"It"s easy," Billy scoffed. He reached the top and straddled the two-by-four, grinning down at her.
"Come on up," he said.
"I can"t," Mich.e.l.le said. "You know that."
Billy pulled one foot up, then the other. Slowly, balancing himself with his hands, he managed a crouching position. Then, wobbling all the way, he rose carefully until he was standing upright, his arms held straight out.
"See?"
Mich.e.l.le could see him swaying. She was sure he was going to fall.
"Billy, you come down from there. You"ll fall and hurt yourself, and I won"t be able to help you."
"I won"t fall! Watch me!"
He took a tentative step, nearly lost his footing, then regained his balance and took another.
"Please, Billy?" Mich.e.l.le pleaded.
Billy was moving steadily away from her, inching carefully along the two-by-four, his balance improving with each step.
"I won"t fall," he insisted. Then, realizing that Mich.e.l.le was about to insist that he come down, he decided to tease her. "You"re just mad, because you can"t do it. If you weren"t a cripple, you could. But you are, so you can"t!"
And he began to laugh.
Mich.e.l.le stared at him for a second, his laughter echoing in her ears.
He sounded like Susan Peterson, and all the rest of them.
The fog started closing around her, the cold mists that she knew would bring Amanda with them. Billy Evans, his face grinning at her, faded from her vision, but his voice, still laughing, cut through the fog like a knife.
And then Amanda was there, standing behind her, whispering to her.
"Don"t let him do that, Mich.e.l.le," Mandy said softly. "He"s laughing at you. Don"t let him laugh at you. Don"t ever let any of them laugh at you again."
Mich.e.l.le hesitated. Once more, she heard Billy"s mocking laugh, and his taunt.
"You could do it! If you weren"t crippled!"
"Make him stop!" Mandy hissed in her ear.
"I don"t know how," Mich.e.l.le wailed. She looked around desperately, searching for Amanda.
"I"ll show you," Mandy whispered. "Let me show you..."
The laughter, the mocking laughter, suddenly stopped, and was replaced by a scream of terror.
Billy tried to jump, but it was too late-beneath his feet, the backstop was moving.
He lost his balance, tried to regain it, failed. Then his arms were flailing in the air. He was falling.
A second later there was a silence in the schoolyard, a silence broken for Mich.e.l.le only by the sound of Amanda"s voice.
"You see? See how easy it is? Now you can make them all stop laughing..."
Her voice trailed off, and she was gone. The fog began to disperse. Mich.e.l.le waited for a moment, waited for it all to be gone, then she looked.
Billy Evans, his head twisted around so that his empty eyes were staring at her, lay on the ground a few feet away.
Mich.e.l.le knew he would never laugh at her again.
CHAPTER 23.
Mich.e.l.le stared at Billy Evans"s tiny body, lying still on the ground, his face pale and lifeless. Tentatively, reluctantly, she took a step toward him.
"Billy?" Her voice was unsteady, questioning. "Billy? Are you all right?"
But even as she asked the question, she knew he was dead. She took one more step toward him, then changed her mind.
Help. She had to get help.
She braced herself against the backstop and leaned carefully over to pick up her cane. Then, after one more quick look at Billy, she started toward the school building. There was no one left in the yard-no one to come to her aid, no one to do something for Billy Evans.
No one to tell her what had happened.
For Mich.e.l.le could not remember.
She could remember Billy climbing up the mesh, balancing himself on top.
She could remember him starting to walk, and she could remember telling him to be careful.
And he had laughed.
Then the fog had closed in on her, and Amanda had come.
But then what happened? Her mind was blank.
She started up the back steps of the school.
"Help!" she called. "Oh, please, can"t anyone hear me?"
She was very close to the top when she saw the door open, and her father appeared.
"Mich.e.l.le? What"s happened? Are you all right?"
"It"s Billy!" Mich.e.l.le cried. "Billy Evans! He fell, Daddy! He was trying to walk the backstop, and he fell!"
"Oh, my G.o.d." The words were barely audible, strangling in his throat. The visions came back to him, children"s faces flashing in his mind, their eyes accusing him. He began to feel dizzy, but forced himself to look at the playground. Even from here he could see the little boy, motionless, lying in a crumpled heap next to the backstop.
By then, Mich.e.l.le had reached the top of the steps, and was holding on to him, clinging to him, her eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears.
"He fell, Daddy. I think-I think he"s dead."
He had to think. He had to act act. But it was nearly impossible. "Come inside," he mumbled. "Come inside, and your mother will take care of you." He disentangled himself from Mich.e.l.le and led her inside to the office, where June and Tim Hartwick were still talking. Both of them looked at him in surprise, then, by the expression on his face, knew that something was wrong.
"Call an ambulance," he said. "There"s been an accident. A little boy fell off the backstop. I-I"ve got to take care of him." His voice faded. "I"ve got to...." He turned and shambled out of the office.
