Authors: Donna Cain
Meadowview Acres (2 page)
Starting his climb into the cab, Claymont slipped on the first step and sprawled onto the ground below. “Damn!” He spat. “What the hell’s wrong with me?” He shook his head to clear it and saw bright-blue flashes in front of his eyes. His head was swimming, and he was sweating like crazy. He felt like his cookies were about to make a reappearance, too. He put his head in his hands, closed his eyes, and willed the episode to pass. He didn’t have a heart problem that he knew about; no history of stroke in his family. He wondered if there was a virus going around. Claymont took some deep breaths and thought of Darren, his big strong boy.
Darren had worked hard in middle school to get noticed by the high school coaches and it had worked. His freshman year, he had caught a break when the fullback, who was a junior, unexpectedly injured his ACL. Darren walked right into the poor guy’s spot and owned it for the last four years. Claymont was so proud. The boy worked hard on his grades, too. He was a good boy to his mother and polite to everyone.
So proud.
Claymont knew tonight was really going to be special.
Claymont opened his eyes and felt better. Thinking about Darren had calmed his nerves, and his stomach had settled. “Might be able to keep those cookies, after all,” he said to the ground. He took it easy standing up and felt fine, so he started up into the cab again. “Maybe Agnes is trying to poison me with that pimento cheese,” he chuckled as he started the Cat’s engine. He positioned the air vents, so the coolness would hit his face then started back to the stand of small maple trees he had been clearing before lunch.
He felt okay, but he was still sweating hard. Little beads worked their way to the tip of his nose before falling into his lap, and his hands were slippery on the wheel. He felt like his movements were slow and strange.
He had just taken down a good sized maple when he saw something glitter on the ground in front of him. Usually, up that high, you couldn’t see something small like a bottle cap or even a necklace. To make that glare it had to be something substantial. He backed up the bulldozer to see if he could get a better look at that angle and immediately felt hotness inside his chest. Sweat was dripping down Claymont’s whole body, and he started to get a little panicky. He cranked the air in the cab and took some deep breaths. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the shimmer from the thing under the maple trees.
By the time the blue flashes started in front of his eyes again, Claymont knew he was in trouble. He quickly turned off the engine and fished his cell out of the pocket of his jeans. He tried to flip it open, but his fingers didn’t seem to be working. He had to try three times when finally the phone slid open. Flashing lights were disrupting his vision, but his thoughts were clear.
Darren – Agnes
–Pain.
Where had the pain come from? His head was on fire inside.
He tried to push the buttons on the phone but couldn’t see anything except blue flashes. “Darren. Agnes. Darren – big night. Agnes,” he groaned. He had three numbers punched in when the flashes became one steady blue light.
There were two and a third acres left to clear when pain exploded inside Claymont Darren Jackson’s skull. His body slumped down in the seat of the cab as a trickle of blood ran from his left nostril.
E
li and Hunter were cutting up in class as usual. Mr. Just had handed out the quiz on the Periodic Table not twenty minutes before, and they had finished in record time. Now they were bored and had to hang out for another forty minutes. To pass the time, they had resorted to flicking paper footballs through goals made with their fingers.
The two had been inseparable since Eli was born three and a half weeks after Hunter. That was sixteen years ago. Living next door to each other, it was only natural that they would become friends. The only thing that set them apart was their looks. Elivan was tall and lean with straight blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Hunter was broad and muscular – his wavy brown hair almost hiding his olive green eyes. Their play-dates started on the floor with stacking cups, followed by crawling races, hide and seek and superhero fights in the back yard. As the years went by, they found cardboard boxes and lawn chairs could make awesome robots that reconfigured into tanks. Their focus changed, however, when a fourth grade field trip took them to the Science Center in Glovercroft. Their eyes filled with wonder as they went from exhibit to exhibit, each one seeming more impossible than the first. From then on, every birthday and Christmas was greeted with a new chemistry set, erector set or magic kit. They were hooked. They decided their professional name would be Shazaam Brothers and referred to themselves as such while performing more and more experiments and magic shows in the neighborhood.
Now they were bored. Twenty-seven more minutes until the bell rang and school would be out for the day.
