Almost Eden (7 page)

M
ark Giesbrecht is a first-class, good-for-nothing dork.

I was lying there at the pool minding my own business, soaking up the sun. He sits himself down and starts eating
knackzote
, which is no problem until he starts spitting the shells down my bathing suit top. He didn’t do it to anyone else, just me. I had to go into the change room to get them all out.

“If you ask me, I think he likes you,” said Jillian.

We’d taken over her backyard for our first pajama party of the summer.

“That’s an understatement,” Heather mumbled, her face buried in her arms. “He’s always picking on you.” I was sitting on her bum, kneading her back and shoulders.

“Ow!” she squirmed. “What’s with you? Take it easy already.”

“Sorry.” Beside me, Sadie was giving Naomi a back rub and beside them, Joy was giving Jillian a back rub. It was Eleanor’s turn to sit out. “He bugs me. I wish he’d just leave me alone for once.”

“Give the guy a break,” said Sadie. “Mark’s not so bad.”

Sadie, defending Mark? She’d been acting a little weird the last couple of days, but sticking up for Mark wasn’t a little weird. It was–bizarre.

“Mark’s okay, I guess,” Joy said, grinning. “But he’s no Pete Wiens, eh Jillian?”

Sadie snorted.

“’Fess up, Jill.” Eleanor got right in Jillian’s face. “Has he or hasn’t he?”

“Has he or hasn’t he what?”

“Kissed you, you fool!”

“Time,” Jillian announced. She ignored the question purely for the pleasure of tormenting us. “Pete and I just like to hang out. We’re buddies.”

“If you say so,” said Sadie. Grinning, she reached over to crank up the radio. Donny Osmond was singing “Puppy Love,” and she started crooning along with him.

Jillian thwacked Sadie with a pillow, but she was outnumbered. We all howled out the words to the song, laughing ourselves silly and dodging Jillian’s pillow as we switched places.

In ten minutes we’d switch again and so on, until everyone gave six back rubs and got six back rubs. It was a pajama party ritual, whether we slept inside or out, like
tonight. We’d put our sleeping bags in a circle around a pile of junk food and Jillian’s transistor radio.

“You might as well tell us,” Joy coaxed. “We’ll weasel it out of you sooner or later.”

“Hah! See my halo?”

Heather, sitting on Jillian’s bum, lifted two chunks of her hair. “More like devil horns.”

Right away Naomi gasped. “Don’t say such a thing!”

“Holy flippin’ Moses,” Heather rolled her eyes.

“Hey you guys. Lets not fight over it.” Eleanor, the peacemaker, nipped the argument in the bud.

Usually we were pretty careful to avoid subjects that upset Naomi, which included pretty much anything about the devil or witches or magic. Her parents were awfully religious, even for Hopefield. They were even more strict than Eleanor’s parents, and Eleanor’s parents had been missionaries in South America and everything.

“Anyway, Pete’s far too shy to do anything except ride home with me,” grinned Jillian.

“Maybe you could get him to ride home with you along
schmungestrasse
” said Eleanor, adding a long drawn out kissing sound.

The rest of us were too astonished to speak. We were for sure all thinking the same thing–what the heck did Eleanor know about lover’s lane?

Eleanor giggled nervously. “I just heard stuff, you know, from my older sister.”

Jillian bailed her out. “I’ll probably just wait for a Sadie Hawkins Dance so I can ask him out.”

“Fat chance,” said Heather.

“Why?” Jillian looked up at the sudden silence. “What?”

“You poor misguided child.” Sadie put a hand over her heart and used her best preacher’s voice.

No one knew how to tell Jillian that she had about as much chance of going to a Sadie Hawkins Dance in Hopefield as she had of flying to the moon. Then I remembered the old joke Beth used to say all the time before she was saved.

“I could’ve danced all night,” I sang. “But I’m a Mennonite.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jillian demanded.

“This is Hopefield, remember?”

“So?”

“We don’t dance. Dancing is a sin. Right up there with smoking, drinking, playing cards, going to movies, and just about anything else that’s fun. Haven’t you noticed we don’t have a movie theater in this town even?” Seven churches, but no movie theater.

For just a minute, I tried to imagine how it would be to dance with Aaron Penner. His hand on my waist, my hand on his shoulder, smiling up into his gorgeous blue eyes. It might happen. Maybe. Like if someone we both knew got married and there was a social after the wedding, and we were both invited.

As if. The others were already gossiping about someone Sadie had seen parked on lover’s lane. The biscuit conference was going pretty good all right.

The sun had set a while ago, and the first stars twinkled faintly. We hardly needed sleeping bags even, the night was so warm.

We waited until it was completely dark, the entire town sleeping already, before we crept out the back gate.

“That was too easy,” said Joy.

“Shhh!!!”

Laughing, wide awake, and breathless, we ran down the alley.

“Where are we going?” Heather asked.

“It’s a surprise,” said Jillian. “Follow me.”

“Not another one of Jillian’s surprises,” groaned Eleanor. She traipsed along behind us, but she wasn’t all that happy about it.

Jillian led us down the route we’d planned, sticking to back alleys as much as possible. By the time we reached the park, we were all pretty wound up and acting like little kids. We ran for the slides and swings, whooping and hollering at half volume.

“Over here!” I called. Everyone grabbed a spot on the wobbly old merry-go-round. We ran, pushing it faster and faster and still faster, then hopping on one by one. I
was the last to jump on and lean out, breathless, letting the night sky spin dizzily around and around and around some more.

