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Pick Me Up

There was no call for it.

This thought stuck in Jacob's mind like a fly in a wedding cake. He trudged forward through the morning mist, the heavy smell of pine invading his nostrils, somehow pushing him back onto his own train of thought.

His worn-down shoes kept scuffing against the tar of the 210. He didn't know where he was going, but he didn't care, so long as he got the hell out of Dodge and as far away as possible. The red hoodie he bought with his pawn money at Wal-Mart was coming undone; he could feel loose threads tickling the insides of his arms. It was cold, and the hoodie didn't do him any good. Angrily, with the air of one who had just lost an important poker game, he grabbed the hood and pulled it over his head as far as his vulpine features would allow.

His yellow eyes were obscured by the tangled, greasy brown mass of hair that fell over his orange-furred face. He stuck his paws into the pockets of his faded blue jeans, which were riddled with pockmark rips and tears. His tail twitched from the cold morning air. The sun was hidden by dark grey clouds, keeping it from burning away the fog. He remembered hearing from someone that Minnesota was really warm in April, but he found it no different than back home in Wisconsin. Same climate, same difference.

There was no call for it.

Somehow that phrase had taken on a new meaning that frightened Jacob; that is, when it didn't aggravate him as he pondered over what happened in the past. Just recently, because of that phrase that had transformed into a blinking heliographic signal in his brain, he began doubting the very reasons he so enigmatically told himself were true the day he ran. There was no call for what John did, and there certainly was no call at all for what Desmond did, but was there any call for running away from it all? Was there a possibility that, if he had stayed, things could have gotten better if he at least tried? He could have talked to someone, a friend or his mother. When Bad reared its ugly head and turned to its blood brother Worse, he and his mother could have moved to a different town. Maybe somewhere in Utah, like they always wanted.

He'd think these things and then the bitter-sweet voice of reason would bark at him and dawning comprehension would settle back into his mind like a soft curtain of freshly shaken silt. He had no friends anymore. They all left him after seeing him for the freak he really was. His mother...he didn't know what his mother would say, but that didn't matter. He knew that it wouldn't have been anything nice. Maybe it was better that he didn't have any notion of what she would say, content to mark it off in his mind that it couldn't have been good. He didn't have to worry about that, though. He was trying to get away from that particular ground zero, and it didn't pay to think about such things. Your feet can't be going one place when your mind is stuck somewhere else. He had to stay on the road, and as long as he kept out of trouble (he was doing alright in that aspect), he'd be doing just fine soon enough.

Still, those random little thoughts of contemplation and self-consideration would sneak in, and when that happened, he felt like there was nothing better than to buy a good sturdy length of rope, go out into the woods where he'd be alone (always had been and always will be), tie one end of the rope to a tree, then fasten a loop--

"Shut up," Jacob said out loud to himself. His voice was soft, choked, and sounded muffled in his own ears as though the mist itself had actually stifled his sense of hearing or capability of speech. The sling of his knapsack had slipped over his shoulder again, it being the thing that brought him out of his thoughts long enough to give himself this little remark. He hoisted the knapsack back onto his shoulder and trudged on, noting to himself that he had to stop thinking about those kinds of thoughts as well.

There was no call for it. Not at all.

Jacob reached into the depths of his red hoodie and took out half a sandwich, wrapped heavily in GLAD plastic wrap. His fingers moved quickly, pulling apart the clear plastic wrapping in convulsive, almost mechanical, movements. Behind him he heard the distant rumble of an engine coming toward him. Stopping, he turned and looked for just a moment at the oncoming vehicle. It was a black GMC pickup, its engine roaring like the biggest tiger that ever lived as it ate up pavement at breakneck speed. The chrome face of its grill barreled toward him, growing bigger and bigger, its eyes shining like a pair of demonic lamplight. For a moment, panic swept over the fox like a swift thunderstorm, he wanted to run, the urge to move his legs becoming stronger as the truck raced toward him. Jacob turned, ready to fling himself into the shrub-laden ditch. For one quick moment, the tiger-roar of the vehicle became a deafening rumble, as though an explosion of thunder erupted from underground and out into the open air. It electrified his fur and his muscles, adrenaline coursing behind his eyes.

Then the truck rushed past him in a powerful gust of wind. The somewhat nauseating smell of diesel hung in the air like an invisible cloud.

"Asshole," Jacob muttered as he watched the pickup quickly disappear down the road. What idiot goes that fast down a paved road in fog while someone's walking on the same side? Prick must've been doing eighty or better. He took a bite out of the sandwich, grimacing as the mayonnaise hit the roof of his mouth. He always hated mayonnaise. For that matter, anything that was made from or consisted of egg yolk he found absolutely revolting. He wanted to spit it out, but he knew that the time between this little snack and the next one would probably be a long time, so he pulled a wry face and chewed with his mouth open. It helped, but barely. He took another bite, chewed it, wrapped up the remaining piece with the plastic wrap, and swallowed. His stomach rolled for one upsetting moment, but it passed as quickly as it came. He coughed into his sleeve and kept walking on. The sun stayed hidden behind gunmetal clouds as Jacob put one foot after the other, a red spot juxtaposed by a world of grey, brown, and green.

It was thirty-five minutes and three miles later when Jacob heard another car coming. He didn't turn around this time, he just stepped further to the side. The weeds and grass were tall here, almost reaching his hips; he knew there had to be a swamp nearby. If the driver was hostile or looking for a fight--he knew about people who just went around beating people up for the sheer thrill of it, having had the bad luck to meet a few on his flight--he could cut and run into the swamp. Stay there until they went away. They typically left you alone after they've had their fill, and the ones who want more "bang for their buck" usually get dragged away by the ones who want to go. At least, that's what happened at the gas station outside of Radisson. One encounter might not exemplify the rubric of the general community of thrill-seeking hatchet men.

The vehicle came closer, and judging by the sound it was traveling at a much slower speed than the pickup.

Jacob's first instinct was to shake a leg and haul ass off the road. Head straight for the swamp. Get to safety. Run. He wanted to turn around but he knew that if he did, he'd only be inviting trouble. The sound of the engine grew louder and louder until the vehicle sped past him and Jacob saw the blue '66 Coupe De Ville with a white hardtop. It seemed to glide past him in slow motion, like a sentimental scene in a 1980's high school movie.

