In the Middle Read online

  IN THE MIDDLE

  S. J. Henderson

  A Tiny Fox Press Book

  © 2017 S. J. Henderson

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by U.S.A. copyright law. For information address: Tiny Fox Press, North Port, FL.

  This is a work of fiction: Names, places, characters, and events are a product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, locales, or events is purely coincidental.

  Cover design by Andrea Orlic.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2016921247

  ISBN: 978-1-946501-05-9

  Tiny Fox Press and the book fox logo are all registered trademarks of Tiny Fox Press LLC

  Tiny Fox Press LLC

  North Port, FL

  Also by S. J. Henderson

  Middle Grade

  Daniel the Draw-er

  “This pencil is no ordinary pencil,” says the cat sitting on the end of nine-year-old Daniel’s bed. “It’s magic.”

  Everything Daniel draws with his enchanted pencil comes to life, from a talking cat named Whiskers to a group of pizza-loving aliens from the planet Beezo. Daniel’s mom said she wanted him to make new friends. This probably isn’t what she meant.

  Join Daniel and his fantastic creatures on this fun-for-the-whole-family adventure as he discovers that friendship is the greatest magic of all . . . and that it can be found in the most unusual of places.

  Daniel the Camp-er

  There are a few simple rules Daniel follows:

  Rule One: never let an adult see your weakness. Daniel made that mistake and look where he ended up—summer camp.

  Rule Two: never make fun of the person who feeds you, unless you like Miss Gunderson’s peppery pancakes and green hamburgers.

  Rule Three: stay away from girls who love Glitter Ponies. They have cooties, after all.

  And Rule Four: never, ever lose your magic pencil.

  But Daniel has broken all of his own rules. Now he’s stuck and starving at Camp Bigfoot with the school bully as his bunkmate and an ooey-gooey girl who won’t leave him alone. If all of that wasn’t bad enough, his prized possession, a pencil that brings his drawings to life, has gone missing and wacky creatures are popping up all over camp.

  Can Daniel survive Camp Bigfoot and find his magic pencil before it’s too late?

  Anthologies

  Skywriters Ring Anthology: Short Story Collection

  Includes S. J. Henderson’s Young Adult Fantasy story, “For Eve.”

  Mosaic: a Compilation of Creative Writing

  Includes S. J. Henderson’s short stories “Bees,” and “Daniel the Draw-er Makes a Friend.”

  For two little lovebirds who flew away home.

  Walking with you was never a burden.

  Chapter 1

  Eighteen days ago I took my first step.

  A nurse with a bouncy blonde ponytail and a chirpy voice thought it would be a stellar idea to buy me a cake to celebrate. It had vanilla frosting, and loopy red letters scrawled across the top wished me a “Happy Birthday!”

  When I pointed out my birthday wasn’t for, like, five more months, her dimpled cheeks turned pink. She mumbled something about “new beginnings,” and Nurse Greta shushed her before she could say anything else wrong. Good thing, too, because I would’ve punched her in her annoyingly perky face if I hadn’t been exhausted from taking my one step.

  New beginnings, my butt.

  And now here I am. Stuck in a taxi, the absolute last place I’d rather be, traveling to my aunt’s house, where I’ll begin my new life. Whatever that means.

  The taxi’s tire thuds into a pothole, and I clutch the seat until my knuckles turn white. Within my chest my heart gallops wildly, and I take a deep breath to calm myself. Of all the things that could go wrong in an automobile, a heart attack seems the most ironic. I mean, you’re driving along, all happy and safe one minute, then your body just up and quits on you. Then it’s crash—adios!

  Yeah, cars aren’t really my thing.

  I lean forward towards the driver, a middle-aged guy wearing a faded baseball cap and a grey t-shirt that’s definitely seen better days. The photo ID affixed to the back of his seat informs me his name is Bud. He looks like a Bud.

