“You already made the blog?”
“Yeah. It’s a WordPress template. And there were only six listings to set up. So far,” I added, getting the impression I was working too quickly. I don’t know why she was freaking out. All I did was copy and paste the stuff she sent me for the flyers. Bolded a line or two.
“Show me.”
I did. And her jaw dropped a little more with each blog post. “I didn’t know you could print a blog page. That is so clever. It takes me, like, an hour to make a flyer.”
I tried not to smile. “You didn’t have the blog, though,” I said. “The blog will make things easier.”
She shrugged. “Still. You wrote blog posts for six properties already. And I wouldn’t even know how to make a blog or where to look to find a blog template. What are you doing now?”
“I was going to schedule Tweets for the listings.”
“You can schedule Tweets?”
“Sure. Using TweetDeck.”
She rolled her eyes. “Technology, I swear. Schedule the Tweets, then come help me. Please.”
So I scheduled the Tweets, then Jessica showed me how to create a new listing packet. The phone rang so often, I think I did half her work that day. Once I got the hang of things around here, I wasn’t going to have any trouble snooping around the place.
****
Basketball camp started that night. With my knee still in recovery, I couldn’t do much with the team. It was depressing to stand around and watch everyone have fun without me. It made me realize how much I needed to play. To be back on that court. It was a part of who I was.
It just meant I needed to work harder.
I shot free throws at a side basket most of the night. Did a bit of dribbling. I was only allowed to jog, so I couldn’t get too active. Still, it felt good to be on the floor with a ball in my hands.
Because of my new job and basketball camp, I had to push back physical therapy to 7:00 p.m. I arrived at C Camp with a dozen questions for Mario. “Do you think I could run plays with them? I mean, like, try running?”
“No running yet, Spencer,” Mario said. “Soon, though. You have a copy of Doc Landry’s protocol timeline. You’re mostly on track with it. You’re not going to speed way ahead of schedule, if that’s what you’re thinking. We’re in phase four, but phase four is the longest. It’ll be another two weeks before you can start running. That’s nothing, really. You’re almost there.”
“Yeah, but camp will be over by then.”
“Camp is not the most important thing. Camp is not the goal. The season is the goal, and we’ll have you ready for the season. Be patient and stick to the plan, okay?”
I hung my head. “Okay.”
“None of that Gloomy Gus business. You’ve got the extension back. Your range of motion is good. You’re working harder than any athlete I’ve ever known. But more is not always better. We do everything with a purpose. Just being busy and sweating doesn’t mean you’re doing something productive. Running isn’t the most important thing right now.”
“It feels like it should be,” I said. “Like running would mean I’m almost healed.”
“Strength is what matters right now. It won’t return magically. We’ve got a plan to gain your strength back by lifting, doing leg presses, doing weighted squats. Your hamstrings are still significantly weaker than your quads. We need to correct that. Every muscle works together. Every muscle is important. It takes time for everything to return to normal, for your strength to return to normal, your function to return to normal, for that ACL to establish itself as a part of your body and not just this foreign object that’s in there. Keep your eye on the end goal. We’ll get there.”
Right, right. Eye on the end goal.
Easier said than done, though.
****
By Friday I’d completed adding all the property listings to the blog and printed flyers for each, I filed pretty much every sheet of paper from the box Jessica had dropped that first day, and Jessica had me answering the phone for her while she was on the other line interviewing people who were interested in selling their homes.
An hour before I was supposed to leave, I asked Jessica for a listing of all their open properties, which she gave me without question. There were sixteen commercial properties open in Pilot Point. I needed to set up cameras in each if I was going to learn what was going on. I emailed Prière from my phone and asked him for gear.
Ron and Anita must have called in twenty times each that day, but neither came in to the office. They were all too busy to pay any attention to what I was doing.
Old people should really learn how to use computers—especially if they were breaking the law.
This mission was going to be easy peasy.
Then the door opened and in came Kimatra Patel.
