“No, it isn’t. We shouldn’t have gone.”
Jill was quiet for a moment. Then she said softly, “You could have gotten killed last night.”
That seemed like an exaggeration. But not much of one.
“Walking all the way over there in the middle of the night? You could have been murdered.”
“You’re right.”
“Dawn, you’re my friend. I care about you. I don’t want anything to happen to you. Anything bad, I mean.”
“I know,” I said again. I felt a little like I was having a conversation with Dad or Carol. The conversation in which the parent says (as he or she sets some limit or takes away some privilege), “I’m not doing this to be mean, I’m doing it because I love you.” Still, it made me feel more kindly toward Jill. After what we had done to her last night, she still cared about us. About me, anyway.
Jill was looking at me solemnly. She frowned slightly. “Dawn? Is something going on with you? Something I don’t know about?”
I sighed. “Oh, kind of everything. You know—school, Sunny’s mom, all these changes. A lot.”
Jill was still frowning. “No, I don’t mean that. You’ve seemed different in the last few days.”
Suddenly I remembered one of the many reasons Jill and I had been such good friends. Because Jill is sensitive. She could practically read my mind. It was uncanny, but I liked it.
“Well …” I began.
“You can tell me,” said Jill.
“All right, but it’s a huge secret. You cannot tell a soul, and I mean not one single solitary soul. Because I promised Carol I would not tell anyone this secret.”
“Okay.” Jill was still as solemn as a cat.
“Carol,” I said, “is pregnant.”
Jill’s eyes widened. Her mouth opened. Then she grinned.
“But,” I hurried on, “somehow it’s not a good thing.” I tried to describe Carol’s reaction, how she hadn’t told Dad and seemed all nervous—and frankly not very pregnant.
Jill frowned again. “Wow. That is strange,” she said.
“I don’t like the way Carol is handling things,” I went on. “Not telling Dad, making me keep it a secret. Anyway, remember—Carol told me this in confidence.”
“Well, your secret is safe with me.” Jill pretended to zip her lips together, then to lock them and throw away the key. Very third grade but somehow confidence inspiring. When we left Starburst’s I felt closer to Jill than I’d felt in a long time. I still thought that I was outgrowing her, but I wanted to be her friend anyway.
Tuesday night 10/7
So. Those are—finally—all the events of the weekend. Now when I explain what happened yesterday and today, everything will make sense. Here’s one of the many good things about keeping these journals: When you read about the bad stuff, you remember how horrible everything seemed. Then you keep reading—the next entry and the next entry and the next and the next—and you see that you survived. That life goes on. Not only that, but the bad things seem less bad. And they seem that way very quickly. Maybe it’s good that our feelings don’t have the long, accurate memories our brains have. I guess this is a self-protection device, like the spots on a fawn. Or maybe it’s healing for our minds. Whatever.
Anyway, here it is only Tuesday, and already Saturday, Sunday, and Monday don’t seem so bad.
Yesterday morning (Monday) us stupid eighth-graders had to show our faces at school, had to look into the eyes of all those upperclassmen who didn’t really like us at all, who probably didn’t want us in their building (or their lives), who had used our eagerness to join the big leagues to put us right back in our unenviable little places. I wanted to walk into school with my head hanging, wearing sunglasses. But Sunny wouldn’t let me do the first, and we aren’t allowed to do the second.
I realized something interesting the moment Sunny and Maggie and I did enter our building: It was the upperclassmen who couldn’t look at us. They were in trouble too.
“They set us up and called the police on us,” Maggie said.
I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around. Ducky was standing behind us.
“Hey,” he greeted us.
“Hi!” we said.
“Have you heard?” Ducky went on. “There’s big trouble.”
That much I knew. The mood certainly was tense.
“What kind of trouble?” I asked. “I mean, specifically.”
Ducky shrugged. “I’m not sure. Just a lot of rumors right now. But heads are going to roll.” Ducky pulled something out of his shirt pocket. “Gum?” he said, holding it out to us. Sunny took a piece, and Ducky said, “The administration has figured out exactly what happened. The kids who organized the party are in deep trouble with their parents.”
