The Talent Diary

The Talent Diary

  Samantha Branson

  Book I

  By Chris McFarland

  Copyright 2011 Chris McFarland

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: The Clubhouse

  Chapter 2: Discovery

  Chapter 3: The Diary Story

  Chapter 4: Test Day

  Chapter 5: Marissa'a Revenge

  Chapter 6: Nurse and Teacher

  Chapter 7: A Lost Secret

  Chapter 8: Dark

  Chapter 9: Injection

  Chapter 10: Others Know

  Chapter 11: Missing

  Chapter 12: Daylight

  Chapter 13: Decisions

  Chapter 14: Singularity

  Chapter 15: The Tunnel

  Chapter 16: The Simple Truth

  Chapter 17: Differences

  Chapter 1: The Clubhouse

  Her grandfather’s behavior in the two weeks before her twelfth birthday did not seem strange to Samantha Branson. She noticed he was at their house more frequently, but this seemed like a positive thing because it was always fun to have her Grandpa around. If anything, his more frequent appearances made her wish that he would continue to visit so often in the future. She never suspected his new proximity originated from a deep concern for her.

  Her life was simple, good, and fun. Nowhere did she have any hidden uneasiness or concerns and she felt in control of her life. The day before her birthday had been a good one and she got ready for bed that evening feeling so happy that she had no need to recognize the fact. That was fortunate, perhaps, because her grandfather was also getting ready for bed, thinking long thoughts and nervous for the following days. He had something he needed to tell Samantha and he was not looking forward to the task.

  Samantha Branson’s birthday started with bright sunshine coursing in through her window. Her curtains, simple and white, blocked the lower half of the window so the sun was not in her eyes. The upper half of the window was open and the sunlight fell squarely against the far wall. The wall, at least where the sunlight struck, was painted a pale sky blue. The thick paint made for an excellent reflector and the brightness of the morning pulled Samantha out of sleep before her body would have liked.

  She sat up and stretched, wondering if she should feel any different than she had the day before now that she was twelve years old. It was Friday, November 22nd, and their school was on holiday. She pulled off her heavy blankets, which she couldn’t sleep without even in the summer, and walked over to the window, parting the lower curtains that looked out on the front lawn and the cul-de-sac. The sky was bright and clear and she could see a light breeze fluttering the tree limbs in the walnut tree that occupied the left half of their front yard. The fall had been exceptionally warm.

  Samantha, who slept in a pale green nightgown, hurried across the hall and into the bathroom. Flicking the bathroom switch bathed the room in the heavy glow from the lamps across the top of the medicine cabinet. Before entering the shower, Samantha glanced at herself in the mirror, rubbing her still sleeping eyes. As she suspected, nothing had changed between the end of her eleventh year and the start of her twelfth. Her hair was still a light brown, loose, and reaching her shoulder blades. She was still a little tall for her age and thin-framed. Her friend Marissa had told her that all young girls eventually end up looking almost exactly like their mothers, but if that was true then the day was still far in the future for Samantha.

  After a quick shower and dressing in old jeans, a t-shirt, and a sweatshirt, Samantha headed back to her room to check the time. She was surprised to see it was only 8:30 A.M. and that meant Becky wouldn’t be over for at least an hour and Marissa might not make it until ten. Samantha sat back down on the bed, wondering if she should go back to sleep, knowing that she was up and wouldn’t be able to fall asleep if she tried. Her relaxed eyes examined her room. There was her dresser and desk, both old and supposedly antique. They had been collected by her Mom’s Mom, a grandmother she had never met. Her carpet was white and full. The closet door was open, showing the jumbled clothes inside. On the night table beside her bed and spilling onto the floor were books and papers.

  Her parents let her do whatever she wanted to her room and she didn’t even have to clean it, unless she wanted to, which she usually did because otherwise she could never find what she was looking for. If she paid for the paint herself, Samantha could make her room any color and any design she wanted. Last summer she and Marissa had spent almost a full week painting her room, always changing their minds. Finally, they painted a blue sky with puffy white clouds and near the bottom of the walls were forests and mountains. When Becky got back from vacation with her parents she was upset they had painted without her. Samantha asked her to paint something else. Becky painted two beautiful eagles flying above the forest.

  Walking out of her room and turning right would take her down the hallway, the hardwood floors leading to her parent’s room and the extra bedroom, which her mother, Sandra, used as an office. Samantha turned left, ignoring the bathroom across from her, and walked into the dining room. The dining room was separated from the kitchen by a long counter and to her right was a sliding glass door that led onto the porch and into the backyard.

