My Worst Best Friend

by Dyan Sheldon

  “Or maybe she was abducted by aliens.”

  Cooper nodded. Thoughtfully. “That could be it. She could be sitting in a zoo on Trafamadore right this minute.” He held up his hands as though he was reading a newspaper. “Local girl beamed into deepest space while friend drinks enough tea to drown the whole town.”

  “Slaughterhouse-Five, Michael Sacks, Ron Leibman and Valerie Perrine.” I raised my empty cup to him. “She’ll show up before my second gallon.”

  “Sure she will.” He raised one eyebrow. Inquisitively. “But what if she doesn’t?”

  It wasn’t often that Savanna never showed up at all, but it had been known to happen. And not just to Marilouise. There was always a really good reason though. Like the time the sheep escaped from the truck and blocked the road.

  “She’ll show.”

  He leaned forward. “But what if she doesn’t?”

  I made a well-what-can-you-do? kind of face. “Then I guess I’ll go home.”

  He was tapping his shades against the table. “I have a better idea.”

  If we’d been at lunch and he’d said something like that, the others would have exchanged looks and groaned. Cooper’s ideas never involved anything like ball games or burgers or getting a pizza like theirs.

  “What is it?”

  He gave me a big grin. If you ignored the hat and the feather and the suit, the grin made him look almost normal. “Why don’t you come with me?”

  The last time he’d asked Archie to go somewhere with him it was to a demonstration.

  “Come with you where?”

  “To the Meeting House.” He sat back. “I know some of us have a sceptical attitude towards the Neighbours’ Project…” That would be Savanna. She wanted to know what Cooper was trying to prove. The boys just thought it was a joke. The only extracurricular activities they took seriously involved sweat and jock straps. “But it’s actually a lot of fun,” Cooper continued. “Makes you feel like more than a ball of fluff on the carpet of time.”

  “Yeah, it sounds like it’s cool and everything…” I was the only one who’d given any real thought to joining, but Savanna had laughed so much when I told her that I kind of chickened out. “It’s just that, you know…”

  “What?” He cocked an eyebrow. “You’re too busy?”

  “That wasn’t what I was going to say. I was going to say that I don’t exactly belong to a church.”

  “Me neither.” The smile came back. “The only faith I have is in doom.”

  I laughed. I was also the only one in our group who found Cooper funny haha – instead of funny peculiar. “Which means you’re never going to be disappointed.”

  He picked up his glasses and shook them at me. “You see … you’re like me – you’re a realist. On whom the fate of our troubled world depends.”

  “I thought you were a pessimist.” Another of Savanna’s names for him was Mr Negativity. She said he was the guy who looked at a silver lining and saw a cloud.

  Cooper laughed. “You mean because I’m supposed to be anti-everything?”

  “You do have a reputation.”

  “So do you. You want to save everything.”

  “Not everything.” I had a long list of things I thought the planet could do without. “If every golf course on the planet was turned into a primeval swamp I’d jump for joy.” To give you just one example.

  “You see?” Cooper laughed. “You are like me.” He

  gave me the thumbs up. “And like the good folk at Neighbours. Pessimism is thinking you can’t change anything – ever – and none of us thinks that.” He gave me a wink. “You’re just the kind of person we need.”

  “I don’t know … I’m really better with other species…” You know where you are with whales.

  “Look, I’m not trying to pressure you.” Cooper tilted his hat back on his head. “Not too much, anyway. I’m just saying you should come along and see what it’s like. You don’t have to commit yourself to anything. Just check it out. They can always use another volunteer. And, despite your intense love of poikilothermic herptiles, you have had dealings with human children, right? Didn’t you do some teaching in the summer? So you’re not unfamiliar with the concept.”

  “Well … sort of…” This is a tree. This is a bat roost. Those are deer droppings. Here’s how you plant a seedling… “But those were little kids.” I was OK with little kids – they were close to my height.

  “We have little kids!” He clapped his hands together. “We have lots of little kids, Gracie. Really cute little kids. And you have experience. Mrs Darling – she runs the programme – she’ll be really excited to get somebody with experience.”

