Нил Шустерман - The Shadow Club

“What are these, voodoo dolls?” asked Abbie.

“You leave them alone!” said Tyson, spitting out words that I won’t repeat. “They’re mine!”

Jason looked at me, and I gave the signal. One by one, Jason cut the strings, and O.P. tore each of the marionettes into shreds, throwing them at Tyson’s feet.

“Confess,” said Darren, “and we’ll stop,” but Tyson didn’t confess a thing. He was a hard nut to crack. In a few minutes there was a pile of little heads and arms and legs and string in front of Tyson. He tried to break free, but the ropes held.

“You’re gonna pay for this,” screamed Tyson. “Pay pay pay! All of you!”

“Confess,” I said calmly, folding my arms, standing just out of his reach.

“I’ll never confess to you!” he said.

The Shadow Club looked at me. Time for a new plan. I pointed to the ropes, snapped my fingers, and they ran to cut Tyson down.

“The beach!” I said, and I led the way as the rest carried him down toward the shore.

We hauled Tyson down the rocks to the small cove closest to Stonehenge, just below where Cheryl and I had our first kiss. The cove was hidden, with no homes anywhere nearby, so no one could catch us. It was close to 4:30 when we got there, but it seemed even later, because those black clouds over the ocean were closer now, churning up the sea.

We let Tyson go, but formed a semicircle in front of him. With the ocean right behind him, there was nowhere he could run.

“Leave me alone!” he whined. “Let me go home! My aunt and uncle will be home soon, and they’ll be looking for me! You’re gonna be in so much trouble!”

“We’ll let you go home as soon as you confess!” I said. “What’s so hard about that?”

“I don’t have anything to confess, gopher brain!”

“You’re lying,” said O.P., “and I’m not going to be suspended from school because of what you did!” And with that we began to move closer to him. Tyson backed away until his dirty, torn tennis shoes were being washed over by the icy October sea.

“Stop!” he said. “You’re all dead meat! All of you!” We got closer and he backed away farther.

“What are you going to do to me?” he asked, suddenly not as angry as he was frightened.

“Nothing,” I said, “if you confess.”

By now, the waves were crashing at his knees and at our feet, but we didn’t care how wet we got, as long as we forced Tyson to admit the pranks he had pulled.

“It’s cold ...” Tyson backed away a b’t more. The water was now breaking at his waist and at our knees, then in one last mercy cry he said, “I can’t swim ...”

When I heard that, I smiled a dark, evil smile, and moved closer. If Tyson couldn’t swim, then he would have to confess. Either that or learn to swim real quick!

That’s when I heard Cheryl calling from far away. “Jared!” I looked up; she was on the cliff. “Jared, come here,” she called.

“I’m busy! You come down here!”

“It’s an emergency!”

“So is this!”

“No,” she said, “I mean a real emergency.” Figuring that Cheryl had to have the worst timing in the world, I reluctantly left. “You’re in charge,” I told Darren. “I want a confession from him by the time I get back.”

And I left them—four kids, and one rough sea, to do battle against Tyson McGaw.

As i had guessed, Cheryl had left Stonehenge to find her brother, but when she had arrived at home, she hadn’t found Randall there. Instead, she had found a note that said to call her parents at a strange number, which turned out to be the hospital. Randall was in the hospital and Cheryl didn’t know why. Her parents weren’t entirely sure yet either, but whatever it was, they had been pretty stressed out about it, and so was Cheryl.

They told her to wait at home until she heard from them again, but Cheryl’s not the type to sit at home waiting.

“Do you think your mom’s home by now?” she asked me.

“Probably.”

“Good. I need a ride to the hospital.”

We ran all the way to my house. My mom had just gotten home from work, and when she heard about Randall, she hurried us off into the car and took us to the hospital.

The hospital was big and white, like all hospitals in the world seem to be, and it smelled like a hospital. I hated that smell; it reminded me of the time I had my tonsils out.

Paul, Cheryl’s stepdad, met us in the lobby, surprised, but not upset, to see us.

“It’s OK,” he said. “It’s not as bad as we first thought. He didn’t hit his head or anything. They think he might have fractured his hip though.”

“Oh no!” said my mother, “Poor Randall!”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Near as I can tell, he was playing basketball in some friend’s backyard, went for a shot, took a bad fall, and came down hard on the cement. I don’t know the whole story.”

Cheryl and I looked at each other, but said nothing. Ten minutes later, Randall was wheeled out of X ray. He looked awful. He had been given painkillers and barely seemed to be able to move on that gurney. I had a bad feeling about this—even worse than the feeling I had when I realized Austin was about to plow into those rocks.

We all followed as Randall was wheeled into a room. The doctor examined him again and then left with his parents to examine the X rays. When my mother stepped out, we were left alone with Randall.

“Tell us what happened, Randy,” Cheryl said.

“I broke my hip,” he said groggily.

“We know,” said Cheryl. “Paul said you were playing basketball? Where was it?”

Randall closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Eric Kilfoil’s,” he said, “and I wasn’t playing basketball.”

Cheryl and I looked at each other in disbelief, and that’s when I realized that the entire bottom had just dropped out of the Shadow Club.

“Tell us what happened, if you can,” asked Cheryl. Slowly, quietly, Randall told us. He told us how he went over to Eric’s house after he snuck out of school, instead of coming to Stonehenge. He told us that he had been planning it for days, and he knew no one was home. He told us how he climbed onto the roof of Eric’s garage, carrying tools to take down Eric’s backboard and hoop and steal it. Halfway through unscrewing the thing, however, the backboard fell without warning. Randall lost his balance, and plunged to the ground. “I would still be there if the neighbors hadn’t heard me yelling,” he said.

“Why did you do it?” asked Cheryl. Neither of us knew that Randall could do such a thing. Sure, he was a brat, but planning to steal something like that . . . Well, it made us both wonder what else he might have done.

“I did it for Darren,” he said. “Because Darren’s my friend, and he doesn’t deserve to be treated the way Eric treats him. I just wanted to get Eric back for Darren, that’s all.”

“Does Darren know you did this?” I asked.

“No.”

I swallowed and asked the question that I was afraid to hear the answer to. “Randall . . . did you pull all those other pranks, too?”

“No!” he said, grimacing from the pain in his side. “I swear, I only pulled this one! Only this one! Tyson pulled the rest!”

Cheryl looked away from me when I turned to her, and finally the last piece of the puzzle snapped into place. It fit so well that I knew I was right. I had to be. I knew the truth, and it was so ugly that I was afraid to accept it. It was uglier and more horrible than anything we could have imagined.

“Cheryl, can I talk to you?”

“Sure.” Cheryl gave Randall a kiss on his forehead, and even in his sedated state, he was able to lift his hand and wipe it off. We stepped out into the hall.