Tunnels

by Lesley Downie

  "Tell us everything." Mom was squeezing me even harder now. "I can't believe it! Our daughter's a hero!" Dad came over and now we were doing a weird three-way hug which I don't think has ever happened in my lifetime. Super strange since Mom wasn't into PDA. I mean, a quick hug, an air kiss, yes. But this? Not in a million years would I have believed it.

  "You're making too big a deal out of it." My voice was muffled on account of all the material and body parts covering me. "I was just about to get my costume on when everybody started screaming. So I did CPR on the mayor ‘cause she wasn't breathing and—"

  "What do you mean it's nothing?" interrupted Mom as she pulled away from me. I actually saw tears in her eyes. "You saved a life, and that's, well, that's—"

  Mom, speechless? Wow.

  "Extraordinary," Dad finished.

  "Well, I guess it is," I agreed, though I still didn't think of myself as a hero because I hadn't done it alone. "Now they want me to come to some dinner the governor's going to be at."

  Mom had to sit down for this little piece of info and she started to fan herself with the newspaper. Thought she was going to have her own heart attack right there.

  "We've got to get busy! We've got to get you a dress, buy you some shoes, maybe a new hair—"

  "I'm not going." I had to stop her before she started planning my future marriage. Reaching into the fridge, I took a big swig from the milk jug (finally out of the vegan phase!) just to see what she'd do. This was a giant no-no in our house because she's fully germ-phobic. When she didn't say a word, I knew she was sprung.

  "Well of course you're going, dear." She'd grabbed a pen and paper and I could see she was in her making-a-list mode. Mom's big on lists. A forgotten detail is the end of the world to her. "Dresses R Us, Fancy Feet," she mumbled, "Twist and Curl."

  "Hon, I think she's serious," Dad said as he headed out of the kitchen with a sandwich he'd slapped together. "I don't think she wants to go."

  At least someone listens around here. I didn't say another word. Just left her and her stupid list and headed upstairs to take a shower. It was time I got back to what's important, and I planned on spending the rest of the day reading more of Pops's journal.

  TOP TEN THINGS I'D RATHER DO THAN MAKE A SPEECH IN FRONT OF THE GOVERNOR

  10.Spend the day figuring out the circumference of circles.

  9.Pick up trash on campus while wearing one of those orange vests that has a strip of reflective tape across the area you'd rather not draw attention to. Training bras are so embarrassing.

  8.Tell Kelley she's smart and interesting.

  7.Go to massively huge tool store with Dad and get sidetracked in the nail and screw aisle while he explains the function of each and every one.

  6.Clean out all the disgusting stuff under Sam's bed—even the old food which has turned green and fuzzy.

  5.Be hall monitor at school and bust everyone for being late to class because of excessive flirting.

  4.Babysit Sam and his fellow demon club members for a whole twenty-four hours.

  3.Go to family reunion and listen to "When I was a kid we had to…" stories from every single person in my family over the age of thirty. Snore.

  2.Bond with my Mom while shopping for completely inappropriate pink wardrobe items for me.

  And the #1 thing I'd rather do than make a speech in front of the governor:

  Wear the completely inappropriate wardrobe items Mom picked out. Hair ribbon and pastel tights included.

  Chapter Fifteen

  PRIVACY PLEASE or MOMS ARE SO NOSEY

  Life is so not fair.

  Speech about how I gave the mayor mouth-to-mouth? On.

  Pink floral print dress and heels Mom picked out? Totally on.

  And you know what else? They've invited the paramedics to come, too—so David gets to witness me being a total dork. This is not good. I only have twenty-four hours to get ready for the most embarrassing moment (to date, but just wait for the actual dinner) ever. Bet you he'll cancel taking me to the concert once he sees how lame I am up there. Just shoot me, please.

  The worst part was, Mom fully laid the guilt trip on me when I told her I wasn't going. She said it'd be a slap in the face to her, Dad, the mayor, and the governor if I didn't show. I mean, why not add God to the list? Not to mention the little threat about being grounded for life. So what could I say? I have to suck it up and wear the stupid outfit and blow all my chances with David.

