The day after Christmas, I woke to a knock at my window. It wasn’t Mr. Squirrel. It was Atticus.
I rubbed my eyes and got out of bed. It was cold and I could tell from the light outside that it was really early. I opened my window. “What are you doing here?” I asked.
He looked at me and didn’t say anything, but I could tell something was very wrong.
“Get in,” I said, unsnapping the screen on my window. He crawled inside and I quickly shut the window behind him. It was freezing out there.
“What’s going on?” I asked. I turned to see him pulling my bedspread around him. His face was all red and he was shivering.
“I rode my bike over,” he said through chattering teeth.
“You rode your bike over!” That was crazy. His house was miles away. “Are you okay?” I asked, and sat down beside him. He was clearly not okay.
“I had to get out of there,” he said.
“You had to get out of your house?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said.
Then it hit me. “What did he do? What did Michael do to you?”
“He didn’t do anything,” he mumbled.
Huh? This wasn’t making any sense. I looked at Atticus like I was deciphering a puzzle. Finally, I asked, “Atticus, what’s wrong?”
He didn’t answer. He sat on my bed, still as a stone, and wouldn’t even look at me. So, I sat there, too, and waited. Which is hard for me. Because I’m Avalon.
“Remember when we went to the farm before Halloween?” he said. I thought back. Yeah, I remembered. Something had been wrong with him that day, too. Also, it was the day he had lied to me. I had not forgotten that.
I nodded.
“My mom was really upset that morning and I didn’t know what to do.”
“I remember. It was about a test or something, right?” I asked.
“No, Avie. It wasn’t about a test,” he said. “I lied to you.”
So he really did lie to me. I hadn’t imagined it. It hurt a little for him to say it out loud.
“Oh. Okay,” I said, trying to act like it wasn’t a big deal. “So you lied to me—”
“I never lie to you,” he exclaimed. “I never do, Avie. And I’m so sorry because friends don’t lie to each other and we are friends. Infinity friends. It’s just there’s something I’ve never told you and if I don’t tell you now, it will be like lying to you all over again. And I don’t know who else to tell, but I can’t tell anyone because nobody can know. I don’t know what else to do. I can only tell you, Avie. I can only tell you.”
He stopped. He was all out of breath. He was almost shaking.
“Okay,” I said. “Then tell me.”
He looked at me and said, “I wet the bed.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I’m ten years old and I wet the bed,” he said, and dropped his head. “It’s not like it happens all the time anymore. It even stopped for a while last year and I thought it was over, but it came back again. And it makes my mom so crazy. It really freaks her out. But I can’t help it, Avie. The medicine doesn’t even help. And then it happened again this morning—and I totally freaked out. I covered everything up but what if Michael finds out? Oh, gosh, what if he finds out? I had to get out of there. I just couldn’t be there. I couldn’t … I just couldn’t, Avie.”
Wow. Triple wow.
“I know you probably don’t even want to be my friend anymore it’s so embarrassing,” he said with a sniff. “I wouldn’t blame you.”
“Is this why we can never stay over at the farm?” I asked. “Is this why she never lets you sleep over anywhere?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“Wow,” I said out loud this time. “That’s so messed up.”
“I know,” he said.
“So what are we going to do about Michael?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” Atticus shook his head. “I don’t know.”
I knew what Atticus was afraid of. It wasn’t just that Michael might make fun of him. It was that Michael would know. Michael would know something that almost nobody had known. Not even me.
“It even happened to my dad when he was my age,” Atticus said, “but my mom just doesn’t get it. He tries to tell her to leave me alone but she doesn’t and then it just gets worse. She’s gonna freak out when she sees my sheets this morning. If I was there, she’d be freaking out on me right now. And Michael would hear. Everyone would hear.”
I had never seen Atticus look desperate before.
“It’s going to be okay,” I finally said.
He just looked at me. “How do you know?” he asked, like he really needed the answer.
“Because we’re pinky friends,” I said. “And I just know.”
I stuck out my pinky finger. In second grade, we came up with this idea of being pinky friends. Whenever anything bad happened, one of us would stick out our pinky finger to the other. Usually it was Atticus who was sticking his pinky out to me because usually I was the one with something bad happening. We would shake pinky fingers and it would all be okay. We hadn’t done it since third grade—when we decided we were too old for pinky shakes.
