When Friendship Followed Me Home by Paul Griffin Page A

story.”
    â€œOur
story,” she said. “I’ve decided we’re writing this together.”
    â€œNo way. I suck at stories.”
    â€œYou read like a vampire who feeds on ink. I need your help on this. Even if I write a book a year, I have a lot of catching up to do if I’m going to pump out a hundred and eleven before I die. You and me, twice as fast, twice as fun. And if you suck I’ll fire you, if that will make you feel better. Look, Flip’s doing the UDFSP for me.” That’s what she called the upside-down flying squirrel pose. “What, Flip? What are you trying to tell me, you freaky little banana?”
    â€œThe Helen and Bruce in the book,” I said. “Just friends, right?”
    â€œBest
friends. Okay, so here’s what I have so far. It’s night. Luna Park is closed. Bruce the electrician kid is hanging out on the platform with all the lights that light up the trapeze ride. The magician’s with him.”
    â€œWe’re totally calling him Mercurious, right?” I said.
    â€œYou have to ask? Mercurious and Bruce are watching the trapeze girl.”
    â€œHelen.”
    â€œYup. She’s at the top of the pole, getting ready to swing. Bruce has her lit up with a spotlight that’s as bright as the moon. He’s worried. So’s Mercurious. It looks like the gorgeous Helen is unclipping her safety cables.”
    â€œWhy?” I said.
    â€œThat’s what Bruce the superhero electrician wants to know too. Helen calls out from her platform, ‘The problem with the safety wires is you can only swing so far before the wires rein you in. I need to see how high I can go. I’ll never be great if I don’t know what it’s like to soar free.’ She swings away from the platform, and up, up until she’s as high as the stars. The world is so beautiful from up there, Ben. Everything is sparkly, the moon on the waves, the city itself, lit silver and gold. Suddenly Helen realizes she’s flown higher than she ever could have imagined, and she gets scared. Her hands sweat and slip away from the bar.”
    â€œBruce runs as fast as he can off the end of the spotlight platform,” I said. “He catches Helen.”
    â€œMy hero! Except, duh, now they’re
both
falling—until time stops.”
    â€œHold on a second,” I said. “Time can’t stop. It’s mathematically impossible.”
    â€œMath shmath; in our story, time can stop, and it does,” Halley said. “Bruce and Helen stop falling. The ocean freezes. It’s like a snapshot. Luna Park fades to gold.”
    â€œLuna Park 1905?”
    â€œExactly. They’re not
out
of time at all. They’ve slipped through one of the little cracks in it, the ones between each moment. The golden tower rises up to meet them. They’re in the top of it now, and the sky warms up with silky blond light. The stars spin out of place, into the pattern of the shooting stars on Mercurious’s cape. He’s sitting on the moon. ‘Well now,’ he says to Helen and Bruce, ‘look at the mess you’ve gotten yourselves into.’”
    â€œAnd?” I said. “What happens next?”
    â€œOnly the greatest adventure ever.” Halley shrugged. “We’ll figure it out as we go.”
    â€œThis is cool, you bouncing ideas off me like this,” I said.
    â€œI totally have to talk it all into my phone before we forget.” And she did. When she was done, she put a chicken nugget on her lips and leaned down so she was eye to eye with Flip. Of course he ate the chicken right off her lips.
    â€œFeeding him from your mouth like that isn’t helping me to get him to stop kissing people.”
    â€œWhy would you ever want him to stop?” she said.
    The skateboarder girl did a backflip and the crowd cheered. The rush hour trains rumbled under the street. The bus brakes sounded like elephant