“Hello!” said a voice behind her, making her jump. She turned sharply and saw another, younger boy sitting cross-legged on the ground. Behind him was a granite cliff that extended high out of sight.
This boy’s hair was unkempt, and his clothes were weird – sort of too heavy, too tight, and buttoned way too high. He also had more freckles than she had ever seen on a human being.
“It’s about time you woke up,” he said.
“Who are you?” Allie asked.
Instead of answering, he pointed to the other kid, who was starting to stir.
“Your friend is waking up, too.”
“He’s not my friend.”
The other kid sat up, blinking in the light. He had brown stuff on his face.
Dried blood! thought Allie. No. Chocolate. She could smell it.
“This is freaky,” the chocolate boy said. “Where am I?”
Allie stood up and took a good look around. This wasn’t just a grove of trees, it was an entire forest. “I was in the car, with my dad,” Allie said aloud, forcing the scrap of memory to her lips, hoping that would help to drag the rest of it all the way back.”
“We were on a mountain road, above a forest…” Only this wasn’t the forest they had driven past. That forest was full of tall dead tree trunks, with stubby, rotting limbs. “A dead forest,” Dad had said from the drivers seat, pointing it out. “It happens like that sometimes. A fungus, or some other kind of blight-it can kill acres at a time.”
Then Allie remembered the squealing of tires, and a crunch, and then nothing.
She began to get just a little bit worried.
“Okay, what’s going on here,” she demanded of the freckled kid, because she knew Chocolate Boy was as clueless as she was.
“This is a great place!” Freckle-face said. “It’s my place. Now it’s your place, too!”
“I’ve got a place,” said Allie. “I don’t need this one.”
Then Chocolate Boy pointed at her. “I know you! You bumped into me!”
“No-you bumped into me.”
The freckled kid came between them. “C’mon, stop talking about that.” He started bouncing excitedly on the balls of his feet. “We got stuff to do!”
Allie crossed her arms. “I’m not doing anything until I know what’s going on – “ and then it all came crashing back to her with the fury of- “-A head-on collision!”
“Yes!” said Chocolate Boy. “I thought I dreamed it!”
“It must have knocked us out!” Allie felt all over her body. No broken bones, no bruises-not even a scratch. How could that be? “We might have a concussion.”
“I don’t feel concussed.”
“Concussions are unpredictable, Chocolate Boy!”
“My name’s Nick.”
“Fine. I’m Allie.” Nick tried to wipe the chocolate from his face, but without soap and water it was a lost cause. They both turned to the freckled kid. “You got a name?” Allie asked.
“Yeah,” he said, looking down. “But I don’t have to tell you.”
Allie ignored him, since he was starting to become a nuisance, and turned to Nick. “We must have been thrown clear of the accident, and over the cliff. The branches broke our fall. We have to get back up to the road!”
“What would you want to go up there for?” the freckled kid asked.
“They’ll be worried about us,” Nick said. “My parents are probably searching for me right now.”
And then suddenly Allie realized something. Something she wished she hadn’t.
“Maybe they won’t,” she said. “If the accident was bad enough…”
She couldn’t say it aloud, so instead, Nick did.
“We could be the only survivors?”
Allie closed her eyes, trying to chase the very idea away. The accident had been bad, there was no question about it, but if they came through it without a scratch, then her father must have as well, right? The way they made cars nowadays, with crumple zones, and air bags everywhere. They were safer than ever.
Nick began to pace, losing himself in morbid thoughts of doom. “This is bad.
This is really, really bad.”
“I’m sure they’re all okay,” Allie said, and repeated it, as if that would make it so. “I’m sure they are.”
And the freckled boy laughed at them. “The only survivors!” he said. “That’s a good one!” This was no laughing matter. It made both Nick and Allie furious.
“Who are you?” Allie demanded. “Why are you here?”
“Did you see the accident?” Nick added.
“No,” he said, choosing to answer Nick’s question only. “But I heard it. I went up to look.”
“What did you see?”
The kid shrugged. “Lots of stuff.”
“Were the other people in the cars all right?”
The kid turned and kicked a stone, angrily. “Why does it matter? Either they got better, or they got where they were going, and anyway there’s nothing you can do about it, so just forget about it, okay?”
Nick threw his hands up. “This is nuts! Why are we even talking to this kid? We have to get up there and find out what happened!”
“Can you just calm down for a second?”
“I am calm!” Nick screamed.
Allie knew there was something…off…about the whole situation. Whatever it was, it all seemed centered on this oddly dressed, freckle-faced boy.
“Can you take us to your home? We can call the police from there.”
“I don’t got a telly-phone.”
“Oh, that’s just great!” said Nick.
Allie turned on him. “Will you just shut up – you’re not helping.” Allie took a good long look at the freckled boy again. His clothes. The way he held himself.
She thought about the things he had said-not so much what he said, but the way he had said it. This is my place… now it’s your place, too. If her suspicions were correct, this situation was even weirder than she had thought.
“Where do you live?” Allie asked him.
“Here,” was all he said.
“How long have you been ‘here’?”
The Freckle-boy’s ears went red. “I don’t remember.”
By now Nick had come over, his frustration defused by what he was hearing.
“And your name?” Allie asked.
He couldn’t even look her in the eye. He looked down, shaking his head. “I haven’t needed one for a long time. So I lost it.”
“Whoa…” said Nick.
“Yeah,” said Allie. “Major whoa.”
“It’s okay,” said the boy. “I got used to it. You will, too. You’ll see. It’s not so bad.”
There were so many emotions for Allie to grapple with now-from fear to anger to misery- but for this boy, Allie could only feel pity. What must it have been like to be lost alone in the woods for years, afraid to leave?
“Do you remember how old you were when you got here?” she asked.
“Eleven,” he told them.
“Hmm,” said Nick. “You still look eleven to me.”
“I am,” said the boy.
Allie decided to call him Lief, since they had found him in the forest, and he blushed at the name as if she had kissed him. Then Lief led them up the steep stone slope to the road, climbing with a recklessness that not even the most skilled rock climbers would dare show. Allie refused to admit how terrified she was by the climb, but Nick
