Forest City Book 1

Chapter 11

"Mac! Come look at what I found," Hazel called.

I ran down the stairs, Hazel had started going through some things from the basement and from her study. Hazel had a small cardboard box that was labeled, "George Summerwood," this must be some of dad's things.

"Oh look at this picture," Hazel spoke in awe.

A small date was written at the bottom of the photograph it read, "Spring of '89." In the picture, my mom and dad stood in the same doorway of Hazel's apartment, dad was wearing his suit that he still wears to this day, and mom was wearing a cute floral dress, her curly blonde hair tied in a messy bun.

"Another picture! Look, Mac, do you recognize that wolf," Hazel asked.

In fact, I did, the picture had written at the bottom, "1982, George and Conall." My dad would have been 11 years old at the time and in the photo, he was playing pinball with Mr. Lupin.

Hazel giggled then said, "Conall used to date me in high school, oh, he was a charmer, it is a shame what he told Cobalt."

"What did he tell Cobalt?" I asked.

"Not to date outside his... species," Hazel said in disgust, "your grandfather also discouraged it, but at the time, Conall kept it all a secret, then he met her." She sighed.

There was another picture of my parents going to the Spring Fling with Mr. Lupin and a woman. I had an idea of who this woman might be. She was tall and slender, like most wolves that I had met and she was a bright blue color, though the picture was faded, I could tell how blue she was, her eyes were a pretty sky blue color. I wondered where she was now.

"That's Lovell, she's Cobalt's mother, she hasn't spoken to her son in years," Hazel said with disdain.

"What does she do nowadays?" I asked.

"I assume she still is a radio host, but she gave up on that dream a while ago, some say she remarried, but no one seems to know," Hazel pondered, "How could someone like her have love in her name?"

Hazel's words stung, she definitely doesn't have a big appreciation for Mrs. Lupin, I don't think she should be that rude to Lovell, maybe it was all a misunderstanding.

"So, is this arcade still open?" I asked, "I'm wondering if Monty would enjoy the arcade."

"Oh, it shut down, due to an... incident, sometime in '06, I think," Hazel answered.

"What was the incident?"

"They say, the owner went mad, two kids broke into the arcade and just disappeared, of course, they were found weeks later in Jungla, or as most people know it, Jungle City, the owner wasn't found, but as for the kids, they were hospitalized for months," Hazel answered in horror, "Just think about it, that could have been George and Conall."

"Who were the kids?" I asked curiously.

"Well, you know Bonnie, her brother was part of the incident and he suffered from a lot of trauma from it, we think he's 25 now, if he's still alive."

"What happened!?"

"He ran away from home when he was 19, Bonnie was only 4 at the time the incident happened and was 12 when he ran away."

"Is that why she's so... hard to befriend?"

"Mrs. O'Hare has been trying to keep this a family secret and told Bonnie to limit her friends."

"Why does Bonnie have to do that, her mother shouldn't control her like that!"

"Bonnie has a 'big mouth.'"

"That won't help anything if Bonnie can't talk about her own trauma!"

"It's not up to us to decide these things, Mac."

"I just don't see why that's going to help."

"Let's change the subject dear."

I pulled out a baseball from the box, dad had played baseball when he was younger, this must be his.

"Oh look! An old video game controller," Hazel said in delight, "Your dad bought his first video game systems back in '96, this is the remote to it, I wonder if we can find some games in here."

"I don't see any, Hazel," I replied.

That's when I heard a loud crash from outside, then yelling.

"Stay inside dear, sometimes this happens, if I tell you to get under something, you hide," Hazel said almost in a threatening tone. She grabbed a baseball bat from an umbrella stand next to the front door, and I watched Hazel from the kitchen. She creeped out the front door, a baseball bat raised. It almost feels like this exact thing has happened before.

I heard yelling and commotion outside, the voices sounded almost so familiar. A terrible feeling filled my gut, that feeling where you are so scared you want to vomit, when you want to help, but you are totally defenseless. I ran to the door shoving Aunt Hazel aside.

"Macadamia! What are you doing!?" Hazel screamed.

That terrible feeling rushed over my head, once more, seeing him cowering on the pavement helpless.