by Troy Hooker
“Bluegrass? Really? Oh, that sounds splendid!” Lillia snorted. “Why don’t we grab our lawn chairs and join the eighty-somethings over by the stage?”
Gus looked confused at her sarcasm, but Emma was obviously already tired of it. “Seriously Lillia? Are you going to be like this all night? We only have a few hours before we need to be there.”
“Only until seven-thirty when the geri-hicks pack up their lawn chairs and the real bands come out.” She snuffed her nose at Emma.
Emma rolled her eyes in disgust, but then immediately brightened as the ring toss vendor furiously motioned them over for a once in a lifetime try for a stuffed lion.
But Sam was hoping for some more answers. Why continue to keep him in the dark? He had met them here, and now they just wanted to eat, play games and listen to bands at the festival? Was this their way of hooking him so he couldn’t say no? They must be really desperate to get people to join.
That was it. They needed friends. But it was just that—well, they didn’t seem like the likely people to hang out together. All three of them had very different personalities.
After a few rounds on the Tilt-A-Wheel and the Matterhorn, he began to loosen up. It was nice to have people to pay attention to him, even if he wasn’t the attention-desiring type. And after being cooped up in the house avoiding Bush all week, he needed to blow off some steam. Even if they weren’t his ideal choice of friends, they were enjoyable to be around. They were very different, but they seemed to mesh together better than most friends. And they included him like he had always been a part of their group.
The ring toss game proved to be the most fun of the night. Sam had mastered the trick of the game and won everyone their choice of stuffed animal with only a handful of quarters that Emma handed him. Another stack of quarters landed so many animals they could barely carry them, and as they walked away from the confused game attendant, they nearly laughed themselves silly at his reluctance to let Sam keep playing as he nearly single-handedly cleared the booth of prizes.
Sam watched them give away their prizes to children, who lit up when they were handed raccoons, snakes, and giant stuffed bats, and he wondered how such a strange group of people could have so much fun together. Emma was beautiful, with her curly red hair and slender shape, popular with many of the football players at school. Gus was one of the group of pimple-faced science geeks that hung around after school doing extra projects over pizza and two-liters of Mountain Dew. And then there was Lillia, a sarcastic, nearly-never smiling girl who hated the world.
Where did he fit in? Of all of them, he was most like Lillia, without the black hair and deep-rooted sarcasm of course—but she seemed to have a similar mood about life. Why did they want him specifically? He was an outcast, a nobody, an out-of-towner, or “townies” as they called them. What could he possibly contribute other than a bunch of stuffed animals?
At least they won’t shove me into a locker.
“What next?” Gus dusted his hands, having just given away his last stuffed dog. He kept a large stuffed snake for himself, which he wrapped around his neck like a scarf. It made him look like a large turtle poking his head out to sniff the air.
“I think the new kid should try the Icee challenge.” Lillia’s black eyes resembled those of the giant bat she was carrying.
“YES!” Emma nearly screamed, jumping up and down with her raccoon on her shoulders. “Do we have time?”
Time? Time until what? What were they keeping from him?
“The what?”
“Icee challenge,” Gus repeated. “It’s a game to see who can drink their Icee beverage the fastest. I don’t really get into all that …”
“Oh that’s because you have never won!” said Emma and Lillia in unison.
“Only because you two always start before I can even pay for my Icee,” Gus whined.
“Sounds like someone is making excuses,” Emma smiled.
“I don’t think I should … I have had quite a bit already.”
“Sam, will you do it?” Emma smiled at him, her eyes wide and beautiful.
He had never backed down from a challenge. Marshmallows, cinnamon, habaneros …
“Yeah I guess—”
But before he could get the words out, Emma and Lillia had already disappeared to find the Icee stand. Gus suddenly looked at Sam and puffed out his stomach jokingly, making him look curiously like a giant marshmallow and making Sam laugh out loud.
Emma and Lillia returned a few moments later with four large Icees, one of which Lillia immediately shoved into Sam’s hand.
