His first kiss. It was happening.
“And…NOW!”
He felt moisture on his lips. Without waiting, he pressed against Amelia. Gently, yet firm, matching her boldness. He wanted the moment to last forever, wanted to savor her delicate, milky skin against his.
Something seemed wrong. He couldn’t see, though he still had his sense of smell, and he knew for a fact Amelia didn’t reek of mud and grass. He pulled away and ran his tongue across his front teeth, crunching on grit. Then Dillon yanked his hands from Jack’s face and everyone exploded in hysterics.
“Ta-Daaa!” Mike snickered, holding one of his retro Jordans, the sole extra muddy from an afternoon of stomping in the baseball field. “Congratulations. You just kissed my shoe! Ha, ha!”
The boys lost control, shoving each other, gushing with hilarity. Wendy held up her cellphone, recording the mortifying event to post on her blog, probably. In a similar state of glee, her loyal followers pointed and giggled and held each other from falling.
Jack spat up again and again, wiping on his polo shirt collar, trying to get the mossy, mucky taste out of his mouth. He gave Amelia a perplexed frown. She saw him and shrugged.
A startling car horn made him forget his revulsion temporarily.
“Come on, Mike, let’s go!”
It was Wade, Mike’s older brother, in his so-called classic Chevrolet Monte Carlo.
“That’s my ride,” Mike had to yell over the roar of his brother’s engine. He raised his fist to Dillon. “Later, man.”
The boys bumped knuckles, then Mike got into the car.
“Jack, you stay weird,” he winked. His brother revved his motor once more and peeled off.
“Oh, Amel-i-a,” Wendy sang. “Come o-on.”
Amelia shuffled to the snickering girls as they hurried to board their bus.
“C’mon, Jack,” Dillon slapped him on the back. “I’ll walk ya’ to the store.”
His stomach revolted again.
“Dillon, just because our moms work at the same place doesn’t mean we have to walk there together every day.”
“Geez, grumpy!” he smiled. “I just wanted to give you a little advice, that’s all.”
“I don’t want your advice.”
Ignoring Jack’s wishes, Dillon slowed from his usual rapid fire to something resembling a normal speech pattern.
“Jack, you’re smart. You’re not a total troll. You’ve got good things going for you. If only you’d stop all that stupid talk about your dad and his weird science stuff, you’d be popular. Don’t you wanna be popular?”
He thought about it. No matter how much he wanted to deny it, Dillon was right. He did want to be popular. Everyone did. But, more than that, he wanted his ideas to be popular. He wanted the other kids to listen to his dad’s theories about omnidimensional energy, and how it would alter the future of the human race. Was that too much to ask?
“That’s a big problem, too, Jack,” Dillon forced him from his thoughts. “Right there, what you’re doing right now. That daydreaming crap. That’s gotta end. No slipping off into la-la dreamland. It’s creepy, man.”
Jack kept quiet, figuring Dillon would get tired of hearing his own voice and give up. No such luck.
“Listen, you gotta stop with the spooky science stuff, okay?”
Jack frowned at the pavement. Asking him to stop thinking about science was the same as asking the sun to stop shining, or in Oregon it would have been like asking the rain to quit falling. The only thing even remotely comforting was he knew they’d almost made it across the parking lot to Winmart. Thank goodness, too. If he had to spend just one more second with Dillon, he would have yanked out his own hair. Just a few more steps and he’d be inside the store, hearing his mom saying those magical words…
“Let’s go home.”
“WE CAN’T GO HOME yet, Jack. Sorry,” Elizabeth James wiped both hands on her nauseatingly green Winmart apron. “I have to work late.”
“Mom!” he complained. “I really wanna go home.”
“I know, sweetheart,” she tried to disarm him with a smile. “I have to stay, though.”
“No you don’t. You don’t have to stay. No one’s forcing you. Let’s go, Mom.”
“You sound just like your father,” she sighed and brushed aside her light chestnut bangs. “I can’t stand how that man has warped your brain. Why won’t you two ever learn? As opposed to you and your dad, I live in the real world, you hear me? With responsibilities and bills to pay. We have rent, we have to eat…”
“But Mom!”
