Paper Chains

by Elaine Vickers

  Mikey paused with his bootlaces half-tied. “Are you sure it still counts as the wish coming true if your sister makes it happen?” he asked.

  “It totally counts.” If only Mikey knew how much every wish depended on her.

  “Why don’t you ever wish on the puck?”

  Ana shrugged. “Because I don’t need anything.”

  That wasn’t true. She needed to remember the rules for multiplying and dividing fractions. She needed to fill in the holes of her put-the-family-back-together plan.

  But right now, she just needed to not miss the field trip. Ana grabbed her skate bag and headed for the front door, but Babushka was there, blocking the way.

  Of course she was.

  “I find this in your backpack,” she said, shaking a blue paper Ana had hoped she’d never find. “Parents need to help with field trip. Your parents cannot come, so I come.”

  “Um, no.” Ana grabbed the paper from Babushka. “I think they have plenty of volunteers now. This is old.”

  Babushka’s mouth drew into a thin line. “Paper is from yesterday. I check your backpack every day.”

  “It’s my backpack!” she said. “You can’t just open it up. It’s private property.”

  “Hmm.” Babushka stroked her chin with long, bony fingers. “Like my suitcase?”

  “That’s different,” Ana spluttered. She shouldn’t even be having this fight, but she couldn’t back down either.

  Then there was her mom, sneaking Ana a tired smile. “Babushka,” she said, in a voice like honey, “how are you?”

  Babushka thought a moment. “Normal.”

  If you say so, thought Ana.

  Her mom took Babushka by the elbow. “I wanted to ask you about the latkes for tonight. I thought we could get them at Mary’s in the village.”

  “Ack!” said Babushka as she walked away. “Latkes from a shiksa’s bakery?” She shook a finger at Ana and Mikey. “You are lucky I am here to save you from this, while all you do is make trouble.”

  As Babushka smacked her lips at her own sour words, Ana’s mom turned back with another smile, a little brighter this time. “We’ll see you after school,” she said. “Have fun.”

  Ana had never wanted to hug her mom so hard. Every once in a while she showed flashes of her real self—the one who understood her kids and actually took care of them. That little move was almost enough to make Ana forgive her for all the times she hadn’t saved them from Babushka, for all the times lately she hadn’t really been there at all.

  The frost that had formed between Ana and Katie seemed to be thawing again as they boarded the bus for the field trip.

  “I can’t believe your mom said yes.”

  Katie looked away. “She didn’t. Not exactly.”

  “Oooh, I gotcha. Don’t worry. My lips are zipped.”

  Apparently Katie’s lips were zipped too. She was silent the whole bus ride over, and when they got to the rink, she just sat there, staring at her skates. Technically, they were Ana’s old skates from two winters ago, but Katie had small feet. She kind of had small everything.

  Ana could already hear kids shouting and laughing out on the ice. Were they picking teams for pick-up hockey? Hopefully Sadie, the next-best fifth grader, would ask Ana to play. Except now that Ana didn’t play, Sadie was the best.

  So maybe Sadie wouldn’t ask.

  Ana had to get out there.

  “You put your feet inside,” she said to Katie. “And you lace them up.”

  When Katie looked up, her face was white as the ice. “I know,” she said. “I’m getting ready.”

  “Getting what ready?” Ana asked.

  “My . . . self.” Katie started loosening the laces of one of the skates, slow as could be. It felt like watching Mikey put his boots on all over again. But now that Ana thought about it, Katie did lots of things slowly. Had she ever even seen Katie run?

  Katie hesitated. “I thought maybe your grandma would come.”

  “She wanted to, but my mom distracted her. Thank goodness.”

  “Oh.” Katie’s gaze dropped. “I thought maybe I could talk to her. So she wouldn’t be lonely, or something.”

  Ana laughed. “Good one. She likes to be alone, and I know you’ve been dying to skate.”

  More kids poured past them and headed for the ice. Ana glanced over and saw all the other fifth graders in their brightly colored coats, swirling around like a whirlpool. There went Jarek and Marcus, playing a two-person version of crack the whip that didn’t look totally safe for anybody. They bumped into a kid who was limping along the edge and barely tossed a “sorry” over their shoulders as they skated away.

