by Mike Lupica
“Because I never want to get on your bad side ever again!” Gus said.
They all laughed. When they stopped, Cassie looked at Jack and said, “I take it back. He’s not an idiot after all.”
“I’ll try not to be one today,” Gus said.
“Good,” Cassie said. “Because if you are an idiot, I hope you’re a good swimmer.”
When Teddy got there and they were walking toward the pond, Gus whispered to Jack, “She still scares me.”
“Join the club,” Jack said.
“I heard that,” Cassie said.
A few minutes later they were sitting on the Connorses’ dock, taking in the sun, nowhere else any of them needed to be for the rest of the afternoon.
Jack had been so busy with baseball he’d forgotten how much fun it was to do nothing, even though he had suggested earlier that they go over to Highland Park or even school later to play ball.
But Gus Morales, who always wanted to play baseball, even in the middle of winter, torched the idea.
“I’m just exercising my mind today,” he said, “and giving my body the day off.”
Cassie grinned. “That’s going to be a pretty short workout. Just throwing that out there.”
“I’m deeper than you think,” Gus said.
“He’s got a lot of layers,” Jack said.
“Yeah,” Teddy said. “Somewhat like an onion.”
Teddy got to his feet, picked a rock out of the pile they’d collected, and made a pretty impressive throw into the trees on their right. Then he sat right back down.
“There, Jack,” he said. “Now I got my throwing in for the day, so we don’t have to work out later.”
Cassie got up now and challenged Jack to a rock-skipping contest, most skips won. She blew him away on her first throw, so many skips that Jack lost count. Jack’s throw wasn’t even close.
“Best two out of three?” he said to her.
Before she could answer, Teddy said, “Do you guys ever stop competing?”
Jack looked at Cassie. They both looked at Gus. All of them said, “Nah.”
“It’s the jock thing,” Teddy said. “I’m never gonna get the jock thing.”
“Yeah, you will,” Jack said. “You’re becoming one yourself, you just don’t know it yet.”
“No, I am getting into shape. And that’s pretty much because you haven’t given me a choice.”
They had worked out the day before after school, at Jack’s house. There was some basic baseball stuff at first, Jack pitching and Teddy in a catcher’s crouch. The more they did this, the more Jack started to get the idea that Teddy really could be a catcher next season if he wanted to. After that they switched to football, Teddy having confided in Jack that if he ever did get interested in trying to make a team, it would be football next fall.
But he made it clear that Jack was not allowed to tell another living soul.
Jack had set up some lawn chairs around the yard and made Teddy run some agility drills around them, even when Jack would throw him the ball and tell him to pretend he was a broken-field runner and the chairs were guys trying to tackle him.
After they’d finished that, Jack even convinced Teddy to go on a one-mile run around his neighborhood.
“I have to run even though I’m not being chased?” Teddy had said. “Well, that makes zero sense.”
“You’ll feel better when we’re finished,” Jack had said. “You always feel better at the end of the workout.”
“No, I just feel more tired.”
It was important to Jack that he keep working out with Teddy, because it was a way for him to continue to show Teddy that they were friends.
Teddy hadn’t come right out and asked Jack if they really were friends. But he had made a few comments, trying to keep them funny, about how Jack didn’t need him anymore now that he was playing ball again, and Jack could feel free to call off the workouts anytime he wanted to. And it was why Jack had included him in today’s plan, even though there was no real plan beyond just hanging out.
On the dock now, Cassie jumped up and said, “Let’s go for a walk. I’m bored.”
Jack couldn’t tell whether it was Teddy or Gus groaning the loudest. Maybe it was just the same loud, sad sound coming out of both of them at the same time.
“There’s no school today,” Teddy said. “Nobody rang a bell. We don’t have to get to our next period.”
“Or activity,” Gus said.
Jack, though, knew better than to go against Cassie.
“Where to?” he said.
“We’ll just go exploring!” Cassie said.
“Jocks,” Teddy said, and let Jack pull him up, resigned to his fate.
It really did feel like a summer day, all of them in shorts. Cassie led the way, of course. They were taking a different path through the woods than she and Jack had ever taken before, winding their way in and out of sunlight. Cassie said this was a path that runners used, or people walking their dogs. Sometimes they’d go long periods without talking, the only noises the slap of their sneakers on the path, or one of them occasionally snapping a twig.
“You know your way around back here even better than I knew,” Jack said to Cassie at one point.
“I’m like a human GPS system.”
“The GPS woman in my mom’s car is nicer.”
“Nicer than me?” Cassie said.
“You plan on telling us where we’re going?” Gus said.
Jack had a feeling they were going to end up where they always did, at the falls, but he knew better than to ruin Cassie’s surprise.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” she said.
And they did. They had taken a different route today for sure, but as they got closer to Small Falls, Jack felt them walking more and more uphill, almost like they were making their way up a steep flight of stairs. Finally he heard the sound of the water, and they were coming out into the clearing, over here on their side of the Walton River. The old bridge that took you over to the east side was swaying slightly in the afternoon breeze.
