I was really just wondering if this was a good start to book 2, i usually don't like re reading the events of the previous book, but i guess that's sorta important isn't it? well, this is really for someone who has already read the first book, but anyway.... so its for really ramsvolleyball1 because i think she's the only one on here who has looked at the whole book
1. The End of Summer
‘Really?’ Asked the boy with the tanned skin and a mop of brown hair sitting on the top of his head. He was packing his backpack for school, so he could catch the bus which was going to arrive soon.
‘Really,’ I assured him, also packing my backpack.
‘No way!’ Gasped the blonde haired girl who stood beside the other boy, slinging her bag over her shoulder.
‘Yes way,’ I said, assuring both of them that I was positive, and that this case was over, no doubt about it. For some reason they both like to second guess me to make sure that I was right… usually hoping that I was wrong.
‘But how come?’ The boy asked, in a whiney, and cracking voice.
‘Because that’s what life does Bobby… in the end, it kills you.’ I said making it as simple as possible, for him, because that’s what usually had to be done with him.
‘That’s not very nice of it…’ He whined.
‘It’s the circle of life. Deal with it.’ I said, grabbing my back pack, and heading for their door.
‘I just can’t believe he died!’ The girl shrieked, tears coming to her eyes now.
‘Jo!’ I gasped stubbornly, doing my best to not hit them. ‘Dozens of ducks die on your farm every year! Why is this one so sad?’
‘Because he was our pet…’ Jo cried, ‘Imagine what you would do if Dennis died!’
Dennis was my dog, lazy, boring, and annoying… but still, I could see where she was going. ‘Why don’t you just get a new pet? You said yourself that the ducks were hatching.’
She smiled a friendly smile. ‘It wouldn’t be the same.’
‘Ashley, come on.’ I said, moving toward the red haired girl sitting on the yellowy-brown couch, with a text book open in her lap. She glanced up and me, but then shot her eyes back down to the page and began flipping pages. I grabbed the book out of her hands.
‘Wait!’ She cried, ‘I’m not sure what the definition—‘
‘Ashley, we haven’t even gone to school for the first day yet!’ I laughed.
‘But some teachers give tests as a way to learn what everyone remembered from last year—and I put my studying off until now!’
I glanced at Bobby, who was holding in laughter, and to Jo, who was done crying, and watching the scene.
‘Well, we’ll miss the bus if we don’t head for it now.’ I said, thrusting the book back into her hands.
‘Oh… alright…’ She pulled her backpack over one shoulder and put the book right up to her face, starting to walk, but running into Bobby.
‘C’mon, you two.’ I said to the twins, who were both laughing at Ashley now.
‘Hey, Anthony, where is Jarred?’ Jo asked, obeying me, and walking for the door.
‘I think Charlie took him and Dawson to school…. or something… actually I haven’t seen them for a while, so I couldn’t tell you really…’ I said opening the front door. Charlie was my eldest brother.
‘How did they do on their summer school?’ Bobby asked, referring to the schooling system that my new mom—Grace—designed for the people who had missed out on the school the previous year. Or in other words, the people who were kidnapped. Last year about twenty children were kidnapped in the process of five people looking for a certain child. The thing is…. I was the child they were looking for. They found me—or rather I found them, in the end, and they were “sent to jail”. Ashley thought they were anyway… but the fifth member of their group…. Well…
‘Jarred was finished really early, because he and dad got to work instantly because he wanted a lot of the summer to himself, with no school, but Dawson took the first part of summer to hang out with Lulu, so it took him a while to catch up, but in the end they passed—so did Lulu.’ I said. Dawson was my obnoxious younger brother, Lulu was his girlfriend, and Jarred was a boy that was the same age as the others, and he lived with us, almost like he was adopted, but he technically wasn’t part of the family yet.
‘That’s good,’ Ashley said monotonously as we headed down the long country laneway.
‘Have fun at school today!’ Called a tall, muscular man who looked much like Bobby. The man was headed for the barn in the distance. That was Bobby and Jo’s father Bill, he served as a father to me, even though I already had one of my own, he was just very kind to me.
I waved back to him before he disappeared from my sight.
‘Is that the bus?’ Bobby asked, pointing to a big yellow vehicle coming up the hill.
