“No, he specifically mentions Chloe Lundeen.”
It made no sense. Nick made no sense.
Mr. Harris joined them. “So this is the famous Chloe.”
Nick’s mother reached under Chloe’s chin. “I’m sorry that school is so horrible for you.” She lifted Chloe’s face. “That bully Scarface should really be disciplined —”
Mrs. Harris’s gaze fixed on Chloe’s neck, and she lifted her hand to her mouth.
“Yeah.” Chloe rolled her eyes. “I’ll make sure to report myself to the principal first thing.” She raced after Nick.
I won’t be joining this dinner party. Tears fell, and Chloe kicked the metal barn doors and didn’t care that Mom saw. Chloe pounded inside.
“Nick? Nick! How could you tell your parents —”
“I had Mom read me your notes.”
Nick’s voice sounded small, the words barely audible from the rear of the barn. He sat on a hay bale in the corner. Had Nick been able to see the wrecking ball Dad used to crush failed experiments now hanging from the rafters, he likely would have made a different seating choice.
Chloe slowed and frowned.
“They’re good. They made the script better.” Nick shifted. “Not that I couldn’t have made it better myself, but they … I was wondering if you …” He squeezed his hands tight. “Do you want to help me with my script?” He stood and pointed in Chloe’s direction. “This would be a professional relationship only. We do not have to be friends.”
“You’re asking me for help?” she said.
“No! Not help. Just … feedback.”
“Feedback.”
Nick jumped up. “Do you want in or not?”
“And this would not be a friendship, because I pretty much came in here to pound on you.”
“Definitely, not a friendship.”
Chloe folded her arms. “And if I do this, you agree not to refer to me by the other name. Ever.”
“Which name? You mean Scarface?”
“Nick!”
“Just kidding.” He grinned. “Yeah, it’s a deal.”
Nick’s grin disappeared and he tilted his head. “I’m standing beneath something heavy, aren’t I?”
“Yep. And two feet to your left rests a blowtorch. Behind you on the wall hang five chain saws, three axes, and a maul. His trough filled with shattered glass isn’t too far away, either. You’re in the workshop of Crazy Ray, aka my dad.” Chloe glanced around. “The hayloft is safe.”
“Can we go up there?” Nick grasped Hobo’s harness tighter.
“Nope. That’s where my dad sleeps. I’ve never been up there.” She peeked up. “Well, not since …”
“Get me out, boy.” Nick and Hobo slowly weaved their way out of the barn. Chloe stood and watched them go.
What did I just do? More time with Nick?
The smell of sweet smoke filled the air and in the distance there was laughter. Words, evil words, rode the scent into the barn.
“I’m so sorry, I had no idea that she was the Scarface, or that she’d been hurt until I looked at her.”
I hate you, Mrs. Harris.
“Yeah, some people call her Chloe, others call her Scar — that name. She’s kind of like two people in one.”
I hate you, Nick.
“Had no inkling myself of what my sweet glass of Kool-Aid was going through at school.”
I hate you back, Dad.
“Ah, my Chloe. Bella. Bella. Bella. Such a beautiful girl, is she not?”
Grandpa Salvador. You, I love.
“No!” Nick shrieked. And suddenly all voices spoke at once.
“Chloe? Venite fuori! Now!” Mom’s voice rose. Chloe scampered outside and froze.
Nick lay on his back clutching his head, his body writhing, while his parents knelt at his side. Dad raced back from the house holding cloth, and minutes later, sirens blared.
Time blurred with shouts and cries and lights, as the ambulance made its second visit in two weeks to the farm.
“What are you thinking?”
Chloe jumped up and turned. Grandpa Salvador stood silently at her side.
“You scared me!”
“Yes, it seems I have. What are you thinking?”
She fell back against the metal door and watched as Nick was lifted onto a stretcher and vanished inside the ambulance.
“I’m scared, Grandpa. I feel like I should do something but there’s nothing a kid —”
“Oh, I believe you will do far more for him than you could imagine. Remember, don’t let him go, Chloe. Don’t ever let him go.”
