This Town Is Not All Right

by M. K. Krys

  “I’m sure you’ll make friends soon, too,” his dad said gently.

  “I have made a friend.”

  “Well, that’s great. Then you have no reason to be jealous.”

  “I’m not jealous!”

  Fury roiled through him. His dad wasn’t even listening to him.

  Beacon scraped back his chair.

  “Where are you going?” his dad asked.

  “Out,” he snapped.

  “Where?”

  But Beacon was already out the door.

  He ran. Down the long, twisting driveway of Blackwater Lookout. Through the meadow of overgrown, soggy grass and over the bubbling creek. Past a run-down cemetery full of cracked, crumbling gravestones and into the woods, twisting with dark shadows and menace. He didn’t stop until he was on Arthur Newell’s front steps. He knocked three times, then gripped the old wooden railing as he panted for breath. The door swung open.

  “I didn’t know where else to go,” Beacon gasped between ragged breaths. He squinted at Arthur, and Arthur whipped off the hood of the fuzzy brown one-piece pajamas he was wearing.

  “It’s Chewbacca,” Arthur explained, even though Beacon hadn’t asked.

  “Arthur, is that someone at the door?” Arthur’s grandmother called from inside the house.

  “It’s Beacon!” Arthur yelled back so loudly that his voice cracked.

  “Oh! Beacon! How nice!” his grandma replied.

  “Can we talk?” Beacon whispered urgently. “Alone?”

  Arthur pushed the door open wider.

  “Does your friend want a snack?” his grandmother asked, coming to the door. “I can make some tuna sandwiches.”

  “Thanks, Grams, but we have important, uh, school stuff to talk about,” Arthur said.

  The boys quickly retreated to Arthur’s room. The moment the door closed behind them, Arthur spun on him and said, “Okay, spill. You’re acting really weird, and coming from me, that’s saying something.”

  Beacon sat on the bed, his heart racing almost as fast as his thoughts. He didn’t even know where to start.

  “Something is going on with my sister. She’s being really . . . good,” he said, struggling to explain all the changes he’d seen in Everleigh tonight. “Just yesterday she was making fun of Jane and her Gold Star minions and now she’s going to one of their meetings, saying things like ‘wonderful’ to describe her meal, and asking to be excused from the table.”

  “Hmmm,” Arthur said, pursing his lips pensively. He slid a notebook off his desk, opened it to a fresh page, and poised a pen over the pad. “Tell me about the events leading up to this change.”

  Old Beacon would have laughed at the way Arthur was acting, as if he were an investigator on one of the weekly crime shows his dad liked to watch. And it was a little hard to take him seriously in his furry pajamas. But mostly he was just glad someone was finally listening to him.

  “I don’t know. She was normal yesterday and this morning at breakfast, too. Then we were called down to the office to get the vitamin injections.”

  “I heard about that,” Arthur said. “You freaked out over the needle or something, right?”

  “Hey! How did you know that?” he said.

  “Small town. Word gets around fast.”

  “Well, I didn’t freak out,” Beacon said indignantly. “I just . . . delayed the injection until tomorrow.” He lifted his chin.

  “Okay, whatever,” Arthur said as if he didn’t believe him one bit. “So what happened during the injections?”

  “Nothing, really. Everleigh seemed normal in the nurse’s office. I didn’t see her again until we got back to Blackwater Lookout after school. That’s when she started acting weird. Like, a totally different person weird. At first I thought she was joking around, but now I don’t know. She seemed really serious. I’ve never seen her behave this way before. It’s really freaking me out. And the worst part is, no one cares. Everyone’s acting like it’s no big deal.”

  “Interesting.” Arthur tilted his head, his eyebrows rising above his glasses.

  “What?” Beacon asked.

  “So the changes happened right after the injection?”

  “Not right after,” Beacon said. “I talked to her five minutes later, and she seemed normal. Well actually, she did get dizzy. It came on suddenly.”

