The Friendship Riddle (34 page)

I didn't think teachers should use the word “yak.” Lucas would probably tell her that a yak was an animal, and then he'd have some semi-interesting fact about yaks, maybe about their vomit.

“Thanks,” I said. “I guess.”

“You're welcome.”

We could hear voices out in the hall. I shifted the envelopes in my hand. It had taken me forever to make all the little envelopes. We didn't have any origami paper, so I'd used wrapping paper instead. “I need to go find some people,” I said.

“Sure, of course,” she said. Then, laughing, she added, “Don't be late!”

I was almost to the door when she said, “Hey, Ruth, don't give up on Charlotte just yet. These things have a way of working themselves out.”

There was a time when someone saying something like that would have made my heart soar. Now, though, well, maybe it would be nice. Someday. But I could wait.

We told my moms we were going sledding.

“Great!” Mom said. She hadn't stopped smiling since the first guest had arrived. “We'll have hot chocolate when you get back. It's from Dean and DeLuca, and it's fantastic!”

“And play Chubby Bunnies!” Mum added, tossing a marshmallow into her mouth. “Fubby bunnies,” she garbled the words around the marshmallow. She swallowed and said, “I'll just be practicing until you get back.”

“I don't like sledding,” Adam said when we got outside.

“We're not going sledding,” I said. “We're going to the fire tower.”

“In winter?” Dev asked.

“Why?”

That's when I showed them the final clue that Charlie had given me.

“Another clue!” Lucas exclaimed.

“Where'd you find it?” Coco asked.

I explained about the book that Mr. Douglas had given me with the story and the map. I had the pewter figurine of the dragon deep in the pocket of my jeans. I told them how the library used to be where the comic shop was, and told them what Charlie had told me. Except about Harriet Wexler. I wanted to keep that to myself, I guess. You can't share all of yourself.

“And you're sure this is where it's supposed to be?” Dev asked, looking up at the hill filled with pine trees.

I unfolded the map, my fingers turning pink from the cold.

“This is the coolest!” Lena said. “It's our town, but you know, actually interesting.”

I pointed to a small building in the hills. “There's a fire tower up there,” I said. “
 
‘Towers of fire.'
 
”

“And glory,” Lucas said. “I told you quests were all about fame and glory.”

“What are we waiting for?” Coco asked. “Let's go. The quest!”

“The quest!” we called back.

The hill was steeper than I remembered it being. Charlotte and I used to play around in the woods back here. She'd be a princess and I'd be a half elf, half knight. She'd pretend to be captured, and then I'd break her free. Or she'd break herself free. She was a very clever princess.

Maybe someday if I become a writer, I'll put a Princess Charlotte in one of my books and she'll read it and she'll know that everything is okay.

Lucas slipped and fell down onto his knees. I reached out my hand to pull him to his feet, and noticed Coco had fallen a little bit behind.

I waited for him and we fell into step with each other. Our boots crunched into the icy white snow. “I never thanked you for helping me,” I told him.

“It was fun,” he said. But his cheeks were starting to turn pink.

“Was your dad angry? With your sister?”

He shook his head. “No. It was really weird. We got home from school and Dad had all these board games out. Like old ones. Scrabble and Trouble and Operation.”

“Oh, I love Operation!”

“Me, too! Anyway, we just played them all afternoon. And ate popcorn and drank soda. We never get to drink soda.”

“Me, neither,” I said. “Did he say anything?”

“No, just that when he was growing up they used to have family game nights and they would all end up yelling at each other about cheating and sometimes people would be mad for days. He called one game Full-Contact Pictionary.”

“Weird.”

“I know, right? Anyway, we didn't yell at all. He didn't say it, but I think he was trying to say that being competitive, that's part of who he is, but he got it, you know, that it didn't need to be that way for me and Emma.”

“What about your brother?”

“Clint? He's more like Dad, overall, but even he seemed more mellow while we were playing.”

A big pack of snow slipped off a pine tree and exploded in front of us.

“Oh, hey,” he said. “I've been meaning to give you this. From my piano teacher.”

From his coat pocket he pulled out a candy wrapped in
red foil paper. When I put it in my mouth, it was like sucking on creamy butter and sugar—like one of the elfish foods in Taryn Greenbottom's world.

“Listen,” he said. “You know the Valentine's Day dance is coming up.”

“Sure,” I said around the hard candy in my mouth. I watched as the snowflakes were caught in the sun and twinkled like stars. It was enough to make you believe in fairies.

“I was wondering if you wanted to go with me?”

I turned my head sharply to face him. His whole face was red, right up to and under his knit cap. “Do people do that?” I asked.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

He took a step forward.

Was he going to try to kiss me like Lord Charlesmoore had kissed Taryn?

