"Mae, this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," Bea said as she finished locking up the Ol' Pickaxe.
Mae had gone straight to the Pickaxe after finishing up her business at Gregg and Angus's apartment. The February air was cold, and it stung Mae's skin whenever the wind blew. The sun's light was dimming, and the sky overhead was already a steadily darkening blue. Gray clouds hung up above, threatening Possum Springs with snow.
The possibility of bad weather meant the streets were more or less empty at the moment. Lights shined from windows and signs, bathing the town in an eerie glow. The lack of people walking about only made the whole scene seem lonelier.
Mae didn't mind that much, though. She liked it when Possum Springs was like this. It was like a painting or a photograph in real life.
"Is it really?" Mae asked skeptically. "Is it really the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard, Beatrice?"
"Okay, it's the most ridiculous thing I've heard lately." Bea stuffed the keys to the Pickaxe into her dress's pockets and hurriedly fished out a cigarette. Mae couldn't tell if it was a real cigarette or one of the dummies that Bea was using to quit.
"I mean, I don't disbelieve you," Bea continued. "I'm just saying this seems really, really weird. Like, was Casey really the type of guy who'd bury something and then send his friends on a scavenger hunt? Was that his thing?"
Mae nodded. "Yeah, Casey was kind of really into messing around with people like that. I don't know how big he was on burying stuff, though. I feel like he was pretty neutral on digging in general."
Bea placed the cigarette between her lips and shoved her hands into her pockets. She shuddered a bit. Her goth aesthetic did not lend itself particularly well to winter temperatures. Girl needed to wear some dang layers.
"Do you even know where to start looking?" Bea asked. "Because I have to work. I can't go all around town with you to try and find a good place to dig."
Mae wanted to say that she wasn't planning on running all around town, but stopped herself. She really didn't have the first clue where Casey might have buried this alleged lockbox full of alleged money. The only landmark his note had given was the mention of a 'weird tree', which was a pretty worthless clue. Especially considering that Possum Springs was basically 80% trees.
"I'm beginning to think that people who're high on drugs shouldn't organize treasure hunts," Mae said.
"Wait, what?" Bea's eyes widened in alarm. "Casey did drugs? Are we talking weed, or are we talking real drugs?"
Mae shrugged indecisively. "Weed, I guess. Isn't weed a real drug?"
"Barely," Bea muttered.
The two walked away from the Pickaxe's front door, eager to get out of the cold. Bea's car was parked behind the shop. While Mae could easily just walk to her house, she didn't want to stick around in the cold. Bea didn't bother asking if Mae needed a ride; she simply opened the passenger door for her.
"Remember middle school health class?" Mae asked as Bea turned the key in the ignition. "We had, like, two weeks of drug-prevention classes. We watched videos, and a cop came in to tell us about how drugs would make us die or kill babies."
"I remember that," Bea said. "That was around the time we stopped hanging out, I think. We had health education in different periods."
"Oh, right."
Mae frowned. She still felt bad about how she'd just suddenly stopped talking to Bea back in middle school. Looking back, Mae supposed that her granddad's death had had a lot to do with it. After he passed away, Mae had stopped doing a lot of the stuff she'd used to love doing.
And then, a few months later, there had been the softball incident.
It was easy to believe that all of that stuff was connected to each other. But Mae wasn't so sure. Mae didn't know if one single thing was the cause of all of her problems. Mae felt like the stuff that sometimes went on inside of her head was something that just happened.
The car pulled out from behind the Pickaxe and made its way onto the main street. Moody, electronic music played on the radio. Mae didn't know if this was a channel Bea liked, or if it was a CD. It seemed to be all that ever played in Bea's car, though.
"Actually, I just remembered," Bea said as the car began to heat up, "The cop that came in to talk to my health class? It was your aunt."
"Oh god," Mae groaned. "That must have been terrifying. Aunt Mall Cop should not talk to small children." The idea of Aunt Molly coming into a classroom, glaring at a bunch of middle schoolers, and lecturing them about meth was like something out of a nightmare.
Mae couldn't really remember a time when she and her aunt had ever gotten along. Even when Mae had basically been a toddler, Molly had treated Mae like a handful. It was pretty clear that, out of the two of them, Mae's mom had been the one to get all of the warmth. Molly, meanwhile, always seemed to be in cop mode.
