The Grimm Chronicles, Vol. 2

by Ken Brosky

  “Ah, yes!” He stood up, dutifully returning the pillows to my bed. “I need to sneak into the library downtown. I swear I’ve seen that gold coin before. It will take hours, no doubt. Perhaps even days of searching the newspaper and records archives to discern the connection.” His ears perked up. “No doubt a tiresome and draining process …”

  I sighed, rolling my eyes. “I’ll leave you a bag of lunch on the counter. Just grab it before my parents wake up at seven-thirty.”

  I went to school feeling … well, good. In fencing class, I riposted. I counter-riposted, too. Chase was there on the sideline, not sitting with the boys. Instead, he sat next to Jasmine on the girls’ side. He cheered me on. He shouted tips between points. I beat Steve Strauss, one of the team’s toughest boys who wielded his foil like a maniac.

  Afterward, Chase and I walked/wheeled to the lunchroom, staying close to the wall of green lockers to avoid the throngs of students. I’d chosen not to shower—I hadn’t even broken a sweat taking down my (male!) opponent. OK, I was also really happy with the healthy flush of my hard-earned victory and the way my eyeliner and mascara had held up, even after having my face inside the stuffy fencing mask.

  “So I was thinking we meet up again after school,” Chase said. “I’ve got a science project coming up and I really want to nail it. I want an A.”

  I glanced down at him. He was wearing a plain white t-shirt and dark jeans. This seemed to have become his uniform of choice, now that he’d had to abandon baseball. “Oh? And what’s in it for me?”

  He looked up, his green eyes wide in feigned innocence. “Why my company, of course. Isn’t that enough?” Then he flashed me a dazzling grin. I could only chuckle in response, as my heart seemed to be ricocheting madly around my chest cavity. Was he flirting with me? Impossible. Then he added, “But … I suppose I could throw in a few more moves to sweeten the deal. I still notice a couple opportunities where you could tighten up and really balance your attack.”

  Yeah, impossible. “Fine. That sounds like a fair trade-off.”

  He stopped at the doors leading to the cafeteria. I stopped with him, curious. He looked down at the ground, then laughed nervously.

  “So, hey. Um … what do you think of me sitting with you and Tina—I mean Rachel—today?”

  “Sure.” I shrugged, but was more than a little surprised by his request. “I have to warn you though,” I said in mock seriousness, “We’re going to be talking nerd stuff.”

  He smiled, clearly relieved. “That’s all right! I don’t mind it.”

  Oh, he definitely didn’t mind it. And I understood why the moment we brought our lunches to the back of the room. Chase’s girlfriend—that tart little blonde that every boy fought to sit next to in every class—locked eyes with him for just a second, then turned away. The other guys on the baseball team were all wearing their jerseys because there was a game after school, and as Chase passed they gave him the obligatory high-five but said nothing when he chose not to sit with them.

  “Oh maaaaan,” Clyde said, pulling aside the chair beside him to Chase could wheel up to the table. “Something went down.”

  “Hmmm,” Rachel murmured, stealing one of my apple slices from my plate before I could slap away her hand. “Lovers’ quarrel. I can see it in your eyes, dear boy.”

  “Yeah,” Chase murmured. He grabbed his burger from the tray and opened it up, picking off the pickles. The lunchroom seemed ridiculously quiet. Tense.

  “What happened?” I asked, changing the subject. “The cafeteria feels weird.”

  Clyde smiled and snorted, pulling his hair back behind his ears. “Maaaan! Nothing gets by you, Goodenough. You’re some kind of bloodhound or something.”

  “A fight,” Rachel said. She swiped another apple slice; this time, I let her do it. She’d clearly forgotten her lunch; I still had a plate of pasta and chicken that I wouldn’t even finish.

  “Let me guess: Joey Harrington,” Chase said. He stuffed a quarter of the hamburger into his mouth, wiping mustard from the corner of his lips.

  His lips. They’d be soft, yet firm …

  I shook my head to clear the dirty thoughts. “Wait, what happened?”

