by Nikki Loftin
Someone—something—was watching me. A shiver ran up my spine and made goose bumps prickle on my arms. It was the same feeling I used to get when my teacher would lean over my desk to tell me what a good job I’d done, in a quiet voice so no one else would hear.
Then something else sent a chill up my back. The snake was moving.
I opened my eyes and waited as it went from being wrapped around my ankles to slithering across the rocky soil toward a bush. And then, with a flick of its rattle, it slid under the bush like it had never been on my ankles at all.
I let out my breath and turned to go, my feet numb with the effort it had taken to stay in one place for so long. For a moment I wanted to shout, holler, and whoop as loud as I could. But before I did, a hawk flew by and yelled for me—screeched and wheeled right overhead, like it was saying hello. Or well done.
I waved with one hand, wondering why the hawk’s answering call sounded like laughter. Why the sudden gust of wind felt like gentle hands pushing at my shoulders. Pretending to try to tip me over, the same way my grandpa used to when we’d sit on his porch in Houston, just the two of us, him telling dirty jokes and me holding back laughter so Mom and Dad wouldn’t come and hear and make him stop.
Suddenly, the rattlesnake seemed like one of his jokes. Dangerous and funny and private. No one would believe me if I told them anyway.
“Helloooo?” The valley disappeared, and I blinked. Laura was waving her hand in front of my face. I didn’t know how long she’d been doing it, how long I’d been staring at my plate.
It must have been a long time. Laura looked really worried, and her voice quivered when she asked, “What’s wrong with you, Peter?”
Chapter 3
“Peter?” Laura repeated, louder. She had her hand on my arm. How long had she been touching me? I hadn’t even felt her. I’d been lost in my thoughts. “Were you having a seizure or something?”
Mom and Dad were still fighting, in angry whispers, but standing by the door. So we wouldn’t hear? A few words came through: “ . . . therapist bills or groceries? You have to try harder. He needs more help. He’s still not himself. . . . ”
Talking about me. I could feel the blood rushing to my face, and I shook Laura’s hand away. “No. It’s nothing. I was daydreaming. Just . . . leave me alone.” I looked at my arm. She’d accidentally wiped some of Carlie’s baby food there. “Gross, Laura.” I flicked it at her.
“Fine,” she said. “Be that way. Weirdo.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket, waving it around to try to get a signal, ignoring us all.
I cleared my throat. “Mom, may I be excused? Mom? Mom?”
I didn’t think she’d heard me, but then—“Peep!” Carlie screamed her version of my name at the top of her lungs. “Peep!”
Mom swung her head around. “Did you need something, Peter?”
“I have a headache,” I said. “May I be excused?”
Mom fussed over me for a minute, tried to get me to take a Tylenol, and when I wouldn’t, she stuffed a chocolate chip cookie into my hand like it was some sort of secret-recipe painkiller.
“Come watch a movie with us tonight,” she said as I cleared my plate. “We’re going to do a Fast and Furious marathon the whole weekend, to celebrate having almost all the unpacking done so soon.”
“No, thanks. I’m just going to go sit in my room.” Mom chewed on her lower lip; I could tell she was trying not to react. “To read, Mom. That’s all.”
I wasn’t lying. I figured I would read up on snakes again. It might come in handy.
I left the table and had almost made it to my door when I remembered we’d put all the nature books in the living room. I was walking back when I heard Laura say softly, “What is it with Peter? Did you even notice him, just sitting there like a lump? We shouldn’t have moved. He’s worse than ever. Tell the truth. Is he brain-dead or something? Did you drop him on his head when he was a baby?”
“Laura Stone!” Mom’s voice was harsh, but quiet, too. “Your brother’s perfectly fine. He’s just . . . different. Introverted. And you know what he was going through last spring. We had to move, for more than one reason. So stop complaining about it. Remember, stay positive around him.”
“Whatever,” Laura said. “I’ve tried. It’s not working. He’s getting weirder since we moved out here. All this time alone? It’s not good for . . . whatever he has.”