  The porch was full of potted plants, a small picnic table they hardly ever used, and her mother’s Jacuzzi and hammock. The hammock was spread over the hot tub so Sandra could sit in both the hammock and the Jacuzzi at the same time. Beyond the porch was their enormous backyard of three acres. Her father, Thomas, had a large garden that was growing old and brown as autumn progressed. A small stream emerged from a culvert twenty feet from her parent’s bedroom window. The garden ran from the edge of the stream all the way to the fence that separated their yard from Mr. Henson’s. The stream led straight into an enormous, straining mass of bamboo, filled with stalks that reached over forty feet high. Emerging in two spots from the bamboo were ancient oak trees, in one of which Samantha and her friends had built a tree house. To the left of the porch was a trail that led straight into a large grove of eucalyptus trees, all tall and spaced close together, their schizophrenic limbs intertwining at height. The trail led through the grove and emerged at the back edge of the bamboo, where the well-hidden entrances to the clubhouse were located.

  Samantha went into the kitchen and got a bowl of cereal, which she took into the living room to eat. The living room was joined to the dining room by a large, open doorway. As she walked past the doorway to the living room she was startled by a large mass snoring on the couch. Then she remembered that her grandfather, Neil, had stayed the night and he always slept on the couch.

  Trying to be quiet, Samantha slipped into the large, fluffy white chair that her mother had purchased during the summer. It was comfortable and ugly, a combination Samantha found she liked very much. She munched on her cereal, wondering if sound from the television would wake her grandfather. Deciding that even if the television woke him he had already slept long enough, she turned it on, put the volume on low, and started flipping through channels. She stopped every fifth channel to take another bite of cereal. She finished the bowl before she found something to watch, so she turned the television off, looked across the room, and was surprised to see that her grandfather was awake and looking directly at her.

  “Grandpa! How long have you been looking at me?”

  Neil didn’t answer, except with a low rattling snore.

  “Grandpa?”

  She looked at him closely, a little nervous, and saw him breathing slowly, his face slack and relaxed. For a moment it had seemed she was in the darkened living room with a living dead man.

  “Grandpa,” Samantha said, perhaps more loudly than she intended.

  Neil shook and fluttered on the couch, hi
s eyes closing and then reopening. The quick shuttering of his eyelids restored consciousness to the eyes, much to Samantha’s relief.

  “Sam? What…..did you say something?”

  “Sorry Grandpa. You scared me a little. You were asleep with your eyes open.”

  Neil sat up, rubbing absently at his face with both hands. Samantha heard the thick rasp of beard stubble. Her grandfather’s hands were calloused.

  “You’ve never seen anyone sleeping with their eyes open?”

  “No. I didn’t know you could.”

  “Sure. How else do you think sleepwalkers move around? Actually, I’m not surprised that I still sleep with my eyes open every once in awhile. I used to sleepwalk all the time when I was your age.”

  “How strange. I’ve never sleepwalked.”

  “Well, maybe not yet.” Neil said.

  “What do you mean,” Samantha asked.

  “Sleepwalking runs in our family. I started about your age and kept doing it until I was eighteen or so. It is a strange business, waking up somewhere different than you feel asleep.”

  “You really walked all around your house asleep? Where was the strangest place you ever woke up?”

  “Hmmm. Well, probably the strangest was when I woke up in a restaurant booth with a half eaten hamburger in front of me. It was the middle of the night and I was sitting in this booth in sweats and a T-shirt. I asked the waitress how I had gotten there and she looked at me like I was drunk. She said that I just drove up and walked in like everyone else.”

  Samantha laughed. “You’re kidding right?”

  “Completely serious Sam.”

  “How could a person do that in their sleep? It seems like you would have to know what you were doing.”

  “I don’t know how but it happened.”

  Samantha looked at him carefully, trying to decide if he was serious or not. He looked serious, smiling gently at her and with a full head of silver gray hair. Her grandfather, though fun and friendly, was not much of a joker. Samantha believed him.

  “Are you ready for your party this afternoon?”

  “Oh yes,” Samantha said. “I can hardly wait. Marissa and Becky are coming over early and we’re going to play in the clubhouse. Then later everyone else is coming over.”

  “I think you are going to get good weather this year. Much better than last year at least. Do you remember that?”

  “Yeah I do. We had the flood.”

  Neil nodded.

  “Are you going to be in the clubhouse later on this afternoon,” he asked.

  “Are you crazy Grandpa? You know that no one else can go in there. Becky, Marissa, and I are the only ones who know the secret entrances.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry.”

  “But mostly it will be Mom and Dad’s friends anyway. I didn’t want to invite too many people this year.”

  “More people might mean more presents,” Neil said, knowing what the reaction would be.

  “Grandpa! You know I don’t even want to get presents. It feels weird.”

  “Weird,” Neil said, more to himself than Samantha. Then he laughed suddenly, abruptly, like a dog bark. “Well, just wait until you see what I have for you. It isn’t like anything you’ve ever got before, I guarantee that.”

  Becky and Marissa arrived together a little after 9:30 A.M. Samantha had seen them through her bedroom window and ran down the hall to open the front door right as Marissa was about to knock.

  “Happy Birthday,” they shouted together and they pushed their way into the house, each carrying a present.

