Strange Country Day (9 page)

“Who are you?”

“Alex, we have to get out here or … ”

“Who are you?” I screamed, and it echoed throughout the locker room.

“Don’t touch the button.”

That’s when I remembered what Dad had said.

“What’s the fastest way down?”

“Seriously, Alexander, we have to get back to the game.” He started making the “cut” sign with his hand over his throat, as in
please stop talking
.

“What’s the fastest way down, Coach?” I pointed at the exposed button again.

He walked over to the whiteboard on the bench, took a marker out of his pocket, and began scribbling. He held it up to show me:
Quicksand
.

He’s with us.

Carson continued to scribble on the whiteboard and held it up again.
We can’t talk about this in here. Possible bug
. I nodded, and he motioned out to the tunnel. I grabbed my helmet, and we walked out together. I felt myself shake as he patted me on the shoulder pads. Right before we got to the field, he reached into his pocket, grabbed a cellphone, and dialed. “This is six-twenty-four, checking in. Keep the perimeter around the school, with focus on gym building. Updates every five minutes. Also, we need someone to do a very quick bug search in the locker room. Six-twenty-four, out.”

He grabbed me by the back of my jersey and leaned in. “Everything is fine, Ptuiac. We’ve got it under control. Forget you ever saw anything.”

I nodded, and he released me. We walked back up to the field, and I sat back down next to Dex.

“What happened?” he asked, giving me a worried look.

“Couldn’t find my helmet.” I felt numb all over.

The rest of the game was a cakewalk. Our defense forced two fumbles and sacked the opposing quarterback four times in the second half, giving us a 43-14 lead with five minutes left. At that point, after our third interception of the night, Coach Schmick told Jimmy to stay out and called out to Jesse, the backup, to go in. But Jimmy waved him off and ran onto the field anyway, shrugging and grinning as he put his helmet back on. Mr. Slick, as always. Schmick grumbled something about making him run extra laps tomorrow, but I could see the corners of his mouth turn up a bit. The rest of the team started giving each other hugs and high fives.

“Congrats on our first win,” I said to Dex. I turned around to find my parents and waved to them. Mom responded with a fist pump and Dad applauded. But I could see they looked worried from all the way down the field.

I gave the thumbs up back and glanced at Sophi.

She gave a half-wave, which I was ready to respond to when I heard someone a few yards away yell, “Yeahhh, Sophi, big win!” I didn’t have to look. Flab was waving back and blowing her kisses. I turned back around to talk to Dex.

“So, she hasn’t said anything to him,” Dex said at half-volume. I shook my head. “Whatever. He can think they’re dating, but they’re not. That’s enough for me,” I replied.

“I was walking to history class the other day and heard one of the popular girls talking about her. Thought you’d want to know.”

“Really? What’d she say?”

He leaned a little closer. “She was telling some people that she used to be friends with her, but that she stopped because … Sophi’s a witch.”

We started laughing as the ref whistled for the two-minute warning, but in the back of my mind, I realized how perfect that’d be. My parents are trying to protect me from God knows what, my locker is being stalked by strangers, my coach is one of my protectors, I’m filled with machines …

And of course, Sophi’s a witch! But I was starting to believe it.

“We’re still working on it.”

That was all my father had to say after a stranger had infiltrated a supposedly secure gym locker room and tried to get into my locker?

Three weeks later, I still had trouble sleeping. Every time I woke up, I saw the Man in the Hat at my locker or the Man with the White Patch reaching out to me. My body’s defense mechanism, allegedly operative at times of stress, never even bothered to kick in.

Everything else in my world, however, seemed to move into place. The Griffins had a 3-0 record, I was somehow getting decent grades, and I was nervously, secretly dating Sophi.

At practice, my throws got a little more accurate, and the workouts got a little bit easier. Occasionally, I’d get a compliment from a coach. Flab lurked in the background, as always, but left me alone now, too.

“You won’t say who’s protecting me besides Coach Carson?” I knew I was badgering my father, but I didn’t care. I wanted answers.

