Page 63 of Fear
Tobias fought the urge to hide behind Jake. He could do this. He’d had much more practice being around reals since he’d last been inside this store, even if it hadn’t all been good. Jake believed he could, and therefore Tobias would.
He managed to hold his head up and smile at her as Jake snorted.
“Maybe we did, I dunno. A few days were pretty blurry.”
“As long as you’re not here just because you got run over by something again.” Janet eyed them for injuries.
“Nope, strictly lunch business today.”
After they ordered a couple bagels with sausage and cheese to go, Jake and Tobias sat down with their cans of soda to wait at a table near the door, and Janet pulled up a chair across from them.
“How’s Boulder been treating you?”
“Oh, it’s been awesome,” Jake said, and he glanced at Tobias as though for confirmation.
“I—I like the library,” Tobias managed. He felt his face heat up, overwhelmed with the certainty he was doing an awful job of pretending to be a real, but Janet looked pleased.
“You’re a bookworm, huh? We always need more kids into books. I should introduce you to my niece, she’s about your age. Maybe you’d be a good influence on her.”
Tobias choked a little on his soda, and Jake leaned forward to jump in. “He’s definitely a good influence on me. I got through this whole book in less than a week, and it wasn’t even a good story. More of a science text. I’d never have done that before.”
Janet’s eyes crinkled in amusement, and she nodded as though impressed. “Well, I’m glad to see you back and that the city’s treating you right. Ah, looks like your bagels are ready.” She stood. “Always good to have repeat customers, especially when there isn’t a bodily injury bringing them in. You stay here, I’ll grab that for you.”
As she went to retrieve their order from the counter, Tobias was still uncertain but cautiously relieved. He didn’t think Janet was on her way to call the ASC to report a freak. Jake’s dazzling grin toward him confirmed that Tobias had done okay. It made him weak-kneed with relief.
After leaving the bagel shop, they gave the built-in amphitheater a wide berth as they entered the park. Jake took them away from the trails and toward the sprawling trees and ample grass in between. Jake suggested that Tobias pick one, keeping his tone nonchalant—all the same to me, no preference here. Tobias hesitated for a minute, then chose a large cottonwood in the middle.
Jake spread out a large towel he’d lifted from a nicer motel. He stretched out on his back, sunglasses on and hands behind his head, while Tobias settled down next to him.
It was a lot nicer than he’d expected. The bagels were damn good, and Tobias had his books in a spare duffel. The weather was just right, and without the shrieking crowds that had been there last time, Jake could have dozed off, knowing he could crack open his eyes and see Tobias sitting next to him, reading contentedly.
It was beautiful and almost perfect, so he really shouldn’t have been surprised when it ended.
The first warning was a whistle blast, followed by the laughter and chatter of a crowd approaching. Jake opened his eyes, saw Tobias turning his head, and sat up.
There were a couple dozen people about Jake’s own age wearing matching tie-dye T-shirts. Their leader, a short blonde, also wore an oversized Dr. Seuss hat (Cat in the Hat, Jake thought), a shiny red cape, and a backpack slung over her shoulder. She was twirling a baton with more enthusiasm than skill and marched ahead of the group like she’d just escaped from a Saturday morning cartoon. She stopped abruptly, waved the baton dramatically, and then dropped into a crouch. Five or six of the group immediately dropped down with her, the rest following suit in a couple of seconds, with a couple more stragglers joining the huddle slowly and with an obvious lack of enthusiasm.
The group spread out in a circle, holding hands—oh, some of the boys didn’t like that—then lay down all at once except for the leader, who sat upright in the middle. She blew her whistle and shouted something, and one of the guys jumped to his feet, grabbed a stuffed bear from the leader, and took off running across the lawn. The Dr. Seuss girl blew her whistle again, and this time a girl jumped up and did the same thing, though she ran in the opposite direction.
“What,” Tobias said. “What are they doing?”
“Something I definitely didn’t know about before I decided to move here.”
Tobias shifted, and the book slid off his lap. When Tobias didn’t catch it, Jake noticed him twisting his hands together, and he laid his hand on top. Tobias’s fingers relaxed.
“B-but what is it?”
“Peer pressure.” Jake squinted at the kids. Most of them had run off by this time, and it looked like the leader was homing in on her least-willing participants. He abruptly realized that it was mid-August. About the time the school year started up. And Boulder had a university. Fuck. “It’s gotta be part of the college crap. For the fish.”
Tobias glanced at him. “Fish? You mean like . . .” He wiggled his hand in a swimming motion.
“Freshmen,” Jake amended. “Kids starting their first year of college. They do all these touchy-feely bonding games.” And this wouldn’t be the end of it. The fraternities would start up with God-knew-what bullshit. He’d been to enough college parties (research, absolutely all research) to know that Tobias and affectionate first-year hazing would go together like eighteenth-century lace and gasoline.
With a sigh, he stood up as Tobias watched the Cat-in-the-Hat girl with fascination. “C’mon, let’s take off before she starts offering us green eggs and ham.”
“That would be bad,” Tobias agreed, getting up and sliding his book into the duffel. “Especially since we just ate sandwiches without mold.”
Maybe Jake should slip some Dr. Seuss books into Tobias’s next library stack. “You hungry still?”
