Secrets: The Hero Chronicles (Volume 1) (2 page)

I looked at the large window in my room and could clearly see my reflection in it. I barely recognized the person I saw. I was no longer a little kid. I was now stuck somewhere between a kid and an adult. My hair color had changed from blond to sandy brown. I had grown at least a foot over the past five years and was skinnier than when I was younger. No matter how much I ate, I didn’t gain weight. I was hoping I would grow taller than the average 5’9” that I was, but there was no sign of me growing taller any time soon. So average is what I would have to settle for.

I looked past my reflection at the moving truck sitting in the driveway with boxes stacked neatly around it. I hated moving. Every year for the last five years, we have moved on August 10, which was tomorrow. I was getting really tired of it.

“Nicholas, please come down here and help me,” Cora yelled from the bottom of the stairs. I looked out the window one last time and walked through my empty bedroom and down the stairs.

“Grab those boxes by the door and put them in the truck. I would like to leave at 5 a.m. sharp tomorrow morning.”

I had changed a lot over the last five years, but Cora hadn’t at all. She was still slender and beautiful like she had been plucked out of a fashion and beauty magazine. The only thing that changed was her blonde hair—every other day a new style or color, but each as beautiful as the last. I was finally taller than her, but she still seemed larger than life. Always in control. Perfect in every way.

We had perfected a routine that made moving easier for us. We would pack the evening before and leave early the next morning. This would eliminate any questions from people as to why we were moving. This was one of the ways we stayed unnoticed. I put the rest of the boxes into the truck.

“So what do you want to get to eat tonight?” Cora asked.

“I don’t care. You pick.”

“Nicholas, don’t be that way. I know you don’t like to move, but you know why we have to. Let’s go to Rukker’s. I know you like that place, and you can drive! You need to practice more so you can get your license when we get to our new home.” She tossed the keys to me. She definitely was trying to cheer me up because we never drove the truck into town unless it was absolutely necessary.

The drive into town was normally a treat, but tonight it wasn’t. It was just another sad reminder that I would be gone tomorrow, never to return to this town.

Rukker’s was packed. It had its normal line of cars waiting around the corner for the drive-thru. This was the first place where Cora and I ate when we moved here exactly a year ago. It was an odd choice because it’s literally covered in used gum all over the outside. Cora had her standards and this did not pass. But it was our little tradition on the last night to always eat at the same place where we had first eaten when we moved to that town. When we moved here, Rukker’s was that restaurant. I don’t know why Cora wanted me to pick where to eat tonight, because I knew this was where we would go.

I pulled into the packed parking lot and found a spot.

“Nicholas, I’ll wait in the truck,” Cora said, staring at her pink leather planner that had all of our life in it. All of our important information was in there. It was what she used to organize our lives.

“What do you want me to get you?” I asked.

“I’ll take a Rukker Burger, no pickles or mustard, please.”

“Do you want something to drink?”

“Oh yes,” she looked up, “a chocolate shake. Can’t forget that!”

The line inside was as long as the one outside. I made eye contact with Andy. He was short and skinny with red hair and a lot of freckles. Andy was the closest thing I had to a friend here. I had made sure that I gave him no reason to be friends with me, but he was persistent, and so he was my first “kind of” friend in a long time.

“Hey, Nick! I get a break in five! Don’t worry about the line; I’ll place your order and meet you out back. The usual for you and your mom, right?” Andy said it so loudly that the entire line turned back to look at me. Red-faced, I nodded yes and walked out the front door. I got back to our truck, not sure if he was going to get our order right, but it was better than all of those people staring at me while I told him what we wanted.

“Food will be ready in a couple minutes,” I said. Cora nodded, barely even noticing I was there. She was still staring at her planner, deep in thought. After a couple of minutes, I walked to the back of the restaurant. Andy was standing there with a bag of food and a large chocolate shake.

“Here’s your food, and I even remembered your mom’s chocolate shake that she loves so much! So what are you doing tonight, Nick?” Andy asked, giving me a punch on the arm.

“Well, nothing really,” I quickly replied, avoiding eye contact and hoping he wouldn’t suspect anything.

“What’s wrong with you, man? You look like your cat just died or something.” Andy laughed at his own joke. I didn’t know what to say. Cora never let me tell anyone that we were moving. She thought it made things easier not to tell anyone so that there wouldn’t be a lot of questions for me.

“Well, I got bad news, Andy. I’m moving tomorrow.” The words just came out. I don’t know what I was thinking or why I told him. Cora was going to kill me.

“What? You’re messin’, right?”

“No, seriously, my mom got transferred. They want her to be there as soon as possible. The moving truck is already packed and ready to go first thing in the morning.”

Andy grinned at me. “Well, I guess we will have to make this a night you will never forget then, won’t we buddy?”

“No, I can’t,” I said. I took my bag of food from him and grabbed the chocolate shake sitting on the wall next to him.

“Um, yes you can and yes you will and that’s that! I’ll be by at 8:00 to pick you up.”

“Do you know where I live?” I asked.

“Eh, I’ll figure it out,” he replied.

Andy walked in the back door, leaving me alone holding the bag of food. I stood there for a minute stunned. I felt a sudden wave of panic set in. What was I going to tell Cora? I had broken one of the main rules.

Driving back home with Cora was complete torture. I almost ran two stop signs. I hoped that she wouldn’t look up from her planner to talk to me. Hiding anything from her was next to impossible. Her motherly instincts had become fine-tuned over the years.

We got home and Cora continued to study her planner as we walked in. I put the bag of food on the table in the empty kitchen.

“Nicholas, where’s my shake?”

“Ugh, I forgot to bring it in. It’s in the truck. Sorry, Cora, I’ll go get it.”

She looked up from her planner. “Nicholas, is there something wrong? You’ve been acting strange the whole ride home.”