Dad hunched over his keyboard in the underground headquarters. “Look, Alex. You want me to tell you the truth, so I’m telling you: we’re working with our security forces to find this guy and figure out how he got in there. As you can see here, I’m working on it. We need to analyze the chemistry behind your nanobots before we can understand how you can control their response. Finally, no, I won’t tell you who works with us. It’s for their safety and yours.”

“You haven’t made any progress with this in three weeks?”

“It’s a question of the right balance.” He stared at the numbers on the enormous computer screen.

Besides the potential danger of getting hurt or kidnapped, it was nagging me that a day would come when Coach Schmick called my name and I’d have no powers to lean on, no great throw, no pinpoint accuracy, no strength, no arm. Nothing.

At least I had Homecoming to look forward to. The Friday night before our fourth game, the town sponsored a big bonfire and celebration in the park and everyone—the mayor, parents, alumni, students, and, of course, the fire department—attended. We’d all wear our varsity jackets, stand up in front of the local TV cameras, and listen to the mayor say how great we were.

The night of the bonfire, Dex and I met up and waited for Sophi to join us before walking over to the village park.

“Do you think Denny Deaner will interview me?” Dex squeaked. Deaner was the local sportscaster who always reported on high school sports.

“You know exactly who he’s going to interview.”

“Sure, but we’ve got a cooler story. The two nobodies who made the team on one throw-and-catch during gym.”

Little did he know how much of a story that really was.

“Hey guys!” Sophi arrived and gave me a big hug. She did the same to a very surprised Dex.

We walked slowly to the park in the middle of town at dusk and saw an orange-yellow glow in the distance. I let Sophi and Dex do most of the talking—they mainly discussed school. She told him how ridiculous it was that he got booted from their gym class just because he clawed someone’s face after getting bullied. (So
that
was how he ended up in my class that day!) He told her that he saw one of her sculptures in the art building and liked it a lot. From there, it was like they’d been friends for a long time.

Soon, we stood at the entrance to the park, dazzled by the sight of the Homecoming celebration. In the center of the grassy quadrangle, a fire burned about twelve feet high. Members of the fire department fed and guarded it. There were vendors hawking hot dogs, hamburgers, and huge cones of cotton candy. A few local news cameramen were already filming, while members of the team stood around in their jackets, trying to look cool, tough, and nonchalant at the same time. Naturally, everyone ignored my presence.

The three of us stood near the fire, trying not to be so obvious while we talked about everyone who walked by. We saw teachers and imitated them as they walked by in their weekend clothes, except for Mr. Crowley, who was still wearing a dusty beige blazer with elbow patches over a turtleneck.

Dex made a snide comment about our team’s running back and how he bragged about making out with every good-looking girl at school. I’d opened my mouth to retort about how he’s probably lying when I heard a familiar ringing in my ears.

Squeeeeeeeee

Oh, no. Not here. Not in front of everyone. I inhaled the familiar aroma of toasted marshmallows. Was this really about to happen again, in front of the entire town?

“Sorry, folks!” a voice said over the loudspeaker. I looked to the stage where one of the workers setting up the mayor’s podium had knocked over a microphone, sending loud feedback through the amplifiers.

A few feet away, a father was holding a long stick with three marshmallows on it, showing his small daughter how to toast them on the bonfire.

False alarm.

“You okay?” Dex asked. “You look freaked out.”

“Fine.”

“Feedback bothers you that much?”

“It hurts my ears,” I said. A decent excuse.

Coach Carson showed up and asked us to join the rest of the team standing near the mayor. Beyond discussing my throwing technique or the intricacies of the playbook, he and I hadn’t said anything about the locker room invasion. But there was some comfort in knowing the face of one of my guards.

The mayor got up in front of the cameras to talk about how proud he was of our winning start to the season and how he’d already made a bet with the mayor of a nearby town, whose high school was a long-time rival—the loser of our upcoming matchup would have to fly the winning school’s flag at his office for a day. He praised Coach Schmick, who barely cracked a smile when his name came up—I don’t think he liked being called Marcellus in front of an entire town that called him “Coach.” I began zoning out.

“He’s still wearing his sunglasses, even though it’s dark out,” Dex said under his breath.

