The Friendship Riddle (14 page)

Melinda cocked her head to the side. She'd never taken on Lena before, and I wondered if she had simply never bothered or if there was something about Lena that scared her a little bit.

Lena took me by the hand. She looked from Melinda to Charlotte and then back to Melinda again. “Anyway, Ruthy, can we go over that science unit again? I'm nervous for the test.”

She looped her arm through mine and led me out of the gym. I felt bad about leaving the book on the floor, but not bad enough to go back for it.

“Thanks,” I said when we were in the hallway.

“What was that all about? And don't say it was a hair elastic. I just dove into a pit of hyenas for you. Piranhas, even.”

The envelope was in my back pocket, probably bent. My stomach lifted and hovered, like when you're at the top of the roller coaster, about to rush over, wishing you
could turn back. I pulled it from my pocket, opened up my palm, and showed it to her.

“And how many of these have you found?” Lena asked after I told her about the notes in the books.

“This is the fourth one. Well, this is the third one I've found, but Charlotte says she has one, too. Not that I'll ever see it.”

“Come on, then. Open it up.”

My fingers tightened on the envelope. “Not here.”

She tugged me into the girls' bathroom. It was pink-tiled with cracked mirrors and a lingering smell of cigarettes from when this was a high school.

She leaned back against a chipped sink and looked at me. I knew I should open the envelope and read the clue, but I hesitated. “Well?” she prompted.

I pulled the card out of the envelope. “They always have this seal,” I said. I ran my thumb over the drawing of the bird that seemed to be in the red wax.

“It looks real,” she said. Her hand hovered toward the card, but I didn't let her touch it.

I unfolded the card. The border was red, white, and blue ribbon, with black ink used to make the colors seem bolder. For the picture, a bright British flag, the Union Jack, waved in the breeze. A light seemed to shine on it from below, and
the whole thing gave me a sense of vertigo, as if the flag might wave its way right out of the drawing.

“Whoa,” she said.

“See. They're all different kinds of riddles.” Mixed with the queasy feeling was something like a thrill of finally—
finally
—having someone who thought the clues were as amazing as I did.

“I do love those crazy Brits with their accents and stammering. I keep telling my mom to hire British workers in the summer, but she likes the ones from Germany. Do you watch
Doctor Who
? It's this great British show with time travel—you'd like it.”

I knew all about
Doctor Who
. It was Mum's favorite show.

“I like the young one with the floppy hair. He's got great big eyes, kind of like Coco's. See, I told you you'd like the show.”

“I don't—”

“My sister Vera, she likes one from the old show, from like the seventies or eighties. He wears this long scarf and has huge curly hair. I don't get it, but I'm learning how to knit so I can make her a scarf like that for Christmas.”

“Christmas already went by.”

“For this year.”

“How do you know she'll still like him?”

“My sisters don't change much.”

“I don't like Coco.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You only spend every last minute with him. It makes it practically impossible to be your friend.”

I only spent one period a day with him, and not even every day, since we only had three or four study halls a week, depending on the schedule rotation. “I don't—Wait, what do you mean?”

She regarded herself in the cracked mirror and smoothed out a bit of her hair. “Anytime I want to find you to study or eat lunch or sneak into the bathroom during class, you're studying spelling with him.”

“I didn't realize—”

“But not today!” she interrupted.

“Because we're in the bathroom,” I said. “Oh, God, we need to get to class!”

“We'll tell Ms. Lawson I got my period. I can cry on command if I need to.”

“But—wait.” The information was coming at me so quickly, I couldn't even think. “Have you gotten your period already?”

She blew her bangs out of her eyes. “Three months ago. It sucks. Have you?”

I shook my head.

“Lucky.”

“Let's go,” I said. “And you'd better start crying now.”

“This afternoon,” she said. “Can you meet me? We'll ponder it all afternoon, and then once we've figured it out, we'll go to Sea Street and look.”

“Why Sea Street?” I asked.

“That's the steepest street in town. My sister Lucia was walking down it over the weekend and fell flat on her butt. She had a big wet spot and wanted me to walk behind her in case anyone drove by and saw it and thought she had wet her pants.”

“Did you?”

“Once the price was right.” She pointed at the T-shirt she wore for a band I'd never heard of—the Velvet Underground. I thought it was a band, anyway. But maybe it was a store. There was a picture of a banana on it.

“Not today. I could do it tomorrow, maybe. I guess.”

I inched toward the door.

“Great. I'll have my mom call your mom and you can stay for dinner. Okay?” she asked.

“Okay,” I agreed, but it felt a bit like she was taking something from me. Something that was only mine. And Charlotte's.