It didn't occur to Mae that, with a niece like her, Molly had a reason to always be in cop mode.
Mae knew Molly wasn't a bad person, of course. She was slightly better than any other cop simply by virtue of being related to Mae. But Molly, even at her best moments, was incredibly unapproachable. The incident with the ghost and the cult was just one example of why Mae and Molly didn't get along.
Hell, it had gotten so bad that Mae, for a while, had been convinced that Aunt Molly had been involved with the cult. Seeing her the day after their trip into the mines had eased those fears a little, though. Still, Aunt Molly and Mae's relationship hadn't magically improved in the time since then.
"Health class was kind of bullshit anyway," Mae muttered. "All we learned about was, like, nutrition and abstinence."
"Two of life's essentials," Bea quipped dryly.
The drive from the Ol' Pickaxe to Mae's house wasn't a terribly long one. It was, however, long enough for awkward silences to settle in. Mae and Bea's friendship was better than it had been in years, but even they had times when they couldn't think of what to say. Mae had been looking out the window at the passing scenery when Bea finally spoke up.
"So, are you going to the party tomorrow night?"
Mae's ears perked up at the mention of a party. Despite her pretty terrible history with them, Mae loved parties. They could be exhausting, but they were generally pretty fun. So long as nobody got puked on, that was.
"Party?" Mae questioned. "What? When? Where?"
"Tomorrow night," Bea answered. "I just said it was tomorrow night. It's out in the state forest, I guess. You seriously didn't hear about this?"
Mae shook her head. "Gregg didn't mention anything about a party."
Bea nodded, apparently suddenly understanding. "Okay, yeah. Gregg probably wouldn't know about this one. I don't think him and Daryl Peach ever really hung out."
Mae frowned in uncomprehending confusion. She was generally pretty good with names, but even she was drawing a blank when it came to 'Daryl Peach'. It sounded vaguely familiar. Mae felt like he was probably someone from her graduating class, but not someone she had really associated with.
"Was he the guy who carried around that weird puppet?" Mae asked, grasping for straws.
"No, that was someone else," Bea responded. "Daryl was in the marching band. He used to stand in front of the school and practice with his trombone while the buses pulled in."
Ah, yes; now it was all coming back. Daryl was the trombone guy— the bane of her school day mornings. Daryl had practiced playing his trombone almost every day, but he had never really gotten any better. Mae could still remember sitting onboard the bus, waiting for it to unload, and hearing that terrible warbling coming from the yard.
Mae evidently hadn't been the only person who wasn't a fan of Daryl's music, either. Back in junior year, an unknown hooligan (Or, in other words, Steve Scriggins) had stolen Daryl's trombone and blew it up with a bunch of firecrackers. Daryl had been pretty miserable after that. Even Mae, who'd absolutely hated Daryl's brass monstrosity, thought that blowing it up was cruel.
Mae had no idea what had happened to Daryl after graduation. She'd just assumed he'd gone off to wherever it was trombone players went to.
"Daryl Peach is throwing a party?" Mae asked in surprise.
"Well, the party's for him," Bea clarified. "He's back in town for a couple weeks, and some of his friends thought they'd throw a party for his first night back. A lot of school people are gonna be there."
Mae didn't know if that was good or not. Most of the people who knew her from high school probably hated her—or, in the case of Andy Cullen, actively feared her. The only people Mae had kept up with after graduating were her close friends.
Well, them and Mr. Chazokov, but Mae wasn't sure he counted. He was a teacher who literally lived up the street from her.
"I dunno," Mae sighed. "I mean, I didn't really know Daryl or his friends. Things might be super weird or awkward. I'll have to think about this."
Bea shrugged and returned her focus to the road. "Well, if it helps at all, I know for a fact that Cole won't be there."
"I'm in," Mae said, speaking so quickly that the two words blended together into one.
"Oh. Wow," Bea said. She sounded a little bit startled.
Mae didn't bother clarifying. Bea knew perfectly well why an absence of Cole would be such a positive. A party without Cole was a party where Mae could be 100% certain that she wouldn't puke on/near anyone she'd once been super into. That sort of guarantee was the deciding factor that Mae needed when making plans.
It wasn't that Mae hated Cole, of course. In theory, Cole was fine. In practice, however, he was a living embodiment of one of the worst nights of Mae's life. Maybe one day Mae would get over the embarrassment and be able to have a casual conversation with him. That would probably happen sometime around their third or fourth high school reunion. For now, though, Mae didn't want to be anywhere near the guy.
