“Christopher.”
hi, christopher. it’s so nice to meet you. where are you right now?
“I ma in teh library.”
you have trouble with letters, huh? which library?
“At scohol.”
which school do you go to? don’t tell me. mill grove elementary, right?
“How did yuo konw?”
lucky guess. are you liking school?
“It’s oaky.”
when are you leaving for the day?
Christopher stopped. Something felt wrong to him. He typed.
“Who is this?”
There was silence. The cursor blinked.
“Who are you?” Christopher typed again.
Silence again. Christopher watched the cursor blink and blink. The air was still and quiet. But he could feel something. A tightness in the air. Like staying under the covers too long.
“Hello?” Christopher asked the empty library.
Christopher looked around the stacks. He thought someone might be hiding. He started to get a panicked feeling. Like back in Michigan when Jerry would come home from the bar in a bad mood.
“Hello?” he called out again. “Who’s there?”
He felt this prickle on the back of his neck. Like when his mom used to kiss him good night. A whisper without words. He heard the computer beep. He looked over. He saw the person’s reply.
a friend
When Mrs. Henderson came back, the screen went blank. She looked at his math work and told him that he should ask Ms. Lasko for help. In the meantime, she gave him three books for the weekend to help with his reading. There was an old book with a lot of words. Then, there were two fun books. Bad Cat Eats the Letter Z and a Snoopy. Snoopy wasn’t as good as Bad Cat. But Snoopy was still great. Especially with his cousin Spike from Needles. That word. Needles.
So many e’s.
When the bell rang, Mrs. Henderson walked Christopher to the parking lot. Christopher waved goodbye as she and her husband got in their old minivan. Ms. Lasko got in her cherry-red sports car that must have cost a million fifty-cent milks. One by one, the teachers left. And the students. The twin brothers—“Pirate Parrot” and “Two Moms Mike”—threw their little plastic football as they got on the school bus. Special Ed blew a raspberry from the bus, which made Christopher smile. Then, the last buses left. And when everyone was gone, Christopher looked around for the security guard.
But he wasn’t there.
And Christopher was alone.
He sat down on a little bench and waited in the parking lot for his mother to come pick him up for Movie Friday. He tried to think about that instead of the bad feeling he was having. The feeling that something could get him. He was nervous waiting outside. And he just wanted his mom to get there early today.
Where was she?
The thunder clapped. Christopher looked at his math test. 4 out of 10. He had to work harder. He picked up the first book. A Child’s Garden of Verses. It was old. Kind of dusty. Christopher could feel the spine creak a little. The leather cover smelled a little like baseball gloves. There was a name in the front cover. Written in pencil.
D. Olson
Christopher turned the pages until he found a picture he liked. Then, he settled in and started reading. The words were scrambled.
Up itno the cehrry tere
Woh shuold cilmb but ltitle me?
Suddenly a shadow cut across the page. Christopher looked up. And saw it drifting overhead, blocking out the light.
It was the cloud face.
As big as the sky.
Christopher closed the book. The birds went silent. And the air got chilly. Even for September. He looked around to see if anyone was watching. But the security guard was still nowhere to be seen. So, Christopher turned back to the cloud face.
“Hello? Can you hear me?” he asked.
There was a low rumble in the distance. A thunderclap.
Christopher knew it could be a coincidence. He may have been a poor student, but he was a smart kid.
“If you can hear me, blink your left eye.”
Slowly, the cloud blinked its left eye.
Christopher went quiet. Scared for a moment. He knew it wasn’t right. It wasn’t normal. But it was amazing. A plane flew overhead, shifting the cloud face and making it smile like the Cheshire Cat.
“Can you make it rain when I ask you to?”
Before he got out the last word, sheets of rain began to pour over the parking lot.
“And make it stop?”
The rain stopped. Christopher smiled. He thought it was funny. The cloud face must have understood he was laughing, because it started to rain. And then stop. And rain. And then stop. Christopher laughed a Bad Cat laugh.
“Stop. You’ll ruin my school clothes!”
The rain stopped. But when Christopher looked up, the cloud started to drift away. Leaving him all alone again.
“Wait!” Christopher called out. “Come back!”
The cloud drifted over the hills. Christopher knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help himself. He started walking after it.
“Wait! Where are you going?”
There was no sound. Just sheets of rain. But somehow, it didn’t touch Christopher. He was protected by the eye of the storm. Even if his sneakers got soaked from the wet street. His red hoodie remained dry.
“Please, don’t leave!” he yelled out.
But the cloud face kept drifting. Down the road. To the baseball field. The rain trickling on the clay-caked dirt. Dust like tears. Down the highway where cars honked and skidded in the rain. Into another neighborhood with streets and houses he didn’t recognize. Hays Road. Casa. Monterey.
The cloud face drifted over a fence and above a grass field. Christopher finally stopped at a large metal sign on the fence near a streetlight. It took him a long time to sound out the words, but he finally figured out they said…
COLLINS CONSTRUCTION COMPANY
MISSION STREET WOODS PROJECT
NO TRESPASSING
“I can’t follow you anymore. I’ll get in trouble!” Christopher called out.
The cloud face hovered for a moment, then drifted away. Off the road. Behind the fence.
Christopher didn’t know what to do. He looked around. He saw that no one was watching. He knew it was wrong. He knew he wasn’t supposed to. But Christopher climbed under the construction site’s fence. Snagging his little red hoodie. Once he untangled himself, he stood on the field, covered in wet grass and mud and rain. He looked up in awe.
The cloud was HUGE.
The smile was TEETH.
A happy SMILE.
Christopher smiled as the thunder clapped.
And he followed the cloud face
Off the cul-de-sac.
Down the path.
And into the Mission Street Woods.
Chapter 6
Christopher looked up. He couldn’t see the cloud face anymore. That’s how thick the trees were. He could still hear the rain, but not a drop fell to earth. The ground was still dry. Cracked like old skin. It felt like the trees were a big umbrella. An umbrella keeping something safe.
Christopher
Christopher turned around. The hairs on his neck stood up.
“Who’s there?” he said.
There was silence. A quiet, shallow breathing. It might have been the wind. But something was here. Christopher could feel it. Like the way you know when someone is staring at you. The way he knew Jerry was a bad man long before his mother did.