Gravediggers by Christopher Krovatin Page A

about PJ and me.”
    â€œRight, but look,” says Ian, waving his hands in the air. Finally, it bursts free: “If I get the blame for this, there would be, you know, serious consequences.” I’m impressed he knows a word that big. So many syllables. “I might have to sit out of hoops this season and everything.”
    â€œThanks for your concern, Ian,” I say. “You couldn’t think about that before you went barreling after that deer earlier?”
    â€œWill you back off me, Kendra?” he snaps. “What’d I ever do to you?”
    â€œCalled me a pathetic nerd, for one,” I reply.
    â€œGod, you’ll never let that one go, will you?” he says.
    â€œGot my phone taken away from me, for another,” I tell him. “Got me and your best friend lost in the woods. That’s three. Should I keep going?”
    Ian turns to PJ. “Dude, help me out here. You don’t want me to take the hit for us getting lost, do you?”
    â€œRight now, I just want to get home,” says PJ, mopping sweat from his brow with his shirt.
    â€œI’m just saying—”
    â€œWe know what you’re saying, Ian,” says PJ. He won’t look at Ian, but his expression of fear has turned to one of anger. “I just don’t care about it right now.”
    Ian stares at PJ, his eyes softening with hurt, then narrowing with rage. “Fine, whatever,” he snaps. “Throw me under the bus. Thanks a ton, man.” He turns and plods off through the woods, making as much noise as possible.
    I walk next to PJ for a few minutes, and he says, softly, “It’s really hard to argue with him.”
    â€œYou two don’t seem like likely friends,” I observe.
    He nods. “Our parents have been friends for a long time,” he says. “And he’s a really good guy most of the time. He just cares a lot about what people think of him. And I . . .” He sighs. “Being friends with me doesn’t help people’s opinions much. No one wants to be buddies with some weird film geek.”
    Maybe I’m unversed in movie fanaticism, but being an embarrassment—a freak, a loser—that rings a bell. Without understanding why, I reach out a hand and touch PJ’s shoulder lightly. He looks up at me, bewildered, and then smiles. “Thanks for being on my side,” he says. “I’m not really used to it.”
    This boy is your friend, somehow, Kendra. You can analyze how it happened when you get home. For now, you’ve got to help him. If that means helping Ian by association, then fine. Start thinking for three.
    We keep walking, and the sun keeps sinking. The shadows grow longer; the breezes seem chillier. For a while, we’re silent, which allows me to make a mental tally of what’s in my bag. We should eat soon—low blood sugar is terrible for outdoor activities. We have the granola bars, ramen . . . and that’s it. Not a great assortment of food, but it should be enough to get us through the night. With some luck, we could also find some wild berries.
    Remember from your reading, Kendra—are pinecones edible? Didn’t Sondra from that French camping message board say that she cooked a pinecone once?
    My uneasiness doesn’t go anywhere but instead gets worse and worse, dragging my mind away from the task at hand and back to the stone wall, coated in rum, marked with that weird, incomprehensible symbol. While we walk on and on, I take out my notebook and stare at the drawing I made. It’s an ornate cross, dotted with circles, frosted with swirls, adorned to be both welcoming and dangerous. Something about it being painted on the rum-covered stone wall in the middle of an uninhabited mountain range makes me feel increasingly anxious. It’s as though I’ve overlooked a serious error that will return to ruin me later on.
    â€œWhat’re you reading?” asks