rock

by Anyta Sunday

  I frown. Dragging me into the woods with a sinister smile is the way to do it?

  He chuckles nervously and holds out his hand, which strikes me as strange. “Do you trust me?”

  I shake my head. “Not really.” But I grab his hand, which is rougher and warmer than mine. He leads me to a parting in the bank. “A cave?”

  He squeezes my hand. “I discovered it last year. It’s small, a bit bigger than the two of us, but it’s cool. Keep to whispers inside, okay?”

  He ducks into the cave and pulls me in with him. He’s standing incredibly close so I can’t see much else. For a second, I fluster, panic rising like it did in the broom closet. Why did he take me here! Why? Why? Why?

  Jace whispers, “Wait. No. Turn around. Look outside. You’re not trapped.”

  I gradually relax as I take in the vines and the curve of the stream.

  Jace releases my hand. “Since you want to be a geologist, I thought you’d get a dig out of this.” He smirks and steps back, opening up the view.

  Hundreds of green lights speckle in bunches over the entire cave. “Glowworms!”

  “Shhh.”

  “Sorry,” I whisper. My stomach spins as though I’m standing on a cliff with my toes dangling in thin air. A wonderfully daunting rush.

  “It makes me think I’m looking at the stars,” Jace says, standing close enough that our sleeves are touching.

  “Yeah. Stars.”

  I try counting the beads but I give up after fifty-seven. I’d rather watch Jace. “Have you ever counted them all?”

  “No. Think it might be impossible.”

  “Like Stonehenge. No one knows exactly how many stones exist.”

  “Really?”

  “One guy tallied them once. He recounted to make sure and he came up with a new number. Every time he counted, he came up with a different number.”

  The coolness of the stagnant air sends creeps over me. I rub my hands together and peer at Jace over my fingertips.

  Jace beckons me outside. “You know a lot about rocks and stones, don’t you?”

  “As much as you know about music.”

  He slows his steps, staring toward the creek. “What is the difference between a rock and a stone, anyway?”

  I move to the creek and stand on a large flat boulder. “They have different feelings.” Jace joins me, his weight shifting the rock underneath us like a seesaw. We move instinctively to balance. “To me, a rock is massive—something that portrays strength. Rocks are complicated clusters of minerals that have baked for a long time.”

  I jump off the boulder to the stones edging the creek. Jace gracefully leaps off too. I pick up a small white stone that shines in the moonlight. “A stone is a fragment of a rock. Like a snapshot of a bigger picture.”

  “Is that why you collect them? A stone for every memory?”

  I hand him the stone, forcing myself to ignore the heat that rises in me when my sensitive fingertips brush over his soft palm. “If you collect enough stones and minerals and heap them together, does it become a rock?”

  Jace rolls the stone and lifts it midair. “I don’t know. Is this a moonstone?

  “No. River stone.”

  “Oh.”

  “You sound disappointed.”

  He shrugs. “Nah. Moonstones are pretty cool, don’t you think?”

  “They’ve been revered for thousands of years,” I say as we re-enter the path. “Hindus believe that moonbeams form stones that can reveal your future if you hold it in your mouth on a full moon.”

  Other than a shared smile, we’re quiet until we approach the trees that fringe Jace’s backyard.

  “I don’t know if that would be a blessing or a curse. Knowing your future, I mean.”

  “True, I guess.” Pine needles brush against my cheek. “It’d frustrate me to know all my future mistakes but not be able to stop them from happening.” He laughs.

  We don’t exchange words until climbing up the stairs to our rooms. Jace stops me at the top. “I want to say something else.” I raise an eyebrow. He looks fleetingly at me and whispers, “We’re not better than you. I wish you wouldn’t think that.”

  I pause. “What? How do you know—”

  “You’re defensive.” He shoves his hands into his pockets. “I can read it.” He hesitates, then glances back at me. “That’s what I used to think of you and Annie. Before Dad moved here, I always wondered why. I thought it was because you were better than me and Mum somehow. But it’s not like that.”

  My belly thickens like stodgy old porridge. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I just—” Jace starts, and I shake my head.

