Free What Are Friends For? by Rachel Vail Page B

me with her secret, and I didn’t want to mess it up. I wasn’t sure what to do.
    “You won’t tell anybody, right?” she asked, flicking her long hair back from her face. “Not even your mother.”
    I shook my head.
    “Not that it matters, it’s just, I’m not supposed to tell anybody.”
    “I won’t say anything.” I crossed my heart. “I swear.”
    “Thanks.” Morgan blinked a few times and looked up at the sky.
    I put my arm around her, and she leaned slightly down toward me, until her head rested on my shoulder. We stood there like that for a while.
    “You’re gonna be late,” she said.
    I gasped, yanked my arm off her, and looked at my watch. It was already three-fifteen; I was supposed to be in the orthodontist’s chair already.
    “You want me to ride you?”
    “No,” I said. “That’s OK, I don’t need . . .”
    “You’ll be really late.”
    “I can walk fast.”
    “Fine, ’bye.” She yanked her bike out of the rack.
    “Hey!”
    “Hey yourself,” she said. “You could need me sometime, too, you know.” A tear rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away with the back of her hand.
    “OK,” I said.
    “Forget it.”
    “No,” I said, touching the seat of her bike. “Please? I’m so late.”
    She wiped her nose. “Hold onto me,” she said. “I won’t let you fall. Don’t worry.”
    I climbed onto her bike as she held it steady. I glanced around, hoping my brother was long gone. My toes just reached the pavement. I leaned forward to hold the handlebars while Morgan unhooked the helmet and held it out to me.
    “No,” I protested. “It’s yours. You should wear it.”
    She placed the helmet on my head. “I never do.”
    “You should. It’s really unsafe . . .”
    “Don’t tell me what to do.” She tightened the strap under my chin. “I have a hard head, really.” She turned away and hiked her right leg over the crossbar. “A thick skull and small brain.”
    I wiggled the helmet to fit better over my pigtails. “I don’t feel great about this,” I told her. “What would my mom say?”
    “Not that she’ll ever know,” Morgan said. “CJ tells her mother everything.”
    I buckled my helmet under my chin and fiddled with the strap.
    “Her mother is one of the things that came between me and her. Mothers don’t like me.”
    I swallowed. “Mine does.”
    “I wasn’t fishing for compliments. Even my own mother doesn’t like me much. Hold my waist,” she said. “And just lean with me.”
    “OK.” I didn’t know where to put my feet so I held them straight out.
    “Just relax,” she yelled as she started pedaling. “You have to trust me.”
    “I do,” I insisted. We were coming up to the curb so I yelled, “Careful!”
    She jerked her head toward me. We toppled off the bike onto the road. No cars were coming, luckily. Her knee was skinned, but otherwise we were both fine.
    “Sorry,” I said, disentangling myself from her bike.
    “Don’t do that,” she scolded, lifting it off the ground.
    “Maybe this is too dangerous.”
    “You have to just go with me, let me watch out. Can you do that?”
    “I’ll try.” We got on again. I gripped her waist with my hands—she felt very solid. I, on the other hand, was shaking. As we rounded the corner at the end of the circle, she leaned into the turn, but I felt like we were about to capsize again so I leaned the other way and over we went.
    “You have to lean with me,” she repeated. “Stop trying to steer!”
    “I can’t help it.”
    “Then we’re just going to keep landing on the pavement!”
    “Maybe I should ride you,” I suggested. “It might be easier for me, that way”
    “My bike’s too big for you,” she pointed out.
    “I could just walk. It’s OK if I’m a few minutes late.”
    “Fine.”
    “Want to walk with me?”
    She shrugged.
    “That would be great,” I said pleadingly. “Please?”
    I walked along the curb, and she walked on the sidewalk, with the bike between