Jayden Blue and the Forest of Night Fallen, A World So Close Book Five
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 – Again with that Closet? 1
Chapter 2 – I Don’t Get You Guys 7
Chapter 3 – It’s Romeo and Juliet 13
Chapter 4 – Talking Is Okay Now? 24
Chapter 5 – Too Good at Being Cats 32
Chapter 6 – It Stayed Fallen 40
Chapter 7 – Aren’t You Scared? 52
Chapter 8 – I Have Some Ideas 62
Chapter 9 – No Gigantic Fluffy Tails 71
Chapter 10 – You’re that Character 83
Chapter 11 – In Case They Get Hungry 95
Chapter 12 – Treats? For Us? 103
Chapter 13 – She’s So Calm! 110
Chapter 14 – Go Get Some Good News 122
Chapter 15 – A Better Juliet than Julie 133
Chapter 16 – Back to that Forest 144
Chapter 17 – It’s Worse than Mr. Val! 153
Chapter 18 – Wouldn’t Go By Themselves 166
Chapter 19 – Like a Woodpecker 172
Chapter 20 – Say the Second Syllable 182
Chapter 21 – He’s Wise Too! 192
Chapter 22 – It Sounds Sad 201
Chapter 23 – Waiting for the Right Time 211
Chapter 24 – Got Your Lions? 218
Chapter 25 – When Raylene Appeared 229
Chapter 26 – Everybody Likes Colors 238
Chapter 27 – Think You’re Done? 247
Chapter 28 – We Are Ready 253
Chapter 29 – Together, Raylene 261
Chapter 1 – Again with that Closet?
Just how big is that raccoon? he wondered, still trapped under the warm blankets by two cats who were deep in sleep and showing no desire to even purr.
The pounding on the window rattled the glass, and Jayden was sure that he felt his bed begin to vibrate across the cold wood floor of his bedroom.
It must be huge! he concluded, and he questioned whether he dared to go look. But he knew that he had to. Soon, if left alone to shatter the window pane, that raccoon would be inside, sitting on his chest, looking down at him in the near darkness, and demanding an unfair share of his breakfast of hotcakes, or eggs, or toast, or—
No, he promised himself. No, he’s not getting any of it!
Jayden elbowed aside his cats, rolling them over, where they gave up on sleeping silently and began deep heavy snoring, their paws twitching at the ceiling.
Wow, those cats! he thought. How can they sleep through this?
After folding the blankets down enough to wiggle himself up toward the headboard, Jayden took quick, barefoot steps across the floor and toward the window. He threw open the heavy curtains and was met by a portly raccoon with both fists still in the air and poised to keep pounding.
“I’m on the second floor!” Jayden said. “How could you be—”
He leaned over to look, drew in a sharp breath, and didn’t think to let it back out. Not by choice—he was just too alarmed to be concerned with fresh oxygen.
That raccoon outside his window, angry and demanding breakfast, was standing on the shoulders of another. And below that one, there was one more. All the way to the ground, raccoons stood in single file—all the way up to his window.
He still hadn’t exhaled, but he looked again at the one leading the attack, whose beady eyes stared back without any expression.
Well, I guess he does look hungry, Jayden thought. But I can’t let him in!
He held the insistent animal’s gaze and shook his head.
The raccoon sneered, his bandit face contorting and oblivious to the cold and blowing snow. Then, he held his small raccoon hands out to the sides, palms up, and shrugged.
Jayden shook his head again and blew out the stale air, then he immediately rushed in a fresh supply.
“You can’t have my breakfast! Go hibernate or find some raccoon food!”
Jayden’s eyes threatened to pop out at the sight of the raccoon calmly shaking his head. The hungry critter raised his hands up into a modest megaphone to amplify what he was about to say, almost losing his balance.
“Hey,” he said slowly and annunciating his words clearly through the glass, as if he didn’t believe Jayden understood spoken language very well, “I don’t need much. Can you spare a cookie? Just one single, fresh, peanut buttery—”
“Jay?” called out Jayden’s mother through the partially opened bedroom doorway. “Jay, get up. You’ll be late.”
He popped his eyes open quickly, but he still had time to feel the warm blankets covering him and pinned to his sides. He heard the cats purring too.
Before answering his mother, he looked to his left. Hex’s bright blue eyes never stopped staring as the mostly-white cat stood, arched his back to show the black “x” emblazoned on his left side, then lay back down.
Jayden wondered if the cat was already putting a hex on him, but there was no time to ask him.
He looked to his right. After Halo had finished a quick yawn, he stared, too, with his shiny green eyes. He didn’t need to stand—the white ring on his head, obvious against his black fur everywhere else, was plainly visible, even in the dim light.
There was no time to question him either, so Jayden picked up just his head and looked toward the door.
“Jay? Are you sure you’re awake?”
