Sabrina frowned at the laptop, tucking a strand of long red hair behind her ear. “I suck at writing. I freeze up. Ryan’s one of the best writers in the class, that’s why I asked him to help me. I don’t know how to do this, especially this, like, a eulogy. It’s too hard.”
Jake felt a stab of guilt. “I’m sorry about your loss. Was Kathleen a good friend of yours?”
“Not really, because she just came this year, so it wasn’t like I had that much time to get to know her. I’m team captain, and Coach wants me to do it…” Sabrina faltered. “I just can’t believe Kathleen’s really gone. It’s so… weird.”
Ryan looked away.
Jake nodded, pained. “I’m sure it’s difficult. I know.”
Sabrina kept shaking her head. “I’m supposed to give this speech, but I don’t know what to say and I don’t want to say the wrong thing. I can’t speak in front of all of those people. Kathleen’s mom is going to be there and her father, and my parents and everybody in the school will be there, waiting for me to say something, and I mean,everythingI write sounds lame.” Sabrina deflated, and her gaze returned to the laptop. “But I still have to write this speech, and I don’t know what to say. I don’t have that much time left and what I wrote so far really sucks.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Ryan motioned at the laptop. “You have a good start.”
“Argh.” Sabrina moaned. “No I don’t, and Coach said it has to be, like, three hundred words. I only have forty words so far, and I worked on it the entire study hall. I can’t do it. Mr. Buckman, can you help?”
“Sure.” Jake faked an encouraging smile.
“I’ll read you what I have so far.” Sabrina hunched over the laptop. “First, and this doesn’t count for the words, I have to introduce myself and say thank you to everyone for coming, like to the faculty and families. Right?”
“Right.”
“Okay. Then, I say,” Sabrina read from the laptop, “‘The Lady Chasers and Concord Chase High School in general suffered an extremely tragic loss when Kathleen Lindstrom was killed last Friday night in a horrible hit-and-run accident. Everybody loved Kathleen, who was friendly, outgoing, an asset to our team, a great hurdler, and fun to be with.’” She looked up. “Mr. Buckman, what do you think?”
“That’s a great start.” Jake was trying to say something helpful, but the words practically lodged in his throat. “Keep going.”
“But I don’t know what to write next. I’m sucking. I can’t do this.” Sabrina buckled her lower lip. “It’s so horrible that she died and it’s even worse that the guy didn’t even stop and see if she was okay. People like that should beshot. I should say that, I should give a speech aboutthat.”
“No, just keep going. You can do it. Write what you feel.”
“Ican’twrite what I feel. I feel sad and weirded out, that’s all. We all are, sosad. I don’t know how we’ll run without her. We’ll lose to Methacton for sure. Nobody wants to run. I think we should cancel the meet. We just cry, like, all the time. Her wake is tomorrow, and we’re going in uniform, like a tribute to her.”
Jake felt terrible and he knew Ryan did, too. “Then write about Kathleen. Write about what she was like, as a person.”
“That’s what I tried to do, but I can’t.” Sabrina sighed again. “That’s why I said she was friendly and nice and everything, but I didn’t know her that well, and we weren’t that friendly, then she got tight with Courtney and Sarah and Janine Mae. I’m not good at giving speeches, anyway. I can’t do this. I should’ve told Coach that I can’t do it and it’s really too important and I’m failing at it, epically.”
Ryan shook his head. “No, you’re not. You’re doing fine.”
“I’m not, Isuck out loud! I’m going to let everyonedown!”
Ryan shrugged. “Why don’t you tell a story about her? Sometimes if you tell a story about somebody, that tells the audience something about them. Like we studied about inThe Great Gatsby. People tell stories about Gatsby before you even meet him.”
“Great idea,” Jake said, grateful. “It will cheer them up, too.”
“Och.” Sabrina dropped her chin into her palm. “There’s a lot of stories about her, but I don’t know if they’re good enough to tell.”
“Like what?” Ryan asked, swallowing visibly.
“Like she really liked to sing on the bus, and she had a good voice, but that’s not good enough.” Sabrina cocked her head. “Well, also, she was superhot and all the guys on the boys’ team really liked her, but that’s not a good story to tell at something like this, either. Right, Ryan?” Sabrina turned to him, knitting her forehead. “Like remember when Sam and Caleb, they both asked her to the Halloween dance? That’s not a good story, is it?”
“No.” Ryan flushed.
Jake stepped in to rescue him. “Sabrina, I think Ryan means you should tell a story about her, about something she did.”
“Oh, right. Totally.” Sabrina thought a moment. “She was really good with computer graphics, and she made an awesome website for the travel track team. It had animated gifs and everything.” Sabrina brightened, straightening in her chair. “In fact, oh, I have a good story, a better one. There was the time she raised the money to buy shirts for the travel team, that’s a good story. We all had the same singlets, but our gym bags and T-shirts didn’t match. We never looked as good as the other travel teams, like Great Valley always looked awesome. They even had matching scrunchies, blue-and-white.”
Ryan nodded, with a shaky smile. “Good. Then tell that.”
“But that’s not the story. Your dad said tell a story about her, like something she did. That doesn’t tell what she did. I didn’t get to that part yet.”