“I don’t have time to argue with you, Jack. There’s a ton of inventory that just came in, and it’s my job to deal with it. So you have two choices: you can go play in Kid Kastle, or you can help me.”
He bent to get a view of Kid Kastle, a play area sectioned off by a wall of Styrofoam slabs painted gray to look like a medieval fortress. In one of the decorated windows, he saw Dillon, pressed against the glass, his mouth agape and attached, resembling the sucker of a giant squid.
“I, um,” Jack deliberated. “I think I’ll help you.”
“Oh, honey,” his mom noticed his moodiness. “Why don’t you want to play with your friend? He seems really nice.”
He gave his mother a cynical glance and followed her through a set of swinging doors leading to the storeroom. There they found a heavyset man in brown shorts wheeling in stacks of boxes.
“Howdy, folks,” the man greeted them. Jack spotted the name, Doug, embroidered on his shirt. “Got a special delivery for ya’,” Doug smiled from ear to ear at Jack. “TOYS!”
He was a kid on Christmas morning. Jack, on the other hand, didn’t impress so easy.
“Come on, now,” Doug tried to coax a smile from the boy. “You’ve gotta like toys.”
“He loves toys, don’t you, Jack?” his mother spoke for him. “Don’t be rude, answer the man.”
He took a breath to ready his reply when the door swung open. In walked Dillon with his mother Roberta Shane, the store assistant manager. Actually, Jack refused to believe Roberta was Dillon’s mom. They were nothing alike. While he was short, fair-haired and skinny, she was tall, brunette and, well, not skinny.
“Be sure to check each box and verify the inventory,” she gave Doug the eye. “We don’t want any more missing Gameboys.”
“Yeah,” Dillon added.
“Hey, I told you,” Doug kept smiling. “Those Gameboys didn’t make it to the truck. Not my fault.”
“Now, now, Doug,” she had the tone of a scolding teacher. “No one’s blaming you. We just want to get it right this time, okay?”
“Yeah,” clearly, Dillon enjoyed his mother’s position of authority.
“Here’s the invoice,” she handed Liz a small stack of papers. “Be thorough.”
“Yeah,” Dillon used a repulsively high-pitched voice while twitching in a marionette’s dance.
“Dillon, that’s enough,” finally Roberta noticed his antics. “Oh, hey! I have an idea.”
Right when she said it, Jack knew. No, no, no, he thought. A futile plea. He saw she was weary of her son’s clowning by the sideways glance.
“Why don’t you stay back here and help Liz and Jack with this inventory while I finish up out front, ‘kay, sweetie?”
“But, Mom, I wanna…”
“No ‘buts’ young man. Just do what I…”
“But I don’t wanna…”
“Now what did I just say? You never….”
“Oh, Mom. Why can’t I…”
“Don’t use that tone with me. Why I oughtta…”
The two went in a circle for a few more entertaining moments, each trying to outduel the other verbally, until Roberta put an abrupt and noisy halt to it all.
“ENOUGH!”
Dillon snapped his mouth closed, staring at his mom.
“I want you to help back here, and that’s the end of it. You hear me, young man?”
He glared at her.
�
��Dillon Andrew Shane! You’d better lose that attitude real quick, or your video game privileges will be suspended for a week!”
After the initial shock, he grinned at Liz. “How can I help you, Mrs. James?”
Roberta smiled. “Good boy. Let’s all get to work, shall we?”
The woman swung her ample frame and strode out the door.
“Okay. Tell you what,” Liz considered the boys, then the boxes. She handed an electronic scanner to Jack. “You guys can take turns scanning the boxes for me. Then you can tell me the numbers so I can double check them with the invoice. Sound good?”
“Sounds great! Gimme that!” Dillon ripped the device from Jack’s hands.
“Hey!” Jack protested.
“Now, boys,” Liz searched through the papers. “Don’t fight. That thing’s expensive.”
“This piece of junk?” Dillon examined it. “It doesn’t even play games.”
“It’s not supposed to,” Jack held out his hand. “Here, let me show you.”
“Back off, man. I can handle this,” Dillon searched one of the newly delivered boxes. “Done this thousands of times.”
