by Carla Thorne
“Listen to me, Ivy. What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“No, really. Tell me what it is.”
Mary’s serious expression and the hopeful tilt of her head as she spoke made me think she might actually understand. How awesome it would be to share my terror and confusion—and how scary.
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” I blurted. “I thought I heard something and felt something, but it’s not real. I’m tired and have a headache and—”
“What did you hear? What did you feel?”
“It was a… Then a… Nothing. It was nothing.”
Mary slapped her hand on the table. “It’s something and I knew it. What is going on around here? She pushed her things aside and leaned far across the table. “Ivy, you can trust us. We’re friends. What’s going on?”
Scout exhaled long and heavy beside me. The cloud of Dorito and portable cheese breath hit my nose way too fast and hard. I waved a hand in front of my face. “Scout, please.”
He clamped a hand over his mouth and turned a peculiar shade of purply-red. “Sorry.” He flattened the chip bag. “But maybe you should um, you know…”
I glared at him until he squirmed and wiggled under the strain he must have felt to keep my secret to himself. I was surprised other stuff didn’t leak out of him from the pressure.
The bell dinged three times to signal the end of first lunch. Grateful for the end, I stood and hoisted my bag onto my back. “I have to go.”
Students swarmed toward the large double doors as our foursome splintered and prepared to head out.
Across the café, I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Silva as she rolled a large cart of trays and pans from the side door of the kitchen to one of the serving lines. I wouldn’t have noticed except that cart-watching had become my new hobby since the horrible dream I had.
But Scout was right. Those large institutional lunchroom carts were, as he said, sturdy and had a wide base that made tipping unlikely.
I was all right sticking to that story—except for the subtle jerk and bobble as Mrs. Silva stopped and prepared to unload steaming metal pans.
Somehow it clicked, and kept on clicking as the familiar scene was about to play out in real life. I knew. I didn’t know how, but I knew the dream was real. I had to act, and if I didn’t, well, someone might get hurt.
And I couldn’t let that happen.
Move child…
“Wait!”
My friends paused at the end of the table and strained to hear me over the noise of the crowd.
“What’s up?” Deacon asked.
“That’s it,” I said. “Mrs. Silva and the cart.”
Scout shook his hair out of his eyes. “You mean the cart?”
“Yes, Scout, what other cart is there? Move it. I’ve gotta get over there.”
He dropped all his things and took off. So did Mary and Deacon, though they couldn’t have known why.
I made a beeline for Mrs. Silva. All I had to do was say I saw a wobble and was concerned. No one would think I was mental if I simply said what I saw and moved on. Everyone would back away from the danger and I would go on to class. Problem solved.
I pressed through the crowd. “Mrs. Silva,” I called out, right before I smacked into Mr. Parrington. “Sorry,” I mumbled and tried to move on.
“Whoa, Ivy. Kitchen’s closed till next lunch. Door’s that way. Go to class.”
“It’s the cart. It has a wobbly wheel.”
“It has a what now?”
Somehow the others had pushed through. Crowd noise dropped dramatically as the last of the students shuffled out.
In the most defiant thing I’d ever done, I slipped past the principal. “Mrs. Silva!” My voice echoed in the new quiet. “Check the wheels.”
The older woman glanced my way. She smiled as a piece of silver-streaked hair fell across her plump cheek. It was clear she didn’t know what to make of my burst of nonsense as I ran toward her.
Scout stepped in. “Ola, Senhora Silva.”
“Ola, Scout.”
“Uh… Ivy thought she saw the cart wobble. Looked like the wheel was coming off. Right, Ivy?”
I couldn’t find the words as Mary and Deacon wandered around the cart like two detectives who’d arrived at a crime scene. When had my life become an episode of a cop drama?
Scout stepped closer. “Right, Ivy?”
“Oh. Sorry. Yes, I saw it jerk. I was worried it might tip over.”
