The Understorey

He looked at me suspiciously but decided I wasn’t the type he’d easily associate with trouble.



“Uh, Jesse Thomas,” I said reluctantly.



“Jesse Thomas? Your best friend Jesse Thomas?”



“Ex-best friend,” I corrected.



“But it could also be Taylor Williams. She hates me too. We’re just not sure which one,” Jules laughed nervously.



“Okay,” he said shaking his head, rubbing chin stubble between his thumb and forefinger. “I’ll be right back.”



Jules and I heaved ourselves onto the hood of my truck. The heat from the engine was a comfort. I made sure she sat closely so our skin would stay in contact and it’d keep me calm. It was freezing but neither of us made an attempt to go inside because our contact kept us a balmy ninety-eight point six, maybe warmer. I don’t think we wanted to hear the conversation he was having either. We remained silent, keeping a conversation within ourselves.



I tried extremely hard not to imagine Jesse sneaking into Jules’ room, slithering his way around, going through her stuff. I also tried not to think about all the different ways I’d kill him when I found out for sure that it was him. I tried not to think about what I was going to say to him at school the next day as well. I did think about avoiding him altogether and skipping school but I had to see for myself the way he acted around me, around us. I knew him well enough to recognize when he was acting shady, though Jesse 2.0 might be a little harder to decipher.



Jules squeezed my hand tightly into hers to ease my restlessness. She was reading me. It worked. I closed my eyes and let the sleepy current soften my rigid torso. I took a deep breath through my nose and nearly drowned from the heavenly delirium that was Jules’ perfume. I fought past that and could smell dark smoke, most likely from a couple miles ahead of us at the Miller’s house. They always started burning old wood from the prior winter seasons first and I could smell the burning of dormant kindling.



I looked up and saw my Uncle Danny hanging up the phone. He swung his coat over his shoulders and stomped his heavy boots across the old wood floor of the station and out onto the little covered porch.



“I’ve let the Principal know. She promised to keep an eye on things. I’ve decide it’d be a good idea if we took a ride over to the Jacobs’ residence and search around the property for any signs of forced entry.” He paused and stared at our distressed faces, “I’m sure it’s not a big deal kids. I’m just taking the necessary precautions.”



Danny came close and patted me on the shoulder. His kind words did nothing to alleviate my fears and I was positive it didn’t help Jules either. We knew Jesse and Taylor and either one of them was capable of jumping the line of rationality, we’d seen it with our own eyes, but we never thought it could come to this. My money was still on Jesse though.



Jules and I jumped into my truck and followed Danny to the Jacobs’ house, again, as quiet as before. When we arrived, Danny walked us around Jules’ house and asked her where her window was. She pointed at the windows that belonged to her room and Danny moved in closely to the one at the back of the house.



“I see no signs of entry here, let’s check the other window at the side of the house,” he said.



We rounded the corner and saw one of the most painfully terrifying things I’d ever seen. Two sets of old foot prints, barely visible in the snow leading from the brush to the side of the house and back. The prints were so faded I had no idea how large they actually were and therefore unable to figure out whether it was Taylor’s or Jesse’s prints, or both. Did Jesse come to the window twice or once with an accomplice?



Against the wall laid two cinder blocks, one right next to the other, the longer sides parallel with the side of the house. When we looked closely at the window the paint had been freshly scratched where the intruder had pried open the bottom of the ancient window, probably with a crowbar from the width of the scratch. I watched Jules start to lose it a little bit so I grabbed her and held her steadily against my side.



“Strange,” said Danny.



“What is?” I asked.



“Well, I’m sort of flabbergasted as to how Julia didn’t hear the wood of the window cracking or the intruder?”



Jules blushed slightly and scrunched her nose.



“I’m an extremely heavy sleeper,” she admitted.



“Ahhh,” he said. “Well, whoever it was that actually entered couldn’t have been that tall. These windows aren’t very far from the ground. They needed cinder blocks to see or get inside.”



He pointed at the blocks against the house.



Taylor then?



“Okay,” Danny said, “I’m going to call Julia’s parents and let them know what’s going on. Maybe they can stop by a home improvement store and get some additional locking mechanisms for the windows. Be right back.”



He left us there staring at the creepiness that was the intruder’s handiwork.



“She’s insane,” Jules said, her voice shaking.



“Or they’re insane. There’s something else that’s bothering me.”



“What’s that?” Jules asked.



“Well, who would risk getting caught boldly waltzing into your room at night? They must have known that you were a heavy sleeper, but nobody but myself and your family would know something like that.........unless you’ve told someone else? Do you remember talking about it at school with anyone?”



The blood drained from her face and she nodded, keeping her eyes steady with mine.



