Some Kind of Happiness (13 page)

T
HAT NIGHT AFTER DINNER, WE
are sitting in the Tower shelling pecans when the Bailey boys show up.

Dex sees them a split second before I do.

“Pirates!” he yells.

I clap my hand over his mouth. The adults absolutely cannot know the Baileys are out here.

Gretchen leaps to her feet and raises her stick high. “Come any closer and I'll poke your eyes out.”

“No, you won't.” I jump down from the Tower. “We said we'd come back when we could. What do you want?”

Jack kneels before me. His brothers, on either side of him, do the same. “Noble orphan girl, we are here to beg your forgiveness for our thievery the other day. Indeed, it is crazy boring around here and we think it would be less boring if you were our friends and not our enemies.”

I stare at him, trying not to laugh. He looks so
serious
.

Ruth peeks out from under her monster mask, which she has not taken off all day.
“What?”

“Why are you talking like that?” Gretchen snaps. “How do you know she's the orphan girl?”

“We listen,” Jack says matter-of-factly. “You guys talk louder than you think.”

“Plus, we're excellent spies,” Cole adds.

“We brought cookies!” Bennett announces. Cole glares at him.

Gretchen perks up. “Cookies?”

I try to remain uncompromising.

(Fourteen-letter word for “I will not change my mind, no matter what!”)

“You're not supposed to be over here,” I say. “That wasn't part of our deal.”

Kennedy grabs my hand and whispers, “What deal? Finley, this is not cool.”

“It's okay,” Cole says quickly. “We're not messing with you, promise.” He pauses. “Kennedy, right?”

Kennedy puts her hands on her hips. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, I've seen you at school.” He smiles a little. “Hi.”

“Great. Hi. Somebody tell me what's going on before I get Grandpa.”

We tell Kennedy about the Wasteland, the Bone House and its graves. How the Bailey boys stole our dues, and the deal we made to get them back.

“Uh-huh. I see. One sec.” Kennedy pulls me aside. “Okay, this is so not allowed. We're not supposed to leave the
pit
, and we're definitely not supposed to go back into the woods that far. And you made a deal with the
Baileys
?”

“I'm sorry. It's just . . . we had to get our stuff back, and then the Everwood said—”

“The Everwood
said
?” Kennedy blows hair out of her face. “Finley, listen. I know you've got this great imagination, and that's awesome, and I know we're supposed to let you do your thing and be super nice to you, but—”

Suddenly I feel about five inches tall. “Who told you to be nice to me?”

“It's no big deal. Grandma just told me . . . Don't be mad, okay? She just said you're kind of sensitive, and to try not to upset you.” Kennedy pauses, biting her lip. “You know, because of the stuff with your parents.”

I cross my arms over my chest. Kennedy's eyes are so sweet and blue, looking at me like a worried mom, like Aunt Dee did that first night at dinner, when she seemed like she was afraid I would start crying any second.

I want to melt into the dirt.

“There's nothing wrong with my parents,” I say quietly.

Kennedy puts a soft hand on my arm. “Sure.
I
know that. Grandma doesn't know what she's talking about, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Hey.” Kennedy's fingers pry mine loose. Her hand squeezes mine. “You're all right?”

I squeeze her hand back, and she smiles at me.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Jack says loudly, interrupting us, “we've brought a few things to prove you can trust us.”

Cole opens his backpack and nods at Bennett, who is bouncing on his toes. Bennett pulls out a handheld telescope, a bag of cookies, two flashlights, and a cloth banner decorated with painted vines and leaves and huge letters that say
WELCOME TO THE EVERWOOD
.

Everyone gasps. Kennedy lets go of me to run her fingers along the banner's edge. I almost grab her hand back, and then remind myself I am eleven years old and am
not
sensitive. I can stand here by myself like a normal person.

I clench my hands into fists at my sides.

“Who made this?” Kennedy asks. “It's beautiful.”

Cole clears his throat and looks at the ground. “I did. It took me two whole nights.”

Kennedy drops her hand. Her cheeks are red.

“And one more thing.” Jack reaches into his own backpack and draws out a small, rusted mailbox painted with vines like the banner. A tiny flag sticks up from the top—yellow, with a green leaf painted in the center.

“That's the Everwood flag,” Jack says proudly.

Gretchen looks ready to explode. “You can't just make the flag for everyone. This is
our
thing.”

“Fine. We'll vote on it. And if you don't like it, I'll make another one. I figure we can put it by the river, between our houses, by that group of trees.” Jack points down the river. “It'll be good for planning things, like when to meet at the Bone House to hang out. This way your grandparents don't have to see you talking to us.”

Gretchen snatches up the cookies.

I try to ignore how wonderful this mailbox is. “Why do you want to be our friends? Our families don't like each other.”

Jack shrugs and shoves his hands in his pockets. “I don't know. Nobody'll tell me why our families don't like each other, so I figure it's a dumb reason. And you seem fun. And it's summer. And like I said, we're bored.”

Bennett wipes his nose on the back of his hand and grins up at me.

“So, orphan girl,” Jack says, “what do you think? Do we have a deal?”

When I don't answer right away, Cole asks, “Do you always do what your grandparents tell you to do?”

I am not sure how to respond. “What about your parents? Do they care if you talk to us?”

Jack puts a hand to his heart. “Alas, we have no parents. We are in the custody of a gargantuan, poisonous troll!”

With each word he takes a step closer to the Tower and then lunges at Dex and Ruth with his finger crooked like a pirate's hook. Dex screams; Ruth growls.

Bennett stares at Ruth's mask and tugs on Jack's shirt. “Jack,” he whispers, “I want a mask too.”

