Stripes of Gehenna Page 2

  I got up from the table and went to work on my science fair project. Last year, I won 2nd place in the national science fair after mapping out all the plant species within a five-mile radius of my house. This year, I'm doing the same thing but with reptiles.

  And I’ll be darned if Shardul beats me with his tiger project.

  Chapter Two: Sweet Treats

  Only a few months after Thanksgiving, Shardul and I tied for first in the school’s science fair. We both went to Nationals where he took first and I took second. I tried to follow my dad’s advice and be happy for Shardul. I did enjoy a little competition, despite how it threatened me at times. And it was nice to have someone I didn't have to talk down to, or explain everything to. On the few rare occasions that I let down my guard, we had some truly amusing and thought-provoking conversations. But Shardul was a senior. He’d graduate and leave the school. The plus side to that meant that I'd have free reign in chess club and end of year awards for highest average.

  I found myself staring at the back of his head, wondering why he didn’t have a bigger head, because of how smart he was. Then our AP World History teacher announced a trip. They were going to Panama. I say "they" because there was no way I could afford it. I wouldn’t even bother mentioning the trip to my mom. I waited until the classroom emptied, leaving only me and Shardul and the teacher.

  I sheepishly approached the teacher’s desk and explained that I couldn’t afford to go.

  The teacher shrugged and said, “Maybe next time.”

  I avoided Shardul’s eyes as I walked back toward the door. "If you can’t afford it, I can pay for you,” he said. Ignoring his offer, I ran outside, waiting for my mom to come pick me up. I scanned the parking lot. She was late again. Her car wasn't there. There was just a tall, broad, bodybuilder-type man sitting in a blue Toyota.

  Shardul followed me outside and took the empty spot on the bench where I waited. "I can afford it," he said. "You don't have to be embarrassed by taking my money. I'm happy to help." I shook my head. "I'd like you to come with us."

  Pride refused to allow me to accept. "No, my family just has other plans." Someday, I’d make more money than he did. I’d get accepted to an Ivy League school and graduate top of the class and get recruited by some prestigious business or institution.

  "Do you need a ride home?" Shardul asked, taking a seat beside me. He pulled his keys from his pocket and jangled them. I'd taken him up on the offer before, but today I was in no mood. He'd probably tell me that he'd take me home only after I accepted his financial help.

  "No. My mom’s coming to get me," I insisted and turned away from him. He placed his hand on the bench beside me. I folded my hands in my lap and pretended to be interested in the tall grass blades at the edge of the red brick as they swayed in the breeze.

  "Are you Kat?" The bald, bodybuilder man from the truck poked his head out of his window.

  I looked his way and then replied. "Um, no." I scooted a little closer to Shardul. He lifted his arm and placed it around my shoulder. My heart nearly pumped itself right out of my chest. If the huge man hadn’t been eying me, I’d have slapped Shardul for making advances. But his arm made me feel safe at the moment.

  "Is it Katy?" the huge man asked. I moved even closer into Shardul, as if the skinny genius could physically defend me from a man larger than the two of us combined.

  "No," Shardul shouted. “Whoever you’re looking for isn’t here.” His fingers pressed into my shoulder protectively and whether out of fear or the shock of physical contact from Shardul, I stopped breathing.

  "Is it Kathryn?" he shouted again.

  I shook my head. Shardul held me tightly. Neither of us said anything.

  "If you're Kathryn, I'm here to pick you up," he said and I laughed aloud. Could he be any more of a classic kidnapper? I clutched my phone in my hand, ready to dial 911.

  "Likely," I managed to say.

  "Kat!" I heard someone call me from the entrance of the school. The voice boomed and echoed across the brick of the school. Uncle Richy.

  I shot to my feet, away from the warmth of Shardul and walked quickly to him, leaving Shardul confused on the bench. Richy embraced me, cocooning me in his strong arms. "How've ya been?" he asked, leading me to the truck where the bald driver sat.

  "What are you doing here?" I asked. I didn't follow him any closer to the truck with the stranger in it. Richy leaned in close and whispered in my ear, but what he said didn't seem like a secret. "Your mom agreed to let me pick you up. I thought we could go get ice cream or something."

