by Matt Fazio
After a fall like that, Drew figured Zobby would be hurt badly. But, as always, Zobby surprised him. She somersaulted, landed on her feet, and resumed a dead sprint. Huddy looked shocked, but he wasn’t giving up. He caught up to her again. Just as Zobby’s jacket was about to be in his grasp, Kris came flying in and tackled him to the ground.
“What are you thinking, man? Are you gonna beat up some girl? And we don’t even know if she did it, remember?”
Kris had Huddy pinned to the ground so he couldn’t move. Huddy was taller than Kris, but it was clear that Kris was stronger.
“Get off me, man,” said Huddy, struggling to squirm free.
Zobby stopped running but remained several feet away from Huddy and Kris. Drew, Tommy, and the unnamed older boy were now surrounding Huddy and Kris. Caleb was gone.
“I’m not gonna do anything, I’m fine,” said Huddy, in a much calmer voice than before. Kris finally unpinned him and helped him up.
“Besides, you’re right,” said Huddy, brushing dirty leaves from his shirt. “Maybe it wasn’t her. Where’s that creep Caleb, huh? Row-eeee, come out, come out, wherever you are!”
But there was no sign of Caleb anywhere.
“I guess he ran off,” said Drew.
“You think? I don’t think he’d do that,” said Tommy.
“So, what now?” asked Kris.
“Yeah, what now?” said the third boy.
“I’ll tell you what now,” Huddy barked back, the rage in his voice rising again. “Somebody’s gonna fess up and tell us what happened to The Shack. Our Shack. I don’t care if it was Roey or not, none of you should’ve been in there, and none of you should’ve touched my stuff.”
The third older boy finally spoke up. “C’mon, Huddy, it’s not like we built The Shack, right? And most of the stuff in there is just stuff other kids left there, right? You’ve used other kids’ stuff, too. I mean, we all have, ya know?”
“But they ruined it!” Huddy snapped back. “Did we ever ruin it? No!”
The quiet boy opened his mouth like he wanted to say more, but with Huddy’s intimidating glare piercing into him, he simply nodded. Drew searched the boy’s face trying to figure out what he wanted to say, but the only thing he could detect was uncertainty.
“Well, listen,” said Zobby as she finally took a few steps forward. “It was all our faults. We all wanted to hang out in The Shack. No one meant for anything to get ruined. We really are sorry. We’ll help you clean it up, and we’ll even replace whatever we can.”
Kris nodded as if to accept the apology and the offer, but Huddy spoke up again.
“No, you can’t just say you’re sorry and act like everything is okay. I had a baseball glove in there. And …” His voice wavered, as if his anger was now joined by sadness, “and comic books. A bunch of my comic books are in there! Those can’t be replaced. They’re limited edition. They don’t make those anymore!”
“What do you want us to do?” Zobby asked.
Huddy was seething. His sharp eyes darted all around, searching for an answer. Then they stopped abruptly.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing at Zobby’s left pocket.
“What? Nothing.” Zobby looked down and saw that she had been guarding her pocket with her hand without even realizing.
“It’s your phone, huh?”
“Um, yeah,” said Zobby, now pressing her hand tightly over her pocket. “So?”
An evil smile spread across Huddy’s face. “Let me see it.”
“No. My mom pays for it. You can’t just take somebody’s phone.”
“Let me see it,” Huddy repeated, motioning with his hand like a greedy child demanding a toy.
Zobby shook her head and continued to guard her phone.
“Fine, have it your way. Just wait until school. I bet you all go to Emerson, huh? I’ll track you down, and then you’ll wish you gave it to me.”
Zobby sighed and pulled the phone from her pocket.
“Wait,” said Drew. “Don’t. He’ll break it.”
“I’m not gonna break it,” Huddy said immediately, as if he had been ready for the accusation.
“Come on, man, just let it go,” said Kris.
“No. They ruined The Shack. All I’m asking is to see her phone. Now give it!”
Zobby looked at Drew and shrugged. “What choice do I have?”
After staring at her brand new phone for a few more seconds, she took a deep breath and quickly handed it over.
