There's a few of the kids at our bus stop that don't even come near us until the bus actually pulls up. I figure they've had too many run-ins with the likes of Greg Sanders and Perry Scuttle.
I hear our school bus's air-brakes on the next street over, stopping at the new four-way stop which didn't use to be a stop at all until two kids were killed crossing the street a couple years ago. It turns out the city was already planning on turning that intersection into a four-way stop, so it’s a shame they didn't do it sooner.
Our bus eventually rounds the corner and turns onto our street. It pulls up in front of us and the doors fly open. Everyone at the stop gets in line and climbs aboard. After only a few weeks into the school year, most of the kids seem to find their routine and sit in the same seats on the bus every day. And that includes my best friend Kyle Treblee, and there he is, middle of the bus, right-hand side, hunched over, forehead against the window. I make my way down the aisle and pick up his book bag which he uses more for saving my seat next to him than for carrying actual books to class. It's mostly empty so I toss it in his lap and sit down.
“Good morning, Simon,” he says with a big round yawn, grabbing his empty book bag and wadding it up into a pillow and stuffing it under his cheek against the window. He looks tired. I don't see how he can catch any Z's on the bus.
“You tired?” I ask stupidly.
“You have no idea,” he replies with his eyes closed. Actually I do of course, because I'm a complete zombie, running on empty myself. No sleep from the night before and the owls compressing the breath right out of me for hours on end didn't help much either. But I don't tell him about my all-nighter. I save that for later.
By the end of second period, we're both dead and completely out of gas. We decide to skip third period and go to the Knoll in the woods, because Mr. Allen is out sick and the sub taking over his Civics class will be too busy to worry about attendance when having to deal with Greg Sanders and Perry Scuttle. As much as I dislike them (mostly Greg), I do like the fact that they cause a lot of distraction in that horribly boring, slow moving, monotonous class.
We have a ten-minute break between 2nd and 3rd period called “bear paws” or “bear pause” rather, (because our school is the “West Side Bears), so while the halls are filled with the commotion of young busy body teen-agers and slamming locker doors, Kyle Treblee and I make our escape. We simply walk out the side door, out past the gymnasium, through the break in the chain-link fence and right off the school property. It's funny how crossing that invisible boundary between the school and the adjacent woods actually feels like an escape, even though of course it takes no effort to accomplish.
CHAPTER
4
_______________
Not terribly far into the woods is an open area and a patch of grass about the size of a baseball field we call the Knoll, with trails that meander off in all different directions and disappear into the leafy trees, most of which by now have turned yellow, or gold or brown, and of course – amber, which reminds me of the owl's eyes on the cuckoo clock at home.
The fall days are still warm, as long as the sun is shining, which it does in the center of the grassy area; the center of the Knoll. And right now the sun feels warm on my face which takes the coolness out of the crisp fall air.
Since this place is so close and out of sight of the school and gymnasium, it's a natural hang out for kids before and after school. But, as I have learned over my short middle school career, you have to know when is a good (or safe, rather) time to visit the Knoll because it has been known to be overrun with troublemakers. And nothing spells trouble like a group of teens in the woods with nothing better to do than smoke pot, shoot drugs, have sex and set the woods on fire.
Fights are settled here too, and there's even rumor that Tracy Hodgkin’s got pregnant here at the Knoll, which might explain why she didn't start school with us this year. I presume she's out taking care of her baby, and probably won't be back this year. But then again, as far as I know, it's just another rumor.
The Knoll, the name by which this little oasis became to be known never really had a name like a park would have a name, even though at times it seems beautiful enough that it should have an official name. But nobody seems to know exactly who owns the land. It's not really fit for development commercially or for residential, because it's too rocky and hilly, except for the Knoll itself. Story has it that someone once called it the Knoll because nobody ever named this place, and I think because it was short and simple, the name stuck and that's what it has been called for as long as I can remember.
The Knoll has a few park-like benches that somebody made in wood shop class years ago which sits along the edge of the main path that circles the grassy field. I take one, and Kyle takes another. The names (and other stupid carvings) hand cut over the years into the backrest with pocket knives or a piece of broken beer bottle glass date back some twenty years, so that says something about the quality of the work and materials that went into the making of these thick, heavy wooden benches.
Kyle and I figure that at this time of day, the stoner's and other well known troublemakers from school are not around. They prefer Friday nights when they can get a party going the instant school lets out. So for now, we think we're pretty safe, and manage to sleep a few winks.
Some time passes and my wrist watch beeps at me. I feel the drool sliding out of the corner of my mouth, leaving a tiny puddle of the stuff under my cheek on the bench. For a moment I'm disoriented because I feel like I've been asleep for hours and the sun already seems to be in a different position. I sit up, wipe the drool away and check my watch. It's noon. I look over to Kyle's bench but he's not there. My eyes go out to the tree line and follow it around the Knoll and I spot Kyle's back side. He's taking a leak, which reminds me that I have to go too, but for some reason I decide to hold it for a while longer.
