Read Dedication for Free Online

UP!” We both bolt from our posts to meet at the railing, frozen in terror.
    “This is Martha Heller. Who’s this? No, I did not call you. Well, then you hang up…good-bye.”
    “I…I…” Laura becomes zombielike. “My mother called Rick Swartz. Jeanine’s going to—the entire seventh grade’s going to… My mother called Rick Swartz!”
    “Laura, listen.” I swivel her face to me. “Just call him back and say, um, that your mom’s been really sick and she’s just, like, got a really high fever and has been, um, calling random numbers and being, like, delirious.” I nod hopefully.
    “Really?”
    “Yes.”
    “But how would I know that she’d called him unless I was on the line?” Her blue eyes grip me with desperation.
    I chew my lip. “Say you just came into her room and she was murmuring about calling Rick Swartz like she murmurs about the other stuff she’s doing while she’s sick. Come on, Lor, we’re losing valuable time here. Just call.”
    “MOM! DO NOT PICK UP THE PHONE!”
    Mrs. Heller appears at the bottom of the stairs. One hand in a yellow rubber glove, she uses the other to reclip her hair away from her face. “Are you paying the bills around here now?”
    Laura hangs off the banister. “Mom, please, I’m begging, just give us five minutes? Please.”
    “Are we calling boys?” She rests her gloved hands on the hips of her stirrup pants.
    “Mom,” Laura moans.
    “Laura,” she moans right back. “All right, but start your homework, please.”
    “Okay!” I chime as we each resume our posts. The second she’s out of earshot, Laura dials. I press my palm into the door frame as it rings.
    “Hello?” he answers.
    Laura freezes. I scissor-kick my legs at her to snap her back.
    “Rick?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Hi. This is Laura Heller.” Her small hands clench the receiver so tightly her knuckles turn white.
    “Yeah?”
    “Yeah, so I just called ’cause my mom has this major fever. She’s really sick and I don’t know, we think it could be malaria because she’s just totally sweaty and out of it and…” I kick my legs again. “Anyway she’s been doing all sorts of weird stuff because she’s, like, delirious. We have to watch her all the time and my brother was supposed to be watching her but he had band practice so she was alone and she, I think she picked up the phone and called you and acted crazy. Because of the malaria. I only know because I just walked into the room and she was mumbling something about your name and I thought, you know, God, I better call you and let you know that she’s just being weird like that because she was sick and dialing random numbers and so…so that’s why I called.”
    “Okay.”
    Out of material, Laura shrugs at me in desperation. Reminding her to play cool, I toss my hand in exaggerated nonchalance.
    “So, uh, what are you up to?” She drops into a slouch.
    “Wait, who is this?”
    “Laura. Laura Heller.”
    “Your mom didn’t call me.”
    “Oh!” She turns nuclear red. “Oh, okay, then…uh, bye.”
    “Bye.”
    Laura carefully puts the phone down before slumping to the floor. “Crap. Crapcrapcrapcrap.”
    I hang up and run the length of the banister to her, kneeling to pat her head. “Maybe he won’t tell anyone.”
    She looks up at me through her hair, her face beating. “Anyone, like who? Like Jason and the other jocks? Who’ll tell Kristi so she and her clique can act it out at the next assembly?” She rubs her cheeks with her hands and groans. I am momentarily speechless at this very real possibility.
    “Just deny it,” I decide.
    “What?”
    “Deny it. If anyone asks you about calling Rick and saying your mom has malaria just say you don’t know what they’re talking about. Like, they’re the crazy one for asking you.”
    “I can’t say Rick Swartz made it up.” She exhales. “Okay, your turn.”
    “What, are you nuts?”
    “Katie, I did it, you have to do it.”
    “Yeah, and that went so