Secret

“Does Reyna like going to that dump site?” Kasey asks the next day while talking to Teagan about what the two of them did after separating from the group (though he doesn't mention meeting Mr. Tennent, nor the comment he made.)

Next to him, Erika nods. “She goes there ever once in while, so it's not strange to see her coming home with something she's pick out from there.”

“Never really thought that a girl would hang out in a place like that.”

“Well, she has fun there, and it's not hurting anyone, so I guess people are okay with it, we included.”

“What was that place anyways? There were a lot of anti-damn slogans there, and it had construction equipment all over the place. Was that where they were going to build the dam?”

Teagan nods. “Yep. But a few years ago, they canceled construction on it.”

“All the townspeople got together and fought for the town!”

“It was a huge war!” Erika adds in.

Kasey wonders how big was the fight for the town was for Erika to say that, however before he can, the door to the classroom opens and Reyna and Stephanie walk in. Though Reyna apologizes for being late, the younger girl just sticks out her tongue at them. It doesn’t slip past him that she directs it towards him for whatever reason.

Teagan makes a show of clearing her throat to get everyone’s attention. “Since everyone is here, I propose a question to the club!”

To the club? What?

“To the club members: How about we make Kasey here they newest member of out club?”

The girls laugh in excitement. “I have no objections!” Reyna says, making the first vote.

“Are you sure you can keep up with us, peasant?”

“I'm with Stephanie.”

“Great! Then it's a unanimous vote. Congrats, Kas! You have the approval to try out for our club.”

Kasey sputters. “Wait! You have to explain something to me: When did I ever ask to be a part of your club? What what's it about anyway?”

“In order to cope with our complicated society, we perform various activities under different sets of rules-”

“We play games here,” Erika explains, (thankfully) cutting off Teagan's rather long explanation. “Teagan has a game collection here and every day, we play something different. “Of course, the loser has to do a punishment.”

“Rule number one:” Teagan explains, “you have to play seriously.”

“Rule number two:” Stephanie explains, “in order to win, you have to put in effort.”

Coming from her, Kasey wonders of that means anyone can cheat.

Teagan rummages around in a locker that's crammed with stuff and pulls out a deck of cards. Since he's a newbie, they've offered to take it easy on him, not that it makes him feel any better. It's a game of what they call Old Man.

Erika explains the rules of the game to Kasey: Old Man is pretty much the same as Old Maid. But the difference is that there's no joker card used and instead, one card is pulled out at the beginning of the game. No one will know what card will be the joker and the one without a matching card loses.

“If you lose, you get your face drawn on!” Teagan announces though it’s Reyna that looks uncomfortable with that rule.

“Just not with a permanent marker, I hope.”

Teagan deals out the cards and explains the rules some more. In their version of Old Maid (called Old Man), there’s no joker; rather a regular card will be the joker. They take one card from the pile in the beginning and whoever has the last card will lose. But no one knows what card is the man since the card is taken from random.

Reyna starts first. She pulls a card out of her hand and places it in the center of the table, upside down. “We’ll know which card is the man as we close to the end, so for now, don’t worry about it.”

Kasey looks at the back of the cards. “Hey, these cards are pretty beat up. You guys could probably tell which card is which just by looking at the backs, huh?” He jokes, but when he looks up at the girls, their smirks they have is all the same. Then it dawns on him why. “Hey! That’s not fair! I’m going to lose!”

“‘Rule number two: In order to win, you have to put in effort!’” Stephanie repeats with a gleam in her eyes.

“Some are distinct, so you’ll notice them fast.” Reyna helps out. Kasey nods, determined not to give up.

“Fine! Bring it on! I’m not going to let this be a handicap!”

Quickly, all of the matching hands are dealt with, then it’s time for the real game to begin. Teagan notices Kasey trying to hide the backs of his cards and laughs.

“That’s not going to help, Kas! I can tell what they are! Left from right, it’s three, four, nine, jack, and queen.”

“By the way, the fourth card is the jack of hearts.”

