by Nancy Rue
It was two heads—that had no faces at all.
Twelve
Lily opened her mouth to scream, but nothing would come out. She couldn’t run from the window. She couldn’t pick up her first aid book and hurl it at the glass. She couldn’t do any of the things her mind screamed at her to do. She just stood there, frozen in horror.
Even as she stared, the faceless faces pressed themselves against the window. Suddenly she noticed features there—distorted eyes and flattened noses and twisted mouths, all smashed by something she could almost see through. Lily’s mind stopped screaming and began to talk sense.
They aren’t Halloween masks, and they aren’t ski masks. It looks like they have panty hose pulled over their faces.
Lily didn’t have to know any more than that. She made a lunge for the window, shouting as she went. “Get away, you little brats! I know who you are! Now get away! You don’t scare me!”
Neither of the figures moved. Lily unlocked the window and, with a heave, yanked it open.
“I said get away!” Lily shouted right into their faces.
At that, the shorter person on the left jumped like a startled squirrel. A second later, he had disappeared.
The other boy tried to shout something, but with his lips flattened inside the panty hose, nothing but smashed-sounding gibberish came out. He leaned back to look downward, and then he too scrambled out of sight.
Lily opened the window the rest of the way and leaned out. Both the freezing air and what she saw below made her gasp out loud. The second boy was just reaching the ground at the bottom of the naked rose trellis. The other one was sprawled out on the ground, arms and legs going in all directions. He wasn’t moving. Even when the other boy squatted down, shook him, and shouted something garbled to him through his nylon, the first boy just lay there.
“Is he all right?” Lily shouted down.
The boy’s head jerked up. But instead of answering, he sprang to his feet and took off down the walkway. He got his arms tangled up in a holly bush that stretched its overgrown branches out of the flower bed, and he yelped like a puppy. Then he disappeared into the night.
The boy on the ground still wasn’t moving, and Lily’s heart raced right up her throat.
I have to get down there. I have to see if anything’s broken, if he’s breathing, if he has a pulse—But as Lily tore out her bedroom door and down the hall, the thoughts in her head changed. Just a few hours before, she’d prayed so hard, I’ll never do it again, God, whatever it was! Yet now she was about to.
Then she stopped. She changed direction and burst into Mom and Dad’s room. Mom was already sitting up in bed, rubbing her eyes.
“Lil, what’s going on?”
“Somebody was at my window and he fell and he’s on the ground outside and he’s not moving!”
Lily wasn’t sure she was making sense, but it was enough to roust Mom out of bed and get Dad from a dead sleep to a standing position.
Her parents were still tying on bathrobes when Lily grabbed three blankets out of the hall closet and took the steps down three at a time. The thoughts pounded in her head as she burst out the back door and ran down the walkway to the fallen boy.
Reni’s mom said it was getting too rough, and she was right. Maybe now Kresha will believe me. They have to do something about these boys!
Lily skidded to a stop beside the boy. He was wearing a hat and a jacket that was puffed out enough for three sweaters underneath, but Lily could see his legs trembling in the cold. She threw two blankets over him and rolled up the other one in case Mom wanted to use it as a pillow. She didn’t do anything else—except pray.
Please, God, don’t let him be dead. He’s a little brat, but he doesn’t deserve to die.
She was trying not to think about how sad Kresha would be if her brother did have a broken neck or something . . . When Mom got to them, she went down on her knees.
“He’s unconscious,” she said to Dad. “Call 9-1-1.”
As Dad dialed the number on his cell, Mom ran her hands behind the boy’s head. She held her own head still and serious.
“I don’t think his neck is broken,” she said. “Let’s see if we can get these nylons off his face. What on earth was he doing up there? He can’t be more than ten years old.”
“Nine or ten,” Lily said. “It’s one of Kresha’s brothers.”
But as Mom pulled the nylon stocking off of the boy’s face, Lily herself yelped like a puppy.
