The Summer I Saved the World ... in 65 Days (17 page)

“Neen,” he says, “why are you never wearing shoes? Don't girls have, like, a hundred pairs of shoes?”

I smile. “It's summer.”

He's not mentioning what happened, but it's right there. I feel it. Does he?

Inside the house, Thomas comes running, cape flying. “Mystery Girl!” he shouts.

I grab him and swing him around. “I'm not Mystery Girl.”

He whispers into my ear. “I figured it out. You keep it a secret, just like all the other superheroes.”

I set him down. “So what's up with the pasta?” Their house looks the same as I remember it. A worn sofa with lots of pillows. Curtains. An old TV.

“Eli made a mess!” Thomas says.

There are broken pieces of uncooked spaghetti all over the stove. “Nice.” I sweep them into a pile.

Thomas climbs onto a stool.

“The pot is too small. And you know you're
supposed to boil the water before you put the noodles in?” I glance at Eli. “There is something called a cookbook. And the recipe is on the box.”

He softly punches my arm.

“Do you have a bigger pot?”

He opens a cabinet and hands me one. I fill it with water and turn on the burner, add some salt.

Eli looks at all the broken noodles. “Should I open another box?”

“It's fine; they'll still taste the same.”

He shakes his head and gets another box. “I want the dinner to be good, not … a mess.”

“Do you have another pot for the sauce?”

Thomas stands on the stool. “In there!” He points his sword, and the stool starts to wobble. “Whoa!”

Eli runs and grabs him before he falls. “Sit on the stool, Tom.” Eli plunks him down.

Thomas frowns and crosses his arms. “What kind of superhero has to sit down?”

Eli's phone buzzes, and he pulls it out of his pocket, then texts someone.

I pour the sauce into the pot. The spaghetti water starts boiling.

“Thanks,” Eli says, coming over to look. “Much better.”

“Put in the spaghetti.”

He does, and I hand him a spoon. “Stir. So it doesn't stick.”

“Okay.”

“Can I sing you a song?” Thomas asks me.

“Sure.”

“I made it up.”

“All right.”

“Don't be afraid! Don't be scared! Thomas Bennett is here! And he can fight a bear!”

He grins, and I clap. “That was great!”

Eli smiles, still stirring.

I glance around. “What else are you making? Garlic bread? Salad?”

Thomas and Eli look at each other. Eli says, “I guess.”

The door to their garage flies opens. Jorie calls, “E?”

E?

She walks in. “What's going on? You guys are cooking?” She takes the spoon from Eli. “I make amazing spaghetti.”

Since when?

“Eli's cooking it,” Thomas tells her.

Jorie adjusts the burner. “Now, you want them al dente, not mushy.”

Who is she?

“Oh.” Eli watches her.

Jorie picks a noodle up with the spoon and holds it to Eli's mouth. “See if it's done.”

He chews, shrugs. “I think so.”

“Perfect,” Jorie says. “Where's that strainer thing?”

I want to throw the boiling pot at someone. I'm not sure who.

Eli turns off the burner. “Thomas, where's the …”

“It's called a colander,” I say.

“That bowl with the little holes? There.” Thomas points.

Eli takes out the colander, puts it in the sink, and then dumps out the spaghetti. Jorie grabs his arm and takes a picture of the two of them on her phone. “I'm setting this as my background!”

Eli looks at the picture.

“Well,” I say. “I think things are under control now.”

Eli is supposed to say, “Don't go.”

Nope. He stands there.

I storm over to the pot of sauce and furiously turn off the burner. “This is done!”

That kiss? I was right. Just a moment. What was I thinking? He likes her. They've probably kissed a hundred times. I'm just the cook.

Jorie scoots herself up onto a counter, crosses her legs. “Hey, we should make brownies!”

Thomas points his sword in her direction.

“You could really hurt someone with that,” Jorie says.

He growls.

Thomas
, I want to say,
I couldn't agree more
.

I stomp home, mad at myself. I just let her take over. She stole number fifty-one. He rang
my
doorbell. But what was I supposed to do, wrestle Jorie for the spoon? Take a cuter picture on my phone?

Eli didn't exactly seem to be stopping her. Right. Because they're going to HC. The whole neighborhood knows.

Fine
.

I'm so done with this.

T
he next day, Sariah and I go to a clinic for girls who are thinking of trying out for the freshman basketball team. Her mom drops us at school. Sariah's mom looks just like Sariah, and she tells us to have fun. No warnings. What a concept.

Sariah and I stand at the entrance to the gym, watching the girls warm up. “They're gigantic,” Sariah says.

One girl sinks a three-pointer. “And amazing,” I say.

“We'll be benchwarmers for sure. If we even make the team.”

A coach sees us. “You here for the clinic?”

“Um, yeah,” I say.

“Well, grab a ball.”

