That's What Friends Do

  “Luke,” I say, louder.

  I kneel down in front of him and shout right into his face, “Luke!” My voice comes out funny, like I’ve been coughing.

  He opens his eyes, but the way he looks at me, I know he doesn’t see me. He is seeing something else, something terrible and sad.

  “Hot,” he says. “Is this hell?”

  “No,” I say, and I put my mittened hands on his shoulders. “It’s me, David. You’re in the fort—Fort Maccabee.”

  He shakes his head slightly from side to side. “Hot,” he says. “Take my coat off.”

  “No!” I’m really shouting now because it’s freezing cold in this tunnel and Luke is crazy and we are alone together and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to help him, and I was wrong again because I should have told my parents, I should have come out here with someone, but there is only Luke and me. My stupid eyes fill up with tears, and this is the thing Luke sees.

  The stupid tears are running down my face, and my nose is dripping, and I don’t know what to do.

  “Crying,” Luke says.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, not sure whether I’m apologizing for crying, or for everything else.

  “I thought we were friends,” Luke says sadly. “You were funny. Nice. Not like my old friends. But you pranked me.” His face crumples. “And Sammie. I thought you wanted me to—I was a jerk. No one likes me.”

  “Not true,” I say, shaking my head back and forth hard, my jaw clenched tight because the stupid tears keep coming. “I was the jerk. I was jealous of you and Sammie. I thought you guys really were . . . I was the one who messed everything up. You are my friend.”

  Luke is staring right into my eyes, wanting to believe me, and then it’s like a curtain comes down and his eyes slowly close and his head sags forward.

  I wrap my arms around him, pulling him into me as tightly as I can, and call out, “Help! Someone help!” but my voice is ragged and hoarse and no one will ever hear me.

  SAMMIE

  A guy with a mini snow-blower is clearing the sidewalk in front of Haley’s apartment building. He’s got a narrow path done along the whole block. The sun is shining, and even though there aren’t many cars out, most of the stores on North Avenue have opened for business. I walk the two blocks to the Greenway, carrying the snowshoes under my arm and smiling and saying hi to everyone. When I get to the Greenway, which isn’t plowed at all, I strap on the snowshoes and step onto the wide, white untouched trail. The snow is almost blinding. It looks like a ski trail, except horizontal. But with snowshoes, horizontal doesn’t matter. I feel invincible. Ten feet tall. Almost like I’m floating.

  Passing David’s house, I see the weirdest thing: footsteps through the deep snow in his backyard. They come right up to the Greenway and head in the direction of the Fort.

  I remember the last time we were there, Luke pulling me down on top of him. I want to turn around, to get away from this reminder of David and Luke and from the remembering, but it’s my way home. I have to pass the Fort to get home.

  So I keep going on the Greenway, trying to focus on the blue sky and snow-covered tree branches. I want to keep my eyes up, but they’re drawn to the trail David carved through deep snow. It wasn’t an easy walk. I can see in his footprints how hard he had to work. Why? What would bring him out here?

  Unless it wasn’t David. Unless maybe the footprints are Luke’s.

  The trail goes right to where the Fort is, then veers off the side. I look over, and see a path of broken snow down the side of the hill, right into Fort Maccabee. Maybe this is where Luke went when he disappeared. But the trail looks fresh, like it was made after the snow stopped.

  I stand and listen, but there’s only silence. I shiver, and decide I’ll tell Dad about it. That maybe someone should check and see if Luke or David is in there. But not me. Not alone.

  I’m just about to start walking again when I hear a sound. Something like a sob or yelp, I’m not sure.

  I stop and hold my breath and listen.

  “Help,” a faint, hoarse voice cries. “Somebody help.”

  It’s coming from the tunnel, and it’s a voice I know—have known since I was five years old, when David Fischer said “Here you go” as he handed me the baseball that had rolled to his feet. Except now his voice sounds so scared and desperate that I scramble up over the frozen snow, and kind of ski down the hillside on Ms. Wilcox’s magical snowshoes.

  “Sammie?” David says when he sees me.

  I nod.

  “Sammie?” he says again.

