Black Forest

Orlon & Oscar

Fifteen minutes earlier and half a mile away on lower campus, in one of the cramped middle level classrooms lining the hall around the McFitz Auditorium, the youngest sibling was busy horrifying her teachers.

Remi stood at the front of the room – a proud artist before her work. Drawings tiled the blackboard behind her. A hideous monster-alien hybrid looms at the top left corner, signed, wax smeared and lined with wrinkles.

"My brother Oscar has a whole thing about dreams," Remi said. "What they are. Who they belong to. Which I think is worth...making alive, don't you?"

She was a riot of wild red curls and untidy cuffs, rolled down stockings. She's maybe not quite here, eyes fixed on the ceiling, feet touching the ground but there's a dreaminess about her, a feeling of movement and light.

Her teacher, Miss Languine – peach-fresh from college, brown hair pinned back in a barrette, stickers still decorating the water bottle in hand – coughed on a sip.

"Um – of course. Yes," she said.

Seeming to remember herself, she set the bottle down and led the class in polite applause. The bell shrieks overhead. Students clamor to be released.

"That's it for today! Please come retrieve your drawings from the blackboard, and don't forgot to review Latin clauses and the ten math problems." Turning back to her desk, she shuffled through her papers before noticing Remi's tiptoe attempt to reach the corner of the blackboard.

"Oh, we can wait on yours, Remi. I think maybe we should hold onto that," she said.

Remi settled back on her heels. Her teacher's smile was so full of sugar that it almost hurt to avoid her eyes. She hoped Miss Languine liked the drawing.

Even if she didn't, there will always be others. Picture upon picture upon picture. Sometimes it feels like she could drown in them, take a long lazy swim. She returned to her desk and loaded her art supplies into her backpack. Transferred sheaf after sheaf of monsters, aliens, invasions, war.

She was almost to the door, humming quietly to herself, when someone barreled into her from the side. Staggering, she turned to see Oscar, eyes wild and excited.

"Couldn't-talk-on-the-bus." Her brother was babbling. "I was wrong, I was wrong, I was wrong – it's tonight."

Cross now, Remi double-checked her backpack. Still zipped. All good.

"Why does it always have to be tonight?"

"We need to get to the hideout and pack up, then catch the bus and go straight to Skull Rock. I don't want to miss a thing," he said. He was still wearing his safety googles from last period science, blazer straggling off his shoulders. His face was dirty and he smelled like onions. "I promise tonight is the night."

"Heard that before," Remi said.

Oscar peeked around her, trying to get a glimpse of his old classroom. He frowned at the absence of test tubes along the far wall.

"Where's your sense of adventure? Great things await!" The drawing on the blackboard caught his attention. "Oh, cool, my nightmare. You're supposed to collect those."

Before she could stop him, he darted inside, jumped up and ripped it off the board, a thirteen-year old thunderbolt and a begrudging three inches taller than his sister. Remi wanted to kick him right in the shins.

He ran back out, undetected. Remi grabbed his arm.

"Hey! That's supposed to be –"

Oscar handed her the drawing. "Talk later, move now."

"How did you –"

"New teachers." He set off at a brisk trot and grinned at her over his shoulder. "You gotta wait until their back is turned. Take it from a fellow problem child."

Slightly less annoyed, Remi stowed the drawing. She followed her brother past throngs of other mid-level students talking, shoving, laughing. Other classrooms emptied like overturned pockets, dumping students into the narrow hallways.

The stream of uniforms moved, halting, around the outer ring of the auditorium and out into the lobby. The huge, glass-paneled doors were open. Buses for the day students sat outside along the curb, between the Cottage Quad and the winding outside road that led into the village.

Oscar led Remi outside, past the proctors and monitors and nervous day teachers, past all the faces she knew but never recognized. A thick wrought-iron fence guarded the outer edge of lower campus. The bars were just wide enough to shimmy through.

Remi slipped over and turned to catch Oscar's backpack, launched from the other side. Her brother scaled the fence, fumbling along the top bars. He dropped to the ground like a stone.

"Anyone see me?"

She handed him his backpack. His knees were black with dirty and his round face was shiny with sweat. "If they did I bet they wish they hadn't."

"Funny," he said, making a face.

After checking to make sure no one was watching, they headed across the road and into the woods that surrounded campus from afar. Branches closed over their heads. The sunlight softened as the sounds of school began to fade.

Remi tugged Oscar's sleeve. "Should we tell Shiloh where we're going?"

"No way," he said. "Do you really wanna go all the way to upper campus just to get busted for our adventure?"

She thought about this. Unappealing. Also boring.

"Not really," she said. "We do have a bus to catch."

Oscar rummaged around in his backpack and pulled out a flashlight. As they went deeper the sun grew darker. He switched it on. Cupped his hand around the top to focus the beam.

"There's always a later one," he said.

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