This morning we were not too old for anything.
He looked at me. I looked at him. He stuck out his pinky finger and we shook.
“Okay, then,” he said.
“Okay,” I answered.
“And if that doesn’t work, I’ll talk to him,” I said. “Michael’s a little scared of me, you know.”
Atticus almost smiled, then said, “Yeah, I know.”
He wiped his nose on his jacket sleeve and sniffed real loud. He saw M’s stocking on my bed and pulled out the collar from inside.
After a long minute, he said, “You know, I had a dream about M last night.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. It was really real, too. She was in that shed by the water tower. You know, the one that looks like nobody ever goes in there.”
“Was she okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. She was.”
He started shaking the ball with the bell inside next to his ear.
“Well, let’s go, then,” I said.
“Avie, it was just a dream.”
“I know,” I said. I picked up M’s new collar and fastened it around my wrist. “I know,” I repeated, and took the collar off again.
I couldn’t shake this feeling, though. It was a grand-idea feeling and it was banging to get out.
“Yeah, but what if it wasn’t just a dream,” I said. “What if somehow, you can see things in your dreams that nobody else can? What if your dream was your Infinity Year power?” I paused and let this sink in for a second, then looked at him real hard. “Atticus, what if M really is at the water tower?”
“Come on, Avie. Dreaming is not my Infinity Year power. X-ray vision or flying or something like that—those are magical powers. Not dreaming.”
“But how do we know? Atticus, it could be anything! It could be dreaming! What if you can dream things that come true? What if that’s really your magical power?” A part of me thought it was crazy, too, but I so wanted to believe. I missed M so much. I was willing to try anything.
“Okay,” he said. “Why not? I can’t get into any worse trouble than I’m already in today.”
“Really?” I asked. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Let’s go to the water tower.”
* * *
I wasn’t sure my mom would think an expedition to the water tower would be a good idea. So instead of using the front door and possibly waking her, Atticus and I snuck out my bedroom window. I grabbed my bike quietly from the garage and joined him on the driveway. I had on two sweaters, my heavy coat, and my reindeer hat. I was still freezing.
It was seven o’clock the day after Christmas, so nobody was on the streets. We rode past the school and down the long main road that led toward town. We took a left onto Duffy Drive and saw the water tower up in the distance. We sped down the street riding side by side like we owned the road.
The water tower has been in our town for something like a hundred years. We pulled onto the gravel road that leads to the tower and parked our bikes at the bottom of it.
Every year at the end of school, some high schoolers climb to the top and spray-paint stuff up there. We looked up and read what they wrote last spring.
Lions Rule!
Mr. Waxberger Stinks
Will ♥ Caroline
Will actually climbed up there and spray-painted the last one. Caroline said it was a dumb thing to do, but I think she secretly liked it.
The shed was past the water tower back toward the woods. It was bigger than I had thought. It was really more of a cabin. A dirty, rickety, probably dangerous cabin.
I followed Atticus to the door and he turned the knob. It didn’t open at first but he shook the handle a few times and pushed real hard. Finally, the door gave way.
It looked like no one had been inside for about a million years. There were old rusty desks stacked on top of one another, filing cabinets with drawers hanging open, and lots of broken rakes and hoes and shovels scattered all over. In other words, the place was full of old junk. Junk that was covered with at least an inch of dust.
“M,” I said as we walked inside. “M, are you here?”
We didn’t hear anything. We walked in farther.
“Marmalade!” I said louder.
We waited but M didn’t answer. I sat down on a dusty crate and put my head in my hands.
“I knew it was stupid to get my hopes up,” I said.
“It wasn’t that stupid,” Atticus said as he sat down beside me. I looked at him. “Yeah, it was a little stupid,” he said.
“I just miss her, you know. I don’t know what I’m going to do. She’s been gone a whole week. Maybe she’s never coming back. Maybe I’ll never see her again. I miss her so much, Atticus.”
I started to cry. I just couldn’t help it. We sat in that horrible shed and Atticus watched me. I must have cried for a whole minute.
