by Meg Cabot
Suddenly, the stillness that had fallen over the camp after the heavy rainstorm was ripped apart by an explosion so loud it made thunder sound like a finger-snap. Ruth clapped her hands over her ears.
“Whoa,” I said, impressed. “Right on cue. That boyfriend of yours sure knows how to create a diversion.”
Ruth lowered her hands and went primly, “Scott isn’t my boyfriend.” Then she added, “Yet. And he should know about diversions. He was an Eagle Scout, after all.”
The door to my bedroom flew open. Special Agent Smith stood there, gun drawn.
“Thank God you’re all right,” she said when she saw me. Her blue eyes were wide with anxiety. “That can only be him. Clay Larsson, I mean. Stay here while Agent Johnson and I go to investigate, all right? We’re leaving Officer Deckard and one of the sheriff’s deputies, too—”
“Sure,” I said calmly. “You go on.”
Special Agent Smith gave me a nervous smile I suppose she meant to be reassuring. Then she shut the door.
I stood up. “Let’s get out of here,” I said, and headed for the window.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Ruth muttered unhappily as she followed me. “You know, they’re probably overreacting with this whole Clay Larsson thing, but what if he really is, you know, out there, looking for you?”
I gave her a disgusted look over my shoulder before I dropped out the window. “Ruth,” I said. “It’s me you’re talking to. You think I can’t handle one little old wife-beater?”
“Well,” Ruth said. “If you’re going to put it that way …”
We slithered out the window as quietly as we could. Outside, except for a mysterious bright orange glow from the parking lot, it was dark. It wasn’t as hot as it had been, thanks to the rain.
But everything, everything was wet. My sneakers, and the cuffs of my jeans, which had only just started to dry off, were soon soaked again. Drops of water fell down from the treetops every time a breeze stirred the leaves overhead. It was quite unpleasant … as Ruth did not hesitate to point out, at her first opportunity.
“My ankles itch,” she whispered.
“No one said you had to come,” I whispered back.
“Oh, sure,” Ruth hissed. “Leave me behind to deal with the cops. Thanks a lot.”
“If you’re going to come with me, you have to quit complaining.”
“Okay. Except that all of this rain is making my allergies act up.”
I swear to you, sometimes I think it would be easier if I just didn’t have a best friend.
We’d only gone about a dozen yards when we heard it—footsteps swiftly approaching us. I hissed at Ruth to put out her flashlight, but it turned out our caution had been for nothing, since it was only Scott and Dave, hurrying to join us.
“Hey,” I said to them as they came trotting up. “Good job, you guys. They totally fell for it.”
Scott ducked his head modestly. “You were right, Jess,” he said. “Tampons do make good fuses.”
I glanced at Ruth. “And you said detention was a waste of my time.”
Ruth only shook her head. “The American public education system,” she said, “was clearly not designed with ingrates like you in mind.”
Dave glanced over his shoulder at the thick black smoke pouring from the parking lot into the night sky.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. He was panting, smudged with dirt, and covered in dead leaves and clearly exhilarated. I knew what he was thinking: Never, in his seventeen years of trumpet-playing, Dungeons-&-Dragon-dice-throwing geekdom, had he ever done anything so dangerous … and fun. “I was going to see if I could get extra credit for this from my chemistry teacher next semester. Lighting a van on fire with a Molotov cocktail has to be good for at least ten bonus points.”
“You guys,” Ruth said, “are insane.”
Scott looked wounded. “Hey,” he said. “We used appropriate caution. No children or animals were harmed in the execution of this prank.”
“No law enforcement officials, either,” Dave added.
“I am surrounded,” Ruth murmured, “by lunatics.”
“Enough already,” I whispered. “Let’s go.”
We ended up not actually needing our flashlights to see our way around the lake. The storm had passed, leaving behind a sky that was mostly clear. A shiny new moon shone down on us—just a sliver, but it shed enough of a glow for us to see by, at least while there were no trees overhead to block its light—along with a light dusting of stars.
