What hurts most is that me and Jay are best friends. At least, we were until I pushed him off the train.

Jeez, he'd probably kill me right now if he could. Which he can't, ?cause I probably killed him. But if he pulls through okay, I'll gladly let him.

I don't know what he's thinking, or even if he can think. All I know for sure is that Jay's in emergency, and I'm stuck flat on my back on this bed on wheels in a hallway at Tensor Medical with a cast on one arm a needle and tube stuck in the other. My sides are like all scraped up, and my body aches all over from cuts and bruises.

But my conscience-that hurts worse than my body.

Poor Jay. I keep seeing the surprise in his dark eyes when I pushed him. Then after-his yucky bloody face, his straight nose all crooked. I have these freaky thoughts, like, will they have to cut off his long black hair to operate? Will there be scars? How will he look after? How will he look at me? Will he even live?

Oh, jeez.

Right now, all my eyes can see are the clean, white walls and the bright ceiling lights. But my mind-which I can?t seem to shut off-it still sees. Yeah, like we're still there in the dark, dirty places me and Jay have been.

How am I gonna explain everything to Jay's mom when she gets here?

Ohmagod, and to the police!

And there's my parents! They'll dump on me for sure. Something like, "Geraldine Thomas! You pushed that poor boy off a moving freight tram? What on earth were you doing on a train anyway? Where did you think you were going? You went to Blue Pool? Good Lord, Geraldine, we thought you had more sense than that!"

My folks always call me Geraldine, but I tell everybody my name's Geri with an i. Not that I have a lot of friends. Me and Jay, I guess we're like the outcasts in our class. Naw, not really outcasts. That's too strong a word. We're just different-like, not members of any particular groupies. Loners, sorta.

I know kids probably talk about us behind our backs.

So what?

I know my parents wonder about our friendship, even though they don?t say much. Jay doesn't have the best of reputations. But, I don?t know. Jay's never treated me like some boys treat girls. Teasing, name calling, grabbing your books, stupid stuff like that. We're, you know, like, comfortable with each other, just good friends.

Until today.

Funny how you take some things for granted. Yeah, I blew it. I admit it. A real barf-brain. So, I'll be grounded for the rest of the summer for sure. Maybe the rest of my life.

Hey, I deserve it.

Poor Jay.

CHAPTER 2

You know how hot it was, even early this morning. Not a cloud to break the heat, typical July humidity. Too hot even to skateboard. So, me, Jay and Randy were messing around in Randy?s backyard. It's a great place to hang out. Big. Lots of room to throw a ball around and stuff. There's an old, giant maple tree with a really cool tire swing hanging from a big branch. We're kinda growing out of playing on that, though.

And there's this humungus sycamore tree that's great for climbing. Leaves so thick in the summer you can hide in them if you climb high enough. When fall comes, you can roll around and hide in all the golden leaves that cover the ground.

My house doesn't have much of a yard, and Jay's place has none. He lives in an apartment with his mom. So we usually hang out in Randy's yard when there's not much else to do.

Randy's okay. I like him and all, but sometimes his brain's a pain. He's about a foot shorter'n me and Jay, pretty skinny, and has this annoying habit of always pushing his blond hair away from hanging in his baby blues. Even though we take advantage of him a lot, he likes to mess around with us. He doesn't have a lot of friends.

Me either. Mostly my fault. I'm kinda shy. People who don't know me take that wrong, think I'm stuck up. And being tall for my age doesn't help. I'm as tall as Jay, and he's six months older than me. I guess I scare some people off. You know, I don' t stoop or nothin. Anyway, I like being tall. My dad calls me "gangly." I don?t have much up top yet, if you know what I mean. Mom says I've just grown up before I've had a chance to grow out.

Who cares.

Anyway, I don't fit in with most of the girl clicks. I mean, I hate talking about clothes, and make-up, and earrings. I don't need extra holes in my ears. Mostly I wear jeans and hiking boots. I like hiking boots. They feel good and solid. And I don?t like whispering stupid gossip about other kids in the class. Diarrhea of the mouth, Jay says. That's what most of the girls I know do best. One day they're best friends with one kid, the next day they drop that person for somebody else. Bunch a little groupies. You know the kind. They like get all goo-goo over movie stars and plaster pictures of them all over their bedroom walls and school lockers. Stupid urppy stuff like that. Fine for them, just not for me.