This was pretty much the opposite of how Mae had felt back in high school…
"… And anyway, that's why I think anyone riding one of those hoverboard things should be shot," Casey said as he, Gregg, and Mae walked down the hall.
The high school that Mae and her friends went to was old. It was, in the words of Gregg Lee, 'Old as balls'. It was also severely understaffed, woefully underfunded, and partially underground after a sinkhole had opened in one of the classrooms. The closest thing the school had to a claim to fame was its football team, and even their glory days were long behind them.
Despite all of this, the school had a healthy number of students. The halls were fairly crowded as the group made their way to Mae's locker. Nobody paid them much mind. Everyone was occupied with getting their stuff together and going home. People generally didn't notice Mae or her friends unless they were causing trouble.
Of course, they tended to cause trouble a lot. Right now, though, they all just wanted to get back to Casey's place for band practice.
Gregg and Casey both waited at Mae's sides as she opened up her locker. Bags of chips spilled out onto the floor carelessly. Mae had no idea where those things had come from. She was really only interested in getting her chemistry textbook, even though she wouldn't be using it or doing her homework.
"Angus showed me a video of some guys goofing around on one of those hoverboards," Gregg mused. "I was thinking of trying one out."
"Gregg, I will lose all respect for you if you do that," Casey said sternly. "I'll lose respect for you, Angus will dump you, and your mother will disown you. These things will happen if you set foot on a hoverboard."
Mae wasn't interested in all this talk of hoverboards that didn't hover. Her mind had drifted off after a long, boring day of school. It wasn't until there was a sudden change in topic that she tuned back into the conversation.
"Hey, Mae," Gregg said, "Cole's over there."
Mae froze, still bent down and with her head in her locker.
Cole had the locker across the hall from Mae, and the two had had the same homeroom since sophomore year. They weren't good friends or anything, but Mae felt like they got along pretty well. Over the years they'd gotten to know each other, Mae had come to the conclusion that there was definitely some sort of vibe going on between them.
She wasn't positive, of course. Mae had been attracted to plenty of people, real and imaginary, over the years. She was very familiar with the feeling of being into someone. But as far as Mae knew, nobody had ever been attracted to her. People treated her with either disinterest, or, after the softball incident, suspicion and anger.
Cole was always friendly, though. Granted, he was friendly with everyone, but he always looked like he was happy to see Mae. According to Casey, who had the most dating experience of anyone in their group, Cole was 'a total dork' for her.
Mae had resolved to talk to Cole about the possible thing that was going on between them. But she kept forgetting, or losing her nerve, or getting sent to the nurse's office, and she hadn't gotten a chance yet.
Now, however, Mae was feeling confident.
Mae finished packing up her backpack and closed her locker door. She stood up straight, took a deep breath, and turned in the direction of Cole's locker.
Cole, like Mae, was stuffing textbooks into his backpack. Cole was in a bunch of AP classes, and that meant he had to do a lot more homework. A heavy backpack was just another one of the downsides to being good at school. Mae was happy with her backpack full of unread textbooks and old snack cakes.
"You not gonna chicken out this time?" Casey whispered as he leaned against the locker behind him. He had a small smirk on his face. Mae kind of wanted to slap him.
"No," Mae whispered determinedly. "I'm gonna walk over there, look him in the eye, and ask him if he wants to buy me a pizza."
"That could go well! But also he might just think you're trying to mug him," Gregg pointed out.
"Didn't Angus think you were trying to mug him when you first hit on him?" Mae asked. "I mean, that worked out. You two seem to be doing pretty well."
"I think Angus is still convinced I'm going to mug him," Gregg said sadly.
"That's the sort of problem everyone has in the beginning of a relationship," Casey said, nodding sagely. Casey reached a hand up and gave Mae a motivational pat on the back. He hit her too hard, though, and Mae stumbled forward a bit. Mae would repay him for this later, tenfold.
Mae gathered all of the resolve and confidence she had and began approaching Cole. She wasn't really sure what she'd say when she finally reached him. Mae quickly regretted not rehearsing this in her head during one of her earlier, less important classes, like English or Life Skills.
