Anne spotted Bertholdt under a tree at their recess, his knees tucked up to his chest and his expression forlorn. She grabbed onto Reiner's hand and dragged him towards their quiet friend. It made Anne's little heart hurt whenever she saw him sitting alone. "Bertl!" she exclaimed as she got closer, Reiner grumbling something about how he wanted to eat his lunch.
Bertholdt looked up from his feet, his face turning a little red. "Hallo," he whispered, barely audible. To Anne, that small greeting was enough of a victory; Bertholdt was selectively mute and had great difficulties speaking.
"Hey, Bertl. May we eat lunch with you?" Anne asked, making a conscious effort to ask questions that could be answered with a shake of the head. While Bertholdt had become much better at speaking with her and Reiner, she tried to offer him many opportunities to communicate nonverbally.
Bertholdt nodded, before adding a faint, "Ja."
Reiner beamed Bertholdt one of his large smiles, sinking down onto the grass on the other side of their friend. He began chomping down on the apple in his lunchbox; Anne began eating the bunch of red grapes that her father had packed. She personally hated the red ones. Why couldn't her father get green grapes, like she always asked?
Something was amiss, but Reiner vocalized it before she ever noticed exactly what was wrong. "Bertl, did you eat your lunch already?"
Bertholdt shook his head. "Nein." He rested his head on his arms as he stared vacantly at the swing set.
"We can play on the swings later," Anne offered, pushing her blonde bangs out of her eyes. Feeling concern gnawing at her stomach, she asked, "Bertl… do you have a lunch today?"
Bertholdt shook his head again. "Mutti forgot."
As much as Anne would revel in Bertholdt saying more than just ja or nein, she felt uncontrollable rage filling her small body. Bertholdt often went without lunches. His mom, though seeming to be a kind woman from Anne's few interactions with her, was clearly forgetful at best and intentionally neglectful at worst. Anne often thought of going to the teacher and explaining Bertholdt's situation for him, but sometimes the teacher was less than understanding of Bertholdt's inability to speak. Anne did not want to draw that sort of attention to Bertholdt, for fear that he'd stop talking to her entirely.
But Reiner seemed intent on telling someone in charge about Bertholdt's frequent missing lunches. He put the peanut butter and jelly sandwich back in his lunch box and stood up abruptly, his head moving back and forth as he sought out their teacher. "This isn't okay," Reiner said firmly. "Bertl, someone needs to tell your mom that she can't just forget about lunch, okay? I know you can't say anything to Frau Schumann, so I'll say it for you."
"Reiner, sit back down," Anne said, scolding him slightly. "Let's make sure Bertl has something to eat, then we'll find the teacher. Got it?"
"Got it," Reiner grumbled, sitting down again. "What do you want for lunch?"
Bertholdt shook his head, shifting slightly away from Reiner. "I'm okay."
"You need to eat," Anne said sternly. "If you don't eat, you're not going to feel well later. We have plenty of food to share with you, Bertl, so don't feel like you're stealing from us."
"Okay," Bertholdt mumbled, staring down at his feet.
"Here, eat half of my sandwich," Reiner said in an almost commanding tone. Wordlessly Bertholdt took the offered peanut butter and jelly sandwich, biting into it aggressively.
Anne could tell that Bertholdt had been very hungry. "You can have the rest of my grapes, too. I hate the red ones." She turned to offer the awful grapes to her friend.
She would not get a reply, not even a nonverbal one. "Bertl!" she yelled, panic flooding her. Bertholdt's face was swelling up, especially around his eyes, so much that he could not open them. He alternated between wheezing and coughing, his skin flushed as he struggled to breathe. "Reiner, we need to do something!" Anne yelled, feeling almost frozen in terror.
Reiner was crying, his knuckles white as he clutched Bertholdt's arm. He looked as terrified as Anne felt. "What's wrong with him?" Reiner yelled back, fear making his voice waver.
"I don't know!" Anne cried, standing up so quickly she saw black spots in her vision. "Stay with Bertl, I'll go find the teacher," she commanded as calmly as she could, before tearing across the lawn as quickly as her short legs would carry her.
Between Anne's yelling and Reiner's crying, their teacher had already been alerted to the emergency. Anne met the teacher half-way, almost running into the woman at a full sprint. Unable to stave away tears, Anne wailed, "please, Frau Schumann, something's very wrong with Bertholdt! He can't breathe and his face is all swollen!"
Anne found herself following her teacher as the woman marched over to the tree. Bertholdt's skin seemed bluish when Anne returned, taking in short, gasping breaths. Reiner was futilely trying to wipe his tears away as their teacher approached. "He's having a bad allergic reaction," their teacher assessed, seeming calm though Annie could see her fear in the tightness of her face. "We'll need to make an emergency call."
