They told us to write it down. All of it, from the beginning. As if we have a choice in the matter, but it might help us figure out how to escape once we go back and decipher how we got into this mess in the first place. Let's see. I'm guessing they don't want us to tell about our baby times, not to go back that far. Maybe when "me" became "we".

It's been two years since we became "the Rays". Man, how we loved those jackets! ... We came together for baseball, we were always the best in our grade: Me (Fliro), Randall, Elliot, Terrence, and Barry. Baseball; weird, obscure names; and a love of the sleek, black, fifty-dollar Stingray® jackets are what brought us together in the sixth grade. I learned to be proud of having the weirdest name in the history of Jason T. Reller Middle School.

You can't be a cool club/gang without a name, right? "Stingrays" was too copycat-ish, and anything else seemed, well, wrong. And what is cooler than a Stingray® jacket? Then Randall thought of just "Rays", and it was perfect. He joked around that since he came up with the name, we should call ourselves "Randall's Rays". It only took three days calling him Randy-Dandy (Handy?) for him to give that up real quick.

So we had a name, a pretty sick one at that. But still, where could we hang out, where could we chill? Someone's house was out of the question. Too lame, too cliche. "So, where's your HQ?"

"Oh, in Elliot's basement."

"Ok-AY then..."

We'd be the laughingstock of the school in days! At that time public humiliation was the worst thing any of us could imagine. How tough we thought we were, how wrong we realize now, it almost makes me smile. Then I remember where we are now... And, well, nothing- (not even the time we pantsed Frankie Roberts in front of the entire population of Wilkins Ridge at the homecoming football game)- nothing is funny now. How much of what we knew was a lie?

Back to the story, I know, I know. We needed a place to call our own, a secret, yet awesome place, one that a person would pass by without much concern, but on the inside- pure sweetness!

That's when Elliot and Barry went into the woods. They were running from Frankie Roberts and his cronies after school. Normally we and Frankie just keep a chilly distance between us, but Terrence and Barry had got him good this time. Plus he started it by stealing (kind of). From what Barry told me, Frankie ordered them to buy him a Coke so he could gloat in their faces. When they refused- duh, what did he think was gonna happen?- he pulled in a teacher and made some dumb thing up that they had stolen his money. Now, one thing you must understand before we go any farther is that teachers loooove Frankie. He has one of those faces that say "Who, me?" that teachers just eat right up. They let him get away with murder. Thank goodness he's too scared of his dad to kill someone- but I don't think he'd have the guts to do it, anyway.

On the other hand, there's us: C average kids, gang-y looking jackets, leaving candy wrappers in our wake (oooh, rebels...). It's not that bad, though. Elliot and Barry put the most effort into school- Barry sometimes scores B's- but Elliot... He gets STRAIGHT A's! (I get D's and C's) Why someone would care about good grades is way beyond me, as is most of the crap they "teach" in school. Also, none of us does drugs. We're not dumb enough to treat our bodies that way. And we try to even be polite to teachers. Sometimes. Maybe. If we feel like it.

Anyway, Elliot is the 'clever' one, and when Miss Avair made him cough up five bucks (yeah, the vending machines are ridiculously expensive), he did it. He even bought the Coke right away. Yet while Frankie's back was turned, probably endearing himself even more to Miss Avair, Elliot shook it up, shoved the soda in his hand, and backed away. According to Barry, Frankie was completely clueless. He opened it triumphantly -I can just see the smirk on his face morphing into surprise, hatred, and rage- and it exploded all over! That's when Elliot and Barry made a break for it. Not that they were afraid of Frankie, but a good run now and then is healthy for your systems. "If you mean adrenaline system," said Elliot later on. "You know I'm not athletic, and Frankie's on the football team! I was a tad worried. And if you ever repeat that I will tell the whole world you like Morgan Stevens."

Crap. That is a mean threat, coming from Elliot. The scary part is, he might actually do that! Whatever, afraid or not, they ran. Out the door, across the field, through a couple random yards, and over the old fence at the edge of the forest. Of course, after only five minutes of running (or, in Elliot's case, spazzing out in a generally forward direction) through the woods, they got lost. Go figure. So, they called me, Randall, and Terrence, and we were there in no time. Our phones have caller ID and GPS for each other's numbers only. Cool, right?

Then we came to the task of actually getting out of the woods. Too bad the GPS app cost like seven dollars, and my parents were adamant about one thing growing up: no credit card use until you're eighteen. And of course, going into the woods we hadn't paid any thought whatsoever as to what direction we came in from. Plus, the GPS caller's ID deletes after five minutes (so no creepy stalker can steal your phone and stalk your friends), and by the time we figured out that we were lost, it was too late. It was getting dark fast, and in no time we started to get hungry.

There's no way that we would complain to our parents- we were way too proud for that. So, of course, when in doubt, lie. We were "staying over at Elliot's house" because all of our parents wish that they had Elliot for a son and not us, so they believe us and hope that we are finally acting like 'real' children and having slumber parties and girly stuff like that. Sometimes adults make you want to scream!

Elliot's parents, of course, believed right away that he was doing after-school extra credit. Ha. I wonder where they think we are now?

Well, we weren't just gonna sit around in the dark woods. Even men have their limits too. We spun Terrence around in a circle and when he stopped, that was the direction we'd go in. As we trudged along, we tried to imagine where we were going. Barry said Zimbabwe. Randall said Kentucky. I said a magical kingdom where ponies fly.

"Duh, that's a Pegasus, Fliro. Anyway, that's not even scientifically -not to mention realistically- possible!" Elliot butted in.

"Well, scientifically speaking-...Well..." Nope. I got nothing. They knew this and laughed. "It's probably more like Chestersville," corrected Elliot. I am generally accepted as the 'dreamer' of the group. Elliot is the tech nerd, Terrence is the athlete, Barry is really into literature, and Randall... Well, Randall is just Randall. It's funny some days how well we fit so nicely into social classification groups (besides Randall)!

By then we were all practically starving and we had to turn on our phone lights to see clearly enough in the dark to not trip over a root and fall flat on our faces. Some of us- not me, of course- but some of us were starting to really freak out. But that's when we saw it. The cabin.

That cabin... Oh, how I wish that we had never gotten lost, never gone into the woods, never had to jump into this hairy mess of secrets.

But it is too late now.

And perhaps it always will be.