Lauren hesitates for a moment, then reaches into her bag and takes out an antique pocket watch. She holds it out to me. “Here. Just go with it, okay?”
I’m not exactly sure what she’s getting at but I hold my hand out all the same. Lauren drops the watch into my palm and it’s surprisingly heavy. I rub my thumb across the cover, its brass finish tarnished with age. I click it open to discover it’s actually a compass. The needle swivels.
“So, talk,” Lauren says.
“About what?”
“I don’t know, whatever comes to mind. Try closing your eyes.”
I glance at the old compass again. “Seriously?”
“Why not? Go on, just give it a shot and see what happens.”
I wonder if I’m about to make a fool of myself. I check Lauren’s eyes to be sure but she’s not having fun at my expense.
“Okay, sure,” I say.
I hold the compass and close my eyes. Then I continue to sit there with my eyes closed, trying not to feel ridiculous. It’s hard not to think about my own stuff, or Lauren, or the people I hear talking at nearby tables. I imagine them looking at me and wondering what’s wrong with me. But then the voices and music fade and I see the compass inside my mind. I don’t really even feel it in my hand anymore. There’s just this image of the compass floating in darkness, its brass edges glowing.
At first, nothing else comes. But then I see the needle start to quiver, then move. It shifts toward the north, then trembles again and points between north and west. Images of cloudy skies, rivers and bridges appear for no reason I can think of. Just random pictures hitting my brain like rain striking against a roof. It feels like dreaming while wide awake. Then I see an old brick apartment building with moss clinging to windowsills and ivy growing up the side. My focus goes to one of the windows, where a guy stands looking out at the sky. He looks older than us, maybe in his early twenties, with short dark hair and tattooed forearms. Whoever he is, I’ve never seen him before. That’s as far as I get before I open my eyes again.
Lauren sits watching me. “What do you have?”
“Nothing, really,” I say. “Just random stuff.”
She has no problem with that. “So, tell me.”
As I describe the series of images, I expect her to shrug and agree that none of it means anything. Instead, she goes pale. She puts the compass back into her bag, then takes another sip of her espresso. After a moment, she looks at me again. “So, your friend, Gary—he told you where he got the guitar?”
I can’t see what the Telecaster has to do with the compass but, okay, we’re back to the guitar again. “He said he got it from the janitor at the elementary school.”
Lauren pushes strands of hair away from her face. “Wait, you mean Old Angelo?”
“Yeah, I know. But that’s what Gary said.”
Lauren thinks for a moment. “Okay, weird, but we start there and see where it goes. How does that sound?”
The two of us starting something together sounds just fine to me.
6
Bringing Medicine to the Maintenance Engineer
On Monday, Lauren meets me after school in front of Evergreen Elementary. She scans the building and I wonder what she’s thinking. Her expression doesn’t give anything away but I remember kids making fun of her. I feel bad now for not sticking up for her. I didn’t know her but that doesn’t make it okay.
“Wow, never thought I’d be here again,” she says.
“I know. It’s weird,” I say, to fight off the sinking feeling. “So, how do we explain our being here?”
Lauren taps her chin. “Kind of a deep question. I guess some would attribute it to natural selection. Others to creationism.”
Nice. I laugh even though she’s messing with me again. “I meant here, specifically.”
Lauren raises an eyebrow. “I guess maybe we just walk in and make something up? After all, we are in high school now. We must be smart enough to pull that off.”
We walk through the front doors and get about four feet before being stopped by a cranky middle-aged woman. “Can I help you?” Given her tone, scowl and penetrating gaze, it comes across more like, Can I kill you? I have no doubt that, to her, we’re the rocker guy and the goth girl. School administrators have dreams about shoving kids like us off cliffs—dreams from which they wake up smiling.
“Hi, Mrs. Evans. How are you?” Lauren offers a warm smile.
Cranky Mrs. Evans frowns. “Do I know you?”
“You don’t remember me?”