Without another word, their teacher stooped down to picked Bertholdt up off the grass, before she carried him off towards the school building. Reiner and Anne followed her at a run, trying to keep up with her. Reiner held the door open for their teacher, his hands shaking. "Please be okay," Anne heard him mutter as she walked through the door.
Their teacher took Bertholdt to the school nurse, placing him on one of the cots before picking up the telephone and dialing 1-1-2. Anne eavesdropped from the doorway, but her teacher was speaking in such hushed tones with the operator that she did not get much out of it. She did catch the word "anaphylaxis", though. It was a scary word, she decided as she cast another glance at Bertholdt, gasping desperately for breath. She felt her eyes go wide as the nurse stabbed something— it looked like a needle— into Bertholdt's leg. She let out an involuntary shriek, clapping her hand over her mouth.
The phone conversation finished, their teacher turned to stare at Anne and Reiner. "Did Bertholdt tell you that he had any allergies? You're the only ones that boy will speak to."
Reiner shook his head, his face blanched. "No… he wouldn't tell us something like that unless we asked…"
"Did he eat anything that might have triggered the reaction?" their teacher asked sternly.
"Yes!" Reiner replied, tears springing to his hazel eyes again. "I… I gave him some of my peanut butter and jelly sandwich."
"Peanut allergies are fairly common," the nurse affirmed. Anne dared to take another peek into the nurse's office. The swelling wasn't getting worse, but Bertholdt's eyes were still swollen shut and he wheezed as though every breath was a battle. Every breath was a battle, Anne realized, her blood going cold.
"He won't die, will he?" Anne asked desperately. Judging by the glare that her teacher gave her, this was clearly the wrong thing to say.
"You two. Can you return to your afternoon class?" their teacher asked them sternly.
Anne glanced over at Reiner as he shook his head, staring down at his feet. "I'm scared," he confessed. He was more than scared. Anne could tell by the way Reiner shook uncontrollably and by the glistening of tears in his eyes.
She shook her head as well. "I'd like to go home," she admitted. She was trying to keep composure like her father would tell her to, but she needed to return home so she could cry into her pillow.
"I'll leave the care of the boy to you," their teacher said to the nurse, before escorting Anne and Reiner to the school secretary. Within minutes both their parents had been contacted and told to pick them up from school, but not before Anne heard sirens blaring and the sound of assertive voices in the hallway, giving commands in medical gobbledygook.
"Bertl will be okay, Reiner," Anne said to her friend, as much to assure herself as it was to assure him. Even so, she could not help but feel terrified as the sirens faded away again, taking Bertholdt with them.
—
"We shouldn't be walking alone," Anne scolded Reiner as they walked towards the Hoover home. The windows had been dark until an hour ago. Reiner had been watching from his kitchen window, and he'd found Anne after he had confirmation that Bertholdt's mother was home. Without alerting their parents, they snuck out together to visit the Hoover home in the hopes that Bertholdt was back from the hospital.
"You were the one who decided that we should go without telling our parents," Reiner retorted.
"I said I wasn't going to tell my dad. But my dad doesn't care about what I do," Anne replied, "your parents might. I never said you shouldn't tell your parents."
Reiner rolled his eyes.
Anne doubled her pace, feeling distinctly worried that Frau Hoover had returned home without her son. Reiner huffed as he tried to keep up. Before long, they were at the front door of the Hoover house, and Reiner apprehensively knocked on the door. They had half a mind to turn around and go home, but finally Bertholdt's mother answered the door.
"You two are here to ask about Bertholdt?" she asked, her voice exposing her exhaustion as badly as the dark circles under her eyes.
Anne gave a firm nod. Reiner stared at his feet, unusually quiet.
"We just got back from the hospital. He has a very severe peanut allergy," Bertholdt's mother explained. "Apparently he ingested some peanut butter yesterday at school. I did hear that you two were the ones to alert the teacher. For that, I'm very grateful. If he'd been alone, he might have died."
Anne felt like yelling that if Bertholdt's mother actually remembered to feed him, like a good parent would, Bertholdt would not have had a reaction in the first place. But something about the woman seemed different, though Anne could not hope to articulate what it was.
"Can we see him?" Reiner asked, his nerves showing in the way his voice wavered.
"Of course. He may be asleep though. It was a rough night for him at the hospital," Bertholdt's mother replied. "They had to wake him every two hours, just to be safe. He could barely keep his eyes open on the drive back." With that, Bertholdt's mother held the door open for them.
Anne and Reiner rushed in, kicking off their shoes in the entryway before scrambling up the carpeted stairs. They burst into Bertholdt's room to find him asleep, though he snapped awake at the sound of them entering. "Nana?" he said sleepily. "Reiner?"