  "Honey," Mom said as she burst into my room, telephone outstretched in my direction. "It's for you!" Like so loud I could almost hear the exclamation points.

  "Hello?" I said into the telephone mouthpiece. I threw Mom a can't-you-knock? look. The best part wasn't the fact she ignored me. It was her face, all amazed and glowing, as she whispered loud enough for Alaska to hear, "It's a boy!" like a miracle had just occurred. You'd think the baby Jesus had just landed in the manger.

  "Hey, it's David." His voice sounded all husky, as usual, and I could just picture his perfect mouth. Talking. To. Me.

  I waved at my mom to leave before I answered him. You'd think I'd stabbed her in the heart or told her soy products were no longer available as a food source. Sure she was fully listening outside my door, I talked super low. "Hi…what's up?" Trouble was, it sounded like I was trying to be flirty, not secretive.

  "Hey, are you sick or something?"

  Okay, maybe not so flirty. I'd have to work on it.

  "Nah, I'm fine," I went back to my normal voice as I shoved my door all the way closed. "Just hanging out."

  "Me too. My mom's getting a suit for me to wear to dinner on Friday. I hear you'll be there, too."

  A suit. I know he'll be so cute in a suit. "Yeah, but you might not recognize me. I'll be the one looking miserable. My mom's making me wear a dress straight out of a nineteen forties Easter parade. Which is wrong for two reasons; it's ugly and I'm Jewish."

  "Cool!" He laughed and I think the birds outside my window sang a song. I know, you don't need to say it. "We should hang out and be miserable together."

  My stomach did a little flip. Maybe it wouldn't be such an awful experience after all. Except for the speech, of course. "Sure." I tried sounding casual, as if I get invitations from cute boys all the time.

  "Guess we have a busy weekend coming up. You up for it?"

  Wow! Is it official David Perkins was confirming our weekend plans, and that I'm into hanging around him for two nights straight?

  "Yup, I'm ready." I tried to steady my shaky voice by wrapping my hand around my throat. It kind of worked.

  "Alright. See you at the mayor's house."

  "'Kay, see you," I managed to choke out. How was I going to concentrate until then?

  Mom barged into the room again as soon as I hung the phone up. See? I knew she'd been listening. "Was this the same David who wants to take you to the concert?" As if every David in the world would be calling me. She was carrying a disgusting floral thing. Please tell me that is not IT.

  "Uh huh," I mumbled and nodded because I knew she'd torture me until I told her what was up. "He'll be at the mayor's house too because he was part of the paramedic team who saved her."

  "Paramedic team?" she asked. "Margaret Perkins's boy? How on earth is he a paramedic? She never mentioned it when we caught up on the phone the other night." She hung IT in my closet as she talked. I wondered if IT could somehow go missing.

  "He's actually a paramedic in training. We have a cool junior career program at school he's in ‘cause he wants to be an EMT when he's older. He's just a good friend, Mom." I finished when I saw a smirk on her face. The one which said, "My little girl is growing up." How annoying.

  "Well I should hope so. But regardless, even though you're just friends, I'll still need the name and phone number of this cousin you'll be going with—"

  "Mom, could you let me have some space?" I interrupted. "We can talk about this later."

  Surprisingly, she nodded and left my room. You have to understand stuff
is never this easy with her. What was the deal? I knew I should be more worried she was up to something, but I didn't want to waste any more time. The journal was open to where I left off the night before. I'd fallen asleep before I'd read far. Guess saving a life was more exhausting than I realized.

  I got up and threw the lock on my door. Demon Boy was outside skateboarding, and I knew Mom and Dad planned to catch up on all their taped shows on our old TV from the 90s. VHS tapes (yes, I did say VHS) of the gazillion detective shows they'd missed (snore). And all the singing and dancing competitions on every single station (double snore). Mom said she didn't want to figure out all of that DVR stuff and Dad, who's not big on change, says the VCR works just fine. They absolutely knew how to live on the edge.

  I flipped open the journal to where I'd left off. Guess Pops skipped a few months because the next entry was made in November.