“Hi, Mom. Yeah, I’m awake. I don’t want to get up, though.”
“Well, Honey, it’s Monday, and you need to get moving. You don’t want to miss the bus, do you? And Raylene?”
“Nope. Alright, I’m getting up. I just need these cats to let me up.”
“Jay, I’m sure you can manage to overpower them. They’re really not all that big.”
“Not yet,” he said softly. “Just wait.”
“What?”
“Um, nothing.”
He heard her chuckling as she walked back down the hallway.
And he chuckled, too, at the thought of how big they’d become someday.
But not today, he told himself.
“Guys. I really do need to get going.”
He wasn’t surprised that they showed no interest in moving.
“Oh, before you guys go: I can’t wait to see that painting for the art contest. You remember that? How the contest was moved to Friday? You guys are the stars of the painting.”
He stared in silence at the two cats rising up and walking to the foot of the bed.
“Really? I don’t have to fight with you this time?”
The cats gave each other a quick glance, then looked back at him.
“Oh, right. Not supposed to talk. Not when you’re just baby lions.”
He bunched the blankets up around his knees and stretched his arms to each side. While giving in to a lengthy yawn, he turned his head to look at his window, the only one in the room.
The curtains were still drawn. There was no desperate tapping on the glass.
“Okay, guys, I think—”
He stopped at the sight of both cats crouching low, wiggling and letting their sharp claws get a good hold.
“Hey, wait a second. What are you—”
In unison, they leaped high above him, their sides pressed together as if they were a single, eight-legged beast. Jayden had only enough time to see two pairs of bright eyes tracing an arc from the foot of the bed, up near the ceiling, then falling directly toward him.
They’d never even blinked.
All eight paws struck his chest at the same time, forcing out his breath, which he couldn’t help but turn into a laugh.
“Guys? What was that?”
They stood on him with eyes focused and whiskers unmoving.
“What are you two up to this time?”
Hex didn’t seem to feel any need to answer.
Halo didn’t elect to give Jayden an explanation.
“You know that I’m going to have to tell R—”
Hex snapped up his right paw, ready to swat.
Halo raised his left paw, also ready to strike.
Jayden never finished his sentence. He stared at one furry paw, then the other for several seconds.
“What is that? What’s going on?”
They didn’t answer. They only hopped to the floor, and Jayden watched as Hex’s white tail left the room, pointed straight at the ceiling, followed by Halo’s black tail, also pointed up.
“Just when I think I’m starting to understand you two!”
He shook his head and grinned at the sound of their soft paws padding down the stairs.
Dressed and ready for his day, Jayden jammed his schoolbooks back into his pack, wondering if there were any cookie crumbs lingering in there.
I’m glad Rayl and I brought that along to find Mr. Val, he thought, smiling about that long journey with Raylene.
He tightened up the straps and slung it up over his right shoulder. But before taking a step, he stopped and looked around his room.
“No way,” he said, thinking that maybe they’d be hiding somewhere and he’d have to find them. “They have to be done with that game.”
At the door, he switched off his light and took only one step into the hallway. His eyes were drawn to the top of the stairs, and he had a fleeting thought that he might see either Hex or Halo lying at the edge, ready to fall.
“Nope,” he said, remembering how they’d fooled him with that trick.
You guys are done with that, he thought. Besides, cats never fall down stairs. Everyone knows that.
Not sure what antics the cats might pursue for the new week, Jayden crept quietly down the hallway and peeked down the stairway.
Hex, his blue eyes big and bright, sat motionless near the closet door in the foyer. Beside him, Halo, his green eyes reflecting a fair share of the dim light, also sat quietly.
“Again with that closet? Okay, if you’re telling me to take that vac—”
The cats exploded in frantic clawing at the floor, each letting out a startled meow, and raced toward the kitchen.
Jayden was still scratching at his chin, wondering why they’d been waiting by the closet, when he heard his mother say from the kitchen, “Jay, are you tormenting those cats? They’re both hiding under the table in here!”
Halfway down the steps, Jayden said, “I only just started to say that word, Mom. You know which one. I never got to finish it.”
“Well, we can figure that all out some other time. Come on. Breakfast is ready.”
Only then did he smell the welcoming aroma of a hot breakfast while also listening to the cold winds pummeling the front door of the house.
Another January day in Nebraska, he thought as he set down his backpack near the front door and aimed his sneakers for the kitchen.
Chapter 2 – I Don’t Get You Guys
“Hi, Dad. Are you going to work today?”
Mr. Blue folded his newspaper and set it on the one chair out of four that always remained unoccupied.
“Yeah, I’m afraid so, Jay. That’s what Mondays are about, it seems. School for you? What’s going on this week?”
“Nothing special. I think we’ll find out today when the tryouts will be.”
