused. “I don’t do that.”

  I didn’t move.

  “I mean,” she continued, “I know Gavin and Travis and the others would. But that’s not me. And all that stuff at lunch today was . . . confusing. I’m kind of new here, just started this year, and I like hanging out with those guys but . . .” She didn’t finish. “Sometimes,” she started again. She shook her head. “Thanks for covering for me with that science tutoring thing.”

  I wasn’t sure I understood all of what she was trying to say, but I answered the part I did get. “You’re welcome,” I said.

  She gestured me forward. “Can we keep going?”

  I thought for a moment, but then surrendered and followed her. Soon the pavement gave way to a dirt trail with trees on both sides. It smelled a bit like a mud puddle. I couldn’t see it all perfectly, but I could tell light was scattering through the tree branches and leaves. And by the extreme stillness of everything around us, I was pretty sure that we had entered a different world entirely. Like when Thor landed in Sakaar in Ragnarok, but with less garbage and more ferns.

  The ground was a little uneven, like I was afraid of, but it wasn’t terrible. I managed okay. My portfolio kept hitting random branches that popped up out of nowhere, so I held it to my chest as I walked. I wished we hadn’t come straight from school.

  “So it isn’t Gavin or Travis giving you the challenges?” I asked.

  She laughed. “Not even close,” she said. “And if they did, I don’t know that I’d even listen. Challenges from them would probably have something to do with burping or football.” I laughed at that. “Plus, they don’t even know I like to rhyme or make up songs, so they couldn’t have given me that challenge.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Why not?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.” She took a few more steps. “It’s like there are two McKells inside of me.” Then she turned it to rhyme. “One wants to be cool at school, to begin to fit in.” She took a breath. “But at my peak, I’m more unique. Maybe brave, not enslaved. Just me.”

  I wasn’t sure what all that meant, but it sounded deep. Like she was trying to sort it out herself.

  “I have no idea how you can rhyme like that,” I said, taking a few more steps.

  “It’s easy,” she said. “You could do it.”

  “No way.”

  “Sure,” she said. “Just try.”

  I opened my mouth for a second, but didn’t know what to say. “What do I rhyme with?” I asked.

  “With whatever,” she said, walking beside me. “No. Not whatever. That’s a hard word to rhyme with.” Maybe as hard as the word challenge. “Well, I guess you could rhyme it with never, or sever, or lever, or endeavor.” Never mind.

  “How about I give you a word and you rhyme with it,” I suggested. “Show me how it’s done.”

  “Sure,” she said.

  I looked around. “Brush.”

  “Rush. Lush. Gush.” She was fast.

  “Trees.”

  “Sneeze. Please. Breeze.”

  “Hill.”

  “Thrill. Pil
l. Bill. Chlorophyll.” She clapped her hands. “Extra points to McKell for a three-syllable word and a science vocab term. Maybe I really am tutoring you in science.” She smiled big as we walked a little farther. The sun caught my eye a few times and sent a little surge of pain, but nothing too crazy. It was nice to replace blurry lockers and halls with blurry greens and browns.

  “Okay, now it’s your turn,” McKell said. “Let’s start super easy.” She thought for a second. “Trail.”

  “Um . . . pail,” I said.

  “Good.”

  I walked for a few more steps, waiting for the next word.

  “Good,” she repeated and waited.

  “Oh, I thought you were telling me good job,” I said. “Um . . . hood.”

  “Nice job.”

  “Thanks.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Oh, uh . . . Spice Bob.”

  I guess anyone could rhyme. McKell laughed long. “Fantastic.”

  I thought for a minute. “Uh . . . you got me there,” I said, surrendering.

  “Elastic,” she said. “Or plastic—or drastic.”

  I shook my head. Okay, not everyone could rhyme. “It’s just practice,” McKell said. “The more you practice, the easier and quicker you can come up with rhymes.” She cleared her throat. “If you hear a rhyme, enough times, you rewind, your mind, to that time, and reuse, not confuse or lose or abuse, but repeat the sweet rhyme, different times.”

  “Whoa.” That might have been the longest string of rhymes she had done yet. “That’s pretty impressive,” I said.

  “It’s like your drawing,” McKell said, walking a little ahead of me. “The more you practice, the better you get.”

  I nodded. I should be drawing right now instead of trying to rhyme on a hike. Squint and Rock had a score to settle, and maybe I’d try putting in a diamond girl character. But I did have a little more than a month still to the deadline.

  “How far are we going?” I asked. We passed a middle-aged couple holding hands going in the opposite direction. That made McKell look around a little. Maybe she was still nervous about being seen hanging out with me. And nobody would believe the science tutor lie out here. “The farther we go, the higher my chance of tripping and falling into a rock and my eyes exploding everywhere.”

  “Gross,” she said. “And you’re not serious, right?”

  “Not really, but kind of. But mostly not,” I rambled. “I just have to be careful.” Maybe my grandma’s paranoia was getting to me.

  “But you could do this, right?” she said, and pointed at a stream near the path. It was only about six inches deep, but too wide to leap across. She started walking carefully from rock to rock. “We’re only going a little farther,” she said.

  I hadn’t done anything like this in a while. A long while. But I thought I could do it. And I liked it. I wasn’t at home. I wasn’t by myself. Maybe there should be a rule about it not being the best thing for a kid to spend most of his life by himself or with his grandparents. “I’ll be fine,” I told McKell. I stepped onto the first rock. I teetered a bit since I was still holding my portfolio and my backpack, but I managed to find my balance. I had to be careful. If my portfolio fell in, my comic pages would be ruined.

  McKell had her backpack on too, but she hopped on the rocks in a way I was never going to be able to. What would it be like to have her depth perception? “We don’t have to go too far. I’ve hiked this with my brother before and he couldn’t go very far either.”

