The Rule of Won (14 page)

• We've rebuilt half the school, handed a bunch of loser basketball players a winning game, and now we nearly killed a teacher. So why, why, why can't I get a freaking iPhone destroyed? I mean, Nicole got herself a new denim sleeve for the damn thing and she's parading it all over the place. I can't stand it! Why can't that phone get into a car accident already? —Sophia

• I don't care about the test. I don't care about this club. I don't care about the book. Mr. Eldridge almost died and it's as if I almost killed him. I want to have had nothing to do with this. —Erica

• We had a little gathering for Mr. Eldridge out in the woods. It began as a sort of get-well-soon party, then it got to be more party than get-well. There were some college kids who brought some contraband and were prepared to share. It was the greatest time in the world until the cops showed. I nearly broke my leg running away, but I imanifested and made it! —Jane

• Nothing happens if you don't want it to! I'm so proud of us I could burst. I feel like I know everyone in the school now, like we're all part of one big family. I even like being here more than at home. I think it's sad that some people still haven't caught on. —Olivia

• I've decided not to even show up for the algebra exam. It doesn't matter what it means. If this is what it takes to succeed in life, I don't want to succeed. —Erica

• Hooray for the Crave! And for Dylan and Mike for taking care of that a-hole in the cafeteria who was calling me gay. I know who I am and I am one of you! —Andrew

• Is it me or is it that lately the cafeteria food really doesn't seem so bad? I'm not saying it's like home-cooked, or even McDonald's, but I'm finding it distinctly tastier. Could this be yet another Crave we've brought to fruition, without even realizing it? —Benjamin

• I don't know if what happened with Mr. Eldridge was right or wrong, and I don't care that much. That girl from last week is pressing charges. My hearing's next week. With everything going crazy at home, I need this club badly just to get my mind off things. If we made a mistake, let's fix it. If we didn't, let's feel good about it. —Jeff

• I don't want to be me anymore. —Erica

• I don't think it was an accident. I think someone was trying to kill Mr. Eldridge, and I think it was that guy in the lunchroom. He knows I'm thinking he did it, and now he'll have to kill me to shut me up. I have ways of protecting myself, but I'm afraid when the time comes, I'll be too scared to use them. —Lauren

• I want all of you to go away. I want all of this to go away. I want to stop thinking about this. I want to stop thinking. I want to stop breathing. Where's Caleb? —Erica

• I don't like to interfere with this message board, especially since it's been growing so wonderfully on its own, but lately some of our members have been focusing on negative emotions, and I don't think that does any of us any good, least of all them. So, I'm sorry to say, I'm blocking further messages from Erica and Lauren. We can discuss this decision at the next Crave, and if it's clear they understand what we're about, I'll certainly restore their privileges. —Ethan

• It's great that the club is getting big and all, but for some people it makes it really hard to talk about certain other people because now those certain other people are members and listening in. So, I'm wondering if we can limit the membership or maybe have a separate meeting just with the original Cravers? —Kathleen

• With Mom in college and me looking after my kid sister, I really don't have the time for the club anymore. It's getting kind of
crowded anyway. I promise I'll be chanting at home, though, so please stop asking. —Hailey

• I never realized how powerful this was and I now know more than ever that we have to be careful and responsible, and I feel kind of silly I ever asked for something like clothes. Everybody's talking about how fossil fuels are destroying the environment and causing wars and stuff, so why don't we focus on some kind of sun-driven alternative energy source? —Beth

• The new meeting room's great, but I think even it's going to be too packed next time. Do you think we should hold our next Crave in the auditorium? —Tom

• Of course we're all upset about what happened to Erica, but it's important to remind ourselves that her own decisions brought her to her suicide attempt. Her choices. Her path. There's no reason any of us should feel bad about it. —Vicky

Big, square thing, the county hospital, all brick and glass with a lot of dingy sky behind it. It was probably built by the same construction company handling the gym. The building, not the sky. Whatever. I was outside, my lazy ass on a bench. Erica Black was inside, in some room or ward, hooked up to all sorts of tubes, for all I knew, struggling to breathe, for all I knew. Dead, for all I knew.

