“Yeah.” Randall grabbed the nearly empty bottle and swigged the last of the soda. He let out a gross burp. “Let’s…get this…party started.”
Miles thought Randall’s wheezing sounded worse, but he didn’t want to say anything in front of the girls. He had a feeling Randall would just get mad at him if he did, so he got up out of the chair and offered Amy his hand; but she got up by herself.
They joined Tate and Randall on the living room rug, creating a circle.
“I guess I’ll go first,” Tate said. “Since it’s my house and all.”
“Okay.” Amy bit her thumbnail.
“Fine with me,” Miles said. He pretended he wasn’t nervous. But he hoped the bottle didn’t land on him, because he didn’t want to have to kiss Tate. She was cute, but only a friend. He might like kissing Amy, but it would be awkward in front of everybody. What if he messed up? His stomach was all in burbles and refused to calm down.
Randall, up on his knees and leaning forward, said nothing, but a rattling wheeze escaped his lips at regular intervals.
Miles wished Randall would take a couple puffs from his inhaler to quiet the wheezing.
Tate managed to spin the empty bottle so that it pointed at Randall.
Tate and Randall leaned toward each other, closed their eyes and kissed.
“Your turn,” Randall said, passing the bottle to Miles. “Now, don’t make it…land on…me.” There was a deep, whistling wheeze coming from Randall. “Or Tate!”
Miles’s stomach roiled and made a gurgling noise he hoped no one else heard. He gave the bottle a weak spin. It landed to the side of Amy.
“Close enough,” Tate said, readjusting the bottle so it pointed directly at Amy.
“Tate!” Amy said.
“What? I was just fixing it. It would have landed on you completely, but the carpet fibers got in the way.”
“Carpet fibers?” Amy asked.
“Maybe you should mow your rug,” Miles said to Tate.
Randall laughed, then started coughing. And coughing.
“You okay?” Miles asked.
Randall waved his words away. “Come on,” he said between coughs. “You’re…not…getting out of this.”
Miles and Amy got up on their knees, like Tate and Randall had done.
The roiling in Miles’s stomach intensified. It crept up out of his stomach and inched its way toward his throat. Better get this over with quick, Miles thought, before my stomach makes another embarrassing noise. And he leaned forward.
Amy leaned forward, too, parted her lips and closed her eyes.
But they moved together too quickly and their foreheads bumped.
Miles leaned back and smiled at Amy. He thought of when his bowling shoe hit her and made a mark at that very spot on her forehead. Then he leaned in and kissed her—his lips pressed gently against her soft lips.
When Miles pulled back, Amy touched her fingers to her lips.
Miles wondered if it was Amy’s first kiss, like it was his. Then he turned his head just in time for a Vesuvius-sized burp to erupt from his mouth.
“Ew!” Tate yelled. “That was gross!”
“Sorry,” Miles said, grateful he hadn’t burped in Amy’s face. “It’s Randall’s fault for making me drink all that soda.”
Randall would have responded, but he was too busy falling over laughing at Miles.
“Jerk,” Miles muttered.
But then he saw Randall bolt up straight, his eyes bugging out.
“Randall?” Tate asked.
Randall didn’t answer. He reached into his pocket.
“My God,” Miles said, realizing what was happening. “You okay, Rand?”
Randall nodded. He had his hand on his inhaler. He gave it a weak shake, pulled off the cap, depressed the device and breathed in. Another shake. Another inhale. Shake. Shake. Press. Press. Shake. Press.
“Rand?” Miles said, his heart hammering.
Randall looked at Miles with complete panic in his eyes and mouthed: Empty.
Miles couldn’t believe how pale Randall’s lips were.
Then Randall made a small, strangled sound and crumpled onto the rug. He breathed in fast, tiny gasps, like he was trying to get air through a clogged miniature drinking straw.
Miles couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. The worst thing that could happen was happening in front of him. And he couldn’t do anything but watch.
