by Chris Miller
I expected her to turn and head off, but she lingered a while, brushing her hair behind one ear. “Hey, listen, you know you could hang out with Em and the rest of us if you want.”
If by “the rest of us” she meant their group of girlfriends, I wasn’t all that interested. Then again, it beat being a loner.
“Sure,” I shrugged and motioned for Trista to lead the way.
As we walked Trista asked, “So, where did you really get the necklace?”
The question made me tense. Until tonight, I had kept it mostly a secret. The only people I had shown it to were Stretch and Stubbs back when I first tried to prove that Solandria was real. That didn’t help so I had been reluctant to show it to anyone ever since.
“Oh, it was just a gift…from a friend.” I tried to say it in a way that would leave it at that.
“Some friend,” she whistled. “What’s her name?”
“Her name? I never said it was a girl,” I said defensively.
Trista just gloated and gave me a light-hearted shove. “Puh-lease, like you needed to. I could tell by the way you were looking at it back there.”
It was a lucky guess, but I had to admit she was right.
“Her name was Hope,” I answered, quickly adding, “but it’s not what you’re thinking. It’s mostly special because…of what it means.”
“Really, so what does it mean?” she asked, blowing an oversized bubble with her gum and letting it pop. She sucked it back in before the slightest bit could stick to her face.
More than anything I wanted to speak up and tell her what I believed, but my knotted stomach was holding my tongue hostage. I was desperate to find any way to derail this train of conversation now that I knew my next stop was going to be “Loserville.”
“It’s a mark…er…a symbol from a book I found earlier this summer.”
“You mean the Author’s mark, right?” Trista’s matter-of-fact response was not what I was expecting at all.
“How do you know about the Author’s mark?” I ventured nervously, remembering the counselor’s warning about toning things down.
“C’mon, you didn’t think you were the only one, did you?” Trista said, casually pulling her hair back and sliding it into the rubber band she kept on her wrist.
“Well…yeah, actually,” I said in disbelief. Now I could hardly contain my excitement. Finally, someone I could open up with and talk to honestly about Solandria. Emily was going to flip when she realized Trista believed in the Author’s Writ too. “Oh man, this is awesome. You’re a Codebearer?”
“Not really, I’ve just heard about it. At least, whatever I could understand from some of my little cousins. I recognized the symbol on your medallion right away. They have this book called the Author’s Whit.”
“You mean Writ,” I corrected, suddenly feeling disappointed by my misunderstanding.
“Writ…right, whatever. Anyway, their family is really into the stories.”
“They’re not just stories,” I said half-heartedly, recalling what Sheppard had said earlier.
“I know,” she answered back, “there are riddles and symbols and stuff like that in there too. Don’t get me wrong…from the little I’ve read it’s all really mysterious and intriguing. But the way they talk about it, you’d think it was actually real…. Can you imagine believing in an unseen world of invisible beings?” Trista pressed further.
Before I had time to respond, there was a sudden rush of movement behind Trista. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a horde of spindly black arms overhead, lunging down on top of us.
“Look out, Dispirits!” I wailed, launching myself out in a tackle and pulling her to the ground to escape the oncoming attack. We landed with a splash in a shallow puddle of rain-water on the cement walkway, followed by a dozen of our multi-armed assailants.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Trista fumed, pushing me off of her in a state of confusion. A surprised group of onlookers gasped as I leaped to my feet with fists clinched tightly, ready to fight off my adversaries. You can imagine my embarrassment when I realized the “Dispirits” were nothing more than six-legged inflatable spiders, stacked in a tower that had just been inadvertently knocked over.
“Are you insane?” Trista demanded breathlessly as she picked herself up from the ground. “Balloon animals? You ruined my new skirt to save me from balloons? Ugh!” she fussed, picking up one shaped like a large hammer and whacking me over the head with it.
The gasps in the crowd turned quickly to chuckles. I would have apologized were it not for another commotion coming from the vendor’s booth beside us.
“C’mon, kid! Can’t you watch where you’re goin’?” a tattooed vendor scolded, hovering over a boy in a camouflaged jacket who had also fallen to the ground. The vendor quickly nodded my direction and threw out an apology.
“Sorry ’bout that folks. This doofus here decided not to watch where he was running and plowed straight into this here display of fine merchandise!”
He pointed to a selection of cheap trinkets that were probably better described as “toilet paper on a stick.” At least, that’s what my dad used to call it. There was nothing fine about it. The clumsy kid who had caused the trouble stumbled as he tried to pick himself up, nearly knocking over another display in the process. Apparently he was the one responsible for knocking over the tower of cheap-o balloon toys that had buried us.
“I-I’m so sorry. It was an accident…” the boy stuttered nervously.
Grabbing him roughly by the collar, the worker shoved him over to where the bizarre assortment of product lay strewn about next to Trista and me.
“Save it, kid. Just pick up my stuff and get out of here before I charge you for it.” The vendor turned his back and lumbered back to his post behind the small counter.
