He started winding up.
“No, Buddy, don’t—”
But he was already yelling, “Boom!” and hurling the bottle down onto the stone. Heather reeled back, her hands shielding her face as the bottle shattered, sending shards of glass upward.
Heather got clear, but Buddy took a couple of shards in his cheek. He screeched, kind of girlishly, Heather couldn’t help noticing, and dropped his cigarette onto a pile of dry leaves. Or, they had been dry leaves two minutes ago, before the half-empty bottle Buddy was throwing around drenched them with highly flammable alcohol.
The next thing they all knew, the leaves had caught on fire, filling the nearby woods with thick smoke.
Heather knew she should go to the fire, try to put it out, but she was disoriented by all the smoke. Margo and Drake grabbed her, and together they ran through the woods as fast as they could.
THE RUNNING MARINE
When Chad Finnegan was in the Marines, it seemed like all his unit ever did was run. They ran before breakfast, they ran after dinner, they ran when Sergeant Delaney wanted to keep them out of trouble. At the time, Chad had promised himself that once he was done with the Marines, he’d never run again.
But ever since he got back home, he’d been running every day. Sometimes twice a day. Mostly he liked to run in the woods out behind his old middle school.
Chad had been home for a month and a half, after serving in Afghanistan for eighteen. He’d enlisted in the Marines right out of high school, three years ago, with his best friend, Matt Redigger. They’d gone through basic training together and, after that, through jump school.
Then they’d gone to Afghanistan together, but only Chad had come back. Matt had been killed when his jeep ran over an IED, an improvised explosive device.
Now Chad was home, safe, but it didn’t feel like home anymore. Oh, family and friends welcomed him back and shook his hand. Two old guys had even picked up his lunch tab last week. It was kind and he appreciated it. Still, he kept to himself when he could.
Running the trails helped. It cleared his mind, and it wore him out. Being tired helped the most.
He’d already run once this morning, but by noon he was getting restless again, so he decided to take another run through the woods before dinner. About halfway down the path, Chad heard some high school kids nearby. Then he heard a girl scream, and a lot of yelling. He stopped and saw tufts of smoke peeking up through the trees.
Chad ran back toward the screaming and the smoke. As he was closing in, he tripped over something on the path that rolled under his foot and threw his leg behind him and out of control. He went down hard but was back up again in a heartbeat.
He turned to see what he’d tripped over. It was a fire extinguisher, a really old one. It looked brand-new, though.
Chad picked it up and rushed toward the smoke.
MR. HOUGHT
Mr. Hought said, “It was on his ninth birthday.”
They’d been sitting and talking for almost an hour, Mr. Hought telling story after story about him and Rollo and Mrs. Haemmerle. Sometimes Grandpa Eddie was in them, too. Many of the stories were funny, but even when the memories made Mr. Hought smile, there was a sadness behind it.
Perhaps because he knew that, eventually, he’d have to get to this part.
How Rollo died.
“There was going to be a big party at his house,” Mr. Hought said. “But just before lunch, Rollo told his parents he was going to go take a nap, so he’d be rested up for all his friends. Rollo went up to his bedroom, and while he was asleep, his heart gave out. Meanwhile, people started showing up for the party. Rollo’s mom went upstairs to get him …” Mr. Hought stopped. Then he said, quietly, “Sad day.”
Lizzy’s eyes filled with tears and even Ryan was getting choked up. Ernest, strangely, seemed too riveted by the story to get upset.
Mr. Hought thought for a moment and chuckled, but in a hollow, rueful way. “Yep, sad day.”
Mrs. Haemmerle gasped a little. “Oh, Jack,” she said, reaching out to him. “I’m so sorry. I completely forgot—”
“Now, now,” he said, taking her hand and patting it reassuringly. “That’s okay.” Mr. Hought and Mrs. Haemmerle were quiet for a moment, and then Mr. Hought looked at the kids. “I should probably explain. You see, the day Rollo died was also the day my father left me and my mother.”
“Why would he do that?” Ryan exclaimed, the words jumping out of his mouth.
Mr. Hought looked at Ryan curiously for a minute, but then he just shrugged. “I don’t know, son,” he said.
