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He went on driving He didn’t even pause "We’re al the turn ontoMeadowcroft RoadGillian tried to grab for one of the brown hands on
the steering wheel, and then looked at her own hand, perplexed Her fingers felt like blocks of wood
"You have to stop," she said, settling for volume "There’s a kid lost in those woods That’s why I went
in; I heard this sound like crying It was coo
back there Come on, stop!"
"Hey, hey, cal-eared owl They roost
around here, and they make this noise like ahoh for an owl to be out"
"Okay, adove Goes oh-ah, whoo, whoo Or a cat; they can sound like kids soely, as she opened her hton police, and they can check things out But I aot uts than s to let hiuts or smarts
But she said, "It’s not that It’s just- I’ve already been through so much to try to find that kid I almost
died-I think I did die I ot pretty cold, and-and things happened, and I
realized how i stop What was she saying? Now he
was going to think she was a nut case And anyway all that stuff must have been a drea in a Mustang with her head wrapped in a towel
But David flashed her a glance of startled recognition
"You al the car ontoHazel Street , where they both
lived "That happened to me once When I was little, I had to have this operation-"
He broke off as the Mustang skidded on so into Gillian’s driveway
It happened to you, too?
David parked and was out of the car before Gillian could gather herself to speak
Then he was opening her door, reaching for her
"Gotta get all this ridiculous stuff out of the way," he said, pushing her hair back as if it were a curtain of
cobwebs So about the way he said it made Gillian think he liked her hair
She peered up at hiap in the curtain His eyes were dark brown and norazesAs
if he saw so in her eyes that surprised him and struck a chord
Gillian felt a flutter of wonder herself I don’t think he’s really tough at all, she thought, as so like a
spark seemed to flash between them He’s not so different from me; he’s-
She racked by a sudden bout of shivers
David blinked and shook his head "We’ve got to get you inside," he , she was in the air Bobbing, being carried up the path to her house
"You shouldn’t be walking to school in the winter," David said "I’ll drive you from now on"
Gillian was struck speechless On the one hand, she should probably tell him she didn’t walk every day
On the other hand, as she kidding?
Just the thought of hih to make her heart beat wildly
Between that and the novel feeling of being carried, it wasn’t until he was opening the front door that
Gillian remembered her mother
Then she panicked
Oh, God, I can’t let David see her-but ht
If there was a s, that meant it was okay If not, it was one of Mom’s bad days
There was no sn of life-all the downstairs
lights were off The house was cold and echoing and Gillian knew she had to get David out
But how? He was carrying her farther in, asking, "Your parents aren’t hoet hohts" It wasn’t exactly a lie Gillian just prayed her
mom would stay put in the bedroom until David left
"I’ll be okay now," she said hastily, not even caring if she sounded rude or ungrateful Anything to o "I can take care of myself, and- and I’m okay"
"The heeck you are," David said It was the longest drawn out ’heck’ Gillian had ever heard
He doesn’t want to swear around et thawed out, fast Where’s a bathtub?"
Gillian automatically lifted a stiff arm to point down the side hall, then dropped it "Noait a minute-"
He was already there He put her on her feet, then disappeared into the bathroolance upstairs Just stay put, Moet in there and stay for at least twenty"Then we can
see if you need to go to the hospital at Houghton"
That ht, I’ll call them As soon as you’re in the tub" He reached out and plucked at her dripping,
ice-crusted sweater "Can you get this off okay? Do your fingers work?"
"Urn" Her fingers didn’t work; they were still blocks of wood Frost-nipped at least, she thought,
peering at the to undress her, and there was also no way she was
going to call her mother "Urn"
"Uh, turn around," David said He pulled at her sweater again "Okay, I’ve gother elbows firainst her sides
They stood, confused and indecisive, until they were saved by an interruption, a voice fro to her?" the voice said
Gillian turned and looked around David It was Tanya Jun, David’s girlfriend
Tanya earing a velveteen cap perched on her glossy dark hair and a Christmas sweater with
ray eyes and a mouth with firht of her as a future corporate executive
"I saw your car out there," the future executive said to David, "and the front door of the house was
open" She looked level-headed, suspicious, and a little bit as if she doubted David’s sanity David
looked back and forth between her and Gillian and fu on I picked her up onHillcrest RoadShe ell, look at her She fell in the
creek and she’s frozen"
"I see," Tanya said, still callance, then turned back to David
"She doesn’t look too bad You go to the kitchen and make so with sugar I’ll take care of her"
"And the police," Gillian called after David’s disappearing back She didn’t exactly want to look Tanya in
the face
Tanya was a senior like David, in the class ahead of Gillian atRachelCarsonHigh SchoolGillian feared
her, admired her, and hated her, in about that order
"Into the bathroom," Tanya said Once Gillian was in, she helped her undress, stripping off the clinging,
icy-wet clothes and dropping the she did was brisk and efficient, and Gillian
could alers
Gillian was toostripped naked by souard or an extre in her bare
skin, and then lunged for the tub as soon as Tanya was done
The water felt scalding Gillian could feel her eyes get huge and she clenched her teeth on a yell It
probably felt so hot because she was so cold Breathing through her nose, she forced herself to subht," Tanya said on the other side of the coral-colored shower curtain "I’ll go up and get you so half out of the water Not upstairs, not where her mom was, not where her
roo with a decisive dick Tanya wasn’t the kind of person you
said no to
Gillian sat, i pain drove everything else out of
her ers and toes and shot upward, a white-hot searing thatback to life All she could do was