chapter three
─── the running theory; grover got me hooked on drugs
ℑt's bad of me to say, but I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal. It was a cruel move, but he was freaking me out more than I already was. He kept muttering "why does this always happen to me?" and "I can't believe she saw that".
What would you have done in my shoes? Followed him willingly?
As soon as we arrived, Grover raced off to the toilet, asking me to wait there. I did not. Instead, I caught the first taxi that I could, suitcase in tow.
"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.
I know, as a seventeen year old, it doesn't look great running away from a twelve year old but I promise it was for a good reason. That's what I was telling myself in the taxi anyway.
Just a quick thing to note before you meet the most amazing, beautiful and best person in the world, my mother. Her name's Sally Jackson and she's a goddess on earth, of that there is no doubt.
Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.
The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad. That's what she said anyway. I wouldn't know, considering I never even met the guy. He's just this shadowy figure in my earliest memories. I don't ask mom about him much, cause it makes her sad, and you don't want to make her sad.
The only thing I know is that he is apparently lost at sea. Which is pretty much 'dead' in my books.
She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I wasn't an easy kid, even I knew that.
Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him, then showed his true colours as a world class dickhead. When I was young, I nicknamed him Smelly Gabe.
Now, you might think that I being rude, but I promise you that I'm not. This dude literally smells like gone off eggs mixed with sour milk wrapped in a boy's PE bag. It might be one of the major reasons that we never got along with each other, considering I call him that to his face most of the time.
I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet, and my nose wrinkled in disgust.
Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."
"Where's my mom?" I pulled my jacket tighter around me, glaring at the other men in the room.
"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"
Gabe had put on weight since I had last seen him. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes. In all honesty, he reminded me of Homer Simpson, with three hairs combed over his bald scalp. Supposedly, Smelly Gabe had a job managing the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but how he hadn't been fired was still a mystery to us all, considering he stayed at home, smoked, drank beer and gambled.
"I don't have any cash," I told him, sneering.
He raised a greasy eyebrow. Despite being useless at nearly everything in life, he somehow could sniff money out like a bloodhound.
"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. "Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, she ought to carry her own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"
"Come on, Gabe," Eddie was the only semi decent guy that Gabe played poker with, meaning he had never ogled at me every time I walked into a room. "The kid's just got here."
"Am I right ? " Gabe repeated.
Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels, as the two other men leered at me. I huffed, before slamming the money down onto the table, hoping to get far from their gaze.
"Fine," I glowered. "Here's hoping that you lose miserably."
"Your report card came, brain girl!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"
I shot him the finger behind his back, slamming the door to my room, that was supposedly Gabe's 'study'. I'm not sure why he needed one, considering he didn't work at all.
Dropping my suitcase on the bed, I threw open the window to get rid of the stench of this place. Home sweet home.
"Dree?" I heard my mother's voice, as she opened the door, and every thought in my head melted away.
Everyone says that I look like my mom. We have the same dark hair, and apparently a similar 'timeless' smile (that compliment still confused me), apart from my eyes. I had my father's eyes.
"Oh, Dree," She hugged me tight, and I curled into her side, breathing in the smell of candy that came off of her clothes. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas! And my baby's almost eighteen!"
We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the raspberry bon-bons that she had got from work, she ran her hand through my hair, de-tangling it, and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters.
She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her (not so) little girl all right?
From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally—how about some bean dip, huh?"
I gritted my teeth, as I hugged my mom tighter and thought about all the ways I could get rid of the man next door.
For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said.
I was explaining everything in the most upbeat tone that I could use, until I thought of the trip to the museum and I stilled.
"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"
"No, mom. You know nothing scares me," I grinned. As much as I wanted to tell her, I didn't want her to worry. She had enough on her plate without this adding to it.
"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."
My eyes widened, as I began to get excited. "Montauk?"
"Three nights—same cabin."
"When?"
She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."
I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money. I had accused him that it was because of his gambling addiction we had no money. A black eye the next day reminded me that I probably shouldn't be saying things like that.
Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"
I took a deep breath, reminding myself that I had to play nice, even if I didn't like it.
"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."
Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"
"He's not going to let us go," I hissed.
"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your step-father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."
Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip...it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"
"Yes, honey," my mother said.
"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."
"We'll be very careful."
Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip ... And maybe if the kid apologises for interrupting my poker game."
I took a deep breath and tried not to scream in frustration, before smiling at the man.
"I'm really sorry," I muttered, trying to keep the sweet smile on my face. "For interrupting your incredibly important poker game. Please, return to it."
Gabe's eyes narrowed, his little brain whirring as he thought about what I had just said, before he gave up.
"Whatever."
"Thank you, Dree." My mom squeezed me tightly. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about...whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"
She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.
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An hour later we were ready to leave.
Gabe was taking a break from his poker game to watch me load up the car, moaning all the time about the loss. It's not like he even left the house so why was he moaning about us having the car?
