2. The Blue Flickering Light
Madison Heights, Maine was a quaint, small town filled with older buildings that had lots of character. It was the kind of place that one would generally take a picture of and then try to sell it to a postcard company. Molly loved living in Madison Heights, but the thing about growing up in a town as small this, was that everybody knew everything about everyone else. Therefore, it was no surprise that even though she hadn’t gone around broadcasting it, people still knew it had been her birthday. The next few days passed in a blur for Molly, with people still coming up to her in school to wish her well once they had found out.
She barely had time to think about the fact that she was now a teenager though, as she was now focusing on other things. Now that she had permission to join the art club, something she could really be interested in, it was hard to keep a smile from disappearing from her face. She couldn’t wait for the first meeting. The days dragged by until finally, a full week had passed and it was the night before the first meeting of the club.
She had tried to occupy her time that Sunday by hanging out with Sam all day. They had gone into town to catch a movie, and had gotten ice cream afterwards, but Molly’s attention was only half hearted. She kept thinking about painting and using her new watercolors. Sam had tried to keep up a conversation with her, but eventually stopped when Molly failed to respond to her. As soon as they had arrived back on their road, Sam crossed the road back to Aunt May’s and Molly went through the front door to her own home.
After a quick dinner with her family, Molly headed up to her bedroom to finish the homework she had been assigned and had neglected to work on all weekend. She sat down at her white wooden desk and flipped on her light. After finishing her math and history homework, she began to work on her science lesson. It was a relatively boring assignment and Molly felt her eyes begin to droop. She nodded off for a few minutes, but then managed to jerk herself awake and got back to work.
In the middle of question number 5, she looked up through the window that was right above her desk. The window just happened to face the hill that led to Dr. Oliveri’s home. The hill was very high and set back from the road, and from a normal view, the house was relatively obscure. From Molly’s window though, she could just make out the second floor and the attic of his home. The whole house was dark, except for a weird blue glow that seemed to be coming from the attic.
That’s strange, thought Molly. What could that light be? She and Sam had been up in Dr. Oliveri’s attic before, and knew that there was no electricity up there. She got up and leaned over her desk to peer through the window more carefully. Now, the light seemed to be flickering, almost giving off a strobe effect. After about five more minutes of the flickering light, the whole place went dark.
She wondered if anybody else had witnessed what she had just seen. She reached for her cell phone to call Sam, but realized that it was now too late for her to call her friend without disturbing Aunt May. She sat back down, quickly scribbled down a few half-hearted answers to the remaining questions on the assignment, and slammed the book shut and clicked off her desk light. Molly got up and changed into her pajamas, grabbed her doll Maddie from a bookshelf, and pulled her bedspread down from her pillows and climbed into her daybed. As she reached to turn off her table lamp, she made a mental note to ask Sam in the morning, if she had seen the blue light too.
*****
The next morning, Molly woke up about twenty minutes before her alarm clock was actually supposed to go off. She was excited about two things: today was Monday, which meant that the first meeting of the art club was taking place after school, and the second was that she couldn’t wait to meet Sam to ask her about the blue light. Molly hurried through her shower, and didn’t even bother to blow dry her hair. She just quickly braided it and moved on to brushing her teeth. After making her bed and stuffing her school books in her backpack, she ran down the stairs taking two at a time.
“Good morning Molly,” her mother called to her in the kitchen. Mrs. Sinclair was still in her pajamas and shuffling back and forth in her slippers as she prepared eggs and toast.
“What would you like for breakfast honey?” asked Mrs. Sinclair, who was busy stifling a huge yawn.
“Nothing, thanks,” responded Molly. “I think I’ll just take some toast and eat it on the way to school.”
“Are you sure?” Her mother looked surprised at Molly’s refusal of a warm breakfast. Molly always liked to eat breakfast at the table, with her father and brothers while filling in the crosswords in the morning paper.
“I’m sure,” said Molly.
“Well, I’m afraid you’re rather early for the rest of the family. They are all still upstairs getting ready. Do you want to wait and see if someone can drive you to school?”
“That’s okay,” responded Molly. “I want to meet Sam at her house and talk to her about the art club today. We can walk to school from there. Also, don’t forget I am staying late after class for the meeting.”
Mrs. Sinclair smiled. “It’s all up here,” she said, pointing to her head.
Molly grabbed a jacket and proceeded out the front door and across the front yard. She crossed the dirt road and walked up to Sam’s front door and knocked.
Aunt May, already dressed for the day, opened up the front door. “Hi, Molly, how are you this morning?” she asked.
