ii
"What the hell!" Todd hisses as quietly as he can, "How did you-"
"Climbed out my window, onto the roof, used the maple tree to climb onto your roof and climbed down from there." Neil says as if this is an obvious answer. He looks around the room, "Well this is different...I don't like it."
"What are you even doing here? In my house? Dressed like that? At 1:45 in the morning?"
"Weren't you listening? We're going on an adventure." Neil says starting for the door, "C'mon."
"But-" Todd says but Neil places a finger to his lips and creeps into the hallway. Todd really has no option but to follow him, he can't just have a wild Neil Perry roaming around in his house. He follows him down the stairs and into the garage.
"Neil!" Todd says as loudly as he dares, "What's going on?"
Neil ignores him, "Can we open the garage door without the automatic opener? I don't want to wake up your parents because next thing you know they're calling my parents and ruining our adventure."
"Yeah, but Neil-"
"How?"
"There's handles, but Neil listen-"
"These?" Neil asks gesturing at the handles.
"Yes, but-"
"Perfect!" Neil says and starts yanking the garage door up and bringing in the warm June night. He laughs to himself.
"Neil!" Todd hisses, "You haven't even- and haven't -and we don't -and I'm not even wearing shoes!" Which is not what he was going for even if it's true.
"Well, then go put some shoes on." Neil says glancing down at Todd's feet. "Here give me the keys, I'll get the van into the street and shut the garage door."
"No." Todd says anger rising in him.
"Okay, I can wait until you get back."
"No Neil, I mean that I am not giving you my keys and we are not going on some ridiculous adventure. You're going to go home and I'm going to go back to bed. Good night." Todd turns on his heel but Neil catches his hand.
"Wait, Todd-"
"No, you don't get to do this. You don't get to stop being my friend when it's inconvenient and then come waltzing back into my life when you need something. If you want to go on an adventure so badly ask Charlie Dalton."
"You're right." Neil says after a pause, "Look, I do need something but it's not your car or your help it's you Todd. I can't do this without you. I can't do this with Charlie or Ginny or anyone else because I have always done my adventures with you."
"When we were kids playing around in the woods. But I don't sneak out of the house and go on adventures because-because I'm not like you Neil."
"Well don't you think you could be?"
"No-I don't know. The point is that I'm not going on this adventure with you so you can just go home."
"No." He's got that stupid grin on his face and Todd is torn between wanting to kiss him and wanting to smack him.
"What do you mean 'no'?"
"No."
Todd can feel his resolve slipping already. He sighs, "Fine, fine. Here's the keys. I'll get my shoes." When he comes back into the garage his van is gone and the door is closed. He slips out the side door and the van is already on the street.
Todd jogs down the driveway and is surprised to see Neil already in the passenger seat. His long legs barely fit behind the dashboard. Todd climbs into the drivers side and starts the car, which sounds impossibly loud in the night. "So where are we going on this adventure?" Todd asks dryily.
"School." Neil says giddily.
"You woke me up at 1:45 to go to school? What the hell kind of adventure is this?"
"Just drive, it'll be worth it I promise."
They drive out of their subdivision which is completely dark and silent. It's a bit eerily actually, like a ghost town. Every little groan of the engine seems like it'll wake up everyone for miles around. "Geez Anderson, your car really sucks." Neil says.
"At least I have a car." Todd mutters under his breath.
"Touche. Turn here." Neil points as if Todd doesn't know how to get to his own school. It's quiet for a while as they drive in silence. Neil pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket and studies it carefully. Todd gives him a sideways glance.
"Hey, I'm sorry about you and Ginny." Todd says, just to have something to say. Or at least he pretends that's why.
"Oh, yeah." Neil says distractedly, "Well you know, these things happen. Especially before graduation and everything. I'm going off to school and Ginny'll still be here."
Todd stares at him as much as one can while driving. "What?" Neil says.
"You guys dated for like two whole years, you break up, you're clearly not upset about it yet you guys are still acting like best friends. What gives?"
Neil sighs and looks out his window. Todd thinks maybe he's fucked everything up and now Neil will demand he take him back home. It's a while before Neil says, "Can you keep a secret?"
"Well yeah, duh."
"No I mean like a real secret. Not one you only tell to one or two trustworthy people, like you can't tell anyone." Neil looks as worried as Todd has ever seen him.
