Best Kept Secret (10 page)

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?

But when my dad picked me up at school, something about the familiar comfort of our old blue compact car, and his jazz music playing when I got in, just made me lose it. I started crying before I could explain. Poor Dad; he didn't know what to do. He had to pull over before we even left the school grounds. Eventually, I calmed down and explained what happened without sobbing. He couldn't really hug me because we were sitting in the car. But he did give me some tissues and put his hand on my shoulder as I told my story.

“The ambulance crew checked her out and she's perfectly all right?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, waiting for something worse to come.

“Well, then I guess you all learned a valuable lesson that you won't forget anytime soon.”

He put his hands back on the wheel, put the car in drive, and that was it. Of course, he told my mother, and I worried she'd ground me. But by then, a couple hours had passed, and Mrs. Pinksy had called my mom to confirm that Piper was fine. While they talked, I half listened from my room. I heard Mom say, “For the love of Pete,” and I picked up on the general pleasant tone the conversation must have had.

“Here,” Mom said, standing in my doorway. “Mrs. P. wants to talk to you.”

I felt a little jolt of fear, but I took the phone. To my surprise, she wanted to thank me.

“You should get a medal,” Mrs. Pinsky said. “You're a woman of action, Jemma.”

Twenty-four

By Friday morning, I was feeling more normal. I could tell because the first thing I thought of was that Forrest would be at my house in thirty-six hours. And I then I started to stress over how Bet was going to broadcast her report on the Catch-It-in-Your Mouth Olympics when it had almost turned tragic.

From there, my mind meandered to the Pink Locker Society, which had received a new threatening message.

I know who you all are. Stop now or you'll be sorry. Very sorry.

It was not signed “A Pink Friend.” There was no signature at all, which made me worry. I mean, Ms. Russo wouldn't just start sending us threats for no reason. Unless this was some kind of fire drill for us and she wanted to see what we would do.

More than Ms. Russo's “Pink Friend” warnings, this one creeped me out. I started wondering if it could have something to do with all the mystery that Bet had uncovered. What if we started getting more and more of these messages and had to shut down? I couldn't bear to see the PLS out of business again and leave Queen Quitter and all those other girls without our services. But now that there was no Edith, I guess it was up to us to decide when and if we ever shut down the Web site.

Principal Finklestein came up with 101 reasons why he was too busy to review part 2 of the
You Bet!
segment on the Pink Locker Ladies. Apparently, he was busier than the president of the United States. Or maybe he did watch it and was lying that he hadn't. I, for one, was fine with him never seeing it. Then he would never be reminded of the PLS or check to see if we were still running the site.

Meanwhile, Bet decided to give a few of us a private showing of part 2. She reserved a room at the local library for after school on Friday. This was right after MSTV aired her replacement show about the Catch-It-in-Your-Mouth Olympics. That report, too, might have landed her in Principal Finklestein's office, but she had turned the whole messy affair into a public service report about choking. Who could argue with that? Quite accidentally, I was the star of this show.

Bet dropped her camera only after I yelled for her to call 911. Then she started filming again once it was clear Piper was OK. So there's plenty of footage of Piper just standing around looking dazed and exhausted. Later, she interviewed the school nurse who said it was “a tremendous blessing” that I knew the Heimlich Maneuver.

Piper, as you might have guessed, told scads of people about what happened.

“Jemma gave me the John Jacob Jingleheimlich Schmidt Manuever!”

Piper had always done this—mishmashed her words. But with this one, it became clear to me that she did this on purpose, to make light of what was actually a really scary situation.

And although Piper had told the story many times, my hero status didn't really gel until everyone saw Bet's report. Everyone else seemed to watch it with the calm of knowing that the story had a happy ending. But I had to look away. Thank goodness, from where Bet had been shooting, the camera couldn't see that terrified look on Piper's face or hear her struggle to breathe. I will never forget it. Mr. Ford had me stand up after the closing credits of
You Bet!
People clapped.

