“Don’t cancel your trip,” I said. “I have to face Boo sooner or later by myself. I’m scared, but I’ll be okay.”
He patted my shoulder. “One more thing. Keep this weekend to yourself for a couple of days. It’ll be hard not telling your friends, but your mom and I think it’s best.”
“I can’t tell anybody?”
There was something he wasn’t telling me. “Trust me,” he said, “like you trusted me in the SUV.”
I fell asleep imagining the school might have a special assembly where Ashley and I told our stories. We would be bold and not hold back about the way God had kept us calm, and kids would flock to the front and ask us where we went to church. Boo might ask for my autograph instead of pounding me into the pavement.
How could I keep quiet about something like this?
Chapter 58
It was Mom at my door. I closed my diary and told her the whole story of what had happened at Hayley’s house. I could tell she was shocked, and I expected her to shake her head and say she was disappointed in me or that I could never go back to Hayley’s again. But she just hugged me a long time.
“I’m glad you told me,” she said. “It must have been hard holding it in.”
I nodded. Then the tears came. “I’m sorry, Mom. I let you down and I disappointed God, and Hayley must think I’m a hypocrite.”
“You might be surprised. Just tell her how you feel. She might hear you.”
“But I want her to believe so bad,” I said.
Mom scooted closer. “You don’t have to be perfect to help somebody know God. What attracts people most is when you’re honest and real and don’t try to be someone you’re not.”
“I guess so. Like Pastor Jackson. He doesn’t just tell us about when he does good things. He tells us when he blows it.”
“Exactly.”
“I guess I thought you were supposed to do everything right, and if you didn’t God was mad at you.”
Mom smiled. “God’s not mad at you. I’m sure he was sad about you seeing the stuff in that movie, because he knew it would hurt you. But God doesn’t pull his love away if you do something wrong. He loves you all the way.”
“But doesn’t he correct us?”
“Yes, but not because he’s mad at you. He’s like the father in the parable about the Prodigal Son. He’s standing at the window, watching and waiting for you to come back, ready to sweep you up in his arms.”
I asked what she thought I should tell Hayley the next day.
“Why not invite her over after school? You two can talk and do your homework here.”
“But what do I say?”
She kissed me on the forehead. “Tell her the truth. And let God do the rest.”
Chapter 59
I kept dreaming about Boo and what he was going to do when he caught me at school. I was purple all over and had blood on every shirt I owned. Then I dreamed of going underwater in Sam’s Land Cruiser. I had a feeling I was going to relive that for a long time.
When I woke up and looked at the clock, I bolted from my bed and went downstairs for breakfast. Ashley had already finished and was in the shower. Mom had a bowl set out for my cereal. I’m a cereal mixer—I won’t eat any cereal that’s not mixed with at least two others. This morning I chose Honey Nut Cheerios, Corn Flakes, and Frosted Mini-Wheats.
Mom put the Denver paper in front of me and pointed to a picture. It was the guy in the Cincinnati Reds hat being put in a police cruiser. Gavin Winkler. On the other side of the page was a picture of our SUV being hauled out of the reservoir. The back end was smashed, and you could see mud on the license plate.
The story said Winkler had forced a Land Cruiser off the road as he fled and that a man and his three children had survived the crash. I skipped to the end where it said the gold hadn’t been recovered.
I kept looking for our names, but they weren’t there. I wanted the story to say that Winkler was trying to hurt us and broke into our cabin and was afraid of the picture we had taken of him. But now I couldn’t even tell my friends what had happened. It wasn’t fair.
After a quick shower, I grabbed my backpack and hoped I looked okay. When my hair gets a little longer it doesn’t cooperate. Duncan Swift says when it sticks up in the back I look like a chicken.
Sam had gassed up our ATVs, and they were sitting outside the barn. He waved as Ashley and I rode through the field by our house toward the school. It feels good to ride when you have a lot on your mind. The hum of the engine and concentrating on not hitting ruts and rocks can soothe you.
We followed the road to our left all the way to a golf course entrance, where we crossed a small bridge and went through another field. When we approached Mrs. Watson’s farm, someone was standing on the hill where I’d last seen Boo.
Chapter 60
Bryce and I waved at Mrs. Watson and headed for school the long way, skirting the hill and going through the gymnasium entrance. Bryce kept looking back as we walked inside and found our lockers. Over the weekend the administration had installed a new litter of cardboard cats in the hallways. These all had smiles like the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland.
Down the hall a custodian had a ladder against the wall and was taking down a stuffed cat that had been strung by a coat hanger from one of the ceiling tiles. The cat had the face of our football coach pasted on it, and a bunch of kids stood around snickering.
Instead of going to our regular first period, they were giving the test in our homeroom. Bryce went on to class, and I put some things in my locker. When I closed the door, I saw Hayley standing there.
“Hey,” I said, “I was going to invite you to my house tonight.”
She frowned. “Can’t. My mom found out about us watching that movie. My sister ratted us out.”
“You’re in trouble?”
