After three hours in the emergency room, I’m officially declared uninjured. By this time, my parents are at the hospital. As we emerge from the treatment room to the crowded waiting area, we see Adrian and a bunch of neighbors, including, no surprise, Mrs. Raskin.
“I keep my phone on vibrate, even in the theater,” she is saying to Adrian.
“Sometimes you can’t feel it vibrating,” Adrian says.
“I hold the phone right in my hand,” Mrs. Raskin replies. “That way I don’t miss a call. And if—”
She breaks off when she sees us.
“They finally answered the phone,” she says. “When the movie ended. They’re with Humphrey. Unless he’s being operated on. At any rate, they’re here.”
“Any word on him?” my father asks. “Does anyone know how Humphrey’s doing?”
“Not yet,” says Adrian.
Both sets of the Dankers’ next-door neighbors are in the waiting room—the Crenshaws, who brought their three kids along, and the other couple, who don’t have kids and whose name I don’t know. There’s also Mrs. Hermann, whose house is on the corner of Quarry and Franklin, right next to where the accident happened. Mr. Stashower, whose house is on the opposite corner of Quarry and Franklin. Mrs. McGillicudy, who lives on our street. She gives me a hug. So does Adrian, who also slips my phone into my hand.
“I had to pry it away from the crazy bat,” he whispers in my ear. “I think she wanted to download your contacts.”
I don’t really get what he’s saying. She what?
“Seriously—are you okay?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Did you see Humphrey’s parents?”
“Yeah. They came through the waiting room and went right back to wherever Humphrey’s being treated.”
“Did you see Humphrey?” I ask.
Adrian gives me a quizzical look. “How could I—”
“I thought maybe when they brought him in. Maybe you saw if he opened his eyes.”
“I didn’t get here until way after,” Adrian says. “Anyway, they don’t bring the ambulance patients through the waiting room.”
Right. I should know that from those television dramas.
“Why is it so crowded in here?” I ask. Besides the neighbors, there are lots of people milling around.
“Friday night in the ER,” Adrian says. “The end of the workweek. The beginning of the weekend. Doctors’ offices are closed, and people start doing crazy weekend things.”
I see my parents speaking with a policeman, over in a corner.
“You’re probably going to have to talk with the cops,” Adrian says.
“Right now?”
Couldn’t they just talk to Mrs. Raskin or someone? Someone with lots of ideas about what happened out there?
“Well, soon, I bet. They’ll want to get to you while your memory is fresh.”
Mom and Dad come over. Yes, the police need to interview me. It will be a quick interview tonight. We don’t have to go to the police station; they will come to the house. Just a few questions, and if they need more details, they’ll follow up tomorrow.
“But what about Humphrey?” I ask.
“I’m sure the doctors are doing everything they can to help him,” Mom says. “It’s time to get you home.”
“Tell us what happened. What time was it when you and Humphrey were walking home?”
“Around seven fifteen. Seven twenty. Maybe seven twenty-five by the time we were on Quarry near Franklin.”
“You were playing with the football?”
There are two police officers in our living room, a man and a woman. They’re taking turns asking the questions. I’m having a hard time focusing on who’s saying what.
“Yes. We were playing with the football.”
“So you’re tossing the football back and forth while walking home?”
“Oh, no. No. We played with the football at the park. We did that a lot. We were just going home and we dropped the football and it rolled into the street and Humphrey ran after it.”
“So when you say we dropped the football—”
“I dropped the football.”
“And then.”
“And it bounced into the street. Humphrey ran after it.”
“Did you notice the car before it hit him?”
“No. I wasn’t looking at the cars. I wasn’t expecting Humphrey to run into the street.”
“Did you notice if any cars seemed to be speeding, or driving recklessly?”
“No. I didn’t notice anything like that.”
“Could you describe the car that hit Humphrey?”
“I don’t think I can describe it. It’s like I sensed Humphrey getting hit more than I saw him getting hit.”
“You didn’t see the accident.”
“I know I must have seen the accident, but what sticks in my mind is sensing that it happened. Sensing the—impact.”
Weirdly, I also seem not to have heard the accident, which may defy the usual laws of nature, or at least physics. But I don’t tell the officers this.
“Were you distracted by something else when Humphrey ran into the street?”
“No. But I wasn’t expecting him to run into the street, so I was surprised. It all happened so quickly.”
“We understand,” says the female half of the team. “So about the car that hit Humphrey—can you tell us anything?”
“Not really,” I say. “Wasn’t it the blue minivan?”
They don’t answer my question. I guess they get to ask the questions here, not me.
“We’re just trying to understand the sequence of events leading up to the accident,” the man says. “Whether there was anything going on in terms of speeding, reckless driving, distractions, whatever.”
I have no idea.
They take pity on me and say we’re done for the night. If I remember anything, I should call them—they give me their cards. And they will probably want to talk to me more, but for now they know I need to settle down and try to get some rest.
The phone rings as soon as Dad closes the door behind the police officers. Mom picks it up in the kitchen, then comes to the living room where I’m still sitting. She settles next to me on the sofa, puts her arm around my shoulders, and squeezes.
“Humphrey didn’t make it,” she says.