Overnight Read online

  Della got to her knees and started making her way cautiously to the tent opening. Her side ached. Her neck felt stiff. Whoever said that sleeping on the ground was comfortable?

  “Della—get back,” Maia pleaded. “Where are you going?”

  “To see who—or what—it is,” Della whispered. “Are you coming with me?”

  Suki ducked down into her sleeping bag, pulling it up around her head. Maia made no attempt to move.

  “Looks like I’m going by myself,” Della sighed.

  “Go back to sleep.” Suki’s voice came out muffled through the sleeping bag. “This is all just a bad dream.”

  Another crunching sound outside the tent, this one a little louder, a little closer.

  “Here. Take this.” Maia, looking guilty, handed Della a flashlight.

  Holding the flashlight in one hand, Della struggled into her sneakers. She hesitated at the tent opening, then stepped out, shining the flashlight in a quick circle around the campsite.

  No one there.

  She took another step out of the tent. The fire had nearly burned out, red-blue embers crackling weakly in front of her. She stopped and listened.

  A footstep. Just beyond the boys’ tent.

  “Who’s there?” she called, but her voice came out softly. She knew it didn’t carry past the tents.

  She heard another footstep.

  “Anybody there?” A little louder this time.

  Keeping the light ahead of her and down low, she walked past the boys’ tent, stepping gingerly since her laces were untied. She was at the edge of the clearing now. There was no wind at all. The only sound was that of her breathing. And of another footstep over dry leaves.

  She took a few steps into the trees. “Who’s there?” She shined the flashlight in a wide circle.

  She shivered, more from fear than from the cold. What am I doing out here? she asked herself. Who do I think I’ll find? Why am I being so brave?

  Shivering again, she turned back.

  It was probably just some animal anyway, she thought.

  Of all the stupid things. Wandering off into the woods in the middle of the night, chasing after a stupid animal. I’m losing my mind, she thought.

  She stepped carefully past the fire and was about to climb back into the girls’ tent when something caught her eye. The backpacks. They had been piled so neatly by the fire. Now they were scattered on the ground.

  Had someone knocked them over?

  She took a few steps toward them and shined the flashlight on them. They didn’t seem to have been opened.

  No. It must have been the wind. Or maybe an animal. A raccoon searching for food. That’s all. The footsteps she heard heading into the woods—they must have been the same raccoon.

  Maia and Suki were sitting up by the tent opening, nervously awaiting her return. “Just a raccoon, I guess,” Della said with a shrug.

  “I knew it,” Suki said, shaking her head. She slid back down into her sleeping bag.

  “Thank goodness,” Maia breathed in relief.

  Della kicked off the sneakers and slid back into the sleeping bag. It was cold in there now. She knew it would take a long while to warm it up. She listened. But now all she could hear was Suki’s loud breathing.

  She listened to Suki’s snores and Maia’s tossing and turning for the rest of the night. She couldn’t get back to sleep.

  In the morning they all emerged groggy and stiff, like bears coming out of a winter-long hibernation. Maia seemed constantly on the verge of tears, although she never gave in and cried.

  They ate a quick breakfast and packed up in near silence, eager to get away from the island, eager to end the overnight, eager not to see each other for a while, to be able to go off somewhere and think silently, by themselves, about what had happened.

  The red morning sun was still climbing over the trees when they stepped out of the woods and onto the rocky beach. The lake looked flat and purple in the morning light. The air was clear enough for them to see the town stretching along the bank on the other side of the water.

  “Oh no! My backpack!” Ricky cried. “I left it back there.” He turned and headed back to the campsite, running at full speed.

  The others hurried toward where they had left the canoes, their sneakers crunching over the pebbles.

  A few seconds later they all stopped. And stared.

  “The canoes!” Della said.

  They were gone.

  “Oh no!” Maia cried. “We’re trapped here!”

  CHAPTER 7

  “Someone must have taken them,” Della said. “I know this is where we left them.” She shifted the heavy backpack on her shoulders and looked across the lake to town. It was so close, but so far away.

