The Kids Aren't Alright

Chapter 31: Finn

About twenty minutes later, I hear footsteps.

I peer around the edge of the tree and spot a flash of blue— a camper's shirt— struggling through the underbrush. There's a large crack as the camper breaks through the foliage and into the clearing, stumbling with a steady determination towards the low-hanging branch of a white spruce.

The camper's sweaty mullet marks him as none other than Clancey Cleavon. For a moment, my vision flares red, and I forget everything Becca said about staying hidden. I throw myself out from behind the tree, already opening up my mouth to shout at him, but then Becca grabs my arm and pulls me back. "Don't," she warns.

I try to yank my arm away, but once again, her grip is surprisingly strong. "He's going to get the flag, he's going to win—"

"No, he's not." Becca's lips twitch upwards, and I think I must be hallucinating, because it looks like she's smiling. "Just trust me."

So I don't say anything. A second later, a triumphant shout rips through the air, and I catch a glimpse of Clancey, his face flushed with victory, pumping his arms up and down in the arm. A piece of blue fabric dangles from one of his meaty fists— the flag. Our flag.

I whip towards Becca. "How is this your plan? It sucks!"

"Just wait," Becca says, a bit breathlessly. "We aren't the real losers here."

"Do you not know to play this game? If Clancey gets that flag back to his side, we automatically lose."

"Of course I know the rules, Finn. But this isn't the only game I'm playing. It's called multi-tasking. Try to keep up."

A second shout tears through the stillness. For some reason, it makes me frown— there's something off about it, something different from the first shout.

"Like I said," Becca tells me. "We're not the real losers here."

And then the air isn't still anymore. It's vibrating. Humming. Like a swarm of angry—

"Seriously?" I demand. "Bees?"

Becca is full-out beaming now, her discolored eyes aglow with a fervent light. "Not bees. Hornets."

"How—"

She rises to her feet. I follow her up. "No more questions. We need to leave. Now!"

I try to get another look around the tree, to see what's going on with Clancey— but then Becca grabs my hand, and we're running, sprinting through the trees. We fly down the path like the devil himself is chasing us (I suppose, in some way, he is). When we get to the creek, we don't stop, we just splash straight through the water and over the rocks.

Ronan isn't napping like he promised. He's on his feet, staring off into the trees like he just saw a ghost. When Becca and I run past him, we startle him so badly that he nearly trips over his own feet.

"What—" he begins.

"Run!" Becca shouts at him.

Ronan's black eyes widen at something behind us. "Yeah. Running sounds good."

We continue onward. I don't look back to see if Ronan is following us— judging by the fear I saw on his face, I assume he is. I can only wonder what he saw before we arrived. Maybe I'll ask him about it later— provided that we aren't all dead by the end of this game.

Becca and I are deep in the other team's territory now, and I think that we're being chased (I'm pretty sure that I heard Matt Mernan hollering something behind us, though I may have started hallucinating after we broke the sound barrier), but we're both running too fast to be stopped. Even when we nearly collide with a distraught looking Jasper, we don't slow down— Becca just tells him what she told Ronan: run.

We sprint to the pond, where Becca's arm wrenches suddenly from my grasp and I stagger to a halt at the edge of the murky water. Emily pops out of the trees, her face drenched with sweat.

"I did what you asked," she says. "The other team doesn't know I'm here yet—"

"Great." Becca leaps forward, and in one brisk movement, pulls a sheet of brilliant red fabric out between two long, reedy cattails. "Here you go. Remember the plan!"

"Gotcha, captain." Emily snatches up the flag and darts away into the forest.

It all happens so quickly. The next thing I know, Emily is gone, and Matt Mernan is slapping me hard across the back.

"You're out," he tells me between gasps, but I'm too stunned to care.

"Aw," Becca says, her voice dripping with feigned disappointment, "you caught us."

Then Giselle comes running into the clearing. She's not as oblivious (or winded) as Mernan, because as soon as she sees Becca and I standing next to each other she hastily goes to check the flag's hiding spot. When she sees that the flag isn't there anymore, she lets out a frustrated scream. "Matt! Where the hell is it?"

"Where's what?"

"The flag, you idiot!"

Matt frowns at her. Then he frowns at me. "Do you have it?"

"Nope."

He turns to Becca. "Do you have it?"

"Nope!"

A few more campers are trundling out of the trees now, drawn towards the sound of our voices. I even see Ronan fight his way out of the bushes and start striding around the pond towards us. From the look on his face, he's even more pissed off than usual.

Far away in the woods, a whistle blows.

Giselle's head whips up. "No. Fucking. Way."

I turn to her and smile. "Well. That's the game."

"Listen here, you little twerp—" Giselle begins, before a commotion in the forest abruptly shuts her up.

It's the buzzing from earlier. And it's getting closer.

"Finn!" Ronan shouts at me from across the pond. (The literal pond, not the Atlantic Ocean.) His timing couldn't be any worse. "What did you do?"

Giselle wheels towards me. "You did this?"

"I don't even know what this is!" I reply. "Ask Becca—"

"If someone doesn't explain what's going on in the next three seconds, I'm drowning one of these campers in the pond," Giselle threatens.

"I didn't do anything, I promise! I was with Becca, and she told me to run, so I did—"

Matt tilts his ears towards the trees. "Guys," he says. Nobody pays him any attention. He repeats, more forcibly this time, "Guys!"

"What the hell is it now, Mernan?" Giselle demands.

"That sound," Mernan remarks. A funny look passes over his face. "I think it's buzzing."

Which might be the most observant thing he's ever said.

Suddenly, Emily comes crashing out of the underbrush, a huge smile across her face. There isn't a flag in her hands now, and I know that she must have sprinted back across the creek and dropped it off at our side. We did it. We won.

But I don't have time to relish our victory, because seconds later, the air explodes.

"Jump!" Becca shouts. At first, this doesn't make sense, but then her message becomes clear as she runs right past us and into the pond. There's an enormous splash as she throws herself into the muddy water and sinks like a stone.

"What the—" Ronan shouts.

And then the buzzing is upon us.