Chapter 26
It’s all mission control in the dining room as we lay out our plans for tomorrow’s presentation. Multi-colored poster boards, markers, and stencils fill the table. Sebastian hovers a thick black marker over a neon board, drawing his words in the air. He swipes at his eyes and shrugs.
“Maybe plan it out with a pencil first. That way you’ll know you spaced it out right.” I hand him a pencil. “That’s what I did.”
With his thumb and index finger, he tugs the pencil from my hand. “Makes sense.” He shoots me a grin. “My usual strategy is kind of…no strategy.”
The phone in the kitchen rings, and Dad peeks his head in. He’s wearing an apron and drying his hands as he holds the phone to his shoulder. “Yes, Ms. Kendrick, she’s right here.” He passes the phone to me, and the chatter in the room goes still.
“Hello?” I have never in my life had a teacher call me at home. Why am I so nervous?
“Hey Darcie. Sorry to call you at home, but I wanted to run something by you. I’ll give Stuart a call too, but—”
“Oh, Stuart’s here.” I wave him over and press the phone between us.
“Wonderful! So I was able to talk with my colleagues this afternoon, and they were very much in favor of you presenting your campaign to the seventh grade. In fact, we’d like you to do it tomorrow.”
“I thought we talked about doing that next week sometime.” I grab Stuart’s wrist, mouthing, “Oh my god!”
“You want to raise awareness, right?”
“Right, I do…” I say quickly. “But the Peaks already think I’m making stuff up. What if they shout me down before I even finish? I thought I’d have more time to prepare myself.”
“I hear you.” she says. “It’s hard when people around you don’t see things the same way.”
Stuart shifts beside me. “Ms. Kendrick—did you have a chance to check on Grover’s hearing?”
“Actually, I just checked. It’s four o’clock next Friday. That’s one reason we thought tomorrow might be better than waiting.”
I tighten my grip on the phone. “What will that look like, then? Tomorrow.”
“We’ve got the auditorium reserved for second period. Meet me there in the morning. Your first period teachers have already approved you missing class.” She pauses. “Does that work?”
“Yeah, I guess.” My voice is steadier than I feel. “We can practice during first period.” My hand is suddenly sweaty and I run it down the leg of my jeans.
Stuart’s fingers find mine again, and this time I let them stay.
“Don’t sound so worried,” Ms. Kendrick says. “Your job isn’t to make everyone agree with you. It's to tell the truth as you experienced it. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“See you tomorrow, then.” The line clicks dead.
That night, I can’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I’m standing in front of the entire seventh grade. Stuck on what I should say. My mouth moves, but no one is listening. They’re talking over me, laughing at something else, shoving each other, like I’m not even there. I try to tell them about Grover—what he did, why he did it—but they don’t care. Like I’m so ridiculous that I actually believe he’s anything but a criminal.
At 2:03 I slide out of bed and take my usual path to my desk to retrieve my laptop. The floor is freezing cold on my bare feet so I grab a pair of socks on my way back to the bed. Slipping them on, I message Stuart: “I can’t sleep, can you?”
It takes him seven seconds to respond. “Nope. Been up for hours. FaceTime?”
Hesitating for half a second, I hit accept.
Stuart’s face appears in the dark, lit blue by his screen; red hair mashed flat on one side and sticking up on the other.
“Please tell me you’ve figured out how we’re supposed to talk in front of our entire grade without passing out,” I whisper.
He snorts, “Sure. Step one: don’t pass out.”
I groan and pull the blanket up over my head. “I’m serious. I might as well tie a steak around my neck and hike into grizzly country.”
“I know. Right?” He shifts, moving his laptop. “We’ll be fine. You know the story better than anyone.”
“That’s the problem,” I say. “I’m the only one who fully knows what happened. Other than Amelia, and she’s suddenly developed amnesia.”
“People will listen to you. You…make people feel things. Remember yesterday in class? Just…do that.”
We go over the outline again. Then again. Somewhere between the third and fourth run-through, the words stop feeling like something I have to remember and more like something I actually want to say.
“Okay,” Stuart says, glancing off-screen. “If we don’t sleep at all, we’re going to be zombies.”
“Too late.” I mutter.
He scrubs his hands over his face and sighs. “See you on the bus.”
“Yeah. See you.”
“Darcie? We got this.”
“Okay.” I smile weakly. “Night.” The screen changes back to my homepage, and I power off. The stars on my ceiling twirl while the sound machine hums in the background. My eyes grow heavy, but worry, half-formed dreams, and clock checks keep me from staying asleep very long.
