Free Write This Down by Claudia Mills

dance, which is a whole month away. Mostly, though, I don’t text anybody because I just want to be where the band is in case David says anything about me to Hunter, or Hunter says anything about me to David. I can’t help myself, but I do.
    Before they arrive, I grab my Moleskine notebook, to make sure that it’s not out of my possession for one single solitary second. The couches in the family room aren’t right against the walls; my mother thinks they’re more “inviting” if they’re positioned at an angle. So there’s space for me to hide behind one of them, cozy on the carpet between the back of the couch and the bookcase, where nobody can find me, for who’s going to go looking for a book during a band practice? I bring a couple of pillows from the couch with me to make it more comfortable.
    This time the guys hang out in the family room first, rather than the kitchen, before heading downstairs. Mom is baking brownies for them—not healthy brownies either, but her great oozy-fudgy kind—and they aren’t quite out of the oven yet.
    They talk about the gig, the gig, the gig, which is a week from today. It’s so boring I tune out their conversation and tune in thoughts about my Mrs. Whistlepuff essay. What can I add to make its larger significance more clear?
    But then another Hunter memory comes to me, a much more recent one, and it all seems to connect somehow, and my hand flies across the page as if my brain isn’t even doing the writing. It’s like I hear this voice in my head dictating the words to me, this voice in my head urging me, Write this down .
    I’m twelve now, and Hunter is fifteen. Mrs. Whistlepuff is gone forever. But the brother I loved is gone, too. He still sleeps in our house and eats at our table. But he’s mean to me all the time, and I don’t know why.
    One day last summer Hunter was off at cross-country practice—our dad made him go. It was so hot the tar in the asphalt in the driveway was bubbling. It was so hot there was a power outage in our subdivision because the AC in everybody’s houses had to work too hard.
    My brother came home from practice at five. His hair, which is longer than it used to be, dripped with sweat. His face was streaked with dirt.
    Dad said, “Hunter, I’m proud of you for sticking it out on this hottest of days.”
    Hunter said, “I’m not sticking it out. I quit.”
    Dad said, “What do you mean, you quit? You made a commitment!”
    Hunter said, “ You made the commitment, not me.”
    Then Dad stalked out of the room with this look of total disgust on his face. As long as I live, I hope nobody ever looks at me that way, especially nobody in my family. Though, actually, that’s exactly the way Hunter sometimes looks at me these days.
    I thought Hunter might run after him and say, Dad, I changed my mind. I’ll stick it out. Really, I will.
    He didn’t. He just stood there looking as furious as I’ve ever seen a person look, like he had a dragon inside belching flames as scorching hot as Mrs. Whistlepuff’s breath was freezing cold.
    But he also looked like he was going to cry tears as scalding as Mrs. Whistlepuff’s breath was icy.
    If I still had that flashlight, I’d give it to him to scare away that dragon. Or maybe I’m the one who needs to have that flashlight to scare away Hunter’s dragon when it breathes fire at me .
    But I don’t have it. Or at least I can’t find it.
    I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to find it again.
    I’m writing so intently that I’m only jarred back into consciousness of the band’s presence by hearing Cameron’s name.
    What did I just miss?
    â€œI brought another song of his. I think this one’s good enough for us to play at the gig,” David says.
    I try to piece the conversation together. So Cameron does write songs. And the band is going to