Sam Saves the Night

by Shari Simpson

  Suddenly everything was in slo-mo, like a movie, the Bully laughing, the Victim sleeping, the Prank shivering, the Tabasco pouring…

  … and the Helper helping.

  Sam didn’t even think, she just stuck her hand out and caught the flow. In her solid hand.

  Madalynn’s perfect lips made a little o of surprise.

  Then Sam knocked the bottle of Tabasco away from Madalynn. With her other solid hand.

  Madalynn’s perfect lips made a capital O of shock.

  Then Sam used both solid hands to grab Jaida by the shoulders as she screamed, “WAKE UP! RUN!”

  Jaida jumped up, totally disoriented, shrieking, “WHAT? WHAT?”

  Sam grabbed Jaida’s hand, solid-body-slammed Madalynn to the floor, and ran out of the room, dragging Jaida behind her. They dashed down the hallway, and Sam misted right through the front door, stopped only by the nasty sound of the entire front of Jaida’s body hitting the wood.

  THWACK!

  Crap! Sam turned and slid back through. Jaida was doing a Looney Tunes sort of stumbling reel, so Sam quickly unlocked the front door and dragged the cold-conked girl through, dashing past the entire MeanDreams tribe, who stood there watching with their mouths in capital Os so similar to Madalynn’s it was freaksome, and out to the street. Which is when Jaida fainted, right into Sam’s solid arms, and Sam was pretty much out of ideas.

  Just then, like a melodic cavalry, she heard it.

  Run away with me!

  Let me be your ride out of town…

  And Chadney raced up on a motorcycle, one burly arm maneuvering the handlebars and the other extended up above his red head in the quintessential soaring Broadway ballad pose.

  Let me be the place that you hide!

  We can make our lives on the go…

  Sam did not need to be musically invited twice. She threw Jaida over the seat of the hog and jumped onto the back. Chadney peeled out, still singing, except now Sam couldn’t really hear him over the sound of the MeanDreams yelling, and the motor, and the wind whizzing by, and her own heartbeat, and, eventually, the police siren.

  The squad car tore up right behind them and Sam was in the perfect position to see the stunned, openmouthed face of her old pal Officer Stanhope as he chased a speeding motorcycle whose only visible passenger was a body hanging limply over the passenger backrest.

  “Chadney! Go faster!” Sam screamed.

  Chadney put the pedal to the metal while changing songs.

  So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good-bye!

  He lurched onto a highway and Sam held on for dear life, praying fervently that her new solidity wouldn’t suddenly fail her, leaving her essence to fly away like a released helium balloon. Besides, she was the only thing anchoring Jaida’s comatose form to the bike, as Chadney was too busy trying to outrun the cops while singing all seven von Trapp children’s parts from The Sound of Music. There weren’t many cars on the road at this time of night, but the few Later drivers that they passed gawked, honked, craned a neck or two out a window, and one woman screamed soundlessly and let go of the steering wheel, causing her Honda to fishtail across two lanes of traffic. It was at this point that Sam closed her eyes.

  Chadney swerved wildly off the highway onto a side street, the squad car in hot pursuit and gaining ground. We’re road toast. There was no amount of inspirational singing and maniac driving that was going to get them far enough ahead to shake the police. And then what? Just as Sam was raking through her memory, trying to recall what Byron had said about how the Pranks dealt with the cops at the Galloping Ghost, Chadney pulled a hard left and drove up over a lawn and in between two houses.

  “FENCE!” Sam shrieked, but Chadney had already veered right toward an open gate. They plunged through the backyard, scattering sports equipment and sandbox toys, and then Sam flung her quivering, barely solid body onto Jaida’s knocked-out one as Chadney did a spectacular flying jump over a swimming pool. When she had the nerve to raise her head again, Sam gasped; they were speeding down her street.

  As they screeched into the front yard, Byron popped out of the house with a dumbfounded expression. He raced over and they yanked Jaida from the motorcycle, dragging her across the lawn by her pajamas. The sirens grew closer as Byron shouted, “I forgot to unlock the door!” Sam did a split-second time calculation and jammed Jaida’s head through Weezy’s doggy door, then leapt through the wall and yanked Jaida’s body the rest of the way into the house. They heard Chadney hit a triumphant B flat above high C and peel out. Sam collapsed to the floor as the sirens wailed past and there was sudden, blissful silence broken only by the slight rasp of Jaida’s asthmatic breathing.

