chapter six
girl meets world

        The Wheeler's basement is warm.  Not at all like her own basement.  Where shadows lurk and cobwebs fill the seldom touched corners, the Wheeler's basement is bright.  Her father had once promised to add the basement to his list of summer projects, but this promise was as just as hollow as the interior of their basement, and so it sits, empty and dark.  In the Wheeler's basement, pushed up against one wall and a rickety card table that sits in the center of the room, covered in figurines and stray dice.  Shelves upon shelves of old movies and CDs line the walls of the basement.  Alex can tell that laughter is contained within the walls of the basement—something else that hers is devoid of—this is a place where happiness is in abundance, just not tonight.

Thunder continues to rumble outside and the rain continues to pour, but inside, they are warm.  Inside, with the lights on, they are safe.  But this safety is still just an illusion provided by the warmth of the lights.  They don't know who this girl is.  They don't know where she came from.  They don't know what she is capable of.  She hasn't tried to run, though, and maybe that's a good sign.  The girl came with them willingly.  There was no hissing and clawing, no flailing limbs as Alex whisked her away from the woods on the back of her bike, but maybe it's the shock that keeps her docile.  Maybe the fear hasn't yet set in.  Maybe then, she'll fight back because when fear sets in, we retreat to our primal instincts. 

They have many reasons to be scared, but curiosity has overridden the primal fear that should be consuming them because here are the facts that Alex has collected (because Alex speaks and thinks in facts and theories—backed by more facts—because they keep her anchored, they keep her sane): kids don't wander in the woods at night, kids don't wear anything but an oversized t-shirt that does not belong to them, kids aren't supposed to be so frail that they seem like they'll fade away at any moment.

The girl sits on the couch, huddled in one of Mike's jackets as the three boys stand eagerly before her.  The boys tower over the small girl, who barely has barely had any time to catch her breath before she is bombarded with questions.  Alex stands further back from the group, not quite sure what to do with herself.  Mike is too entranced by the girl to argue against her being in their company, but Alex still doesn't feel in place among the boys.  But neither does the girl, who stares down at her feet, marred with cuts and caked in mud and tinted blue from the cold of the rain as they continue to bury her up to her neck in questions.

"Is there a number we can call for your parents?" Mike asks.

The girl averts her eyes to stare up at him blankly.

"Where's your hair?" Dustin wonders.  "Do you have cancer?"

"Did you run away?" Lucas inquires.

"Are you in some kind of trouble?" Mike asks.

"Is that blood?"

Lucas reaches out to point out the small patches of red that stain the shoulders of the girl's oversize t-shirt.  They're washed out and small, partially hidden underneath Mike's jacket, but Alex knows the color of stained blood when she sees it.  But surely, it's not from the girl.  There are no visible battle scars across her pale skin.  After all, blood has a way of binding itself to the threads of fabric.  Perhaps it's from a past incident with its previous owner—not that this notion settles the churning in Alex's stomach.

"Everyone, shut up!" Alex finally exclaims.  She steps forward and bats Lucas's prying arm away.  "You're all freaking her out!"

"She's freaking me out!" Lucas retorts.

"I bet she's deaf," Dustin declares.  Before Alex can stop the overenthusiastic boy, he reaches forward and claps in the girl's face.  Almost instantly, the girl recoils and stares up at Dustin who turns back to Alex, Mike, and Lucas.  "Not deaf."

"Thank you, for your input, Doctor Henderson," Alex retorts dryly.

"That's enough, all right?" Mike asserts.  "Harrington's right.  She's just scared and cold."

The boys fall silent and resume their staring game with the girl.  Mike turns on his heel after a moment.  Alex doesn't follow his moment, her eyes are fixated on the girl, still assessing her for any potential threats.  Thunder rumbles outside once more, shaking the very foundations of the home above, and the girl squirms on the couch, screwing her eyes shut until the sound passes and the noise is replaced by a wave of calm.  This is when Alex decides that a girl that is still afraid of the sound of thunder poses no threat to them. 

Mike returns with freshly cleaned clothes cradled in his arms and hands them over to her.  "Here.  These are clean, okay?"