‘Yeah, I would say so.’ Jo said as we all started running to catch it at the end of the lane.
The bus came to a screeching halt, as we all ran across the street, and jumped onto it. The bus driver smiled at us as we ran to the back and sat down, where the black haired triplets sat.
Alex had her hair cut short now, and spiked up, she wore a green t-shirt, and shorts, and her backpack looked like it had nothing in it, but she had a soccer ball.
Chris still wore her hair in a braid, and supported her large circular glasses. Her green eyes were locked on the book she was reading. She was wearing a floral sun dress.
Jamie’s hair was a mess, and he wore a simple t-shirt and jeans. He smiled at me, but couldn’t say much because he would disturb Chris, who was sitting beside him and everybody knew what would happen when Chris is disturbed from her books.
The triplet’s house was destroyed last year…well actually it exploded. It was James who did it… James and his colleges—the kidnappers. So the triplets, and their parents were forced to move to their summer home, which was actually not far away from their actual home, but it had a better view of the pond. They were rich, so they had multiple homes, so when the first one was destroyed it didn’t really affect anyone… well actually a lot of people were affected, because they were literally hurt in the blast, but at least no one died…. oh and during that explosion the triplets were kidnapped… but other than all of that…
Ashley sat with me, and Bobby and Jo sat together behind Alex, and immediately began talking to her.
Jamie tried to turn around, but Chris slapped him on the wrist.
Ashley laughed and then turned to me.
‘So are you ready for the tests?’ Ashley asked.
‘There aren’t going to be any tests.’ I said.
‘Well you can’t be sure!’ Ashley pulled a bright red book out of her backpack, and began reading. I noticed the title read “Definition of Fine Arts”.
‘Ashley!’ I said ‘Grace is not going to give us a test!’
‘How can you be so sure?’ Ashley said.
I grabbed the book, and the two of us fought over it for a few seconds, ‘Ashley!’ I scowled. ‘I know because Grace is my mother!’
Ashley let go of the book. ‘I forgot about that…’
‘Ashley, you can’t possibly have forgotten! You cried the whole way through the wedding—which frankly I don’t get.’ I laughed.
‘Won’t it be weird having your step-mom as your teacher?’ Ashley asked snatching the book back out of my hands.
‘Well, yeah, I guess.’ I said, giving up and letting her keep the book. ‘But, it wasn’t too weird when they were dating so I can’t imagine it being much weirder…’
‘Really?’ Ashley said, swapping her art book with a math text book. ‘I think that if my mom was my teacher I would drop out of the class because I would be afraid of putting too much pressure on her.’
‘Thank you for your kind words…’ I said, ‘do you even have math this semester?’
‘Yes!’ Ashley said, ‘now leave me alone while I study.’
‘First, can I ask you a question?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘If you have a photographic memory… what is the big deal with studying?’
‘Just because I have a photographic memory doesn’t mean I don’t have to study! If I haven’t found anything to photograph with my memory it’s not going to help is it?’ Ashley snapped, ‘and what if my memory stops working?’
I didn’t know how to respond to this statement. Ashley seemed to think in a way that a normal person wouldn’t ever think. And I don’t mean that in a good way. Ashley was probably the best person I had ever met, but she still seemed to have… problems. I had never thought that someone would think they could loose their photographic abilities… but then Ashley came along and changed that.
The bus stopped periodically on the way to school, as most school buses would. Living in Juridd meant that there weren’t too many stops, but still enough to make the bus ride too long. However, we eventually did get to school, and that made me a little depressed. I wasn’t ready for a class with Grace… not after what Ashley said, but then again it was only the first day, so who knew what was about to happen.
Inside the school, Ashley, Jo, Bobby and I immediately found our old lockers that were alone in an abandoned hallway. A lot of people thought we were crazy for wanting these lockers, but over the summer the school board seemed to have installed an exit which was right beside Bobby’s locker, and a window that hung right above them all.
I opened my locker after a couple tries and began organizing my things, putting them in the same way they had been last year, so I wouldn’t lose anything.
