Greetings, Dear Talebones Readers!
No one is more surprised than me by this little ditty I have for you, today…
While I did say that I was toying with the idea of a limited serial this season, I genuinely didn’t know what this was going to be where that thread took me. This character has been knocking on the door of my brain for a few weeks now, so I felt it was time to give him his moment.
I am not yet sure how long this story will be, although I anticipate only two or three parts total. We’ll find out together! Stay tuned for the next part sometime next week.
NOTE: While this story does stand fully on its own, characters in this story can be found in the following tales, for those interested in learning more:
Ivy & Ixos (currently in our Archive)
The Last Resort (free to read)
The Uninvited Guest (free to read)
If you like this story, and you want to see more like it, please let me know with a like, comment, share, or restack!
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No matter what his mom had tried to tell him for weeks, Jake Masoe was convinced that there was nothing worse than starting a new school in the spring. The friendships had already been solidified long before, the battle lines drawn between the haves and the have-nots, and he was wandering onto the field alone and vulnerable.
Wide open. Totally behind.
Ferris Island was supposed to be a new start. A small town, a slower speed. But instead, being here just made him stick out more. He was an unfamiliar face in a place where everyone knows everyone already. A nightmare.
As he made his way through the halls of Ferris Island High School, Jake pulled the hood of his black sweatshirt deeper over his head, desperate to disappear, but this was a challenge; at six foot four and well over two hundred pounds he was easily the biggest kid in the freshman class, probably even the whole school. The other kids parted like a sea around him, glancing up with double-takes and stares from behind their locker doors.
Who the hell is that?
But Jake did his best not to make eye contact or present himself as a target. To dutifully attend his classes on time, take notes so he could catch up with a new syllabus, try to be patient as the teachers mispronounced his last name when they called roll. He declined to explain that it was Samoan; he didn’t want to give anyone any ammunition. He thought of his mom, starting her new job at Hoodman’s Grocery Store that morning, of how hopeful she was that this would be a better place for all of them. He wanted to do his best for her sake if nothing else.
She had been through too much already because of him.
The morning wore on well enough with no hiccups until fourth period, which was supposed to be Biology on Jake’s schedule. But the schedule didn’t have a room number, just a letter “D” where the classroom number should be. He stood in the hall, the tide of students moving around him from one class to the next, chattering and laughing, the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. He thought about asking one of the kids passing by, but the idea made him panic deep inside. He looked over the other students’ heads for a teacher, a staff person, but there were no adults in sight, no familiar faces. Just scores of kids, all moving in the right direction, and Jake standing still. Lost.
He stood paralyzed like that for a while as the flow began to dwindle, classroom doors closing, passing period ending. Pressure began to build behind his eyes, emotion making it hard to breathe. He was going to be late to class. His first day, and he was already screwing up.
“Hey! You lost?”
Jake turned to the sound of a friendly voice and looked down at a girl, all self-assured gaze and nut-brown hair loose around her face. She was holding the straps of her backpack casually against her shoulders, wearing a green sweater that seemed a little too big for her, leaning easily against the locker she had just closed.
“Uh, yeah. Uh…Biology?” Jake held out the schedule, and the girl glanced at it.
“Oh! Biology is out in one of the portables in the back. It’s kind of confusing. Here, I’ll show you.” She passed him and beckoned with one hand.
It took him a moment to catch up with her.
“Are you new?” she asked.
Jake nodded. “Yeah.”
“Where are you from?”
“Long Beach. California.”
“That sounds amazing,” she said, pleasantly. “I’ve never been to California. It’s kind of crazy to me that people actually live there. Is that stupid?”
She didn’t wait for a reply before continuing, “I imagine it’s pretty different from here, right? I’ve only ever lived here and in Seattle, and it’s pretty cold and gray in both, but California isn’t like that, I guess. I can’t imagine a place that’s warm and sunny most of the year. I can’t wait to find out for myself. I want to go visit San Diego after I graduate and learn to surf. My parents said I should wait and see how I feel later, because I’m still only a freshman and graduation is like…a million years away, but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to change my mind.”