The girl stares at him for a few moments before she carefully reaches out a frail arm to take the clothes from Mike.  She stares down at the clothes in her hands, turning them in her hands as she studies the threads that hold it together.  Alex and the three boys watch intently.  With trembling hands, she lifts the clothes to her cheek and rubs the soft fabric against her gaunt face.  The dark navy is a stark contrast to her own sickly skin.

Alex frowns but watches silently as the girl slowly sheds Mike's jacket from around her bony shoulders and stands up.  Silently, almost as if these steps have been programmed into her, the girl reaches down to the hem of the t-shirt to lift it over her head without a second thought.  Instantly, cries of protest sound from the boy's mouths and Alex leaps forward to stop the girl, grabbing her gently by the wrists before she can do anything else.  The girl freezes.  Alex frowns.  The t-shirt does not make it past her upper thigh.

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!" Dustin exclaims with his back facing Alex.

Alex lets out a breath and slackens her grip on the girl's wrists.  Alex glances around the basement.  "Is there a bathroom in here?"

Mike nods and points to a door on the opposite side of the room and turns to the girl.  "See that over there?  That's the bathroom.  Privacy.  Get it?"

The girl stares at Mike.  It's clear that she doesn't get it.  Alex wonders if she's ever had privacy before; the ease and absence of hesitation to change in front of them shows that much.  The fear is still there in her eyes, but there's something else there too.  Alex watches as she swallows, almost nervously before she nods quietly and turns to pick up the clothes that she had discarded on the couch and clutches them protectively to her chest.  

"I'll go with you," Alex offers softly.  She thinks the girl can use the comfort of the knowledge that there is someone more similar to her than the rest of their company.  The girl nods again and Alex makes her way toward the bathroom door with the girl padding after her.  Her footsteps are light and quiet, almost indiscernible.  It's almost as if she's trying to disappear.

Alex pushes the bathroom door open and searches the wall for the light switch, before flicking the light on.  The girl recoils at the sudden brightness before she steps into the small room and turns around in circles, studying the four walls that surround her.  There's a childlike wonder in her eyes when she finally stops turning in her circles—the same wonder that had filled her eyes when she had first stepped into the basement and felt the texture of the carpet beneath her bare toes.

"We'll be right out here," Alex assures her.  She starts to close the door, but the girl leaps forward and catches it with a force that shocks Alex.  She tries to pull the door closed again, but the girl resists.  That's when Alex sees what's set into her eyes: a wild panic, a frenzy, fear, and Alex relents.  "You don't want it closed?" 

"No."

Her voice is soft but blunt and devoid of any emotion.  It's rough from lack of use, and Alex wonders just how much she really knows.  But at least she is capable of speaking.

"So you can speak!" Comes a hushed exclamation from Mike who hovers over Alex's shoulder.

Alex turns to glare at Mike.  "Back off, Wheeler.  Give her space." 

Then she turns back to the girl who watches the interaction with wide eyes.  Alex lets out another shaking breath.  She's not good at this, she's never been good with people.  She's never completely understood them and why they did what they did, or why they wanted what they wanted, she doesn't know how to deal with their feelings—much less her own.  She tries to remember how Steve used to coax her out of her supernovas of anger.  "Okay...I'm going to leave the door open a little bit.  Is that okay?"

Alex starts to close the door, more slowly this time.  The girl's small hand remains on the door, but she allows Alex to close it just far enough that she can only see the girl's dark brown eyes through the crack in the door.  Alex smiles, in what she hopes is a comforting manner. 

"Is that okay?"

"Yes."

Alex smiles again and flashes the girl a thumbs up.

She joins Mike, Dustin, and Lucas who have formed a small circle in the center of the basement and crosses her arms over chest.  Soft Alex has disappeared and guarded Alex has reemerged from the depths.  Dustin is the first to speak in a hushed undertone.  "This is mental."

"At least she can talk," Mike reasons.

"She said 'no' and 'yes'," Lucas retorts.  "Your three-year-old sister says more!"

"She tried to get naked," Dustin adds. 

"Something's seriously wrong with her," Lucas whispers.  "Like, wrong in the head."

"She just went like..." Dustin continues.  He reaches down and pretends to grab the hem of his own shirt and pull it up over his head.  He knocks the cap off of his curly hair in the process of his pantomime and scrambles to pick it up off of the ground.  Alex only rolls her eyes at his sequence.

