Sincerely

by Courtney Sheinmel

  “What?” she said.

  I ran down to the next landing to meet her. “The door locked,” I told her.

  Haley and Jennifer had already reached the twenty-sixth floor and were pulling at the door. “It’s too heavy,” Jennifer said.

  Jessie reached in front of Jennifer to open the door. She tugged on it hard. “It’s not heavy,” Jessie said. “It’s locked.”

  “We’re locked in?” Haley said. Her lower lip quivered beneath her rubber snout. Jennifer ran over to me and reached for my hand. I squeezed her hand back.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “We can just bang on the door. Someone will hear us and open it.”

  Jennifer dropped my hand and went to the door. She and Haley banged their fists hard against it. “Help! Help!” they called. Jessie and I stood behind them and banged our fists too. I pounded until the side of my hand started to hurt.

  “This isn’t working,” Jessie said. She rubbed the side of her hand. We stepped back from the door. Haley and Jennifer looked up at Jessie and me.

  “Maybe no one has walked by yet,” Haley said.

  “The doors are probably soundproof,” I whispered to Jessie.

  I guess I was too loud, because Jennifer heard me. “You mean they’ll never hear us?” she said.

  “I don’t think so,” I told her.

  Jennifer leaned back against me and started to cry. “What if I never see my mom again?” she wailed.

  Haley started to cry too. Jessie rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll just head downstairs. One of the doors is bound to be open, and if not, someone has to come into the stairwell eventually. We’ll get out.”

  “Are you sure?” Haley asked tearfully.

  “Yes,” I said. I tried to sound confident. Haley and Jennifer seemed to believe me and stopped crying, but really I was scared too. The fluorescent lights were flickering overhead and there was a cobweb in the corner. I doubted that any of the doors would really be open, and it could be a long time before anyone came into the stairwell. My parents thought that we had just been trick-or-treating in our own building. If we took too long getting back, they would get worried. They wouldn’t even know where to look for us because we hadn’t told them where we were going. We hadn’t even brought a cell phone with us because we weren’t supposed to leave our building. Jessie had grown quiet. It was all her brilliant idea, and she wasn’t even doing anything to help now.

  We started to walk downstairs. Jennifer reached for my hand again. “It’s cold in here,” she said. “Do you think we’ll freeze?”

  “It’ll get warmer as we keep walking,” I said.

  “What if we starve before anyone finds us?” she asked.

  “We have plenty of candy,” I reminded her.

  Haley was a couple of steps ahead of us. She pulled out her bag of Hershey’s Kisses and handed it up to me. “Can you open this?”

  “No,” Jennifer told her. “You should save it until you’re really hungry.”

  “Give me a break,” Jessie said from behind me. I didn’t think it was right of Jessie to give Jennifer a hard time when it was Jessie’s fault we were in the building to begin with. I turned around to look at her, but she didn’t look familiar anymore. Sometimes I had a hard time recognizing Jessie. It was like she had two different personalities—the old Jessie who was my best friend, and a new Jessie, who I didn’t know at all. It was very confusing.

  I turned back around to Haley and Jennifer. “We’re almost at the next floor down,” I said. “Let’s try the door.”

  The door was locked on the next floor, and on the floor after that. Jessie said maybe we should walk back up and check the door to the roof, but I told her I’d rather be trapped in the stairwell than on the roof. She seemed annoyed that I didn’t like her idea, but she kept following us down the stairs. She was eating her candy and dropping the empty wrappers onto the floor. “You better pick that up,” Haley told her.

  “Why?” Jessie asked.

  “Because littering is against the law.”

  “So arrest me,” Jessie told her. I turned toward Jessie, and she rolled her eyes again. Jessie used to be nice to Haley. In fact, she was nicer to Haley than I was, but she had changed so much. Part of me was so angry with Jessie that I didn’t care if Haley gave her a hard time, but I also knew that if Jessie got really upset and angry, she might never want to hang out with me again. I already felt like I was losing Jessie, so I told Haley to be quiet.

  “But, Sophie,” Haley said, “she really shouldn’t litter.”

  “Oh, Haley, be pliant,” I said. “You’re driving us crazy.” Haley pouted and looked like she might cry again, but I ignored her and we kept moving down the stairs.