We start shooting around with the other girls. I'm out of practice, missing a lot, but it doesn't matter. It feels so good just to move, sweat, clear my head. Love the sound of twenty basketballs bouncing on a gym floor.

We do some drills, then a scrimmage game. Sariah and I barely get the ball. The three-point girl is also a ball hog. The coach pulls her aside after the clinic.

“I bet he wants her to come to the varsity tryouts,” Sariah whispers.

“Maybe we should consider something else,” I say, and smile. “The debate team? Student council? Fencing?”

“You're not serious? Have you ever fenced?”

“No! I wasn't serious. I wouldn't trust myself to handle one of those long swords.”

Sariah laughs. “What about the art club? They make all the posters and flyers for school events. I really want to join. Come with me to the first meeting? Please? No tryouts.”

Why does Jorie pop into my head? She'd say the club is full of weird kids; no one there would be a potential homecoming date. Maybe they are weird. Am I?

“Okay, I'll come.” I smile. “Fifty-two.”

“Great! What's fifty-two?”

“Oh, a good number.”

That night, my head is too full and I can't fall asleep. Everything's tumbling around, like clothes in a dryer. Mom, Grandma, Matt … Sariah and the art club kids … but mostly Jorie and Eli on homecoming night. Her red dress and his matching tie. Him kissing her.

I finally get up and put on a pair of flip-flops (shoes, for once), then slip out the back door into the dark. It's after midnight.

A perfect night. Black, cloudless sky. Warm, steamy air. I settle in the hammock, tuck my hands behind my head, close my eyes, and listen to the quiet.

Only, it's not quiet. Muffled voices. Laughter. A light in the Dixon house. And for the first time, movement. A blur of a face. Has Mrs. Millman been right all along? The Dixon house
is
haunted?

I roll off the hammock. Someone, or
something
, is definitely in there.

I cross the street. Should I call the police? Wake my parents? Where is Mrs. Millman when you really need her?

I stop on the sidewalk. The weeds are swaying
by the front window. If I see something (ghost or person), I will tear back to my house and get my parents.

Then I hear this laugh.

I freeze.

No.

I inch my way through the dark. Peek through the glass door by the patio in the back. Matt is sitting on the floor of the kitchen, with three other guys, in a circle. Two flashlights point toward the ceiling, lighting the room in an eerie way. They're all wearing dark sunglasses and caps, looking at something in between them. What? There are a bunch of bottles and chip bags around them, like the garbage I found.

This is where Matt's been going all summer?
Here?
I stand on my tiptoes, but I can't see what they're doing.

He broke in?

Like what happened at school. When he got suspended.

I sink into the moist grass. Is he drinking too?

I thought he was doing so well. He'd gotten it all together, with the job at the pool, getting into a decent college. Oh, Matt.

I'd never seen Mom and Dad get so mad. Mom yelled at him.… “This is serious. It's on your permanent
record. A disciplinary suspension. This will affect everything. College. Your future. What possessed you?”

Matt said nothing. Stood there.

“Don't you have anything to say for yourself? Why, Matthew, why?”

It was a year ago, last May, when Grandma was dying. Matt and another kid broke into the principal's office, stole the elevator key, and went joyriding for an hour before someone caught them. They wrote graffiti on the elevator walls too.

“You made a bad choice, and now you have to live with the consequences. Don't screw up again.”

Matt had detention and loss of school privileges and had to spend two Saturdays cleaning the elevators. Mom and Dad had to pay for a new lock too, and Matt had to pay them back. That's when he shut them out. Me too.

Matt turns his head and sees me. He lowers his sunglasses and we lock eyes.

Maybe Eli's right.… Is everyone too messed up for good things to matter? Can doing good really do any good? Make a difference?

Someone shouts, “Show me the money!” and Matt looks back and laughs.

All I want to do is run. From Matt, Eli and Jorie, my
parents … from this whole in-between, I-don't-know-what-I-was-trying-to-do-anymore summer of good things.

I even want to run from myself. For dreaming up the whole idea.

I
take off.

The door slides open. “Nina!”

It's Matt, but I don't stop.

I run, like that day with Eli, except it's just me. No one to hold my hand.

I sprint to our patio and throw the cushions off the love seat, then turn and tear out of the neighborhood. I make it only as far as the park before I get dizzy and my legs feel like they're going to collapse. I plunk down onto a swing and start pumping my legs. More and faster and more and crying. Until I'm swinging
high in the night, above the treetops, legs out and tucked in, again and again, drawing the thick summer air into my lungs. So high that I'm leaving the seat with every upswing. Gripping the chains tightly. Like this is the only thing left to do that makes sense. Swing. And breathe.

When I run out of energy, I let the swing slow. And stop.

I look at Grandma's wedding band on my finger. Why isn't she here to help me? No one else is that patient, or calm, or honest. I can't remember all the Simple Truths by myself. Why didn't she write them down for me?