Hidebehind

Twenty-Five

I had to go back to school. It was what it was. I knew it would be worthless to put up a fight, so I instead did the passive aggressive thing and just stopped talking to Great Grandma, to Penny, to everyone at school. I would sure let them know I didn't like it, whether they wanted to know it or not. Teachers tried to call on me, but I wouldn't answer. Alex looked to be coming in my direction during group work in math, but I put my head down and pretended to sleep. I took to eating lunch in the bathroom again (when I ate at all), not caring about what anybody thought of me. Jay was the only person I bothered talking to, but I only ever saw him during recess. He was kept in for lunch pretty much every single day, which made me wonder what he did to get into trouble so much.

We talked about the monster some more, but Grandpa hadn't said anything about it in the past couple of weeks, so there really wasn't much to do or say. I told him about the markings on the rocks that Alex had seen, and he was interested in trying to find them, but the last thing I wanted to do was go back into the woods with anybody. The monster hadn't appeared again, and I didn't want to tempt fate by going back into its territory.

But the absence of the monster made me feel something other than relief—fear. Not the kind that it had made me feel already. Not fear for my life . . . fear that maybe, just maybe, I had imagined it after all, and that, of course, would mean I was crazy. Which Grandpa was. Maybe it was genetic.

Everybody was actually pretty accepting of my silence. It surprised me a little that at school, where everyone was supposed to participate and work together, I was left almost entirely alone. Mr. Cook tried to be nice, tried to ask me if there was anything he could do, tried to ease some conversation out of me, and I felt a little guilty not responding to him. However, he left me alone after a couple of failed attempts. I figured the teachers all knew—that was the kid who just moved here, whose family was all gone, who had a mental breakdown in the woods—let him be.

They'd probably even had some sort of meeting about me to talk about all my problems. I sensed as much when Great Grandma had to stay late at pick-up, making me and Penny wait on the playground while she "talked to the teachers."

None of it mattered, anyway. I just wanted to go home. I just wanted all of this to end.

I was having trouble sleeping, too. It was starting to happen most nights: I'd fall asleep all right, but I'd wake up around midnight for no reason and then just lay there, staring at the ceiling, feeling creeped out at being the only one awake, remembering what Grandpa had said about the monster that maybe I had imagined—it hid in the light, could be seen in the dark—and trying searching the corners of the room for any movements.

Eventually, I'd fall back to sleep, but it was leaving me tired during the day, which only made things worse. In the four weeks after returning to school, my grades had pretty much tanked. But honestly, I just didn't even care.

There were a couple of nights, too, where I sensed movement outside my window again and, looking out, could've sworn I'd seen Grandpa walking around out there, between the rows of peach trees. It was just like it had been the first time, where I would want to wake Great Grandma and tell her but then, checking Grandpa's room, would find him asleep. I began to feel as if we had a prowler, but I was too set in my silence to talk to Great Grandma about it.

Besides, I had no evidence, and all I needed was more reason for everyone to think I was crazy. I just stopped getting out of bed and looking out the window. Maybe it was Grandpa; maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was all just me.