Free Undercurrent by Paul Blackwell Page B

It’s real, that much I can tell immediately. Whether or not it has any bullets in it, I have no idea.
    I guess I could pull the trigger and find out.
    I don’t. Like I said, I’m not the type. But I still have no idea what it’s doing in my desk. The weapon looks old, not like some gangster’s Glock but like a soldier’s sidearm. My grandfather’s maybe? Actually that makes sense. His uniform, his medals, his helmet; all that stuff is up in the attic somewhere—why not his .45?
    If so, I’ve never seen it before.
    And neither have I ever seen this $625 before, which is the exact amount I count out after removing the rubber band. But here it is, in my bedroom, ready to be spent. Sitting on my desk in piles, the bills are practically begging me. And who would stop me?
    I hear a noise. I quickly put the pistol and the cash back where I found them in the shoe box, then replace the notebooks and close the drawer. I listen. No one is coming.
    I begin to wonder what my mother would say if she found this little stash of mine. As far as I know, she’s never gone through my things before. She’s never had a reason.
    Well, she does now .
    I look around my room some more, this time studying every detail for further clues. Who lives here? I confirm again that my favorite books are missing from the shelves, mostly replaced with ridiculous sports trophies.
    Wait a second—where is my guitar? And my amp? They’re both missing from the room; in their place is a laundry hamper. The skateboard I use to travel into town during the warmer months is also gone from the windowsill where it usually hangs from its trucks.
    I look again at the trumpet case sitting on the shelf. You know, I actually wish I could play it, because then I would be in music class with Willow. As it stands, this year we have only two classes together, which is a bummer. But I suppose even in music, we wouldn’t get to sit together, because she plays flute in the band, and of course everyone is grouped by instruments.
    Then again I shouldn’t complain. Last year we had only one class together.
    It was biology. That’s where we first became friends, after being partnered on an assignment. When I think of the chances of just randomly being handed an excuse to talk to her, to have our heads pressed together over a microscope, I have to consider that maybe there is some force in the universe looking out for me.
    Or it’s all just chaos and infinite randomness, and I just got really, really lucky.
    The class was fun. Our teacher was Mr. Schroeder, a famous character around Crystal Falls High. Normally he taught physics, but he could probably teach any subject—except maybe gym, because of his limp. He looked like a mad scientist and would pace up and down the room, telling strange stories about the mysteries of science.
    Mr. Schroeder also has a twin brother, I found out while getting groceries with my mother one time.
    “Hey, Mr. Schroeder,” I’d called to the person who looked absolutely identical to my biology teacher, even in the way he dressed. When I ran into him, he was crouched, examining the label on an orange-juice carton.
    The man looked up at me in surprise. “Do I know you?” he asked irritably.
    I immediately turned red. My own teacher didn’t remember me? That was a new low. “I’m Callum Harris. From biology class?”
    “Ah,” the man said, frowning. “You have mistaken me for my brother. He is the one who teaches at the high school, not I.”
    “Oh, sorry.”
    But the man had already ended our conversation and returned to reading the orange-juice carton.
    Luckily our Mr. Schroeder was a lot friendlier than his brother and could crack up the whole class with his bizarre jokes, sometimes disrupting the lesson for minutes at a time. So it was even more of a blow when the principal came in one day with an announcement:
    “I’m afraid that Mr. Schroeder has left the staff indefinitely. Miss Fielding will be here momentarily to fill in