Copyright © 2017 by Stephen Wallenfels
Cover illustration © 2017 by Matt Griffin
Cover design by Maria Elias
All rights reserved. Published by Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address New York, New York 10023.
ISBN 978-1-4847-8074-9
Visit www.HyperionTeens.com
To my mother, Mary, and my father, Otto
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
The Drive
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
The Trail
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
The Storm
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Acknowledgments
About the Author
They walk side by side through shin-deep snow, dragging branches for their shelter behind them. The footprints they made on the way out are little more than small depressions in the drifts of swirling white. It’s as if the wind has a single ill intent—to wipe out any traces of them.
“Did you bring your headlamp?” she asks.
“No. You?”
“No.”
“We’ll make it.”
She wants to move faster, to outrun the dark that is chasing them, but knows each step is a struggle for him. The branches are too heavy. But she suspects the real problem is beyond her control. She can barely move her fingers in her gloves. His sneakers are caked in snow. His feet must be anchors of ice by now. She stops and faces him. “Let me carry more.”
“Keep moving,” he says.
“You sure? Because I can—”
“Must. Keep. Moving.”
They trudge on, heads down into the stinging wind, following tracks that disappear before their eyes. She shudders as the nagging thought that was small thirty minutes ago swells into a chest-crushing wave of panic.
Are we walking in circles?
She decides to count. Numbers are a refuge, a singular focus that keeps her mind off the fear and pain. If we don’t see the camp in fifty steps, I will tell him that we’re lost.
She reaches thirty-eight when he points and says, “There it is.”
She spots a small bubble of orange and yellow covered in white. The tent. A shape passes in front of it, hunched over, hat pulled down and covered with snow. Three steps, turn. Three steps, turn. He’s pacing. At this distance she can’t tell which one of them it is. A low moan rises up through the wind, rhythmic and throbbing.
“Something’s wrong,” he says.
As they move closer she recognizes the jacket.
Then she sees a big patch of black on the front that wasn’t there when they left.
“What happened to his jacket?” she asks.
Her companion breaks into a run, goes three strides and falls facedown, scattering his load. He stands, takes two steps, falls again. She drops her branches, grabs his arm, and helps him up. They stumble together into camp, stop and stare in horror at the stain.
It’s on his pants, his gloves, his face.
She knows in this dark moment what it is.
Her scream dies in the howling wind.
Backpacks on and racquet bags in hand, Grahame and I step out of the elevator in Darby Hall, arguing about a matter of great importance: who was better, Michael Jordan in 1995 or LeBron James after he won the NBA title with Miami in 2013. We walk across the lobby toward the front desk, Grahame saying, “Dude, LeBron is too big and too fast.”
I answer, “But MJ never lost a championship final. He’s six for six. Perfection is as perfection does.”
Grahame says, “LeBron had more rings and MVPs than Jordan at the same age.”
To which I respond, “But LeBron went into the NBA straight out of high school. He had a three-year head start.”
We stop at the desk. So far, so good.
Grahame says, “What’s your opinion, sir?”
Mr. Chetsanoyev, aka Mr. Chet, whose responsibility it is to make sure all forty-six students residing in Darby Hall don’t get into any trouble between the hours of 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., looks up from his sudoku puzzle with unveiled suspicion. In his view, all students at Chandler Gates Academy are in constant escape mode, and he is the only wall of resistance preventing us from scoring our drugs and spiking the teen pregnancy rate. He takes in our geared-up backpacks and matching green-and-gold cga tennis uniforms, and shakes his head. Whatever shenanigans we have planned will not work. We offer smiles, which he does not return. “LeBron has more triple-doubles,” Grahame says to me, using the stylus to sign out on the registration iPad.
I say, “Jordan won defensive and offensive MVPs in the same season.”
It’s a fact I didn’t know until last night.
Frowning at the iPad’s display, Mr. Chet says, “A tournament in San Diego?”
