The Gathering

THREE

I DON’T MIND SCHOOL. I’d like it a lot better if it wasn’t indoors. Being inside just seems to sap my energy. It’s gotten worse the last couple of years. I go home and I crash.

That worries my parents, but the doctors say it’s a combination of hormones and my metabolism—I’m used to being outside and active, and being a teen only makes it worse. They gave me some vitamins, but I still need a nap most days.

When school ends, I get outside as fast as I can. Today I was waylaid by Ms. Morales, who wanted a firsthand account of my cougar encounter. When I finally escaped, I spotted Nicole with Daniel on the other side of the playground. He had an eighth-grader pinned to the grass, arm twisted behind his back.

“Bully!” I shouted.

Daniel glanced over and grinned. Then he let the kid—Travis Carling—go and got down on all fours so Travis could try the move on him. As Daniel gave instructions, Travis’s brother, Corey, made suggestions that had everyone within earshot laughing. Travis and Corey were Chief Carling’s sons.

Dark haired, over six feet tall, big, and burly, Corey was the school’s second-best wrestler and boxer after Daniel. Also Daniel’s best guy buddy. I could only imagine what he was suggesting Travis do to Daniel while he had him pinned. It was drawing a crowd. Corey always did. He was one of those guys who can talk to anyone—and talk his way out of trouble, which in Corey’s case is a necessary survival skill.

If I had to pick the most popular guy at our school, it’d be a toss-up between Daniel and Corey. Daniel’s the one everyone wants on his team—the steady, responsible leader. Corey’s the guy everyone wants to party with.

As I headed toward them, I felt someone watching me. Rafe. When I looked over, he sauntered my way, grinning like I’d been the one caught staring.

Nicole said something to Corey, who looked in my direction. Daniel was on his feet now, coming to meet me. He veered toward Rafe, gaze on me, like he didn’t see Rafe there. He cut right in front of him, so close that Rafe had to stop short. Daniel pretended not to notice.

As Rafe stopped, Samantha—Sam—Russo walked past and shouldered him aside with a smirk. She switched it to a genuine smile as she said something to Daniel. Sam is our second newest student. Her parents died three years ago, and she’d come to live with the Tillsons, who were her second cousins or something like that. If there was any resemblance between Sam and Nicole, though, I couldn’t see it.

Sam is an inch taller than me, kind of stocky, with dark spiked hair and wide-set blue eyes. She has freckles, too, and the only time I’ve seen her wear makeup is when Corey teased that her freckles were “cute” and she tried to cover them up.

When she first arrived in Salmon Creek, we’d all tried to make her feel welcome. Serena and I tried harder than anyone, because we thought she was cool, in a smart-mouth, big-city way. But Sam wielded her outsider status like a shield, so we’d given up.

I still liked her. She was different. She was interesting. And we got along fine, although it’d become clear that “getting along” was the best I could hope for. The only person at our school she really liked was Daniel. It wasn’t a crush, though. She didn’t even seem interested in him as a guy, only as a potential friend. Daniel was nice to her, but he already had his quota of female friends.

The student she liked least these days was Rafe. He’d made one halfhearted move toward her and I have no idea what she’d said or done, but he’d steered clear ever since.

“Texas boy taking another run at you?” Daniel said as Rafe veered away and continued on.

“It’ll pass.”

“Want me to talk to him?”

I gave him a look. If there’s one problem with having the toughest guy at school as my best friend, this is it. Daniel has a protective streak a mile wide. Sometimes, when a summer guy is bugging me, it’d be great to have Daniel barrel in and handle it. But what does that say about me? Nothing I want to say.

“You want us to take care of the guy?” Corey said in a gangster voice as he walked over with Nicole. “We could do that. Lots of places to hide a body around here. Deep caves, deep ravines, deep lakes—” He stopped short, then smacked me between the shoulder blades. “So, how’s the almost birthday girl? Getting ready for her big party? Sweet sixteen and never been—”

Daniel cut him off with a sputtering laugh. “Believe me, Maya’s definitely been kissed.”

Corey gave a devilish grin. “Oh, I wasn’t going to say kissed.”

Nicole blushed furiously, and I laughed.

