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Clutching the skull necklace to his chest, Jamal snatched the wooden box and note from the table and bolted for his room. Fortunately, his brother was playing another old jazz tune on his new trumpet. That meant his parents would be distracted and Jamal could be alone.
Jamal shut the door behind him. His heart thumped fast in his chest, reminding him of how he had felt when he saw those dolls watching him from the shop window. He flopped down onto his bed to examine the necklace closer. He ran his fingers over the skull, feeling the indentations of the eye sockets.
“Come on, do it again,” he whispered to the necklace, looking for a button or switch or battery chamber that could explain the flicker of light. But the skull’s eye sockets remained dark.
No flash of light.
Nothing.
It was just a weird necklace. He studied the note again. Beware of the shadows. This will protect you. He read it over and over until the words blurred together, but still no meaning revealed itself to him. He checked the box, too. Maybe there was a secret panel? Or some other clue about the necklace and why it glowed with red light?
But still nothing.
Disappointment coursed through him for the thousandth time that day. Maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him after all. Just like with the dolls. He sighed.
“Stupid hunk of junk,” he muttered, feeling angry. He shoved himself off the bed and stood over the trash can. He just wanted to be rid of it. “What do I need with a gross, ugly skull necklace anyway?”
He hit the trash can’s pedal with his foot and the top gaped open. But the second he thrust the necklace over the can, the eye sockets began to glow again.
Jamal froze, afraid to move in case it made the light die out. He stared at the skull, making sure what he saw was real. The eye sockets glowed with eerie red light, like something demonic.
“How in the…” Jamal removed his foot from the trash can pedal. The lid slammed shut.
Only then did the necklace stop glowing. The light slowly faded until the eye sockets were dark again. But this time, there was no mistaking what he had seen. The necklace had definitely been glowing with mysterious light. He couldn’t explain it, but it was real.
On impulse, he fastened the chain around his neck, feeling the weight of the skull dangling from it. He remembered his mother saying that his grandmother had never taken it off.
“Protection, huh?” he said, his eyes flicking back to the strange note.
Even though he didn’t understand it, he could use some protection, right? He thought of Colton bullying him. Maybe the necklace could help. Not like he had anything left to lose. He tucked it under his shirt to hide it. He didn’t want anyone to see him wearing it. After all, it looked weird.
Still he felt uneasy, remembering the skull’s glowing red eye sockets. If it could do that, then what else could it do?
* * *
“Hey, wait for me!” Jamal yelled as the school bus’s door began to close. But the door slammed right in his face and the bus left without him, speeding off in a noxious cloud of exhaust. He ran after it, but he wasn’t fast enough to catch up. The driver didn’t even notice him.
What else was new?
The last thing he saw was Riley watching him through the back window as the bus careened around a corner, leaving him alone on the curb in front of the school. His heart sank.
“Invisibility powers strike again,” Jamal muttered, staring at his own shadow stretching across the asphalt. He wished more than anything that he could be sitting on that bus next to Riley, bantering away about their school day.
The bus vanished from his view, swallowed up by the busy city streets. The sun beat down on his back without mercy, clinging to the pinnacle of the sky. That hurricane was still building in the Gulf, but no one would know it from the clear blue overhead.
Even though it was one of those classic sweltering New Orleans days, Jamal would have to walk home. His mom had to pull a long shift at the hospital where she worked as an administrator, and his father was at the car dealership where he worked as a salesman. Barring a real emergency, they wouldn’t be able to pick him up. Missing the school bus certainly didn’t count as an emergency in their books.
He could already hear his father’s stern voice: Son, maybe if you walk home, you’ll learn not to be late for the bus.
But it wasn’t his fault. For some reason, the bus driver never seemed to notice him, even when he was there on time. This was just the final insult in another terrible day at school.
“Lot of good you did today,” he said, feeling the skull necklace under his shirt, his fingers slipping over the eye sockets. He’d worn the ugly thing to school, keeping it hidden under his shirt, in hopes that it would help.
According to his grandmother’s note, it was supposed to protect him.
But protect him from what?
Certainly not getting left on the curb by the school bus and having to trudge home in the oppressive heat. Even worse, Colton had been giving him the evil eye all through gym class. Clearly, he was still furious about the previous day. Only Malik’s presence had prevented Colton and his crew from doing something about it. But his brother wouldn’t always be around.
