“We seriously have to go,” I said.
“Not until we’ve found out what the hell is going on around here.” Chloe sounded fierce.
“No,” I said. I don’t want to risk people. I’ve already lost three of them.
“Let’s vote. People who want to get out of here the fastest they can, raise your hand.” Zach stood unmoved as I raised my hand stupidly before I realized Zach is definitely going with Chloe because of his… I’ll give you only one guess. But unexpectedly, Zach then did a ‘meh’ pose by raising his hand a little and shaking it.
“People who want to investigate, please raise your hand,” I said, putting my hands into my pockets. Zach was still doing the meh pose as Chloe shot her hand straight into the air like an eager toddler.
“Half and half,” she muttered.
“How about we do both? We get out of this hospital and investigate on the way,” I suggested.
“Nice one, Katy.”
We hid behind a printer on the way to avoid getting caught by the guards and, of course, Aunt Vanessa. She was wearing a neon yellow sparkly dress with bits of sunflower pattern on it.
It took about a lifetime to sneak into the woods, now slippery with jet-black thick weird goo. The snakes—no, the press now calls them Blackings—dyed the whole patch of forest into a sleepy dark grey. The poison sure killed a lot of leaves, crunchy under my foot. But it didn’t turn out worse than I thought; a little better, really. The woods were filled with a weird smell of gasoline.
We arrived at the treehouse, untouched by the poison. The whole treehouse was now basically a huge chunk of logs with bits of twigs.
“Team huddle!” Zach herded us onto the ladder, and we formed a firm triangle.
“So,” I started, “things we know: Zoe’s gone, snakes are bad, and they turn dirt into black crumbs.”
I saw Chloe looking at the trunk of the tree, which was now growing into the old treehouse.
“What are you looking at? We are having a strategy talk.”
“When did you get a working electric socket? So handy for phones,” Chloe charged her dying phone happily.
I did not. I did not have the tool or money to drill a hole in hard bark, let alone a working electric socket. I frowned at Chloe.
“I didn’t,” I said confusedly.
“Anyway,” Zach cut through any further confusion like he just dumped a bucket of ice on my head. The boy is the sports captain for many reasons. “Aren’t we supposed to talk about worm-ish snakes that squirm around dying people’s hair?”
“Yeah,” I said carelessly, rubbing against the rough wall, playing with my shoelaces as he glared at me.
Chloe was now poking around in the electric socket. But suddenly, a scream escaped her mouth. And really, I can’t blame her.
The socket was now flowing with black goo, and the smell made my eyes water; the smell was so disgusting and overwhelming. Curses and swears bounced off the wall; the tree seemed to chip and shatter—the floor, the sturdy Y-shaped branch, and the leaves—they were all so crunchy. It’s like walking on piles and piles of fallen leaves but three meters off the ground. We all screamed. I managed to land on my hands and knees, but the others were either lying down or on their shoulders and backs. But a shadow cast over me.
I turned and saw Mr. McBell standing awkwardly with a box of nails and messy piles of red and black wires. He is the official tech person in Leafbrook, but, well, he is a little weird. He wore a pair of nerdy black glasses, fading old jeans, and his signature shiny brown shoes. He was also bald.
I felt a warm shudder running down my spine—even though he’s the weirdo in town, I’m very glad to see him.
But the goo was now climbing onto his tawny shoes, wrapping around them like ivy, climbing up as if its life depended on it. He hardly noticed. But I heard the most awful thing of my life—I know what my nightmares will be like for the rest of my life—the Blackings’ hiss.
“Mr. McBell!” I said. “How—”
McBell moved as fast as the wind, gripping my shoulder like a vice and flinging my body over his shoulder.
Ten minutes later, we were in Mr. McBell’s cozy-slash-weird house, sipping a weird-flavored lemonade that tasted like he accidentally dropped a handful of coffee into the bright red cup.
By the way, Mr. McBell lived in a very old house, standing out like a muddy chick among the phoenixes. The interior was at least a thousand miles from what I expected: instead of piles of wires, walls full of tools, and some creepy machines, I saw the room carefully decorated with a wood-ish vibe. The wall was fragile with bits of milky-colored wood stuck onto the cracks. There was a really comfy saffron sofa in the middle of the neat carpeted living room (the carpet was a nice brown decorated with stripes of reddish oranges that looked like a tiger’s stripe).
We sat awkwardly, trying not to complain about the lemonade. We would probably be dead by now if he wasn’t there.
“Hello, kids,” Mr. McBell said.
“Um, hi?” Zach mewed.
“Mr. McBell,” I said as formally as possible, “thank you so much for saving our lives in the forest. We owe you so much.”
He shrugged like it was no big deal.
Silence.
But suddenly, for no reason, Mr. McBell came flowing with words.
“I was a teacher. I was called Johnathan Casey. I was Professor Casey. I fell off a tree when I was small—”
“Sorry to interrupt, but were you okay?” Chloe squealed.
“Yes. I got a bit of hospital life, then I’m good,” he said plainly.
This went on for a while. Now you will probably get why he’s a weirdo. He just makes things up with his wild brain. My aunt said he had a complicated past and his brain suffered non-fatal but permanent damage that caused his whole “backstory” to “change” frequently because of his brain.
I looked at myself in a body-length mirror placed neatly beside the bathroom. But all I could see was a nerdy girl with her striped short sleeves torn, messy brown braid, and freckles peeping out from smears of dried black stuff behind her silver glasses.
How I wish all this was just a very real nightmare. How I wish that my alarm would ring any moment for a new day. How I wish this was the real stuff coming up late like in the movies…