“You know, you may be right,” Dad started. “I mean, he’s always been so quiet, it’s hard to tell what he’s thinking—or feeling. But he may actually be getting more depressed since we moved. I was wondering if . . . ”
I tiptoed back to my room without the snake book, my face burning, not wanting to hear whatever my dad was saying back.
It wasn’t like I was going to do anything anyway. I wasn’t going to go rushing in there and defend myself. Standing up to them—to anyone—scared me more than running away, any day. Laura had told me a thousand times, and it was true: I was a wimp. I was a pushover. I was an embarrassment.
They all thought I was defective. I’d heard Mom tell Dad more than once that I’d been “born into the wrong family.” I even knew what they meant; I didn’t fit in with the rest of them, except maybe Carlie. When she was asleep.
But it didn’t make it hurt any less.
Chapter 4
I ran away again as soon as it got light enough to see. This time, I left a note on my bed just in case Mom or Dad went so far as to open my door to check on me, and I snagged a couple of granola bars and a bottle of water to stuff in my backpack.
“Peep?” Carlie called as I ran though the living room on my way to the door. She was watching TV in her playpen, which meant Mom had already been up and gone back to sleep, I assumed. It was Saturday, after all.
Carlie had taken her diaper off and was tearing it into little bits, so I stopped for a second to gather up the pieces and toss them, then wrap another one around her. “Don’t tear this one, Carlie,” I whispered. “That could get messy.” She put her finger up to her lips, made a shushing sound, and nodded. Then she held her arms up again. “Peep?” She wanted to come with me.
“Not today, Carbar,” I answered. I put my hands together and made a hissing sound. “There’s snakes out there. Lots and lots of big snakes.” I pretended my hands were snake jaws, and she broke into peals of laughter. I almost stayed there with her, playing, but then I heard a door on the other side of the house squeal open, and knew I’d get stuck with babysitting and cleaning if I hung around. The normal Saturday routine.
“Bye-bye.” I waved and left, my feet quiet on the carpet.
The night before, I’d gone looking for my old boots—the pair Dad had bought for me during my three-week failed Boy Scout experiment a year and a half ago. I’d found them in one of the remaining moving boxes and left them in the front hall, hidden behind Carlie’s baby swing. I slipped them on right outside the door. They pinched a little bit, but I didn’t care. They’d be fairly snake-proof, I hoped.
I walked faster than the day before, since I knew where I was going. Or at least where I was going to start.
The snake wasn’t there this time, even though I looked at what I thought was the same bush it had crawled under. For a second I wondered if I had imagined its appearance.
No. The snake had been real, more real than most of the things in my life—video games and TV shows, comic books and chores.
I walked to the ledge I’d stopped at before and scanned the valley. It didn’t feel strange like it had yesterday. I didn’t get the sense anything was watching.
But something was calling me. Halfway down the hillside, where another hill pushed up against the one I was on, a line of trees, growing larger further down, gleamed bright green, their leaves waving in the morning air. I pelted down the hill, my boots slipping on limestone rocks that weren’t attached to anything, the tufts of thick gra
sses stopping my fall before I could slip too far.
It was crazy running down the hill. I didn’t care. The wind rushed up against my face as I went, promising to catch me if I stepped too far away from the ground.
The cluster of oak trees was farther away than I’d thought, and I got out of breath. I slowed down and started walking more quietly. There might be deer hiding in the trees, I thought. If I was quiet enough, maybe I’d see one.
But by the time I pushed back some smaller bushes and stepped under the oaks, I was the only thing making any sound on the hillside.
I couldn’t seem to stop making noise. Every step I took in my clunky boots cracked seedpods and acorns underfoot, popping them like a bunch of Black Cat fireworks in the silence of the grove. Last fall’s windblown drifts of leaves crunched and crackled underfoot, and even my breathing seemed loud and out of place.