Annoyed at both Teagan and Stephanie, Kasey shuffles then again, but the smaller girl still finds the three of hearts cards. “Even if you change them around, I still can tell what they are~!

It’s Reyna’s turn next, and he gives her a puppy eyes look, but it doesn’t work, and she comes in first place. A few games later, he hasn’t won and in last place with negative eight points. With the next game being the last, Kasey tries to think of a strategy that will help him win. That’s when he realizes that the girls rely on the trick of reading the damage on the back of the cards in order to tell which is which. Fold lines, fingernail marks, stains...they could what they were just by using that.

“This was a little unfair to Kasey. We could’ve used a new deck...” Reyna says after she’s out, but Teagan shrugs it off.

“Kas’s okay. He is a boy after all.”

“You guys are evil.” Kasey moans out, tired of losing. “Pure evil.”

“If you don’t like it, you can go home and cry about it!” Stephanie jeers while Erika gives him a comforting pat on the head and both she and Reyna encourage him to keep trying.

He has been getting better, they point out. Mostly because he’s been doing his best to take note of what cards have what damage on them since the girls like to point them out loud.

“The one with a crease on the corner is a five...”

“This one has a fold in the middle, so it the seven of spades...”

It comes down to just Kasey and Teagan towards the end of the game and he once again he hides the cards behind each other. The older girl tsk’s at him. “No use doing that! I know what cards you have.”

She reaches out to grab the card on the left. “This is the two of diamonds!” She grins at him. But when she looks at the card, she looks surprised..because it’s not the card she thought it would be.

The other girls are surprised too. Reyna points out that it’s rare for Teagan to make a mistake in a game that she usually wins and figures out that Kasey must have done something to the card, mainly made it look like it was the two of diamonds.

The move is impressive and while it does help him win that round against Teagan, in the end, Kasey still loses the game; he's still proud for winning one round though.

“As the leader is our club, I officially announce Kasey Martinez as the newest member of our club!” Teagan grins devilishly at his as she pulls out a marker and uncaps it. “Now, time for the punishment!”

Before he can move, the other girls have him held down and happily ignore his screams of protests.

 

                                                                                                   - - -- - - -- -

 

After the club ends, Reyna takes off first. Probably to the dump, Kasey assumes, which means it just him and Teagan walking home for the day.

“Reyna sure has some strange habits, doesn’t she?” It’s not meant in a mean-spirited way and Teagan’s able to pick up on that.

“Yeah, she does. But that’s what able to make Reyna, Reyna.” They talk idly for a while; the drying ink on his face itches like crazy, but Kasey resists the urge to scratch at it. Teagan might yell at him, at any rate.So he switches to a topic that has been on his mind for a while.

“Did something happen here a few years ago? Back when the dam was gonna be built?”

“Yeah! We had a huge war! There were sit-ins and demonstrations everywhere!”

“They were trying to submerge the town, right? If I lived here, I would’ve fought for the town too.”

“The government officials were so selfish. Arrogant and bossy, all of them! When they found out that they couldn’t pay people off, they resorted to dirty tricks.”

“So did you guys win? Against the government? Your..war? Well, you had to, since the town’s still here. How did you guys win?”

“The town’s mayor and a few other powerful people got together and made a petition. They even went to Washington and negotiated with the politicians there. In the end, they canceled the building of the dam. It was an awesome victory for the town!” Teagan laughs and Kasey can see the pride for her town her face.

He almost hates to bring up the next topic.

“So there wasn’t anything violent that happened? No murders or anything?”

“No.”

It’s the same reaction as Reyna’s. Straight to the point and with the tone that this isn’t to be discussed. Kasey takes the hint.

Though he’s sure that there was something happened (otherwise, why would Mr.Tennent bring it up in the first place?) and his curiosity about it still isn’t fed.

Teagan takes off for the street that leads to her house. “See ya later, Kas! And you better not rub off those drawings until you get home!”

“I’m not!”

She takes one last look at his face, trying hard not to crack up. He hasn’t seen his face yet, so he has no idea what he looks like... hopefully it's not anything too bad. He really hopes that his mom isn't home... it'll be really embarrassing if she sees him.

