Page 55 of The Boy With The Sharp Teeth
"Sana?"the male voice called out.
Sanafrowned and squinted at the figure. The light from the sun was coming in behindthe figure, making it hard to see the details, but she vaguely recognized thevoice.
Slowlythe person walked forward into the alley with her. "What are you doingback here?" he asked, and she could see now that he got closer it was ToddWilson from the pharmacy's photo counter.
Toddgave her a worried look as he searched her face. "Are you ok? What'swrong?"
Wipingat her cheeks once more, Sana could just imagine what she looked like with hertangled hair from running, swollen red eyes, and tear-stained cheeks.
"I'm…"she couldn’t get herself to lie and say the wordfine.
Seemingto understand, the taller boy ran a hand through his nearly blonde hair andlooked around uneasily before turning back to her with a wide-eyed look."Since you have your camera with you, do you want to maybe go take somepictures? There is an abandoned farm near the northside of town with a grainsilo and everything, and not too far from there, there is an old cemetery thatI think is abandoned too."
"I…"Sana hedged, looking for a polite way out.
Holdingup both hands, Todd gave her a sympathetic smile. "No pressure, it wasjust an offer. You just look like you need a distraction, that's all," heexplained.
Hewas right. She desperately needed something to take her mind off Zach and theache it caused in her chest.
Straighteningfrom the wall, she pushed her hands through her long hair doing her best tosmooth down the dark brown tresses, and nodded at him. "You're right, Ido. I'll go."
Fromthere, they walked to the north end of town, stopping along the way to takephotos of the afternoon sun hitting various objects. Chatting comfortably aboutschool and photography, Sana learned a lot from the boy as they made their waypast the last of downtown and residential areas to the more rural portion oftown. When she mentioned she had never seen him the summers she visited priorat his mention of living in Tarki since he was five, Todd laughed.
"That'sno surprise," he admitted. "I'm going to let you in on a bit of asecret—I used to be quite fat and covered in acne.” He gave her aconspiratorial look as he waited for her response.
Lookingat him, Sana gave him a skeptical frown as her eyes passed over him. Tall,though not as tall as Zach, she thought with a pang to her heart, Todd was leanand had a good-looking face. If she really stared and examined his face, shecould see a few indentations and light scarring to his skin where she assumedhis acne must have gotten bad, but for the most part, she found it very hard tobelieve his claims.
Seeingher skepticism, Todd’s smile grew wider, and he looked away with a flush to hispale cheeks. "I promise you I was just as surprised by the very lateinflux of hormones as you were. But I swear, towards the end of the summer lastyear, I just seemed to grow. I had been working outside in my uncle's backyardhelping him install a new water feature--he's nuts for Japanese gardens and hasa whole Zen backyard filled with ponds and big stone shrines, by the way—and Iguess between puberty finally coming in and the hard work under the sun my acnejust went away and I was at least three feet taller."
"Wow,I bet that made going to school that year quite interesting," Sana said asshe stepped over a broken fence rail. Up ahead, they could see the old silo andwhat looked to be a still standing farmhouse.
"Ohyeah, it did," he grinned, the sheepish look he had moments ago vanishedunder his shining glee as he remembered the apparently fond times of that year."I'm not going to lie; I loved every moment of it."
Sanalaughed. "I just bet you did. It sounds like the plot of a bunch of thosemovies in the eighties, where the unpopular kid becomes popular."
Toddstopped in the overgrown field they were trudging through and gave her awide-eyed look of amazement. "That's exactly what I thought too!"
Smiling,Sana resumed walking until they eventually reached the barn. It wasn't untilwalking around the structure when they could see that it was in a precariousand dangerous condition. Half collapsed on one side, the once red barn, judgingby tiny sections of red paint they could still see here and there, was rottedand badly leaning onto one side.
"I'msurprised the old girl is still standing," Todd whistled under his breath."It looks as if one strong wind could just topple the thing over anysecond."
Holdingup her camera to her eye, Sana circled the structure, stepping closer to take afew shots as the light glided over its sloping roof. "It’s kind ofbeautiful this way though, right?" she marveled, still with her camerapressed to her face.
Thesudden light grip at her elbow startled her, and she pulled back her camera tolook at Todd's gentle smile as he gently pulled her back a few steps.
"Don'tget too close to it. Town is a good ways away, and the signal is terrible outhere. If something were to happen to you, it would no doubt end terribly. Notto mention imagining your parents' reactions."
Sananodded. "You're right."
Circlingthe old farm a few times, they took pictures of everything they could find,which was surprisingly plenty. It wasn't hard to imagine the farm back in itsprime. Reassembling itself like a movie rewinding on the screen, Sana couldpicture the overgrown fields trimmed and neat as a tractor slowly plodded itsway down the large expanse in slow lines. The metal silo would gleam in thelight, shiny and new and not rusted and pocked with holes as it was now. Thevarious old tools wouldn't be broken and strewn across the ground covered inyears of dirt and rust. They would be whole again and hanging in their properplace in the red barn as animals chuffed and knickered in their stalls. It wasa beautiful place once and yet oddly beautiful now, even as she stood on thebroken cement floor to what no doubt was once the foundation for the house.
Clickingthrough her images on the LCD screen, she looked up to Todd as he came towardsher. He was squinting from the bright afternoon sun and had a look of surpriseon his face.
"Ithink I just saw a wolf!"
"Really?Where?" she asked, looking around to the tree line of the forest thatsurrounded the farmland. "What color was it?"
"Brown.I thought it was a dog at first," he explained as he clicked through hisown images on his camera. "I was trying to get a photo of it, but as soonas I saw it, it scurried off back that way," he said, pointing back in thedirection of town.