“Yes, sir!” Grahame answers, with a heavy emphasis on sir. He had started addressing adults in this manner ever since deciding to be an Army Ranger, which he did after randomly meeting a recruiter in the Denver airport while traveling to Cape Cod to teach at a summer tennis camp for the über rich. Meanwhile I was flying back home to Vermont to count trout at a fish hatchery. Now he finishes every sentence to adults with sir, thinking it will prepare him for boot camp. And I swear my hands still smell like fish.
Mr. Chet asks, “Why are you leaving so early?”
“We want to beat the traffic, sir.”
“At four a.m.?”
“There’s always traffic in LA, sir.”
“Is the whole team going?”
“No, sir! This is preseason. It’s just us, plus Rhody and Ceo.”
Mr. Chet smiles for the first time. This response is known as the Ceo Effect.
He says, “Is Coach Carson picking you up?”
“No, sir! Coach is in Boston at his niece’s wedding. He won’t be back till Tuesday.”
“Till Tuesday, huh?”
“Correct, sir.”
“Who’s driving?”
“I am, sir.”
“If you’re playing in a tournament, then why the giant backpacks? Will you be climbing Everest between matches?” He smirks as if this question will be the one that trips us up. As if we’d forgotten about the packs. Grahame doesn’t answer. Not because he doesn’t have an answer lined up. It’s because the ball is now in my court.
“We’re camping in a nearby park,” I say. My statement is mostly true. We will be camping, and we will be in a park. The nearby reference is relative. San Diego is three hundred miles from Yosemite and three thousand miles from Ball Mountain State Park in Vermont. Compare the two distances, and Yosemite qualifies as nearby. The flaw in this logic is that Mr. Chet may ask the name of the park, in which case I would be forced to tell a bald-faced lie. Ceo said the odds are four to one that he wouldn’t ask that question. I have a name lined up, just in case.
“Hmmm, this looks pretty suspicious,” Mr. Chet says, twisting the hairs in his beard. He rocks back in his chair and watches us watch him. What bugs me about this whole scenario is that we’re all seniors. We should be able to do whatever the hell we want. But after some dismal scores on college placements, the Chandler Gates Academy board, commonly referred to as “the sacred six,” made a highly contested policy that seniors may not go on extended weekend trips, as in more than one night, without parental and/or staff approval. The end result is we have to be more creative in how we get out the door. And no one is more creative than Ceo.
Mr. Chet shifts his gaze directly to me—the weakest link. Ceo anticipated this move because I’m the “honest” one. The guy least likely to break or even bend the rules. Not because I have a more highly evolved moral code. More like I’m the guy with the most to lose. One misstep and my “scholarship” is history. That was made abundantly clear during my interview with Coach Carson (one of the best in the country) and Maxine Taylor, the overlord of the Chandler Gates N-FAP (Needs-based Financial Assistance Package) treasure chest.
I brace myself for my next role in this mission.
“Colin,” Mr. Chet says, “did Coach Carson sign off on this?”
“There’s a note on the Need to Know page.” Also true—sort of.
Alternative is the word we were waiting for.
Grahame bumps me with an elbow.
I say, “That is one alternative. But it’s seven a.m. in Boston, and Coach is jet-lagged. He needs his sleep for the big party.”
“Well, I’m still not seeing a second alternative.”
Grahame slips a small envelope out of his pocket and places it on the desk in a way that can’t be seen by the security camera behind us. He nudges it forward and says in a near-whisper, “Here are four alternatives, sir.”
Mr. Chet’s eyes flick down, then up.
Grahame whispers, “Lakers versus Cavs.”
“Same seats?”
“Better, sir. These are right behind the visitor bench.”
Mr. Chet reaches out and tucks the envelope under his sudoku book. This action assures us that there will be no phone call to Coach and no follow-up phone call to Ceo’s father, who is still in Tuscany buying wine for the cellar in their third home high on a cliff in Big Sur. And there will be no conversation with Coach about this conversation. Ever. If Coach wants to check online to see how we did in the tournament (which he won’t, because it’s small and not sanctioned), the link Rhody sent him will redirect him to a bogus page that shows the event was canceled due to lack of entries.
“Good luck in the tournament,” Mr. Chet says.