“I am doing great,” said Molly. “Is Sam ready for school yet?”
“I think she is just finishing up. Why don’t you go wait in the family room.”
“Thanks May,” she said.
She turned to the right and entered the small family room. Apart from her own home, Molly loved Aunt Mays home the best. May had a great ability in discovering unique finds at garage sales and the local thrift store. The whole house had a very eclectic feeling about it. One man’s trash is another person’s treasure, Aunt May was always saying. Molly couldn’t help but agree. Everything in the house always looked like treasure to her. She couldn’t help but feel that the house resembled Aunt May a little bit.
May always wore second hand clothing, but it always looked brand new on her. She often wore big clunky jewelry and wore gold eye shadow to enhance her blue eyes. She always wore her auburn hair pulled in a loose bun. She couldn’t help but think that Sam and Aunt May were a lot alike, both in terms of personality and fashion sense.
Molly sat down on the red loveseat and waited impatiently for Sam to finish getting ready. After about ten minutes of waiting, Molly was just about to get up and go find Sam, when she walked into the family room, dressed in an outfit as equally funky as Aunt May’s.
“Ready?” asked Sam, as if it had been Molly who had kept Sam waiting on her, instead of the other way around. Molly was used to this, as Sam always took forever at what she was doing. Sam grabbed her school bag and the girls started to walk down the dirt road in direction of Walter Madison Middle School.
“So, why were you at my house so early this morning?” asked Sam.
Here was Molly’s chance to bring up the topic she had been thinking about all night. “Did you see it?” She asked.
“See what,” responded Sam.
“The light!”
“What light? When? I didn’t see any light.”
“There was a blue flickering light going off in Dr. Oliveri’s attic last night,” said Molly. “What do you suppose it was?”
“I don’t know,” said Sam. “Remember, I can’t see Dr. Oliveri’s house from my window. Your window is the only one that has a view of the top of the hill.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Molly remembering. “Well, even if you couldn’t see it, what do you think it could have been?”
Sam thought for a minute as they walked along. “Maybe it was his television?”
“Sam! Remember, Dr. Oliveri doesn’t have electricity in his attic. How could you be watching television with no electricity?”
“I don’t know,” Sam said again. “Maybe he had a battery?”
“You don’t watch television with a battery!” Molly sighed. Sam was no help. Obviously she didn’t find the story about the blue light as fascinating as Molly did.
“Are you sure it was in his attic?” asked Sam. “Maybe you imagined it or dreamed you saw the light.”
Molly wasn’t about to tell Sam that she had dozed off in the middle of her science homework. This would just give her more cause not to believe Molly. She would try to convince Molly that she had just dreamed about the light.
Molly shook her head defiantly and said, “I know what I saw! There was a blue light in Dr. Oliveri’s attic last night, and I did not imagine it.”
By this time, they were halfway to school. Sam, who was looking straight ahead, stopped walking and groaned loudly. “Great!” she said pointing. “There’s Dusty at twelve 0’clock.”
Molly looked and saw that Dusty Mingler, who was right in front of them, was walking along the same path to school. Dusty was a tall gangly boy with spiky hair, braces and glasses. He was a combination of class clown and geek at the middle school, and he had a pension for falling over things and tripping over his own two feet. Molly didn’t have a problem with him, as she thought of him as funny and enjoyed his presence. Sam thought otherwise. Whenever he would come up to talk to them, Sam always acted like he was bugging her, and couldn’t wait to get away from him.
Dusty, who had heard the girls walking behind him, turned around and waited for them to catch up. “Hey, Sam and Molly, have I got a joke for you girls!” shouted Dusty. As soon as they had reached him, he fell in step with them and joined their walk to school.
“What do you get when you cross the world’s best fairy tale teller with the world’s worst mammal?”
Molly obliged him and asked, “What do you get?”
“A whale of a tale!”
Dusty burst into laughter and grabbed at his sides. Molly also laughed and shook her head, but Sam groaned and rolled her eyes.
“Dusty, you are such a dork!” She quickened her steps and Molly and Dusty had to walk twice as fast just to keep up with her.
With the quickened pace it took them no time at all to arrive at school. Sam went off to her homeroom down on the east side of the school, and Dusty and Molly went down the hallway in the opposite direction to their homeroom, which they shared together. They entered the classroom and took their normal seats. Mrs. Starr, their homeroom teacher had not arrived yet. Claire-Anne Watson, who was the biggest gossip in the seventh grade, took the rare opportunity and came running over to them.
“Guess what I heard,” she exclaimed.
