I leave the tree and head towards where I started. I reach my house and try to open the back gate in the one spot that our dog-eared privacy fence opens, but I realized I locked it last night after I came home from Alicia's house. . . That one night tuined my last day of school and now I won't have a chance to redeem myself to all of my classmates. Just thinking of this sends a sick feeling to my gut knowing that I'll get tormenting messages in all hours of the night with no chance to explain in person or make a fake excuse about what I did. Live and learn, I guess; live and learn.
After about 15 minutes of trying to climb the five-foot fence to no avail, I decide to do something much simpler and walk the length of the creek until I reach my neighbor's alpaca farm to have a lovely greeting by their gaurd ostrich, Hank. As I walk around the fence I notice another camera, this one mounted on my porch. Why are the Hendits putting cameras on me, I thought. Then I think of the last line of the note "All eyes are on you ♡." The thought sends a chill fown my spine. I think about taking the camera down but I decided I should see what these guys had in store for me before I ruin this little mash-up game of catch-me-if-you-can and Slender Man.
When I reached the bank of the creek, covered in flat stones and smooth pebbles, I begin to appreciate the sereneness of where I live. This little creek and hoe it always flows, the kotappa tree and how it blooms every summer, the shade that this little wooded area gives in the hot months and how they stop the kids sledding down the hills in the forrest.
I begin to lose my train of thought just thinking to myself and I end up accidentally stepping in the creek water. Shit, I think to myself and I look down to see my wet Converse I see a used condom float past my foot. This somehow brings me back to reality and I realized that I just barely passed the alpaca farm. I walk back and start up to the property from a slope that goes down to the creek. When I approach the fenceline I'm greeted by Hank and 3 of their 6 alpaca's. I look around for a peice of paper or a camera for a few minutes until I notice a piece of paper and (suprise, surpise) another camera on the shed they keep Hank in. I run over to where the note is placed and the animals follow suit. When I take the note off the side of the shed I hear the door open to the shed and I'm greeted by one of my lovely neighbors, Coaclhella or Ella for short. She is a transgender woman married to another transgender woman, Allain, who she met in a correctional facility.
"Well howdy, Trent!" Coachella says in her usual octave that was about 3 times louder than my voice.
"Hi, Mrs. Tehewt." I reply.
"Do ya mind me askin' what brings ya to this side of the field?" she asks.
"Ummm. . . . . I'm on a hunt to find notes that the Hendits are leaving around the neighborhood and one of them led me to your house. I'm just gonna take this note off of Hank's shed and I'll be on my way."
"How long have you been at this little find our notes and um. . . . . . cameras?" She raises an eyebrow that looks like it's recently been waxed or plucked.
"Uh---," I try to reply but she cuts me off.
"Too long, come inside and relax with me and Allain for a little while those Hendit kids will send you to about three more houses and then meet back at the kotappa tree down at the creek and dare you to ask Ms. Matdaya a question."
"How do you---"
"Come inside and I will tell you everything I know." She opens a gate to the alpaca field and leads me through it shoving past a couple of he prizes animals and rubbing Hank's bald head. When she finally leads me into the house she sits me down in a large arm chair in her living room as I rest my body into it I begin to sink into the cushions and after about thirty seconds I am one with the leather chair.
She sits down in a matching love seat where her partener is passed out with a half-eaten piece of pizza on the arm of the leather seat. Coachella repositioned herself in the seat after she sat.
"I'm going to explain how I know ehat the Hendit's are doing to you." She pauses and then says, "I lived here before I had my hormone opperations and going to prison and I was best friends with Harold, the Hendit's father, he had three other siblings and they pulled a prank on one of the neighborhood kids each summer the day the got out of school. They would sent them on elaborate missions only to have whoever they picked be sent to Mr. Newrit's house and ask for a summer job."
"Oh. . ." I say, wondering if she had been a victim of this odd prank before. "So what happens if they didn't ask or just didnt do it?"
"Well on the last place where the note was set it would say the conscequences if you didn't ask for the job. There wouldnt be any conscequence for those who skipped all but the last stop for the notes, which was the same each year, but those who didn't follow the notes instructions met their fate the summer after they were chosen and duct taped to the final note stop as a warning for others."
"Where was the spot that they put the last note?" I ask.
"It was the oak tree in the Hendit's yard," She answers.
"Cool, that's right by her house," I say "if you don't mind I'm gonna want to get this over with so, um, thanks for the information you're a real life saver Ella. I. . . I really apreciate it."
"No problem, I just didn't want to see another neighborhood kid get hurt."
I get up out the extremely confortable chair and head for the door. I look back at Ella and Allain. Ella wavea at me and and tells me to go on. I smileand turn towards the door.
YOU ARE READING
Secret Neighborhood
General FictionTrent is just a boy, but where he lives is the most interesting part about him. He lives in a neighborhood placed in a wooded area and almost anything goes. He lives across the street from a meth lab ran by 3 of the kids in his class, which he is...