Mrs. Evans’ expression softens a bit. “Oh, no. I’m sorry—”
“Cassandra Delvechio! I went to school here. Seriously, you don’t remember?”
“Not exactly,” Mrs. Evans says. “I mean, your name does seem familiar but—”
“My grandfather.”
Mrs. Evans cocks her head. “I’m sorry?”
“Grandpa Anthony!”
Lauren has managed to make a woman evidently made of ice start to blush with discomfort. Mrs. Evans glances down the hall as if help should arrive.
“He’s the maintenance engineer,” Lauren says.
“Maintenance engineer?” Mrs. Evans’ face continues to grow red.
I clear my throat, catch her eye, and pantomime mopping the floor behind Lauren’s back.
Mrs. Evans’ eyes shoot back to Lauren. “Oh,you mean Old Anth—Mr. Delvechio. Are you here to see him?”
Lauren nods happily. Again the friendly smile.
“He’s here, I think, somewhere.” Mrs. Evans swivels her head as if she can see through walls.
Lauren takes her phone from her pocket. “Gym,” she says. “He called me. He left his medicine in my mother’s car.”
“Okay, I see. He must be in the gym. Do you know how—I mean, you must still know how to get there.”
“Of course,” Lauren says. “Thanks!”
We walk down the hall and around the corner.
“I don’t remember her,” I say.
Lauren shrugs. “Never saw her before.”
“How did you know her name?”
“Name tag,” she says. “Must be a volunteer. You need to be more observant. Did you notice how she didn’t even know my grandfather’s name?”
“He’s not really your grandfather.”
“Just a technicality. In that scenario, he was my grandfather and she didn’t know him. Why? Because he’s the janitor. Snob. Like she’s better than my grandfather. I can’t stand people like that.”
The funny thing is, she really does seem pissed off. At the same time, I have to agree. What’s with people like Mrs. Evans?
Strangely, we actually do find Anthony in the gym—where, as it turns out, he’s mopping the floor. Maybe that isn’t so strange. What’s strange and what isn’t seems to be changing rapidly. Of course, Lauren knew her grandfather-not-grandfather would be in the gym. After all, he just called her, right? I half-expect Old Anthony to run over and hug her when he becomes aware of us but that doesn’t happen. Instead, he squints in our direction.
But at least he smiles. Ten points ahead of Mrs. Evans already. “You two lost or something? Nothing going on here this afternoon, that I know of.”
Lauren steps closer to me and whispers, “You’re on, Pajama Boy.”
It takes me a second but then I say, “Hi, Mr. Delvechio.”
“Hello,” he says.
“Um, my name is Jack Atkinson.”
“Brilliant start,” Lauren whispers.
Anthony studies me for a moment, sets his mop into its bucket and walks toward us. “Jack Atkinson. Sure, I remember you.”
Not what I expect at all. Why would he remember me?
Anthony smiles again. Surprisingly white teeth gleam beneath his gray moustache. “You made that poster, right?”
Amazing. Somehow, Anthony remembers that about me. It seems like so long ago but, before becoming a musician, I’d been an aspiring artist. My tools of the trade at the time were all produced by Crayola and m
y enthusiasm greatly exceeded my skill but I’d still contributed. One year, a poster I made featuring happy, smiling kids won the annual “School Reflections” art contest and got taped to a wall in the cafeteria.
“You remember my poster?”
“Sure, I always read the kids’ names. Every year.” Anthony taps his forefinger against his temple. “But yours, I never forgot. Can you maybe think why?”
I try to remember and nothing comes at first, but then it hits me. I included Anthony in the background alongside the teachers. It seems strange that he’d been “Old Anthony” even then—the stranger part being he looks basically the same ten years later. But I can see it now, how I drew him with his gray curly hair, thick black eyebrows and big smile. No wonder he seems to like me.
“I think I might remember why,” I say.
“So, you remember!” Anthony’s smile broadens even more. “Yeah, that was my favorite. So, what can I do for you two?”
“Well, we kind of wanted to talk to you about your Telecaster.”
