and squirms in the blackness.
“That’s the screwiest thing yet,” Quentin says.
We’ve activated something. Pale, cold light starts coming up from the floor and from the far edges of our vision. I can make out my friends a little now. They all wear frightened, wide-eyed expressions – just like mine, no doubt. All around us, deep blackness absorbs the glow like the ocean sucking up cloudy moonlight.
“That’s more like it,” Quentin says, “I think.”
We switch off our headlights. I am afraid that we’ll be in total darkness again, but the glow remains; it even seems to strengthen a little. Melissa tries to blow off some stress.
“This is perfect,” she says. “Maybe we can have a tea party now.”
I look around our prison. It’s impossible to tell how big it is. One moment we are all hemmed in, the next we seem to be in a limitless area like people adrift in a lifeboat. Space and time feel all twisty, like the rays from our bike lights were. But at least we can see – at least I’m not collapsing from terror just yet.
And I used to think that Grandma Lenin’s house was weird! This is, hands down, the weirdest place I’ve ever been.
Why did the guys with the long coats chase us in here?
“Hey, something’s wrong with my watch,” Melissa says.
“Yours, too?” I say.
Her second hand is racing around, and the minute hand is going so fast that you can actually see it move. I look at my own watch.
“Mine’s doing the same thing!”
Then, both of our watches suddenly stop dead. Melissa take hers off and shakes it. She holds it to her ear, shakes it again.
“I thought this was supposed to be a luxury brand,” she says. “Imagine, thirty-two jewels and it can’t even tell time.”
“There’s nothing wrong with your watch,” I say. “It’s this Tire Giant place.”
“Well, I’m glad to know that,” Melissa says. “I wouldn’t care to be stuck with a cheapo watch ... uh, no offense, Amanda.”
Suddenly, I’m very angry. Maybe I’m just fed up with Melissa’s snootiness, but I feel a little braver for some reason. The reality of our situation begins to sink in. We are prisoners in this awful place! We have to fight back.
“Let’s get to the bottom of this – right now,” I say.
“How are we going to do that?” Quentin asks.
“Like this.”
I press my horn button.
BEEEP!
“What are you doing?” Melissa says.
“If anybody’s here, we have to meet them sooner or later,” I say over the noise. “Let’s show some brass.”
“I’ll go for that,” Tommy says.
He fires up his horn, too.
BEEEP!
Our duet flows into the darkness for many rackety seconds. When we finally take our fingers off the buttons, my ears buzz on their own for a while. Then silence, except for the low whirring and the drumming of raindrops.
“Guess there’s nobody here,” Quentin says.
Then, from right behind us, comes an angry voice.
“Hey, what’s all the noise?”
I practically jump out of my soggy shoes.
10. Rank Eddie
A grungy, tough looking kid swaggers out of the gloom behind us. His hair is all tangled and nasty. He wears blue jeans, a dirty tan jacket that’s too big for him, and lots of attitude. He must be at least a year younger than us, but he acts much older.
“You wrecked my nap,” he says. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
Quentin draws himself up. Now that he has a situation he can understand, his old confidence is returning. I feel somewhat better, too, although this kid is definitely the type I’d avoid back in the real world.
“We were just passing through,” Quentin says, “and thought we’d stop by for a visit.”
“Don’t get wise with me,” the kid says. “Nobody comes here because they want to.”
“Actually, we got chased in here by some weird guys in long coats,” Tommy says.
The kid nods. “Yeah, I thought so.”
No way of getting around it, the kid smells rank, like he hasn’t washed in ages. Quentin unwisely mentions this fact.
“You don’t smell so hot,” he says. “When’s the last time you had a bath?”
“What’s it to you?” the kid shoots back.
“Don’t get bent out of shape,” Quentin says, taking a step forward, “or I’ll bend you back in.”
The kid whips something from his jacket pocket – a railroad spike ground to a vicious point. He jabs the weapon at Quentin.
“Go ahead, try it, punk!” he says.
Quentin steps back, holding up his hands.
“Easy now,” he says, “I’m just making friendly conversation. That’s a very nice spike, by the way, er ...”
“My name’s Eddie Hawkes,” the kid says. “Don’t forget it.”
“Yes, Eddie,” Quentin says. “Excellent workmanship on that item, by the way. Very, uh, sharp.”