Gretchen remains unimpressed. “You are
not
in the custody of a
troll
.”

“What kind of troll?” I say.

Jack pauses. “What kinds of trolls live in the Everwood?”

I think fast; I haven't thought about there being trolls in
the Everwood before. “Well, there are the Fellfolk, who have scaly hides like alligators and can swallow a deer whole. Their breath smells like a thousand rotting corpses.”

Kennedy shudders. “That's so gross, Fin.”

“Oh, yeah,” says Jack, “the troll guarding us is definitely one of those. But we can pretty much do whatever we want—as long as we don't wake him up. So.” Jack puts out his hand. “Do we have a deal?”

I gather my cousins together for a conference. Gretchen is digging into the cookies and seems much happier about life in general.

“Finley, I don't know.” Kennedy keeps looking over at the Baileys. I can't tell if she's worried or curious. “How can we trust them?”

“We just can.”

“Why? Because the Everwood said so?”

I will not feel embarrassed. “Yes.”

She shakes her head sadly.

“Kennedy, please. Don't you want to see the Bone House?”

“It's so cool,” Gretchen says, her mouth full of cookie. “Like haunted-house-in-the-movies cool. Like if-a-tiger-and-a-dragon-had-a-baby cool.”

I grab Kennedy's hands. “
Please
, Kennedy.”

Kennedy sighs and rolls her eyes. “Fine.
Fine.
” She marches over to shake Jack Bailey's hand. “We have an accord,” she says in an official tone of voice.

And just like that, an alliance is born.

I
T IS
S
ATURDAY AFTER DINNER,
and Avery has retreated to her bedroom like usual. Her door swings open before I can knock.

“I thought I heard you fidgeting out here,” Avery says, half smiling. “What do you want?”

I glance past her and see sheets of paper strewn across her bed. Her hands are covered with charcoal smudges.

“So.” I can totally be casual. “Drawing?”

“Nah. Cooking.”

I blush. “Yeah. I mean . . . sorry.”

“Seriously, kid, you need to chill. What's up?”

I take a deep breath. “Well. Okay. So, we're all going outside to play for a while.”

“What else is new?”

“And Grandpa and Grandma are downstairs, and the other adults are too.”

“Okay . . .”

“So . . . if they ask you where we are, can you say we're just playing outside? Don't let them come looking for us.”

Avery raises an eyebrow. “You want me to lie for you?”

“It's not lying,” I say quickly.

(Not really, anyway. We will be playing outside. We will just be farther away than usual.)

(And with the Baileys.)

(And we will not be playing so much as we will be exploring a certainly condemned house.)

“We don't want them to worry. Not that there's any reason for them to worry. It's just we don't want them bothering us. Please, Avery. I promise we'll be safe. I promise.”

Five seconds pass. Avery sighs and goes back into her bedroom. “Fine. Don't die, okay?”

I hurry downstairs before she can change her mind.

•  •  •

The five of us—me, Gretchen, Kennedy, Jack, and Cole—meet by the mailbox and trek through the Everwood. The fading sunlight is the color of Grandma's pale pink azaleas, and our pockets are full of flashlights. Kennedy carries a bucket of cleaning supplies, and Gretchen has a box of trash bags.

I hope we get them back before Grandma notices they're missing. This was my idea, and if we are caught, it will be my fault.

We made the little ones stay behind this time. First we must scout the area. Ruth would only agree to silence once we snuck her an extra scoop of ice cream after dinner.

Kennedy keeps taking out her phone and checking to make sure we still have a signal. “I don't know about this. . . .”

Cole moves closer to her. “It's okay. We've come out here for a while now. It's safe enough.”

Ahead of me Gretchen slices through the undergrowth with her stick. When the grass turns dry and scratchy, I look up.

There it is—the Bone House.

Jack whoops and runs ahead. We follow him inside to the kitchen, where a folding card table is covered with boxes of cereal, three apples, decks of cards, empty root beer bottles, a ratty baseball cap, and a worn-out copy of
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
.

“For school,” Jack explains. “Summer reading. It's not half bad, though.” He sits in one of the folding chairs and thunks his heels right on top of
Tom Sawyer
. “Welcome to the Bone House. First-time visitors must pay a fee.”

Gretchen frowns. “What kind of fee?”

“You have to talk in English accents for the rest of the night,” Cole suggests.

“Even after we go home?”

Jack's eyes light up. “Yes, definitely. For the rest of the weekend.”

Kennedy giggles. “Everyone will think we're so weird.”

“That's the point!”

I halfway listen to them while I walk around the kitchen. It is scattered with signs that someone once lived here—shattered coffee mugs, pots and pans piled in a corner. A framed piece of cloth embroidered with the words
Welcome Home
hangs in the corner by one nail. The refrigerator, oven,
and sink are all full of charred trash, rotting cabinets, pieces of wall and ceiling.

Everything is black and warped, like the bicycle Gretchen and I found.

Gretchen and Cole gather a deck of cards and start a game of War while Kennedy puts on a pair of pink rubber gloves and starts bagging up trash like she was born to do it.

I cannot imagine what Grandma would think if she saw this place. She would probably not be able to sleep until it was as good as new.

“Weird, huh?” Jack comes up beside me. “Everything looks normal but completely messed up at the same time. Once I tried looking through some of their stuff, just to see, but it freaked me out too bad. Never did it again. We try to only touch whatever we bring from home.”

“Why?”

“Cole's idea. Bad luck, he says. The curse thing.”

I stare up at the ruined ceiling. “I wonder how long it's been abandoned. Is the whole house like this?”

“Yeah. Come on, I'll show you.”