I’d never see a deer or another snake or anything else if I kept making so much noise. I stopped, looked around, and saw a large rock jutting out from the mounds of dead leaves. No, not just a rock: a pile of them. As I approached, I realized I was following the slope of the hillside right up to the point where it touched the other hill.
When I got there, I looked down the slope. The rocks were old and weathered, covered with dried algae-like stuff and old moss. But there were damp patches underneath. What if I kept going, walked along the stones? Would I find a creek? A lake? Animals hung out near lakes, I knew that.
I slipped off my boots to stay quiet and tucked them in my backpack with my granola bars. Then, slowly, I crept down the rocks, trying to be as silent as possible.
A minute or so later, I stopped. Below me, only a few yards away, was a pool. A deer stood there, its head bowed. A doe, I thought. It didn’t have antlers like the males I’d seen at the zoo. Suddenly, it jumped back from the water like something had surprised it, and it stepped nervously away from the edge. I held my breath, wondering if the doe had heard me. Its nostrils flared. Maybe it had smelled me?
Then, stepping as carefully as I had, it lifted one silent foot at a time and tiptoed away from the water’s edge, slipping through the trees and back out onto the hillside. I began to move again, curious to see what was in the pool. What had startled the deer?
But when I got to the rock where it had stood drinking, I looked into the water, and nothing was there. The pool itself was beautiful, with rocks overhanging one edge, making a small cave-like hole at that end. The surface wasn’t more than ten feet across, although the water looked at least five feet deep in the center. It was clean, and when the sunlight shone through the oak leaves overhead, it sparkled across the top of the pool. I sat there on the rock, staring into the water with my legs crossed and my hands folded, feeling hypnotized. After a while I closed my eyes. I hadn’t slept well the night before, dreaming of snakes and valleys that came to life.
I might have dozed; I wasn’t sure. But something woke me. A sound? A humming. I held still, feeling what had to be legs on me, tickling the hairs on my arms. Had ants crawled onto me? Bees? I opened my eyes, remembering the snake, making sure to move only my eyelids.
My arms were covered with dragonflies. No, they were smaller than that. But similar. Brightly colored, red and blue and glossy black, with thin graceful wings and long segmented bodies. They must have decided I was a good perch, because there were at least twenty of them on each of my arms.
They liked me. I could feel it in the way they moved, dancing on my skin. Just like the valley liked me—and for the same reason my family didn’t.
Because I was still and quiet.
I’d finally found the place where I could be alone. Where I could be me. It was perfect.
I’ll always be quiet here, I thought to the valley. I promise. I’ll never yell, or scream, or ruin you with a bunch of racket.
Something tickled my hair in response, and I knew that the dragonfly things were up there, too. I felt a laugh welling up inside me and tried to keep it from coming out. If I made a noise, or moved, they would all fly off.
But the tickling on top of my ear got to be too much, and I let out a small sound, half a sigh.
They all took flight, skimming over the water. I did laugh then.
And someone muttered, “Dang it.”
Chapter 5
I jumped up, and the baby dragonflies—or whatever they were—spiraled away from the water entirely, deserting me. I whipped my head around, wondering where the voice had come from. Was the person invisible? Enough weirdness had happened in this valley that I wasn’t sure anything could surprise me.
But then something moved, and I saw it—her. Sitting on the other side of the pool, half-hidden by a bush, a small face with a knitted brown hat on top, covering her hair. How had I missed her?
I said the words out loud.
“I blend,” the girl said, stepping away from the bushes. She held something in her hand. A sketchpad, it looked like, and a charcoal pencil—an expensive one, I thought. It was the kind my art teacher at school used, the kind she never let the kids touch since we would “just ruin them anyway.”
The girl looked about my age. She was maybe a few inches shorter, even if I wasn’t tall for being almost thirteen. Dressed all in green and brown, with her brown skin just lighter than the tree trunks around us, she did sort of blend. Until she moved.
“Who are you?” the girl asked. The insects around us had fallen quiet.