  I didn’t know she had a brother. Of course, I didn’t know much about her. “How much younger is he than you?” I asked, carefully stepping onto another rock. I pictured a little five-year-old holding her hand as she helped him across the stream.

  “Danny?” Her voice caught a little when she spoke. Maybe she was concentrating on her balance too. “Not younger. Older.”

  Huh. I wasn’t expecting that. Maybe he didn’t hike far because he was like a super lazy teenager.

  She went back to hopping from rock to rock. I came up on her slowly but steadily, walking on the same rocks that she did.

  On her second-to-last rock, her foot slipped and splashed right into the water. KERTHUNK!

  “Oh, no,” she said, looking down at her sopping shoe. “I never do that.”

  I couldn’t keep a laugh from sneaking out. “And you were worried about me,” I said.

  She turned and looked at me, leaning forward. If I could see her eyes better, I bet they’d be pretty intense. “If you weren’t . . .” She looked at my portfolio. “Oh, sorry,” she said, walking back across the rocks to me. “I should have offered earlier to carry this across for you.”

  Wow. That was nice. And a change. She had seemed angry for a second. I handed my portfolio to her and she insisted she take my backpack too. Really nice. She had dropped off all my stuff by the time I still had two more rocks to go. She moved faster since she already had one foot wet and didn’t have to worry about keeping it dry.

  “Your stuff is safe,” she said, and turned with a mischievous grin. “But you aren’t.”

  Maybe I shouldn’t have laughed at her.

  She bent over and scooped some water in her cupped hands and flung it at me.

  It splashed me, feeling like liquid ice raining down on me.

  It was on.

  In one good motion, SPLOOOOSH! I kicked a whole spray of water at McKell.

  She screamed, getting showered.

  She kicked back.

  I flung more water.

  A few minutes later we were both pretty soaked but on the other side of the stream. And we couldn’t stop laughing.

  Eventually, I cleaned off the water splotches from my glasses then checked my portfolio. It was fine.

  “I want to show you something,” McKell said, finally controlling her laughter, and flicking drops of water from her arm. She moved farther away from the stream and stepped over a fallen tree. She held some long skinny branches that would have whipped me in the face if she hadn’t held them. After we both passed the branches, she stopped in front of a tall bunch of bushy shrubs growing close together. They all combined into what looked like one giant bush about eight feet tall and eight feet thick. “Want to see the coolest thing in these woods?” McKell asked, gesturing toward the bush.

  “A bush?” I asked.

  If there were rules about bushes, Rule #1 would be: Bushes are not cool.

  McKell crouched down and pointed to a small opening in the thick undergrowth. It was just the right size for a medium-­sized dog to climb into, the perfect spot for a wild animal home. I didn’t want to crouch down just in time to be face to face with an angry badger that wanted to bite off my nose.

  But McKell got down on all fours and climbed into the hole. It was the most Alice in Wonderland thing I had ever seen anyone do.

  I stepped back and tried to look in. Because of the sun outside and the shade inside, I couldn’t see much.

  McKell poked her head out of the bush. “C’mon in.”

  I didn’t see any badgers.

  I tipped my portfolio diagonally and pushed it into the hole. I pushed my backpack in next and then crawled in.

  Inside was a room hacked out of the shrub. Or was it natural? Maybe a combination of both. I squinted and saw shoots no thicker than spaghetti weaving their way through thicker branches that formed the plant cave wall. The place was tall enough for a large adult to sit in and wide enough for two more kids.

  Ignore whatever I said about bushes not being cool. This place was amazing. Like a little piece of imagination come to life. A great hideout. It belonged in a movie.

  McKell sat against the side with her knees pulled to her chest. “Pretty cool, huh?” Her eyes danced a little. Or my vision was bobbing. I couldn’t tell for sure. “I found it on a family hike right after we moved here
.” The sunlight through the green leaves made the whole room speckled green.

  “Danny swore this was the coolest thing he had ever seen,” McKell said. “And Danny has been in the White House to meet the president, and on the sideline at a Huskers game. So he’s been to some pretty cool places.”

  I was so confused about Danny. He was older than McKell, but couldn’t walk very far. He thought a bush was cooler than the White House. Why had he been to the White House in the first place? He didn’t exactly sound like a lazy teenager. I tried to think of a question that might help me work this out. “How much older is Danny than you?”

  She looked around the plant cave for a moment and took a deep breath. “He’s turning seventeen next month,” she said. Another breath. “He’s the one who gives me the challenges.”

  I think I grew another wrinkle in my brain. I hadn’t seen that one coming. “Why?” I asked.

  McKell picked up a branch that had fallen to the ground and started playing with it. “Danny has a YouTube channel. He challenges people to do all sorts of things to make their lives happier. It’s called ‘Danny’s Challenges’ and it’s pretty popular.” She broke her branch in half and fiddled with it some more. “I think it was because it was so popular that I didn’t want to do the challenges at first. I mean, Danny’s really nice and stuff but I didn’t want him telling me how to be happy. He’s not my boss or anything.” She gave a half chuckle and flicked pieces of dirt with her stick.

  “That’s how I feel about my grandparents,” I said, trying to relate. After all, I had never had any siblings that I knew about but I did know the feeling of not wanting to be bossed around. “But you’re doing his challenges now,” I pointed out.

  She wiped her eyes. I couldn’t read her face very well, the light was bad, and my eyes were bad, and my ability to understand teenage girls’ emotions was extra bad, but I wondered if she was okay. “I changed my mind. And one of the challenges was to take a friend on a hike, or canoeing, or another adventure.” She spread her arms and sniffled lightly. “So here we are.”