I'd read her posts over the weekend and known something was up, but was too dense to guess what. At first I thought she'd just stayed home to mope in her dark place. I should have called, or at least posted something when she mentioned me by name, but I didn't.

Slacker, you know?

Yeah, right.

Rumors flew like crazy—she'd slit her wrists with a razor, taken a bottle of pills, thrown herself in front of a train, run a vacuum hose from the exhaust of her parents' car into the backseat, all of the above. Everyone seemed surprised that
I
didn't know more, because I was her best (and apparently only) friend.

One guy, Jim Pindell, made a wisecrack about how, because she was so pale to begin with, they couldn't tell if she was dead or not. I was about to punch him square in his big mouth, but he had a “1” pin on and Dylan and Mike were there.

They stepped between us real fast, like two fleshy tanks.

“Where's
your
pin?” Dylan asked, nodding at my empty collar.

“Out in the field. Maybe some bird ate it by now,” I told him.

“Better get a new one,” he said.

Mike was a touch friendlier. “Really, man, you should.”

Dylan pressed his face close to mine. He'd had french toast for breakfast, judging by the smell. “Everyone's gonna pass the algebra test!”

The idiot didn't even realize the test had been canceled since Erica's suicide attempt.

I walked. Scurried, actually, to put as much distance as I could between us before someone spilled it to the great ape Kong that I'd quit the Crave.

My actual resignation was pretty anticlimactic. By third period the “S” word (Slacker) wasn't sitting too well, and I was thinking someone should do something, maybe even me. So I headed to the former office of
The Otus
. Ethan and Vicky were standing oh-so-close as they hung up a poster together and, just like that, I said, “I quit.”

No big fanfare. Two little words. Ethan looked like he
pitied me. He mumbled something about having to choose my own path, like it was total news to me that I had free will. Vicky glared, like I was betraying her.

Ha. Me, betraying her.

I thought they should shut down the school and let us go home for the rest of the day. When they didn't, I took off on my own. Hooky's unusual for me. Breaking rules, you see, takes too much of an effort.

A bus ride or so later, I was sitting outside the hospital, too afraid to go in, too depressed and guilty to go home. I just stared at the building, wondering if it was going to fall down just because I was looking at it.

My brain kept drifting back to that girl on the Whirl-A-Gig, unbuckling herself and standing up, getting hurled from the ride, snapping her neck and dying. I pictured her blond and nasty, a real brat, someone you really wouldn't mind seeing die.

But she kept changing into Erica.

I might have stayed there all day, or gone the coward route and slunk home, but this couple in their late forties came out, he in a tweed jacket, she pale, with horn-rimmed glasses, both looking professorial, both looking sad and exhausted, both looking just enough like Erica for me to make the connection.

“I shouldn't have left my pills in that medicine cabinet,” the woman said, her voice cracking into tears.

“Yes, a medicine cabinet is an absurd place for medicine,” the man replied. “She's fine. She'll be fine. You heard the doctor,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulder.

“It's my fault,” she answered. “All my fault.”

“Come, now, neither of us saw it coming. No one did.”

“I knew how much she wanted that scholarship! I knew how that test was driving her crazy! I should've gotten her a tutor!”

“We couldn't afford it, Lisa,” he said in a quiet voice. “And you're not the one who quit his job.”

“Don't you start,” she said. She kissed him on the cheek.

“She'll be fine,” he said. “She'll be fine.”

“We should go back.”

“She's sleeping. Let's just get some coffee.”

“To go?”

“Absolutely.”

How about that? What with
The Rule
floating around so much lately, it was the first conversation in eons I'd heard where people were arguing about
taking
the blame for something that happened to someone else. I wanted to run up, introduce myself, and explain how it was really all
my
fault. Then maybe we could all hug. Yeah, I know, I hate group hugs, but sometimes you just need one.