Jake was not expecting the amount of words she threw at him all at once. He nodded as soon as she paused for breath and said, “Yeah, San Diego is really nice,” which was the only thing he could think of to say.
She looked up. “Why did you move here?”
The inside of Jake’s mouth suddenly tasted tinny, as if he’d bitten his tongue. A panic-induced flavor, like a prey animal gets when it senses danger.
“We just…needed a change.”
The girl seemed to accept this. “I get that. You’ll like it here. Ferris Island is pretty cool. It takes some getting used to, but…but it’s a good place, once you get to know it.”
She held the door open for him as they went through the back of the school. The clouds were low above them, threatening rain, but the school’s courtyard was thick and green with freshly-grown spring grass and dandelions popping up against the sidewalks. Jake and the girl walked together down a short walkway, at the end of which was a cluster of portable classroom buildings on risers, each labeled with a letter. The girl pointed to the one on the far left.
“That’s Bio,” she said. “Portable D. You’ve got, like, thirty seconds before the bell, better get in there.”
“I really appreciate it,” he said. “For real. Thanks.”
“No problem!” She turned to leave, but then said over her shoulder, “I’m Ivy, by the way.”
“Jake,” he replied.
“Nice to meet you, Jake,” she said. “Catch you later?”
But she didn’t wait for a reply before jogging back toward the school building, leaving nothing behind except the space where her chattering voice had once filled the silence.
*******
Lunch was the next hurdle. Jake had been dreading it all day.
It was one thing to sit in class and hide in plain sight. It was another to navigate the delicate web of relationships that held up the high school cafeteria like an invisible scaffold; without it, they would all certainly fall through the floor into oblivion.
Jake clutched the sides of his plastic tray so hard that they dug into his palms as he walked down the main aisle between tables, looking for an empty one at the back of the room. The smell of chicken nuggets and fries would usually have made his mouth water, but as they quickly cooled on his tray the stale, greasy smell only made him feel sick.
He looked, but it didn’t seem like any of the tables were fully empty. He was going to have to join someone, no matter how he sliced it.
Maybe he could sit outside. He briefly considered it, but the spring rain had finally started, a steady drizzle that was visible through the wide cafeteria windows. It was indoors or nothing.
Jake was halfway through the echoing room, the roar of student talk all around him, rising and falling like waves, when a familiar voice called out above the storm:
“Jake! Over here!”
The back of his neck froze over, and he turned. There she was again, the girl called Ivy, sitting at a table with another girl and a boy.
For one wild moment he considered ignoring her. He couldn’t quite shake he feeling of being hunted, that this would all turn out to be a horrible joke at his expense. But she was waving him over with wide-eyed sincerity, and her friends both had pleasant expressions as they laughed over something on the boy’s phone screen. Jake’s feet started moving toward the table before he gave them permission to.
He drew near, but by the empty seat he paused, just in case.
“Do you wanna sit with us?” Ivy asked.
Jake nodded, slid his tray onto the table, and sat. He suddenly felt stupid with his hood up, so he pushed it back away from his face. The girl and boy looked up from the phone screen, still laughing.
“Jake, this is Ethan and Bailey. Jake’s new,” Ivy said. “He’s from California.”
“My aunt lives in Santa Cruz,” Bailey said. “Where did you live?”
“Long Beach,” Jake murmured.
Ethan brightened. “Is that near Disneyland?”
“Yeah, sort of.”
“Cool!”
Ivy said, stabbing her salad with her fork, “We’re all in Drama Club together. What do you like to do? Drama? Music? Sports?”
Jake hesitated. Ivy and her friends reminded him of kids he had known back in Long Beach. They weren’t popular, but not unpopular. Just free agents, roaming between friend groups, doing stuff like drama and band and art, carefree without the pressure to be cool. Effortless, like they were already past the high school mentality and ready to be the people they were going to be in ten years, or twenty.
He hadn’t been like that.
“Well, I used to play football,” he said, finally.
