by L B Anne
“May I?” She asked with a grin.
“Of course.”
We all watched her—everyone at the table, I mean.
“She’s like a giddy seven year old.”
“I know, right?”
The kid took the sandwich from her. She sat down with him and they talked and laughed.
“Wow, okay.”
After lunch, Ariel asked for my number. “Thank you. I’ll call you. I promise not to drive you crazy.”
“Too late,” Chana mumbled.
I didn’t see Teddy after school. That was on purpose. I avoided the areas where we could possibly run into each other. We’d done enough arguing for the day, and all of his questions were exhausting me.
I texted Chana as I walked along the walkway in front of the school, to see where she was. She didn’t respond, so I continued up the block. At the next intersection, Ariel stood across the street, talking to someone in a silver truck.
I thought, Good. I’m finally going to get to see one of her parents—I think. She never mentioned them except for her mother giving her that bracelet. For all I knew, she lived with her grandparents, or aunt and uncle.
I stepped up to the curb, trying to peer inside the truck just as Chana ran up behind me.
“Hey, you left me. Theodore is looking for you.”
“Good for him.”
“Well, you sure have an attitude this afternoon. What are you looking at?”
As she spoke, the guy in the truck turned toward us. I gasped. “It’s him!”
“It’s who?”
“Ariel, get away from that truck!” I yelled.
I don’t know what I thought I was going to do, but I bolted across the street toward her with Chana close on my heels. The truck sped off.
Chana continued on, a few feet ahead of us.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting the license plate number,” she yelled.
“What’s wrong?” asked Ariel. She looked startled and confused.
“Sheena!” Teddy called from behind us as he ran up the block. “What the heck? You know there are rules to crossing the street, right? Why are you guys out here dodging traffic?”
“What are you even doing on my street?”
I turned back to Ariel. “Why were you talking to that man? Did you know him?”
Chana ran up to us. “I couldn’t see all the numbers.”
“What happened?” asked Teddy.
Before Ariel could respond, we all looked up hearing tires squeal. The truck made a huge U-turn and raced back toward us, swerving around cars.
“Run!” yelled Chana.
“What? Why are we running?” yelled Teddy.
“He’s after us. This way,” I exclaimed.
“Why is someone after us?” Teddy yelled as the four of us ran, backpacks flopping on our backs—except for Ariel. I don’t think I ever saw her with a backpack. We sprinted between two houses, through a backyard, and out onto the next street over.
“I hear the truck,” said Teddy. “Why is someone chasing us?”
“Come on.”
We ran up the block toward the school to the crossing guard.
“What’s going on?” asked Mr. Putnam as he put his hand out for some younger kids to stay back until he allowed them to cross.
“A guy in a truck came after us.”
Mr. Putnam pulled out his radio and called someone for assistance.
I turned looking back behind me. There was no sign of the truck. “Where’s Ariel?”
Chana looked around. “I don’t know. She was right behind us.”
I ran back the way we’d come.
Mr. Putnam yelled for me to stop, but I didn’t listen.
I looked into each yard and alongside every house as I sprinted past. I began to panic. What if he caught her? Some gleamer I am. Why didn’t I know this was going to happen if I’m a gleamer?
I emerged from behind two rows of houses and stepped into the center of an alley, looking both ways. The truck turned into the far end of the alley and sat there, as if we were in a standoff.
I froze in place in my running stance. What is he going to do? I thought. I could only hope that an angel was near me or watching. Wherever you are, I need you here right now. Please, Please, please. Just maybe the angel could hear my internal cry and intervene on whatever was about to happen.
Time slowed as a light breeze blew curls into my face, partially blocking my sight. My heart pounded wildly.
Fences with sheds or garages behind them lined the alley on either side.
I pushed my hair out of my face. The back of a purple t-shirt and jeans stood in front of me. Ariel was just there—in the middle of the alley between me and the truck. She stood there in a threatening way as if she could take on a truck like King Kong or something.
The truck raced toward us.
“Ariel!” I screamed and dove off to the right. The truck sped past. I rolled over as Chana leaned over me, helping me up. Teddy lay against a fence over Ariel, having rushed out and tackled her, pushing her out of the street.
Chana and I ran over to them as Ariel stood up.
“Are you okay, Sheena?”
“Am I okay? Are you okay?”
“Can someone please explain what the heck is going on?” demanded Teddy.
I picked up Ariel’s bracelet from the ground. I guess the rope had broken when Teddy dove at her.
“Ariel, look,” I said holding it out to her.
Ariel grabbed her arm where the bracelet should have been and then reached for the bracelet. She looked more frightened about that than about the truck.
“Oh no,” she said. “I have to go.”
She started to run away but turned back. “Thanks, Theodore.”
We watched her turn down a side street.
“Wait, he could be waiting down there!”
“He’s not! He’s gone!” she yelled behind her.
“Yo, that was ridiculous,” Chana said, covering her mouth. “I can’t believe that just happened.”
“Yeah, well it did, and we have to get back to Mr. Putnam. All of this has to be reported to the police.”
