Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen - Dyan Sheldon [60]
“But we’re not alone,” I reminded her. “We’re with an adult.”
“Aside from the fact that he isn’t actually with us,” said Ella. “Stu Wolff isn’t actually an adult, either; he’s a rock-and-roll star.”
As thunderstruck as I was by this unexpected display of disloyalty, I decided not to say anything. Later, when we were talking and laughing with Stu, I knew she’d regret those callous words.
“Well, whatever he is, we have to find him,” I said diplomatically.
We started walking again, cautiously, taking small, tentative steps as though tip-toeing through a minefield. There were no bars, no coffee shops, not even an alleyway Stu might have cut through.
We stopped when we reached the next corner. Ahead of us, in all directions, were more streets just like the one we were on.
Ella sighed. “We have lost him.” She didn’t sound as disappointed as you might think.
“It’s impossible,” I argued. “He was right in front of us.”
“Well, he’s not in front of us now,” said Ella. “All that’s in front of us is uncollected garbage.”
We were both so tired, so wet, so hungry – and at least one of us was so disappointed – that it might have turned into a real argument if we hadn’t been successfully diverted at that moment.
Someone – or something – groaned.
Ella practically jumped in my arms – which saved me the trouble of trying to jump into hers.
“What was that?” she hissed. I’d never seen her eyes that big. She looked really beautiful, if half drowned.
I had to get my own heart out of my mouth before I could speak. “I don’t know,” I whispered back. “Maybe it was a cat.” Or a rat.
Clutching each other, we looked up and down the street again. But there was still nothing to see.
“Umprrgh…” moaned the empty night.
Ella’s nails dug into my arm. “That’s not a cat.”
It didn’t sound much like a rat, either. I pointed across the road and back the way we’d come. “I think it came from over there,” I said into her ear.
The night moaned again. Painfully. Tragically. Without a shred of hope.
“It must be Stu!” I pulled on her arm. “Come on. It sounds like he’s hurt.”
Instead of moving forward, as I’d intended, I stayed where I was, much in the way I had stayed where I was when my heel got caught in the grate. Ella wasn’t budging.
“If he’s hurt, then someone hurt him,” said Ella in her Miss Totally Reasonable voice.
“Maybe you should be a detective when you grow up,” I suggested acidly.
Ella still wouldn’t move. “And maybe you should be a kamikaze pilot.”
A garbage can crashed to the ground, the sound echoing through the vacant streets. Both of us jumped, but Ella jumped higher.
“Look!” My voice was low but urgent. “I was right. It did come from over there.”
A head had appeared among the plastic bags and cans. A hand clawed the air. I was sure I heard a strangled cry for help.
Without another word – without any thought for my own safety – I let go of Ella and raced towards the hand.
“Lola!” screamed Ella, but she was already running after me over the cobbles.
We reached the fallen garbage can just in time to see the Greatest Poet Since Shakespeare throw up all over the sidewalk.
THE ADULT AMONG US
Ella and I stared at the huddled form of Stu Wolff as he crouched in the gutter like a Shakespearean king brought to his knees by the cruel twistings of Fate. I’d always suspected Stu Wolff was not just a genius, but a tragic hero of the stature of Hamlet or Lear, and here was my proof.
Stu was propped between the toppled garbage can and a mound of plastic bags. A couple of the bags had split open, and there were coloured strings and shredded paper clinging to him. The way he was sitting, he didn’t seem to have bones. Besides the vomit splattered down his shirt, and the strings, and the shredded paper, he was liberally decorated with organic waste. Either he’d been in the can when it fell, or he’d been under it.
“We have to get him inside,” I said. “So we can clean him up a little.”
“You mean sober him up,