I slam the door, burst through the brush, and run off in a frantic zigzag, looking over my shoulder every five seconds.
Someone was in the house. Someone saw the secret garden. Someone knows!
It dawns on me as soon I hit the porch steps that I’m still carrying the materials I stole from school.
I slink around the house and find a man standing in the backyard.
“Mr. Watson!” I yelp.
His head snaps up and he looks neither surprised nor happy to see me. Just a chronic state of indifference. In his hands are the overalls and shirt I leave under the deck.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
He glances at the clothes in his hands, inspecting them, checking their tags.
“Your mother called,” he says nonchalantly. “Asked me to replace the gutters. I was just taking some measurements. Are these . . . yours?”
I swallow, keeping my distance. “Yeah. They’re my garden gear.”
“Oh,” he says, handing them over, his nose twitching. Can he smell the bud baked into the jeans? Is he going to tell Mom? What was he doing digging under the deck in the first place?
“Shopping?” he asks, noticing my bags.
“Yeah. I have a . . . science project to finish.”
“Hm,” he muses, then points next door. “You ain’t . . . going in any of these houses no more, are you?”
How did he know about that?
“No,” I say impassively. “I’ve learned my lesson.”
Mr. Watson frowns. It wasn’t the answer he was expecting. “Well, just be careful. These houses are dangerous.”
He nods and walks away. I follow, unsure how I missed his Volvo parked out front. Guess my mind was too preoccupied with the idea of going to prison.
“Yusef, that’s . . . a completely ridiculous idea.”
I laugh until the point of tears during another one of our late-night chats I’ve almost become accustomed to. They’re better than pretending to sleep while waiting for police to come crashing through our front door.
“Nah, you just ain’t got vision,” Yusef insists.
“A gardening competition show?”
“Yeah! It’d be like a showdown to see who could come up with the dopest layouts and landscape arrangements. Like, imagine they dropped our team in some random trash backyard and gave us two hours and a thousand-dollar budget to turn it into an oasis.”
“Our team?”
“Yeah! You’d have to be on my team. You got terrarium skills. And don’t think I didn’t peep the way you arranged those tulip bulbs in GC. We’d smash the competition.”
My heart flutters. Gardening compliments seem to have more meaning coming from him.
“Dude, who is going to watch this show?”
“Everybody! People love them baking shows. Making flying cupcakes and crap in less than twenty minutes. Why not ours?”
“Because cake is everything! Sugar over dirt any day.”
“Like I said, you just don’t got vision.”
CREEEEAK
The door clicks, its hinges wailing, before opening just a hair, as if whoever stands behind it is deciding whether to enter. Chest tightening, I chew the inside of my cheek.
Relax. It’s just a draft.
“You okay?” Yusef asks.
“What? Oh, yeah. I’m fine.”
“You lying. Tell me. What’s up?”
I take a deep breath, turning away from the door. “It’s . . . nothing. Think I got a little cabin fever, that’s all. You know, the other night, when we went to the beach, that was the farthest I’ve been from this house in weeks. Think I’m just . . . spooking myself.”
“It is the spooky season,” he counters.
“And I haven’t even seen one pumpkin or witch on a broom!”
“Hm. Wanna get out the house tomorrow. Take a drive?”
CREEEEAK
It’s nothing. It’s nothing. It’s nothing.
“Um . . . uh, sure? Where to?”
Sixteen
FALL IN CEDARVILLE is like one from the movies, where the air is crisp, the trees turn amber, and the streets are littered with crunchy brown leaves. The most idyllic way to spend my first change of season. Yusef pulls his truck into a muddy lot, parking right in front of a giant sign with a pig dressed in overalls welcoming us.
“An apple farm?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.
“You said you wanted to get out the city,” he says, turning off the ignition. “The garden club takes trips out here every year.”
“I love apples!” Sammy cheers from the back seat. I brought him along since he could use some fresh outdoor life as much as I could.
Mr. Wiggles’s Farm is swarming with families and kids running about. It has a corn maze, photo booth, hayrides, a pumpkin patch, and a farmer’s market.
“Mari,” Sammy gasps, gripping my arm. “I need to ride that horse!”
He points to a run-down stallion, making loops with kiddies on its back.
“Dude, that’s, like, for babies.”
He holds up a hand. “I don’t care. She will be my noble steed.”
Yusef chuckles. “Go on, bruh! She’s a hater.”
I shrug. “Ride like the wind.”
We watch Sammy run off to the animal farm in silence.
“Um, want some hot cider?” Yusef asks.
“Sure.”
Yusef doesn’t seem like his normal self as we stand in the fresh doughnuts and hot cider line. He barely said a word on the hour-long drive. Just let Sammy flip through his playlist. Smiling, but somehow it seems forced.
After another five minutes of silence, he finally speaks.
“Hey, you got a man back home?” Yusef blurts out as if he has been holding his breath.
Ugh. And I was having such a good day.
“No,” I say flatly. “An ex.”
“Oh. What was he like?”
I sigh. “White. Rich. Oblivious.”
“Damn,” he chuckles. “Then why were you with him?”
I pace in place, kicking myself for not wearing something warmer. Sixty-two degrees is like twenty degrees to my California blood. But I can’t seem to find my new cream cable-knit sweater. Laundry must have eaten it with my tube socks.
“He was . . . fast. Like one of the fastest runners on our team. I mean, the way he ran, he could’ve skipped across water. I found that . . . fascinating.”
Yusef nods as the line moves up. “Still, doesn’t seem like you had a lot in common.”
He’s right. Other than our love of weed, which is how we even started to begin with, we didn’t have much in common. But the way Yusef acted at the party, I thought it best to leave that part out.
“I guess that’s why we broke up,” I laugh. “What about you? You have a girl?”
Yusef smirks. “Nah. Not even an ex to complain about, though many would say different.”
We move up in the line, the air rich with cinnamon sugar and baked apples.
“That’s impossible. You’ve never had a girlfriend? Don’t tell me you’re out here breaking hearts all over Cedarville.”
“Not at all,” he laughs as we reach the counter. He orders two hot apple ciders and four doughnuts. And like a classy gentleman, he offers to pay.