Save Chelsea
Raven Baxter took her textbook out of her locker and stuffed it into her backpack. Her friend Eddie came up to her, waving three tickets in the air. "Ray! Guess what? I got three tickets to the Bomb Diggity Dogs for Friday night."
"Oh my gosh!" Raven cried. "Eddie, how did you do it? The Bomb Diggity Dogs are only like the hottest band in the San Francisco area at the moment."
"Tell me about it. That lead singer is my kind of girl," said Eddie.
"Yeah well that bass player ain't too shabby himself," Raven added, taking one of the tickets from Eddie's hand. "Hey, sixth row. Not bad. Not bad at all."
Chelsea Daniels skipped down the hallway toward her two friends. "Hey, guys, what's up?"
"Chels, Eddie scored us three tickets for the Bomb Diggity Dogs on Friday night!" Raven squealed, grabbing hold of Chelsea's hands and jumping up and down with her.
"Oh my gosh, that bass player is so hot!" Chelsea exclaimed.
"I know, girl!"
"Okay, enough about the bass player." Eddie yanked the ticket out of Raven's hands. "I'll be keeping these for you ladies until then. How about a little thank you?"
"Thank you, Eddie," Raven and Chelsea said together, planting a kiss on each side of Eddie's cheek.
"Now that's more like it," said Eddie.
Raven danced into her house after school, snapping her fingers.
"What's wrong with you?" her little brother Cory, who was sitting on the couch playing video games, asked.
"I'm going to the Bomb Diggity Dogs concert on Friday," Raven bragged, taking a seat next to her brother.
"No fair!" Cory cried. "I want to go with you."
"That's just too bad, because Eddie only got three tickets."
"Is Chelsea going?" Cory asked.
"Yeah."
"How about I pay you ten dollars and I go and sit next to Chelsea instead of you?" Cory tried to bargain.
"Ten dollars? I don't think so," said Raven.
Suddenly she lost focus on Cory and a vision appeared in her head. In the vision, Raven was sitting on her bed when the phone rang. She picked it up. "Hello?"
"Hey, this is Eddie," came Eddie's voice. "Raven, Chelsea died." Raven dropped the phone to her lap and gasped. Chelsea had died? Her best friend, dead? She could barely think as she picked the phone back up again and Eddie's voice said, "Could have been saved if she had just…"
Raven blinked as the vision disappeared from her head.
"Come on, Raven, please let me go?" Cory begged.
"I gotta go." Raven jumped up from the couch and ran out the door toward Chelsea's house.
Raven rushed into her friend's bedroom where Chelsea was lounging on her bed, tapping her finger against her math book to the beat of a music blaring out of her CD player.
"Chels!" Raven gasped. "Turn off the music!"
"What?" Chelsea looked confused and motioned to her ears. "I can't hear you!" she shouted.
Raven marched over to Chelsea's CD player and smacked the "Off" button.
"Hey, what did you do that for?" Chelsea asked, raising herself to a sitting position. She noticed the pained look in Raven's eyes. "Hey, what's up, Ray?"
"Look, Chelsea." Raven slowly sat down on Chelsea's bed and drew Chelsea into a hug. "I have some bad news for you."
"What is it?" Chelsea asked.
"I had a vision that I got a phone call from Eddie." Raven took a deep breath. "He said you had died."
Chelsea gasped. "What?"
"Yeah." Raven nodded. "In the vision I picked up the phone and it was Eddie, and he said, 'Raven, Chelsea died.' And then I was so shocked I dropped the phone for a second and when I picked it back up Eddie said, 'Could have been saved if she had just…'"
"If she had just what? If she had just what?" Chelsea demanded.
Raven shrugged. "That was the end of the vision."
"Wait, but Ray, there has to be more. I mean did I have a disease or did I get eaten by a bear or something?"
"I don't know." Raven looked at the floor and then back up to her friend. "But Chels, we gotta save you. I can't let you go." She hugged Chelsea tightly again. "You know what we're gonna do? We're gonna get you to a doctor, and we're gonna keep you out of danger for the rest of your life. You won't take any risks. You won't go in a car, you won't go in a plane, you won't eat food you can choke on, you won't…"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down, Raven," Chelsea said. "If I'm going to die anyway I might as well have fun before I go. And besides, we have that concert on Friday. I can't miss that."
"But you may be gone by then!" Raven cried. "Chelsea, you're my best friend and I'm going to do everything possible to protect you."
"All right." Chelsea sighed. "But should we tell Eddie about this?"