  “How much longer?” I raise my voice above the annoying twang of the song he hums along with. Talking hurts my brain, and I press my palm to my forehead to slow the vibration. Everyone thinks I keep quiet because I want my space. And, yes, I want people to leave me alone—but most of all I want this God-awful pain to disappear. Keeping my mouth shut helps, or, at least, makes me less interesting. If I’m boring, no one expects me to perform like a circus animal.

  “We should be to Mitte in, oh, ‘bout five minutes. You okay, Miss?” The driver’s red-rimmed eyes peek at me from the rearview mirror.

  I nod in response, but he’s already turned his focus back to the road. A stab of discomfort zings up my neck from the motion, and I suck in a hissing breath. Bud doesn’t seem to notice, but I don’t mind. I’ve reached the limit of how many times I can lie about feeling good.

  I hope my aunt won’t take it upon herself to solve all of my problems once I step foot inside her house. Everyone thinks they can make me all better, but no one’s succeeded. If she tries fixing me, I’ll probably self-combust.

  Before the accident, Aunt Perdita showed zero interest in me, existing only in old photo albums. She began as a pink, wide-eyed baby with a bow someone must have taped to her bare scalp; she morphed into a tan, lean young woman framed by a mane of golden hair. And then the pictures stopped, as if she’d simply disappeared. Mom never talked about my aunt, and the mere mention of her name brought tears to Mom’s eyes. I’d always assumed she’d died in some tragic way and Mom didn’t want to relive it, so I never pressed for more information. Obviously, I’d assumed wrong, since each passing second brings me closer to my only remaining relative.

  Mitte, my new town, is a mystery to me, too. Nancy, the social worker at the hospital, couldn’t find it on a map, even after poking around on the internet. She acted nervous about sending me somewhere without concrete proof the place even existed. Aunt Perdita proved to be influential, handling all the details of getting me from my hospital room in Detroit to her house in Mitte. Bud at least acts like he knows the direction of this secret destination, so I have to trust him. I don’t usually make it a practice of trusting pot-bellied dudes who listen to whiny music for fun, but I am running low on options.

  The driver tips his head to the right. “Here we are.”

  Where “here” is, I’m not exactly sure. The lonesome two-lane road stretches on ahead, embraced on either side by an endless evergreen forest. Moving from the city is bound to mean a lot of changes, but this is kind of ridiculous. I can’t even see my new town.

  A large piece of stone—some kind of sign, maybe—stands a lonely guard just off the shoulder of the road, the only indication that the taxi hasn’t slipped into some kind of labyrinth. Carvings lace across its weather-worn top. As we pass by, I twist around in my seat for a better look, but our speed blurs the words or pictures or maybe just the careless meanderings of an insect. Just before the hunk of rock fades from view, a dark figure shifts from the cover of the trees. A person.

  Maybe that’s what the people do for fun in the boonies: carve stuff on old statues. I imagine some lonely tattoo artist sulking in the forest, forced to practice his art on whatever he can find because the good citizens of Mitte don’t want their skin defiled. I smile at the idea beca
use it’s completely dumb.

  The town springs up like turning the page in a pop-up book. Granted, there’s not much to see. Little shops and offices surround the main street. Beyond that, mounds of flowers curl up at the feet of a sputtering fountain. Several rows of weathered limestone benches angle around the water. Staring at fountains and carving trees, Mitte’s main attractions. Riveting.

  The town is dead. At home, people stroll with their dogs down the sidewalks, chit-chat with each other outside of the restaurants, drive their cars to work, pedal bikes to wherever people pedal bikes. Totally not the case here in Mitte. Besides Bud and me, no one else ventures out into public. Each manicured lawn sits empty, and no faces peer out from the windows of the postage-stamp houses we pass. I pray this isn’t one of those crazy towns so fearful of outsiders that everyone hides deep within their shelters until the scary thing—me—passes.

  Aunt Perdita has yet to speak a single word to me, ever, but somehow she’d convinced the social worker that Mitte would be the perfect place for me to heal. Eyeing row after row of lifeless homes and empty streets, I’m not sure I agree with her.