Although Jacob took a few simple engines classes in high school, he had never really opened up to it. Ask him to put up diagrams or draft something and you'd find him ready with a handful of pencils and a straightedge, but ask him to take out the crankshaft or explain why a two-stroke engine is stronger than a four-stroke, and you may as well ask him if caterpillars can feel pain when they metamorphose into butterflies. Still, his ignorance of mechanical erudition never kept him from knowing which cars looked good. What was the old saying? "You may not know much about art but you know what you like?" Yeah, that was it.

Suddenly the car slowed to a stop. Jacob tensed, his heart rate jumping up a few notches. He had a vision of the driver climbing out with a pry bar or a knife--or a shotgun--and rushing at him. He saw himself laying half in, half out of the tall grass, his face bruised and cut with blood streaming out of his open mouth. His knapsack would be sprawled out on the road, the measly odds and ends he had tucked away in there being picked up on the wind by the next car that comes by. Just now the car reversed, slowly, coming to a stop a few yards ahead of him. The driver's side door opened up with a dull popping noise. Jacob's insides went cold, like he swallowed a tray of ice cubes.

The elderly woman leaned over the passenger seat until she appeared in the window on the other side. She had red hair that started as a small bouffant at the top and ended in curls down to her shoulders. She looked a little like Reba McIntyre. "Excuse me, are you lost?" she asked in a crisp, clear voice.

Jacob sighed, relief rolling over him in a wave. He'd been no stranger to surprises, but this one brought a particular enjoyment. He mentally laughed at himself; the thoughts he just had were so ridiculous now. He smiled at the woman, trying to look as presentable as possible. "Uh, no, I know where I'm going," he lied.

"Are you sure?" she asked, "I could get you there sooner if'n you wanted."

"No thanks. I don't want to put you to any trouble," Jacob said, and he meant it. He raised his hand in an affable stop-right-there gesture.

"Oh, it's no trouble at all! Come on, hop in. Besides, there's a thunderstorm blowin' in from the East, and you already look pretty washed up as you are."

Jacob couldn't disagree with that. He hated storms, especially when he was walking through one in tattered jeans and an unraveling hoodie. It wasn't that he didn't trust this woman, it was just that all this time spent walking the roads and highways had conditioned him to being by himself, and if he stepped into the Coupe De Ville it would shatter this one reassurance that all he could count on was himself. It was that he was a loner runaway who didn't know where he was going, and she was a nice person who seemed very well-to-do. He didn't want to burden her down with his social ineptness.

Jacob sighed, seeing that the odds, however positive they were, were set against him again. "Okay," he said, adding a quick "Thanks," as he walked over to the passenger side. He opened the door and climbed in.

It was basically what he expected the inside of a Coupe De Ville to be; warm and comfortable, almost like a womb. The seats were nice and soft, but they were old-fashioned and didn't have a space in between the back support and the seat, so Jacob had to sit on his tail. He put his knapsack in his lap, fretfully thumbing the weaving between his thumb and forefinger. The woman looked at him with a smile on her ruby-red lips, which brought out the green in her eyes and her crimson hair. The few fragmented stress lines on her face suggested that she had to be in her forties, maybe early fifties. He smiled at her, pulling the hood off of his head.

"Oh, I'm sorry," the woman said, extending her hand for Jacob to shake, which he took. "My name's Lavinia Trenton. I was just coming back from visiting my sister down in Blackwood. Poor thing, she has a bad case of the gout, and her daughter...well, let's just say she's not exactly drawing room material."

Jacob smiled mechanically and nodded sympathetically, not really knowing what to say. He felt kind of embarrassed listening to the problems of this woman's sister, not knowing who they were, to begin with.

"Oh, listen to me; just chattering away like a lonely old morning dove. What about you? You got a name folks call you?"

"Uh, I'm Jacob...Jacob Steenbrass. Most people just call me Jake."

"Ah, nice name. If people are gonna yell your name from way across town, it may as well be a good one, right?"

"Right," Jacob agreed. A thin smile, this one genuine, broke out on his muzzle.

"So...where were you heading, Jake? Anyplace in particular I can throw you?"

Jacob swallowed. He had never really had a certain destination to go by. Right from the first day, he just went down the street, then the road, and before he knew it Dodge was already stuck in the distance like a grit of dirt in a bowl of sugar...and he became a leaf steadfastly fixed on a gust of wind, taking him to wherever it wanted to take him. And he didn't really care about not having a plan, as long as the road provided him with some food, a bit of sleep, and the security of knowing in his mind that he was getting away from his troubles back home.

"Well," he mumbled loosely, "I was kind of, um, heading North..."

"You'll have to speak up, honey. My right ear isn't what it used to be."

Jacob's mind worked furiously as he tried to find an excuse to tell her. "Well, I'm from Wisconsin, and I have an uncle in Duluth who wanted to see me about something. He didn't tell me what it was over the phone, though, so I thought it was something really important to him. My car broke down a few miles out of town, so I had to get that towed."

"You mean no one would give you a ride? You walked all the way from Wisconsin up to here?"

"Yeah," Jake muttered. For a moment he was afraid that the Trenton woman would see through his ruse and yell at him. She'd call him a liar and toss him back out onto the pavement like an unhappy fisherman with a meager-sized fish. On the other hand, he'd be at least a mile farther. That much less to walk.

Needless to say, he was a bit taken aback when she said "Well I gotta hand it to you, Jake. Takes a lot of guts and persistence to walk all this way just to see your uncle. Those qualities are pretty rare in a person nowadays. You must really love your family, and if I say so myself (and I do), they must really love you."

Jake sighed as the comment caught him a bit off guard. Sure, he loved them, but he wasn't so sure if they saw eye to eye. All he said, however, was "Sure."

Jacob found that the only times when Lavinia stopped talking, she was either pausing to breathe or taking a sip from a can of Coka Cola she had tucked between the seats in a customized storage box. She offered one to Jacob, and he accepted it thankfully, trying not to seem as suppliant as he really was. The loud click and the sound of carbonation was almost like music in his ears as he drank the bubbly soda in massive gulps.

"Easy there," Lavinia said as she watched the young fox quickly drain the soda, "Minnesota doesn't have a desert, you know."

"Sorry," Jacob said after taking one final sip. The can was empty, but still he kept it in his lap, mainly as an act of respect. He had to admit it, even to himself, that he felt a lot better, and the heat being given off by the AC was slowly drawing him into a drowsy state of semi-consciousness that he couldn't escape. It was like when he was younger and his mother would be driving him to the doctor, and when the rays of the sun would touch him he would slowly fall under its hypnotic spell and take a nap without realizing it. Even now his head drooped and his eyelids sagged under the weight of untapped sleep. Suddenly Lavinia's voice forced him out of his lethargy and kept him from going under.