"No," Raven decided. "I don't want to worry him. He'll be the first to find out anyway. Now come on, girl, let's get you diagnosed."
Two hours later Chelsea walked into the waiting room of the doctor's office where Raven was sitting nervously, trying to read a magazine. She rose slowly and approached Chelsea. "So?"
Chelsea shrugged and smiled. "Nothing's wrong with me at all. I'm as healthy as can be."
"Oh, girl, that is so great." Raven threw her arms around Chelsea's neck.
"I know! Let's celebrate with some ice cream," Chelsea suggested.
"Wait, wait, wait. If it's not a disease it must be some kind of accident," Raven said. "Are you sure you're not lactose intolerant?"
"Of course not, silly," said Chelsea. "We eat ice cream together all the time."
"Okay, but no cookie dough in yours. It could have raw eggs or something," Raven warned.
"Right," said Chelsea.
They walked out of the clinic and stood by the traffic light. Chelsea pressed the button for pedestrian crossing. "Man, this light is taking forever. Maybe I die of standing here too long. Hey, Ray, look, there's a clearing. Let's cross."
"No way, girl. Look at that sign over there. It says 'Don't Walk.' You see it?"
"Yeah, Raven, I see it," Chelsea sighed impatiently, "but there's no car in sight. I'm going." She stepped out into the street and a second later a bright red car came speeding madly around the corner, heading straight for Chelsea.
"CHELS!" Raven screamed, quickly grabbing her friend's arm and pulling her onto the curb. "Girl, what are you DOING? You almost got KILLED!"
Chelsea smiled. "I know!" she shrieked.
Raven put her hand over her heart. "Do you even know how much you scared me? You almost gave me a heart attack! Don't EVER do that again, Chelsea Daniels!"
"Ray, calm down. It's a good thing. I almost got killed, and you saved me," said Chelsea. "So that must have been how I died in your vision!"
Raven furrowed her brow. "Are you sure?"
"Well, duh. I mean it was practically a freak accident, right?" Chelsea asked.
"I don't know," said Raven. "We better keep you out of danger for the next few days anyway just to make sure."
"Ray, could you at least think of a deadline for this whole 'keeping out of danger' thing? I still want to go to that concert on Friday." Chelsea crossed her arms over her chest.
Just then a vision popped into Raven's head. She and Eddie were standing against her locker at school, leaning on each other's shoulders and crying. The calendar tacked to the inside of Raven's locker door read "Wednesday."
"I just had a vision that you died by Wednesday," Raven said.
"Ray! That's in two days," said Chelsea.
"I know."
"Does this mean I have to miss the concert?"
"Girl, there's no time to think about the concert now. We're taking you straight to your house and you're staying in bed for the next two days." Raven began dragging Chelsea down the sidewalk. "Come on. And don't forget to watch the cracks."
"Where's Chelsea?" Eddie asked the next day at school.
"Oh, um, she's sick. She won't be able to do anything for the next two days," said Raven. "Nothing. Nope. She won't be doing anything."
"Well I sure hope she gets better by Friday for that concert," Eddie said.
Raven walked to Chelsea's house after school to see if she was still faring well. Chelsea lay in bed, bored.
"Raven, my mom won't let me leave my room. She thinks I have pneumonia or something," Chelsea complained.
"Why does she think that?" Raven asked.
"Because this morning when she tried to wake me up for school I started going like this." Chelsea began coughing as loudly as she could, and doubled over on her bed, convulsing as she sputtered.
"Whoa, girl, enough. I get it," Raven told her.
"Yeah, pretty impressive, huh?" Chelsea asked.
Mrs. Daniels flung open the door to Chelsea's room. "Are you all right, sweetheart?"
"Yeah, Mom, I'm…"
"Oh, hi, Mrs. Daniels. Chelsea's really sick. She'll need to stay in bed for at least one more day." Raven smiled at Chelsea's mother.
"Raven, you should probably leave if you don't want to catch the infection," Mrs. Daniels advised.
"You're totally right. I just came over to drop off Chelsea's homework. I'll go in a minute and let her rest," said Raven.
"All right." Mrs. Daniels left and closed the door to Chelsea's room.
"Raven, I'm really bored. Keep me entertained," Chelsea begged.
"Look, I'm gonna go, but promise me you won't do anything stupid," Raven said. "Okay?"
"Promise," Chelsea sighed.
Raven hugged Chelsea tightly. "In case I never see you again."
Chelsea rolled her eyes. "I'll see you tomorrow, Raven."