Eli saw Mr. Just scan the room. A few more students were finishing up the quiz. “Come on, people,” Mr. Just said. “This is not a hard quiz. Finish up.” Eli couldn’t understand how the kids could be so challenged.
It’s memorization, not massive equation solving. Most of you are just lazy or idiots, like Hansen.
They were still at the back of the room flicking paper footballs at each other when Eli’s went high and hit Hunter in the forehead. The mishap prompted them both to sputter out quiet laughter.
The bell finally rang, and school was out for the day. Hunter and Eli navigated the halls of Hallston High School as routinely as usual, first stopping at their lockers and then winding their way through the other students in the hallways toward the student parking lot. Passing Ms. Leezil’s room, they heard the familiar voice of Hansen Reynolds.
Hansen was a typical high school jock. Part bully, part lady’s man, the only thing he didn’t have was intelligence. Hansen saw them coming and yelled, “Hey, Girls! Driving home together again, Fairies? You two ever spend any time apart?”
“No,” Joe Eastman, one of Hansen’s friends responded. “They haven’t had their special alone time yet!”
The rest of the group broke up into giggles and went back to the stimulating conversation that had been interrupted. Hunter caught the eye of Hansen’s girlfriend, Clara, and looked quickly away. Why she would ever want a guy like that was beyond him. Clara was always so nice, ever since grade school. Now she was just a side-kick to a jerk.
Man, girls make no sense.
Finally, they made it out the door to the parking lot. They had both passed their driver’s license tests, but only Eli had wheels – another guilt gift from his departing father – a nice 2010 Ford Fusion. It was bright red and Hunter had named it
The Flaming Tomato.
Eli loved the car, though he would never admit it to his dad. It had all the bells and whistles even that new hands-free system that played songs from an iPod.
Inside the Tomato, they discussed inventive ways to dispose of Hansen Reynolds and came up with a few really nice ideas. The day was warm but not hot, so they kept the sunroof open. The drive home was fast since their neighborhood of Meadowview Acres was only five miles from the school. As they pulled up to the house, Eli could tell that Heather was already home because the front door was open.
“Want to hang out later?” Hunter asked.
“Not today. Mom’s gonna be late, so I have some stuff to do. We still going to the game?” Eli replied.
“Sure, I wanna see Hansen get pummeled by one of Glovercroft’s linemen!” Hunter said with a nasty smirk.
“Alright then. See ya later”
“Yeah, I’ll see ya.”
As Hunter walked the short distance to his house, Eli got his backpack out of the back seat and locked the Fusion. He noticed the security gate in the front yard was open and cussed Heather. He ran inside, and, sure enough, the door to her room was shut and music was blaring.
He banged on her door. “Heather! Heather! Where’s Brody? Did you let him out?”
Opening the door with her usual scowl for her big brother, Heather replied, “I didn’t let him out. I just came home and came into my room. Now go away. Jake’s picking me up to go to the mall, and I’m getting ready.”
Before he could respond, she had shut the door in his face. He balled up his fists and banged them on the door. “Brat!” He yelled.
He took a quick look around the house and realized his suspicions were right. There was no sign of Brody. Eli was pissed. He always had to clean up after everyone else. He didn’t understand why he was the only responsible one, the one always in charge of everything. It was the third time that week the dog had gotten out. All because Heather had left the gate open in the yard – again. He used to get along fine with his sister, but he had noticed that ever since she started dating Jake she could barely tie her shoes, much less latch a security gate.
He ran through the front door and bounded down the steps and through the front gate to the street. “Brody!” He yelled. “Here, Brody!”
Where is he?
He wondered why they even had a dog. His mom thought a puppy was just the thing to cheer up the kids after his dad left. All it was, though, was more for Eli to do. With his mom working all hours at the hospital and Heather in a fog of teenage love, the dog would starve if it weren’t for Eli.
“Brody!” “Here, boy!” He yelled again. Eli saw a furry tail disappear behind the Miller’s garage. He had to get the dog quickly. The Miller’s was the last house before the woods and a Border Collie in the woods is not an easy catch – too many squirrels, birds, creatures and critters to smell out and chase.