"Okay."
"Promise."
"I promise." Todd says.
Neil inhales sharply through his nose and then exhales deeply. "Ginny was never my girlfriend."
"What? But you guys were always like holding hands and stuff. You were facebook official." Jesus Christ, Todd can't believe he just said 'facebook official', he's such an idiot.
Neil grins at him wryly, "You're such an idiot." But he says in much more nicely than Todd's mind did. "Okay, how about Ginny was my pretend girlfriend. Better?"
"Only a little. Why would you need a pretend girlfriend I mean at least a third of the girls at school would go out with you."
"You just drove through a red light." Neil says.
Todd looks in his rearview, "Crap. Let's hope there's no camera."
"You better hope there's no camera. I don't have a car." Neil smirks.
"You didn't answer my question."
"Well me and Ginny are really close and her parents were always on her case about finding a good boyfriend and my parents were always on my case about having a good girlfriend. So it just seemed easier to pretend. We like each other fine, we were going to hang out anyways. I mean it wasn't really a big deal."
"Wow, that was a great story which completely didn't answer my question at all. So you pretend to be dating Ginny, okay sure, but never in that entire two years did you ever think 'hmmm, I could have an actual girlfriend because I am Neil Perry and I am handsome, smart, popular, and nice'. "
"No." Neil says.
"Stop doing that!"
"I thought you knew." Neil says, grinning a little, like it's in spite of himself.
"Knew what?"
Neil turns in his seat, "Todd, I don't like girls."
It's a really good thing it's the middle of the night and the streets are deserted because Todd slams on the brakes and they're stopped in the middle of the road.
"Jesus, Todd!" Neil exclaims rubbing at his windpipe. "Ow."
"Sorry," Todd says checking his mirrors (surprise, surprise no ones around him) and eases off the brakes.
"That was not the reaction I was expecting." Neil says.
"Sorry, you just...I didn't know and...me too." Todd says, which is only half true. He's never really been attracted to anyone other than Neil and the fact that he was a boy always seemed so secondary to the fact that he was well, Neil.
They drive in silence the rest of the way.
Todd pulls into the student parking lot at 2:03 am and pulls right up alongside the push hall that separates the parking lot from the courtyard. "So what are we doing exactly?" Todd asks putting the van in park.
"Okay, so this is the part I didn't want to tell you ahead of time because I thought it might freak you out." Neil says.
"Oh goody."
"Look, I did a trial run yesterday and it went fine and that was only with one person."
"Okay, fine just tell me what it is." Todd says.
"We're going to use the van to climb on to the roof of the push hall and then climb up the tree in the courtyard onto the roof." Todd must look scared because Neil says, "No look, it's going to be fine. I've see you climb a million trees before."
"When I was like 10" Todd hisses, "This is insane!"
"It's an adventure! You can't spell adventure without insane."
"...Yes you can..."
"That's not the point. The point is it's time to take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!" And with that Neil climbs out of the passanger seat and pulls himself on top of the van.
"Did you just quote The Magic School Bus at me!?" Todd shouts getting out of the van, but Neil only grin at him before pulling himself onto the roof of the push hall and disappearing.
Getting up onto the top of the push hall wasn't actually that hard. But standing up there and looking at the tree they were supposed to climb Todd though he might as well have been looking at Mount Everest.
"Ready?" Neil asks and he's practically flushed with excitement, the tips of his ears bright pink. Todd makes his hands into a cradle and Neil uses it as a boost into the tree. As far as trees go it's not a bad one to climb, it's branches are thick and Todd's already making a mental map of how he's going to get up it. Just because he knew he could climb this tree didn't change the fact that he really didn't want to.
The thing was Todd hadn't climbed a tree since he was 11 when he attempted to climb the big maple tree on the edge between the Anderson and Perry properties. He had climbed that tree at least a hundred times but that was the first time he had attempted it without Neil and Todd had fallen three quarters of the way up. He broke his left wrist in two places and his mother had called an arbourist to come and cut off some of the lower branches. It hadn't mattered though, Todd's tree-climbing days were over. Until now.