“Oh, Lil,” Mom said. “It’s Reni.”
Thirteen
For a while, everything was a blur for Lily.
A blur of an ambulance screaming up to the house and drenching the snowy night in flashing red lights. A blur of paramedics with their stretcher and their neck brace and their official, concerned faces. A blur of Mr. and Mrs. Johnson and their terrified faces. A blur of Mom and Dad taking turns holding Lily and telling her it was going to be all right.
But the blur in Lily’s own head told her it wasn’t going to be all right. Her best friend was lying stiller than sleep on a stretcher with a plastic cone over her face and a big plastic cuff around her neck. That wasn’t all right. It wasn’t all right that the paramedics were saying a smear of things like “possible skull fracture” and “pulse thready.”
But the evening’s events suddenly came into focus when the paramedics reached the ambulance with Reni on a stretcher and were about to slide her in. Lily was running along beside her, craning her neck around the paramedic’s blue jacket. That was when she saw Reni’s brown eyes flutter open, frightened and darting all around.
“Hey, there,” one of the paramedics said. “Glad you could join us.”
“You’ve had an accident,” the other one started to explain.
But Reni’s voice burst forth, high-pitched and scared. “Lily?” she said.
Lily didn’t have a chance to answer. “You can talk to Lily later,” the paramedic said. “Let’s get you to the hospital first. Your mama’s going to ride up front, okay?”
And then they were gone.
“Come on, Lil,” Mom said as she put an arm around her. “Let’s go have some hot chocolate, huh?”
Lily was too stunned to notice that Art was up, in the kitchen, and already had cups of instant hot cocoa coming out of the microwave. By now, only Joe was still sleeping.
“That boy could sleep through a world war,” Dad said.
“I think he did,” Art said. “What was all that about anyway? Reni trying to play Spider-Man up the side of our house in the middle of the night?”
“What I want to know is what in the world she was doing out by herself at this hour,” Mom said. She gave a mug of cocoa a vigorous stirring. “Believe me, Lil, I’d have your hide in a sling if you went that far to get to spend the night with your girlfriend.”
Lily looked up dully from the mug Mom set in front of her. “Spend the night?” she said.
“I saw Reni at the 7-Eleven yesterday. When I told her I was sorry she couldn’t spend the night with us, she said her mom wouldn’t let her.”
“So she sneaks out in the middle of the night by herself so she can do it anyway?” Art said. He poked a couple of numbers on the microwave. “Smart chick.”
Once again, the blur cleared and things came into focus. “She wasn’t by herself,” Lily said.
Dad stopped with his spoon in mid-stir. “What are you saying, Lily?”
“There was somebody else with her,” Lily said. “When I woke up, there were two faces in the window. I thought it was Kresha’s brothers again, so I got up and opened the window, and Reni fell. You don’t think she fell because I did that, do you?”
Lily’s heart was back in her throat again, splitting her chest on the way up. Dad put his hand on her arm.
“You can just stop your imagination right there, Lilliputian,” he said. “Reni fell because of Reni.”
“Man, I thought my friends were crazy,” Art said.
“This isn’t crazy. Th
is is just . . . out of control,” Mom said. “What’s it about, Lil? Do you know?”
Lily pushed her mug away from her. She folded her arms across her chest. But nothing could keep the pangs from turning right at her and stabbing her over and over and over.
“Talk to us,” Dad said.
“It’s about Reni hating me now! She says I’m bossy and a know-it-all and I think I’m always right and she hates me so much she got one of Kresha’s brothers to come help her try to scare me to death—because she hates me!”
Lily’s throat ached with her heart beating there, and she wanted to cry so badly, but nothing would come out. She stared into her hot chocolate and wished things would get blurry again, but they were all too clear.
Art finished stirring his cocoa and tapped the spoon on the rim of the mug. “Mostly the kid’s right,” he said. “You are bossy and a know-it-all and you do think you’re always right. But that’s no reason to hate you. It drives me nuts, but I don’t hate you, and I’m your brother. I’m supposed to hate you.”