  “How did you know? To send Chadney?” Sam knew her soul couldn’t sweat, but she was suddenly tempted to sniff her armpits for stress stink.

  “Well… I didn’t, exactly. I just cornered him at school and said there might be trouble tonight. Of course, he totally acted like he didn’t know me. As usual. What, did he just, like, pull up in front of her house?” Byron slid down the wall and sat next to Sam.

  “Yep. Swooped in like a singing knight on horseback. I’ve never been so relieved to hear a cheesy ballad in my life.” Sam finally allowed herself a small smile.

  Jaida shifted and moaned slightly.

  “Help me.” Sam pulled herself to her feet, and together they lifted Jaida. Byron carried her into the bedroom and put her under the covers, next to Sam’s physical body. Weezy opened his pop eyes, surveyed the situation, and snorted, which was Pug for “You gotta be kidding me.”

  Sam and Byron stood, staring down at the strangest of bedfellows. After a moment, Byron spoke.

  “Now what?”

  “Not a clue.”

  Byron nodded, then shoulder-bumped Sam. “Guess you finally believe.”

  And, yep, she shoulder-bumped him back. “I believe.”

  SAM WOKE UP THE NEXT morning to a very daunting sight: her nemesis sitting on the bed with a pug in her lap and an expression on her face that can only be described as “I’ve been watching you sleep and remembering all of my disembowelment threats.”

  Sam gulped and launched immediately into the scheme she and Byron had hatched the night before. “Hey there, good morning, Jaida! How did you sleep?” She had intended for this to sound all confident and happy, but it came out all shaky and please don’t hurt me.

  “How. Did. I. Sleep.” Jaida parsed out the words with spaces of loathing in between.

  “Yeah! ’Cause that’s what you ask somebody after a sleepover—how did you sleep?” Sam burbled.

  She’s never gonna buy this. Good-bye, intestines.

  The look Jaida gave her was reminiscent of someone stepping over vomit on the sidewalk. “Are you trying to tell me that we—you and I—had a pajama party?”

  “Well, yeah! I mean, what do you call that?” Sam pointed to feathers littering the floor. “From our awesome pillow fight!” She held up a sheet of paper with pink and purple alternating script. “And here’s the list of the guys we think are cute! And”—Sam drummed up her best acting chops for this one—“I found my bra in the freezer! Good one, Jaida! Ha-ha-ha-ha!”

  The enemy stared at her in utter disbelief as Sam forcibly paralyzed her own facial muscles to retain their enthusiastic grin. Finally, by some miracle, Jaida actually looked slightly confused. “I had a wicked nightmare…” she mumbled gruffly.

  “Yeah?” Sam said, not sure if it was wise to let Jaida relay her “nightmare” about being yanked out of bed by an invisible force and running face-first into a door.

  She needn’t have worried; Jaida was obviously not in the mood to share. Her eyes bored into Sam’s for another long, agonizing moment before dropping away, which freed Sam up to lose her own forced smile. She resisted the temptation to rub her overworked jaw.

  There was a supremely awkward silence as they both contemplated their next move. Jaida looked down at Weezy, who stared back in kind, his ginormous eyes unblinking. They stayed like
that until Weezy sneezed, nailing Jaida with a direct hit of pug mucus.

  “Oh jeez, sorry!” Sam jumped up to retrieve Weezy, but Jaida just shrugged, wiping her face on her sleeve.

  “It’s okay. I used to have a dog.” Her voice was barely audible.

  Was this a tiny opening? Sam ventured tentatively through the midget doorway of civil conversation. “Really? What kind?”

  “A Yorkie, ’cause they’re hypoallergenic. But it’s actually mostly cats that I—” Jaida immediately realized her mistake, and her face hardened into an angry mask.

  Sam knew she was basically taking her life in her own hands, but she couldn’t stop herself. Maybe it was the newly discovered Helper in her, but she just had to know. “Why do you keep it a secret?”

  The mask tightened. “Keep what a secret?”

  “It’s so not a big deal, you know.” Sam was fairly horrified to hear herself continue talking. “Lots of kids have allergies and asthma—”

  Now Jaida used that voice, the bitter, awful, threatening one that had kept Sam in a prison of fear for months. “I swear… I swear, if you keep talking, you’re gonna regret it.”