“Peter,” I answered. Without warning, a wave of heat rushed through me. I recognized the feeling: anger. “Peter Stone,” I repeated, trying to keep my voice calm. I never let my feelings show, not if I could help it.
I wanted to spit, though. My tongue tasted bitter all of a sudden. Like the anger was literally filling my mouth.
It figured. I had finally found a place to be alone, to be quiet, and this girl was here. Maybe she even lived nearby. She’d fill the valley with noise and talking. I turned back to the water, wishing her away.
“Apt,” she said, then settled back into a cross-legged position and began to sketch. She didn’t say anything else.
Apt? What had she meant by that? Curiosity itched at me worse than the baby dragonflies had. But I wasn’t going to speak. If I stayed quiet enough, she’d leave. It had always worked at school, on the playground, even at home. If I stayed still, stayed boring, people left me alone.
Mostly. A shiver went down my back, remembering when that hadn’t worked. Remembering what had happened to make my parents move us all so far away from home. What had made my dad look at me every day like he was ashamed.
I shook the dark thoughts away and concentrated on the girl. What was she sketching? And why had she said apt? I thought I knew what that meant.
Appropriate.
I couldn’t stand it. I had to ask.
“What do you mean?”
She glanced up, brown eyes deeper than the pool between us. She frowned down at her sketchbook, then at me.
“Your name. Peter Stone. Also, a bit repetitive. What were your parents thinking?”
Now this girl was really starting to annoy me. Why did she think my name was apt and repetitive? I stood up.
“Don’t,” she called out. “I’m almost done.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t move just yet,” she said, motioning for me to sit back down. “I’ve almost got you. I wasn’t able to get all the damselflies. . . . ” Her voice trailed off, and I stared at her. Damselflies? Oh, that was what the little dragonflies were called. Then I got it. She’d been drawing them—and me. I settled back down, feeling strange. No one had ever drawn me. I wasn’t interesting-looking. Plain brown hair, brown eyes, medium-sized. Nothing special. In fact, I was invisible to most everyone.
This girl was the kind people drew, though. She reminded me of the damselflies as she worked: Her arms were thin and . . . elegant. Her eyelashes fl
uttered like their lacy wings had. She looked a little like a fairy, although the expression on her face was pure human grumpiness.
“What?” I said, wondering if she’d come back with another one-word answer.
“I can’t get your face right, not now. Not when you’re moving, Stone Boy.”
“Stone Boy?”
“Well, yes,” she said, slapping her sketchpad shut and walking on her toes around the circle of rocks to where I was. She was barefoot like me. “Peter means stone, of course. Or rock. And I thought you were one, for a while. I mean, how do you do that? I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Do what?” I had never been so confused by a person in my life. It sounded like she was speaking English, but I wasn’t following half of her words.
“Hold still,” she said, reaching out and putting my hand in the air like she was posing me. “See? You don’t even tremble. Amazing. You could be a surgeon with hands like that.”
A shadow passed over her face then, and I looked up. Was it getting overcast? I heard the flip of pages and looked back. She was showing me her drawing.
I let out my breath in a great whoosh. It was . . . “Amazing,” I echoed. “You’re a real artist.” She was—she’d drawn the rocks and the damselflies and me, all just exactly right. None of the parts looked too big or too small. She’d shaded the edges of things with the charcoal side of the pencil to make the shadows from the oak leaves fall in the right places. Even the fingers on my hand were perfect. Not even the art teacher at my old school could draw fingers.
“Thanks,” she said, examining the picture. “I think I got your face. Faces are hard. But you kept yours so still, like a statue. It was easier than usual. Honestly, the damselflies moved more than you did. There must have been a hundred of them.” She folded the sketchbook under one arm, pulled a pair of tennis shoes out of the bag she’d stashed her pencil in, and stood up to slip them on. “You’re phenomenal, you know. I wasn’t sure you were real at first. I’d been wishing all morning for a model. I thought maybe I’d wished you here.”