by Elle Casey
“James isn’t complicated. He’s a hyper goofball who can’t focus on any one thing for longer than five seconds.”
“Whatever. He’s good practice for me. Maybe the Peanut’s going to be hyper; you never know. Kevin was when he was little.”
“Not Jonathan. My parents say he’d sit in a corner of a room and play with his toys all by himself for hours not bothering anyone.”
“Why does that not surprise me?” asked Sarah, wryly. “He must have livened up when you came along, though.”
“Nope. When I was born, he just sat next to me and talked to me while he played.”
“And what did you do?”
“My parents said I just watched him like a hawk, like I was memorizing his every move.”
“Or you were looking at him thinking, ‘What the hell is this kid’s problem? Why isn’t he raising hell like every other boy out there?’”
Candi smiled. “Maybe. He’s always been different than other boys.”
Sarah smiled with self-satisfaction. “And that’s what makes him perfect for me. I’m an original, so it’s only natural that I be with another one-of-a-kind.”
“You sure are,” said Candi. Sarah would get no argument from her on that.
“I know you’re mocking me, but I’m ignoring you. See, I’m more mature than you are. That’s because I’m a mom.”
“Whatever, mom. Help me with this command.” Candi had been trying to get Xena to go on alert, but she wasn’t sure what technique she could use to simulate a bad guy coming without actually having someone play the role.
“I still think you should get Kevin to tie some blankets on his arms and let her attack him for practice,” said Sarah.
“You’re nuts. She’ll tear him apart. We can’t risk him actually getting hurt.”
“Whatever you say,” sighed Sarah. “You’re the boss.” She looked over at James. “Fetch!” She pointed to a broken lawn chair someone had pulled out from under the porch.
Candi laughed. “He can’t fetch that; it’s five times his size.”
James ran over and stopped in front of the chair. He turned to look at Sarah who merely nodded. The dog dipped his head down and grabbed the metal leg with his teeth and started dragging it through the grass.
Candi fell into hysterics, watching him struggle with it and then go nuts over the chair getting stuck on a bump. He yanked and pulled and twisted all over the place until he got it free, not giving up until the stupid thing was sitting at Sarah’s feet.
“Good boy, Jamesie, good boy!” Sarah squealed, rubbing his little ears and feeding him something from her pocket.
Candi’s eyes narrowed. “What did you just give him?”
“What are you talking about?” asked Sarah innocently. “I didn’t give him anything.”
“Yes, you did. You are so busted; I totally saw you.” Candi walked over and held out her hand. “Come on … hand it over.”
Sarah sighed heavily before reaching into her pocket. She pulled something small and red out, putting it in Candi’s palm.
“Gummy bears? You’re giving him gummy bears?”
“Yeah. So?” She shrugged. “He likes ‘em.”
Candi laughed again, a little less enthusiastically. “I’m not sure if I should be mad at you for cheating or worried that James is going to have some sort of diabetic attack.”
“He’s fine,” she scoffed. “He’s been eating them for two weeks without a problem.”
“But I thought you said you needed gummy bears to settle your stomach.” Candi put her hands on her hips, now thinking they’d all been conned.
“I did, but then they stopped working, so they were just sitting there getting stale. And one day I dropped one, and James went nuts for it, so I figured I might as well give it a shot.”
“And all this time you’d been letting me call you the dog whisperer. Unbelievable,” said Candi, feigning outrage.
“Well, I am awesome at this, gummy bears or not.”
Candi patted her on the back, giving up on being mad over a few fruity snacks. “Yes, you are. I’m only kidding. But those gummy bears remind me … we need to get more food. We’re almost completely out. And Kevin’s going to kill us if we don’t get him some eggs and meat soon.”
“I know. He was whining again this morning about his muscle mass shrinking or something.”
“Yeah. He had a nightmare that the guys in the computer club beat him up after school. He’s doing extra pushups and sprints now to try and counteract a possible future geek ambush.”