  “Yeah,” I say. “It’s me.”

  He’s half lying down, with his arms wrapped around another kid who I’m pretty sure is Luke, and he’s sniffling and hiccuping and kind of panting. The other kid isn’t making any sound at all.

  “Is that Luke?” I ask.

  “I think he might be dead,” David says, his voice hoarse and choked. He begins to pant.

  “Dead?” I say, which is stupid, because the dead thing is clearly why David is freaking out.

  “I think he was here all night,” David says. “After what happened at school yesterday. When I found him a little while ago, he was kind of awake, but then he passed out or something and I can’t wake him up. Now he’s cold all over, and I think he might be—” He makes a hiccuping sound, which I realize is actually that word—“dead.” David gives Luke a big shake. Luke just flops a bit but doesn’t respond, and David starts panting again.

  I stare down at the boy who used to be my best friend, at the two boys who did the meanest thing ever to me—one maybe dead, and the other definitely crazy—and I think about turning around and leaving them here. Just walking away, effortlessly, on top of the snow, wearing these awesome snowshoes. I’ll go home and tell Dad, and he can call the police or whatever. It won’t be my problem.

  But then I remember Haley. The friend I found when David and Luke hurt me. Haley, who listened to me and showed me how to be a true friend. Who didn’t walk away.

  I turn back to David. “What about your cell phone?”

  “I don’t have it,” he says hoarsely. “I told Pop what was happening at school, and he took my cell phone away and grounded me for the rest of middle school. Maybe forever.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  “What about yours?”

  “Not working,” I say. “It fell into the toilet.”

  David makes a kind of whimpering sound.

  I scan my surroundings. No houses nearby. Just frozen marsh on this side of the tunnel and frozen marsh on the other. I look up at the sky and then down at my feet. Of course, with my awesome snowshoes, I can walk to the closest house in minutes. I might even be able to run.

  “David,” I say, trying to sound calm and in control. “I’m going to go get help. I think you should keep doing just what you’re doing—” By which I don’t mean the whimpering, but just in case, I explain. “Keep your arms around him. Share your body warmth with him. Keep trying to talk to him. He’s definitely not dead.”

  David nods, wiping snot off his face with one mittened sleeve.

  I nod back and say, “It’s going to be okay.” I don’t actually know that it will be okay, but it seems like the kind thing to say.

  I turn and start off, again, walking on top of the snow. In my head, it’s like a prayer, I can’t stop it: Don’t be dead don’t be dead don’t be dead. I skate along the Greenway, through the backyard of the first house I come to, and up onto the porch.

  Ring the bell thinking, Don’t be dead don’t be dead don’t be dead. Then stand, listening to a little yippy dog barking furiously right on the other side of the door. A quavery voice, somewhere off in the house, keeps saying “Coming” every couple of seconds. After forever, the door squeaks open about three inches, but the old lady keeps the chain lock still on. Her dog’s foxy little face pokes out of the door down at shin level. It growls at me, showing its foxy teeth.

  “Can you call 9-1-1?” I ask, the chant still in my head:
Don’t be dead don’t be dead don’t be dead. “There’s a boy freezing in the tunnel under the Greenway. He was there all last night, and my friend can’t wake him up now.”

  The old lady looks at me suspiciously, and I ask again. “Can you call 9-1-1? Please,” I add because maybe she’s one of those old ladies who’s constantly complaining about kids these days not having any manners. “It’s really important. The boy is maybe freezing to death.”

  She turns away from the door, and I think she’s going to close it and tell herself that the girl on her front porch was all a dream, but she says, “Hold on.” She shuffles away from the door, then shuffles back, and through the three-inch gap hands me a cell phone.

  “You call,” she says. “I don’t know how to work that darn thing.”

  So I call. And explain. And wait, standing on her front porch, for the ambulance to arrive, still with those words—don’t be dead don’t be dead don’t be dead—in my head over and over, like maybe I can keep him alive if I just keep saying them.