“Mom! Dad!” Tate screamed, and ran from the room.
Amy had her phone out and had already dialed 911. She spoke fast: “…medical emergency at Buckington Bed and Breakfast. My friend…he’s…not breathing!”
Miles still couldn’t move. Could barely breathe himself.
Randall lay motionless on the floor. He wasn’t even making tiny gasping sounds now.
Tate’s parents rushed in and crouched beside Randall while Amy kept talking to the 911 dispatcher.
Tate shook and pressed Randall’s inhaler, trying to get it to work. “It’s my fault. I should have vacuumed better. I should have—”
“Not your fault,” her dad said. “Run next door and get his parents. Hurry, Tate!”
Tate hurried.
Amy chewed her thumbnail.
Miles backed up a few steps, shaking his head.
In no time, Randall’s mom burst in. She waved something orange. “I’ve got an extra inhaler. Make way.” She knelt on the floor beside her son, trying to get the medicine into him. “Breathe, Randall!” she screamed. “Breathe!”
Miles bit his bottom lip so hard, he tasted blood. Please don’t die, Randall. Please don’t. Please…
A siren wailed. Paramedics rushed into the living room.
They worked on Randall, got him onto a stretcher and then whisked him off in the ambulance, its siren screaming through the dark night.
Once Randall and his mom were gone, it was too quiet in the living room.
Deathly quiet.
Except for a single, long meow from Marmalade, who was still shut inside Tate’s bedroom.
Miles, Tate and Amy sat in the living room, where, only an hour and a half earlier, the worst thing that had happened was Miles’s massive burp, which Randall had thought was hilarious.
Now the three of them wiped leaky eyes and noses and wondered, worried about their friend. And absolutely nothing was hilarious.
“It’s my fault,” Tate said for what seemed like the millionth time.
“It’s not,” Miles insisted.
“I knew he was allergic to Marmalade. I shouldn’t have had the party at my house.”
“But you put Marmalade away,” Amy said. “And vacuumed.”
“Still,” Tate said, her shoulders slumping. “It wasn’t enough.” She pounded her forehead with her fist.
“Stop.” Miles gently touched her wrist. “It was my burp that made him laugh and that caused him to…to…” Miles shook his head. “Sometimes things just happen.”
Amy nodded and patted Tate’s back. “It’s not anyone’s fault.”
Tate’s dad carried in a tray with hot chocolate for everyone. “I’m sure Randall will be okay.”
But Amy knew that wasn’t always the case.
“If he’s still in the hospital tomorrow,” Tate’s dad said, “maybe you guys can visit him and cheer him up.”
“Tomorrow?” Tate whispered.
“Yes, tomorrow,” her dad said. “I can drive you all over, if you’d like.”
Tate’s eyes got wide. “Tomorrow’s the dance.”
“The dance,” Amy muttered.
“The dance,” Miles echoed.
The next evening, while many of the students and faculty from Buckington Middle School were dressed in their fanciest attire and were dancing under shimmering rainbow lights at the
Eagleton Country Club on Route 309 in Doylesburg—the town over from Buckington—three friends were jammed together near their buddy’s hospital bed in a room that smelled like overcooked chicken, industrial-strength cleaning fluid and hand sanitizer.
There were plastic tubes in Randall’s nostrils, and the tubes were attached to a longer tube that delivered oxygen.
Randall lifted his fingers off the white sheet that covered his body and wiggled them toward his friends.
“You really scared us, Randall.” Tate crossed her arms over her chest.
Miles stared and didn’t say anything. It felt like he was looking at a ghost. He’d been so sure Randall was going to die last night that his mind was having trouble processing the fact that his friend was lying there, alive.
Maybe, Miles thought, he didn’t need to worry about death and dying every minute of every day. Maybe his worrying didn’t actually keep terrible things from happening. Maybe it just made him miserable.