She nodded. “If you could tell my mom it was your idea, that would really help. She doesn’t want me having you over anymore because you came when they weren’t there—”
“She didn’t know I was coming?” I said. “But you said she would be there.”
“I kind of forgot. So can you tell her it was your idea?”
“Let’s talk about it at lunch,” I said.
Chapter 61
I said hi to Duncan and Skeeter before I got ready for the first CAT. It killed me not to tell them what had happened. It was like winning a million dollars on a TV show and not being able to tell anyone.
Ashley came in looking like someone had punched her in the stomach. I wanted to ask what was wrong, but the teacher came in and turned on the television. The test was coordinated with every other class in the state.
A picture of a big white cat came on the screen, and somebody groaned. We were sick of cats. Even people who liked cats were sick of cats. I thought I was getting a hair ball. We just wanted the tests over.
I found only one short pencil with the lead worn to a nub. I glanced at Ashley, pointed to my pencil, and she went through her backpack and pulled out a new one for me. The teacher glared at us like we had defiled the sacred CAT process. Every teacher made a big deal about us having two sharpened pencils, and I felt like a CAT traitor.
At exactly one minute after the hour, the color bars on the screen went black and a nicely dressed woman appeared, sitting on the front of her desk, a real cat on her lap.
“Welcome to this year’s most exciting educational event in the state of Colorado,” she purred, flashing pearly white teeth. Did she have cat whiskers painted on her face? “Over the next five days we are going to probe your minds and find out if we’re doing our jobs as educators. So in a sense, this test is not about you—it’s about your teachers. Please sit back, relax, and enjoy these next five days.”
In the middle of her talk about the test (which included a long section about not cheating), the cat walked behind her and started pawing at an apple. It knocked the apple to the floor, then jumped down after it.
The whole class roared. Our teacher touche
d a finger to his lips, but I imagined every seventh grade class in the state laughing.
The first part of the test was reading comprehension. We had to pick out the main point of the story, retell the story, and write an essay about the main character to show we could actually read and understand the words, I guess. I understood most of it, but some I had to read over two or three times. I looked forward to the math section. I felt more comfortable with numbers than stories.
Once I looked out the window at a pond in a pasture and thought of being underwater. I couldn’t believe I was sitting at my desk taking a test when they could have been planning my funeral.
And I couldn’t tell anybody!
Chapter 62
Twice a week Mom lets us buy our lunch, and that day I grabbed some pizza and found a seat in the back. I asked God to help me say the right things to Hayley. When I looked up, she was coming toward me.
After we talked about the tests, I pushed my plate away and leaned toward her. “Listen, I need to talk to you about the other night.”
“I shouldn’t have asked you to tell my mom it was your idea,” she said.
“The thing is, I’m a Christian, and I should have said something about the movie and not watched it.”
Hayley took her sandwich apart, then put it back together. “I know you’re a Christian. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“I should have said something, but I was scared you’d think I was a goody-goody. I’ve felt bad about the whole thing for days. The truth is, if I’d have said something, you might not be in trouble.”
She looked at me with a glint in her eyes. “Yeah, it was your fault.” She smiled. “You know, I’m a Christian too.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, we go to church and stuff. Not very often, but I believe in Jesus and all that.”
I’d heard this kind of thing before, and every time it reminds me of myself. I once thought I was a Christian because I went to church at Christmas and Easter and believed Jesus was a real person. But it didn’t actually change anything until I understood what the Bible really taught and I saw how much God loved me.
“Maybe we should get together and do a Bible study or something,” I said. “Would your mom allow that?”
“I don’t know. . . .”
“It’s worth a try, don’t you think?”
I was dying to tell Hayley what had happened to us over the weekend. The way Mom and Sam were treating this seemed strange, but then nobody had ever tried to kill us before either.
Chapter 63
I ate lunch in a corner of the hallway where I thought nobody would see me. Skeeter, who has always had a thing for Ashley, finally came up and asked why I was hiding. I shrugged.
He rolled his eyes. “I get it. Boo’s still after you.”
“Keep it down,” I said, glancing down the hall.
“There’s no hiding,” Skeeter said. “He’s going to get you one way or another. And if he wants those four-wheelers of yours, he’ll get them.”
“No way,” I said. “If you don’t stand up to somebody like Boo, he’ll walk over you your whole life.”
“I’d rather be walked over than dead.” He leaned forward. “Plus, I’m scared that you and Ashley are going to get hurt.”
I wanted to tell Skeeter about the reservoir. I heard people talk about the stolen gold and could hardly hold my tongue.
When the tests were over for the day, I went to gym class and changed in the locker room.
The gym teacher, Mr. Baldwin, had set up an obstacle course, and we spent the period clocking our best speeds around hurdles, rings, and obstructions. We had to crawl through one enclosed area, run down the balance beam (which nobody could do), do push-ups and chin-ups, make a layup, jump the pommel horse, and run a lap around the gym.