Anthony’s brow furrows. “Tele-what?”
Right there, I know he can’t be a musician. You never know, of course, but that felt off to begin with. Still, I push on. “The guitar you traded in at Edmonds Music. I own it now. Traded for it, really, not that it matters. Anyway, I was just—”
Anthony shakes his head. “Sorry, what are you talking about?”
“An electric guitar,” I say. “Listen, maybe I got something wrong.”
His smile fades. “Oh, that thing. Sure. Look, if there’s something wrong with it, I don’t want to hear about it. I was just getting rid of it. I traded it in and got a new flute for my granddaughter.”
“How old is your granddaughter?” I can’t resist shooting Lauren a look. She narrows her eyes back at me.
“She’s ten, just last week. Little sweetheart. Anyway, like I said, if there’s some sort of problem with the guitar, I can’t help you.”
“The guitar’s fine,” I say. “I was just wondering if you might know where it came from.”
A few seconds pass before he says, “You don’t want to go there. Not if there’s a problem. Or for anything else. Just take it back to the music store.”
“No, really,” I say. “It’s nothing like that.” I think for a moment, then take inspiration from Lauren’s performance with Mrs. Evans. “It’s just this superstitious musician thing, that you should know the history of an instrument. It’s supposed to bring you luck. That’s all. No big deal.”
“Never heard of that before,” Anthony says. “You’re being straight with me, right?”
“Absolutely.”
Still, he waits before speaking. “It belonged to my youngest. Victor.”
The way he says it, I wonder if something bad happened. Thankfully, I don’t have to ask.
“He borrowed money from me without paying me back. Like always. Told me he couldn’t come up with it even when I told him I needed it to pay my bills. What do you think he does?”
Anthony waits for me to answer. “I don’t know,” I admit.
“He gives me that stupid guitar and tells me I should sell it. Can you believe that?”
Again, the pause. “No?”
“Right, neither could I! Why doesn’t he sell it and give me the money, right?”
This time I don’t wait. “Right, exactly.”
Anthony points at my face. “That’s what I told him! Then he tells me he doesn’t have the time. He sure had enough time to bother me for money when he needed it, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“You better believe he had enough time for that!” Anthony shakes his head in disgust and, thankfully, stops pointing at my face. “You raise a boy and you’d think he’d be responsible enough to get his life together. Not Victor. In and out of trouble for as long as I can remember. Breaks my heart, but I’m done with him.”
I have no idea what to say but this time Anthony doesn’t wait for me to react.
“He can just stay on devil hill for the rest of his life if it suits him. As long as he doesn’t come along bothering me for money anymore.”
I wait to be sure there isn’t more coming, then say, “I’m sorry, Mr. Delvechio. I hope things work out.”
“Yeah, me too. Listen, sorry about all that. Like I should be telling you about my problems. Glad to hear you like the guitar.”
“I do,” I say. “It was nice seeing you again.”
Anthony’s smile returns. “I always liked that poster you made. My very favorite, no doubt about it.”
~~~
A few minutes later, we’re outside again and walking toward the street.
“I guess that didn’t exactly work out,” I say.
“I don’t know,” Lauren says. “I mean, we learned a little.”
“Not sure I’m with you.”
Lauren glances over at me. “Well, there was that thing about devil hill.”
Actually, that phrase had sort of jumped out at me when Anthony said it but I assumed it was just an unfamiliar expression. Clearly, Lauren’s thinking something else.
“Nothing?” Lauren says.
I know her at least enough now to suspect a raised eyebrow. Sure enough, the eyebrow goes up. “Got nothing,” I admit.
“Maybe Kill Devil Hills?”
Damn, she’s right. How had I not made that connection? “As in the Outer Banks,” I say.
“Pretty safe bet. Can you think of any way for us to get to North Carolina?”
I give it a few moment’s thought since I know what it means otherwise. But there’s just no way. “Not likely,” I admit.