“C’mon,” Cassie said, “there’s this cool rock formation on the other side that I haven’t even shown Jack yet. I’ve been saving it.”
“If I’d known this was where you were taking us, I would’ve run here,” Gus said. “I love this place! Angela and I used to come up here all the time with my dad.”
“I wouldn’t say I love it, exactly,” Jack said. “The first time I ever crossed the bridge, I felt like one of those tightrope walkers.”
“Oh, don’t be a wuss,” Cassie said. “My dad says that bridge has been around for fifty years. You just can’t fool around going across, because it does feel a little shaky sometimes when there’s a lot of people crossing at the same time.”
She started across the bridge, Gus with her, Jack a few feet behind. Cassie and Gus were talking away, laughing, whatever awkwardness they’d felt at Jack’s house gone now. They were walking quickly across the bridge as casually as walking across the street before the light changed.
Jack heard Cassie say to Gus, “Want to race?”
“Bring it,” Gus said.
“Wait!” Jack said.
He was only a few yards onto the bridge, hanging back from them, holding on to the railing.
“C’mon, don’t run,” he said.
“Why not?” Cassie said. “It’ll be awesome!”
“Not for me,” Jack said.
“I just told you this old thing is safe,” Cassie said. “I’ll even prove it to you.”
She started jumping up and down like it was a trampoline, making the bridge shake.
“Cass,” he said, “cut it out.”
“For the last time,” she said, “stop being a wuss.” But she was smiling at him.
“Not being one.”
“Fine, you go ahead and walk. Gus and I will run,” she said. She pointed behind Jack and said, “But you better tell Teddy to pick up the pace a little.”
That was when Jack t
urned and saw that Teddy wasn’t on the bridge.
TWENTY-FOUR
All Jack could think of when he saw Teddy there, frozen in place, was the kid that the other guys used to pick on in gym class until Jack had finally made them stop.
He looked like he’d gone back to being Teddy Bear.
“I’ll wait for you,” Jack said. “We’ll let them have their fun.”
Teddy shook his head.
“I’m good,” he said.
He didn’t look good.
Behind him Jack heard Gus say, “C’mon, Teddy, we were just messing around. It’s totally cool out here.”
Then Gus was the one jumping up and down the way Cassie just had.
“Please stop,” Teddy said in a voice barely loud enough to be heard over the sound of the water below them.
He looked more frightened than ever. And he still hadn’t moved.
“Gus, please cut it out,” Jack said. “Both of you cut it out.”
Cassie smiled at Teddy. “You’ve really never been out here before?” she said to him.
He shook his head.
“Well, then you gotta come and see the view,” she said. “It’s killer.”
“If I’d known this was where we were headed, I never would have come at all,” Teddy said.
“Listen, we’ll all walk across together,” Gus said. He couldn’t keep the grin off his face or hide how much fun he was having being up there. “I promise not to bolt, even though you know I want to.”
In that moment Jack realized he knew that look on Gus’s face. This was the same excited look Brad would have on his face when he was describing to Jack some daredevil thing he’d done. Or when he was on the diving board, getting ready to show Jack one of his crazy flips.
Jack turned to Gus and Cassie and said, “This is a bad idea.”
“Let me go talk to him,” Cassie said.
“No,” Jack said. “If he doesn’t want to come out here, he shouldn’t. If you guys want to keep going, we’ll meet you back on the dock.”
“You sure?” Cassie said.
Jack said, “If I can get him to change his mind, we’ll meet you on the other side in a little while.”
But when he started walking back, Teddy was the one who bolted.
“Let him go,” Cassie said.
“I can’t,” Jack said. “He was there for me when I needed him. I have to be there for him.”
“Then we’ll all go,” Gus said.
Jack thought it would be easy for them to catch up with Teddy, even if he was in much better running shape now than he used to be. But as Cassie had shown them on the way up here, there were a lot of paths in these woods, and Teddy could have taken any of them back to the pond.
“I really am an idiot,” Cassie said.
“There was no way you could’ve known he was afraid of heights,” Jack said. “I’ve been spending more time with him than anybody, and I didn’t know.”
They had made their way back to the dock, just to see if Teddy was there. He wasn’t. Now they were walking back to Cassie’s house, where Jack and Gus had left their bikes.
“This is bad,” Jack said.
“He’s Teddy,” Cassie said. “By tomorrow he’ll be making a joke out of the whole thing.”
But Jack couldn’t forget the look on Teddy’s face he’d seen when he turned around on the bridge.
“He was starting to get some confidence,” Jack said. “Now this has to happen.”
“Jack, you just said this wasn’t Cassie’s fault,” Gus said. “But guess what? It’s not yours, either.”
“Either way, I gotta find him.”
He tried Teddy’s phone, but it went straight to voice mail. He’d probably turned it off. Then Jack tried calling his house, but all he got there was the answering machine, the voice of Teddy’s mom saying that if it was an emergency to try her cell, or call her at her real estate office.
“Nothing,” Jack said.
He got on his bike and said he’d call them later, after he talked to Teddy.
“Immediately,” Cassie said. “And tell him I’m sorry.”