“Jay,” his mother said while she walked from the counter to the table, carrying two plates, “I’m so proud of you for trying out for that play. I must admit, though, that I never saw that coming.”
“Neither did I, Mom.”
She set a plate in front of each of them.
“Have some eggs and toast. You’ll need a hot meal with that weather out there.”
Jayden and his father both looked at the empty chair between them, which had suddenly become less empty. Hex and Halo had jumped up there, and they sat side by side, looking from face to face.
“That’s unusual, Jay,” said his father. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before.”
“Nope. Me neither.”
“Well, you two, get going before it all gets cold.”
“Okay, Mom. It looks good.”
Jayden slid his fork under the eggs from one side, then lifted up, trying to balance a thick slab that drooped down on each side.
While he was leaning forward to meet it halfway, his mother said, “Jay, not again. You really do have time to slow down.”
“Well, you know what I think,” said his father. “That boy will—”
“No!” said Mrs. Blue. “Let’s start this week with no mention of eating contests, okay?”
“If you insist,” Mr. Blue said with a big smile.
Jayden lodged his oversized bite tightly into one cheek and began a search for the next pile. But he stopped to look down at the cats, on the extra chair next to him and both standing with their paws on the table.
They leaned toward him, each tipping his head and listening intently.
No one spoke.
They all just stared at the cats.
“Well, that’s something new again,” said Mrs. Blue. “Jay, if you ever figure them out, be sure to tell us, alright?”
“Sure, Mom. But not today. I need to get out on the porch and wait for Rayl. She should—”
Hex and Halo leaped up onto the table, and each gently swatted at Jayden’s face with their furry little paws.
“Hey!”
They swung so fast that the strikes were a blur, but they were considerate enough to keep their claws tucked away.
“Oh, what’s with those cats?” said Mr. Blue.
“Guys!” said Jayden, trying to block the paws that were swinging faster than any of them could see. “What?”
They stopped but remained close enough to resume their attack.
Jayden’s mother had pushed her glasses down low and studied Hex and Halo above the wire framed lenses. Mr. Blue had stopped with a forkful near his mouth, and he stared at the cats too.
Jayden tried to ignore Hex and Halo and glanced first at his mother then his father, then he focused again on his mother.
“I don’t understand these guys. This must be some new game.”
“Like what, Jay?”
“I wish I knew, Dad. There’s no time to try to figure it out, though. I really do need to get out there because Rayl will—”
Furry paws flashed, each tapping Jayden’s face, causing him to giggle with one packed cheek.
“Guys! Stop! Okay, I won’t even talk. Is that what you want? I’ll just eat. Just leave me alone!”
Hex and Halo gave each other a look then retreated to the extra chair, where they kept a vigilant watch on him.
“They’re hexing you, aren’t they?” said his father. “Both of them. Not just Hex.”
Jayden only shook his head and smiled.
“Oh, that’s right. No talking,” said Mr. Blue. “Just eating.”
Jayden chewed, grinned at his father, then looked at his mother.
Mrs. Blue said, “I sometimes wonder if those two came from some other world somewhere. They sure are confusing sometimes.”
Jayden stopped chewing, stared at his mother for a few seconds, then looked again at the cats. They gazed back at him, pairs of blue and green eyes bright under the kitchen lights.
They made no effort to confirm or deny Mrs. Blue’s speculation.
Jayden quickly cleared his plate and snapped a quick wave to each parent while rising from his seat. Mr. Blue shook his head and kept eating, and Mrs. Blue grinned and took a big sip of her hot coffee.
“He’s not talking,” said Mr. Blue.
“No, he better not.”
Out of the kitchen, through the living room and toward the front door, Jayden didn’t say a word. Hex and Halo followed closely all the way and when he stopped and turned around, they stopped too.
“Guys, I don’t understand.”
The cats didn’t seem to care and didn’t move.
“Huh. That was okay? What I just said?”
Hex stared. Halo yawned.
“Oh, fine.”
He grabbed his coat off of the chair, stopped before leaving, and looked down at the silent cats.
“I don’t get you guys. After all we’ve been through, I thought I did. But I don’t.”
Getting no reaction from either of them, Jayden let out a deep sigh and whooshed in the front door. While stepping onto the porch, he looked back inside to see thick snowflakes swirling around and landing on the cats. He grinned and pulled the door shut.
Where’s Rayl? he wondered. I thought for sure she’d pound on the door, softly because she’d be wearing a mitten. She’s still sleeping?
He stood alone at the edge, the toes of his sneakers sticking out over the three steps that led to the concrete walkway that ran straight out to the sidewalk.
The evergreens running along the road were greedy with snow, their arms sagging toward the ground. Jayden scanned the open spaces, sweeping his eyes from left to right, and didn’t see any sign of the crow.
