The Shadow Club (17 page)

"Why are you doing this to me?" he mumbled. "Why? Why? Why? You never used to bother me like the other kids in school did. Now you're the worst. Well, I don't care," he said. "When the fire gets here, it won't matter. Then everyone'll be sorry."

"I already am sorry, Tyson." Tyson just sobbed and sobbed. He wasn't even fighting me off anymore. He just sobbed and rocked back and forth.

I felt funny about it, but I put my arm around him, like he was my kid or something. He didn't stop crying. "I'm your friend now, Tyson. I'll always be your friend. I've never been so wrong about anybody in my entire life, and I'll make it up to you."

"I didn't pull those pranks," he mumbled.

"I know. I was wrong." We sat there for a moment, and then I looked down at myself. "Look at me," I said. "I pissed in my pants!" He looked at my pants, then up at me, and for a second I thought I saw a smile there beneath the tears. I smiled at him. "Welcome to the club, right?" I said.

He shrugged.

"Sure. We can call it the Pee-Pee Club!"

He didn't say anything.

"C'mon," I said, "it'll be a real pisser!"

And at that, he laughed. It was short, but at least he laughed.

There was a light in the lighthouse, but it wasn't the kind of light you'd want to see—the lighthouse base was on fire. Whatever wood was down there had caught and was being eaten up. Smoke started to pour out of the light cage.

"We'd better get out of here," I said, helping Tyson up.

"You go," he said. "I want to stay."

"Don't be dumb." I looked over the railing. "How far down is it?"

"Pretty far," said Tyson.

It seemed a long way down to the ground, but flames were already licking up inside the light cage. The flames from the house made it impossible to jump on any side, except for the side facing the sea, and so, as the flames began to reach out of the light cage, Tyson climbed over the railing. I didn't just yet. I ran around to the other side of the light cage, picked up Tyson's picture, smashed the glass, and took out the photo.

Tyson was still clinging to the ledge when I got back. I climbed over to the other side, and we sort of just stood there for a while, as the fire became fiercer. I thought of the time I was on a five-meter high board. I had stood there at the edge, looking over for a good ten minutes before I got the nerve to jump. We couldn't do that now.

"On the count of three," I said. "One . . . two . . . three!" We both let go without looking down, then hit the side and slid down the slope of the lighthouse. The stone was hot from the fire inside. We hit the bushes beside the lighthouse hard, but they were dense enough to break our fall. Still, we didn't stop, because the bushes sloped off quickly to the rocks above the ocean. We kept rolling, then suddenly I found myself rolling down rocks. The cliff wasn't too steep, but the rocks sure were jagged. Finally we stopped, just above the ocean. Tyson, who was falling backward, probably would have smashed his head if he hadn't landed on me first.

I looked up, and the lighthouse seemed amazingly far away. It was hard to believe we had tumbled all this way in such a short time.

It was high tide, the rocks were wet and slippery, the wind felt like a hurricane, and the waves kept hitting below, shooting water up through the crevices like a whale's blowhole. There was no way we could climb back up, but the storm offshore was churning up the sea so much, it seemed the ocean was no escape either. The waves were at least ten feet high now.

Another wave came in, and this one lifted us both up and smashed us down against the rocks again, sending foam flying in all directions.

"Ow!" I yelled. That one hurt! These were the types of waves that turned boulders into sand, and we would be dust if we sat there much longer.

Up above, there was an explosion.

"Watch out!" said Tyson. The entire light cage had shattered, sending shards of heavy glass down in our direction. "Duck!"

Big splinters of glass and burning wood landed all around. Up above, the frame of the house fell, and the burning beams seemed about ready to come toppling down the rocks toward us. Our only chance was to get off the rocks, and make our way to the beach.

"But I can't swim!" said Tyson.

"I know," I said as I saw a wave—the darkest, meanest- looking one yet—looming in front of us, blocking out the rest of the ocean. "I can swim, though. Hold on to me!" I said. "I won't let you go."

Before we had time to figure out how we were going to work this, the wave was upon us. Tyson grabbed me around the waist, and we were underwater. The wave rolled us, dragging us across the rocks, then dragging us back, spinning us every which way around until I couldn't tell which way was up.