Lucas nods.  "I bet she escaped from Pennhurst."

Mike furrows his brows.  "From where?"

"The nuthouse in Kerley County," Lucas answers.

Dustin grins.  "You got a lot of family there?"

"Bite me," Lucas snaps.  Then he turns back to Mike.  "That would explain her shaved hair and why she's so crazy."

"Why she went like..." Dustin pantomimes lifting his shirt off again.

"She's an escapee is the point," Lucas continues, "she's probably a psycho."

Dustin nods.  "Like Michael Myers."

Alex rolls her eyes and crosses her arms.  "God, you guys are such nerds."

But Alex knows that Lucas and Dustin are right.  Because again, here are the facts: kids don't wander the woods at night, kids don't wear nothing but bloodstained t-shirts that aren't theirs, kids don't look around at everyday objects in wonder, as if they're seeing them for the first time.  This girl that they have found is not a normal girl.  This could all be a ploy, a trap, and they've been lured in hook, line, and sinker because they have sympathy for a poor little girl all alone in the woods.  Or maybe, the girl just needs help—their help. 

"Hey, Dustin's right," Lucas exclaims, "We should have never brought her here!"

"So you just wanted to leave her out in that storm?" Mike demands.

"Yes!" Lucas answers.  "We went out to find Will.  Not another problem."

Dustin looks down at the bright red baseball cap in his hands and back up at Mike.  He lets out a sigh, his shoulders slumping.  "I think we should tell your mom."

Lucas nods.  "I second that."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Alex interjects.  "Hold on.  None of us are supposed to be here.  You know what that would mean if we told anybody about her?"

The girl is like an itch that everyone tells you not to scratch, but you scratch anyway—whether out of curiosity or relief.  And now they're caught up in the mess left behind from the itch that they scratched just a little too hard.  Except, they can't tell anybody about the mess.  They have to clean it up on their own because they were told not to scratch that itch, and they did anyway, and if anybody else knew about the girl, they would know that they did not listen.  That they ignored their orders because they cared more about their friend's safety than they cared about their own (and what's so wrong with that?  What is so bad about wanting your friend to be safe?).

Mike nods.  "If I tell my mom, and she tells your mom, and your mom..."

"Oh man..." Dustin murmurs.

"Our houses become Alcatraz," Lucas reaizes.

"Exactly," says Mike.  "We'll never find Will."

Dustin pantomimes removing his shirt once again.

Mike takes a deep breath and nods.  "All right, here's the plan.  She sleeps here tonight."

Dustin's eyes widen.  "You're letting a girl—"

Alex kicks him in the shin.  "Shut up.  Why are you acting like you've never seen a girl before?  God."

"Just listen," Mike interjects before an argument can brew between the two.  "In the morning, she sneaks around my house, goes to the front door, and rings my doorbell.  My mom will answer and know exactly what to do.  She'll send her back to Pennhurst or wherever she comes from.  We'll be totally in the clear.  And tomorrow night, we go back out.  And this time, we find Will."

Lucas lets out a loud sigh, but nods as the girl timidly emerges from the bathroom with the soaked t-shirt clutched in her small hands.  She's almost swallowed by the clothes that hang off of her bony body, and fall past the tips of her fingers and pool at her ankles, but she looks comfortable and content where she stands.  Alex steps forward, and the softness is back as she gently takes the wet shirt from the girl's hands and hands it back over to Mike.

"You're going to stay here for the night, okay?" She tells the girl. 

And the girl nods.

Mike begins to make sleeping arrangements for the girl as Alex, Lucas, and Dustin gather their flashlights and coats.  A fort now sits in the corner of the room constructed of blankets and pillows and all the things that make it warm.  Alex watches the strange girl from the stairs of the basement.  The girl has crawled inside on all fours in the tiny space beneath the desk.  She's so small, so wonder-filled, as if there's an unsatisfied inner child in her that's emerged since she first stepped into the basement.

"Here you go," Mike is saying, "this is my sleeping bag."

"Do you really think she's psycho?" Dustin wonders.

Lucas only shakes his head.  "Wouldn't want her in my house."

author's note: thomasin mckenzie plays alex!!