Reunion at Walnut Cherryville (The Eternal Feud Book 1)

by Lauren Salem

  “So where are we, really?” I asked.

  “We’re in Iceland.”

  “That’s not what I meant. Where is the imagination room in Walnut Cherryville?”

  “Oh, I’m not going to tell you that. If I told you, you would tell other people, and then the room would become cluttered with thoughts. If there are too many people thinking at once, then the device will break.”

  “Does it display everything I’m thinking about?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “How does it decide what to display and what not to, if I’m thinking about multiple things at once?”

  “It uses an algorithm that breaks down your thoughts into percentages and displays the thought with the highest percentage of brain occupancy.”

  “Did you make this?”

  “No, this room was made by a group of scientists some time ago,” Kenneth explained.

  I rubbed my tummy. “I’m so full,” I said as my dress changed into a bikini. “Hey, I never said you could change my outfit!”

  “Come on, let’s jump off the dock,” Kenneth said, grabbing me from my chair.

  “Really?” I questioned as we walked to the edge. “We just ate. Didn’t your mother ever tell you that you have to wait thirty minutes after you eat before swimming, or you’ll get a tummy ache?”

  Kenneth’s outfit changed into swim trunks. “My mom never tells me things like that. That sounds silly,” he said as he held my hand. “One, two, three…jump!” We jumped into the lagoon together.

  The water was the perfect temperature. A floating lounge chair appeared, so I swam over to it and lay down. The island of spa products floated over to me as Kenneth swam up behind my chair. He placed cucumber slices over my eyes and painted my face with a warm mask that smelled like lavender and chamomile.

  “Why are you doing this for me?” I asked.

  “I just wanted to thank you for cooperating. Most people wouldn’t have done what you did, but that just shows me that you could have a bright future here. You know, this is exactly what I think about when I’m in this room,” he said as he oiled up his hands and massaged my scalp. “I don’t get to spend time in here with company very often. It’s nice, but it gets lonely.”

  “You’re good with your hands.” As Kenneth moved on to massaging my body with a nourishing scrub, I closed my eyes. Somehow, I forgot about everything that was going on, and my mind drifted back to high school…normal high school, not correctional high school.

  * * *

  I stood in the cafeteria lunch line, holding an empty tray as the line inched slowly to the servers. A lunch lady plopped a scoop of lumpy instant mashed potatoes on my plate before pouring a waterfall of brown gravy over it. “Do you have any leaner options?” I asked.

  The server grinned with her fat, crumply face, told me to “move on,” and yelled “next!”

  I was shocked by her attitude. Mashed potatoes and gravy was high in carbs and fat, which wasn’t good for a girl who’s trying to watch her figure. I really needed to lose five pounds…I had some fat on my belly that I couldn’t work off, and I had been doing sit-ups every day for two hours for the past week. My muscles burned, yet I still had a roll when I sat down! It was embarrassing, so I covered it up with my arms when I sat down in school, but it was difficult to hide the bulge in front of a client. Now that I wasn’t the only one seeing my body naked on a regular basis, it was important for me to stay lean. In my first year of business, profits were good. My gifts totaled out to about $1,000 in cash value, but I expected the second year to be even better, which it was, by 300 percent.

  The next server plopped a scoop of stuffing on my plate, followed by two slices of turkey and another waterfall of gravy.

  When I reached the cash register, I grabbed a water bottle (because it was the leanest thing I could find) and paid for my lunch. How was I supposed to lose weight when school lunches were so darn fattening? My tummy rumbled as I walked away from the lunch line.

  Sometimes I got so used to doing the same thing every day that it became a natural instinct. I walked to my usual table, which seemed empty because it was always empty, pulled out my usual chair, and gracefully sat down.

  “Ouch,” a girl said quietly from behind me, “excuse me.”

  What was that? I looked down and noticed that there was a tray full of food underneath mine. Something tapped me on the shoulder, and when I turned around, I realized that I accidently sat on the new girl in school. I didn’t even see her.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said as I stood up. “Are you all right?”