“I’m sorry,” I finally said, and sniffed. As sad as I was, I remembered that Atticus had come to me with a big problem that morning. I needed to get it together. I sniffed again. “What are we going to do about Michael and your mom?”
“I don’t know,” he said, his shoulders drooping. “I don’t think there’s anything I can do.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“My dad says—” Atticus suddenly stopped talking. His head jerked up. “What was that?”
It was dead silent in the shed for about ten seconds. Then we heard it.
Meow.
We looked at each other. I wiped my eyes and listened harder.
Meow.
There it was again!
I jumped up. “M!” I cried. “M!”
She appeared through a gap in the filing cabinets. She was scraggly-looking and missing part of an ear. It was M, though. It was my kitty.
“M,” I said, and ran to her. I picked her up and gave her a big hug. She felt thinner. If I had to tell the truth, like in a courtroom or something, I’d have to admit that M has always been kind of a fat cat. Maybe all that fat had helped her last this long.
I turned to Atticus. “You did it! Your dream was true. You got your magical power!”
“I guess I did,” Atticus said. His mouth dropped open like he could hardly believe it.
I held M close and kissed her between the ears. Atticus and I sat back down on the dusty crate and petted M until she started purring. We watched her start to come back to being herself.
Atticus was grinning. “What’s so funny?” I asked, grinning back.
“I was starting to doubt. I really was.”
I knew what he was talking about. We had been waiting for our Infinity Year powers for so long, he was beginning to think they would never come.
“Me too,” I said.
“Yours will come soon, I bet. Anytime now.”
“You’re probably right.” I hadn’t told him about my mind-talking with animals yet. Too many things had gotten in the way. And I wasn’t really sure about it. “It doesn’t even matter right now,” I said, rubbing my cheek against M’s head. “I’m just so happy to have my M back.”
Atticus had a far-off look in his eyes. “I wonder what I’ll dream of next,” he said. I smiled inside. Atticus was already daydreaming about his future night-dreaming.
As the three of us sat in that cold, dusty, rickety shed, it finally felt like Christmas.
Gently, I wrapped M in my coat. We made our way out of the shed and tucked M carefully in the basket on the front of my bike. She rode in the basket all the way home.
As we headed down my street, Atticus started slowing down. Mrs. Brightwell’s car was in my driveway.
We both stopped our bikes. “What do we do?” I asked.
Atticus sighed. “We get this over with.”
We parked our bikes in the garage. I gathered up M in my coat and Atticus led the way inside.
Mrs. Brightwell and my mom were sitting at our kitchen table. As soon as they saw us, they were both on their feet.
“Avalon,” Mom said.
“Atticus,” Mrs. Brightwell said. They said our names at the very same time.
“Where have you been?” Mom asked. She looked mad but I could tell she was actually worried.
“How did you get here?” Mrs. Brightwell asked Atticus. She looked mad and I could tell she was actually mad. Atticus tried to answer but she just kept talking. “What were you thinking riding your bike all the way over here?” she said. “It’s freezing out there and you could have been hurt and it’s the day after Christmas and—”
“You found her!” Mom suddenly exclaimed. She was looking at M’s head peeking out of my coat. “How did you find her?”
Mom took M out of my hands and held her close. I had never seen my mom so happy to see anyone before.
“Atticus found her,” I said, smiling.
I looked at Atticus. He was smiling, too.
Mrs. Brightwell was not smiling. She turned and picked up her purse off one of the chairs in the kitchen. “Atticus, we have to go,” she said.
I looked at her and she looked at me. Yes, Mrs. Brightwell did not like me. Maybe it was because we lived in the wrong part of town. Maybe it was because my father was in prison.
Or maybe it was just because Atticus liked me.
Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. Atticus had told me his secret, and there was nothing she could do about that.
I gave her a look, though. It was a look that said don’t mess with my best friend. She may not like that we are best friends. But we are. It didn’t matter that we were in separate classes. It didn’t matter that we sat at different tables at lunch. We were best friends. And that was something that was never going to end. You know, like infinity.
That’s just the way it is, Mrs. Brightwell.