  But suddenly, that voice lost its immobilizing power. Not because it was any less bitter, awful, or threatening, but because of the new thought that popped into Sam’s head: I’m such a hypocrite. Hadn’t her whole life been about keeping her sleepwalking a secret? Did she really need to ask Jaida why? Sam knew the answer already. Because it made Jaida different. And she didn’t want to be different. How many times had Sam wished and prayed to be normal? Wasn’t it possible that Jaida had wished and prayed the same thing? Maybe if Sam told her the truth, even if it sounded totally psycho, Jaida would know that she had a freak soul mate.

  “I’m sorry,” Sam said softly. “I understand how you feel—”

  “Listen, just shut up, okay?” Jaida bit out. “Can you just shut your mouth? Please?”

  Except she’s not ready.

  “Yes. I can. I can do that.” The truth was going to have to wait. But not because Sam was afraid. She wasn’t afraid anymore. And Jaida could tell, because she dropped her head onto her hand, obviously overwhelmed by the shift in her status.

  “We should go,” Sam murmured.

  Jaida nodded.

  “There’s your stuff.” Sam pointed to the clothes Byron had retrieved from Jaida’s house. “That, uh, you brought over. ’Cause, you know, we decided to have a sleepover.”

  On a school night, right after I got you sent to the principal’s office, and after months of hating each other. Sam bit her lip, suddenly tempted to laugh.

  Jaida shot her a look, then set Weezy gently on the bed and grabbed her clothes, stopping when she saw the fanny pack lying underneath her jeans.

  “Thanks,” she grunted over her shoulder.

  Sam nodded. Maybe things that were born in the darkness really could venture into the light.

  Sam definitely wasn’t a selfie snapper, but for once she wished she’d had her phone ready; she would have loved to have taken a video of the scene when she and Jaida showed up at the breakfast table. Margie gasped, burned herself on the waffle iron, and stuck her entire hand into the butter dish. Jax froze, his fork halfway to his mouth, and gawked at the unprecedented sight of his sister with what appeared to be someone of the buddy persuasion.

  “Hey, guys, this is Jaida, from my school.” Sam knew the next few moments were going to be weird, but somehow it just didn’t seem to matter anymore.

  “Are you freakin’ kidding me?” Jax didn’t even register that his utensil was still poised in midair. “You have a friend?!”

  “Well… let’s not push it.” Sam couldn’t resist shooting a rueful grin over at Jaida, and it almost seemed, for the briefest of seconds, that she might receive one back.

  “JAIDA!” Margie threw a dish towel over her buttery hand and ran over, crushing Jaida in a giant hug. “WELCOME TO OUR HOME!”

  “Jeez, Mom, don’t break her ribs,” Sam protested, but to her astonishment, Jaida’s face melted into a genuine smile, and now Sam was the one rubbernecking.

  “Thanks,” Jaida sort of whispered.

  “DO YOU LIKE WAFFLES?” Margie was still hugging and still shouting.

  “Um, Mom?” Sam instinctively swooped in. “Can you show us the ingredient list? We’re, uh, doing a project at school where we have to record everything we eat. It’s for science. About… GMOs… and that kind of stuff.”

  And then the miracle of Jaida’s genuine smile was bestowed upon Sam. It was exceedingly brief, morphing quickly to her usual closed-off expression, but still, it was a bona fide marvel.

  Margie kept up a steady stream of chatter on the drive to school, for which Sam was grateful; it somewhat deflected the weirdness of Jax’s repeated looks of shock and awe from the front seat. Unsure of what was going to transpire between them when she and Jaida finally emerged from the car, Sam was trying to mentally prepare herself for any scenario.

  Well, except for the one that actually took place.

  Jaida got out first, and as Sam slid across the seat to follow, practicing her “Bye!” variations in her head—friendly? casual? meaningful?—she ran smack into Jaida, who had stopped abruptly right outside the car door. Sam grabbed on to Jaida’s arm to steady herself, Jaida put out a hand to catch her, and that’s exactly the position they were in, two girls obviously helping each other, when Madalynn saw them.