  We weren’t racing down the stairs anymore like we had at first. Now we had slowed to a walking pace. It was kind of dizzying to keep walking down and down and then circle at each landing. Haley pulled off her pig snout, leaned over the handrail, and shouted “Hello!” Her voice echoed, and she giggled. “Hello, Haley,” she shouted even louder. Her voice reverberated around us again. “Did you hear that? Did you hear that, Sophie?” Haley said. Her face was flushed with excitement and she forgot to be scared.

  “Come on, Haley,” I said. Haley stepped down from the rail and ran to catch up with me.

  “Sophie?” she said.

  “What?”

  “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “Why didn’t you go at home?” I asked.

  “I didn’t have to go then,” she said.

  “You’re going to have to hold it,” I told her.

  “My feet hurt too,” she said. “Will you carry me?”

  “You’re too heavy,” I told her. “We’re almost there.”

  Jennifer had not let go of my hand since the twenty-fifth floor. Her palm was getting sweaty. Usually I liked having Jennifer around because she listened to me and thought I was great even if I wasn’t friends with Lindsay, Amy, and Melissa, but I was starting to get impatient. I dropped her hand to wipe my palm on the side of my pants. Jennifer reached for it again.

  “You know, I bet the door to the lobby is unlocked,” Jessie said suddenly.

  “You’re right,” I said. I tugged at Jennifer. “Come on, you guys. We’re almost there!”

  We ran down the last few flights of stairs. The door at the bottom was a different kind of door from the ones on the other floors. It had a small window at the top and had a big red sign in the middle of it. It said: DO NOT OPEN. ALARM WILL SOUND. Jennifer dropped my hand and walked up to the door, sounding out the words. I stood on my tiptoes and looked out the window. “It doesn’t go to the lobby,” I said. “It looks like it opens to the alley behind the building.”

  “Now what do we do?” Jessie said. She sat on the bottom stair with her witch’s hat in her lap.

  “Is it breaking the law if we open it?” Haley asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. I had never heard of anyone getting into trouble for opening an emergency door, and besides, I was pretty sure that this was an emergency. My dad’s a lawyer, so I thought if we got into trouble, he could always help us.

  “I think we should open it,” I said.

  Jennifer started to cry. “I don’t want to go to jail,” she said. I wished Jennifer would stop crying. I didn’t want Jessie to get more upset than she already was. But Jessie didn’t say anything when Jennifer cried. She didn’t even roll her eyes. Maybe she was nervous too.

  “Don’t cry,” I told Jennifer. “Remember, you’re a happy clown.”

  “Go ahead and open it, Sophie,” Jessie said.

  “You do it,” I said. I thought it was only fair since it had been Jessie’s idea to come to this building, and Jessie’s idea to take the stairs.

  “No, you do it,” she said.

  For a split second I thought of saying something back to her, like it was all her fault that we were locked in the stairwell to begin with, so she had to be the one to open the emergency door. But even
though I was afraid to open the door, I was more afraid of making Jessie hate me. My heart was beating fast and hard. I could hear it thumping in my ears. “Fine,” I said.

  Haley and Jennifer backed away from the door. Instead of a doorknob there was a long silver lever. I put my hand on it, took a deep breath, and pushed down. I heard the click of the lock turning, and the door swung open. “We’re free!” Haley shouted. We ran outside and waited for the alarm to sound, but it didn’t go off. I could see the sidewalk of our street a few feet away at the end of the alley.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Jessie said, and we all started to run.

  Six

  DAD WAS SITTING on the couch watching television. We walked in and Haley ran to him. “Oh, Daddy, I thought I would never see you again,” she said. I turned to Jessie. She rolled her eyes again, and this time I couldn’t blame her.

  “Where’s Mom?” I asked.

  “I think she’s lying down,” Dad said. He turned to Haley. “So, let me see your loot.”

  “Wait, Dad,” Haley said. “I have to tell you what happened to us.” I knew I was about to get into trouble. I grabbed Jessie’s arm and pulled her into my room. The farther away I was, the harder it would be to hear Dad yelling.

  When we got to my room, Jessie said, “I guess I’ll call my mom.”

  “You’re not sleeping over?” I asked.

  “I’m pretty worn out,” she said.