“We may as well skip the rest of the day,” he says to me walking back to the benches.
He's right, I guess. No point in trying to sneak back into school. Kyle still looks tired to me and I think I know why.
“Is your mom and dad still fighting a lot?” I ask him as he sits down next to me. They've had trouble in the past. So much in fact that one time Kyle moved in with us for a couple months while his parents sorted things out.
“Yeah,” he says, taking out his pocket knife. “They're back to their old ways again. And I can't sleep at all with all that bickering. I wish they would either get along or separate. At least Dad isn't hitting me as much as he used to, so I guess that's one step in the right direction.”
It takes about twenty minutes for Kyle to carve his name into the bench with the point of the blade, adding it to the growing number of people who have done the same over the years. KYLE TREBLEE WAS HERE it simply reads.
I was actually there at his house when Kyle's dad hit him once. It scared me because I had never seen a grown man hit a kid. And he wasn't drunk either. Kyle curled up into a ball and as much as I wanted to do something to help, one look at his dad and I found myself running home. He was just so mad about something that Kyle did that he just lost it. Kyle later told me that his dad broke down and cried like a baby and said he was sorry and promised that it would never happen again. But unfortunately it wasn't true. He got into the habit of beating Kyle to the point that one day he ended up in the hospital with a dislocated jaw and three bruised ribs. His dad spent a little time in jail for that stunt. And because of that, my parents won't let me go over to Kyle's house anymore. I can't blame them, but I can't help wanting to get Kyle out that environment, even if it were just for a few hours a day riding bikes or catching frogs down at Miller's pond. It seems to me that there are problems everywhere, like Kyle getting beat by his father, the Knoll, an otherwise beautiful place getting taken over every Friday by a bunch of adolescent thugs, and my mom trying to kill my dad with poison. I can't bring myself to actually believe it of
course. I need more proof. I need to know if what the owls have told me is true. And, I need to know why I'm listening to a cuckoo clock in the first place.
I decide that, as crazy as it sounds, I need to tell Kyle about this. Partly because he's my best friend and I know that even if he doesn't believe me, he will at least humor me. But I also want to tell him because I know he has some resources that I think will help me investigate my mom's daily activities, which I hope will all be as innocent as watching her soaps or cleaning the house.
So I start. I tell him all about how I've been drawn to old clocks, that I find them interesting. And that one clock in particular (grandpa's old cuckoo clock) has done more than just draw me to it. I tell him about the owls carved into the decorative piece and how I have watched them for years, and that now they are talking to me.
“What? What do you mean they talk to you?” he asks. One of his eyebrows is raised which makes him look suspiciously at me, but that's OK. I expect that. It's a wild story, I know.
“They talk to me,” I say again.
“You mean like some kind of bird talk or what?”
“No. They have human voices, one male and one female.”
“Well, what do they say?”
I know he's humoring me now, but that's exactly what I expected. So I continue to fill him in and tell him all about last night, and how the owls warned me about my mom poisoning my dad, and how my grandmother did the same to grandpa, and her mom and grandmother before her supposedly did this as well. I told him everything. How the owls gripped me and kept me from leaving, and how they squeezed me with just the power of their mind, and that I could hardly breathe standing in front of them like solid stone all night.
“Weren't you seeing a psychiatrist a while back?” he asks, as if that fact alone totally dismisses my owl story. No one was suppose to know that I was seeing a psychiatrist, but my mom and Kyle's mom ran into each other at the grocery store, and well, I guess they just got to talking.
“Actually, I'm still seeing him a couple times a month,” I reply. “There was a while when I quit seeing him, but Mom and Dad make sure I go on occasion. They think he's helping me.”
“Helping you with what?” His eyebrow no longer raised in that suspicious look. Now he is just plain curious.
“Coping,” I say. “Everyone seems to think that I have had a troubled past, but I don't know where they get that. I'm perfectly fine, always have been.”
“I don't know,” says Kyle. “Talking owls? Maybe it's good that you are seeing a psychiatrist.”
I look down at the dirt, contemplating just how ridiculous this must sound coming from me. I know it seems totally irrational. I have a hard time believing it myself, but I just want Kyle to take me seriously on this. I know the idea of talking owls is absolutely absurd, but at the same time, I don't think man-kind has a clue to the power of the human mind. I believe we can receive messages, even instructions from outside influences that most people are completely unaware of. I suspect that people have thoughts bouncing around inside their heads like I do that don't make any sense at all, and so they naturally think that their brains are just firing off jumbled up pieces of information stored away or even randomly generated.
