My father check the morgue everyday and each time when he come back my mother cry for tiny hope he is alive. The terrorists do not care, they take whole families, mothers, and children. We phone the Red Cross and lawyers but we are the one in thousands so nothing happen. We hear if they beat person only that person is lucky. Lucky to have a beating! You are lucky Cassie. You walk outside and no one hurt you.
I have drowning attack like you call before. I wait for it and it sometime happen, sometime no. Sometime I dream to be stuck under bricks and cement. Not to move. But I believe and thank Allah and live. Writing make less panic for me. But I have a little time for my blog.
How is Van? She speak to you? She sick? Your family will fix again.
Some good news to end. My brother speak my name today! I was more happy than words for that. We celebrate and prepare special food. Your brother follow soon. I went to school today and was happy. Even to see my Geography teacher who is terrible mean.
Best regards,
Blue Sky
To: Blue Sky
From: Cassie
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: hi again from USA
Dear Blue Sky,
Why do they threaten your family? Who exactly and is it because your father worked for us? America has to help. And what do you mean, We leave or stay?
Your dream is scary. I have this dream sometimes where I am running but I never get anywhere. I go faster and faster, and when I wake up, I think I can’t breathe. But I can. What do you do with all that panic stuff? When you can’t breathe? Where does it go, I mean? Either I go running or I put my head down low and imagine that I’m running. Then I can breathe again.
Christmas is coming, and it seems like Sef’s been gone forever. I am so worried he won’t come back. I panicked the other night when I had a dream he blew up. I woke in the middle of the night and put my face out the window. Writing to you helps too. I start to sort everything out. I’m happy about your brother. I hope Jack is next. Sorry you have no news about your uncle. I am sorry for your mother and father.
Write again soon, please.
Your friend,
Cassie
CHAPTER 31
TODAY IS FRESH
ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON, the rain turned to sleet and then snow. We watched through the cafeteria window. “Maybe it will stop,” I said to Kim. But part of me didn’t want to go to Fresh. What if Jack threw a tantrum? Or worse. And what was I supposed to say to Rob, anyway? What if it ended up he didn’t like me?
I picked up my sandwich and put it down. “Think I should cancel?”
“No way.”
“What if he doesn’t show?”
“I’m sure he’ll show. But if he doesn’t, then at least you know.”
“Know what?”
“He’s not worth it.” She shrugged.
In English Mr. G asked if I was feeling all right. “I’ll tell you Monday,” I answered.
After school I went to Jack’s class. Something was wrong with Jack. He wouldn’t look at me. I glanced around the room for Jack’s teacher, Ms. Bennett, but she wasn’t there. The Hillview Middle School language specialist walked toward me. If there was a substitute, I usually stayed with Jack until I knew he’d be fine.
“Ms. Bennett went home sick this morning,” she explained. “I tried to get Jack to talk to me, but he refused. He had to sit there for most of the afternoon.” She smiled and pointed to the chair in the corner of the room.
Jack was red. His arms and hands and face were red. Even his eyes were rimmed red.
I turned to take his hand. “Come on, kiddo. Today is Fresh.”
His hips and shoulders wriggled upward and then his head seemed to pop like something had snapped inside of him. He ran out the door and down the hallway, his Diego backpack slapping his side. His glasses started to slip off, so he held them in place. He couldn’t see without them. I could have gone faster, but I didn’t want anyone to see me chasing Jack through school. Besides, he couldn’t go that fast. He was bowlegged, and he waddled when he ran.
“Slow down!” someone yelled. A few kids laughed and jumped out of the way. I thought he would stop, but he ran out the front door, down the main entrance, toward the parking lot. He looked around wildly.
There was a group of kids across the parking lot. Someone had on camouflage pants. Jack darted in the direction of the camouflage.
“Jack!” I yelled. “Wait for me!” That’s when I finally started running. I was the runner, and I had let him go.
The front walkway had been shoveled and sanded, but there were patches of ice in the parking lot that were newly frozen. Jack hadn’t zipped his coat, so it flapped like wings, and he slipped, almost flying through the air. I saw the red Volkswagen coming the other way. The tires screeched, and it skidded, sliding across the ice toward Jack. I heard someone say, “Oh, my God!” Another person screamed. I waited for a big thudding sound. But there was only silence. The car had stopped inches in front of Jack. He stood, staring into the front window of the Volkswagen.
I couldn’t move. I heard people talking.
“Wow, that was close.”
“Who is that?”
“It’s that kid who thinks he’s a soldier.”
“The special-needs kid.”
“That was crazy. Is he okay?”
“I think so. Who is he, anyway?”
It’s Jack, I thought. Just Jack. He stood there, searching the crowd of people who had gathered around the car.
Rob broke out of a group of friends and ran to me. He grabbed my hand. His hand was warm as he pulled me out of my frozen place toward Jack.
“Jack!” I yelled. “Here I am. Jack!”