“I hope you're around the next time I'm eating peanut brittle,” Mr. Ford said.

Embarrassment was definitely my first reaction, but I also allowed myself to feel a little proud. Maybe I was a woman of action.

Twenty-five

Later, I had a date at the library to watch Bet's top-secret part 2 “The Past Is Pink” report. I had to admit I liked the intrigue of it. In addition to meeting at a secret location, Bet created some code words for the occasion. We were meeting to discuss “the diorama,” she said. And she gave us all code names, like the Secret Service gives the president and his family. I was “Lifesaver,” Piper was “Lemon Drop,” and Kate was “KitKat.” Bet called herself “Duck13.” And then there was “Bride2Be.”

Bet invited Ms. Russo to join us at the library. I was glad she did, because I wanted to speak with her right away about that new threatening message. I launched into it as soon as Bet shut the meeting-room door.

“Before we get started, did you send us that message that said ‘I know who you all are. Stop now or you'll be very sorry'? Please tell me that it was you pranking us or testing us or something.”

“Which one?” Ms. Russo asked.

“It was
tray creepay,
and you didn't sign it ‘A Pink Friend,' like usual,” Piper said.

“I always signed them from ‘A Pink Friend.' It's a new message?” Ms. Russo asked.

She knit her brow in confusion, so Piper called up the message in question and showed it to her.

“That one is not from me,” Ms. Russo said.

Me, Piper, and Kate all exchanged looks and made a silent pact to take up this issue later. Bet hardly noticed, so intent was she to show her report and talk about being censored.

“I feel like I should say something important about prior restraint and censorship, seeing how we've been forced to meet in a clandestine location,” Bet said.

We brought our chairs into a half circle around the table, where the laptop was open and the video was in freeze-frame.

“Just hit play, Duck13,” I said.

“Oh, all right,” she said, and did.

The title crawled across the screen: “The Past Is Pink: What Happened to the Pink Locker Ladies?”

“Those girls from Yale. Talk about in your face,” Patricia told Bet. She was still speaking in that altered voice, and her face was obscured by shadows.

Patricia said it was 1976 and “the girls from Yale” were on the female rowing team, also called “crew.” Because women's sports were just getting started at the university, they didn't have their own showers or bathrooms at the boathouse. So both the men's and women's teams practiced about a half hour from campus, but only the men could clean up and warm up after practice. The women waited on the bus for the men in the dead of winter, ice crystals clinging to their wet hair.

“One of those girls ended up going to the Olympics and won a gold medal,” Patricia said. “But I'm getting ahead of myself.

“The female rowers had complained and asked for a locker room, but they kind of got the brush-off,” Patricia said. “That was until they decided to protest the situation in an unforgettable way.

“So Title IX had been passed four years before,” Patricia said. “Remember, Title IX was the federal law that said girls and boys should have equal opportunities in school. That included sports.”

I flashed a look at Bet. She had told me two weeks ago this had something to do with Title IX, back when I thought “Title 9” was only a cute clothing catalog.

“So the nineteen female rowers decided they'd march into the office of the woman who was in charge of Yale's women's sports program. That would have had some impact, right? But then—you won't believe this—they decided to write Title IX in blue marker on their bare chests and backs. They would go into the meeting wearing their Yale women's crew sweat suits. But once they were in that woman's office, they'd take off their shirts to reveal their statement. Which is exactly what they did.”

Bet had not told me this part in advance. I was stunned and speechless. I didn't even like to get changed in the girls' locker room, and I was always wearing a bra. These girls went in a group and took off their tops in a school official's office?

Ms. Russo raised her eyebrows. Kate looked at Piper and me, and we just started laughing.

“Shhh! Shhh! You'll miss the best part,” Bet said.

“A brilliant bit of civil disobedience,” Patricia said. “The girls read a statement that detailed their complaints. But here's the clincher. We would not be sitting here today except for this, the
pièce de résistance.
The team invited a
New York Times
reporter to the meeting.”