“What about the kids the police picked up at the party?” Sunny asked.
“They’re in equally deep trouble.”
“Hey, you guys.”
I turned around to find Amalia hurrying toward us.
“Amalia! How are you?” I cried.
“What happened after we dropped you off?” asked Sunny.
“I got busted. Mom and Dad were waiting for me in their bedroom. They’d already found out I hadn’t been baby-sitting. I’m grounded for a month. Except for school, of course,” said Amalia.
“Whoa,” I said.
“Wow,” said Ducky.
During homeroom that morning, Mr. Dean made an announcement. He sounded mad. This was the entire announcement: “Will all eighth-, ninth-, tenth-, eleventh-, and twelfth-graders report to the auditorium at ten o’clock sharp tomorrow morning, please. Do not miss the assembly. No excuses accepted.”
That was it. The entire announcement.
I glanced at Tray Farmer. Our eyes exchanged a look. It meant, Uh-oh.
When homeroom ended, I hurried into the hallway. I was making my way to my next class when I nearly ran into Ms. Krueger.
“Oh! Um, hi,” I said.
“Hi, Dawn. I’ve been looking for you. Sunny and Christopher too. I wanted to tell the three of you—in person—to meet me in my office before tomorrow’s assembly. Quarter to ten, please. I’ll see you then.”
“Oh, okay. I mean, fine. I mean, see you then,” I babbled as Ms. Krueger hurried away. “Quarter to ten!” I called after her.
I was a nervous wreck by lunchtime. “Sunny, did Ms. Krueger find you this morning?” I asked her.
“Yes,” said Sunny hotly. “And she can’t do anything about us. We didn’t break the law or anything. We were just looking for my wallet.”
“On her private property,” I pointed out. “The scene of a wild party she did not give us permission to have.”
“I know, I know, I know,” muttered Sunny.
Sunny, Maggie, Jill, and I sat at our usual table in the cafeteria. The four of us looked sick. Sick with fear. Even Jill, because she knew that if our parents ever learned that some of us had been at the party, she would be in Big Trouble for covering for us.
“Let’s hang out together this afternoon,” I said, needing moral support.
“I can’t,” said Sunny. “I promised Mom I’d spend some time with her at the hospital. I told her I’d do her nails.”
“I can’t either,” said Maggie. “That big English assignment is due on Wednesday. I didn’t work on it at all over the weekend.”
“I’ll hang out with you, Dawn,” said Jill loyally.
“Okay. You want to come over?”
“Will Mrs. Bruen let us bake cookies?”
“Sure, unless she’s in the middle of making dinner.”
And that was how Jill wound up at my house yesterday afternoon and nearly ruined my life.
Bedtime, Tuesday night 10/7
I swear, just when things look their bleakest (which is how they still looked yesterday), something comes along and makes them look totally black. This time the something was Jill. What gets into her?
Jill and I walked to my house after school yesterday. We were not in t
ip-top shape. We were exhausted (well, I was), and the assembly was hanging over our heads like a storm cloud.
“What do you think Mr. Dean is going to say tomorrow?” asked Jill.
“I can’t imagine,” I replied. Jill looked at me sideways, trying to tell whether I was being sarcastic. “I mean, I really can’t,” I added quickly. “It depends on how much he knows, I guess, and on how big a stink he wants to make of it. After all, this doesn’t look very good for Vista.”
Jill brightened. “That’s true.”
“But still,” I said.
“Yeah.”
When we reached my house, Mrs. Bruen was hanging clothes on the line in the backyard. She said she didn’t need the kitchen for awhile, and that Jill and I could use it.
“We’ll clean up!” Jill called over her shoulder as we ran inside.
We found Carol sitting at the kitchen table.
“Hi,” I said. “How come you’re home from work?” It was only then that I realized her car was parked in the driveway.
“I decided to work at home this afternoon,” she told us.
“Do you mind if we make cookies?” I asked her.
“Nope. Go ahead. I’ll be in the den.”