“No, everything is fine. I just hate moving day.”

“I know you do, but everything will be fine.” She walked up to me and put her hand on my face. “I promise.”

We sat in silence eating our food.

“Andy got our food for us for free?”

“Yes!” I said a little too loudly.

“Well, that sure was nice of him.” She smiled, but then went back to reading her planner.

We continued to eat in silence. Right when I had worked up the courage to tell her about my conversation with Andy, she said, “Nicholas, we are moving about two hours from our hometown this time. It’s a pretty nice town, and the school is incredible.”

The doorbell rang. Cora jumped to her feet, nearly knocking over her chair.

“Cora, it’s Andy,” I called to her before she reached the door.

“Andy’s here?” Cora asked as she opened the door. “Good evening, Andy. What can I do for you?”

“Hello, Ms. Keller. I’m here to take Nick out for, you know, one last night of fun!” His words were like fingernails going down a chalkboard, causing me to wince at each word.

“Last night of fun?” Cora said, sounding surprised. She opened the door wider so we could both stand in the doorway facing Andy.

“Mom, I told Andy that we’re moving.” I didn’t look at her, fearing that her look would turn me to stone.

“Yeah, we’re going to have a little party for Nick,” Andy chimed in.

Cora paused for a moment. It seemed like the longest couple of seconds of my life.

“Well, okay. You boys have a great time. Nicholas—”

I looked up at her.

“Make sure you are home by 5 a.m.” She smiled and winked.

“Don’t worry, Ms. K. I’ll get him home early enough.” Andy laughed, grabbed my arm, and pulled me out the door.

What just happened? Why didn’t she send Andy home and then lecture me about how she was just trying to protect me? This had to be some sort of test and I had just failed miserably.

Then something else popped into my head—we are moving two hours from our hometown. Cora is moving us closer to our hometown, the one place she insisted we always had to stay as far away from as possible. With the entire country to choose from, she chose a place only two hours away. What was going on? My head began to hurt thinking about Cora’s sudden change of personality and rules. I turned my attention back to Andy.

“I know you’re not having a party for me. You’ve only known I was moving for a couple of hours.”

“Did I say
have
a party? I meant
crash
a party!”

“Whose?”

“Marshall Jenkins!” He grinned mischievously.

“Wait a minute. He’s a senior, and the last time I checked, we were lowly freshmen.”

“We aren’t exactly going in,” he said with that same grin.

“So what are we going to do, just sit on the stairs and watch them? Oh boy, I think I’d rather pack.”

“Nick, leave it to me. We’ll have fun. Trust me!”

The night was extremely hot and muggy. The clouds that covered the sky trapped in the heat, making it unbearable for an August night. The humidity was stifling. The thick dark clouds hid the remaining light from the sunset and any light from the moon or stars. It became dark quickly.

The thirty-minute walk to Marshall’s house took a lot less time than usual because Andy would randomly ring the doorbell of houses, which resulted in a mad dash not to get caught. The darkness that the clouds provided helped, because before people answered their doors, we were running down the street, swallowed by the night. It was very childish, but fun. I had missed out on all of this type of stuff over the last five years.

Marshall’s house had cars everywhere—in the front yard, in the driveway, and up and down the street. All of the lights were on in the large two-story brick home. Andy ducked down and ran toward the back of the house. I followed him. Andy was hiding behind two large bushes along the back fence where the light of the house didn’t reach.

“So what now?” I whispered.

“I was just making sure they were all in the backyard.”

“Why?” I asked, not sure if I really wanted to hear the answer.

“Because when we smear this toothpaste on their car windows,” he said as he pulled out two tubes of wintergreen toothpaste from his pocket, “I don’t want any interruptions.” He handed me a tube and smiled like he was filming a toothpaste commercial. “It helps fight plaque and bad breathe
and
cleans even the dirtiest of senior trash.” He laughed and ran by me.

I followed him to the front where he started smearing the toothpaste all over the car windows. I pretended to smear toothpaste on some of the cars, but only the ones farthest away from the house and Andy. My stomach was hurting horribly, like I had an ulcer burning a hole in it. I was scared of getting caught, which I knew had something to do with how I was feeling.

Andy moved over to a car I recognized, Marshall’s black Mustang. Getting back at Marshall for all of the stuff he did to Andy over the years was the real reason why we were here. Getting to prank all of the other cars was a bonus. Andy hated Marshall. He had tormented him for years. And to make matters worse, they had been good friends and neighbors when they were younger.

Andy was like an artist moving around Marshall’s Mustang so fluidly, so gracefully, not missing a spot. The wintergreen paste made the car sparkle. I could smell its faint scent in the air. Then Andy started to put some type of round pink circles all over the car. I was too far away to tell what they were, and I was not about to get closer to find out. I ran back to the bushes at the side of the house to wait. A couple of minutes later, Andy joined me.

“What did you put on Marshall’s car?” I asked.

“Bologna!”

“What?”

“Bologna! I thought it would complement the toothpaste, and it did! You know bologna polka dots are the new rage in automotive design,” he whispered. We both laughed silently.

I turned my attention toward the party in Marshall’s backyard. I found myself envious of all those people having a good time together. How fitting. I was in hiding, watching everyone else live life to the fullest. Just like my life. Hiding . . .

Marshall had an incredible deck that covered the entire back of the house, a huge grill, and a hot tub that could easily fit twenty people. Beyond the deck was a regulation-sized basketball court, and beyond that was a huge lake. There was a dock with two large ski boats. Most of the party was either in the lake swimming or on the dock watching. Someone suddenly yelled, “Skinny dipping!” from the deck. A group of guys pulled off all of their clothes, ran naked toward the lake, and jumped off the dock into the water. A wave of laughing and screaming came from the lake.