by Susan Vaught
I saw my chance and bolted, holding tight to Sam as I ran.
After a few seconds, Aunt Gus hollered my name, but it was too late. I was already at the edge of the yard, and two steps later, I hit the tree line, found my favorite trail, and vanished into the Pond River Forest.
• • •
I turned off the phone in my shorts pocket as I headed to my clubhouse. Dad would send angry messages, and Aunt Gus would try to bribe me, and they might even get Mom to send me a text. Then Dad would shut down my phone until I came back home and got ungrounded, which would be sometime two weeks and five days and ten hours and twenty minutes after NEVER.
Maybe I’d just live in the clubhouse.
I had built it myself two years ago, out of eight sheets of plywood I blackmailed Aunt Gus into buying for me when I caught her smoking in the house. I had hauled the big pieces of wood down the trail with Dad’s yardwork wagon, then nailed them to tree trunks to be sure they stayed up even though I didn’t really know how to connect the edges despite watching a bunch of YouTube carpentry videos. I had covered the walls and roof with blankets, draped those with plastic tarps and garbage bags I lifted from Dad’s tool closet, and nailed pine branches together on top of everything.
Unless people got close to it, my hideout looked like a fallen tree slowly rotting away to nothing. Nobody could see it from the main path, and the forest rangers hadn’t found it yet, and neither had Dad or Aunt Gus. The door, really just a propped board held in place with a rock, faced into the dense trees, and it had a note in red nail polish that read JESSE’S PLACE. STAY OUT AND STAY ALIVE, with lots of drips to make it look all bloody.
I kept some of my polish collection in a plastic tote inside, along with a flashlight, some head lamps, bug spray, books and magazines, a dry blanket and pillow, bottles of water, Sam’s training containers, and some sealed snacks. The floor had a few big rocks for chairs, but mostly just blankets and dirt.
So imagine my surprise when Sam and I got to my special, private spot and found the door open.
Sam wriggled in my arms, pointed his white nose at the clubhouse, and growled.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “I see it.”
Then I clamped my teeth together and thought about growling, too.
From inside the clubhouse, a light flickered.
Somebody was definitely in my special, private place—and they were messing with my special, private stuff!
It might be a thief. Or a murderer. Or a bank robber.
I backed up a step, breathing hard.
Should I go home? Wait, no. What would Mom do?
I shut my eyes for two seconds and imagined my mother in her desert fatigues, walking her golden retriever. Shotgun was a war dog with nine years in the field, just like Mom. They both had hawk eyes and stern faces, and Shotgun had that explosive-sniffing nose. They weren’t scared of bombs or bad guys or anything at all. They didn’t wait for trouble to come to them. No. My mom and her dog went looking for trouble, so that trouble couldn’t hurt other soldiers.
When my eyes opened, I wasn’t breathing hard anymore. I shifted Sam under my left arm, knelt as quietly as I could, and picked up the biggest rock I could see. Hefting it in my right hand, I stepped toward the open door and hollered, “Hey! Whoever you are, get out of my clubhouse!”
When nothing happened, I moved closer and banged the rock on the wood beside the front door. “Out! Right now!”
Sam alert-barked, adding extra-special ferocity to my yelling.
The light bounced around inside.
“I mean it!” I whammed the rock on the clubhouse wall.
From inside came rustling and mumbling, and somebody said, “Don’t shoot!”
Then something big came rolling out of the door.
Like, actually rolling.
All the way out, past me, until it hit a nearby tree trunk.
The boy—it was definitely a boy—stayed on the ground, head covered, like he expected me to beat him with my rock, or maybe turn loose my barking, fuzzy war dog of fury.
I jiggled the war dog of fury. “Shhh, Sam-Sam. Easy. Don’t kill him yet.”
The boy on the ground—who, I might add, was wearing one of my head lamps and holding my dog-eared copy of A Wrinkle in Time—whimpered. I recognized him by his white-blond hair and the fact that he was a foot taller than most people in my grade. Springer Regal, the new kid who had just moved up here from Alabama last month.
“Springer, it’s okay.” I lowered my rock. “Sam-Sam’s a Pomeranian, not a Doberman. See?”