"Not a scratch on this car, little girl," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."
That was the precise reason that my mom didn't let me drive the car. She knew that if I was given half the chance, I would t-total it just to spite Gabe.
She wasn't wrong, of course, that was definitely something I would do.
As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stair-case as if he'd been shot. I snickered at that, before stepping into the car and waiting for mom to take off.
Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island, in the middle of nowhere. The little pastel box had sunk further into the dunes since I had last been here two or three years ago, but it mattered little to the both of us.
There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in. But I loved it all the same. This was mine and mom's place, and for the weekend, I could pretend that it was just the two of us living without Gabe.
As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the colour of the sea.
We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.
I should probably explain the whole blue food thing.
See, most people thought that I got my pettiness and passive aggressiveness from my father, what they didn't know was that it actually came from my lovely mother, who was very good at holding a grudge and being petty about arguments that had occurred years ago.
Her and Gabe had got into this really bad fight, and something about blue food had come up in it. Now, she made it her life's mission to eat blue food whenever she could. I had blue birthday cake, blue candy, blue smoothies and blue cookies. This and calling herself by her maiden name instead of Ugliano, was clear proof that my mother was clearly the best.
When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.
Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk—my father. Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.
"He was kind, Dree, like a prince in a fairy tale," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his dark hair, and his eyes."
She stared wistfully at the ocean and I wondered if I'd ever find the sort of love that she seemed to have for him even after so many years. It was sweet.
"I wish he could see you, Dree. He would be so proud." I raised an eyebrow at that. There wasn't much to be proud of about me. I was a girl who had a penchant for trouble and getting expelled from schools, and a report card full of Fs and Us. What was there to be proud of?
"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean...when he left?"
She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Dree. Right here at this beach. This cabin."
"But...he knew me as a baby."
"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born." I felt my temper boil inside of me, but took a deep breath so that mom couldn't see the anger on my face.
"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her, looking up as she stoked the fire. "To another boarding school?"
"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy, full of tiredness. "I think...I think we'll have to do something."
"Because you don't want me around?" I regretted the words as soon as they were out.
My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Dree, no. I—I have to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away."
"Because I'm not normal," I stated, remembering my conversation with Mr. Brunner, and scowling.
"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Dree. But you don't realise how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."
"Safe from what?"
She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me—all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget, like that time I'd strangled a snake (though we don't talk about that incident).
In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.
I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had killed someone. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that. I just wanted some alone time with my mom.
"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Dree—the place your father wanted to send you. And I just...I just can't stand to do it."
"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"
"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."
I raised an eyebrow at the thought. A summer camp? Seriously? So the guy couldn't be asked to stay around to see me at all, but he could tell my mom about a summer camp? Real classy.
"I'm sorry, Dree," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I—I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."
"For good? But if it's only a summer camp..."
She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry. I didn't want her to cry.
That ended our conversation, and I went to bed soon after, leaving my mom staring at the fire, deep in thought. But it seemed that there was no such thing as peace, because I had a weird dream that night.
It was stormy. The type of storm that you always saw in the movie before two characters fought against one another. If I was better at English, I'd be able to tell you the literary device that it was called.
Two animals were trying to kill each other on the beach, a large horse and a golden eagle. The eagle swooped down, raking the horse's muzzle with its huge talons, but the horse retaliated by kicking the eagle's wings.
As they battled, the ground rumbled and a monstrous voice chuckled, urging the animals to fight harder. I ran towards them, trying to stop them from killing each other, but it was like I was running in a horror movie. In other words, I was getting nowhere.
Just as they were about to kill one another, I woke to the sound of a storm. But it didn't seem like a normal storm, this one had waves easily 20 feet tall, and all of the trees were creaking in the wind.
With the next thunderclap, mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."
It was early summer, so hurricanes should not be happening now. Not at all. Unfortunately, the sea did not seem to have got that memo, as it pounded on sands and if I listened particularly carefully, someone was screaming in rage and pain.
Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice—someone was pounding on our cabin door.
My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock to reveal Grover, except he wasn't really Grover? It was hard to explain.
"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"
My mother looked at me in terror—not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.
"Dree," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"
I was in the middle of a mid-life crisis (one of many as of late) as I stared at Grover, my mouth opening and closing slowly.
"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her?"
My crisis continued as I realised that I could understand Grover speaking in what seemed to be Ancient Greek. But that was by far the strangest thing tonight. No, the weirdest thing was Grover's legs.
My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: "Dree. Tell me now!"
I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.
She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. Go! "
I stood up on shaky legs, grabbing my backpack and jacket as I tried to make sense of Grover and his weird, furry legs and the fact that there were hoofs where his feet should be. I came to the only logical conclusion of the day; Grover was definitely the one who'd been giving me drugs.
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Hiya,
Andromeda is a mood and we're almost getting to Camp Half-Blood which I'm super excited about because that means we get to meet Luke!
Let me know what you think,
Love Li xx