The Place Where Promises Aren’t Kept [Chapter 27]

The first day back to school after a vacation is the worst. You’re all tired from having to wake up early again, and the day seems like it goes on forever. Those are one of the times where I hope to wake up and find out school is randomly canceled. That Tuesday, in fact, just happened to be one of those surprise days.

So it was like this; you know how you wake yourself up sometimes even without an alarm because you know you have to get up? That was me that Tuesday. My mom hadn’t come to turn on my light and yell at me. The clock beside my bed, though, was way past the normal time I was supposed to be up. I jumped up and ran downstairs to double-check the clock on the oven. That was the clock that always told the best, most correct time.

My mom was in the kitchen, unloading the dishwasher. I looked at her, then the clock again. She smirked at me.

“Looks like you can get up on your own after all. But it’s your lucky day, school got canceled.”

I ran to the window. I thought it had been pretty cold, but it seemed too soon in the year for snow. Well, there wasn’t any snow. Not even a drop of rain, either. If there was no snow to play in, I decided that I would do the next best thing; go back to bed.

Jess and I ran into each other on the stairs. She was dressed up in her nice clothes and carrying her backpack, heading downward.

“School is canceled, Jess,” I said to her. I silently laughed that she had gotten herself ready for nothing.

“Only your school,” she said with a sigh. “I don’t know what’s happening, but mom got one of those robotic calls saying that the middle school had to shut down for the day.”

“Why?”

“As if I’d know that,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Enjoy your extra day off, I guess, kiddo.”

I was almost ready to climb back into bed when I heard the phone go off downstairs. Not long after, I heard my mom’s voice calling up to my room.

“Mike, get dressed and get down here, now! I need to drop your sister off, then we need to go by your school.”

Her tone sounded really grumpy. I wanted to ask why we had to go to the school, but I was afraid to do so. I just did what I was told.

It was silent in the car as we went from the high school to Northview. It felt really weird heading that way when it was so late and I didn’t have any of my school stuff. The parking lot, which was usually full and swarmed with kids and parents, was mostly empty… except for a pair of police cars parked way up front.

My mom led the way as we went to the office. Inside the door, the Principal, Mr. Adams, and three whole police officers were inside.

“There we go,” Mr. Adams said nicely. “Thank you two for coming in. Now, everything’s alright, we just had a question or two to ask.”

I looked at the policemen. They glanced at me but didn’t say anything back. They sat in the little office chairs with all of their policemen gear on the belts.

Mr. Adams and the Principal asked us to go into the Principal’s office with them. We did, and then they shut the door. I saw a picture that kind of looked familiar, printed out on the desk. We all sat.

“I highly doubt any of this has to do with you, Mike, but you might be able to lead us to who’s involved,” Mr. Adams said. “What with all the sleuthing you did a few weeks ago.”

The lady Principal nodded like she was agreeing. She then said something worse. “The only thing is, as a school, we have to take threats like this seriously.”

“Threat?” My mom said like she didn’t understand the word.

Mr. Adams nodded. “We got a call from a parent last night. Their child had received an email with the subject line ‘don’t come to school tomorrow.’ It also had a picture of one of our students holding a gun. This picture, to be exact.”

Mr. Adams pulled the picture off the desk. I recognized it immediately. It was me, all in my hunting gear, holding my uncle’s hunting rifle. The picture was zoomed in, leaving only me and the arm belonging to my cousin visible.

“Unbelievable!” my mom said, jerking forward in her chair.

“That is you, correct, Mr. Shepherd?” The Principal asked, her eyes narrow and distrusting.

“Yeah…” I said, nodding and swallowing hard.

Mr. Adams sighed and nodded. “The email was also addressed to several other addresses. We haven’t yet heard from them, so we assume they just haven’t seen the message. And we haven’t yet identified the sender yet, either. Perhaps one of you can tell us about this image?”

I knew everything.

My mom spoke before I could. “That picture was just taken over the break, I’d have to guess. My husband, Mike, and Mike’s cousins and uncle went on a hunting trip. We don’t even own any guns at our house. That gun there that Mike is holding belongs to Dave, my brother-in-law. I told him, specifically, that none of the kids would get their hands on any of those guns! Well, either way, Dave and his guns are long gone now. But Mike… this picture must have come off of Uncle Dave’s camera the other day, right?”