Across the playground, Rafe had been waylaid by Hayley Morris, another member of our swim team and singing group. Like Serena and Nicole, she was petite and blond—we used to joke that this was a requirement for joining. Hayley was not a friend. She was, however, Rafe’s number one admirer. She was also the first of his not-quite conquests and the only one who hadn’t taken the hint when he moved on.

She’d planted herself in front of him. He eased back more politely than I would have expected, just shifting until she was out of his personal space. She got right back into it. He moved back. She moved forward. It was an oddly formal little dance, and I was watching it when Daniel said, “Maya?”

“Hmm?”

“Ready to go?”

“Anytime you are.”

“Can I get a lift to the community center?” Nicole asked. “I want to squeeze in some swim practice before Ms. Martin comes by for my singing lesson.”

Corey frowned. “That’s a lot of practice, Nic. Are you sure you’ll have time to do your homework?”

“Of course. I do homework right after—” She caught his expression and blushed as she realized he was teasing her.

“At least she does her homework,” I said.

Daniel turned to Nicole. “Sure, I’ll give you a lift. You ready, Maya?”

“Doesn’t look like Maya needs a ride today,” Corey said.

I followed his gaze to see my dad barreling down on me, scowling in a way that really didn’t suit him at all.

Daniel mouthed, “Call me,” and headed for his truck, Nicole trailing.

“In the car,” Dad said, pointing to the Jeep at the curb. “Now.”

“What did I—?”

“I said now, Maya.”

He strode off, leaving me tagging along like I was five, every kid still in the school yard watching. Mom was in the passenger seat. She rolled down the window, smiling, then saw my expression.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“No idea,” I said. “He won’t tell me.”

She moved the seat forward for me to squeeze in the back. “Rick, what—?”

She laughed, then I saw Dad’s grin as he slid into the driver’s seat.

“Payback for this morning,” he said. “You embarrass me; I embarrass you.”

“Oh, that’s mature,” I said.

“Keeps me young.”

“So, did you bump into Mrs. Morris today? I hear Mr. Morris is away at a conference.” I waggled my brows at him in the rearview mirror.

“Enough, you two,” Mom said.

“What’s with the ride?” I said. “You missed me so much you couldn’t wait for me to get home?”

“Don’t answer that, Rick.” Mom looked back at me as Dad pulled away from the curb. “We need to pick up some things in the city, and we thought we’d go out for dinner.”

By “city,” she did not mean Vancouver. When I tell online friends that I live on Vancouver Island, they start asking questions about the city of Vancouver. I guess it makes sense that it would be on the island with the same name. It’s not. It’s across the strait, and while it’s barely thirty-five kilometers away, the water flowing in between means we only cross for special occasions.

The city we were heading to was Nanaimo, on the eastern coast. With just under a hundred thousand people, it was hardly a major urban center, but on an island almost five hundred kilometers long, with a population of under a million—half of them living in Victoria at the southern tip—you take what you can get.

“I can pick the restaurant, right? Since Saturday is my birthday and apparently we aren’t going to Vancouver to get my tattoo. Not that I’m bitter about that or—” I stopped as I glimpsed a familiar face out the window. “Hey, there’s that hiker from this morning. Did you ever catch up with her?”

“No, and I really do need her to file a report. Hold on.”

Dad pulled over to the curb as a group of kids passed. He peered out the window. “Where’d she go?”

“Right there, behind Travis Carling.”

Dad opened the door and got out. The kids went by … and there was no one else on the sidewalk. I rolled down the window.

“She was right there.” I pointed. “In front of the library.”

The library was part of the community center, which took up most of the block, meaning there was no way the woman had ducked around it. Dad walked over and tried the library doors, but they were locked—it was open only three days a week.

“I think it’s time for a drug test,” Dad said as he came back to the car.

“I’m serious. I saw her.”

“Maya’s right,” Mom said. “I noticed her before the kids went by. I don’t know where she went, but she was there.”

“She doesn’t want to tattle on the cute kitty,” I said. “Don’t worry. Just hand her the papers while she’s cornered again by a hundred and seventy-five pounds of snarling kitty and she’ll change her mind.”