Finally, after what seemed like a forever of running, someone yelled: “I think we lost them!”
“Amos?”
“I’m right here!” said Amos’s voice a few feet behind us. “We can stop!” Miles yelled from farther up.
“Jack!” I yelled.
“Whoa!” said Jack. “I’m here.” “I can’t see a thing!”
“Are you sure we lost them?” Henry asked, letting go of my arm. That’s when I realized that he’d been the one who was pulling me as we ran.
“Yeah.”
“Shh! Let’s listen!”
We all got super quiet, listening for footsteps in the dark. All we could hear were the crickets and frogs and our own crazy panting. We were out of breath, stomachs hurting, bodies bent over our knees.
“We lost them,” said Henry. “Whoa! That was intense!”
“What happened to the flashlight?” “I dropped it!”
“How did you guys know?” said Jack. “We saw them before.”
“They looked like jerks.”
“You just rammed into him!” I said to Amos. “I know, right?” laughed Amos.
“He didn’t even see it coming!” said Miles.
“He was like, ‘Are you a freak, too?’ and you were like, bam!” said Jack.
“Bam!” said Amos, throwing a fake punch in the air. “But after I tackled him, I was like, run, Amos, you schmuck, he’s ten times bigger than you! And I got up and started running as fast as I could!”
We all started laughing.
“I grabbed Auggie and I was like, ‘Run!’ ” said Henry. “I didn’t even know it was you pulling me!” I answered. “That was wild,” said Amos, shaking his head.
“Totally wild.”
“Your lip is bleeding, dude.”
“I got in a couple of good punches,” answered Amos, wiping his lip. “I think they were seventh graders.”
“They were huge.”
“Losers!” Henry shouted really loudly, but we all shushed him. We listened for a second to make sure no one had heard him.
“Where the heck are we?” asked Amos. “I can’t even see the screen.”
“I think we’re in the cornfields,” answered Henry.
“Duh, we’re in the cornfields,” said Miles, pushing a cornstalk at Henry.
“Okay, I know exactly where we are,” said Amos. “We have to go back in this direction. That’ll take us to the other side of the field.”
“Yo, dudes,” said Jack, hand high in the air. “That was really cool of you guys to come back for us. Really cool. Thanks.”
“No problem,” answered Amos, high-fiving Jack. And then Miles and Henry high-fived him, too.
“Yeah, dudes, thanks,” I said, holding my palm up like Jack just had, though I wasn’t sure if they’d high-five me, too.
Amos looked at me and nodded. “It was cool how you stood your ground, little dude,” he said, high-fiving me.
“Yeah, Auggie,” said Miles, high-fiving me, too. “You were like, ‘We’re littler than you guys’ …”
“I didn’t know what else to say!” I laughed.
“Very cool,” said Henry, and he high-fived me, too. “Sorry I ripped your sweatshirt.”
I looked down, and my sweatshirt was completely torn down the middle. One sleeve was ripped off, and the other was so stretched out it was hanging down to my knees.
“Hey, your elbow’s bleeding,” said Jack. “Yeah.” I shrugged. It was starting to hurt a lot. “You okay?” said Jack, seeing my face.
I nodded. Suddenly I felt like crying, and I was trying really hard not to do that.
“Wait, your hearing aids are gone!” said Jack.
“What!” I yelled, touching my ears. The hearing aid band was
definitely gone. That’s why I felt like I was underwater! “Oh no!” I said, and that’s when I couldn’t hold it in anymore. Everything that had just happened kind of hit me and I couldn’t help it: I started to cry. Like big crying, what Mom would call “the waterworks.” I was so embarrassed I hid my face in my arm, but I couldn’t stop the tears from coming.
The guys were really nice to me, though. They patted me on the back.
“You’re okay, dude. It’s okay,” they said.
“You’re one brave little dude, you know that?” said Amos, putting his arm around my shoulders. And when I kept on crying, he put both his arms around me like my dad would have done and let me cry.