“Some people might,” he said to the snow. “They could. Especially if they were, you know, together.”

“Together? Like, together?” My voice sounded funny, and the words didn't form quite right with the candy in my mouth.

“Yes. Like together.”

“I don't—”

“It's okay, never mind. I didn't figure you liked me, I just thought I would give it a shot. Clint said I should. And Dev. And Adam.”

“I
do
like you,” I said. And as I said the words, I knew they were true.

“You do?”

“Yes. I think so.”

He grinned at me.

“I just don't think I want to be involved in that boy-girl stuff yet.”

“Oh.”

“Not in sixth grade,” I said.

“Seventh?” he asked.

“Maybe eighth.”

He looked up the hill at our friends. The redness was fading from his cheeks, and he was still smiling. “Well, all right, Ruth Mudd-O'Flanahan, but I'm not going to wait around forever.”

And then he ran up the hill ahead of me calling, “Last one to the fire tower is a stinky troll!”

The steps of the fire tower had so much snow on them, it looked like a luge track.

“Now what?” Dev said.

“We go up,” I told him.

My foot cut through the snow and down to the step. I brushed off the railing as I went.

They waited a moment, but then they were behind me. Lena first, then Coco. Then Lucas, Adam, and Dev.

We didn't say anything as we climbed. Our boots crunched and cracked. Our breaths made puffs in the air.

Wind had blown the snow against the small structure at the top of the platform, leaving the other side of the platform clear. We could see all the way out to the ocean, all the way across the sea, it seemed.

I peeked in the window into the empty room. “My mom told me that during World War Two, women would man these fire towers. They'd sleep here and everything. The rest of the time, it was a man's job.”

“There was a big fire here in the 1930s,” Adam said. “My great-grandfather helped to fight it. They had to bring buckets up from the ocean, and they weren't sure the trees would ever grow back.”

Dev stomped his feet. “So this is it?” he asked.

I spread my arms wide. “This is it. We did it!” I pointed at the railing. “This is where they stood in the picture Charlie showed me.”

“We should take a picture!” Lena exclaimed.

A picture. Of course. Every quest needed a bounty at the end. How had I not thought to bring a camera?

Lena, though, pulled off her gloves and dug her phone out of her pocket. “I've never used the timer before,” she said. “But I bet I can figure it out.”

She balanced the phone on the windowsill. “Get close,” she said. We all huddled against the railing.

“One, two, three!” she exclaimed, then scuttled over to us.

We heard three beeps and then a clicking sound. “Stay!” Lena commanded as she ran to check the picture.

Lucas did not stay. He went back to the structure and tugged on the latch of the door. It popped open with a creak.

“Paper wasp nest,” Lucas said, and pointed into the room. There, as big and beautiful as the ones in Mr. Douglas's room, was a giant wasp nest. It was like a giant gray papier-mâché Easter egg, and I imagined the wasps with their strips of newsprint, dipping them in the glue and wrapping them around a balloon.

“Hey, look!” Lena said. She was pointing to something on one of the wallboards. Written in Sharpie were the words:

Not all who wander are lost.

The Allegiance, 1993

“That was them,” I said. “Give me a Sharpie,” I said to Lena.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a black permanent marker.

“What else do you have in there?” Adam asked.

“ChapStick,” she said. “And some artisanal chocolate.”

“Really?” he asked. “What makes it artisanal?”

I ran my fingers over the words on the wall.

“J. R. R. Tolkien, right?” Coco asked.

I nodded. The first group had used the most famous book quote. What could ours be?

Harriet. I put my finger on her name. “That's Harriet Wexler,” I said.

“
The
Harriet Wexler?” Coco asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“That is so cool.”

She had written her name in all lowercase letters, small and even.

I grinned and pulled the cap off the pen.

“What are you doing?” Dev demanded. “No one said anything about vandalism!”

I couldn't very well tell him it wasn't vandalism, because it was. “Sometimes it's okay to break the rules a little bit.”

I started writing Taryn's words to Benedict, but changed them so it was for our whole group:

Without a quest, we were nothing.

I handed the pen to Lena, who signed her name and passed the pen to Coco. Then Lucas, then Adam, then Dev, who hesitated, but then wrote his name is small, neat letters.
“I ought to have just put my initials,” he said. “It won't take them long to find the one Dev in this town.”

I took the Sharpie from him and wrote my own name. I thought about writing like Harriet, small and lowercase, but instead signed it with a flourish.

Beneath our names I wrote:

The Allegiance Continues.

You probably want to know how the spelling bee turned out. I won the county bee. Charlotte got out in the third round on “censer.” She didn't ask for a definition and spelled it with an
o
, like not letting people have access to something, not with an
e
, like the little container for putting incense in at church.