  “Thanks,” Samantha said, a little embarrassed, as always, at receiving presents. “You can put those down on the fireplace if you want.”

  Becky walked right over and placed hers carefully on the smooth rock fireplace. She was thin, strong, and agile, with long blond hair that she tied back into a ponytail. Marissa followed, a few steps behind, and plunked her package down with a heavy, wooden sound. Marissa had a lovely, pale face framed by dark hair as straight as wet string.

  As they walked back towards her, Samantha, feeling unusually emotional, gave both of them a simultaneous hug.

  “So what are we doing today, birthday girl,” Marissa asked, although she knew.

  “We’re off to the clubhouse. That’s why I wanted you to come over early today. That way we can play out there before everyone else gets here so no one else finds the entrances.”

  “Are Mark and Cliff coming,” Becky asked.

  “No. Of course not,” Samantha said. “This was a girls-only party.”

  “Besides,” Marissa said, “If they came over all they would do is try and trick us into showing them how to get into the clubhouse.”

  Samantha nodded and started walking towards the back patio door, skirting around the edge of the dining room table. Sandra was sitting at the table.

  “Girls. Heading outside?”

  “Yes Mom,” Samantha said.

  “Ok. But don’t forget that we’ll have other guests coming over in a few hours.”

  “We won’t Mrs. Branson,” Marissa said.

  Sandra Branson was slightly built, with sloping shoulders. She walked with her feet outward, like a ballet dancer. Samantha had the same hair color as her mother but Sandra had beautiful dark blue eyes instead of brown.

  “I’m heading out to the store and your father and Neil went out to do something too so you’re on your own for a couple of hours. Be good.”

  “We will Mom!”

  “Yeah, I know,” Sandra said, looking like she half believed her daughter. No one said anything for a moment while Sandra ran her eyes over the girls. Then she turned and headed towards the kitchen.

  “Have fun.” Sandra said.

  Taking the opportunity, Samantha flung the patio door open and ran across the patio, not stopping until she reached the eucalyptus grove. Becky had caught up to her but Marissa had, characteristically, lagged.

  The grove contained about a hundred trees planted close together, blocking everything from view. The trees themselves had an unusual smell, especially when it rained. The trail through the grove was difficult to follow because the trees dropped leaves, nuts, and shreds of bark continuously, forming a thick, springy layer over the dirt. The three girls followed this implied trail until they again emerged into sunlight and stopped, looking over the rest of the yard. Beyond the grove, about another two hundred feet, was the fence marking the property line. Behind the fence the stream ran through a marshy, undeveloped area away from town, called Thompson’s flat. To the left of the grove was the back fence of Samantha’s neighbors, the Wilson’s. They had fraternal twin boys, Cliff and Mark, who looked nothing alike and were in their sixth grade class at school.

  Samantha remained in the grove, listening carefully, and Marissa and Becky did the same.

  “I don’t hear them,” Becky began.

  “Shhhh,” Marissa said, quietly.

  They listened for the Wilson boys carefully, because they sometimes tried to spy on them when they were going into the clubhouse. No one knew how to get in but Samantha, Marissa, and Becky.

  “They aren’t there,” Samantha said.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. They can’t stay quiet that long, no matter how hard they try.”

  Marissa and Samantha started walking and Becky followed after a moment. The trail led out of the eucalyptus grove and into the sunshine. The dry weather plants Samantha’s father Thomas had planted last year spread to the back fence. There was cactus and scruffy, itchy chaparral. They had seen a rattlesnake coiled on a hot, flat rock last summer and hadn’t gone back into the clubhouse without carrying a shovel for the rest of the year. To their right was the beginning of the bamboo.

  The bamboo spread out over a full acre, growing forty feet tall in the center. Two large, ancient oak trees were also in the bamboo, but the bamboo had overtaken them and only the tops of the trees could be seen. The bamboo spread outward from the center like spokes on a whe
el, which made the bamboo completely impenetrable unless you knew one of the secret entrances they had discovered or built over the past few years.

  Looking closely into the outer layer of the bamboo the outline of an ancient wooden fence was evident. The old fence snaked around the entire bamboo patch. It was rotted and deformed from the weight of the bamboo hanging over the top. After walking about twenty steps from the eucalyptus grove, Samantha, Marissa, and Becky stopped. They all looked around, verifying no one could see them. There was no sound from next door.

  “I think it’s safe,” Becky said.

  Samantha looked at Marissa, who nodded her head. They all dropped to crawling position and scampered under the outer layer of bamboo. Beneath the bamboo stalks was a layer of dried, decayed bamboo leaves. Although the leaves scratched if their shirts pulled out from their pants as they crawled they never made a clear path because that would give away their main entrance. After crawling for fifteen feet they came to the old wooden fence, which made a corner several feet from where they stopped. The wood looked rotten but was still relatively solid. The bamboo grew over the top of the fence and sagged down to the ground because of the weight of the upper layers, making a little tunnel. Samantha went to one of the boards in the fence and pulled it free. If Cliff, Mark, or another one of the boy’s friends found the loose board they still wouldn’t know what to do because there was an impenetrable wall of bamboo on the other side of the fence. Marissa, however, had crawled around the corner of the fence to where a small string was buried. She uncovered the string and started to pull. The wall of bamboo was nothing more than a door they had built two years before. Beyond it was a tunnel carved through the old bamboo, floored with raked dirt.