“The rules are—” Gus started, but was immediately cut off by Emma.
“No, you make up stupid rules,” she shushed him with her hand over his mouth and glanced toward Lillia. “The rule is that you must drink your entire Icee with NO ice left over, and the loser must jump off Pike’s Bridge in their underwear.”
“What?” Sam asked suddenly, making the other two girls laugh at him. “I didn’t know there were going to be consequences like …”
“Ugh,” Gus stuck out his tongue and looked at his Icee, no doubt wondering where he was going to fit it after three pastries and an elephant ear.
“You’re not going to chicken out, are you Sammy boy?” Lillia teased.
“Nope,” he said resolutely, counting on Gus’s inability to eat another bite as his edge.
“Are we ready?” Emma giggled, holding the straw up to her mouth.
Sam thought quickly and took the lid off of his Icee. Lillia saw his plan and decided to take her lid off too.
“GO!” Emma said as her words quickly faded into large gulps of Icee.
Sam filled his mouth with the frozen liquid, immediately feeling his tongue go numb from the cold globs of ice, but after two big gulps, he felt he had a good head start on the other two. Lillia seemed to be not far behind him, but she struggled with brain freeze from drinking too much too fast.
Only about a minute later, Sam had nearly downed his entire Icee. He had only four or five big gulps left before he could claim his title at the Icee challenge.
“DONE!” Emma yelled just as he was swallowing his second gulp from being done. Lillia finished moments after her, leaving Sam and Gus to fight it out.
Sam glanced into his cup and picked up his pace. His head throbbed, but he gulped on, ignoring the pain. Lillia and Emma were both cheering for Gus now, maybe to see the new guy lose, or maybe because neither wanted to see Gus in his underpants.
With only a few more painful gulps until Sam finished, Gus’ straw slurped its last, and Sam was beaten. Gus elegantly crushed his Icee cup in a medieval knight victory fashion, and held it, fist shaking, into the air.
The two girls cheered for Gus and laughed at Sam’s loss, and Sam could imagine the same response when he would have to strip to his undies and dive into the river. It would be humiliating to say the least.
“Emma is the reigning champ of the Icee Challenge. Oh … I can’t believe I let you guys talk me into that again,” Gus said, his whole body doubled over in pain.
“I think I’m going to puke,” Lillia groaned as she tossed her cup in the trashcan next to the Icee booth. By then, other groups of younger teens were rushing to the booth to try the Icee Challenge, having seen Gus and the others.
“Oh suck it up you guys! Let’s quick go on the Ferris wheel!” Emma nearly shouted in Sam’s ear. Gus groaned as the four headed toward the giant slowly spinning wheel spewing blue, green, and orange lights into the night sky. To Sam it looked more like a glowing death trap.
The line wasn’t quite as long as it was at the beginning of the night, but it still stretched around the backside of the pastry vendors and into the kid’s rides. Gus immediately began talking with a tall skinny kid with a chest that curved inward about the upcoming science fair, and Emma and Lillia were quietly discussing something of w
hich it looked like Sam was the main topic.
Sam looked at Emma and the others. If this was the extent of what he could expect from the mysterious group, he was okay with it for the time being. They were an odd bunch and there was no way to replace his friends back in the city, but he had been alone since he arrived. He enjoyed being alone, but having someone his age around again was nice too. And they were the only ones that had helped him after the incident with Bush.
“But the eye is so complex that there is absolutely no way for a single protein cell to develop into a detailed sensory organ,” Gus was explaining furiously to his skinny friend.
“Let’s go kid,” the large sweaty Ferris wheel operator said coldly.
Before Sam realized it, the line had diminished in front of him and they were stepping up the metal steps to the wheel of death. The two girls had already climbed into the basket and were coaxing him to get in.