Jack took a step back from the car and collapsed. There was more screaming. I ran in front of Rob. Jack’s eyes were closed, but there wasn’t a scratch on him. I lifted his head into my lap and told him to look at me. He did. His eyes were full of tears.
Our gym teacher, Mr. Mac, was kneeling beside us. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t see him. I don’t think I hit him. I don’t think I touched him at all.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I said. “He’s okay.”
Ahead of us, the buses were pulling away from the school.
“Let me take you home,” he said. “Can I lift him?”
“Yes, he’s fine. Just shell-shocked.” I smiled at Jack.
Mr. Mac scooped Jack up and laid him on the backseat. I slid in beside him. Rob waved to us as we pulled out of the school parking lot. My chest was heavy.
• • •
On Monday Rob found me by my locker. “Is Jack okay?”
“He’s fine.” I looked up at him. He was standing so close, I could smell a soapy cotton smell. I felt myself sway backward. I had to lean on my locker. “Sorry about that.”
“You definitely don’t need to apologize to me. Things happen,” he said. “We’ll go to Fresh another time. But my cousins are staying with us for a couple of weeks, so my mom says I can’t plan anything until after Christmas. We could do it right after that. Can I have your email or something? I wanted to check in with you over the weekend, but I didn’t have it.”
“Okay.” I must have looked disappointed. I turned and stared into my locker, trying to remember what I was supposed to get.
He said, “Everything all right, Cass?”
“Yes.”
He waited. Kids running by slowed to watch us. I didn’t even look to see if one of them was Sonia.
I looked into his eyes and said, “It’s been stressful at home.” I couldn’t believe I was telling him this.
He nodded.
“Since Sef left. The whole year, really.”
“Yeah.”
The bell rang.
“Now I made you late.”
&
nbsp; He shrugged. “So? I made you late.”
I laughed.
“You could run. You’re pretty fast,” he said.
“Yeah, I am.”
“You gonna race me sometime?” he asked slowly.
“I really don’t want to beat you,” I said.
“Uh-oh. That’s a challenge if I ever heard one.” He laughed. “Let’s make that official.”
I wrote down my email on a slip of paper.
• • •
Of course I told Kim right away. She squeezed my arm and said, “I’m not going to tell you I told you so.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.” She smiled big at me.
CHAPTER 32
WE WILL FLY TO SUCCESS
AS WE GOT closer to Christmas, Mom and Dad were so polite with each other, it was weird. I thought of what Blue Sky said about honoring your parents no matter what, and I went back and forth, trying to understand them and then being mad. It was so quiet all the time with Van sleeping and Jack not talking.
At lunch, when I told Kim that I wasn’t making any difference, she said, “You can’t change anyone else, you know. Just yourself, Supergirl.”
I laughed. “Well, I’m going to try. At least Jack.”
“Like in The Giver?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Okay, let’s take Jack sledding,” she said, “and we’ll find Christmas.”
• • •
On Saturday morning the sky shone blue. We put the toboggan in the back and crowded into the front of Don’s pickup.
“Personally, I think you guys are crazy going sledding this early on Saturday morning. I can’t believe I’m even up right now,” Don said.
“Um, because I paid you five dollars last night?” Kim said.
“Oh, yeah.” He smiled and glanced at me. “How’s Sef holding up?”
“Pretty well. He says his feet get tired because the shifts are so long and he has to carry sixty pounds of stuff around. And it’s crazy there. Everything’s blown up, and he can’t tell the bad guys from the good guys.” I looked at Jack and stopped.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. But he’s okay. He’ll probably come home with a Purple Heart, right, Jack?”
“Tell him we’re playing Centerville in basketball, and we’re going to kill them for him.”
“Okay.” I laughed. “I’ll email him when we get home.”
“He’s not missing the weather, that’s for sure.” Don started up the hill toward a parking lot by two low brick buildings. “Is here good?”
“Perfect.”
“I’ll pick you guys up in an hour or so. Have fun.”
As we got out, Don grinned at Jack. “Good talking to you, buddy.”
We walked up the bigger hill, our footprints fresh in the new snow. I pulled the toboggan. There were a few younger kids sledding with their parents on the small hill. They looked like balls of pink, blue, and green in their snowsuits. When we got to the top, Kim stood with her arms spread out. “All right, before we go down, we have to think Christmas. We’ll all close our eyes and try to see Christmas. All the things you think of when you think of Christmas.”
I watched Kim and Jack close their eyes, and I closed mine too.
I thought about Christmas and remembered being at the top of this same hill with Sef on this same toboggan. I tried my hardest to remember every detail. Sonia was sledding, too. I remembered now that Van was behind me because as we started off she asked, “Aren’t you scared, Cassie?”
“No,” I said. We took off, and the sky was white, and the trees flashed by. Sef was in the back, yelling, “You will fly to success!” That was what his fortune cookie had said the night before.
Even while flying down the hill with the snow blowing in my face, I never thought anything bad could happen to us. Sonia had been too scared to sled. She walked down the hill and waited until we were done. She was probably cold too. I remembered thinking that I had Sef, and she didn’t. I always had Sef. He would never let anything bad happen to us.
