"Eddie, can I talk with you about James?" I whisper, tapping him on the arm to get his attention.
"Shh…" Eddie says fretfully, "Louis… Don't talk so loud. They'll hear you." It's mid-morning. Eddie and I are right at the cave's entrance, and everyone else is inside, either sleeping or preparing to forage for food.
"Okay, but uh… This is kind of important." I say. He walks me out a little further from the cave.
Holding on to my shoulders, he swivels me around until were eye-to-eye and asks, "What is it that's so important then?"
"Would you… um… be like, all that upset if… say… your, uh… big sister knew that you, you know… like… James?"
"You told her!?" He whisper-shouts, his voice either filled with anger or embarrassment. Maybe both, but I can't say for sure because I need to inform him that he's misunderstood my question.
"No no no," I say, "I haven't told anyone, but Ellie knows something's wrong. She asked me if I knew, and I said I'd ask you if I could tell her."
He leaves one hand on my shoulder and moves the other to his chest while he breaths rapidly. Relieved, he says, "Good! You nearly gave me a heart attack, Louis…" Perfect opportunity for a comeback… Might as well say it…
"Who's the one giving whom a heart attack? I swear it's been you giving me one the last, I don't know… every time."
Eddie laughs apologetically and says, "Okay. I'll talk to Ellie, but I want to be the one who tells her, so try not to be so obvious that I have a secret next time."
"I was hoping you'd take that job." I reply.
We step back into the cave. Unsurprisingly, everyone but Granny is up chatting and dividing themselves into groups to forage. Ellie and Peaches have already partnered up, and James is making it obvious that he's called Crash by his allotment of Crashes arm with his own. At first Eddie seems demoralized, but he cheers up when he realizes that he can join Ellie and Peaches, thus avoiding having to tell James for another morning. Given the fact that this appears to be some sort of physical-ability-related-sorting-system, and the fact that I'm the only one here who would voluntarily eat a worm, I'll assume that I'm going to be picked last.
After about thirty seconds of awkward shuffling between each other, the groups appear to be: 1. Ellie, Peaches, and Eddie. 2. Manny, Sid, and Granny. 3. Diego, Shira, Crash, and James. Figuring that, since Eddie's going to tell Ellie, I might as well try to tell Peaches, I start to casually walk over to them. It really helps that my stumbling from the scar on my leg is almost gone. Otherwise I'd look even more out-of-place than I already feel, and that would suck.
Peaches puts her trunk down and lets me climb on. Manny walks over, observably concerned, but for what reasons I can't say. He says, "Peaches, maybe you'd better have Louis go with me instead. I've been meaning to talk with him recently." Peaches and I look at each other; she seems just as taken aback as I am.
Handing me over to Manny, who sets me on his back, Peaches says good-naturedly, "Oh, all right. Sure." She looks at me with a faux-concerned smile, then back at Manny, "Just don't break him, okay dad?"
…
"I'm just saying, everyone's been depressed since we moved to the cave. Eddie and James never do anything anymore, and Crash is so bored that he's annoying the rest of us even more than normal. Diego is furious about the smallest problems, and I haven't seen him really talk to Shira since the morning after we moved." Sid has spent our entire time foraging either dodging Granny's cane or probing to learn what I already know. His approach has been to specifically ask Manny questions, so I'm still the only one who knows why everyone's so juxtaposingly different from themselves a few days ago.
"How about you, Louis? Has Peaches… or anyone else, seemed unhappy lately?" Manny's been tossing fake questions at me for the last twenty minutes in an obvious attempt to get me talking about Peaches while I've been picking berries, eating one every once in a while and putting the rest in a leaf-pouch I made that's slung insecurely across my shoulder. I wonder if Eddie's told Ellie yet…
This whole secret-keeping-thing isn't working. I'll admit I've known this fact for at least ten years, and in all probability I've known since the day after I met Peaches, but it's worse than not working now. It's keeping Eddie and James and Diego and me and, honestly, everyone from telling each other anything. I need to get rid of some of these secrets, I really do…
Whose secret can I tell? Gosh, Louis… That's a rather grotesque way to go about this; should I pick from one of my secrets? What one was it that I was contemplating telling Manny? And why has something that I can remember was important completely slipped my mind? I guess I'll just answer Manny's question and hope it leads to what I was supposed to tell him. I affirm, "Pretty much everybody's seemed unhappy, but I don't think it's the cave. Well…" I scratch at one of my ears awkwardly as if a bug were whizzing around it, but the bug is really the feeling that they're all expecting me to actually talk to them. "Diego's kind'a got some important stuff he's working out with Shira right now that he's asked me not to talk about, and Crash, Eddie, and James all have other, arguably just as important stuff going on that they've also asked me not to talk about…"
"And what's your reason for why Peaches is bummed out, too?" Manny questions.
"I don't... It's uh... She's... and I'm..." Literally all three of them -Manny, Sid, and Granny- cock an eyebrow at me at the same time. "I guess she's just anxious about the whole 'sabers' thing… Oh, shi… crap…" Okay, two things Louis: 1. Why are you suddenly cussing? And 2. Why did it take you so long to remember that a giant, ferocious saber-toothed cat threatened to kill the love of your life!?
"What are you on about?" Granny asks.
"Yeah, Louis. What's wrong?" Manny looks at me, either concerned or annoyed at my, almost, display of adolescences.
"There's something… really important that I've just now remembered."
Sorry this took so long. I've literally had final after final after final over the last week or so. I'm gunna end this chapter here because I want to post something for you guys to read. Thanks for waiting, I'll try to update sooner with the next chapter. Anyway, this chapter's song is "Dig" by Incubus.