Нил Шустерман - The Shadow Club

“This is the best part,” said Randall. “While we all sat there, laughing at those stupid red toes, Drew Landers—Mr. Macho Swimmer himself—began to cry!”

“Yeah!” screamed Darren. “Revenge!”

“We all got our revenge!” said Cheryl. “And the more they humiliate us, the more revenge we’re going to get!”

Everybody agreed. Even O.P.—shy O.P.—was all smiles there at the campfire. It seemed that beneath that quiet brainy exterior lurked a kid just like the rest of us, who just loved every minute of our little pranks.

“Hey, everybody,” said O.P. “I’d like to read something to you.” All eyes turned to her as she pulled out a piece of paper. “As you know, David Berger—Jason’s mortal enemy— had green slime mysteriously loaded into his trumpet.” I veryone chuckled. “Well,” she continued, “I would like to read you this small poem that came out in the high school paper this week—not junior high school, but high school!”

“We made the big time!” I said.

“Listen to this.” She unfolded the newspaper clipping, and began reading:

We were in stitches, laughing so hard our stomachs began to hurt. Ever have one of those laughing fits where one person’s laughter keeps feeding the others, until nobody can stop? That’s what it was like. Between the sliming, and the tarantula, and the nail polish, and the diary, and the snake, and the green blood, it was just too much for any group of human beings to handle. We just had to laugh and laugh.

Finally, about five minutes later, we came down off of our laughing fit, wheezing, and wiping our eyes dry. The fire had now become full and furious, sending sparks sailing into the dimming sky. We all relaxed, and I found that somehow during the laughing fit, I had ended up leaning back, my head resting comfortably in Cheryl’s lap. I looked up at her, and she smiled at me. She was playing with my hair. The strangest thing about it was that I did not feel uncomfortable at all!

“This is classic,” said Jason, and although he said that quite a lot, we knew exactly what he meant. Even though most of us had barely known each other three weeks ago, right now, at this one moment in time, we would all agree that we were the best friends in the world.

I looked up at Cheryl, whose hair was dangling just an inch above my nose, and smiled.

That’s when I heard it. We all heard it. I snapped up out of Cheryl’s lap, and we all turned our heads to listen.

“What was that?” asked Randall.

“Shhhh!” Cheryl said.

We all listened, and heard it again, the scraping of branches, the crunching of leaves. Something was out there, just above the pit, on the other side of Stonehenge. We were all thinking the same thing. No one ever saw any bears in these woods, but Ralphy Sherman swore that once Bigfoot came up to him and then ran away. Of course, Ralphy Sherman also swore that he was picked up by one-eyed aliens, taken to a distant galaxy, and returned in time for evening television, so no one much trusted Ralphy Sherman—still, you never really know. There were also stories of a mountain lion who was shot by a family hiking only thirty miles away. None of us had any weapons. There were deer in the woods, but what if it wasn’t a deer?

We were all silent, and could still hear the faintest movement just a few feet away. I sniffed the air—perhaps if it was some large animal I could smell it—but all I could smell was the smoke from the fire. And then I said the stupidest thing that has ever been uttered by anybody on the face of this earth.

“I’ll go check.”

Nobody else volunteered. I slowly stood and walked over to the dirt slope where one corner of Stonehenge had caved in dozens of years ago, and I made my way up.

Now, on the other side of Stonehenge, I was all alone and for all I knew this could have been the end of my life. Still, I forced myself on, because waiting there in the middle like a sitting duck wouldn’t do any of us any good. I walked around Stonehenge, and I heard it again! Moving branches! There was no mistaking it, something was up here, just around the corner of the old stone foundation. My heart began to beat faster. If I could just get a glimpse of it before it saw me, I’d be all right. If it were a deer, then fine, I would go back down, case closed. If it were something worse, I could warn everyone and we could scatter—we’d have better chances that way. Of course, if we scattered, the thing would probably go after me first, since I was right there, but I wasn’t about to start thinking things like that.

I neared the stone corner, and slowly peered around. Trees, trees, and more trees came into view, until I saw something at the far end turning a corner. It wasn’t a deer. lt wasn’t Bigfoot. It was a kid. I saw his back and feet as he turned the corner, but did not see his face. Whoever it was had been watching us, and had heard our secrets; knew exactly what we had done, and what was going on! If someone knew, then our whole club could be destroyed! I was not about to allow that!

“Everybody hurry up here, some kid’s been watching us!”

Everyone stood, and raced up and out of Stonehenge.

“This way,” I yelled. I rounded the next corner, and saw him again, this time disappearing into the woods. He was trying to get away, the little spy!

“Is there only one of them?” asked Cheryl.

“I think so.”

“If he tells, we’re in lots of trouble!”

“I know.”

The Shadow Club raced through the woods, and as our eyes began to adjust to the dim light, we could see him just twenty feet in front of us. I raced at full speed. He was nearing the road!

At last I got close enough, and dove on him, bringing him down. He was about my size, just a bit skinnier. A bit bonier. I rolled him over and looked at the face before me. I instantly knew who it was, and so did the rest of the Shadow Club.

“Get your hands off me, you idiot!” yelled Tyson.

“Oh my gosh, it’s the slimeball!” said Darren. “Now we’re in for it!”

“What were you doing up there?” I demanded, pinning his shoulders to the ground as hard as I could.

“Get off me, butt head, you’re hurting me!”

“I asked you a question!”

“You’re hurting me!”

“Good!” said Abbie. “He’ll hurt you more if you don’t tell!”

Tyson didn’t say a word.

“I’m warning you, Tyson, we have ways of making you talk—and you won’t like any of them.”

“I didn’t see anything.”

“Bull,” said Randall.

“Bring him back to Stonehenge!” said O.P.

“To Stonehenge,” echoed the rest. “Yes, bring him back to Stonehenge,” and that’s just what we did. I put him in a full nelson. He struggled, but Darren grabbed his feet, and we carried him back through the woods, to Stonehenge.