Autumn's Wish (8 page)

She wouldn't say that if she'd seen J.J.'s future, but I can't tell her that. I drop the topic. If I want answers, I need to find them myself. Subtly.

“So, Jack,” I say on Thursday at lunch. “I'm trying to figure out who I want my Scare Pair to be. What do you think?”

“I think I want Jennifer Lawrence, ideally in her Mystique costume,” he says. “Can you make that happen?”

I roll my eyes. “I mean for
me.
If you were going to choose a good guy—for me, I mean—who would it be?”

Jack scrunches his face. “We don't choose people. We just answer the questions on the questionnaire.”

“I know, I know,” I say. “I'm just asking. If you
were
to pick a guy.”

“For you?” Jack asks. “How about Alex Futterman?”

“Alex Futterman hasn't showered in three years!” I explode.

“Oooh,” Taylor pipes up. “You could get Derek Montzer.”

“Picks his nose, rubs it on desks,” I retort.

“I say Wayne Jarvitz,” J.J. adds. “He's a hottie.”

“He's a
freshman
!” I yell. “He hasn't hit puberty!”

“You're getting a jump on the future,” J.J. says.

“How did we start playing this game?” I ask. “I don't like this game.”

Jack shrugs. “You started it.”

“I think it's fun,” J.J. adds.

“I hate you all,” I say.

Sean and Reenzie come over, both smiling so hard their faces might break. “Guess what!” Reenzie cries. “Huge news!”

“Huger than Autumn and Wayne Jarvitz?” Jack asks.

Reenzie gets a condescending look on her face that makes me want to vomit. Of course she believes it's true. “Awwww, are the two of you together? That's so sweet!”

I roll my eyes. “Yes, it's very special. What's your big news?”

“A scout from FSU is coming to Sean's game tomorrow!!!!” she squeals. “Can you believe it?”

J.J., Carrie, Ames, Jack, and Taylor all smile and congratulate Sean. I try to paint on a smile, but all I can see is him lying in a hospital bed, unable to move.

“My brother had to beg the guy. If David wasn't an alum, it never would have happened. The coaches there don't think I have the chops for Division One, but they agreed to check me out. I kind of can't even believe it. If I got in there…it would be a serious dream come true.”

“Would it, though?” I ask. “I mean, Division One…that's a lot of pressure, right? Wouldn't it be more fun to play Division Two…or Five or Six? I mean, that's easier, and you could probably get a bigger scholarship because you'd be the best guy on the team, right?”

All my friends are staring at me like I've sprouted a unicorn horn. Sean was elated a second ago, but now he's looking down at me, hurt.

“What are you trying to say, Autumn?” he asks. “You don't think I can handle the pressure?”

I give up. This isn't the way to change his future. I smile bigger than anyone else did. “Are you kidding? Of course you can handle it! This is perfect and I'm totally excited for you!!!”

Everyone seems to believe me, and soon we're all congratulating him again and he's telling us all about his plans to impress the scout, but I'm seriously distracted. At the end of the school day, I tell Carrie I'm sick so I can get out of Senior Social Committee, and I call Jenna while I walk home.

“I need a plan,” I say after I fill her in. “I'll give you some options, and you say yes or no. Get him on a flight to Canada.”

“I like it,” she says, “but you'd have to knock him out first and he's too big for you to carry.”

“Ooh, knock him out is good!” I say. “What if I give him sleeping pills before the game? Or I could trip him somewhere that I know he'd fall and smash his head and lose consciousness for a few hours!”

“I thought your purpose was to
avoid
getting him injured,” she says.

“How do I stop him from getting injured without getting him injured?”

“Get him arrested?” she suggests.

“Yes! That's a great idea! How do I do that?”

“Autumn, stop, you can't.”

“Why not?” I ask. “Locking him up would be perfect! Okay, I need a wicked witch and a tower.”

“I'm hanging up now,” Jenna says. “I love you. Good luck.”

When I get inside, I'm surprised to see Mom's home. I'm even more surprised to see her climbing down from the attic with an armload of old dog beds.