When my head broke the surface, we were off the rocks and out in the icy open sea, a hundred long yards from the beach. I kicked off my shoes, and with Tyson sputtering, coughing, and gagging, I began to swim toward shore, with him holding on to my belt for his life. At that moment I would have given anything in the world to have been Drew Landers, or even Randall; two strong swimmers who could handle this better than I could.

Tyson was panicking, nearly pulling me under each time a wave hit us, but somehow we kept our heads above water. My arms could barely stretch away from my body to pull the water, but my legs were strong from track. I kept kicking, counting each kick, and praying, which I never seemed to do enough of unless I thought I was going to die. All we needed was a riptide to drag us out into the sea, and we'd never be seen again. I began to wonder if there were any sharks around here. There were stories about people who got eaten by sharks nearby, and Ralphy Sherman says—well, to hell with what Ralphy Sherman says.

A wave broke around us, carried us over the crest, and smashed us down on the shells—but that was all right, because it was land! When we came up, Tyson was still gagging. I grabbed his hand, got my balance, and limped with him to shore. The water was so cold that the second I stood, my legs cramped into knots. I could barely move, so as soon as we reached the beach, we collapsed on the wet sand.

"I've got to . . . I've got to teach you to swim!" I said to Tyson. "So the next time this happens . . ." I thought about that and began to laugh. I coughed, laughed, choked, and cried all at the same time.

On the other side of the rocks, we could hear sirens. The firemen had finally arrived, but there wasn't much to put out—the entire house had fallen over, tumbling down into the ocean. All that remained was the shell of the lighthouse, looking like some short, pudgy smokestack. Somewhere up there stood the rest of the Shadow Club, probably thinking we were both dead. What a surprise they were in for!

"Hey, Tyson," I said. He turned to me. "Here." I reached into my back zippered pocket and took out a folded photograph, handing it to him. "I figured you'd want this."

Tyson took it, rolled over, and looked at it, while I looked over his shoulder. His parents didn't look all that greasy. Neither did he, back then.

"It's the only picture I have of my parents," he said.

"What happened to them?" I asked.

"They died when I was seven," he said, and then he added, ". . . in a fire."

He kept staring at that photo. It was wet and faded, but it was all he had.

As I lay there in the cold, waiting for my muscles to un- cramp, a dumb thought came to mind. Now that I was soaking wet, I realized that no one would ever know that I had wet my pants. I never did tell anyone about it—not my parents, not Cheryl, not anyone. It was a secret between Tyson and me.

The Burning of the Charter

THE SUN ROSE the next morning.

All night long, even after they had released me from the hospital, I kind of had the funny feeling like it wouldn't—or if it did, the clouds would be so dark, the day would still seem like night.

But the sun rose, and the sky was clear. I ducked under the covers to block out the light, and coughed—I was still coughing from the smoke.

My father came into the room and pulled the covers off my head. "Get yourself dressed," he said coldly. I had never heard him use that tone of voice with me. It was as if he were talking to a stranger. Maybe he was.

The night before had been filled with such confusion, neither of my parents was sure what was going on. But now my watch read 11:15 A.M. I knew that by now they would have found out about the club, and about what we had done.

"I'm in lots of trouble, aren't I?" I mumbled, knowing full well that no matter how much deep water I was in, I deserved every ounce of it.

"Trouble, Jared?" said my father, with a bitter smile that wasn't really a smile at all. "Trouble's not the word for it. Get up. We're taking a trip to Vice Principal Greene's house." My dad didn't say much else about it; neither did my mom. They're not the lecturing type. Still, I'll never forget that icy tone of disappointment in my dad's voice when he said, "I never thought I'd see my son in a gang."

So we all confessed. You must have seen it in the papers:

LOCAL KIDS TERRORIZE SCHOOL AND BURN HOUSE

Oh, it was a big deal. Everyone knows about it. Everyone knows that I was the leader. But nobody knows the whole story. Not yet anyway. Sure, we all confessed to Mr. Greene, and we all got suspended, and now we have to pay for what we did. But when he asked us why we did it, no one could tell him. We all just looked down. It was the way he treated us—like criminals—lying, cheating, stealing criminals. It was as if, in his eyes, we weren't kids anymore. We weren't people. And so we just couldn't talk to him about it, you know?