  Jessie didn’t look that tired, and besides, it was a tradition for her to stay over on Halloween night. “But you always sleep over on Halloween—even when we have school the next day,” I reminded her. But even as I said it, I knew things were different now. The old Jessie was almost completely gone. “Go ahead and use the phone,” I said.

  Jessie picked up the phone. I recognized her home number as she pressed the buttons; I had dialed it so many times, I knew the sound it made by heart. It sounded a little like the first verse of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

  After a few seconds I heard Jessie say, “Can you pick me up?” She paused and then said, “I’ll tell you about it later.” I wondered what Jessie would say about me. “Okay. Bye, Mom,” she said, and turned to me. “My mom is going to meet me in the lobby in fifteen minutes,” she said as she flopped down on Haley’s bed. I looked at her from across the room and wondered what we could possibly find to talk about for the next fifteen minutes. Just then my dad walked in. I figured he would have plenty to say.

  “What were you two thinking?” he said, his eyes moving back and forth between Jessie and me. Jessie and I had been friends for so long that my parents talked to her like she was their own daughter. If Dad was angry with me, he was going to be angry with Jessie, too. Somehow that made me feel better.

  “We’re sorry, Dad,” I said.

  “Did you think about what could have happened?”

  The truth was, we hadn’t thought about it, and thinking about it now was making me feel kind of sick. I didn’t know what to say, which doesn’t happen to me very often, so I just shrugged my shoulders. Dad shook his head. He looked tired. His shoulders slumped forward and his glasses had slipped to the edge of his nose. But Dad is never too tired to be angry with me. I braced myself for a long lecture about responsibility and setting a good example. “This was absolutely irresponsible and unacceptable behavior. I don’t want to hear about anything like this ever happening again,” he said.

  I swallowed and nodded. “Okay,” I told him.

  “I mean it,” Dad said.

  “I promise,” I told him.

  “All right,” Dad said. “Don’t stay up too late tonight. We’ll talk about this more in the morning.” I watched him walk out the door, and I turned to Jessie.

  “Your sister has such a big mouth and your father is so dramatic,” she said.

  I agreed with her about Haley, but I thought she was wrong about Dad. We definitely deserved to be yelled at, and Dad hadn’t even yelled that much. His voice had barely been raised above its normal tone. Usually my parents scream and threaten punishment when I do things wrong that involve Haley. They always tell me I need to be a good influence because she looks up to me and will follow whatever I do. Dad is especially protective of Haley, but this time he hadn’t even yelled about going outside at night with Haley and no grown-ups. He hadn’t told me it was terrible that Haley and Jennifer had been so scared, or even say that I am old enough to know better and that I have a special responsibility as an older sister. I knew Jessie and I shouldn’t have taken the girls to the other building. I was sure Jessie knew it too, even though she was busy trying to be cool. For the third time that night I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded.

  “I better get going,” Jessie said.

  “Hey, Jessie,” I said, “do you remember Halloween last year? Remember that woman down the hall who gave out apples, and yours had a scratch on the side. Haley started crying when you ate it because she thought you were poisoned.”

  “Sophie, I really have to go,” Jessie said. “My mom will be mad if I keep her waiting.” It hadn’t been fifteen minutes since Jessie had called her mother. It had barely even been five minutes, but I decided not to argue with her.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “See you Monday,” Jessie said. She walked out of the room. I could hear her at the front door saying good-bye to Dad.

  I sat back on the bed, but I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. Even in my own room with everything I owned around me, it all seemed boring and pointless. I couldn’t play any of the board games because I was alone, and there wasn’t anything I wanted to read. Finally I stood up and walked over to my desk. As long as I had the room to myself, I could write to Katie. Even though she hadn’t written me back yet, I had a lot to say, and it wasn’t like there was anyone else to talk to. I pulled open my desk drawer for the box of stationery and a pen, and sat down to write.

  Dear Katie,

  Did you ever have one of those days when nothing goes the way it was supposed to? I’ve been having a lot of them in the past few weeks. The problem is mostly my best friend, Jessie. She’s been kind of different lately. Tonight is Halloween, and we always spend Halloween together, but that is different now too. So now she’s on her way home, and I’m alone in my room.

