You Can Run by Norah McClintock Page B

starts.”
    Don’t ask me why, but I said okay. I’d like to say that I said it because I believed her. I’d also like to say that I didn’t go home and stay up all night doing both my work and hers. I’d like to say that I didn’t plan to show up at school and hand her part of the presentation to her and tell her, “Just read it, okay?” I’d like to say all of those things, but none of them would be true.
    I was there at eight o’clock.
    She wasn’t.
    She wasn’t there at eight-o-five or eight fifteen or eight twenty either.
    The warning bell—the five-minutes-to-homeroom bell—rang at eight forty-five, approximately the same time that Trisha appeared, her face as white as milk.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she said.
    â€œForget it,” I said.
    â€œNo, really, I’m sorry,” she said.
    â€œNo, really, forget it,” I said.
    â€œIt’s my mother,” she said.
    Right. Her mother.
    â€œShe’s sick,” she said.
    Uh-huh. Well, I figured I had to give her points for being slightly more creative than “the dog ate my homework.”
    â€œWhatever,” I said. I was so angry that it was all I could trust myself to say.
    â€œI did the work. I can show you,” she said. She pulled off her D&G backpack and started to rummage through it. Her pale face became paler and her small eyes grew wide.And she said (all together now. . .),“Oh my god—”
    â€œForgot to pack your part of the presentation, huh?” I said.
    She stared at me. She even managed to make her eyes water.
    â€œI’m—”
    I held up my hand to silence her. I did not want to hear one more lame apology.
    â€œI’m so tired. I was up all night. My mother’s really sick and—”
    That’s when I said what I’d been hating myself for ever since, maybe the meanest thing I’ve ever said. Maybe the thing that had sent her running.
    â€œI don’t care,” I said. “Nobody cares. Maybe if you weren’t so weird, people would care, but they don’t.”
    She stared at me, a stunned expression on her face.
    â€œI did the work,” she said. “I just forgot. . . I’ll go and get it.”
    â€œTrisha? Never mind, okay? I took care of it. All you have to do is show up and read what I wrote for you. You think you can do that? Or is that too much for you to handle?”
    The final bell rang. I shook my head and turned away from her. I had done every last scrap of work. I had produced an A+ project for sure, and Trisha was going to get the same grade even though all she’d done was coast. Life can be so unfair.
    I went to homeroom. Then I went to history class.
    Trisha did not show up.
    I did the presentation alone. Before I began, Ms. Lewington said, “Where’s your partner? Um. . .”— finger on the seating plan again—“Trisha?” When I said I didn’t know, Ms. Lewington grunted with what I can only assume was disapproval—as if it were my fault that Trisha hadn’t shown up, as if I had failed to “work it out” with Trisha, as Ms. Lewington had told me to. Which is why I did what I did next. I lied. I told Ms. Lewington that when I said I wasn’t sure where Trisha was, I meant that I wasn’t sure if she was at home or at the doctor.
    â€œYou mean she’s sick?” Ms. Lewington said.
    I told her, yes, that’s what I meant. I also told her that Trisha had given me her part of the assignment and that I was going to present it for her. In retrospect, it made me feel a little better. But like Trisha’s work, it was too little, too late.

"I n other words,” my father said when I had finished my confession, “you’re afraid it’s your fault she ran away.”
    I nodded.
    â€œYou’re being too hard on yourself, Robbie. Maybe she didn’t do her work because of what was really bothering her, and