“Good. If he shows his eyes to the press, the camera lenses will crack,” I whispered back. We chuckled, and my eyes drifted over to where Sophi was standing. There she was, talking to my parents. My heart jumped. This was not what I wanted to see. What would they say to her?

The crowd applauded at the end of the mayor’s speech. I walked over to Sophi and my parents.

“There he is. Nice job standing up there,” Dad said.

“Thanks. What did I miss?”

“Nothing you don’t already know,” Sophi said.

“We were actually talking about how your coach never takes off those crazy sunglasses,” Mom said.

“Trust me, you don’t want to see what’s under there,” I replied. We all laughed. There was a pause after that when I tried to give my parents a look to tell them they’d had enough time with Sophi. They figured it out.

“We’re going to head back. Sophi, it was so nice to finally meet you. You’re welcome at the house anytime,” Mom said.

“Thanks, Mrs. Ptuiac. I appreciate it.”

“I’ll be home later,” I offered.

“Not too late,” Dad replied, peering over his glasses and attempting his best stern look. I nodded.

As soon as they left, Sophi and I walked toward the crackling fire. Most the students were sitting on blankets or towels spread on the grass with their groups of friends, laughing or whispering to each other.

“Don’t worry, they didn’t say anything weird,” Sophi said.

“Riiiiight,” I said sarcastically.

“They said something really sweet, actually.” We stopped and stared at the fire in front of us. “They thanked me.”

“Why?”

“They said when you moved here, you were super lonely. They told me how they appreciated how much I was helping get you over all that.”

“It‘s true. I don’t know how I would’ve survived everything that’s going on.” That was an understatement. If only she knew, I thought.

She smiled at me and slipped her hand into mine, giving it a squeeze.
Zzst!
A slight static shock snapped in my hand. Sophi had never really done anything like that in front of our classmates, so I imagined that some of the whispers around the fire were now about us. Maybe they’d get louder if they’d heard what she said next.

“Let’s get out of here. I want to show you something.”

My mouth went dry as Dex came up to us.

“I think we’re taking off,” I told him. I saw his eyes dart down to Sophi’s hand in mine. He got the message.

“Cool!” His voice rose and he cleared his throat. “I was going to head out soon, too. Coach Schmick wants us to get rest for tomorrow.”

“You’ll be okay walking home?”

“Hey, if I can’t outrun everyone, I don’t deserve to be on the team.”

Minutes later, we were heading away from the park. As we got farther away from the fire, the streets got darker and darker. I started to imagine the man in the hat coming after us and kept swiveling my head, trying to look in all directions at once.

Finally, we reached a cul-de-sac with two enormous houses across from each other. Behind them was a stretch of woods. With the exception of a few lights in one of the houses, it was pitch dark. Sophi put her finger to her lips and pointed to the trees. She walked up to one large hedge and lifted the branches to duck underneath. She held it up and let me pass through. To my surprise, there was a path in front of us. We walked quickly through the darkness, brambles scraping our arms as she darted left, right, right again, and over a tree root I nearly tripped over as my eyes tried to adjust.

What felt like an eternity passed as we moved clumsily through the path before coming to a large, circular empty space covered in dirt and surrounded by more trees. “Stay here,” she said.

I stood still, hoping she wasn’t about to leave me there for a while.

I heard a pop and a hiss. Strings of what looked like Christmas lights hung between the trees lit up, illuminating the scene. I could now see the clearing had a big tree stump in the middle of it, large enough for two people to sit on.

“Sit with me,” she said, patting the stump. So I did. She didn’t look at me or take my hand again.

“This is my favorite spot on Earth, and I wanted to bring you here to tell you something I’ve never told anyone else.”

CRACK.

We both heard the sound of a large branch snapping somewhere outside the clearing. I stood up instinctively, moving toward the direction of the sound.

“What was that?” Sophi said.

“I don’t know, but it sounded real close.”

I’d guessed wrong about the direction of the sound because I hit the ground. Hard. My face slammed into the dirt, and an enormous body landed on top of me, seemingly from out of nowhere. This mass could only belong to one person.