Unfortunately, he's not that lucky. One look at her son's face and she cracks up laughing.

Great.

After he's gotten the ink rinsed off (but not before getting a look at his own face and he feels a mix of amusement and even more embarrassment because how the heck could they let him walk around like that?) his mom pulls him to the side.

"Why don't you go walk outside for a while?"

"But I just got back home!"

"I know and I'm sorry, but your father is in one of his moods now."

Kasey nods in understanding; every few months when working on a painting, his father often hits a block. Which means he's often walking around in a bad mood until some kind of inspiration hits.

Figuring that Reyna would be there, Kasey makes his way to the junkyard, where sure enough she's there, digging out the KFC mascot.

"You need help, Reyna?" he asks from behind her, scaring her. She squeals in surprise, but take him up on his offer.

"Ah, thanks! I'd appreciate the help!"

Together, they do try their best to dig through the pile. In a way, he was hoping to Mr. Tennent at the junkyard like he did last time so he could ask him a few questions that hopefully the man could answer. As it is, he's happy to help Reyna and her quest for the mascot.

After an hour though, they haven't made much progress. Kasey sits down on a stack of wood and lets out a huge sigh of exhaustion. He's sweating heavily, but so is Reyna.

"Sorry for putting you through all this trouble." She apologizes. "If you want, I can get you something to drink. There's a vending machine not far from here at a bus stop. I'll get something from there."

Before Kasey could stop her, Reyna's running towards it. Wiping at his brow, Kasey looks over a stack of tabloid magazines and newspapers, stacked by dates and tied together with a thick string.

'That was a horrible event. They're still looking for an arm, you know,'

If what Mr. Tennent had said was true, that meant there was a murder. That meant there had to be some kind of article written about it. He unties the string and opens the magazines and newspapers one by one. It's a bit hard, given that they're stuck together or the ink has faded, or both. He looks up everyone in a while to make sure Reyna isn't coming (mostly because some of the magazines mixed in are old Playboy mags and that would put him in an awkward position to explain.)

Both Reyna and Teagan said that they didn’t know anything about it, but there had to be something written about it if someone’s arm was missing. It had to have happened. Unless Mr. Tennent was just joking around (and he didn’t seem like he was joking).

Honestly, if the girls just admitted that they knew something about it, his curiosity about it wouldn’t be so damn strong. But they didn’t want to talk about it...and in a way, he felt like he was betraying them.

‘Gang Death at Torii Dam! Victim Dismembered!’

He found it...though most of the pages are damaged and stuck together, he can make out most of the article. A picture next to the article depicts two officers removing a body bag from the scene. It faded and hard to see, but Kasey can read the caption underneath it.

‘Horrible nightmare at the site of the Torii Falls dam: Officers recover the body of a construction manager that was killed.’

It goes into detail how the manager, the murder victim, had been tormenting the work crew. Some of them had had enough of it and killed him.

So it did happen. It happened and he knew they were hiding something from him.

Kasey turns to the next page, where the article goes into more detail.

‘The main suspects killed him using a hatchet and pickaxes. They dismembered his head, arms, and legs from his body.’

That’s not even a normal murder. As a group, they killed his guy in cold blood...

“Kasey? Are you ready to go? Are you?”

The boy lets out a yell and turns around to see Reyna’s surprised face. “Oops, sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Kasey swallows. “Nah, that’s what I get for zoning out like that.” Reyna holds out a can of soda and instantly, he’s reminded of how thirsty he is.

“Oh, I got something else for you too!” She holds out a billhook ax. “I figured you could use it to chop up the stubborn wood that’s blocking the way!”

Kasey smiles and thanks her. The two take a break to catch their breath, and after his finishes his drink, Kasey goes back to work freeing the mascot for Reyna. After an hour or so of work, he finally gets to the bottom. But at the moment, he’s exhausted and decides to call it a day. “We’ll finish this tomorrow for sure, alright?”

Reyna pouts a little, but agrees and together they make their way home; Kasey hiding the magazine with the article under his shirt.