  Then there went Sadie, faster than last year, moving as easily as water down a stream. Maybe she’d be the best fifth-grade hockey player now even if Ana hadn’t quit.

  Ana turned away. She’d had to give up the thing she loved, just because her dad had given up on them. But now that he would be coming back, Ana ached more than ever to play again. She glanced back at Katie, who was barely tying up her first skate.

  “Do you want me to wait?”

  Katie waved her away. “No, go out there. I want to watch and learn for a minute.”

  Ana stepped onto the ice, and all the friction that had held her back vanished. She spotted the poor kid who’d gotten bumped into, still frozen with his back to the boards. She slapped him on the shoulder as she skated past. “Right back out there and try again,” she said, and once the words were out, they sounded familiar. Was that what her dad had said when he’d taught her? Or had it been her mom?

  There wasn’t time to wonder. Off she went, once, twice, three times around the rink. Ana shivered with the same-but-different feeling of it all—the thrill and speed she’d loved when she played, but now without all the pads and pressure and coaches and rules.

  Ana felt totally free until she realized Katie still wasn’t anywhere on the ice, which she probably should have noticed before. As she glided back over to the benches, her old skates peeked out at her from behind a trash can. So where was Katie?

  In spite of what Ana had said, Katie was the brave one a lot of the time. She was the one who was willing to ask the teacher when something didn’t make sense or stick up for somebody who was getting picked on.

  Ana scanned the empty locker room, then poked her head into the bathroom. “Katie?”

  Katie’s voice came, thin and scared, from the last stall. “I’m almost done.”

  Ana felt awkward asking, but she felt even more impatient. “Everything okay in there?”

  “Yes.”

  “So what are you doing? Writing a novel? Counting to a billion?” She felt her face flush as another thought came to her. “Is it a problem with your . . . plumbing?”

  The door opened and Katie’s face appeared, bright red too. “Just . . . never mind. I wasn’t even going to the bathroom.”

  If she wasn’t going to the bathroom, why spend ten minutes in the stinky stall?

  Then Ana knew. Katie was scared. And even though Ana was a good friend, she’d been dealing with other people’s problems way too much lately. All she wanted was to think about herself and have fun for one stinking day.

  “If you don’t dare skate, why have you been yakking about it for the last two weeks?” The words felt like a slap when they came out of her mouth, but Ana wasn’t entirely sorry she’d said them.

  “I’m going to skate,” Katie said, but Ana could tell neither one of them believed it.

  “If you say so.”

  Katie stepped to the sink and scrubbed her hands. “Just give me a second.” She didn’t look up. She was blinking a lot, and she just kept scrubbing.

  Oh, flip. Ana should have recognized Mikey’s classic trying-not-to-cry signs earlier. She wanted to backpedal, but she couldn’t think of a thing to say that would make it better.

  “Okay, well, I’ll be out there. Whenever you’re ready.”

  As she waited, Ana tried to put herself in Katie’s sho
es. Skates. Whatever. She remembered the first time she’d gone out onto the ice—how her parents had each held one of her hands the whole afternoon. Maybe it was easier to be brave when it wasn’t so easy to fall.

  Katie appeared at the edge of the rink. She looked straight ahead and hooked her gloved fingers around Ana’s, then took her first wobbly steps onto the ice. Right, left. Right, left. More like limping than gliding, but that was the way to start.

  “I’m skating,” Katie whispered. The worry melted from her face and she looked at Ana, almost like she needed to make sure it was true.

  “You’re skating,” Ana said. “You’re doing fine.” Gradually, the steps turned to slides and the blood began to return to Ana’s fingers as Katie’s grip loosened. After a few laps, she barely used Ana for balance at all, and the current of kids didn’t have to part around them so much anymore.

  “Want to let go?”

  “Almost,” Katie said.

  “Take your time,” Ana said. “Or . . .”

  She pulled Katie along until they had enough momentum, then reached for her other hand. “Hold on,” she said. “And trust me.”

