Sometime during the early-morning hours I fell asleep. My dreams were frantic and confused. I couldn’t find anyone. Everywhere there was shadow and fog and the sound of bat wings. I could feel an evil presence hunting me, but the more I ran, the closer it seemed to come.
It ended when Charlie ripped open the door of the shed the next day. I could hear his heart. It was doing a drum solo. He was so agitated, he actually pulled the latch right out of the door frame.
“We’ve got a problem,” he said.
The sun was still up, and light was bouncing all over the place, so we had at least two problems. I buried myself under my sleeping bag and waited until he closed the door.
“Suki just called,” he said. He made it sound like a bad thing. “The cops were there. They’re on their way over right now. We’ve got to get you out of here. They could arrive any second.”
I stood up and grabbed my shirt. Then I started looking for my father’s journal. As soon as I’d found it, I lifted a corner of the garbage bag that Charlie had stapled over the window frame. My fingers started to burn right away, so I let it go.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It’s evening, just after eight, maybe.”
That meant the sun would be up for another half hour or so.
“What do I do?” I asked.
Charlie shrugged. “Can you wrap yourself up in that?” He flicked a finger towards my sleeping bag.
“Where am I going?”
“That’s another problem.”
“Can I talk to Luna?”
“And that’s another problem.”
“How did this happen?”
Charlie took a deep breath, then leaned back against the workbench under the window. “Their father read that article about you in the Examiner the other day. The one that said you’re an escaped mental patient with psychotic tendencies. Who knew? Well, apparently he overheard the girls talking about you. Once he put two and two together, he detonated and called the cops. So we gotta get going. If the police catch you here, they’re going to lock you away for about eight million years.”
That didn’t sound too appealing. But that wasn’t what really bothered me.
“So Luna knows?” I asked.
“Yeah.” Charlie nodded. “Sounds like she was pretty upset.”
“I’ve got to explain.”
Charlie shook his head. “No way. The girls, Suki . . . You’ve got to stay away.”
I let out a deep breath. I felt as if my whole body was going to collapse. I looked at Charlie, and then at the floor, and then at the shelves. I don’t know what I was expecting to see, like the key to my future was going to be written on a half-used can of spray paint. I was lost. The police were coming. The sun was still shining. I’d run out of hiding places. Funny thing was, I didn’t care about that. I just wanted to talk to Luna. I couldn’t have her believe all those things about me were true.
“Does your brother know I’m here?” I asked.
“No.”
“Isn’t there another place I can hide? Maybe at the other end of the island? I could sneak away as soon as the police are gone.”
Charlie shook his head. “What are you going to do, make yourself invisible? Suki said they’ve got dogs with them. This isn’t The Hobbit, Zack. This is for real.”
“So what do we do?”
“We get in the boat and take our chances.”
Charlie picked up the sleeping bag and handed it to me. I passed him my father’s journal, unzipped one side of the bag and put it over my head like a giant cape. As soon as I was outside, it would be the only thing between me and the sun.
“Is that going to work?” he asked. “You aren’t going to go up like a torch, are you?”
“We’ll see,” I said. I sounded braver than I felt.
I waited in the shed for Charlie to go down to the dock and get the boat ready. Then he whistled. That was the signal. I was supposed to take off.
I couldn’t.
The light outside was just too bright. Why couldn’t it have been cloudy?
Charlie whistled again.
I took a deep breath. Then another. I had to go, but my feet wouldn’t move. The sun was out there. The sun was death. Painful death.
Charlie whistled a third time. I imagined him waiting in the boat. Then I imagined Luna at her cottage. If I stayed here, if I chickened out and hid in the shed, the police would find me and I’d never get the chance to set things straight.
Charlie whistled a fourth time. I pulled the sleeping bag tight around my shoulders, took a deep breath, then kicked the door open and ran outside.