How the hell am I going to get my notebook back? My heart rate picks up as I realize I probably can’t get it back. I just don’t see how.
Which means my parents will read it. Or I’ll have to talk to them, “a real talk,” whatever the fuck that means. I’m drifting—is that what Mom said? What does that even mean? Did it occur to them that maybe I don’t want to talk to them because they’re lame? Why does everything have to be about Melanie? They’re obsessed. It’s unhealthy.
Well, whatever touchy-feely song and dance they want me to go through, I’m not gonna do it. I wonder how bad it would be if I just let Mom read the notebook. I mean, what I wrote isn’t that bad . . . is it? I actually can’t remember. Most of it was written from the middle of a fog at around three a.m., and I started a year ago. It feels even longer than that.
I can’t remember all its content, but I certainly remember the night I found the notebook. . . . Yes, I do . . . the night Mom and Dad came home from the hospital and told me Melanie was gone. I lay on my bed and tried not to move or think, to will myself into a coma, but I couldn’t do it. So plan B: I screamed into my pillow until my throat was raw. Nobody came in to stop me. I tore my room apart, punching holes in anything punchable, then stormed into Melanie’s room to wreck it, too. I think at the time I intended to tear all her clothes in half, one by one, as messed up and random as that sounds, but as soon as I walked in and smelled her scent and saw all her things, the strength spilled out of me and I collapsed face-first on her bed.
I couldn’t really breathe, and I was hoping I might smother to death. But then I realized I was getting snot all over her comforter, so I sat up on the edge of the bed and wiped my nose, and that was when I noticed the untouched stack of new school supplies still left on her nightstand.
I hid the notebook under my mattress that night. I don’t know why, since there wasn’t anything in it yet. I didn’t start writing in it until the next night. That first night I’m sure I wrote some seriously fucked-up stuff. I was pretty raw, and I hadn’t yet found my groove, wasn’t using Die Hard to make it easier. Those pages are bad, no doubt. I don’t want anyone seeing those, especially Mom and Dad.
Thinking about it makes me feel sick.
I squeeze my eyes shut so hard that little lights dance on the back of my eyelids, and that’s when I hear it. At first I mistake the sound for the grinding of my teeth, but then it gets louder and I open my eyes and sit up. I cock my head to listen for it again, but the wind kicks up and for the moment the sound is drowned out by the rustling of the pines around me.
When the wind dies, the sound is back, louder now, and I can clearly hear what it is.
Angry and low and moving toward me, it’s a deep animal growl.
— — —
I’ve always thought of the circle as an oasis of safety from the horse dogs, but it’s only a ring of trees; the dogs could enter it as easily as I do and just as easily chew my legs off. The growling approaches warily from the direction of the road, and I look around desperately for a weapon, but there aren’t even any rocks on the ground.
I remember the heavy flashlight in my bag and fumble with the zipper to try to get it out, but it’s too late; the growl climbs to a howl that turns my spine to ice, and the dog leaps through the trees, a huge shape crashing through the branches, scattering needles and knocking me onto the ground. I scream and try to push it off me, its hot breath on my face as the dog laughs and says, “I’m a monster! I’m a monster and I’m gonna eat you! Yum, yum, yum, yum!”
I shove PJ off my chest and roll onto my knees. “You asshole!” I throw a handful of pine needles at him as he rolls around laughing.
Jake enters the circle with the cool elegance of a model stepping onto a New York City runway, the moonlight shining off his perfectly slicked-back hair. His full lips are pursed into a frown as he brushes needles off his peacoat and draws a dark purple scarf up around his chin.
Jake looks down at PJ and me like we’re a couple of nitwits, which I guess we are.
PJ is laughing so hard he’s practically hyperventilating, stopping every now and then to growl at me again.
“Rar! Roarrr!” He hooks his fingers into claws and grabs my leg as I stand up and kick more pine needles at him.