  Together, Ana and Katie spun toward the center of the rink, around and around like figures in a music box with their hair flying straight out behind them. Katie broke into the biggest grin Ana had seen all day.

  “That’s what I came here for,” Katie said. “That feeling right there.” A tiny line of worry appeared on her forehead. “But my pulse is kind of high.”

  Ana spun around and skated backward in front of Katie. “Good! It’s supposed to be! You don’t get a certain number of heartbeats, you know.” Ana felt her own heart thumping inside her, telling her she was right. “You can’t save them up. When it’s beating hard like that, it’s getting stronger. It’s putting heartbeats in the bank.”

  Katie seemed to think about that. “Maybe you’re right,” she admitted.

  So they got themselves undizzy and did it again. After that, Katie was ready to skate on her own. She never went fast, and Ana lapped her more than once, but it sure seemed to be fast enough.

  Ana heard a familiar laugh behind her. Sadie. She felt a tug on her hood and the chill of something wet against her back. She whipped around to find Sadie with a sneaky smile on her face and ice shavings stuck to her gloves.

  It had been their joke, and Ana had totally forgotten about it. Two seasons ago, when they’d been on the same team, they’d wait for the goalie to rough up the ice in front of the goal, then sneak the shavings into each other’s jerseys.

  Ana shivered. “You’re so dead.”

  “Ha! No way. You’ll never get me now that I suspect it.”

  The girls fell into stride next to each other. “No hockey today?” Ana asked.

  “Nah,” said Sadie. “Too many kids and not enough space.”

  Regret plucked inside Ana. Now that she couldn’t play today, she wanted to more than ever.

  “We miss you,” Sadie said. “Are you playing next season?”

  “Yes,” said Ana. There was no question about it now. “So if you want to be MVP, you’d better make it happen this year.”

  Sadie laughed. She slide-stopped in front of Ana, then stooped to pick up the shavings. “We’ve got to team up and get somebody else now. Want to?” She pointed at Katie and wiggled her eyebrows.

  Even though Sadie was just having fun, Ana got a shiver that seemed to say it was a terrible idea. She almost tried to stop her. But she didn’t, and Sadie was halfway around the rink by the time she caught up with Katie. Ana watched as Sadie reached up with her empty hand and pulled out Katie’s hood, then dumped the ice shavings down her coat.

  Katie cried out like a wounded animal. She tripped and groped toward the wall, then fell against it. Ana tried to skate toward her, but before she could reach her, Katie spun around and started skating back toward the benches, clutching her chest and moving straight against the stream of people.

  “Katie!” Ana shouted. “Go the other way! You’re going to get hurt!”

  Jarek and Marcus turned their heads to see what Ana was yelling about, but they didn’t slow down. So really, it was Ana’s fault. And their fault. And Sadie’s fault.

  It was all of their fault that the boys crashed into Katie and knocked her, headfirst, down to the ice. Ana screamed and raced over, and by the time she got there, Katie was lying limp with her eyes closed and a circle of blood blooming from underneath her hat.

  Katie

  Chapter 13

  VOICES SWIRLED.

  The whole world was cold and hard and shifting.

  When Katie opened her eyes, five dark shapes hovered over her. One by one, they came into focus: Ana, then Sadie from the class next door, then Jarek and Marcus, and finally a man with an official-looking name tag.

  Katie’s head throbbed and her back hurt and her feet seemed weirdly heavy. She closed her eyes again and listened to her heart.

  Normal. It was back to normal. She wasn’t sure what had happened out on the ice, but it had been scary.

  Sadie grabbed her hand. “Katie, I’m so sorry! I’ll never do that again! Please don’t die!”

  “Holy flip, you’re worse than Mikey,” Ana said. “She’s not going to die.”

  Katie wished she could have a recording of those words, in that voice, to play every time she went to a doctor or a hospital. Ana seemed so sure.

  “I’m not going to die,” Katie finally agreed. “Not until my mom finds out, anyway.”