A quick look to his right revealed Raylene’s house next door, quiet and dark and buried in snow. No footprints in the drifts tracing a path toward his house. Not even a curtain flung to one side with her waving and smiling.
Huh, he thought. I didn’t want to get up today. I’m still tired from that long journey we just took. I bet she is too. Maybe I should go over and knock and then—
A rumble muffled by countless thick flakes in no hurry to get to the ground came from his left, causing him to point his eyes that way. Their bus was approaching, its headlights bright like a cat’s eyes and reaching through the snowfall.
If I go knock on her door, we’ll both miss the bus! he thought. But if I don’t, she might not make it to school on time, and she’ll miss homeroom, and we’ll—
The big yellow bus, exhaling twin trails of exhaust out of its tail end, squealed to a stop in front of his house—their usual pickup place. Jayden watched as the door folded open, and he could see the driver lean over, looking out to see if the last stop on his route would add to his passenger count.
Jayden stared, wondering what to do, as one careless branch let go of a large wedge of ice and snow, and it rang out when it crashed onto the bus’s roof.
Without thinking, Jayden found his sword, the one that had been waiting in his shadow. Through his gloved hand, he felt the warm metal, molded to fit his hand with utmost precision. It could belong to no one else.
After he hit the ground from a long leap over all of the hidden steps, he ran, lifting his sneakers high to carry him over the deepening snow, until he stood at the still-open bus door.
“Well?” said the driver. “Get in if you’re coming. We have a schedule to keep.”
Jayden got a tighter grip on his sword. It reminded him that words could be so much sharper than a sword could ever be.
“If we wait, you’d have a good excuse for us being late, wouldn’t you?”
They both shot a glance at a slab of ice as it streaked its way slowly down the windshield and lodged there, blocking the driver’s view. They ignored it to look at each other again.
Jayden held the man’s gaze and waited. The driver stared back, squinting and leaning his head to one side. A few seconds later, he shook his head and grinned, then he put the transmission in park.
“You make a lot of sense. Yeah, you’re right. Where’s the other one? Sleeping in?”
“Probably,” said Jayden, holding the bus’s doorway with both hands and looking up at the driver. “I think she had a busy weekend, and she—”
He felt a soft tapping on his right shoulder. He knew that he hadn’t heard anyone coming up behind him, but he quickly figured out that the snow had quieted everything down. He turned to see.
“Hi, Jay,” said Raylene Hawkins, yawning with her cheeks already rosy from the cold air. “I’m so sleepy today!”
Her long straight brown hair hung down from under her purple knit hat, and she smiled with sparkling eyes. The shoulders of her parka had already collected a frozen white dusting.
“So, I hope I’m not too late!”
“No, you just made it, Rayl. I’m sleepy too.”
He turned his head just enough to say to the driver, “Thanks for waiting.”
“Easy enough. But we need to get going.”
Jayden grabbed Raylene’s hand and said, “Come on, Rayl. Let’s see what’s going on at school.”
They climbed in, found their usual seat—a drab cushion of cold vinyl—and held onto the seat back in front of them as the driver put the bus in gear. When he gave it some gas, the back tires spun, and they started out slowly, Jayden and Raylene grinning at each other while the other students all chattered behind them.
“Are you sure we weren’t gone for two days, Jay?”
“Nope. I don’t think so, Rayl. Someone would have said something.”
She turned toward him with a smile, and he looked into her eyes with his own smile.
“So, we can go anytime and stay as long as we want?”
“I wonder. It sure seems like it. The iron lions said we weren’t ready to go looking for Mr. Val yet, though.”
“Nope. They’re right, Jay. But we can still go back.”
She popped her eyebrows three times, which Jayden found amusing, given that her smile was looking so tired.
“Yep. And we’ll take Hex and Halo again.”
“Yep, can’t forget them. Oh, and cookies when we go see Mr. Val again. Can’t forget those either.”
“Nope.”
Chapter 3 – It’s Romeo and Juliet
“I’ll never understand this,” he said, slumped down into his cold wood and metal chair with his backpack laying on his desk.
“Homeroom, you mean?”
“Yeah, Rayl. All they do is take attendance. Why can’t they just have Mrs. Gregory do that in math class?”
“That would make sense: do that in the first real class. I don’t know. All I know is that I’m tired. I think I slept most of the weekend.”
“Me too. I understand that, though. For us, we really were gone for two days. And we weren’t just watching TV. Remember all the hiking around we did?”
“That was some kind of adventure, Jay. We should have drawn a map. Remember when you said that?”
“Yeah! It was when you said ‘turtle bridge!’ A map would help when we finally go see Mr. Val again.”
“Right, Mr. Val ka’Yoom. But we still don’t know if he’s a ‘he’ or an ‘it.’”
“Nope.”
“Or a machine, Jay. He was just too scary to stay around and try to figure out.”