We turned toward the school. Teddy pulled on the sleeve of my jacket. “Was that the Murk?” he whispered.
“No, but it was someone very bad.”
“Is it a coincidence that he was right here on your street?”
I looked at Teddy and stopped walking. I hadn’t thought of that.
Chana turned around. “What? What’s wrong now?”
18
“W
hat a story for the news,” my mom said as we pulled into our driveway.
“Mom, it’s not going to be on the news.”
“You’re not, since you refused to be interviewed, and I didn’t give permission for them to even use your image, but the story is.”
“Now if you looked like me…” she said with her hand up near her head, showing off her burgundy turban headwrap, “... maybe I would have pushed you to.”
“Yeah, right. Your wrap looks cool though. You finally learned to do it.”
I stood behind her as she unlocked the front door. “Do I have to discuss the whole thing all over again with Dad, and then call Nana as you would normally have me do, or can I go up to my room…and you tell them,” I said with a sly grin.
Music and laughter came from the back of the house. I looked back at my mom. “Who’s here?”
She shrugged and pushed me forward.
“What’s all of this?” I asked as I walked to the kitchen followed by my mother.
Bouquets of pink and blue balloons hung around the room. Dingy ran forward and grabbed my hand, pulling me further into the kitchen where pink, blue, yellow, and green swirls of a unicorn ice cream cake sat on the island looking like a box of pastel crayons exploded.
“You’re a hero,” sang Dingy, hopping up a couple times in his red boots.
“How am I a hero?”
The adult
s looked at Dingy as if they weren’t sure if they should say anything in front of him. Dingy’s mom stood behind him, placed her palms over his ears, and shook her head. “You saved a girl.”
Dingy shook his head roughly, tearing from her embrace. “What are you doing?” he asked, looking up at her. “The cake was my idea!” Dingy exclaimed while dancing around it.
I turned to my mom. “I don’t feel like it,” I whispered.
She gave me that look that said just go along with it.
“Do you like it?” asked Dingy.
“Yep, just what I wanted,” I responded with my best fake smile.
“Tell us everything,” my dad said.
My mom shook her head while at the same time Dingy’s mom responded, “Uh, maybe not. Little ears absorb everything, and it leads to bad dreams. Let’s cut the cake.”
“Yes, cut the cake already. I’ve been waiting for a hundred hours!” Dingy exclaimed.
“Shenna, get plates from the pantry.”
I turned to the butler's pantry, directly behind me, happy to get away from everyone for a moment, but my mom followed me in.
“This was all Dingy’s mom idea. She saw the report and called, worried about you. Your dad told her you were the hero they spoke of. She brought everything over. You know how she is—any excuse for a celebration.” She brushed my hair back away from my face. “It’ll be over soon.”
I sighed. “I guess I could use something sweet since all you feed me is grass and twigs.”
“Ha! That’s my girl.”
My mom turned and left the room as I gathered dessert plates and spoons.
“Sheena,” Dingy’s mom sang a few minutes later.
I rushed into the kitchen with the plates, realizing I’d been standing there for too long, lost in my thoughts.
“Yes?”
I placed the plates on the island and watched her cut the first piece.
Behind her, my mom and dad were laughing and fussing, no doubt about him having sweets. “You need protein, not sugar,” my mom said. “Sugar smooths out muscle.”
Dingy’s mom handed me the slice. The light blue cake and ice cream looked both disgusting and delicious at the same time. “Do you think you can watch Dingy for me tomorrow evening?”
“I have to ask those two,” I replied, pointing at my parents. “But it should be okay.”
“Don’t think I didn’t hear you call us ‘those two,'” said my dad.
I laughed as I filled my mouth with the perfect ice cream-to-cake ratio.
My dad sat down at the table. “Get me some cake, woman,” he exclaimed, and smacked my mom on the bottom.
“You ever had kale chips on your cake?”
“Don’t you dare!”
“Try me.”
“Dingy, don’t let her do it!” My dad yelled.
Dingy was happy to become a part of the game and laughed as he spread his arms out wide, blocking off the refrigerator.
I looked down at my pocket. My phone was vibrating. I contemplated checking it but didn’t know if the celebration constituted a family dinner. We had a rule that we couldn’t use phones or even check them during dinner.
I decided to take my chances and I slipped out of the room while everyone was laughing and talking.
Texts were coming in back to back.
U have some explaining 2 do!
What happened?
R U OK?
Thanks again, Sheena.
I know that was you they spoke of on the news. We need to talk asap.
Gleamer, you are forgetting an essential part of your journey. You are powerless without it.
I knew without reading the names, who each text came from. Teddy, Chana, Chana, Ariel, Mr. Tobias, and lastly… of course the last text had no origin.
“Sheena?”
I put my phone back in my pocket and spun around.
“You must be exhausted. I’m sorry to intrude on your evening—”
“We’re not intruding,” said Dingy.
Dingy’s mom put a hand over his mouth. “—but I wanted to celebrate your bravery. We’re going to head out now.”
“Can we take cake with us?”
“No, we can’t take cake with us.”
“Yes, you can!” my mom yelled.
