Friday morning, Chris sat with Andrew and Allen on the library stairs. Chris thought about Denise, pictured a shimmering, translucent image of her gliding across the lawn to Building B.
“So who died?” asked Andrew.
The vision of Denise vanished. Chris shook his head. I don’t know. Could be anybody but Sergeant Arroyo.”
“Jake wasn’t here yesterday,” said Allen. “Was him, you think?”
And just like magic, Chris spotted Jake walking across the lawn toward Building B. Jumping up, he sprinted toward him.
“Jake, Jake, wait up,” he called.
Jake stopped and turned to meet him.
“Hey, Jake,” said Chris, feeling a strange relief at seeing him not dead. “You okay?”
Jake shook his head. “Ah, not so much. But thanks for asking. How you knew?”
“Ah,” Chris hesitated. “When your dad and you wasn’t here yesterday, and then not at practice, I asked Coach Santos what happened. He told us someone in your family passed.”
Jake nodded. “Yeah yeah, was my sister. She said she felt real weak, then she went to bed. She never woke up.”
Chris patted him on the shoulder, not believing he was touching Jake. For a moment he felt like hugging him, but the notion passed quickly. “Aw, man, I sorry. I sorry for you and your sister. How’s she taking it?”
Jake gave Chris an odd look. “How, ah, well, she died.”
Chris nodded. “No, yes, I mean your other sister. Your twin sister, right?”
“Chris, ah, she died, like I said.”
Now it was Chris’s turn to give Jake a questioning look. “Your sister, your twin sister who goes school here. She died the night before last?”
“Yes, right. She died in her sleep. It’s killing my mom.”
This information boggled Chris’s mind. Yesterday, at lunch, Denise had pointed out Jake’s twin sister in the cafeteria. She looked small, even afraid maybe, sitting at that table by herself in the corner of the cafeteria.
Jake continued. “Now my mom and dad even more worried about me than before.”
“Worried about you?” said Chris.
“Yeah, my heart. Me and my sister, I kid you not, sometimes being twins sucks. Me and her, we both get this heart problem. That’s why I canna play sports. They think I could make if I play too hard. Just keel over dead. Boy, Chris, you so lucky you can play football. Eh, and my dad, he thinks you special, brah. He’s saying you could make the Farrington vars team when you’re 9th-grade. He says you keep it up, with your size and your speed, you could go college with one free ride on a scholarship. My dad not lying, brah. You one of the fastest guys I ever seen.”
This news made Chris’s mind spin even more. But he and Denise seeing Jake’s twin sister in the cafeteria still took top priority in his mind. He felt great about Sergeant Arroyo saying all those things, but –
“But,” said Chris, and then he stopped. It wouldn’t help, he knew, Jake’s mental state, if he brought up the possibility that he and Denise might have seen a ghost. And anyway, he didn’t believe in that kind of stuff. A ghost. Yeah right. Denise had probably just pointed to the wrong girl.
“Yeah?” asked Jake. “But what?” It was a simple question with no heat behind it.
“But, well,” Jake changed the subject. “But did you hear about Denise?”
Jake brightened up. “Denise, no, what happened?”
“She switched schools, brah. Today she started going Stevenson Intermediate.”
“What!” exclaimed Jake. “What she did that for?”
“Her mom. You know how instead of going there in the first place she went here cuz her dad works couple blocks away at the police station. Was easy for catch ride home with him. So her mom, the English teacher, got transferred from McKinley to Roosevelt. Now it’s even more easy for her to go home cuz her and her mom both get out of school same time.”
Jake took this all in, his initial bright smile sagging into a look of deep despair.
“Shet,” Jake said. “Shet. That is fricken shetty. Going be so way different around here without her. Shet.”
And with that, shoulders slumped, Jake trudged off to class.
Sergeant Arroyo was still absent so once again all the boys had to wait outside the administration office. Chris was burning to hear from the sergeant himself, just how he might follow a path to a college scholarship in football. Then his mother wouldn’t have to worry about how to pay for college. That was the best part of this whole dream.
After school, Chris wanted to get to football practice as quickly as possible. Maybe Sergeant Arroyo would be there.
As he headed up the road, Jake noticed a man leaning against a black sedan at the roadside. And then the man walked toward him, calling his name.
“Chris,” he called. “Hey, Chris!”
It was Mr. Chan, and he was waving something at Chris.
Jogging over to him, Chris was hoping this wouldn’t be bad news. Like the police were looking for him for some reason, or worse, that something had happened to Denise.
“Hi, Mister Chan. Is Denise all right?”
“Oh, yes, sure she is. She asked me to give you this.”
