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Grey went on “There is a girl missing, only
since this morning, but she's only ten. Her parents are friends of
my boss. Can you ask your source?”

“Huhhh” I breathed in making a noise and held
my chest. I remembered I dreamt running up and down hills, maybe it
was our ravines! I looked down to the left and then to the right
and up as if I were watching them run.

“You have got to be kidding me, you think
you're a psychic?” He threw his hands up and turned his back on
me.

“Hell no!” I replied, and laughed a little.
“I mean no, I'm not a psychic. I was just thinking…” I exclaimed
and immediately calmed myself. Nic and I rehearsed how I would
react and what I'd say if someone ever asked. I calmly said “I do
know a psychic, one just moved into the back of the Richfield
Reading and Speech Center if you want one.”

He turned around and looked a little
aggravated. “I don't want a psychic. She isn’t your source is she?”
he said shaking his head.

“No” I replied and almost too quickly.

“...and you say you aren't one?”

“No.” I said sternly, but then decided to try
and lighten the subject. Thank goodness I didn't tell him, I almost
decided to in the car. “I'm not a psychic, I'm a medium... just
kidding! I'll ask my source if they know anything and I'll get back
to you.” We stood there in a bit of an awkward silence.

“Okay…” He said, sounding disappointed and
took a deep breath. “Yeah that's fine, but the sooner the better.”
He replied pointing to me and in such a way that I think he didn't
believe me, but he handed me another one of his business cards.

All in all it had been a good night. Topher
hung around part of the time at the dance. Nic said she was glad
for some of his absences; it gave her time to breath. But, as soon
as he walked in her front door, she was there in a flash.

Nic's party was a blast, I can't believe that
so many students can stay out past midnight. Topher stayed and
helped us cleanup which took us an hour or so, but we weren't in a
hurry either. After, the bulk of everything was cleaned up, I
excused myself.

It was 2:15 when I got to Nic's room,
exhaustion started to set in. I don't remember trying to fall
asleep, I think I passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow.
When I woke I was sitting straight up in bed. The bright
fluorescent green clock screamed 3:22am at me. I put my hands to my
face and rubbed and mumbled “thank goodness”, at least it wasn't
3:17a.m. Hopefully this dream won't come true.... I must have woken
Nic. I thought she and Topher would have still been sucking face.
“What are you doing up?” I asked her.

She replied “I could ask you the same. Did
you have another dream?”

“Yeah, but it's 3:22 so I'm not sure it
counts,” I whispered back to her.

She fell back into her pillow “My clock is
five minutes fast.”

I jumped out of bed and dialed Peyton
immediately. “Thank God you answered, I'm at Nic's, can you come
pick me up – it's an emergency.” I hung up and found my satchel
from that night. “Watch your eyes.” I said to Nic, I had to turn on
the light to read the numbers. “Detective Grey please. Yes, this is
an emergency, I'll hold.”

“What are you doing?” Nic asked.

“Do you remember the mud pit Tori got stuck
in when she lost her boot?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, there’s a missing girl from that
neighborhood. I had a dream and at first I thought I was just
remembering what happened to Tori… but she’s just a little girl I
gotta check it out.” I said as I was pulling my jeans on, with the
phone tucked between my shoulder and ear.

“Grey, this is Addie Gellar, it's an
emergency, meet us behind 2711 South Point Dr. Yes, now and go
behind the house.” I hung up the phone as he was saying something
but there was no time for questioning me now.

Nic rolled out of bed and started dressing
too. “I guess we can always sleep tomorrow.....I'll tell my mom we
forgot to TP a football players house.” I saw headlights flash
through the bedroom window. “We need all the bandanas and
flashlights you can find.”

In the past, not all the neighborhood kids
were ever ready to go hiking all at once, so we would tie a bandana
on a tree to lead them to our location. If this girl was stuck we
needed to find her fast and I wasn't going to wait for Grey to get
there.

