This Town Is Not All Right

by M. K. Krys

  What Arthur was saying finally clicked. “Are you saying you think Nixon and Jane are aliens?” Beacon asked.

  “No! Well, I’m not not saying they’re aliens. It’s never gone off like that before, and now it goes off when Gold Stars just happen to be walking past?”

  Beacon’s heart skipped into overdrive. It had to mean something.

  “We need to get closer,” Beacon said. “See if it goes off again.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Arthur said. “We just barely escaped getting caught and you want to go closer?”

  “What happened to all the ‘alien radiofrequency detector went off’ stuff?” Beacon said, mimicking Arthur’s excited tone. “Come on, we’ll turn the volume way down. We have to test this. It’s like you said—it’s never gone off like that before. That can’t be a coincidence. Aren’t you curious?”

  Arthur wavered. Beacon went in for the kill.

  “Isn’t the number one most important part of an experiment that it has to be replicable? If we can’t repeat the experiment and get the same results every time, then we can’t say for sure what caused the ARD to go off.”

  When Arthur released a heavy sigh, Beacon was really glad he’d had to endure his dad talking about experiments for twelve years at the dinner table.

  “We’ll just go a bit closer,” Arthur said.

  With Arthur trailing behind him, Beacon smiled, then peered around the door again. The hall was empty. He took a deep, steeling breath and walked out.

  With each step they took, the ARD hissed and moaned. Arthur frantically turned down the volume, but the closer they got, the louder the noises became, until steam began spewing through the vents in the top of the machine and the unit vibrated in Arthur’s hands like an angry raccoon he was trying to snuggle.

  “Whoa!” Beacon whispered. “It’s going berserk!”

  Arthur switched off the machine. “We got what we need. Now, can we please get out of here?”

  “Wait,” Beacon said. “We haven’t completed our operation yet.”

  “We got even more than we hoped for. We have proof now. Let’s not push our luck. Besides, the door is closed.” He nodded at the room where Jane and Nixon had disappeared. “I can’t hear anything. Unless you want to walk right in there, I don’t see what else we can do.”

  “So that’s it, then, huh? You’re too scared.”

  “I’m not scared! I’m just out of ideas is all. And do we really need to discuss this right outside the door?”

  “You are scared,” Beacon said.

  “I am not,” Arthur said firmly.

  Beacon motioned to switch the ARD back on, and Arthur snapped the machine away.

  Beacon gave him a knowing look.

  “Fine, you come up with an idea for how we can listen in on this meeting, and I’m on board,” Arthur said.

  “Really?”

  Arthur nodded.

  Beacon’s eyes drifted upward, closing in on the ceiling. Arthur followed his gaze to the ceiling tiles and began shaking his head.

  “No. Uh-uh. You’re not talking about—”

  “I am. There were ceiling tiles just like that in my basement back home—there’s got to be a ventilation shaft up there. We can crawl right over their meeting! They’d never even suspect it.”

  “Let’s pretend that’s not a terrible idea,” Arthur said. “How would we even get up there? It’s way too high.” He shot a surreptitious glance at the meeting room door.

  “The kitchen,” Beacon said. “If we put a chair on top of that table, I’m sure we can reach.”

  “Oh yeah. That sounds like a fantastic idea,” Arthur said sarcastically.

  But Beacon was already jogging off toward the kitchen. Arthur watched him go, then sighed and followed. When he got to the room, Beacon had already pulled three chairs down and was flipping the fourth one right-side up on the tabletop.

  “Steady the chair for me,” Beacon said as he clambered up onto the table.

  Arthur did as instructed, stabilizing the chair legs as Beacon climbed up onto the seat, then reached up and slid a ceiling tile aside. Dust drifted down, and Beacon waved it out of his eyes and fought back a cough. Then he shoved his head into the hole. Exposed pipes hung down from a narrow metal tunnel just big enough for a small human to fit inside.

  “It’s perfect,” he said, his voice muffled. He reemerged with his face coated in a layer of grit. “I’m going in.”