I prepared for my first class, which was math. Unfortunately. I despised math, I wasn’t good at it, it was boring, and repetitive… Anyway, I headed off to class alone, seeing as neither Jo, Bobby, nor Ashley were in my class. When I got there my teacher was sitting behind her desk. She looked up and smiled as I entered, pushing her glasses up her shiny nose.
‘Anthony,’ she croaked, nodding in a friendly way, ‘Sit wherever you like, and just take a text book off of the pile. Then sign it out, and when everyone else gets here, I’ll assign the work for today.’ I did what she said, dragging my feet along the way. Another reason I hated math, is that, even on the first day of school, there was work to do.
When the rest of the class had appeared, Mrs Middleton stood up, her pinstriped suit, a little too long for her. She gave us our assignment, and I set to work immediately. I understood what we were doing because the section in the textbook was just reviewing last years work.
After a while I finished my work, and still had ten minutes until the bell would ring, so I doodled on a blank page in my notebook subconsciously. I did this quite frequently, because I was often bored with what was going on, whatever it was.
I looked at my finished work when the bell rang, and smiled. I had drawn a picture of a single violet tulip. This was an important item in my life. It was a symbol of the complicated relationship Ashley and I had together. We started out as just friends, but then we got together for about a month, than we broke up—or rather, she dumped me, because I was being a jerk, but eventually we got back together…. Actually it was a little weird. We kissed in a “get back together” sort of way after we witnessed Charlie propose to his girlfriend Miranda. Their wedding was coming up, and I still hadn’t gotten anything. What was one to get two nineteen year olds for their wedding. Yeah, they were only nineteen. It may seem young, but they had been together for years, and Charlie had been planning his wedding almost as long. He fell in love with her really fast.
I closed my book, and headed for the door, then sped through the halls to my locker. I usually sped through the halls, trying to get from place to place without making too much of a fuss.
I reopened my locker, and retrieved my art supplies, heading for the class. I noticed that a few lockers beside mine (to the right was Ashley, Jo, and Bobby) to the left had locks on them now. I wasn’t sure why—who’s were they. I had better like them…
I headed for the art room, and found Jo sitting in a seat near the front, saving a seat for someone else—likely me. She motioned for me to sit down, so I did, and waited for Grace to show up. Grace walked in moments later, smiling. She had a permanent smile pasted across her face all summer. She was now eight months pregnant, and was really excited about that—not to mention the marriage that took place a couple months ago.
Grace tried to sit down at her desk, but instead just stood beside Jo’s desk when she realized she wasn’t going to fit in her seat.
‘Hi Jo, how are you?’ She asked kindly.
‘Oh, I’m fine how are you?’ She said mimicking the kindness—not in a mean mocking way, just in a returning the favour kind of way.
‘I’m great!’ Grace stroked her stomach. ‘Anthony, how’s your first day at school going?’
‘Good… ish. I mean, all I can base it on is math… and you know how I feel about math…’ I said slowly, looking down at my desk.
Grace gave a weak laugh, and waddled to the front of the class. The bell rang when she was halfway there, so she turned to face us (the rest of the class had already made their way in), and began talking. ‘I want you all to think for a few minutes, about what your worst fear is. Think past the first thing you think of—which will likely be spiders or heights… think of symbolism. I’ll give you five minutes.’ Grace then plopped herself down on top of her desk.
Well, I was scared of heights… so intensely…. Just last year I had to swing on a rope above a small crevasse but instead of acting cool, and doing it right in front of Ashley, I clenched my eyes together, and squealed like a child.
I wasn’t really fond of spiders either. When I was a child Charlie had found a batch of hatching spiders, and he grabbed them and wanted to show me how cool it was… I didn’t like it so much. I was four.
But my worst fear was a group of five people… One with a crew cut of black hair that was once long dreadlocks, with dark skin and eyes. One with long stringy blonde hair, and blue eyes, usually with a baseball cap set on her head. Another with thick blonde hair in a mop on top of his head. One, cruel and evil lady, who dressed usually in short shorts, and skirts, with square framed glasses, and long brown hair… And the last of them… James. He had dark eyes, and hair, and dressed in dark clothes, and also had a nasty habit of smoking.