  I just keep thinking about last Halloween, when everything was the way it was supposed to be. I remember it perfectly—it was only a year ago, after all, on a Friday night. Jessie and I pulled the sleeping bags down from the hall closet and slept in the living room. We didn’t want to sleep in my room because Haley was there (I told you about her in my last letter—she’s my younger sister), and this way it didn’t matter how late we stayed up talking. I remember the year before last Halloween too, when Halloween was on a school night. My mom still didn’t make a big deal out of it when we ate our candy for dinner instead of the chicken my dad had cooked and we stayed up late making up ghost stories. I know we’re too old for some of that now, but I don’t understand why Jessie thinks she’s too grown-up or too cool or too something to hang out with me at all.

  I hope you don’t mind that I’m telling you all this stuff. I can’t talk to Haley about it because she’s too young, and my parents would ask too many questions and not really understand. Anyway, I guess if you don’t want to hear about it, you can always just stop reading my letter.

  Sincerely,

  Sophie

  Haley and Jennifer came into the room a while later. I didn’t have anything better to do, so I helped them set up the sleeping bags on our bedroom floor. Jennifer used my sleeping bag because Haley wanted to sleep in hers even though her bed was in the room.

  “We need flashlights,” Haley said. “Can you get them from the closet? I can’t reach.”

  “Why?” I asked. “You’re still right next to the light switch.”

  “No,” Haley insisted. “It’s a campout. We don’t use electricity.“

  The overhead light and both of our desk lights were on. “What do you think is lightin
g up the room now?” I asked her.

  “So-o-phie,” Haley said, turning my name into three syllables. She clasped her hands together and stepped toward me. “Please? Pretty please?”

  Jennifer clasped her hands together too. “I’ll be your best friend,” she offered.

  I had a feeling I didn’t need to give in and get them flashlights for Jennifer to be my best friend. I looked down at her and Haley. I almost told them that they were being stupid. The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I closed my mouth. It wasn’t their fault that Jessie had left, and at least they thought they needed me.

  “We should probably pitch a tent, too,” I said. “You know, to keep the bears out.”

  “Oh, yeah. The bears!” Haley said. I told Haley to get a sheet, and Jennifer and I pulled the chairs in from the dining room table. We lined up the sleeping bags next to each other and then we set the chairs up at the corners of the sleeping bags. Haley helped me drape the sheet across them, and then she and Jennifer climbed underneath. “Get the candy,” Haley called to me. “If we leave it outside, the bears will get it.”

  I slid their bags of candy under the legs of one of the chairs. “Aren’t you coming in?” Jennifer asked.

  “No,” I said. “I’m going to watch a movie.”

  “Turn the light off on your way out,” Haley said. I flicked the switch and could see the circles of light coming from the flashlights underneath the sheet. “Now we have to tell scary stories,” I heard Haley say.

  I walked into the bathroom across the hall from our room. There is an antique mirror above the sink that Mom once found at a flea market. It has a scratch in the top right corner, so she got a good deal on it. I don’t mind the scratch; Haley and I are both too short for it to bother us when we look in the mirror.

  I stood up against the sink and bent forward, staring closely at my reflection. It is the strangest thing about faces: Sometimes they look the way you expect them to, and sometimes they look like someone you’ve never seen before. My cheeks were looser than I remembered them being. I fingered the edges of my eyes, where my mother was starting to get wrinkles that she calls crow’s-feet. Whenever she said that, I thought of gnarled feet and toes riddled with bunions. Old, shriveled feet—like the feet the Wicked Witch of the East had in The Wizard of Oz, right after Dorothy’s house fell on top of her. I blinked to get the image out of my mind and then peered more closely at my own face. I didn’t have any crow’s-feet. Eleven was definitely too young for that, but my eyebrows were getting darker, even darker than the hair on my head, and I was growing a slight bump on the bridge of my nose. I wished I had freckles like Haley. She doesn’t have a lot of them, just a small sprinkling across her nose. She gets a few more in the summer when we’re outside all day long. But I never have any at all. My cheeks were chubby even though I was still skinny everywhere else. I thought kids were supposed to get rid of their baby fat as they got older, not the other way around. I sucked in my cheeks and pressed a finger down on my nose, and I looked better. Is that what being popular is about? I wondered.