  I wait, listening to the sirens, which start out faint and distant, and grow louder and louder, coming right for me. I keep saying the words don’t be dead don’t be dead don’t be dead as an ambulance and an emergency truck come screaming down the street and pull up right in front of me. Two EMTs get out of the ambulance and race-walk over to me. Two more get out of the truck, then go around to the back and open the doors.

  “Sammie?” one asks. I nod. Don’t be dead don’t be dead don’t be dead.

  The two EMTs at the truck pull a stretcher out of the back and the two others grab big black suitcases full of what I figure is EMT equipment.

  As I lead them to Luke, they ask me questions about him—do I know how long he’s been out here? Are his clothes wet? When was he last conscious? I keep saying, “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

  They don’t have snowshoes, which is a really big mistake, so by the time we get to Fort Maccabee, the EMTs are all panting and sweating and red-faced. But they don’t complain, just follow me down the hill to the tunnel, then set to work.

  I stand right outside and watch them, still chanting my chant—don’t be dead don’t be dead don’t be dead—as one of the guys kneels down and peels David away from Luke. They lay Luke flat down on the floor of the tunnel, then all crowd around him. One EMT opens Luke’s coat and puts a stethoscope against his chest. Still bent over Luke, she calls out, “Pulse is thready but he’s got a heartbeat.”

  Then I know I can stop my chant because Luke’s not dead. So instead I start crying, which I would feel really awkward about except David’s crying too. And not just crying—bawling, with his mouth wide open and his eyes squeezed shut.

  So I figure it’s okay if I do it too.

  DAVID

  Everything happens so fast. One minute I hear them coming toward us on the Greenway and the next there’s a crowd of EMTs in the tunnel, and they pull me off Luke, lay him flat on the tunnel floor and crowd around him, with stethoscopes and tubes and an oxygen mask. They wrap him in a silver blanket and lift him onto the stretcher. Luke opens his eyes as they’re wrapping him up, and the tears start pouring down my face, but I don’t even feel embarrassed. One of the EMTs activates about a dozen instant hot packs and tucks them up against Luke’s silver-wrapped mummy body, and then they lift the stretcher and carry him out.

  Leaving me and Sammie behind. I look at her, and I know that there’s so much I need to say, but I don’t say anything at all. Instead I just wait.

  Finally, Sammie says, “I guess we should go home.”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  We walk out of the tunnel and start to climb uphill to the Greenway, not saying anything at all. Sammie’s got snowshoes, so she can walk on top of the snow, but I sink with every step, feeling stupider and stupider because I can picture the snowshoes that are hanging in the Fischer garage. I don’t mention that to Sammie. And she goes slowly, staying right with me as I stumble and slog through the deep, heavy snow.

  I wish that she would ask me how I found Luke, so I could at least tell her a story that makes me look good. But she doesn’t.

  When we reach the top, we stand awkwardly, silently, for a minute.

  “It’s kind of a miracle that you were walking on the Greenway just then,” I finally say.

  She nods. “It’s kind of a miracle that you found him there. And called for help just when I was walking above you.”

  I nod. “I was calling for help a lot. I mean, more than once. But still . . .”

  “Still . . .”

  I look up at the sun and around at the trees.

  “I should get home,” Sammie says.

  “Yeah, me too.”

  We stand there for another minute, neither of us moving. I think of what Melvin Marbury wrote on my Splish Splash comic strip.

  “The truth is,” I say, “I was jealous. Of you and Luke. I thought there was something going on between you guys, and I was jealous.”

  “I was jealous of you and Luke,” Sammie says. “I thought we were best friends, and then Luke shows up and it was all ‘David and Luke.’ And then on the bus . . .” She trails off.

  “The bus,” I say, and I feel my face flush bright red. I have to look down at the snow because I can’t meet Sammie’s gaze, but I keep talking because I need to say it all. “It wasn’t supposed to be like that. I wanted to show you how I felt because I’ve had a crush on you for a long time. I was trying to make a move, the way Luke would, cool and smooth, so you’d know how I felt. I’m sorry. For everything.” I look up at Sammie, hoping I’ll see forgiveness in her eyes, and hoping even more that I’ll see us there, the way we used to be. But she’s staring down at the snow.