  “Oh, it was epic,” Clyde said. “Total meltdown. We’re talking a battle, man, right here in the lunchroom. Joey threw something at one of the skater kids, right? And then the skater kids started yelling at him, you know, just like you did to him the other day. Only there were, like a hundred skater kids …”

  “Six,” Rachel corrected.

  “OK, six.” Clyde pulled back his red flannel sleeves and pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. “But it seemed like a hundred. And so they stood up to him, just like you did! But guess what? Joey Harrington is a total psycho, man, because he just went over to their table and picked a fight anyway. And so there were six skaters attacking him and he was fighting them off and it took two of the gym teachers to break it up.”

  Chase shook his head.

  “Let me guess: everyone got sent home,” I said.

  Clyde nodded. “Correct-a-mundo.”

  Chase shrugged. “Why not? Everyone was fighting.”

  “It never would have happened if Joey hadn’t bullied them,” I snapped. “And the skaters never would have gone up to him and attacked him. He went over to their table and attacked them because they stood up to him. He’s a bully.”

  Chase raised his hands. “OK, OK. Harrington’s a jerk, that’s kind of old news. Didn’t know it was such a big deal.”

  “It is,” Rachel said with a sigh. “Sometimes, it really is.”

  Later, in the library, I went back to cleaning the old periodical shelves, hoping to not run into Briar. I didn’t want to think about being the hero all day. In fact, I even kept my fountain pen in my purse and put my purse in the librarians’ office just to avoid being reminded of it. I wanted to lose myself between the bookshelves for just a while. I wanted to remember what it was like before I found that cursed pen.

  Time went slowly. I relished it, getting to know a couple dozen new paperback friends in the History section. When it was finally time to go home, I reluctantly grabbed my purse, wondering briefly what it might be like if I just left it—and the magic pen—at the library for a few days.

  Chase was coming over. I’d gotten permission from my mom for a temporary reprieve from the grounding, only because she hadn’t woken up in the middle of the night last night and noticed my empty bed or the rope ladder outside my window. Her text that afternoon had been pretty clear: Two hours. Studying only. No leaving the house.

  So my parents were sticking to their guns with this week-long confinement. No early release for the hero who so far had managed to save the world from a devious mind-controlling dwarf, a smoke monster that wanted to steal everyone’s music, and a mistress who was working kids to death to feed a giant lizard who was digging underground for a mysterious seed belonging to a tree from one of the Grimms’ fairy tales.

  Whew. Just the thought of it all made my head spin. The sooner I could sneak out of my room and drop the fish off in Lake Michigan, the better. I just needed to get down there without bumping into Briar. That was my greatest fear now. Not my parents. Heck, if I had a driver’s license, I probably would have borrowed one of the cars and released the fish the first chance I got.

  Or maybe not. I know it sounds strange, but even though I wanted out of this horrible hero business, a part of me deep down was making me hesitate. Hold off. Wait. I can’t explain it now. I couldn’t explain it then. But some kernel of doubt or uncertainty was holding me back, forcing me to wait.

  When Chase pulled up that afternoon, I went out to help. His parents—a young-looking couple both with dark hair like their son’s—unbuckled Chase’s chair from the restraints that had been built into the back of the van and then helped him down the little foldable metal ramp.

  “Do you need help getting into the house?” his mom asked with wide eyes. She was attractive, in a “Mom” sort o
f way—except for the “Mom” jeans, of course. Ditto for his dad, who seemed intent on one-upping his wife’s awkward clothing choice via a brightly colored and considerably oversized bowling shirt. They seemed well-meaning, if a bit anxious.

  “I don’t need help,” Chase answered gloomily.

  “Does she have a bathroom on the first floor?”

  “Mom,” he said, slapping the armrest of his chair. “It’s all right. I’ll be all right.”

  She sighed. Chase’s dad patted him on the shoulder and then they were off, pulling slowly out of the driveway and giving one quick honk of the horn.

  “Well, that was thoroughly embarrassing,” I said with a wry smile.