  “No.” I move past him and charge down the hall. He tries to catch up behind me but I shake my head vigorously and he backs off.

  pegmatite

  Dad and Lila pile out of the rental van, and Annie, Jace and I spill out of the back in desperate need of stretching our legs. One side of my leg still hurts from Annie pinching me sixty miles ago. Too cramped, she kept muttering. The other side of my leg tingles from the friction of Jace’s shorts rubbing against my knee.

  Our first “family” trip—a day at Rainbow’s End theme park—is happening today, the end of summer, a week before my second year at Newtown High.

  “Sunscreen, guys,” Dad says, framed by a distant Rainbow’s End sign.

  Lila smiles and passes Annie the sunscreen. Annie fishes into her day pack and pulls out her own. Lila shrugs and lowers the bottle.

  I take Lila’s offer, snap open the lid, and squeeze some onto my palm. Coconut—somewhat refreshing against the harsh heat of the mid-morning sun.

  Jace’s guttural sounds snatch my attention. He is standing a few steps away, yawning, arms clasped and stretched overhead. His T-shirt rides up past his hips, the print of a grand piano and illegible writing.

  Neither of us slept well crammed in the double bed at the hotel last night. I kept tossing and turning, and Jace tried pushing me out.

  He finishes his stretch and we exchange scowls—our routine, but usually when we’re racing out of our rooms to stuff our school bags so we’re not late.

  “All right,” Lila says, slipping between her son and me, herding us toward the entrance of the park. “Let’s have a day of adrenalin and adventure!”

  Annie slumps along behind us with Dad, who’s telling her how much she used to love coming here. “Do you remember?”

  “Yeah,” Annie says loudly. “We went with Mum.”

  It’s awkwardly quiet after that. We stand in line for ten minutes before Lila hands us our unlimited day passes. “Okay, so,” she begins, but Jace and Annie skip off in two different directions.

  I slip on my pass over my wrist. “Meet back here at four?”

  Lila smiles. “We thought for lunch . . . never mind. You’ve all got money, I suppose.” She shrugs. “Whatever.”

  Dad kisses her, my cue to leave. I thread through the crowd in Jace’s direction. I’m not searching for him per se, but increasing my chances of running into him.

  What for? I’m not sure. At Dad’s house before the holidays, we were studying across from each other in the gaming room. He frowned at his papers and dropped his pen. “Why does brass discolor in air?”

  I answered without looking up from my books. “Hydrogen sulphide.”

  After scribbling with his pen he whispered, “Thanks.”

  “Also, you know brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, right?”

  Jace shook his head, and his lips quirked into a smile . . .

  Screams from the roller coaster hit my ears, yanking me back to the reality of fresh popcorn and candied nuts, people lining up for rides, spilled Coke and discarded gum on the sticky ground—

  Jace. There he is. Sitting at an octagonal table, straddling the bench, sunglasses perched on his head, texting on his phone. Lila allowed us to take them in case we needed something. Mine is vibrating in my pocket. Wait, vibrating?

  A text.

&n
bsp; I glance over the heads of a group of girls heading toward the roller coaster.

  I open the text. Bumper cars have no line.

  A vague invitation? I accept. I’m not surprised the bumper cars have no line, considering they’re not exactly the most adrenalin-pumping ride here. Jace startles when I straddle the bench in front of him.

  I jerk my head toward the bumper car arena across from the cafeteria. “Let’s go. I’ll totally bump your ass.” I meant kick your ass but it came out decidedly wrong and . . . weird.

  I laugh.

  Jace blinks rapidly and draws his sunglasses down over his eyes. “We’ll see who bumps who.”

  Three minutes later, we’re climbing into bumper cars and swiveling around on the smooth surface. Jace rocks to one end, me the other. He’s taken his sunglasses off and his engine is brrrring. Other cars zoom around, bumping everything in sight. I narrow my gaze onto Jace and his car.

  We move too slowly—it almost feels comical—but then we collide with a thunk and bounce off each other. Let the battles begin.

