Day 24
Sidney
I clap my hands together and watch the white flakes disintegrate. “I had no idea a trunk full of dehydrated vegetables could make me feel like such a delinquent.”
“As if this is anywhere close to the most delinquent thing you’ve ever done,” Asher says.
I tear one end of a box open before placing it in the blue canvas basket of the wagon.
We need to spend as little time as possible in Nadine’s yard, so we’re taking Asher’s suggestion to prep everything ahead of time.
I wanted to do it at our house, but when he pointed out that our parents might wonder why we’re suddenly hoarding mashed potatoes, I talked to Kara and hooked us up with our base of operations for the night.
“Don’t forget Edith.” Asher jerks his head toward the backseat, and I let out a little moan.
“Aw. Do I have to?” I open the back door and pull Edith out of the seat, where I have her strapped in. I bring her to the back of the car, cradled under my arm. “I’m sort of attached to her. She’s the elephant in my room.” I smile at my own joke, waiting for my pun to sink in.
Asher just shakes his head, a smile on his face. He puts a gentle hand on my shoulder, and his voice matches it. “It’s time to send her home, Sid. Time to set her free.” I wedge her into one end of the wagon, surrounded by boxes, and then pull her back out.
“I’ll carry her.” I’m not trying to be dramatic, I just don’t want her to fall out and get broken.
I won’t lie, I’m half-expecting a sign in Nadine’s garden where Edith usually sits.
Something like, I KNOW WHAT YOU DID, right next to a grainy black-and-white security cam photo of me running away with her.
But when we get to the edge of the house, wagon in tow, there’s nothing behind the bush but a little patch of dirt, dug out of the red mulch.
I pat Edith on the head like she’s my good little elephant, and shimmy her down into the mulch, twisting her a little so she doesn’t tip over.
This time, I’m careful not to step into the path of the motion-sensor light.
I blow her a kiss as I turn around, and Asher gives her a little salute.
And I don’t feel like he’s mocking me, he’s just playing around, having fun with it like I am.
Asher doesn’t take anything too seriously—especially himself—and I’m really starting to appreciate how much fun it is to have someone go along with my weirdness.
Because it doesn’t feel so weird anymore.
Asher leaves the wagon of potatoes in the trees alongside the driveway, where it’s dark with shadows, and both of us take a box in each hand.
Now that I’m actually here, in Nadine’s yard, with all of the grass sprawling out around me, I’m not sure where to start.
Yesterday we plotted over our pancakes and agreed that doing some sort of design was too much pressure.
We’d just go to town on the yard with as many potatoes as humanly possible, and call it good.
On the opposite side of the yard, Asher is silently shaking potatoes over the grass, walking backward as he empties one box and then two. It feels like watching a movie on mute as he silently moves through the yard, nothing but a faint chuh, chuh, chuh as the powder is liberated from its box.
I walk around the yard, laying the potatoes down in lines across the grass.
When something moves in the tree line, my attention snaps to the noise, and a cascade of potatoes rushes out of the box, making a white arc in the air.
I swap my empty boxes for full, and with a box in each hand I twirl in the center of the yard, my arms outstretched.
White powder spirals out into the air. I start moving around the yard in little circles, spraying the potatoes around me like a cyclone of white dust. It’s 3 a.m., I’m exhausted, and it’s possible I’ve totally lost it.
Five minutes in, we’ve each emptied ten boxes, and still the yard looks green.
The grass is a little long, hiding our efforts.
Which reminds me that Nadine has a sprinkler system keeping her yard so long and luscious.
We don’t have to cross our fingers and hope that it rains—our potato masterpiece could be ready as early as this morning.
The thought spurs me on, and I grab two more boxes.
A flash of movement in the corner of the yard closest to Lake House A catches my eye, and I hear the faintest squeak as Asher pushes himself forward on the little swing set there.
It’s old and covered in weathered green paint with peeling white stripes.
The sand that used to surround it has been almost completely overtaken by weeds.
