John Saul - Shadows

“Amy just went tearing outside,” the girl told her. “She was crying like crazy, and when I tried to stop her, she just jerked away from me and kept going.”

“Which way did she go?” Hildie asked.

“Out there,” Tina said, pointing to a clump of redwoods planted in a circle near the middle of the front lawn, their massive roots completely hidden by thick shrubbery.

Hildie nodded in satisfaction. “She’ll be fine,” she told Tina. Amy hadn’t taken off for the front gate after all, but only for the hiding place the children had named the Gazebo. Yes, little Amy would be just fine.

Tina cocked her head and regarded the housemother, remembering the day five years before when she herself had wanted more than anything to go home. When the house had finally closed around her, and she hadn’t thought she could stand it anymore, she had run.

All the way out to the front lawn, where she’d burrowed through the shrubbery beneath the trees that formed the Gazebo. Within the circle of immense trees, hidden from view, she’d slowly begun to feel better. She’d sat down on the thick mat of fallen needles that blanketed the ground within the circle, and decided that it was her own secret place, a place she could retreat to when she just wanted to think, or be by herself. In the five years since, it had never occurred to her that she wasn’t the only person at the Academy who used the Gazebo for exactly that purpose. She studied Hildie. “Did you know that’s where I went, when I first came here?” Tina asked.

“Of course,” Hildie said blithely. “I know everything that goes on here. Now go along down to the beach. I’ll be along later, when Amy’s ready to come. And don’t let them eat all the potato salad before I get there!”

As Tina headed off to the beach a mile away, Hildie returned to her office, determined to finish the report she was working on. Yet even as she worked, she kept half an eye on the Gazebo. It wouldn’t do to lose Amy Carlson now.

The little girl had far too good a mind to allow it to go to waste somewhere else.

Amy crawled through the dense shrubbery, ignoring the twigs that scratched at her face and caught at her T-shirt. A few seconds later she emerged from the bushes and paused to catch her breath. Sprawling out on her back, she peered at the branches that mingled a hundred feet above her head, casting their deep shade into the clearing within the circle. It was cooler here, and the air smelled of the fallen needles that carpeted the ground and squished softly under her whenever she moved.

Then, from off to the right, she heard a sound.

Startled, she turned her head and saw a boy about her own age, staring at her. For a moment she didn’t recognize him, but then realized she’d seen him from her window, arriving with his mother that morning. But what was he doing here? If he was coming to the school, why wasn’t he down at the beach?

She thought she heard him sniffle, and saw him wiping his nose on the sleeve of his shirt.

“That’s gross,” she said. “Don’t you have a handkerchief?”

The boy shook his head. “I don’t need one. I’m okay.”

Amy rolled over and propped her chin on her hands. “You don’t look okay.”

“You don’t, either,” the boy replied. “Why don’t you blow your nose? It’s dripping snot all over your chin.”

Reaching into the pocket of her jeans, Amy pulled a wadded-up hankie out and wiped at her face. “Why don’t you go away?” she challenged.

“I was here first. Why don’t you go away?”

“Maybe I don’t want to,” Amy shot back.

“Well, maybe I don’t, either,” Josh replied, his voice turning truculent.

The two children stared at each other for a while, until Amy looked away. “Is your mom making you come here?” she asked, sure she knew why the boy was hiding in the circle of trees.

“She’s not making me,” Josh replied with a show of bravado he didn’t feel. “Besides, it doesn’t make any difference what she wants. I flunked the test.”

Amy cocked her head. “Don’t be stupid. Nobody flunks the test. It’s not that kind.”

“But I couldn’t even finish it,” Josh said, his voice catching in spite of himself. “I mean, I didn’t even come close!”

Amy, her own problems suddenly forgotten for a moment, moved closer to Josh. “How much did you get done?”

Josh shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe three-fourths of it.”

“Three-fourths!” Amy squealed. “I didn’t even get half of it done! How’d you do so much?”

Josh stared at her. Was she lying to him, just trying to make him feel better? “What are you doing here?” he asked, instead of answering her question. “How come you’re not at the beach with everybody else?”

Amy felt herself flush. “I … didn’t want to go,” she said so quietly Josh could barely hear her.

“How come?” Josh asked. “Don’t you like the beach?”

“Do you?” Amy countered.

Josh shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never been. I live out in the desert.”

“Not anymore,” Amy said darkly. “If your mom’s like my mom, you’re gonna have to live here now.”

Josh’s brows knit into a frown. “But everyone likes it here, don’t they?”

Amy shrugged. “I don’t. I hate it. I don’t have any friends, and nobody likes me. I just want to go home.”

Josh was silent for a moment, then he giggled.

“It’s not funny!” Amy exclaimed.

“Sure it is,” Josh told her. “I’m hiding out ’cause I flunked the test and I’m not gonna get in, and you’re hiding out ’cause you want to get out. That’s kind of weird, isn’t it?”

Amy thought about it, then nodded. “I guess so,” she conceded. “What’s your name?”

“Josh MacCallum. What’s yours?”

“Amy Carlson. And you didn’t flunk the test. I already told you, it’s not that kind of test. It’s just to find out how smart you are, and how much you already know. And it finds out a bunch of stuff about what you’re good at, too.”

Josh eyed her suspiciously. “You really only finished half of it?”

Amy nodded. “It’s the only hard test I ever took. How come they made it so hard?”

“I don’t know,” Josh said. Then: “So what’s the beach like?”

Amy shrugged. “I haven’t been to the one here yet. But in L.A. it’s really neat. We always go to Huntington Beach, and it’s real wide. And when the surf’s high, it’s scary. But my dad taught me to body surf this summer, and it’s really fun.”

Josh was silent, wondering what it would be like to have a father who took you to the beach and taught you things. He guessed he’d never know. “D-Did your friends go to the beach with you?” he asked, his voice suddenly shy. “I mean, in L.A.?”

Amy glanced at him quickly, wondering if he knew she didn’t have any friends back home, either. But there was something about Josh’s voice that made her hesitate, and when she spoke, she found herself telling him the truth. “I didn’t have any friends there, either,” she admitted. “They kept skipping me in school, and I was always the youngest one in my class.”

Josh nodded. “Yeah. That’s what happened to me, too. That’s why my mom wants me to come here.” He looked away then, and when he spoke again, he couldn’t bring himself to look at Amy. “I–I was just thinking that if I get in, and you don’t go home, maybe — well, maybe we could be friends.”

Amy, feeling flustered, didn’t say anything at all for a long time, and Josh wished he’d kept his mouth shut. She was just going to laugh at him, like all the rest of the kids. Just as he was turning away from her to start crawling back through the bushes, he heard her speak.