“Wow, this is a sweet phone,” Huddy said as he examined it. “You can do a lot with it.”
“Yeah, I know, thanks.”
“Actually,” said Huddy, “what I meant was you could do a lot with it … but not anymore.”
He took apart the phone, the battery from the base, and threw them in opposite directions, flinging the phone to the left, then launching the battery down into a valley of bushes.
“Good luck finding that. I sure hope it’s not ruined like my comic books. That would be terrible, huh?”
All the kids were silent. Huddy began to laugh but stopped when he realized his friends didn’t join him. It sickened Drew to think that this kid could be the Mystery Artist he was looking for.
There was a rustle a few yards away, and Caleb emerged from behind a tree. Zobby’s teary eyes turned toward him.
“Look what you did!” she screamed. “Why couldn’t you just tell him the truth!”
Caleb simply sneered smugly back at her.
“Look, I don’t care what the truth is anymore,” said Huddy. “Somebody messed with our treehouse, so somebody’s gotta pay. You were there, right?”
Zobby shrugged and quickly wiped a tear before it had a chance to slide down her cheek.
“So it’s your problem, not mine,” said Huddy, smirking.
Kris and the other boy looked astonished by Huddy’s cruelty, but they didn’t say anything.
“Let’s get out of here, guys,” said Huddy. “Roey, you comin’ with us, or you gonna stay here with them?”
“Uh, ye-yeah, I’m coming with you, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I mean, yeah, I’m definitely coming with you.”
He scuttled over to Huddy. Huddy then turned his attention to Drew, Zobby, and Tommy.
“And don’t even think about following us,” he said.
“But we don’t know how to get home without my phone,” said Zobby. “You can’t strand us out here like this. We’ll freeze.”
“Yes huh. I can do whatever I want,” said Huddy. “I have a phone, see?” He pulled a cell phone from his pocket and held it in front of Zobby’s face. “If you follow us, if I ever even see you again, you’ll be sorry. I’ll break a lot more than your phone.”
Drew looked to Kris. He had been reasonable throughout this whole ordeal. He wouldn’t leave the kids stranded in the woods, would he?
Huddy walked off. Caleb and the quiet boy followed. Kris looked right at Drew, as if he had heard his thoughts. Drew sensed that his eyes were trying to apologize, like he was trying to say he wished things had been different. But as the others quickened their pace, Kris broke eye contact with Drew and ran off to catch up with them.
Maybe Kris doesn’t know how to get back without GPS either, Drew thought. Within a few moments, the four boys had disappeared through the brush. In the distance, Huddy shouted, “Good luck finding your own way home, losers!”
****
Drew, Zobby, and Tommy stood in the middle of the woods. Shadows were beginning to drape over the forest. Every direction looked exactly the same. There were no street signs or crossing guards showing the kids which way to go. They felt trapped in a dark, inescapable maze.
Eventually, Tommy went to get the base of Zobby’s phone. Drew could tell Zobby was doing her best to fight back more tears. This was the first time he had ever seen her cry, and he blamed himself. He had invited her to come along. He had dragged her into this mess in the first place. He wanted to console
her but didn’t know how.
Tommy brought back the phone and handed it to Zobby. It was scuffed and scratched, but it didn’t appear to have suffered any major damage. Without speaking, the three of them walked in the direction the battery was thrown.
“Ahhh!” Zobby screamed. “Caleb is such a jerk. First he takes my phone, then he tries to fight me, and if that isn’t bad enough, he tells those hockey jerks that I ruined The Shack. Is he serious? I could wring his neck. And then he leaves with them. He actually leaves with them. Who does he think he is?”
“Honestly,” said Drew, “I still can’t believe he went with them.”
“I can. Jerks of a feather flock together,” said Zobby.
“Actually, I think he told them it was Zobby ‘cause she’s a girl,” said Tommy. “You know, he figured they wouldn’t beat up a girl. He was trying to protect us.”
“Yeah right,” said Zobby. “You don’t have to always take his side.”