Jake stares at me without blinking, his heavy eyelids half closed, an expression that always makes me feel like a bug under a magnifying glass. Jake’s eyes are an arresting shade of green, almost spearmint, so large and wide-set they look like alien eyes designed by a special effects team. He has the cold good looks of a fashion model and constantly wears that expression of robotic detachment models have. It makes it hard to read his emotions—although you could flip a coin and guess, since he really has only two moods: bored or angry.
Right now he’s bored. Jake sighs. “You two are the lamest nerds I’ve ever met.”
“It must be pretty embarrassing for you to hang out with us,” I say, “huh?”
“Hell yes. Why do you think I’m sneaking out under cover of darkness like this?”
“I thought it was ’cause you’re a dangerous man on a dark errand.”
“Ha,” Jake says. “That too.”
Jake, PJ, and I are all in tenth grade at Upper Shuckburgh High School, but we met before the school year started, over the summer, just a couple of days after we moved into the new house. I guess it’s surprising that we clicked so quickly after meeting. We’re all so different—PJ is silly and nice, and Jake is serious and cruel—but we all live within walking distance of each other, and our town is so rural, there were hardly any other kids to hang out with over those endless, muggy summer days.
It’s amazing how boredom can bring people together.
I think one thing we have in common, which I didn’t notice until the school year started, is that none of us fit in with the other kids at school. Jake because he’s mean, me because I’m the new kid, and PJ because he’s weird.
Case in point: I reach down to give PJ a hand up from his laughing fit and notice that he’s dressed like a ninja. He’s got the whole getup, all black: hooded face mask, loose cloth jacket and pants tied with a belt, and cloth booties that wrap around his calves. I shoot Jake a glance, and he returns one that confirms, Yes, I know.
PJ pulls his mask down and pushes back his hood, his thick hair bristling up all cockeyed, a goofy grin on his friendly face.
PJ’s real name is Pablo Jaramillo, but that’s way too long, so everyone calls him PJ. He’s the only Puerto Rican kid at our school (Shuckburgh is not the crossroads of the world), which might be hard for some kids, but not PJ. He’s so kind and fun that nobody gives him a hard time. You’d have to be a real asshole to make fun of PJ.
Jake is a real asshole. He nudges me with his elbow. “How do you like PJ’s pajamas?”
“Hey, PJ . . . ,” I begin.
“Yes, Kirby?”
“Where’d you get the, uh . . . ninja . . . clothes?”
He takes off his backpack, which is big, the kind hikers use, and tugs on the loose ends of his belt, tightening the knot. “At the dojo,” he says, like that should be obvious. “Didn’t I tell you I’m taking ninjutsu?”
“You did not. And yet I am not surprised.”
“What’s ninjutsu?” Jake asks, already bored with this conversation. “Some kind of weird sex thing?”
“No,” PJ says, completely missing the insult. He never notices when people are being sarcastic. “Ninjutsu is the ancient Japanese art of stealth and deception.”
He crouches and moves his hands in hypnotic patterns.
“Stealth,” he whispers. “Diversion. Melting into the shadows and disappearing without a trace.”
Jake pulls a pack of cigarettes and a Zippo from the inside breast pocket of his peacoat. The lighter has a bald eagle clutching an American flag on it, the kind of tacky shit that doesn’t fit Jake’s style at all, but his dad is a long-haul trucker and always returns from his trips bearing insane gifts like this: do-rags with skulls
on them and Confederate-flag beach towels. Jake flicks the Zippo open with a flourish that must’ve taken hours to master and lights his cigarette. “I wish you would disappear without a trace right now,” he mumbles.
PJ waves Jake’s cigarette smoke out of his face. “Well, if you want me to, I certainly could—oh!” He freezes and looks over our shoulders, toward the edge of the circle behind us. Eyes wide, he waves nervously. “Hello, Mrs. Burns.”
Crap! Jake and I both spin around—but my mom isn’t there.
Heart racing, I turn back around to yell at PJ. “Geez, PJ, you scared—”
But PJ is gone.
He’s disappeared.
Jake and I look around the circle, but PJ is nowhere to be seen.
I hear a whisper, but I can’t tell where it’s coming from. “Deception . . .” PJ emerges from the pine trees on our left.