“Excuse me, sir,” Ernest said, an odd expression on his face. “If you don’t mind me asking, what did you get Rollo for his birthday?”
Mr. Hought did a double take. This was clearly not a question he expected the boy would ask. But it triggered something in the old man’s mind and he was suddenly very invested in remembering the answer.
“Rollo had asked for a stuffed animal.” His eyes got big as if the flood of memories were overloading his brain. “I remember,” he continued. “When I came back home, after Rollo had been found in his room, I heard my parents arguing. My father was angry that we gave it away. Which doesn’t make sense, because my mom had bought it for Rollo weeks before the party. But that night he packed a bag and left. And I never saw him again.”
Mr. Hought got quiet, lost in deep thought.
“Sock monkey,” he said, smacking his knee with satisfaction. “That’s what it was. I got him a sock monkey.”
SQUATCH!
Aaron Robinette had been walking the trails of the Nature Preserve for over an hour so far. He was just about to call it a day when he heard a girl screaming. Camera at the ready, Aaron ran down the trail toward the screams.
And then he saw it.
Through a cloud of smoke, a figure burst from the woods, flailing wildly against the trees and brush in its way. It was the size of a man, more or less, tall but gangly. Brown mostly, and covered in dirt and leaves. Tufts of fur poked out around its head, waist, and wrists, and it ran with a jerky, loping gait.
The urge to run away was overwhelming. But Aaron stood his ground resolutely, and recorded the creature as it passed by a mere twenty feet from where he stood.
It didn’t notice him as it stumbled by, but it did make some pretty curious noises. Higher pitched than Aaron would have expected from a beast of that size.
ROLLO’S PRESENTS
“They’re Rollo’s presents?” Lizzy said. “The art set, the Colorforms … They were meant for him?”
Ryan glanced over at Ernest, who had a glazed look in his eyes. The kid had barely spoken a word since they had left Mrs. Haemmerle and Jack Hought and walked back to Ryan’s house.
Lizzy’s mom had come over, and now she and Ryan’s mom and Mrs. Wilmette sat in the kitchen having coffee and talking. They couldn’t have cared less what the kids were doing, but Ryan still kept darting his head toward the doorway to make sure they didn’t come out and overhear anything.
“But that would mean,” Lizzy continued, turning her attention directly to Ernest, “that your grandfather kept all the old presents from Rollo’s last birthday tucked away in his attic for sixty years? Why?”
Ernest, still lost in thought, didn’t answer her.
“Well, someone say something,” Lizzy snapped.
“You’re asking the wrong questions,” Ryan said.
Lizzy scowled. “Then what’s the right question, Sherlock?” she asked huffily.
“Is there a sock monkey in Eddie’s attic?”
KINDRED SPIRITS
By the time Fire Chief Nate Collins arrived on the scene, the fire in the Cliffs Donnelly Nature Preserve had been contained and extinguished. To call this good news would be a serious understatement. A fire in these woods could easily have spread out of control, particularly during this time of year, when the ground was dry and full of dead leaves and brush.
The source of this good fortune was a passerby, a jogger w
ho had put out the fire single-handedly with a fire extinguisher he’d found in the woods.
A vintage Elkhart Brass copper fire extinguisher.
It looked to be mid-century, and even had the brass nameplate on the front with the blue writing. The fire chief couldn’t believe the thing had actually worked.
Nate’s team confirmed the fire had been started by a cigarette dropped into a pile of leaves. Some rum from a bottle broken nearby had acted as an accelerant.
Luckily, someone had been around to do something about it. Nate personally thanked the young man who’d stopped the fire. He could tell from his posture and the way he carried himself that the jogger, a serious, respectful young man named Chad, was a soldier. Nate guessed Marines and was right.
He guessed something else and was right about that as well—that the kid had seen combat, and that it had followed him back home. Nate, too, had been a Marine. He’d done two tours in the First Gulf War. He remembered how hard it had been to return to civilian life, especially in the beginning.
Nate drove Chad home himself. As the young Marine got out of the car, Nate asked him if he had ever given any thought to becoming a firefighter.
