The Shadow Club by Neal Shusterman

Author:Neal Shusterman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-01-18T23:29:45+00:00

The Best of Friends

AS USUAL, MOST of us pretended not to know each other at school that week. Sure, Cheryl and I hung around together, but as far as the rest of the club went, well, we just winked at each other in the halls. The secrecy of our friendships made the meetings at Stonehenge very special.

By next Friday's meeting, however, I was feeling awfully strange about things. Tyson hadn't spilled the beans to anyone, as far as I knew, and none of us had gotten caught for any of the practical jokes we had played, but still something didn't sit quite right. Maybe it was the feeling I'd got when I told Tyson I knew he was a bed wetter. Maybe it was the fact that I had to spy on him like a Peeping Tom. Or maybe it was the fact that Tyson had called us a gang. Whatever it was, I took the feeling to the meeting with me, and I couldn't shake it. I held my hands close to the fire. It seemed that for the past few meetings nothing I could do would keep my hands warm.

"You know," said Darren, "I never thought this thing would work. I mean, I never thought we'd all actually . . . you know, like each other."

"I'll say," said Abbie. "Look at this group: we've got a jock, a brain, a nerd, a sosh, a brat, a lawyer, and the Gopher! Who'd have thought we'd all get along!"

I smiled, but down inside I cringed. The kids in the Shadow Club were the only ones in school left who didn't call me the Gopher.

"I'm not a jock!" said Darren.

"And I'm not a nerd!" said Jason.

"Yeah, but you know what I mean," said Abbie.

I knew what she meant. Except for Randall, Cheryl, and me, none of us had really known each other before the club.

"I guess when you have something in common," said O.P, "it's easy to be friends." Oh, yeah, sure, we really had a lot in common, I thought.

"We all hate somebody," I said.

O.P. turned to me. "What?"

"We hate somebody. That's all we have in common. A little bit sick, huh?"

"Naah," said Darren. "It's like war. Common enemies bring people close, you know?"

"But we're not at war," I said.

"Yeah, we are," said Jason. "We're fighting for our right not to be humiliated by the unbeatables."

"I say we nuke 'em!" said Randall.

"And I say that's not funny!" I yelled. I wondered which was worse, wanting to nuke somebody, or wishing someone was never born. There were seven of us, all wishing that seven other people in the world had never been brought into it. That's the kind of hatred you read about in war books; the kind of hate that kills millions of people.

Everyone around the circle looked at me as if I had cussed Randall out.

"I think you're taking this all too seriously, Jared," said Cheryl. "It's just for fun."

"I think he's feeling guilty," said Abbie.

"What for?" said Darren.

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