Molly was hesitant to ask. More often than not, Claire-Anne had a tendency to get her stories wrong. She once told everybody that Principal Timpkins had fallen of the roof of his home, and had broken both of his legs so badly that he was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. In reality, he had taken a misstep off the curb of his driveway and had sprained his ankle. Ever since, Molly took everything Claire-Anne said with a grain of salt.
“What’s up C.A.?” she asked.
“I am sure that you will be pleased to know, that you are among the first to hear the news. There is a new boy starting in school today. Apparently he is Dr. Oliveri’s nephew and he is visiting him while is father is stationed in Germany.”
Molly looked at her. Maybe Claire-Anne was correct on her information this time.
“What do you mean; we’ll be the first to know? Yeah right. More like the first to know sitting in our row,” joked Dusty. Molly and Dusty both knew that Claire-Anne had most likely already told the whole school by now.
“Yeah really,” agreed Molly. “Wait, how could you possibly know? I only just found out about it last week when I was visiting him.”
“I have my sources,” responded Claire-Anne mysteriously.
Dusty and Molly exchanged knowing glances. That source was probably Claire-Anne’s mother, who was the only bigger gossip in town other than Claire-Anne herself.
Molly couldn’t help feeling a flutter of curiosity in the pit of her stomach. It wasn’t often that there was a new kid in school. People never really moved away or came to live in Madison Township. It was a steady place where nothing new ever really happened.
“Have you heard anything about him?” asked Dusty. He looked hopeful, that maybe he would be able to make a new friend. Not a lot of kids had patience for Dusty’s lack of coordination. They just mostly laughed at him every time he tripped or fell over something.
“Yes,” answered Claire-Anne. “He is in the seventh grade, same as us. He came to live with Dr. Oliveri, his uncle, since his father is away, and his mother left them when he was four. Dr. Oliveri was the first to volunteer to look after him. I think my mom said he was from Cincinnati, but I’m not sure. My mom talked to Dr. Oliveri yesterday in the grocery store. She kept asking him questions, but that was all she could get out of him. It was like he was trying to be careful about what he told her, which we both think was kind of rude of him,” sniffed Claire-Anne. “What did he think she was going to do, she asked, print it in the newspaper?”
“I can’t believe you got as much as you did,” exclaimed Dusty. “You Watson’s need to learn when to stop prying into people’s lives.”
Molly looked at Dusty. He hardly ever stood up to anybody, and she was glad that he had taken a stand of the new kid’s behalf. Just then, the bell rang, and Mrs. Starr walked into the room. “Okay everybody, please take your seats,” she shouted over the din of the students scraping their desks against the floor as they sat in them.
Mrs. Starr was the one of the seventh grade English teachers as well as the volunteer for the new art club. She was an older woman, maybe in her sixties, but she acted more like she was in her twenties. She had curly mousy brown hair that she wore in braids, and she always wore paisley dresses with black combat boots. She was a school favorite and people often tried to sign up for her classes only to end up on a waiting list.
The school announcements came on over the p.a. system and everybody quieted down. After the usual notices about the sports games being played after school, and what was being offered for lunch that day, the bell rang again, and if was off to first period. Everybody got up to leave, except for Molly and a couple others, who happened to have English with Mrs. Starr first period of the day. A minute later Sam walked in and sat down next to Molly.
“So, there is a new story going around in the hallways. Claire-Anne has been telling everybody about Dr. Oliveri’s nephew who is coming to visit, she said. Apparently he arrives today.”
“I know,” replied Molly. “She thrives on being the first to know things. I think it really irks her if somebody actually knows something before she does. We better not tell her that we found out about Dr. Oliveri’s nephew last week, or she might freak out.”
The bell rang again and Mrs. Starr settled everybody down and began her class. They were in the middle of objectifying pronouns, when there was a knock on the door. Mrs. Starr went to open it, and the class could hear her mumbling to somebody else. After another minute, she opened the door further to allow a boy in through the door.
He was of medium height, with shaggy dark brown hair and olive skin and deep brown eyes. He did not look up at the rest of the students, but folded his arms over his chest and kept his eyes focused on his shoes. He appeared to be very standoffish. Molly couldn’t get a clear sense if he was just shy or if he just wasn’t very friendly.
“Class,” began Mrs. Starr. “This is Tristan Oliveri. He comes to us from Ohio. Please welcome him to Walter Madison Middle School.” Mrs. Starr handed him a textbook and turned to speak to him, “Tristan, you may take a seat, in the desk behind Charlie Benton,” she said pointing behind Charlie’s head, to the only empty desk in the classroom.
