Dawn Malone - The Upside of Down

Title Page

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, locales, and events, are products of the authors imagination, and any resemblance to real life events, places or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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The Upside of Down

Copyright 2016 Dawn Malone

All rights reserved.

Cover designed by MJC Imageworks

Interior Design by Metamorphosis Books

Summary: A student athlete and a runaway meet near an abandoned factory and help each other face their own uncertain futures while forging an unlikely friendship.

First Edition

For Mom and Dad

Hobbs

Crawdad fires the football like a rocket launcher. It whistles like a missile in my direction, and I leap to catch it, but it only brushes my fingertips, being a good two feet over my head. The ball sails across the empty lot as if its heading for tomorrow, but before it changes time zones, the huge blue spruce hugging the corner of the abandoned Rainbow Candy factory stops it. Theres a whoosh as the trees dense branches catch it. I turn just in time to see it disappear inside.

Everyone groans.

I aint getting that, Webby Smith announces right off the bat. He jams his hands on his hips, challenging anyone to tell him otherwise.

Me neither, says Crawdad. Scratching his head, he glances my way. Did you bring your other ball, Hobbs?

I shrug. Not this time, man. Sorry.

DeShaun Richards mouth drops open. What do you mean asking him for another ball? he says, pointing at Crawdad. You threw my ball in there. Were not gonna just forget about it. You go get it.

Crawdad backs up and crosses his arms. No one wants anything to do with the tree. Too many broken branches inside once you get past the needles. Scratches are a given. Countless balls have been swallowed over the years, and anyone brave enough to go looking for one always comes back with battle scars.

Someones got to have a ball. Short and squat, Webby looks like a sawed-off tree stump.

No one makes a move until I give in to get the game moving. Stupid tree eats a ball every time we play here, I grumble. Ill find it. I trot across the lot toward the tree. Its a gray November day with a chill in the air hinting that the Wisconsin winter is not far off. Luckily, the monster factory blocks most of the wind, so this empty lot has always been the perfect makeshift football field.

Huge isnt the word for the spruce that almost tips the roof of the three-story factory. It spreads out as wide as a school bus. Gargantuan, maybe. Humongous. The branches grow so close together that they hang to the ground like a curtain, hiding the trunk. Luckily, I saw where the ball disappeared or Id be looking until summer vacation.

I push aside as many branches as I can but its useless. The needles brush my face. They pick at my hair. I turn my back, shielding my face, and force myself into the branches. Little by little, I inch forward. Groping twigs, branches, bigger limbs, I move farther toward the center. I kneel down again and blindly feel along the ground. Just a smooth carpet of needles beneath my fingertips. Lots of dead wood. No ball.

The guys behind me are talking trash, mostly aimed at Crawdad. Their muffled voices float into the separate universe inside the tree.

With aim like that you should go out for cheerleading, jokes DeShaun. The group cracks up.

Webby pipes in. What he means is you dont have no aim!

I know what he means, Web, says Crawdad. I dont need a translator.

I heave myself against the branches again, snapping sticks, and pitch forward into the middle of the tree, a clearing. The fall jars my head, clacks my teeth together. The beginning of a headache settles between my eyebrows as I lay there, belly to the ground. Tumbling from some spot above me, the football bounces off my head and lands three feet in front of my face.

But closer still is a pair of black high-tops with laces frayed like puffs of smoke.

And they shift.

AAAAHHHHHHHHH! I bellow, jumping up to a squat.

The shoes shuffle forward.

Branches hold me tight. Scooting backward. Pushing, straining, digging in my heels. No use. My wrist twists. I sit down heavy, grabbing it in pain with my other hand.

Hobbs? DeShauns voice is close.

Im good, I call, choking on the words. Be right out.

Its eating him alive, Webby jokes. They laugh.

Its dark inside the tree. I try to make out the persons face, but his features are hidden by the hooded coat he wears.

Get out, he whispers. That way. His arm jerks toward where the branches crowd the side of the building. Then he kicks the ball at me. It hits me in the shin before I scoop it up.

I stumble over a busted-up Styrofoam cooler as I try to escape. A blanket brushes my face, hanging from a limb. Sweeping branches aside, I feel my way along the wall. The bricks scuff my arm as I fight the tree. Then the darkness turns to afternoon light and I slip out in the open, breathing again.

Man, what took you so long? DeShaun grabs the ball and lobs it back toward the others. He doesnt stick around for an answer.

I bend over, bracing my hands on my knees. My breath huffs out, ragged. Im one part ticked that some stranger told me what to do and one part shaken. But it wont be long until Im just plain mad for feeling this way.

Who was that, and whats he doing hiding in our tree?

Up

Voices.

I heard them before I saw them, eight guys coming across the lot with a football. Pitching it back and forth while they walked toward the tree. My tree.

Then he came busting through the branches when their ball whiffed into the tree and almost gave up my hiding spot. What a joke, acting big and bad out there, but he was nothing except a scurrying little rat when he got a look at me.

I listen for a few minutes, every muscle frozen, which is pretty close to the truth anyway. The shivers get my teeth chattering again so I bite my tongue, hoping they dont hear me clacking away in here. This joke of a coat dont do nothing for the coldness seeping into my skin. Its a different kind of cold. The kind a coat cant fix. My bones are aching, the tips of my fingers, too. Even my hair hurts.

But I need a place to hide in case he comes in here again. In case he brings his army. Theres the wall in front of me, the crumbling brick wall of the factory with a boarded-up window. Its bottom ledge comes to my waist, easy enough to hop over in a hurry, so Im thinking that board needs to come off. It needs to come off now.

The board dont budge, though. I squeeze my fingers into the crack. Between the wall and the board, I reach behind, scraping my knuckles on the bricks.

Trying to open up that space so I can hide next time.

Loser. Youre weak.

Shut up, I want to say to the voice in my head. Always that voice, her voice, telling me what to do and what I cant do.

Pull! Pull harder!

So weak.

My hand inches behind the board. Squeezed in that tiny space, my hand gropes at the empty space back there. Cool air brushes my fingertips. I feel a desperate urge even though those guys are back to playing the game, paying me no mind. I slap the wall with a dull thud, willing that desperation to disappear. Theres no place for thoughts like that. Not now. Not ever.