"I hope you're not too keen to get to Duluth any time soon, Jake. Looks like I'm outta gas."

"What?"

"I know, I don't understand it, either. I just filled the tank before I left Blackwood."

Jake knew that something like this would happen. He could never quite put his hand on it but he always felt that he was a carrier of bad luck, like some all-inclusive social pariah unwillingly spreading a debilitating disease. He hated feeling like this, but the side of him that was always willing to criticize and lash out at was always directed at himself. Over the years, as the pressure on the outside grew and grew, his self-loathing and desire for feeling good about himself had culminated into an odd form of undiagnosed manic-depression. He hadn't yet reached the trough of the emotional wave, but the suddenness of everything, from being picked up by a kindly person who didn't care about his shabby appearance (a good thing) to the car's unexpected deficiency of fuel (a bad thing), sent him in a downward spiral. He cocked his head to the side, letting it rest on his shoulder as he breathed another sigh through his nostrils.

A few years ago, the good things would have completely counterbalanced the bad things, but Jake, whether he simply didn't believe they would or he just didn't want them to, refused to be assuaged so easily by himself.

"Well, Jake, I guess we'll have to make a stop at Higgins tonight."

"Higgins?" Jacob asked. His voice sounded distant as though it came from outside the window. It had to be the heat that was getting to him. He jerked his head upward to keep from drowsing off.

"Yeah," Lavinia chirped happily, "it's a really lovely little town, emphasis on lovely and little. I'm so glad I moved there from St. Paul...I never could stand the city racket, all those cars and trucks flying by day-in, day-out like bees at the hive, making my whole one-room apartment bounce up and down like it was a teenager's birthday bash. Higgins is a quiet little town, someplace where someone can settle down and just live and grow under the sun. Sure the center of town is a cross-roads, but hey, who wants to get up and get out of a place where everyone knows you, right?"

She smiled and glanced at Jacob, realizing that for some time she had been talking to herself; he had fallen asleep.

Jacob woke up dazedly, his tired eyes blinking warily in the odd light. His back was sore, but that was easy to explain; the couch he had been sleeping on had springs in it. He tried to rub out the dried crusty material that collected on his eyelashes, but his hands were impeded by a heavy red blanket covering him. As comprehension dawned on him, he looked around, taking in the surroundings. The floor was carpeted with a thin cream colored rug. Beside Jacob was a glass coffee table set with a white lace doily, on which stood a decorative candelabrum and a crystal decanter. The candelabrum was a tiny two-piece figurine of a feral fox and a bipedal wolf encircled by a wreath of shrubbery, each one holding the base of a candle in its paws. The decanter was empty.

On the wall farthest from him stood a large pedestal displaying a television, one that had, if Jacob's eyes were functioning correctly, a pair of thin aluminum pipes sprouting from the top. To the left of this antique, separated by a thin panel, was a big bulky thing whose function Jacob didn't know. It was rectangular at the bottom and rounded at the top. An inch apart from the circular edge into the object was a circular bulge with diagonal criss-crossing wires. It kind of reminded Jacob of an audio speaker, but the discretion between an audio speaker and this thing was insurmountable. The walls themselves were a sickly yellow, a terrible banana-lemony thing that made the room itself appear old and lived in spite of the absence of dust.

"I don't normally bring home strangers who fall asleep when I'm talking to them."

Jacob slowly rose from the couch, leaning his back against the seat. Lavinia Trenton came in from behind him, carrying a tray with a large pewter teapot in the shape of a colonial minuteman. She placed it gently on the coffee table, careful not to touch the candelabrum and decanter.

"Oh, I'm sorry about that," Jacob said as he put his legs over the edge of the couch, "I, uh, I didn't really feel tired when I came in, it was just that...um,"

"Oh, never mind," Lavinia said happily in that chirpy bird-like voice, "You look like you've been on the road for a while, smell like it, too. I shouldn't really be surprised when a young boy falls asleep in my car after picking him up off the side of the road, but I just didn't think it would be that fast."

Lavinia poured the tea into two small cups, steam rising from their contents in fine, wispy columns. She offered one cup to him, which he took with paws that trembled slightly. He stared at them curiously, as though just realizing that he had them. He clenched his fists before accepting the cup, and sipped the hot, honey-colored liquid. It warmed his insides and tickled all the way down.

Lavinia saw the little smile play about on his muzzle, and she smiled, too. "Like it?," she said, "It's a family recipe, I'm happy to say. A little honey, a little peppermint, a few things of this and that...good?"

Jacob nodded vigorously. From just taking light sips of the soul-warming tea, he found that his hands ceased their shaking. Gradually he drank deeper, savoring the taste and the aroma. "Where am I?" he finally asked, glancing around the room at the antique objects.

"My home," She murmured, sipping the tea in prim, quiet gestures. Jacob said it was nice, to which Lavinia thanked him. They sat in silence as they drank.

"So where did your car break down, Hon?" Lavinia asked as she took another sip from her cup.

"What?"

"Your car? You said that your car broke down out of town. Which town was it?"

Jacob had no idea what she was talking about. He never had a car. If he did, he'd already be in a motel in the middle of the Canadian woods. He wondered where she heard that he had a car. That was about the time that he remembered what he said.

"Lampoon, in Washburn county," he said, "Motor conked out and a tire popped. I didn't have the money for repairs, so I just had it towed back home. I walked the rest of the way until you came by."

"Hmmm," Lavinia hummed as she sipped the rest of her tea. She appeared deep in thought, an action Jacob didn't particularly favor in his situation. "From Washburn County to Carlton County...that's about sixty miles, I think. From town to town it should be seventy, give or take a few feet. You walked all that way? Nobody gave you a ride?"

"Yeah. I think it was because I wasn't wearing my hitchhiking tuxedo."

"Hmph. Lucky I came by, then."

"Yeah, thanks."

They drank until their cups were empty, then Lavinia refilled them with the sweet-smelling brew.

"What about your car?" Jacob asked. "I remember that you said something about--."

"Oh, that..." she said, whisking her manicured hand back and forth in a dismissing gesture. "Our local mechanic says all this gobbledygook and waffling mumbo-jumbo, I can barely keep up. But I can tell you what it amounts to: thievery. He expects me to pay two hundred dollars for all these things that are supposedly wrong with it, when I know plain well that half the repairs he mentioned are phony. Would you happen to know the what's-what in a car, Jake?"

"Oh, uh...no. Sorry," he stammered.

"Hmmm, too bad..."

