Keeper of the Black Stones (4 page)

“You're an ass, do you know that? I was just asking!” Paul ducked his head and marched ahead of me, pouting the way he did any time I didn't agree to his plans.

Then it hit me. “Wait a minute. This doesn't have anything to do with Heather Woods, does it?”

Paul looked at me with puppy dog eyes, “I don't know what you're talking about,” he deadpanned.

I snorted. “Yeah, right.” Paul had been obsessing about Heather Woods for weeks, if not months, and I knew for sure that she'd recently started working at the bowling alley. Besides, Paul never offered something like a party without having an ulterior motive of one sort or another.

I laughed again, then grew quiet. His question got me thinking. My birthday was only a couple of weeks away. I wasn't really looking forward to it, to be honest. Not that I was opposed to turning fifteen … I was actually pretty excited about being a year older. But my parents had died three years earlier, two days before I turned twelve, and my birthday never failed to bring those thoughts and feelings back. They had died in a traffic accident, on their way home from a conference in Boston. I had blamed myself for their death at the time and had never quite gotten over it. I knew I wasn't the one that physically hit them–a drunk driver had taken care of that–but I
was
the one that had begged for their early return. They hadn't been scheduled to drive back until the following morning, when bright sunlight and a decent hour may have saved them. I'd been in love with my parents, though, and desperate for them to return. They had, of course, given in. And died satisfying my selfish wish. Counselors and friends–and my grandfather–had spent the last three years trying to talk me out of it, but I'd clung to the truth; it had been my fault that my parents were killed, and I would have to live with that burden for the rest of my life.

Birthdays always reminded me of that fact. It hadn't exactly made them happy occasions.

Paul and my grandfather–Doc, to me–would want to celebrate my birthday, though. They always did. And I would go along with them, like I always did. Who was I to argue? I'd smile and laugh and pretend that the whole thing didn't conjure up bad memories. Like it always did.

“Now that you mention it, I guess bowling doesn't sound so bad.” I picked up my own rock and tossed it into the woods after Paul's, then saw him smile out of the corner of my eye and turned to grin at him. He always won our arguments. It didn't really bother me anymore.

Neither of us spoke as we walked toward Harvey's Truck Stop. This was our standard route to school, with our standard stop. Paul went inside and bought himself a large cup of coffee while I waited outside, watching the trucks come and go on their way to bigger, better places. Paul was the only kid I knew that drank coffee. He didn't actually like it–and that was a fact–but it was another part of his persona. Another attempt to look and feel older than he actually was.

I looked long and hard at the storefront window as I waited, and studied my reflection. I was a good 4 inches shorter than Paul, but not quite as thin. I grinned at that. Paul had the general size and dimension of a flagpole, so I would have had a lot of trouble being any skinnier than him. I turned to the side to view my profile, and sighed. Undersized kid. Messy, unkempt hair that would have made my mother cringe. Button-up shirt–buttoned to the top, of course–with skinny jeans and a coat that was about two seasons out of style. I wasn't ugly, but I didn't think I was ever going to break any hearts. To be honest, I thought I was probably the sort of kid that people overlooked. I blended in, flew below the radar. This was partially natural, and partially my own mask. I'd been working on it for about three years now.

Evidently, I'd done a good job. My grandfather had told me that I was the perfect model for the average American boy. “A Rockwell painting,” he'd said. I knew who Rockwell was, and I knew Doc had meant it as a compliment. In a way, that was what I wanted. But lately there had been a voice in the back of my head, whispering in my ear, asking me if I really wanted to be average. Overlooked. Unimportant. Wasn't that like picking vanilla ice
cream as your favorite flavor every time you went into the ice cream parlor? Preferring vanilla over the million and one other exotic flavors available?

Ironically enough, vanilla was my favorite flavor. But it was starting to lose its charm.

“Any plans for the weekend?” Paul asked from behind me.

I jumped, and realized he'd probably been watching me check myself out in the window for a while now. I hunched lower into my worn-out jacket, embarrassed at having been caught. And at the question. Paul knew perfectly well that I didn't have any plans. I never had plans. Sometimes I thought that his asking was a form of pointing that out. Then again, maybe that was just my bizarre mood.

“Nope,” I muttered, stepping past him and heading up the driveway to school.

This was always the most interesting part of the walk, as it took us directly through the entire student body. Everyone who was anyone hung out in front of the school until about fifteen seconds after the last bell rang, displayed in all their group mentality glory. Paul and I made our way past the upper classmen, who stood clustered together in cliques. The jocks stood outside the gymnasium doors to the right of the main entrance, while the ‘untouchable girls' huddled around a handicapped parking sign just to the left. The emo kids stood next to the bike racks at the end of the parking lot, smoking cigarettes, talking in low voices, and doing their level best to look mysterious. The techies, armed with Apple's latest and greatest creations, were content to hang out beside the recycling dumpster on the opposite end of the entrance. For a moment I wondered what it would be like to be in one of those groups. To be honest, though, I knew that none of them would accept me, and I didn't belong with any of those kids. I was the smartest kid in school, brought up on physics and history. I lived with my grandfather, a well-known genius and world-famous college professor. I dressed like a thirty-year-old computer programmer. I was, for all intents and purposes, a self-admitted nerd.