In every class I’ve ever been in, there’s always one kid who is the biggest and clumsiest. At Red Rock Middle School, that guy is Chuck Burly. He’s the funniest kid in school, but he’s also the fattest. His face is always puffy and red, and he kind of hobbles when he walks, like he’s carrying a piano. I was cheering for him as he ran through the gym when I saw two people sneak into the boys’ locker room. From the back it looked like Boo, who usually wore a jean jacket, but I wasn’t sure.
Chuck couldn’t clear the hurdles, so he just jumped high enough to knock them over and kept going. He stepped on the balance beam, and I held my breath. Usually people fall right off, but Chuck scooted sideways, and when he hit the floor with a boom at the end of the beam everybody gave it up, clapping for him. He got stuck in the crawling thing, so Mr. Baldwin stopped the timer and moved it wider.
In the end, Chuck had the slowest time of the whole class, but he was the only one who got all the way across the beam without falling.
The bell rang and I slapped his sweaty back. “Sure looked good out there today.”
Chuck smiled. “Slow but sure. Give all the credit to my new eating plan. It’s called the seafood diet.”
“The seafood diet?”
“Whatever food I see, I eat.”
I had the feeling he told those kinds of jokes on himself so no one else would.
Chuck stopped laughing as we entered the locker room. My backpack lay in the middle of the floor, my books strewn around the place. One sock hung from a fluorescent light and another floated in the toilet. My pants were tied in several knots. Tight. Boo couldn’t have done this without help.
Coach Baldwin came in and looked the place over. “Timberline, in my office. Now.”
Chapter 64
I was heading to my next-to-last class, wondering what Mom would say about my talk with Hayley, when someone blocked my path. Somebody big. At first I thought it was a teacher, but when I saw the dirty jean jacket, I knew.
“Hey, Timber girl,” Boo said with a sneer. “Tell your brother I’ll be waiting for him outside after school. I saw you drove your precious little four-wheelers today, right?”
I figured it was none of his business, so I said nothing. I didn’t even nod. I don’t like anyone making fun of my last name—certainly not Boo.
“Left him a little reminder in gym, but don’t forget to tell him—” Boo leaned down, and I could smell cheeseburger on his breath—“or I’ll knock all that metal on your teeth down your throat.”
I let Boo pass. I’d learned that ignoring a bully was one of the best ways not to let him or her get to you. But this was a little hard to ignore.
Especially the part about knocking the metal down my throat.
Chapter 65
“Who did it?” Coach Baldwin said. Baldwin was a good name for him because his head looked like a lightbulb with hair on the side. He was thin, stood about six feet tall, and had chest and abdominal muscles that reminded people of professional wrestlers.
“D-did what, sir?” I said.
He cocked his head. “You threw your own socks in the toilet and tied your pants in knots?”
I shook my head.
“Who did it?”
I told him who I thought might have.
Coach shook his head. “Need some help with Heckler?”
“I th-think I have it under c-control,” I said.
Coach smiled. “At least let me help you untie your pants.”
I was late to my last class, but Coach Baldwin wrote me a note. While Mrs. Ferguson went to the office and left us working on an essay, Ashley told me what Boo had said to her in the hall. That made me mad. Until now he hadn’t said much to her, but this changed things.
“Why don’t we tell the principal or Coach Baldwin about Boo’s e-mail?” Ashley said.
“Boo will just get us some other way,” I said. “We need to handle this ourselves.”
“Bryce, that’s crazy. The guy is twice as big as you. He makes the Hulk look like a weenie.”
“Ash, I have to stand up to him.”
“Your pride’s gonna get us killed.”
If I knew karate or had pepper spray or a stun gun
it would be different.
My cell phone vibrated. I had a new text message.
Bryce,
You have what it takes. If you can escape those guys in Gold Town, you can show this Boo character what you’re made of.
Sam
Chapter 66
I followed Bryce out of our last class with the feeling that Boo and his little friend might jump us any second. We stopped at our lockers and put our stuff away.
No Boo.
The bus kids sprinted outside. Some of the drivers went by their own clock, and if you didn’t make it on in time they shut the door. A few of our friends looked at us like we were about to walk the plank.
Outside the Colorado sun beat down. Mom boasted there were more than 300 days of sunshine each year, unlike Chicago where in the winter God threw a gray blanket over the sky and it didn’t come off until spring.
“Nice day to get beat up,” Bryce’s friend Duncan said as he passed.
“Thanks a lot,” I said. Duncan is cute and one of the best at sports in our whole class. I’m not sure he knows I exist, except that I’m Bryce’s sister.
We walked through the parking lot and over the little rise that led to Mrs. Watson’s house. I saw two people in the distance, between us and the barn.
“Wait up,” Skeeter called from behind us. He ran over to us, legs and arms swinging wildly.
“Skeeter, this isn’t your fight,” Bryce said.
He caught his breath and looked at me. “I know. But I didn’t want you to think you were all alone.”
Bryce patted his shoulder. “Thanks, but we need to do this on our own.”
Skeeter glanced at me. “You sure?”
I nodded and he walked back toward the school.
Bryce gripped one strap of his backpack as if trying to keep from falling overboard. “You ready?” he said.
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