One Way by Norah McClintock Page A

I know it, my feet are so high up in the air that it looks like I’m standing on a cloud.
    Then I feel myself flipping over.
    I let go of the handlebars, not that it makes any difference. My legs have arced over my head and are starting to come down again. A moment later, I’m stretched out straight, like I’m lying on an invisible bed. I see that that’s how I’m going to hit the pavement—flat on my back. I think, Thank god I’m wearing a helmet, which, believe me, is something I never think. Mostly I think that helmets are for wusses.
    My legs continue to fall, and the top part of my body starts to right itself. For a moment I think I’m going to land on my feet— ta-DA ! But I don’t. I splat onto the ground.
    Except it isn’t the ground that I land on. It’s something kind of lumpy. My bike falls on top of me.
    Maybe I’m out for a few seconds. Maybe I’m out longer. I don’t know. But I’m definitely out cold, because when I open my eyes, there are people crowded around me, and I can’t figure out where they came from. I hear someone say, “Do you think she’s alive?” I think, What an idiot! In the first place, you could be Einstein’s half-witted brother and still tell at a glance that I’m a guy, not a girl. In the second place, when was the last time you saw a dead person open his eyes?
    I blink a couple of times. My head is pounding. I hurt everywhere—my back, my legs, my arms.
    Someone starts to lift the bike off me.
    Someone else says, “Maybe you should leave it where it is, you know, for the cops.”
    A third person says, “They’re sending an ambulance.”
    Another person, a girl, is crying.
    The first two people are arguing about whether or not to leave my bike on top of me when all of a sudden it’s lifted off me. I look up and see my best friend T.J.
    â€œHey, Kenz, are you okay?” he says. Then he looks at whatever I landed on, and his face goes pale.
    I’m trying to sit up when the ambulance arrives and the paramedics push their way through the crowd. They stop and stare for a moment. Two cops in uniform show up. The four of them—the two paramedics and the two cops—talk for a few seconds. Then the cops start taking charge of the crowd, telling everyone to move back. One of the paramedics asks me if I can move. I say yes. He tells me to lie still all the same because they’re going to lift me off the girl.
    Girl? What girl?
    Before I can ask, I’m being strapped onto a board, hoisted into the air and put down again, gently. That’s when I see her—the girl.
    It’s Stassi.
    Her eyes are closed. She’s not moving. There’s blood under her head, and she is lying partly on the edge of the sidewalk and partly on the road. One of the paramedics presses a stethoscope to her chest. Before I can find out what he hears—or doesn’t hear—the second paramedic kneels down beside me, blocking my view and asking me questions while he checks me out.
    It turns out I haven’t broken anything, at least, not as far as they can tell. They want to take me to the hospital for a thorough examination. They want to know my name and who they should call.
    More cops arrive and talk to the two who are already there. I hear the word victim .

Chapter Two
    As soon as I hear that word— victim — I try to get up. That’s how addled I am. I completely forget that I am strapped to a board.
    The paramedic must think I’m freaking out, because he tries to calm me down. I tell him I want to get up. I tell him I have to get up, I have to see what happened. He tells me to “Take it easy, partner.” He keeps telling me that until I am loaded into the ambulance
    The next thing I know, I’m at the hospital. Everything is a blur. A doctor is telling me I’m lucky that nothing is broken but that I’m going to feel some pain because