The Tragedy Paper (24 page)

“I’m going to be sick again,” Kyle said, stepping away from me and heaving into the snow. I grabbed a handful of snow when he was finished and offered it to him.

“Use a little of this to wash out your mouth,” I said. “And put some on the nape of your neck if you can, and your wrists—it might help.”

About five minutes went by, and Kyle seemed to feel a bit better.

“What do you want to do?” I asked him.

“Stay here until they come back, and then head out,” he said seriously. “What else can I do?”

“That’s not going to work for a few reasons,” I said. “First,
I’m not even sure they’ll come back this way. And the longer we wait, the weaker you’re going to get. Plus, it’s really cold out here.”

Kyle nodded. I was afraid he’d say he was going to be sick again, but he didn’t. He reached down and lifted some more snow into his mouth.

“Come with me. I’ll go slowly. When we get to the other side, I’ll ask the guy who’s bringing the sleds if he can drive you back. What do you say?”

Kyle looked unsure.

“Do you want to at least try to go?” I asked.

Kyle nodded, and then took a step. We walked quietly, and after a while I could hear a car idling, which turned out to be a huge bright red pickup truck full of sleds. When we got closer, I could see they were long, made of wood with blades on each side and a steering mechanism at the front. It wasn’t what I had expected. I thought they would be inner tubes or plastic rings.

Patrick was talking to the man through the driver’s side window. Then the man got out, shook Patrick’s hand, and started unloading. I couldn’t help but think Patrick was using him the way he used all of us for one thing or another.

“I can’t do it,” Kyle muttered.

“No, no, of course not,” I said. “You’re sick. I’ll ask him to drive you back.”

Kyle seemed to have second thoughts.

“No. You know what, the guys are going to think I’m a wuss,” he said. “I’m going to stick it out and walk back with everyone else.”

I looked at him. He was pale and trying not to shiver.

“Look,” I said quietly, “you just threw up three times and still walked through the woods. If anyone thinks you’re a wuss, so be it, that’s their problem.”

I walked over to the man and explained the situation. In minutes he had Kyle set up in the warm cab of the truck. I promised Kyle we would do this as fast as we could.

One by one the sleds were taken off the truck. They were big and heavy. Why in the world they had to be wood with blades I didn’t know. But the man said they were the best he had and he wanted to provide only the best for the senior outing.

There were exactly twelve sleds on the truck. I did the math: that was going to mean two trips. The first trip was okay. It took about thirty minutes to get to the top of the hill. I was surprised by how high it was up there.

The toy store man—I never got his name—wondered out loud if it was going to snow all day and night, would the sleds be buried? Patrick thought for a minute and decided we should stand the sleds up against trees, which added to our time and energy drain. When we got back to the road for the second round, everyone was exhausted. I checked on Kyle, who was warm and cozy in the cab listening to the radio. This time it took almost an hour to reach
the spot. We had brought no water or food, and I actually started to worry. I was relieved to return to the truck.

“I think we should say good-bye here,” Patrick said to the sled man. “We’ll head on back.”

“Wait,” I said. “Can’t you drive us?”

“Hell, yeah,” he said. I thought more than anything he probably wanted to be invited to the outing tonight. But that wasn’t my invitation to extend. “My truck is big. I can drive you all back.”

Patrick shook his head.

“If we all show up on the quad in a truck, we’re going to get caught,” he said. “We can’t take that chance.”

“I got you covered, guys,” the man said, pulling his cap off and on again. He looked to me like he hadn’t had this much fun in a long time. “I’ll drive you around and drop you off on the road by the gym. It will be fine, and you’ll have a ten-minute walk as opposed to an hour or whatever it will take you to get there in this deep snow.”

“That should work,” Patrick said, looking gratefully at me. I smiled.

A few guys piled into the cab next to Kyle, but I was happy in the bed of the truck.

The ride went fast. When we got back, it was like we had never left: there were still tons of people playing and no teachers in sight. We all nodded to each other but said nothing about what we had just done as we started to go our separate ways.

