Holly's Heart Collection One (11 page)
Thirty minutes dragged by. A heaviness hung in the air. One girl came out of the choir room in tears. Next came a boy, smiling. He jumped up and down all the way to the end of the hallway, exclaiming, “Yes…so cool!”
“
He’s
confident,” Mom said, looking up from her book.
An older girl poked her head out the choir room. “Holly Meredith, you’re next.”
With as much courage as possible, I entered the choir room. I did fine on the sightsinging and my prepared piece…but the arpeggios. Gulp!
On the way home, Mom chattered with excitement. “You sang like an angel, Holly-Heart.”
Maybe she thought so, but I knew better.
When I wrote the heading in my journal for the day it was:
Tuesday—An Alto’s Nightmare. But I survived it.
It was the only mention I made of my pitiful audition. The rest of the diary entry was taken up with how sweetly Danny Myers treated Alissa Morgan.
I couldn’t remember seeing them together before. But it wasn’t any surprise, because I hadn’t started attending youth group yet.
To be honest, it felt weird going this long without talking to Andie. I pulled Bearie-O out of the trash and told
him
all about my audition. He was a good listener. Never talked back. Never threw junk out of his locker, making piles in the hall. Never moved in on a friend’s crush, or called me stupid nicknames, like Heartless.
Even though he really belonged to Andie, after six years I thought of him as mine. I had a right to.
Wednesday morning arrived. Eighteen days to thrilling thirteen!
I wrote the number on my bulletin board. The days were crawling by like snails.
Before Mom left for work, I asked her about my party. “Can we plan it tonight?”
“After school.”
“Perfect,” I said, chewing on the ends of my hair.
“You’ll split your ends,” Mom said.
I wanted to say
who cares?
but bit my tongue.
That afternoon following gym class, Andie bragged about Jared’s musical genius to the girls in the locker room. The only good thing about gym today was Miss Neff didn’t call me Holly-Bones.
A first.
Maybe she noticed some development that I missed,
I thought, standing sideways at the mirror.
My hair was still damp from a quick shower when I reached for my history book and slammed my locker. Racing toward history class, I accidentally bumped into Danny Myers in the hallway.
“Oh, excuse me,” I said as he bent down and helped me pick up my books.
“Holly Meredith, right? Five eight? Look-alike little sis? Bookworm mother, right? Favorite cookie—snickerdoodles?”
“You’re a walking, breathing computer chip, aren’t you?”
He stopped, took a long look at me, and smiled. “That’s my specialty—memory. I work at it.”
I straightened my books. “It shows.”
“See you at youth group next Tuesday?”
“When I’m thirteen I’ll start going. A few weeks to go.”
“Really?” There was that smile. “They should change those rules.” And he was off in the opposite direction.
For a nanosecond I actually forgot about Jared Wilkins.
In history class, I doodled on my notebook. How long before my letter to Daddy arrived at his home in California? I had mailed it on the way to school this morning. Mom was still in the dark about what I’d decided, of course. Best that way.
The teacher droned on about the decisive battle in the Norman conquest of England. I daydreamed through class. I figured I could catch up by reading the account of the skirmish tonight.
After history, I caught up with Billy Hill heading for his locker. “Wait up,” I called.
“Hey,” he said, smiling.
“Any news about Jared?” I asked.
“He had his surgery Monday night. They put a rod in his tibia bone.”
“Which one’s that?”
He pointed to his own leg. “Shinbone.”
“Is he in a cast yet?”
He nodded.
“For how long?”
“About six weeks. Bummer, huh?”
“So he’ll get the cast off by spring break?”
He scratched his head. “Yeah, it should be off by then.” He looked serious. “The worst thing about this whole mess is it should never have happened.”
“What do you mean?”
He glanced up the hallway, like he had to check out the turf.
“Several guys were spotting Jared on the tramp before he fell. One of them was Tom Sly. When Jared began to lose balance, Tom backed away. On purpose.”
This was rotten. I could hardly believe it.
But there was more. “Jared and Tom had been hassling each other a lot during practice games after school lately.”
“So…do you think Tom wanted Jared to get hurt?”
“Who knows.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Thing is, there was major hostility between them. You heard about the smoking thing Tom tried to pull on Jared and me, didn’t you?”
I nodded. “Too weird.”
I stopped with Billy at his locker. There was a note taped to the outside. “Looks like a note from the coach,” he said.
I peered over his shoulder as he read it. “Late practice?”
“Yeah. Things are real tough without Jared around. The team needs him.”
“Looks like Tom’s revenge is messing things up for all of you.”
“No kidding.” He closed his locker. “You like Jared, don’t you?”
He looked me square in the face.
I felt my cheeks starting to warm up.
“You’re blushing,” he said with a smile.
“Gotta run,” I said, heading for my next class.
In English, I jotted down seven names on a note pad. These kids were going to receive invitations to my thirteenth birthday bash. Andie was
not
on the list.