Springer glanced up quickly, keeping both hands over his face. I saw a brown eye peeking between two knuckles. “It can still bite. Don’t put it down.”
“Sam-Sam is a he, not an it.”
“Fine. Don’t put him down. Please.”
“A mean person would drop the dog right on your head because you busted into their clubhouse and used their stuff, despite the clear warning on the door. You know, the bloody words saying STAY OUT?”
Springer lowered his hands. “That’s not blood. It’s nail polish.”
“Okay, so maybe you have impressive powers of observation. Nobody with impressive powers of observation should get bitten by a war dog of fury, even a little one.” I pitched my rock off into the brush.
Springer flinched when it landed. Right about then, I saw that his left eye was swollen and colored. “Ouch,” I said, pointing to his face. “Who hit you?”
He flinched again and didn’t answer.
“Sorry,” I said. “Maybe that was rude. Dad says I’m not tactful.”
Springer studied me for a few seconds, then nodded. After that, he smiled.
I smiled back at him.
With my head lamp hanging halfway to his right ear, he looked like a giant dork who might have gotten lost exploring a bunch of caves. Plus, he had gotten mud on the corner of my Wrinkle in Time. I should have sicced Sam on his ankles, but instead I said, “Wanna stay awhile?”
3
Monday, Seven Days Earlier, Evening
Sam-Sam sprawled across my knees and stretched his pointy little nose until he could lick Springer’s blue jeans every minute or so. I thought about being jealous, but then I figured Springer needed friends since he just moved someplace new and somebody hit him in the face, and Sam could be a good friend if you didn’t mind getting your clothes bathed.
“It really is Jesse—with an e,” I said as Springer and I munched on Twinkies and bounced flashlight and head lamp beams around my clubhouse, making shadows come to life. “Like boys spell it. Which is a ridiculous concept anyway, boy names and girl names. Why can’t it just be name names? You know, everybody names.”
Springer blinked at me, looking like he didn’t understand.
“It’s because I’m named for my mom’s brother, who died in a car wreck when he was seventeen,” I added.
Springer put down his head lamp, made a shadow-bunny with his hand, and hopped it toward a rumpled blanket. “That’s sad.”
“Yeah. Being named for a dead guy can make living a real pain. Especially when Mom wants me to make good grades and act nice like Uncle Jesse did.” I snapped at Springer’s shadow-bunny with shadow-dinosaur jaws.
“Do you get bad grades?”
“Nah. Not unless I get mad at the teacher.”
Springer nodded. His shadow-bird flew over my dinosaur jaws.
I snapped after him, moving my hands closer to his. “Uncle Jesse wasn’t just smart, though. Mom says he was good with people, and brave when he played sports, and that if he had lived, he’d probably have been a marine.”
“So you don’t think you’re like him?” Springer asked.
I snorted and snapped my shadow-dino jaws again. “Mom’s a hero. Uncle Jesse would have been, too. I’m definitely not hero material. And I can’t play sports, and I’m not good with people at all.”
Springer gave me a sideways look, like he wasn’t sure what to believe.
“I don’t tell lies,”
I assured him. “Dad says I’m honest to a fault. But I’m not sure how honesty could be a fault. It’s a virtue, right?”
For a few seconds, Springer looked confused, but then he nodded and flew his shadow-bird over my dino jaws really fast, so I couldn’t bite him.
“Who hit you?” I asked him, figuring enough time had passed that we were acquainted now and the question wasn’t rude anymore.
Springer frowned. “Ryker Morton.”
My dinosaur jaws stopped moving. Sam licked me, and then he licked Springer. “Did he hit you at AJS? ’Cause if he did, there’s policies and laws, and you could nail him if you wanted to.”
Springer shook his head. “It was over at the park. Little League. My dad made me try out, and Ryker and his friends were there.”
He sounded seriously miserable about that, which made me ask, “Do you even like baseball?”
“I hate it.” Springer’s cheeks flushed red at the tops, and Sam wriggled off me, all the way into his lap. Springer stopped making shadow-animals and petted my dog instead. “But Dad said it would help me learn to be part of a team. Only, the coach told me I had to put this . . . this thing on, and that was just the complete last straw.”