Lauren nods, her hair falling down around her face. She pushes it back again. “Yep, exactly. Looks like a done deal.”
After that, we walk across the parking lot in silence. When we reach the street, the silence suddenly feels awkward. “Well, it was worth a try,” I say.
Lauren nods. “It was, definitely. Keep remaining open to things, okay? You never know.”
She hoists her backpack farther onto her shoulder. She starts walking down the road in the opposite direction from where I’m going. When she reaches the corner, she stops and looks back.
I’m still standing there. Obviously, I’ve been watching her walk away. My face grows warm but Lauren doesn’t frown or shoot me a knowing look. She just gives a wave and calls out, “Good luck, Pajama Boy!” Then she starts walking again without looking back a second time.
7
Away We Go
On day four, I’m doing my best to keep rowing at ten in the morning. I’m still groggy from staying up last night, playing through a headphone practice amp long after my fellow Leaders in Training stopped talking and called it a day. My face is dripping sweat, my T-shirt already soaked through from both humidity and exertion. I try to ignore my canoe team as they keep badgering me to get in the game since we’re losing. Not that this is a race, officially, since the camp claims all activities to be non-competitive. The five twelve-year-old boys in my boat don’t seem particularly concerned about being respectful of my status as an “LIT.” Evidently, they see it pretty much the same way I do. Just three more days to go.
Last year was my first as a “Leader in Training” and I’d briefly hoped that I’d at least be treated even somewhat like an adult. Not the case, I quickly learned. We’re bound by the same rules as the younger campers. We sleep in cabins without air conditioning alongside a bunch of smelly guys who love sports. We can’t bring computers or use cell phones except at specified times on weekends. We use the same bathroom shower facility that smells like a rotting whale carcass. And, of course, we eat the same horrific food. The only actual difference between being a camper and an LIT is that LITs have additional responsibilities (meaning, we do what the counselors tell us to). I have no idea why this would impress any college. If anything, I wonder if it might have the opposite effect. Who, after all, would be stupid enough to volunteer for this?
Still, all I have
to do is survive the situation for the rest of the week. And there won’t be a next time, that’s for sure. This time next year, I’ll be preparing for college. I’ll be eighteen. I try not to think about the possibility that my parents might insist I return as a counselor. I know for a fact, though, that some of the counselors are here as forced labor. Their parents refuse to keep paying tuition if they don’t work a summer job. The counselors are not just stuck here for a week—they’re here for the summer. I have a really bad feeling about this but I keep telling myself it won’t happen to me.
Suddenly, a megaphone blast squawks across the lake. “Counselor for cabin sixteen! Tony! Can you hear me?” I recognize the voice as belonging to Rick, one of the other counselors.
Naturally, our counselor, Tony, is in the canoe out front. His team has a slight advantage in that Tony is nineteen and built like the cover of Men’s Health. He cups his hands around his mouth and calls back, “Yo, what’s up?” Which, for Tony, is a fairly complex response.
Rick’s megaphone sounds again. “We need Jack Atkinson!”
“Who?”
“Jack Atkinson! He’s one of your LITs!”
Tony hasn’t bothered to learn my name. We’re not exactly soul brothers. He looks around. “One of you guys Atkinson?”
I raise my hand and wave from our canoe.
“Found him!” Tony calls back to Rick.
“Someone from his family is here!” Rick says.
“Okay, I’ll tell him!”
“Tony, I’m using a megaphone! He knows already!”
“Okay!”
“Send him back!” Even through the distorted megaphone, I hear Rick’s frustration.
My young charges give me death stares on the way back as if I’ve caused us to lose a race that technically wasn’t taking place. On top of that, we were running dead last. But it isn’t like I care. All I keep thinking is that if someone from my family is here, it must mean some sort of emergency. We paddle toward shore and I keep searching for my mother or father but it’s still just Rick standing there with his megaphone.
We bump against the pier and I jump out of the canoe. I don’t look back as I drop my oar, hopefully on someone’s head. “What’s going on?”
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