“But we brought it,” said Dingy.
My mom was already cutting a huge hunk for them to take home.
Dingy grabbed the container from my mom. “We need to hurry before it melts.” That would be the first time he was every anxious to leave my house. Now I knew what the secret was to get him out of there.
“What do you say?” asked his mother.
“Oh, thank you, Mrs. Meyer.”
I walked Dingy and his mom to the front door. It was colder outside than it had been in recent nights. Maybe our Indian summer was coming to an end.
After they’d gone, I continued standing in the door looking around at the trees up the block and noticed how much the leaves were changing. There were more yellow and orange-red leaves now. I loved autumn for this reason. My mom walked up behind me. “Are you going to let all the heat out of the house?”
I shook my head, still watching the trees. “Do you need me to help clean up?”
“I’ve got it. You go on up and shower...and do your homework.”
I sat on the end of my bed in my robe with a towel wrapped around my hair. The smell of barbeque passed gently through the air from outside. I guess my dad decided to fire up the grill. Although it smelled good, I didn’t want any.
He was definitely feeling like his old self. I wished my window faced the back of the house so I could watch him in front of my willow. Instead, my room faced the side. It was like back when someone built the house they decided that one day the house beside it would have a little boy that was obsessed with the girl next door, so there had to be a bedroom window facing the back of his house so he could look for her every chance he got.
I stretched my arms out to the sides and fell back onto my bed as if I were falling back into a pool of water, and imagined water filling my ears as I floated on Lake Michigan. A calmness spread over me.
I revisited the events of the day: I had my first glimpse of what I thought was the Murk. We were chased and could’ve been killed by a strange guy in a truck. That Ariel! I was suddenly upset with her and decided her parents need to whoop her gullible little naive butt. It was like she wasn’t even aware of the dangers that existed in the world. But the way she appeared in the road to protect me…Then, the way she reacted about her bracelet being broken. She was so upset about that bracelet. I just couldn’t figure her out.
I sat up, losing the sense of relaxation I’d just felt. It was all too much. I needed help.
That’s it! If I needed help, why wasn’t I asking for it. That’s what that last text meant. That’s what it had to mean.
I went to my window and knelt, resting my arms on the sill, looking up at the stars that were beginning to show themselves. But I wasn’t shooting for the stars. I was shooting for beyond the stars, to a place no one else could see but me, and I guess Mr. Tobias.
“This is becoming too much to handle. Please help me. And can I sleep tonight—I mean with no dreams or revelations or anything—just sleep. Just for tonight? Please? Also, can my friends get a peaceful night’s rest also? Oh, and that guy, please let the police find him.”
I watched the stars. Was there more that I needed to say? I rested my forehead on my arms and closed my eyes. I didn’t speak out loud, but within my heart. When I lifted my head, I don’t know what I expected. I didn’t feel any different or like anyone heard me. But I believed I’d sleep well that night. And I did.
My mom said she came in to check on me, and I was snoring. And it was only eight o’clock at night. I slept right through the night and didn’t wake up until the next morning.
When I awoke, I didn’t feel like a special gleamer or anything. I just felt like a teenager with stinky breath and white crusty mucus at th
e corner of her eye. “Thank you,” I said aloud as I stretched.
It’s going to be a good day, I thought with a smile as my stomach growled louder than I’d ever heard it. The sound was like a meow-moooooo combined with a rumble.
I rushed and got ready for school. As I texted Chana our usual good morning text, that we’d both been slacking on, the smell hit me.
My hero! My mom was making pancakes. I bet she’d heard my stomach all the way from the kitchen.
“The dead has arisen.”
“Poor choice of words, Dad,” I replied after kissing him on the cheek. He sat at the counter pouring maple syrup over a plateful of silver-dollar pancakes and sausage.
“Mmmm…you’re right. Sorry, baby girl.”
“I’m dropping you off at school today.” My mom said. “And maybe every day until they catch that maniac.”
“You don’t have to do that, Mom.”
“I know I don’t. But I’m not taking any chances with your safety.”
“He’s probably laying low after the story being on the news.”
“Ha! Laying low?”
I laughed. “I got that from television.”
“You may or may not be right about that. What about your friend you were protecting? Does she need a ride?”
“I-I don’t know,” I said after rolling up a sausage link inside of a pancake, swirling the end in syrup and taking a bite. My eyes rolled back. This is so good.
“I don’t know where she lives.”
“Well text her and find out. I know you have her number.”
I studied my sticky fingers, trying to figure out how I could pull out my phone without getting syrup all over it. I settled on washing my hands first, and then texted Ariel, but she didn’t respond.
“Maybe she’s too shaken about what happened to attend school today.”
“You’ve got a point,” my mom replied as she sat a cup of orange juice in front of me. “I know you didn’t pack your lunch last night, so pack it between bites. Maybe I can get you to school on time for once.”
School was blah that day, but that’s not a bad thing. That’s a normal day. I looked for Ariel, but she didn’t come to school. Teddy gave me the silent treatment all day for not answering his questions, and Chana was, well, like always, my best friend.