When Asher waves me over, there’s an almost magnetic pull urging me to approach the old green monstrosity.
Those swings hold a lot of memories for us.
The first summer Asher was here, we spent time on them—late nights talking, swaying gently as we shared the kinds of things teenagers divulge with someone new—our favorite songs, the coolest things we’d done that year, everything that annoyed us about our best friends.
But we never swung on them. Thirteen-year-old Sidney was way too cool for that.
She didn’t know Asher well enough, hadn’t wanted to look like a dork in front of this cute boy she was still figuring out.
If only I’d known then what a game-playing little nerd he would become.
The thought makes me almost laugh out loud.
By the time I reach the swings, Asher is already in the air.
I follow, pushing myself up, higher and higher.
I can’t remember the last time I was on swings like this, and I wonder why, because it’s sort of awesome.
And a little disorienting in the dark, when I’m drunk from no sleep.
We’ve both ditched our green boxes, and are soaring higher and higher, the squeaking of the chains crescendoing through the night air.
Asher jumps, and in the silence it’s beautiful, the way he arcs soundlessly through the air, landing in a graceful crouch on the grass ten feet in front of me.
Just as he stands, a door slams. It’s the familiar, clanging metal of Nadine’s side door.
There’s a little yip and the faint scratch of paws on stones.
Asher’s head snaps to me, and he motions with his hand for me to jump. I let go, my hand holding on a second too long, and land much less gracefully than he did. As I topple to the side, sharp pain lances through my ankle. My gasp is muffled by the last squeaks of the swings we’ve abandoned.
“Are you okay?” Asher whispers so quietly, I’m almost not sure he actually said it.
He reaches a hand down for me and I take it.
My first two steps have me wincing, and we need to run, not walk.
Maybe I can hop. God, what a nightmare. All of our careful planning, and we’re going to get caught because I can’t do something most eight-year-olds have mastered.
Kill me now, I’ll never hear the end of this.
Asher steps in front of me, and it takes me a second to realize what he’s doing.
Even when he crouches down a little, I’m still looking at him, confused.
“Get on,” he whispers over his shoulder, and the scuffing of gravel draws my eyes to Nadine’s house again.
She usually takes the dog in the trees along the driveway, but she could hear us and be around that corner in seconds.
Then, I don’t think. I jump. The second I’m on his back, we’re tearing through the yard, my legs pinned under his arms. We cut along the far left edge of the yard, near the trees, where it’s dark.
I’m smacked by a low branch as we push through the narrow area between the trees and Lake House A, where everything is overgrown.
A mumbled apology floats over Asher’s shoulder as I squeak at the hit and dip my face into his neck to shield myself from anything else I don’t see.
We make it to the front of the house, and turn sharply to the right.
We’re outside the doors to the boathouse that sits under it, its entrance hidden by the deck looming overhead.
Asher pushes on the old wooden door, and it opens just as he leans back, letting me know to get off.
We can’t make it in together—not if I want to keep my forehead intact.
He pushes the door open and I hobble in behind him, holding his arm for support.
When we’re inside, he closes the door behind us.
He flicks his finger across his phone, places it on a little shelf, and the rafters above us are lit up, the whole space bathed in dim light.
The boathouse is a weird place; it’s filled with randomness.
On the left wall are long wooden pegs that hold old orange life jackets, speckled with mildew.
Along the back wall are random beach toys, paddles, lawn chairs, and a few of Nadine’s rejected yard sculptures.
There’s a cartoonish frog with a cracked head, and a gnome that’s missing a foot.
I feel your pain, pal. I see an old five-gallon bucket and flip it over before sitting on it.
“Shit,” I mutter just as Asher squats down next to me.
His elbows rest on his thighs, and he’s now eye-level with me.
He takes his cell phone from the shelf and places it on the ground in front of him.
It washes his face in harsh shadow. “I think I just rolled it,” I say softly.
“It’ll be fine in a few hours.” I wince. “Probably.”