He still doesn't know that there was one more meeting of the Shadow Club—if you can call it a meeting. It was on Monday, the first day of a two-week suspension, which could have been an all-out expulsion if our parents hadn't all been such pillars of the community.

I didn't want to go. To me the Shadow Club had died a much-deserved death in the fire. Cheryl called the meeting. I couldn't say as I wanted to see her just yet either, but she begged, and so I went. I didn't go alone, though. I brought Tyson with me.

Tyson was living in a hotel with his aunt and uncle, who, as we all had guessed, were really foster parents. No one was sure whether Tyson burned down the house or the Shadow Club did. Tyson confessed, but I said it was the club. I wasn't about to let Tyson take the rap alone.

The two of us snuck away and walked together through the woods to Stonehenge. He didn't talk much. Neither did I. I guess it must have been awfully confusing to be Tyson McGaw just then. First I terrorize him, and then I ask him to come back to the scene of the crime. I don't know why he came when I asked him. Maybe it was because I
did
ask him. But whatever the reason, I was glad that he came.

As we neared Stonehenge, I could already see the smoke from the fire, but when I got closer I could see only one person down in the pit. Cheryl. She looked up at me for a few moments. I didn't step down just yet.

"Where's everyone else?" I asked.

"Not here yet.Hi, Tyson. Why don't you both come down?"

Reluctantly, I stepped down into the pit, and Tyson followed. I sat across the fire from Cheryl. "So, what is it you want?" I asked.

"Let's wait till they all get here," she said.

"Fine."

And so we waited, and waited, and waited. We waited for almost an hour.

No one else showed.

When the fire started to go out, I said, "Did you really expect anyone to come?"

She shook her head. "Too much to hope for, huh?" She- looked at Tyson, and Tyson looked away, so she turned back to me. "I have a list here. I've figured out how much money each of us has to pay in damages, except for Tyson's house, of course."

I stood up. "Money?" I yelled. "How about Austin? What do we use to pay him back? Do we buy him new feet?"

Cheryl looked down. "I'm just as sorry about everything as you are," she said. Then she added, "You know, you didn't have to take the blame for what I did to Austin."

"I wanted to!" I said. "It was my fault as much as it was yours."

"Greene wants to give you a youth-delinquent card, doesn't he?" she asked.

"Of course he does. He's been storing them up, just waiting for the chance to use them."

"He won't," said Tyson. We both turned to him. "You gotta be a repeat offender to get one. I don't even have one." He shrugged and smiled. To see a smile from Tyson in this whole situation was a strange thing. I couldn't figure him out. I didn't know how he could like me after what I had caused, but the fact that he did like me made me want to be his friend. It made me want to trust him.

"I called the meeting so we could take care of
this
once and for all." Cheryl reached into her folder and took out the Shadow Club Charter, with everyone's signature on it. We had signed it less than two months ago, but it seemed like another lifetime. Cheryl looked at the charter for a moment, then handed it to Tyson. "You may have the honors."

Tyson looked at it, then at me. I nodded. Tyson shrugged and folded the paper into a plane, then sent it sailing into the fire. The dying flames leapt up and pulled the plane down. Its wings blackened and shriveled, until a breeze caught the fragile ashes that remained, and tore them apart.

"I hereby declare the Shadow Club dissolved, and the charter to be null and void throughout eternity," said Cheryl.

"Amen," I said, and doused the fire. When I was done, I saw Cheryl looking around Stonehenge. There were candy wrappers, Coke cans, and potato chip bags to mark the fact that we had been there all these weeks.

"Maybe this place is haunted," she said. "Maybe we were all possessed by some evil spirit or something."

"Naah," I said. "I think we just got possessed by ourselves."

Tyson was already climbing out of the pit. I was about to follow, when Cheryl stopped me.

"Jared?"

I turned to her. "Yeah?"

It took a while for her to ask her question, and because it took so long, I knew what the question was going to be.