Chad was caught off guard by the question. “Not since I was a kid, sir,” he said, smiling just a little.
HEATHER AND HER BRAIN HAVE A LITTLE TALK
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. What was she even doing smoking in the woods, hanging out with guys who liked to break things and scare little kids? And what was she doing with “friends” who thought all that stuff was fun?
Heather thought she knew what it felt like to want something. To really, really want something. But until today Heather had never wanted anything so badly, so desperately, as she just wanted everything to be all right again. To make this stupid afternoon disappear.
Later that evening, when she learned that the fire had been put out and no one had been hurt, she felt overwhelming relief.
It’s time to stop being stupid, her brain told her. And this time, Heather listened.
PROOF!
The footage would be a bit shaky, so once Aaron uploaded it to his computer, he’d need to go through it frame by frame, scrutinizing every detail. The smoke and the trees had both obscured his view, but Aaron was nonetheless confident that he’d just recorded the single most important piece of Bigfoot evidence since the Patterson-Gimlin film of 1967.
By the time he finally made his way out of the trails on the edge of North Side Park, the fire trucks were already pulling into the little parking lot by the jungle gyms.
Two of the firefighters were keen to ask Aaron questions, starting with what he was doing in the park. There probably would have been more questions to follow, but after Aaron said he had been searching for Bigfoot, the men just looked at each other and told him to go on home.
THE MONKEY
Because it’s what adults always do, just as Ernest, Ryan, and Lizzy had been about to slip over to Grandpa Eddie’s to get the sock monkey, the mothers decided it was time to break up their little coffee klatch and go home.
It looked like the sock monkey and Mr. Hought would have to wait for another day.
But then the kids’ luck was changed by, of all things, the sirens from at least three fire trucks barreling down the street a few blocks away. The sirens woke Declan from his afternoon nap, and soon Declan was in the kitchen being fussed over by the three mothers, leaving Ryan and his friends, once again, conveniently forgotten.
Well, almost.
“Ryan, honey,” his mother called to him just as he, Ernest, and Lizzy were about to make a break for it. “Your father and Mr. Wilmette are working late again, so we’re going to do Chinese takeout here.” She thrust a menu and a notepad into Ryan’s hands. “Find out what your friends want, okay?”
It wasn’t until after dinner that the kids finally had a window to sneak away to Grandpa Eddie’s house.
Ryan and Lizzy waited downstairs while Ernest went into the attic. The sock monkey was sitting in the rocking chair, leaning against the quilt, both encased in tightly sealed plastic bags to protect them from moths and dust. Through the plastic, he could see a string with a card attached tied around the monkey’s neck. On the card, written in a young boy’s hurried scrawl, Ernest read:
Ernest breathed a sigh of relief. The way Rollo’s gifts had a tendency to disappear on him, he hadn’t taken for granted that the sock monkey would still be there.
Even better, he thought, this time I won’t need to figure out which one to pick next.
A SCIENTIFIC DEBATE
“Dude, it wasn’t Bigfoot.”
“Shut up, Jamie,” Aaron said. “You just can’t admit that I got documented footage—”
“Documented footage?” Jamie cackled. “Right.”
“It’s blurry because of the smoke. And the trees. And because he’s running really fast.”
“And because it’s a guy in a bear suit.”
They’d been at it ever since first bell, and homeroom was no different. The other night Aaron had burned a DVD of some footage he shot in the woods that, he claimed, proved the existence of the infamous Sasquatch.
To say that Aaron and Jamie disagreed on this point would be putting it mildly.
“You just can’t admit you’re wrong.” There was a slight crack in Aaron’s voice. He was getting upset.
“You just can’t admit you’re nuts,” Jamie said.
Ryan was just glad for a distraction, something to steer talk away from Thompkins Well, at least for a little while. Especially since the local news was now making a big deal out of the ex-Marine hero who put out the fire in the Cliffs Donnelly Nature Preserve with an antique fire extinguisher he found lying in the woods.