“Okay, okay,” Liz seemed almost out of patience. “Just scan it and tell me what the numbers say.”
Dillon fumbled, not sure which label to hunt for. Doug gave him a hint, pointing at a bar code. “Right there.”
“I knew that,” Dillon retorted. “You just do your job and I’ll do mine.”
Doug’s gregarious smile evaporated. He glanced at Liz. She raised her brow.
Dillon ran the scanner across the symbol, causing it to issue a coarse Buzz!
“What’s it say?” Liz inquired.
“Um, okay,” he stalled. “Oh five dash seven.”
Liz flipped through the pages. “I can’t stand these forms. Why do they have to make them so confusing? All codes and numbers. Just give me an old-fashioned list.”
“Some computer geek somewhere has to justify his job,” Doug laughed under his breath.
“Exactly,” Liz giggled with him. “Listen, Dillon. How about this? Just find the box marked, zero five dash one, okay?”
“Sure, Mrs. J,” he studied a box.
“Oh five dash four—not it,” he moved on to the next one. “Oh five dash two—oooh! Almost!” he maneuvered behind the stacks, stepping into shadow. “Oh five dash…uh, it’s dark over here, I can’t read…what’s THAT!”
“They’re just boxes,” Liz tapped her foot.
“N-n-no!” Dillon stuttered. “There’s something back here and it’s, it’s staring at me! Oh God! It moved! It’s coming after me—HELP!”
He slipped and tripped out of the stockroom, screaming for his mommy.
Doug halted with a load on his handcart, looking at Liz. She didn’t appear amused at all.
“What the heck is back there?” she muttered. “Jack, you go look.”
“Mom!” he protested. Really, though, he wanted to see what had made Dillon so upset. He positioned himself alongside the stack of boxes, peering into the dim corner.
“I hear something,” he reported.
“What is it?” his mother moved closer.
“Can’t tell yet. But it’s something.”
He took two small steps and stooped. The hairs on his neck stood at attention. For some reason he didn’t sense fear, only excitement, while being transported to another place and time…
Jack is a famous explorer on the verge of finding a precious artifact in some murky, dank labyrinth. He gets down and crawls, feeling the contours of the walls for signs of a trap while probing the cracked stone floor in search of some secret passageway leading to a mother lode of ancient treasure. It could be anything: a golden skull of the Aztecs, a cache of diamonds, rubies and other precious gems hidden away by pirates in the Barbary Coast, or, better yet, physical proof of Atlantis. He presses on. It’s dark. The dampness soaks through to his knees and numbs his fingertips. At any instant, a fissure might crumble in the deteriorating ground, taking him plummeting to his demise. He might be crawling toward a savage, frothing beast, left to stand guard against tomb raiders and grave robbers and fortune seekers. Still, he presses on.
Then a faint voice calls out from the misty distance.
“Listen, Jack. You come back here right now!”
It’s his mother. How’d she get here?
“You hear me? Get back over here!”
He snapped to the same reality as his mom. Gone was the damp labyrinth, in its place Winmart’s dusty old warehouse. Still, he had a strange feeling. In his peripheral vision he caught movement, a silhouette against another silhouette. Something was hidden between the boxes.
“Wait a sec,” he whispered.
“No!” Liz commanded. “You might get hurt!”
That thought had never crossed his mind. He felt no danger. His mother, and now the deliveryman, disagreed.
“I’ll get ‘im,” Doug parked the dolly. Jack would have none of it.
“Shhh!” he waved the man away, keeping his focus trained on the mysterious object. He knew one false move, one blink of the eye and he’d lose track of it forever.
He leaned in, expecting the thing to scurry off. It stayed still. He got closer, and his vision adjusted to the lack of light.
On the dark concrete floor, a tiny animal stared at him with the most sincere expression. The size of a small dog, or a large cat, and covered in mottled gray brown fur that had seen better days, it seemed damp and cold and tired. Even so, it had a majestic quality. Shaggy hair fell over its forehead a little, and tiny ears stuck out from under tufts of fuzz.
Jack smiled, knowing he should have been afraid. A warm wave of contentment swept over him, though, when he looked into those enormous, coppery eyes. Weirdest of all, on the tops of each cheek, it had areas of slightly ridged, bare skin, both the color and shape of a leaf.
