Best Kept Secret Read online

  Now, I knew stained pants were unlikely, and even if there was a stain, I could tie a sweatshirt around my waist as a temporary stain-hiding technique. But still, that long walk to the office, thinking of what to say, was just deadly. I wished there were some sort of form you could fill out or button to press. To get to our school nurse, you first have to walk into the main office and deal with the unsmiling Mrs. Percy. If you came into the office because you forgot something (like your lunch money), she would roll her eyes. Or if your mom was there because you left your Spanish book on the kitchen table again, you’d get that quiet sigh that said “I think you are a disorganized mess.”

  So I worried about what if IT finally happened to me at school and our school nurse wasn’t there. I could not imagine looking Mrs. Percy square in her blue eyes, framed by her already-graying hair, and saying: “I got my period.” Only four words, but it was four too many.

  And something else was gnawing at me. When Taylor Mayweather found out I was on the track team, she said, “I wouldn’t do that Jemma, if I were you. You’ll never get boobs.” Ordinarily, I try to ignore what she says, but I had heard similar stuff from other girls—that your period would come late or not at all if you were a runner or a serious athlete of any kind. Hadn’t I heard this was true for some gymnasts who trained really hard? This was not a question the Pink Locker Society had answered yet. No one had asked it yet. But I decided to put it on our list.

  Twenty

  The meeting with Bet, Piper, Kate, and me happened the next day at lunch. We spoke in whispers for obvious reasons:

  BET: This story demands to be told. Girls everywhere must know about it.

  ME: But isn’t that just going to dredge up PLS stuff, in general, and then that’s it for us? We’ll be out in the open and finished.

  PIPER: Yeah, don’t go blowing our cover.

  BET: I promise you, I will say nothing at all about the current PLS. It’s a sworn secret.

  KATE: Are you super sure?

  BET: Yes, pinky promise, as you say. And you guys kind of owe me one.

  ME: What do you mean?

  BET: For not telling me the PLS was back in business, minus me.

  ME: Well, you’re always so busy—studying, chasing stories, and stuff.

  BET: True, but I have a special place in my heart for the PLS. I want to stay a member in good standing.

  ME: OK, then. Just keep your promise.

  BET: You can trust me.

  And with that, she crooked her pinky around mine and gave it a tight squeeze.

  Twenty-one

  Bet’s show aired that Friday, as planned. As you might guess, the school was ho-hum about the women’s history lesson until she mentioned that girls had removed their shirts in protest.

  Mr. Ford sat up as if he had just woken from a nap, and the class was all of a sudden, like, “What? What did she just say?” But just as they started paying attention, Bet pulled the plug, just as she’d done to me.

  “There’s so much more to the story,” Bet told the camera, “that I felt it only fitting that I break it into two parts to do it justice. Please join me next Friday for part two of my report…”

  There was a noticeable buzz as class ended for the week and we filed out to the buses. I even saw teachers conferring and heard people talking about it on the way home. I planned to text Piper and Kate about it as soon as I got home. I don’t text on the bus anymore because I once missed my stop. Embarrassing!

  But my mother interrupted my texting plans in her momlike style. She dropped a thirty-pound basket of wet laundry at my feet the moment I stepped into the kitchen.

  “Quick snack, Jemma,” she said. “Then meet me outside for some tag-team clothesline work.”

  It’s greener than green of her, I know. She just loves the fresh scent of line-dried sheets. Even in autumn. Seriously, it was almost Thanksgiving. I’m more of a dryer person myself. You should see my mom move along like a busy bee, making herself more efficient by holding one wooden clothespin in her hand and another in her mouth. I’m supposed to hand her the pins and keep big items, like sheets, from dragging on the ground while she hangs them. So there we were with our basket of soggy sheets and a cool wind whipping all around us.

  “Jem,” she said, “we’re having the McCanns over next Saturday night. We’ll just grill some chicken and vegetables. Maybe some s’mores? Do kids your age still like s’mores?”

  Just like that? Forrest is coming to MY HOUSE?