  She’s silent for a long time. Then she sighs, “Thanks. I should go now.”

  “Me too.”

  “See you at school,” she says. I look right at her big, beautiful brown eyes, and for a moment they meet mine, and then she turns away from me.

  “Okay,” I say.

  We start walking away from each other, on our separate paths. But I can’t help it; I turn and call out to her, “I’ve been drawing a comic strip about us. About the way we were friends.”

  She stops and tips her head a little, then half turns towards me. “Like the picture book you stuck in my backpack?”

  “Nope. Not a picture book. I’m trying something new. Want to read it sometime?”

  Sammie shrugs, then turns away from me and calls over her shoulder, “Maybe. Sometime.”

  SAMMIE

  I walk the rest of the way home hearing David’s voice in my head. I’m sorry. For everything. They’re only words. They can’t change what happened. But I feel stronger for hearing them. Surer.

  On the back deck, I unstrap Ms. Wilcox’s snowshoes. Then I walk in through the sliding glass door, ready to stand up for myself. I will tell my parents who I am. I will tell them what matters to me, and what doesn’t. I will speak for myself.

  But the house is quiet. Deserted. The kitchen lights are off, and for a moment I think they’ve forgotten me.

  Then I notice my mother, sitting in the dark on the family room sofa.

  “Hi, sweetie,” she says quietly.

  “Where is everyone?”

  “Your sisters ganged up on Daddy.” She smiles a small smile. “Something about women athletes and taking softball seriously and Title Nine. I heard the name Jennie Finch, and something about Brandi Chastain, and a reference to Venus and Serena. They apparently feel he has to be straightened out about his attitude toward women’s sports.”

  I’m about to ask her to please explain what that means, because the Peas have never been my biggest defenders. But then my mother says, “Actually, I asked the girls to take Daddy out. They plowed our street about an hour ago. Then we heard from the Fischers just a few minutes ago. They said that you’d found Luke, you and David, in one of the drainage tunnels under the Greenway, and that the EMTs left you there when they took Luke to the hospital.” She gives m
e another small smile and pats the space next to her on the couch. “I figured you would walk home along the Greenway. I wanted to have you to myself.”

  She pats the couch again, and I walk slowly toward her. I want to ask her to explain about the softball paperwork. But when I sit down, she reaches out and puts her hand on my shoulder, then pulls me into her. I feel her begin to shake, and realize that she’s crying. We stay like that, her crying into my hair and me holding her, unsure of how to let go, unsure of what to do, until she pushes herself back. Her hair is a mess, and her nose and eyes are red. Her mascara is apparently not waterproof, because it’s dripping down her face, leaving thick tracks of black on her cheeks. My beautiful, perfect mother looks awful.

  She grabs a tissue out of the box on the coffee table, blows her nose, and wipes beneath her eyes, clearing away the worst of the mascara drips.

  “I was so scared,” she says. “I’d told Nancy not to interrupt me for anything, so when she told me I had a call, I asked her to take a message. I didn’t know it was you until after the clients left. And then I knew it must have been important because you never call me.” She smiles a small, sad smile. “You and I don’t always . . . our wires seem to get crossed sometimes. I tried to call you back, but it went right to voicemail. I called Daddy and the girls, and no one knew where you were. Then when you didn’t come home . . .” Her eyes fill with tears that spill out into the black mascara tracks on her cheeks. “I knew that you’d reached out to me, and I’d let you down.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “No,” she says, shaking her messy, tangled hair. “It is most definitely not okay. We heard from the Fischers last night. About what’s been going on between you and Luke and David. About the way the boys have been ganging up on you. And spreading rumors. Daddy felt awful because you’d tried to talk to him about it, and he completely missed what you were trying to say. He can be so dense sometimes. Me—” She puts her hands on either side of my face and her eyes fill with tears again. “I felt awful because you didn’t try to talk to me.”

  “I didn’t know how to,” I say.

  “Sammie, I may not be the kind of woman that you want to be, and that’s okay. There are lots of different ways to be a woman. But I do know what it’s like to be a twelve-year-old girl, and to feel responsible for something that is not your fault.”