  November 5, 1943

  Sad news yesterday. George's parents called and said they got word he was presumed dead because his plane had gone down. Emily fell apart, then said it couldn't be true. It was just a matter of him showing up. She said she was going to find him, then left the house and went and enlisted. When I tried to talk her out of it she wouldn't listen. Kept saying she was going to bring him home if it's the last thing she does. I don't know what she could be thinking. The chances of finding him are slim. And she'll be nursing in an army hospital, so even if she did see him, it would probably be in a way she wouldn't want to. He'd have to be dead or wounded, I told her, but she didn't care and she slapped me when I said it. I wasn't mad though. She said she couldn't just sit around and do nothing, knowing he was in harm's way. Mother won't even talk about it, like she thinks Emily will change her mind at the last minute, but I know better. Once Emily has her mind set, that's it.

  I went down to the basement when she was out today and poked around. Tried to find out why Emily likes to spend so much time down there. No luck. Guess I just have to let Emily be and see what happens. She's got such a darn stubborn streak.

  Edward

  I thought about the note we'd found at Emily's gravesite and wondered again who could have left it. A mystery crush from seventy or eighty years ago? Or could George actually be wandering around, grieving for her? Those words on the note—what had the writer meant by, "I will come for you soon just as you once came for me"?

  CARROT CAKE RECIPE

  or

  THE BEST WAY TO CHOKE DOWN YOUR VEGGIES

  I don't know about you, but the only way for me to choke down vegetables (other than the lettuce and tomatoes on a burger) is to majorly disguise them inside yummy cake or pie. Did you know zucchini tastes like apples when you add sugar and cinnamon and cook it in a flakey pie crust? Or when you surround the horrible green pieces of zuke with moist cake like in the recipe below? Take my word for it. Make, eat, thank me later.

  Preheat your oven to 350 degrees

  Get out your favorite mixing bowl because food always tastes better when you use your fave kitchen utensils.

  Mix together with a whisk: 2 cups flour, 2 cups sugar, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons baking soda, 1½ cups canola oil.

  After it's all mixed up, stir in 3 cups grated carrots.

  Pour the mixture into a 9" x 12" baking dish—like the kind a normal mom (so not the General) makes lasagna in.

  Bake 40-45 minutes or until you can put a toothpick in the center and it comes out clean.

  You can frost it if you want, but I like it with just powdered sugar on top.

  Chapter Sixteen

  DESPITE THE FLORAL PRINT

  "It wasn't so bad," David consoled me. "You're being too hard on yourself."

  "Right," I agreed in my most sarcastic voice. "So what you're saying is, it wasn't so bad when my Mom curtsied to Governor Taylor or when Dad said, 'I've got to see a man about a horse' when he had to go to the bathroom? Who under the age of ninety talks like that?"

  And if embarrassing parents weren't bad enough, now I had to deal with this lacey collar thing giving me an annoying rash. I was tempted to just rip it off.

  "I'm sure the governor gets that all the time."

  Wasn't he sweet? Trying to make me feel better about the fact I have two of the strangest parents ever? The upside of the night was we were walking in the mayor's garden. Alone. Everything smelled so great. Especially him.

  "Well I guess it wasn't as bad as seeing me and my bad-perm-hair on the caf's big screen." Yes, Kelley had gotten ahold of my hero picture and bribed the A/V guy to put it up at lunch. I told you she'd find a way.

  "Could've been worse, you know," he grabbed my hand as we walked, and I tried not to faint. "At least it hasn't gone viral. Besides, I thought you were kind of cute." He squeezed my hand. I don't need to tell you how that felt.

  The good news was I hadn't gotten too sweaty during the ceremony. My speech ended up being a quick thank you for the award they gave me because the governor had gotten there late. After she shook my hand and Mayor Delaney gave me a hug, we had dinner because there was a big-time chef there who said, "Chef Robert waits for no one." So we all piled into this huge dining room full of lots of round tables, white tablecloths, and sparkly silverware.

  We were seated at the governor's table. Chef Robert made a big deal over telling us what was on the menu. When I heard him say "quail eggs," I pretty much decided I'd rather starve. Besides, the four different forks lined up beside my plate made me too nervous to eat. Which one to use first? Do you work from the outside in or the inside out? I decided to butter a roll, avoiding the question completely because there was only one knife so it was a no-brainer.

