Friction Read online

  “She’s such a bad liar, isn’t she, Alex?” my dad says. He sinks onto the bed, with his back leaning against the headboard and his legs stretched out.

  “Yeah,” I go, wiggling farther down and pulling up my knees, to give him room.

  “Okay,” my mom says to us. “Here’s a question.” She tosses the magazine onto the floor. “It’s an old question. One people have debated since the beginning of time.”

  My dad squinches his toes against my knees. It’s sort of like a massage and a tickle at the same time.

  “Stop,” I tell him. He stops. “What’s the question?” I ask my mom.

  “If a man steals, should he always go to jail?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Why?” my mom says.

  “Because it’s against the law to steal.”

  “But what if the thief has a good reason?” my mom asks.

  “Like what?” I go.

  “Like what if the man stole medicine that he was too poor to buy, but he needed it to save the life of his child?”

  “Oh,” I say.

  “See?” she goes.

  “Well, couldn’t the man have asked for help or money or something?” I try.

  “He asked already, several times, and nobody gave it,” my mom says.

  “Oh,” I go.

  “See?”

  “So who is it’ ” I ask.

  “The man?” she says.

  “Yeah.”

  “Actually, it’s a woman,” my mom says. “And she didn’t steal medicine, exactly. She stole an illegal drug she’s addicted to. If she doesn’t take it regularly, she gets really sick. So sick that she can’t take proper care of her two kids.”

  “So why not help her get un-addicted and have someone else take care of her kids in the meantime?” I go. “Like, put them in foster care or something?”

  “She’s tried that a few times. Both times her kids were worse off than when they lived with her. Both times she got clean for a little while to get them back, but then she got addicted again.”

  “Well, maybe she’s just a bad person, and she’s just scamming everyone,” I say. “Maybe she shouldn’t have kids and she should be in jail.”

  “Is that really what you think?”

  “I don’t know,” I go. “It’s hard.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” my mom goes.

  “What do you think?” I ask.

  “I know her,” my mom says. “I’ve been treating her. She’s complicated, and I like her, and I don’t think she’s a bad person. But I’m having some difficulty figuring out what is true about her and what isn’t.”

  “How come you have to figure it out?” I go.

  “Because, as her oncologist, I have to submit my professional opinion of how and where she should or can spend the rest of her life.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  “I want to be fair,” my mom says. “It’s so important to be fair.”

  “That sucks, Mom.”

  “Thanks,” she says.

  “What about you?” my dad asks me. “You were saying something about your new girl. She’s acting out?” That’s psychiatrist talk. It means you misbehave or have an attitude because you’re feeling bad or weird about something.

  “Maybe,” I say. I pick up the Mad magazine and stare at the cover. Alfred E. Neuman has a tooth gap, just like Stacy’s. “She said these gross things today.”

  “What kind of gross things?” he asks.

  “Just stuff about people liking other people.”

  “Yeah, that sounds pretty disgusting,” my dad says.

  “You know what I mean,” I say. “Like like. Not regular like. Like, as in ‘romantically interested.’ ”

  “Aren’t you a little old to think romantic interest is gross?” my mom asks.

  “It’s just gross because of who she says likes who. She’s got all the wrong people matched up.” I sound completely idiotic. But all of a sudden, it seems too complicated to even explain.

  “Maybe she’s trying to get people’s attention,” my mom says.

  “Well, she’s got it,” I go.

  “She’s probably nervous, being new and all,” my dad tells me. “Give her a day or two to relax, to settle in a little,” he says. “I bet she’ll stop acting out before the week’s even over.”

  6

  I DECIDE THAT my father’s right about the acting out and that Stacy just said that obnoxious stuff because she’s still having messed-up feelings about her father dying and all, which make her not think so straight all the time. My dad thinks people act out less when they talk more about stuff. So maybe Stacy might spaz down if she’d just start talking about her big secret to Tim, or maybe even to Simon. And maybe she’d start talking about it if she had some hard-to-ignore reason to explain stuff. Some hard-to-ignore thing that Simon and Tim would ask her about, even though they both know what that thing means already. And something that might make her feel better at the same time.