Not wanting to test the threat, the boy hastily set to work, but did a better job at dropping the products than he did at picking them up. As he pushed his black dreadlocks out of his eyes, I recognized his face immediately. It was the new kid from school.
“Rob, is that you?” I asked curiously.
He made no eye contact, only casting a brief glance at my face before returning to his task of cleaning up his mess. “Sorry, d-do I know you?” he questioned, looking nervously over his shoulder more than a few times. Something was bothering him.
“No, I guess not. I just recognized you from the hallway at school today. Weren’t you the one who knocked…over the…”
“Yup, that was me alright,” he said before I finished.
“Not your week, is it?” I pointed out.
Rob just shook his head and cast another look over his shoulder.
“You’re telling me, I’m still running from that Cranton dude. He’s determined to put me in the dunk tank since I didn’t get wet at school. The guy is brutal.”
“I know what you mean,” I said.
By this time Trista had managed to figure out what had really happened and let my little “Dispirit attack” blunder go unpunished. She returned to my side and joined in helping pick up the balloon animals.
“Don’t worry about Cranton,” she answered nicely. “Guys like him eventually get what they deserve. I just hope I’m there when he does.”
“Yeah well, I hope it happens sooner than later ’cause he’s headed this way,” I said, catching a glimpse of one of Cranton’s Cobras pointing at us from his perch atop a bench.
“Over here,” shouted the Cobra member. “It’s the dork and he’s with Hunter!”
“Good,” Cranton growled. “We’ll make it a double dunk!”
My stomach sank. After trying hard to stay out of Cranton’s way this year, I figured I deserved a break from his harassment. Now, it looked like I was doomed to be a target once again.
“Leave ’em, we gotta get out of here,” I shouted at Rob, who was still
fumbling with a few plastic balloons. The three of us darted away, with Cranton and his pals hot on our trail.
Chapter 8
From Trouble to Terror
Dodging through the crowd, we made our way toward the far back corner of the fairgrounds, where the animal pins and farming exhibits were set up. Turning the corner, we ducked into the sheep barn and dove between a bail of hay and a dumpster. It was as good a place as any to hide…if you could get over the smell.
The place was noisier than I expected. The tin roof and walls echoed loudly with the buzz of a dozen giant fans that had been set up to circulate the stale stench of livestock. It was the perfect place to hide, though, providing an extra level of white noise to cover our heavy breathing. As long as we stayed out of sight, we had a good chance of making it without being discovered.
“Nice hiding place, Hunter,” Trista quipped in a hushed tone. She pointed to the sign on the side of the dumpster that read Doo Doo Only. “You sure know how to show a girl a good time.”
I had to admit, it was pretty tacky.
“I didn’t hear you coming up with any better ideas,” I whispered back. “Would you rather be soaking in the dunk tank?”
Trista rolled her eyes, “Whatever, I’m not the one they’re after anyway; you two are, remember?”
I didn’t want to argue with her about it, mostly because she was right. So I let her comment slide unanswered.
Just then, Cranton and his gang entered the barn.
“They gotta be in here somewhere,” Cranton shouted, as he jumped up onto the hay pile to look around over the scene. “This place reeks of losers.”
He was standing only a few feet away from Rob’s head, but he was turned the other way and didn’t seem to notice we were there. They looked around for a few minutes more while Cranton lit up a cigarette and watched it all.
“You sure they didn’t go into the other barn?” one of his friends finally asked. “They aren’t here!”
Cranton stood silent.
“You want to check out back?” one of them asked.
“Nah, the fair is boring anyway. Let’s go do something a little more…exciting!” Cranton said, flicking the remainder of the cigarette to the ground behind him and right beside me. He hopped down from the hay bales and sauntered out the door with his gang in tow.
Even after they left, we didn’t move, just in case it was a trick to get us to come out of our hiding place.
This was the first time I’d really had a chance to introduce myself to Rob. He was a scrawny kid, not much meat on the bones. He moved with an awkward gait that looked like an accident waiting to happen. From the looks of his clothes, his family was struggling to make ends meet. His shoes were well worn and spotted with holes, and his jeans had holes in them too, but not the cool kind you paid for. These jeans were out of style and likely handed down from someone else.
Despite his appearance, I really wanted to get to know him. After all, from what I could tell, Rob was the one who dropped the flyer with the Author’s mark on it at school today. I wanted to find out for sure if it was him, but I needed an angle. I began to wonder how to approach him about it.
“So Rob…I don’t think we’ve introduced ourselves. My name is Hunter, and this is…”
“Trista Golden,” she said in a perky voice as she smacked her gum a little too loudly. I shot a worried look her way and put my finger to my lips.
“They could still be listening, you know,” I said. She rolled her eyes and lowered her voice once more before continuing the introductions.
“I haven’t seen you in any of our classes this year. Are you a freshman or something?” she asked.
“Yeah, something like that,” he replied mysteriously, peeking over the hay bails, expecting to see Cranton pop in at any moment.
“What does that mean? You don’t know what grade you’re in?”
“Well, I’m only at school for a few classes,” he answered. “I guess technically I’m a freshman, but the majority of my classes are more advanced. I’m homeschooled at the moment.”