Randall’s mom rushed in and gave each of the friends a hug. “You kids did such a good job calling for help and running to get me.” She wiped tears from her cheeks. “Randall’s father and I are so grateful.”
Amy and Tate nodded.
Miles felt like a traitor because he knew he’d done absolutely nothing to help his friend at his worst moment. If Amy and Tate hadn’t been there, Randall probably wouldn’t be here now. Standing beside his friend’s hospital bed, Miles promised himself he’d never freeze up like that again. He’d never stand by when someone needed his help. No matter how scared he was.
“You saved his life, you know,” Randall’s mom told them.
Tate waved away the remark.
“No, you did. Asthma is serious stuff, and attacks can come on quickly.”
Randall mumbled something.
“Huh?” his mom asked. “What’s that, baby guy?”
“The dance,” Randall said. He was looking at Tate. “I’m sorry about ruining the dance for you.”
Tate took Randall’s fingers with one hand and wiped tears away with the other. “I’m just glad you’re still here, you idiot. I don’t care about the stupid dance.”
Everyone laughed. Then Miles looked at Amy. He wondered if she cared about the stupid dance. He had a feeling she did.
“I’m going to the cafeteria to get everyone some ice cream,” Randall’s mom said. “That’s what we all need now. Some Neapolitan ice cream cups.” She grabbed her purse and left.
Randall smiled at Tate. “I’ll make it up to you.” He squeezed her fingers.
Tate sniffed. “Really, Rand. It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters,” Randall said.
Miles knew the dance mattered to each of his friends for different reasons. Even if it didn’t matter to him, it mattered to them. And they mattered to him.
That’s when an idea popped into Miles’s mind.
“What are you so happy about?” Randall asked.
Miles hadn’t realized he was grinning.
Back home, Miles could think of nothing but his new idea.
He spent the rest of the night on his computer, figuring things out, ordering items. He made lists and checked them twice, then checked them again. Then once more. He texted Mercedes to ask her some stuff.
That night, for the first time in a really long time, Miles Spagoski didn’t lie in bed worrying about death. He fell right to sleep.
The next evening, at the lanes, Miles had something important to ask his parents.
And Stick.
Afterward, he went over and sat on his grandfather’s stool for the first time ever.
Things at Buckington Bowl looked different from that angle.
Miles tried to imagine what his grandfather must have thought about, all those years ago, when Bubbie Louise walked into the bowling center with her girlfriends and sat on the stool across the counter from him. Miles wondered if the feeling was similar to how he felt the first time Amy showed up at the lanes…and he spilled his soda on her.
Miles glanced at the empty spot in the center of the “Greatest Stories Ever Bowled” bulletin board. He inhaled sharply, thinking of where that photo was now—resting on his pop’s cold chest in a casket buried in the ground.
Miles patted the edge of the stool beneath him. “Thank you, Pop,” he whispered. “I think you’d be real proud of how I decided to spend the money.”
Then he slipped off the stool and got back to work on his idea.
What happened to Randall wore Amy out emotionally.
It reminded her too much of some of the things that happened to her mom after she got sick and the cancer spread. The ambulance. The hospital stays. The tubes in Randall’s nose looked like the ones her mom had needed near the end. It was all too much, so Amy spent a lot of time at Eternal Peace Funeral Home in her room, wrapped in her fuzzy blanket, clutching her trusty notebook and purple pen.
And she wrote.
Fiona had been stashing all of Prince Harry’s hair under a big loose stone in her prison cell. Every night after Prince Harry left (decidedly less hairy), Fiona got to work winding, braiding and tying the strands of his hair.
By the last threading treatment, Fiona had managed to secretly create a good, strong rope.
Astonished with how he looked, Prince Harry examined the backs of his hands, his arms, his legs—all hairless. He felt cold and bare, but also free and light. “What shall we do now, Fiona?” the prince asked.
