Chapter 12 #4
Once again, I found myself startled and dashing behind a tree just inside the tree line of the clearing.
The boy with the white diamond shape in his hair and on his forehead was looking at the windchimes again.
Like the day before, he was dressed strangely.
He was wearing black combat boots, laced up to mid shin, cargo shorts, a white tank top, and what looked like a black tutu.
An honest to goodness ballerina tutu. Tulle and gauze, black and standing spritely out from his hips, the boy stood there, profile to me, as I watched him from behind the tree I was using as a hiding spot.
He didn’t seem to notice me; he appeared to be focused intently on the chimes.
In fact, it almost looked as if he was talking to one of the chimes in particular.
In front of him, dangling pendulously from a tree, was a rather large windchime, made of old forks and spoons.
The boy was mumbling something that I couldn’t hear, smiling to himself as he looked up at the chime.
I watched as he lifted the side of the tutu to reach into the pocket of his shorts.
He pulled out a silver object, which I quickly realized was a fork, and he went about tying the extra fork to the already overburdened chime.
Once the task was complete, he took a step back and admired his work.
He seemed to be muttering something else to the windchime, but I could only catch the cadence of his voice, not make out the actual words.
Then he closed his eyes languidly and held his arms out and spun slowly in the clearing in front of the chime, a joyous smile on his face.
He is soooooo odd.
Just when I thought the boy might twirl himself until he was dizzy enough to fall, voices echoed down the dirt path towards downtown.
At least a few people were walking down the trail towards the clearing in the woods.
I glanced over at the boy in his tutu and he had stopped spinning; he was looking towards the opening of the path.
For a split second, he seemed frozen in place, as though unsure of what to do.
Then he was dodging chimes as he dashed into the woods, carving his own path through the trees towards town.
I stayed behind my tree just off of the trail, waiting to see who was coming towards the clearing full of windchimes.
A few moments passed as the voices grew louder, and three teenage boys, probably the same age as me and the boy in the tutu, strolled into view.
Obviously, the boy in the tutu had made a wise choice running through the trees towards town.
The three boys seemed friendly, and they were laughing and being silly, but I imagined they wouldn’t have been very kind if they found a boy in a tutu all by himself.
They probably would have taunted him. Or pushed him. Called him names.
As the boys all entered the clearing, I slipped out from behind the tree and dashed back down the path towards Possibly.
I didn’t want to know why the trio of boys had come to the clearing.
Usually, and I say this as a teenage boy myself, a pack of teenage boys is up to no good.
Seeing how quickly the boy in the tutu had run from the clearing when he heard their voices was another indication that introducing myself to them was probably a bad idea.
At least alone out in the woods. Maybe, I thought as I jogged down the path and back into town, if I saw them at Starbuck’s or something, I’d introduce myself. But not when I was alone.
Back at Jack’s place, I went to the backyard first, wondering if he had made any progress on his table project.
Jack wasn’t in the backyard with the table anymore, though.
The table had been set upon a tarp and another was laid over it, both of them bound together with bungee cords to keep the table wrapped up.
Curious about what was going on, I found my way into the house through the backdoor.
Jack wasn’t in the kitchen or the living room, and hollering out at him didn’t produce any results.
Not that he could have hollered back to me to let me know where he was in the house.
Climbing the first flight of stairs, I made my way down the second-floor hallway and knocked gently on Jack’s door, wondering if maybe he had laid down for a nap.
Or maybe he hadn’t felt well. The house was deathly quiet, and the second-floor hallway was like a tomb.
After a few moments, I finally heard Jack moving in his bedroom.
I expected him to open the door to see what I wanted from him.
Instead, after waiting for what seemed like an eternity, listening to him move around, he slid a piece of notebook paper under the door. I read the strange, block letters.
I’ll see you tomorrow. Make sure you keep your windows closed tonight. It’s going to rain.
That was all he had to say.
I spent the rest of the day hanging around in my room, all alone, with no signal on my phone, feeling like a desert tortoise. Dinner was a couple of sandwiches I made for myself with what Jack had in the fridge and cupboard.
Jack was right.
That night, it began to rain right after the sun went down.
It was still raining well into the night as I sat on my bed and stared out of the dormers towards the barn down by the creek.
Rivulets of rain water carved their way down the glass, the darkened town only visible when there was lightning in the sky.
No lights appeared at the barn that night.
But I slept like a baby as rain did its tap dance on the roof and window.