The operator closed the gate to the basket and the Ferris wheel began to turn quietly. The higher they went, the more Sam could see just how small White Pine really was. There was only the main street through town and a few side streets that held small neighborhoods of modest houses. The curiously old buildings and small shops that made up Main Street Square were really the only civilization for miles around. It was as though someone picked up a rural town from the eighteen hundreds in England and plopped it in the middle of the Northern Michigan wilderness. Quaint, but primitive.
The lights ended almost immediately following the s-shaped road through the town square, with only a few lights dotting the landscape from the small cattle farms and rural cabins. Sam strained to see his grandfather’s cabin in the trees, but it was too well buried in the hills that led to the larger Porcupine Mountains.
The rest of White Pine was surrounded by the thick, dense pine forest that led into what seemed like a never-ending darkness of trees. There were no cities or town lights in the distance that he could see, and he was pretty sure they were the only civilization for miles around.
***********************
Sam could see the clear sky end abruptly at the line of clouds he saw earlier. It was larger now, and huge thunderheads were developing along the front, stretching as far as Sam could see in both directions. Judging from how far it had moved since they got to the festival, it would be upon them in less than an hour. The others didn’t seem to notice, but he had no doubt rain was on the way, and a good amount from the looks of it. Whatever they were going to show him, it had to be pretty fast.
As they reached the top of the wheel and stopped, the noises of the festival faded into a faraway murmur, and the only sounds heard were Lillia and Emma talking softly as they peered over the side of the basket. Then the wheel began to move again, faster this time.
Around and around they went, and almost immediately Sam felt a nauseating feeling in the pit of his stomach, but not from nervousness this time. He had never really enjoyed rides that spun quickly, but with the Icee, pastry, and part of a funnel cake sloshing around in his gut, he began to regret getting on the Ferris wheel. The more times they went around, the worse it got. Judging from the purplish color of Gus’s face, he wasn’t enjoying it either.
When he thought he couldn’t stand it any longer, the spinning wheel finally stopped to let them off. The two girls bounced out of the basket as though the junk food hadn’t affected them at all, but Gus immediately thrust his head between his knees and sported a flush, white face.
Sam helped Gus to his feet, and out of instinct, Gus headed for the trashcan. Almost immediately, Gus threw his head over the side of the large trash barrel and upchucked a large purple pile of regurgitated Icee. His face was as purple as the mess in the barrel, and seeing it made Sam suddenly queasy, forcing him to take turns with Gus throwing up over the side.
“A little too much fun tonight, eh?” Lillia chuckled when the heaving slowed, making Emma burst out in full laughter.
“Poor guys! You must have weak stomachs!” Emma snorted through her laughing.
“Anyone up for another Icee?” Lillia kidded. “I think there’s a new flavor over by the scrambler.”
This sent Emma into a laughing fit that made even Lillia smile through her dark eye shadow.
“Funny,” both Sam and Gus echoed in the barrel between dry heaves.
“Hey, I bet you could scoop up some of that and analyze it in your science club—” Lillia stopped, and her smile faded. “Did you guys just hear thunder?”
Indeed Sam heard the low rumble, and no doubt Gus did too, as it was amplified in the barrel.
In the distance above the trees, there was a dim flash of lightning that followed. The smile on the two girls’ faces faded into a look of concern.
Another flash illuminated the tops of the trees across the field from town, followed by a low rumble of thunder. Other festival goers must have also noticed it because the lines around the rides began to empty quickly.
“We should probably think about heading over there now.” Emma was staring at the quickly approaching storm.
Sam lifted his head up from the rim of the barrel to look at the front. It had grown significantly larger since they had been on the Ferris wheel. It was moving quickly.
“Yep, it’s nearly time anyway. We better get moving,” Lillia looked at her watch.
Here comes the big reveal. They want me to become their newest study buddy, Sam thought between the nauseating waves washing over him.
“Okay, give me just a minute.” Gus lifted his head just enough to speak.
Lightning lit up the field in the distance, and a long, low rumble followed a half a minute later. It was going to be a doozy of a storm.