  I slam into Jace repeatedly, and his car jerks back and slides. He doesn’t laugh, but his eyes spark every time we hit.

  I bump him into the wall he started from, and then I ram him into his corner right before the cars stop for the round.

  We climb out of our cars laughing uncontrollably. “Told you I’d totally bump—”

  “Never again!” Jace shakes his head but he’s grinning. We exit the canopied ride and blink in the sun. Jace slips on his sunglasses like a Calvin Klein model.

  We stop in the middle of the path. I feel awkward shifting from foot to foot in silence. What now? Do we part ways with a shrug?

  Maybe I should leave before he does. That way, I’m in control. “Right. See you around.”

  Jace grabs me by the arm. “You’re not going anywhere until I find a way to punish you for stealing my sleep!”

  “So that’s what this was?”

  “What else would it be?”

  He smirks and jerks a thumb toward the giant swinging ship. “How do you feel about rocky seas?”

  “Not great.”

  “Perfect. We’re going up there.”

  peridotite

  I went to Mum’s this morning for my fourteenth birthday but I’m at Dad’s for the evening. We order fish and chips at the wharf, then stuff our individually-wrapped scoops of chips under our pullovers to warm us. We pull out chips from under our collars and pop them into our mouths. They’re warm and deliciously salty-hot.

  We head for the beach, where I crumple into the soft sand. Even Annie is with us, though she avoids Lila to sit at my side. Jace is perched on the stone wall behind us with Dad.

  “We have gifts,” Lila says. She rests a basket in front of my feet.

  I unwrap two game-store vouchers, plus a new top-of-the-line magnifying glass from Dad. I thank them and pull out the last gift, wrapped as if someone fought with the wrapping paper and tape. “Yours, Jace?”

  He groans. Sand squeaks under his feet as he crouches behind me. “I had no idea what to get you. It sucks.”

  It’s a mug engraved with I’m a Rock Whisperer.

  “I thought . . . you drink a lot of tea . . .”

  I grin at him over my shoulder. “Cheers, Jace.” He shrugs, and I say it again, quietly. “Thanks.”

  * * *

  Nine months later, middle of summer, I’m scowling at my plate.

  Capsicum. I hate it. Something about the tangy-burnt taste makes me want to retch. Unfortunately, the last time I didn’t eat my capsicum, Dad served it to me for breakfast and every meal thereafter until I ate it.

  I poke at my stir-fry, shoving the long strips of capsicum to the side of the plate. At times like these I wish I had a dog.

  Dad and Lila are lost in a boring discussion, and Annie has inhaled her food so she can excuse herself. I scowl at her as she leaves the table, racing toward the capsicum-free zone of her bedroom to talk on the phone all night.

  Jace has almost finished his dinner. Judging by his expression, he doesn’t hate the dinner but he doesn’t love it either. He shovels a few more vegetable bits onto his fork and glances over at me. Specifically, at the mountain of capsicum collecting on the side of my plate.

  He shakes his head and mouths “breakfast,” to which I groan and reluctantly stab one of the strips of disgustingness. Jace chuckles, glances at his mum and my dad still talking, and quickly pinches my plate from under my nose. In one swift scoop, he piles my capsicum onto his plate and slides my dinner back to me.

  He shrugs, but it feels more like a wink. My smile is forged from somewhere deep as I tackle the rest of my food—

  “Where’s Annie?” Dad asks me. I jump, afraid we’ve been caught.

  “Oh, Annie? She excused herself. You half nodded at her.”

  His mouth sets in a thin line as he takes in her empty place. Lila rests her hand next to his, their pinkies touching.

  “No matter,” she says. “We’ll tell the boys first—”

  “Annie!” Dad yells, pushing back from the chair. “Come back down here.” He moves toward the stairs.

  A few moments later Annie stomps back into the kitchen, sighing loudly. She hovers in the arched doorway, staring toward the patio instead of us. “What?”

  Lila smiles brightly. “For our second family trip, we’ve decided to trek across part of Abel Tasman National Park.”

  * * *

  Another year rolls by. Annie and I combine our money to buy Jace a ticket to the Symphony Orchestra to see a famous pianist. A Christmas gift; the first Christmas we’ve spent at Dad’s.