“It was Kyle again,” I shouted. My hands were tight on the edge of the seat.

Mr. Adams leaned down on his knees in his chair. “That is a serious accusation, Mike. Are you one hundred percent sure?”

“How did Kyle get that photo?” My mom asks suddenly. Her hand was on my hand. “I thought he was still grounded.”

“He was online Saturday night,” I said. “He was on this instant messaging program we have. To talk to each other. He didn’t believe that I had been hunting. So I sent him that picture. The full picture has all of us in it. Dad took it with Uncle Dave’s camera. I can… print out the stuff that I said to Kyle, maybe.”

Mr. Adams nodded. “That would probably be helpful. But before that, let’s get Kyle in here. With his mom this time.”

I shouted out, interrupting, as Mr. Adams got ready to stand up. “Are those police officers going to arrest him?”

The Principal sighed at me. “Mr. Shepherd. You saw that we had to shut down the school today. All of your classmates are now missing out on their learning. A handful of students, too, probably are afraid of an act of violence possibly occurring at this very school. Even if was a joke, a prank, it was an entirely disruptive one. So yes, there will be a lot coming to whoever decided to send that message.”

Me and my mom sat outside the principal’s office. The policemen went inside for a little bit, then came back out. Kyle and his mom came through the doors of the office a little bit later. My mom hugged his mom and they whispered something to each other. Mr. Adams greeted them and led just the two of them into the principal’s office. Kyle stared at me without a word on his way in.

A while later, I heard crying. It was Kyle. He came out with his mom holding his shoulder. His mom frowned and looked at my mom.

“You stupid jerk!” Kyle yelled at me through his tears. “It was a joke! Why do you have to tattle like that!”

His mom pushed him through the door before he could say any more. Mr. Adams stepped up to me and my mom and sighed. “A joke can only be funny if it doesn’t put down others. And nothing that happens to him, Mike, is any of your fault, No is there anything you have to be worried about. He brought that on himself. At the very least, he was able to tell the truth when it came down to it.”

My mom patted my hair. “Aren’t we glad we had Mike here to figure it out for us?” She said and laughed.

Mr. Adams smiled. “We’ll talk to the other kids and parents who got those messages from Kyle. Make sure that your face isn’t the one they imagine if they hear about all this business.”

“And we’ll make sure to erase that image with the guns,” my mom added, “Isn’t that right, Mike?”

“Yeah…” I nodded.

“I guess the only thing left for you two to do is enjoy the rest of this day off,” Mr. Adams concluded.

As we started driving away from the school, my mom let out a big sigh. The biggest I had ever heard. “I guess I owe you yet another apology. On top of the one for having Mr. Adams keep tabs on you.”

“Huh?” I asked.

My mom patted my hand while still keeping her eyes on the road. “You told both the school councilor and me that you had bad feelings about Kyle from the beginning. And here I was, so happy that you had a new friend. I kept wanting you to be friends with him, even if he did always act the way he did. I’ll try and believe you more from now on. And I hope you feel like you’re able to talk to me, as always.”

I nodded. My stomach growled.

“And I guess we ran out of the house so fast that you forgot to eat breakfast,” my mom added. “At the very, very, least, we can go out right now and get something special to make up for it.”

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The Place Where Promises Aren’t Kept [Chapter 25]

When you look out at the forest for a long time, looking for nothing, it is actually really boring. I had imagined seeing a zoo of animals, taking turns passing through the area. Those imaginary animals were probably finding food or water, or others of their species, moving through to go back to their homes and dens. There was nothing. Only the occasional falling leaves.

If I were playing Rune Quest, I could have probably gotten a whole level from hunting by then. From those virtual animals, you got leather for simple armor and meat for cooking and eating. Hunting in real life only got you colder and hungrier.

My dad was fiddling with the rifle in his lap. I figured my dad knew how to use it. I had never heard of him going hunting, at least since I had been born. But I guessed he and my uncle had gone before, way back in the day.

I was about ready to cry out from boredom. Then Seth perked up. He didn’t say anything, but he raised his finger through the hole to the far end of that little clearing there. There it was; a beast on four legs, with great big antlers rising up from either side of its head. It nibbled carefully at what was probably old, not yet dried-out grass.