“Awww, that’s sweet of you to be concerned.” Mrs. Silva tucked the piece of hair back under her fancy hairnet. Everyone else’s was either plain or one of those paper shower caps like at the hospital. Not Mrs. Silva. Her headgear was black lace and had a bow sitting on the side, just over one dark, sculpted brow. “Thank you. I’ll get it unloaded and have Mr. Silva check it out.”
“Are we done here?” Mr. Parrington’s voice boomed behind us. “Y’all need to get to class.”
I jumped ‘cause I was chicken that way and planned my escape. I’d gladly run to class and take the tardy if it meant getting away from the principal. I’d done what I could. Everyone was aware.
“No, wait,” Deacon said. “She’s right. This wheel isn’t even attached.”
“What do you mean it’s not attached?” Mr. Parrington rushed forward and grabbed the side with one hand. He snatched the radio from the clip on his belt. “Can I get somebody from maintenance to the café, please?”
“It’s not attached,” Deacon repeated. “It’s in place, but there’s no bolt or anything. It could fall out any time.”
Scout and Mary steadied the other side.
“That’s the wobble Ivy saw,” Scout said. “It must have nearly slipped out when it rolled over something on the floor.”
Mrs. Silva reached for a tray. “I’ll clear it off.”
I rushed to help.
“No!” Mr. Parrington’s bark caused me to shrink away. I didn’t like loud noises, and the sharp command hit my ears so hard I covered them.
“Sorry, Ivy, didn’t mean to yell at you.” His tone softened. “Safety rules. Students need to leave this to staff. In fact, you four need to step back. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
Scout pointed toward the door. “We’ll head on to cl—”
“I’ll be with you in a minute.”
“Yes, sir.”
Other workers came to help. They emptied the cart amid the clank of hot, silver pans, and I wished I could disappear.
From the corner of my eye, I spotted Paige where she still stood to monitor our activity. When I met her gaze, she smiled and ducked out the door.
Mr. Parrington approached as Deacon fumbled to get his phone in his pocket.
“You four again? Really?”
To my left, Mary shifted her backpack into position but didn’t say a word.
He focused his attention on me. “Good call. There’s a stabilizer bar under there so I don’t think it would have tipped completely over, but I’m sure you prevented a big mess of some kind.”
I nodded. Whatever. He could say it wouldn’t tip over. I could say it very much would have tipped over and hurt someone. Who would believe me? Was it important that anybody did? They discovered the loose wheel, didn’t they? End of problem.
Mr. Parrington tapped the radio at his belt and we stood in awkward silence.
Some sort of growling noise came from Scout. I bit the inside of my mouth so I wouldn’t laugh. Deacon let out a long sigh that bordered on disrespectful. Mr. Parrington shot him a look, but if the principal was waiting for us to say something, it wasn’t going to happen.
“Second lunch is about to start. You should get to class.”
The squeak and scrape of our shoes against the floor proved how fast we wanted to get away.
“One more thing,” he added.
Dang!
We turned.
“Yes, sir?”
“I need all four of you in my office first thing in the morning. We have something to discuss.”
Mary
I drank the last of my juice and tossed the bottle in the recycle bin at the end of the hall. Up ahead, Mr. Parrington motioned wildly with a rolled-up piece of poster board to direct stragglers to class. He spotted me and smiled as if he’d not given our meeting another thought. Must be nice for him. It’s all I could think about until well after midnight while I tried to study. And judging by the video chats and furious text-fests I had with Deacon and Ivy, no one had any real idea why we were summoned.
“Mornin’, Mary. The others are in my office. I’ll be in after announcements.”
I ducked into the restroom to rearrange the pile of stuff I carried, and to empty the trash from the bottom of my backpack. When I stepped out, Gavin Bagliano stood near the entrance of the men’s room next door.
“Um… What are you doing, Gavin?”
“I saw you go in there and uh…” He glanced at the wall and attempted to lean against it and look casual, like what he said wasn’t weird at all.
“And?”