  Mom took the clothespin from my hand and skimmed along my pinned-up bedding. I tried to steady myself and act natural. I pushed aside the flapping sheet, like it was a stage curtain.

  “Why?” I said. My voice came out one level too loud and a little quavery.

  My mother must have pretended not to notice. Then she pinned up a pillowcase. Her wicker basket was still half full of wet stuff. She stuffed her hands into her pockets. They must have been cold and wet after all that clothesline pinning.

  “Well, I ran into Vera at the Toot-n-Scoot, and she told me it’s possible they’ll be moving. Did you know that? I’m sure you did. Did you ever think to mention it?” She didn’t wait for my answer. “Anyway, so we got to talking, and I invited them over. We kind of owe them, you know, after that whole incident with you and the bees.”

  “Thanks for bringing that up. Are they all coming?”

  “Yes, I told her to definitely bring the boys, hence the s’mores.”

  Only my mother would ever use a phrase like “hence the s’mores.”

  “So are they actually moving?” I asked, nervous that she might know something more definite.

  “Depends on if the house sells and some other variables. Too soon to say. I’d hate to see them go, wouldn’t you?”

  I wasn’t touching that one. I said something that could have been “hmmm” or “mmm-hmmm” and slipped back behind my damp bedsheet and into the house. She’d be in shortly, so I didn’t have much time. I stood in my kitchen imagining Forrest sitting there at our breakfast bar, Forrest leaning against our dishwasher, Forrest reaching into our refrigerator, looking for a snack. It did not seem possible. All at once, I couldn’t decide if I wanted next Saturday to arrive immediately or have it wait the eight days the calendar normally required. It was only Friday.

  Typically, I would have called Kate first, but my phone rang and it was Bet.

  “Is this a secure line?” Bet asked in a quiet voice.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Do you think anyone else is listening?”

  “It’s my cell, and I’m alone in my kitchen.”

  “Okay, then. Something has gone terribly awry,” Bet whispered.

  “R.I. what? What does this have to do with Rhode Island?”

  “No, no, no,” Bet said. “Awry, as in all wrong,”

  “Okay, what’s wrong?”

  “I’m being censored. Principal Finklestein says I can’t broadcast part two of my report until he approves it. I wouldn’t be surprised if they cancel my entire show.”

  “Calm down,” I said. “What exactly happened?”

  “Principal F. met me at my bus and took me to his office,” she told me. “I had to promise that I wouldn’t air the next episode until he reviewed it for ‘appropriateness.’ ”

  “You didn’t give it to him, did you?”

  “No, it wasn’t like I just had the DVD in my bag. It’s at home with all my production equipment.”

  “Did he ask you about the current Pink Locker Society?”

  “No, and if he had, I would have had nothing to say.”

  OK, I would have liked to believe her, but she was the one who spilled the beans last time.

  “What’s in part two, Bet? You’ve got to tell me.”

  “If I tell you, you have to promise that you won’t tell a soul.”

  “Pinky promise,” I said.

  But then I remembered what I wanted to tell her and every other friend in a hundred-mile radius.

  “
Wait. Before you answer my question,” I said, “you won’t believe who’s coming over to my house for dinner.”

  Twenty-two

  It was hard for me to keep a secret, any secret. But it was especially hard to keep a secret from Kate. It was a good thing I had this whole Forrest dinner situation to occupy my mind and our conversation. As for the PLS, Bet didn’t tell me everything, but she told me enough that I was pretty sure Principal F. would never let her show part 2 on MSTV. Since he couldn’t promise when he’d be able to review part 2, Bet decided to record a replacement program for that Friday’s You Bet!

  She chose something that was also controversial—the school’s unofficial pastime, the Catch-It-in-Your-Mouth Olympics. When I asked her if Principal F. was really OK with that topic, she said, “He said I could report on anything except the Pink Locker Ladies, so I’m taking him at his word.”

  Bet had recorded some mouth-catching footage during the Backward Dance. (Remember how good Piper was at it?) But Bet also had been recording little bits of video during lunch, where a crowd of kids usually played it, if only for a few minutes until caught. Someone even kept a logbook of who had the best stats.