  “Yeah, but you know … I’m really more into the environment than little kids.”

  Cooper was amused. “I hate to be the one to point this out, Ms Mooney, but little kids are part of the environment. Besides, this is a good chance for you to spread the word. Inspire them. Convert them to the cause. Not every book for little kids is about teddy bears and talking giraffes. It’s more goodbye moon than goodnight moon nowadays, isn’t it? I bet you could get some stories from the library about the stuff you’re into.” I’d never really noticed before, but he actually had a really nice smile. “You know, iguanas and trees and the collapse of civilization as we know it.”

  “You could be right…” Mr MacGregor had been using toxic pesticides in his garden for decades – Peter Rabbit had to be in really big trouble by now. Maybe Cooper’s ideas weren’t as bad as everybody thought. “But I don’t really know very much about real teaching.”

  “And I do?” asked Cooper. “I never even taught my dog to bring the ball back. He goes after it all right, but then he looks around for anyone who isn’t me and gives it to them.”

  Maybe he was even funnier than I’d thought. “Yeah, but I’m kind of shy.”

  “You should’ve seen how nervous I was at first, Gracie.” He was leaning forward again. “I thought I was going to be the youngest person in Crow’s Point ever to go into cardiac arrest. But now I really enjoy it. We laugh a lot. Mainly at me, it may be true, but we do laugh.”

  I was weakening. I’d had a good time pointing out bat roosts and planting butterflies. “I’ll admit that I’m tempted… But, you know, I can’t. Not today.” I couldn’t. Savanna joked that there were only three things you could really depend on in life: death, taxes and Gracie Mooney. She expected me to be in Java like I’d said. And so did I. “I have to wait for Savanna. Something must have happened to her phone so she can’t call me, but I know she’ll show.”

  “Doesn’t your dad teach history?” said Cooper. “Didn’t he ever tell you how we’re supposed to learn things from the past?”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning Savanna is always late. Archie says she’s even late when he picks her up later than the time they agreed on. And she’s always got some really terrific, not to say inspired, excuse. You know, like today it’ll turn out there was a herd of elephants that escaped from a travelling circus who were blocking her way.”

  I laughed. Uneasily. It had never occurred to me before that the runaway sheep story might not be true.

  “I just think it’s stupid for you to sit here all afternoon when you could be doing something really interesting.”

  “I can’t. I really can’t.” Five minutes after I walked out of Java, Savanna would arrive, shaken and upset because she was so late and needed to tell me what had happened – but all she’d find would be an empty table and a half-drunk cup of peppermint tea.

  Cooper snapped his fingers. “OK, I have an idea.”

  Another one?

  “Why don’t you leave a note for her at the counter? Since her phone isn’t working. Then if she does show up, she’ll know where you are. She can come after you if she wants.”

  “I don’t know…” Friends don’t desert their post. What if there really had been a robbery or she’d had to have emergency surgery? How bad was I going to feel then?
<
br />   “Look, you’re not abandoning Savanna, Gracie. You’re just waiting for her somewhere else.”

  That was true. It wasn’t as if I was going to be a million miles away. I’d be just up the road, at the other end of town. If Savanna called from Java, I could be back in no time. “Well… OK, but I’m probably not going to stay long. I’m just going to check it out.”

  “Great.” You’d think he’d won the lottery or something. I’d never seen Cooper look so pleased. “I guarantee that you’re going to like Neighbours, Gracie. It’s cool.” He pulled a notebook and pen from the pocket of his jacket and handed them to me. “Come on, be daring. Seize this moment of opportunity the way a dolphin rides a wave. Write her a note. Just tell the cashier it’s for the girl with all the hair who sounds like she’s herding a flock of geese.”