"But when do you think it'll be ready? I mean, I was kind of hoping to talk to my uncle."

"Oh, I don't know, Jake. A day, a week...knowing Eugene it could be a month. Thing is, though, I don't have the money to pay for it all."

Caleb's black-tipped ears drooped at the news. His memory jogged back further, and he remembered most of the conversation from the car. If he was in Lavinia's home, he had to be in the town she called Higgins, wherever the hell it was. Suddenly an idea struck him upside the head.

"I could help pay for it."

"Oh, no, dear. I couldn't ask you to do that."

"No, no, I want to. It's really the least I can do for you since I already slept in your car."

"Oh, that's forgiven, anyway. I'll pay for it, don't you worry."

In the given circumstance, all I can do is worry, he wanted to say. He did say "It would be faster if we worked together on this, and I'd be out of your hair before you know it." Lavinia smiled as she sipped her tea. She closed her eyes and for a moment Jacob thought that she's ignored his suggestion. When she set her cup down she smiled back at him.

"When you put it like that, I suppose I haven't any choice. I have to pay you back, of course, for your time..."

"Oh, believe me, a ride to Duluth is all the payment I'll accept," Jacob said, putting on a false smile. He tried to seem charming, but he imagined he looked as though he were trying to imitate a vixen with a bad case of stomach cramps.

"Hmm. Well, how old are you?"

"I'm twenty years old."

Lavinia appeared modestly impressed. "Really? You look younger than that. I suppose it's the shirt. Well, I'll tell you what, Jake. If you really want to, I'll recommend you to somebody I know. You can work for them for as long as you want, but if you think that he's not the right kind of employer you can go to someone else. It's just a recommendation, so I don't want you to feel obligated."

"That's okay..."

"Another thing, dear. I doubt you'd want live here during your stay in Higgins, so I called this family I know, the Kays, and they said they'd be happy to take you in for a while."

"Oh, thanks." This was a bit unexpected, and a bit fast-paced, but he knew he couldn't really complain. He needed a place to stay, and he needed money. If he had to jump into a whirlpool to obtain those things, then he should've brought swimming trunks.

Lavinia placed her hand on his. It was well-groomed, but not so much that you couldn't overlook the sandpaper texture of the skin and the bulging pathways of her varicose veins.

"I know you don't want to stay here, but I just want you to know that you will always have a place here in Higgins." Her smile was warm, and the look in her eyes made Jacob smile, too.

"Thank you," he said again. He drank the rest of the tea and set the cup on the tray, wondering how he could be unfortunate and lucky at the same time.

Jacob opened the door of the gas station, the musical tinkling of the entrance bell filling up the compact building with a loud piping quality. It was sparsely furnished, with only three aisles and a cashier's counter stuck in the corner, but it made up for that in density. In one aisle were perhaps a dozen different types of cans, containers, canisters, and vases holding a wide array of preserves, jams, and jellies. In another were loaves of bread, packages of biscuits, and other bread items. To Jacob, who had been taught how to cook by his mother, they all looked home-made. Most of the cans, especially the tin ones, had blue labels wrapped around them displaying the name of the establishment and the date the product was made. Strangely, there were no nutritional facts or barcodes. On the far side of the building was a meat counter and a very small refrigerated section. Somewhere farther into the building, someone was rearranging glass bottles.

Jacob walked over to the cashier's counter. Standing behind it was a portly man with bright eyes, a teenager's stubble, and prominent jowls that made him look a little like a pit bull. He wore a drab green apron with the words "Hugh's Gas Station and Market" in bright yellow letters. When he looked up and saw Jacob walking over, he pulled back his lips and formed a massive grin that reminded Jacob of The Grinch, the animated version.

"Jacob, my boy! Good to see you. Livvy called me yesterday and said you'd be stopping by." He proffered a stubby hand, and Jacob grabbed it. The fingernails were yellow and dirty, and through his own pads Jacob could feel the substantial evidence of a working man; calluses. He understood immediately that this man's name was Hugh. Jacob thanked him politely.

"Heard you were looking for a job here In Higgins. Interested?"

"Sure. Do you have an application?"

"Application? Oh, I don't believe in those things. Papers don't matter for nothin' when you're counting on someone's quality. See, I hire on someone's character. My granddad always said that a person can pretty up their name anyway they want, but their name won't count for nothing if their eyes see two ways. For a while I never really understood what he meant, but when you get to be your father's age, you get to knowing things. Lookin' at you, boy, I know that you got some heart in you, and some work ethic. Your hand was the application, son, and just from shakin' it, I can tell you got what it takes. You're hired."

For a while, Jacob stared at the portly pit-bull of a man looking back at him with that hound-dog grin. He blinked a few times until he finally willed his lower jaw to hinge back in place. "I...uh, what?" was all he could say.

"Yep. You're hired. You think you can start immediately? Tomorrow, maybe?"

"Uh...sure..."

"Good man. Danny's over there in the back. His shift ends at...What time is it now? Quarter to three? Yeah, his shift ends in fifteen minutes. You can wait for him here if you want. You can work alongside him tomorrow when he starts back up at eight. You used to heavy lifting?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Good. There's a new shipment of inventory coming in tomorrow, and I want you and Danny to haul out the boxes and take them out back into the storeroom. You start at eight o' clock in the morning...sharp! Got it?"

Before Jacob could answer a tall brown-haired boy materialized from behind one of the aisles. He had deep brown eyes that seemed small only because he had a slight squint--his mother would have called this look "curious eyes."--and a light-skinned face that was overlaid by very Irish-looking freckles, smattering his cheeks in a way that made it seem as though a painter had tapped a paintbrush next to his face when he was born. Hugh, upon seeing him, quickly adjusted his center of attention to him.

"Daniel! Just the lad I was talking about. I take it you know Jacob Steenbrass?"

"Yeah, I know Jacob," Daniel said. He was clearly going through the hormone-enriched tunnel of puberty, as the undecided baritone quality of his voice was beginning to set in.

"Good! Yes, well...You put all the frames next to the vases?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you remember to take the key out of the lock in the storeroom this time?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good boy! Well, I don't want to sound like a jerk, but get out of here, both of you."

Jacob knew that the man's tone pertained to mock-anger, so he smiled. Daniel stuck out a hand towards the jolly man, who looked inquisitively at the boy. "Yes, Danny?"

"You're forgetting something, sir."

"Am I? What could I be forgetting, and how important is that thing that I could be forgetting?"

Quickly, his hand slipped into a pocket at the center of his apron and came back out with a handful of quarters. It happened as fast as a magician's trick, and Jacob had a feeling that that was exactly how Hugh treated himself as.