  He accepts the ticket with a frown. “Thanks,” he says. It’s a soft thanks that follows me all day.

  I get every gift I hoped for, including a new phone, a To the Center of the Earth board game, and a documentary on fossils. “Let’s check it out!”

  But Dad and Lila bow out, making up a quick excuse about getting up early.

  Annie and Jace look at each other, excuses dancing unspoken between them.

  “You don’t have to,” I say, shrugging and heading up the stairs. “I’ll watch it on my own.”

  Annie races up the stairs and flings her arm around my neck. Her tightly-curled hair bumps on my chin. “Okay. I’ll watch it.”

  I roll my eyes. She’s playing nice, and I don’t want that. “Nah, I’m good. Actually, now I think about it, I’m kinda tired. I’m going to bed.”

  “You sure?”

  I drop her off at her room. “Of course. We can watch it this weekend.” By then she’ll forget about it anyway.

  “Okay,” she says and ruffles my hair. “Promise.”

  Her door shuts with a puff of wind, and I slink toward my room.

  At my bedroom door, my foot brushes against something hard. Six stones are placed in the doorway at equal distances. I slip the documentary DVD under my arm to crouch down and pick up the stones. Limestone. Quartz. Granite. Amethyst. Aquamarine. And—I laugh out loud as Jace’s padded steps clunk down the hall—a moonstone.

  “Did you put these here?”

  Jace stops a few feet away and leans against the wall. “Nope.” Out of the corner of my eye, though, I detect a grin.

  “They’re beautiful.”

  He shoves his hands into his pockets. “Are they?”

  “I love how they’re squared. But if you didn’t put them here, who did?”

  “Someone who wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas.” Jace meanders closer, then pulls the documentary out from under my arm. “I mean, I’m not tired. I was gonna watch TV anyway. Why not this?”

  He ducks into the gaming room.

  I pocket the stones and follow him.

  part two: sedimentary

  sedimentary: matter that settles

  sandstone

  With pursed lips, Lila throws a wet, moldy-smelling load back into the washing machine. She’s pissed, but I can tell she’s trying to hold it in. Like me, she hasn’t figured out
her boundaries or how far she can push into the parental role. The clothes make a loud slapping sound as she throws them into the barrel.

  I stand with my thumbs in my pockets trying to cough up an apology, but it won’t come. It really was a mistake. Completely unintentional. Besides, Lila always asks me to do work, never Annie. My sister hates her but I don’t, so I get all the menial tasks? That sucks.

  “I need you to be more proactive around the house,” she says. “Use your initiative for once. Look around, see what needs doing and do it. Don’t wait to be asked all the time.”

  She has a point, which makes it worse. I want her to be wrong so I don’t have to swallow the urge to tell her to shut up. She can’t tell me what to do. She’s not my mother!

  I’m shaking and my teeth are clenched. I’m about to yank the clothes from her grasp and tell her to have a break, have a fucking Kit Kat, when Jace strolls in.

  He steals up to his mum and says, “Good afternoon, beautiful.” He follows up his deviously-timed congeniality with a kiss on her cheek.

  Lila’s cool stare has melted. Before she can speak, Jace picks up the last of the clothes and throws them in the machine. “Darn,” he says, “I meant to hang these out this morning.”

  Lila says, “No, that was Cooper’s job.”

  Jace laughs this off. “Yeah, except he bet a week’s worth of chores that he’d score higher than I did last year on the end-of-year exams.” This is a lie—not the beating him part—that’s true—but the betting part. We never made such an agreement. I want to catch his eye and ask what he’s doing, but he refuses to look my way.

  “You can’t bet your chores away, Jace,” Lila says, and her tone is soft now. Maybe she sees this falsified bet as us bonding. In any case, she sighs and claps Jace lightly around the head. “Next time tell me so I don’t go picking on Cooper.”

  Lila gives me an apologetic smile. Then she says, “Since you’re taking over Cooper’s chores for the week, you can start chopping the vegetables for dinner.”