Cass was laying on her bed, painting her nails a nice shade of red, when her cell phone rang. Carefully, not wanting to get her nails wet, she slowly picked up the phone and rested it between her head and shoulder. She hadn't looked at the contact, so whoever it was was going to be a surprise.
"Hello?" she said, beginning to paint her pinky.
"Cass, it's me, Max-Ernest. I need you to come over. Preferably now." Cass had never heard him talk so demanding before.
"What's wrong?" She was starting to get a little worried.
"I can't tell you... it's not safe. Please, just come over quick!"
So a puzzled Cass grabbed her backpack and ran out the door in a flustered hurry. Sometimes you just did things for your friends, even if you had no idea what you were doing.
When she got to Max-Ernest's house, she opened the in a hurry. Her hand slipped a little bit from spazzing out and being so anxious. When she got inside, all was quiet.
"Max-Ernest?" she yelled, slowly closing the door. She didn't realize how dark it was in there until all the light from outside had been gone.
"CASS!"
Max-Ernest sounded like he was upstairs, but she couldn't tell. The first place she checked was his room.
Unfortunately when she got there, he wasn't on his bed reading up on Houdini or jokes like he normally was. He wasn't there at all. She marched down the stairs, a little bit abruptly.
"Max-Ernest, this isn't some game of Marco Polo! Just tell me where you are! Better yet, come down here!"
"CAAAAAASSSSS!"
Cass now knew where he was! He was in the kitchen it sounded like.
As she neared closer to the kitchen, she heard something like... bubbles. It was a pot boiling. All of a sudden, a horrible smell hit her in the nose. Something was burning! And there was smoke everywhere!
She was scared. And yet somehow excited. Now was her chance to use her survival skills! For years she had been preparing for something like this to happen, and now she could finally prove to everyone just how good she was. She got to the ground. That was always the first thing you did when there was smoke. Since smoke rises, it would be easier to breath if she was lower. She crawled into the kitchen. It was hard to see, but ever so faintly, she could make out two pairs of legs laying on the floor.
"Max-Ernest!" she chocked, reaching for his legs. She quickly dragged him out of the kitchen, still crawling on her tow legs, using every muscle she had. She was not going to let her best friend die. If she did, she could never live with herself. Some survivalist she would be...
Once they were both in the living room, out of the smoke, Max-Ernest was still unconscious. Cass started digging through her backpack.
There was nothing of use to her. She considered calling 911. She reached for her cell phone and dialed the number, worrying like crazy.
"911, what's your emergency?" asked a young lady with a caring voice.
"My friend, he's unconscious from breathing in too much smoke! Something is burning in the kitchen and we probably need some fire fighters too because I think the house is going to catch fire soon if you don't hurry please help I'm so scared I'm 14 and home alone with nobody but my unconscious friend please help what if he's dead OMG just please hurry!"
She was talking in a jumble. She wondered if maybe she spoke too fast for the lady to even understand her.
"We're on our way, sweetie. Can you just please tell me your address?"
The address? Oh crap! What was the address! Maybe it was written down somewhere...
She ran faster than she ever had before in her life. She ran all the way upstairs to Max-Ernest's room. She knew he had kept a school directory which had everyone's personal information in it. She opened his desk drawer where it was sitting, and she quickly turned through the pages until she found Max-Ernest's name. Surely enough there was his address.
"Xxxxx xx xxxxxx xxxx xx xxxxxxxxxxxxx xx," she said, trying hard not to pass out herself from her huge breathing. She was sucking in way more air than she was supposed to.
"Okay, sweetie. We'll be there in just a few short minutes. Try to stay calm okay? And by any chance, do you know CPR?"
Cass slapped herself on the forehead. How could she have forgotten the most obvious thing? CPR! Right now she was not acting very survivalist like...
She ran back downstairs to Max-Ernest side. She couldn't believe she was actually going to do CPR on her best friend. It was a good thing he was unconscious, otherwise it would have been 1,000 times more embarrassing than it already was. Even though she knew they were the only ones in the house, she checked behind her to make sure nobody was watching.
"Lets just get this over with," she sighed. She pinched Max-Ernest's nose shut, opened his mouth, leaned down, squeezed her eyes shut, and did what she had to.
It was the most awkward thing ever. Words seriously couldn't describe how she was feeling.
Suddenly, Max-Ernest's eyes opened. At first a little uneasy, and then completely shocked. Cass hadn't realized in time that he was awake before he pushed her off of him.
"What are you doing?!" he exclaimed, looking at her like she was a murderer.
"Saving your life!" she cried, too embarrassed to face him, so she turned around.
"What?"
"You heard me."
"How was that saving my life?"
"I was giving you CPR!"
"Oh."
Max-Ernest was looking away now too. There was a long silence, filled with nothing but the sound of the A.C.
"Do you... just wanna pretend this never happened?" he asked.
"Yes please," she replied. Thank god. She thought they would never be the same ever again. Then she remembered:
"You know the fire men will be here in a second..."
"Good. They can take care of that smoke in the kitchen."
"What happened anyway?"
"Mom told me to cook some lasagna for me and P.C.. I guess cooking really isn't my thing."
"Oh. Well, you can come to my house, and I can help you bake it. That way you can take it home and your Mom will never know what happened. I mean, if you want to..."
"Cass, it's okay. Of course I want to! Besides, I can't be mad at you for saving my life."
"Yeah, I guess your right," Cass giggled.
"