“Hey, Oscar,” Harry calls as I’m approaching him, Lisa, and Nel to wait with them on the sidelines.
Oscar, who has climbed to the top of the climbing frame and is just poised to descend the tube slide, looks up at his father. “Yeah?”
“Be careful in there, don’t get stuck like Aunty Nelly-Belly did,” Harry chuckles like he’s just made a hilarious joke.
Nel rolls her eyes and then calls, but quieter than Harry’s bolshy voice. “The slide was old and cracked and my coat got caught.”
Oscar looks down the winding tunnel dubiously and I take pity on him. “You’re alright, bud.” I call over. “I inspected it, no cracks.”
He relaxes and gives me a goofy smile before flinging himself down the slide and emerging from the other end, giggling. I start back over to where my friends are standing on the sidelines and although I’m a few feet away, I still hear Harry’s teasing.
“Still sticking with the coat story, Nels? Sure you just didn’t fit?” He tickles her side and she squirms away. I’m vaguely aware that Lisa makes a disapproving noise at her husband, but I want to shake him up a bit. I swoop down to scoop up a handful of snow and throw it right at his chest.
Then everything happens in slow motion. Harry bends to tie his shoe as Nel turns to look at me and my snowball hits her square in the face. Her eyes scrunch closed as her mouth falls open in shock. Taking a step back from the impact, her heel must find some ice and she goes down like a cartoon character who’s just stood on a banana skin. Arms circling at her sides like propellers and her legs scissoring in the air until she lands with a thud on her back.
Oh shit.
Running over, I practically shove Harry out the way before he has a chance to get to her side. Lisa is bent double to look at her prone sister-in-law but doesn’t crouch, for obvious reasons. I drop to my knees and take Nel’s face in my hands, wiping melted snow from under her eyes with my thumbs.
“God, Nel. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
She slowly blinks her eyes open and looks at me. Those beautiful browns glass over, and my chest constricts,please don’t cry. The pain in her eyes has me on the brink of tears myself.
“How could you?” she rasps.
A little taken back by her reaction, I stutter slightly. “I…I’m sorry, Nel. I was aiming for Harry.”
She widens her eyes as though that would have been worse. “Brother,” she calls with a pained wail.
Harry falls to his knees on the other side. “I’m here, little sister,” he says, crying.
Okay,what?
“I…I won’t make it,” she gasps and then coughs.
Oh no.
“Don’t leave me, Nels. I can’t do this without you.” Harry takes his sister’s hand in his and lets out an Academy Award worthy cry into the sky.
I slowly stand and start backing away. I know this game, and I always lose.
“Avenge me,” Nelly whispers before her head slumps to the side with her tongue hanging out, dead eyes staring at me, but I don’t miss the small spark of life that saysrun.
Harry rises and pins me with a glare, one I know all too well from our boyhood games. See, there was a time when we were muchmuchyounger and Nel wasn’t so awkward around me, when she was desperate to play with her big brother and his friends. The thing is, we played rough and we didn’t want little Penelope to get hurt. So while Harry and I were cops and robbers, Nel would play Harry’s accomplice who’d get eliminated early in the game. Caught in the crossfire. Then Harry would avenge her death by coming at me. I built up a muscular physique after Harry and I joined the rugby team at school, but Harry has always been a bit of a bulldozer and was always able to pin me easily.
By now, everyone has crowded around Nel’s ‘body,’ most of them completely confused as to what is happening.
“Forrests!” Harry bellows, like Captain America summoning his Avengers. “Attack!”
I run. I can hear the boys’ war cries behind me as they try to catch up, they never will unless I let them. But it’s not them I’m worried about. I get a fair distance away before Harry executes a perfect tackle and I hit the ground with enough force to knock the wind out of me.
“Fuck,” he pants. “It’s been a while since we’ve done that.” He lays next to me on the cold, wet grass.
“You haven’t pinned me for three seconds yet, I could still get away,” I say, but my huffing breath betrays me.
My best friend laughs with more relaxed joy than I’ve seen from him since the festivities began. “Yeah, but we’re both too old to keep going.”
“Speak for yourself,” I scoff, but I can’t help my smile.