“Thanks,” Kyle said after the group dispersed. “I owe you.”

“No problem,” I said. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

As I crossed the quad, I caught a glimpse of a lavender ski jacket and turned. Vanessa was with all her friends, and they looked very busy. My eyes were strong, and I loved how her colors—lavender and dark purple—were even brighter next to the snow. I realized what they were doing. They were building an igloo and Vanessa was directing. I wanted to go to her, but Patrick was coming up behind me. And maybe I was still mad about the little albino kid and everything else. So I didn’t. I turned and went inside. As I walked under the arch, I could hear her laughter glide toward me across the snow.

I went right to my room, thankful for the tiny window so I could feel far away from the activity and the storm. I got into bed and slept for the next four hours.

Duncan wondered for a minute where he had been then—it would have been about four in the afternoon on that awful day. He was probably playing in the snow, he realized. He and Tad had gone out back, instead of out front to the quad, because there was a cool hill leading down from the dining hall to a parking lot. It was really fast, and once, he remembered suddenly, Tad had crashed into one of the parked cars. But he was okay; they laughed it off. He hadn’t thought about that at all, there had been so many other things to think about after that night.

Duncan stood up and went to the tiny window, the one Tim had just mentioned. He wished for a minute that it was a time portal and could take him back to that snowy afternoon, hours before everything happened. He would look out and see the blanket of white, and Vanessa would
be there, in her bright jacket. And he and Tad would be just on the other side of the building. He wanted to go back to that time, not because he wanted to relive it, not at all. But because those were the last few hours he would ever have without the terrible image in his mind that he feared he would spend the rest of his life running from. But there was no snow out there today. That snow could only be found in Tim’s recording.

When I woke up, my clock said it was eight o’clock. I had slept through dinner and I was starving, so I headed to the sick cabinet for a few crackers. I’m sure you remember dinner that night—how they put out sandwiches because of the storm. I was happy to see there was still plenty of food and I wouldn’t have to brave the wilderness with only a few crackers in my stomach. I hadn’t expected to stay, so I had just socks on, which got soaked from all the melted snow. I pulled them off before I got my food and left them on a chair. I gathered my dinner, and when I got back, Kyle was on the chair next to my socks, a cup of tea in front of him.

“Hi. What’s going on?” I asked. He looked up and smiled.

“Hey, thanks again for helping me today,” he said. “I can’t believe how quickly I got sick. I think I’d still be out there if it wasn’t for you.”

“No you wouldn’t,” I said, smiling back. “You would have been okay.”

“Well, it would have been much worse, if that’s possible, I know that,” he said. “Vanessa was looking for you, by the way.” I had just taken a bite of my sandwich, and I had to work hard to swallow it.

“She was?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “You just missed everyone. They were all here. Vanessa and Patrick and everyone else. I think Patrick must have told her the story of the sleds, and must have said how I got sick and you helped me. I could hear him telling some of the story, and he was sort of laughing. I know he was being mean to me, and to you, like we were wimps who couldn’t just go out into the woods and be manly. He said something like I had to throw up and you were at the ready to help. I don’t know. He can be a total jerk. But then Patrick got up to get some hot chocolate. I think there’s still some over there, and they have real whipped cream. Anyway, as soon as he was out of earshot, she asked if I’d seen you. It seemed pretty urgent.”

I willed myself to take a second bite of my sandwich because I didn’t want to look like it was such a big deal. I chewed, not tasting the food at all.

“So, what did you tell her?” I finally asked.

“That I hadn’t seen you since we got back.”

We sat quietly for a minute.

“I thought I’d slept through dinner,” I said, trying to change the subject. “I can’t believe there’s still food out.”

“That’s because of the snowstorm,” he said. “This happens
sometimes. The full kitchen staff can’t get in, so we have a simple sandwich night. I think Mr. Simon actually made the brownies.”

“Well, it works for me,” I said, finishing off the first half of my sandwich. “Is the outing still on?”

“Yeah, everyone is psyched,” he said.

