Heavenstone 01 - The Heavenstone Secrets

driveway and out of the street.
    “My father’s going to skin me alive if they don’t rule this was the old man’s fault,” Eddie said. “My insurance is high enough as it is. Damn.”
    “I think we should be worrying more about Noel,” I said.
    No one said anything, but I could see they all agreed. Eddie asked the policemen about helping us follow the ambulance to the hospital. The police told him one of us had to call his or her parents.
    “I’ll call my father,” Kent volunteered. “Let me borrow your phone.”

    Eddie handed it to him, and Kent moved off to speak privately with his father. I wanted to call Cassie, but I was afraid of what she would say. I would have hated to have my father come out, too.
    Kent’s father arrived pretty quickly after the call. He was concerned first about each of us and thought Bobbi should have her arm checked out at the hospital immediately. We all fell into an even deeper silence as Kent’s father drove us to the hospital. He brought Bobbi to the admittance desk, and a nurse took her to an examination room to check her arm. Eddie, Susie, Kent, and I sat in the lobby waiting to hear about Noel. When we saw his parents arrive, we grew even more terrified. Noel’s father came out a while later. He looked very angry.
    “What the hell happened?” he asked Eddie.
    Despite all his bravado, Eddie began to cry as he explained and blamed the elderly man for shooting out without looking. I heard him tell Noel’s father that he hadn’t had much of a chance to avoid hitting him. He said nothing about Susie distracting him, however. I looked away, ashamed. Noel’s father marched off again.
    “What did he say about Noel?” Kent asked.
    “He has a concussion for sure. They’re checking to see if his spine was damaged.”
    “Oh, no,” Susie said and began to cry harder.
    Kent’s father returned to tell us that with the policeman’s help, he had called everyone’s parents. I looked up, terrified. I had hoped somehow to just go home and calmly explain, but I understood why Kent’s father had felt obligated to make the calls.Susie’s parents arrived first. They talked to Kent’s father for a while and then took Susie home. Eddie’s father came without his mother. He was much bigger than Eddie and looked angry enough to beat him right there in the lobby. He spoke to Kent’s father, too, and Kent’s father managed to calm him. He ordered Eddie out to the car and then went to speak with Noel’s parents. Just then, Cassie arrived.
    I think I shall never forget her reaction. In contrast to everyone else’s parents, their face pasted over with fear and anger, my sister looked calm and in a strange way satisfied, and I don’t mean satisfied that I was fine. She had an expression on her face that said that everything she believed and told me about other people had been verified. She politely thanked Kent’s father for calling our home, asked about Noel, listened, and then nodded at me.
    I turned to Kent, who had kept his head down and his hands over his face all the while. “My sister’s here. I’m going home, Kent.”
    He looked up slowly and nodded. “Yeah. I guess we just don’t have luck when it comes to being together,” he muttered.
    “It wasn’t your fault.”
    He didn’t reply. He looked down again, as if he wanted to avoid looking at Cassie.
    “Call me if you hear any more about Noel,” I told him. He nodded but didn’t look up.
    “Let’s go home, Semantha,” Cassie said.
    I followed her out to her car. She said nothing and looked as if she might not even when we were in the car. When I got in, I said, “It was terrifying, Cassie.”

    “Of course it was.” She started the engine and backed out of the parking spot. “Don’t worry. I didn’t tell Daddy. He was asleep on the sofa in the living room when Mr. Pearson called the house, and I just left for the hospital. I’m sure he’s still asleep. We don’t have to say anything until the morning.”
    “Why is he asleep on the sofa?” I asked. It wasn’t that late, and I wondered why he wouldn’t be upstairs with Mother.
    “He drank too much wine at dinner. We both did, but he drank far more. He needed desperately to relax, so I didn’t say anything or try to stop him. We went into the living room to talk afterward, and when he fell asleep, I simply took off his shoes, got him comfortable, and put a blanket on him and a pillow under his head. He’s better off sleeping there and not