  "Get…ice cream?" He'd never done this sort of thing before. As far as I knew from the accusations my mother always made, he'd never even taken his own daughter, Amanda, to get ice cream. There was no way I was going to get into the car with my estranged uncle and his friend. There was no way until my phone beeped and I got a text from my mom.

  Richy is coming to get you. He was insistent. I guess he is taking you to get ice cream. Call me if you need me. Use the code word ‘peacock’ and I'll come get you right away.

  Mom. Leave it to her to text an entire novella. She always worried about me. She didn't trust Richy, I knew that. But she also didn't view me as an adult. I didn't require code words for "I'm in a bad situation." Goodness, I'm nearly an adult. I’m a junior, soon to be senior but my mom, being overprotective and having underestimated my abilities, signed me up for kindergarten a year late. A whole year late. I'm seventeen--the same age as half the seniors. Some kids use my age as an explanation for my smarts. Too bad their theory doesn't hold any water since I outperform all the seniors, too. Except for Shardul.

  Shardul was standing now, looking over at me and Richy. Through his narrowed gaze, I could only guess what funny proverbs he mentally recited. A friend who refuses an offer from a friend makes poor company. Or he might have been thinking of an animal one. A monkey who doesn't accept help wanders into the crocodile's mouth. I chuckled as I heard his accent in my head. The way he said his R's always amused me. Maybe amused isn't the right word. It made me smile because it was sweet and foreign. The way he reached around me in my moment of fear gave me peace. My shoulder and back still felt warm from his touch, despite it being a bit awkward.

  "Everything okay?" Shardul walked up as Richy climbed in the truck and gestured that I follow. Richy gave Shardul less attention than a windshield does a fly. Then I introduced him. “This is Shardul,” I said.

  Richy snapped to attention. “The tiger genius?”

  “You told him about me,” Shardul said, taking a few steps back.

  Richy asked him a few questions, most of which I didn’t follow. Maybe it reminded me too much of the science fair that I’d lost.

  "We’ll have to talk again sometime,” Richy said, then clapped Shardul on the back, nearly causing him to fall down.

  I grimaced with Shardul. "See ya tomorrow!" I said. We'd never discuss the physical contact. We'd never discuss it because I'd make sure we'd never discuss it. We drove off before he could state any Indian adages but the way his lips turned down made me wish I’d invited him.

  The trip with Richy might have been enjoyable except that his friend was there. They talked and laughed in the front until we got to Sweet Treats.

  Sweet Treats is a local legend. Even hardcore fitness gurus come and indulge in their ice cream. Needless to say, it's always crowded. Cute pictures of kids with ice cream dripping off their chins or noses or fingers decorate the pink walls. The only empty seat, a single bar stool, wouldn't hold Richy or his friend. They both attracted an immense amount of attention because of how large they were. Everyone inside gawked. At least I felt skinny and protected in their presence. Like a sheet of paper safely tucked between within the heavy binding of a book.

  After ordering two scoops of cookies and cream, some boys from my class saw the three of us and stood up, showing us that we could sit at their booth. They weren't actually done. I think they were trying to be nice. Either way, the booth provided a sur
face that could hold Richy's weight.

  "This is Kat," Richy said, finally introducing me to the man I very recently assumed to be an idiotic kidnapper. It relieved me to be wrong, which was very uncommon for me. I'm typically right. I don’t know why he waited until we got here to introduce me. We’d all sat in the car for a good eight minutes together.

  "Kat, this is Alec, my business partner." Alec didn't try to shake my hand. Instead he nodded at me, much the way you acknowledge a dog or an infant. He must have thought a handshake would be too dignifying. I would have said nice to meet you, only it wasn't. It was awkward. I was about to say something when Richy starting talking, his voice so loud and reverberating that there was no way to interrupt him. Besides that, everyone in the parlor could hear him.

  "Kat’s a genius I tell ya. She's got my brains. Isn't that right?"

  "I don’t go by Kat," I interjected. I hadn't been called Kat since second grade and I didn't like it.

