A Place So Wicked Patrick Reuman (children's ebooks free online TXT) 📖

a kid sat on a swing, unnoticed by her until now. He wasn’t swinging. Instead, he just sat there, staring down at the mulch that covered the ground of the playground.

As she walked toward him, eager to communicate with another kid, he didn’t look up. She was pretty sure he hadn’t noticed her yet, just as she hadn’t noticed him.

“Hey,” she said.

His head jerked up as she came to a stop maybe ten feet from him. He looked surprised, like he had been sleeping and she woke him or maybe she was the first other human he had ever seen in his life.

“You there?” she asked.

“Yeah. Yeah! Sorry, I just—”

She smiled and took a couple more steps toward him. “Sorry if I startled you.”

His hair was dark, almost black, and he wore jeans and a blue T-shirt with some image on it that she didn’t recognize. “No, you’re fine,” he said, but he didn’t stand up to greet her. “Just not used to seeing other kids at this playground.”

“Why’s that?”

“Too close,” he said.

“To what?” She had kept walking close to him until she was only a few feet away.

His eyebrow lifted, then he looked to each side of himself as if to check if anybody was watching them. “I don’t recognize you.”

“Yeah, I’m new to town,” Paisley said. “Just moved in a day ago.”

He stood, suddenly, startling her. He took a step away from her and looked around again, as if he were unsure of himself being there or was expecting the police to raid the playground. It made her look around as well. She did a full spin, not seeing anybody. “Are you expecting someone?”

He shook his head quickly. “No. Nobody.”

“Ooooooookay.” She walked right past him, causing him to practically jump out of the way, and took a seat at the swing next to his.

She pushed off the ground, launching herself into a mild swing. The swing’s metal joints groaned in rhythm. Clouds moved in overheard, seeming to come out of nowhere. She watched the boy as he stood there, still unsure of something.

“Are you going to sit back down?” she asked.

He nodded his head and returned to his swing. He didn’t push off the ground, though, choosing instead to just sit there, waving slowly as if a breeze was pushing him. She noticed him stealing quick glances at her like he wanted to stare at her, but he was afraid to or didn’t want to be rude. She wondered if there was something on her face. Or maybe he just thought she was pretty. She didn’t think she was pretty, not really. She tried not to blush at the thought.

“You okay?” she finally asked after a couple minutes.

As soon as the words came out, she thought she sounded silly. There didn’t seem like there was anything wrong with him. The question could even be seen as rude. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was up. He was just acting…strange.

“Yeah.” He stopped his swing completely and looked at her. “Which house did you move into?”

“One on Ripley. I think it’s twelve or thirteen.”

He just stared at her. She couldn’t help but smile an awkward smile. She looked away from him, hoping he would do the same. When she looked back, he was staring off into the distance. His curly black hair shifted in the sudden breeze that came in with the clouds.

“Where do you live?” she asked.

He pointed off in the distance, across the field to where some houses stood, their backs to Paisley and the kid. “Fawn Avenue.”

She just nodded, not having much to say about the road he lived on. “What’s your name?”

She thought she felt a cold speck land on her arm. She looked to the sky, the dark clouds shrouding them in shadow. It didn’t look like it was raining yet, but she bet it was coming.

“Eli,” he said, barely above a whisper.

“Well, Eli, you always act this way when you meet new people?”

Minutes went by, and he never answered. She looked down at the grass as it swayed gently. She bet the color of this grass was real, unlike at her house. She stopped the swing. Reaching down, she plucked a few blades. The color remained, green, and alive, as she rubbed her fingers against them. She parted her fingers, allowing the grass to fall, catch in the breeze, and blow off to her left. She smiled.

“Is this town always this quiet?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Well, on my walk here, to the park, everything was just so…quiet. Like a ghost town or something.”

“Feels a bit like it, too, sometimes,” he said.

“Would you like to go do something, then? I’m a bit bored.”

He turned and looked at her for a long moment. Then, finally, against all odds, he smiled. “No, I can’t today. I have to be home soon, actually.”

“Do you come here often?” she asked, feeling dumb as soon as the sentence was out, remembering that he lived not far.

“Yes, it’s practically my back yard, and no one comes here so, it’s kind of peaceful, or boring, I suppose, depending on how you look at it.”

She laughed, and so did he. “All right, Eli, then I’ll be here some time tomorrow. Around the same time as I showed up today.”

His smile grew. He looked so much better with a smile than he did when he was acting gloomy, maybe even cute, she thought.

15

The house was very quiet with two of the kids gone, Lisa thought as she stood in the living room. Toby had left earlier, with that girl, which she was excited about. To her knowledge, he had never had a girlfriend, and this one was quite pretty. A smirk formed across her lips even as