  The chair legs squeaked and strained against Arthur’s grip as Beacon wrestled himself up like a fish out of water.

  “Hold the chair steady!” Beacon said.

  “I am!” Arthur whispered. “Quit squirming so much.”

  Beacon climbed inelegantly into the shaft. The space was so small, he was forced to crouch on all fours with his back to the hole he came up through.

  “It’s too tight to turn around,” Beacon said. “You’re going to have to get up on your own.”

  “Perfect,” Arthur grumbled. “I’ve always wanted a broken leg.”

  Beacon frowned. A memory rushed back at him. Beacon and his friends had been at the Culver City Skate Park a couple of years ago when he’d fallen trying to do a rail slide. He didn’t need a doctor to tell him that his leg was broken.

  He’d been in so much pain, he could only remember a few bits and pieces of what happened next: the wail of sirens, the bumpy ambulance ride, his dad and Everleigh arriving out of nowhere, running alongside the stretcher as they wheeled him down the brightly lit hospital hallways, and the utter, sheer panic as the operating room loomed closer. Even though he’d had a bone sticking out of his leg, and even though his dad had reassured him they’d put him to sleep before they did anything to him, he was still paralyzed with fear at the thought of all those needles and scalpels slicing into his skin. He’d been contemplating throwing himself off the stretcher when he heard his brother’s voice. Jasper yelled for them to wait and sprinted up to the stretcher.

  “Did you remember to wear clean underwear?” he asked Beacon breathlessly.

  Despite everything, Beacon had cracked a smile. Their grandma was always telling them to make sure they wore clean underwear in case they got into an accident. They thought that was so funny—as if dirty underwear was the biggest thing you had to worry about if you were seriously hurt.

  His brother knew he was scared and wanted to make him laugh.

  Beacon swallowed hard. He wondered when memories like this would stop punching him in the gut. If there would ever be a time he could think about his brother and it wouldn’t make a pit open up in his stomach. Everyone said that time healed all wounds, but it had been a year since Jasper died, and he was still hurting.

  Arthur clambered up into the shaft behind him.

  “You okay?” Beacon asked as Arthur panted for breath.

  “Never been better,” Arthur got out between coughing fits. There was some fumbling, and then light shot through the tunnel.

  “Ah!” Beacon cried, shielding his face.

  “Sorry,” Arthur said, moving the light. He’d shucked his backpack, which was scrunched up in front of him, and he held a small flashlight.

  “Good thinking,” Beacon said. “Slide the tile back over so no one gets suspicious.”

  “Because a single chair right-side up on the table isn’t going to look suspicious at all,” Arthur said. But he did as he was asked.

  “Okay, let’s get moving,” Beacon said. “The room was at the end of the hall, so we have some ground to cover.”

  The boys shuffled forward on their hands and knees, a thin beam of light illuminating their path. They couldn’t go very quickly without making too much noise, and progress was frustratingly slow. Beacon worried they would finally get to the end of the shaft only to discover that the meeting was already over. Or worse, that they’d get locked inside the chur
ch for the night. Visions of spending the night in the dark, creepy church swirled in his head.

  He pushed himself to go faster. Finally, they heard muffled voices up ahead.

  Arthur clicked off the flashlight, plunging them into darkness. They crawled forward a few more feet before Beacon slowed to a stop. He bent low and tilted his ear to the floor of the shaft, straining to hear. That was definitely a boy’s voice he heard. And that one sounded like Jane. Wait, was that Everleigh?

  He couldn’t make out a thing!

  “Squish over!” Arthur whispered.

  Beacon made angry slashing gestures across his neck. Arthur gestured angrily back, making swirling motions around his ears, then crossing his forearms dramatically, until Beacon rolled his eyes and squished against the side of the shaft to make room for him. Arthur squeezed next to Beacon, like sardines in a can.

  Beacon peeled back a tiny section of the ceiling tile. A sliver of light reflected into the metal passageway. They kept perfectly still, their ears cocked to the tiny gap in the tile.

