Mayday by Jonathan Friesen Page B

Adele was watching out for me. My mind whirred. How many other times had she secretly covered my back?
    â€œShe won’t lose me.”
    Addy leaned back. “That’s good. Really good.”
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    I didn’t see Crow the next day. I knew she wouldn’t spend her nights in the tree house, not with the Monster back home to worry about, but I thought she’d come out during the day. No, not to thank me, she’d never do that, but maybe to rip me for interference.
    By the second morning of Crow’s suspension, she still had not shown her face, and I was hungry. I tramped off to school to eat lunch. It was easy enough. The rear gym door was always open, and once sardined among two thousand kids, it was unlikely that I’d be noticed.
    â€œHey, Shane!”
    Maybe not so unlikely.
    Basil stood three kids behind me in the pizza line. “Sit with us?”
    â€œUs?”
    â€œMe and Scoot and Mel.”
    I shrugged and held out my tray. “Yeah, that’s fine.” I turned toward the lunch lady seated behind the scanner.
    She held out her hand, waiting for my card. When I didn’t offer one, she glanced up and I winced. “Shane Owen. I forgot—”
    â€œOut of credits, dear? Let’s check.” She punched on her computer. “You never had any. Consider this your last reminder.”
    â€œHere,” Basil pushed forward and swiped his twice. “She’s good.”
    There was something genuinely odd about the gesture. I never noticed it the first time around, and he paid for plenty of my meals. It was the sense of obligation I felt after he did it, as if I owed him something. That was true. Basil kept score of kindnesses and would one day demand a repayment, which would cost me everything. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
    I followed Basil to our table. It wasn’t really ours: time and repetition had simply staked our claim. Mel glanced up at me with passing disgust, quickly followed by the smile that stretched a mile wide and a millimeter deep.
    â€œShane.” She glanced at Basil. “How did you find her?”
    â€œPizza line.”
    â€œJust like Crow.” She poked around her low-fat salad with low-fat dressing. “She really reminds me of her.”
    â€œYou don’t know anything.” Scoot shoveled in a scoop of mashed potatoes and kept talking, white potatoes clinging to the corners of his lips. “Shane ends fights. Crow starts ’em.”
    Scoot and Mel rehashed the story, while Basil stared at me. It was a strange look, a cross between affection and amusement. He always tried to get in people’s heads.
    â€œWhat?” I put down my fork and glared.
    â€œJust looking, is all.” He reached for his pizza, but his gaze never left me. “How’s Crow?”
    Mel quieted, and from the corner of my eye, I saw her turn.
    â€œI don’t know. I haven’t talked to her since.”
    Basil chewed his lip and stretched out his hand, placed it on the lunch table palm up.
    I don’t know what it was about Basil. He was easy enough on the eyes, but you’d never find him in a magazine, and he certainly wasn’t the best athlete in town. More likely it was the secrets; his disarming grin always extracted a bit more information than I wanted to share. Yet something in his gaze convinced me that my feelings were safe with him. Then there was his confidence. He had a certainty about him. Basil’s suggestions, no matter how ludicrous, just felt right. If you know anyone like that, you’ll understand why seconds later I found myself holding his hand. And a few seconds after that, I was wearing Mel’s salad.
    Mel marched out of the lunchroom, and I scowled and picked lettuce leaves from my hair. “Thanks for lunch, Basil, and give my thanks to Mel for the extra serving. I, uh, need to go find Crow.”
    â€œLet me go with you,” he said. “I