Eddie looks us over with slit eyes, daring anybody to advance. I study his face and try to figure out if he is really mean or just scared to death like we are.
“That goes for the rest of you, too,” Eddie says. “Nobody hassles me, got it?”
“Sure thing,” Tommy says. “We’re all in the same boat, aren’t we?”
Then Eddie becomes interested in our bikes. He starts looking them over, especially Tommy’s. He seems to almost forget about us. We retreat into the shadows for a membership conference.
“What are we going to do about that Eddie kid?” Melissa whispers.
“Let’s jump him,” Tommy says.
“Yeah,” Quentin says. “You slip behind him, and – ”
“Hold on a minute,” I say. “Let me talk to him before you start getting violent.”
“If you can get close enough,” Melissa says. “He doesn’t need a dagger, the stench is enough to finish you off.”
“Just let me try it,” I say. “The rest of you wait here. I’ll call if I need you.”
I move back toward Eddie, being very careful to stay outside of spike jabbing range. He’s examining Tommy’s Hornet closely now, running his fingers over the frame and gripping the handlebars.
Well, here goes, Amanda ...
11. Negotiation Attempt
“Do you like that bike, Eddie?” I ask.
He looks at me with suspicion.
“It’s okay.”
He says this real casual, but I see the excited gleam in his eyes. He’d very much like to have a bike, I think.
“My name’s Amanda Searles,” I say.
“Yeah?” Eddie says. “Who are the other ones?”
“We’re all in a bike club,” I say. “We’ve known each other a long time.”
I point out my friends in turn. I have a gruesome feeling that I’m identifying their bodies at a morgue.
“That’s Quentin Mays, Tommy Velasco, and Melissa Jordanek.”
They all nod, without enthusiasm. Eddie brings his attention back toward me.
“You sure picked a strange place to go riding,” he says.
“It was kind of an accident,” I say. “The guys in the long coats, you know. We were just sitting in the park shelter waiting for the rain to stop.”
“Right.”
Eddie seems to accept my explanation.
“Quentin didn’t mean any harm,” I say. “He just runs on like that sometimes. And he’s scared, like the rest of us.”
“Oh yeah?” Eddie says. “He’d better watch it – that’s all.”
I’m afraid that he’s going to get all worked up, but Tommy’s bike soon draws his attention again. He goes back to fondling it, as if it is the only nice thing he’s ever seen in his whole life.
“How long have you been in here, Eddie?” I ask.
“A few days, maybe. It’s hard to tell, time’s all screwed up in this place.”
He’s all ten
se and distrustful, as if he isn’t used to anybody talking nice to him. He seems to be the angry type of kid who goes around breaking bottles on sidewalks and writing nasty stuff on park benches, but I don’t think he’s really vicious.
Of course, I could be wrong. This ‘woman’s intuition’ thing can be way off, as I’ve seen more than once. Like my aunt, for example, who has married and divorced two alcoholics. She was going to change them, she said, but it didn’t turn out too well.
I decide to approach a delicate topic.
“Did you carve that message on the picnic table?” I ask. “The one about Joey?”
Eddie only laughs, though.
“Yeah,” he says, “but those guys in the long coats started chasing me before I could finish.”
“Who’s Joey?”
“You sure ask a lot of questions,” Joey says.
He’s back on the defensive now.
“Sorry,” I say.
I glance back toward my friends. Tommy is slipping around behind us, and Quentin has moved closer in. They are using me as cover so they can jump Eddie! I give them my icy stare, and they stop moving – for the time being anyway.
Eddie is examining the horn button now, making short little beeps.
“Joey Blanton is this punk at the Children’s Home who was always fighting with me,” he says. “I fixed him, though.”
He pulls a New York Yankees cap out of a jacket pocket.
“I took his precious baseball cap when I left!”
Eddie laughs maliciously.
“So, you ran away from the Children’s Home and have been living outdoors, is that it?” I ask.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“You have no family, then?”
Eddie’s mouth tightens, and he shakes his head. He looks back down at the Hornet. I think I can see a little tear in the corner of his eye.
I feel desperately sorry for him. In an instant he’s changed from an armed psycho killer to just a sad little kid with nobody on his side. No wonder he stinks. If I’d been living out in the