“Thank you, Arthur,” Mom said dryly. “I’m sure Lily will thank you for that later.”
“Nah! Don’t mention it.”
Dad gave Lily’s arm a squeeze. “I don’t think Reni hates you. I think she just got a little carried away.”
Mom made a soft sound low in her throat. Lily looked up in time to see her parents trade one of those glances.
“You think she’s gonna be okay, don’t you?” Lily said. “Don’t you?”
“She opened her eyes,” Mom said. “Good sign.”
“She called my name.”
“Right. She did.”
Lily folded her arms on the table and let her face fall into them. She still couldn’t cry. She just felt like she was going to be sick. She’d heard one ambulance siren too many. Seen one more lifeless-looking person than she’d ever wanted to see. Felt this pain in her chest one more time than she needed to feel it.
“You need to get to bed, Lil,” Mom said. “Come on. I’ll go up with you.”
“Mom . . . Dad . . .” Lily said as she lifted her head.
They waited.
“I don’t think I want to be a doctor anymore.”
“Yes!” Art said.
Nobody else said anything. And Lily was asleep almost before Mom helped her into bed.
Lily woke up in the morning just in time to throw on some clothes for church. There had been no word yet about Reni, but the first person Lily spotted when they pulled into the parking lot was Mrs. Johnson.
I don’t care whether she hates me or not, Lily thought as she threw open the van door and ran over to meet her. There was frosty air hanging around Mrs. Johnson’s mouth, and she was stomping her feet the way Reni always did to keep warm. It nearly tore Lily’s chest in two again.
“Mrs. Johnson?” Lily said. She stopped a few feet away. “Is she—”
“Where is your mama?” Mrs. Johnson said.
“Please, please just tell me,” Lily said. “I know you think I’m a terrible person, but I love Reni. I just want to know: Is she okay?”
Mrs. Johnson’s eyes popped a little. She dug her hands deep into her coat pockets and moved closer to Lily.
“She’s fine, Lily,” she said. “She suffered a concussion and some pretty ugly bruises and scratches from your holly bushes, but she’s going to come home today.”
Lily put her face into her hands and started to cry.
“She’s bawlin’, Mom,” Lily heard Joe say behind her. “You better get over here.”
Mom was there in a tapping of boot heels across the parking lot.
Mrs. Johnson filled her in while Lily sobbed.
“So I don’t get it,” Joe said. “If she’s gonna be okay, why’s Lily cryin’?”
“Don’t try to figure it out, man,” Art said. “It’s just girls.”
Mom sent the boys into church with Dad to get some seats. Then she handed Lily a Kleenex, which meant “Stop crying for now and be polite. You can pick it back up later.”
When Lily was finished blowing her nose, she found Mrs. Johnson looking at her as if she were studying her.
“What Reni and her father and I have not talked about,” Mrs. Johnson said, “is what on earth she was doing outside of your house when she was supposed to be inside spending the night with you.” Mrs. Johnson suddenly looked embarrassed. “From what I heard you tell the paramedics last night, that was not the case.” Lily didn’t want to say anything. In fact she couldn’t. Reni had lied: she had told her mother she was going to spend the night with Lily—so she could come in the night and scare her?
Until then, Lily had clung to the fact that Reni had called out her name when the paramedics were putting her into the ambulance. But now Lily knew Reni had wanted to scare her.
Lily knew Reni hated her. And she hated her a lot.
“You don’t have to explain,” Mrs. Johnson said. “I think I know. But what I don’t understand is how this all got so out of hand. First Zooey is helping you chase someone who supposedly attacked you girls, and she breaks her ankle. Then Reni gets hit in a snowball fight and busts her lip open. Now this.” Mrs. Johnson shook her head at Mom. “I just don’t know if the girls’ club thing is a good idea.”
