Keene never had the chance to tell anybody about what had happened on the river. In fact, he wasn’t sure it had happened himself, other than he still felt an unpleasant pressure in his shoulders, like invisible hands had grabbed him by the skin and pulled him up hard.
Much of the following week Keene spent in recovery as he slept on the couch in the den. It was hard on his back, but the length was better suited to his height now than his bed. There was an unpleasant wooden peg between the cushions that stuck into his spine, and when he slept sideways it brushed directly against his hip bone.
Jack visited frequently enough. He’d run in and out of the house with rope or pieces of wood in his hands. Once, Jack even came in with a massive wood axe that was taller than the rat’s entire body, and he looked what Keene imagined a palace guard straight out of a King Arthur novel might appear.
“Your mom’s shed is huge. I could start a revolution with this much weaponry.” Jack wore a smile that was a little too manic. “How’s the cold coming?”
Keene conscientiously brushed all of his tissues on the coffee table into a drawer. “Coming along.” He stretched his fuzzy forearms and yawned, hearing the popping noises in his spine and shoulders. “You look busy.”
“Not just me! Lychee came back, too, but she still won’t come inside. Not entirely sure why, but oh well.”
Keene grimaced, knowing that was entirely his fault. “Tell her I said thank you.” Jack curled his fingers into an okay symbol and almost left before Keene could stop him. “Wait. I want to ask you some things about a few days ago, when I fell into the river— How did I get out?”
Jack leaned against the axe in what looked to be a very unsafe balance act. “I found you washed up on the bank. You were covered in mud and sand, but you were breathing. I, uh, was too scared to touch you, so I went for your mom. She took care of the rest.”
“You didn’t see me float in the air?”
Jack blinked. “Not in the air, nor in the water, no. You were lying on your back when I found out you had gotten out of the river.”
Keene let out a disappointed sigh. “I think somebody saved me. I think somebody used telekinesis to pull me out of the water.”
Even though Jack’s teeth were still showing, he could tell the rat’s lips curled into a frown.
“Keene, I know most of this psychic stuff is probably new to you, but real telekinesis is either very weak, very limited or very dangerous. From what I hear… well, I’m pretty bad at explaining it. But it’s really hard to do even when a telekinetic can see the object in front of them. Pulling you out of a deep river is almost unheard of.”
Keene frowned, letting his tail out of the blanket and curling around his lap. “That’s… huh. I don’t know how to feel about that.”
“Meeting Lychee probably put some crazy ideas in your head… that I may have accidentally put there too, but trust me, it’s probably no big deal. Traumatic events can make you see stuff. I think. I’ve never experienced hallucinations or traumatic events, but that’s what television says about them. And television doesn’t lie, right?” He made an uneasy titter, looking around the house. “Oh, right. You don’t have television. That joke wouldn’t make sense. Jeez, I’m just making this worse, aren’t I?”
There very well might be a good reason to get offended, but for the moment, Keene didn’t want to make Jack feel like he was stepping on eggshells. So he just scratched behind his ear instead. That felt pretty good. “I honestly don’t know the half of what you’re talking about.”
“Perfect! The stars have aligned.” Briskly, Jack left the house, and Keene opened up the coffee table drawer to clean and out his tissues. He stepped with a slight limp, but his ma said it was just a sprain and that the swelling would go down.
The following day, he could apply pressure to his foot comfortably. June was almost over, and Keene would be expected to pick blackberries with his sister for the Fourth of July party at mayor Heinsley’s house.
He eyed a bright batch dangling from a low branch near the clay road in his front yard. Plucking a berry, he rolled the plump, dark clusters between his padded thumb and his forefinger. The sticky juice leaked out the sides of the skin, and he licked off the sweet and sour burgundy juice with his long tongue. He had to lick a bit of it off his whiskers, too, just to keep the gnats from swarming.
“Well you’re looking better,” lilted a voice from on high. Lychee looked down at him with beady eyes. Her stubby little tongue wagged as she opened her beak again. “We’ve been working on a present for you.”
