The thing that felt best was, when I looked into the guy’s eyes, I could see that what happened to us was bad. You almost forget that. Or it’s like you don’t have a right to think it or something. They don’t give you the right to object, or think it’s a big deal. But then the cop’s eyes kind of mirror it back to you, that nobody should have to get hooked on a rusty lure or get tripped near a flight of stairs or have some goon parked outside your house so you’re afraid to go out the door. And some part of you thinks, Oh yeah. I used to know that. How did I forget that?
Then, even after I was done telling him everything I could think to tell him about Will, we talked a little more. He just talked to me for a minute, and I could tell he wasn’t really being the cop anymore, and I wasn’t really being the boy who called 911. Not for that last minute. For that last minute it was just two people.
He gave me credit for being a real person he might want to talk to. That meant something to me.
“Off the record,” he said. “Just between you and me. Was there a split second where you considered it?”
“Considered what?” I asked. I didn’t get what he was driving at.
“Saying nothing. Letting it happen.”
“Oh. No.”
“Not even for a split second. Huh.”
“Not really, no.” In fact, until he said it, I really hadn’t considered that it was there to consider. It just never crossed my mind.
“It’s just interesting,” he said. “You don’t meet too many people who save the lives of their worst enemies.”
“Oh. Yeah. I see what you mean. That is weird, huh? Thanks to me, they live to torture me another day.”
“Well, maybe. Maybe not. It’ll be interesting to see. I think the big question here would be, if you save the life of your enemy, is he still your enemy?”
But I really didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know the answer to that. Then again, neither did he. And he’s a grown-up.
My mom was waiting to drive me home. I didn’t even know they’d called her. It was kind of a shock to see her there. I guess she had to take off work to come get me.
She was pretty quiet until we left the police station. All she said was, “Where’s your jacket, honey?”
I said, “Oh. I accidentally left it in my locker at school.” There was a weird pause, and then I said, “You know. Because of all the excitement.” Then I felt like I’d said too much, because I could tell she really never doubted me in the first place.
It wasn’t until we got to the car that she said it. I could feel it and smell it, and see it in there, waiting to get out. But it wasn’t until we were sitting in the car, just before she turned the ignition key, that she spit it out.
“I knew that Will Manson was no good.”
I lost it. With my own mother. In my whole life I’d never yelled at my mother. But all the stuff that’d been leaning on me for all those months came spilling out. I just couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“You have no right to say that!” I yelled. “You don’t know. You don’t know him. If you knew the half of what he had to go through. And even if I told you, you’d tell me you could go through all that and not do what he did. You want to say that could never happen to you. Because you want to think it never could. But you don’t really know. I mean, now—no, nothing could make you lose it like that, nothing ever will. But if you grew up like he did. You can’t know what you’d be like. You have no right to judge him. I won’t sit here and let you judge him. It’s not fair.”
Then I just stopped talking, and we listened to this giant silence. A big rant like that leaves a big space of silence when it finally goes away. We just sat there and listened to it echo around in that little car.
I thought she was going to tell me I didn’t know what I was talking about.
“I guess you know more about him than I do,” she said. “I’m just glad you didn’t get hurt.”
“Will would never hurt me.”
She started the car and put it in reverse. Started to back out of her parking space.
“I’m proud of you for what you did today,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said.
Then we didn’t talk anymore for the rest of the way home.
January 13th
I went back to school today.
When I walked down the hall for the first time, everybody turned and looked at me. It was partway like what they did with Will after Sam died, and after he tried to kill himself. Only partway not like that, because not really bad. They got quiet, and they looked at me, but it didn’t feel bad.
Still, I got to my locker as fast as I could.
I picked up the lock and tried to work my combination. But it wasn’t even a combination lock. It was the kind of lock you open with a key. So I figured I must have the wrong locker. I double-checked the numbers, but it was my locker all right. It just wasn’t my lock.
For a minute I stood there with this lock in my hand, wondering.
Somebody had cut off my lock. Or broken it off. And done something inside. And then put a new lock on.
Then I noticed something that looked like a note sticking out of one of the vents in my locker. Right at the level of my nose. I pulled it out. It wasn’t a note, though. It was an envelope.
