Free My Friends Are Dead People by Tony Ortiz

her
cut. It was deeper than I thought at first. Germs could get in and
infect it and damage her nerves and then kill her. I felt
lightheaded. Wait, was that dirt on the tip of her cut? I got a
closer look.
    “ Jesse, you okay?” she
said, smiling. “You look demented.”
    I stepped back as soon as I realized how
close I was to her.
    “ It’s just a cut. Come on,
let’s go.”
    “ I’m not going,” I said.
“I have to find Oz’s jacket. You can go without me.”
    “ Jesse!” she cried
out.
    Now what? Did she think that was funny?
    “ Jesse, her
jacket!”
    My eyes followed hers to her mailbox. Oz's
jacket had been neatly placed on top.
    “ Thank you,” I cried,
hurrying over.
    “ Go ahead, kiss it,” said
Katie. “Don’t forget to thank Crapper.”
    “ Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.” I put on the jacket, looking down at its green leather
with a huge smile.
    “ The thief must’ve felt
bad,” Katie reasoned, “and brought it back – with a
note.”
    Katie pulled a piece of
paper out of the front pocket. There was only one line: Thought this should be worn by the rightful
owner, not a high school student .
    “ Maybe the police found
it,” I ventured.
    “ But they’d never drop it
off here. They’d call your house.”
    “ But then who knew to
leave it here on the mailbox? . . .” I saw a smidgen of light
shining on the horizon. “Come on, let’s go!”
    I ran up Pasadena as happy as a rabbit with
a carrot. Today was the best day ever. I had Oz’s jacket, new shoes
and new friends.
    “ Maybe Jacoby will let me
have a pair like yours–” started Katie.
    Katie and I stopped running. A block ahead
of us, Charles’s mother was crying on her porch. Her son was lying
on the grass flat on his front, dead.
    “ Fifty days isn’t
enough! ” she cried to the clouds.
“ You bring my baby back! He’s not yours!
He’s a good boy! He’s done nothing wrong! You don’t have the right
to take him away! ”
    I rushed away, feeling sick.
    “ Was that the werewolf?”
asked Katie, finally catching up.
    I nodded. Today was not the best day ever.
It was too much for me. Too many things had happened.
    “ He’ll be okay," she
continued. "Watch this!”
    Katie flung her long black hair around and
started dancing. She was really good. It looked like she was
dancing to rock music.
    “ Why aren’t you laughing?”
she said, stopping. “It wasn’t funny? Jesse?”
    “ What?”
    “ Hey, your eyes are
watering,” she said with a smile. “I knew you were a
softie.”
    “ So what?” I
retorted.
    “ You’re a boy . You’re supposed to
be tough .”
    I smiled. Katie could always get me out of a
bad time.
    “ Why don’t we give Oz the
jacket first?” she said.
    “ After,” I said, knowing
Oz didn’t check on me until eleven or twelve. “We still might make
it. It’s not completely dark yet.”
    Katie and I stopped to take a look at the
beautiful view of the white cross at the top of the mountain.
    “ Look at that,” she said,
amazed. “ Marvelous
spectacles .”
    “ Don’t make fun of me,” I
said testily.
    “ What do you mean? I
always say that.”
    “ No, you
don’t.”

CHAPTER EIGHT
    The Twenty-Second
Trip
     
    After three miles of running up the steep
roads of Mount Helix, we ran out of steam and walked the rest of
the way. We arrived at the summit just a minute too late, the last
rays of the sun in the west had faded. Twilight was over, and it
was now nighttime. However, Jacoby and Dorian were still waiting
under the giant white cross, watching dark clouds roll
overhead.
    “ Don’t worry about it,”
said Jacoby, only giving Katie’s cut a brief look. “Let’s get
moving.”
    “ Hey, Dorian!” Katie and I
said at the same time, nearly forgetting to lower our
heads.
    “ Hello,” said
Dorian.
    Jacoby seemed in a hurry so we kept quiet
and followed him down a narrow dirt trail with a cliff on one side.
Thankfully, it was short and soon brought us to a yellow house
sitting