Nic and I piled in the front seat of Peyton's
car, she was in her jammies and boots. We explained the situation
to her and she sped the whole way back to her house. Everyone had
paths in the back of their houses that lead into the ravines. We
started at the one in Peyton's back yard. I drew a quick map in the
dirt while Nic held the flashlight; I wanted to make sure we headed
in the right direction. As it was I think we were closer to the pit
from Peyton's house than mine. We tied off a bandana on the tree by
the path and left one flashlight on pointing back at the house so
Grey could find us and we headed off.

It was hard to navigate in the dark even
though we had flashlights. I got hit it the face a few times by
branches I just couldn’t see – I tried to make sure they didn’t
fling back at Nic and Peyton but when you’re in a hurry it’s not
that easy to do. I heard a few nasty comments from behind… Twenty
minutes in we started yelling “Is anyone here?” I didn't remember
Grey telling us her name. Just as dawn was breaking I knew we were
in close proximity to the mud pit – visibility was still not good.
I had to watch where I stepped. I turned around and fell to my
knees, but no sign of a girl.

Peyton and Nic were back a few paces, I held
the flashlight in the path to get to me.

“You found her!” Nic yelled and started
running toward me. “What? Where?” I put the flashlight down and
started patting the ground. I screamed. I felt her arm and it was
stone cold. I started digging and digging, “Get help!” Peyton
turned and ran, Nic and I dug and dug. “Is she dead?”

“No Nic, no, she can’t be! You get her under
her arms, I'll find her legs.” My chin was sitting on top of the
mud. I held my breath, turned my face sideways and pushed in the
mud until I found her legs. “Pull!” I said. We did. Nic counted
“1-2-3 pull, pulllll...” I felt something horrible and crunchy
still in my grip, I felt it and it felt like bones from a squirrel,
I panicked and shook them off my hand and wiped them on my jeans. I
could see flashlights bouncing toward us in the distance and felt a
little relief.

“We need water!” I yelled and one flashlight
went the opposite way.

“Roll her on her side” I exclaimed. We swept
fingers through her mouth, gave her a pat on the back a few times,
rolled her back over and started CPR.

“Is she alive?” Nic exclaimed. I breathed in
deeply and then exhaled into the lifeless soul below me. My hands
were shaking uncontrollably, but my work and progress steady. Grey
was there, flashlight in hand, asking “Is she all right?”

Nic started rattling off feebly “We found her
only a few minutes ago. She's cold, not breathing and we couldn't
feel a pulse,” and she broke down and started to sob.

Grey moved me out of the way to take
over.

“Quiet.” I said to Nic who was sobbing
“Quiet.” I said strongly. I put my ear to her mouth “I swear I felt
warm air.....”

“I think I have a pulse.” Grey retorted. He
scooped her up and started running back to Peyton's house, we
followed. Firemen were flowing down the hill as we neared; they
took her from Grey's arms.

Nic and I were sitting at the edge of
Peyton's patio. Nic's head was on my shoulder and my arm was
wrapped around her sharing a blanket when Grey came over. “They
have her stabilized and on the way to the hospital. Do either of
you need to be checked out by a paramedic?” I mumbled “no.”

“Are you two sure you're okay?” Grey
asked.

“I'm fine.” I replied, having to clear my
throat. “You?” I asked nodding at Nic, she shook her head.

Grey squatted in front of me; he had mud all
down his front. “It's okay not to be fine, this is very traumatic,
but you saved her you know. You saved Samantha.” He sat next to me
“If it wasn't for the dirt on your face and the rivers running down
it I may not have been able to tell you were crying...” He touched
my cheek. And the river started again.

He came in for a group hug, it just made it
worse. “She's fine, you're fine everyone's going to be fine.” He
purred. “Just one question Addie, how did you know where she was?”
I could tell he was asking on a personal level not a professional
one. He let go. In all sincerity, I needed him to know, to help
prevent bad things from happening, things like this. “Detective
Grey...” I started.

“Go ahead.”

“Detective Grey, I'm exactly what you don't
want me to be. I'm a freak, but I don’t care, I’ll tell you
everything and you can believe me or not.” There was a very long
period of silence before Nic nudged me. “I have dreams that come
true, and not all them are nice and fuzzy dreams either, as you can
see.”

He gave me another squeeze as he swiveled to
sit next to me. “That doesn't make you a freak that just makes me a
jerk for being closed minded that there is such a thing, someone
who can foresee the future.”