“I will,” he said, and headed in the direction of Teddy’s house. Just because he wasn’t answering the phone didn’t mean he wasn’t there.
I gotta find him.
It was like Jack had told Teddy Madden:
Sometimes people didn’t know when they needed to be helped.
• • •
Jack took a brief detour first and rode into town. He went up and down the streets of Walton’s small downtown area. He checked the pizza place and the ice cream store and Starbucks. He even stopped at the Walton Public Library, because another of Teddy’s secrets—Brad wasn’t the only one who’d told Jack secrets—was that he loved finding a quiet spot in the stacks and reading. Nobody their age that Jack knew loved reading as much as Teddy Madden did.
But he wasn’t at the library.
Jack tried calling him again. Still no answer. Now he rode to Teddy’s house, rang the front doorbell, and waited. No answer to that, either. He thought Teddy might just be inside, still wanting to be left alone. But something about the house, even standing outside it, made Jack feel as if it was empty.
He walked back down their front walk to where he’d left his bike leaning against their mailbox.
Out loud he said, “Where you at?”
It was the way Teddy always texted him:
WHERE U AT?
In that moment, Jack knew where he was at. He didn’t know why he knew. But he did.
• • •
Teddy was alone in the dugout behind Walton Middle School, the same place he and Jack had sat the day Jack told him about Brad, and why he’d quit the Rays. He was in the same corner of the dugout where Cassie had found them.
Teddy didn’t look at all surprised when he looked up and saw Jack standing there.
“Wow,” he said. “You’re a private detective, too.”
“I’m your friend.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Jack sat down on the steps across from him. “Wait a second. I thought you said not talking about stuff wasn’t allowed.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Teddy said.
“Yeah, there is.”
“Look at it this way, Jack,” he said. “Once a Teddy Bear, always a Teddy Bear.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“I was a big baby,” Teddy said. “Like, a really big baby.”
“No, you weren’t. Everybody’s afraid of something. I wish my brother had been. I remember one time a bat got into our house, and bats have scared me silly ever since.”
Somehow that got a laugh out of Teddy. “Least that doesn’t include baseball bats.”
“You laugh,” Jack said. “But you should have heard that thing flapping around until my dad knocked it down with a broom and we got it into a garbage bag and let it go.”
“It’s almost as funny as this joke,” Teddy said. “Why didn’t the chicken cross the bridge? Because he was too scared to get to the other side.”
“You’re making this way worse than it was.”
“It’s like I keep trying to tell you,” Teddy said. “I’m not like you guys. Even a walk in the woods turns into a competition. So you guys won, I lost.”
Then he looked up and said to Jack, “You don’t have to be here. You don’t have to be with me, period.”
Finally he’d come right out with it, what Jack knew he’d been thinking.
“I hang out with you because I want to hang out with you,” Jack said.
“You don’t have to treat me like some kind of charity case anymore,” Teddy said. “You’d be doing me a favor, because then I wouldn’t have to keep pretending that I like working out.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Wow,” Teddy said. “This is some great day. First I was a coward at the falls, now I’m a liar, too.”
“You’re usually the one who does most of the talkin
g,” Jack said. “Can I talk for a minute without you interrupting me?”
“What choice do I have? If I try to leave, you’ll probably turn this into one of your tackling drills.”
“I want you to admit that you do like working out, no matter how many jokes you make about it,” Jack said. “I see you when you’re getting after it. I see the look on your face. I know how good you feel when we’re done.”
“Fine!” Teddy said. “I do like it! And I do like the way it makes me feel, mostly about myself. Are you happy?”
Jack smiled. “Very,” he said.
“It still doesn’t mean I’m ever going to be any good.”
“May I talk again?”
Teddy put up his hands in surrender.
“You think you know me so well now?” Jack said. “Well, I’ve gotten to know you. I can see how much you like football. And you know what else? If we’d started working on your baseball skills a few months ago, you’d be catching for some team by now.”
Teddy said, “Sometimes I get tired just listening to you. How do you have this much energy?”
“I saved up a lot when I wasn’t playing baseball.”
“But now you are playing again,” Teddy said. “And you’re still helping coach Cassie’s team. You’ve got enough to do without wasting time on me.”
“Okay, now I’m the one getting tired of listening to you.”
“I have that effect on people.”
“Shut up.”
That got a smile out of him. “Shutting up is hard for me,” Teddy said.
“Tell me about it,” Jack said.
They both laughed. It was late afternoon by now. Jack had made sure to call his mom before he’d left town and tell her what had happened at Small Falls. His mom had said, “If you do find him, tell him that being afraid of heights is a part of who he is. But not all he is.”
“You’re really smart,” Jack had told her.
“There’s this test we have to pass before they allow us to have children.”
In the dugout now he told Teddy what his mom had said, word for word.
“I don’t care about being afraid of heights as much as I care that I was afraid in front of you guys.”
He looked hard at Jack, who saw how red his eyes were, as if he’d been crying before Jack got there.
“Are you serious? We felt worse than you did. Even Cassie.”