“Oh, smart guy, huh?” Trista said playfully.
“Not really, my dad’s in the military so we move around a lot. That’s why we started homeschooling. I like it though. It’s easier to get ahead of the class when you don’t goof around with your friends all the time.”
“Like, I could never do that,” Trista said. “I’m too much of a people person. Being cooped up at home all day would drive me crazy. No offense, but I like having friends.”
Rob tried to shrug off the comment. “It’s not as bad as you think.”
A few moments of awkward silence passed as we waited for Cranton to reappear. There seemed to be nobody else in the barn but us and an animal keeper who was sitting in his overalls, reading a book near the entrance. When it seemed safe at last, Rob spoke up again.
“Listen, I should probably go. I don’t want to get you into any more trouble than I already have.”
He stood up and turned around, but before he could leave I spotted a glint of gold hanging from a leather clasp on his belt. I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed it before, but the form was unmistakable—the hilt of a sword.
“A Veritas Sword?” I blurted out before he could walk away.
Rob stopped dead in his tracks and turned slowly around, looking me straight in the face for the first time. A hint of confusion crossed his face.
“You know about the sword?” he questioned.
“Yeah, I have one too. Or at least I did before I…” I noticed Trista’s curious gaze and decided to hold back a bit. “Before I lost mine.”
Rob’s eyes darted between me and Trista, trying to figure us out. “Where did you get it?” he asked.
This time there was no beating around the bush. I didn’t care how weird it sounded to Trista; I needed a friend who understood what I had been through and Rob was my last best shot.
“Solandria,” I answered. “I got it when I was called into the Author’s Writ. I’m a Codebearer, Rob…at least I think I am.”
Rob’s stoic expression morphed into a wide goofy smile.
“Oh man, this is great! I thought I was the only one at school!”
“Me too,” I said excitedly.
It was as if we were instant best friends. Rob and I started comparing stories about how we first found the Author’s Writ and a little about our adventures. Before we could get too far, I sensed Trista growing more and more uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation. She was obviously the outsider, which was not her typical place.
“Whoa there, code buddies,” she butted in at last. “It looks like Cranton’s not coming, so unless you want to spend your evening at the Doo-Doo dumpster, why don’t we get out of here and find the others?”
She grabbed my backpack and tossed it into my chest. I fumbled to grasp it before it fell to the floor. In all the commotion the creature inside let out a muffled yelp.
“What was that?” Trista said, glaring suspiciously at my backpack.
“What was what?” I replied, pretending I didn’t notice the sound. The creature had been pretty quiet, but now began fidgeting and squirming uncontrollably inside. I clutched tightly to my pack in hopes of hiding the movements. Rob looked surprised to see the bag bulging and jerking in my arms, but it was Trista who wouldn’t let it go.
“Your bag! It’s moving all over the place; what’s in there?”
I hadn’t planned on showing the creature to anyone but the guys. The last thing I needed was someone blabbing about it to my sister or mother. My mind went to work, trying to create a viable excuse for the strange movement in my backpack. Unfortunately, the creature was not pleased that I was gripping it so tightly and started complaining by making a weird garbling sound.
“Well?” Trista prodded. “Are you going to tell us what that is or am I goi
ng to have to check for myself?”
There was no way around it; I would have to come clean.
“Okay, fine,” I said, giving up at last. “Remember how Emily told you about the cat? You know, the one that destroyed our house this afternoon?”
“Yeah, so?” Trista said, her face plastered with a look of bewilderment.
“Well, it wasn’t really a cat. It was something else. Something unlike any other animal I’ve ever seen. I think it’s from another world.”
“Get real,” Trista replied.
“I’m serious,” I said, “and I’ll prove it, but you have to promise to never tell a soul. Not Emily, not my mom, not anyone… What you see is just between us three, understood?”
Rob and Trista agreed, their eyes widening as I set the backpack gently down on the ground between us.
“Just don’t freak out or you might scare it!” I said as I slowly flipped open the main pouch of my backpack. “It’s okay, little guy.You can come out now.”
The creature’s two furry paws were the first to emerge from the backpack, gripping the side and gradually raising its head out to look around. As soon as his large blue eyes glowed out from the bag, Trista gasped loudly. The creature startled and ducked back down into the bag.
“Trista,” I scolded, expressing my disappointment.
“Oops, sorry,” she said, covering her mouth with both hands. She leaned forward and peeked down into the bag. The furry creature slowly uncurled from a ball and looked back up at her.
“Oh my, it’s adorable! What is it?” she asked.
“I told you I don’t know. I found it in the kitchen, raiding our food. It seemed lost, so I decided to keep it as a pet.”
Trista’s dimpled smile seemed to soothe the creature’s nervousness. It cooed gently, welcoming her touch as she reached out to pet its head.
“So you really don’t know where it came from?” Rob asked suspiciously.
“No clue. When I got home earlier today, it was already there. Made a real mess of the place too.”
Rob scratched his head and pondered this for awhile. Trista, on the other hand, fell immediately in love with it.