Todd pulls himself on a branch and is already looking for his next foothold. It's only a 12 foot climb but Neil is almost all the way to the roof of the school. He's on a branch waiting for Todd and that helps. Todd just concentrates on making his way to Neil and stops thinking about the phantom pains in his wrists and how when he fell he was sure he was going to die. He doesn't think about that and suddenly Neil's hand is reaching out to clasp his and he's pulling him onto the roof.
It's funny, because they're not even that high up, only two storeys but everything already looks so insignificant from this angle. His van the size of a deck of cards. "C'mon," Neil says beckoning Todd over to to a weird hatch on the roof.
"What's that?" Todd asks.
"It's a access hatch for the custodians." Neil says like this is somehow obvious. "It's leads right into the drama storage room."
"And it's just unlocked?"
"Nope." Neil says grinning and pulling a key out of his pocket, "Being drama club president has its perks." He opens the hatch and there must be a ladder or something because he climbs down into the dark. "Come on Todd!" He calls from down below.
Todd climbs down into the pitch black and his feet hit the floor awkwardly when he tries to go for another rung that isn't there. He can feel more than see Neil standing right in front of him and he hopes Neil can't hear the way his heart is thundering.
Suddenly a light clicks on. Todd blinks because it's way too bright way too fast. "Sorry 'bout that" Neil says and he's somehow managed to get to the other side of the room. It's a complete mess littered with set pieces and costumes and props from their latest show. A Midsummer Night's Dream, Todd had gone to every performance and sat in the back. If anyone asked it was because he thought it was important to support the drama club. If Neil asked it was because Todd wanted to watch him.
"You were really great in the play," Todd says, Neil's always been a good actor, ever since they did their Christmas play in grade 1, The Polar Express. Neil only had one line - "Golly!"- but somehow he managed to steal the show nevertheless.
Neil snorts, "Tell my dad that. He didn't even bother coming. He thinks it's a waste of time. As if I haven't spend the majority of my time working my ass off to get into Harvard to make him happy." His voice has gone dangerous all of a sudden and Todd has never seen Neil like this. He's heard him argue with his dad before, just wordless shouts coming through the walls between their houses, but he's never imagined that Neil didn't want to go to Harvard.
"Oh here it is." His voice is completely different, full of energy and life, the Neil Todd's always known. Neil pulls a painted set piece out of the way to reveal stacked milk crates against the wall. At least a dozen of them Todd guesses. They seem to be filled with red plastic cups. The type people have a parties.
"What the hell?" Todd asks.
"It's my secret collection." Neil says proudly.
"Your secret collection of cups?"
"No, it's my collection of secrets." Neil laughs gleefully and it's like he's Puck again, magical yet dangerous.
They carry the milk crates full of cups (which are wonderfully light) out of the drama storage room, down the stairs and onto the main floor. Neil disappears somewhere and reappears with two pitchers filled with water. He had shown Todd a diagram of what they were doing upstairs in the storage room but Todd still isn't convinced it's going to work. They're going to cover the entire main floor of the school with cups filled half way with water. But they have to do it in such a way that they end back up at the stairwell so they can get upstairs and back out of the school.
It's dumb, it's time consuming, and it's very, very Neil Perry.
"You're going to be on water, we can only go as fast as we can get them filled so you're going to have to run to the cooking classroom upstairs to get refills. I'll do the cups." Neil says.
Todd pulls a few of them out of the crate. Along the side they say things like: jennifer mccreedy has a beautiful voice or brent lynch is cheating on his girlfriend.
"What's this?"
"It's my secret collection." Neil takes the cups from him, "It's every secret I've gotten out of this place. Some are nice some are not but they are all true and they all need to be said."
Todd frowns, "Look," Neil says, "I know what you're thinking, but I don't decide who gets what secret, they did. With their actions. Nice people get nice secrets, bad people get back secrets."
"I dunno Neil, this seems kind of..." He waves his hand, "Is it really fair of you to be the scales of justice?"
"This is high school. The scales of justice don't exist here. Now go, get water."
Neil's planned it out well, the cooking classroom is right at the top of the stairs so he doesn't have to go far. Though by the 12th or 13th trip he's starting to think it would have been easier to just buy those big water cooler jugs instead of using him as a human mule.
They're a pretty good team but it still takes almost 3 hours to get the entire first floor covered, and even then that's only the hallways. It's funny because Todd is tired, both mentally and physically but he can't help but feel proud as they stand in the doorway of the stairwell and admire their work.