  Samantha and Becky crawled through the fence and stood up in the tunnel on the other side. Samantha held up the door.

  “I’ve got it Marissa,” she called.

  Marissa buried the string again and came crawling back around the fence and through the doorway. She turned back around and pulled the loose fence board back into place. Samantha lowered the bamboo door and they walked down the tunnel.

  The tunnel went straight for twenty feet, then forked to the right and left. All three of the girls went left without hesitation. Just beyond the turn three wide planks were set into the ground. They spread over the stream, which was narrow and steep walled through this section of the bamboo. Their shoes clunked over the dead wood, shaking dust and leaves off into the sluggish water.

  The tunnel through the bamboo made a long, slow curve to the right. The sun was filtered and channeled by the many interlocking layers of bamboo, creating a virtual twilight. After twenty feet they came to another junction. This time they went right because going left would take them to the back door, which they would sometimes use if they heard Cliff or Mark lurking outside the main entrance. After going right for thirty feet they came to the clubhouse.

  What they called the clubhouse was really a series of rooms they had carved out of the thick, live bamboo. The first room they entered was the living room, a large cleared circular area. On all sides the bamboo enclosed them but they could see the sky. They had brought an old couch all the way down the street from Becky’s house and brought it in by the third secret entrance. There were a couple of chairs and scattered bits of carpet. Off the living room were two hallways. One led to the kitchen, in which they had a small refrigerator using a long extension cord plugged into the back of Thomas’s shed. The other hallway led to several smaller rooms they built mostly for fun and didn’t use as often. They called them bedrooms. The main tunnel also branched off of the living room, continuing towards one of the old oak trees.

  Marissa walked over to the couch and lay down. Samantha sat on one of the pieces of carpet and Becky walked towards the tunnel that led to the kitchen.

  “Don’t bother Becky. I haven’t had a chance to fill it back up yet,” Samantha said.

  “We haven’t spent the night out here in a long time,” Becky said.

  “That’s because it’s almost winter,” said Marissa. “I wish it was summer again.”

  “Yeah, then we could go swimming,” Becky said.

  “It’ll be raining soon. We won’t even be able to be here in the clubhouse as much,” Samantha said. “The creek rises too high.”

  They sat in silence for a moment. Then Becky, as she did so often, broke the silence with a burst of speech.

  “Samantha, you’ll never guess what happened this morning. Do you want to tell her Marissa?

  “No, you go ahead.”

  Marissa was lying down with her hands behind her neck, looking up at the light clouds passing overhead. Her dark, black hair flowed over the edge of the couch. Becky turned to face Samantha.

  “I walked over to Marissa’s so we could walk over here together. When I turned the corner, I could see her on her driveway talking to a boy. When I got closer I could see it was Brian McManus.”

  “Brian? He’s a seventh grader right?”

  “Yeah. He was talking kind of funny. Marissa thinks he was trying to ask her to the Christmas dance.”

  “I thought only sixth graders could go.”

  “A sixth grader can bring anyone they want with them,” Becky said. “He wanted Marissa to take him.”

  “But I gave him the hint that I didn’t like him,” Marissa said suddenly.

  Samantha looked at her. “Why not?”

  “Because he’s kind of a jerk. My Mom knows his Mom so I’ve seen him before. We had dinner at their house once over the summer. I don’t like him. He is really cocky and stuck-up.”

  “But cute,” Becky said, and giggled.

  “Yeah, he’s cute. He also said that he was going to play football at the junior high.”

  “So you have a date to the dance already,” Samantha asked.

  “Well, not yet. But I don’t think that will be too hard,” Marissa said.

  “She said that she couldn’t go with him yet because she was thinking of asking someone else first. You should have seen his face Samantha. I thought he was going to cry for a second. It was really mean to do that Marissa. You should have said yes.”

  “Well, I still may. He’ll just want to go with me more now.”

  “I don’t know why,” Becky said somberly, “you were mean to him and now he won’t like you.”

  “Are you crazy? He’ll like me even more because I told him no.”

  “How?”

  “It’s called playing hard to get dummy.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Oh forget it,” Marissa said. “You’ll never understand.”

  “Sure I will. Come on Marissa. Tell me why he’ll like you more.”

  “Who cares,” Samantha said, getting up. “Let’s do something fun.”

  Becky got up as well, still looking a little sourly at Marissa. Samantha had already walked out of the clubhouse through the main tunnel, towards the old oak tree. Marissa stayed on the couch for a moment and then followed through the tunnel.