“Thing?” I reached over and scratched Sam’s head as Springer’s cheeks got even redder.
“It’s part of the baseball uniform.”
I waited.
Springer’s face turned almost purple. “It’s supposed to protect . . . stuff.”
I waited.
Springer gestured lower on his body. “You know. Guy . . . stuff.”
“Oh. Ooooooh. Like my tank tops!” I clapped and bumped the flashlight, sending swirly shadows everywhere.
Springer looked very, very confused.
I waived my hands in the flashlight beam, making more flitty-floppy shadows. “You’re talking about an athletic cup, right? I know an athletic cup isn’t a tank top, but what I meant is, it was probably uncomfortable, like those itchy tanks Dad bought for me because I need something to—you know, hold in the girl stuff up top.”
“Itchy.” His face relaxed. “Yeah, right? That thing Coach told me to wear, it didn’t itch, but it pinched. I couldn’t stand it. So I went out behind the bathrooms and got it off, and that’s when that Ryker guy and his friends caught me alone.” He shook his head. “I’m such an idiot.”
“You’re big enough to bust Ryker’s face.”
“I don’t hit people.”
Well, that was a total bummer, because Springer hitting Jerkface would have been something I could get behind. I reached over and collected Sam from Springer’s lap and held him to my chest as I scratched his soft doggy ears. “Did you at least throw the athletic cup at him?”
Springer’s expression morphed into horrified. “Ew, no. I accidentally stepped on it trying to pull up my pants before he punched me. It cracked and broke, and my parents are ticked because it cost twenty bucks.”
“I burned the itchy tank tops right before I came to the clubhouse,” I said. “I don’t know how much they cost. Dad’s mad at me, and he’s mad at Aunt Gus, too, because he knows I got the matches from her stash in the back of her closet, and he thinks she’s a bad influence. She really isn’t. Well, maybe just a little bit.”
Springer nodded. Then he asked, “Is your aunt’s name really Gus?”
“It’s short for Gustine. She’s my great-aunt, and she’s old, and she has a bulldog and she wears old-people stripy pants.”
Springer smiled. “My mom has pants like that, but it’d probably be a bad idea to call her old.”
I gazed at Springer from between Sam’s tiny ears. “I’ve known Ryker and his pet cockroaches since kindergarten. He’s hit me before, too, lots of times—but believe it or not, he doesn’t do it as much as he used to. Last year he punched me in the stomach when we were fighting over a soccer ball and whose turn it was to try a goal kick. He’s a jerkface like that. That’s what I call him in my head. Jerkface. But I got him back.”
“How?” Springer sounded interested.
“About two weeks later, I tripped him in gym and he fell down two bleacher steps and knocked out one of his front teeth. It got me suspended for a week, even though I swore it was an accident.”
Springer’s mouth opened in an O, like people do when they’re shocked. I knew about the O mouth because I got that a lot.
“My folks would ground me until I’m forty if I got suspended,” he said.
“I’m gonna be grounded for weeks, no doubt.” I pushed my face into Sam’s neck.
“For burning itchy tank tops.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’ll probably be grounded for cracking that pinchy guy thing.”
That made me smile. “Is your house near here? I mean, most every neighborhood in Avery backs up to the forest, and all the main paths are like a big wagon wheel around the pond, and there are fifteen of them if you don’t count the little ones, and—never mind. You live pretty close?”
Springer nodded. He pointed over his shoulder. “That way, down the big middle path.”
“Okay. Since you found the clubhouse, you can use it if you’ll keep it picked up and bring water and snacks sometimes, and leave Sam’s doggy training stuff alone.” I shifted Sam back to my lap and pointed to the containers with treats in them.
“Thanks.” Springer nodded, then gave me a sideways glance. “Are we . . . friends, then?”
I shrugged. “If you want. People who hate itchy-pinchy things need to stick together.”
“I don’t have many friends,” he admitted. “None up here at all.”
“Because you just moved to Avery?”
“Maybe. Mom says it’s because I’m shy. Dad says it’s because I don’t act my age, and that I need to if I’m ever going to make anything of myself—you know, that whole you-need-to-grow-up thing parents do.”
