Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
chapter six girl meets world
The Wheeler's basement is warm. Not at all like her own basement. Where shadows lurk and cobwebs fill the seldom touched corners, the Wheeler's basement is bright. Her father had once promised to add the basement to his list of summer projects, but this promise was as just as hollow as the interior of their basement, and so it sits, empty and dark. In the Wheeler's basement, pushed up against one wall and a rickety card table that sits in the center of the room, covered in figurines and stray dice. Shelves upon shelves of old movies and CDs line the walls of the basement. Alex can tell that laughter is contained within the walls of the basement—something else that hers is devoid of—this is a place where happiness is in abundance, just not tonight.
Thunder continues to rumble outside and the rain continues to pour, but inside, they are warm. Inside, with the lights on, they are safe. But this safety is still just an illusion provided by the warmth of the lights. They don't know who this girl is. They don't know where she came from. They don't know what she is capable of. She hasn't tried to run, though, and maybe that's a good sign. The girl came with them willingly. There was no hissing and clawing, no flailing limbs as Alex whisked her away from the woods on the back of her bike, but maybe it's the shock that keeps her docile. Maybe the fear hasn't yet set in. Maybe then, she'll fight back because when fear sets in, we retreat to our primal instincts.
They have many reasons to be scared, but curiosity has overridden the primal fear that should be consuming them because here are the facts that Alex has collected (because Alex speaks and thinks in facts and theories—backed by more facts—because they keep her anchored, they keep her sane): kids don't wander in the woods at night, kids don't wear anything but an oversized t-shirt that does not belong to them, kids aren't supposed to be so frail that they seem like they'll fade away at any moment.
The girl sits on the couch, huddled in one of Mike's jackets as the three boys stand eagerly before her. The boys tower over the small girl, who barely has barely had any time to catch her breath before she is bombarded with questions. Alex stands further back from the group, not quite sure what to do with herself. Mike is too entranced by the girl to argue against her being in their company, but Alex still doesn't feel in place among the boys. But neither does the girl, who stares down at her feet, marred with cuts and caked in mud and tinted blue from the cold of the rain as they continue to bury her up to her neck in questions.
"Is there a number we can call for your parents?" Mike asks.
The girl averts her eyes to stare up at him blankly.
