Broken Trust

by Jill Williamson

  I got out of the banana and shut the door, leaned against the side and watched her approach. She shuffled toward me, her slippers making a sllltt, slltt, slltt sound on the asphalt. She stopped two steps away.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey.”

  “You want to sit in the car until it starts? Or on the sidewalk?”

  “Can we sit on the hood?”

  I glanced at the banana, wondering if it could handle my weight. I shrugged. “We can try.”

  She tugged at her blanket. “We can sit on this.”

  “You got it.” I came around behind her and removed the blanket like I was some sort of gentleman taking her coat. I spread the blanket on the car hood. Then Grace handed me her pillow and climbed up. I grabbed her good arm and helped her. She settled down, then reached for the pillow.

  “Thanks,” I said, squeezing Harry’s face into a blob, “but what are you going to use?”

  She leaned back against the windshield with her legs stretched out toward the front, bunny slippers staring at me. She continued to stretch her arm toward me. “Give it.”

  I threw the pillow a little hard. She caught it easily, kissed it—kissed Harry, I assume—and tucked it between her back and the windshield. I climbed up, wincing at both the sound of my hood popping beneath me and how I must look—not at all agile. I survived the climb and settled beside her.

  We sat there, waiting for the show to start, talking about nothing. Around us, people began to emerge from other apartments and houses. Some clustered in groups, talking. A few set up blankets on their lawns. Grace inspected my bag of snacks—squealed when she found the ranch Doritos.

  Then the fireworks started and we watched the sky, though I think I watched the lights dance over her face as much as anything.

  It was really unfair that a girl could be so pretty.

  Fifteen minutes later, my backside felt like it had welded itself onto the car hood. One leg was numb, the other stiff, and my neck had a crick in it, likely from the awkward way I had positioned myself to look at Grace. Every time I tried to scoot back up, my sneakers caught in the blanket and I ended up pedaling myself nowhere.

  “Are you comfortable?” I asked her.

  She ate a chip and nodded, smiling and chewing. “Mmhm.”

  Must be nice.

  I focused on the fireworks. A red one spiraled out like a ribbon. A green and two golds burst at the same time, and their positions reminded me of Mickey Mouse.

  An ache swelled in the back of my head. Oh, man. Not now.

  I squinted. My stomach churned. I shut my eyes and let the vision come.

  I’m in the forest, at a lake. It is silent, but not really. A bird sings. Two birds. Maybe three. Somewhere a bee seeks nectar. Water plops, though I don’t know why. A mosquito buzzes. I swat at it and make my way down a dock, my sneakers thumping over the wooden slats. Grace stands at the very end, her back to me, her hair almost white in the bright sun.

  She turns, and she’s no longer Grace, but Kimatra, tall and slender and brown, walking toward me like a runway model. No, she’s walking down a sidewalk, not a dock. I stop, confused, and Kimatra turns into a different blond girl. A girl with Down syndrome. Faith. Nick Muren’s sister. But she’s sitting in a car eating chocolates.

  Faith says something, but I hear nothing but the sounds of nature.

  I shift, and I’m now standing deep in the forest, the car nowhere in sight. Monstrous trees tower above me. Ferns stand as high as my chest.

  A twig snaps. I turn around, looking.

  No one is there. I’m alone.

  I wade through the ferns, stumbling over spongy moss. Another sound behind me. I look back, see nothing, yet know that I’m being followed.

  I try to move faster, but the ferns, the moss, the trees… there are too many obstacles. A low groan behind me sends a shiver up my spine. I start to run. I make it five yards before my foot catches on a tree root, and I sprawl onto the wet, dewy moss, which catches me like a floor of pillows. I roll on my side and glance back.

  A huge wolf stands about twenty feet away, watching me. I rise slowly, hot with the knowledge that my life is about to end, painfully. The beast’s back is as high as my waist. It licks its chops and yawns, baring an impressive set of teeth. It’s toying with me.

  Leaves rustle on my right. A second wolf enters. Two of them. Hunting me? Are there no deer left? A growl back the other way. Behind the first wolf stands a third.

  Mother pus bucket!