Sarah snorted. “That’ll be the day.”
The girls walked towards the cabin, stepping over the various ropes and clear fishing line strings that criss-crossed the different pathways on their route. Anyone who didn’t know where the traps were would make a lot of noise trying to get close; Jonathan and Kevin had made sure of that.
When Sarah and Candi arrived at the cabin, the two guys were standing on the porch, bath towels in hand.
“What are you doing?” asked Candi.
“Going for a swim,” said Kevin. “All of us. Come on.”
“We have to make lunch and go into town today,” said Sarah. “We don’t have time to play around.”
“Hell yes, we do,” said Kevin, jumping down the whole staircase in one leap. “We’ve been working our asses off all week. Today we’re going to chill out. We can shop later. Come on.” He grabbed Candi by the elbow and led her through the trees. Both of them avoided tripping over the ropes on the way.
“But what about lunch?” she asked.
“We handled it. Jon’s got that covered,” said Kevin mysteriously.
They reached the small rickety dock that stretched out over a small portion of the lake. “Come on. Strip down. I don’t have all day.” He lifted an eyebrow at her, giving her a lecherous look.
“Hands to yourself, mister,” she said, before lifting up her t-shirt and taking it off, dropping her shorts right after. Swimming in her underwear the first time had been weird. Now after doing it almost once a day for the past week, it felt totally natural. She jumped in the water as Jonathan and Sarah were walking up. James hit the water next to her, sending a small spray up into her face. She sputtered and spit it out, reaching over to push him away.
“Hey, watch the splashing, ya goofy dog,” said Kevin, making waves to push the dog back towards the shore.
James had invented a game where he’d run as fast as his little legs could take him down the dock, launch himself into the water like a superhero canine, and then doggy paddle back to the shore so he could do it all over again. He always did it when they were in the water too, so there was no peaceful floating or zen moments for the humans when James was around.
Xena came to the dock and laid down on the end of it, her eyes open and moving around, tracking them in the water silently. She completely ignored the terrier who’d jump over her whenever she was in his flight path towards the lake, preferring to laze in the sun instead of exercise in the water. She’d go in if begged and cajoled, but mostly she was a land lubber.
Sarah stripped down and lowered herself slowly into the water. Candi smiled at the tiny little bump she thought she could see forming above her friend’s panty line. She’d lost so much weight with the morning sickness, it made it easier to see. Maybe it was just Candi’s imagination, but it was cute anyway.
“We need to talk about going to get more food,” said Jonathan. He jumped into the lake in between Kevin and Candi, splashing both of them with his cannonball move. Bursting up out of the water, he whipped his head left and then right. “How was that one?”
“Awesome,” said Kevin, not sounding very impressed as he wiped his face off and blew water out of his nostrils. “You threw half the lake up my nose and pretty much blinded me, too.”
“I’ve been working on it. I think I have the perfect altitude, weight, and surface tension formula figured out.”
“I think you do, too,” said Candi, blinking hard to cle
ar her eyes. They were going to be red for sure.
“I think I’ve got my formula all figured out too,” said Kevin, doing a single breast-stroke in Jonathan’s direction.
“Oh, yeah?” asked Jonathan, all excited. “Tell me about it.”
Kevin stroked a little closer. “Okay, sure. See, if you take a certain amount of downward pressure and assert it against a non-stationary and buoyant item, you can force it in the opposite direction … sometimes pretty fast.”
Jonathan frowned. “Yeah. That’s just basic Newton’s law stuff. The acceleration of a body is parallel and directly proportional to the net force acting on the body, and is inversely proportional to the mass of the body. You know the formula, right? F equals MA.”
“Actually, I used a different formula,” said Kevin, now treading water right next to Jonathan.
“Really? I wasn’t aware there was another one.”
“Oh yeah, dude. It’s KM plus JH equals JD.”
Jonathan frowned. “That’s not standard scientific notation.”