He held out a large manilla envelope. She told me it would be easy to catch you because you’d be on your way to practice at Farrington. She’d make a good detective, I think,” he said, smiling and laughing.
Chris took the envelope. “What is it?” he asked.
Mr. Chan laughed again. “Hey, I’m a policeman, not a psychic. Go on and open it. Let’s see.”
Chris undid the clasp, reached in, and pulled out a drawing. It was of him. The drawing floored him. She’s rendered his face in a way that almost looked like a photograph.
“Grammar man?” asked Chan, reading the words, Grammar at the top of the drawing, and Man at the bottom.
Chris smiled. “Yes, yeah. She knows I like doing my grammar work sheets.”
The drawing was of Chris in a Cape, a large ‘G’ emblazoned on his chest.
“Well,” said Chan, “I hope you like that.”
“It’s . . .” Chris paused, searching for the right word. “It’s awesome, Mister Chan. Please tell her it’s the best gift I ever got.”
Chan patted Chris on the shoulder. “I will, Chris. I’ll certainly relay that message to her. You go have a great practice now.”
And with that, he turned and headed for his car. Chris sat down on a nearby stone wall and stared at the drawing. After examining it several times, he realized Denise’s signature, very small, was almost hidden in the bottom right corner.
Holding the drawing at arms’ length, he beamed with pride, with joy, and more than anything else, with the knowledge that he could have this piece of Denise Chan with him forever.
The walk to practice seemed like a dream. Should he go visit her at Stevenson? he wondered. That was a long trek, and it would have to be on a school day. He didn’t want to skip school, of course, not anymore. Not if might go to college and go there for free.
Coach Arroyo wasn’t there again.
“Coach Arroyo told me he’ll be here Monday for sure,” said Coach Santos. “Let’s loosen up and then do wind sprints.”
That night Chris wanted to tell his mother what Jake had said about his father’s thinking he could play college ball on a scholarship, but he thought he might jinx it. He decided to wait for Sergeant Arroyo to tell him.
Monday morning, sitting on the library stairs with Andrew and Allen, Chris did not share anything about seeing ghosts or going to college on a football scholarship. He didn’t even bring Denise’s drawing to show to them. It was his personal and private piece of Denise, and it would stay that way.
Just before the bell rang, the three noticed that Jake hadn’t come to school yet.
“Ah,” said Chris, “maybe there’s the funeral for his sister today.”
“That fast?” said Allen. “Canna be that fast, uh?”
“Yes,” said Andrew, “I think it would be too soon.”
Sergeant Arroyo was there for P.E. After class, when he’d showered and dressed, Chris stopped in the sergeant’s office.
“Sir?” he said, knocking on the door sill and entering.
“Ah, Andaya, you looked good out there today. I’m going to post the cut sheet at practice this afternoon, but as I said, you have no need to worry, son. You’ll be playing on the team. We’ll see this week what position you’d be best suited for. So I’ll see you later at practice.”
“Sir,” said Chris, “I was sorry to hear from Jake about your daughter. I wanted to tell you that, sir.”
Sergeant Arroyo nodded, his eyes watering. “Thank you, Chris, I appreciate it. She was a terrific girl. She’ll be dearly missed.”
“Yes, sir,” said, Chris. “I wanted to give my good wishes to all three of you.”
“Thanks, Chris. Jake is taking it harder than I thought he might. There’s something about twins, I think. They’re more closely connected siblings, maybe. Jake was so broken up about it that he asked if he could go to another school.”
This caught Chris by surprise. “Another school?”
The Sergeant nodded. “Yes. He said he didn’t want to be here anymore because he’d always be thinking about his sister. It seemed for the best. He said he thought Stevenson Intermediate would be good, so we transferred him there this morning.”
Chris stood stunned to cold stone. That hard expression that had softened so much over the past few days returned instantly. And if his mind had been spinning about many things over the past few days, it was nothing compared to the gyrations speeding around now.
“Andaya? Andaya, are you all right?”
Coming back to himself, Chris’s face softened again. “Huh, oh, yes, I’m good, sir. I’ll, ah, I’ll see you at practice.”
The journey from the locker room over to science class felt like a long and winding road with no end in sight.
Couldn’t face coming to school here? Yeah, right. And now he was with Denise Chan again. What a guy. Friends? Hah. Never happen. Sympathy, well . . . Even if he knew with 100% certainty that Jake Arroyo would never be a friend, still he felt bad for the death of his sister. But –
But what a guy. By the time Chris found the science classroom, all he could picture were the two of them, Denise and Jake, strolling around campus, sitting side by side in classes and the cafeteria. They were enjoying a togetherness that Chris, with Denise, would never know.
Lanning Lee 