by Andre Fenton
“My intuition says this is the spot,” I said, trying to find a place to park.
“Your intuition is right,” Tia replied. “So, what’s your plan with the journal?”
“I’m gonna give Clay something new to remember.” I put the truck in park and got out, knowing the journal was in my bag. When we reached the house I could hear people cheering and loud music bumping.
When we got through the front door there were shoes all over the place. I felt like I had to watch every step as Tia pulled me through a crowd of people cheering and yelling. The music was a mixture of hip-hop and new country. And no, it was not a good mix.
“Tia!” I heard a voice float above the crowd.
“Look, there’s Laura!” Tia said to me.
“Hey, girl.” Laura pushed past everyone and pulled Tia into a hug. “And you brought Annaka!” My new-name memo must not have stuck. “I’ve been trying to find you at school but you’ve haven’t been around too much.” She slid over and gave me a hug that was a little too tight.
“Hi there.” I let out a breath. “It’s just Anna now. It’s good to see you, Laura.”
“Why haven’t I been able to find you at school?” Laura asked.
“Because she’s a rebel now,” Tia intervened. “Got a big old truck and everything. Starting revolutions at Wade’s Clothing too.”
I shook my head and couldn’t help but grin.
“I feel like we never really got to touch base yet.” Laura was saying. “Again, I’m sorry about your granddad. I lost mine a couple years ago, and it’s hard. It really is. But trust me when I say it gets easier in time.”
I nodded and tried to smile. I felt like the party was going to be a lot of that. And it was.
Taylor and Lucy eventually came over, and they all began taking about memories I was never a part of. I wasn’t sad because of it, I just wanted to explore a bit. I made my way to the basement to find a bunch of white boys crushing cans and playing beer pong. As I counted how many cups were left, I looked up to see Bobby gulping one of them down, then crushing the red cup and throwing it in the air.
“Yeahh!” he shouted as everyone cheered.
Ugh, I couldn’t believe this was the guy Tia had a crush on. I couldn’t believe this was the dude who flirted with me in the school parking lot and in the hallway. I went upstairs before he caught sight of me. When I got back up there I couldn’t find Tia in the crowd, and no one was talking to me.
“Let’s go the party, Anna. It’ll be fun, Anna,” I muttered to myself. I shook my head. But I wasn’t there just for me. I took the journal out of my bag and walked outside to the back deck. Thankfully everyone was busy inside, so there was no one around. I fished around for a pen and started writing everything I could see, hear, and smell.
“This is for you, buddy.” I smiled as I wrote it all in. From the shoe field, to the sour smell of spilled liquor. From the boisterous game of beer pong, to the overly long hugs and the warm temperature making everyone sweaty. I described the people I could see dancing through the window and the loud hip-hop blasting through the speakers in the living room. I made sure to include the sight of crushed paper cups and beer cans. The last party Clay had “been to” was Tia’s childhood birthday. I wanted him to know what a real party felt like, even if I knew he would hate it.
“There you are!” Tia found me outside.
“Hey, hey.” I looked up from the journal. “How you doing?”
“Girl, I’m feeling—”
“Tipsy?” I caught her elbow to help her walk straight. We both broke into laughter. “I’m glad you’re having fun.”
“What are you doing with the journal? Are you trying to go back again?” Tia asked, concerned.
“No. I’m just writing down what’s going on in the party. I want Clay to enjoy it like we are.”
“That’s the cutest gift ever.” Tia smiled. “He’s lucky to have someone like you.”
“Blah, blah, blah.” I blushed and put the journal away.
“Wanna go inside?” She grabbed my hand and pulled me in without waiting for an answer.
Suddenly Travis barged up from the basement and screamed at the top of his lungs: “Everyone out! The cops are coming to break the party up!”
Before I had the chance to look back, Tia grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the front door.
“Can we go home now?” I asked as we made it to the front deck.
“No!” Tia replied. “This always happens. It just means we’re going the field. It’s called a field party in case you haven’t heard of it,” she laughed with a hint of drunken sarcasm.
I rolled my eyes as she climbed into the truck. I got into the driver’s side and as I backed up, Bobby came running out the front door shouting, “We’re going to the field!”
“What? You’re leaving? Isn’t this your grandparents’ house?” I yelled at him.
“They don’t get home until next week!” Bobby yelled back as he and some pals jumped on their bikes and darted down the highway.
I shook my head and rolled up my window. “These boys are too much.”
“Girls, get in the back!” Tia said as Taylor, Lucy, and Laura ran down the steps and climbed into the bed of the truck.
“Who’s the chauffeur now?” I grinned.
“Lets go before they get here!” Tia squealed.
I made sure not to speed, considering there were three more people in the back of my truck. Once we got to the field I could see everyone else pull up, some in cars, others on bikes.
“You guys go enjoy the fun; I’m gonna stay here and give the journal a bit of an update.” I smiled.
“Whatever you say.” Tia jumped out. “Come on!” she called to the girls in the back as they hopped off and ran into the field.