  Samantha stopped as the tunnel opened up to reveal a small pond flowing slowly through the bamboo. The stream was dammed further back by bamboo interlocking across the stream channel and a low concrete plug. It created a shallow, but swimmable, pond. During the summer, before the water turned mossy, they often jumped in to swim, kicking up enormous clouds of thick mud from the bottom. A small boat, which was the best way to use the third entrance, lay wedged onto the shore.

  “Did you want to go out in the boat,” Becky asked.

  “No, not really. I’m trying to decide what to do.”

  “A couple days ago I thought it would be fun to build a raft out of bamboo,” Marissa said. “Then we would have two boats. I saw that the people who lived in the Andes used to make them out of reeds.”

  “That sounds great,” Samantha said. “How did they do it?”

  “They got a bunch of old dead reeds and lashed them together with willow branches, or they made their own ropes out of leaves
.”

  Becky walked over to the wall of the tunnel and plucked at some of the bamboo leaves leaking into the walkway. By pulling downward, as if she were peeling a banana, a long, thick section of bamboo skin came off. It was about two feet long.

  “Would this work,” she asked, a little anxiously.

  “If it doesn’t we’ll use string,” Samantha said. “Let’s get started. I can’t believe we never thought about doing this before.”

  Marissa sniffed, once, loudly. Samantha glanced at her and laughed.

  “Why don’t you get some dead bamboo and I’ll go get the axe and some string, in case the leaves don’t work. Are you sure that they made the whole raft out of bamboo,” Samantha asked.

  “That’s what the TV said. They were thick though, like two feet. Otherwise the water would get over the top and it would sink.”

  “Alright. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Samantha jogged down the tunnel and back to the clubhouse, excited that she was going to try building something new. She quickly gathered the axe, which they used for building tunnels, and some tangled, frayed string that she found deep in the bottom of the old trash can they used as a toolbox. She ran back to Marissa and Becky, who had gathered an unimpressive pile of bamboo.

  “Why don’t we just take some of the bamboo that is back in the trash pit,” Becky asked. “Most of the stuff here is alive.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Samantha said, more to herself than anyone else, “that’s also a good idea.”

  So they walked back through the clubhouse again and up the tunnel. Across the bridge the bamboo on the left side of the tunnel thinned out and they were able to squeeze through. After weaving through the bamboo for about twenty feet, the live bamboo disappeared completely over a large area. Samantha had found the bare region not long after she first started playing in the bamboo. However, when she mentioned it to her father, he had nodded and asked her not to play in that area, because the whole property used to be ranchland and the old ranchers probably had dumped poisons into the ground.

  Instead, Samantha had used it, first by herself, and then with Marissa and Becky, as the dumping ground for the bamboo they cut away while building tunnels. A large heap of the bamboo was piled in the center of the cleared area. Samantha and Becky had just started pulling a few long stalks of the dead wood off the top of the pile when there was a cracking noise. All three of the girls jumped and turned to find the source of the sound. They could see nothing, however, because the bamboo was in the way.

  “What was that,” Becky whispered.

  There was another loud cracking sound. Marissa stood up, her head cocked to one side, looking very alert.

  “Was that something in the bamboo,” she asked.

  Samantha shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  There was a third cracking sound, much louder than the first two, and they all jumped again. Then, for the first time, they could hear low laughing. They all looked at each other.

  “Cliff and Mark,” Marissa said.

  Samantha ran through the thin bamboo and onto the trail. She followed the trail around the curve and through the clubhouse. Marissa and Becky ran to follow. The tunnel opened up after a few feet and paralleled the small, clear pond. Then the tunnel closed up again into a narrow passageway. Samantha ran with skill, dodging the odd bit of bamboo jutting into the path. After fifty feet it opened up again and she could see one of the two oak trees. Wooden steps were nailed into the wood. Samantha grabbed the lowest step exactly when another loud cracking sound echoed through the bamboo. She climbed to a small section of wood nailed between two branches. She was above most of the bamboo and looked towards the eucalyptus grove. She was just in time to see Mark heave another firecracker into the bamboo.

  “Hey,” she shouted.

  Cliff and Mark looked up, grinning.

  “Hey yourself, Samantha,” Mark said.

  “Don’t throw those into the bamboo. It could burn down.”

  “Then come out and stop us,” said Cliff.

  Marissa pulled herself onto the plank. She looked down and saw Mark and Cliff. She looked back at Samantha and gave her a half smile and shrugged her shoulders. Becky came up a few moments later. Meanwhile, Mark had thrown the remainder of a pack into the bamboo and it went up in a rattling string.

  “Hey Marissa! Come down. We’ve got an M-80,” Cliff said.

  “Yeah right. You only want to find out how to get in here.”

  “We already know. We watched you go in.”

  Becky looked at Samantha nervously but Samantha laughed.