  A bead of sweat rolls down into my ear. I gulp, then twist around and sprint away with everything I’ve got. It’s all I can think to do. I hear the wolves chasing me, panting at my heels, branches snapping.

  The ground becomes more solid and I pick up some speed. My legs are heavy. My side aches. It’s been too long since I ran this fast, though my knee feels great. My jeans and shoes are weighed down with the forest’s wetness. Has it been raining?

  Behind me, a gun fires, shattering the relative silence.

  No, not a gun. Exploding fireworks overhead. This was the big finale. I took a deep breath and glanced at Grace. Oblivious. She had no clue that I’d just had a several visions at once. Good. I didn’t like weirding people out.

  I was shaking a little. A bunch of visions like that… it had only happened a couple times in my life, and usually at night when I was sleeping. I’d had the wolf dream before, but the others were new. That I’d dreamed about Faith bothered really me. What did it all mean?

  I replayed it in my mind several times, hoping to remember everything perfectly. I couldn’t exactly write anything down with Grace here. I’d have to log it in my new journal when I got home. My old one was still lost. Or stolen.

  The fireworks ended. The whole show had lasted no longer than a half hour. People milled back into the surrounding houses and apartments. Grace slid off the left side of my car, then turned back to claim her pillow, which she hugged under her good arm.

  “Guess it’s time for me to go in,” she said.

  Okey-dokey. That had been a fast non-date. I jumped off the right side and grabbed my pillowcase, shoved it through the open passenger window, then pulled the comforter off the hood. I carried it around the front end and draped it over her shoulders.

  “Your, uh, scarf,” I said.

  “It’s a boa.”

  Better give her the note now. I pulled the crumpled paper out of my back pocket and held it out. “This is for you.” I put it in her hand so she could grab it without losing the pillow.

  Her eyes narrowed as she studied it.

  “You can’t read it until I leave.”

  “I can’t?”

  I swallowed, nervous. “I want you to wait.”

  “Why?”

  “Just wait. Okay?”

  “Fine. I’ll wait.”

  Then I left.

  I watched in my rearview mirror as I drove away, but Grace did not watch the banana fade into the distance. She walked straight up and into her apartment. How long would she wait until she read the note? She wouldn’t wait long, right?

  The paper said nothing but “Knock, knock.” I was hoping it would make her smile, and that she would text me back right away. You know, play along.

  She would, wouldn’t she?

  Just as I pulled alongside the curb outside my house, my phone buzzed.

  My nerves were so rattled, it took me three tries to unlock my phone and see what she said.

  whose there?

  I relaxed. Smiled. Oh, this girl. I quickly replied: Egg.

  Grace: Egg who?

  Egg-cited for the Alaska trip.

  She wrote back: Me to

  I left it at that.

  ****

  Thursday at the Sayle Real Estate agency flew by, and then it was time for my first visit to Brothers in Arms. I’d finally bought the ebook, but I’d only managed to read the first paragraph. Just now. As I sat in my car outside Gabe’s house.

  I went in. Mary answered the door, an
d something flipped in my stomach at the sight of her. I did my best to pretend not to notice how much she’d changed, but every time I saw her, it floored me.

  Her eyes met mine, and she lit up. “Spencer!” She hugged me, smelling sweet and spicy and, well, really good. She was already taller than Grace, who at five feet, seemed to have reached her full height.

  Mary pulled out of the hug and the room felt cold. “How’s your knee?”

  “Good,” I said. “I’ve started running.”

  “That’s so great! I went to basketball camp. High school camp. With Coach Martel. You think I can make varsity freshman year like you did?”

  Ohh. Mary would be in high school next year. In high school. With me.

  That wouldn’t be awkward at all.

  “Sure you can,” I said, which was true. She was that good.

  She squealed. “I sure hope so!” She pulled me inside and prattled on about the happenings at camp. I followed her through the kitchen and into the living room. As always, the Stopplecamp home was warm, inviting, spotless, and covered in pictures of two things: 1) Family photos, and 2) Bible verses or Christian sayings.