  Before long, Bud pulls up to a wrought iron gate. Before he can even roll down his window to push the call button on the security keypad, the gate swings inward, granting us access. Someone’s expecting me.

  Bud follows the long, shrub-lined drive to the footsteps of the largest building I’ve seen so far. The house gleams white, with tall pillars in front that look like they came straight from a cotton plantation. My stomach knots with anxiety. The only place I’d ever called home had three bedrooms and a tiny speck of a yard. If this is my new casa, I’m in way over my head.

  Bud climbs out of the car and opens my door for me. “This is it, Miss.”

  My mouth hangs open as I step out of the taxi. I can’t believe Aunt Perdita lives here, in the kind of house I’d only seen in the movies. Maybe this was the reason she and my parents hadn’t kept in touch. My folks weren’t greedy or jealous people, but money can make people do things they normally wouldn’t.

  I wait for Bud to retrieve my suitcase from the trunk, then turn to him. “What do I owe you? I’m sure my aunt—”

  He blinks a few times, clears his throat, then waves me off with his baseball-mitt-sized paw. “Nah. It’s the least I can do.”

  Someone must have told him my story.

  “Well, thank you,” I murmur, looking at my feet. I don’t want to be the poor orphan girl everyone pities.

  When I turn back to him to offer a late smile for his thoughtfulness, he isn’t there. And neither is the taxi. The doctors told me I might lose track of time every now and then because of my head injuries, but this is the first time I’ve spaced out long enough for an entire guy and his vehicle to disappear. Life’s officially strange.

  A man with skin the color of coffee stands up from where he’d been working on the other side of the hedgerow. I add him to one more detail I’d blanked out on, and paste on a thin smile. All I want to do is get inside the house, find a room, and be by myself. I don’t want to meet anyone, not even my long-lost aunt. And certainly not the guy running toward me with shears in hand.

  No running with sharp objects, mister. Doesn’t everyone know that?

  He closes in on me quick. “How’d you do it?”

  “W-what?” I glance around. Mitte’s official welcoming committee needs a little guidance on being more, well, welcoming.

  “How’d you do it?” The man is upon me now, grasping me by the shoulders. The blades of the shears dance inches from my earlobe, but I’m in too much pain to worry about him lopping off the side of my face. Fire erupts in my body, traveling from the top of my head down to the middle of the back as he jostles me. If he keeps it up, I’ll be begging for the shears soon.

  “Norman, leave her be,” a man’s voice calls from the side of the house.

  Norman’s eyes bulge in desperation as he looks toward whoever had spoken. “But she knows somethin’, Oliver. Bud, he just—”

  Another guy, young and tan like someone who hasn’t spent the last umpteenth months basking in the ultraviolet glow of the hospital, saunters around the corner and into view. His slow movement worries me, especially since Norman still holds me in his white-knuckled grip. This Oliver, whoever he is, hasn’t completely convinced my new friend to let go. I force myself to focus on Oliver as he approaches, trying to keep myself from crying at the searing pain in my spine.

  Oliver comes up next to us, careful to choose the side farthest from the hedge trimmers, and lays a hand on Norman’s shoulder. “Norm. She doesn’t know.”

  Norman pinches his eyelids closed and drops his head. Slowly, he slides his hands from my shoulders and down to his side. I wrap my arms around myself and draw in a shaky breath.

  “Sorry, ma’am. Norman here mistook you for someone else,” Oliver says, tipping his head. His slick, dark hair falls across one of his eyes, and he swipes it away with the back of his hand.

  “No harm done,” I lie, gritting my teeth as the pain recedes.

  “I’m Oliver.” He offers me his hand and I leave him hanging while I decide whether or not he’s insane.

  “Lucy,” I say finally, placing my hand in his.

  He smiles, and his eyes squint so they’re nearly non-existent. If I even cared about guys anymore, I would totally find Oliver adorable. With my whole world in ruins, adorable guys and romance don’t really register on my radar. It hurts to be alive. I can’t possibly ask another human being to share in my misery.

  “I like that name.”

  I nod and look away. Small talk isn’t my forte.

