Freeze Tag Read Online Free PDF Page A

and dropped dishes. A scream was not extraordinary.
    But this was a scream of terror.
    It was the kind of scream that grabbed at the roots of your heart, and wrenched the air out of your lungs, and made you want your back against a wall.
    Five hundred students went silent, breath caught, looking for the source of the terrible scream. Eyes sped around the room like paired animals, seeking the terror.
    Meghan had a queer slicing memory, like a knife, a knife dripping with blood, and somehow it was mixed with Tuesday, and grass, and darkness, and childhood.
    The last time I heard a scream like that … thought Meghan.
    But she could not quite remember the last time she had heard a scream like that.
    West sucked in his breath. Her hand was on his back and she felt his ribs and chest expand, and felt them stay expanded, as if holding onto his lungs would keep him alive. As if there were danger of not being alive.
    Toppled on the floor, like a statue knocked over by a vandal, was a girl. One leg remained raised and off it, a long skirt hung like drapery.
    “She fainted,” said somebody.
    “Give her air.”
    “Call an ambulance.”
    Teachers and cafeteria workers rushed over to help.
    The girl was stiff.
    “She’s … sort of … frozen,” said the cafeteria monitor, backing away, as if it were a virus, and would leap free of the fallen girl and attack the rest.
    People touched the frozen girl with a single extended finger, and then pulled back, afraid, even wiping their hands off on their trousers.
    The air swirled around Meghan Moore and West Trevor.
    Old air. The air of their childhoods.
    Memory.
    The quiet of the night came back, and the softness of the summer, and the deepness of the horror.
    Meghan remembered the morning glory by the steps, whose bright blue flowers had slid into their green envelopes, saving its glory for dawn. Meghan had always wondered what morning glories knew that people did not.
    She remembered the lawnmower and the scent of the cut grass, the setting sun and the thickness of dusk.
    She remembered the calm explanatory voice. It’s Freeze Tag . So I froze her .
    “Who is it, does anybody know?” said the teachers.
    “Jessica,” said somebody else.
    The school had at least fifty girls named Jessica. Meghan did not know if this was a Jessica she knew, or a stranger Jessica.
    Meghan moved slowly, dizzily, forward. The fallen girl was still and solid. Her skin did not seem tan with summer, but icy blue with winter. Her hair stuck out from her head without regard to gravity, as if carved from ice. Her shoulders did not rise and fall with the filling of lungs.
    “She is frozen,” whispered a horrified adult.
    I didn’t run fast enough, thought Meghan. Lannie hated me .
    She remembered Lannie’s fingers, burring into her soul. She remembered being frozen. It didn’t hurt. And I wasn’t afraid, either, thought Meghan. I was just suspended. Perhaps hibernation is like that. Bears survive the winter, don’t they? They just turn down the heat until spring.
    But a human would not live till spring.
    “It must be a seizure,” said a teacher, voice trembling. He tried to move her into a sitting position, but the body did not bend. It was sickeningly stiff, as if she had died yesterday and gone into rigor mortis. “Call an ambulance!”
    The girl’s leg stayed high in the air, like a gymnast’s photograph.
    West had had to say please . West had had to beg.
    Lannie had said, You must always like me best .
    And West repeated like a little boy learning a little lesson, I will always like you best .
    He never thought of Lannie again, let alone liked her best, Meghan realized. He liked cars best, and football best, and then finally he liked me best.
    West set the lunch tray down, his face pale, upper lip fringed with sweat. “I remember,” he said. His voice was vacant.
    Meghan was afraid to look around. What if she met Lannie’s eyes? Those terrible bleached eyes could illuminate a dark yard, like