Free Just Plain Weird by Tom Upton

lying to you, Travis,” she said. “You won’t understand this, but you’re very important to my father and me. Of course you’re doubly important to me.”
              “You have a strange way of showing it,” I said.
              “That? Well, all that was just a test.”
              “A test?”
              “I had to be sure I could trust you.”
              “So you drove me off a cliff?” I asked dryly.
              “It was the only thing I could think of, given there wasn’t much time. Besides, I was with you all the way. It wasn’t like I left you or anything.”
              “And what if something went wrong?”
              “It didn’t, though, did it?”
              “That’s not the point,” I said.
              “Sure, it is. The fact that everything ended up all right… well, there’s the proof that it wasn’t necessarily a bad idea.”
              I studied her a minute. She seemed perfectly clear-headed, which made it frustrating that she seemed to me to be making so little sense.
              “You know, I don’t know how to swim,” I said.
              “No, I didn’t realize that,” she admitted. “But, you see, despite the fact you don’t know how to swim, it still turned out all right, and I learned what I needed to learn.”
              “Which was what?” I asked.
              “That I could trust you with my life,” she said solemnly. “Once I knew that, I knew I could trust you with anything.”
              “Well, what’s the point of it all?” I asked, trying hard not to lose my patience.
              “What do you think the point is?”
              I mulled it over, and then said, “You know, I really don’t have a clue.”
              “Well, we’re not aliens,” Eliza said. “So you don’t have to worry about all that foolishness your friend put in your head. If you don’t believe me, you can pull on my face to see if it’s a rubber mask,” she added, contorting her face playfully.
              I was taken aback that she’d mentioned a rubber mask; it was exactly what I’d said to Raffles yesterday-- how could she have possibly known?
              As if reading my mind, or the look on my face, she said, “Look, maybe I’m a little better at spying on people than you are.”
              “You mean…?”
              “I knew you were spying on the house?”
              “Yeah.”
              “Of course, I did-- how could I not know? You really weren’t very subtle about it, you know.   You climbed into the tree house every afternoon. The telescope you have wasn’t exactly pointed at the stars. I really learned quite a bit about you during those weeks.”
              I had a serious creepy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
              “But look,” she continued, “none of that is very important now. It’s all water under the bridge. I know everything I need to know about you, so now it’s only fair to tell you what’s going on-- why I had to put you through all this. Come on, let’s sit on the sofa.”
              When I hesitated, she grabbed my hand and playfully tugged me toward the sofa. I sat at the end of the sofa, and tried to get comfortable, which would be impossible because I had no idea what bizarre things she was about to tell me. I knew I was on the brink of learning something, something that I probably shouldn’t know. And once I knew, I would know too much. For a fleeting second, I felt like making a dash at the door to escape, but there was something in her the way she was acting-- as if she really needed to talk about something-- she was so excited. She hopped onto the sofa next to me, and drew up her legs, crossing them in front of her.
              “All right,” she said. “This is the