If I hadn’t realized it before, from the allergy remark, I knew by the time we were halfway around the lake that bringing Ruth along had been a big mistake. She simply would not shut up … and not because she wanted the whole world to know about her itching, watery eyes, but because she wanted Scott to know how big and brave she thought he was, taking on the FBI all by himself … well, okay, with Dave’s help, but still. I sincerely hoped I didn’t sound like that when I talked to Rob—you know, all sugary sweet and babyish. I think if I did, Rob would have told me to knock it off already. I hoped so, anyway.
I don’t know what Dave was thinking as we made our way along the shore. He was pretty quiet. It had been, I reflected, a big day for both him and Scott. I mean, they had gotten to meet a real live psychic, thwart some FBI agents, and blow up a van, all in one day. No wonder he wasn’t very talkative. It was a lot to process.
I was having trouble processing some stuff of my own. The Rob thing, if you want the truth, bothered me a lot more than the whole thing where I managed to find a kid without catching forty winks first—especially considering the fact that I am a vital, independent woman who has no need of a man to make her feel whole. I mean, I said I’d call him, and he’d said don’t? What kind of baloney was that? Is it my fault I have this very important career, and that sometimes I am forced to think first not of my own personal safety, but about the children? Couldn’t he see that this wasn’t about him, or even me, but a missing twelve-year-old, who, it’s true, couldn’t stop making fart jokes, but nevertheless didn’t deserve to perish in the wilds of northern Indiana?
Of course, there was also the small matter of my having dragged poor Rob into all of this in the first place. I mean, he’d come all the way up here, and driven me all around Chicago, and helped me deal with Keely, just because I’d asked him to. And he hadn’t expected anything at all in return. Not even a single lousy kiss.
And all he’d gotten for it was a pistol brandished at him by a member of the FBI.
I guess, when you took into account all of these facts, it wasn’t any wonder he didn’t want me to call him anymore.
But while this was perhaps the most personally troubling of the problems that were on my mind as we trudged toward Wolf Cave, it was by no means the only one. There was also, of course, the puzzling little matter of just how Dr. Alistair had found out about me. I didn’t believe Pamela had told him. It was strange that he had known where I was that afternoon, when Pamela hadn’t even known. I mean, I’m sure she suspected, but I hadn’t discussed my plans concerning Keely Herzberg with her. I figured the less people who knew about it, the better.
So how had Dr. Alistair known?
Then the moonlight vanished as we moved from the lake’s shore to the deeply wooded embankment where Wolf Cave was located. If I had thought the wet grass was bad, this was about ten times worse. The incline was really steep, and since it was mostly unused, there was no path to follow … just slick, wet ground cover, mostly mud and dead leaves. The others had no choice but to turn on their flashlights now, if we didn’t want to break our necks tripping over some root, or something.
In spite of our efforts to approach the cave quietly, we must have made a considerable amount of noise—especially considering the fact that Ruth would not shut up about her stupid ankles. It was pretty quiet, that deep in the woods. There were crickets chirping, but for the first time since I’d arrived at the camp, no cicadas screamed. Maybe the rain had drowned them all.
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So it couldn’t have been all that hard for Shane to hear our approach.
Which might have explained why, when we finally reached the mouth of Wolf Cave—just a dark spot under an outcropping of boulders, jutting from the side of the steep hill we’d just climbed—there was no sign of Shane… .
Well, unless you count the candy wrappers and empty boxes of Fiddle Faddle that lined the narrow entrance.
I borrowed Ruth’s flashlight and shined it into the cave—really, the mouth was surprisingly small … only three feet high and maybe two feet wide. I did not relish squeezing through it, let me tell you.
“Shane,” I called. “Shane, come out of there. It’s me, Jess. Shane, I know you’re in there. You left all this Fiddle Faddle out here.”
There was a sound from within the cave. It was the sound of someone crawling.
Only the sound was going away from us, not coming closer.
“Let’s just leave him in there,” Ruth suggested. “The little jerk completely deserves it.”