  "Kat’s won the science fair every year. And I don't just mean for her school. She's made it to nationals every year." He knew about my work on edible plants? My mother must have told him. I confess, it was a project I’d worked very hard on. But researching botany never really felt like work to me. I did it as a hobby. I would have liked to elaborate on the project, but Richy didn't have any ice cream so there was no chance for him to pause and give me a moment to speak. Shardul won the science fair with some project about tigers and the psychological development of cubs with relation to their environment. Who am I kidding? I knew exactly what his project was about. I memorized his whole stupid presentation out of envy and because we'd rehearsed together.

  “If a tiger tries to attack you, play dead!” Shardul said, mostly as a joke, at the end of his presentation. He always got this goofy grin then.

  Richy’s voice brought me back to the ice cream parlor.

  "Obviously, Kat’s also gorgeous. She gets that from her mother." He laughed. I didn't mind the attention he gave me by taking me for ice cream, though I hadn’t expected the outpouring of praise. Everyone in the entire store either openly stared at us or were deliberately trying not to. "She's in all AP courses and I imagine she's going to test out of a dozen college credits. At least." Richy set his hand on my back. "She's a natural born scientist. I'm so proud of her I can't even tell ya!"

  I curled up a little bit on the padded bench in the corner of Sweet Treats. I usually sang my own praises. Sometimes I'd touted my successes to Shardul as an attempt to make him respect me and view me as the intelligent woman that I knew myself to be. But there in the small brick ice cream parlor, as Richy shouted my accomplishments for everyone to hear, I didn't feel like putting feathers in my hat. In fact, too many feathers in my hat would make me look like a bird. A showy bird.

  A peacock.

  That must be the reason my mother's codeword was peacock. Richy—her boisterous brother.

  There was no way I was going to call my mom to come get me just because I was uncomfortable with Richy's comments. I'd have to wait it out.

  "It can’t be that hard to win a high school science fair. I mean, she’s competing with other teenagers," Alec said. His words dug into me, reaching for my ego the way a dentist digs deep to remove a cavity.

  "No reason to be an ass!" Richy reached over and shoved Alec hard. The bench creaked beneath me. The swear word made me blush, since my mother strongly opposed all vulgar or crass languages, but the gesture warmed me. He defended me to his partner and not only cussed at him, but physically shoved him. My mother’s assumptions about Richy were wrong.

  Richy cared about me.

  "If it’s so easy then why didn’t you win in high school?" Richy shouted. "It’s not easy. You’re no subject matter expert, so shut your damn mouth. No reason to bring down her successes!"

  Two swears? My face burned with embarrassment. Being in an ice cream parlor with two mammoth men was pushing it, but now that they were arguing and swearing it put me over the edge. I ate my ice cream and mentioned my need to do homework and that's all it took. We loaded back into the truck, and Richy told Alec where to drive. “Need anything else before we go?” he asked.

  I surprised myself when I blurted out, “Unless you have a couple thousand dollars to get me on a school trip to Panama, then ice cream was good enough.” Of course I’d meant it as a joke, but he laughed, pulled out his wallet, and wrote me a check for two grand. Like it was nothing. Two thousand dollars handed over to me at the simple, and sarcastic request.

  “Guess I'll see ya again soon, honey!" Richy said, and then he did something most unexpected. And uncomfortable. He bent down, which took some effort because of his tremendous height, and kissed the top of my hair.

  "This her mom’s house?" Alec asked, looking at the newly painted mint green shutters on my small house.

  "Yep," Richy said.

  Richy opened the door to the car and climbed back in.

  "Aren't you …coming in?" I asked, intentionally not inviting Alec to join us.

  "No, I have to get back to work. Don't miss me too much!" He laughed and they drove away.

  Chapter Three: Real Gold

  My mom was pissed that I accepted money from Richy. “Drug money!” she’d called it. Sometimes I wonder if she’s going legitimately crazy. She tried to get me to stay home, but my dad consented that it was my money, and I could decide to use it for the trip if I wanted to.

  I wanted to.