I wondered if Springer’s dad was a jerkface like Jerkface, but I didn’t ask, because now and then I actually did think about that no-tact thing and try to do better, and new kids had enough trouble without somebody being untactful. “I don’t have many friends because I’ve got a big mouth and I hit people sometimes.”
“Ryker said—” Springer stopped. Shook his head.
“What?”
Springer lifted his hands and made a shadow-bird. It flew slowly across the clubhouse wall, until it couldn’t fly any farther. Then he said, “Ryker told me you were weird because your mom’s never home and you’re ‘on the spectrum.’ Whatever that means.”
“My mom says Ryker Morton wouldn’t know his butt from a pee-hole in the snow.” I laced my fingers into Sam’s hair, and he started panting, maybe sensing that I felt strange, because usually people thinking I was weird didn’t matter so much, but for some reason, it mattered now. “Mom’s in Iraq and she has a golden retriever named Shotgun, and he can find bombs. I’m trying to teach Sam to find bombs, too. Do you think I’m weird?”
Springer flew another shadow-bird across the clubhouse wall. After it landed, he said, “No. I think Ryker and his friends need to keep their mean mouths shut. Does it snow much here?”
I blinked.
“You said ‘pee-hole in the snow,’ ” he said, pointing backward like he could touch Mom’s words. “A second or two ago.” He frowned. “Sorry. Dad says I ask too many questions sometimes, instead of figuring things out for myself.”
When his head drooped, I let Sam crawl back toward him again. “Ask whatever you want. We get ice, mostly. But not until February. Before then, it’s mostly hot and rainy. And I sort of didn’t tell the truth about the pee-hole in the snow.”
Springer’s eyebrows lifted, and he waited for me to come clean.
“Mom says piss, not pee, because she’s a soldier. I figure soldiers always say piss instead of pee because pee sounds—I dunno. Not soldier-like.”
“Maybe I’m ‘on the spectrum,’ too,” Springer said.
I shrugged. “Who cares?”
He swallowed, seeme
d to decide something, then asked in a whisper, “Do they come around here?”
“They? Oh. You mean Jerkface and the cockroaches. Yeah, sometimes I hear them out on the big path. They’ve never found my clubhouse, though.”
“That’s good,” he said. “I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t thought—”
He stopped. His head drooped all over again, like he felt bad about something.
“What’s said in the clubhouse stays in the clubhouse,” I said.
Springer lifted his head. “When I was walking, I thought I heard Ryker talking somewhere behind me, so I ran off the path to hide.”
“Smart,” I said. “So did you pick A Wrinkle in Time because you like science fiction?”
Springer grinned and nodded, and started listing every science fiction book he’d ever read, maybe back to the beginning of the universe. After a while, I started thinking he learned to read when he was two or something. Whatever. I could read when I was four.
“It’s way after dark,” I said when Springer took a breath. “I better go home before I’m grounded for longer than forever.”
Springer nodded.
“You going to leave, too?”
He shook his head.
I wondered if his parents would worry about him, or if he’d be in trouble, but I didn’t ask, because this was a clubhouse, and it seemed like stuff should be private at the clubhouse. Dad told me once that I should be nicer to people, because I never knew what they were dealing with on the inside, or what they had to go through in the hours when the world wasn’t watching.
Springer made his shadow-bird again, and I watched as it flew around the whole clubhouse and finally landed in front of him as he put his hands in his lap.
“See you at school,” I said. “Unless Dad grounds me from school, too.”
“Can that even happen?” Springer asked as I carried Sam out into the woods.
“I wish,” I called back, then got my dog and myself to the path back home. The rocks and sticks and uneven dirt made it hard to hurry in the growing darkness, but I managed, letting images of Dad’s mad expression fuel my feet.
We’d had this fight about me running off when I was in trouble a lot of times, but I couldn’t help it. Well, I guess I could, but sometimes it felt like if I stayed in a certain place at a certain time, dealing with certain things, I’d burst into flames and burn up like those itchy tank tops. Or worse, I’d come all apart, like I stepped on a bomb.