The quarters fell into Daniel's open hand with a loud clanking jangle, and then disappeared into his pants pocket. "Thank you, Mr. Jackson," he said. The jolly dog-man flashed a magician's grin and nodded before turning back to the counter. Daniel turned to leave, and Jacob walked with him. They stepped out into the hot sun, breathing in the scent of summer and the faint whiff of gasoline coming from the blue- and cream-colored pumps.

"So," Daniel said after a little while, "You're the one who'll be staying at our house?"

"Yeah, I guess I am," Jacob said, a bit more defensively than he wanted it to sound.

"No, I didn't mean it like that. Actually I'm kind of glad you'll be staying for a while. It'll give me a reason to blame someone when my parents are mad."

Jacob chuckled, knowing full well that it was a joke, but inside he felt the cold suspicion that it could very well happen. Daniel appeared to be a nice kid, only a few years younger than him, a sharp dresser, and polite. His parents were just like him, too. Maybe a little stricter than he had at first thought, but understanding people were understanding people, and Jacob liked that. After spending the night at Lavinia's house, he had woken up bright and early to meet the people who would be taking him in during his stay in the town. They were in the kitchen with Lavinia, seated at a fine mahogany table. They talked to each other a little bit, and they talked to Jacob for a short time. Barbara Kay seemed to be especially interested when he mentioned he had gone to college for a year. At first they remarked on his appearance, his clothes, and his height. Jacob never liked to be criticized, especially by people who had never met him before, but he knew that he'd be spending some time with these people, maybe for as long as a week, so he kept his mouth shut and held his hands together, accepting the compliments and storing away their more nitpicking critiques the way an obsessive compulsive would hoard away a particular object. It probably wasn't healthy, but at the moment, he didn't really give a damn.

Their house was furnished with almost the same type of furniture and appliances, out of date but tasteful, and their walls were, to Jacob's relief, not painted with the same sickly yellow of Lavinia's home. They asked him if he wouldn't mind sharing the room with Daniel, and he said he didn't mind at all. Of course he did mind, after having a troubling past with his roommate, but he didn't want to be an asshole about it himself.

They walked past a group of six little girls jumping rope beside the sidewalk. They were all wearing the same white dress, in spite of the fact that two of the girls were feline. This made Jacob smile; it wasn't exactly rare in society nowadays, but there definitely was a species gap between many humans and furs. This, however, did not apply to Higgins. He saw a few furs here and about, driving by, sometimes honking the horn at Daniel, yelling out a short good morning to them, but there was a predominant consensus of humans.

He wondered why that was, because from seeing how the humans and furs mingled with each other in this town, he came to the conclusion that everyone basically treated each other with respect.

He also came to the conclusion that Daniel enjoyed meeting new people. From the moment he stepped out of the gas station, the boy continued to chatter away like a flock of sparrows at a new worm, and would only pause long enough to wave at the passing vehicles who hailed him. He talked to Jacob about the different people of the town, or at least the noteworthy persons.

He talked about Claire Robinson, who lost her leg in a big house fire that happened a few years before he was born. She doesn't go out of her home, so she needs someone to help her around, which Daniel cheerfully volunteered for. She doesn't talk anymore, unless particularly affected by the warmth of whiskey, which she keeps in two covertly hidden stocks in both the cellar and the attic. He talked about old Joe Mckinley, who ran the Higgins Herald next to the grocery store down three blocks from the school and who would sit around with Tom Brookfield and the James boys on Brookfield's patio, throwing back a few beers and talking about how cruel the weather can be to the lawn and how folks nowadays take care of each other, completely unlike the way it used to be. He talked about Jane Cleaver, who was the daughter of the town doctor and who was the spitting image of her three toad-like brothers. He compared her to Hyacinth Hudson, who had eyes that shined brighter than a diamond, but how she was nothing compared to Emilia Saunders, whose eyes were brighter than a whole pack of Hyacinths and who always wore ruby-red lipstick to church. About Mr. Devereau and Mr. Forsythe, who were in charge of construction and repair of the town's buildings and who had been working on the new school for the past seven years (they are still working on it).

After a while, Jacob felt the irrepressible urge to fill in the kid's mouth with cement.

"...But she wasn't as nice as Mr. Johnson. I used to baby-sit for his kids before I got a job at the gas station. I think it's been a few years, though, since Mrs. Johnson drowned herself out in Match Lake. I guess she just couldn't find any fish in her bathtub."

Jacob stopped. His right foot came down on the pavement at an odd angle, detaching a rogue chunk of dried tar from its resting place and sending it skimming down the street, into the three-way intersection. He clenched his brown-furred hands into fists and held them tightly against his hips, willing himself not to break Daniel's face in spite of the curious, mystified look the boy was giving him just now.

"Why did you say that?" Jacob said slowly. His voice was low, and his ears were laid flat against his head.

"What? All I said was--."

"I know what you said. I just want to know why you said it."

"I...I just thought it was funny, is all..." Daniel now looked a little frightened, and this sparked a wicked sense of delight in the older fox. Whether or not his mind was taking a lapse into his animalistic nature was of no concern of his; one thing was certain. He was getting joy out of the kid's fearful look.

"You think suicide is funny? Do you think that people who take their own lives and leave everyone in fear and grief and pain deserve a few laughs? Did you just set yourself up for comedian of the year during Sorrow Week?"

"No, I..."

"No, of course not. My mistake! You just thought it was funny. Yeah, I can really see how funny it would be if someone you loved or someone you knew for years suddenly upped and threw themselves off of the school roof. What were they doing? you'd ask yourself. They were just trying to fly! Only they couldn't because they didn't flap their arms fast enough!"

"That wasn't what I was saying..."

"Then what were you saying? Whatever it was, I couldn't hear it. All I could hear was you making fun out of something that's a lot more serious than your ignorant mind could ever wrap itself around."

Jacob turned from Daniel's shocked face and stomped away, going further down the sidewalk past a row of white picket fences guarding miniature gardens. He walked steadily, with his head bowed low, his back arched, and his fists shoved deep into the pockets of the black-and-white checkered shirt Daniel loaned to him. The fur on his bushy tail was puffed out to twice its size, and it swished from side to side irately, as though it were channeling the anger and the hurt Jacob felt. For a moment, his mind was an utter blank. A dark, wet fog that inhibited any thought to come up from the murky depths of his subconscious and up to the surface. When the heavy fog lifted, he bombarded himself with different questions, most of them indignant and aimed at Daniel.