Jared was.
BEST FRIEND, WORST ENEMY
The back door slammed behind me as I came into the house. Dropping my book bag on the bar in the kitchen, I heard Carrie calling to me from the family room. “Jared called.”
My hand froze as I unzipped my jacket. Jared! My heart pounded. I went to the top of the stairs and tried to sound casual. “When did he call?”
She came skipping up the stairway and watched as I hung my jacket in the hall closet. “He called right after school was out,” she said. “He wants you to call him back.”
“Thanks for the message.” I picked up my book bag. Slowly, I headed toward the steps leading to my bedroom, then raced to the phone in Mom’s room so Carrie wouldn’t see or hear me.
“Room 204, please,” I told the hospital operator when she answered.
Butterflies flittered in my stomach as I waited.
“Wilkins’ Torture Chamber,” a male voice said.
“Is that you, Jared?”
“Who else?” He was laughing.
“It’s Holly.”
“I’d know your voice anywhere.” He paused. “How’s school?”
“Okay, I guess. The team misses you. Everyone does,” I said, thinking I was the one who missed him most. “I visited you Sunday afternoon, but you were snoring.”
He chuckled. “Meds knocked me out a couple days before surgery. But Doc says I’m going home tomorrow.”
“Really?” I was dying to see him again.
“How’d your audition go?”
“Let’s just say I’ve sung better,” I told him.
“Hope you make it.” His voice was soft. “Choir tour wouldn’t be the same without
you,
Holly-Heart.”
My heart flip-flopped. “Mr. Keller’s going to post the list this weekend. But you already know you made it. They need guys in choir…I heard that before auditions.” Fidgeting, I folded my long hair over the top of my head. It hung down like a satiny curtain in front of me. “I might be going to visit my dad in California for spring break,” I said.
“You can’t do that…it’s the choir tour.”
“But isn’t the tour this
summer
?”
“No, it’s during spring break, and we’re going to Disneyland.”
“Guess I’ll just have to visit my dad another time,” I said, wondering how I could’ve gotten so mixed up.
Jared changed the subject. “Aren’t we going skiing this weekend?”
“With your leg in a cast?” Some comedian.
“And why not?” Jared asked, laughing.
“But your leg…”
“No, really.” He sounded more serious now. “I’ll be home from the hospital on Friday, and the youth group’s going tobogganing Saturday at Jake’s Run. How about going along to keep me company at the lodge?”
Jake’s Run—the steepest, wildest toboggan ride this side of the Continental Divide. It had a cozy, A-frame lodge with a coffee shop and a lounge with a huge stone fireplace. “How can you get around with your leg in a cast?” I asked.
“I’ve got crutches now. And my folks think it would be good for me to get out, as long as I’m careful. What do you say?”
As much as I wanted to go along, Mom would never agree. She always said I had to be much older—like in my twenties—and oozing with responsibility before I could even think of dating. Besides, I still wasn’t old enough to go on the youth group activities yet, not for eighteen more days. I sighed. “I don’t think I can,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Why not?”
I dodged the question. I had some doubts about Jared, and they confused me. What really had happened between him and Andie at the hospital? Had she lied about his wanting her there? Eating supper together? All of it bugged me. “Isn’t Andie going on the ski trip?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Why?”
“I thought you liked Andie.
She
thinks you do.”
“Andie and I are just friends,” he protested.
Carrie was suddenly standing in front of me. She was tugging at my shirt, even though I shooed her away. Her eyes were demanding little specks, growing wider with every second.
“Look, I’ve gotta go. My little sister needs me.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Jared said. “Bye, Holly.”
I held the phone in my hand, reluctant to hang up. Turning to Carrie, I said, “Please don’t ever do that again. This phone call was private.”
“So that’s why you came up here—to Mom’s bedroom—to talk.” Her childishness was annoying. “You were hiding from me.”
“You’ll understand some day.”
“So you must
really
like this Jared person,” she taunted.
“You’ll never know.” I raced her downstairs to the kitchen, where we helped ourselves to carrots and dip.
If what Carrie said just now was true, why did I feel both happy and miserable?
The next two days in school dragged on. Jared called Thursday night and pleaded again with me to go to Jake’s Run with the youth group. I told him I hadn’t asked my mom yet.
Before I knew it, Saturday had arrived. Sleep-in time!
Mom jostled me out of my covers. “Wake up, Holly-Heart. This is the day we’ve been waiting for. The choir list will be posted at church.” She tossed Bearie-O at me.
I kicked my leg over the side of the bed. Slowly easing out, I stood and stared at the mirror. Was this the face of a traveling singer? A new youth choir member?
Right after breakfast the phone rang. It was Andie.
“I’m not sure I want to talk to you,” I said.
“Listen, something’s really crazy,” she said. “It’s just too awful.”
“Why are you calling me? We’re not talking, remember?”
“It’s such a shame,” she said, ignoring me. “It really is.”