  “Does anyone else have a suggestion?” someone said.

  That was definitely Jane. In fact, Beacon could see the top of her bright white curls from where he was crouched.

  “We could do a bake sale,” the girl with the sleek black hair from the other day said.

  “We’ve done five bake sales this year,” a boy said in a familiar voice that Beacon was sure belonged to Perry.

  “And they’ve all been successes,” the girl pointed out.

  “That’s true,” Jane said. “And while everyone does love your famous shortbread cookies, Sumiko, I agree with Perry that something new and innovative would be fun.”

  Beacon didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t to overhear the fraught preparations for a fundraiser.

  “I could do oil changes.”

  Everleigh!

  Beacon’s blood pressure spiked at the sound of his sister’s voice.

  “That’s a fantastic idea, Evie.”

  “Yeah, Evie. We’re so glad you decided to join us.”

  Evie?!

  Oh, no . . .

  There was almost nothing Everleigh hated more than when people called her cutesy nicknames.

  Beacon cringed, waiting for Everleigh’s inevitable flash of anger. But she only smiled politely.

  “Well, what are the rest of us going to do while you do the oil changes?” Nixon asked.

  Beacon’s mounting dread was immediately eclipsed by anger. He didn’t like the dismissive way Nixon was talking to his sister.

  “I could show a few of you how it’s done,” Everleigh said. “And we could do car washes, too. Not just a regular wash, but detailing. People would pay good money for that.”

  Jane clapped her hands excitedly, and a murmur of support rose through the room.

  “Well then, it’s decided,” Jane said. “Let’s break for snacks.”

  The kids rose from around the table, a blur of gold and blue. Jane approached Everleigh, and the two of them walked to a small display table full of goodies against the wall, their conversation lost in polite chatter. Beacon watched his sister pick up a shortbread cookie and gingerly take a bite, instead of eating the whole thing in one shot, then belching obnoxiously, like she normally would. Jane picked up a cookie, too, and the two of them turned back for the table. As Jane walked, she placed the cookie in between two of the buttons on her shirt.

  Beacon closed his eyes hard, then reopened them. Jane was wiping crumbs off the front of her shirt.

  “Did you see that?” Beacon whispered, his heart banging hard.

  “See what?” Arthur answered.

  Beacon stared through the gap in the ceiling. There was no logical reason why Jane would have put a cookie inside her shirt. Was he imagining things?

  Beacon heard a crack.

  Before he could even get a chance to figure out what caused the noise, Arthur whispered, “Uh-oh.” And then the ceiling shaft gave out beneath them.

  11

  Beacon’s stomach shot up as he went down. There was a deafening crash as he and Arthur landed hard in the middle of the boardroom table, papers and pens and pitchers of water flying everywhere. Gold Stars screamed and shielded their faces, leaping away from the chaos. Next to him, Arthur rolled up to sitting, groaning as he plucked a piece of broken shortbread cookie off the front of his shirt. For a moment, everyone stared at them in shock.

  “Beacon?” Everleigh said.

  “What the heck is going on?” Nixon said.

  “Oh, hey!” Beacon fumbled to his knees and brushed dust off his jeans. “Looks like a great meeting you were having. Love the oil change idea. Very innovative.” He hopped off the table, pain slicing through his leg from the fall. Next to him, Arthur quickly retrieved his flashlight and stuffed it inside his bag, next to the ARD. Then he slid off the table and readjusted his glasses.

  “Well, don’t let us interrupt you,” Arthur said. He saluted, then moved toward the door.

  “Wait!” Jane said. “What were you doing up there?”

  “What was that machine in your backpack, Arthur?” Perry piped up. “Were you spying on us?”

  “Spying? Of course not,” Beacon said with a laugh. He opened the door.

  “Wait a minute,” Nixon said. “We want an explanation.”

  “You damaged church property,” Sumiko chimed in. “Do you have any idea how much that will cost to repair?”

  “Well?” Everleigh said. “What do you two have to say for yourselves?”