I stared at her, completely shocked.
What was she doing here?
Her eyes met mine and flashed with something like guilt. She recovered nicely and lit up in a glorious smile worthy of the cover of Cosmopolitan.
“Spencer, right?” she asked. “Nick’s friend?”
“Yeah, that’s me,” I said, fighting to keep a straight face because Nick and I were so close.
“I almost didn’t recognize you since your Facebook profile picture is Kobe Bryant. You work here?”
“It’s an internship for school.”
“And he’s been invaluable,” Jessica said from her desk. “I have your list right here, Ms. Patel.” She opened three drawers before finding what she was looking for. She stood and walked around the desk. Kimatra met her half way, and Jessica handed her a sheet of paper. “The combos for the lock boxes are listed here. If you have any problems at all, please give me a call.”
“Thank you,” Kimatra said. “I’m sure it will be fine.”
“Great. Just shred that paper when you’re done with it.”
“Will do.” Kimatra passed by my desk on her way back to the door. She trailed her long pink fingernails over the laminate. “Bye, Spencer.”
“Yeah, bye.” I watched her go. The moment the door shut, I asked Jessica, “Does she work for the Sayles?”
“No, she the sales manager for SnackCo. They operate most of the vending machines in Pilot Point. They pay us a royalty rate to put their machines on our properties. It might not sound like much, but it adds up.”
“You put vending machines inside empty buildings?”
“They’re not all empty buildings. We have several suites that are inside larger buildings. In those cases, the vending machines are located in the lobby. And on our properties with high pedestrian foot traffic, the vending machines sit out front.”
Well, that explained why Nick was loading vending machines, but it didn’t shed any light on Kimatra. Why would a beautiful actress work for a vending machine company and date Nick? Maybe she needed a steady job because of the baby. But the connections between Kimatra and MacCormack, Kimatra and vending machines on Sayle Real Estate properties, and my assignment here said there was more to the story than that. And I was going to find out what.
****
It’s dark. I fumble, find a light switch near the door, flip it on.
Beer cans pepper the kitchen and living room floor. Seventies rock music blares over the stereo system, urging me not to fear the reaper. I feel like he’s nearby, though. The room reeks of danger in the form of mildew, body odor, and alcohol. I find the stereo and click it off. I move down a long hallway.
In a back room, just inside the doorway, a girl’s body lies twisted in an unnatural shape. Her blond hair is matted with blood. The room smells foul.
I crouch and brush the hair off of the girl’s broken face. Her nose is bleeding and one eye is swollen shut. A sleeve of her blouse is torn half off, and her arm bends the wrong way at her side.
“Grace!”
I sat up in my bed, panting, glanced at the floor. Grace wasn’t there. This was my room. My house, not hers. The realization that I’d been dreaming d
awned slowly, flooding me with relief. I fumbled for my journal, which now lived under my pillow, and instantly my hands knew the shape and feel was wrong.
Not my journal. This was the new one. Mine was still lost.
I pulled it out, cursed, and threw the thing across my room. I needed my old one. I needed to look for a pattern in my dreams about Grace. How else was I supposed to stop this?
I froze as a thought paralyzed me. What if I couldn’t stop it? What if it was happening right now?
That thought sent me scrambling for my phone. I felt under the blankets, couldn’t find it. I checked the floor beside my bed, tossed my pillow aside, clicked on my lamp.
Where was it?
I climbed out of bed and shook my blankets until the phone thudded to the floor. I fell to my knees, gasped a little when my bad knee pinched, and slid onto my rear, stretching my leg out in front. Careful, Garmond.
My hands were shaking as I opened my contacts and tapped on Grace’s name.
I texted: You okay? Then sat back against the door to catch my breath and wait for a reply.
Then I caught sight of the time on my phone: 3:06 a.m.
Oh man. I felt stupid. In my haze I’d overreacted. All I knew was that I’d had this dream multiple times, and it had yet to happen.