  So I dig around in our junk drawer through half-used memo pads, a snowman paperweight, different sized batteries, a broken pair of sunglasses, safety scissors, masking tape, a metal whistle, and a deck of cards. What I’m looking for is a candle, and I find a small green one in the back corner. It smells like pine trees, and it’s perfect.

  * * *

  I want to get Stacy alone after flash cards and before Tim’s oral report. But it’s hard because Stacy’s mom drops her off late, and then Stacy totally ignores Simon’s instructions to go outside and wait quietly by the downhill wall for Tim’s demonstration. Instead, she sneaks into the back room to coach Teddy on three-card monte. It’s this game where you have two red cards and one black one, and you switch the cards around as fast as you can, facedown. Whoever’s playing you has to guess which card is the black one. You win if they can’t guess, and they win if they guess right. Teddy’s not that good at it yet, but he’s getting better.

  “Once you monte me,” Stacy’s telling him when I finally find her, “you could start betting money on the game.” He’s concentrating so hard, swapping those cards back and forth, he doesn’t even answer her. “Okay?” Stacy goes.

  “Mmkay.” Teddy’s pudgy hands are flying.

  I grab Stacy’s bony wrist. “Come on,” I say. “I’ve got something for you.” She looks tired. She has blue veins bumping up from the skin under her eyes, and her hair’s sort of messy. No ponytail or anything.

  “Really?” She follows me into the side kitchen hallway. “So.” She crosses her arms. “What is it?”

  I pull the candle out of my back pocket. “I don’t know exactly when your dad died,” I tell her, talking fast “But you light this when it’s been a year. And then every year after that. To remember.” Stacy takes the candle from me. She turns it over in her hands and then picks some wax off the wick with a stubby fingernail.

  “Oh, man,” she goes.

  “It’s supposed to help you feel better. Sort of.” I brace myself, hoping she won’t be mad at me for even bringing it up.

  “You’re nuts,” she whispers. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard her speak as soft as that. “Completely nuts.” She tilts her face so that she can smell the evergreen, and her hair falls around her cheeks. I wait for a while, but Stacy seems like she’s forgotten I’m there.

  “We should go,” I say, turning away from her. “Tim’s probably about to start.” When I push through the double doors onto the slate path, Stacy’s right behind me, but when I look back at her, I don’t see the candle anywhere.

  Most of our class is already at the back wall at the foot of the hill when Stacy and I get there. I push my sweater sleeves up on my arms because even with the breeze, it’s almost warm out today.

  “Shorter people up front,” Maggie keeps saying. She’s already biting her lower lip. Maggie came on one camping trip two years ago, and she hates this stuff. It makes her nervous. She’s always muttering the words my parents were using the other night; words like liability and ac
countability. Sometimes lawsuit. Sophie’s standing as far away from Maggie as possible. Right next to Viv.

  “Are you ready down there?” Simon yells to us, from the roof.

  “Ready!” we shout back.

  We all get really quiet, waiting for Tim to appear over the edge of the roof. Then he does, easing out smooth, planting his feet flat on the wall, creeping downward.

  “Cool,” Danny says, and we all nod. Even though most of us have seen Simon rappel, and even though some of us have even done it with Simon on camping trips, it’s still something to see.

  “I’m going to do that one day,” Sebastian tells us. “I swear I am.”

  “You shouldn’t swear,” Marie goes.

  “Shut up,” Danny says.

  “You shouldn’t say shut up either,” Marie says.

  “God,” Stacy goes to them, and they shut up as Tim pushes out from the wall with his feet and then kind of bounces down. His backward hops seem to be going okay until he gets to the middle of one of the building’s huge, round windows. That’s when he starts moving quickly and has to pull on the rope to slow down. But the rope must be tangled or something, because Tim starts swinging from side to side, faster and faster, like an out-of-control pendulum on a giant grandfather clock.

  “He’s going to crash,” Sebastian goes. “He’s going to wipe out, big time.” Stacy grabs my arm and bites hard on her hair.

