"Now, don't you stay up too late," Ferris's mom warned. She stared down at him. "Sleep helps the immune system."
Ferris nodded, grinning inwardly. It was so easy to dupe Katie that he almost felt bad tricking her so simply. "I know. I know..." He sighed dramatically. "It's just that I've been sleeping all day..."
"I know, Honey." She leaned down to reach him where he was on the couch and kissed him on the forehead lovingly. "Goodnight. Love you."
Ferris waited until she'd disappeared down the hallway before he threw off his blanket. He padded into the kitchen, where he poured himself a glass of orange Tang, and quietly went back out to the living room. Making himself comfortable on the couch, he turned on the TV and flipped through the channels until he found an episode of Miami Vice.
He watched for a while, but every time the Ferrari came on screen, Ferris fidgeted and felt his stomach twist in his stomach. Just the sight of it was enough to make him swim with guilt for what had happened to Mr. Frye's car.
The day had been a good one overall, and Cameron seemed to enjoy it too, but Ferris couldn't stop worrying about the "little chat" Cameron was going to have with his dad about the car. He thought about what Cameron had said earlier, comparing his retainer to the Ferrari, and Ferris became even more nervous.
He remembered the retainer incident pretty well. It had been in seventh grade. Cameron, on Ferris's insistence ("...or you'll be finding a new best friend!"), was playing soccer during lunch at school. After having the ball kicked at his mouth, his retainer had fallen out and was stepped on by someone on the other team—whether or not it was on purpose, Ferris had never been sure. He would never forget the horrified look on Cameron's face at seeing the plastic fragments shattered on the grass; Ferris imagined he'd had the same look when he looked out the demolished window of the Fryes' garage.
When Mr. Frye had picked Cameron up from school that day, he'd been able to tell right off the bat that his son was hiding something. Cameron confessed, and Ferris, who was waiting for his mom all the way on the other side of the parking lot, had heard Mr. Frye shouting for a good ten minutes before they drove away. As the car pulled away, Ferris had seen Cameron curling in on himself, as if he was trying to hide in the cushion of his seat.
'That was a little piece of plastic. This is a Ferrari.'
Ferris involuntarily shivered. He pushed his blanket away again and started to head up to bed. He was halfway up the stairs when he heard something he was very used to hearing: The Piece of Shit was coming down the street. That wasn't strange. Cameron had been known to show up at the Buellers' house at the middle of the night for any number of reasons, most of which included the line, "I'm dying."
Ferris immediately launched back and raced down the stairs. When he got outside, he watched Cameron pull his car up the driveway slowly, park, and hesitate to pull his key from the ignition.
Curious about his friend's indecision, Ferris walked over and rapped on the car window. "Hey, Stir-Frye, you in there?" he called.
Cameron, who had his head tilted down and hadn't seen him coming, jumped. After a moment, he nodded. He turned off The Piece of Shit jerkily and slid out of the car, slamming the door behind him with a metallic clang.
"How'd it go?" Ferris asked, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Cameron didn't say anything, and they started walking up to the house together. "The talk—with your dad—I mean."
Cameron sighed. "Not so well," he admitted and turned his head toward Ferris for the first time.
Ferris stopped walking and gaped up at the nasty bruise that ran down the entire left side of his best friend's face. "Holy shit..." he breathed out. The bruise was an almost innocent shade of red that told the world it was fairly new and was going to get worse before it got better.
Cameron just shook his head. He walked up into the house and sat down in the kitchen. Ferris, who followed quickly, sat beside him. In the light of the kitchen chandelier, he could see that his best friend's lip was split too.
There was a long stretch of silence. Ferris grappled for the right words to say, but he couldn't think of anything that seemed right. He could ask the standard Who and Why, but he already knew the answers. He could apologize for starting the whole thing with the car, but Cameron would just blame himself for giving in to Ferris that morning.
"You want some ice?" he finally blurted out.
Cameron shook his head. "I'm fine."
"Okay," Ferris said, nodding. For once in his life, he had absolutely no idea what to say. Finally, he had to ask: "Because of the car?"
Cameron nodded and shrugged. "And because I finally had the balls to yell back." He chuckled, ringing his hands. "When Morris got home I was sitting right where the car should've been"—he laughed again—"and you should have seen his face… God—I wish I'd recorded it. The bastard looked like he could die right there. And then he starts screaming at me, 'Where's the car? Huh? What'd you do, you little shit?'"
Ferris chewed on his bottom lip, staring at Cameron without saying anything. His best friend had a weird expression on his face: a mix of amusement, anger, and despair. Ferris wanted to say something that a friend should say in a situation like this, but he couldn't get his mind to work properly and form a useful sentence. Unable to say something supportive, he gulped out, "So what did you do?"
Cameron was still wearing that stupid, completely inappropriate grin on his face. "I stood up and I told him to look out the window." His smile started to flicker away. "And he looked—and he flipped out."
Cameron stopped there, as if he didn't want to say anything else, but he glanced over at Ferris, who knew that he probably looked the biggest idiot ever with his mouth open and his eyes wide. "Anyway," Cameron said, taking in a deep breath, "He starts screaming at me again and, for the first time ever, I yelled back. I said—uh—'Maybe if you acted like you loved something other than your fucking car once in a while this wouldn't have happened.' So he spins around and next thing I know…" He waved to his face. "But eventually he calmed down, so I came here."
Ferris stared at Cameron for a long time before he said, "I think the blow up mattress is still in my room from last time." There; that was all he had to say for Cameron to give a small smile and start walking up to Ferris's room.