I sat, describing what a field party looks like. I had a feeling Clay would hate it as much as I did, but I found humour in how ridiculous all of it was. When I finished I made my way out to the field. I expected to see more beer pong and shenanigans, but to my surprise a lot of people were just lying in the grass, looking into the sky, talking and laughing. It looked calming. Tia and Laura were leaning against a tree taking selfies with the flash on, sticking their tongues out with funny faces, while Lucy and Taylor pointed to the sky, deep in conversation.
“Hey, you found us!” Laura used her phone flashlight to call me over.
“I guess so.” I sat down by them. “So this is a field party, huh?”
“This is it.” Tia sat up and leaned on my shoulder.
“Maybe this isn’t all that bad.”
“Oh, yeah? Not macho men crushing beer cans on their heads?” Taylor laughed. “I can do without the toxic masculinity.”
I laughed at that.
“Speaking of toxic masculinity, here comes dude-bro one-oh-one.” Tia pointed to Bobby, who was walking towards us.
“Anna!” he called. “I saw you walking over and I just wanted to say hi.”
“I’m sure you did,” I replied. “Can we help you?”
“Yeah, Bobby. Can we?” Tia looked up directly at him.
“Shit! Why are you here?” Bobby took a few steps back.
“I’m Anna’s plus one, dummy.”
Bobby looked at me with a face of full of betrayal. His jaw dropped and his eyes looked almost tearful. I shrugged; I wasn’t sorry to be the ultimate disappointment for dude-bros. He looked back at Tia and said, “I would have declined if I knew she was going to bring you.”
“Yeah, well, we’re in a public park now, asshat.” Tia stood up and walked towards Bobby. He backed away.
“Okay, okay!” he said. “Just…don’t do what you did last time.”
Tia narrowed her eyes. “Don’t give me a reason to.”
I was really enjoying what I was witnessing. It’s not every day your badass best pa
l gets to actually be a badass.
“I just…ah, forget it.” Bobby walked away.
“We probably will,” Tia said with a snarky laugh.
“Look at you, being a badass!” Laura said to Tia.
“I had to give it to him.” Tia shrugged and sat back down.
After that, we just lay in the grass trying to make sense of the universe. The stars were like a big game of connect-the-dots. I rested my head by the journal and thought about Clay looking at the stars with us.
“Hey, what’s with the diary?” Taylor asked.
“Oh, this?” I sat up. “I uh, I journal a lot, I guess.”
“What do you journal about?” Laura wanted to know.
“It’s…personal.”
“Fair enough,” Taylor replied. “Hey, that reminds me, when I didn’t pass grade ten English, I had to retake it in the summer. Mr. Brooks was the teacher. He had us journal all summer long. It was a really reflective experience that I appreciated a lot.”
“He had you journal too? What did you journal about?” I sat up.
“He had us write about experiences from our past. Y’know, like where we grew up, and why certain things influenced us the way that they did. I wrote a lot about my older sister, and how important our relationship was for me while our parents went through a divorce”
“Did he ever mention anything about his past?” I was eager.
Tia raised an eyebrow.
Taylor thought for a moment before she said, “Not really. He did talk about the little things, like coming to Canada from England, and starting a new life here.”
At that moment something clicked. What if Grampy left those entries in his classroom? I had felt so drawn to the room earlier that day—something had been pulling me in before Bobby interrupted.
“Hey, I think I’m gonna head out.” I stood up.
“You okay?” Tia got to her feet slowly. She was a little tipsy, but she definitely noticed how jumpy I was all of a sudden.
“I’m fine, I just…I’m just tired, I guess. Do you need a lift home?”
“Uh. Yeah, sure,” Tia said sounding a bit disappointed. “Do y’all wanna crash at my place tonight?” she asked the girls. “There’s room.”
“I’m down,” Laura said, and she got to her feet.
We all got back into the truck and made our way to the main road. Tia was up front with me again, the other three girls in the bed.
I didn’t say much on the ride back. What Taylor had said kept going back and forth in my mind. Of course Grampy made other students journal. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of that before, and I couldn’t believe it had taken going to a house party to get that information.
“Everything okay, Anna?” Tia asked.
“Everything is fine. I think I just wanna get home and lay down.”
“I see. Well, if you need anything, let me know….” Her eyes lingered on me.
“I know,” I said with my eyes on the road. I couldn’t take Tia with me, she was drunk and I needed to focus. I would tell her all about it once she sobered up.
I parked in front of her driveway and she gave me a huge hug.
“Thanks for everything, Tia.” I hugged her back. “You being there when everything went down…it means a lot.”
“Any time,” she said. “I always got your back, Anna. And I always will.”
“Likewise.” I let go. “Though, I think right now what you need is some water and a bit of sleep.”
“You right.” She laughed as she got out of the truck. “Girls, let’s go!” she called. Then she turned back to me. “I’ll text you tomorrow, and if I don’t hear back, I’ll come find you.”
“Pffft, I’ll bring you a cheeseburger to work tomorrow, my treat.” I closed her door, waved to the girls, and hit the gas.
“You lied to her.” Clay faded into the passenger seat.
“She was only going to hold us back,” I replied.
“Maybe she could have helped when she, well, sobered up.”
“Maybe. But I want answers sooner rather than later.”