  “Does she usually get dizzy?” Arthur asked.

  “Not really. But she was just running through the halls. Maybe it was from that?”

  “Or maybe it was a side effect of the injection,” Arthur said. “Maybe all of this is a side effect of the injection. She went into that office normal and came out different. It’s got to be it. There’s got to be something in that shot!”

  “Why would the school do that?” Beacon said. He wanted answers, but he was having a hard time believing the nurse was an evil mastermind. He wondered if he’d made a big mistake asking the president of YAT for advice about this. “It just doesn’t make any sense. Why would anyone want to change Everleigh?”

  “Haven’t you noticed anything strange about the kids here in Driftwood?” Arthur asked. He pinned Beacon with a look that made him shift uneasily. He remembered the kids in class, their perfect postures and obedience. He remembered Nixon shutting down all his jokes, and the eerie silence of the classroom and halls. But he just figured that it was different out here. That being raised in isolation, away from the big city and all the pressures that came with it, made the kids better.

  “Every single kid is an A student,” Arthur went on. “No one talks back. No one misbehaves. Almost everyone is a member of the Gold Stars.” His eyes narrowed at the mention of the volunteer group.

  “Are you in it?” Beacon asked.

  “I don’t want to be in their dumb club,” Arthur said defensively. From the way Arthur’s cheeks tinged pink, Beacon got the distinct impression there was more to the story.

  “The kids here are perfect,” Arthur said, bringing the conversation back on track. “And the same thing happened to Perry.”

  “The Gold Star?” Beacon asked, remembering the wide-set boy with the spiky blond hair.

  “His family moved to town last summer. From New York or something. Supposedly he was getting into a lot of trouble back at home. There was a rumor online that he’d been to juvie—something about a church burning down.”

  “Whoa,” Beacon said.

  “Yeah. Well, within a week, he was on the football team and volunteering with the Gold Stars. You can’t tell me it’s because of the lobster and fresh air.”

  Beacon felt his blood turn to frost.

  “I’ve been investigating this ever since, but I didn’t put it together about the vitamin injection,” Arthur said. “But now that it’s happened twice, and within the first week of school? That can’t be a coincidence.”

  “Okay,” Beacon said, playing along. “But what about you? Didn’t you get the injection, too?”

  “Everyone gets it,” Arthur said. “It’s mandatory.”

  “Then how come you’re normal?”

  Well, relatively normal, anyway.

  “I don’t know,” Arthur said, shrugging. “Maybe it didn’t work on me?”

  That reason seemed flimsy.

  “All I know is that I’ve always felt different from everyone else here,” Arthur said. “Maybe this is the reason.”

  “But why?” Beacon asked. “Who’s doing this? What’s going on here?”

  “I don’t know. But there’s definitely a conspiracy happening here. We just can’t ignore all this evidence.”

  Yesterday, Beacon would have told Arthur he was out of his mind. And he still wasn’t totally putting that option off the table. But right now, his theory didn’t seem so wild. There was something wrong with his sister. Something wrong with this whole town. And Arthur was the onl
y other person who seemed to notice or care.

  So Beacon sat up straighter and threw his shoulders back.

  “I want to join YAT,” he announced.

  Arthur beamed. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  8

  Beacon felt better already. He wasn’t just sitting around, doing nothing. He was being proactive.

  “So should we call a meeting, then?” Beacon said.

  “Sure.”

  “When?” he asked.

  “Why not right now?” Arthur said. “Unless you’re busy.”

  “No. Now is great!”

  Excitement leaped through Beacon like a school of silvery fish jumping the waves. They were going to get the best minds in conspiracy theories together and figure everthing out. He couldn’t wait to hear what everyone had to say about this.

  Arthur pulled on a lab coat over his fuzzy pajamas. Then he took out a different spiral notebook and opened it to the first page, writing YAT Files: The Case of the Freak Sister Mutation across the top in big, blocky script, then underlining it twice.

  “Any ideas where to start?” Arthur said.