It also made me feel so totally low about not going in, that as soon as they were out of sight, I got off my lazy ass and headed into the lobby.

Without even looking at me, the woman at the front desk asked, “Can I help you?”

“Erica Black.”

She clicked a few keys. “Room 243A. But visiting hours are almost over.”

“I won't be long. Please.”

Now she did look up. Scanned me like I was a computer screen. I guess I passed whatever test she was giving, because she handed me a plastic visitor card.

The elevator opened out to a view of the nurses' station. That weird mix of cleaning and bodily fluids that only hospitals and school cafeterias have hit my nostrils.

The station nurse was so wrapped up in her dog-eared paperback that she ignored me. Other than that, it was pretty empty, except for one short, balding guy in a hospital gown who was leaning on the wall and sort of half sliding down the hall.

I didn't like looking at him—he'd been bruised pretty badly—but I didn't know if it was ruder to turn away or stare. The welts on his skin were a deep purple, almost like Barney the dinosaur. Just as I put a name to him, he spotted me.

So I said, cool as I could, “Hey, Mr. Eldridge. How's it going?”

“Dunne?” he answered, surprise replacing the pain on his face. He narrowed his eyes and gave me a purple smile. “Here to see
me
? Had no idea you cared.”

“Uh . . .”

He laughed. “Relax. I know Ms. Black's here.”

At least I was able to make him forget his troubles by being the target of his mockery.

“So, you doing better, Mr. E?”

“If healing hurts a lot, I'm doing great.” He grimaced, then nodded curiously at my shirt. “Pin's gone. Come to your senses?”

“I guess.”

“Not so dumb after all. And apparently not the slacker you like to think you are. It's harder to fight your friends than it is to fight city hall. Did you know our principal was wearing a
Rule of Won
pin when he came to visit me?”

“Wow.”

“Oh, don't be surprised. Wyatt was always an idiot.”

“I'm really glad you're okay, Mr. Eldridge.”

“I believe you are. Thanks, Dunne. We'll talk again. You should visit your friend.”

He hobbled through the nearest doorway, which, I figured, led to his room. What with most of the school so happy about his accident, I was thinking he must feel pretty alone. But when I peeked in after him, I saw stacks of cards, flowers, and balloons, which meant, I guess, that he wasn't so alone after all.

The last time I'd been in a hospital was when some old aunt of my mother's (Lydia?) was on her deathbed. It was a big deal for Mom that I go in and see this dying woman I barely knew. I was ten and totally refusing. Mom begged, whined, pleaded, and tried to bribe me. I could tell from her exasperated sighing she was just about to give up, when Joey grabbed my arm, yanked me inside, and croaked, “Say hello to your great-aunt.”

It was a horror show. She was all wrinkled and yellow with a ton of tubes jabbed into various parts of her body. She never even opened her eyes while I was there, but Joey made me whisper to her anyway.

He saw how hard it was, but he didn't care. On the way
out, when I complained that she didn't even know I was there, he said, “It's not about her. It's about you. You can't make things go away just by ignoring them. The world won't change just because you don't feel like believing in it.”

Joey, man. Someday, I'm going to write a book filled with quotes by him. Be more useful than
The Rule of Won
, I bet.

I was kind of wishing he was here with me now, just to yell at me that I wasn't ten anymore and Erica wasn't Aunt Lydia.

Room 243A was a double room. Whoever was closest to the door was hidden behind a curtain, except for their toes, which poked up through the blankets at the end of the bed, looking white, like the sheets.

It wasn't Erica. She was near the window. I had to wonder if that was smart, like, what if she wanted to jump or something? Then again, it was only one story down.

She lay with her head on three pillows, eyes closed, sleeping. The pillows looked stiff, and so did the pillowcases, sheets, and blankets. There were no tubes, just one little intravenous needle. The spot where it entered the back of her hand was covered up with tape. Under the blankets, her chest rose and fell.

I stood in the doorway, relieved she didn't look like a total mess, worried there might be some invisible brain damage or something.