“Yep. How can we get ready to go see him again?”
“Maybe Hex’s mom and dad can help us figure it out?”
“Huh. Those iron lions. I wish I knew.”
Homeroom had ended without any surprises but lots of yawning, and Jayden and Raylene began the short hike through the throngs toward their math class. Halfway there, he grabbed her arm to stop her.
“We have time, Rayl. We should go peek.”
“Huh? Peek at what?”
“Your painting. They’re all in that empty classroom, aren’t they?”
“Yeah, but we’re supposed to wait for the contest, right?”
“It’ll just take a second. I can’t wait!”
He’d already begun hurrying her along, holding one of her arms and steering her toward the room. They found the door closed but when he tried the handle, they saw that it wasn’t locked.
“See? Easy.”
“Jay! We probably shouldn’t!”
He pushed the door in but didn’t flick the light switches.
“Come on. Let’s go look.”
“Jay . . .”
He closed the door behind them, and they looked around at all of the unoccupied desks holding artworks of one kind or another. Many were paintings and drawings, facing upwards, and other desks were temporary homes to vases, sculptures, and even some origami creations.
“That’s it over there,” she said, pointing nearly all the way across the room.
She took his hand and pulled him along.
“I want you to see it, Jay!”
Seconds later, they stood shoulder to shoulder, both looking down at her painting.
Most of the canvas was decorated with bright, tiny splotches of color, each with its own slender and graceful green or light brown line connecting it to the ground.
Above the field of flowers, which spanned the total distance from side to side, a dark forest rose up. And above that, ominous swirling clouds were sliced up by a jagged white line that branched into numerous thinner spikes.
And in the very middle of the painting, two cats sat side by side: a mostly-black one on the left, with a distinct white ring on his head, and a mostly-white one on the right, turned enough to show the unmistakable black “x” on his left side.
Their eyes, gleaming green on the left and brilliant blue on the right, seemed to float amongst the flowers all around them, which were about the same size but possessing every other possible color.
Jayden only stared with his mouth open and moving slightly but without any words coming out.
“Well, what do you think?”
“Rayl, it’s unbelievable! There are so many colors!”
“Yep. Just like those fields, Jay.”
“And Hex and Halo! They look amazing!”
“Well, they are amazing! They’re good boys.”
Shaking his head and smiling almost too much to speak, Jayden said, “You’re going to win. There’s no way anything else in this room comes close!”
“Aw, thanks, Jay. I hope so.”
While he still stared at her art, she glanced at the clock above the door.
“Jay, we have to go! We’re going to be late!”
He looked up and said, “Mrs. Gregory won’t think that’s funny at all! We better hurry!”
He grabbed her hand, rushed her out into the hallway, and they zigged and zagged their way through the crowds to their math class.
With her eyes focused unwaveringly on the large bell holding on to the wall, Mrs. Gregory could have been a statue. Only the very end of her long wooden ruler, which pointed directly outward from a hand hidden by her crossed arms, could be seen vibrating but only if it were studied patiently.
Jayden dropped down into his seat, and Raylene plopped down in hers just to his right. They both glanced at the bell, then at each other. He grinned while she squinted and shook her head.
She nodded and returned his grin when the bell woke up. When they looked toward the front of the room, they saw that their teacher had pointed the long stick at the bell, but she was looking all around the room. The last few students that hadn’t yet found their seats located them quickly.
All eyes looked forward. Mrs. Gregory lowered her pointer and cleared her throat, her eyes fixed on Jayden. He noticed that Raylene had leaned forward to see his expression, but he didn’t look away from the question that he suspected would soon be directed at him.
“Mr. Blue. I’m sure you spent all of your weekend investigating what we had discussed last week: the name for a cylinder that isn’t straight—one that twists and curves, whether in a repetitive or random way.”
She paused, still focused on him, but he took a brief moment to glance to his right, even though he knew what he’d see. And he did see that: Raylene was grinning, and she’d popped her eyebrows up quite high.
He snapped his eyes back toward Mrs. Gregory, who was slowly raising the stick to point at him.
“I, um . . .”
“Perhaps you can share with the class what you—oh, Ms. Hawkins. What is it?”
Jayden swiveled his head to his right, caught Raylene’s look for less than a second, then she turned toward their teacher with a smile and dropped her hand.
Before she could speak, Jayden leaned forward over his desk, got her attention just long enough to mouth the words, “Your sword!” then leaned back in his seat.
“Mrs. Gregory, I don’t believe there is a word for a geometric shape like that. It’s just too unpredictable!”
No one spoke. Not a single fidget rattled a single pencil or a single crumpled sheet of paper.
Mrs. Gregory rotated her stick to bear down on Raylene, but she looked all around the room at all of the staring faces.