  “Wait, we’re starting already?” Beacon asked.

  “Why not?” Arthur said.

  “Shouldn’t we wait for everyone else to get here?”

  “Like who?”

  A sinking feeling washed over him.

  “Please tell me you’re not the only member of YAT,” Beacon said slowly.

  “Of course not.” After a long pause, Arthur added, “There’s you now, too.”

  Beacon mashed his palm into his forehead.

  “What did you expect?” Arthur said defensively. “It’s an alien conspiracy club. People aren’t exactly lining up at the door to join. But don’t worry. I’ve done hundreds of top secret missions. We’re going to get down to the bottom of this. Now let’s get started. First, you’ll need to start monitoring your sister’s behavior. Note any differences, big or small. We don’t know what’s important, so just write everything down.”

  Beacon nodded. He could do that.

  Arthur wrote Observe sister on the list.

  “Any other ideas?” Arthur poised his pen over the paper.

  Beacon twisted up his mouth, thinking hard. He wanted to be helpful.

  “This all started with the injection, right? So we need to figure out what’s in it.”

  “Awesome idea!” Arthur said. “We need to get our hands on a syringe so we can figure out what’s in the formulation.”

  “The nurse keeps the syringes in a lockbox behind her desk,” Beacon said. “Maybe we can break inside somehow and take one?”

  “Easy, tiger,” Arthur said. “I don’t exactly want to get arrested.”

  “I thought you said you’ve done hundreds of top secret missions,” Beacon said.

  “I have.” He adjusted his lab coat haughtily around his Chewbacca one-piece. “Just not the kind where police are involved.”

  Beacon didn’t exactly have experience in this area, either. The worst thing he’d ever done was eat a sour candy from the grocery store without paying. And even then he’d told the cashier out of guilt. But this was his sister. He had to do something. He needed to get that needle. But how?

  “The key to the lockbox is on a big key ring Nurse Allen keeps in her pocket,” Beacon said. “Even if we could somehow break into the school after hours, we wouldn’t be able to get into that box without the key.”

  “Oh, good. More B and E,” Arthur said. “I was worried there wouldn’t be enough in this plan.”

  Beacon’s confidence that the YAT club would solve all of his problems began to dwindle.

  “Unless . . . ,” Arthur said.

  “What?” Beacon said, sitting up straighter.

  “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Just tell me!”

  Arthur leaned forward. “Okay, so you said you missed your injection yesterday, right? And Nurse Allen wants you to go back tomorrow?”

  “Yeah . . . ,” Beacon said warily.

  “So you go back, only when you’re in the office, you steal the syringe!”

  “And how do you think I’ll manage that without her noticing?” Beacon asked.

  “I’ll stage a distraction. Then while Nurse Allen is out of the room, you’ll replace her syringe with a placebo and stick the vitamin injection in your bag.”

  “A placebo?” Beacon said.

  “A fake. A syringe full of saline. I can even get us a syringe to use. My grandma is diabetic!” He said it with way more enthusiasm than was strictly necessary. “She has a ton of insulin syringes. We can clean one out. It might not be exactly the same, but it just has to look close enough that Nurse Allen wouldn’t notice at first glance. It’s a perfect plan!”

  “Yeah, maybe for you,” Beacon said. “What if your distraction doesn’t work?”

  “Trust me, it will. One sign of a seizure, and my teacher will be screaming for the nurse.”

  He said it as if he had personal experience. Beacon thought of Arthur’s grandma asking if he’d taken his medication. Arthur answered the question that was balanced on the tip of Beacon’s tongue.

  “I have epilepsy. Ever since the car accident. Brain damage, I guess.”

  “Oh,” Beacon said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” Arthur said. “If I take my meds, I’m fine. I haven’t had a seizure in, like, six months or something. Seriously, don’t look at me like that. I’m not sick.”

  “Okay, but do you think it’s safe to fake a seizure?” Beacon asked. “Won’t they, like, try to do CPR on you or something?”