  “Now, don’t anybody panic,” Gary said, looking very worried.

  “Don’t panic? What do you mean, don’t panic!” Maia cried, her face red, her eyes wide with fear. “Who could have done this? What are we going to do? I’ve got to get home! My parents will kill me!”

  “We won’t be here long. When we don’t get home on time, they’ll send somebody to look for us,” Gary said.

  That was supposed to reassure them, but it didn’t reassure Maia at all. “Then everyone will know that we came here without Mr. Abner!” she cried.

  “Are you sure this is where we left them?” Suki asked, kicking at the sand.

  “Yes, of course,” Gary said. “Look. You can see the tracks in the sand.”

  “So somebody had to steal them,” Della said quietly. She thought of the dead young man buried in the leaves. They were trapped on the island, trapped with him.

  “What’s going on?” Ricky called, lumbering up to them, dragging his backpack.

  “The canoes—” Maia started.

  “Oh no.” Ricky turned white. “Oh, wow. I’m sorry. I moved the canoes.”

  “You what?”

  “Why?”

  A guilty grin spread over Ricky’s face. He backed away from them, dropped his backpack on the sand and raised his hands as if preparing to fend off an attack. “It was supposed to be a joke. I did it yesterday, before the… uh… accident.”

  “I don’t believe this.” Suki scowled at Ricky. “You’ve got a great sense of humor, Schorr.”

  “I’m sorry. It was just a practical joke. Yesterday, I doubled back during the ZAP war and moved them,” Ricky said. “So sue me. When I did it, I didn’t know Della was going to kill a guy!”

  Della gasped. “Ricky—”

  “Give her a break, Schorr,” Pete said quickly.

  “Give us all a break,” Gary said impatiently. “We all just want to get away from here. Where’d you hide the canoes?”

  “Right over here.” They followed Ricky about a hundred yards down the beach. The canoes were resting in some tall weeds behind a low dune.

  “You really are a dork, Schorr,” Suki said, looking at him as if he were a piece of dirt.

  “I said I was sorry.” He shrugged.

  They pulled the canoes to the water, tossed their equipment in, and climbed in. The trip back to town seemed to take forever. No one talked. No one looked back at Fear Island.

  One day later and we’re all different people, Della thought. We all have a secret now. We all have a nightmare that we share, that we must hide.

  She looked at Maia. Her auburn hair was a mess of matted-down tangles. Her eyes were red-rimmed, with dark circles around them. She looked as if she’d been crying all night. Pete, who was always so perfectly neat, was wearing a stained and wrinkled sweatshirt. His unbrushed hair fell down over his eyes.

  The occupants of the other canoe looked just as worn out. Suki’s spiked hair was plastered flat against her head. She hadn’t even tried to comb it. Her face was pale, white as cake flour, as if all her blood had been drained. Ricky paddled silently in the rear of the canoe, breathing heavily, sweat dripping down his face despite the cool morning air. Only Gary looked almost normal, except for the tense, worried look on h
is face as he paddled rhythmically, never moving his eyes from the approaching shore.

  I’m going to be home soon, Della thought. But it isn’t going to be the same. Nothing is ever going to be the same again.

  The slap of the paddles against the water gave way in her mind to the sound of rustling leaves. Again she saw the dry brown leaves being piled onto the lifeless form in the ravine. The leaves were everywhere, so dry, so dead. She looked down. The lake was filled with them, filled with dead leaves, filled with death.

  “Della—are you okay?” Pete’s voice interrupted her thoughts. The rustling leaves vanished, replaced by the sound of the paddles and the water lapping against the sides of the canoe.

  “Yes. I’m okay. I was just… thinking.” She forced a smile. She knew it wasn’t terribly convincing.

  “Everything will be okay,” Pete said. “You’re almost home.”

  Almost home. Maybe I will feel better when I get home, Della thought.