They were all tied together with the image of a large black van… The black van that so many frightened terrified children had been stuffed into and taken to a large red, barn on a hilltop surrounded by a hedge maze, a vault whose combination was my birth date, and a rickety, rotting bridge…
‘Alright,’ Grace said. ‘Now I’m going to have you sketch out what you have imagined, so in a few days time we can begin painting it.
I didn’t know what to sketch… So I started with five shadows cast upon a van. I decided to incorporate a spider web in the corner to make it spooky. I planned to sort of fade into a maze at one side, and a bridge over the crevasse on the other. And on the licence plate on the van I put my birthday…
That seemed like a well thought out montage of my fears. I looked at Jo’s page which was blank.
‘What are you scared of?’ I asked her.
‘… I dunno. I guess death. But I don’t know how to do that…’ She sighed.
I thought for a moment. ‘Why not include your duck?’
Jo’s face lit up at the sound of that, and she began scribbling away.
Art class ended soon after this, so Jo and I said good bye to Grace, and headed back to our lockers for lunch. The triplets were there standing to the left of my locker… of course… they were the ones who now owned the lockers. I was OK with that. I liked them.
Bobby was sitting down by his locker, already eating, but Ashley hadn’t made it here yet. Jo and I made our way towards our lockers.
‘Hi,’ I said to Jamie, who’s locker was right beside mine.
‘Oh, hi Anthony!’ Jamie said, ‘I asked the principal if we could have these lockers, and she agreed—I hope you don’t mind, I know you wanted these lockers to yourself…’
‘But in our defence,’ Alex butted in, ‘our old lockers were by the guys locker rooms—it was really gross! I hated it, so we decided to switch. I hope you’re not mad.’
‘I’m not mad.’ I said, as their faces fell into a relieved expression. ‘I’m furious! These lockers were just for us!’
Chris looked like she wanted to say something, but nothing was coming out of her mouth.
‘You have no right to be down here! I want you to go back to the principal right now and—‘
‘Anthony!’ Jo hissed.
‘I’m kidding!’ I said, opening my locker, laughing.
Again, the triplets faces fell into relief.
‘This is really good!’ Bobby smiled, shoving something into his mouth.
I smiled, and sat down beside him. The others followed suit. We were all sitting and talking for at least ten minutes before Ashley came flying around the corner. She looked really flustered, and her face was beet red. She sat down beside Jo…. Which was almost as far away as possible from me.
‘That’s weird,’ I whispered to Bobby, ‘what’s wrong with me?’
‘A lot.’ He whispered back seriously, ‘you have anger problems, and you’re really mean. You make assumptions and—why are we whispering?’
I shook my head, and continued eating. A lot of the time, I would assume that Bobby knew what was going on, but if he had food he was usually too preoccupied to pay any attention to anything else.
The triplets were talking about their father’s new investment, which was some sort of yacht, but I was only half listening, because I was trying to figure out what had Ashley in such a…mood.
I decided to give up after I couldn’t come up with anything. I sat silent for the rest of the lunch period, and then headed off to English with Bobby.
I thought about what this experience was going to be like, but knew it was going to be tough. My teacher was the same English teacher I had had last year, and unfortunately we didn’t quite see eye to eye. I stood at in the doorway, the door closed. Bobby stood behind me, trying to reach around me to open the door, but I was blocking him. I was in no hurry to open the door. But the time came when Bobby overpowered me, and the door was flung open, sending both of us flying into the room.
I forced as smile onto my face then looked up at the man behind the desk. ‘Hi Quin…’ I said.
‘Hello Anthony!’ He smiled back. Quin was my grandfather, rude, immature, and disgusting. We hadn’t spoken since before the last years events, and we were… angry with each other to say the least. He had angered me greatly by making jokes about my brother’s death when he wasn’t even dead (which was quite rude), destroying my last shred of hope, and then told on me. Yes, that’s right, seventy years old, and he tattled on me to my dad.
‘I figure we could start fresh this year.’ He told me. ‘We didn’t get off so well last year.’
‘Really? I had no idea.’ I said sarcastically.
‘Anthony…’ Quin urged.
‘Fine.’ I said. ‘I’m not mad at you.’ I was still mad at him.
I sat down in the front row, and Bobby sat down beside me.