Tristan shuffled over to the desk and sat down, all without breaking eye contact with the floor. Molly tried to pay attention to the rest of Mrs. Starr’s lecture on pronouns, but she kept finding herself staring at Tristan. He never once looked up to see the other students, but kept his face in his English book.
Molly always tried to find the best in people and refused to believe that he was a snob. After all, he was related to Dr. Oliveri, who was as nice as could be. She determined that shyness was the main factor in his demeanor. She thought he might also be tired. He must not have had much of a chance to get settled at Dr. Oliveri’s if he had only arrived in the last few days.
Molly kept staring at the back of his head through the rest of the class. She was definitely intrigued by him and not because he was new. There was something different about him; she just couldn’t pinpoint what it was. She looked around and noticed most people in the class were staring at him as well, including Sam.
Time dragged by and finally the class bell rang. Everybody got up to head to their next classes. She hurried to catch up to Tristan to introduce herself as his neighbor, but he was swallowed up by the crowds in the hallway. She turned to wave bye to Sam and headed for her next class. Molly continued to look for Tristan in each of her next three classes, but he had obviously been assigned a different schedule than her. Finally lunch time came, and she grabbed her sack lunch from her locker and looked for Sam in the cafeteria.
Sam had already found their regular seats, and was busy squirting ketchup on the hamburger she had just purchased from the lunch line. Dusty had already found Sam, and was getting ready to sit next to her at the table, much to Sam’s disgust. Molly approached the table and sat down on the opposite side of it right across from Sam. Molly was just opening up her peanut butter sandwich, when at that minute Bianca Madison happened to walk by with her clique of followers, Lucy Pepper and Allissa Kalis. This time, it was Molly who groaned.
Molly couldn’t stand Bianca and for good reason. Bianca’s grandfather had developed the town of Madison Heights, and her father was its mayor. She lived in the only mansion in the whole town, and carried herself with the air that she was the most important person around. Lucy and Allissa were such followers that they copied everything she did. All in all, they were not very nice girls. Bianca’s favorite pastime was to torture Sam, for her eclectic appearance and lack of money.
Bianca looked at Sam and laughed out loud. “Nice outfit Samantha”, she snickered. “Where did you get that t-shirt? From somebody’s trash bag before the garbage men could collect it?”
That was a low blow. Bianca knew that all of Sam’s clothes came from the thrift store. Lucy and Allissa both laughed and gave Bianca approving looks.
“At least my skirt doesn’t look like it got stuck in the shredder”, retorted Sam looking at Bianca’s jeans skirt with frayed edges.
“This just happens to be the style,” Bianca said. She flipped her long black braid behind her back. “But you wouldn’t know style if a fashion magazine happened to fall in your lap!” At that the trio of girls turned on their heels and headed off to the popular table where all of the important kids sat.
“Don’t worry about it Sam,” encouraged Molly. “You know plenty about style! Your style is just different than everybody else’s and that’s a good thing. You wouldn’t want to go around following Bianca everywhere, and dressing like her clones, do you?”
Sam smiled at Molly appreciatively and continued to eat her burger. Dusty looked past Molly and said “Hey, there’s that new kid, Tristan.”
Molly looked behind her and noticed that Tristan was sitting by himself, reading a book. She felt bad for him. “I bet it’s hard to transfer schools at the beginning of the year. He doesn’t know anybody here. We should have invited him to sit with us,” she said turning back to Dusty and Sam.
“It’s too late now, lunch is almost over. We can sit with him tomorrow,” replied Dusty.
After lunch, Molly continued to look for Tristan in each class, striking out in both Pre-Algebra and Spanish. The last class of the day was Earth Science with Mr. Rensberger. The bell rang, and Tristan walked into the class. Mr. Rensberger assigned him to the same lab table as Molly’s. She looked at him and whispered “Hi”. He gave her a short nod, and looked back down at his text book.
Mr. Rensberger droned on and on about the upcoming experiment for class, but Molly had trouble paying attention. There was just something about him that seemed slightly off. She wanted to talk to Tristan so badly so she could figure out what it was. Only when Mr. Rensberger mentioned the word ‘dissection’, did she snap out of her reverie.
“Dissection! What? What dissection?” She looked to Claire-Anne on her left and Tristan on her right.
“Yes, that’s correct class,” their teacher said, “starting on Monday; we will begin to study the inner workings of the frog.”
“Ewww,” squealed many of the girls.
Claire-Anne squealed the loudest. Molly felt faint. She didn’t want to see the innards of a frog. She generally tried to stay away from bugs and amphibians altogether. All in all, this had turned out to be an unusual and somewhat disturbing day.
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