  But when, less than an hour later, she pulled open the back door and saw her mother dressed for church, finishing breakfast at the kitchen counter, she was overcome by a feeling of dread.

  How could Della face her?

  “Well?” Mrs. O’Connor asked, after tilting the coffee cup to her mouth to get the last drop. “How was it? You’re home so early.”

  “Yeah. Well, we got up early,” Della managed to say. She wondered if her mother could see how nervous she was. Mrs. O’Connor was usually a mind reader. She could read more into Della’s eyes and expressions than was scientifically possible.

  “You look like you didn’t get much sleep last night.” Her mother shook her head disapprovingly.

  “Not much,” Della said. She walked to the refrigerator and took out a carton of orange juice. She had a sudden urge to cry. She hoped that maybe, just maybe, an activity like getting orange juice for herself would help her keep control.

  But how can I keep control? I killed a man last night!

  Did her mother see her hand shaking as she poured the juice into a glass? No.

  “Guess you don’t want to come to church with me,” her mother said.

  “I’m going to go to bed. I could sleep for a week,” Della told her.

  “Was it fun?” Mrs. O’Connor asked, standing up and straightening her dress.

  “Kind of,” Della said, drinking the orange juice at the sink, keeping her back to her mother.

  “Were you really up the whole night?” Mrs. O’Connor asked.

  “No. Not the whole night.”

  “Want breakfast?”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Did you talk to Gary?” Her mother knew Della hated questions about her boyfriends, but that never stopped her.

  “Not too much.” Della drank half the glass. She poured the rest in the sink.

  “I was just asking,” Mrs. O’Connor said with a shrug.

  Ask me if I killed somebody last night, Della thought.

  “You look exhausted,” her mother said, frowning with concern.

  I’m going to tell her everything, Della decided. I can’t keep it in. I just can’t. “Mom, I—”

  “Yeah?” She was halfway out the door.

  Della hesitated.

  “What is it, Della?”

  “See you later,” she said.

  The door closed behind her.

  * * *

  Della slept all morning and most of the afternoon. When she came downstairs a little before four, her mother was out. She made herself a tuna sandwich and ate it hungrily, washing it down with a Coke.

  She felt a little better. All of that sleep helped a lot.

  Taking a bowl of potato chips with her, she went back up to her room and did some Government homework. To her surprise, she was able to concentrate on the chapter she was reading. She thought about the young man in the ravine only once or twice, and even then it seemed like a distant memory, like something that had happened and was over.

  When her mother got home, Della realized she no longer had the urge to tell her what had happened. At dinner she told her some stories about the overnight, some of them made up, some of them true. She told her about the ZAP war, about how good the hot dogs tasted over the open fire, how Ricky had hidden the canoes and how alarmed they were about it.

  I may be able to do this after all, she thought. I may be able to put it behind me and go on with my life.

  She began to feel confident, relaxed, almost good about herself—until the phone rang at seven thirty, and she picked up and heard Maia’s trembling voice.

  “Della, can you come over? I’m not doing so well.”

  “What do you mean? Are you sick?”

  “No. It’s just—well, I’m sure my parents suspect something.”

  Della suddenly had a cold feeling on the back of her neck. Her neck muscles tightened. “Maia, you didn’t tell them anything, did you?”

  “No, of course not,” Maia replied quickly, her voice tense and high. “Of course not, Della. But I think they suspect… I mean, I just have a hunch. And I don’t—I mean, I don’t know how much longer I can—”

  “Okay. Try to calm down,” Della said, sounding irritated when she meant to sound comforting. “I’ll be right over.”

  “Thanks, Della. Hurry. Please.”

  Della hung up, feeling more annoyed than sympathetic. It seemed to her that Maia wasn’t even trying to get over this. Well, maybe she was. Maybe she was doing the best she could.

  In a way, she had gotten Maia into this mess. Maia wouldn’t have even gone on the overnight if she hadn’t urged her so strongly.

