* * *
At school Leslie settled into her
old patterns. She put her earbuds in her
ears and attempted to drown everything out with her music. But it didn’t work. In every class there was an empty seat next
to Leslie gaping like an open wound. And
in each class Leslie thought about what Gray would have said about the
subject. In history they were learning
about Stalin. She wondered what Gray
would have written about that dictator.
News travelled fast that Gray was
missing. After all, with just over a
thousand students at Half Moon Bay High, Gray was the only
chemistry-nerd-fighting and cougar-wrestling kid in the school. Kids stared at Leslie as she walked through
the hallways, but she ignored them. They
didn’t care about Gray; they were just curious.
In P.E., Anne’s usual group crowded
around her. She snapped her gum loudly,
and as Leslie passed she heard her say, “I heard that Gray boy’s missing. I’ll bet Leslie did something to him. I still think her mom’s death was suspicious,
and now Gray’s disappeared—again. How
many of you think Leslie—”
Anne froze when she saw Leslie
staring at her. Her hand went up to her
face where Leslie had punched her. Anne’s
face went white.
Leslie stared blankly at Anne. After the silence had stretched out long
enough for Anne to go an even paler shade of white, Leslie said, “You need to
grow up, and you need to get a better imagination.”
Leslie walked away. Though she remained calm on the outside,
anger clawed at her guts. Anne was so
childish, and Leslie should just leave her to her petty behavior, but Leslie
couldn’t. She was tired of Anne getting
away with spreading rumors about everybody in the school.
The class was playing
volleyball. They split into teams, and
Leslie ended up on the team opposing Anne’s.
Most of the girls on Leslie’s team were good at setting the ball. Leslie was the spiking queen. That day Leslie was better than ever. She danced around the court, always ready and
in position for another girl to pass her the ball. She slammed the ball over the net, narrowly missing
Anne’s head, her feet, her torso. Anne’s
team switched positions every so often and the players moved around the court,
so it took the coach a while to realize Leslie was targeting Anne.
Coach pulled Leslie out of the
game. As the other students kept
playing, he took her by the bleachers and said, “That’s some arm you’ve got
there, Leslie.”
Leslie gave a noncommittal shrug.
“Is there a reason why you’re
picking on Anne?”
“What do you mean?” asked
Leslie. “I never even hit Anne with the
volleyball.”
“No, you didn’t, but the ball came
awfully close a bunch of times.”
Leslie shrugged. “I was just playing. Besides, I’m sure Anne could use some
training in stress resistance.”
“Maybe so,” said Coach. “If you were just playing, have you
considered joining the volleyball team?
You were really doing well out there.”
Leslie shook her head. “It’s not really not my sport.”
Coach tried not to smile. He shook his head. “You know what? I can’t prove anything. Head to the locker room and get ready for
your next class.”
After school Leslie didn’t feel like
going home, so she jogged over to Savannah’s school. She went to the front office. “I’d like to check Savannah Matheson out,”
she told the intermediate school’s secretary.
“I’m her older sister Leslie.”
The secretary looked Leslie up and
down. “Are you over twenty-one?” she
asked in a doubtful tone.
Leslie shook her head. “No.”
“Do you have a note from your
parents?”
“No.”
The secretary turned to her computer
screen. “Then you can’t check her out—school
policy. But if you’d like to wait, I can
send a message to Savannah saying to meet you in the front office. School gets out in half an hour.”
“That’s fine.” Leslie sat down in a cushy armchair in the
corner of the room to wait. She had a
clear view of the hallway outside the office window. She tried to do some math homework, but she
couldn’t concentrate. It all flew over
her head.
Finally the school bell rang, and
the sounds of excited voices calling out to their friends echoed through the
halls. Leslie watched the students rush
past through the office windows. She
envied their lighthearted laughter.
Savannah entered the office, her
curly brown hair bouncing on her shoulders.
Leslie was partially hidden by a potted palm, and it took her a few
seconds to notice Leslie. “There you
are!” she said, running up to her. “What’s
the special occasion?”