So, anyway, Randy, he just sorta latched on to me and Jay. Guess we feel sorry for him. Since he's not so great in most sports, we give him pointers. At school, we always pick him for our team 'cause nobody else will. It works out. He helps us with homework, especially English, which I need for sure. Me and Jay don?t exactly qualify as the teacher's pride and joy.

Anyway, too hot to do much this morning, we crashed out on our stomachs in the shade of the big, gnarly old maple. For a while, we Played mumblety-peg with Jay's pocket knife. Then we got to watching these two rows of ants scurrying back and forth like they do. One line of ants carried pieces of something white; the other row headed in the other direction to get more. Every once in a while it looked like one of the ants stopped to say something to another one.

"Oh, man, look at the big piece that one's hauling," Randy said. He pointed to an ant carrying a load twice as large as it was.

"Bet they're not as hot as us," I offered.

"Let's turn the hose on them," Jay suggested.

"What for?" Randy asked. He tried to get the ant to leave the line and run up his finger.

"To see what they do, stupeedo. Give ?em a break from their hard work."

"They'll just form another line and keep on doing their thing. They never stop," Randy replied, not looking up.

"How d'you know?" Jay challenged.

"Just do. That's the way ants are."

"When did you become a science expert, Ran-dall?" Jay stretched out the name. We only call Randy by his real name when he gets on our nerves.

Randy just shrugged off Jay's smart mouth and held up his finger. We watched the ant run around crazy on his hand looking for his line of friends. Then Randy put it back with the other ants. It hesitated a minute, then got in the right line.

"See? Right back in line," Randy said, pleased he'd been right.

"Well, tick-tack, kiss my back," Jay muttered and rolled on his back. Then he held out his left hand and traced a finger over his initials he had burned into the back of his hand with some acid. Once I asked him why he'd done it, and he said, "Curiosity." I thought it was stupid, but sometimes Jay does stuff like that.

None of us said anything for a while and I got to thinking about how Jay and me got to be friends last year. That's when my family moved from St. Louis over here to Allonia on the Illinois side of the muddy Mississip. It's not easy switching schools in the middle of the year. You know, everybody already has their friends and cruddy little sochie groups formed.

Like I said, I'm kinda shy. So the first week or so I felt, like, left out-totally. Then one day during recess some kids were shooting baskets and the ball got kicked over where I was watching. I picked it up, took a shot at the basket, and made it. Not all luck.

Anyway, Jay said, "Nice shot," and asked me if I wanted to play. It wasn't until later he told me he thought I was a boy. Sometimes people think that, 'cause I keep my brown hair cut short under my Dodgers baseball cap. I wear it the right way, not backwards.

Anyway, I played as good as any of them. I can hoop, thanks to practicing with my dad. And nobody gave me a bad time. For some reason, me and Jay hit it off after that. Kinda rare, when I look around.

Then Randy broke the silence. "Another dog-day afternoon coming up, for sure."

"What's that mean?" Jay asked, rolling over on his back.

?You don't know what dog-days are?" Randy made it sound as if everybody knew. I didn't.

"Oh, please, sir, help me overcome my faulty education," Jay squeezed out in a high voice.

"It's the hottest time of the year when the Dog Star rises and sets with the sun." Randy knows a lot, but sometimes he like pushes his brilliance.

Jay put the back of his hand against his forehead and said in a sissy-like voice, "My, now, how could I possibly live without knowing that most important valuable piece of information." Then in his own voice he said, "Jeez, Randall, you're a lost cause, totally, you know that?"

From experience, Randy wisely didn?t say anything, just shrugged his shoulders. He knows Jay can get into a mood and be a real jerk sometimes, especially when he feels inferior in the brain department.

Jay shook his head at Randy and got up. "I'm gonna get a drink from the hose."

"Sure. You just want to squirt water on the ants," Randy baited.

Jay pushed his straight black hair from his face and stared at Randy, forming his thick, dark eyebrows into one. He likes to do that. Thinks he looks, you know, sinister or something.

He turned on the hose and pulled it over by us. "I think I?d rather squirt you."

Which, of course, he did.