“Ms. Hawkins is absolutely correct. Such an object has infinite possibilities, so it would be somewhat irrational to,”—Jayden and Raylene gave each other a look, their eyes stretched open wide—“attempt to devise a name which could include each variation.”
The class still waited in silence. Mrs. Gregory lowered her stick and let the tip rest on the cold floor.
“Mr. Blue, if you wish to name such a thing for your own amusement, I will certainly not discourage you.”
She looked across the classroom again and said, “However, I’d like you all to use your imaginations for a moment. Consider that such an object can also be thought of as a collection of thinly-sliced cylinders, all pressed together to appear as a single unit. Let’s try to visualize that.”
Jayden shot his arm up, then looked to his right. Raylene had turned to see, and she pointed and mouthed the same words to him as he’d said to her, so he grinned and waited to be called by their teacher.
“Yes, Mr. Blue?”
“Um, if they weren’t all pressed together, and there was space in between, it wouldn’t be good for anything, would it?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Well, it wouldn’t make a very good pipe. Everything would fall out of it.”
A couple of their classmates snickered, and some shook their heads.
“Yes, Mr. Blue. That’s correct. And if you were to try traveling through such a thing yourself, I’d advise you to be very careful so as not to vanish somewhere through the cracks.”
While Raylene exchanged books with others in her locker, Jayden leaned against another locker nearby. Students were hurrying in each direction, everyone always aware of the bells willing and able to yell at them any second.
“Math was fun, Jay. That was fun to talk about weird cylinders, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, but it seemed even weirder when she said that it was irrational. Did you notice that?”
“Oh, yeah. She was probably right, though.”
“Yep. And pi sure is irrational.”
“That’s right—I remember that. Pi is but not pie. Especially strawberry.”
“Yeah, that wolf thought so too.”
“Yep. That wolf.”
She slammed her locker and spun the lock, still holding her science book.
“I’m ready. You already have your book?”
“Yep. We better go. You know that bell will—”
“Hi, Jay,” Tommy said, slowing as he passed them. “Mind if I walk with you?”
“Nope,” said Jayden.
“Not me,” said Raylene.
They all began an urgent walk, almost running, all of them dodging the classmates that were navigating in the other direction.
“Did you see the posters outside the auditorium?”
“Nope. No, Tommy. What about?”
“It said that the tryouts for the play start tomorrow.”
“Oh, really? That soon? After school, you mean?”
“Yeah, Jay, just like another period they’re adding on. Guess what play they’re doing.”
“Oh, I hope it’s something fun,” said Raylene. “Something with a lot of good dialog.”
“Those lines I picked up didn’t say what it was.”
“Nope. I didn’t see anything, Jay,” said Raylene.
“Yeah, I think you’ll like it,” said Tommy. “It’s Romeo and Juliet. How about that?”
“Oh, Jay, you’re going to be Romeo!”
“Rayl, I don’t know. Only if I get picked.”
“That’s what your lines were? For you to be Romeo?”
“Huh. I guess. I’ve never done anything like that before.”
“Yeah, but remember all those times you were speaking up in that―”
She stopped at seeing Tommy staring at her, for the moment not caring about collisions.
“Oh, um, I mean all those times we were reading up in your room.”
She puffed up her cheeks and let the air leak out when Tommy again focused on the oncoming mobs.
“Still, Rayl, I just don’t know. I’ll give it a try, though.”
“You’ll do fine. I bet you didn’t practice over the weekend, though.”
“Nope. Too tired.”
“Yep. I was tired too.”
They exchanged a quick look and an even quicker smile.
“But I think you can do it, Jay!”
“Me too,” said Tommy. “I could never do that. I can’t talk like that.”
“You’re talking right now,” said Jayden. “It would just be up on a stage.”
“That’s the problem! I’d panic and forget how to talk!”
“Class,” said Mr. Penton, their science teacher, “welcome to a new week.”
He turned his big eyes to look at the tall windows, which appeared painted white by the heavy snow swirling from the wind gusts trying to plaster over the glass.
“Still with the snow out there, though. Nevertheless, we need to keep moving on. Last week, we began our study of the periodic table. Jayden shared with us his own theory on the origin of the symbol for iron.”
Jayden heard more than one of them chuckling, and he turned around to give Morton a quick look. He sat in the back row, and he was grinning and pointing his finger at Jayden.
Facing the front again, Jayden shot his hand up.
Always use the sword hand, he thought. The sword is always there!
Before Mr. Penton could acknowledge him, Jayden gave a brief glance at Raylene and saw that she, too, was grinning at him.
“Yes, Jayden? Do you have another story about ferocious hammers scaring defenseless little nails?”
More laughter from nearly everyone.
“Nope. But I was wondering something.”
Another fast glance at Raylene confirmed what he’d suspected: her eyebrows were lodged way, way up. And her cheeks were puffed up, making him think that she might be fighting to lock in a loud laugh.