“Kyle,” I begin, still looking down at the ground. “My mom always says that everyone is born with a gift. Take my brother, Dale. His gift is creativity, which I suppose is why he loves to draw and can create entire worlds in his Dungeon's and Dragon's games he plays with his buddy's. Tina's gift is music. She plays the flute beautifully, and I mean beautifully. She could record her own music and sell albums by the millions if she just followed through with it. Dad's gift would be related to visualization, although with him it's much more technical than Dale's gift of creativity. If he can visualize it, he could not only draw up the plans, but he could build it. Mom's gift is in food. She can take the most mundane meal and make it taste like it was the best thing you ever ate. And my gift, I guess I would have to say is perception. I can perceive what someone is thinking or what they are going to say, sometimes even before the thought even occurs to them. I'm not always one-hundred percent accurate, but darn near. And I think this gift of perception is what gives me the ability to receive messages and instructions from sources that other people cannot.”
“Even owls?” he says sarcastically – but not in a hurtful sort of way.
“Even owls,” I say.
“So what's my gift?” he asks.
“Patience,” I say.
“No, tell me. What is my gift?”
“Patience,” I repeat. “Your gift is patience. After all, how can you have a best friend who is a certified nut-case if you don't have patience?”
Kyle laughs. “I suppose you're right,” he says.
“So Simon, using your gift, what am I thinking right now?”
I look him straight in the eyes for a moment, studying him a bit. Some of the detail I can tell him just because I know him. After all, he is my best friend. But some things that I don't know, or shouldn't know seem to just flow into my head. “You're thinking I'm the weirdest friend you ever had, and you don't really believe a thing I've said, but that's not going to stop you from being my best friend.”
Kyle has this funny look. I'm right and he knows it, but that was too easy. That didn't take any gift or skill at all.
“That was too easy!” he says, right on queue.
“I agree, but that's just what was on the surface,” I reply. Going deeper, I start to tell him more.
“You're worried that your dad will go too far and wind up in jail for a long time or worse yet, start beating your mom. You're concerned about your grades slipping, and wondering if you will have to repeat the seventh grade. Your worried your mom will leave your dad and if that happens, that opens the possibility that if he continues his abusive ways, you might be forced to live in a foster home. You're wondering how my gift can be used to your advantage. And,” I pause for effect... “even with all this stress in your life, you still manage to think about how much in love you are with my sister ever since you hit puberty.”
“I do not!” he says defensively, even though I know it's true. “She's not my type. And besides, that would just be weird.”
“Why would it be weird?” I ask, as if I didn't have a clue.
“Well, it would just be weird to be going out with my best friend's sister, that's all.”
“Yeah. That, and the fact that she's too old for you and way out of your league.”
“You're probably right,” Kyle concedes as his voice turns down into a low sigh. “A couple more years from now she'll probably be dating college guys.”
“So you ARE in love with my sister,” I say.
“Simon. No. I'm not. Tina's nice and everything, but that’s it, so let's drop it.”
“OK, then, and the rest?” I ask.
“You're pretty much on the mark,” he says, nodding his head. “Even the part about a foster home.”
“Even the part about my sister?” I grill him one last time. He looks put on the spot because he pretty much is. Now I feel like I'm torturing him. He doesn't want to answer and just tries to avoid the question, but he's the one that asked me to use my gift of perception and tell him what he was thinking. Now that he knows that I know his deepest inner thoughts, I sense that he genuinely believes me, so I do him a favor and let him off the hook by quickly changing the subject.
“I need your help, Kyle,” I say.
“You need my help? Hell, Simon, I could use your help. I wish I could have a sense of what was about to happen like you, or know what someone was thinking. To have that ability would be handy, not to mention fun.”
“It's not quite as fun as you might think,” I say.
“I don't know, I still think it would be great. What do you need my help for anyway?”
“To research a string of murders that I'm hoping were never committed.”
&nb
sp; His eyes widen as I suspected they would.
“Sounds like fun. Where do we start?”
I know he doesn't want to hear this part, but I have to tell him...
“Your dad's office.”
CHAPTER
5
_______________
“You know my dad is going to kill me if he catches us in here you know,” says Kyle, turning the knob and opening the door to his dad's downstairs office.
“He wouldn't dare,” I say. “Not unless he wants to go back to jail, because I won't run this time. I'll be a witness.”
“Yeah, a witness to my own murder.”
I can hear the fear and reluctance in his voice, and I know he's doing me a huge favor by gaining access to his father's stuff.
I notice his hands trembling as he starts pulling open the drawers of the desk and carefully rummaging through them. I feel trembling and I look down at my own hands. They're trembling too, and I can't wait until we get out of here.
The office is a room in the back of the basement of Kyle's house where his dad keeps all his important things like insurance papers, bills, titles to everything he owns and investment portfolio stuff, even his court paperwork. I'm a bit nosy so I look over what I can without disturbing it too much. I'm very curious about the court paperwork and so I pull that aside while Kyle keeps on rifling through the desk.
Kyle stops, turns and looks at me. We hear the hum of his father's lawn mower outside as it approaches, getting louder at first, prompting us to halt our thievery and hold our breath in fear which I sort of find silly because it's not like his dad can hear us breathe or anything, and then it eventually dissipates on its procession around the perimeter of the house and finally back out around the back yard. This is the place where we both shudder to think what would happen if his dad caught us down here.