  "Why don't we go over there and sit down?" But being so close to him and holding his hand must have been too much for my system. My legs became all wobbly and I was dizzy. Either that or I hadn't eaten enough today. Which isn't usually my style, but since I was so nervous about tonight, I'd only had a bowl of cereal this morning (sweet crunchy squares coated with peanut butter of course).

  So when my heart started beating faster and I almost followed Mayor Delaney to heart-attack city, I tried to look on the bright side. If I did, David was right beside me so he could do CPR. And as long as the EMTs weren't called in to do more lifesaving stuff, like cut my dress off…then we were good. Otherwise the only clean underwear I had in my drawer this morning (a Friday pair from the seven days of the week package Grandma gave me at Hanukkah last year) would be seen by everybody and could ruin me for life. Trust me, they were usually a back-up pair but it was the end of the week and, well, laundry happens on Saturday.

  "Nice night, huh?" His voice didn't sound nervous at all. What was wrong with me?

  "Yup." Crud. Why couldn't I be interesting and say, "Yeah, especially since we're together" instead?

  So I stared at all the garden stuff we walked past instead of at him, hoping to hide how self-conscious I felt. And when I realized we were surrounded by more of those creepy topiary statues, I began to wonder if they were following me. First the church courtyard, now here? Why was it so popular to fill up gardens with these things?

  Then I realized I'd take the topiary statues any day over what was now surrounding us a few steps later. The bushy monsters disappeared and half naked marble goddesses lined the path. And that's when the sweat I'd been dreading all night finally started to roll down my back. Which is not good, because then David sat down and patted the seat next to him. How could I possibly take the chance that his hand might land on my sweat-drenched floral print back?

  So there we were. He stared at me, I stared back at him. Was that a clock ticking? Why did it sound like the Pacific Ocean was rushing through my head? Was Chef Robert's field-green salad stuck between my teeth? And why was that Greek statue of Venus staring at us? I tried to ignore, but it's hard to act cool with all this white nakedness around you. It'd be good to have a jacket to throw over her. And now I felt like I was going to hurl.

  "Hey." He patted the bench again. "Want to sit down?" Hi
s hair fell cutely in front of his eyes as he leaned toward me, and I wanted to reach over and brush it back. Which helped me calm down for some reason and made me realize something super important. He was here. With me. No one was making him ask me to sit beside him. My heart slowed and I no longer felt like I've had an IV drip of one of those gross energy drinks for the last twenty four hours. It was pat…pat…pat now, instead of patpatpat.

  So I realize it's game time, ladies and gentlemen, and if I don't get myself together I'll be missing out on my first kiss, even though I wasn't completely sure I knew how to kiss. But he is my crush after all, and I had to find out. So I took a deep breath and wiped my hands on my dress to remove all the excess sweat which had pooled there (on account of sweat dripping downward from my pits). I ran my tongue over my lips to prep them. But as I stepped toward him, my heel caught on something and I face-planted right at the feet of the naked goddess.

  "Ow!" Of course it was my bad foot I twisted. "My ankle!"

  "Are you okay?" Instantly he was down on his knees beside me. "Let me see it." So he lifts my foot and examines it, becomes Mr. EMT dude, and starts feeling for any bones sticking out. Who am I to complain about what he's doing? He is the medical professional after all. Then he lays my foot in his lap and massages it a bit. We're talking big-time tingling and I was amazed. It's got to mean he likes me, right?

  "Better?" he asks as he helped me to a sitting position.

  "Uh huh," I say in my best Neanderthal response. "Mush."

  He laughed, like baby talk was so cute.

  "What exactly did you trip on?" He patted the ground. "Ah, must have been this." He tore away at some grass and began tapping the ground—it definitely wasn't dirt because it sounded like metal. "There's some kind of handle here—your heel must have caught on it." Taking a little flashlight from his pocket, he shined it on the ground. Would have been a pretty geeky move if David wasn't the one shining it. "And it's attached to this big metal thing."