That's What Friends Do

  I shake my head no again. I can’t believe that even Haley heard the rumors about us. And I can’t believe she thinks they’re true.

  “It wasn’t like that,” I say. “Whatever you heard, it wasn’t true.”

  Haley looks surprised. “Really?”

  I look up right into Haley’s eyes, because I don’t know how to tell the story of me and Luke. Of me and David and Luke, actually. But I know that I need someone to hear it. I need to try. I take a deep breath and hug my arms against my body.

  “We didn’t kiss. Ever. Except once on the cheek, on New Year’s Eve, and anyway, I didn’t kiss him back. But after that, he kept . . . touching me and saying things to me. I didn’t want him to. I didn’t know how to make him stop. Then David started doing it too. And on the bus, the two of them . . . they ganged up on me. They were grabbing me . . .” I don’t even know how to say it. I motion with my hands at my chest.

  Haley’s eyes are open wide, surprised. “Like they groped you? Right on the bus?”

  I nod and hug myself tighter.

  “I heard something about the bus,” Haley says. “But it was just you and Luke. You were teasing him? I don’t know, you guys were making out on the bus? Something like that.”

  “It didn’t happen that way at all. It happened just like I said. I think David’s the one who turned it into a story about me and Luke. David tried to act like nothing happened. He actually said it right to my face: ‘Nothing happened.’ Like I wasn’t there. Like it wasn’t my . . . Like I wouldn’t remember what happened to me.”

  Haley puts one hand lightly on my arm. It feels warm and reassuring.

  I take a deep breath. “Then, today, when I went to the baseball meeting, these boys—you know them: Corey and Markus, the cool crowd—they were all over me, touching me and saying stuff. One of them asked me if I was ‘playing the field.’ I kept saying I wasn’t interested, but I couldn’t make them stop. Coach D must’ve heard them, but he didn’t say anything to them. I left the meeting, and Coach D sent those guys to bring me back, and they . . . well, they were even worse in the hall.”

  Haley opens her arms and pulls me into a hug. “Valerie told me about it,” she says quietly. “You must have been scared.”

  “Yeah, luckily, Valerie and Savanna saw it happen, and they came after the guys.” I sit back and look at Haley’s face. “The thing is, I might be part of the reason why Luke’s missing. Because right after that whole thing with Corey and Markus, in the stairwell, David and Kai and those guys were trying to push Luke and me together. I was so angry after everything that happened that I told Luke I wished he’d disappear. And he did. I mean, he ran out of school, without a coat or anything, and I think that’s when he went missing. So it’s all my fault.”

  “Oh, Sammie,” Haley says, shaking her head slowly from side to side. “It’s so not your fault. None of it, if you ask me.”

  “I feel like I should call in to that hotline, but would I have to tell them everything? And how would that help?”

  “Do you have any idea where Luke went when he ran out of school?”

  I shake my head no. “David went out after him. But he came back because he was in math class.”

  “So you don’t have any helpful information,” Haley says, reaching over and taking a brownie from the pan. “David’s the one who should call.”

  I take a deep breath. “I also think I might have blown it for the boys’ baseball team. I ran out of the meeting, and I never turned in my paperwork. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Do you want to play baseball?”

  “It’s what I’ve always played. I love baseball. I’m good at it.”

  “Maybe you could explain to Coach D what happened.”

  “Maybe,” I say doubtfully. “But the truth is, I’m not sure anymore if it’s what I want to do. I always loved baseball. I didn’t really know what girls’ softball was about, so I loved baseball because that was the only option. And it’s a good option. I could maybe keep playing it. But I think I really like being part of a girls’ team. I like being with a group of girls.” I laugh. “I never thought I would say that. The girls on the softball team? They’re real athletes. Just like me.”

  Haley smiles. “Duh.”

  “Yeah,” I say softly. “Duh.”

  Wednesday, March 4

  DAVID

  Of course, I wake up right at seven a.m. No reason to be awake, with the massive snowstorm and school closed, so: the sun hits my face and boing! I’m up. I hate myself. I hate mornings, but this morning I hate myself even more than I hate the fact that it’s seven o’clock in the morning.