That meant it likely would happen.
I just wished I knew when.
REPORT NUMBER: 8
REPORT TITLE: I Make Rope Out of Weeds
SUBMITTED BY: Agent-in-Training Spencer Garmond
LOCATION: Grandma Alice’s House, Pilot Point, California, USA
DATE AND TIME: Saturday, June 9, 6:30 a.m.
No sleeping in Saturday morning. Us agents-in-training were supposed to meet at Verdugo Mountain Park at eight for the Cordage OST class. My alarm woke me at 6:30. My eyes stung. I needed more sleep. But I hadn’t stayed up particularly late, so why was I . . . Oh, right. The dream I’d had last night. And the way-too-early text to Grace. I checked my phone. No reply, but I was supposed to pick her up this morning, so I’d know soon enough if she was okay.
I left my house at 7:20 and drove over to Ghettoside.
I’m here, I texted once I’d arrived.
mom and dad at wrok. dors open. come in, she texted back.
Oh-kay. So she was alive. I got out of the car and walked up to her door, feeling all nervous. No parents home, alone with this girl of my dreams—literally . . . Truth was, I liked Grace too much to do or say anything stupid.
Best behavior, Garmond.
I let myself in and staggered. I was walking through my nightmare. Partially. There was no seventies rock music playing and morning light filtered through the windows. The place was a dive, though, musty and stale. Worn brown carpet. Dingy walls. Messy, too. I spotted a cluster of beer cans on the kitchen counter.
“Grace?” I called out.
“In here!”
I took a deep breath and headed back, walking the familiar hallway from my dream. I stopped at the end. The doorway to the room where I’d found Grace in my dream, was closed. On the opposite side, the door to her room stood open. In comparison to the rest of the house, the room seemed bright, as if I’d left black-and-white Kansas for Technicolor Oz.
I looked in the door. Wearing jeans and a purple hoodie, Grace stood before a framed mirror on the wall, working her hair into a ponytail. I caught sight of the gold chain around her neck that held her crucifix. The one she wore backwards so that Jesus would always be looking at her heart.
She seemed okay to me.
“How’s Harry?” I asked.
She glanced my way. “I’m not ready yet. Come in and sit down.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I stepped inside, glanced at her bed, which was covered with a purple and purpler blanket, shifted my gaze to her desk—a pile of folded laundry already occupied the chair—and finally spotted a little red wooden chair in the corner. I played it safe and walked toward the chair.
I had half squatted to sit when she shrieked, “Not there!”
I popped up and turned to examine the chair. Looked sturdy enough.
“That’s Jesus’s chair,” she said.
Whaa? “Harry’s pillow, Jesus’ chair… Anything in this room yours?”
A scowl. “Don’t make fun. That chair is my reminder to make a place for Jesus in my life.”
Wow, okay. So if Jesus was sitting on the chair, that meant I had to sit on the bed. Wish I could ask Jesus how he felt about that. I got the feeling he’d gladly trade me spots to help keep my head in the game.
I perched on the edge of the bed and tried not to stare at her too much. It kind of made me ache, she was that pretty. No bruises, that I could see, so that was good.
I made myself look elsewhere. The wall opposite her bed had a ballerina poster and a poster of Gabby Douglas doing the splits in the air two yards above a balance beam. Ouch. Some princess dolls lined a shelf above Grace’s bed. A TobyMac poster was taped to the back of the door. The walls were purple, the carpet too.
She ducked into her closet, returned with her Miami Heat hat, which she pulled over her head, tucking her ponytail into the hole on the back. “Let’s go.”
“Miami already lost Game One,” I said. “I don’t know if I can ride with that hat. It’s embarrassing.”
“Try,” she said, leaving me alone in her room.
All-righty then. I glanced at Jesus’s chair, raised my eyebrows. I felt he understood my plight. Grace liked calling the shots. “You don’t have to sit there just because she tells you to,” I told Jesus, grinning as I left the room. I rather liked the idea that Grace tried to boss Jesus as much as she bossed everyone else.