  Brothers in Arms had set up in the living room where the brown furniture and the green carpet made it feel even warmer. Wally had already arrived. I hadn’t seen much of him this summer. As always, he was wearing high-waisted Levis and a short-sleeved dress shirt that made him look like a senior citizen. He was sitting in the middle of the sofa, a package of baby wipes balanced on his knee.

  I didn’t bother asking him to move over. He needed his own space. Gabe was sitting in his dad’s recliner, so I claimed the smaller couch that sat in front of the baby grand piano. Mary disappeared down the hallway. A door closed in the distance.

  “Okay,” Gabe said. “Let’s get started. Wally? How was your week?”

  Wally shrugged. “Boring. There’s nothing to do now that I’ve finished all my scholarship applications.”

  “Scholarships for what?” I asked.

  “College,” he said. “I’ll be attending Liberty University online this fall.”

  “But, um, you’re only sixteen.”

  “Homeschooled students learn at their own pace. I graduated this year.”

  “You did.” I vaguely recalled Wally saying something to me about being in a higher grade, but I’d had no clue he was near graduation. How had he passed by me?

  “Also, as of yesterday, I also dropped out of the Mission League. No time now that I’ll be in college.”

  Wait, what? “No Alaska trip?”

  “I was never going on that trip. Surviving in the wilderness is not something I care to attempt.”

  Which actually removed a handicap from Alpha team.

  “What will you be studying in college?” Gabe asked.

  “Aeronautics.”

  Was he joking? “But you’re afraid of flying,” I said.

  “I’d like to work as an air traffic controller. I’m going to take as many of the aeronautics courses as possible and couple those with business administration courses. Once I receive my bachelor’s degree, I’ll attend the FAA academy.”

  Wow. “Oh, well, good luck with all that.”

  “I also have a prayer request,” Wally said. “It’s an unspoken request for my mother. She’s going through something that I’d rather not share.”

  Gabe nodded. “We’ll pray for your mother. Spencer? How about you?”

  “Prayer requests?” I asked.

  “If you have one. But tell us what’s going on with you, too.”

  I shrugged. “I’ve been working on my knee every day. Working at the OTM five days a week. I’m their slave.”

  “Any prayer requests?”

  Did I ever. Grace’s dad was still going to AA, but Grace wasn’t sure if they were staying or going. Her mom and dad were fighting about some things. “Yeah, put me down for one of those unspokens.”

  “You can tell us, you know,” Gabe said. “That’s what this group is supposed to be about.”

  “Wally didn’t have to say.”

  “That’s because it’s my mother’s business to share, not mine.”

  “Yeah, well, this isn’t my business to share.”

  “Is this about Grace’s parents?” Wally asked. “Because if it is, we already know. Her mother is friends with mine.”

  “Mrs. Thomas met with my dad to see if Grace would be able to go to Alaska,” Gabe said.

  Oh. “Can she?”

  “Looks like it. Grace’s mom said her cast should come off the week before, and my dad is going to see if he can get her trained in time. Did you really beat up her dad?” Gabe asked, eyebrows cocked in that “I’m not judging you but I’m totally judging you” Prude Patrol way of his.

  “That’s what Mrs. Thomas said,” Wally added.

  Here we go. I should have known that Brothers in Arms really meant the “Talk about where you messed up and feel bad about it” club. “I may have hit him a couple times.”

  “Did he try and hit you first?” Wally asked.

  “No. But he hit Grace, and she wasn’t able to hit back.”

  They both looked at me, unblinking.

  “That’s all my prayer requests,” I said. “Your turn, Gabe.”

  “Okay, well, I’m headed to Biola this fall to study music,” Gabe said. “I’m fifty percent sure I want to be a worship pastor and fifty percent sure I want to be a missionary. I’m trying to stay open to God’s plan, but it’s hard.”

  “Prayers for clarity?” Wally asked.

  “Yes. That and Isabel. I’m, uh, going to break up with her tomorrow night.”

  “What?” I said. “You wanted to go out with her for years.”

  Gabe swallowed. “I know. I really care a lot about her, but we’re so different. We don’t have the same interests.”

  “Um… music. Duh.”