Scott seemed sort of shocked by her callousness. “We can’t do that,” he said. “What if he gets lost in there?”
Ruth’s eyelashes fluttered behind the lenses of her glasses. “Oh, Scott,” she cooed in that unnaturally sweet voice. “You’re so right. I never thought of that.”
Yuck.
“Maybe,” Dave said, “there’s another way in. You know, a wider side entrance. Most caves have more than one.”
“Shane,” I called into the cave. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I didn’t give Lionel a strike. I swear he’s got one now, okay?”
No response. I tried again.
“Shane, everybody is really worried about you,” I called. “Even Lionel missed you. Even the girls from Frangipani Cottage miss you. In fact, they miss you the most. They’re holding a candlelight vigil for you right now. If you come out, we can panty-raid them while they’re praying for you. Seriously. I’ll even donate a pair of my own panties to the cause.”
Nothing. I straightened up.
“I’m going to have to go in there after him,” I said softly.
“I’ll go with you,” Dave volunteered. Which was pretty gallant of him, if you think about it. But I suppose he was only doing it because he felt guilty over letting Shane slip away from him in the first place.
My gaze flicked over him. “You’ll never fit.”
Which was true. The only person small enough, of the four of us, to fit through that hole was me, and they all knew it.
“Besides,” I said. “This is between me and Shane. I better go on my own. You guys stay here and make sure he doesn’t sneak out any of those side entrances you were talking about.”
Nobody needed to tell Ruth twice to stay put. She plunked down onto a nearby boulder and immediately began rubbing her chigger-ravaged ankles. Scott and Dave offered me a couple of caving tips from their days as Cub Scouts—if you shine your flashlight into a hole, and can’t see the bottom of it, that’s a hole you should avoid.
Armed with this piece of information, I dropped down to my knees and began to crawl. It was no easy task, crawling on all fours and trying to see where I was going at the same time. Still, I managed not to fall down any bottomless holes. At least, not right away. Instead, I found myself inching along a narrow—but dry, at least—tunnel. There were, much to my gratification, no bats and nothing slimy. Just a lot of dried leaves, and the occasional scrunched Dorito.
One thing you had to hand to Shane: if it was attention he was after, he sure knew how to get it. His camp counselor was crawling through a hole in the ground after him, following his trail of Snicker bar wrappers and cookie crumbs. What more could a kid ask?
Still, the deeper I went, the more I thought he might be taking things a little far. I called out to Shane a few times, but the only response I heard was more scraping of jeans against rock. For a chubby kid, Shane sure could crawl fast.
There was no way to tell how deep we’d gone—a quarter of a mile? half?—into the earth before I noticed the cave was starting to widen a bit. Now I glimpsed stalactites, and what I knew from sixth grade bio were stalagmites—stalactites point down from the ceiling, while stalagmites shot up from the ground (stalactite, ceiling; stalagmite, ground. That’s how Mr. Hudson explained it, anyway). Both, I remembered, were formed by the precipitation of calcite, whatever that was. Which meant, of course, that the cave wasn’t as snug and dry as it seemed.
Not that I minded. That meant there’d be less chance of encountering any woodland creatures who might otherwise have chosen to make their home here, which suited me fine.
Soon the cave started widening. Eventually, it was big enough for me actually to stand up. As the way widened, I found myself in a cavern about the size of my room back home.
Only, unlike my room back home, it was filled with creepy shadows, and a floor that seemed to slope up toward the ceiling at the sides. Pointy stalactites loomed everywhere, and even when you shined your flashlight on them, you couldn’t tell if they were hiding some bats, or if the stuff growing at their base was just a fungus or what.
I learned something that night. I really don’t like caves too much. And I don’t think I’ll be telling the story of Paul Huck again to young and impressionable children when there happens to be a cave nearby.
Fortunately, Shane seemed as creeped out by the shadowy room as I was, since, even though there were several other tunnels opening out from it, he hadn’t budged. The beam from my flashlight soon crossed his, and I studied him as he sat in his Wranglers and his blue- and red-striped shirt, glaring at me.