“Nothing,” said Leslie. She put her things in her backpack and stood
up. A strand of hair slipped in front of
her face. She moved it with a slight
shake of her head. “I just thought it
would be nice if we went home together.”
“Uh huh.” Savannah nibbled her lower lip and regarded
Leslie with a sideways glance.
Leslie ignored Savannah’s
concern. “Let’s go.”
As they exited the school Savannah
asked, “Where’s your car?”
“At home,” said Leslie.
“At home?” Savannah wailed. “You mean we have to walk?”
“It’s a nice day,” said Leslie, “and
it’s not that far.”
The sky was a pristine blue. A gentle breeze from off the sea kept it from
getting too hot, but the sunlight was still warm. Leslie shrugged out of her jacket and stuffed
it in her backpack. She wore a white
tank top underneath, which exposed her bandaged shoulder. She’d forgotten about it.
“What happened there?” Savannah
demanded, pointing at the bandage.
Self consciously, Leslie fingered
the medical tape on the edge of the gauze.
“It’s nothing. Gray grabbed my
shoulder for support, and his hands turned into claws. But it’s getting better.”
Savannah stared at Leslie, but
Leslie ignored her. I must look like a wreck. I didn’t
even put eyeshadow and mascara on today.
Did she even brush her hair? She
couldn’t remember.
They walked in silence. Leslie could feel Savannah’s eyes boring into
her, but she tightened her hands into fists and kept walking. “Do you want ice cream?” Leslie said
suddenly. “I’ve got some money with me.”
After a brief stop at Igloo Ice
Cream Shoppe they continued home, licking ice cream from waffle cones. Leslie was glad they’d stopped. Now she had a reason to be quiet.
“This is ridiculous,” Savannah
blurted out. “You’re worse than before
you found Gray. What’s going on?”
Leslie took another lick of her
grasshopper ice cream before answering. “Gray
was here, and then he was gone. Just
like that. There was a flash of light
and he was gone.”
They’d somehow ended up on Half Moon
Bay’s coastal trail. The sea was to
their left, just visible through a stand of trees. Trees were on their right as well, making
Leslie feel like they were cut off from the world. They were isolated, cut off from the
world. It definitely wasn’t the most
direct route home, and Leslie had a hard time remembering how they’d gotten
there. She licked her melting ice cream.
Leslie continued, “After everything
we’ve done, everything we’ve been through, after being attacked by shifters and
lured into traps and never knowing why, we finally got the scroll to Professor
Brown. We never got any answers, and now
Gray’s gone. And I feel so empty inside,
even though Professor Brown got the scroll.”
A cry of anguish rent the air,
transforming into an animal’s wail.
Leslie’s head whipped around, and Savannah gasped. Directly above them, a mountain lion crouched on the limb of a tree overhead. It leaped
into the air, landing on Leslie. She
crashed to the ground, her wind knocked out of her, and rapped the back of her
head against the ground. Sparks danced
in her eyes, and a chilly wetness crept up her arm. She’d landed in her ice cream.
Savannah was screaming. Leslie tried to speak, to tell her she was
all right, but her head spun and she couldn’t breathe.
A heavy weight settled on Leslie’s
chest. She tried to get her eyes to
focus. A tan-colored face leaned towards
her. The mountain lion. She was going to die.
A strange feeling, like someone was
using a massage ball on Leslie in all the wrong ways, rolled up and down Leslie’s
chest and stomach. It stopped, and
someone started crying.
Leslie blinked hard. Her head stopped spinning, and her vision
swam into focus. A young woman leaned
over Leslie. Her legs straddled Leslie’s
body, and she placed her hands on Leslie’s shoulders. Tears ran down her face. It was the woman from the school—Cougar Girl.
As Leslie watched, the woman’s sobs
intensified. She put her head in her
hands. “Why?” the woman wailed through
her sobs. “Why did you give him the
scroll?”
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