  I’ve got to stop thinking about her so harshly, Della decided. I’ll go over there and give her a pep talk, make her feel better. That’s what friends are for, after all.

  Friends.

  Were her friends going to come through for her? Were they going to keep the secret as they had vowed?

  They had to, Della decided. They had to.

  She slipped into a clean pair of jeans and a light sweater, brushed her hair until it fell straight and smooth behind her shoulders, put on a little clear lip gloss, and then looked around the room for her wallet. It wasn’t on her desk. It wasn’t on the shelf by the door, where she usually kept it.

  My wallet, she thought. When did I have it last? Did I bring it on the overnight? Yes. It had been in her backpack.

  She hadn’t unpacked her backpack, she realized. She had just tossed it down by the bed and forgotten about it.

  She wanted to forget about it, of course. Now, as she picked it up and dumped the contents onto her bed, the old feeling of dread swept over her. The sound of the crackling dry leaves seemed to pour out of the backpack.

  She tossed it to the floor and searched through the wrinkled clothing and toilet articles she had packed. Where was the wallet?

  I know it was in there, she thought.

  But it’s gone.

  Could someone have taken it? No. That was impossible.

  Everything from the pack felt so cold. She had carried the chill of Fear Island home with her. And now she too felt chilled, pawing through her stuff again and still not finding the wallet.

  How mysterious.

  She decided to go to Maia’s without it. Maia lived only a few blocks away in the North Hills section of town. Della told her mother she was going there to study, and headed out the door.

  It was a warm night, almost balmy, a pleasant contrast to the night before. On a front lawn down the block a group of kids was playing baseball, even though it was already dark. A few doors down, Mrs. Kinley was shouting for her son that it was time to come home, and was being completely ignored.

  North Hills was such a quiet, peaceful neighborhood, the nicest neighborhood in Shadyside. For some reason, seeing the kids playing ball, walking past the large, quiet houses, past the manicured, carefully tended lawns, made Della feel sad. Somehow she didn’t feel a part of that quiet, peaceful, respectable world anymore. Her secret made her an outsider.
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  Stop it, Della, she warned herself. Just stop it right now. It’s natural that you feel sorry for yourself right now. But that will pass.

  Maia opened her front door the instant Della rang the bell, and, without saying a word, pulled Della upstairs to her room and closed the door.

  Della never could get over Maia’s room. It looked like a little girl’s room, with lacy white curtains on the windows, shelves of dolls, and stuffed animals everywhere.

  “Maia—you look terrible!” Della cried, and then immediately regretted saying it. What a way to cheer someone up!

  Maia burst into tears. “I keep crying, then stopping, crying then stopping,” she sobbed. She pulled a handful of tissues from a box on her dresser and covered her face, blotting up the tears. When she took the tissues away, her face was bright red.

  Della walked over and put her arm around Maia’s shoulder. “Maia, everything will be okay. I promise,” she said softly.

  “You promised me before,” Maia said, not looking at Della.

  Della didn’t know what to say. “What are you worried about? Tell me in words,” she said, leading Maia to the bed. Maia sank onto the gray and pink quilt. Della sat down in the small gray corduroy armchair across from the bed.

  “My parents. I know they’re suspicious.”

  “How do you know? What did they say to you?”

  “Well… nothing exactly. But my mom looked at me funny.”

  “I don’t blame her,” Della said. “You don’t exactly look your best. What did you tell them about the trip?”

  “Not much. Just that I had a fun time and that I didn’t spend the night making out in the boys’ tent, and that it wasn’t the wild orgy they imagined it would be.”

  “That’s for sure,” Della muttered. “Well, it sounds like you did okay. Did you take a nap or anything?”

  “I tried, but I couldn’t sleep,” Maia wailed. “I just kept seeing that guy lying in the ravine.”

  “You need some sleep,” Della said. “You’ll feel much better. Really. I slept almost all day. And I’m feeling…”

  “What?”

  “I’m feeling better. Really, I am. You know, what happened to that guy last night was an accident.”