  Pop took away everything: cell phone, computer, Xbox, even my old Nintendo DS, which I haven’t played in like two years. I felt like saying, “There were no electronics on the bus, Pop. And no electronics in the stairwell either. I didn’t need electronics to be a total jerk to Sammie, or to Luke.” But I figured it was better to keep my mouth shut. He was a man on a mission.

  So I’m lying in my bed at seven o’clock in the morning on what could have been possibly the best snow day of my entire life, feeling sick and guilty and awful, when I hear a kind of soft scratching sound. I think maybe it’s a mouse or a squirrel trapped in the walls, and I’m starting to spin a whole fantasy about how I’ll tame the mouse/squirrel, and make friends with it, like prisoners do in all those old prisoner movies, and it will be my only companion during my long, lonely years of being grounded for the entire rest of middle school, when I hear the scratching sound again, a little louder, and coming from my door.

  “Allie?” I whisper.

  “What?” she whispers.

  “Why are you scratching on my door?”

  “I wanted to see if you were awake.”

  I sigh. “I’m awake.”

  “Can I come in?” she whispers.

  I sigh again. She’s not exactly a tamed mouse/squirrel that I’ve won over by saving crumbs of my prison bread to feed it with, but she may be my only companion for a very long time, so I decide to be nice.

  “Sure,” I whisper.

  She pushes the door slowly open and crawls in on all fours.

  I groan quietly because if she is going to be my only companion for the rest of middle school, I am so screwed.

  “What’s up?” I whisper.

  “Luke,” she whispers, and it feels like a punch in my gut.

  I catch my breath, then wait, but she doesn’t say anything else. I don’t know what she knows, and I don’t want to say anything that will make her hate me in case she’s going to be my only companion. But after three minutes of silence, I can’t help myself. “What about Luke?”

  “He’s missing, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Since last night?”

  “Since yesterday.”

  “I think I saw him.”

  I sit up in my bed. “What? When?”

  It would be just like Allie to say that she remembered that she saw him once three days ago, at the supermarket, so that’s what I’m expecting, but instead she says, “Last night. In our backyard. Right when you and Dad got home.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure I saw someone in the backyard,” she says, “and I’m sure it was right when you got home, because I was in my room, and I heard the garage door, so I turned my light off because I was going to come downstairs and I wanted to conserve electricity. That’s when I saw something moving in the backyard, and I was afraid it might be the abominable snowman, so I looked, and it was a person.” She pauses and takes a breath. “I’m not sure it was Luke. He was wearing a big coat, and he was walking across the backyard, away from our house. So I never really saw his face. But I didn’t even know he was missing then, and I thought it was him. I thought to myself, Why is Luke in our backyard?”

  Why would Luke run away in a snowstorm, and end up in my backyard? It doesn’t really make sense. But then again, who besides Luke would be running around in people’s backyards during a s
nowstorm? I mean, if it was someone walking their dog, they wouldn’t be in my backyard, would they?

  Just in case, I ask, “Did this person have a dog with him?”

  Allie shakes her head no. “But maybe it was the abominable snowman,” she says hopefully, “and he was wearing a coat as a disguise.”

  “There’s no such thing as the abominable snowman. But why was Luke in our backyard?”

  “Maybe he wanted to return something that he borrowed from you.”

  Allie is not the most logical person, but I don’t say this to her. Instead, I ask, “Why would someone who has run away—in a snowstorm—be worrying about returning something he borrowed?”

  “Well, then,” Allie says, because she’s nothing if not full of ideas, “maybe he wanted to borrow something from you.”

  Which is when the light bulb goes off: the coats and boots in our garage. Luke came to my house to borrow some stuff, all right.