  Principals and teachers try to forbid stuff, and they can have some success. For instance, some people used to like to toss tennis balls to each other in the hallways. It was kind of a tennis ball version of hot potato. But the teachers just started taking the tennis ball anytime they saw one being thrown. That ended that.

  But to stop the CIIYM Olympics, they’d have to remove all mouth-catchable foods from the cafeteria and elsewhere. There are grapes, of course, olives, M&M’s, Tic Tacs, Cheerios, cheese puffs, gummy bears … The list goes on.

  To plump out her report, Bet needed to record a little more footage, especially to show the range of foods that had been caught. Bet planned to interview the two top performers (Piper and Luke) and get some action footage of both of them. Rather than risk getting caught in the cafeteria, she planned to meet them Tuesday after school before Piper went to volleyball and Luke went to football practice. Bet picked an out-of-the-way spot—a portico behind the school by the tennis courts. I offered to come and be Bet’s assistant.

  Piper and I were speaking in groups by now, but still not one-on-one. For instance, we could laugh and chitchat at lunch with no problem. But there always needed to be a buffer person in the conversation. I wasn’t seeking her out, and neither one of us was texting or calling the other. I wondered if that would ever change. There would be plenty of buffers at Bet’s video shoot, so I was happy to go. I also hoped, since he was Luke’s friend, that Forrest might get wind of it and come, too. Bet and I quickly gathered our stuff and met behind the school.

  Bet had a bag full of props—all kinds of catch-it-in-your-mouth foods. We had tried the trick ourselves, but neither one of us had the gift. During our trials, a gummy bear landed on Bet’s forehead and stuck there. So it was impressive to see people who could make more shots than they missed.

  While Bet rolled the camera, I was the thrower. It wasn’t easy to throw it just right—up high enough that the person could get under the falling snack. But I got better as we went along. Luke went first, catching three grapes, four lemon drops, an M&M, and a cheese puff. With his head back and chin tipped skyward, he looked a little like a baseball catcher who throws off his mask and goes back-back-back to catch a foul ball. Except that his mouth was wide open, like a baby bird waiting to be fed.

  Falling at fast speeds, there was a pop when the heavier items (grapes, raisins, M&M’s) hit his mouth. After every successful catch, he stood up straight again, then bowed as we applauded.

  “That’s perfect,” Bet told him. “Let’s get Piper before we run out of light.”

  It was the first time in a long while that Piper and I had worked as a team. I lobbed the cheese puff up first, but it wasn’t quite high enough.

  “Switch to the lemon drops,” she said. “It’s hard to get air under those puffs.”

  It was her first direct comment to me in weeks. I quickly found the lemon drops and got to work. My first toss was way off target, but she caught the next ones 1-2-3. Pop-pop-pop. I could hear the vacuumlike sound of them hitting her mouth. Piper also took a bow with each successful catch. She smiled at me and it felt good to be a duo, if only in this silly game. Forrest didn’t show, but Tia was there with the record book to keep track of these additional catches. Luke and Piper remained in the lead.

  “Will there eventually be some kind of formal medal ceremony, like in the real Olympics?” Bet asked Luke, half joking.

  Before he could answer, Piper pulled me out from under the portico’s roof and said, “Toss me one more, really high. Viva la lemon drops!”

  The “Viva la…” was kind of an inside joke with us. She liked to tack just about any random thing on the end of “Viva la…” Most memorably, I once jumped up on my family room couch and said, “Viva la Pink Locker Society!” That was the day Piper, Kate, and I decided to go ahead and restart the PLS ourselves. At this point in the CIIYM Olympics videotaping, Bet had stopped filming Piper. So she was just doing this last one for fun. Just me and her.

  I was feeling all warm and fuzzy-friendly when I put all my muscle into sending that lemon drop high in the air. Without the portico’s roof to limit us, I lobbed it up toward the clouds and watched Piper tracking it, her long reddish hair swishing back and forth as she put herself into position. Getting in the right spot meant stepping off the grass and onto the service road that ran behind the school. She must have been so focused on catching the lemon drop that she didn’t hear the car.

