See You at Harry's(17)

“Why don’t we just ask Dad for a ride? He hasn’t left for work yet, right? Or Mom?”

“No,” Holden says. “Too much explaining.”

“Sara?”

He cringes. Sara has her license, just no car. She could easily drive us and be back in time for her, my mom, and Charlie to get to the restaurant.

“She’s our only hope,” I say.

“OK. But just tell her we missed the bus, all right?”

“She’s annoying, not stupid.”

He rolls his eyes. “Whatever. Just don’t bring it up. She’s so smug. I don’t want her to feel like she’s saving us.”

“Fine.” I peek through the kitchen window. My mom is putting jam on an English muffin, and Charlie is drinking from his new cup. I duck down and race to the back door, where I can slip in and go up to Sara’s room.

She’s sound asleep. Her room smells like five different kinds of incense and too much patchouli. I gag. She rolls over and opens her eyes.

“Wha?”

“We need your help,” I say.

“Who?” she asks groggily.

“Me and Holden.”

She sits up and scratches her head. She scratches her head a lot. I think it’s because of the dreadlocks. Honestly, if you look at them too closely, they are kind of disgusting.

“What is it?” she asks.

“We need a ride to school.”

“Take the bus.”

“We can’t. We, uh . . . missed it.”

She eyes me suspiciously.

“We can’t take it anymore,” I say. “I did something.”

“You?”

That hurt.

“What did you do?”

“I don’t have time to explain. Can you just please give us a ride? And don’t tell Mom?”

She sighs. “All right, fine. I’ll be there in five minutes. But don’t expect me to do this every day.”

I don’t tell her that’s exactly what I expect. But we can deal with that later. I sneak back out of the house and find Holden leaning against the side of the garage, staring at his shoes.

“She’s coming,” I say.

He nods. “I knew she’d come through.”

For a second I feel this strange jealous twinge. But I’ll always be your favorite, right? I want to say. But I don’t, because Sara arrives and we all get into the car.

“You’re wearing too much cologne,” Sara says to Holden after we’ve safely pulled out of the driveway.

I sit forward from the backseat and sniff. She has a point. I roll down my window a crack.

Holden adjusts the front seat so he can lean back, all casual.

“You think I’m going to do this every day now, don’t you?” Sara says.

“Yes,” he answers.

“Are you going to tell me what really happened?”

I think this is the longest they’ve gone without arguing or being mean to each other. It feels weird.

“Fern punched one of Trudy’s idiot nephews in the face yesterday.”

The car swerves as Sara looks at me in the rearview mirror in shock. “Fern! Are you crazy? I didn’t know you were violent!”

Holden turns around and points at me. “Fern’s violent,” he says, and cracks up.

“Shut up. I only did it because of you.”

“That was very wrong,” Sara says, imitating our dad. “God, I wish I could have seen that. Did you get him good? Which one was it?”

I look at the slight bruises on the knuckles of my right hand and feel a twinge of pride. “I got him pretty good. I don’t know which one it was. They look the same.”

Sara shakes her head. “Heh. Yeah, well, twins are like that. Wow, Tooty must have totally freaked out.”

“Tooty?”

“Yeah, that’s what we used to call her ’cause the bus reeked so bad. Does she still wear her stupid hat?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Wow, Ferny. Punching Tooty’s nephew in the face. I never knew you had it in you.”

I lean back in the seat again and look out the window. I feel my mouth turn into a smile. Me, either, I think.





RAN IS WAITING FOR ME at my locker. Today his T-shirt says BEHOLD.

“Did you take the bus?” he asks.

“Nope,” I say.

He smiles. “I knew you’d figure it out!”

Cassie comes dashing over to join us.

“Behold,” Cassie says, staring at his chest.

“Yes,” Ran says.

Cassie glances at me. I shrug. What Cassie doesn’t understand is that Ran isn’t the kind of person you ask, “Why?” He wants you to figure things out for yourself.

I stuff my bag in my locker and grab my books. “Come on. We’re going to be late.”

I spend the day at school rushing from class to class, hoping I won’t pass the Things in the halls and kicking myself for not realizing I’m still going to have to take the bus home. During last period, I have study hall. The class is packed. Our teacher’s name is Mrs. Drabble, but everyone calls her Mrs. Dribble because she’s old and has a reputation of falling asleep at her desk and drooling. Ran has vowed that if this happens, he will wake her up. Cassie thinks that is very heroic of him. Of course.