What He Wrote

Chapter 13

There wasn't much to do on hot summer weekdays in the small town of Catalina, Illinois. There was one country club that Josephine and Cleo were members of (although Cleo's membership was not willingly accepted) but you could really only go there if you planned on golfing, playing tennis, swimming laps, or sunbathing. There was also a community pool, but Cleo and I had been banned ever a round of chicken fighting went wrong. Our town lacked a stereotypical 50's diner to play the role of cliche teenage hangout, so many of Catalina's adolescents were forced to either twiddle their thumbs at home or make the drive to Chicago.

Since my mom usually stayed in a hotel near the cancer center in the city, the majority of Cleo and I's summer days were spent at my house praying for some sort of boredom-crushing miracle.

That day started out at the same as the rest. We were nearing the last month of summer, and we had started depending mainly upon caffeine to get us through the long days. We had a reputation of being regular bonfire crashers at night, and people had started expecting us to come although we were never invited. Of course, this led to sleepless nights, hence the coffee filled days.

"Is your doorbell broken?" Cleo walked back into the kitchen wearing cut off shorts and one of my many concert tees.

"Yeah it is, why?"

"There's a kid on your porch who's been standing there for, like, ten minutes."

"Why didn't you answer the door?" I said, hopping off the counter and putting down my cup of knock off Cheerios.

"It's your house."

Sighing, I ran to the door where a thirteen-maybe-fourteen year old was standing nervously.

"Hey, what's-"

"Tag!" The boy yelled before slapping something onto my chest.

"What the hell!" I shouted as he ran across the lawn, just barely clearing a rose bush and narrowly avoiding an oncoming minivan.

"What happened?" Cleo stood next to me, putting her chin on my shoulder. I pulled the taped paper off my shirt and read the familiar words.

"A tree whispered a secret/just the other day/of how he caught two lovers/in a different sort of play."

"Hold on, that's my poem! The one that ended up in the newspaper." Cleo pointed at the paper. "It's weird how every two lines of the poem are written in different handwriting."

I continued reading. "Another came to join them/wanting in the fun/but overcome with jealousy/he pulled out a shining gun. He told his dear to join him/or he'd shoot her lover dead...that's it."

"I know this by heart. 'But in the twisted tangle/he shot his wife instead.'"

"There's another paper." I handed it to Cleo so she could read it.

"'The poem has all the clues you need. Keep it going. Two lines, pass it on. Stay anonymous. See you at midnight."

"That's...creepy." I took the paper back.

"No it's not. It's an adventure! We've been waiting for something like this to happen all summer!" Her eyes shone with excitement, and I knew that no matter what I said or did, we would end up following this quest. But, I also knew it wouldn't hurt to at least try to convince her to forget about it.

"Someone's leading us on an anonymous scavenger hunt using a poem about tragedy. How does that not unsettle you?"

"Oh, come on. We have to do it! I wrote this poem. We can easily find where the clues are and if things take a turn for the worse we can forget we ever got the paper."