Sam felt a cool breeze begin to blow softly on his face, a nice feeling in comparison to the moist, stale air of the night, especially after throwing up multiple times into the trashcan.
“Gus, we need to go now,” Emma urged.
Gus didn’t move.
***********************
They helped Gus get upright and half carried him past the parking lot to the woods closest to town. Sam wasn’t sure where they were going, but he knew the pathway connected with the same path he explored behind Orvil’s store. It was where Emma had followed him only a week earlier.
Cars were emptying out of the parking lot now in droves, and a long string of lights could be seen as the festival goers headed out of town to try to outrun the rain.
The festival was nearly empty now, with carnival operators and vendors frantically trying to cover up their rides and wares as the storm rolled in angrily. For a moment, Sam looked back and watched the lights from the rides turn off one by one, silently wishing the festival would have lasted just a little longer.
As they reached the woods, Emma and Lillia stopped suddenly just inside the blowing trees, looking in both directions with concern. Then, as if they appeared right from the trees themselves, eight figures materialized out of the darkness.
Instantly there was a blue flash of light, and a weak but brilliant blue iridescent bubble formed awkwardly over Lillia, Gus, and Sam. Emma held her hand out strangely as if shielding her eyes from the unknown persons in front of her, the blue bubble connecting to her palm.
Sam watched the glowing blue bubble around Lillia ebb and flow as if it were a wave rolling in from the sea. It was beautiful—the brightest blue he had ever seen. He looked over to Emma, who was now struggling to hold her hand up, the wave of blue encasing her as well. And then, just as quickly as the flash began, it ended, and they were in darkness once again.
“Dad! Mom!” Emma breathed suddenly in the darkness. “Oh! I didn’t know it was you! I am so sorry!”
“Emma! You know better than to use that here!” A short thin woman with shoulder length curled hair emerged from the dark with a scowl on her face. She was an exact replica of Emma, just years older and with a few distinguished wrinkles
around her eyes.
“Samuel, how are you?” she turned instantly to him and took his hands in hers.
“I’m good, Mrs. Sterling,” he said mechanically, unable to take his eyes off of Emma’s hands.
“You must be so confused by now,” she continued to hold his hands. “I am so sorry sweet boy! You know these things, they just have to be so secretive. But don’t you worry, we will look after you—Emma? You make sure and keep close to Sam. It can get a bit overwhelming to take in all at once.”
Then she turned suddenly and dug though a large handbag, producing a black rain jacket about Sam’s size.
“Here, this should do you nicely.”
The others followed suit, each donning their own jackets in anticipation of the impending rain.
Sam instantly felt comfortable with Mrs. Sterling. She reminded him of the mom he never really had. Nurturing and loving—nothing like Sylvia.
“Jack Sterling,” an averaged sized man with glasses smiled and stuck his hand out to Sam. He reminded him of a history professor in a university, complete with a tweed sports jacket and drivers cap. “And I see my wife Cindy has already taken you under her wing.”
“Uh, yes sir. Nice to meet you.”
Then Gus and a larger, more portly version of him came waddling up in the darkness.
“This is my father, Colonel James Abelsworth,” Gus offered.
“How te’ do, lad?” the rotund man stuck out his puffy hand to Sam. Large, but broad shouldered, the Colonel wore a navy uniform and spectacles that made him look like a librarian for the British navy. It was a strange sight, but still he seemed to fit the look as a stately military man.
The Colonel then held his beefy hand out toward an incredibly skinny woman with tight curls below her hat, dressed in fur from head to toe. “This is my wife Violet, lad.”
It was then that Sam noticed the Colonel’s leather bracelet beneath his cuff with a curious flat stone embedded into it that almost had a glowing blue quality to it. Looking around briefly at the others, he noticed Mr. and Mrs. Sterling had one too, and the Colonel’s wife as well, although it was hidden amongst the many other gold and diamond-studded jewelry on her arm.