She opened her expansive wings and swooped over his head, temporarily blotting out the sunlight with green and red feathers, flapping noisily, and then perched on his roof before hopping up and down animatedly. “Follow!” Then, she flew off in the direction of the woods and the river. He stepped through the grass gingerly, shivering when he heard the sound of running water.
The fat log that lay across the river was still there. In the sunlight it looked like a useless lump of decaying wood, but when he closed his eyes, he could still hear the sound of sliding bark, and remember the feeling of moss cake under his nails when he scrabbled at the sides to hang on desperately.
Further ahead, on the grass, two large, sturdy wooden posts had been planted in the ground. Two boys from school that Keene had seen but hadn’t spoken to sat on the lawn. A young fawn in a Boy Scout uniform was tying rope knots around holes in wooden planks while a chubby wolf dressed in similar attire did the same.
“Hell’s Bells, Bayard, that is a shit load of tension,” said the fawn, feeling the ropes.
Bayard, who appeared to be the wolf, chuffed. “It needs a shit load of tension or else you’ll lose all your shit.”
“We need a taut line hitch first, not a god damn square knot. And stop saying shit so much you fucking mongrel,” retorted the deer.
“Language, gentleman!” called Jack from the other side of the river, who happened to be shirtless despite wearing the white garment over his head. “Oh, hello, Keene!”
The fawn and the wolf cub turned, straightened immediately, and got to their feet.
“So this is the man of the hour, huh?” The deer’s eyebrows arched considerably and he took Keen’s hand in his own hoof-like hand. “Great, just great to meet you. I’m Curtis. You’re behind this whole operation, then? We’ve wanted a club house for ages.”
The fawn’s neckerchief swayed with his whole body because the handshake was so vigorous. If Keen shook the enthusiastic dear’s hand for much longer his insides would get tossed like a salad, so he took a step back. “You know what? Yeah. As a matter of fact, I am in charge of the whole operation. I’m Keene. Please be gentle.”
The wolf on the other hand kept his distance, giving a polite salute. “Bayard’s my name, Mr. Boss man. I’m representing troop 97 along with this goon over here. Curtis is just a tenderfoot but he already thinks he’s an eagle scout just because he got a merit badge in Pioneering.”
Curtis whistled. “Bayard likes to fart a lot, and sometimes it sounds sort of like civilized communication. But he’s alright. He looks like a brawler but he’s really just a giant fluffy crybaby.”
“Why are you such a dick, Curtis?” whined Bayard.
“Because your mom is so good at taking me. Oh ho ho!”
The wolf’s tail flicked dangerously and he got back to his ropes, letting out a whine. “Just shut up ok?”
Curtis made a raspberry noise and went back to his side of the ropes. Jack Had just pounded a fresh peg into the ground with a hammer, tossed it aside and then effortlessly crossed the log. “Like the bridge, buddy? We’ll have it finished in a few days at this rate.”
Keene scratched his arm. “You guys sure are going fast.”
The deer made a dismissive noise. “Fast shmast, it’s not like we even need a bridge in the first—”
Jack shot the deer a cold glare, and he mummed, knowing it was time to stop talking. This was the first time he had seen the rat make hostile glance, but it was jarring enough to make the fox’s twitch in surprise.
It was apparent that the bridge was being built for him due to the previous tumble, because Keene was the only member of this so–called adventure crew that couldn’t cross the river safely. He felt like a burden before he even had the chance to prove himself to his new friends, which made him just wanted to go back to bed.
“I uh…” He took a step backwards, remembering the pain in his foot. “I’m sorry guys. I’m going to go back inside. I still don’t feel so well.”
“But—”
“I said I’m sorry,” said Keene again, a little louder. “I have to go blackberry picking before the fourth of July party and I don’t want to feel like garbage.” That was partly true.
“Uh… okay.” Jack was at a bit of a loss. The boy scouts were busy at work on the rope work and Lychee just shook her head from across the river. “We’ll see you later, then. This is your own backyard, after all.”
“Yeah. Later.”
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