  The awkward girl straightened her round-rimmed glasses and pushed them further up her snout. “I’m all right,” she said as she folded her arms across her chest, placing her hands underneath her armpits.

  This was how I met project Emily. No one noticed Emily, but apparently she had existed in this school for over a month. Why was she suddenly sitting at the table that I used to sit at with clients to chat privately? Emily looked like she was about to cry, and I didn’t want her to make a scene, so I sat down in the chair next to her instead of asking her to move. I lifted my tray off her lunch. “Sorry about your lunch,” I said.

  “Don’t worry about it…It happens all the time,” Emily said as she bit her nails.

  “You shouldn’t bite your nails.” She paused and looked at me with one finger in her mouth. “When you bite your nails, you’re damaging the nail beds. If you keep doing it, your nails will be deformed and dirty, and you won’t be able to grow your nails long again.”

  Emily took her fingers out of her mouth. “Thanks for the tip.”

  “Where do you usually sit for lunch?”

  “I don’t have a usual spot; every day I sit somewhere different until someone tells me to move. I don’t mean to be a bother; I can move if you want.”

  “No it’s fine,” I said. “There’s plenty of room here.”

  The next day at lunch I found Emily sitting at my table alone again. I didn’t understand why she came back. After I sat down at the table, hiding my bulge of course, a group of cheerleaders approached us and made a rude comment.

  “What an unlikely duo, the whore of the school is sitting with the loser of the school.” The cheerleaders laughed.

  “Well, it’s not my fault you can’t satisfy your boyfriend. He came to me,” I said.

  “Oh no, she didn’t!” another cheerleader blurted out.

  “Unlike you, Laura, I’m saving myself for college!”

  “Oh yeah, you told her, girl!”

  “All right, posy squad, that’s enough,” I said. “Leave us alone and go cheer about your virginity elsewhere!”

  The cheerleaders walked away, and Emily looked amazed.

  “That was so cool,” Emily said with a snort at the end. “You’re so confident because you have a boyfriend, and you lost your virginity. I wish I was pretty enough to have a boyfriend.”

  “You are,” I said, without thinking.

  “Really???” she said excitedly. “I really like this guy named Todd who sits in front of me in my English class. He’s so cute, and I’ve been trying to get him to notice me. Yesterday, he turned around in his desk, looked into my eyes, and passed me a take-home quiz. He said, ‘Here you go,’ and I said, ‘Thank you.’ My heart pounded so fast, I thought I was going to die. Can you help me? Can you help me get a date with Todd?”

  Emily was so desperate, I felt bad for her, so I had to say yes. “Sure, I’ll help you.”

  “Yes! Yes!” Emily shouted as she jumped out of her seat and ran into the hall.

  How was I supposed to get Todd to go out with Emily? He was one of my clients. At first, I tried to do it very indirectly by changing Emily’s look like my mother taught me. Her first homework assignment was to buy fake painted nails, contacts, a padded bra, and clothes that didn’t advertise the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. When Emily got nervous and wanted to bite her nails, I told her to act like she was warming her hands in between her thighs
while her legs were crossed. I did that all the time when my hands were cold. Nail biting was disgusting and turned people off.

  Next, I sat with her in the hair salon and told the stylist to chop off her long brown hair and turn it into a bob with bangs. Finally, I touched up my finished product with some makeup while we practiced talking cool. Project Emily was fully functional and ready to go talk to Todd. Emily attempted to talk to Todd a few times, but it didn’t really go anywhere. The best line she got was, “You look different today, Emily.”

  Despite all my efforts to make Emily look and feel confident and attractive, I highly doubted that Todd would agree to go out on a date with her. Todd was a jock, a football player, a young Tom Cruise, and Emily was…well, I was not sure what Emily was. Anyway, one night while I was servicing Todd, I may have bribed him to date Emily.