He was in the middle of answering one of these questions (with an exaggerated answer, of course) when a hand placed itself firmly on his right shoulder, halting him and dragging him out of his thoughts. When he turned and saw Daniel's anxious, freckle-speckled face he impulsively clenched his fists again.

"What?" he said none-too-gently. It was more of an outtake of breath than it was a pronunciation of any discernable, lingual sound.

"I just wanted to say that I'm sorry. I didn't really mean nothin', it's just...I don't know. I guess I didn't see it the way you did."

Damn right you didn't, Jacob spat out in his head. Daniel scratched the back of his head nervously, an action Jacob remembered doing thousands of times while he was in college.

"How come you're so hung up on the, uh, the subject, though?"

Jacob stared hard at Daniel, debating with himself if he really should tell the kid--this fifteen year-old boy whom he had met...what? Twenty minutes ago? This kid who, although had the potential to be a bright kid, or so his mother had told him, had just made a smart crack about a matter that not only tugs on his heartstrings, but fucking rips through them like a shark's teeth right through some adrenaline-soaked wave rider's surfboard during the Big Chomp.

But I can't blame the kid. He doesn't know any better.

Doesn't matter. He said it, and that shows how he feels about other people's feelings.

No it doesn't. Maybe he was repeating what he heard from somebody else. Maybe the James boys.

That's a big 'maybe,' and besides, if he was repeating what he heard, it shows how smart the idiot is.

But he doesn't know any better...

So what?

So I should tell him.

And for the next ten minutes, Jacob told Daniel as they walked up the sidewalk, past where the white picket fence ended, going onward ever onward.

He talked to Daniel about how when he and John Lykos first met in kindergarten, they were immediately inseparable. Nobody really saw or understood how a fox and a coyote could really be friends, but to John and Jacob, species wasn't of any importance. What mattered was the extent of trouble they could cause, and how short a time they could get into it. Their parents also hit it off quite well. When Jacob's father ran off with some two-dollar tart from Madison, John's parents were there to help his mother through the anguish. Sometimes his mother, during certain periods of reminiscence, would tell him that the grey fur she frequently saw in the mirror was merely premature aging that she got from worrying over the two whenever they zealously found a new pastime. Sometimes it was hide-and-seek in the junkyard, sometimes it was eighty rounds of wrestling down by the river. When they got older and their interests expanded, they never lost the friendship they had to begin with. Sure, they had their downtimes, as all friendships eventually go through at varying levels of intensity. Like when John joined the football team, basketball team, and track all in one go and found himself with a group of friends who were infinitely more fun-loving than Jacob, who had at that time begun to develop the insecurities and self-doubt that would persist and fester in him like an infectious pathogen. There were confrontations, there were shouting matches, and there were scuffles in the school parking lot or behind the bleachers or right in the middle of the hallway that often ended in bloody lips or teeth that mysteriously go AWOL.

In spite of the thunder and the fire, however, the one thing remained true and firm, and that was their friendship. They'd shout all they want and swing their fists but to no avail, because they'd remember how things used to be when they were younger, how they used to chase each other through the woods behind the Lykos's house. How they'd stay up late watching scary movies or reading comics, sometimes until the sun peeked curiously over the horizon as though it were a child itself. They'd remember things like these and then they'd apologize. It was really only a matter of how long it took for the apology to sink in until the reason for the fights were over and done with, forgotten, cast aside to be replaced by the warmth of their lasting friendship.

Until Jenna Lahti showed up.

Jenna Lahti was a malamute who practiced flirting the way she practiced gymnastics, only much more enthusiastically. The girl was tall, very tall for her age, and her frequent growth spurts procured for her certain assets that much of the male survey of the school found very appealing. Days would go by when Jacob found he couldn't walk through the boy's locker room in the gymnasium without hearing some words tossed around about Jenna, most of them punctuated with crude gestures that didn't require one's imagination in order for you to know what they wanted. It even went so far as creating a wager game as to who got where with Jenna. If she smiled at you, that warranted fifty cents. If she smiled and batted her eyes, that got you two dollars by the people who betted against you. Jacob never participated in these boorish games, passionately believing that they were degrading to both women and men. Besides, it was illegal. If the principal had gotten wind of any of the goings-on in the boy's locker room, there would have been a storm so strong you'd have to have called the place Ground Zero.

Jenna knew about the flirt-wagers, however, and she didn't mind. In fact, one might have said that they encouraged her to employ more seductive tactics. When the other girls faced her, she would simply say that she was getting in her kicks before graduation (the wagers began during her sophomore year) and if she made a few boys rich, so what? Nobody got hurt, and everyone went home with a few smiles.

When John made the final shot that won the first basketball game of the season during his junior year, Jenna Lahti began to take a particular notice in him, and she was never discrete about her affection. Longing gazes, a brush of her tail against his leg, an occasional soft touch, an "accidental" grabbing of the ass. It all welled up inside the coyote until John, in an extremity of masculine pride, asked her out on a date, and she had said yes. Jacob still wondered about something he saw on that day; if John's smile was the result of her answer or the amount of money he had won in the locker room.

To Jacob's surprise--and to the surprise of most of the school, for that matter--the steadiness of John's and Jenna's relationship was admirable. In public, they appeared to be the very epitome of what a good relationship should be. They were polite to each other, trusted each other, complimented each other, and did all the things that the foundation of standing relationships dictates that two people should do. In private, it was no one's guess what they did behind closed curtains. All year long, Jacob had a feeling that what they did in secret was the real foundation of their "love."

Senior year came, and they graduated. Jacob was scared as hell about going into college, but John new exactly what he wanted; to go to the same college as Jenna. It didn't matter where or how much, as long as he had his sweet "love-cup" with him.

It was a week after graduation when it happened. According to what Jacob pieced together after carefully picking away the gossip, John and Jenna were out on a date, sipping a few beers he bought at the bar in his blue Chevy two-door. The girls who knew Jenna knew that she was going to end their relationship, but they didn't say anything. If they had, things probably wouldn't have worked out the way they did. Whatever the case was, Jenna did break up with John, who was devastated beyond the point of possible hope. It was his first break-up, and he fell instantly into a black fugue. They had a fight, a scuffle, ending when Jenna threw open the door and jumped out, walking back home. John stayed in the car for a while, after which he drove back home. There, he had opened his father's gun cabinet and took out his father's twelve-gauge. With that and a framed picture of him and Jenna seated by a river during a sunset, he set out on his last date, a man on a mission. He walked back to his car and drove to Jenna's house. Not in the driveway, but parking on the side of the road close to the house. He turned the music up, put the picture in his lap, placed both barrels of the gun into his mouth, and filled the top and back of the Chevy two-door (which he had bought with his own money the Christmas before) with blood and grey matter and jagged splinters of his skull, some embedding themselves right into the cushioned seats.