We fooled around grabbing and fighting for the hose and getting each other wet until we burned out on that and crashed under the tree again and drank from the hose.

The water wasn't very cold, so I said, "I'd die for a cold drink right now."

"Yeah, me, too," Randy said. Then all excited he pops up with, "Hey, you guys, we could put up a lemonade stand on the street comer. Lots of people must be thirsty in this heat."

Me and Jay groaned. Then Jay shook his head as if to say, "What a dip."

"What's so wrong with that?" Randy sounded hurt.

"Come on, Ran-dall. Get real. That's little kids' stuff,? I told him.

?Not really. My sister and I made over thirty bucks last summer in just one day."

"Yeah, probably because your parents bought it all,? Jay said.

"Jeezal man, Jay! Why do you always have to act so superior, anyway?"

"Cause I am."

"Yeah? First I've noticed," I butted in.

Jay gave me that eyebrow look. I just shook my head at him. I could see he was enjoying bugging Randy.

"It was just a suggestion," Randy said. ?Something to do."

"Well, forget it. Geri and me aren't..."

"Geri and I," Randy corrected. He does that a lot, often at the wrong time. Like then.

Jay narrowed his eyes into slits again and stared at Randy. "Geri and me-AIN'T-gonna sit in no friggin' hot sun watching no friggin' ice cubes melt into friggin' watered down lemonade. Got it, Ran--dall?"

"Up yours, Mr. Superior," Randy muttered. "If you had an original idea it'd die before it passed your lips.?

Jay put his face up to Randy's. "Oh, yeah? Well, I??

"I got a better idea," I interrupted. ?Let's go find Blue Pool." I?m still not sure why I said it, or where the thought came from. But out it came. Maybe I said it because I was tired of hearing the two of them smart mouth each other. Maybe the idea of swimming in a pool of clear blue water sounded good at the time. Or, maybe I was just trying to sound, like, cool. Be Miss Superior or something. All I know now is that I wish I could take my words back.

Blue Pool's got a bad rep. It's about two miles up river. A couple of times, Me and Jay had talked about going up there and looking for it, but we'd never done it. It's not easy to find, as we found out.

There's all kinds of legends and scary stories about the place. They say the pool's so deep no one?s ever found the bottom. Some stories claim that people have been killed diving off the bluffs, that there've even been murders up there. Only the wrong kind of people hang out there, so most parents aren?t exactly excited about their kids going to Blue Pool. Mine included.

?Blue Pool, huh?" Jay's dark eyes narrowed, and he got this funny look. "Now that's one royal idea worthy of the Jay." He smiled at Randy.

Jay probably thought my suggestion was a challenge of sorts. We compete like that sometimes, just to see how far each of us will take a dare.

"Blue Pool?" Randy frowned and brushed back his blond hair. "My parents would kill me if I went up there."

"Who asked you?" I was sorry as soon as it came out like that, but like I said, sometimes I speak before I think. I could see I? d hurt his feelings.

We all got up and brushed the grass from our clothes. I looked at Jay, wishing he'd said my idea was hundred-year-old fruitcake. But he just smiled and kept nodding.

Randy started fidgeting. "You guys aren't really gonna go, are you? You don't know how to find it. Besides, everybody says it's dangerous up there. What about all those stories-people disappearing-murders even?"

"Crossing the street is dangerous, Randy." I tried to sound all cool and everything, even though I knew I was full of it.

"If we leave now, we can be back by dinner. Well need some water though," Jay said. "It'll be a hot walk up there."

Randy looked back and forth at us. "You're going to do it, aren't you?"

I could see how much he wanted to come along. He hated being left out, secretly wanted us to be the three musketeers or something.

?Well, you can borrow my canteen," Randy offered, making me feel even worse about being snotty before.

"Thanks, Randy." I patted him on the back, trying to make myself feel better. "You know, you can come along if you want."

He looked down, kicked the toe of one sneaker in the dirt and brushed his hair back. "Naw. My parents would ground me for life if they found out. Anyway, I think you're a couple of dips if you go."

Turns out, he was right.

So, anyhow, that's how it started. We filled Randy's canteen, one of those round ones covered in canvas with a shoulder strap, and he gave us a couple of Powerbars for the road.

That was it. Me and Jay-or as Randy would say-Jay and I headed out to find Blue Pool.