“What a beauty,” my dad whispered.

“That’s there’s an elk, Mike,” Todd said in my ear.

“And those antlers,” my uncle added, his voice just as quiet. “Those would look great hung up on the wall. this may the be one chance we get today, folks.”

My dad took a deep breath. “I should let you get this one, Dave. I don’t know how tight my shot is these days.”

“It would be my honor,” my uncle nodded. Seth and Todd sat up on their knees, trying their best not to make a peep. I held my breath and watched the elk. It was like it had its own camouflage there in the woods. My uncle pressed the far end of the rifle against his shoulder and held the other end with his free hand.

“Hands over your ears, boys,” my dad warned. “It’ll be loud.”

My uncle barely breathed there, looking down the sight. I was afraid of finding out what would happen when the shot was taken when the elk was shot. What sort of sound it would make. How it would fall over. If it would explode into a million pieces.

I couldn’t look. I watched the trigger being tickled by my uncle’s pointer finger. He was still aiming, I guessed. It had to be perfect, or the elk would not get hit and just run away. His finger moved in. I was holding my breath, but I couldn’t hold it any longer.

Just as if felt like it was going to go off, I screamed the loudest scream of my life. All of that breath from my lungs was released in an instant. My uncle jumped back. My dad and cousins did too. I heard the echo of my scream, but nothing else. The Elk pulled its head up, then dashed off.

“What in the world?” My uncle said, back at his normal volume. “I thought we were being attacked here ourselves.”

Seth punched at my shoulder. Not enough to really hurt, but enough to remind me that I had messed up. “What the heck, Mike?”

“I… got bit by an ant,” I said. It was a lie, of course. I shook my hand to make it more convincing. Nobody was convinced.

My uncle slumped down. He flipped the safety back on the gun and set it across his lap. “Well, I reckon we scared off every elk, boar and squirrel within ten miles of here with that.”

My dad and cousins laughed. “Well, let’s have an early lunch while we wait for them to come back,” my dad said.

Back The Way We Came

My mom had packed sandwiches for lunch. They turned out to be leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner the night before. Thanksgiving dinners always have the most leftovers. Even if you have relatives come over and eat with you.

The sandwiches had turkey (of course) and little bits of other stuff from dinner the night before. The turkey was dry and the bread was soggy. It was a combination that made no sense. I ate it anyways because I was hungry and there was little else.

Well, there was jerky. My uncle had made it himself. I was afraid to ask if it had come from something he had hunted. It was drier than the turkey in the sandwich but in a good way.

My uncle took a couple more pictures of us there under the camouflage fort. We stood around outside and stretched our legs for a bit. I even dared to relieve myself there out in nature. We returned to the fort and chatted quietly while taking turns watching for any animals coming by.

I guess my scream had disrupted the entire ecosystem there, right down to the earthworms underground. We saw no more animals, save for one squirrel scrambling through a high tree. Seth told me that people did hunt them, but it was illegal during that time of year. I didn’t ask to find out if people actually ate them.

It became the afternoon. There were a few sighs between my dad and my uncle and cousins. I tried to act a little disappointed too when we crawled out and started packing up the fort. After the long march back to the road, we packed everything back up into my Uncle’s truck. Before I knew it, we were pulling back into my driveway (I had fallen asleep on the ride back).

My mom and aunt and sister had been out shopping all morning. There are lots of sales on the day after Thanksgiving. It’s called Black Friday, in case you didn’t know. Well, the lot of us were just as excited as me about heating up and eating leftovers, so we decided to go out to a restaurant instead.

“I’m guessing no luck with the hunt?” My mom asked.

“Nah,” Seth said first with a laugh, “Mike was afraid we were going to kill a nice, friendly Elk so he screamed and sent it off running just as dad was ready to pull the trigger!”

My family laughed at the situation. I guess you could say they weren’t laughing with me.

My mom was sitting by me. She patted me on the shoulder. “An elk, huh? Well, if you had brought it down, we would have had to see its big, bloody carcass on the back of your truck, Dave.”

“And we’d be having elk steak for dinner tonight, too,” my uncle responded with a chuckle that my dad joined in on. “But this is the next best thing.”

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