Inside was a key.
This is when I got scared.
I started thinking what would be inside there when I opened it. I thought about snakes. Stink bombs. Paint bombs. Real bombs. I almost walked away. But I had to open it sooner or later.
I stuck the key in the lock, and it fit. I turned it, and the lock dropped open. I lifted the latch and then jumped at the sound it made. Even though it made that same sound every day.
I opened the door and jumped out of the way.
Nothing jumped out at me.
When my heart had stopped pounding some, I looked in.
Hanging on a hanger in my locker was my jacket.
It wasn’t dirty anymore. The side that had been all dragged in the mud was clean. Really clean. It was on one of those hangers from the dry cleaners. Those wire hangers covered with paper, printed with an ad for the dry cleaners.
I touched it like I didn’t believe it was really there.
I put it on.
After a while I locked up my locker again and started down the hall to my first class. And you know, I did feel like something more in that jacket. In fact, I felt like something more than I had been last time I wore it. It’s one thing to have my mom give it to me. It’s another thing to have the jocks admit I deserve to have it.
It’s like I wasn’t exactly the fat boy anymore. I still weighed as much. It just didn’t matter as much.
Maybe after school I’d try to call that cop back. Because maybe he really would be interested in the answer to the question.
When you save the life of your enemy, he’s not your enemy anymore.
Just as we’d suspected.
August 19th
I’m up at Uncle Max’s cabin for the summer.
Uncle Max is working on a new book, so he holes up in his study all day, and then in the evening we have a fire and we get to talk.
Today I told him honestly that I haven’t written in my journal in months. Not since right around the time Will had to go away.
He said he understood, and that after a very intense period of journaling my own life, it was okay to take a break.
Then, as soon as he said that, I wanted to write again.
I realized that important things have happened, and if I don’t write them down soon, they could be forgotten, gone forever. And my life doesn’t seem like such an insignificant thing anymore, that I should let some part of it get lost.
So, just the basics, I guess.
Will got sent to a psychiatric hospital instead of a jail, which I guess is good. I’m not sure if it really works this way in the real world, but I keep thinking maybe he’ll get some actual help.
He still won’t see me. Every week I call his dad a
nd ask if I can go visit now, if Will has said he’s willing to see me. Every week his dad says no, give him more time. So, we have time, right? We have our whole lives.
Sooner or later I think he’ll be glad I stopped him before he could make that huge mistake. But even if not, well … it’s like Uncle Max says. It was either the right thing or it wasn’t. It’s not about Will telling me it was the right thing. It’s about me, and just knowing.
I guess that’s it.
Oh. Wait. No it’s not.
I’ve lost fifteen pounds.
I feel kind of stupid even saying that. Because it’s hardly anything, compared to what I still have left. I’m probably the only one who would even notice it. And besides, who knows if I can even keep it off when I get home? Home is just such a whole different matter.
Here, it’s easier. Because we eat fish almost every night. And because I’m always the one climbing over rocks and hauling up and down the stream to catch it.
I never go up to that pool by the waterfall anymore, though. Well, once I went up just to sit by the waterfall and look. And listen.
But I don’t fish up there.
I guess because, so far as I know, Moby and some of the other really big ones still live there. I’m not even sure I can explain why I don’t want to try to catch him anymore. It’s like I admire him for being so strong and so wily. Breaking so many lines and throwing so many hooks. And even for the times he got squarely caught but somehow managed to get the fishermen to respect him enough to put him back.
It always seems to boil down to the issue of respect.
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by Catherine Ryan Hyde
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hyde, Catherine Ryan.
Diary of a witness/Catherine Ryan Hyde.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Ernie, an overweight high school student and long-time target of bullies, relies on
his best friend Will to watch his back until Will, overwhelmed by problems at home and
guilt over his brother’s death, seeks a final solution.
eISBN: 978-0-375-85358-6
[1. Bullies—Fiction. 2. Obesity—Fiction. 3. High schools—Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction.
5. Single-parent families—Fiction. 6. Emotional problems—Fiction. 7. Diaries—Fiction.]
I. Title.
PZ7.H96759Did 2009
[Fic]—dc22
2008040883
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
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