  Chase shook his head, then smiled a little in spite of himself as he looked up at me. He was wearing an old red t-shirt, a pair of faded jeans rolled slightly at the cuffs and a pair of well-maintained leather oxfords that looked like they might have lived through the period when his hairstyle had first been in fashion. “Just give me some time and I’ll be out of this thing for good. I can make it.”

  At the door, I spun Chase around and pulled his chair up the little step.

  “You’re pretty strong,” he said. “What kind of steroids are you using?”

  “Hah!” I wheeled him backwards into the living room. It was empty, the TV off. Both my parents were still at work. “You sound like my mom.”

  “Is she home? I might be able to charm her into making us cookies.”

  “She’s gone for the afternoon. Her ad agency is putting in overtime on some political campaign.”

  “Cool.”

  “So what are you working on now?” I asked, sitting down on the couch. I was wearing a pair of cropped slim pants and cute flats. I also had on an ivory camisole under my favorite blouse: a sheer indigo-violet number hemmed in intricate scallops of lacy embroidery that buttoned up the back. For months it had languished at the back of my closet, being the sort of thing that’s too nice for school and wildly impractical for slaying mutated storybook creatures. I had even put on earrings and managed to coax my hair into a loose-but-pretty updo. All of which he appeared oblivious to.

  Ugh, I thought, why would a boy compliment a girl’s fancy shirt? Pull back those expectations, Alice, this isn’t a date.

  He grabbed his science book from his backpack, then squeezed the backpack between himself and the armrest.

  “Geez, isn’t that uncomfortable?”

  He shrugged. “This entire chair is uncomfortable. At least with the backpack with me, I still feel like a student.” He opened the book. “OK. So … we’re on the topic of fishing.”

  “Fishing?” I asked with a smirk. “Like, what bobber to use and how to cut bait?”

  “No, smart aleck. I’m supposed to discuss how fishing has changed over the last twenty years and how it’s affecting the planet.”

  “Oh.” I crossed my legs on the couch. “That sounds like a cool thing to learn.”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty neat.” He leaned forward, showing me a chart of Atlantic Sea Cod population over the years. There was a sharp incline near 1960, then it dropped abruptly and was nearly nonexistent from 1990 to the present day. “Like with these fish,” Chase said, “you can’t even catch enough to fill your boat nowadays. They just don’t show up during the fishing season anymore. It’s like they disappeared. It’s insane.” He looked up at me. “But you know what’s even more insane? The fact that I have to write a two-page paper on this.”

  “Give me that,” I ordered, grabbing his book. I leafed through the pages. It was a lot of reading. It seemed interesting, though. “Did you read this entire chapter?”

  “Of course I did. I’m trying to get a good grade, remember?”

  “OK, so what else did the chapter say?”

  “That every ecosystem is delicate.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Duh. You’re going to need more than that.”

  “Hey! Just let my brain get warmed up here.” He looked around. “Couldn’t we get some music or something? I think better with music.”

  “Sure.” I ran upstairs to grab my mp3 player, then came back down and hooked it up to the stereo. The Black Keys started playing a fast, thumping tune.

  “Yeah,” Chase said, nodding his head. “I can dig this.”

  “Just focus on the fish.”

  Chase smiled and looked up at the ceiling. “Um … There was something about jellyfish … sometimes, jellyfish benefit from overfishing.”

  “How?”

  “Because … uh … certain types of fish are natural predators. If you get rid of too many of them, the jellyfish population explodes. Then you have tons of jellyfish, and the entire ecosystem falls out of balance. The jellyfish prey on smaller fish, and so they start totally throwing everything out of whack, and then the ecosystem gets even more screwed up.”

  “Bummer. I hate jellyfish.”

  “Me too. They sting like the dickens.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because we go on vacation to Florida sometimes.”

  “So do we!” I exclaimed. Calm yourself, Alice. I cleared my throat, blushing. “Where do you go?” I asked nonchalantly.

  He shrugged. “Usually Siesta Key. It’s quiet and the beaches are nice. Good waves sometimes, too. I always liked boogie boarding.”

  “Oh. That’s cool.” I totally loved boogie boarding.