  “They’re lying,” Samantha said. She looked at Mark and yelled, “Then come in. We invite you.”

  “Why don’t you come out and see the M-80 first?”

  “I can see fine from here,” Marissa yelled.

  “Come on,” Cliff said. He was holding something behind his back.

  “What’re you waiting for? I asked you to come in,” Samantha said.

  Mark and Cliff looked at each other and nodded. Mark reached behind Cliff’s back and pulled out an enormous firecracker. He lit it, threw it, and it landed in the bamboo. There was no noise for a moment. Then there was an enormous explosion. Samantha saw bits of bamboo rise from where the M-80 had landed.

  Mark and Cliff looked at each other, started laughing hysterically, and ran for the eucalyptus grove.

  “Hey you! What the hell is going on over there?”

  “Oh no,” Marissa said, “It’s Mr. Henson.”

  All three of them squatted down behind the oak limb but it was too late.

  “You there! Samantha. Don’t you try to hide from me girl. You were setting off firecrackers.”

  “It wasn’t us!”

  “Then who was it, huh? It sounded like you set off a damn stick of dynamite. If that bamboo caught fire it’d burn down the neighborhood. I’m calling the cops.”

  “But it wasn’t us.”

  Mr. Henson was already walking towards his house, his cane digging into the ground of his backyard at every step. He hobbled up the stairs of the large redwood deck outside his back door and went inside.

  “He’ll do it too,” Samantha said.

  “We better go tell your parents what those jerks did,” said Marissa.

  “My parents aren’t home.”

  “Well, let’s go call them then.”

  “They don’t have a cell phone,” Becky said. “Right Samantha?”

  “Yeah.”

  Marissa frowned.

  “Well I’m heading out anyway. If the cops come I don’t want to be in here.”

  Samantha nodded and they climbed down the tree. Marissa was first and she walked up the tunnel quickly. Samantha jogged to catch up with her.

  “We have to go out through the back entrance,” Samantha said. “Cliff and Mark might still be out there, trying to see how to get in.”

  Marissa only nodded impatiently. They walked through the clubhouse without a pause and walked to the next junction, but they went straight instead of turning left. Marissa reached an apparent dead end and stopped, looking back over her shoulder.

  “Where’s Becky?”

  At just that moment Becky came jogging around the bend, her glasses slipping toward the end of her nose. She pushed them into place and brushed her pale, whitish hair back from her forehead. Marissa reached down and pulled. A wooden trapdoor swung open, revealing a dark tunnel. Samantha lowered herself down, followed by Marissa, and finally Becky. Becky closed the trapdoor and they were in the dark.

  “Hey, where are you guys,” Becky said quietly.

  “Over here…..ahh!”

  Becky had walked forward with her arms outstretched and they ran into Marissa’s face.

  “Shh,” Samantha said. Her slow footsteps echoed with a metallic sound. The tunnel was large, almost six feet tall, and was a remnant of an old canal system from when the neighborhood used to be a ranch.

  “Sorry Marissa,” Becky whispered.

&n
bsp; “It’s alright,” said Marissa and she walked forward.

  After twenty feet Samantha stopped and reached out with her hands. She felt the ladder and started to climb. When she got to the top she slowly raised the trapdoor. The light in the tunnel increased gradually as the door opened wider. She put her eyes against the small crack of open door and looked out. She could see nothing but bamboo and the back fence. She opened the door fully and hurried out. Marissa and Becky followed and they shut the door, covering it with bamboo leaves. Then they crawled out from under the overhanging bamboo and stood blinking in the bright sunlight.

  “Come on,” Samantha said. “We have to make sure they didn’t accidentally set the bamboo on fire.”

  They didn’t see any sign of smoke so they walked through the grove to the house.

  “We’re going to get even with those guys,” Marissa said. “If we end up getting in trouble for this we’re going to get them good.”

  “We won’t get in trouble,” Samantha said. “My Dad is used to dealing with Henson. Even before I was born he didn’t like us since my Dad was always planting crazy things in the backyard.”

  “Call your Grandpa.” Becky looked nervous, as she always did when she thought they would get in trouble. Samantha walked to the counter separating the small kitchen from the dining room. Pinned to a corkboard below the phone were many scraps of paper filled with numbers. Marissa and Samantha looked them over.

  “There it is,” Samantha said, pulling one of them off the board. She picked up the phone and dialed. While she was doing this, Marissa pulled a number off the board without Samantha noticing. Marissa handed it back to Becky, who took it but looked surprised because the name at the top of the paper was Mr. Henson. Marissa held a finger up to her lips and mimed putting the number in her pocket.

  “Grandpa, this is Samantha.”

  “Sam? Are you alright?”

  “What? Yeah. We needed to talk to my Dad and he doesn’t have a cell phone.”

  “You’re sure nothing bad happened?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure”

  “Good. Your Dad is across the store from me. I’m walking over to him now.”

  “Thanks Grandpa.”

