F. Wilson - Secret Circles

Dad‟s objection was that he needed the “socialization” the bus provided. Jack got the impression Dad thought he was too much of a loner and that the bus would force him to meet new kids. In other words, “socialize.”

He didn‟t know the Connells‟ reasons for not wanting their kids to bike to school, but Weezy and Eddie wound up at the bus stop every morning just like Jack.

He knew of ten kids from Johnson who went to SBR. Steve Brussard, who‟d been a good friend until the crazy events of last month, would have made eleven, but his mother had placed him in some private school for kids with problems. Of the ten, four of them either had cars—like Carson Toliver—or knew someone who did. The less fortunate remaining half dozen gathered by the vacant lot near the blinker light at the intersection of Quakerton Road and 206, in front of Sumter‟s used car lot. The cars were still there, the little red-and-yellow pennants still fluttered on their wires, but the place had been closed since Mr. Sumter‟s sudden death last month. He too had been a Lodge member.

For the previous eight years Jack had waited by the vacant lot across the street for one of the grade-school buses, heading north.

The other two corners were occupied by Joe Burdett‟s Esso station and a Krauszer‟s

convenience store. Jack figured the Krauszer‟s would come in handy for a pre-bus coffee or hot chocolate when the weather turned cold.

The lot and the shoulder were puddled from yesterday‟s rain. Cody Bockman posters clung to the poles supporting the blinker light over the intersection.

Gone almost forty-eight hours and still no sign of him. Jack had heard somewhere that if a crime wasn‟t solved in the first forty-eight hours, chances were it would never be.

So where on Earth was Cody?

Jack couldn‟t dodge the suspicion that the circus was somehow involved. In another day or two they‟d strike their tents and be on their way to the next stop. Cody might never be found.

He glanced at the sky. Clear and sunny. No rain since yesterday afternoon. If this held up, maybe he could cut the Lodge‟s lawn today.

He lowered his gaze to the elementary school bus stop across the highway and saw Sally Vivino standing with her mother. Lots of mothers there this morning. Usually they took turns driving groups of the little ones down to the stop, but this morning it seemed a lot more had decided to personally see their kids off.

Trying his best to look casual, Jack crossed the road. He wanted to see how Sally was doing.

“Hi, Mrs. V,” he said when he reached them. “Hi, Sally.”

She stood with a Cabbage Patch Kid clutched against her chest—Jack couldn‟t understand the craze around those homely dolls—and looked up at him with big brown eyes.

“Hi.”

No smile. Well, what could he expect?

“Hello, Jack,” Mrs. Vivino said. “We haven‟t spoken for a long time.”

Something in her voice … Jack couldn‟t read her expression because of the oversized

sunglasses she wore. After seeing her bruised arms yesterday, he knew why she wore long sleeves even in warm weather like this. Was she hiding a black eye as well?

“Yeah, well …” The way she was staring at him made him uncomfortable. “I‟ve wanted to stop by but …”

She nodded. “I understand. We missed you. Sally especially. She kept asking where you were.”

Now he felt really bad.

“I‟ve seen you waiting here and—”

“I‟ve seen you too,” she said. “And not just here.”

What did that mean? She seemed to be trying to make a point.

“Oh?”

“I saw you last night, riding your bike away from Mr. Rosen‟s place.”

Uh-oh.

“Yes, I, um, work for him.”

She nodded, still staring at him through those dark lenses. “I know. We had a visitor yesterday.

He came because of a call from a boy.”

Oh, crap.

He felt himself reddening. She knew! Had she mentioned it to her husband? Play dumb, play dumb.

“Um, a call about what?”

“About something he probably didn‟t understand. About something that‟s not his business, something he should leave alone and not get involved in.”

“Oh.”

He knew he was red. Had to be.

The school bus pulled up then— in the nick of time , as the saying went—and Jack backed away.

“Yeah, well, nice talking to you. Bye, Sally.”

With a quick glance at him, Sally said, “Bye,” then handed her doll to her mother and climbed on the bus.

Jack spotted Eddie and Weezy approaching the corner and hightailed it over to join them. He could feel Mrs. Vivino‟s gaze on his back.

3

The big yellow school bus lumbered into view and groaned to a stop. Jack was the last to board, right behind Weezy. Since Johnson was one of the later stops on the route, the bus tended to be near full by the time it reached them. Today was no exception. As usual, the older kids—the seniors without cars and the more popular juniors—had commandeered the back rows.

Only single seats remained at this point, so Weezy took one next to a girl Jack didn‟t know; he got waves and smiles from Karina and Cristin as he passed and wound up in a window seat next to Darren Willmon, a fellow freshman he‟d met on previous trips.

Ten minutes later their bus pulled into the parking lot and stopped in line with its brothers. As he waited to get out of his seat, Jack noticed a rusty pickup pull into a far corner of the lot. Half a dozen kids of various ages jumped out of the rear bed, all wearing odd, mismatched, ill-fitting clothes.

Piney kids. He wondered if any of them were related to the trapper by the spong. Probably.

Pineys were related in all sorts of ways. Some people said they were too closely related, like brothers and sisters getting together and having kids. Jack didn‟t know if any of that stuff was true. People liked to talk, and some people just naturally exaggerated as they went along. Like a game of telephone where what comes out at the end is nothing like what started it.

On the other hand, pineys weren‟t all that plentiful, so a piney-piney marriage could pretty much count on some sharing of family blood. The result was some kids who didn‟t look quite right.

He watched them troop into SBR‟s main building, a sprawling one-story, flat-roofed

square encased in beige brick with an open central quadrangle. Whoever had designed it must have been given blueprints of Alcatraz for inspiration. All it needed was a gun tower or two to make it look like an official prison.

Inside wasn‟t much better: A tiled, echoey central hallway ran all around the square with classrooms left and right. A hallway branched off the southeast corner to another flat square that housed the caf. A second hall came off the southwest corner to connect to the two-story gym.

The athletic field lay beyond all that.

Jack had been edgy about finding his way around when he‟d started here, but he‟d been a frosh for two weeks now and felt like the place was his.

4

“Next year at this time,” Mr. Kressy said, pacing back and forth across the front of the classroom, “we‟ll be in the heat of a presidential election.”

He was gray haired and overweight—not fat all over, just his belly. He looked pregnant. He always wore suspenders and a bow tie.

Jack had already chosen Mr. Kressy as his favorite teacher. He‟d expected civics would be deadly dull, but Mr. Kressy made it interesting. Jack wasn‟t sure how he did it, but it worked.

Maybe it was because he made them think rather than simply memorize.

“President Reagan will most certainly run for a second term on the Republican side. Word is that Jesse Jackson will announce that he‟s running for the Democratic nomination. Did anyone see the Miss America pageant on Saturday night?”