"Bertl!" they exclaimed in unison, jumping up onto his bed and enveloping him in a large hug.
Bertholdt's face was bright red as they pulled away. "You're looking a lot better!" Anne said, "Your face was really badly swollen yesterday. You didn't even look like you. I hated it."
"And you don't have to wheeze anymore!" Reiner added. "It was scary. It sounded like you couldn't breathe."
"I couldn't breathe…" Bertholdt said softly, so soft that Anne nearly did not hear him.
"But you're all better now?" Anne asked, a smile breaking upon her face.
Bertholdt gave a firm nod. "Can't… ever eat peanuts again, though."
Anne wrapped her friend in another hug. "I'm just so happy you're alive, Bertl!" she exclaimed, feeling tears spring to her eyes again.
Reiner remained sullen. He grabbed Bertholdt's hand, and as solemnly as his eight-year old voice could muster, he said, "Bertl… I'm really, really sorry that I fed you the peanut butter yesterday. If I hadn't, you wouldn't have gone to the hospital. Your mother said you could have died… and I would have been to blame." He wiped the tears out of his eyes with the back of his hand.
Anne could tell that Bertholdt desperately wanted to say something, but was struggling to make the words come out. "Do you blame Reiner for what happened?" Anne asked, hoping that the simple yes-or-no question would be something Bertholdt could answer.
Much to her relief, Bertholdt shook his head. "No… y-you just w-wanted to give me lunch," he stuttered.
"I don't think anyone could have known what would happen," Anne added. "It was completely an accident. Don't blame yourself, Reiner."
Bertholdt yawned, clearly exhausted from his hospital stay. "Do you want to sleep?" Reiner asked. Bertholdt gave a small nod in reply.
Wordlessly Anne pulled Reiner off the bed, but not before they gave their friend one more hug. With the assurance that their friend was alive and all right, they returned to their homes. And ever after that day, Bertholdt came to school every day with his own lunch. Anne wanted to think that Frau Hoover was starting to take care of her son.
The more things change, the more things stay the same, Annie thought to herself as she pulled the keys to Bertholdt and Reiner's apartment out of her pocket. In addition to the hoodie, Bertholdt had begged that Annie pick up his bicycle from the chemistry building because he was afraid it would be stolen. She hadn't had the heart to refuse him, but she soon realized that taking the bicycle home was easier said than done.
She struggled to keep Bertholdt's tall, unwieldy bike upright as she turned the key in the lock. That was the wrong way, she realized grumpily. Turning the key in the lock again, the door finally opened, allowing Annie to deposit the bike in Bertholdt's accustomed spot. She walked away, before she suddenly remembered to put a towel between the bike and the wall.
Reiner would never keep his cool when Bertholdt went into anaphylactic shock; Annie was certain of this now. Eight-year-old Reiner cried, ten-year-old Reiner cried and insisted that he could not be separated from Bertholdt, sixteen-year-old Reiner confessed his love with tears running down his cheeks, seventeen-year-old Reiner nearly cracked the skull of the kid who lied about the peanut butter cookies, and twenty-two-year-old Reiner froze in fear and cursed and made crude jokes to hide his terror.
Reiner might be Bertholdt's boyfriend now, instead of just his childhood playmate. He played competitive football now and had shot up a few feet in height (though Bertholdt had grown even taller). But he still referred to Bertholdt as "Bertl" and he couldn't keep his cool when Bertholdt was in anaphylaxis.
Likewise, Anne would remain in control when Bertholdt went into anaphylactic shock, always there to run and get help while Reiner kept a hold on Bertholdt. She was always terrified by his reactions but was able to channel that fear into calling 112. She would never be able to use the auto-injector, though. She had shrieked the first time she saw an EpiPen being used on Bertholdt. Even as a seventeen-year-old with enough clarity to put in an articulate emergency call, she had still screamed when Reiner stabbed the EpiPen into Bertholdt's thigh.
Annie had abandoned being called by "Anne" and "Nana". She had a far more strained relationship with her father and she was the only one in Güdingen that Reiner and Bertholdt were out to. She'd become much better at taking down people twice her size. But she remained very short compared to her friends and she was internally grateful she'd not been there to see the EMT deliver emergency doses of epinephrine.
Yes, many things had changed between Bertholdt's first experience with anaphylactic shock and his seventh, but even with all that time, the emotions Annie felt when she first saw Bertholdt's swollen face and the moment the EMT called… Those emotions were not dramatically different. At heart she was still that eight-year-old who was deathly afraid for her quiet friend, even though now Bertholdt was no longer plagued with his selective mutism. Annie picked up the hoodie off the floor, turned out the lights, and left the apartment, sure to lock the door behind her.