At least, those were the words Buzz formed in his head. They sat on the tip of his tongue, fully formed, but he couldn’t say them out loud.
He took a steadying breath. “I guess Friday the thirteenth has just always been kind of unlucky for me,” he said instead. “You saw what happened in the cafeteria today.” He frowned. “I just wish this day was over and it was Saturday already.”
“I don’t know about that.” The girl leaned back against the tree and crossed her arms, as if to keep herself warm. “Saturdays are totally overrated in my opinion.”
“Overrated!” Buzz shook his head in disbelief. “Saturdays are totally epic. You get to sleep in. You don’t have to go to school. You get to hang out with friends all day long. Watch sports, play sports, and get takeout. What’s not to love?”
“That type of Saturday does sound pretty epic,” the girl conceded. “But back home, Saturday is always the day my parents argue the most. They argue about who should do the shopping. Who should do the gardening, who should do the—” She whacked a hand over her mouth. “Oh, man,” she mumbled. “Talk about oversharing. I’m always doing that. My therapist says my filters don’t work properly.” She dropped her hand. “What I probably should have said is that I’m staying with my grandmother for a little while and she likes to plan enriching activities for Saturdays. She doesn’t have a TV, let alone Wi-Fi, and certainly doesn’t believe in getting takeout. We’re talking liver and onions for dinner on all days ending with a Y.”
Buzz winced. “Holey pajamas. That is all kinds of miserable.”
She gave him a quizzical look. “Holey pajamas? Is that a well-known phrase in this part of the world?”
“It’s one of my mum’s sayings.” Buzz felt heat creep into his cheeks. He had no idea why he’d said it out loud. “Where’s your home normally, then?” he asked quickly.
“New York. The Big Apple. The Melting Pot. New Amsterdam until 1664,” she replied. “Ever been?”
Buzz shook his head. His dad hated leaving Crowmarsh, which meant most holidays were spent camping in Tangley Woods. “I’d love to go, though. So many people. So much to do. I bet you never get bored there.”
The girl leaned forward and played with the frayed laces of her Converse sneakers. “No, but you do get lonely. At least I do. I always kind of wished that I had a sibling. Your sister seems nice.”
Buzz thought about Tia and how she loved to interfere in his life. “Trust me. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
“But at least you have someone to talk to—when things aren’t great at home. Someone who’ll understand.”
“I guess,” Buzz responded. He and Tia tended to avoid those types of conversations. They definitely never spoke about the frostiness that existed between their parents or how that had become glacial in the months before Mum’s trip.
“You’re a guy of few words, aren’t you?” the girl said. “My parents say you have to talk the talk if you are going to walk the walk.” Her brow creased. “That’s what they’re doing right now. Talking about whether they’re going to walk out on each other. Talking about whether Dad is actually going to move to the UK with us. But I’m not supposed to know that.” She whacked a hand over her mouth again. “I’m doing it again, aren’t I?” she said through her fingers. “Oversharing? Grandmother says it’s not dignified to air one’s dirty laundry. But I think sometimes your washing machine may be broken and you just have to make the best of a bad situation, right?” She pinned him with her hazel gaze. “What do you think?”
“Um,” Buzz began, not really sure how to answer.
“Not um—the name is Amaryllis, but you can call me Mary.” The girl arched a dark, slightly messy eyebrow. “But never Scary Mary, just Mary, okay?”
“Okay,” he promised. “I’m Buzz.”
“Buzz, as in the sound a bee makes,” the girl mused. “Interesting. Did you know that bees are the only insects that make food that humans can eat?”
Buzz shook his head.
“Or that eating honey makes you smarter?”
Buzz shook his head again. I bet she eats a lot of honey.
“Why are you named after the sound a bee makes, then?” Mary asked, hardly pausing for breath. “Is your mom an apiologist?”
“No. At least I don’t think so. She’s a botanist,” he said. “What’s an apiologist?”
“It’s a person who studies honeybees,” the girl replied. “While a person who keeps bees is called an apiarist.”
“Right.” Buzz could feel all the girl’s facts raining down on him like hail. It wasn’t wholly unpleasant—it just stung a bit. “Buzz is actually short for Buzzard. My name is Frederick Buzzard.”
“So you’re named after a bird, not a bee. In fact, you’ve got a whole animal kingdom thing going on. That’s awesome!”
“Awesome?”
“Yeah, you could have been named after a flower. Imagine how annoying that would be.”
“Er, I guess,” Buzz conceded, not that he could think of any boys’ names that were flowers.
“Yeah, your name is definitely not on the annoying spectrum.”
“It’s my father’s name, really,” he found himself explaining. “I’m Frederick Buzzard the second, but strictly speaking I should be Frederick Buzzard the third because my father was named after the founder of the orphanage he was left at and—”
Mary began to chuckle.
