Bad Best Friend

by Rachel Vail

  I got my bike out of the garage. I can do this, I told myself.

  I unlooped the helmet from the handlebars and smooshed it onto my head, readjusted my glasses, which I had knocked half off, and tightened my backpack straps. It’s like riding a bike, I reminded myself as I wheeled it out to my driveway.

  “Niki!” Robby yelled from next door.

  “You riding to school?” Milo asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “What are you doing, then?” Robby asked.

  I looked down at my bike. The loose straps of the helmet swung beside my cheeks. “I am, obviously, posing for a fashion shoot.”

  “Obviously,” Milo said.

  “Should we wait for you?” Robby asked.

  “Hundred percent no,” I said. “I have to remember how to work this thing and it could take a minute. Hour. Month.”

  “Come on, Milo,” Robby said.

  “You sure?” Milo said. “I could mansplain where the pedals are to you.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “But there can be no witnesses to this fiasco.”

  “Okay,” Milo said. Milo just rode off normally, but Robby somehow swung his leg straight behind him and over the bike while it was already moving. Just watching that made me drop my bike and scrape my ankle with it.

  Maybe Robby is actually the cuter one?

  I heard commotion behind me in the house. Gotta go, I thought.

  I picked up my bike. Pretend you can do it, I told myself. I straddled the bike and pushed off. Wobbly but okay. One reason I hate riding my bike is my bumpy dirt road. Okay, okay, I sang quietly to myself as I pedaled. It’s the song Mom used to sing to me and to Danny when we were little and upset. Okay is the only lyric, and she would sing it over and over until I (or, much more often, Danny) calmed down, and then sit there in the silence afterward with us.

  Okay, okay, okay, I sang to myself, all the way to Victory Boulevard. Didn’t fall. Okay. And then rode in the silence of just the wind in my ears the rest of the way to school.

  As I locked up at the bike rack, Milo said, “You made it!”

  I laughed. “Just barely!”

  “Hi, Niki,” Isabel said. “See you soon!” She turned and caught up to the rest of the Squad before I managed a hello in return.

  I took off my helmet. “Is my hair ridiculous?” I asked Milo.

  “No, it’s pretty.”

  Well, neither of us knew what to do about that. I took off my backpack and put it back on.

  “I gotta . . .” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  He ran into school. I watched. What was that? I was rooted to the spot.

  “You okay?” Holly asked, coming up behind me.

  “What? Yes. No. Fine.”

  “Just guarding the bikes today? Or, are you coming into school?”

  “Right, yes.”

  We walked together toward the front doors.

  “We are all friends here,” I said as we passed under the sign.

  “Whether we like it or not,” Holly said.

  27

  WE HAD TO go collect our pots from the table, when we got to art class. Some kids had etched designs into theirs, or carved their names. Some were super smooth and shaped all curvy. Mine was, well . . .

  “I like how you left your fingerprints all over yours,” Holly said, beside me. “And that sticky-outy bit. Is cool. Is that, is it a . . . Is that X-rated?”

  I laughed. “It was supposed to be an elephant.”

  “And that’s his . . .”

  “Trunk!” We were both laughing. “And those are his ears! See?”

  “Oh! Okay, yeah.”

  I looked at hers. It was graceful. Wide, then narrow, then wide again. Smooth all over. “Holy—Holly, that’s gorgeous.”

  “Thanks,” Holly said, and didn’t argue that no, no, it was bad, see these faults, awful. She turned it in her hands and looked at it. “I was thinking about calla lilies.”

  We took our containers to our table. We had to write our names on the bottoms and anything else we wanted to write, maybe the date, or who they were a gift for. They’d go in the kiln before our next class.

  Who mine was a gift for? My mom, I guess. Mom and Dad?

  Danny? Like me, he was a single elephant, empty and alone.

  He’d just break it.

  Niki Ames, I wrote. 3rd Elephant.

  I set it down on the table. Nadine and Beth were chatting, but Holly was just looking out the window. Milo was concentrating very hard on whatever he was writing on the underside of his bowl, his lips pressed between his teeth, which must’ve hurt, with his braces and everything. I checked the clock: 11:11. Make a wish.

  I wish Danny would do well on his test.

  I wish they will find whatever is wrong with him and

  I wish Danny

  “You okay?” Holly was asking, her hand on my arm.

  I smiled, or tried. It didn’t fully work.

  “Tell me at lunch,” she said.

  So at lunch, in the library, I did. I told her that Danny had thrown a fit, and possibly a book, and that he has tantrums at home, and my parents end up fighting, and I worry they’ll get divorced, and if they do, I will never forgive Danny. I even told her the worst stuff, like sometimes I wish Danny were deaf or blind or had a limp, something visible, so that people would know there was really something wrong and my parents couldn’t deny it and people like Ava’s mom, Samantha, wouldn’t say to my mom, Maybe you should tell him not to act that way, or, Maybe he should do more sports so he won’t be so coddled and he’ll learn to be more rough-and-tumble? That’s all he really needs.

  Because when I hear Samantha say stuff like that to my mom, it makes me want to punch her in her big white teeth. My mom makes him play Little League and it is a massive honking chore, Samantha! And it doesn’t heal him at all.