Chloe stared at Grandpa. “If everyone else likes him so much, why don’t we just adopt him? To me, most times, he’s a jerk.” She peeked at worried Mr. Harris. “I mean, this isn’t what I want, but how am I supposed to endure someone who hurts me each time he opens his mouth?”
“See.” Grandpa gestured with his head. “His parents will ride with him. Doctors will too, but perhaps not the dog?”
Chloe glanced at Hobo and thought. “Yeah, I can do that. That dog seems nice.” She leaped up and ran toward the ambulance. “I’ll watch Hobo!”
“Yes.” Nick’s mom broke into tears. “Oh, thank you. Here’s our gate’s code.” She dug in her purse for a scrap of paper. “We’ll be back for Hobo soon.” The back doors silenced her sentence and the sirens wailed into the distance.
“What just happened?” Chloe whispered. “Did he fall?”
Dad took off his baseball cap and scratched his head. “Don’t rightly know, Honeycomb. Something inside the head’s not right.”
Chloe did know one thing. She had a dog to deal with. But not like any dog she’d had before. He stood statued, staring down the gravel drive. Waiting. He’d probably wait forever if she let him.
“Honey.” Mom approached. “You should probably walk Hobo back to Nick’s place. I’ll let him out in the morning, and you can hop off at the Finnegan property and check on him after school, before coming to Aldo’s.” Mom wrinkled her forehead at the dog. “I declare, he looks like he blames himself. I think he needs to be in familiar quarters.”
Chloe nodded. She wouldn’t know what to do with a comatose dog anyway.
Chloe walked silently beside the dog, her hand on the harness. The animal looked lost in thought.
“Excuse me, Hobo. I don’t mean to interrupt you, but … what’s wrong with Nick?”
Hobo started to pant.
“Okay. It’s been a tough day.”
They reached the gate and Chloe punched in the security code. Metal creaked and the door opened inward. Hobo didn’t flinch.
“Come on, Hobo.” Chloe stepped inside. “Come on, boy.”
The wind blew cool, and summer leaves danced down the road behind him, but that dog did not move.
She knelt. “How am I supposed to take care of you if you don’t come inside? If you do this on Monday, I’ll be late for the Palace. You’re a working boy, I’m a working girl. You understand.” She paused. “Hey, Nick will be back. He’ll be okay.”
Hobo looked up, then down, and eased by her and through the gates. Chloe shut them with a clang, jogged by the gardens, and found the hide-a-key.
Once inside their expanded farmhouse, she gasped. The house was beautiful. Not modern beautiful. Olden days beautiful. With chandeliers and antique furniture and pictures of people from long ago.
“Well, Nick. I don’t know what your dad does, but he must do it well. Better than my dad, anyway.” She turned to Hobo. “Where’s your dish? Of course, Nick’s room.”
It took a bit of exploring to find it. But when Chloe pushed open the last door on the left and turned on the light, she knew she was there. Boy clothes were stacked neatly in piles on the bed. No pictures or posters graced the walls, but in the far corner, stacked in a floor-to-ceiling heap, was the strangest assortment of stuffed animals. Trolls and dragons and wizards. Fantasy stuff.
Chloe filled the dog dish and stood. “I’m guessing the harness stays o
n you, Hobo? Yes? No? Though if I removed it, I don’t think I could get it back on.” She took one last look around the room and her eyes widened. What a computer screen!
The screen saver was beautiful. Chinese Mountains. Chloe moved nearer.
“Too bad you can’t see it.”
Too bad you can’t see it.
The mountains disappeared and her words typed themselves on the screen.
“What a great app.”
What a gate app.
“I said great, not gate.”
I said great, not gate.
Chloe sat down, grabbed the mouse, and scrolled up the document.
Page 1
RETINYA
Screenplay by
Nick Harris
“So you added page numbers, huh?” Chloe smiled. “Excellent idea, Nick. However did you think of it?”
Her words appeared on screen and she winced.
He won’t want my sentences in there.
She deleted them, hit save, and silently read:
“How could you do this?”
