Free The Little Woods by McCormick Templeman Page A

“But she does not have the world figured out. No one does.”
    “What are you up to now, Cally?” Noel smiled.
    I shrugged. “Nothing. I don’t know. I guess I should go to the library. Do some homework.”
    A wicked grin spread across Helen’s face. “No you shouldn’t. Come with me.” She grabbed my hand and started pulling me from the room. Noel sprang up to follow.
    “Where are we going?” I was resistant at first, but soon we were running down the hill toward the theater, the air around us cold and lit with a kind of moist electricity. My knees felt weak and wobbly as we ran. Helen pulled me harder, smiling back at me over her shoulder, and soon we were laughing, swept downward toward a little rock wall. I stuck my hands out just in time to keep from slamming into it, but Helen simply leapt up and perched on top like a sparrow. A moment later, Noel caught up to us, panting.
    “What’s going on?” she managed to say. “What are we doing?”
    “We’re hanging out outside the theater,” Helen said, and rolled her eyes at her sister.
    Noel shot her a confused look, and then the metal front door swung open and boys started trickling out. Shane Derwitz, Brody, Alex Reese. Now I knew what we were doing here.
    I glanced sideways at Helen and she smiled at me. I climbed up to sit beside her.
    Alex nodded when he saw me. He came over and leaned up against the wall. Brody followed.
    “How’d it go?” Helen asked.
    “Okay, I guess,” Alex said. “Even if I get the part, I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it. The coach is kind of on my ass about it.” Then he met my eyes. “Why didn’t you try out?”
    “For the play?” I laughed. “Are you serious?”
    “I bet you’d be good.”
    “Sorry. I can’t act my way out of a paper bag.”
    “What are you guys up to now?” he asked, and I could feel something tingle and lurch up my spine. I’d never met a boy like Alex before. At my old school, a guy as hot and popular as Alex would have been a dick, and probably kind of an idiot, but Alex was different. He was smart, and kind, and I wanted to hang out with him as much as I could. It was a weird feeling.
    “Nothing,” Helen said. “What about you guys?”
    “Let’s do something fun,” Brody said, taking my hands to help me jump down from the wall. “Let’s go up to the pond and look for salamanders.”
    “Is that, like, a euphemism or something?” I asked, looking to Alex.
    He shook his head. “Brody’s really into salamanders.”
    We walked a short way to the edge of the woods and ducked in through an opening in the chain-link fence. I was pretty sure this was against the rules, but I didn’t really want to check with the others. Something fun was finally happening, and I didn’t want it to stop. Noel and I walked a few paces ahead of the rest, but I could feel the warmth of Alex’s body behind me. Soon we were moving into the foliage, bright green leaves gliding against my face. I tried not to slip on the florescent moss. The air was wet, and magical, and cool.
    “How far is the lake?” I whispered to Noel.
    She shook her head. “It’s not a lake. It’s just a little pond out in the woods a ways, but it’s really beautiful, and, like, ethereal.”
    “And we’re looking for newts?” I asked, crinkling my nose.
    “Salamanders.”
    “Oh … why?”
    “Because salamanders are cool,” she said as if everyone obviously knew that.
    As we walked, I became very conscious that Alex was walking a few paces behind me, and I suddenly wondered if my behind might be weirdly shaped. I’d never really thought about it before, but it suddenly seemed terribly important.
    After a short walk through lush green foliage, we emerged into a clearing, and at its center was an enchanting body of water. Like Noel had said, it was just a pond, but what a pond it was. It rested there in a near-perfect circle, mist half shrouding its blue-green waters. Electric-green fiddlehead ferns sprang from the