“Mom, wait!” I run to her and take the beds out of her hands. The attic stairs aren't built-ins. They fold down when you open the door in the back hallway ceiling, so they have no arm rail and they're very rickety. The few times I went up there, I hated every second.

“Thanks, Autumn,” she says, coming down much more easily now that her arms are empty. “The dogs have been going through our bedding and I knew we had some old Schmidt beds up there.” She folds up the attic stairs and uses the long wooden rod we keep by the washing machine to push the door shut. It creaks closed like the sound of a dungeon door…which makes me think of something.

“Mom?” I ask. “What if you're up in the attic and the door is closed? Would it just fall open when you step on it?”

“You
never
want the door closed when you're up there,” Mom says. “There's a catch on it so it stays shut. If you're up there and it's closed, you'd need someone else to open it from down here.”

“Got it,” I say as the wheels in my brain turn with diabolical brilliance.

Okay, maybe not brilliance. More like complete insanity. But it's all I've got. I just have to make sure there's a chance it can work.

“It's great to have you home so early,” I say. “Think you'll be home after school tomorrow too?”

Mom makes a sad face. “I'm so sorry, honey. I'm going to be with the contractors at the new location until after dinner tomorrow. Erick has a mall date, and I thought you'd be with your friends watching a football game. Will you be home alone?”

“No!” I assure her. “Totally doing the football thing. Not a problem at all.” I'm glad to know she and Erick will both be out of the house, though. It'll make my crazy plan much more possible. “Oh, hey,” I add, as if I just thought about it. “Have you ever thought about training the Catches Falls dogs as therapy dogs? Especially the older ones that maybe don't find homes right away?”

Mom smiles. “It's so funny you would say that, Autumn. I was actually thinking the same thing. We have so many hospitals and retirement homes in the area, and I think the dogs could really make a difference.”

“You should pursue it,” I say, as if I don't already know she will.

For the rest of the day and all Friday at school it's amazing I say anything intelligible, because I'm completely preoccupied with my plan for protecting Sean. I don't tell Jenna about it because I'm afraid she won't approve and she'll try to talk me out of it, but I can't have that since it's all I've got. I race home the second school is over—no Senior Social Committee on Fridays—and I'm thrilled that Mom's and Erick's plans held up and no one's home. I run to the back hallway, grab the wooden stick by the washing machine, and slide its hook end through the metal loop of the attic door. I pull the door down, then unfold the rickety wooden stairs.

Now for the first hard part. I find Schmidt curled up in his bed by the sliding doors to the pool. He likes feeling the cool glass against his fur while he basks in the warm sun.

“Up we go, Schmidtty,” I say. I bend low and haul the dog into my arms. Schmidt is sixty pounds of unwieldy dog weight that has gone perfectly limp because he has no desire to go anywhere. I can barely straighten my legs while holding him, never mind walk all the way to the back hallway.

I can do this,
I keep reminding myself.
My body works. But if I don't get this right, Sean's won't anymore.

With the image of Sean in the hospital bed fixed in my mind, I haul Schmidt up the attic steps, one rickety stair at a time. Then I clamber back down, leaving Schmidt whining nervously at the top. I'm not worried he'll try to climb down and fall. He's too scared for that. I feel terrible, but it's for a good cause.

“Sorry, boy,” I tell him. “It'll only be for a little while, and then I'll go buy you a burger, okay?”

The offer doesn't cheer him. I check the time. I'm cutting it close. On away game days, Sean would already be off with the team on the bus. For home games, the Aventura players have only a short window between the end of classes and when they have to be back with the team to get into their uniforms and warm up. I need to catch Sean
now.

I call his cell. When he answers, I channel Taylor and give the performance of my life. It's not hard. I just think about how badly I want to save him from the fate I saw and the fear comes pouring out.

“Sean, oh my God, I'm so sorry, I need your help. I'm all alone and I think he's going to get hurt and I need a guy and I can't get anyone else and I know you're busy and I'm so, so sorry but pleeeeease can you come over?!”

“Is this Autumn?” he asks, confused.