“What?” Buzz questioned. “What’s so funny?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “There I was thinking you were the strong, silent type when actually you’re quite verbose.”
Buzz was pretty sure verbose meant talkative, which seemed rich coming from Mary. “You’re pretty chatty yourself, you know,” he pointed out.
“No filters, remember?” She looked at her watch, with its big, digital face. “I’d better get home. It’s getting dark, and Grandmother will worry.” Mary jumped to her feet, held up her watch, and turned in a slow circle.
The watch gave a little beep as she faced one of the lanes that curved off to the left. A robotic voice reeled off a list of directions:
“Fifteen Glover Drive. One-point-five miles away. Stay on the path ahead.”
“Whoa!” Buzz scrambled to his feet. “Did your watch just tell you the way home in the voice of Darth Vader?”
Mary’s expression was smug. “I made it using parts from my dad’s GPS and my cell phone a couple weeks ago. Dad was delighted, obviously.” She polished the face of the watch on the material of her leggings. “It’s still got a couple glitches, but it’s pretty darn impressive.”
“Your humbleness is astounding,” Buzz replied. “Come on, you don’t live that far from me. I’ll show you a shortcut.” He bent down, shoved the soda can he’d been kicking into his backpack, and slung the bag over his shoulder. “I’ll take you through Tangley Woods. Don’t worry, I live in there, so I won’t get us lost.”
“Ahem!” Mary gave a theatrical cough. “I’ll draw your attention to exhibit A.” She tapped her watch. “I can’t get lost with this innovation strapped to my wrist. But walk me home if you like. You can tell me what else there is to do in Crowmarsh.”
“Sure.” He turned to her as they began to walk. “So, the first thing you to need to know is that there’s absolutely nothing to do in Crowmarsh. The second thing you need to know is that absolutely nothing ever happens in Crowmarsh.”
Mary laughed. “I’m sure it isn’t that bad! I was born here, you know, but then my parents moved to the States.”
“Lucky escape,” Buzz said.
“Maybe. But you get to live in the middle of a forest. That’s pretty lucky if you ask me.”
“Prof built our house in Tangley Woods when my sister was just a baby and before I was even born,” Buzz explained as they entered the line of trees that made up the border of the forest.
“Prof?”
“It’s what I call my father.”
“I see,” Mary said, and Buzz had the feeling that she did see a whole lot. He knew it was odd that he called his father Prof, but the title of Dad just didn’t sit right with him.
“Prof’s kind of obsessed with this place.” He talked fast to cover the awkwardness. His gaze took in the familiar play of light that slanted through the trees. “He thinks this wood is the epicenter of many key mythologies. A place where people’s beliefs have all converged through the centuries. The Tangley Woods theory is what he’s famous for, why he’s on TV. He just hasn’t proven it.”
“Oh?” Mary said. “How long has he been trying to prove it?”
“Twenty years, give or take.”
“That’s a long time.”
“It sure is.” What he didn’t say was that by now, most people at the university thought that the Prof was a joke, which is why he didn’t get invited to the annual garden party anymore.
They were deep in the forest now, the trees silent witnesses to their conversation. The light was gradually fading—the shadows converging—but Buzz wasn’t worried. He knew the woods’ paths better than anyone.
“Wow, your mom has got to be the most laid-back person in the world,” Mary said after a moment. “If my dad tried to build a house in a forest so that he could be closer to his work, my mom would go nuclear.”
“That’s not her way,” Buzz explained. His mum never got angry. Besides, she loved this place as well. She’d crawl around on the mossy ground of Tangley Woods for hours at a time, occasionally giving squeals of delight when she unearthed a spongy spore of fungi. No wonder Theo Eddows liked calling him Freaky Buzzard—his family was pretty odd. How many mothers dried poisonous plants in the airing cupboard instead of towels? How many fathers wrote books on the importance of caves, root systems, and forgotten gods?
He could almost hear his mother’s voice in his ear. “Stuff Theo Eddows and stuff being normal. We are who we are and we live where we live.” He could feel her hands on his shoulders now. “Do you feel how old this place is, Buzz? These trees were here long before Theo Eddows, and they will be here long after him.” Buzz’s chest suddenly felt very tight, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe as sadness pushed all the air from his body. She’d left home six months ago now. Deep in the Amazon cloud forest, she’d been looking for a rare plant that would change the face of medicine forever. And then she was gone. Now no one could tell them where Natasha Buzzard and her team of botanists were. And as much as Buzz tried to tell himself that Mum would be home soon, it was getting harder.
“Hey, Buzz, you okay?” Mary asked. “You don’t look too great.”
Buzz took a gulping breath. “I’m fine—rea—”
“Help!” The hoarse cry shattered the quiet of the woods. “Is someone there? Help me, for the love of the gods, help me!”