It was blanketed with stuffed animals.
Naomi Pine sat on the sofa’s armrest, her shoulders slumped, her eyes down, so that her hair hung in front of her face like a beaded curtain. She wasn’t skinny, which in today’s world was to say she was probably overweight, but Wilde didn’t really know. She was neither pretty nor ugly, and while her looks should be irrelevant, they weren’t, not in the real world and especially not in the teen world. So he looked at her, at her whole being, and it stirred his heart. In truth, if he could be totally objective and maybe it was the history of the situation talking, Naomi Pine looked, above all else, like an easy target. That was indeed the vibe. Some people look smart or dumb or strong or cruel or weak or brave or whatever. Naomi looked like she was always in mid-cringe, as though she were asking the world not to hit her, and that just made the world sneer in her face.
“I know you,” Naomi said. “You’re the boy from the woods.”
Not exactly accurate. Or maybe it was.
“Your name is Wilde, right?”
“Yes.”
“You’re our boogie man, you know.”
Wilde said nothing.
“Like, parents tell little kids not to go in the woods because the Wild Man will grab them and eat them or something. And like, when kids tell ghost stories or try to scare each other, you’re kinda the star of the show.”
“Terrific,” Wilde said. “Are you scared of me?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I’m drawn to outcasts,” she said.
He tried to smile. “Me too.”
“You ever read To Kill a Mockingbird?” she asked him.
“Yes.”
“You’re like our Boo Radley.”
“I guess that would make you Scout.”
“Yeah, right,” Naomi said with a roll of her eyes, and his heart felt it again.
“Who is Larry? I heard your dad on the phone.”
“He’s my uncle. He lives in Chicago.” Naomi lowered her head. “Are you going to tell?”
“No.”
“So you’ll just leave?”
“If you want.” Wilde moved closer to her and made his tone as gentle as he could. “The Challenge,” he said.
Naomi looked up at him. “How do you know about that?”
He’d seen it on her computer, but he’d also remembered reading about it a few years back. The article had called it the 48-Hour-Challenge, though it was later dismissed as an urban legend. It was an online game of sorts, albeit a fairly awful one. Teens would vanish on purpose so that their parents would panic and think that their child had been kidnapped or worse. The longer you “disappeared,” the more points you’d accumulate.
“It doesn’t matter,” Wilde said. “You were playing it, right?”
“I still don’t understand. Why are you here?”
“I was looking for you.”
“Why?”
“Someone was worried.”
“Who?”
He hesitated. Then he figured, why not. “Matthew Crimstein.”
She may have smiled. “Figures.”
“Figures why?”
“He probably blames himself. Tell him he shouldn’t.”
“Okay.”
“He just wants to fit in too.”
Wilde could hear movement from upstairs. Her dad no doubt. “What happened, Naomi?”
“You ever read self-help books?”
“No.”
“I do. All the time. My life...” She stopped, blinked back tears, shook her head. “Anyway, they always talk about making small changes. The self-help books. I tried that. It doesn’t work. Everyone still hates me. You know what that’s like? Every day to feel your whole insides twist up because you’re scared to go to school?”
“No,” Wilde said. “But it must suck.”
She liked that answer. “It does. Big time. But I don’t want you to feel sorry for me, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Promise?”
He crossed his heart with his right hand.
“Anyway,” Naomi said, “I decided to go for it.”
“Go for what?”
“Change.” Her face lit up. “Total change. One big move, one big thing, so I could erase my past as a loser and start again. Do you get that?”
He said nothing.
“So yeah, I took the challenge. I disappeared. At first, I hid in the woods.” She managed a smile. “I wasn’t scared of you at all.”
He smiled back.
“I lasted two days.”
“Was it rough?”
“No, I liked it actually. Out there. On my own. You get that, right?”
“I do.”
“Heck, you probably get it better than anyone,” she said. “It was like an escape, a reprieve. But my dad, look, he’s not the most on the ball. What I am, okay, I mean, me being a loser—”
“You’re not a loser.”
Naomi shot him a look that told him he was patronizing her and she was disappointed by it. He held up his hands as though to say, My bad.
“Anyway, it’s not his fault. All this. But he doesn’t make it better either, you know what I mean?”
“I think so.”
“So I was gone two days, and he started texting. He was going to go to the police, which is part of the game, right. Also... I was worried he’d start drinking too much. Whatever, anyway, I didn’t want that. So I came home, even though I knew forty-eight hours wouldn’t be enough. Then I told my dad what I was doing.”
Wilde heard the footsteps now. He didn’t turn, didn’t worry. “And your dad decided to help?”
“He got it right away. He thinks I’m a loser too.” Naomi held up her hand. “Don’t say it.”
“Okay.”
“I just wanted to, you know, fit in. Impress them.”
“By them, you mean Crash Maynard?”
“Crash, Kyle, Sutton, all of them.”
Wilde wanted to launch into a little speech about how you shouldn’t want to impress bullies or how trying to fit in was always the wrong move, that you should stay true to yourself and stick to your principles and stand up to the abuse — but he was sure that Naomi had heard it all before and he would again sound patronizing. Naomi knew all the angles here better than he ever could. She’d lived them every day. He hadn’t. She hoped that this move — the Challenge — would make her “cooler,” and who knows, maybe she was right. Maybe Crash and his cohorts would be impressed when she came back. Maybe it would change everything for her.
Who the hell was he to tell her it wouldn’t work?
“My dad had the idea. I could just hide down here. He’d just pretend to be worried.”
“But then the cops showed up for real.”
“Right. We didn’t count on that. And he can’t tell the truth. Imagine if that gets out — what he’d done, what I’d done. I mean, I’d get demolished in school. So he’s freaking out right about now.”
The basement door opened. From the top of the stairs, Bernard Pine called down. “Naomi?”
“It’s okay, Dad.”
“Who are you talking to, honey?”
Naomi’s smile was bright now. “A friend.”
Wilde nodded. He wanted to ask whether there was anything he could do, but he already knew the answer. He headed toward the basement stairs. Bernard Pine’s eyes widened when he came into view.
“Who the—?”
“I was just leaving,” Wilde said.
“How did you...?”
Naomi said, “It’s okay, Dad.”
Wilde walked up the stairs. As he passed Bernard Pine, he stuck out his hand. Pine took it. Wilde handed him a card. No name, just a phone number.
“If I can help,” Wilde said.
Pine glanced toward the windows. “The police might see you...”