More than the art set or the Colorforms, the fire extinguisher got to Ryan. He’d held it in his own hands. He was right beside Ernest when Ernest dropped it in the woods. He knew firsthand that was real. It had happened. But at the same time, the more he knew, the less sense it all made. How did this connect with the well? What kind of wish could possibly involve a random fire in the woods?
On the other side of Mr. Earle’s classroom, away from the increasingly heated Bigfoot debate, Winston and Tommy huddled intently over Winston’s drawing pad. Those two were up to something, Ryan could tell, though which one was corrupting the other remained, at present, unclear.
Yesterday he’d seen them wandering around the school’s courtyard with a tape measure in a very focused and determined manner.
With any luck, this would all be over once they gave the sock monkey to Mr. Hought. Ryan figured (or rather, desperately hoped) that the sock monkey would be the end of it. The stuffed animal had to be the reason Ernest’s grandfather had sent him up to the attic, to find and give it back to his little brother’s best friend. Maybe the other stuff, the art set and the Colorforms and the granted wishes, were just flukes, coincidences, and nothing more.
Ryan wasn’t big on the idea of coincidences, but if the alternative was Ernest’s “magic,” he was willing to consider anything.
The plan was for Ryan, Ernest, and Lizzy to bring the sock monkey to Mrs. Haemmerle’s on Friday and give it to Jack then. Lizzy’s mom had already asked if Lizzy could come over Friday night while she went to a work function. Ryan figured they might as well make a party of it and invited Ernest to sleep over. Ernest got so excited he practically squealed. Man, he was a weird kid.
Then again, if they could be done with this whole Thompkins Well business by Friday, Ryan just might squeal with excitement himself.
SOCK MONKEY SURPRISE
On Friday afternoon the kids brought the sock monkey to Mrs. Haemmerle. But when she called Mr. Hought’s house, she got no answer. Then she remembered. “That’s right,” she said, lightly smacking her forehead. “It’s Friday.”
“What’s Friday?” Lizzy asked.
“Jack visits Shady Lanes every Friday. It’s an assisted living facility.”
The kids deflated, especially Ernest. He�
�d misplaced all the other items he’d brought down from the attic, and he wanted to get this one to the old man before he found a way to screw it up like he had with the art set. And the Colorforms. And the fire extinguisher.
“Well,” Mrs. Haemmerle said, grabbing her keys off the kitchen counter. “Let’s go.”
About twenty minutes later they pulled into Shady Lanes and found Mr. Hought sitting out on a veranda with a very old man in a wheelchair. Mr. Hought and Mrs. Haemmerle were old, but this guy was another level of old. He was, like, Bible old. Mr. Hought was taking great care with the man, fixing the blanket on his legs, pouring him iced tea, wheeling his chair out of the sun. When Mr. Hought saw Mrs. Haemmerle and the kids, he stood up, surprised but not displeased to see them.
“Jack,” Mrs. Haemmerle began. “Ernest here found something he thought you might like to see.”
Ernest gave Mr. Hought the sock monkey. Mr. Hought’s eyes grew huge and his hands trembled as he took the sock monkey from the boy.
“My God,” Mr. Hought said. “Where … How … ?”
“My grandfather’s attic,” Ernest said. “It’s been sitting up there all this time.”
Mr. Hought took the sock monkey out of the plastic. His eyes teared while his hands worried the stuffed animal, as if the more he touched it, the more he remembered about the last time he’d seen it.
Mr. Hought returned his attention to the old man in the wheelchair. “Stanley, you remember Annie.”
“Hello there, Stanley.” Mrs. Haemmerle kissed him on his cheek.
“And this is Ernest, Ryan, and Lizzy. Ernest is Eddie Wilmette’s grandson.”
The old man smiled warmly. “Nice to meet you all.”
“Kids,” Mr. Hought said. “This is Detective Stanley Donan.”
Detective Donan chuckled. “Retired.”
Mr. Hought kept squeezing the sock monkey as he talked. “Stanley here, he … Well, after my father left, he looked after me and my mom.”
“Were you friends with Mr. Hought’s dad?” Lizzy asked.
Detective Donan considered how best to answer. “Well, I can’t say we were friends, exactly. But you could say there was a mutual regard.”
A Drop of Hope Page 10