He ran toward the Miller’s garage and rounded it just in time to see Brody pounce into the rough foliage at the end of the woods. “Crap!” He spat. He ran calling for the dog until he got to the edge of the woods. There he stopped and peered in. There was no sign of the dog or anything else moving. He edged his way through the thick brush and started calling for Brody again. To his right, he saw movement and turned to see a squirrel racing up a broad oak. He started jogging at a steadier pace since the ground had evened out a bit. “Brody, where are you? Come!” He heard a bark in the distance, but it didn’t sound too far away. He broke into a run.
There had been a lot of people in the woods lately – surveyors and builders. Eli had heard they were going to build a new subdivision there. All of his neighbors were upset about it because they liked the peacefulness of their secluded neighborhood. Eli really didn’t care, though. It didn’t matter to him if they built three hundred more cookie cutter houses for three hundred more cookie cutter families with three hundred more squalling kids running around the streets.
As long as they leave me alone.
He heard another bark and determined that he was getting a little closer. He could see light up ahead from a clearing, and wondered if that was where the Border Collie had run. Eli was hot from running and sweat poured down his armpits and forehead.
It didn’t feel this hot out earlier today.
The barks came at a regular rate as Eli ran the last few yards to the clearing. He came up short when he burst into the bright sunlight. After being in the woods, it seemed like the sun was brighter than normal. He could see Brody on the other side of the clearing. He was sniffing around a parked bulldozer; one of those huge yellow Caterpillars. He guessed the workers had left it there after a day of clearing. Eli heard them from time to time when he had the windows open at his house – the low steady hum and the “beep beep beep” when they backed up. He didn’t mind the noise really, but his mother did. “Those things drive my head crazy!” She had said. Eli didn’t think the machines drove her crazy. He thought the fact that her husband of nineteen years had run off with a much younger version of herself is what drove her head crazy.
Suddenly, Brody issued a low, menacing growl. The fur on his shoulders and haunches stood up, and he dropped his head forward. Eli didn’t much care for being alone in the woods, and this new development didn’t help matters much. Besides, he was wringing with sweat and had the beginnings of a headache. “Brody, come,” he said with all of the authority his sixteen years could muster, “Come, now!”
The dog let out a searing howl, jumped back at least a yard, turned and started to run. Eli’s eyes grew wide as he saw his dog racing toward him with its ears back and slobber foaming from its jaws. He was a little nervous by then and reached for the comfort of the dog as it neared. Almost upon him, Eli realized the animal’s eyes looked frantic. Eli reached for Brody just as Brody flew past him back into the woods. Eli, thoroughly spooked now and imagining all types of fanged monsters on his heels, ran after the dog. Branches scratched his face, and he could feel his heart pounding.
When they both broke through the other side of the woods, the Miller’s garage was like a beacon of safety. Eli watched as Brody crossed the street to his own house, ran into their yard and through the opened front door. Feeling safer and a little silly for being scared in the first place, Eli cussed his sister in his mind and made a vow to do something hideous to her favorite CD.
T
he hallway after school was chaos, as usual. Mr. Just was monitoring the situation from outside his classroom door. Locker doors banged shut as kids laughed and screamed at each other from down the hall. Linda Baske was crying again about her boyfriend while the quiet ones just tried to get through the hallway unnoticed.
Mr. Just was always amazed at how loud it was. He never remembered his high school experience being this loud. It was like every sound had to be amplified for dramatic effect. “These kids just need to take it easy, Man. Chill out, calm down,” he said quietly to himself. He caught Ms. Leezil’s eye from her classroom across the hall, and they gave each other a look of exasperation. He knew she felt the same as he did. They had talked about this generation of kids over coffee in the teacher’s lounge or drinks at his place. Her theory was that all of the preservatives in the food nowadays was to blame. She said it got the kid’s hormones out of whack. He chalked it up to parents laying down on the job. He thought it was easy to give little Jimmy John or little Suzy Q everything they wanted without having to earn it. Every kid got a ribbon for just being in a race now, not for winning it. “Let’s pat them all on the back every time they do anything,” he thought. “How’s that working out for you folks? You’re raising a bunch of little darlings.”