I do my famous slow clap, nailing it this time, and Jake sighs and throws his cigarette at PJ, who deftly catches it and then brandishes it at Jake like a tiny sword.
PJ dances around, jabbing the cigarette at Jake. “En garde!”
Jake ignores PJ. His hair fell down over his face when he spun around, and now he smooths it back, trying to hide any evidence that PJ startled him. Jake’s hair is shaved to the bare skin on each side, but it’s long on top, combed back in an oily straight wave like he’s a 1920s bootlegger or something. It looks cool, but no matter how hard he tries to keep it in place, at least one long dark lock always slips down around the edge of his face. Although that looks cool too.
PJ is still feinting and jabbing at Jake with the cigarette, Jake still studiously ignoring him, when I feel a sudden change in the air, that feeling of electricity that charges the humid summer night right before a bolt of heat lightning strikes down, and I know Jake is about to have an episode.
I try to get between them to stop it, but PJ is completely unaware of the danger he’s in and sings, “Taste my blade!”
Jake reaches under the tail of his coat, into the back pocket of his slim slacks. “Taste mine,” he offers blandly, whipping out a knife of his own, a real one, whose blade slides out of the handle in a deadly smooth arc as Jake swings his arm forward, the blade clicking into place with a solid snap!
Jake looks at PJ, his mouth compressed into a line as thin as the blade, his whole body a weapon yearning to fulfill its purpose.
“Whoa, Jake!” I yell, taking a quick step away from him, knowing how in these moments he acts on reflex and will fuck up anything within fucking-up range.
Even Captain Oblivious gets the message. PJ freezes, cigarette held out in one hand, the other hand above his head in a sort of flamenco fencing pose.
Jake steps toward PJ with the knife held at chest level. It’s big, a serious outdoor knife. The handle is matte black, with an American flag on it and a notch for your index finger.
“My dad brought it back for me from a haul he took down to South Carolina last week,” Jake says conversationally, hefting it in his hand. “They’re hard to get around here because technically it’s a gravity knife.”
Jake presses a button on the handle, gives his wrist the slightest snap up, and the blade pivots back into the handle, then a quick snap down and the blade swings out again as slick as a snake flicking its tongue. The blade is short but thick, with a wicked curve near its tip and small grooves along the sides that look like they’re designed to funnel blood in a specific way. It’s the kind of knife a Navy SEAL could fight a shark with, but I’m not worried anymore, because that feeling of static electricity is gone from the air. Jake has terrified the two of us, and that’s enough violence to satisfy his craving for now.
PJ is still frozen with Jake’s cigarette extended, and Jake leans toward it and puckers his lips. PJ carefully places the cigarette in Jake’s mouth as Jake shuts the knife and slides it back into his rear pocket.
I let out a shaky breath, and Jake flashes me a movie-star smile, a Hollywood vampire showing off his fangs for the camera.
Jake can be pretty goddamn charming when he wants to be. He reminds me of a stray cat that used to come around our house in Bethlehem. Silky gray, graceful and sleek, she’d twine herself around my legs, rubbing her cheek against my ankle until I reached down to pet her. She’d let me pet her, loving it, purring like an idling engine—until she’d randomly decide we were done and without warning would turn around and bite the shit out of my hand.
Every day that cat would bite me—and I’d still pet her the next day.
Jake sidles up and slides an arm around my shoulders, shaking me in a manly half hug. He’s always in a good mood after he does something violent.
“You need to relax, Kirby. You worry too much.” He starts talking in a high, whiny voice. “ ‘I’m scared of the horse dogs. I’m scared Jake’s gonna stab PJ. I’m scared of whatever the fuck.’ ”
I pull my phone out. “Right now I’m scared the sun’s gonna come up before we get to the farm. You assholes done sword fighting?”
“Not yet,” PJ says. He turns to face Jake, claps his arms to his sides, and bows stiffly at the waist. “Now we’re done.”
I check my phone. It’s midnight, which is the perfect time for our unholy rituals. Late enough so that we won’t run into any cars on the road, but not so late that we won’t be able to get back before the sun creeps up over that little Blue Mountain range on our right. Also, we still have school in the morning, and I’d like to get a couple hours of sleep.