Fiona knew exactly what she planned to do the moment the prince left her room that night. She knew what she had to do—even though the thought of it terrified her. “What do you mean, Prince Harry? You will live a charmed life now, here at the castle, of course.”
He looked at her strangely. “But I don’t want to stay here, Fiona.”
“It’s…it’s…your home.”
Harry took a deep breath. “It’s where I live, Fiona.” Then his voice dropped low. “But it’s not my home. Hasn’t been since my mom died. The king? He barely notices me.”
“Even now that you don’t have…the hair?”
“Even now.” Prince Harry lowered his head. “Turns out it wasn’t my hair that he didn’t care for.” Prince Harry looked out the small window into the night sky and sighed. “I’d much rather take my chances out there than in this dreadful castle, where I know I’m not loved. I’m glad that shoe brought you here, Fiona. Brought us together.”
Fiona’s heart twisted, for she knew that even though she and her father had so little, he loved her deeply. When her mother passed, the bond between Fiona and her father became thicker than the best molasses.
Fiona reached out and touched the prince’s hairless hand. “Then all of this was for nothing?”
“Not nothing,” the prince said. “I learned something from it. Not a cheerful something, but something important nonetheless. And that matters, Fiona.”
That sad truth hung in the air between them.
“Well,” Fiona finally said. “For what it’s worth, Prince Harry, I care about you, with or without your hair.”
“I know that to be true,” Harry said, but still he looked terribly sad.
Fiona had a feeling that the truth about the prince’s father was more painful to him than the hours and days of the difficult threading procedure. She opened her mouth to tell him about the hair rope she’d fashioned, but then she clamped her lips shut before she ruined her one chance to escape and find her way back home to her father.
“I’d better go to bed, I suppose,” the prince said. “I’ll ask the cook to make you and Lucky something wonderful for the morning meal.”
This made Fiona feel extra guilty. She knew she wouldn’t see Prince Harry in the morning. In fact, she’d never see him again. Still, Fiona gave the briefest of nods.
With that, Prince Ha
rry left her prison chamber.
Fiona forced herself to wait twenty slow breaths before pulling the stone away and taking out the hair rope. She gave it a few tugs to test its mettle. Fiona was amazed at the strength of something as weak as a strand of hair, when it was braided together with others.
Lucky barked his excitement.
“Shhh, boy.” Fiona ruffled his scruffy fur and realized that without being able to wash at the river for so many days, she must be pretty scruffy and dirty herself. “We’ll be home soon, Lucky, and you can bark all you want.” The thought made her giddy.
Fiona tied one end of the hair rope to the iron handle on the door and she threw the other end out the window. It was such a long, long way down, but the rope made it nearly to the bottom. Fiona and Lucky would have to jump a ways to the ground. She took a deep breath for bravery. “We can do this!”
Lucky shimmied.
Fiona scooped him into her arms. “Goodbye, dark, dank castle. Goodbye, dear Prince Harry. I wish you well.”
With that, Fiona held tight to the hair rope with her right hand and held Lucky to her chest with her left. Then she hoisted herself up and over the window ledge.
The next part, Fiona knew, would not be easy. But worthwhile things rarely were.
A swift wind blew them slightly and took Fiona’s breath away.
“Steady, steady,” she told her little dog, but really she was trying to calm herself.
Suddenly, the rope jerked. Fiona held tight to Lucky, the rope and her courage. Unexpectedly, they dropped a couple feet, dangling way above the ground. When things steadied, Fiona gathered herself and looked up, expecting to see a castle guard with a sharp spear, ready to cut the hair rope with one strong swipe, surely sending her and Lucky plunging to their doom. Instead, she saw Prince Harry peering over the window ledge.
“What are you doing, Fiona?” he whispered loudly. “I came back to your room to tell you how much I appreciate what you’ve done for me. Then I saw…I saw…”
“I’m…um…we’re…uh…” She and Lucky dangled in the wind against the castle wall.
In Your Shoes Page 16