  Nothing does.

  Nothing cures him.

  But I feel like I am being a crappy sister and a crappy daughter, that I am wishing that the testing shows something and maybe that is what I am, maybe I just fully suck. But if Danny were deaf, people wouldn’t be yelling at him, Why aren’t you listening? because if they did, they’d be the ridiculous, stupid jerks. If he were deaf, we’d all learn sign language. And other kids in his class would too. Or maybe he’d get a cochlear implant and we’d video him hearing us tell him we love him for the first time, and everybody would cry and realize how awesome he is. If he were blind, we’d get a Seeing Eye dog and people would take turns reading his homework to him, like Isabel had offered me. But the thing that’s wrong with Danny is more like, he wants friends but doesn’t know how to navigate that, and he doesn’t handle his own feelings particularly well, and so everybody finds him annoying.

  Including, horribly, sometimes: me.

  But maybe there is a cure, or help, or a way to teach him, and they could find it, they could figure it out, and he’d get better.

  Or at least people would understand. Maybe there would be space for him to just be Danny, if the way he is is just the way he is, not because he’s a brat or because he or my parents are doing it wrong.

  “Sorry,” I finally said, wiping the tears off my face. “I’ve been talking for a half hour straight, pouring all my garbage out on your head. Sorry.”

  “Don’t,” Holly said. “You can just, you don’t have to apologize. I’m your friend.”

  “You are,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “You can just tell me how awesome I am, if you need to say something.”

  “You’re better than a Fisherman’s Friend.”

  “And even more powerful.”

  “But less disgusting.”

  “Thank you,” Holly said.

  “I fully thought you were offering me a magical little fairy, the first time you gave me o
ne of those lozenges, by the way.”

  “Who says I wasn’t?” Holly asked, with that twinkle in her eyes, and then got serious. “Niki. Danny’s lucky to have you as his sister.”

  I shook my head. “No, he’s not.”

  “He is. And he’s right to love you.”

  “Not really.”

  “This is hard on all of you. But you see him. That’s not nothing. And you love him.”

  “I do,” I said. “But I’m not, I don’t—I wish I could help him, but I don’t think doing his homework for him is actually . . .”

  “Let’s send him good, strong thoughts, to be his true self during the testing.”

  “Okay,” I said. I took off my glasses. “That’s the wish I was searching for.”

  She closed her eyes. I closed mine, too, and made the wish. Be you, Danny. Just be you. That’s all you need to be. And then if you need help, the universe—or I—will figure out how to get it to you. Please let that be true.

  I opened my eyes. Holly was looking at me, full of solemn caring.

  “He’ll be okay,” she whispered.

  “I hope so,” I said.

  The bell rang. We hadn’t even started our sandwiches. I managed not to apologize. We shrugged at each other and shoved sandwiches into our mouths as we walked. “Cheese and pickles for the win,” Holly said. “Want a taste?”

  I took a bite of her sandwich. “Yum! I love pickles.”

  “I remember.”

  I took a bite of my cheddar-cheese-without-pickles sandwich. “Hey,” I said on our way down the hall. “You want to sleep over Saturday night?”

  “I thought you don’t . . .”

  I shrugged. “It would be really fun, if you could.”

  “I’d love to,” Holly said, handing me her sandwich for another bite.

  My face was probably all red, but I didn’t even care. We went together to fifth period and I felt, honestly, beautiful.

  28

  DANNY WAS WATCHING his shows when I got home. “I told him he could watch as much as he wants tonight,” Mom said quickly when she saw me looking at him.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “He had his testing.”

  “How did it go?”

  “Beats me,” Mom said. “So far, he’s said, Fine, and Can I watch my shows? So.”

  I nodded. “Sounds about right.”

  I went up to do my homework and did some group-texting with Holly, Nadine, and Beth about if you could go to any time in a time machine but just for three hours, and you’d be fully safe but could do any one action, what would you do?

  In the middle of it, Isabel texted me: How’s everything going?

  Good, I texted back. How ’bout you?

  Amazing! Isabel texted.

  I didn’t know what to make of that, so I hearted it and got back into the debate about imaginary time-travel dilemmas while simultaneously doing my homework.

  Dad called me to come for dinner. My name in his voice sounded loud and sudden, accusatory. I washed my hands and went down to the kitchen, prepared to deal with slabs of meat and the fight that would come. Boy, my parents sure won the parenting lottery.

  Dad had made pasta with butter and sage from our garden. “No meat at all,” he told me proudly. “And for you, Danny? Hamburgers!”

  He put one on Danny’s plate. Well done, no ketchup or other toppings. Just how he likes it.

  I took a bite of the pasta. It was really good. Plus, I appreciated that Dad had clearly wanted to make something special for me, when here it should be a night all about Danny. I wanted to say thank you for that, but then it felt weird to. Making a thing of it. I decided to compliment it, figuring that would get it across. “This is—”

  “We should watch the news later,” Dad said at the same time.

  “Sorry, what?” I said.

  “What?” Dad also said.

  “Delicious,” I said as he said, “The storm.”