“Do what?”
“You know, bring me here. You don’t know the Darkness that awaits.”
Pages and pages of dialogue filled the screen. But there was no description. No narrative.
Of course, Nick probably doesn’t know, or can’t remember, or …
Chloe thought for an instant, leaned in, and spoke.
The lake stretched out for miles, clear and blue and shimmering, with clouds of pink and purple …
Hobo barked and stared intently at the screen.
“You don’t like pink and purple? Fine.” She turned back to the screen. “Patches of white hovering over the water.”
Chloe kept adding. Hobo kept barking. Finally, Hobo lay down and Chloe glanced at the clock.
“Wow, okay, better get home, but at least it reads a little smoother.” She powered down the computer. “I think he’ll like it, don’t you? I mean, you heard him — he said I could help.”
Hobo was asleep. Chloe slipped out of the room, off their property, and ran home.
CHAPTER
8
WEEKS PASSED, and inside Aldo’s Movie Palace The Vapor was a huge success. Mom smiled a bit more, and seemed to worry about Grandpa a bit less. Who would have thought a horror flick could make such a positive difference?
The kids at Chloe’s school continued to be horrid, but her mind was elsewhere — in a different world: one named Retinya. Nick’s fantasy was alluring and terrifying and offered the perfect escape. Chloe dreamed of it, sketched out its inhabitants, and spent Mr. Kolberg’s algebra class creating detailed maps of the landscape.
“Chloe?”
She carefully traced the Wandering Road, marked the location of the wood elves’ invisible kingdom, and stared lazily around her kitchen.
“Chloe!” Mom clanked two pans together.
“Oh. Sorry. This homework is really absorbing.”
“Absorbing.” Mom frowned. “Maybe my task will bring you back. I want you to take a break from Aldo’s. Q will take your place in the booth after school starting today.”
Chloe dropped her spoon into her Cheerios. “But we’ve never done so well. Don’t you need me?”
“Someone needs you more.” Mom eased down across from her. “Nick’s mother called. Apparently, Nick’s back home. He won’t be in school tomorrow, but he’d like to see you. Something about a screenplay?”
“He wants to see me?”
“That’s what Mrs. Harris said. I want you to go over to their house after school.”
“But —”
“He’s expecting you.”
Chloe pushed away her cereal bowl — she wasn’t hungry. She’d been making changes to his script every day for two weeks.
This little meeting isn’t going to be pleasant.
School zoomed by, and Chloe stepped off the bus in front of Nick’s gate, her stomach filled with butterflies. She entered the gate’s code, walked up to the door, and knocked.
It swung open immediately.
“Is that you, Chloe?”
“Yeah, Nick. I — Ow! Don’t yank the hair!”
With a yank, Chloe’s attempt at a pre-war peace talk was ended promptly, and she had no choice but to follow him to his room. Nick sat in front of his computer in stony silence. She stared at the screen and chewed her nails.
“I thought your work here was limited to taking care of Hobo.”
“Okay, it was.” Chloe took a deep breath. “But Retinya, it’s really good. I kind of got lost in it. Blame Hobo too. He helped.”
“My dog helped you write a script?”
Hobo turned away.
“It was weird. He barked and I wrote and — Oh, like I’ve been trying to say, I may have gone too far.”
“May have? I listened to the script. I should just call it Re-Chloe-ia.” He hinted a smile.
Chloe bit her lip. “You’re not mad.”
“I was. But then I listened again and, well … you’re kind of making it better. I thought maybe you could come over sometime, and we could work on it together.”
Chloe nodded. “Yeah, I’d like that. I have some ideas for your good guy … Secholit? Is that how you pronounce that? And your bad guy — Darkness — I think we can frighten him up a bit —”
“Whoa.” Nick stiffened. “Here are the rules. You don’t mess with Secholit. You don’t mess with Darkness. Here are the other things you may not change.” He handed Chloe a sheet.
She sighed. “Wait. No. Like here. I have great ideas for the Safelands. It’s a desert, with sand, like the riverbank behind our place. Sand is always safe ‘cause it’s near water.”