  Ana laughed, and so did everybody else. The man with the name tag leaned over her. “Give yourself a second, and then I’m going to sit you up. You might need a butterfly bandage on your head.” He turned to the kids circled around. “I knew you guys needed more chaperones. No more ice down people’s coats.”

  It was just ice, Katie thought.

  As she’d skated, Katie had felt like a different person, almost like she was soaring above the ice instead of across it. But when she’d felt the shock of cold down her back, she’d come crashing down, knowing her mom was right and her heart couldn’t handle it.

  Except, she realized, her heart could handle it. The skating, the shock, even hitting her head—all that, and her heart still beat a steady rhythm inside her. Now that she thought about it, her heart hadn’t been the problem at all. Only her fear.

  Katie tried to smile as she sat up, but the swirl of the skaters around them and the slippery ice made everything spin.

  “Take your time,” the man said, as one of the chaperones hovered in the background. “You lost quite a bit of blood.”

  “I’m okay,” she said. “Ana will take care of me.”

  “You’ll need to call your mom,” the man said. “Even if she’ll be mad. Want to use my phone?”

  “Not yet,” Katie said quickly. “Let me clean up first. I can borrow Ms. Decker’s phone.”

  It was a careful half-truth. She could borrow Ms. Decker’s phone, but that didn’t mean she would. And it wasn’t the first half-truth she’d told that day.

  Katie had handed the permission slip to her mom just this morning. “I guess you have to get it signed even if you’re staying,” she’d said. It was true, even if Katie didn’t plan on being one of the kids left behind. Then, with her bedroom door locked tight, she’d erased the mark and checked the other box. It had all gone so smoothly, right up until the crash.

  Katie grabbed the man’s arm to steady herself as she stood, and he helped her hobble to the first-aid station. He cleaned the wound with a special wipe and stuck a butterfly bandage across it, then helped her to the locker room before heading back over to supervise everybody else.

  Ana trashed the paper towels she’d been holding against Katie’s head.

  “I have to admit, that was pretty impressive. We already threw your hat away. Hope that’s okay.” She helped Katie sit down and started unlacing her skates. “And don’t worry, I won’t tell your mom.” Her mouth turned up into a crooked, sneaky smile. “I finally feel like
you’ve got a good secret for me to keep.”

  Katie tried to ignore the guilt that twisted inside her. She wanted to tell Ana everything, but the timing still seemed all wrong.

  “How bad is it?” she asked.

  Ana held up a skate and showed Katie her reflection in the shiny blade. Even in such a thin strip, the gash looked red and raw and definitely not small.

  “Oh, shoot. Look at me. This is bad.”

  Ana took the skate away and shrugged. “I’ve had worse,” she said. “It won’t even scar, I bet. If you had bangs, it’d be fine.” Ana’s eyes brightened. “Hey, want me to cut you some bangs?”

  Katie shook her head. “Can I have your hat?”

  Ana took off her beanie and tossed it over. “My gift to you. Now you owe me one.”

  “I have a gift, actually,” Katie said. “I wasn’t sure when to give it to you since I’ve never had a friend who celebrated Hanukkah before.”

  “Now,” Ana said. “The perfect time is now. Geez, I was just kidding about owing me, but go for it.”

  Katie stretched the beanie carefully around her head and over her wound. Even in the locker room, the gentle pressure and the fact that the gash was hidden made her feel much safer. She found the locker they’d stashed their stuff in and grabbed the silver-wrapped box from her bag.

  Ana tore off the wrapping and lifted the lid. “Wow! I mean, wow! They’re so pretty.” She took the bracelets from their box. “Pretty’s not usually my thing, but these are awesome.” The bracelets flashed and sparkled, even in the light of the locker room, as Ana slipped one onto each wrist and twisted them around.

  Katie felt a wash of relief. Ana loved them. Maybe everything could be back to normal now. She reached for the bracelets. “Can I show you something?”

  Ana slid off the bracelets and laid them in Katie’s palm. Katie lined up the two small circles until they looked like one. “If you turn them just right, they connect to each other and . . .” She aligned each red heart with its matching jewel on the other bracelet until they snapped perfectly inside one another.