Jill and I set to work mixing and stirring.
“I wonder what it feels like to be grounded,” Jill said after awhile.
“Grounded? What do you mean? Why?”
“Well, I’ve never been grounded. But if my mom finds out about the party, and that I lied—”
“Jill! Shh!” I hissed. “Do you want Carol to hear us?”
Jill lowered her voice. “I guess if we all get grounded it won’t be so bad. Of course, we wouldn’t have to worry about this in the first place if you guys hadn’t snuck out—”
“Jill!” I cried again. “Shh. SHH! Carol is coming.”
At that moment Carol entered the kitchen. She was carrying a box. It was labeled PRO-MAX 220 FAX MACHINE.
“A fax machine!” Jill leaped to her feet. “Carol, you shouldn’t be carrying that. Not in your condition. It’s too heavy. Here, let me.” Jill reached for the box.
She realized too late what she had said. She dropped her arms.
Carol looked at me, eyes flashing. Jill looked at me nervously. I looked back at both of them. Finally I said, “Good one, Jill.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Carol set the box on the table. “Well, I thought I could trust you, Dawn,” was all she said. Then she left the room.
“You can’t keep your mouth shut, can you?” I said to Jill. “What is it with you? Don’t you ever think? I mean, think like an adult?”
“I’m sorry, Dawn,” Jill said again. “I was just trying to help. I didn’t want Carol to hurt herself. Or the baby.”
“Jill, I told you the baby was like the biggest secret in the world. I told you not to tell a soul. I told you that I wasn’t supposed to have told a soul. And then you let the secret out—to Carol of all people. Who else did you tell?”
“No one. I swear.” Jill was wringing her hands. “But if it was such a big secret, why did you tell me?”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s my fault. I should have known I couldn’t trust you with a secret.” I turned away from Jill. “What a baby,” I muttered.
Jill burst into tears. She didn’t say anything, though. Not to me. She just crossed the kitchen, picked up the phone, called her mother, and asked her to come pick her up.
I was so mad that I went to my room without a word. Jill sat alone on our front stoop until her mother arrived.
Wednesday morning 10/8
I stayed in my room for quite awhile. I thought about Jill and Carol and the baby and Dad. Finally I went to the den and apologized to Carol. Carol apologized back. It was all very polite. Too polite. I knew Carol was still disappointed in me.
Well, guess what. I was disappointed in Carol. The secret made no sense to me. It was ridiculous that Dad didn’t know the news yet. He was going to be a father again. But the only people who knew that were Carol and me. And Jill.
That night, Dad called. Jeff spoke to him first. He told him an elephant joke and complained about his soccer coach. Then I got on the phone and told Dad about Sunny and Mrs. Winslow and my homework and lots of other things—but not that he was soon going to have another son or daughter. When I handed the phone to Carol, I covered the mouthpiece and said, “It’s Dad. He called to find out how his children are.” I paused. “His children.”
“All right,” said Carol irritably.
As I left Carol’s bedroom, I heard her say, “Hi, Jack. It’s me. I’m glad you called. I want to talk to you.”
I almost cried “Yess!” I was planning to listen in on the rest of the conversation, but Carol closed her door then. By the time I was ready for bed, she hadn’t opened it.
Wednesday 10/8, in study hall
Promptly at 9:45 yesterday morning, Sunny and Ducky and I met outside Ms. Krueger’s office. I was so nervous that my hands were shaking. Sunny looked pale. Ducky seemed subdued.
Ms. Krueger had lined up three chairs across from her desk. She sat behind her desk and we sat in the chairs, fidgeting, biting our lips, playing with our hair, and jiggling our feet.
“Calm down, kids,” said Ms. Krueger pleasantly. “Look, the teachers have been investigating the party for three days now. We know you weren’t responsible for it. You just happened to get caught. And so you win a private lecture.”
My jiggling foot slowed down from eighty miles an hour to thirty.
“Let’s start with this,” Ms. Krueger went on. “How did you kids get to the party?” She peered at us over her glasses.
