Chapter 5

Chapter 5

            I sat in history class and listened to Ms. Cory read ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ aloud. She’s really into American literature. No one likes to read on their own time, so she reads aloud while we do our homework. She gets a lot read out loud she reads fast and speaks distinctly. Ms. Cory has already read ‘Little Woman’ and ‘Tom Sawyer’ already, and it’s not even December yet.

            Finishing my homework early I sank in my chair and got comfortable. I sounded out    Ms. Cory. After class would let out Red, Katie, and I would go down to the convenience store and loaf around. We usually didn’t want to spend our money. The only time we would do that is when the cook serves us slop for dinner. Slop is like a mystery meat school lunch, only for us it was mystery soup. Instead of eating it the kids would have a biology class instead of dinner, and dissect the soup looking for bones, hair, or other gross objects. Not even the cat-Dog-would eat the left overs of the world famous slop.

            Looking out the window for a moment I thought I glanced at Shaw but looking again it was nothing.

“Mr. Brady, if you can’t concentrate on your work, maybe you can focus better at the principal’s office.” Ms. Cory told me from her perch at the front of the classroom.

I looked back at her away from the window, “Sorry ma’am.”

            She jerked her head towards the open door, indicating that I needed to leave. I grabbed my books and left the classroom. I don’t know what happened to me, but just for an instant, I couldn’t stand living with fear, living with a death threat that I didn’t even know was real, living with a map that could lead me to a treasure, living without knowing where my brother was, my best friend, my knight in shining armor.

            I wanted to find the map, it was like a disease that ate me up inside just wanting to be let out.

            I snapped out of my trance and immediately thought about how stupid it was. And yet I was sick of being followed, having to look over my shoulder, not knowing when I was safe. I was sick of having a chance to live on the wild side almost in my grasp but then it was pulled away suddenly. What Katie had said about being able to leave and survive on the money we all had combined, floated around in my mind. This whole thing was too much to handle.

“Hello Brady.” a sneering voice said to me. I nearly jumped to the ceiling, thinking it was Shaw. But it was only Cecil Jacobs, a crude fowl mouthed freshman that likes to boss any and everybody around. He never cared about the consequences of what he did.

“Hello Cecil.” I said to him in my dull-I don’t care-voice

“Ditching class? You shouldn’t do that.” he told me.

“And what about you Cecil, what brings you out of class?”

            He would have told me off, but he didn’t, which was unusual for Cecil to do. His long greasy hair fell into his eyes. He made no point to push his blonde almost white hair away. He stood waiting for my next move. I sat against the wall using it for back support. Cecil did the same.

I heaved in oxygen as if a cement block were on top of my lungs. Every movement became unbearable. I was growing tired and it dawned on me that I haven’t been getting too much sleep since my first confrontation with Shaw. It had felt as if months had gone by since I had found that map, but I realized it had only been a week.

“Found anything interesting lately?” Cecil asked me

My eyes burst open, “What do you mean?” I asked

“Anything.” he explained to me, “like a dollar bill in the middle of the street, or a funny joke” then nonchalantly he added,”a map.”

            He knew, someone had told him.

Playing coy I replied,” I found a horse tooth on the sidewalk a few days ago.”

            Cecil let out a short sigh and said, “Then it wasn’t true.”

“What?”

“nothin’.” he said lazily

“No, what wasn’t true?” I was curious now

“Some guy stopped me in the middle of the street and told me he’d give me a buck if you showed me this map, and then I’d have to steal it from you and give it to him tomorrow.” he laughed and so did I.

“That wouldn’t happen.” I said

“Naw, you’re too stupid to even find your way around an empty parking lot.” he said, “Anyways, I told him he was nuts and to leave me alone.”

“Then why’d you ask?”

            Again he was silent. He stood up and kicked my legs and told me not to ditch class. Then he walked out of the building. I watched him hop the school fence to most likely “borrow” candy bars from the nearby market.

            About 10 minutes later the last bell rang to end classes. I waited for red and Katie-since they had the same last hour. They were laughing hard when they walked out. I didn’t want to know why, last time I asked, I got a gruesome answer that had to do with a dog.

            Once we were out of school bounds they quieted down and we walked in silence. It was cold outside, my hands were stuffed into my pockets and my coat collar was lifted to protect my neck from the bitter cold. The trees’ leaves had started to darken and fall. The grey clouds moved slowly in the distance not knowing which direction to move.

“Hey Brady, what’s wrong?” Katie asked me.

“I got it” Red interrupted, “You saw that guy again, didn’t you?”

“Have I really been that bad?”

“Well.” Katie said dragging out what she had said.

“Yes, definitely yes.” Red told me boldly

“That was a rhetorical question.” I told him, so we walked a little longer in silence. I noticed Katie was nervously wringing her handkerchief in her hand until it was permanently wrinkled.

“What about you Katie? What’s wrong?” I asked her

Her head darted at me, “Cecil knows we have the map, he asked me if you had it, he wanted to steal it from you, but I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about.”

“He asked me the same thing.” Red said

“Me too.” I added.

            Katie sat down on the nearest bench that was smothered with wet fall leaves. We didn’t say anything at first.

“Okay.” I said, “Having a map and knowing we could find missing treasure is pretty great.”

Katie looked at me and smiled, “Yeah.”

“I can’t take it anymore, we should go after your brother and find the treasure!” Red said

“San Clemente.” Katie whispered with a spark in her eye. They both looked at me.

“Well?” he asked?

“We don’t have a plan, we won’t survive.”

“Com’on it’s not like we would die, we could make a plan, and Katie said so herself that we could make it.” Red assured me.

            I couldn’t argue with them, once they had said it out loud they were going with or without me.

“Okay.” I said, and at that moment everything seemed so sure.