“Sure it is. Let me explain it to you. It goes like this: Kevin’s Muscle pushed down on Jonathan’s Head equals Jonathan being Dunked.” He pulled his hand up out of the water and slapped it down on top of Jonathan’s skull, leaping up out of the water with a big kick to force Jonathan down. The last thing Candi saw was Jonathan’s eyes bugging out of his head just before they disappeared below the surface.
“Oh, no you don’t,” said Sarah, swimming up behind Kevin and grabbing him in a headlock. “Here’s my formula,” she grunted out, hanging on for dear life. “Sarah’s headlock on Kevin’s head equals Kevin swallowing pond water.” She pulled him backwards and then swam over the top of him, shoving him down undernearth her. She smiled triumphantly at Candi. “Who says I suck at math?” Her head disappeared beneath the surface a split-second later as she was pulled down from below by the victim of her equation.
Jonathan came up sputtering and looked around. “Where’d he go?”
“He’s busy drowning his sister right now,” said Candi, having swum out of range, pointing over to the disturbance in the water about ten feet away. “Over there.”
Jonathan and Candi waited in silence for the other two to surface. When Kevin and Sarah came up they had a short splashing war before Sarah got tired and played the pregnancy card to get away.
“Stop! I’m sick. Leave me alone. You’re going to hurt the baby.”
“You just totally surrendered. Did you hear that?” Kevin asked Candi and Jonathan. “She surrendered. I win. I’m the champion.” Kevin held up his arms in victory turning to acknowledge the legions of imaginary fans who were apparently standing around the lake admiring his prowess.
“Can we talk about shopping now? And other stuff?” asked Jonathan.
Something in his tone made Candi stop moving for a second. She had to quickly start kicking again to stay above the surface. “Other stuff? What other stuff?”
“Contacting our families.”
Everyone swam over until they were in a circle. James even tried to join them, but he was quickly pushed away by anyone he came near since he tended to scratch them with his claws when he tried to climb onto their shoulders.
“What’s up?” asked Kevin. “Your super-computer brain’s been busy, I take it?”
“Well, I don’t know about super computer, but I have been thinking some things through. We’ve been gone long enough that news of our departure and the trial should be pretty well-disseminated. And early attempts at finding us have been fruitless, obviously. So maybe we should risk seeing what the local law enforcement or FBI knows and maybe getting a message through to our parents at least.”
“Using your friend and the chess code stuff?” asked Sarah.
“I was thinking we could try two different avenues. See which one yields the best results.”
“You want to run an experiment in the middle of all this?” asked Candi. “Come on, Jonathan. I appreciate the science and everything, but it’s a risk already.”
“No, I know that. But there’s another benefit too, in addition to having more chances of getting our messages delivered. First, we make sure we can get a message through both avenues. Then, when the time comes, we can use one of our messengers to deliver false messages. And he or she won’t even know they’re false, so they’ll be very convincing.”
Sarah lifted up her hand and pointed a finger at herself. “Short bus. Tired. Take it down a few notches, babe.”
Jonathan took her by the hand and dragged her over to the dock, putting her fingers on the wood above their heads. “Here. Hold this while I explain.”
She nodded her gratitude.
Jonathan waited until Candi and Kevin had gotten closer before continuing. “So what I was thinking is that we contact two people who have zero connection to one another. Like one of my friends and one of yours, Kevin. And we feed them the same info.”
“Why?” asked Kevin. “And besides, we have a lot of the same friends now.”
“Just because. And not all of our friends are the same. Just listen, and I’ll explain the rest.” He readjusted his hold on the dock and continued. “We give the same messages to the two resources. Later, when we’re ready to make an appearance, we feed false information to one of them and make sure it’s publicized a lot, so the bad guys will have a fake trail to follow. We feed the correct info to the other and make sure it’s kept a secret.”
“Okay. I guess I kind of get it,” said Kevin, “but I still don’t know why we need two people. Why not just tell one guy everything and also tell him what’s fake, what’s not, and stuff like that?”
