The Nerdy Dozen by Jeff Miller

Author:Jeff Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-04-04T04:00:00+00:00

NEIL HAD NEVER SEEN SO MANY STARS. THE NIGHT SKY WAS bold and unending, brighter than he’d ever seen it at home. The stars all scattered in every direction as if they’d been thrown, two-handed, from a basket.

The light of their glow grew fainter as Neil got closer to the roaring fire at the island’s center. The group of recruits approached it carefully, moving forward slowly over the spongy and thick grass. The fire was magnetic, sending sparks popping with dark orange-and-blue flames. Near the fire’s edge, Neil spotted the shadow of his sleepwalking friend staggering toward the glowing embers. People were circling around the large bonfire in a flurry of claps, yips, and yelps, all tossing logs and huge pieces of driftwood onto the blaze.

“Biggs! Psst, Biggs!” Neil shouted, but his friend continued on, stumbling hazily around a dark cluster of trees. Neil raced after him, turning the corner and running into the back of a hulking local. He and a few others had formed a circle around Biggs.

“Hey, stop! Biggs, run!” Neil yelled, assuming this was some kind of midnight brainwashing.

Neil tried squirming through the wall of strangers to break his friend loose, but it was like fighting a losing game of red rover. And then, suddenly, the circle broke open on its own, and Biggs emerged from the center, his shirt and signature cap now replaced by a small bongo drum, a fringed leather vest, and what looked to be a plastic toy ostrich beak over his nose.

“Neil! It’s a drum circle, my man!” Biggs exclaimed, now completely awake. He slapped the tops of the drums, and a thousand-watt smile stretched across his face.

Neil smiled, relieved. “I was worried you were gonna sleepwalk right into the fire or something.”

“Nah. Sorry if I scared ya, though. I do have a history of sleep-drumming, and I have a way of finding these types of things. It’s, like, my sixth, possibly seventh, sense,” Biggs said as he tapped out a simple beat. “And thanks for coming to find me, Neil. That means a lot. And since I’m journal-less, if I get inspired to dictate some of the smells I encounter, would you mind trying to jot ’em down?”

“Sure thing.” Neil shrugged.

The rest of the group shuffled around the bend of trees, heading in their direction.

“Dudes!” Biggs waved over the rest of their new friends as they sheepishly walked around the edge of the circle, the rise and fall of drumbeats filling the warm night air. Strangers with sunburns and beads in their hair greeted the group, offering tambourines and thin, plastic glowing jewelry, the kind that look like straws with ends that snapped together. Getting into the spirit of things, Neil grabbed a neon-yellow glow bracelet and put it on. The other kids—all gamers in the truest sense, and therefore fans of loud noises and a blatant disregard for curfews—seemed equally entranced by the drum circle.

Sam grabbed Neil’s wrist, and they cut through the outer ring of people, followed by Yuri and the two Jasons.

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