  “Pull up,” we hear Simon say from the roof. But Tim can’t. “Up, Tim. Pull up.”

  Don’t fall, Tim, I think as hard as I can. Don’t fall. He’s whipping all around, with long yanks that snap his body back and forth, and for a split second I feel what it would be like if he died.

  Stacy pats my shoulder. “He’ll be all right,” she whispers, and that makes me feel better, and then Tim gets control of the rope, yanks up hard, and slows way down. When he finally hangs straight and perfectly still, he lifts his arms and then pushes off with his feet and hops all the way to the ground. As soon as his toes touch grass, we go wild, cheering and whistling, and by the time Tim loosens the ropes around his thighs and takes off his helmet, Simon’s there, clapping him on the back and shaking his hand. Then Tim starts.

  “Rappelling is a way of going down a rope by using friction as control,” he says, shuffling forward as best he can with all those ropes still dangling off him. “Friction is kind of hard to explain, but it has to do with the kind of motion between two things that are moving against each other, and it has to do with how fast they’re moving and whether they’re the same size and made of the same stuff. So the way two pieces of rope move against each other and slow each other down, or don’t, is sort of an example of friction.”

  Simon moves backward into the crowd, like he always does during oral reports, to make sure you’re speaking loud enough. I get ready to ask the question Tim’s planted, concentrating on what he’s saying so I won’t miss my cue. But Stacy pokes me and leans in close.

  “Friction,” Stacy goes, like it’s something dirty. “Get it?” I don’t. She makes a circle with her thumb and index finger and then slides her other index finger in and out of it. Which is a way of showing sex, which I do get. And which Tim sort of notices. I can tell by the way his eyes go wide for a second and how he has to start the sentence over that he was in the middle of saying.

  “Stacy!” I grab her hands to hide what she’s doing. “Simon will see!”

  “So?” she goes, but she stops.

  “Usually people rappel down . . . Usually they go down mountains or off cliffs for sport or for rescuing skiers and rock climbers and stuff,” Tim’s saying. “But I just did it down the wall, since we’re too far from Storm Mountain to have an oral report out there.”

  “Anyway,” Stacy whispers, like she’s just finishing a conversation we’ve already started, “Simon likes you.” Oh no. Not this stuff again.

  “Simon likes all of us,” I hiss. Tim throws me a look, probably because I’m distracting him, but what am I supposed to do? Just let her say this stuff?

  “No,” Stacy goes, forgetting to whisper. “Simon likes you.” Marie is totally staring at me and Stacy now, maybe because Tim keeps glancing at us. My stomach burns. Tim’s trying to talk about all the different kinds of ropes you can use and what they’re made of. But he’s sort of rattled, and so am I, because Stacy’s saying it straight out this time: that Simon likes me, in that boyfriend-girlfriend kind of way. And Marie isn’t the only one who heard that. Teddy’s neck is bright red, and Danny’s grinning like a madman.

  Simon’s walking our way again, and Stacy leans on my foot with hers and presses her lips together at me in this knowing look.

  “When you move the rope away from your body,” Tim’s saying. “Um, when you move it away, you . . . you get an unlocked position.” He stops for a second and glances away from me and Stacy. “And you increase your speed. Then, um, . . . when you pull . . . when you pull the rope close to your body and behind your back, you get a locked position, and you can stop yourself.” Now he glances back at us, just as Simon squeezes my shoulders as he passes.

  “See?” Stacy goes, sliding her tongue ring back and forth over her upper lip. Gross.

  “Simon’s a teacher!” I tell her, even though I know she didn’t care about that the last time she heard it.

  “God.” Stacy shakes her head.

  Practically nobody’s even looking at Tim now. They’re all looking at me. Tim’s still talking, but his voice is really high, and he keeps going, “Uh . . . uh,” like he forgot what he had to say.

  “Rappelling is, uh, an important part . . . Rappelling is an important part of my life because it’s, uh, the best. It’s the most, uh, fun thing I’ve ever done.” Tim’s totally glaring at me and Stacy.