He straightened. “Sorry. Not tryin’ to creep you out. I wanted to talk to you.”
My heart did a skip-like thing. Gavin wanted to talk? Sure, there were a zillion better places he could have approached me or even sent a text, but OK.
I focused on a curl of dark hair that brushed his collar as the long pause drifted on. The crackle of the school’s ancient P.A. system signaled the beginning of announcements. Good morrrrning, Saints…
“Gavin, you’re going to be late. Do you want to talk at lunch?”
“No. Uh, homecoming. With me.”
I knew what he meant, and every little nerve in my body popped and zinged. We’d been friends for years, but he’d taken a hard left toward hotness over the summer. I would say yes, but he hadn’t really asked a question. And I wanted the question because it was my first. Never before and never again would a guy like Gavin Bagliano ask me to that particular homecoming dance.
I was going to hold out for that question, but Gavin seemed stuck.
“Are you trying to ask me something or are you trying to tell me something?”
He mumbled on a nervous pulse of laughter and swiped his hand through his hair. He managed to open his mouth again at the same time the morning moment of silence began.
“Will you go to the homecoming dance with me?” he asked way too loud in the vacant and silent hallway.
His face flashed red, then went white, and a definite hint of blue passed his lips as if he were suffocating. It was a patriotic question, if not a near death experience for us both.
“Sure, Gavin. It’ll be fun.”
“Great. Thanks. Talk to you later.”
Then he ran off.
I headed for the office with a sweet and exciting secret bouncing in my stomach like a multi-colored beach ball. Had that really happened?
Deacon and Scout sat along the wall while Ivy sat across from them and gnawed on the same poor nail she’d mauled when summoned to the office before.
I took the seat closest to the principal’s desk. “Where were you last night, Scout? You didn’t answer us.”
“My grandma’s been watching daytime TV talk shows again. New rule. I have to leave my phone at the bottom of the stairs on the charger before I go up at night. It’s supposed to help limit screen time and shut down my brain.”
Deacon yawned. “Don’t you have a laptop and tablet in your room?”
“Yep.”
“So, what’s the point?”
“Exactly, but the tablet is also a casualty of the bottom-of-the-stairs rule, and once my brain powered down, I fell asleep.”
“Sounds like there might be truth to the madness,” I offered.
“But how can she be sure your brain will reboot when you try to turn it back on in the morning?” Deacon asked.
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
Ivy picked at a string on her skirt with such force, I thought the whole thing would unravel. At least she no longer abused her bloody cuticles.
“Ivy,” I said. “We talked about this last night. We haven’t done anything.”
Ivy looked back at me like she always did in the short time we’d known each other—wide-eyed and scared.
“Good morning, everyone.” Mr. Parrington all but skipped into his office on his short, pudgy legs and smiled like no one should ever smile so early in the morning. “What’s new?”
Surely he didn’t expect us to answer that.
He dropped his radio on his desk and settled in to shuffle some folders and stare at us with that off-the-goof-meter grin.
“Well, anyway,” he started. “You four seemed to have made quite a name for yourselves recently.”
He paused. We said nothing.
“Scaring snakes away, discovering faulty wheels… It’s like you’re our own little band of super heroes. Hey.” He picked up a stack of papers. “You’re the Super Saints. Here to save the day.”
Scout blushed all kinds of red. “Coincidence, sir. Right place at the right time.”
“Maybe, but Mr. Berry thinks it was more like divine intervention.” He flicked a paper clip off the bundle of pages and passed them to Mary. “He thinks your actions on the parking lot were above and beyond. He stopped short of calling you guardian angels.”
I glanced at the form in my hand as I took one and passed them on. Congratulations! Your student has been invited… I give my permission for… “What is this?”
“Congratulations are in order. Everyone from the school board, to Mr. Berry, to county officials are talking about how you handled the emergency. There’s going to be a commendation ceremony and—”
“A what?” Deacon pushed to the front of his chair to grab the stack.