"That's a lot of cups." Todd says.
"It's a lot of secrets," Neil agrees. "There's at least one for everyone."
Todd turns and looks at Neil's profile, "What about me?"
"Well of course there's a secret for you." Neil grins, "But you'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out. Or more accurately, you'll have to wait until three hours from now."
Todd's stomach turns over and his nerves must show on his face because Neil reaches over and pats him on the shoulder, "Hey, you're a good person. It's a good secret. I promise."
Todd goes first out of the hatch because Neil has to put the storage room back together the right way. He waits on the roof and stares out over towards the subdivision, the country club. He feels like this should be important, that looking at the places he's grown up in from a distance should make him feel big. Or small. Or at least something. But Todd feels nothing as he stares out.
Neil reemerges from the hatch and locks it. "I wish we could stay up here to watch the sunrise," He says, "Oh well, places to go, people to see." His war paint is smudged off so it looks a bit like he's been punched. They stand shoulder to shoulder looking out into the early morning. The sun hasn't started to rise yet but the sky has lightened considerably from when they arrived at the school.
"What's it like?" Todd asks without really meaning to, the filter between his mouth and his brain suddenly ceasing to exist.
"What's what like?"
"Being you?"
Neil's silent for a long minute. "I don't know." He finally admits swallowing. "What's it like being you?" He turns to look at Todd and it's intense and intimate and strange.
If Todd were a braver person, if he was someone like Neil, then he would have taken the opportunity, he would have seized the day, or the night or whatever, he would have kissed Neil. But Todd was not someone else, he was not someone like Neil, he was Todd. So he turns and begins to climb back down the tree.
They listen to the radio on the drive back, some stupid top 40 station that plays all the songs Todd hates but likes in spite of himself. Neil sings along, not under his breath, but loudly and without restraint. There's a couple of cars on the road even though it's so early and Todd wonders what they must look like. Two teenagers, one in rumpled clothes, the other dressed like a ninja, singing along loudly to the radio.
"Do you want to get donuts?" Todd asks since he's hungry and the coffee shop is the only thing that will be open this early.
"Is there a time when anyone ever has not wanted donuts?"
Todd takes that as a yes and pulls into the drive thru. He's just going to order a half dozen assorted but Neil leans right over him and yells into the speaker instead. They're pressed right up together and it's so familiar and innocent that it seems crazy that he and Neil haven't been friends for years. When Todd accepts the box at the window he's surprised to discover Neil has ordered two sour cream glazed, one chocolate dip, one sprinkle dip, a double chocolate and a blueberry fritter.
"You remembered my favourite donuts?" Todd asks, genuinely flattered.
Neil shrugs, "You have good taste. Ba dum tss!" He reaches over and snags the double chocolate shoving it into his mouth.
"That's disgusting."
"Your face is disgusting." Neil says cheeks still full of donut.
"What are you twelve?"
"I'm twelve and a half thank you very much" And it's such a stupid joke but Todd smiles anyways and turns the radio back on.
They turn the radio off when they get into the subdivision. They don't see anyone but an older lady out for a power walk but even still, driving around at 5:30 in the morning isn't exactly the type of thing they'd want their parents to hear about.
Todd pulls into his driveway, "Do you want me to help you open the garage?" Neil asks, his voice almost a whisper now. The loud singing forgotten.
"Nah, it's fine." Todd says even though his dad'll pitch a fit about it if he sees. It's dumb really, he made Todd buy a crappy mini-van with his own money so he would appreciate the car and then he forces him to park in the garage so the neighbours won't see it. "How're you going to get back into your house?"
"Back door. The security system turns off at 5:00 am. I'll be fine." Neil smiles at him and opens the passenger door and shuts it very quietly.
Todd does the same and watches as Neil vaults over his fence into his backyard. Turning around to give him a wave before disappearing from view.
The sugar from the donuts and the adrenaline from completing the prank is starting to wear off and it's all Todd can do to get back in the house and climb up the two flights of stairs to his room. He doesn't even bother to change out of his clothes, he just flops on the bed on top of the covers and is asleep almost instantly.
But not before he sees the new message on his computer.
sexymotherpucker: best. adventure. ever.