“You’re a damned liar,” was the first thing he said tome.
“Oh, yeah?” There was an eerie echo in the cavern. Somewhere water was dripping, a steady plink, plink, plink. It appeared to be coming from one of the wider tunnels off the chamber we were in. “That’s a nice thing to say to somebody who just crawled into the bowels of the earth to find you.”
“How’d you know where to look?” Shane demanded. “Huh? How’d you know I’d be in the cave?”
“Easy,” I said, sauntering over to him. “Everyone knows you took that Paul Huck story way too seriously.”
“Bullshit!” Shane’s voice bounced off the walls of the cave, his bullshit repeating itself over and over until it finally faded away.
I blinked at him. “Excuse me?”
“You used your powers to find me,” Shane hollered. “Your psychic powers! You still have them. Admit it!”
I stopped coming toward him. Instead, I shined my flashlight on his face, picking up cookie crumbs and a Dorito-orange mouth.
“Shane,” I said. “Is that what this was about? Getting me to prove I still have ESP?”
“Of course.” Shane wiggled his butt against the hard cave floor, his lip curled disgustedly. “Why else? I knew you were lying about it. I knew the minute I saw that kid’s picture in your hand, that first night. You’re a liar, Jess. You know that? You can give me all the strikes you want, but the truth is, you’re no better than me. Worse, maybe. Because you’re a liar.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. The kid was a piece of work.
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “And you’re one to talk. Do you have any idea how many people are out there looking for you? They all think you drowned in the lake.”
“Too bad they didn’t ask you, huh, Jess?” Shane’s eyes were very bright in my flashlight’s beam. “You could have set them straight, huh?”
“Your mom,” I went on. “Your dad. They’re probably worried sick.”
“Serve them right,” Shane said in a sullen tone. “Making me come to this stinking camp in the first place.”
I crossed the rest of the distance between us, then sank down beside Shane, leaning my back against the hard stone wall.
“You know what, Shane?” I said. “I think you’re a liar, too.”
Shane made an offended sound. Before he could say anything else, I went on, not looking at him, but at the weird shado
ws across the way.
“You know what I think?” I said. “I think you like playing the flute. I don’t think you’d be able to play that well if you didn’t like it. You may have perfect pitch and all of that, but playing like that, that takes practice.”
Shane started to say something, but I just kept on going.
“And if you really hated it that much, you wouldn’t practice. So that makes you as big a liar as I am.”
Shane protested, quite colorfully, that this was untrue. His use of four-letter words was really very creative.
“You want to know why I tell people I can’t do the psychic thing anymore, Shane?” I asked him, when I got tired of listening to him sputter invectives. “Because I didn’t like my life too much back when they all thought I could still do it. You know? It was too … complicated. All I wanted was to be a normal girl again. So that’s why I started lying.”
“I’m not a liar,” Shane insisted.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s say you aren’t. My question to you would be, why aren’t you?”
He just stared at me. “W-what?”
“Why aren’t you lying? If you hate coming here to Lake Wawasee so much, why don’t you just tell everyone you can’t play anymore, same way I told everyone I can’t find people anymore?”
Shane blinked a few times. Then he laughed uncertainly. “Yeah, right,” he said. “That’d never work.”
I shrugged. “Why not? It worked for me. You’re the only one who knows—outside of a few close friends—that I’ve still got this ‘gift’ of mine. Why can’t you do the same thing? Just play bad.”
Shane stared at me. “Play bad?”
“Sure. It’s easy. I do it every year when our orchestra teacher holds chair auditions. I play badly—just a little badly—on purpose, so I don’t get first chair.”
Shane did a surprising thing then. He looked down at his hands. Really. Like they weren’t attached to him. He looked down at them as if he were seeing them for the first time.
“Play bad,” he whispered.
“Yeah,” I said. “And then go out for football. If that’s what you really want. Personally, I think giving up the flute for football is stupid. I mean, you can probably do both. But hey, it’s your life.”