As Tim picked up the phone and began dialing, Mich.e.l.le suddenly spoke.
"Mom?" Her voice sounded dazed, and June took her in her arms.
"It"s all right, honey," June whispered to her. "Daddy"s taking care of it, and an ambulance will be here soon. What happened?"
Mich.e.l.le buried her face against her mother and sobbed uncontrollably. As June listened to Tim talking on the phone, she tried to soothe her daughter. Slowly, Mich.e.l.le regained herself.
Tim Hartwick hung up the phone as Mich.e.l.le started to recite the tale. He listened intently, observing Mich.e.l.le as she talked, trying to read the truth of her words in her face. When she was done, June took her once more in her arms.
"How terrible," she said softly. "But don"t worry-he"ll probably be fine."
"No, he won"t," Mich.e.l.le said hollowly. "He"s dead. I know he"s dead."
It was like a recurring nightmare.
Cal crossed the schoolyard in a daze, as though his feet were dragging him back, even as he tried to run. The seconds it took him to reach Billy Evans seemed like hours, and his mind was flooded with the sure foreknowledge of what he would find.
He reached Billy at last and knelt by the boy"s limp body. He glanced at Billy"s face, noted the broken neck, then automatically took the child"s wrist between his fingers.
There was a pulse.
Cal thought he was imagining it at first, but a moment later he knew: Billy Evans was still alive.
Why can"t he be dead? Cal silently asked. Cal silently asked. Why does he have to depend on me? Why does he have to depend on me?
He leaned over Billy reluctantly, forcing himself to examine him.
He was going to have to move the boy.
He hesitated. Only a few weeks earlier he had gathered up his own child. Now she was crippled. Panic rose in him, and for a split second he felt paralyzed. Then, slowly, his mind began to reason.
When the ambulance arrived, the attendants would move Billy. Perhaps he should wait.
But he was a doctor. He had had to do something. to do something.
Besides, if he didn"t, he was sure that Billy would be dead by the time the ambulance arrived-he could see the constriction in the boy"s neck, see him slowly strangling. If Billy was to survive, Cal had to straighten out his neck.
He began to move Billy"s head.
As the flow of air pa.s.sed more freely into his lungs, Billy"s complexion began to change. The blueness faded. Then, as Cal watched, the child began to breathe more easily.
Cal began to let himself relax.
Billy Evans was going to live.
In the distance, the wail of the ambulance started up. To Cal, the sound was a symphony of hope.
As the sound of the ambulance grew louder, June stood up and went to the window. From where she stood, she could see nothing-only one corner of the backstop, ominously visible, the rest of it blocked from her view by the building.
"I can"t stand it," she said. Tim, go see what"s happening. Please?"
Tim Hartwick nodded. He started out of the office, then paused at the door.
"I told Mrs. Evans to come here. You"re sure you don"t want me to wait with you?" He glanced pointedly at Mich.e.l.le, who was sitting on a straight-backed chair, her gaze fixed in midair, her face frozen in an expression of shock.
"If she gets here before you get back, I"ll handle it," June insisted. "Just find out-find out if he"s alive."
Half an hour later, only Mich.e.l.le, June, and Tim were left at the school. The ambulance, with Billy and Cal in the rear, had departed for the clinic, and Billy"s mother had followed, insisting she could drive herself once she was a.s.sured that her son was still alive. The small crowd that had gathered in the schoolyard had quickly dispersed, the people leaving in small groups, whispering among themselves, and occasionally glancing back toward the school, where they knew Mich.e.l.le Pendleton was still sitting in Tim Hartwick"s office.
Tim signaled June to join him in the hall for a moment. When they were alone, he told her that he would like to talk to Mich.e.l.le.
"So soon?" June asked. "But-she"s too upset!"
"We have to find out what happened. I think if I talk to her now, before she"s had much of a chance to really think about it, I"ll get the closest thing to the truth."
June"s maternal instincts leaped to her daughter"s defense. "You mean before she"s had a chance to make up a story?"
"That"s not what I said, and it"s not what I meant," Tim said quickly. "I want to talk to her before her mind has had a chance to make whatever happened seem logical to her. And I want to find out why she was so sure Billy was dead."
"All right," June said at last, reluctantly. "But don"t push her. Please?"
"I never would," Tim said gently. He left June alone in the hall while he returned to Mich.e.l.le.
"Why did you think Billy was dead?" Tim asked gently. It had taken him ten minutes to convince Mich.e.l.le that her friend hadn"t died, and he still wasn"t sure she believed him. "He didn"t fall very far-just a few feet, really."
"I just knew it," Mich.e.l.le replied. "You can tell."
"You can? How?"
"Just-just by-things. You know."
Tim waited a moment, but when Mich.e.l.le didn"t go on, he decided to ask her to tell him again what had happened. He listened without interrupting while she recited the story again.
"And that"s all?" he asked when she was finished.