“That was so neat,” Joy finally sighed, when the merry-go-round stopped.

“It gets better,” said Jillian. “C’mon.”

We chased each other through the park to the big elm tree close by the fence that surrounded the pool. Deck lights shimmered on the quiet water.

A shadow moved in the bushes. “You’re late.”

Heather strangled a scream.

Aaron stepped into the light. “We thought you weren’t going to show up.” Behind him Mark, Pete, and the other guys rustled their way out of hiding.

The midnight rendezvous had been the boys’ idea. They’d dared Jillian, Sadie, and me that afternoon, when they heard about Jillian’s party. We just hadn’t told anyone else. The others would never have followed us if they’d known what we planned.

“Let’s go.” Mark headed toward the pool.

Naomi looked around nervously. “We really shouldn’t be here, should we? Isn’t there a
NO TRESPASSING
sign somewheres?”

Jillian held up her pack. “I brought our bathing suits. We’re not the first ones to ever go for a midnight swim.”

Joy teetered like she might faint.

It wasn’t like we were planning on wrecking anything. We weren’t delinquents. And we were all real good
swimmers. Besides which, the guys were climbing the chain-link fence already.

“I don’t know,” Eleanor whispered. “We’ll be in big trouble if we’re caught. I’m pretty sure there’s a fine, you know–”

“Stay here then.” Jillian began climbing. “It’s your funeral.”

In the end, everyone except Naomi and Joy went over the fence. To be honest, I was more than a little nervous, too, but no way was I going to be left out. Especially after I ruined everything for everyone last week already. Jillian and Sadie would really think I was a wimp.

At first I was looking over my shoulder too much to have any fun. But then after a while, when no alarms went off or anything, I started to enjoy myself. I lay on my back at the bottom of the pool, staring up at the silhouetted bodies moving above me. Light streamed around them.

Everything seemed unreal, as if the night had put a spell over us. Only I felt more real and alive than I could ever remember. I felt bigger than life. I wanted to hug Jillian. I’d never think of doing something like this without her.

I didn’t want the spell to end. Only I couldn’t hold my breath much longer. I let myself rise slowly, quietly breaking the surface.

“This is the best.”

The voice behind me was barely a whisper, and a little husky, but I’d know Aaron’s voice anywhere. Treading
water, I turned, smiling, all ready to agree with him. The night, the moment, everything was perfect.

Only thing was, Aaron wasn’t talking to me. He didn’t even know I was there. He was talking to Sadie. Which wasn’t a big deal, except the way his voice sounded I knew he wasn’t just talking to her, he was talking
only
to her. And he didn’t just mean that swimming at night was the best, he meant swimming at night
with her
was the best.

I dove deep and swam toward the others. Sadie and Aaron were right behind me. Probably, it meant nothing I told myself. Nothing at all. Absolutely
nusht.

But for sure I didn’t believe me.

We formed a circle in the deep end, treading water and talking. I didn’t say much because my head was too full of questions. Why hadn’t I noticed something going on before? It must have all started while I was grounded. That figured. That’s why Sadie had been acting weird.

“Someone’s coming!” Naomi hissed from the other side of the fence. A car slowed as it drove by on the street. A patrol car. “It’s the police!”

Naomi and Joy disappeared. The rest of us didn’t have time to get out of the pool. We ducked underwater, surfacing against the side of the pool under the diving boards and keeping our heads below the deck. Almost right away, before the water stopped rippling even, a patrol car swung up to the fence. Headlights scanned the pool. Holy Moses.

“C’mon out!”

A disembodied voice from some kind of loudspeaker crackled over our heads. It reached right into my stomach. I thought I might lose it right then and there.

“What do we do?” groaned Heather.

“Shhh!” Jillian put a finger to her lips. “Don’t move.”

“We know you’re in there,” the voice crackled again. “You might as well come out.”

“We better give ourselves up,” whispered Eleanor.

“Are you totally nuts?” Aaron hissed.

We huddled still closer, staying low. Mark was pressed against me on one side, Jillian on the other. Mark and I were staring into each other’s bright eyes. I was pretty sure I could feel his heart racing as fast as mine.

I don’t know how long we huddled there. Probably only a few minutes, even though it felt like forever. Our teeth were chattering before we finally heard the car drive away.

“Wait,” Mark said. “Just a bit longer yet.”

The patrol car appeared on the street. It drove by slowly, then turned the corner away from the park.

“Now!” Pete boosted himself out of the water. We bolted, grabbing our clothes and racing for the fence.

“That was wild,” said Mark.

I nodded, getting all tangled up as I tried to pull my T-shirt on over my wet bathing suit. “It’ll get wilder yet if we’re caught.”
Please God
, I prayed,
help us get out of here without getting caught and I swear I’ll never do anything like this again.

I wasn’t the only one praying, that was for sure.

“Never again. Never again.” Heather’s teeth chattered, her voice shook as she scrambled up the fence. “I promise I’ll never ever break the law again.”

Jimmy, Pete, and Caleb were the first ones to hurdle over the fence. They dropped to the ground on the other side. Jillian and Heather were right behind. Right about then is when the cop car pulled up in the alley across the street, facing the pool. For a split second everyone froze.

Aaron, Mark, and Sadie were straddling the top of the fence still. Eleanor and I were clinging halfway up. Then Aaron hit the ground running.

“Meet you at home!” Jillian took off with the others.

Mark reached down and grabbed my hand. He hauled me up and over. “Jump!”