“Whatcha got back there? A rat or somethin’?” Doug snuck from behind. He grabbed Jack’s shoulders and carried him to his mother. Then he picked up a broom and returned to the dark corner, pretending to be a samurai. “I’ll get ‘em!”
“No! Don’t hurt it!” Jack cried.
“Don’t worry,” Doug poised for a strike. “I’m not gonna…”
He froze, letting the broom fall to the floor with a Clink!
“What is that?”
Jack saw wonder in his face, which morphed from a stupor to full-blown joy.
“Well? Can you see something?” Liz sounded equal parts impatient, interested and intimidated.
Doug didn’t answer. The large man just stood there, his stubby hands swinging at his sides, his smile growing bigger and bigger.
“Yeah, I see it,” he crouched and reached for it.
“Be careful,” Jack broke from his mother’s grip and ran to him.
Then an amazing thing happened. The little creature, which at first appeared so realistic, all of the sudden went limp and lifeless. Even its gaze went from glimmering and vibrant to dull and glassy.
Doug lifted it above his shoulders.
“It’s a…” he said with a chuckle. “Why it’s, it’s…”
The stockroom door flew open. Roberta dragged her mortified son behind her.
“It’s just a teddy bear!” she chastised Dillon, pointing at the lifeless thing in Doug’s hands. “You’re afraid of a teddy bear?”
“But I…I…”
Roberta let go of Dillon’s hand, strode to Doug and seized the inanimate object.
“Oh, my word,” she winced. “It’s as dirty as a gym sock. Where did this come from?”
“Beats me,” Doug shrugged. “I didn’t think there were any teddy bears in this shipment.”
“There aren’t,” Liz confirmed, leafing through the invoices. “At least there aren’t supposed to be.”
“Well, it belongs to somebody,” Roberta winced at the grimy thing. “But why would anyone want it?”
“Can I have it?” Jack spoke up.
“Ohh, widdle Ja
ckie wants a teddy beaw,” Dillon derided him.
“You want this?” Roberta ignored her son.
“Jack, aren’t you a little too old for that?” Liz seemed to be more telling him than asking.
“No, he’s just a widdle baby,” Dillon again injected his wit.
“That’s enough, Dillon,” Roberta hissed. “Jack, I suppose it’s no problem if you want it, but we should probably do the right thing and try to find its rightful owner, first. Tell you what, clean it up and put it in the Lost and Found. If nobody claims it after a week, it’s yours.”
“All right!” Jack accepted the strange thing from Roberta and headed straight for the employee restroom.
Dillon glared at it, inching backward.
“You’re not afraid of a teddy bear are you?” Jack taunted.
“Listen, bro,” Dillon whispered through clenched teeth. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but mark my words, I’ll find out. Trust me. I’ll find out.”
THREE
EVERY TIME TAKOTA PLAYED the dead game it tuckered him out. Ironic, since all he had to do was sit motionless for hours on end. However, the trick required much more than remaining still, and proved harder than it seemed. When executed correctly, the heart rate dropped low enough to become undetectable. The body temperature dipped, making each outer extremity cold to the touch. It became such great camouflage that Tanakee found themselves teaching the art to many of Wind Whisper Woods’ other inhabitants, though only possums actually got it.
He fought back a tear when he thought of the forest. His home and family were so far away. Yet, as he sat on one of the shelves in an area they called, Lost and Found, his only immediate concern was the stirring and growling in his stomach. He swore his midsection had imploded into an empty hole.
He crawled from the shelf onto a countertop, gasping in disbelief and taking in the view. The room was vast, bigger than any he’d seen in his life. Tanakee were accustomed to small caves and the occasional hollow stump, not cavernous structures such as this, so big he could barely see where it ended.
And it was filled with…FOOD!
His nose went crazy catching scents. Left, right, up, down—all around. Rows and rows of delicious, wonderful, mouthwatering, scrumptious, delectable food! Finding something to eat in the forest wasn’t too difficult, though never like this, everything lined up and laid out, waiting to be plucked.
Jack James and the Tribe of the Teddy Bear Page 3