“Are you guys ready?” I ask. “Want to see the farm?” Jake and PJ crowd around on either side of me, looking down at the phone. I pull up Google Maps and zoom in on the satellite view of a long dirt road that runs down to a couple of buildings on the edge of a field. I tap a little fenced-in area between the biggest building and the field. “That’s the pen there, on the edge of the pasture. I think that’s where the cows will be. It doesn’t look like they have serious fences, and the barn and pen are away from the main road, so we won’t be visible. Oh, and also!” I reach down to grab my bag and shake it, the spray paint rattling inside. “I got some new spray paint. I know the last time we tried spray paint it didn’t work out so well, but . . .”
Jake and PJ exchange a mischievous look.
“What?” I ask.
PJ smiles. “We won’t need those. I’ve got something in my bag too. Something even better.” He kicks his big hiker’s bag with his ninja booty. I can’t tell what’s in the bag, but it looks full.
“What is it? What do you have?” I ask.
Jake smiles too, which is rare enough that now I’m really curious. “Wait till you see what the karate kid brought. I mean, it probably won’t work, but if it does, it’s gonna change the game.”
“What is it?” I ask again, but Jake and PJ both just smile at me. Their moods align as rarely as the sun and moon, and I read this eclipse as a sinister omen.
PJ pulls his ninja mask up over his mouth and lowers his hood, leaving only his brown eyes exposed. They twinkle with delight.
“You’ll see.”
CHAPTER 4
* * *
WE LEAVE THE SHELTER OF the circle, and the rich smell of Jake’s smoke drifts over to me on the wind. PJ tightens the straps on his big book bag and its mystery load. “What’s our course, Captain?”
I consult the map on my phone and stretch my arm out in front of us like a weather vane. “Thatta way,” I say, pointing downhill, luckily away from the horse dogs’ barn.
We creep along the side of the road, toward the stop sign. The night is utterly silent. No traffic noise, because of course there’s no traffic. During our whole walk I’ll be surprised if we see a single car.
We pass the stop sign, and the road makes a hard left into the woods and up over an old stone bridge that crosses a little stream, but Jake, PJ, and I can’t take the bridge because we’d have to make a left turn, and that would break our rules.
“Goddammit,” Jake swears, vainly grabbing onto a slim branch that breaks o
ff in his hand as he slips down the muddy bank. “The bullshit begins already.”
We have a rule about how we walk to the farms: We have to walk in a straight line. Or as close to straight as we can, anyhow, taking into account impassable objects like trees, the inexact measuring capabilities of our own senses, and PJ’s dubious assertion that “your left leg is shorter than your right, so if you try to walk in a straight line long enough, you’ll actually go in a circle.”
I learned about straight-line navigation from flying with Dad. Pilots call it “as the crow flies,” but since the three of us aren’t flying, PJ and I call it “as the penguin walks.” Jake simply calls it, “Better. None of that road bullshit.”
As usual, Jake’s eloquence cuts to the heart of the matter. Not only is walking straight to the farm quicker than walking along the winding country roads, but it’s more fun. We hike through cornfields and sparse forests, and every now and then we have to wade through a stream or fight through a patch of brambles.
One very memorable time our path led right through an old farmhouse. PJ and I agreed that this qualified as an “impassable object” and tiptoed around the side, but when we looked back, Jake wasn’t behind us anymore. When we got to the front of the farmhouse, there he was, walking out the front door and stepping onto the porch, closing the screen door behind him like he lived there. He was munching on an apple, which I guess he grabbed from the kitchen. It scared me pretty bad. We have to keep an eye on Jake. There’s no such thing as an impassable object to him.
The moon still hides behind the clouds, making it hard to see, especially as we climb up the other side of the stream bank and into thick forest. Dead leaves crunch loudly under my boots. I’m glad we’re far away from the horse dogs’ barn.
I look back at PJ and Jake, but only PJ is there.
This Might Hurt a Bit Page 3