“A commendation ceremony. It’s where people gather to honor you for, in this case, acts of heroism and quick-thinking. Mr. Berry will be there and you’ll get a plaque or certificate or something. The PTO jumped on this. Practically had a committee meeting right there at the game Friday night so they could do this at the homecoming game. They hope to get the paramedics from the scene. The community newspaper will take pictures and the committee will invite the Houston news stations. There will be more info, but share with your parents and return these as soon as possible.”
Scout wrinkled his nose. “What about the driver? Is she in jail?”
“No. The investigation is ongoing.”
“She was so upset,” I added. “She’d never been here before and was concentrating on which way to get out when her foot slipped or something.” I stopped as I remembered the woman’s eyes filled with terror and the feel of her cold, clammy hand as I leaned against her to keep her from dropping to the ground.
I understood that kind of fear.
“Is Mr. Berry still in the hospital?” Ivy asked.
“Nope. Came home Sunday. They only kept him that long because they had to be sure about the bump on his head and possible internal injuries. He’s sore, but resting comfortably. He’s totally on board with this whole thing. He can’t say enough about how cool-headed and helpful you all were.”
“He was in shock,” Scout said. “Don’t people in accidents forget things? Or aren’t they at least a little fuzzy on the details?”
“On the contrary. He remembers Ivy on the phone with 911, you all moving the car and talking to him, and Scout seeming as knowledgeable as the first responders. He especially remembers what Deacon did.”
Deacon jerked in his chair. “I didn’t do anything, I swear.”
Mr. Parrington let out a laugh. “Relax, no one said you did a bad thing.”
But he clearly thought Deacon had done something because he got that odd serious-curious face my parents got when they knew I’d done something, but didn’t know what it was and hoped I’d tell them.
He grabbed a rubber band from his desk and played with it as he settled back in his chair. “Let me start over. I thought this recognition would be good news, but by the looks of horror on y
our faces, you’d think I’d threatened to take your phones.”
He stretched the stupid rubber band again as I tried to remember exactly what happened the day of the accident. We’d done what I hoped anyone would do. We were closer to the scene than anyone else at the time so we acted and reacted.
“I’ll be honest with you,” he continued. “Mr. Berry and I are friends as well as colleagues. I spent some time with him Saturday morning at the hospital and he had some very interesting and, for lack of a better word, stirring things to say. He said he bent down to pick up something, and the car was there out of nowhere. It hit him, he went down, and the next thing he saw was you four running toward him. He knows there were people everywhere, but he zoned in on you guys. He said he felt something the second you each arrived to help.”
Scout fidgeted in his seat. “Whatdaya… Whatdaya mean he felt something? He saw us. He talked to us.”
“Yes, and he felt something. He said it was like you each brought something to him when you came to help. He felt a sense of calm, a sense of strength, a sense of compassion, and a sense of healing.”
“Painkillers,” Deacon blurted and smacked the arm of the chair. “It was the painkillers in the hospital. Opioids. It’s all over the news. Bad stuff. He wasn’t remembering correctly.”
“Well now, Deacon, I have to tell you, he was especially coherent about what you did. He said you were responsible for popping his shoulder back into place.”
Deacon froze and then sputtered for a sec before he rushed to defend himself. “They did that at the hospital because there’s no way that happened on the parking lot. I barely touched him, and I don’t know anything about first aid. Hate the whole idea of it. I hide my eyes when I get a flu shot. The nurse has to sneak up on me.”
“He didn’t try to fix him, sir,” Scout added. “No one did. He was trying to make him comfortable.”
“But according to Mr. Berry, he knew the minute Deacon slid his hands under him for support. He said he felt a sensation of warmth and then he felt his shoulder slip back into place.”
I caught Ivy’s gaze across the room as her eyes widened. We both turned to look at Deacon. I remembered the flaming hand that grabbed my leg when he helped me up on the fence in the garden, but what did Ivy know?