The seats surrounding us filled up, as I thought about how I was supposed to forgive Quin. I already knew that I had a forgiving problem, what with my mom and all. I had planned to “forgive her” but she left. I haven’t seen her since.
The bell rang and Quin began taking attendance.
I heard talking, from outside the classroom. I looked to the open door and my jaw dropped. Ashley was standing outside the classroom, talking to someone hidden by the doorframe.
Why wasn’t Ashley in class? The bell had rung—she had never been late for class before, and now she stood outside my classroom talking to someone, not even bothering to rush off to class.
‘Bye…’ She said, twirling her hair with her fingers.
‘See you later,’ a male voice said. Ashley wandered off, and then two seconds later a boy walked into my classroom.
His hair was dark; he was tall, and muscular—more muscular than Bobby, which was saying something. His blue eyes were freakishly dazzling, and bright, and they locked to mine the second he walked through the door.
‘Hello…’ Quin said. ‘Who is this?’
‘Rob.’ The boy said. ‘Roberto.’
‘Ah… yes,’ Quin said placing his finger on his attendance sheet. ‘The new transfer student from… where was it again?’
‘Western Galmore.’ Roberto said in his stupid accent. I had a suspicion about him—I’m pretty sure everyone would have by know… what with Ashley‘s behaviour… but I didn’t like him already.
‘Yes,’ Quin smiled, ‘Sit down, please.’
‘Yes sir.’ He said. He looked around, and saw that the only available seat was… beside me.
He sat down, and smiled at me. I forced a smile back.
I turned to Bobby, doing anything I could not to look at Roberto, but Bobby was staring down at his desk.
Quin stood up and placed the attendance in the folder outside the door. Then he stood at the front of the class and began his lesson. ‘Today, we are just going to get to know each other. Pair up with the person beside you, and then we’ll begin.’
I looked at Bobby and Roberto… I went to pick Bobby, but there were only four rows… which meant Bobby would go with the girl who sat beside him, and I was to be stuck with Roberto…
I turned towards him, he was smiling.
‘Hallo!’ He smiled broadly.
‘Hi,’ I said monotonously.
‘Alright,’ Quin said. ‘We’re going to play a game. But first I want you to find out all you can about the person next to you.’
‘Alright! I’m Roberto, I am 16 years old, I love the colour blue, and I’m quite fond of baked goods.’
Good for you…
‘My name is Anthony, I go to the pizza place down the street every few weeks with my girlfriend (I had to through that in there), and I like reading.’
‘Ooooh! Reading! I have met two people today who like to read! This is exciting!’ Roberto cheered.
‘Oh yeah? Who is the other—‘ I started, but Quin cut me off.
‘Alright—times up! Now, I would like you to list ten things you’ve learned about your partner—‘a murmur spread across the class. ‘Alright—five things. Ok?’
The class nodded, and began to take out paper. I started listing what I knew about Roberto.
1, Likes baked goods
2, likes people who read
3, Is 16
4, came from Western Galmore
5, Likes blue
I sighed at what was in front of me and thought of adding “likes Ashley” but quickly decided against it.
‘Alright,’ Quin said, ‘now these things are probably pretty trivial, like their favourite colour or something, but these will deepen, because the person next to you will be your partner for the rest of the semester.’
Instantly I froze. Noooooooooo! Why? Why him? Please say that you are kidding! I mean it! You’d better say it now!
‘I’m not kidding. All semester. But for today,’ Quin continued, ‘I think I’m going to quiz you on what you remember from last year.’
I thought of Ashley’s frantic studying… I should have followed suit, I almost laughed.
Quin handed out the quizzes, and I answered all the questions, (probably correctly I might add) before turning to Roberto. He hadn’t answered any of the questions, except the first “question”. Put name here…
Quin gathered the tests, but when he got to Roberto he asked, ‘Do you need more time?’
Roberto shook his head, ‘I do not know the answers. If you give me more time, I will still be confused.’
‘Do you need help?’
Roberto nodded.
‘Anthony, why don’t you help Roberto out? You could tutor him until he is caught up—you’re likely the best in the class, from what I’ve gathered from your past work.’
‘Uhhh…’ I didn’t know what to say… ‘sure.’ I felt horrible… I didn’t want to, but not to would be so mean, and he seemed remotely harmless.