When I was little, I thought my life would always be soaring through the snow with Sef. Part of me wished I could stay in that place forever. Why would I want to know what lay ahead? Why would I want to know that Sef was going to leave? But I didn’t want to be like Mom, pretending things were one way when they weren’t. I wondered whether Christmas was the dream that somehow I’d still be flying downhill on that sled with Sef, or if it was seeing what was right here in front of us.
Suddenly the light shifted as a cloud passed over the sun. Kim asked, “Who saw Christmas?”
Jack’s eyes shone. He lifted his arms and waved them high in the air. He danced and blew white streams into the air.
We laughed, and Kim said, “Let’s go find it, then!”
Jack sat in the front of the toboggan, his legs tucked into the curve of wood. Kim was in the middle, and I pushed us off. Kim screamed the whole way. I called out, “You will fly to success!”
“Success” echoed behind us as we glided into the white.
CHAPTER 33
HOLE
WHEN I GOT home, I opened my email. There was a message from Sef.
To: Mom, Dad, Van, Cassie
From: Sef
Subject: No Subject
Hi everyone,
I know I should wait to tell you this, but I can’t. If I call in the next few days, then I want you to know. Please don’t say anything to Jack.
A few nights ago I think I shot and killed a boy. But everyone was shooting at the same time, and it was dark, so there’s a chance it wasn’t me. I don’t know exactly what happened. There was shooting, and we returned fire. I shot in that direction. Then I saw him fall.
As soon as it was quiet, I went over and saw a boy with a hole right between his eyes. He had a Yankees shirt on. Can you believe that? He shouldn’t have been there at all. It was night, and the shooting started again, and we had to find cover fast. When we went back later, he was gone. But I can’t get him out of my head. I mean I see him all the time. I wake at night and see him. He was only a little older than Jack.
I’d like to think he died instantly, that’s what they say to the relatives of anyone who dies here, even if they’re screaming in pain for hours. But I don’t know. I haven’t been able to eat or anything. What am I going to do? I don’t think he even had a weapon. He was just standing there, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Everyone says to stop thinking like this because it’s not anyone’s fault. Hurricane says if I don’t stop beating myself up, he’s going to beat the crap out of me. I don’t know, I just feel like I did it. I can’t push it away.
I used to think things could be right if I tried hard enough. But that’s not true here. I’m trying, and these guys are the best, but I don’t know what we’re doing here. I feel like a different person from the one who left. Write back and tell me things are better there.
Love,
Sef
He didn’t do it, I thought, he couldn’t have killed someone. But he felt like he did it, and the boy was dead, and no one could change that. I felt sick. I knew I could never tell Blue Sky. That was what she lived with every day. How could she understand it? That was why she blamed us. The boy didn’t do anything except stand outside at the wrong time. But it wasn’t Sef’s fault—he would never kill a boy. It was just bad luck.
Sef was someone else now. It felt like there was a hole in my chest.
• • •
I put my sneakers on and ran. I ran all the way back to the state hospital. I stared at the snowy hills, waiting for something to come to me—a memory of Sef—something I could hold on to and take with me. I tried to see him, but all I could see was Mom happy and laughing when he was home.
As I was standing there at
the bottom of the hill, Jesus pulled out of the state hospital parking lot. Would he be able to help Sef if Sef came home messed up? Would he be able to fix this tear inside me? I waved to the shaking, rumbling truck, but Jesus didn’t see me.
On the way home, I saw Finn driving by in his Rabbit. There was someone in the front seat with him, and it wasn’t Van. This girl was blond. I watched his lights disappear.
Van was asleep when I got home, but after I showered and was getting dressed in Sef’s room, I felt someone watching me. Van was standing in the doorway. She had dark rings under her eyes. She was staring out the window. Just staring into the gray afternoon, the nothing. I shivered. My arms and legs were covered in goose bumps.
“Van?” I said. “What are you doing?”
Her eyes shifted toward me. She stepped back, as if she was startled. “I thought at first—it was so strange—I thought you were Sef for a minute. That he came home.”
To: Sef
From: Cassie
Subject: Re: No Subject
Hi Sef,
Thanks for writing. I hardly know what to say. We all know whatever happened the night that boy was shot, you did the only thing you could do. Not that it makes it any better. I can’t imagine how you must feel.
I’m scared too. It’s hard to imagine you over there now. I know you have your team, but I wish we could do something. What can we do? Did you find out the boy’s name? Do you want us to send money to his family? Let me know. I want to help. We all do. It’s hard to be here and feel useless. I want to be there for you like you always were for us.
Thanks, Sef—I don’t know if I’ve ever said it—for everything. I don’t want to get all mushy, but I do want to say that you’re the one who matters more to me than anything in the world. Why haven’t I ever said that before? Because it’s hard, I guess.
We’re all doing OK. We just want you to be OK. I hope you are able to sleep. You did the only thing you could do.
Dear Blue Sky Page 13