“Don’t you remember?” She asked. “We did, with each other, in front of Jesse. When we came back to school after Tanen’s party fiasco, you were talking about the night and broke off to tease me about that fact that I could sleep through a hurricane. Later,” she trembled, “we were all hanging out at Thatcher’s. When Jesse thought you weren’t looking, he poked me in the ribs and told me that if I wasn’t careful he’d come in while I was asleep and rearrange my furniture.



“I thought he was just messing with me, trying to get a rise out of me as usual, like he got some sort of sick pleasure out of scaring me. In the past, I’d always felt you were kind of harsh on him about me and the few times I would let you in on the stupid things he’d say to me, you’d scold him and he would just take it out on me later. That’s why I kept it from you. It’s why I’ve kept a lot of weird things he’s done from you.”



“It’s okay Jules,” were all the words I could rally up.



So it was a joint effort. I gritted my teeth and tried to hold back what I was thinking, but couldn’t.



“He’s crazy! The both are!” I said.



“This whole thing is going to be squashed tomorrow and I’m going to be the one who does it!” she exclaimed, her eyebrows furrowing at the last bit.



“You can’t Jules!”



“Why?”



“Because we need to ignore this behavior, whatever their motives are, and pretend like we have barely taken notice of them or their note.”



“So from here on we just pretend they haven’t scared the crap out of us?”



“Yes,” I said, not really certain if that was the best route to take. “I think it’s the best thing to do, for now, at least.”



“Alright Elliott, if you think that’s best..........but if things take even the slightest turn for the worse, I’m taking charge.”



“And I’ll be right there beside you.”



My Uncle Danny came back around and let us know that Jules’ parents didn’t take things well. They wanted to take Jules out of the school immediately but Danny had talked them into taking it easy and waiting to see how things turned out.



They reluctantly agreed and the next day we returned to school and acted as unbothered as we possibly could, albeit slightly more touchy-feely than usual, which was already borderline obscene. Jules held on tightly to me every second she could, said that it made her feel safer. I sort of liked that bit. If Jules felt more comfortable touching me, that suited me just fine. I witnessed Jesse and Taylor squirm a little bit at the sight of it, but this time it didn’t give me the satisfaction that it normally did.



I wasn’t one hundred percent certain Taylor was involved or not. I studied her reaction to see if it still fell under her normal crazy self but couldn’t tell. If I was a betting man though, I’d probably put all my chips on the both of them. I felt an uncontrollable rage to hurt Jesse, well both of them really, but luckily for them, Jules was the deterrent.



We reached the Friday before Thanksgiving break without incident and Jules and I felt a lot better about the note by then. We figured it was just a onetime thing since the entire school, its staff and the police knew the details. We felt confident that Jesse would stifle any plans for future pranks.



Early the next morning, I sat around my kitchen table and chatted with my mom while I waited for Jules’ parents to pick me up.



“So I talked to Danny last night,” she said.



“Oh yeah?”



“Yeah, he thought like we did. That whoever did this thing is done.”



They didn’t want to point fingers at Jesse and Taylor. My mom especially didn’t believe it was Jesse. He did a spot on impression of Eddie Haskell with her, if you catch my drift. I didn’t argue with any of them. I knew the truth and thought that as long as they were quiet, there would be no need to taint any smallish reputation of being decent they still had, despite the fact that it hung by a thread. Their razor sharp indecencies would cut those on their own. I’ve found it’s always better for people to discover things like that without my help. I’ve found that when I did help things along, the shock would lose its potency and water down the needed reaction.



“I hope you’re right,” I said.



“Are you excited sweetheart?”



“Huh? About what?” I asked, my mind still occupied by the idiots.



“About Mauch Chunk, Elliott. Golly baby! What else? You’ve been counting down the hours and minutes to this trip since day one.”



She laughed. It sang through the house like a clear bell and touched every heart within a hundred foot radius. It melted away all the anxiety resting in my chest. Her happiness was always so contagious.



“Of course I am! It will give me a little glimpse into college life and it better be good because I’m gonna’ be there for awhile.”



The gleam in her eye flickered for a moment and she sighed.



“Yes, you are, quite awhile.”



“I’m going to miss you mom.”



“I will too son, but sooner or later a mother has to let her boy contribute to the world in the way they were destined to. That’s life.”



I laughed, “No mom, I meant over Thanksgiving.”



“Oh,” she cleared her throat, “yeah. I’ll miss you loads son. It won’t be the same without you here. What are the plans for her aunt’s house?”



“Well, you know, sex, drugs, rock’n’roll. Debauchery.”



“Keep that tongue wagging and you’ll find yourself sitting across from your aunt Becky instead of Jules at dinner young man.”