  After telling Allie a hundred times that she has to be absolutely quiet, not even a whisper, because we don’t want Mom and Pop to wake up, we go down into the garage. Right in front of the coat rack, there’s a small partly frozen puddle, made, I’m pretty sure, by someone who was covered with snow and looking for a warm coat. Plus, there’s an empty hanger on the coat rack and an empty space in the row of spare boots. I pull out the plastic bin where Mom keeps extra pairs of socks and gloves, and I’m about to lift the lid off when Allie starts jumping up and down. She covers her mouth with one hand and points behind the bin with the other.

  “What?” I whisper.

  Her eyes are practically bugging out with the effort of not talking, which she’s taking extremely seriously, but she shakes her head back and forth, refusing to be tricked into speaking, and points like her life depends upon it. I look, and see: a balled-up pair of cold, wet white socks. Luke’s socks, I am 100 percent sure.

  And in that moment, as I’m staring at Luke’s cold, frozen socks, I know where he is.

  SAMMIE

  It’s six a.m., and still pitch-black outside, but I’m so not used to sleepovers, and the muffled noises of Ms. Wilcox getting ready wakes me up. I yawn and stretch, and look over at Haley, who’s sound asleep. I know I’m up for good, so I pad out to the kitchen.

  “Good morning,” Ms. Wilcox says cheerfully. “Did I wake you? I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I’m an early riser.”

  “You’re going to be on your own for a couple of hours, then. Haley’s most definitely not an early riser. She could sleep though a tornado. You guys have a snow day, but good old New York City public schools are open and ‘ready for customers.’ So I’ve got to go to work. Thank God for four-wheel drive.” As if to demonstrate Haley’s sleep-through-anything ability, Ms. Wilcox opens a kitchen cabinet, pulls out a fry pan, and bangs the cabinet shut loudly. She sets the pan on the stove, then grabs eggs and butter from the fridge.

  “Scrambled eggs?” she asks me.

  “Sure.”

  It feels nice to be awake with the world still dark. I sit at the kitchen counter and watch while Ms. Wilcox cracks four eggs into a bowl, then pours them into the pan and cooks them up. She sets mine in front of me and eats hers standing in the kitchen.

  She takes a bite of eggs, chews, swallows, and says, “I chose this apartment because of the underground parking. Saves me having to shovel off the car. When Haley and I lived in Riverdale, we had street parking. Any time there was any chance of snow, I had to set my alarm for four a.m., just in case I’d need to dig the car out.”

  “That’s doesn’t sound safe,” I say. “Driving in the snow like that.”

  “Most city students get to school by public transportation, so as long as the subways and buses are running, schools can stay open. Of course, many of the teachers drive in. But the ones who can’t make it safely call in absent. Half the teachers will be out. No learning today. Just babysitting. Trying to keep the chaos a little bit under control.”

  Before she leaves, she goes to the hall closet and pulls out these things that look kind of like tennis rackets, but with shorter handles and some weird straps across the racket part.

  “These are snowshoes,” she tells me. “One pair is Haley’s and one is mine. But they’ll fit you. They’re really easy to use. Haley knows how. If you girls want to go out later, maybe to your house or something, you could use the snowshoes.” She speaks gently, like she’s suggesting something hard and maybe even painful.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  She opens the front door, then hesitates and says, “That alert I told you about yesterday? It was for two missing kids. You were one of them.” She looks right at me, into my eyes. “You weren’t quite truthful with me, because your parents didn’t know where you were. I called them immediately and let them know you were okay. They were very worried about you, Sammie, especially because that Luke boy is missing. There was some thought that the two of you might be together. In any case, I reassured them that you were safe and here, with Haley and me, and we agreed you’d stay the night.”

  Then she hugs me tightly, wrapping her arms around me and pulling me in close. “Parents make mistakes,” she says quietly. “Lots of them.” My eyes fill with tears, and I duck my head so she won’t see.

  After she’s gone I think about going back to sleep, crawling into the nice, warm spare bed in Haley’s room, but instead I sit at the window and watch the sky turn from black to gray to gray-blue. A small, bright jewel of sun appears, and it changes everything. I watch that tiny drop of brilliance grow bigger and brighter until the whole living room is filled with a beautiful morning light.