  “Sure. What happened?”

  “Someone was setting off some firecrackers and Mr. Henson thought it was us.”

  “Ahh. Mr. Henson again. Here’s your Dad. I’ll talk to you later Sam.”

  “Bye Grandpa.”

  “Samantha,” Thomas said, “What’s going on?”

  “Someone was setting off firecrackers and Mr. Henson thought it was us. He said he was going to call the police.”

  “Have the police arrived yet?”

  “No.” Samantha looked nervously towards the door.

  “Well, I doubt the police will do anything but we’ll come home anyway. We’re just down the road at the bookstore.”

  “Thanks Dad.”

  “See you in a bit.”

  Samantha hung up the phone.

  “They’re coming.”

  “Oh good,” Becky said.

  “You didn’t tell him it was Cliff and Mark,” Marissa said.

  “Well, no.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they could get in trouble, especially because of the M-80. Those are really illegal.”

  “They tried to get us in trouble,” Marissa said.

  “No they didn’t. They were only playing around.”

  Becky was over at the living room window, peeking through the drawn shade. She jumped back from the windows in fright.

  “A police car just drove up.” She went very pale. Samantha went to the window and looked out carefully between the curtains. Two police officers had stepped out of their car and stretched. They looked at the house next door, where Cliff and Mark lived, and laughed. Then they walked over to Mr. Henson’s residence.

  Marissa had wedged herself next to Samantha to watch the police. Samantha noticed she was gripping the curtain tightly in her left hand.

  “What’re they doing,” Becky asked.

  “They’re talking to that awful neighbor,” Marissa said.

  “Do you think they’re coming over here?”

  “I don’t know….yes, I think they are,” Marissa said.

  The police had emerged from behind the tall hedge dividing Samantha’s property from Mr. Henson’s. Mr. Henson hobbled behind the police. His cane, with a tip of metal, struck sparks off the cement sidewalk with each step.

  “Mr. Henson is coming with them and he looks really upset,” Samantha told Becky.

  “Oh no oh no oh no,” Becky sobbed.

  “Hey, if they come to the door you should go hide in the back. Otherwise we’ll look guilty,” Marissa said.

  Mr. Henson was pointing at Samantha’s house and the cops stopped. They weren’t looking at the house but at him. They said something and Mr. Henson got upset again. He slammed his cane down to make a point and didn’t hit the sidewalk. He hit the lawn and his cane went deeply into the soft grass and dirt and he had to stop talking to try and pull it out. Marissa and Samantha snorted with laughter.

  “What? What happened,” Becky asked, pacing around the living room behind them.

  “The old jerk got his cane stuck in Samantha’s front lawn,” Marissa said.

  The cops were pointing back at Mr. Henson’s house and he frowned. Then he turned and limped back towards his front lawn. The two cops started walking up to Samantha’s door. As they reached the front path Samantha saw her father’s car driving down the street. He slowed while passing the police car and guided the car into the driveway.

  “Come on,” Samantha said.

  She and Marissa headed towards the door.

  “What’s going on,” Becky asked.

  “My Dad’s here,” Samantha said. Becky hurried over to follow them when she heard that Thomas and Neil were home.

  By the time they got into the front yard Thomas was speaking to the police. Neil stood slightly behind Thomas with his arms crossed, as he often did when he was upset. Thomas spoke to the girls.

  “It wasn’t you, was it?”

  “No Dad.”

  “Do you know who it was?”

  “No, Mr. Branson,” Marissa said. Samantha almost answered at the same time but stopped herself. Thomas looked at them carefully. Becky seemed nervous and was twisting her shirt in her hands.

  “Good. Tell your story to the police.

  They walked over to the policemen and Samantha was surprised to see they were laughing with her grandfather. “This is Officer Martinez, and this is Officer Robinson,” Neil said.

  “Hello girls,” Officer Robinson said. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled it back out. He showed them his palm and pulled a paper flower out of thin air. He gave the flower to Marissa.

  “We received a report about firecrackers being set off on this property. Did you hear or see anything,” Officer Martinez asked.

  “We heard them. I think they were out in the back,” Marissa said.

  “What do you mean, out in the back?”

  “Out in the stream, past our back fence,” Samantha said. “There’s always a bunch of older kids hanging out back there.”

  “Ah yes, that spot. We know the area well,” Officer Martinez said.

  “But you didn’t see who it was.” Officer Robinson asked.

  “No,” the three girls said together.

  “Did you see Mr. Henson around the time you heard the firecrackers?”

  “Well, we saw him right after the last one. He yelled at us. I think he thought we were setting them off,” Marissa said.

  “Where were you when he saw you,” Officer Robinson asked Becky, looking directly at her.

  “Um, we were all up in the lookout. That’s why Mr. Henson could see us,” Becky said.

  “The lookout?”

  “Yeah, it’s a big tree we climb,” Marissa said.