  Arthur laughed. “No. They’ll just turn me on my side to make sure I don’t swallow my tongue or suck back puke or whatever. So long as I keep it under five minutes, they don’t have to give me any meds or anything like that, either. It’ll be fine.”

  Even though Beacon was less certain about the ethics of this plan, he was happy that Arthur had trusted him with this information. It felt like they’d just become a bit closer.

  “What about if Nurse Allen does notice it’s a different syringe?” Beacon said. “What if your distraction doesn’t work? What if Nurse Allen doesn’t leave? Then I’ll have to get the vitamin injection anyway.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Arthur said. “Besides, you have to get the shot either way, right? The school isn’t going to let you go back without it, and your dad will flip if you’re suspended. So this is win-win. You get Nurse Allen off your back, but you get to stay Beacon. Unless of course you want to become a Gold Star lemming . . .”

  Beacon released a heavy sigh.

  Arthur was right. Still, that didn’t mean he had to like it. Beacon was a good kid. He was used to following the rules. It was Everleigh who took risks and got into trouble, who made things harder for their dad. But he didn’t see what other choice he had. He’d already lost enough. He wasn’t about to lose Everleigh, too.

  “Fine,” Beacon said. “I’ll do it.

  “Perfect,” Arthur said. “Operation Jungle Avalanche is underway.”

  “Jungle Avalanche?” Beacon quirked an eyebrow.

  “It’s a code name,” Arthur explained.

  “Okay, but why Jungle Avalanche?”

  “Because it sounds cool,” Arthur said. “And because I’m the president of YAT. Now are you in or out?” He stuck out his hand.

  Beacon hesitated before he took it.

  “I’m in.”

  * * *

  ...............................

  It was already full dark by the time Beacon got home later that night. He hadn’t meant to be out so late. In fact, he could have sworn he’d only been at Arthur’s for an hour, tops. But when he’d glanced up from their notebook, it was 9:00 p.m. He told himself that he’d just been too caught up in
all the YAT stuff to notice how dark it was getting. That was so much easier to swallow than the growing sense that something wasn’t right about the passage of time here. Or with him. That was a problem a little bigger than the YAT club was going to solve.

  He braced himself for an argument about storming out of the house the way he had, and for coming home so late. It had seemed so right in the moment, but now he just felt bad. His entire family was cracking, and he was the only one holding it together. He couldn’t lose it now.

  When he stepped inside, he found his dad sitting in the big orange recliner in the living room with his feet kicked up and a pile of binders and papers scattered around him. A fire crackled and popped in the hearth.

  “Where’s Everleigh?” Beacon asked carefully.

  “Bed. Donna just went up not long ago, too.”

  “Okay . . . ,” Beacon said.

  His dad smiled.

  Beacon wasn’t an idiot—he knew a bone when one was being tossed to him. He needed to get out of his dad’s sight stat before he changed his mind about Beacon being in trouble. But when he turned for the stairs, his dad said, “Come and have a seat.”

  Beacon cringed before schlepping over to the couch.

  “How are you doing?” his dad asked. He was using his TV dad/therapist voice, and Beacon withered up inside.

  “Good,” Beacon said.

  “How are you really doing?” he said meaningfully.

  Beacon shifted uncomfortably.

  “Good, Dad. Everything is fine.” He pasted on a smile.

  “It’s okay. I want you to tell me the truth,” his dad said gently.

  Beacon almost said it all—everything that he was feeling. That he resented having to be good all the time because Everleigh acted out so much. That he was entitled to be sad, too, and that he wasn’t okay, not even a little bit. But when he opened his mouth, he ended up saying, “This place is weird.”

  “It’s very different from LA,” his dad agreed.

  “No. I mean, yes, it is,” he said. “But it’s just—strange. There’s something off about the people here.” He was struggling to put his feelings into concrete terms and not entirely sure how much he should say. “I just get an eerie vibe. I don’t know.”