Donna Tartt - The Little Friend

“Geez,” said Pem, and pushed back from the table, where he was eating a slice of Boston cream pie for breakfast. “Two whole days he was up there. Poor guy. Even if he did kill his brother.”

Hely looked up from his cereal and—with an almost unbearable effort—managed to keep his mouth shut.

Pem shook his head. His hair was still damp from the shower. “He couldn’t even swim. Imagine that. He was in there jumping up and down for two whole days, trying to keep his head above water. It’s like this thing I read, I think it was World War II and this plane went down in the Pacific. These guys were in the water for days, and there were tons of sharks. You couldn’t go to sleep, you had to be swimming around and watching for sharks constantly, or else they’d slip up and bite your leg off.” He looked hard at the picture, and shuddered. “Poor guy. Two whole days stuck up in that nasty thing, like a rat in a bucket. It’s a stupid place to hide, if you couldn’t swim.”

Hely, unable to resist, blurted: “That’s not how it happened.”

“Right,” said Pem, in a bored voice. “Like you know.”

Hely—agitated, swinging his legs—waited for his brother to look up from the newspaper or say something else.

“It was Harriet,” he said at last. “She did it.”

“Hmm?”

“It was her. She was the one pushed him in there.”

Pem looked at him. “Pushed who?” he said. “You mean Danny Ratliff?”

“Yes. Because he killed her brother.”

Pem snorted. “Danny Ratliff didn’t kill Robin, any more than I did,” he said, turning the page of the newspaper. “We were all in the same class in school.”

“He did,” said Hely devoutly. “Harriet has proof.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

“I don’t know—a lot of stuff. But she can prove it.”

“Sure.”

“Anyway,” said Hely, unable to contain himself, “she followed them down there, and chased them with a gun, and she shot Farish Ratliff, and then she made Danny Ratliff climb up the water tower and jump in.”

Pemberton turned to the back of the paper, to the comic strips. “I think Mom’s been letting you drink too much Coke,” he said.

“It’s true! I swear!” said Hely in agitation. “Because—” And then he remembered that he couldn’t say just how he knew, and looked down.

“If she had a gun,” said Pemberton, “why didn’t she just shoot them both and get it over with?” He pushed his plate aside and looked at Hely like he was a cretin. “ How the hell is Harriet going to make Danny Ratliff of all people climb up that thing? Danny Ratliff is a tough son of a bitch. Even if she had a gun, he could take it away from her in two seconds. Hell, he could take a gun away from me in two seconds. If you’re going to make up lies, Hely, you’re going to have to do better than that.”

“I don’t know how she did it,” said Hely, stubbornly, staring into his cereal bowl, “but she did it. I know she did.”

“Read the thing yourself,” said Pem, pushing the paper at him, “and see what an idiot you are. They had drugs hidden at the tower. And they were fighting over them. There were drugs floating in the water. That’s why they were up there in the first place.”

Hely—with a gigantic effort—remained silent. He was suddenly, uneasily conscious that he’d said a whole lot more than he should have.

“Besides,” said Pemberton, “Harriet’s in the hospital. You know that, dum-dum.”

“Well, what if she was down at the water tower with a gun?” said Hely angrily. “What if she got in a fight with those guys? And got hurt? And what if she left the gun at the water tower, and what if she asked somebody to go and—”

“No. Harriet is in the hospital because she has epilepsy. Epilepsy ,” said Pemberton, tapping his forehead. “You moron.”

“Oh, Pem!” said their mother from the doorway. Her hair was freshly blow-dried; she was in a short little tennis dress that showed off her tan. “Why’d you tell him?”

“I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to,” said Pem sulkily.

“I told you not to!”

“Sorry. I forgot.”

Hely, in confusion, looked between the two of them.

“It’s such a stigma for a child at school,” said their mother, sitting down with them at the table. “It would be terrible for her if it got around. Although,” she said, reaching for Pem’s fork, taking a big bite of his leftover pie, “I wasn’t surprised when I heard it, and neither was your father. It explains a lot.”

“What is epilepsy?” said Hely uneasily. “Does it mean like nuts?”

“ No , peanut,” said his mother hastily, putting down the fork, “no, no, no, that’s not true. Don’t go around saying that. It just means she blanks out sometimes. Has seizures. Like—”

“Like this,” said Pem. He did a wild imitation, tongue lolling, eyes rolled up, jittering in his chair.

“Pem! Stop!”

“Allison saw the whole thing,” said Pemberton. “She said it lasted like ten minutes.”

Hely’s mother—observing the odd expression on his face—reached out and patted his hand. “Don’t worry, sweetie,” she said. “Epilepsy’s not dangerous.”

“Unless you’re driving a car,” said Pem. “Or flying a plane.”

His mother gave him a stern look—as stern as she ever gave him, which wasn’t very.

“I’m going over to the club now,” she said, standing up. “Dad said he’d drop you off at band this morning, Hely. But don’t you go around telling people at school about this. And don’t worry about Harriet. She’s going to be fine. I promise.”

After their mother left, and they heard her car pulling out of the driveway, Pemberton got up and went to the refrigerator and began to grapple around on the top shelf. Eventually he found what he was looking for—a can of Sprite.

“You are so retarded,” he said, leaning back against the refrigerator, pushing the hair out of his eyes. “It’s a miracle they don’t have you in Special Ed.”

Hely, though he wanted worse than anything in the world to tell Pemberton about going to the tower to get the gun—kept his lips clamped shut and glowered down at the table. He would call Harriet when he got home from band. Probably she wouldn’t be able to talk. But he could ask her questions, and she could answer yes or no.

Pemberton cracked open his soda and said: “You know, it’s embarrassing that you go around making up lies the way you do. You think it’s cool, but it just makes you look really dumb.”

Hely said nothing. He would call her, the first chance he got. If he could sneak away from the group, he might even go out to the pay phone and call her from school. And as soon as she got home, and they were by themselves, out in the toolshed, she would explain to him about the gun, and how she had masterminded the whole thing—shot Farish Ratliff, and trapped Danny in the tower—and it would be amazing. The mission was accomplished, the battle won; somehow—incredibly—she had done exactly what she said she would, and got away with the whole thing.

He looked up at Pemberton.

“Say what you want to, I don’t care,” he said. “But she’s a genius.”

Pem laughed. “Sure she is,” he said, as he headed out the door. “Compared to you.”