  For some reason, I liked Emily, and I wanted to see her get what she wanted. I liked that she looked up to me and wanted my help. She wasn’t like the other girls in school who called me a whore because they were jealous or angry. For some reason, girls generally hated me, but Emily didn’t. Before I met Emily, I never had this much positive female attention from anyone else except my mother. Emily said I was “nice, caring, and helpful,” which were the kindest words anyone had ever used to describe me. Todd agreed to go out on one dinner date with Emily to a small restaurant in another town if I gave him a free consultation. It was a done deal. I ate Todd’s fee so Emily could go out on her first date.

  Chapter 25: Collins

  As eight o’clock in the morning approached, the hall became noisy with chitter-chatter and sneakers screeching across the floor. I rubbed my eyes, relieved that I had a good night’s rest. The folded-up lab coats made a much more comfortable bed than the bare concrete floor in the Chair Trials holding cells. I stood up, brushed myself off, and checked to see if the paper clip was still attached before I stepped out into the chaotic hall.

  Scientists flew past me in their white lab coats, carrying manila folders. They must have been heading toward the truck, which would probably leave soon. I followed the busy bees, who led me outside to a parking lot where a cargo truck and a school bus waited. As I waited in line to board the bus, a guard carried around a clipboard and constantly shouted at the scientists, who were all excited to go shopping for new toys.

  “Quiet down. Everyone form a single-file line. All products from the last shipment that need to be returned should be placed in the cargo truck before you get in line. After you check in with the guard at the bus, you must sit in your assigned seat. No switching! The bus and truck will be leaving for the warehouse in five minutes.”

  “Name?” a guard asked me.

  “Col-Albert Johnson,” I said.

  The guard scanned his list, marked me off on his clipboard, and moved on. When I hopped onto the bus, I saw nametags taped over the windows, so I searched for Johnson’s seat. Johnson was assigned to sit in the back, next to someone named Robert Kelso. I took my seat and kept my head down until the bus started moving. It seemed like Robert Kelso was a no-show, so I got extra leg room. I turned my back to the window and propped my legs up on the seat, when I noticed a yellow sticker that read “keep your feet off the seats” placed on the back of the seat in front of me. I ripped the sticker off, folded it up, and tossed it on the floor. Just as the bus began to pull out of the parking lot, I saw a frail scientist with huge bifocal glasses, waving the bus down and running after it.

  “Wait, wait for me,” he yelled as his inventory list slipped out of his coffee-stained manila folder.

  The bus driver hit the brakes, which caused the cargo truck to booty-bump the bus.

  “Sorry I’m late,” the scientist said as he hopped to the bus. He fumbled over everyone who sat near the aisle until he got to my seat.

  I removed my feet from the seat cushion and tried not to make eye contact.

  “Johnson,” he said. “Good to see you. How are things going with your lady friend?”

  Oh, great…Robert Kelso is an annoying klutz. The bus closed its doors once again and began to drive away. This time we made it out of the parking lot with no interruptions. After I answered Kelso’s questions with simple, one-word answers like “good” for almost thirty minutes, the scientists started to play a road game. Each person looked out the window when it was their turn, picked an object outside, and had to name the periodic elements that created the object. I was still having trouble with chemistry, so hopefully we would reach the warehouse before it was my turn. Even if I could make better than a C in chemistry, I’d still look dumber than actual scientists who had been through college and grad school, and had doctorates and work experience. That was pretty much everyone on this bus except me.

  “Sand,” a woman started out. “Silicon dioxide.”

  It didn’t take long for a bus full of scientists to rattle off what they knew. Twenty minutes later it was my turn, and I couldn’t think of anything to say. “I’m not feeling well. Can I skip my turn?” Everyone insisted that I had to take my turn, so I gazed out the window looking for something someone else hadn’t already said. “Air…oxygen and carbon dioxide.”

  The bus became awkwardly silent, and my eyes darted around, trying to read their faces. What was wrong?

  “Are you sure you’re not missing any elements, Johnson?” Kelso asked.

  “Like I said, I’m really under the weather right now, and I’m not thinking clearly. What am I missing?”

  “Air is composed of nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and carbon dioxide.”