  My dad was happy because Melissa was going on the trip. I was happy because Shardul was. Melissa’s nice enough, but she lives a little too impulsively. Breaks rules just for fun sometimes. I knew she’d sneak away for make-out sessions with some of the senior boys on the trip. Not Shardul though. He wasn’t like that. Not that he and I are ultimate besties, but we obviously have some things in common. I’d probably like him if he wasn’t so annoying with his proverbs. In any event, I knew he and Melissa didn’t have any secret romance.

  On the flight, I sat next to Melissa, who talked my ear off about her goals for who she’d kiss on the trip.

  “They said you’re not allowed to hook up on the trip,” I said, emphatically.

  “I know! That’s what makes it fun. You should kiss someone down there. How exciting would that be to have your first kiss in Panama?!” she said, excitedly.

  “I’m not kissing anyone in Panama,” I said, turning to the small window.

  Melissa tugged at my sleeve. “C’mon, Kathryn, you’ll like it. It’s not like the teachers are going to fly you home early and flunk you for kissing someone!”

  “I just don’t want to,” I said.

  “I’ll make a deal with you,” she whispered, her voice growing more animated. “If you kiss Shardul, I’ll pay you 20 bucks!”

  I whipped my head back around. “I’m not kissing Shardul on a dare! And I’m definitely not doing it for money.” I crossed my arms.

  “Then just do it for fun. Everyone is always talking about how perfect you two are for each other. You’d totally be class couple if you’d stop being so stubborn!”

  “Will you cut it out?” I said, tersely. “I’m not going to Panama to kiss anyone. We’re going to help build houses. And I don’t want you to keep talking about Shardul.”

  “Whatever,” Melissa said. “But I think he’d kiss you if you tried.”

  I didn’t say anything else about that on the flight. Instead I lost myself in a book and dozed off a few times.

  Once we arrived, we grabbed some food from the local grocery store, and rode in doorless jeeps to a hotel.

  The first night we stayed in a run-down hotel with a pool that couldn’t have possibly served any other purpose than to collect frogs. While the other girls on the trip complained and shrieked at the sight of them, I was thrilled. Only Shardul shared my excitement. My camera had plenty of memory for the dozens of pictures that I took. In a familiar situation, I would’ve held the frogs for closer examination, but I haven’t done enough research on amphibians of Central America
to feel comfortable taking such risks.

  I shared a lizard-infested hotel room with Melissa. She hated the lizards and bugs, but I was in a scientific paradise. After midnight, someone knocked on the door.

  “Seriously!” I said, when Melissa jumped out of bed, revealing that she was still in her clothes.

  She opened the door and Gavin, a senior from our class, gave me a little wave. “Hi Kathryn,” he said, poking his head in. I pulled the sheets up to my chin. Not that he would have been able to tell that I didn’t have a bra on under my tee.

  “Come with us!” Melissa said, pulling on her shoes.

  “Kathryn’s not going to come,” Gavin said, almost like I wasn’t there. A part of me wanted to go, just to prove him wrong.

  “I’m going to sleep,” I said, finally.

  “Next time,” Melissa said. “Goodnight!” she whispered, and pulled the door shut.

  I couldn’t really go to sleep after that. Not with Melissa outside with Gavin...and who knows who else. She came back in after one in the morning. I wanted to ask who else had been there, but I didn’t.

  The next day, I tried to gauge who was gone based on varying levels of sleepiness. But pretty much everyone looked sleepy. Not Shardul though. I found that comforting.

  We drove through the jungle to the coast and then took a motorboat to the San Blas Islands to help the Kuna Indians build a house. All of the students shared one big room with bamboo walls and a palm frond roof. We spent the night in hammocks and the next day shucking and nailing bamboo. Our teacher sent us to different stations to work. I started off with Melissa, shaving the bamboo down in preparation for it to be nailed up as walls for the house. She bragged about how good Gavin was at kissing.

  After a lunch break, the teacher sent me over to help nail.

  I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me that the guys had taken off their shirts. I stared at Shardul for a minute. His back faced me while he hammered a nail above his head. The muscles in his back contracted and I couldn’t look away. Not until he turned and caught me looking.