  She was standing on the Wallace steps in her cheerleading uniform, and she was staring at them. And she was alone. Which immediately made Sam think of the first time she had seen Jaida all by herself and how it had put the thought in her mind that aloneness was a particular weakness. Or a particular strength. Sam logged this observation into her memory bank for later use, because, at the moment, it was being crowded out by Seriously, how can Madalynn look that stunning even when she’s obviously contemplating a double murder?

  And then, with one of her signature blazing-noonday-sun smiles, Madalynn whirled around and was gone, leaving Sam and Jaida holding each other in a truly uncomfortable half embrace.

  “Hey, dorks. You okay?” Jax rolled down his window to deliver this caring question.

  They quickly split apart, embarrassed. Sam made a decision to let Jaida off the hook; there was no benefit to be had in forcing them to walk into school together. “I’m just gonna—” She motioned to her family.

  Jaida looked relieved and, possibly, even a little grateful. “Yeah, okay.” She took off toward the front door, her head down.

  “ ’Kay, bye, guys.” Sam slung her backpack over her shoulder.

  “Have a great day, sweetie!” Margie crowed.

  “She seems pretty decent. Try not to scare her off,” Jax drawled.

  Sam had to smile. If you only knew. But at the same time, she was strangely touched; it seemed like her brother actually wanted her to have a friend. It was sweet, no matter how unlikely the candidate was.

  Madalynn made numerous cameo appearances throughout Sam’s day, and in every one, her gleamy daytime demeanor intensified, leaving sighing faculty and besotted students in her glittery wake. And the shinier she became, the more nervous Sam got. It was almost as if Madalynn were storing up as much happy energy as possible to better power her dark soul through the night.

  By the end of school, Sam was a jittery train wreck. The one piece of good news was that in a stroke of medical irony, half the cast of Flo! The Musical had come down with strep throat and Mr. Todorov was reluctantly canceling rehearsal, which meant she wouldn’t have to face Madalynn at set crew. Sam was slated to start building the pieces for the Renkioi Hospital scene, and somehow, constructing patients’ beds and inserting battle paintings of the Crimean War into the window frames was strangely therapeutic. In fact, the challenging physical labor of sawing and hammering so helped Sam not think about vengeful SleepWakers that she kept going for hours, way past her scheduled time, and finished up the entire hospital set. It was nearly nine p.m. when she st
ood back, both to admire her work and pray she had so exhausted herself that her soul would just be too pooped to pop out of her body that night.

  Of course, that was not the case.

  In fact, her pooped soul not only popped, but apparently had the foresight to prep for battle in Margie’s tool chest, because SleepWaker Sam woke up in front of Jaida’s house clutching a big silver staple gun in her solid hand. She groaned. Seriously? What am I gonna do, staple Madalynn’s essence to a tree?

  She quickly peeked into the bedroom. Jaida was sound asleep on the narrow bed, wearing a wool cap. Sam groaned louder. Stupid Helper consciousness! This compassion thing was exhausting, no matter how much rest her body was getting. She peered around anxiously, hoping to see Byron materialize through a fence or one of the many rusted cars lining the street, but no such luck. It was painfully quiet and still; not even one brave cricket. The silence was unnerving. Sam held the staple gun up like a revolver and shot off a couple of rounds of flying staples just to put a little bit of noise into the soundless darkness. Where is Byron? After all the times she told him not to stalk her without asking, he picked tonight to listen?

  Without warning, the cloud of preteen evil materialized out of thin air, led by Queen MeanDream herself, in an adorable aquamarine babydoll nightie. As scared as Sam was, the first thought that crossed her mind was, How many pairs of pajamas does this chick have? Too bad Madalynn was too small to lend something to Bree—the beige giant was wearing the same faded nightgown for the fourth night in a row, and she didn’t look particularly happy about it. In fact, the expression on her monochromatic face was downright murderous.

  “Well, Sleep Sis,” drawled Madalynn. “I thought we might find you here.” She turned to Zac. “Now that our friend is able to be solid, I think she needs a big hug, don’t you?”

  Before Sam could process this command, Zac lunged, catching her in a crushing embrace. Her initial reaction to the pain was to wisp out, think herself un-solid, but something stopped her. You can’t force me to be nothing again. Instead, Sam endured the supposed lovelock, gritting her teeth, compelling her soul to push back with all the weight and possibility she could muster.