  Chapter Five

  Why I Never Got to the Mall

  As soon as I stepped through the door of Neighbours, I liked it. It had a really easy-going, friendly kind of atmosphere. You could hear people laughing. Every person we passed said, “hi”. And Mrs Darling couldn’t have been happier to see me if I’d been teaching English for the last fifty years. “If Zebediah recommends you, then that’s good enough for me,” said Mrs Darling. It took me a second to realize she meant Cooper. Nobody I knew called him Zebediah. And nobody I knew paid any attention to his opinions – not in a positive way, at least. Mrs Darling said that if I did decide to join there was a workshop where I could learn the basics, but for now I could just sit in on a class and see what I thought. I explained that I probably wouldn’t be able to stay too long because my friend was coming for me. I stayed all afternoon.

  I sat in with the youngest class, which was taught by Mrs Hendricks from the hardware store. It was the second time since elementary school that I’d been in a group where everyone else wasn’t taller than I was. The other cool thing was that, unlike the kids I’d worked with in the summer who often had a limited attention span when it came to nature, these kids were endlessly enthusiastic. They didn’t fidget, or complain they were tired or thirsty, or wander off to stomp on some unwary insect the minute you turned your back. They were all systems go right to the very end. The person who had trouble concentrating was me. I’d get involved with the class for a while, but then I’d suddenly remember Savanna and start worrying about her again. Where was she? Was she all right?

  I’d had to leave my phone in my backpack because they weren’t allowed in the classrooms. Had she made it to Java? Was she trying to call me? Was she mad at me for deserting my post? Or was she striding up Main Street, punching ONMYWAY into her phone? Every time I heard someone in the hall I looked up, half expecting to see Savanna peering through the window in the door, rolling her eyes and sighing. I kept trying to read Mrs Hendricks’ watch upside down.

  When we finally took a break, I went into the hall to check my phone (there weren’t any messages) and Mrs Hendricks came after me. She wanted to know if I’d mind if next week we split the class into two groups. “That’s only five each,” said Mrs Hendricks. “They’d get so much more out of it.” I hemmed and hawed. Well … you know … I’m not really sure… “Oh, but you have to come back,” said Mrs Hendricks. “They really like you. You have so much charisma.” I did? That didn’t sound like me. “Of course you do,” said Mrs Hendricks. “You’re terrific with them. You’re a natural teacher.” She gave me a big smile. “You must take after your dad.”

  So that would be the point where I finally stopped thinking about Savanna Zindle, what she was doing and what kind of mood she was in. I had charisma … I was a natural teacher … I took after my dad … I got into the rest of the afternoon with a vengeance. And I didn’t remember Savanna when the class was over, either. I was too excited. So instead of remembering Savanna, I hung out in the café in the basement with Cooper and a couple of the other volunteers for nearly an hour. They called him Zebediah and acted like he wasn’t even a little bit weird. I had such a great time that I was still buzzing when I got back home. I couldn’t wait to tell my dad all about it.

  It was starting to get dark, but he was still out in the yard, raking up the leaves. He was wearing his old plaid jacket and singing “I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night” while he worked, but he broke off when he saw me turn up the front path.

  “You’re so quiet, I didn’t hear you coming,” said Dad. “Where’s your early-warning system?”

  That would be Savanna Zindle.

  So this would be the point where I finally remembered her again. I stopped like a polar bear who’s just noticed that the ice has melted all around her. How could I have totally forgotten about Savanna? OK, I’d had a busy afternoon, but it wasn’t that busy. It wasn’t as if I’d been fighting off The Forces of Darkness by myself armed only with my Swiss Army knife or anything like that. Which is the kind of thing that would pretty much put everything else out of your mind. I was doing words-that-sound-alike exercises with six-year-olds. Which isn’t. It was pretty much beyond belief. From practically the moment we met, I’d thought about Savanna all the time.

  “Gracie?” My dad was giving me a puzzled kind of smile. “Where’s Savanna? I thought you two were going shopping.”

  Now was not the time for in-depth explanations. I had to get to the phone.

  “She has a date with Archie tonight.” As answers go, this one was evasive, but it was also true. “You know, so she decided not to come back with me after all – she has things to do.”