It hit Jacob like a freight train when he heard it. He had been filling out an application for a job at the local diner when a friend called him, asking him to come to the school. When asked why, his friend had told him everything he knew, which was pitiful information at best. At the school, in the library, tables and chairs had been set. In the center, a table with a framed photograph of John stood next to a lit candle. Jacob went to the school dry-eyed, and he left it dry-eyed, but when he came back home, shut his door, and slipped into bed, he remembered everything. Eighteen years of never-ending friendship flashed through his brain, images dancing behind his closed eyelids like a projection booth. He didn't cry himself to sleep, he just cried.

When Daniel heard the story through, he bowed his head. For a second, Jacob felt a stirring of childish joy at seeing the boy shamed. He knew he shouldn't feel it, but feel it he did, and passed away quickly. Daniel looked up, and Jacob saw the embarrassment on the boy's face.

"I'm sorry," was all he said, and it was all he really needed to say. Jacob forgave him...with one minor stipulation: that Daniel won't ever make fun of something that shouldn't be made fun at.

When Jacob told his story, he hadn't been paying much attention to his surroundings. As he looked around him, he saw that he and Daniel were now standing near a construction site. Light colored sand heaped over the sidewalk in front of them, spilling out into the road. The piled sand covered what must have been over fifty acres of what must have been flat land. Strewn about this dusty location, however, were dozens of massive cement pillars and hollow, steel tubular constructs. It looked as though a child of giants had used this place as a sandbox, or the world's biggest shrapnel grenade had gone off and these were the remnants. Some of these blocks, the biggest perhaps forty feet high and fifteen feet wide with a thickness of maybe eight feet, stood on their sides or bottoms, while others stood so that one could get to the top, if you jumped to grab a hold of the edge. The steel tubes were much stranger, in that they seemed to be half in and half out of the ground. But they were indeed hollow, and large, so that one could walk in and experience the feeling of being inside of a tunnel.

"What is this?" Jacob asked. Daniel answered it, even though it was a listless question, one that still hung on Jacob's lips and wasn't really directed at any one person.

"It's the construction site for the new school. My dad said that the workers are still unsure about where everything goes, so they keep rearranging the foundation."

"Rearranging?" Jacob repeated the word, wondering how in the hell anyone could move one of the blocks. He didn't know what they weighed, but if he were to guess the number would have to have at least five digits.

"What do you say we go to Candy's Blizzard Shop? You haven't been there, have you?"

"No, I can't say I have."

"Huh. If you haven't been there, then you don't believe in cheeseburgers or ice cream."

"No, I can't say I do, but I'll go."

They turned to leave when suddenly the roar of an engine caught their attention. It came from behind the tall grassy incline on their right, the dull rumble becoming louder like some ceaseless thunderclap rushing toward them. Then the vehicle came into view. It barreled down upon them like a massive black demon borne from chrome and diesel, spitting out hazy exhaust fumes like a pissed off elephant aggressively showing off in a muddy river.

It was a black GMC.

Jacob instinctively took a step farther away from the road. The colossal truck stopped right in front of them, tires screaming as they dragged against the rough pavement. Jacob looked at the driver, a tall, sinuous black puma wearing a black vest over a dark green shirt, and a pair of sunglasses as dark as his fur. The passenger was a man with heavily tanned-skin and a weathered face with a light patch of stubble as grey as his hair. A massive bald spot took up most of his head, but what there was he swept back into a small ponytail. A white shirt proclaiming "Chesterfield Cigarettes" stood out on his chest against the sun.

"You boys behaving?" the man said, reaching into the pocket of his camouflage pants, taking out a cigarette (three guesses? it's a Chesterfield) and a silver Zippo lighter. He lit the cigarette in his mouth.

"Yes sir, Geno," Daniel said dutifully. Jacob still stared curiously at the pair in the GMC. Only when Daniel elbowed him sharply in the ribs did he repeat the answer.

"Good," the man said, no longer looking at them. Then the GMC roared again, spat out a mouthful of toxic exhaust fumes, and took off down the road where Jacob and Daniel came, swiftly disappearing down the hill and back into the town.

Jacob knew something wasn't right. Whether or not it was nestled deep in his heart of hearts or seated in the pit of his stomach bubbling away like a disagreeable lunch, he still couldn't evade the feeling that something was just...wrong. The town he never heard of, with its rows of houses aligned with mathematical precision, its definite lack of individual expression (the only example of individual expression he could see were the differently painted houses, which were nearly identical otherwise), and the one thing he couldn't help but notice: that absolutely everything, from clothing and cars to lamps and lawn mowers, seemed to have come straight out of the fifties. Right from the beginning, it was as though he had woken up in a strange world on the edge of the twilight zone. And the weird thing was that as scared as he was, he really didn't mind it. The people here were polite and considerate. He just had to know if they were understanding enough before he could open up to them.

Candy's Blizzard Shoppe stood out in bright yellow letters, painted on the display window of the building. Below that, a fudge sundae and a spoon with cartoon faces were dancing among a flock of purple treble clefs. Jacob wasn't looking at this, though. His eyes were fixated on what he saw further down the road.

A wall, painted gunmetal grey, rose up out of the ground just beyond where the edge of the road met the tall, unmowed grass. At the top, crisscrossing each other as though a demented spider had woven them were strands of razor wire.

Jacob shivered as a chill rolled gently down his spine and crawled back up again.

Daniel tugged on his shirt sleeve, pulling him out of his state of mystification and ushering him into the open door of the Blizzard Shop. A jangling bell rang above him. He lay his ears against his head in response to the ringing sound.

The inside was basically what Jacob expected of a retro cafeteria. The floor was tiled to resemble a checkerboard, with a large open area close to the counter (which comprised most of the left wall of the building) in the off-chance that anyone would want to dance; bright red and blue chairs placed around a pack of tables, which were bunched about the middle of the building next to a pedestal displaying a variety of exotic, large-leafed plants; on the walls were neon signs and old-fashioned placards commemorating establishment patrons and purchasable food and beverages; nestled against the walls were booths upholstered in what looked like red leather; and a closet-sized jukebox near the flower-pedestal discharging the squealing, rollicking sounds of Little Richard. He was singing about a woman called Lucille. The air was heavy with the smell of hamburgers, grease, and sweat.