  Oliver, who must have sensed my lack of interest, clears his throat. “You’re Perdita’s niece?”

  “I guess.”

  A grin spreads across his face. “You guess? What kind of answer is that? Are you or aren’t you?”

  “Look,” I say, glancing toward the mansion’s front door. “I don’t know her from you or Norman, but I honestly don’t think it’s any of your business. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  Oliver puts his hands in front of his chest, palm-out, in surrender. “My apologies, ma’am. I only meant to be friendly, I swear.”

  “Sorry, I’m not looking for friendship.” With a streak of stubbornness, I pick up my suitcase. The jolt of pain makes me sick to my stomach.

  It takes great effort to move forward with my limp, another souvenir from the accident. The doctors tried to give me hope by telling me most of my physical complaints will fade over time. Except the limp. The force of impact snapped my femur in three places, and they’d pinned and glued me together the best they could. Unfortunately, their best wasn’t enough to secure my spot back on the track team. I’ll never run again, at least not unless I’m being chased. Hindered by the weight of my lonely suitcase, even walking up the stone steps to the front door seems impossible.

  “Let me help.” Oliver places his hand on mine. “Please.”

  I stick out my chin and square my shoulders, desperate to demonstrate what little strength I have left. His brown eyes meet mine unexpectedly, and my resolve melts away.

  “Sooner or later you’ll return the favor, Lucy.” He smiles just enough to crease his cheek with a dimple.

  A dimple. Before Oliver, I’d never seen a grown man with dimples. Before the accident, Oliver’s charm would’ve made me giddy. Now that I’ve been reconstructed and reanimated like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, I feel nothing at all.

  Chapter 2

  Like every horror movie I’d ever seen, the heavy white door creaks open as I reach for the doorknocker.

  “Hello?” I peek inside the house. My words echo in the entryway and inside my skull. “Anyone home?”

  No one answers. I hesitate for a moment before taking a step inside. Oliver waits on the porch, my suitcase in hand, until I look back at him with a forced smile.

  “Just leave it right there, thanks,” I instruct in a small voice, but even a whisper reverberates in th
is big, open space. The fear in my voice shocks me.

  Oliver meets my gaze without blinking. “With all due respect, ma’am, I’ve been raised to carry heavy burdens for those who can’t.”

  “Okay, you’ve got to stop calling me ‘ma’am.’ I’m younger than you by a few years, I bet. Totally not a ‘ma’am’.”

  “I meant nothing by it, just being courteous,” he replies, following a few steps behind me as I limp further into the foyer.

  If courtesy rates so high on his list of priorities, I wish he would push ahead of me and venture into the house first. I’ve seen this movie before. Spoiler alert: the virgin chick always dies first, an ax buried smack dab between her eyes. With all the heavy metal in my brain now, the ax would probably break before my head does. Somehow, I don’t find much comfort in that.

  My companion seems to pick up on the rattling in my knees and speeds in front of me with his chest puffed up proudly. I pretend to be annoyed by his bravado, but I exhale as soon as he’s not looking.

  “Miss Perdita,” Oliver calls, striding over to a doorway on our right.

  She appears through the door straight ahead of us, sliding her reading glasses from her nose and pushing them up on top of her golden head. “Honestly, Oliver. What’s the meaning of all this racket?”

  The roundest part of his cheeks pink. He avoids her glare. “I’m sorry to raise my voice, Miss Perdita. Your niece—”

  My aunt squints her crystal eyes to see past him to where I stand. “Lucille? Is that you?”

  I shudder. No one calls me Lucille and lives. No one. “Yeah, it’s me. But, please, call me Lucy.”

  I’ve replayed this moment, our very first meeting, a hundred times over the past couple of days. Aunt Perdita would greet me at the doorway, smelling like fresh chocolate chip cookies and rose water. We wouldn’t need pathetic introductions, because we would be too busy weeping for the loss of her sister and my mother. The major flaw in that scenario becomes glaringly obvious as I notice the hard lines etching her features. We are strangers.