Paul, who I didn't think ever worried about these things, shoved past me to throw away his (untouched) cup of coffee. I laughed and looked beyond
him, to the entrance of our school. A large, ugly concrete staircase led up to four empty glass doors. The only attempt at decoration was a sign that read “Future Leaders of the World.” Somewhat self important, if you asked me. Having known these kids for most of my life, I also hoped that it was a huge exaggeration. Otherwise our world was in a lot of trouble.

I kept my head down as I made my way through the crowded hallway, trying to avoid eye contact with both teachers and students. In my experience, making eye contact encouraged people to talk to you, and that was usually the last thing I wanted. The result, of course, was that I generally got knocked around like a ball inside a pinball machine when I was in the hall. I also got stepped on at least three times a day, and always by someone taller than me. Through some bizarre twist of fate, though, I never managed to run into any girls. Only guys. Large guys. Sometimes I had a real problem with Murphy and his laws.

I got to the refuge of my locker–which I shared with Paul–bruised, battered, and disheveled, and heaved a sigh of relief. I opened the locker, then opened my bag and started shoving books into the compartment. I could never understand why we needed so many books for school. Most of them were worse than useless, and the physics text I had right now was juvenile at best. The thing was, though, you had to have your books in every class or–

“Damn,” I muttered, pulling my hand out and peering down into my bag. Nothing left there, and I hadn't found the book I needed yet.

“What's up?” Paul asked, looking up from the copy of
Johnny Quest
in his hand.

I slammed my hand into the door of my locker in frustration. This turned out to be a mistake, as the locker swung back, hit the locker next to mine, and rebounded right into my forehead, causing Cristina Patterson, who stood across the hall from us, to laugh. This, of course, just made the whole situation even worse.

“Nothing, other than the fact that I grabbed Doc's bag again, and I don't have my Spanish textbook.” Damn it. This was the third time I'd done this. My grandfather's bag looked exactly like mine, and I had a record of grabbing his bag, stuffing some of my books into it, and ending up at school with only half of the things I needed. This time I had ended up with Doc's personal journal rather than my Spanish text.

“Not like it matters,” Paul said with a smile. “You don't understand the textbook anyhow.”

“True,” I replied. I pulled the journal out of my locker and blew the dust off the leather-bound cover. At least it was the same color as the Spanish book–a deep blood red. I shrugged. “I'll just bring it to class. Maybe Senora Caswell won't notice.”

“That seems like an awfully big gamble,” Paul replied, grinning. “Good luck.”

Paul turned away, laughing at his own joke. I cringed, but shook it off. Paul Merrell had been my best friend since I was five, and he'd always been this way. He wore hand-me-down clothes from his brother, and they never fit his lanky frame like they should. His mom cut his jet-black hair for him, so he usually looked like he'd had a run-in with the business end of a weed whacker. He was also the underdog in a screwed-up family. His mother was rarely home, and when she was, she was asleep or ignoring him. Or forcing a haircut on him because she didn't want to pay for one. Paul's dad had disappeared several years earlier, leaving him at the mercy of a clueless mother and monster of a brother. He made up for these physical shortcomings with intelligence, a sense of humor, and an independent streak that bordered on suicidal. He also said what he thought–all the time–and cared very little about whether he hurt anyone. And that included me. Paul was even more socially awkward than I was. I had never figured out whether this bothered him or not.

I snorted. “You're a funny guy. I find it hard to believe that no one likes you.”

Paul shook his head and shut his locker, then headed down the hall. I followed him to class, my hand in my bag. I was in for a tough time if the
teacher noticed that I didn't have my book. But this was the third time I'd grabbed Doc's journal by mistake, and my mind flew back to his recent prolonged–and mysterious–disappearances. As long as I had a book full of his private thoughts, and nothing better to do…

Hey, I said I was smart. Not perfect.

2

M
y capabilities in Spanish had always been less than stellar. I wasn't stupid, by any stretch of the imagination, but fifty fruitless minutes of Spanish every day did little for my self confidence. It didn't help that the teacher didn't like me much.

An involuntary shudder ran down my spine as I entered the ugly classroom. It was painted mustard yellow, and the walls were littered with Spanish phrases painted on white cardboard cutouts. Colorful photos of matadors, castles, and Spanish villas decorated the walls haphazardly, many of them peeling at the corners. There was a large whiteboard on the wall at the front of the class, and a television sat atop a moveable metal table lodged in the corner. The desks were neatly arranged in four rows of five, and Senora Caswell's desk sat in the far corner of the room beside the whiteboard, where she could see everything that went on in the classroom, at all times. The room looked like every other classroom I'd ever been in–pretentious and over decorated.

I took my usual spot in the back, right behind Rachel Wheeler. My mission for the next forty-eight minutes was simple–I would try my best not to make eye contact with Senora Caswell, while trying to look as though I didn't care if she called on me. If she noticed me avoiding her eyes, she'd call on me for sure, and then realize that I didn't have my book. Then I'd be sunk.