  “Oh, thank you, my mistake,” I said before they moved on to the scientist behind me.

  “Do you need some Tylenol or Advil?” Kelso asked. “I have some in my lab coat somewhere.” He started to search his pockets.

  “No, thanks, I’ll be fine.” I banged my head against the window. That stupid game almost revealed my identity. What’s the point of looking like Albert Johnson if I can’t talk like Albert Johnson? I needed to pick his brain.

  Two failed attempts at playing the game and four hours later, we arrived at the warehouse. The large white brick building was surrounded by a fence with signs that read “no trespassing.” The bus driver stopped at the entrance of the gate and typed a code into the keypad. The gates opened, and he drove up to the front of the warehouse, parked the bus, and opened the doors.

  I wanted to run out of the bus and hide somewhere because I made myself look stupid. I might have looked like Johnson, but I was sure someone was suspicious of me…How did a scientist’s assistant forget the elements that made up air, clouds, and wood? It was so embarrassing, and there Kelso was, bragging about grass! “Grass is made of chlorophyll, cellulose, and water. The elements include carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen,” I imagined Kelso saying in a nagging voice.

  Hey, look at the upside…I’ve escaped Walnut Cherryville once again! How many people could say that they escaped Walnut Cherryville twice and live to tell about it? Not very many people and possibly only me. Now all I have to do is lose these scientist suckers.

  Everyone shuffled off the bus and was given exactly one hour to collect the materials on their inventory lists from the warehouse. Like Walnut Cherryville, the warehouse was located in a secluded sandy area that was miles away from the nearest highway. Based on the road signs I saw during the drive, my best guess was that the warehouse was located somewhere around Kingman, Arizona.

  When I entered the warehouse, I pretended to look through the aisles as I searched for a back door. The other scientists were prancing around the aisles, marking boxes like a bride-to-be making her registry list at Bed Bath & Beyond. All of a sudden, a crumpled yellow piece of paper came out of nowhere and hit my forehead. I picked the paper up off the floor, opened it, and read the note quietly to myself.

  “Congratulations! You escaped death. Now I need your help. If you agree to help, then I will leave you alone and return you to your normal life. If you refuse to help, then you will return to Walnut Cherryville. Take your
pick…Rip this paper once to help and twice to refuse.” I had no idea what I was getting myself into or if I could even trust this yellow-paper pusher. I guessed I just had to do what they say and hope for the best. I ripped the paper once, and another crumpled yellow paper fell on my head. “It’s about time we should meet. Go use the restroom.” Well, I didn’t really have to go yet…

  “Hey, Kelso, where’s the restroom?” I asked.

  “Walk down this aisle to the back wall and turn left. Follow the back wall down to the end,” Kelso answered. “I hope you’re all right. You seem really forgetful today. You should see the doctor when we get back home.”

  Was he calling Walnut Cherryville home? That was crazy…He must have been part of the small percentage of people who actually wanted to live there. I followed Kelso’s directions and found the restroom, which was a porta potty. When I opened the door, I saw another yellow note on the toilet seat that said “move the restroom.” I closed the door and looked around to make sure no one was watching before I moved the porta potty away from the wall, which revealed a tall, skinny hole. The hole was rectangular-shaped, about six feet tall, and just wide enough for me to slip through if I entered it side first. There was a jump rope taped on to the back wall of the porta potty, which was tightly secured. After I slipped through the hole in the wall, I pulled the rope to move the porta potty back in place.

  “Hello,” a familiar voice said, startling me. It sounded like Johnny, but that wasn’t possible because Johnny was dead. I turned around and saw Johnny sitting on a pile of white painted bricks. He looked good and healthy for a man who died from electrocution a few days ago.

  “Ho-ho-holy shit,” I stuttered. “You’re alive…Johnny, is that really you?” I reached out and touched his face, and it felt warm and prickly.

  “Come on, help me put these bricks back in place,” Johnny said as he stood up and grabbed an armful of bricks. While he began to fill the hole with bricks, I stood frozen.