We thank him and turn to leave. I’m reaching for the door when he says, “Tell Ceo that LeBron would eat Jordan for lunch and dinner.”
“Roger that, sir!” Grahame says.
We step out into the cool morning air.
Phase One of Operation Cannabis Cove is in the bank.
We load our packs in the back of Grahame’s aging Jeep Cherokee, then shed the uniforms down to our camping attire underneath. I noticed a shiny new ax in the rear compartment that wasn’t there yesterday when we gassed up. Grahame must have made an extra trip to a hardware store. I think about asking him what’s up with the ax, why not something lighter like a hatchet, but decide it’s his business, not mine.
It takes a few cranks before the Cherokee shudders to life. Grahame guns the engine till the idle settles, finds the dreaded Road Trip playlist on his Samsung and cranks it up. We roar out of the parking lot vibrating to the thumping bass of Bob Marley telling us all to be happy. It’s a three-minute drive to Larner Hall if you honor the speed bumps behind the library and don’t cut across the PE parking lot. Grahame does it in two. Between impacts he says in his bogus Jamaican accent, because that’s how he rolls when he be crankin’ da reggae, mon, “Are ya sure about dis ting, Q?”
“I’m sure.”
“Ya deedn’t look so sure last night.”
“I was tired.”
Dropping the accent, he says, “I’d still be pissed if I was you.”
“I’m not still pissed.”
He looks at me, frowns. “Then what are you?”
“I’m…transitioning.”
He grunts, Bullshit, makes a screeching left into the Larner Hall parking lot. Ceo is under a streetlamp, leaning against his red Mercedes convertible, sending a text.
Grahame says, “But cha won’t be sleepin een da Ceo’s tent, eh, mon?”
“Roger that,” I say.
Grahame pulls into the parking space next to Ceo’s car, guns the engine to keep it from stalling. Ceo pockets his phone, which has me wondering, Who is he texting at 4:15 a.m.? I get out, slip the Good Will Hunting screenplay out of my pack. I ask Ceo if he’d like shotgun, thinking I’d rather read about an undiscovered Einstein in Boston for the third time than listen to Grahame talk about one of the many girls he had “privileges” with while teaching backhands at camp Rich ’n’ Famous. Ceo says, nah, he’s going to sit behind Grahame, then whispers to me, “That way I can strangle him if he talks in that freaking accent.” He loads his backpack in the rear compartment with the rest of our gear, takes a moment rooting around, then climbs into the backseat.
“Hit it,” Ceo says.
Grahame pumps the gas. The Cherokee spews a cloud of black smoke but we don’t move.
“Works better if you put it in D for drive,” Ceo says.
“There’s an empty seat,” Grahame says.
“Is there? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Where’s your flaky roommate?”
“Flaking.”
“What?” Grahame stares bullets at Ceo in the rearview mirror.
“He isn’t coming.”
“Since when?”
“Since twenty minutes ago when I said get your geeky ass out of bed and he said my geeky ass is staying here.”
This is news of the worst kind. Rhody is the only person on the team, Coach included, who
can keep our undisputed alpha males from going nuclear. He’s like the team rodeo clown, hence the name Rhody, along with the convenient fact that he’s from Rhode Island. Without him as a buffer, all the pressure falls squarely on me. Plus, I don’t see the point of rodeos, and clowns are straight-up evil.
I say to Ceo, “Why the change of heart?”
“The usual Rhody bullshit. Too many tests, too little time.”
“You reminded him that this is a sacred poker vow?” Grahame asks.
“Absolutely. He was stressing a couple days ago. I told him that this isn’t just a camping trip. It’s a pilgrimage. I thought that settled him down. But you know how he gets.”
Grahame looks at me. I shrug. It’s widely known that if Rhody had to choose between an emergency splenectomy and risking the loss of his lifetime 4.0, he’d sacrifice his spleen and go for the GPA. On the other hand, Ceo can talk a turtle out of its shell. This isn’t a case of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object. Rhody would cave. We all cave in the presence of Ceo. Rhody wanted to go on this trip and now he isn’t. Something smells fishy. And if anyone knows what fishy smells like, it’s me.