In the car, however, she became a mute. Had my middle of the night text freaked her out? I wasn’t about to bring it up. I strained my brain for something to say.
“How was working with my grandma last week?”
“Fine.”
Oh. Great. Thanks for sharing. “I still haven’t met Ron and Anita,” I said. “But Jessica keeps me plenty busy. I really didn’t want to get up this morning, though. Between working and basketball camp, I’m so tired.”
“You had basketball camp last week?” she asked.
“Yeah. Well, I went to it. I barely participated. It was depressing to watch everyone play and not be able to join in. I’m glad it’s over.”
“We have cheer camp in two weeks,” Grace said. “Eli is going to come.”
“To take pictures?”
“Nooo,” she said, like I was a complete moron. “He’s going to cheer this year. He’s the first guy to join the team in thirteen years, coach says.”
Wow. “That’s super.”
“He’ll mostly be working with me,” Grace said, ignoring my sarcasm. “Lifting me and throwing me.”
And touching her way too much. I could feel my eyebrows sinking low on my forehead, like they had somehow grown very heavy and might slide off my face.
“Spencer? You okay?”
“Just trying to remember where the turn is.” Liar! I was such a liar. I mean, I just didn’t get it. Why was she messing with me?
We rode in silence after that. I found the turn and drove up the Verdugo Mountainway until we reached the picnic area where Mr. S had asked everyone to meet. There were four cars there already. Sadly, all the shady spots had been taken. I parked beside Isabel’s Focus. Grace hopped out and ran off. I hit my head against the steering wheel a few times, wondering why girls were so hard to understand.
Once I had composed myself, I rolled down all the windows in hopes that we wouldn’t suffocate on the drive home, then I got out and went to join everyone.
Mr. S was standing between four picnic tables. Grace had sat with Isabel and Arianna, even though that table was clearly made up of the Diakonos Team. Whatever. I sat beside Gabe, across from Lukas, who waggled his eyebrows my way.
One night when he was sleeping, I was going to sneak into his house and shave them off. They were brown again—his hair too—and he’d
shaved the goatee. He looked almost normal, so no eyebrows would be a major setback for the hipster.
“Now that everyone is here, let’s get started,” Mr. S said. “There’s a saying among survivalists. ‘Rope brings hope.’ I can’t stress enough how important cordage is to wilderness survival. It’s a source of life. Why is that, do you think?”
Arianna raised her hand. “To lash things together? Like when you build a shelter?”
Mr. S nodded. “Good, what else?”
“Tie sticks into an emergency stretcher,” Nick said. “Or even a splint.”
“You can hang up your food, so bears don’t get it,” Drew said.
“And use it to fish,” Lukas said. “And set snares.”
“Yes, all good answers,” Mr. S said. “Keep going.”
“You need rope to make your own bow drill,” Gabe said. “To start a fire.
“Make a bow?” Luke—El McWilly—said. “For a bow and arrows?”
“You could,” Mr. S said.
“Wouldn’t it be like any string?” Samantha said. “I mean, thread and yarn can be used to make clothing and blankets and rugs and mats and stuff like that. You could weave it or crochet it or knit it. Even make nets.”
“Absolutely, Agent Floyd.” Mr. S gestured to the grassy hills. “What might one find out here to use to make cordage?”
“Grass?” I said.
“Any kind of plant that is bendable?” El McWilly asked.
“Roots?” Samantha said.
“Sure,” Mr. S said, “though roots can sometimes be harder to find since they’re buried.”
“My dad made string out of sinew from an elk he shot,” Drew said.
“Eww,” Isabel said.
“Sinew is an excellent source of cordage,” Mr. S said. “It’s extremely strong. And you won’t think hunting is so gross when you’re stranded in the forest and starving. Drew, do you know where to find sinew on an animal?”
“Uh, around the joints and bones, I think,” he said.
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