Raven walked into her room after dinner to do her homework and sat down on her bed. The phone rang and she picked it up. "Hello?"
"Hey, this is Eddie. Raven, Chelsea died."
Raven gasped and dropped the phone. "No!" she cried. "No! I did everything I possibly could to help her! What could have gone wrong?" She picked the phone back up, practically in tears.
"Could have been saved if she had just…"
"Raven!" Cory burst into Raven's room. "Mom says she's going to try to get me tickets to the concert."
Raven chased Cory out the door, holding the phone over his head threateningly, and slammed it behind him. She put the phone back up to her ear.
"Well, I guess I'll see you at school tomorrow," Eddie said. "Bye."
Raven hung up the phone and sat on her bed in shock. Why couldn't she have saved Chelsea? She felt like everything was all her fault.
She could hardly sleep that night. She woke up at four in the morning to look through her photo scrapbook. Pictures of Chelsea and her filled the book: The two of them with their faces painted when they were six, eating cotton candy at an amusement park, both of them sitting on Santa's lap, doing each other's makeup at a sleepover. Raven already missed her friend so much.
The next day Raven wore all black to school and walked somberly down the hallway. Eddie was standing by her locker. Raven opened her locker door to get her books out. "So I heard about Chelsea. It's awful, isn't it?"
"Yeah, just remember not to say anything to her," said Eddie.
"Eddie, I'm psychic. I can't communicate with the dead," said Raven.
"Huh?" Eddie asked.
"Hey, guys!" Chelsea walked up to Eddie and Raven wearing a hooded sweatshirt and jeans. "How is everyone this fine day?"
"Chelsea!" Raven cried. "What are you doing here?"
"What do you mean what am I doing here? Oh, you mean the being in bed thing? Yeah, my mom took me to the doctor and she said I wasn't sick, so she made me came to school. But you know what, I'm so over the death thing." Chelsea waved it off with her hand.
"No, I mean what are you doing alive?" Raven asked. "Eddie called last night and said you had died."
"I did?" Eddie asked.
"Uh, yeah. Don't you remember?" Raven said.
"Yeah. I said…" Eddie looked at Chelsea and then back to Raven. "I said Chelsea had dyed her hair. And it looks lovely," he added in a sweet voice, glancing back at Chelsea.
"Yeah, right, you guys." Chelsea pulled down the hood from her sweatshirt and shook out her hair, which was neon green with yellow stripes. "It's a disaster."
Raven and Eddie leaned against each other's shoulders, laughing.
"Oh man," Eddie gasped between chuckles. "I can't believe you did that."
"Hey, you said last night on the phone you weren't going to make fun of me!" Chelsea told him.
"Wait a minute, you guys, what's going on?" Raven asked.
"Well Chelsea was really bored so she had this brilliant idea to try to get her hair dyed to look like the lead singer of the Bomb Diggity Dogs," Eddie explained.
"Isn't she blond?" Raven asked.
"Yeah. Eddie and I went to this hair salon and the lady dyed my hair like this." Chelsea pointed to her head.
"So then Chelsea was really mad because I was making fun of her head," Eddie continued. "So I called you and told you that Chelsea had dyed her hair."
"But you said that she could have been saved," Raven said. "What did you mean by that?"
"I said, a lot of money could have been saved if she had just done it herself instead of going to some fancy stylist!" Eddie said. "And then I told you not to say anything to her at school tomorrow."
"Ohhhh….," said Raven.
"So that's the phone call from your vision? I spent the last two days in bed for no reason?" Chelsea asked.
"Hey, girl, if you had stayed in bed like I told you you wouldn't have that awful hair, now would you?" Raven retorted.
"I'm ready to go to the concert!" Cory emerged from his room, slicking back his hair with a comb.
"Ew, Cory, what's that smell?" Raven asked.
"A whole bottle of cologne," Cory told her.
"All right. Come on, let's go," said Raven. "Just try not to drool on Chelsea too much, all right."
"Hey, baby. Your new hair is looking awfully sexy," Cory noted when he saw Chelsea at the concert.
"Hey, thanks." A smile lit up Chelsea's face. "At least someone likes it."
"Yeah, maybe it'll become a trend," said Eddie as they found their seats. "Ray, maybe you can dye your hair that color next."
Raven snorted. "Yeah right. I'd rather be dead than caught with a style like that."
"Hey!" Chelsea shot her a warning glance.
"Whoops. Sorry," Raven apologized, just as the music was starting.