  “But anyway, look at this figure here.” He spun the book around so I could look at the little table in the corner of the page. “This says that as of 2011, close to 25 percent of fish stocks are either overexploited or depleted. Worse, a lot of bigger marine animals are being caught in these nets and killed, which means fewer predators in the ocean.”

  “That sounds like something to write about. What’s the solution?”

  “Solution?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “If you’re going to write a good paper, you don’t want to just regurgitate what you read in the book. Give your teacher a solution to show you’re actually thinking about the issue. That’s how you get an A.”

  He nodded, leaning forward. “Crap, Goodenough … you’re a tough one. All right. Solutions … solutions …”

  We sat in silence for a moment. Thinking. OK, that’s not totally true. Chase was thinking. I was staring at his hint of chin stubble and imagining what it would feel like rubbing up against my cheek.

  Hey. I wasn’t the one with a paper to write.

  The front door opened. I peered around Chase’s shoulder, my hand instinctively reaching for my pen—usually, when my parents worked late on advertising projects, they worked really late. Maybe they didn’t trust me, though. Or maybe it was a Corrupted who just thought he’d stop by for a visit and a snack.

  Seth appeared, sweaty and disheveled. His red Metallica t-shirt had a big mud stain and he was wearing an old pair of green shorts—what he liked to call his “lounging shorts” for when he sat around his house and played video games.

  “Well, it happened,” he said. “It finally happened.” He looked down at Chase, as if he hadn’t even noticed him until that very moment. “Oh. Uh … what’s the baseball player doing here?”

  Chase smiled, wheeling around the couch. “I’m studying. Weird, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah …” Seth cocked his head, taking a closer look at me. “Weird is the word I would use, for sure …”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Oh nothing. Just finally got dumped by Trish is all.” He walked over and plopped onto the couch beside me. I could tell with one look at his glossy, bloodshot eyes that he’d been crying. I bit my lip, saying nothing.

  “Were you crying?” Chase asked.

  I shot him a dirty look.

  “Yup,” Seth answered nonchalantly. His hand fiddled with the black TV remote. “Like a little girl. All afternoon, pretty much. Didn’t even go in to work.”

  I put a hand on his back. “It’s her loss.”

  Seth snorted.

  “Really,” I said, tryi
ng not to let my voice choke up. Seth and Trish! It was now just hitting me. These were my two best friends. This was the relationship that always seemed a little rocky, but always felt so comfortable, too. Like, they just enjoyed fighting from time to time but they would always be OK. I guess in retrospect that sounds a little crazy.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Seth said quietly. “I really loved her. For real.”

  “You’re going to buck up,” Chase stated. “And you’re going to move on. Because you’re tough and you’re going to find someone else.”

  Seth half-grunted, half-laughed. “I don’t know about that. I’m not a cool kid like you.”

  “Well you know what? Being a cool kid doesn’t help with love. And being cool doesn’t make it hurt any less, either. Look at me. My girlfriend dumped me, too. You don’t see me moping around.”

  I studied his frown, his tightened expression. I turned to Seth, who was staring blankly at the remote in his hand. Yup. Two incredibly bummed-out boys.

  “We need ice cream,” I declared. “Lots and lots of ice cream. I’ll get the bowls.”

  And so we dined. Cookie dough ice cream, more cookie dough ice cream, a good old-fashioned round of reassurances that being single was waaaaay better than being in a relationship, and of course just a little more ice cream because, hey, you can’t put a nearly empty container back in the freezer anyway. That’s a rule.

  You know what was strange about it? We all got along really well. We laughed at each other’s jokes. We told stories about middle school—I have no idea how we ended up on that topic, but believe me I had more than a few interesting stories to share myself. Like the time I knocked out a classmate’s tooth with a snowball. Chase’s best story was when he turned fourteen, it was a tradition in his circle of friends to pee somewhere weird … so he peed on a fire hydrant at recess and totally got busted. Seth ended up in the auditorium alone after exploring the theater department’s massive storage closet. The doors were locked before he could get out and he stayed there, terrified, for three hours until the janitor popped in.

  “I can’t believe you never told me that!” I said, laughing. Chase was laughing too, his face flushed and his hair disheveled.