Cole had finished putting his books in his bag, and was closing up his locker. Mae hastily made an attempt to look attractive, or at least like someone who cleaned their clothes more than once a month. She ran her hands through her hair, stood up straight, and tried to adopt a casual stance. She wound up looking mostly kind of lopsided.
Cole turned around, and at first seemed startled by how close Mae was standing to him. A look of pleasant surprise quickly appeared on his face. Mae smiled back, trying to do her best to appear as if she wasn't trying too hard to smile.
"Whoa, hey!" Cole said with a laugh.
"Hey, I'm Mae!" Mae said, also laughing.
"Yeah, I know!" Cole said, doubling down on the previous laughter.
"Oh, god, this is already going downhill so fast," Casey muttered.
Mae folded her arms over her chest, holding them tight to herself. She tried to think of what to say next, but for some reason she could only think about Cole's trucker hat. Where had he gotten that thing? Was it meant to be an ironic fashion statement? Or did Cole have dreams of one day riding across the country in a big old truck?
"The pizza!" Gregg's whispering attempt at coaching came in loud and clear from behind Mae. "Ask him about the pizza!"
"Do you have any pizza?" Mae blurted out.
Mae could practically feel the mortified expressions on Gregg and Casey's faces.
"Sorry? What was that?" Cole, thankfully, sounded as if he hadn't heard Mae's blunder. Mae silently thanked whatever God there might be out there for her poor enunciation.
"I was asking if you wanted to get pizza sometime," Mae said. "At Pastabilities—not the diner. Obviously. The diner has dumpster pizza."
Cole's face lit up as he realized what Mae was asking him. The future co-victim of the worst prom night ever smiled and nodded.
"That sounds great, Mae!" A thought occurred to Cole as he reached up and adjusted his glasses. "Oh, I can't tonight, though. I've got family stuff. But maybe we could go out this Saturday?"
Hearing Cole actually say the words 'go out' felt weirdly surreal to Mae. She'd never really been in a relationship—not since preschool, at least, and that one didn't count. Mae had honestly expected this to go a whole lot worse than it had.
Cole smiled and raised a hand in a small wave. As he turned and began walking towards the exit of the school, Mae let out a deep sigh of relief. She took a few steps backwards and joined Gregg and Casey at her locker, leaning against the metal doors for support.
"I did it," Mae whispered, her eyes closed. "I'm the datemaster."
"I've gotta admit, that didn't go nearly as bad as I was expecting," Casey said. He sounded so genuinely impressed that it was offensive. "I mean, you didn't punch him or throw up or anything."
"Dude, you finally did it!" Gregg said excitedly. "This is awesome! We should celebrate by going up into Casey's treehouse and throw bricks at his bio-dad's car!"
Mae opened her mouth to reply. A sudden, brassy trumpeting noise from down the hall cut her off.
"Hey, everyone!" Daryl Peach screamed joyously. "I got a new trombone!"
Mae blinked. Looking back on it, it had all started so innocently— just a bunch of eating pizza and playing video games. Come to think of it, Mae and Cole had never really done anything that Mae hadn't done with her other friends. Cole had just been a friend that Mae had wanted to smooch.
Now, though, the very idea of Cole gave Mae some pretty scary flashbacks. It was pretty safe to say that Mae was over Cole, or at least too traumatized to ever be attracted to him. Either possibility was likely.
Anyway, dating and romance weren't Mae's number one priority. They never had been. Mae doubted she'd be too interested in romance unless she ran into the Bombshell again, or unless Fiasco Fox somehow came to life and wooed her.
Wait, why was Mae thinking about this again?
"Hey, Mae?" Bea asked from the driver's side seat. It only now occurred to Mae that the car was no longer moving. They were parked outside of Mae's house.
"You've been sitting there for, like, five minutes," Bea said, slightly worried. "Everything okay?"
Mae reached out and opened the passenger side door. "Yeah, sorry. Just got lost in my head a little bit."
It was a little bit more than that, though. As Bea wished Mae goodnight, Mae realized that the reason she'd gotten so absorbed in that memory wasn't because of Cole. It had been because of Casey.
Mae only had so many memories of Casey. She wouldn't be making any new ones, either. This treasure hunt Casey had set up was as close as Mae would come to hanging out with her deceased friend one last time. This only served to make Mae even more resolved to find the buried lockbox.
After the party tomorrow, of course.