  “Mr. Henson said you were yelling at someone before the last firecracker
went off.”

  Becky coughed loudly. Office Martinez looked at her and she turned bright red, as she often did when she was embarrassed.

  Marissa said, “We were playing a game. I didn’t really notice the firecrackers until the big one went off. That’s why we were yelling. We were pretending there was a pirate ship on the pond.”

  Both Samantha and Becky were looking at her.

  “I see,” Officer Martinez said. He paused. “Well, we’ll go tell Mr. Henson that the culprits were back in Thompson’s flat. He’ll be glad to know you weren’t doing anything.”

  “I’m glad you’re telling him,” Marissa said, “He’s always a jerk to us.”

  Samantha and Becky stared at Marissa with shock, their eyes large in their sockets. Even Thomas and Neil turned to look at her. The policemen smiled.

  “Well,” Officer Robinson said, “he may be a little impatient with youngsters like you but you should always respect your elders. You know why he limps right?”

  “No,” Samantha said.

  “Ask him sometime,” Officer Robinson said, “you might be surprised. Have a good day folks.”

  They walked slowly to the sidewalk leading to Mr. Henson’s house. Thomas watched them go and turned to the girls.

  “Let’s go in and get ready for the party.”

  “Right now,” Marissa asked.

  “Yes. No need to stay in Mr. Henson’s sight longer than we have to,” Thomas said.

  As they walked back into the house Marissa started laughing again.

  “What is it,” Thomas asked.

  “Old Henson is pounding his cane into the ground again. He’s going to slam his own foot soon if he isn’t careful.”

  Marissa and Becky avoided going home when they were supposed to by staying in Samantha’s room and out of sight of Samantha’s parents. The three girls tried on the new clothes Samantha received for her birthday. Then they snuck down the hallway to Sandra’s room. The adults were in the living room, talking and laughing, so Samantha took some of her mother’s outfits from the master closet and brought them back to her room. They tried on the clothes and put on makeup Marissa had hidden in her purse, trying to make each other look as old as possible.

  Sandra knocked on the door, realizing it was thirty minutes after Marissa and Becky were supposed to be home. Samantha, Marissa, and Becky never even heard the knock because the music was loud and they were laughing at themselves in the mirror.

  “What are you doing in here,” Sandra asked, waving her hand in front of her face as if the room were full of smoke.

  Becky looked up at Sandra, her large eyes accentuated by the thick dark ring of mascara surrounding them. Marissa and Samantha were facing each other, applying rouge to each other’s cheeks. When the door opened they had turned to look, red cheeks glowing like a furnace, right hands frozen in the process of makeup application.

  “Dressing up Mom,” Samantha said.

  Sandra surveyed the room, noting with distaste the pile of clothes lying on the floor at the foot of the bed. Then she laughed, almost grudgingly.

  “I need to take Marissa and Becky home but I can’t take you out of the house like this. Can you get cleaned up in ten minutes?”

  “Sure,” Marissa said.

  “Good. I’ll be back.”

  Sandra closed the door, leaving the three girls to look at each other. They burst into laughter.

  Twenty minutes later, most but not all of the makeup scoured from their faces, Samantha gave Marissa and Becky a hug at the front door.

  “Thanks for coming over,” she said. “I wish you could spend the night.”

  “I know,” Marissa said. “I hate going to the doctor on Saturday. But we’ll come over later.”

  “We’re done with church after lunch,” Becky said. “I can come over then.”

  “Great. And thanks so much for your presents.”

  Sandra led them out the front door and Samantha waved, feeling happy and fulfilled. She never liked knowing her birthday was approaching and never liked the idea of a party, but she always had one and she always had fun.

  Her grandfather, who had stayed with the adults throughout the evening, came in the front door and sat on a chair in the living room. Samantha waved again as the car backed out of the driveway.

  “Looks like you had an excellent birthday Samantha.”

  “Yeah,” she said, flopping down, suddenly tired. She stretched and yawned.

  “Tired?”

  “I didn’t feel tired until right now,” she said.

  “I don’t blame you. At my age parties tire me out very quickly,” Neil said. “Have you had a chance to look at the diary yet?”

  “Oh that! No, not yet. But that was a great gift Grandpa. I can hardly wait to read it tonight.”

  “I meant your diary Sam, not mine.”

  “Maybe I’ll try to write in it tonight but I don’t know what I’d say. It seems like too much happened today to write it all down.”

  “You don’t have to write everything down,” Neil said. “Only what you think is important. Anyway, I’m glad you liked it.”

  “I think reading yours will be neat.”

  Samantha yawned again and stood up. “I’m going to sleep,” she said.

  “Goodnight Sam. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Samantha paused on her way across the living room.

  “I forgot you were staying the night again. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “If you wake up early enough maybe you can go for a walk with me.”

  “Sure. Good night Grandpa.”

  “Good night Sam.”

  Samantha walked down the hallway to her room, closing the door behind her.