At 6:15 my alarm buzzes. I guess I slept, but the grit in my eyes tells me otherwise. I drag myself out of bed and get ready to tell the entire seventh grade about the Shadow Man.
Andrew isn’t up yet, so breakfast is thankfully chill. I try reading over my notes, but the light from the chandelier is way too bright this morning. I push my plate of pancakes away.
“Darcie?” Dad looks at me over the top of his newspaper. “Your presentation today got you feeling a little twitchy?”
“Yeah. Some of the kids…well, the Peaks, mostly—they’re gonna give me a hard time. I know I’m doing the right thing, but part of me wants to just forget it. You know?”
Mom and Dad exchange a look.
“What? You think I shouldn’t say anything either?” I absently stab my fork into my pancakes. “If I don’t say anything, people are just gonna keep thinking Grover’s some kind of monster. He doesn’t deserve that.”
Dad puts down his paper and studies me. “Your mom and I didn’t raise you to give up and head back to the truck when something matters. We just hate seeing you take another hit over it.”
He hands me my milk.
“It’ll be okay,” I say, drinking down half the glass. “I can handle a few hecklers.” Then I pull out my notes and start reading.
By the time Stuart boards the bus, I’ve gone over what I want to say at least fifteen times.
“Tell me you slept.” He slumps into the seat beside me.
“Define slept.”
He laughs. “Listen, we’ve got this. We’ve been working on it for days. What could go wrong?”
“How about everything?”
We settle into our morning routine of talking about nothing. The normalcy of it calms me, and my shoulders relax.
“Oh! guess what? Sebastian and Terrance are starting a yard business.” He grins.
“In the middle of winter?” I laugh. “How will that work?”
As soon as the bus makes the turn into the school parking lot and stops, my insides slam forward. “Ugh.” Holding a hand to my belly, I step down onto the curb and push through the crowd toward the front doors.
No one knows there’s an assembly this morning, but like yesterday, people stare. It reminds me of the time my family took a hike through the woods at night. We could actually see eyes gleaming in the dark. My pack feels heavy and my feet drag. I slip my hand into Stuart’s.
“In a little over two hours, this will all be over.” I say. “I can’t wait.”
Stuart holds the door open, and we enter the school building. Maybe getting the story out all at once will take things back to something close to normal. But since my experience in the cave, it’s pretty clear that nothing will ever be exactly the same again.
During first period, I spend more time in the restroom than I do practicing for the presentation. The sound of running water fills up the silence, and I splash my face and pat it dry. Pale skin and red-rimmed eyes stare back at me from the mirror. “Do not mess this up.” I say. “Keep your wits about you and don’t let the Peaks get to you.”
After my pep talk to myself, Stuart and I run through the presentation, but my heart’s just not in it. We’ve been through it so many times in the past twenty-four hours that all I want is to just get through it without looking like a total freak.
The metal railing at the edge of the stage feels cool as I wrap my fingers around it. “Is it full yet? I mean, do you think everyone’s here?”
Stuart stands beside me, craning his neck to see who’s out there. “Mr. Stanley’s class is just coming in, and maybe Ms. Kennedy? I’m not sure; I can only see her back. It could be—” He waves his hand. “Look, Sebastian and Terrence are on the front row—Hey!”
I take a step toward the curtain. The auditorium stretches out like a sea of restless seventh graders—rows and rows of shifting bodies, all talking and moving at once. Voices bounce off the ceiling beams, and any minute now, Principal Roberts is going to tell them to settle down. This is a mistake. I can’t do this.
“There’s your class, Darcie.” Stuart points to the left. “Mr. Farnswiddle is taking them down to the front. He’s pushing Amelia’s chair.
I lean around the curtain. Amelia sits at the end of the first row that’s quickly filling up with Peaks. “Great.”
“Oh, by the way,” Stuart says. “I changed the first slide. You’re gonna love it.” He bounces on his toes. “I found the picture last night—a shadow against the outline of trees.”
“You’re just telling me now? You didn’t think about it on the bus ride over, or the 52 minutes we just spent going over my speech?” I twist fistfuls of hair around my fingers, and pull.
He stops bouncing. “Oh. I…thought you’d like it.” He looks at his shoes. “It was a surprise.”
“Sorry.” I touch his arm. “I’m just freaking out. There are a ton of people out there, and not all of them are on our side. How are we going to convince them that Grover is innocent?”
“Well, he’s not totally innocent. He took Andrew.”