“What’s your plan, then?”
“We get Grampy’s keys to the school. We go to his classroom, and find those missing entries.”
“If they’re even there.” Clay shrugged.
“They’re there, I can feel it.” They had to be there. Where else would Grampy put them? I was running out of ideas.
“Anna, we’re talking about breaking and entering.”
“Whatever.” I turned onto the path and drove up towards my grandparents’ house. I didn’t need Clay second-guessing me every time we had to do something different. He was too innocent, always wanted to play safe. He wanted to follow a set of rules, but when had that ever gotten anything done?
When I got into the house I checked key rack, and found Grampy’s school keys at the very end. Before I could grab them, Clay reappeared beside them.
“You know if this goes south, if we get caught, bad things could happen.”
“We won’t get caught. We’ll be in and out. Nothing bad will happen”
“Just like nothing bad happened last time?”
I froze. I couldn’t believe he would use that as leverage. Of all the things.
He saw my face. “I didn’t mean it like—”
“I know what you meant,” I said, walking back out to the truck. He got in the passenger side. It was deep into the night, and no sign of Mom, so that meant Clay didn’t have to vanish, but that didn’t mean I wanted to talk to him.
Our ride to the school was silent.
Chapter 19
When we rolled up to the school, Clay faded and I stuck the journal in my bag. The moon was still high above our heads, so I knew there would be no one around. I walked up towards the entrance, trying to avoid the street lights. Who knew if there was a security camera or something? I looked through the glass front doors but couldn’t see a thing. It was too dark inside. I reached for Grampy’s key and stuck it in the lock, and immediately pulled it back out.
“What if an alarm goes off when we open the door?” I thought out loud.
“Hmm, you’re right,” Clay said, appearing by my side. “Any ideas?”
I looked around the outside of the school, and saw the main office window. There would definitely be some type of alarm system in there.
“Something tells me we need to get in there,” I said, pointing to the office.
“Not a bad assumption, we just need to open this window somehow.”
I used my phone’s flashlight to see it was double locked, but luckily for us, I noticed the left side wasn’t fully in place.
“Think we can force it?”
“Seems risky,” Clay observed. “But why not?”
Clay and I placed our hands side by side on the window and tried to force it open. It was heavier than it looked, but we managed to lift it a few inches. Clay slipped his hands beneath and held it up.
“Oh God. This is heavy. I don’t think we can get it up any higher than that.” Clay was struggling to keep it open, and I had to find something to wedge it. “Hurry!” he yelled.
I thought about sticking a rock in between, but then I had an idea. If I threw the journal inside, Clay could fade out, then fade in beside it. I grabbed it from my bag and tossed it through the opening.
“What are you doing?” Clay said as he let go. The window slammed down.
“Think for a minute.” I poked his head. “Just fade to it.”
Clay’s frown melted away once he realized what I was thinking. “Oh! Yeah, I’ll be right back.” He faded away.
I saw him reappear on the other side of the window. He switched on a desk lamp and looked around the office. He finally noticed a security monitor.
“The buttons! Try to see which button is the alarm!” I
called, but he couldn’t hear a thing. He just looked at me and shrugged. I kept pointing to the button board beside the monitor, but he wasn’t understanding any of it. It got to the point where I just shrugged and he tore the plug from the wall, making the entire room go dark.
“Clay! Clay!” I tapped the window but couldn’t see anything. “Dammit,” I said under my breath.
He didn’t open the window and there was no point waiting around, so I made my way back to the entrance of the school and tried sticking Grampy’s key in the lock again.
“Please, please don’t let an alarm go off,” I murmured while twisting the key and pulling forward.
Thankfully nothing happened when the door opened, just a loud creak. Moonlight washed the giant picture of Grampy in the entrance. Clay must’ve turned the alarm off, if there even was one.
“Clay? Clay, where are you?” I called out.
Nothing.
I eventually made my way to the main office where I’d thrown the journal to see the door opened, no sign of Clay.
“You’re starting to creep me out, dude.”
I made my way back to the hall. I couldn’t worry about Clay; I knew he’d be okay, so I just followed the classroom numbers.
I walked past classrooms 389, 390, 391—409 was a little ways away.
On the way there, I reflected on the past week. It had been nonstop. One minute, Clay and I had restored Nan’s memory. The next, we were rushing to the hospital, only to find out Nan’s short-term memory was partially repaired. Then Tia met Clay, I went to a party, and now I was breaking into my new school. It was the weirdest time of my life but I had a feeling it was only going to spiral from there.
I squinted down the hall and could just make out 409. And there was Clay, staring at the door.
“Clay! There you are.”
He didn’t reply right away. He was focused on the door. He reached out and placed a hand on the number—409. All around those numbers were all the sticky notes. It was a nice reminder of the impact he had left on this place.
“So this is where Rudy taught,” Clay observed.
“Yeah, what about it?”
“It’s just that I spent most of my life trying to understand that man. Replaying the memories he felt were worth sharing. He wrote a lot about going to university, about the struggles he had faced. But he never really wrote about this part of his life. He never wrote about the great teacher so many saw him as.”