  He leaned on his rake. He was still looking puzzled. “What happened? You look a little tense. Black day at the mall?” He chuckled the way he does when he thinks he’s about to say something really funny. “Don’t tell me they ran out of clothes.”

  “We didn’t go.” I didn’t want to tell him that she never showed. “She couldn’t make it after all. Something came up.” My dad never said he didn’t like Savanna or anything like that, but he teased her and joked about her a lot – about how she took up more space than the Philharmonic Orchestra and talked more than the UN General Assembly and spent so much time on the phone with me it’d be cheaper if she moved in, that kind of thing. And sometimes I’d catch him eyeing Savanna the way you’d eye a komodo dragon that suddenly appeared in your kitchen. Very suspiciously. Which was pretty much the way he was looking at me.

  “Really?” He and the rake swayed back and forth. “What did you do instead?”

  A minute ago, I’d been ready to tell him all about Neighbours – but that minute was before I remembered that my best friend was still missing in action. The only thing making me buzz now was the swarm of guilt in my stomach. All I wanted to do was get into the house and phone her. “Oh, you know… Nothing much… I’ll tell you later. There’s something I have to do first.”

  My dad nodded as I turned away. “So who was that boy you were with?”

  That would be Cooper.

  I blinked in surprise. “I thought you didn’t hear me coming.”

  “I didn’t.” He laughed. “But you couldn’t miss that hat.”

  I said he wasn’t anybody. I didn’t have time to explain about Cooper, either. I really needed to call Savanna. What if she really was mad at me for leaving Java like that? That would be why she’d never come after me. She’d expected me to be waiting for her and I wasn’t. I’d let her down. I was a bad friend. If she found out that I’d actually forgotten about her she might never speak to me again. And I wouldn’t blame her.

  “Not anybody?” I could tell that he was hoping that Cooper was somebody. You know, somebody who was interested in me. My father is pretty optimistic for an historian. Unlike some of us, he didn’t think my only hope was a boyfriend on Death Row. He was always telling me how much I had going for me. You know, like I was smart, and loyal, and loved iguanas and could stand on my head. “You looked like you were enjoying yourselves.”

  “He’s Archie’s friend, Dad.” I started sidling towards the house. “He hangs out with us at school. I— You know, I bumped into h
im in town and he walked me home, that’s all.”

  My father nodded. “He looks like a nice kid.”

  He was a nice kid, but that wasn’t what he looked like. What he looked like was an advance scout from Planet Bizarro.

  “I’m kind of in a hurry, Dad.” I took the front steps two at a time. “I have to call Savanna.”

  My father shifted his rake. “Of course you do.”

  By the time I got into the house I was in mega-anxiety mode, all damp palms and thudding heart. I raced up the stairs. What had I been thinking? Or, more accurately, why hadn’t I been thinking? No wonder Savanna hadn’t come by the Meeting House. She must be devastated that I’d just go off and leave her like that. Maybe she’d been so upset when she saw that I wasn’t waiting at Java that she hadn’t even gone inside. So of course she never got my note. Why didn’t I leave another message on her phone instead? Like a good friend would do. I slammed the door of my bedroom behind me. My hands were shaking so much I had trouble turning my phone on. Thank God for speed dial, that’s all I can say. If I’d had to hit every digit of her number I’d have been there half the night.

  Savanna answered on the first ring. I collapsed on my bed with relief. At least she was still on the Earth in the twenty-first century and probably not in traction. And she was taking my calls. I knew what Savanna was like. If she were really mad at me she wouldn’t answer the phone.

  “Gracie!” shrieked Savanna. Music was blaring behind her. “I Will Always Love You.” Radio Romance, 98.6 on your dial. “Gracie, where were you? I’ve been calling you for, like, hours on both your phones… I must’ve left, like, a hundred messages – I was sooo worried. I couldn’t imagine what happened to you.”

  “I’m really, really sorry, Savanna. I— I just got home.” Turning my phone back on after I left Neighbours was another thing I’d forgotten. “Didn’t you get my note?”