“Yes,
please,
I'm so sorry. It's Schmidt. Someone left the attic stairs open and he got up there and he can't get down and he's really heavy and I tried but I almost fell and I don't want to hurt us both and—”

“Easy, easy,” he says so soothingly that I almost hate myself for what I'm going to do. “Look, I have to get to school soon. Maybe I can call someone and get them over there.”

“No!” Schmidt howls plaintively and I'm suddenly so frantic that this isn't going to work that my voice gets shrill and I start to cry. “Schmidt freaks out if someone he doesn't know picks him up. He'll start flailing and moving and the guy could drop him and—”

“I'll be there in five minutes,” he assures me. “I just have to be quick.”

“Quick is great,” I sob. “Quick is perfect.”

I hang up and grab some of Schmidt's favorite dog treats. When I hear Sean's car outside, I run up to the top of the attic stairs and throw a treat to the farthest corner of the room. Schmidt bounds after it and I dart quickly back down the stairs.

“You're here!” I gush as I open the door.

Sean's wearing denim shorts and a T-shirt that shows off all his muscles, and for just a second I forget not only why he's here, but also why I ever stopped liking him. He pushes past me before I can gush. “Where's the attic?”

“That way,” I say. I point him to the back stairs, and as I follow behind him, I lightly pull his phone from his back pocket and set it on the floor. He doesn't notice. “You are the best friend in the world and a true savior of dogs in need.”

He turns and flashes his melt-worthy smile. “I'm a savior of ex-girlfriends in need,” he says. “I don't like to hear you cry.”

It seriously kills me that if all goes well he's going to hate me in about five minutes, but I remind myself I have no choice. This is my Dad-given mission, and even though Sean will never know it,
I'll
know I saved his life.

Sean jogs up the rickety stairs, and I follow right behind him. Our attic is unfinished. It's all wooden beams and a zillion random things we stored up here after the move. Thin, high windows let in the sunlight, and Sean bounds toward Schmidt, still in a far corner munching his treat. With Sean's back to me, I reach into my pocket and toss another treat to the other side of the room. Schmidt bounds after it.

“What was that sound?” Sean asks.

“I don't know!” I shout in fake panic. “Schmidt, no! Don't run to the stairs!”

Schmidt's not running anywhere near the stairs, but I pretend I don't know that. I pull on the attic stairs, folding them up and pulling the door shut as if in a panic. When I hear the door latch, I don't know if I'm relieved my plan really worked or terrified about what'll happen next.

A minute later, Sean walks over with Schmidt in his arms. “Okay, Autumn,” he says. “I've got him. You can open the door.”

I nod and press down on the door, as if I don't know it doesn't open from inside. Then I push harder. I aim for a confused look on my face.

“Autumn?” Sean asks.

“I don't get it,” I say. “It's not opening.”

“What do you mean it's not opening?”

I push down on the door more frantically, then look up at him as if I've just made a horrible discovery. “I don't think it opens from the inside.”

“No,” Sean says. He puts Schmidt down and starts pushing on the door. “No, no, no, no, no. This isn't possible. I have to get out of here.” He reaches for his back pocket. When he speaks next, his voice is shaky. “Where's my cell phone?”

“You don't have it?”

“I
had
it. I don't
have
it.”

“Did it drop?”

We retrace his steps through the attic, even though I'm just doing it for show. No shocker, the phone's not up here.

“Are you kidding me?!” he roars. He looks frantically around the attic and grabs a giant golden goblet that was some hideous gift my mom and dad got for their wedding and kept because it was so hysterically awful. He runs it to the attic door and starts pounding the goblet down.

“Stop!” I scream. “You'll break it!”

“That's the point!” he yells back. “I need to get out of here!”

“You can't break a hole in my mom's ceiling to do it!” I yell.

That calms him down. A little. Or at least it stops him from destroying things. Sean's a good guy. He wouldn't hurt anything that wasn't his. Instead of pounding, he just paces the room like a caged animal. “Why did you close the door, Autumn? Didn't you know it locked from this side?”