Ethan brightened again. “We have a football team here! It’s not super good, but you know. We have one. Maybe you could join? Although I guess the season is kinda over…”
Jake shook his head. “That’s okay. I don’t really play anymore.”
“Why?” Bailey asked, not unkindly, but with a bluntness that Jake found a little jarring.
“It’s just…I don’t know. I just don’t.”
It didn’t feel like enough, so he started to say, “Something happened last year, to me, and I couldn’t really go to school for a bit, so uh…”
But then he stopped, let the statement hang in the air.
This was a mistake.
Jake felt three pairs of eyes on him like lasers, piercing through the armor of his black hoodie. He may have been the tallest kid in the room, but he felt ten inches tiny. All he wanted was to be invisible, to survive the next few months before summer, to make it through with okay grades and to not get into any trouble. Use summer as an excuse to take a break, to get his bearings.
He could feel his mom’s warm brown eyes on him, her soft arms around him, the exhausted hope in her voice when she spoke to him, these days. She was counting on him to be better, now. To be normal.
“It’s hard to explain,” he finally muttered over his cold chicken nuggets, like a sorrowful benediction.
But when he looked up from his tray, Ivy had fixed him with a keen stare, something appraising, like she knew more than she could possibly know. Like the events of the previous year were written all over his face, and she could read them like a book.
“It’s okay to be weird, you know,” she said, softly. Ethan and Bailey both nodded.
Jake glanced up. “What do you mean?”
“It’s just…all three of us know what it’s like not to fit in, to feel like no one else gets it, and it’s okay. You don’t have to be embarrassed. We all feel that way, too.”
Jake shook his head. “Believe me…no one gets it. For real.”
Ivy arched an eyebrow and exchanged knowing glances with Ethan and Bailey. “You’d be surprised,” she said, and took a casual sip of her orange juice.
Jake didn’t get the joke. He waited.
“Ferris Island is…a pretty weird place,” Bailey said. “A lot of people have experienced stuff you wouldn’t believe, here. All three of us have. We’re pretty hard to spook.”
It was Jake’s turn to raise a skeptical brow. “Like what kind of stuff?”
“We could show you,” Ivy said. “If you want.”
Her expression was sincere, but Jake still balked. “No, that’s okay, I’m not into, like…dares.”
The three of them laughed, lightly, graciously. Jake almost liked the way all three of their laughs sounded together. He had never had friends who laughed like that. With each other, instead of at each other. Something near his heart ached.
“Not a dare,” Ivy said. “I promise. We don’t do that stuff.”
“My mom would kill me,” Ethan added, half to himself.
“No, just…if you’re going to live here, there are places…things…you should see.” Ivy shrugged. “Nothing dangerous or bad or anything, I swear. If you’re free after school, we can bring you with us. We’re going anyway, but you’re welcome to come.”
Jake thought it over. The three of them seemed nice enough, but he couldn’t help but see different faces hovering on the other side of the table, in his mind’s eye. The boys who said they were his friends, boys he had known since elementary school, egging him on, laughing viciously.
What, Masoe, are you scared? Gonna piss yourself? Gonna call your mommy?
He won’t do it. He’s too scared.
And the rising swell of adolescent pride, the stubborn desire to be seen as the man he wanted to be, part of the group. The agreement to take the dare. To take the bait. To play the part.
One stupid dare, and everything had changed.
Ivy and Ethan and Bailey didn’t seem like that, but how could he know for sure? He had only just met them. It had only been a few minutes.
But there was something in Ivy’s expression that put him at ease, something he couldn’t quite put words to. Like she wouldn’t ask him to join them unless she really wanted him to. Like her invitation had a deeper heart to it. Something sincere, even compassionate.
That look in her eyes was a lighthouse over the rough sea of the cafeteria. He only hoped that there weren’t hidden rocks in the waves.
Jake sighed and let his face relax into a tentative smile for the first time all day.
“I guess…sure. I’ll come along. What do I have to do?”
Captured that adolescent angst so well- loving your story! 😊
Well I’m invested now.