It was impossible for Lily to concentrate on the sermon that morning. She sat staring at the pulpit, trying not to let the pangs inside her make her cry again. There was the hurt pang because no one understood what the Girlz Only Group had been all about. And there was the guilty feeling that it was her fault that it had all gone wrong. And the blotchy-faced feeling that she was an idiot for ever believing the club was right in the first place.
I had to have it all my way, and this is what I get, Lily thought miserably. She poked her mom and asked her for another Kleenex.
By the time church was over, Lily’s brain was numb from so many awful feelings. But one thing was still going around in a circle up there. It was a question: Who was that other masked figure at her window with Reni?
Lily thought about it that afternoon when she was emptying her first aid kit and piling up the first aid books to return to the library at school.
It couldn’t have been Kresha or Suzy, she decided. In the first place, neither one of them could have climbed up the rose trellis without fainting. And neither one of them would have left Reni lying unconscious in the snow, no matter how scared they were of getting caught. I taught them better than that, Lily thought sadly. And besides, they’re good people. They’re the best.
Lily swallowed down her hurt and went back to the possibilities.
Maybe she teamed up with one of Kresha’s little brothers, she thought.
That seemed too ridiculous to believe, but Reni had sort of defended them when Kresha claimed they hadn’t attacked the Girlz since that night at Suzy’s house.
If she’s been planning this, Lily thought, of course she would try to make me think it wasn’t them.
It was suddenly too sad to think about. Lily dropped the last first aid book on the stack and sat on the bed, hugging her knees to her chest to try to keep it from tearing open again. But her heart was already broken. Not only had she bossed her best friend so much that Reni would do something like this to get back at her, but she’d also discovered she couldn’t save lives the way she’d hoped.
She went ahead and let the tears come this time. There was nobody there to see them anyway. No best friend. No Girlz. Nobody.
There goes another dream, Lily thought. Who am I, anyway, God? Lily actually felt her face getting blotchy, lying there all by herself, because she knew she wasn’t by herself.
I forgot about God again! she thought, tears trickling into her ears. God, I’m sorry—again. Will You please help me? Will You help Reni not hate me? Will You help the Girlz Club not be over?
She sighed then and asked her last question out loud.
“God, will You please help me find out who I am?”
Fourteen
On Monday, Zooey wasn’t
in school. She had another appointment with her ankle doctor. Reni wasn’t there either, of course. Suzy sat very small at her desk and didn’t look at Lily once.
Neither did Kresha. It was a lonely day in Ms. Gooch’s class.
Even Shad Shifferdecker seemed to be having an off day. He was so restless, going to the pencil sharpener, going out to get drinks of water, wanting to go to the restroom twenty times. Ms. Gooch finally said, “Shad, you’re as restless as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Sit down.”
At first Lily tried to ignore him, but when he passed Lily’s desk for the fortieth time and knocked her pencil onto the floor for the thirtieth, she finally watched him for a minute as he meandered his way back to his seat.
There was something different about all his messing around today. He was still poking at Ashley with his newly sharpened pencil and whispering stuff to Marcie to make her shoot up her hand and tattle. But as far as Lily could see, he wasn’t enjoying it as much as usual.
On his forty-first trip to the pencil sharpener, Shad paused for a split second at her desk and put his hand on it. Something automatically clicked in Lily.
He better put some hydrogen peroxide on those scratches, she thought, or he’s going to get an infection.
She shook her head and went back to her math story problems.
I’m not going to think about things like that anymore. I thought I was this big doctor person and I’m not, and I need to get over it.
Her thoughts tumbled to a halt as she realized Shad had dropped a folded-up paper on her desk. She poked at it with her pencil to be sure there wasn’t a spider or something hidden inside it. When nothing crawled out, she opened it.
Did Reni get hirt or something? It said. Anser here.
Lily put her pencil immediately to the space Shad had provided for her “anser.”
What is that to you? she wrote. I don’t think it’s any of your business.