F. Wilson: Secret Histories

embarrassing.

Tim got on his radio. “This is A-seventeen requesting backup. I have a report of a corpse in the Pines near Johnson.”

A burst of static fol owed, choking a voice saying “Rogerthat” or “Ten-four” or whatever.

Tim opened his door, unfolding a map as he stepped out. He spread it on the hood of his car.

“Where exactly did you find this body?”

Jack looked at the angled lines of the fire lanes and the winding old Piney roads and didn’t know where to begin. He’d been fol owing Weezy’s lead and

hadn’t been paying attention.

Weezy stepped forward and jabbed her finger onto the map. “Right about here.”

Tim looked at her. “That’s Zeb Foster’s land.”

Weezy went al wide-eyed and innocent. “Is it? Oh, my goodness. We had no idea. We were just fol owing this fire trail, then we took the right fork here,

and the left fork here …”

Jack spotted Eddie standing by the rear bumper, leaning on his bike and looking annoyed. Jack wheeled over to him.

“You guys weren’t kidding, were you,” he said. “Al the way home I half thought you were putting me on. Wouldn’t be the first time you sucked me in.”

“But we wouldn’t be putting on the sheriff’s department, right?”

He shook his head. “I guess not. So if it was real, why didn’t you let me see?”

“Nobody stopped you. You could’ve gone over.”

“Yeah, but I thought you were kidding and you’d laugh at me.”

“We’re a little old for ‘made-you-look’ stuff, don’t you think?”

Jack hadn’t pul ed anything on Eddie since this past winter when he’d pul ed the ancient trick of rubbing some black grease around the edges of the

eyepieces of a pair of old binoculars. After Eddie had taken a look, he’d wandered around his house for hours with two black eyes. Hadn’t a clue until

Weezy came home and cracked up at the sight of him.

Eddie pounded a fist on his handlebar. “Man, some people have al the luck.”

“Trust me, if you’d seen it, you’d be thinking ‘yuck’ instead of luck.”

Eddie’s eyes took on a faraway look. “Yeah, but a deadbody. Awesomacious.”

Jack turned back to Tim and Weezy.

He heard her saying, “You fol ow those trails and look for a burned-out area on your right. That’l be the place.”

Tim was nodding. “Sounds easy enough. Anything else you can tel me?”

Jack caught Weezy’s eye and nodded to the black box in the bike basket. She returned a frantic No-please-don’t! look. So he said nothing.

Tim looked at Jack. “We’l probably need a statement from you three sometime tomorrow.”

Another sheriff’s car pul ed up then. Tim and the newcomer talked for a minute, then the two of them roared off toward the Pines.

Jack, Weezy, and Eddie stood there, looking at each other.

“Now what?” Eddie said.

Weezy pul ed the black box from her basket. “We go back to my place and see if we can open this.”

Jack said, “What makes you think it opens?”

She handed it to him. “Check the edges. Don’t those look like seams? This could be some kind of ancient puzzle box.”

Yeah, the edges did look seamed … or creased.

“Sounds like fun but …” Jack handed it back. “I promised Mister Courtland I’d mow his lawn today.”

“You can mow it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow I’m at the store. Besides, I promised him today.”

Weezy sighed. “Okay. Stop by later and see what we found.” She looked at the box, turning it over in her hands, then back at Jack. “Thanks for not

mentioning it to Deputy Dog.” “Tim’s okay.”

“Yeah, but he would’ve wanted it for evidence or something.” Her expression was fierce as she clutched it against her chest. “This is mine.”

Jack dramatical y cleared his throat. “Um, if I remember, we found it together.”

Her expression faltered. “Yeah. Okay. I guess we did. You want it?” Her eyes said, Pleasedon’tsayyes.

“Nah. You keep it.”

She grinned her relief. “You’re a good friend, Jack. The best.”

She leaned close and touched his arm, and for an instant he feared she might kiss him. Not that it would be so bad in itself, but jeez, not in front of

Eddie. He’d never hear the end of it.

He said, “Just let me know if you discover any ancient secrets—like eternal life, or how to turn lead into gold. I get an equal share.”

“Deal. As for secrets …” She stared again at the box. “… the world is full of secrets.”

Eddie rol ed his eyes. “Here we go again. ‘The Secret History of the World.’”

“Stop it, Eddie. There is a secret history. And who knows? This just might hold one of those secrets.”

She replaced it in her basket, then waved and started pedaling off.

“See ya.”

Eddie fol owed. “Later, Jack.”

As Jack watched them go, Weezy’s words echoed in his head.

You’reagoodfriend,Jack.Thebest.

Am I? he thought as he hopped on his bike and headed home.

Was anyone real y his friend? Sure, he hung out with kids. Not very many. Just a few, in fact. Mostly Weezy and Eddie, and lately Steve Brussard. But he

didn’t feel they were true friends. More like acquaintances. The only one he felt any connection to was Weezy, and she was a girl. And even that wasn’t a

real connection. He simply found her unique. No one he knew looked at the world the way she did. She was always finding weird links between seemingly

unrelated things or occurrences.

He saw himself, on the other hand, as pretty dul . Whatever he liked to do tended to be something done alone. Like reading. Like mowing lawns. Like

swimming—he was on the Johnson swim team, and yeah it was cal ed a team, but he couldn’t think of many things more isolated than stroking back and

forth the length of a pool where the only thing to hear was the splash of his arms and legs, and the only thing to see was the black lane strip on the bottom.

Except maybe cross-country running, which he also liked.

Where did he fit? Where did he belong?

Maybe high school would be different. Dread tinged his anticipation. Meeting new kids. Being at the bottom of the pecking order. SBC Regional had

kids from al over the area. Maybe he’d find a bunch he could connect with. And maybe he’d fol ow the same pattern as he had in middle school. The difference between loner and loser was one letter.

Which was he?

“Oh, Jackie!” his mother said as she hugged him for the umpteenth time since he’d dropped the bomb about finding the body. “Wil my miracle boy be

able to sleep tonight?”

“It’s Jack, Mom. Jack, okay. Please?”

He’d been cal ed Jackie—at least at home—for most of his life. But he was heading for high school now where he wanted to be Jack. His mother was

proving the hardest to break of the habit.

As for “miracle boy”—forget about it. He’d come along when she’d thought she was through with having children, thus the name. She’d no doubt cal him

that on her deathbed.

Mom dying … he brushed the thought away. He couldn’t imagine it. He expected her and Dad to live forever.

He had her brown hair and brown eyes, and her love of music, although their tastes were nothing alike. She listened to the same Broadway albums over

and over— SouthPacific was playing now—while Jack was firmly into rock. His current faves were Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” and the eerie

“Synchronicity” off the new Police album.

She used to be thin but now complained about putting on weight these past couple of years. He’d heard her blame it on “the changes.”