I glare at him. “What? You don’t believe me now?”
He pushes his glasses up, squinting nervously. “I’m just saying. Everyone already knows what he did, and…well, you left that part out in rehearsal.” He gives my shoulder a squeeze. “Just sayin’.”
“I’m trying not to make him sound like a villain in a comic strip—or worse, just confirm what everyone already thinks. The thing is, he didn’t mean any harm.”
Stuart turns to fiddle with the projector, and I slide the note cards out of my pocket, flipping through them one more time. Behind us, the projector fan hums softly. This is it. No pressure, just don’t blow it like you did with Barney Fife.
Ms. Kendrick steps to the podium, and it doesn’t take long before everyone is silent. Her voice moves to the background though as I grab Stuart’s hand. “Ready?”
“…to the stage, Darcie Reynolds and Stuart Foster.” Sebastian and Terrence whistle and hoot like a couple of idiots as we make our way to the podium. Kids from our civics class are on their feet, and the volume of the applause is deafening. To the left, Amelia’s crew forms a tight circle around her. There’s a message in their silence: Give it up.
For a second, I just stare at the microphone. The weight of the quiet hangs heavy as the last of the voices fizzle out. I lean in too close, boinking my mouth and sending a loud thunk through the speakers.
“That’s the sound of confidence!” A boy shouts, and the auditorium erupts into laughter.
Ms. Kendrick stands beside me, and they stop.“Go ahead, Darcie,” she says.
“Um…hi.” My voice is thin—much thinner than I want it to be, so I clear my throat and start again. “I know most of you have heard about the Shadow Man.”
A murmur runs through the crowd.
“You mean the guy who kidnapped your brother?”
I ignore the catcalls and keep going. “You’ve probably heard the story…or parts of it all your life.” I slide my eyes to Stuart and he nods. “So when Ms. Kendrick posed the question to our class a couple of weeks ago: ‘Where do we draw the line between an individual’s rights and society’s expectations?’ We thought that the Shadow Man would be the perfect topic.” I shift my feet and look directly into the faces of my classmates—the friendly ones. “Little did I know that before we would have the chance to present, I would have a personal encounter with him.”
“How personal was it, Darcie?”
My head jerks toward the voice, and so does everyone else’s. I pull my lips in and bite down hard. Don’t let them get to you.
“I’d heard that he kidnaps kids. I didn’t believe it—there are no actual cases. So I thought he’d been unjustly labeled. That is until he took my baby brother.”
“He deserves to go to jail!” someone shouts from the back. Sneakers squeak against the floor as people twist in their seats, and the ripple of murmurs turns into a wall of noise until Ms. Kendrick has to raise her hand again.
I glance down at my note cards. So far, I haven’t said a word that’s on them. I flip to the third card. Stuart gives me a thumbs-up, but the creases on his forehead tell me he’s worried. “You’d think I’d be angry,” I continue, “want him punished for what he did—but it’s actually the opposite.”
“My dad said he brain-washed you.” The same voice as before.
“No. That didn’t happen.” I say, “But once I heard his story—something changed for me.”
“Aww, Darcie’s got a crush.” This time, it’s a female voice. Probably Crystal.
The slide changes to the one where a woman stands outside the cottage.“He talked about a cabin near the trailhead. You guys know the one.” I catch Crystal’s eye, and she looks away. “When Grover was five, they took him from his mom and put him in foster care—Child Services did that.”
“No wonder he’s a criminal!” Someone yells from the back.
A few laughs ripple through the space.
Then, “Liar.”
My voice catches a little. “I’m not lying. He wasn’t trying to hurt anybody! He was just trying to help his mom.”
“I thought you said they took him away!”
My fingers curl around the podium. “He went back to find her. To take care of her. She was sick…and…”
“So you’re saying kidnapping kids helps his mom? How?”
Everyone turns toward the voice. It’s the thing they can’t get past. Why would he take us if he were a good person? But they won’t let me finish. They won’t listen.
I bite my lip. “He was really gentle with Amelia, too—because of her hurt leg and all.”
My grip on the microphone tightens, and inside my mind I plead with Amelia. Please say something. Her face gives nothing away. “He saved her life.” I whisper, but Amelia just shakes her head.
“I don’t remember. I had a fever.”
Suddenly, the whole auditorium is against me. Every whisper sounds like laughter. Every laugh is a jab to the ribs. The old panic crashes down on me. Ms. Kendrick’s eyes lock onto mine. She shakes her head, and I bolt from the stage.