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remarked, surprised.
     
                  The army of severe faces jus t stared back at me in silence.
     
                  “Okay, where am I going?” I asked, shrugging off their glares.
     
                  “To the windmill,” Will announced, sounding very much like he was on a vital, secret mission.
     
                  The windmill?
     
                  Of course, I knew what he was talking about and where it was. Everyone did. At the edge of town was this huge, old windmill that hadn’t been in use for as long as we’d been alive. What I didn’t know was why we were going there.
     
                  I glanced over my right shoulder so that I could see the three boys now stuffed into my backseat like a Polish sausage in its casing. My puzzled expression did nothing to deter the boys’ looming smirks across their mischievous guises. I turned around again and teasingly glared at Rachel, hoping by some sixth sense that she had come up with some answers in the last couple of minutes, but Rachel only shrugged her shoulders and slowly shook her head back and forth.
     
                  “Don’t look at me,” Rachel demanded. “I’m only along for the ride – and maybe to save you from whatever mess these boys might put you into tonight.”
     
                  I smiled and peered again at the boys through my rearview mirror as I slid the jeep into reverse.
     
                  “You guys better stay out of trouble tonight,” I said playfully as I eased the SUV into drive and pulled out of the driveway.
     
                  “Don’t worry, even if we don’t, at least Spiderman will save you,” the half-smiling boy spilled to me as he tried desperately to wipe the devilish smirk off of his face.
     
                  Will elbowed his chatty friend next to him.
     
                  “What does that mean?” I, now more confused than comforted, questioned the boy.
     
                  “Never mind him, Jules. Let’s just get to the windmill,” Will exclaimed, sending a stern glare in the direction of his blabbering partner in crime.
     
                  I shook off the boy’s bizarre comment and continued down the street. In less than ten minutes, we arrived at the windmill located at the southeastern edge of town. The area was mostly unlit except for the little bits of moonlight that, by now, peeked through the passing clouds every once in awhile. A small, chain-linked fence that wrapped around the windmill’s base only promised to minimally ward off trespassers. The barrier standing four feet tall was the only thing that worked to separate us from the thirty-s omething-foot wind contraption.
     
                  As the jeep neared a narrow driveway, almost completely obscured by weeds, I tapped my breaks and slowly eased into the tiny, white-graveled area and brought the jeep to rest facing the windmill.
     
                  “Okay, now what?” Rachel protested, as she turned around to see the boys.
     
                  “Now, it’s time,” Will’s friend said as he and the other boy spontaneously flung their legs over the sides of the jeep and hit the ground running, leaving Will behind.
     
                  “They are having way too much fun with this, Jules.” Rachel said, half seriously, and turning back toward me.
     
                  “I know, but we’re bound to find out what this is all about soon, right?” I questioned her.
     
                  “Let’s just leave ‘em and go get some ice cream,” Rachel whispered.
     
                  “I can still hear you, Rachel,” Will said, smiling from the backseat.
     
                  Rachel stared at me with eyes that looked like she had just gotten caught with her hand in the brownie batter. Her