Secrets in the Dark (11 page)

I snapped, “At
least
I
don’t
need a bunch of reject friends to help me find my class.” I scolded
myself all the way to History. That had been
so
lame. Why couldn’t I ever think
of something cool to say?

I almost didn’t tell the
others. But being able to share stuff, even embarrassing stuff, is
what best friends are for. And like good friends, Faith and Olivia
tried to hide how lame I’d been. Instead, Faith said, “No Kat, its
perfect. They
are
a bunch of rejects.”

“
Yeah,” Olivia said,
“We’ll call them Ray’s Rejects.” Olivia and Faith high-fived each
other like they were actually excited about the idea.

You know you have great
friends when they turn something stupid into something
good.

After that, I was Ray’s
favorite target, and Wednesday was his day to make me
miserable.

First, he tripped me in the
hall between classes. It was partly my fault. I’d been thinking
about Chimera, excited there was only a week to go. I didn’t notice
Ray lurking in the hallway like my own personal
boogeyman.

It felt like half the
school was there, laughing, as I sprawled over the dirty beige
linoleum. I’d never realized how messed up the floor was
until my nose ended up an inch away.

Yuck!

To add to my humiliation,
my books and papers went skidding out of my backpack in an untidy
mess. I kept my eyes down, not wanting to see any of the faces
around me. Hearing the laughter was bad enough.

I saw Ray’s black tennis
shoes move up next to me, uncomfortably close, as I gathered my
stuff. I refused to look up as he said —
loudly,
“What a klutz, Taylor.
You’re a menace. You could have hurt me, falling down in front of
me like that.”

I was so angry I would have
hit him. If I were bigger. And stronger. And if I could get away
with it without being suspended. Instead, I gritted my teeth and
fought back angry tears. No way was he going to see me cry! I
ignored him, and felt my muscles go limp with relief when the bell
called him away to his next class.

By the time I gathered
everything up, half of my papers were scrunched or smudged with
footprints. I almost screamed in frustration when I saw my English
essay — it was beyond salvaging.

As I took off for class I
muttered, “I hate Ray Tate! I hope he chokes on a bug!”

Too bad wishes don’t work
in Santa Ramona.

Later that same day, Ray
tripped me in the cafeteria. I hope no one else ever has to wash
their lunch out of their shirt and hair in a school bathroom. I was
so angry I actually did see red for a moment. It was weird, I had
no memory of leaving the cafeteria or going to the bathroom. One
moment my tray was smashing into my chest. The next I was staring
at myself in the mirror while water ran in the sink. Just as well
really. I could picture the humiliating scene in all its gory
detail.

Thankfully, I was wearing a
black hoodie that day. It hid most of the carnage. The hamburger
hadn’t been too bad, but the ketchup and chocolate pudding smeared
all over my chest could have been seriously
embarrassing.

And you should never mix
those things together. They smelled even worse than they looked. I
know this because I had to smell damp cotton, chocolate, hamburger
and ketchup the rest of the afternoon.

Fortunately, the next two
days were better. I was careful to hide or go the other way anytime
I saw Ray. I was
getting lots of exercise
taking back routes around the school to any of the classes I didn’t
share with Olivia and Faith.

I understood a little
better now, how Faith felt the first day we ended up in Chimera.
I’d do almost anything to keep away from Ray and his Rejects. I
slunk around school trying to see everywhere at once. Sometimes if
I caught a glimpse of Ray down the hall, it made my knees
shake.

I dreamt about tripping
him, knocking him into a vat of sticky strawberry jelly, and
covering him with permanent glow-in-the-dark happy face
stickers.

When I wasn’t worrying
about Ray, the rest of that week was pretty good. With our next
trip only a few days away, all of us were getting excited. Well,
all except Faith. She kept thinking about all the things that could
happen in there. The rest of us got to share secret glances and
whisper “Chimera” when we passed in the halls.

There were two extra
reasons I was looking forward to Chimera this time. One was Ray. I
wouldn’t have to watch my back all the time to be sure he wasn’t
about to do something.

The other was being able to
talk about whatever we wanted. We had to be careful what we said at
school, and Ronny had asked us not to put anything about Chimera in
writing. We could only make a few cryptic comments on Facebook. It
made me realize how much I liked to text and chat about stuff when
I couldn’t do it!

At least in Chimera we’d be
able to talk without being overheard. It seemed impossible to have
a private conversation! Someone, parents, teachers, brothers or
sisters, or one of the Rejects, always seemed to be hanging
around.

It was driving me crazy.
When I mentioned this to Doug, he had the nerve to laugh. He
actually reminded me how my mom was always telling me to learn
patience. The superior tone in his voice when he added,
“Patience
is
a
virtue,” made me grind my teeth together.

Conceited
Turkey!



I was thrilled when we
approached the large fig tree Saturday morning. 10:00 am seemed
pretty late to start, but Olivia had refused to meet any
earlier.

We’d agreed to go to the
cemetery in pairs so the Rejects wouldn’t notice us. I felt like
Nancy Drew as
Doug and I snuck through
town, doing everything we could to avoid being seen. We beat Olivia
and Faith by only a minute.

They approached at a run,
motioning Doug and I to go ahead through the tree. Once again, I
struggled through the dark, clammy center, hating the feeling of
cold jello, of struggling to get air into my lungs, of endless
falling...

Is it really worth going
through this?

I tripped as I left the
tree, landing on hands and knees.

As
the others emerged into Chimera, most of them didn’t fare
much better. Olivia actually sprawled face first on the ground and
spat out a mouthful of dirt before climbing to her feet.