  I don’t know why, but I get up and fish my dead phone from my backpack and shake it, like it’s a snow globe, like it will tell me something about my future.

  But the screen remains black. I blow on it, as though my warm breath will bring it to life. Nothing happens.

  Maybe if I take the phone battery out and blot the insides with a tissue, I can get it to start up. I’m pretty sure I have a pack of tissues somewhere at the bottom of my backpack, so I grab the bag and start emptying it out. Which is when I find the second set of papers, the ones my mother handed me. I set them down on top of my binders, wondering why she didn’t tell Dad that she filled them out. And then I see what’s printed across the top: “Girls’ Softball.”

  My mother filled out the paperwork for girls’ softball.

  I pick up the papers and flip through them like they’ll tell me something I’m not understanding. But they’re just forms. Almost the same as the baseball team ones. But also not.

  I wonder if Luke’s been found yet. I wonder what I’d be doing right now if Luke had never come to our school. If David and Luke hadn’t ganged up on me on the bus. If David hadn’t spread rumors about Luke and me. If I’d been able to tell Dad everything, and he’d been able to help me figure it out.

  If David were still my best friend.

  I close my eyes and try to picture today, but without all the bad stuff. But I can’t. Because it did happen. And everything that followed happened too. Including Haley. Who listened to me and was a real friend. And my mother, who filled out the forms for me to play girls’ softball.

  I realize that I have to go home. That I want to go home.

  Haley’s still asleep so I get dressed in the living room, pack my backpack, and write her a note. It’s two blocks to the Greenway, which, I know, won’t be plowed, but that’s okay. I’ll take Ms. Wilcox’s snowshoes. I can walk on top of the snow.

  DAVID

  The snow in the backyard is up past my knees, so by the time I get to the Greenway, I’m sweating and panting. I think about just turning around and waking Mom and Pop, and letting this be their problem, but I can’t. I want to do this one thing right.

  Allie begged me to let her come too, but I explained that she needed to stay home, that her job was just as important as mine, and that we each needed to do our own important jobs. Hers is to watch the clock, and if I’m not back
in two hours, to tell Mom and Pop where I’ve gone, and why.

  I’m kind of wishing that I’d said three hours, because it’s probably been half an hour just getting across the yard. I turn and look back at the house, and Allie’s standing at the sliding glass door, waving like mad. I give her a thumbs-up, and she gives me a double thumbs-up back.

  I have no idea how long it takes me to get to Fort Maccabee. I just put my head down and walk, or try to, in snow so deep that my legs burn as I push them through it. The sky is clear and blue, and the sun beats down on me and on the silent, white world around me.

  When I get to the turnoff for Fort Maccabee, I almost don’t recognize it because everything is covered in snow. I kick through the soft snow until I hit the hard-packed stuff that lines either side of the walkway. Then I lean over and see a bit of blackness, which is the tunnel’s entrance. I take a deep breath and push away the fresh snow until I’m down to the hard part, climb over it, and stumble and tumble down the hill, glad for the soft new stuff that breaks my falls, which are too many to count.

  I’m panting and hot and covered in snow, and I’m sure Luke must hear me, must have heard me come rushing and falling down the hill. But the whole world is quiet, except for the sound of my own ragged breath.

  The tunnel is dark. I can’t see anything, so I shade my eyes and call out, “Luke?” My voice echoes back at me, and for a second, I feel almost relieved because maybe I’m wrong and Luke isn’t here and there’s nothing more I can do.

  But I step into the blackness, and as my eyes begin to adjust, I make out a dark blob against the dark tunnel wall, and in the center of it, a small patch of lightness. I step closer, and say again, “Luke?” but the dark blob is silent. I step closer still, and the darkness resolves into a pile of clothing—dark pants and a dark hooded coat, the small patch of lightness becoming Luke’s face, pale and still beneath the jacket’s hood.

  “Luke,” I say again, quietly because he is so quiet, and I step closer and stare into his face. His eyes are shut, and his face is so white—ghostly white, I think. Deathly white.