Free The Gifting by Katie Ganshert

dirt or really, anything outdoors. But the day is uneventful and my physics homework is a particularly heinous shade of dreadful and I find it impossible to get warm inside my big, drafty house, all of which makes the towering forest bordering my neighborhood irresistible. A variety of songs play from the iPod stand on my desk as I gaze longingly out my bedroom window and Leela digs in my oversized closet, making various outfits out of my hodgepodge ensemble of clothes. I have no idea how she does it, but everything she puts together—even items that don’t seem like they should match at all—looks impressively fashionable.
    I remove my pencil from my mouth. “Want to go exploring in the woods?”
    Leela sticks her head out of my closet, eying me with a doubtful brow. “The woods?”
    “Yeah. It’ll be fun.”
    She comes out with a sequined top I never ever wear, looking at it longingly. “I wish we were the same size. You have amazing clothes.”
    Too bad I don’t wear half of them.
    “My mom thinks I should go on this new cleansing diet she read about in her latest issue of Health magazine. Maybe if I tried it I could fit into this top …”
    I scrunch my nose. Leela’s mom is skinny and overdone. I always get the impression she’s overcompensating for something and I hate the way she constantly comments on Leela’s weight. “I think you look great how you are.”
    Leela’s cheeks redden and she slips back inside my closet.
    I sit up in bed. “Whadaya say?”
    “About what?”
    “The woods.”
    Leela comes back out again, this time without any clothes in hand. “I’ve heard rumors that the woods in Forest Grove are home to Sasquatch.”
    “You mean like … Bigfoot?”
    She nods, her expression solemn.
    I can’t help myself. I laugh and swing my legs over my bed. “All right, that settles it. Now we have to go.”
    “I’m serious, Tess. People have disappeared in those woods.”
    “We won’t disappear, I promise. I’ve been in them at least a dozen times and haven’t yet vanished. Now come on, let’s go hunting for a big, hairy, imaginary man-thing.”
    Leela cracks a smile, which means I’ve won. I close my physics book with a thump, hurry out into the hallway, nearly plowing into Pete, who asks where we’re going. I can tell Leela wants to stay and talk, but I give him a vague out and hurry down the steps, throw on my sneakers and a jacket, and lead the way outside.
    It’s damp. The sky overhead is thick with rain, but nothing falls. Leela talks about school and her siblings and this hot actor on a television show she watches as I stare at the dark windows of Luka’s house and wonder what he’s up to. The foliage underfoot is dense and green and wet and soaks a bit through my shoes.
    “This is gross,” Leela says, lifting her feet extra high into the air, as if this will stop the seepage.
    I swipe a large stick off the ground and lead the way into the trees.
    “Bobbi’s having a Halloween party next Friday,” Leela says a bit breathlessly, trying to keep up behind me. “She has one every year, but I’ve never gone before. Wanna go?”
    I use my walking stick to bat aside a low-hanging branch and bite the inside of my cheek. Me and costumes? We don’t get along so well.
    “C’mon, it’ll be fun. We can be the poor little kittens who lost their mittens.”
    I continue further up the path, my steps silent and quick, the gap between Leela and me widening. She stumbles over a root, but catches herself before falling. I stop and wait for her. “Aren’t there three of those?”
    “We can make Kiara come.” Kiara is Leela’s younger sister. A freshman and just as talkative as my friend. “She’ll love it. We can dress up as cats and go around asking people if they’ve seen our mittens.”
    A crow caws from a branch right over Leela’s head. She screams and ducks.
    I laugh.
    “Not funny,” she says, putting her hand against her chest. “That scared me half to death.”
    I