The light snowflakes that started to fall as school let out turned into a heavy storm, and Mom was stuck at work. Her voice sounded crackly over Eliot's cell phone as I stood in the lobby of the library, looking at the snow falling in the glow of the streetlight. “I need you to go to Charlotte's house tonight,” she said.

“Maybe Eliot can just drive me home.”

“Ruth, please don't argue with me. The roads are terrible.”

“We need to feed Webster.”

“He'll be okay for tonight.” Only her voice dropped out on “tonight.” “Listen, I know you and Charlotte haven't been as close as you used to be, but it's only one night. You'll be okay. I talked to Eliot and he agrees.”

So it was done. “Okay, Mom,” I said. “See you tomorrow.”

I wandered back into the library and found Eliot moving buckets around the lower level. “This building,” he said with a sigh. “I told Alan when he first looked at it, there are some things that aren't worth fixing. The only good thing is that none of the leaks are over the books.”

I took a bucket from him and we walked farther into the stacks. “So I guess I'm going to your house tonight,” I said.

“Yep,” he replied. “We can make up the guest room for you.”

I never used to sleep in the guest room. I'd sleep in Charlotte's room, in my sleeping bag or even right in bed with her. “Thanks.”

“Closing time is in fifteen minutes. You can head up now or wait for me.”

“I'll wait,” I said. I placed my bucket in a far corner where there was a slow but steady drip-drip-drip.

As long as Alan and Eliot were around, it was easy. We talked to them and they talked to each other and to each of us, and if you were from the outside, you might not have noticed that we never once spoke to each other, not even to ask the other to pass the butter.

After dinner, though, we sat alone in the television room. Only the cable was out, so we weren't watching anything. We were just sitting there. We had our homework, and we
were both doing the science worksheet, but we certainly weren't working on it together.

We were side by side and alone. At one point that would have been comfortable, but now it felt like little robots were building a wall between us, brick by snowy brick.

I saw her list of spelling words sticking out of her binder. It was flipped over to the page of challenge words. Melinda would be terrible to study with. She wouldn't be able to pronounce any of the words or have any tricks to help Charlotte remember how to spell tough words. I ought to have offered to study with her, but I didn't. I didn't say anything.

Bedtime was worse. I didn't have any pajamas, of course, so I had to borrow some of Charlotte's. And get a spare toothbrush from a bin in her bathroom closet. All these things used to be normal. Sometimes we'd come over as a family and it would get late and we'd all just stay there—my moms and me. I wouldn't even ask Charlotte what to borrow; I'd just take it right out of her drawers.

The kicker: Alan had three models for a bid he was working on spread out on the guest bed, so I had to sleep in Charlotte's room.

Alan brought in an air mattress, and the motor to blow it up was so loud that none of us could talk. I wished we could have that motor going all night. When Alan left, it was quiet, but neither of us slept. I heard Charlotte turning over and over and over.

“Can you stop moving so much?” I asked.

“Can you?”

“I'm not moving much. The air mattress is just noisy.”

“Whatever.” She sat up in bed and looked out the window. “We're not having school tomorrow, so I'm not sure it even matters if we don't get to sleep.” Outside, the wind blew the trees and made them creak like old doors. “Did you ask your mom to send that e-mail? About the locker room?”

“No.”

“Oh. Okay.” She tugged on her blankets. “I'm glad she did. I hate that locker room. I hate how the boys can come through. Toby says you can see in, just a little bit.”

“Really?”

“He says they try to guess who they are seeing.”

I shivered. I couldn't imagine Coco or Adam or Dev playing that game, but maybe . . . maybe.

“They can always tell when it's me, I bet.”

“Why?”

“Because of my hair. My skin.” She reached her arms out in front of her and splayed her fingers wide. “Do you think they'll do anything about it?” she asked. “What did Ms. Wickersham say to you?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I mean, I don't think there's anything they can do. That's why I have to change in the supply closet now. I tried to tell Mom that.”

“She's just trying to help.”

She settled back down onto her pillow. On her ceiling, she had ribbons twisted together going from end to end.
She had started clipping things to them. I saw them for a flash before we turned the lights out. Pictures of people—not me—and little mementos.

We were quiet for several moments before she asked, “Do you like Coco?”

“No,” I said.

“He likes you.”

I shook my head. “He's just helping me with the spelling bee.”

“He likes you,” she said again, sounding a little bit mystified.

“Do you like Mitchell?” I asked.

She didn't answer right away. She was going to lie to me. I could feel it. And then, I supposed, I would know our friendship was truly over.

“Yes. But he likes Melinda.”

“Are you sure?” I used to catch Mitchell looking at Charlotte in class sometimes, even way back when I was still reading to him.