‘Great!’ Roberto said standing up. The bell rang as he moved toward me, embracing me merrily.
‘Yeah…. Great.’ I sighed.
I left as soon as I could after Roberto had hugged me, and found myself at my locker, fumbling with the combination.
I had planned to wait for Ashley, but I was probably over reacting. He was a foreign boy—she was probably just being nice. I decided I wouldn’t bring him up—maybe she found him attractive—but I can’t help that… not really.
I walked to Biology and sat down; wishing that someone I knew (not Roberto) would be in my class. There wasn’t anybody… that really sucked.
We didn’t do anything fun in Biology, and the most exciting part was when the bell rang and we could leave. I was at my locker pretty quickly, and was outside the school (using the newly installed exit) waiting for the bus.
I sat on the grass that was between the road and the drive through loop for busses.
Bobby was the first person I knew to come outside, it took him a while, but he found me, and sat down, talking about his day at school. I didn’t get a single word in so when the bus came, we boarded it—Bobby still talking— Ashley and Jo got on after us, and sat down together, neither of them wanting to get into Bobby’s personal business.
I stayed on the bus as it passed my stop—which is when I realized that neither Dawson nor Charlie had been on the bus. I got off with Bobby and Jo (Ashley having gotten off at her house) to gather my things.
I walked in the front door as if it were my own house, and made my way upstairs and into Bobby’s room, where I had been sleeping.
I threw all of my clothes into my suitcase (which took some time because my clothes had been thrown around the room like Bobby’s), and then my books, and toothbrush and whatnot.
I dragged my suitcase downstairs, and set it in the kitchen, where Bobby was sitting, chewing noisily on a muffin.
I turned around when I heard someone coming in, I had assumed that it would be Jo, but it wasn’t, it was Bobby and Jo’s grandmother “Granny”.
Granny was the nicest person I had ever met. She was always busying herself with baking or housework, helping the Tree family out with their lives—she’d been doing that since their mother had died. We had Grace, but Bill wasn’t ready to re-marry, and by the way he acted it didn’t seem like he ever would want to.
‘Hello dear,’ she said kindly, moving swiftly around me, and smacking Bobby on the back of his head for eating her baking.
Baking…. My mind wandered to Roberto, who loved baked goods…
Jo walked into the kitchen, and asked for a muffin. She was told off, for wanting one, and knowing that she was not allowed…
Eventually I said bye, and threw my luggage into the back of Mr Tree’s truck, and then I hopped into the passenger’s seat.
Mr Tree knocked on my window, and said, ‘You don’t want to drive?’
‘Can I?’
He nodded, a little worriedly. The last time he let me drive his truck we almost ended up in the bay.
I hopped out, but as I did so, my necklace appeared from under my shirt.
‘Nice necklace—wait…’ Mr Tree said, but then stopped in his tracks. ‘Where did you get that?’
‘I got it for my birthday.’ I told him.
‘Does your dad know?’
‘He’s the one that gave it to me.’ I said.
‘Not Jerry? No, never mind. I just wouldn’t wear that everywhere if I were you. It looks expensive, and if someone mugs you, you wouldn’t want to lose it.’
‘No, I guess your right. I have just taken a liking to it—I’ll stop wearing it.’ I lied. I had gotten quite good at lying over the past year. Now I could lie in situations that were really…. Weird. Like this one.
I got into the drivers seat and drove us home. I took the shortest route possible—Mr Tree was acting really bizarre.
I pulled into the drive way beside Charlie’s truck, and dad’s car. I jumped out of the truck and grabbed my suitcase.
‘Bye Mr Tree—thanks for having me.’ I always felt weird saying that, but it was the polite thing to do.
‘No problem.’ He said, getting into the driver’s seat. ‘See you later.’
I waved to him, then turned to my house. I was happy to be home. I really liked spending time with my family… and Jarred—mostly Jarred—my family was really weird. I do, however, mean that in the nicest way possible, but really… they are weird. Especially my little brother Dawson. But that is beside the point. I moved inside, and set my suitcase down by the door, and heard the barking of my dog.
‘Hi Anthony!’ I heard Jarred call from the living room.