Note to self — There’s
gotta be a better way. Ask Ronny!

Doug asked Faith and
Olivia, “What happened? Why did we have to hurry?”

“
Andrew tried to follow
us!” Faith panted.

“
I’m pretty sure we lost
him,” Olivia stated, resting her arms on her bent knees as she
tried to get her breath back. “But we totally wanted to be sure, so
we ran the last part.”

“
Well, they can’t follow
us now,” I said.

The sudden frown on Doug’s
face worried me. I asked anxiously, “What?”

“
They were born the same
year as
us. What’s to stop them from
coming in here?”

Olivia’s eyes popped wide
open. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

“
No, no, no!” Faith shook
her head and hunched her shoulders. “That would be
so
unfair.”

I stared at Faith, feeling
queasy. “You’re right, it’s
not
fair. But Doug’s right too. They’ll be able to
get in.”

“
We can never let them see
us come in here! They could do anything to us in here. There’s no
one to stop them.”

“
There’s us,” Doug said,
standing taller.

Faith only shook her head.
Her eyes looked scared, and I was pretty sure she was imagining the
Rejects doing something nasty to us. I hoped she was
wrong.

Knowing we only had a
couple hours in here, I said, “We should find Ghalynn’s cabin,
okay?”

We hadn’t gone far when the
four animals approached us. The cat ran straight up to me, while
the dog barked and went bounding over to Doug.

At the edge of the meadow,
the fox’s bright orange face peeked above the grass. It looked like
it was keeping a watchful eye on the dog. The little pygmy owl
landed on the stone fence to the left of the road and hooted at
Olivia.

I laughed out loud. “It’s
so cool. It’s like they were waiting for us to come back.” I
reached to pet the beautiful Siamese cat, grinning when it gave a
rumbling purr. “And we each got our favorite animal.”

“
That must just be a
coincidence,” Faith said, voice sad. She glanced at the small red
fox whose ears and nose twitched as it looked her way.

“
No way is it a
coincidence,” Doug said. “You’ve called yourselves Cat, Owl and Fox
for years.”

How does he know
that?

Doug snorted with
laughter, making me feel stupid. He choked out, “You all
look
soooo
surprised. What, like it’s supposed to be a
secret?”

When I glared at him, he
rolled his eyes. “It’s not like you hid it. You’ve called each
other those names since, what, second grade?”

He laughed again. “I always
thought it was ‘cause of your initials. Faith O’Keefe Xenakis. FOX.
Olivia Willow Larson. OWL. Katherine Alice Taylor. KAT. But last
time you said you like those animals. Well, I’ve always liked Jack
Russell terriers, and look what’s here. It can’t be a
coincidence.”

“
It’s weirder than that,”
Olivia told him. “Your name is Douglas
Oliver Geller. DOG.”

“
You know what? It’s not
weird.” Faith shivered. “It’s creepy.”

Doug shook his head. “Oh
come on. It’s totally cool!”

I pulled out my phone, and
made sure it was dead, wishing I knew what time it was. “None of us
know how things work in here. Maybe it is just a
coincidence.”

When Doug smirked I
continued, “And maybe it means something. Either way, we should get
to the cabin — Ghalynn can explain it.”

“
Good idea!” Olivia
sounded relieved.

Faith gulped. “Ronny did
say he’d help us. If we can get him to listen. Even though he’s
annoying, impolite, bad-mannered and whatever else she called
him.”

I grinned at her. “I think
it was irritating, frustrating, rude and short-tempered.” Even
though that sounded a bit scary, I wanted to get there and find out
about Ronny’s mom and our animals.

As we started walking again
I looked around. I’d forgotten how different everything was in
here. Strange flowers, rocks, huge glistening poison apples on the
trees. And how quiet everything was — our footsteps were the only
sounds I could hear.



“
How long’ll it take to
get to the cabin?” Olivia asked, fanning herself. We’d stripped off
our sweatshirts long before. Chimera felt positively hot compared
to home.

I glanced at Ronny’s map.
It showed the road we were on curving to the left before a short
side road split off toward the hand drawn cabin. There was no way
to tell how far it was. “Sorry. Can’t tell from the
map.”

It felt like we’d been
walking at least an hour when we came upon a small hand lettered
sign.

“
Can you tell what it
says?” Olivia peered at the sign, cocking her head first to the
right then to the left.

Doug groaned. “You’re
kidding, right?”

“
I’m barely passing
Spanish and it uses the same letters as English. I have no idea
what
that
says,”
I told her.

“
What’s the use of having
a sign no one can read?” Faith asked.

“
Just because we can’t
read it doesn’t mean the people who live here can’t. Besides, what
makes you think they speak English?” Doug mocked her.

Faith rolled her eyes.
“Ronny said we’d be able to talk to them. So, they gotta speak
English.”

Olivia rolled her eyes too.
“Yeah, Doug!”

I grinned and rolled my
eyes. “Duh!”

We gave each other high
fives. Doug turned away, keeping his muttering about “girls” too
quiet to offend us.

I pulled a pen and paper
out of my backpack. “I’m gonna write down those symbols. We can ask
Ronny about them when we get back.”

“
Maybe we won’t have to
wait ‘til then,” Doug said. “Maybe Ronny’s elf can tell us what it
means.”

“
One more reason to get to
the cabin,” I said, stowing the drawing in my backpack.

Chapter 15

The Cabin

Even from the outside, the
cabin appeared to have been abandoned in a hurry. The door was
half
open and one of the shutters
hung at an odd angle
. I called
Ghalynn’s name several times, but there was no answer. Doug finally
pushed the door open, over Faith’s protests, and we crowded into
the opening.