“Well, you do have our attention, Jayden. What is it that has you wondering on this wintry morning?”
“I wonder if those symbols are kind of like clues?”
“Clues to what, exactly?”
“Um, like where to go? Like maybe it’s a map?”
Amid light chuckling and whispered comments from all around the room, Mr. Penton pushed his glasses up, magnifying his eyes, and turned his head to study the periodic table hanging on the wall. A few students in the front row leaned over, trying to get a better look at his eyes.
Jayden took the opportunity to tip forward and see what Raylene’s reaction might be. She was staring, eyebrows up, and a second later, she smiled and shook her head. But she didn’t lower her brows.
“Well, Jayden, that would be a lot of clues, wouldn’t it? That might be an incredibly long journey, hmm?”
“You’d eat that if we ran out of peanut butter cookies.”
Jayden had set his cafeteria tray onto the long lunch room table but before sitting, he pointed at a pale green blob on a small white plate.
“Ugh, no way, Jay. No way would I eat that slop. We don’t even know what it is!”
“Nope. As long as we can get to Lady’s house on the way to see Mr. Val, we’ll always have something good to eat.”
“Yep. She was one incredible goose. Jay, that was silly in science—telling everyone that the periodic table is really a bunch of clues. No one but us could understand that.”
Raylene had set down her tray across from his, and they both sat.
“Rayl, I don’t think we even understand it. Like, how did Penny know about the windy cave? And that we’d have lions with us?”
“Not only that, Jay. How could a fish even draw a map?”
“Tell me I didn’t just hear that,” said Morton, his tray still in his hands where he stood behind Raylene.
Before even thinking of trying to answer him, Jayden grinned at the sight of Raylene’s cheeks puffing up and her eyebrows notching themselves all the way up. He shook his head once at her, then looked past her at Morton.
“Oh, um, that was just some cartoon that was on the other day. It didn’t really make sense.”
Morton smirked and said, “And cartoons are supposed to?”
“Well, it’s just that—”
“Hey,” he said, pointing at Jayden’s tray, “nice! You got pie too!”
Raylene turned enough to look back over her shoulder at him.
“I should have taken nothing but pie,” she said, then giggled.
“Only because they didn’t have any peanut butter cookies,” Jayden said.
“Pie is fine by me,” said Morton. “Especially strawberry. It’s—”
“Irrationally delicious?” Raylene said, turned again back toward Jayden and bouncing her eyebrows.
“Huh?” said Morton. “Talk about things not making sense!”
He dropped his tray the last short distance, and his silverware rattled around on the hard plastic.
“Well, don’t eat too much of it,” Jayden said, looking into Raylene’s eyes. “You’ll never make it around the track. You’ll be too heavy.”
“Oh. Yeah, you’re right. Just one slice for me, then.”
He sat and turned his back to them, and Jayden and Raylene didn’t speak, just ate and smiled and looked into each other’s eyes.
“That’s always funny,” Raylene said, giggling and pointing at their bus driver mumbling and kicking at chunks of ice keeping the door from unfolding so that they could get on their way.
“I’d laugh, too, but I’m so tired.”
“Oh, from going to see Mr. Val, right?”
“Yeah. Aren’t you?”
“Yep. Yeah, I sure am, Jay.”
“I feel like I barely made it through gym class.”
“I hope nobody tweeted at you. That’s really done, right?”
“Oh, yeah. About the only one of us that’ll tweet anymore is me. Just for fun. But I was way too tired.”
“I know. Even in English. Didn’t Ms. Jenkins talk about some kind of extra credit? I think I was falling asleep.”
“Yeah, she did,” he said. “Just don’t ask me what it was about. Maybe we can find out tomorrow.”
They watched as the driver managed to clear the way and when he got back to his seat, he hesitated with his finger close to the door-closing button.
Jayden laughed once, then looked at Raylene to his left. She was shaking her head, but her eyebrows stayed where they belonged.
The driver hit the button, the door shut with a clank and a rattle, and he put the big bus in gear. Without thinking, they held the seat back in front of them, but the rear tires only spun on the snow-covered parking lot, slipping them all to the left then the right. Finally, they began a slow, crunching crawl, following the route that they’d all seen so many times.
“Jay, I’m tired, but we need to go back.”
He turned and gave her a squint.
“You forgot a book or something?”
She turned to him, grinning.
“No, Jay, not school. That other place. We need help with Mr. Val. We need giant lion help.”
“Aren’t we supposed to figure it out on our own?”
“Yeah, probably. Let’s go anyway, okay?”
“Okay. We’re bringing Hex and Halo, right, Rayl?”
“Of course. Yep.”
“Cookies too?”
“No way, Jay. Not this time. I don’t want to be gone for two days again!”
Chapter 4 – Talking Is Okay Now?