  “Right. Hurricane Oliana,” Mom said. “Looks like we could be in the bull’s-eye.”

  “It’s destroying parts of Florida,” Danny said with a mouth full of hamburger.

  “Oh,” I said. “Hey. Did you know there are sometimes earthquakes in Maine?”

  “Really?” Mom asked. “That’s scary. Real earthquakes?”

  “According to my science textbook.”

  “I thought those earthquakes were just me,” Danny said. “Throwing all my stuff around my room.”

  I laughed. He had never joked about having a tantrum before. We honestly never really discussed his tantrums. We’re all always like, Well, that was horrible. Hopefully that’ll never happen again. Never mention. Say nothing, say nothing.

  Mom and Dad were staring at Danny.

  “You guys have no sense of humor,” Danny said. “That was a joke. Because obviously I know it’s not an earthquake when I throw my own things. An earthquake starts far below the earth’s surface. Only Niki and I have a sense of humor in this family. I don’t know where we got it.”

  I took the opportunity to look at Danny, actually look at him, for the first time through my new glasses. Does he look strange? Like someone who should be labeled?

  He just looked like Danny. I mean, sunglasses inside, slightly messy hair standing up in points, rosy cheeks. But, just like he always looked. Hard to say if he looks like me. I tried to picture myself and couldn’t even do that. Maybe, despite my glasses, I still don’t see well.

  “There’s less than a five-percent chance of a hurricane ever making a direct hit on Snug Island,” Danny said.

  “Oh, that’s good news!” Mom said.

  “But the riptides are going to be very intense all weekend,” he said, with burger half-chewed in his mouth.

  “Yeah,” Dad agreed. “Good point, Danny. Lots of activity down at the marina today, everybody starting to secure the boats ahead of it.”

  “The Tobins must be going nuts,” Mom said. “This kind of thing wreaks havoc on their pots. Oh, I should go by and check on that house I have listed on the water, make sure the—”

  “If you get caught in a riptide,” Danny interrupted, “you shouldn’t fight it. Swim across it. Forty percent of drownings are due to fighting a riptide.”

  Why does he so annoy me, so fast, just when I’m fully on his side? It boils my insides when he acts like an expert on stuff he doesn’t know about. I mean, forty percent? How would anyone even know that? How can they be sure the people didn’t get a cramp? I mean, yes, I learned it every spring in school, too, that if you’re caught in an undertow or riptide, don’t try to swim back to shore or fight it, don’t panic or give up. Swim parallel to the beach. WE ALL KNOW. But he presents things like they’re new, brilliant ideas he just thought of himself, and adds fake facts as if he’s an expert.

  Be kind, I told myself. Be the finest kind.

  “Exactly,” I agreed. “Don’t panic, right? But also, don’t give up and get pulled out to sea, even if it feels like, oh, the ocean is choosing me . . .”

  “The ocean isn’t choosing anything,” Danny said.

  “No,” I agreed. “I know. I was just kidding.”

  “I don’t get the joke,” Danny said. “Oceans don’t make choices.”

  “I just, I, never mind,” I said.

  Mom and Dad were watching us, frowning.

  “Maybe I’m the only one in the family with a sense of humor,” Danny said.

  After dinner, I stopped in Danny’s room.

  “That was funny,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “The joke I made, but not your joke. A joke has to be funny or it’s just a sentence.”

  “Good point.”

  “You taught me that.”

  “I did?”

  “Yeah, remember?”

  I shook my head.


  “When those boys were making fun of me in second grade, when we had to play musical chairs and I cried. You said you hated them because they were mean to me.”

  “I did,” I said. “I do.”

  “I know,” Danny said. “But I was standing up for them, because they kept saying, ‘It’s just a joke,’ and ‘Can’t you take a joke?’”

  “I do vaguely remember that,” I said. “They were mean to you and then trying to make it like it was your fault for not liking it. Pissants.”

  “And you said, ‘It’s not a joke, Danny. A joke has to be funny or it’s just a sentence.’”

  “Okay.”

  “I always remember that one,” Danny said. “I have an excellent memory.”

  “How did the testing go today?” I asked.

  “Fine,” he said.

  “Do you . . . Danny? Can I, Danny, can I ask you something?”

  “That was a question, so obviously yes.”

  I walked into his room and sat on his bed. “Why did you get tested today?” I asked him. “Why did they want to do testing, on you? Any idea?”

  He kept playing his game. I couldn’t really see his eyes through his sunglasses.

  “Danny?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  “Okay.”

  I sat there for a while. Just when I was about to stand up and say, Forget it, he said, “I think it was because I went to the coat closet during the social studies test.”

  “You . . . what?”

  “I have a key to the house, now that I’m in fourth grade. Dad got it made for me, and I have to not lose it. I was thinking about my key. I was thinking, Is my key in the pocket of my coat? So, I went to check. And then she yelled at me.”

  “Ms. Broderick?”

  “Yeah. But I needed my key, or to make sure it was there, because I’m supposed to not lose it, and she was saying Danny Danny Danny at me and a lot of other yelling, so I sat down to wait.”

  “Wait for what?”

  “For her to finish saying Danny Danny Danny. That’s what I always wish when people say Danny . . .”