“I haven't really told anyone else about it
but Nic and I'd like to keep it that way.”

He smiled at me, not showing any teeth,
rubbed my shoulder and said “I'm not sure anyone else would believe
us anyway. We'll keep it between the three of us for now. Do you
need another blanket?”

“I could use some water.”

“Girl you need more water than I could find.”
Then he let go, holding his arms out looking down at his jacket and
the two of us chuckled.

“I can clean up at Nic's.” Peyton came out of
the house with glasses and a pitcher of water. She looked terrible.
I could just imagine what we looked like.

Life is good as long as we
obey; in school, at home and in life. Otherwise, there are always
consequences.

Just as Nic and I had
finished mopped the mats and closed up the closet, Coach came up to
see us and told us that he needed us to coordinate the 'Lil
Sis Wrestling Program.' Then he turned around and asked for a
volunteer from the wrestlers. No one moved a muscle, although not
everyone was there yet. A few seconds passed and still no takers,
until thankfully Storm volunteered and had to explain the program
to us.

The Lil Sis program is a
group of girls we needed to put together, one girl per wrestler.
Each girl makes their wrestler a snack before each wrestling meet.
We could ask girls from any grade to sponsor a wrestler. They could
bring any kind of treat they wanted, and they would give it to
their wrestler Friday at school. It was up to each wrestler to
decide when to eat it; most of them had to wait until after
weigh-ins at the wrestling meet, since many of them were dieting to
make their wrestling weight. Of course, the heavy weight didn't
have to wait for weigh-ins so I thought it would be fun to get him;
the whole program sounded fun. That was our project for the week.
Nic, Storm and I wrote down a bunch of girls names we could ask. We
would ask all the girls in all our classes, too.

Practice was starting, the
whistle blew and Jett entered the room. The coach looked at him and
yelled “You're lucky today boy, but next time you better be here
before I blow the whistle!”

“Okay coach” he yelled and
smiled his adorable little smile. 

Nic looked at me and
said “Do you need to go to the bathroom?”

“No, why?”

“Your face is all
red.”

“Okay, I’ll go” I said.
Sitting on the floor Nic gave me a hand and helped me up. “What is
wrong with me, I can’t even look normal around him.” I rinsed my
face and said “I'm ready to go back.”

“Really, because you don’t
look ready.”

“Nic, it's obviously a
crush and I know he's never going to ask me out. So I just need to
regain composure and I’ll look for another boyfriend to keep me
preoccupied. No biggy.”

We got back to the wrestling
room and worked on our Lil Sis list a little more, which took up
about twenty minutes. We drafted a flyer to post and hand out with
the details about the program and how to sign up. That took another
ten minutes.

 “Nic, let's make a
list of possible boyfriends for ourselves, I won't include Jett,
I'll start fresh. What are your criteria?”

“Taller than me and
funny.” Nic said.

“I'll say tall, dark
and handsome, into sports…. “And I added “a sense of humor, no one
too serious for me.” She gave me a seriously dirty look.

“Hey!” I said “Now I know
what I like, I’ll just find it in my league.” So we wrote it down
on the piece of paper. We doodled, checked out the wrestlers and
every time my eyes went back to stare at Jett, Nic would
ask me another question to break my trance. We kept ourselves
pretty occupied and I think we looked busy too.

I walked in the front door when I got home.
My mom was sitting in the living room with a lady I didn't know,
there were two huge bouquets of flowers and a box of chocolates on
the table. As I was taking off my shoes and coat they both stood,
and the lady just started crying. She came over to me and hugged me
and didn't let go. I looked at my mom and she too started crying. I
got all choked up myself. The lady said she couldn't thank me
enough and how could she ever repay me. “I babysit” I replied, she
laughed and let go. It was Samantha's mom, the girl I saved from
the 'not quicksand' fiasco. She held me at arm’s length and smiled
and replied all choked up “I could use a babysitter.” She pulled me
back in for a hug. This time I reciprocated and told her I was glad
to have helped, every action has reaction, consequences. And in
that moment I knew I was placed on this earth with my dreams to
help people.