“Because … someone will figure out where the info is coming from eventually, and they’ll start hacking into his life to learn the rest and try to track us down.”
“So we feed the false info to the guy who’s easiest to hack?” asked Kevin.
“Exactly. That would be your friend,” said Jonathan. “My friend will be the one we use for our actual real plans.”
“Maybe your friend is the hackable one,” said Kevin, sounding offended. “I’ll bet they can’t keep secrets longer than a day.”
“I don’t think so,” said Jonathan.
“Stop arguing,” said Candi, bored already with the subject of whose friends were more trustworthy. “Who did you have in mind, Jonathan? To be the messengers, I mean.”
“I was thinking already of my friend Stephen, who I mentioned before. And for Kevin’s friends, I’m not sure. Who do you know that could be circumspect and careful about who he talked to and revealed things to?”
Sarah shook her head. “No one in our group fits that description.”
Kevin frowned at her. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Come on, Kevin,” said Sarah, admonishing him. “You know what I mean. They live on that gossip crap. There’s no way any of them could keep a secret. Could you picture it with Gretchen? Barry? Brandon? Charlie? … No way.”
“Jason could do it,” said Candi, softly. “He’s trustworthy, and he’d never sell us out.”
No one said anything for a few seconds. The silence got awkward.
“The dude’s too involved in your life as it is,” said Kevin grouchily.
“Don’t be like that, Kevin,” said Candi. “He’s a really nice guy.”
“Yeah, and he wants to get in your pants, so forgive me if I’m not all that excited about him being your knight in shining armor.”
Candi splashed water into his face. “Shut up, you jerk. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Not cool, Kev,” said Sarah.
“What?!” he said angrily. “You know it’s true. The guy’s chasing after her all over the place. He’s lucky I don’t take him out onto the rugby field and pound him.”
Candi stuck her finger in Kevin’s face. “No, you’re lucky that doesn’t happen. Because if you ever did something neanderthal like that, I’d never speak to you again.”
He grabbed her finger
and pulled her close. “Yes, you would.” He smiled at her, trying to use his charm to diffuse the situation.
Candi put her hands on his chest, pushing him away. “No, I would not. I don’t like you acting like that, especially towards him. He’s my friend, and he’s been very nice to me. Even when some people weren’t.”
Kevin stopped trying to hug her, surrender in his tone. “Okay, okay … fine. I won’t pound the twerp. But regardless, you know I’m right. He’s hot for you.”
“Well, I’m not hot for him, so let it go.”
Kevin leaned in for a kiss, but Candi dunked herself under the water to avoid it. She didn’t want to encourage either his jealousy or his idea that he could just give her a quick kiss or hug and make everything go away. Life wasn’t that simple, and her emotions weren’t that easy to just turn on and off. She came back up for air a few feet away to hear Jonathan say, “ … and I think she’s the best one to go. Either her or me.”
“Who’s the best one? For what?”
“You. To go shopping today.”
“Me? Why me?” she said, her voice going weak. The idea of driving that beast of a motorcycle scared her, and the thought of being chased by a police officer on it was enough to make her want to throw up.
“If they’re looking for the motorcycle, they’re looking for a big guy to be driving it. If they see your tiny form on it, maybe they’ll just ignore you.”
“But they’ll still see the license plate number,” she argued.
“You just have to make sure they don’t get behind you,” said Jonathan simply.
“Oh, that’s easy. Just be watching behind me and in front of me at the same time, all while trying to remember how to drive the stupid bike. No problem.”
“You can practice before you go,” said Kevin, sidling up to her again. She let him this time. “I’ll help you.” He put one arm around her, the other holding onto the dock.
She loved the feel of his body up against hers, and it calmed her the smallest bit. She stopped paddling and held onto his muscular arm. “I’m scared.”
“You’ll be fine, Sugar Lump,” said Sarah, patting her wetly on the head. “We’ll give you a list and you just need to get in and get out.”