  In her demi plié, she danced this way and that way.

  “Piper!”

  I yelled her name when I saw it roaring toward her. Piper heard me but didn’t understand and held up one finger, the universal sign for “just a minute.” But in a minute, it would be too late.

  “Piper! A car!”

  At the same moment I yelled, Piper caught the lemon drop in her mouth and the red car stopped short of the whole scene. Piper was unhurt. I felt a wave of relief. The car stood still in front of us. But when I looked over at her, Piper didn’t look relieved. She looked panicked. She was upright again, but holding her throat. She wasn’t saying anything, but her eyes bulged and her face reddened.

  Piper was choking!

  “Get help!” I yelled at Bet, who had been videoing Luke. She turned around, pointing her camera at the scene.

  “What do I do?” Luke asked me.

  “Call 911!” I said as I ran over to Piper.

  “Are you okay? Can you talk?”

  I asked these questions, but I knew the answer was no. She was making squeaky breathing sounds and I hoped that meant at least a little air was getting through. This is the moment people talk about—do or die. When I think of it now, the scene I see is wavy and warped. They say your life passes in front of your eyes when your life is in danger. I can’t speak for Piper, but Piper’s life passed before my eyes.

  I saw her as she was on the first day of kindergarten, two long reddish braids grazing her shoulders. And the freckles and smile, always the freckles and smile. Then I saw her laughing at the pool a couple of summers ago. She is the kind of girl who jumps into the pool in June and doesn’t pull her pruney self out of the water until Labor Day.

  Next, I saw Piper more recently, the day I told her she had ruined everything for me. She is good at pretending to be calm and that nothing bothers her, but I saw in her eyes that I had rattled her. I remember how she bit her lip as I talked. I wanted to wound her for stealing Forrest, and I succeeded. But my feelings toward her had softened since then. We had made up, partly at least. I no longer wanted to hurt her. I liked the feeling that, bit by bit, we were climbing the mountain of friendship again. We’d meet at the top soon. Or at least that’s what I thought before she started choking. Then all I could think was Do something! Do something!

  The look on her face as she struggled to breathe was unbearable. I don
’t remember deciding to do it, but I stood behind her and wrapped my arms around her middle. I clasped my hands under her ribcage and gave a few upward thrusts.

  Nothing.

  I was attempting the Heimlich Maneuver. I learned it at summer camp, but it wasn’t working. I tried one more time. In this awkward hug, I almost lifted her off her feet. I’d like to say that, as I did this, I concentrated intensely on the Heimlich Maneuver and the technique I’d been taught. But the truth is, I wasn’t thinking about anything. I was operating on some other level and just praying that something would work. I refused to think about the horrible thing that could happen, that seemed to be happening right in front of me.

  Ping! Gasp!

  After it shot up from her wind pipe, the lemon drop dinged the hood of the red car that almost hit her. Piper was breathing again. She coughed some and doubled over at the waist, but within a few minutes she was upright and calming down. She didn’t cry, but I did. I couldn’t even tell you exactly why. Why cry after the scary thing is over? But it felt good just to let it out like a giant exhale.

  You don’t have to wonder anymore about whether Piper and I became close friends again. And you might even be able to guess what she said to me later, after she’d been checked out by the ambulance crew and we’d done a lot of explaining to the sports coaches who had been summoned from the fields below. Piper and I waited together in front of the school for her mom to pick her up. When the Pinsky-mobile rolled up, Piper hugged me, then took me by the shoulders, looked me straight in the eye, and said it:

  “Viva la Heimlich Maneuver!”

  Twenty-three

  It’s funny how saving someone’s life will shake up your brain. If I had thought about it a minute, I probably wouldn’t have told my parents anything about the choking incident. The story was chockablock with details that would get me into trouble. Why was I skulking around after school on a secret project? Why didn’t I see the obvious danger in people catching stuff in their mouths, especially when I had been to a first-aid class at camp?