Daniel turned right and sat in a booth next to the display window. Jacob slid into the opposite seat, a shadow-spoon etched on his russet face. In a short time, a young otter girl wearing a candy-striped dress sauntered up to their table. In less than a second she pulled out a pad and a pencil from her apron and asked in a smooth, high voice, "What'll it be?"

It was such an experienced line, and she delivered it as though she had said it a million times before. It made Jacob grin.

Daniel spoke up first. "I think I'll have a hamburger with fries, Tanya."

"'Same thing's a good thing', as my mother says. Now what about y..."

She stopped and stared at Jacob with widening brown eyes. Her short weasel-like muzzle twitched in bemusement. "Now I thought my grandfather had the ugliest mug in town. I know I've never seen you here before."

Jacob chuckled politely at her joke. He knew he'd be thinking it over later at night, but for now he just sat smiling. He gave her his name and an abbreviated version of how he got to this town, leaving out most of the needless explanation.

"Well, I'll be a maraschino cherry...Not many people here can tell a story like that, Jacob."

"Just call me Jake. Most of my friends do."

"Alright, Jake, I'll do that. I guess you know my name's Tanya. Tanya Kedrowski. I'm the manager's daughter, and it's my job to make sure that everyone here gets what they ask for and that everyone gets along."

Daniel piped up. "But we never get along..."

"That's because you keep pulling your childish pranks on me, and I'm getting quite sick to death of it. The next time you decide to put one your rubber spiders on my head or in my apron is the day you stop eating hamburgers because it tastes a little funny." She turned back to Jacob. "Hey, Jake, since it's your first time here, I'd recommend taking the chocolate sundae. On the house."

"On the house?"

"Yeah. That's the way we do things. If it's your first time, your first order is on the house." She leaned in closer to the fox's ear. "Confidentially, Jake, its how we keep good business. I'll go ring this up, then."

With that she walked away, weaving her way between a young man in a black leather jacket and a girl in a poodle skirt and pigtails who were now dancing to a song by The Crystals.

Jacob grabbed the salt shaker and started spinning it between his thumb and forefinger. "She seems nice," he said.

"Yeah? You didn't have to go to school with her. She could get you to do something without even telling you to do it."

"Really?" Jacob grinned humorlessly; it sounded kind of like Desmond.

He looked around the building, trying to catch a face he could put Daniel's descriptions to. Over in the corner at the back were a group of adolescent boys, all turned out in leather jackets and blue jeans. They all had a different hair color (evidently based on the "B" triangle; blonde, brown, and black), but no matter what the color was it was slicked back. Probably the James boys scoping out a good looking girl for a kiss-and-run.

He looked over to the counter, where the backless stools shone like a row of red teeth and the workers were scrambling in the back. Nobody seated at the stools, except for a little girl in a black dress. She was playing with a little doll. Jacob guessed that either her mother or father was working in the back.

Suddenly the bell rang again, and the Shoppe door behind Daniel swung open as a shadow wearing a green shirt and black cargo pants slipped gently in. It was the black puma Jacob saw driving the black truck with Eugene. Jacob hadn't exactly gotten a good look at the big cat through the windshield, but now that the previous environment was removed, he saw that the puma was the only thing he could see.

The cat was huge! He had to have been over six feet tall, taller than any other fur he had ever seen, taller than Desmond. Pure muscle rose and fell beneath the black fur on his arms, and Jacob could see that only when the sunlight was touching him at the proper angle. His long tail lashed freely behind him, sweeping the floor like a furry, black broom as he walked over to the counter. He turned on his foot, resting his elbow on the counter as he surveyed the room just as Jacob had done. It didn't take him long to spot the fox out of the few people who were there, especially since he was right there looking back at him. When their eyes met, the puma tipped his head and winked.

Jacob blinked. He quickly averted his eyes to look out window. A blue Coupe DeVille slowly crept by, the driver waving to an elderly couple who were walking on the sidewalk on the other side of the road. His eyes followed the Coupe and its tailing shark fins, but his thoughts quickly shot back to the puma. He took a look back to the counter, and the cat was still staring at him, a grin plastered on his feline face. The exposed teeth were very white and sharp. With that blasé smile he winked again, and defined the gesture by blowing a kiss.

Jacob looked away again. The salt shaker began spinning rapidly around his fingers, and a few grains flew out of the top and onto the light blue linoleum table. He felt his cheeks grow hot as his heart started to pound in his ears. He took in a deep breath as he fought the urge to wipe his forehead. There was a rolling sensation in the pit of his stomach as he knew, in spite of the deterring thoughts that he kept pressing into his head, he was becoming aroused.

"Hey, Daniel," he said shakily. He had to clear his throat first, because the first word caught in his mouth.

"Yeah?"

"What's with the fence?"

Daniel looked at him strangely, his brow knitted in confusion. "What fence?" he said.

"'What fence'? I mean the wall I just saw before we walked in here, the one with barbed wire at the top. Why is there a wall?"

Jacob noted the sudden jumpiness in Daniel's posture. The freckled boy who ten minutes ago seemed as chatty as a caffeinated squirrel now looked as though he'd ransomed his family to a renegade terrorist group whose terms of peace were determined by his silence. He cast a quick glance around the room, his darting eyes landing on the James boys more than once.

"I can't really tell you."

"You lie."

"No, I really can't tell you!"

"As someone who's been lying to himself and other people can tell you, I can spot a lie when I see one. There's a big neon sign above your head with the letters L.I.E. flashing out at me..."

"Just let it go, Jake."

"Not 'til I get tickets to the new ice rink in hell."

Daniel was quiet for a long time. The fox stared at him, watching the mixture of emotions play on his freckled face. Fear, nervousness, guilt, and shame all condensed into an emotionalist concoction, a mood cocktail. Jacob didn't feel any pity for him. He wanted to know why there was a Berlin wall outside of the town like a militarized bloc faction.

"I'm not supposed to say..."

"If you don't tell me right now, I'm going to tell your parents everything you told me about what you did last year."

Daniel's head shot up to look at him, shock etched on his face. He knew Jacob wasn't bluffing. "All right, all right. If you really want to know, you can't tell anyone that I told you."

Jacob raised his right hand as though he were in court. "My lips are sealed," he said seriously. Daniel leaned in with a confidential manner, and Jacob leaned in as well. He cocked his head to the right, perking his ears up to listen.

"Well, we just started learning about the wall last year in school. It was built the same time the town itself was built, some two hundred years ago. See, it went like this..."