“Yeah, I think Zob’s right,” said Drew. “Caleb wasn’t looking out for us.”
“Seriously,” Zobby added, “if he was trying to protect us, why did he leave with them?”
“I dunno. ‘Cause you woulda tortured him the whole way home?”
“You know, maybe you’re right. Maybe you should’ve gone with them, too.”
“C’mon, Zobby, that’s not what he’s saying,” said Drew.
“Yeah, I didn’t go with them, did I?” said Tommy. “I didn’t even ask to! So why are you jumping down my throat? I’m here looking for your battery, right?”
Zobby huffed. It was her way of acknowledging that Tommy was right, even though she wasn’t in any mood to apologize to anyone.
Drew looked up and saw that the sun would be setting soon. “Guys, we’re never gonna find this battery. We should go. It’ll be pitch black before we know it.”
Tommy shivered and put his hands in his pockets. “Man, I’m freezing … and starving. Maybe we can find our way back to The Shack and eat the food in the treasure chest.”
Drew realized that he was hungry, too. He would’ve done anything to be eating a bacon and egg sandwich with his dad right now.
“But Zobby ran around so much that I’m not even sure where The Shack is,” he said. “We should just head home.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right, we should just go,” said Tommy.
“No, he’s not right, Tommy, he’s wrong. How are we gonna ‘just head home’? Without my battery, my phone doesn’t work, and without my phone, we have no GPS. And your phone is dead. So we have no way to get home. The only one of us who might have known ran off like a baby.”
“So you don’t know how to get home at all?” Tommy asked.
“No!” said Zobby. “I was following my phone the whole time.”
“Yeah, me too. I got no idea how to get back. But Drew wasn’t following the GPS. Drew, do you know how to get back?”
Zobby answered for him. “Come on, Tommy. Drew was like a hundred feet behind us, staring up at the sky and moseying around. He wasn’t paying any attention.”
Drew didn’t respond. He looked around and breathed in the brisk air, as if to inhale a solution and exhale uncertainty.
“Then what do we do?” asked a nervous Tommy. He shivered again and put his hood up.
“I don’t know!” said Zobby, plopping herself to the ground.
“It’ll be dark soon,” said Drew. “Once it’s dark, we might as well be trying to find our way home blindfolded.”
“I’m guessing no one has a flashlight,” said Tommy.
“My phone has a flashlight app,” Zobby said somberly. “Not that that matters now.”
“So we got no idea where we are,” said Tommy. “Let’s just start walking in a random direction. Like Drew said, it’s gonna be dark soon, plus we’ll freeze to death if we stay out here all night.” He pointed directly in front of where he was standing. “Let’s just walk that way. Maybe we’ll luck out and get to the baseball fields. Or we’ll come to a restaurant or a house or something, and we’ll call our parents from there.”
“Not mine,” said Zobby. “My mom’s gonna be mad enough about my phone.”
“I can’t call my dad,” said Drew. “Zobby and I both already lied to him. I don’t want him to know.”
“My parents aren’t even home,” said Tommy. “They were goin’ out somewhere tonight.”
“And if we walk the wrong way, we could just end up at the highway, or the edge of a cliff or something,” said Drew.
“So there goes that plan,” Zobby sighed.
Tommy shook his head and kicked at a branch on the ground. “At least I’m trying.”
Drew had never seen Tommy so nervous. He turned to Zobby and watched as she stared down at the useless cell phone in her left hand. Her knees were pulled close to her chest as she hugged her shins. Her normally bright smile had drooped into a gloomy frown. With her right hand, she snuck another quick swipe at a tear that had escaped her watery eyes.
Both of Drew’s friends were scared, confused, and abandoned. The GPS had gotten them to their destination, but it had stranded them there. Drew knew it was up to him to figure out a way home. But how?
As urgent of a situation the kids were in, something else was weighing on Drew’s mind: Huddy. Drew was pretty sure now that Huddy couldn’t be the Mystery Artist. He tried to picture Huddy, pencil in hand, putting the time and effort necessary into the beautiful picture, and it just didn’t seem possible. When he got home, if he got home, at least he would be able to cross the name off his list.