  “Yeah, but music is not enough. She’s not going to college. I am. She wants to take over her mother’s salon someday. She doesn’t feel called to missions or ministry.”

  “So?” I said. “She’s barely eighteen. Sometimes you don’t know what you’re supposed to do until you find yourself doing it.”

  “I guess,” Gabe said. “But she also picks fights about everything.”

  “Yeah, but aren’t you, like…” I felt dumb to say it. “…in love?”

  “I used to think so,” Gabe said. “I do love her as a friend. But Isabel and I … I don’t think we help each other be better people. We compete and fight more than work together. And I don’t want to hold her back. Breaking up… it just seems right.”

  Man. I had no comment to that, but I wondered how Isabel was going to respond.

  My guess was, it wouldn’t be pretty.

  REPORT NUMBER: 15

  REPORT TITLE: I Crack My First Undercover Case

  SUBMITTED BY: Agent-in-Training Spencer Garmond

  LOCATION: Stopplecamp Residence, 231 N. Rose Street, Pilot Point, California, USA

  DATE AND TIME: Saturday, July 8, 10:09 a.m.

  Saturday found our little Mission League group circled up in Mr. S’s backyard for the Flintknapping OST. We were all sitting on the neatly mowed lawn—me beside Grace, of course. I hadn’t had any new visions about her getting hurt, so I figured she’d made it through the worst. The future looked bright and smiley from my perspective.

  So long as her dad kept going to AA and her mother stayed close by.

  Mr. S stood before us, a chunk of rock in his hand. “Flintknapping is the technique of making tools, knives, arrowheads, spearheads, and other weapons from certain types of stone like obsidian or flint. It’s all about the cutting edge. A silica-rich rock, broken cleanly, can produce an edge much sharper then steel.”

  A shiver of delight ran up my spine. I wanted to make me a rock knife. Now.

  “When you attach a cutting edge to the end of a stick and add motion,” Mr. S said, “whether you throw, slice, or stab—you create a weapon. A cutting force.” He thru
st his arm forward, rock in hand. My eyes widened a bit, imagining myself taking on a grizzly bear with a spear I’d made from a rock and a branch.

  Would that really work? Seemed a bit of a stretch.

  “Could you kill a bear with a self-made spear?” I asked.

  Mr. S chuckled. “If you see a bear in Alaska, do not get close. Do not try to kill it. I think that goes without saying, but I know some of you think rules are made to be broken.” He raised his eyebrows at me.

  “I don’t want to kill a bear,” I said. “I just wondered if a spear actually could kill one. It seems too small.”

  “Natives killed bears long before rifles came on the scene,” Mr. S said. “While I haven’t researched native hunting practices, my guess is they used a bow and arrows to kill a bear, keeping their distance and firing arrows until it went down.”

  Mr. S strapped on a pair of fat goggles over his Coke-bottle glasses. “Rock or glass fragments tend to fly everywhere when flintknapping, so you must always protect your eyes. We’ll be using goggles today. If you’re in the wild and don’t have goggles, sunglasses will do. Onlookers should keep their distance.”

  Mr. S talked about other safety issues. The need to use leather pads to protect our body from the shards and tools. How rock dust was bad to breathe in, making it necessary to always work in a well-ventilated area, facing downwind so the dust would blow away from us. If there was no breeze, we should wear a mask or handkerchief over our face.

  He went over the different ways to remove flakes from a rock core, then showed us the tools, one-by-agonizing-one. There were hammerstones, pressure flakers, antler pieces, nail notchers, copper boppers, ishi sticks, and billets.

  I just wanted to try this already.

  Finally, we all picked two rocks, a leather leg pad, and a pair of work gloves from the piles Mr. S had prepared. We each had a hammerstone, which was a smaller, round rock made of limestone that we would use as a tool; and a core rock, which was a chunk of obsidian.

  I went back to my spot in the grass, carrying Grace’s obsidian for her since her arm was still in a sling. We settled down on the grass and pounded our hammerstones against the obsidian. It was fun to see the rock shatter in flakes, but whenever I tried to aim for a better strike I kept hitting my fingers.