“I drove,” said Ducky.
“Um, we walked,” Sunny said, pointing first to herself, then to me.
“Two girls? Alone? After dark?”
“Well … yes,” I said.
“Do you have any idea what that might have led to?”
“I—” said Sunny.
“Um—” I said.
“I guess it could have been dangerous,” said Sunny finally.
“That’s putting it mildly,” said Ms. Krueger. “Without unduly scaring you,” she continued, “you could have been robbed, kidnapped, or attacked. You could have been hit by a car, especially out on the country roads where there are no sidewalks. You would have been a lovely target for a drunk driver. Did you think about that?”
“No,” Sunny and I admitted.
“Did you tell anyone where you were going?”
“Jill sort of knew. I mean, she had the address,” said Sunny.
“Jill’s our friend,” I added, purposely not telling Ms. Krueger Jill’s last name. (I noticed that Ms. Krueger didn’t ask for her last name, which I appreciated.) “She refused to go to the party.”
“Smart girl,” replied Ms. Krueger. “Well, at least someone ‘sort of’ knew where you girls were going to be. What about you?” she asked Ducky.
“No one exactly knew,” Ducky admitted.
“Great,” said Ms. Krueger. “So if you hadn’t come home on Saturday night, your brother wouldn’t have discovered this until Sunday morning, and he would have had no idea where to start looking for you. Is that right?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Now, about the drinking. Sunny, on Sunday morning you looked to me like a young woman with a hangover.” (Sunny blushed but didn’t say anything.) “I’m not going to go into all the dangers of drinking too much. I just want to make sure that you know about a condition called alcohol poisoning. It can easily happen when you’re drinking a lot. And it can lead quickly to death.” (Sunny’s eyes widened and her chin trembled, but still she said nothing.) “Now let’s see,” Ms. Krueger went on. “What else? I imagine kids at the party were smoking, but you probably know about the dangers of smoking. Also, the party was held at a house that was unoccupied. I’m sure you’ve thought about how you would have summoned help, if it were needed, when you couldn’t get to a phone.”
&nbs
p; “Ms. Krueger?” said Ducky then. “The party was really stupid. We know that now. We did a lot of stupid things that night.”
“We didn’t know,” said Sunny defiantly, “that the upperclassmen were going to play a trick on us, though. I mean, maybe Ducky knew, but Dawn and I didn’t. That wasn’t our fault. We didn’t know we were going to an empty house.”
“Were the upperclassmen responsible for your choosing to get drunk? Or choosing to walk to the party alone in the middle of the night?” Ms. Krueger asked Sunny, raising an eyebrow.
“No.”
“Look, Kids, I’m just trying to point out how dangerous Saturday night could have been for you. The bottom line is that you’re not going to get in trouble—”
“We’re not?” Sunny asked.
“No, you’re not. You did get tricked. And you didn’t think. And you are very lucky that nothing more than a hangover happened. But you are not going to get punished. At least not individually. And not this time.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“What does ‘not this time’ mean?” Sunny asked suspiciously.
“It means if I hear about this sort of thing in the future, I’m going to come down hard on you three. I’ll be in touch with your parents—even yours, Christopher—so fast your heads will spin. Is that understood?”
Yes, it was understood. And at that moment I decided Ms. Krueger was a very cool adult. I understood exactly what she was doing … scaring us (it worked), giving us one warning (I knew it truly was exactly one warning), then letting us off the hook.
I hope I get Ms. Krueger for a teacher one day.
When Ms. Krueger let Sunny and Ducky and me go, we exploded into the hall.
“Head directly for the assembly,” Ms. Krueger called after us.
“Okay!” I called back.
“Whoa,” exclaimed Ducky.
“Oh, man,” said Sunny, shaking her head.
“What?” I asked.
“She’s such a dork.”
“Who? Ms. Krueger?” asked Ducky.
“Who else?” said Sunny.
“She let us off the hook,” I said incredulously. “She could have called our parents, you know. Instead of talking to us, she could have sat there and dialed our parents while we watched.”
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