  Maggie starts to clap from somewhere in back of all of us. It takes a second for everybody else to join in, and when they do, it’s lame. Simon steps forward to ask who has questions, but nobody does, not even me.

  And Stacy’s just standing there smirking.

  7

  I FIND TIM in the bathtub that sits at the back of the front classroom. It’s one of those old-fashioned ones with lion paws holding it up and a fat lip all the way around that rises and curls like a small wave spilling up and over its own edge. The tub is filled with pillows. Tim’s pretending to read in there, but he doesn’t fool me.

  “Let me in,” I say. He doesn’t move. I push his legs over myself to make room.

  “You forgot to ask me about sleeping on the ropes,” he says, throwing down his book.

  I want to kill Stacy. “I’m sorry.”

  Tim won’t even look at me. “Danny told me what she was saying.”

  “Yeah,” I mutter.

  “Why do you want to hang out with her, anyway?” he goes. But I don’t want to. Not anymore. “She’s a pain.”

  “Yeah,” I say again. He looks surprised.

  “I thought you’d be mad if I said that.” His voice is really low.

  “I’m not mad,” I go. “She is a pain.” The truth is the truth. She really is a royal pain.

  Tim pulls a caribiner clip out of his pocket and snaps it in his hand over and over. The metal makes a sharp clicking sound. “She’s such a pervert,” he goes.

  “I know,” I go. “But her father died.” There. I’m so pissed off, I don’t even care about her secret anymore. Tim stops snapping his caribiner. “He was in a car accident, and they’re this religion that doesn’t allow blood transfusions, so he died.”

  “Nuh-uh.” He sits up straight, pushing aside an orange pillow with little mirrors sewn all over it.

  “She made me promise not to tell because she doesn’t like people asking her stuff all the time.”

  “No way.”

  “Way.” I nod. I’m glad I broke my promise. Glad I’m sharing secrets with Tim again. “You can’t say a word,” I whisper. “She’ll slaughter me if she finds out I told.”

  “I know,” Tim whispers back.

  * * *r />
  Something about Stacy bugs me enough that I’m still worrying a whole week later. So I find Simon in the silent study room. Everybody else is getting ready to go home, but I really need to talk to him.

  We leave the day after tomorrow on our camping trip, and I’m nervous Stacy’s going to do something. I don’t know what, exactly. I just know I’m nervous.

  “What’s up?” Simon goes, as soon as I walk in.

  “What do you think of Stacy?” I ask him. He’s straightening up piles on his desk, throwing things away, stacking papers in different trays, shutting down his laptop.

  “Anytime one person asks another what they think of a third, it’s usually because the first person has a pretty strong opinion to begin with,” Simon goes. I have to think a minute to sort out what he’s saying, but then I get it

  “I like her and I don’t like her,” I say. It’s hard for me to look at him with everything Stacy’s been saying, so instead, I look through the glass wall and watch all the kids gathering stuff from their lockers.

  “Well, you’ve got a real situation, then, don’t you?” Simon goes. He stops messing with his desk and sits up on the edge of it instead. “Okay. So tell me what you like about her.”

  “She’s sort of cool. At least, she can be sort of cool.”

  “Now that’s a descriptive word,” Simon goes. “Cool. That says just about everything anybody would want to know.”

  “Come on, Simon.” I shove his knee. “You know what I mean.” I guess he can tell I’m not in the mood for a vocabulary lecture, because he lets it drop.

  “All right,” he says. “Fine. So what don’t you like about her?”

  “She’s just . . . She says messed-up things. Really messed-up stuff.”

  “Uh-huh,” Simon goes.

  “I wish she wouldn’t,” I say. The bus kids are leaving now, pushing through the double doors onto the slate path. “I don’t know. At first it seemed good to have another girl around. Someone who wasn’t so, you know, girly.”

  “Stacy doesn’t strike me as girly,” Simon goes.

  “She’s not,” I say. I guess that’s part of what I like about her. Liked about her. I lean against the desk, and through the glass, I watch Tim look around in the front room. He spots me and waves for me to come out. Stacy turns around from her locker and starts waving at me too.