“No! Sand is never safe. You know why? It’s near water! Try being blind and walking near a river. Not smart. Just like climbing trees. Not smart.”
“That’s always smart! Nobody can see you up in a tree. Nobody laughs at you. This Unknown Forest? That has to be a good place!”
Nick stood. “This will never work. Chloe, here. Take the original. Make the changes you want, I’ll make the changes I want. Then we’ll get together tomorrow and fight about it. Fair?” He handed Chloe the dog-eared sheets she knew so well.
“Yeah. I mean, it is your play.”
Midnight came, and Chloe was still hard at work. “A wind funnel. Like the tornado that came through last year. A tornado inside a mountain.” She scribbled in the margin. “How cool would that be?”
Mom knocked and poked in her head. “To bed. I’m sorry, but, Chloe, I need you back at Aldo’s. Q tried — he’s a good boy without Grif — but he’s useless. He showed reel two first.”
“He didn’t … No, Mom! I really can help Nick. I think he does need me.”
“Yes, he does. Unfortunately, I do too. Turn off the light.”
Chloe grabbed the papers, stuffed them in her backpack, and drifted off into the Unknown Forest.
“Nick, I can’t come tonight.” Chloe plunked down beside him in the lunchroom. “Mom needs me at Aldo’s.”
His face fell. “Yeah, I get it.”
“It’s not like I have a choice.”
“Sure.”
An awkward silence settled over them. “Here are the changes. There are a whole lot of them, some on every page. I’m telling you, this could be incredible!”
“Right.”
“Hey, Nick!” A boy called from the table behind them — a voice Chloe did not know. “Did you get blinder? How come you need two guide dogs? A quick FYI, they gave you a scarred one!”
Laughter, ugly and cruel, filled Chloe’s ears. “Here,” she whispered. “I’ll just leave my ideas in front of you.”
“Don’t go,” Nick reached for Chloe’s arm, but she’d already stood.
“I can’t stay.” She turned and walked quickly out of the lunchroom.
There’s only one safe place for me.
CHAPTER
9
WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY SCREENPLAY?”
Chloe jumpe
d, and the reel she held slipped from her fingers. She lunged for it but caught only the end of the film.
Snap.
Reel one of The Vapor saucered to a clattery stop to the ground. At least the frame of it. She stared at the coil of film in her hands.
“Oh no. Nick, do you have any idea — Oh no. Do you think we keep these? Do you know how much this film cost us?” She dropped to her knees and gently hugged the reel.
“Well, too bad for you. Now, maybe, we’re even. You ruined my movie, I ruined yours.”
Chloe stared up. “You can’t keep coming up here — How did I ruin your movie?”
“Mom found your version when I got home from school, and while I was out with Dad, she typed all your changes into my original. It’s a whole new script! I mean, I don’t recognize the half of it.”
“And you’re blaming me for that?” She peered at the clock. Five minutes to showtime. She stood and looked out the window. Easily one hundred customers. Of all the days.
Chloe placed the reel and the piece of snapped, kinked film onto the splicing table. “This will take thirty minutes,” she mumbled. “Maybe forty.” She swept sweat from her forehead. “Think, Chloe.”
“Who cares about that? What about this?”
Nick threw Chloe’s draft in her direction. Pages filled the air and fluttered onto the splicing table, covering the movie reel.
“Why are you doing this to me?” Chloe threw up her arms. “Is it your goal to make my life officially misera —?”
Behind her, the damaged reel rattled beneath the blanket of papers.
“What the — Oh, where’s Streak when I need her? Don’t suppose that super dog can catch a mouse! I hate mice!” Chloe carefully lifted the sheets, and Grandpa’s full mantra floated through her head:
Aldo’s Fantastical Movie Palace — where dreams come true, and nightmares too.
“This would qualify as a nightmare,” she whispered.
“Chloe!”
Mr. Simonsen!
She stretched her neck out the window. “Movie is coming up. Technical difficulties! You’ve already seen it seven times, so a little patience …”