  Beacon and Arthur looked at each other.

  “Run!” Beacon yelled.

  Arthur and Beacon bolted down the hall. They were going so fast that when they reached the end, they slammed into the wall before skittering up the stairs like dogs trying to run on hardwood floors. Footsteps pounded behind them.

  “Stop them!” a voice boomed.

  They burst out of the stairwell and tore across the nave of the church. In Beacon’s peripheral vision, he could see kids in blue and yellow jackets skirting around the pews on both sides, trying to hem them in.

  “Faster!” Beacon cried. He grabbed Arthur’s arm and yanked him through the wooden front doors. Beacon shielded his face against the wind and squinted into the dark.

  In LA, it was almost as bright at night as it was during the day, the city lit with streetlights and traffic and businesses open twenty-four hours. Here, the shadows of the trees blended seamlessly into the black sky, waves battering the rocky shore and drowning out all other sound.

  The boys ran.

  They were headed toward their skateboard and bike lying in the grass under the tree, but the Gold Stars were closing in fast. Nixon, Perry, Jane, a handful of kids he’d never seen before—even Everleigh was chasing after him with a hardened look on her face that sent a chill down Beacon’s back. He’d seen that face before but never directed toward him. Sure, they argued. But it was all surface. Nothing ever came between them. And now here was his sister, chasing him like she meant to hurt him.

  “Leave them!” Arthur called, pulling Beacon away from the skateboard and bike under the tree and toward the gravel road that twisted away from the church.

  “I can’t leave my board!” Beacon argued.

  “You have to!”

  Arthur was right. If they went to the tree first, they’d have to double back to reach the road. By then, they would be surrounded.

  With one last pained look at his board, Beacon turned for the road.

  Charcoal clouds chased them from above, the wind sending vortexes of leaves and dirt swirling around them. The cold air shocked Beacon’s throat as he pushed himself to go faster, faster, faster. He sent a furtive glance over his shoulder. Even with the detour, the Gold Stars were gaining on them.

  “Why are they chasing us?” Beacon yelled.<
br />
  “They want my ARD,” Arthur gasped out.

  “Why would they care about your ARD? How would they even know what it is?”

  “Trust me, I saw the way Perry looked at it.” Arthur gulped for air. “We have to split up. They’ll come after me, but you’ll have the machine.”

  “No way!” Beacon cried.

  “We have to save the ARD. It’s the only way.”

  They rounded a corner. Behind the cover of a woodshed, Arthur whipped off his backpack and pulled out the ARD. He shoved the machine at Beacon’s chest. Beacon grunted, his shoulders dropping against the sudden and unexpected weight of the machine.

  “Don’t let them see it,” Arthur said, zipping his bag. Then, before Beacon could argue, Arthur slipped on his backpack and made a hard left toward the ocean.

  “Wait!” Beacon cried, but the boy was gone.

  Beacon steeled his jaw, then tucked the ARD underneath his hoodie and ran in the opposite direction, back toward the church and his skateboard.

  Beacon had expected to see a whole slew of pursuers, but when he looked, it was only Perry and Everleigh chasing after him. That meant that the rest of the Gold Stars had followed Arthur—maybe he was right about the ARD after all.

  Well, they weren’t getting it.

  Beacon ran hard and fast, his muscles screaming in protest. He came up on the church from behind, only to find a tall white picket fence blocking in the property.

  He hesitated briefly, unsure what to do. If he ran all the way around the fence to the road, there’d be a good chance Perry and Everleigh would catch up to him; and then it wouldn’t matter if there were only two people after him and a million more after Arthur—they would get the ARD anyway.

  Beacon made a split-second decision and put his head down, charging toward the fence. He vaulted it in one fluid motion, landing awkwardly on the side of his foot. His ankle rolled and he fell on his side, his head banging into the hard-packed grass. He stumbled up, pain shooting up his leg, his ear ringing and hot. He felt for the ARD inside his hoodie. It was safe.

  Relief washed over him. But it was short-lived.