He looked up at the sky. The low sun was growing paler. He thought about the sun shining across the ocean and wished he were somehow inside a drawing now, so that the sun would stay in one spot forever instead of setting.
“Wait, that’s it. The sun is setting.”
“Yeah, we know,” said Tommy.
“Let’s go. I can do it,” said Drew.
“Do what?”
“I can get us home. Let’s go.”
“How?”
“Yeah, how?”
“Just trust me,” Drew said. “I found the key, right? I can do this.”
Tommy and Zobby exchanged unconvinced glances. But Drew grabbed Zobby’s arm to help pull her off the ground, and the kids got moving.
****
The setting sun was what gave Drew the idea. His dad had told him several times before that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Drew remembered that it was early afternoon when the kids were on their way to The Shack and the sun had been high up in the sky, almost directly overhead. At the beginning of their journey, he had felt the sun on the right side of his forehead. So that meant the sun had already begun to set. Now, as Drew stared off at the setting sun, he realized it should be on his left side the entire way home.
Unlike before, when Drew followed behind the others, he now led them with poise and purpose. Instead of Tommy and Zobby urging Drew to keep up, they were trying to keep pace with him.
“Slow down, Drew,” said Tommy, breathing heavily.
“Do you really know where you’re going?”
“Are we just gonna get more lost?”
But none of their concerns broke Drew’s gait. Within minutes he saw the moss-covered rocks he had seen hours earlier, only this time they were to the right instead of the left. Drew knew he was on the right path, and he picked up his pace to prove it. He sprinted through the area with the skinny trees, and Zobby and Tommy reluctantly did their best to keep up.
Moments later Drew saw an enormous pine tree he had noticed on the way. He remembered wondering why all the other trees lose their leaves for the winter but pine trees don’t lose their needles. Then he saw a big pile of leaves that he had noticed earlier in the day because it seemed strange that someone would rake leaves in the middle of the woods. He continued to study his surroundings as he marched on, noticing the same details he had seen earlier in the day.
“He seems like he knows where he’s
going,” Tommy whispered.
“I think he does,” said Zobby. “He really does.”
Drew could tell that Zobby was starting to believe in him. “We’re almost there, guys,” he said.
But soon he came to an abrupt stop.
“What’s wrong?”
“Yeah, why’d you stop?”
“I – I don’t recognize this area.”
“Oh no, you mean we’ve been going the wrong way the whole time?” cried Tommy.
Drew searched all around for something familiar but found nothing. Panic shot through him. Everything was getting darker, and any possible landmarks were becoming less distinct in the shadows. In the distance a bird squawked, as if to give the kids one final warning to leave. Drew could feel the steady, rising breath of the forest. It seemed as if the forest had become aware of the intruders and was giving them until sundown to either leave or be swallowed up in the blackness.
“I trust you, Drew. I know you can get us out of here,” said Zobby.
Drew could tell she meant it. He searched around once more. Then he realized what he was looking for. He went to the right about ten steps, then forward ten more.
“C’mon,” he said, “this way!”
Soon the kids were climbing over the same huge, fallen tree they had come across hours earlier. A few moments later, Tommy cried out, “The fields! I can see the fields!”
The three kids charged through the brush and burst out of the forest. They had escaped. Tommy high-fived everything in sight – Drew’s hand, Zobby’s hand, the sign on the outfield fence for Bo’s Auto Garage, everything. Zobby grabbed Drew and hugged him, holding him tightly for several seconds.
The three trudged up the hill as fast as their tired legs allowed. Feeling like conquering heroes, they each headed home.
****
Mr. Daley was waiting on the front porch as Drew approached the house.
“Yeah, one piece,” he was saying to someone on the phone. “I’ll have him call you when I’m finished with him.”
He lowered the phone from his ear and looked sternly at Drew.
“That was your mom,” he said. “I had to call her and let her know I found you. Anything you wanna tell me?”
“No, I mean, it’s not a big deal. We just, we just went, uh –”