The bus slid to a stop in front of Jayden’s house, snagging a few low-hanging branches and stripping them of their frosty coating.
“Well, back out into the snow. Want to come over for some hot chocolate first?”
“Yeah, Jay. But how about after dinner?”
“Okay.”
“Your mom doesn’t mind making that all the time?”
“Nope. I think she likes doing stuff like that. She even liked making bibs for Hex and Halo. Remember that?”
“Yep. That was cute.”
The door cooperated and clunked itself into a neat fold.
“Come on. Let’s get away from all that chattering!”
Standing at the edge of the bus’s slippery metal steps, Jayden snickered once and leaped out as far as he could, his sneakers sinking in deep.
“You know,” said the driver, “you’re really not supposed to be—”
Raylene giggled and jumped, too, her tall brown boots missing the two holes Jayden had poked into the snow drift.
“Oh, well,” he said, shaking his head, “I guess we’ll talk about that next time.”
He snapped the door shut with a squeak and a clink and seconds later, the heavy vehicle was slopping and slushing away under the relentless attack of nagging Nebraska snowflakes.
Her cheeks already getting rosy, Raylene said, “Hey, what was the thing with Hex and Halo this week?”
“Oh, I never did tell you. Probably because I still haven’t figured it out. Maybe you can help.”
“Okay, but I’m freezing out here, Jay. I’ll be over later. Tell me about it then.”
“Okay. Bye. Don’t freeze.”
She turned back with a grin and said, “I hope not!”
She resumed her trek with an exaggerated walk through the deepening snow, lifting her boots up higher than anyone in a marching band.
Jayden just grinned and watched her hair swinging across her back with every step.
Jayden trudged up the three steps to his porch, feeling the cold seeping into his sneakers. In a hurry to get out of the cold wind, he still paused with his gloved hand on the doorknob.
What are those cats up to this week? he wondered. Somehow, they don’t want me to talk? Is that because they’re not supposed to talk while they’re still baby iron lions?
I’ll never figure them out, he thought. But I sure am cold!
He turned the knob, pushed the door in only enough to peek inside, and leaned enough to take a look.
“Huh. They’re on the couch.”
He whooshed the door all the way in, stomped most of the snow off of his sneakers, and stepped inside. While swinging the door shut, he kept his eyes on the cats.
Hex, being mostly white, was obvious on the dark blue couch. Halo, though, also fluffy but mostly black, blended in pretty well.
Except for his eyes. Two bright green ones staring at Jayden.
Hex’s eyes too. Bright blue. And staring.
“What?”
They didn’t answer.
“Jay? Are you—”
“Yeah, Mom. Talking to the cats. I don’t know what to expect from those two.”
She appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, one hand on her hip and the other holding a mug of coffee, a thin trail of vapor climbing for the ceiling.
“You still haven’t figured them out, huh?”
“I never will!”
He dropped his pack and quickly dumped his coat on the nearest chair.
“You saw them today. They didn’t want me to talk. Why?”
She took a sip while turning to look at the lounging cats. She watched long enough to see Halo tip his head back and yawn.
Looking back at Jayden, she said, “Well, Jay, you’re talking now. Maybe they don’t care anymore?”
“Huh. Maybe you’re right.”
He scratched at his chin while squinting at the cats.
“Anyway, Rayl’s coming over to—”
Both cats hit the floor running and raced over, yowling all the way. Hex, the faster of the two, executed an impressive leap, striking Jayden in the chest with all four paws.
“What, Hex? Why did you—”
He couldn’t finish his question. Halo had leaped almost as high and pounded him with all four of his fluffy paws.
Jayden leaned against the wall, smiling and shaking his head, just when Hex hit him again.
Seeing that Halo was winding himself up for another attack, Jayden slumped down along the wall, laughing while looking at his mother.
She stared over her glasses and shook her head.
“Well, that sure is something new, Jay.”
Seated against the wall, a seriously attentive cat on each leg watching him closely, Jayden shrugged and blew out a deep breath.
“All I said was that Rayl was coming over, and—”
Too many times and too rapidly to count, Hex swatted Jayden’s left cheek with his right paw. Just as quickly, his fuzzy black paw a blur, Halo was attacking his right cheek.
“Okay, you guys! Okay!”
Jayden covered his face with both hands and collapsed to his right until he was lying on the floor. He pulled his knees up close, shaking the cats loose, but they stood close and ready.
“Oh, my,” said Mrs. Blue. “I’ve never seen anything like that. Jay, maybe just don’t say anything for a while.”
Jayden nodded his head, and they all waited for a minute.
“Stay,” his mother said with a quick laugh before leaving the room.
Hex and Halo then sauntered back to the couch, leaped up, and snuggled close together and kept watching Jayden, who remained on the floor near the front door, peeking out through his fingers.