Free Things I’ll Never Say by Ann Angel Page A

Oh, my God! Somebody help my baby! Don’t let her die!”
    Ruthie, who was apparently injured much less seriously than we supposed, sat up. “Mom!” She grabbed her mother’s hands, which were clasped together in what I could only assume was prayer. “Mom, I was just kidding.” She jumped up, pulling her mother with her. “See?” She wiggled her toes and tapped her head. “I’m fine.”
    Mrs. Kepner stopped crying and looked at Ruthie. She brushed her daughter’s hair from her face and cupped her chin in her hands. “You were kidding?”
    â€œYeah.” Ruthie wriggled in her mother’s hold. “Sorry.”
    â€œYou ain’t hurt?”
    Ruthie shook her head, and her mother helped her to stand up. The two of them stared at each other, and I was sure that Ruthie had gone too far this time. I don’t remember which of them started first, but soon, to my complete astonishment, they were both laughing hysterically.
    â€œOh, my God, Ruthie,” Mrs. Kepner managed, tears and mascara streaming down her cheeks. “You got me good. Oh, my God, I thought for sure you went and busted the spaghetti sauce!”
    They stood like that, right at the front door, howling. They laughed so long and so hard that, even now, it gives me a twinge of jealousy to remember it. Maybe that was why I went along with the plan.
    It didn’t seem so bad at first. I mean, teasing and ostracizing just washed right off Ruthie’s happy-go-lucky duck’s back, anyway. I don’t remember whose idea it was, but I agreed to tell my new neighbor that all my friends and I were going to a slumber party at Mr. Popularity’s house the following week. And to persuade Ruthie that, wonder of wonders, Maynard Owens had invited her, too.
    Ruthie didn’t thank me or sigh or clasp her hands in ecstasy. But you could still tell she was pretty happy about being included. I added the instructions that the in-clique had agreed on: she wasn’t to tell anyone this was a boy-girl party, she should wear her cutest pajamas under her coat, and she should bring a giant stuffed animal to sleep with.
    â€œI don’t have no stuffed animals,” she told me, considering, her head to one side in that way she had. “But Momma’s got this big ol’ guitar pillow she done won at the Johnny Cash Museum in Nashville. Will that do?”
    â€œSure,” I told her. “Just don’t forget, this is top secret. Maynard’s folks are out of town, so tell your mom it’s at my house, practically next door.”
    â€œI guess you and me can walk to Maynard’s from your place, huh?”
    Ruthie sounded like walking to the party together would be as much fun as the party itself. I felt a tiny thrill of guilt, but I fought through it. “I can’t get there for the beginning,” I told her. “My mom has a big dinner she needs my help with, but I’ll come as soon as I can. Just be sure you’re at Maynard’s by seven sharp, okay?”
    Ruthie, as it turns out, was right on time. But none of us had counted on Lenore Kepner’s new boyfriend. We didn’t know she’d been dating a mechanic at the Super Shell, who, of course, had a car. I guess the two of them, Mrs. K. and the short, dark, un-prince-like man who came with her that night, had insisted on dropping Ruthie off at my house before they went out. And I guess that was when Ruthie had to tell them that the party was actually at Maynard’s. Because just a few minutes after seven, there they were.
    The mechanic’s lime-green Ferrari rumbled while the two adults waited for Ruthie to ring the doorbell. The clique and I waited, too, tucked behind the fence that separated the Owenses’ house from Sue Racine’s. Sue was blonder than blond and mean in a cool, animal way that mesmerized us all. “Here comes the fun,” she whispered as Harriet Owens,