“Are you psyched?” I asked.

“No, I’m going to skip it,” he said. “I still feel pretty queasy, and to be perfectly honest, I have a really bad feeling about tonight.”

“It stopped snowing,” I said, pretending not to hear his last comment.

“But there’s, like, a foot of snow out there,” he said. “I’m fine with it. If Patrick makes fun of me, so be it. It just isn’t my thing.”

“Okay,” I said, thinking he was probably the only smart one around. “I get that. But do you know, is the plan still the same? It’s so quiet around here.”

“That’s on purpose,” Kyle said. “Patrick told everyone to pretend they’re so tired from playing outside and act like it’s going to be an early night. Honestly, I haven’t seen a teacher or anyone in charge in a while. I think almost everyone has turned in for the night. I don’t think there’s going to be a problem.”

I nodded. That seemed like too much of a statement to take on, even though I knew what he meant.

I wondered at that moment if I should do what Kyle was
going to do and opt out. I could just not show up. I could somehow get Vanessa’s attention and beg her to stay back with me. But I knew I wasn’t going to do that. I was feeling physically better than I had in a long time—my eyes felt good, and I was still managing my headaches perfectly. I had finally found the answer to that problem. I was going to take advantage of it.

“Why are you barefoot?” Kyle asked, looking at my feet, which I realized were cold. Instinctively, I reached down and rubbed them.

“My socks got all wet,” I said. “I hadn’t planned on hanging out so long.”

I pushed my chair back and stood up.

“If you change your mind about tonight, I’ll watch your back,” I said, not sure why I cared if he came or not.

“I know you would,” he said. “But I’ve made up my mind.”

We walked up the stairs together, and he stopped at the door to his room.

“I hope it goes well,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” I said, reaching out to shake his hand, something I don’t usually do. He took my hand and shook, looking me in the eyes. I turned and walked back to my room. I didn’t hear a sound, but I started to feel the energy building: somewhere it was growing. I smiled. Maybe it was going to be a good night after all.

Duncan turned off the CD. He had been in his room all day listening. At one point he slept for an hour. But when he woke up, he went right back to it. It almost felt to him like he was reentering a bad dream, but he couldn’t help himself. He had to hear more.

In the middle of the afternoon, Tad knocked on the door to see if he was okay. Later he came back with a note from Daisy asking him to come down and meet her. He ignored the note. He knew he was acting crazy, but he just wanted to get through it.

He told himself he was doing important schoolwork, that this was all for his Tragedy Paper. But he knew it was much more than that. Still, as he listened, he took notes.
Order to chaos to order
, he kept writing, but he could never quite figure out which was the order and which was the
chaos.
Reversal of fortune—bad to good to bad?
he wrote. Or was it just good to bad? He wasn’t sure. Magnitude, magnitude, magnitude. He knew that was a big one. But he still couldn’t identify which things held the greatest magnitude and which didn’t matter at all. Monomania? Was this his own personal version of monomania?

He glanced at his desk and saw the paperback version of
Hamlet
that Tim had left for him in the secret compartment.
Don’t miss the point
, the Post-it note said. The point? And then Duncan knew: it had to do with the Game, he thought. Because it couldn’t have had to do with Daisy. To be or not to be? To play or not to play? His mind was playing tricks on him and he knew it. He listened to Tim’s voice tell him about the journey into the snowy woods, and that’s when he turned it off. He didn’t want to listen to it alone anymore. He could still feel those snowy woods. He took a quick look at himself in the mirror, running his hands over his rumpled hair. He could see sleep in the corners of his eyes, and he took a minute to work it out. Then he went in search of Daisy.

He found her in the Hall, working on her Tragedy Paper. He was so relieved to have finally made the decision to tell her everything that he felt like he was going to cry. He had to stand for a minute before he could talk, pretending he had gotten something in his eye.

“Can you come with me?” he finally choked out. “I want to show you something.”

He thought about correcting himself and saying he wanted to play something for her, or he wanted her to hear something, but decided he’d explain when they got to his room.