Page 35 of The Staircase in the Woods

He has one chance to pass gym and make it to eleventh grade:

He has to write a paper on the history of physical education in America.

And he has less than a week to do it.

One page for every day missed, so—nineteen pages.

Nick is, um, not the king of focus. If this were the present day, he’d be called ADHD and maybe given an IEP to help—but in 1996, sure, they call him ADD, but it’s mostly an insult, and there’s no help to goalong with it. And the paper they’re asking him to write, it’s not exactly ascintillatingtopic.

So, he’ll fail. He won’t be able to pull it together.

But all it takes is two words, uttered by Hamish:

“The Covenant.”

They know what it means. They’re a crew. All for one, one for all, united we stand, divided we fall, nobody gets left behind, when you’re a Jet you’re a Jet all the way, word is bond. Or what’s the one fromThe Outsiders?

If we don’t have each other, we don’t have anything.

They have his back, just like he and the others had Hamish’s.

They write his paper for him. All of them. It doesn’t have to be great. It doesn’t even really have to begood. It just has to beokay enoughfor him to fucking graduate. All of them hang at the library all day the weekend before the end of the school year—instead of, you know, going to parties and all that. They do enough research on the history of physical education in America that they cobble together nineteen pages of purely functional mediocrity on the subject.

Sure, they grouse sometimes. They bitch about howit’d sure be great if Nick had his shit together enough to do thishimself. But he doesn’t, and they know that, and it is what it is. So they do the work. They get it done.

And Nick makes it to eleventh grade.

—

Eleventh grade, 1996–1997.

The Covenant comes up more and more that next year. Owen’s father, angry about something that isn’t Owen, takes it out on his son by denying him a day at Dorney, the amusement park, and instead makes him stay home and dig up a busted septic pipe in the back yard, one that’s been busted for months, but he’s decided now,nowis the time it needs to be fixed, and so Owen does it, and it’s brutal miserable work, made all the more miserable by the fact his friends are off having fun at Dorney Park. Except they’re not. They show up. They bring their ownshovels,for fuck’s sake. They help him dig,standing around in gray water waste seeping up in the yard. Because:the Covenant.

Lauren wants to take a digital art and programming class at the local community college, but her mom isn’t ever around, and Laur doesn’t have a car, or money, or any of what she needs. But together, her friends do. They pool the cash. They take shifts driving her to class. It’s six weeks, three days a week, after school. They get it done. That’s the Covenant.

The only one who never invokes it for himself, who never really benefits, is Matty. He says, “I’ll use it someday, I’m sure, but for now, I got what I need.” And that’s enough for them if it’s enough for him.

It becomes a shorthand, those two words. Not justI need you. But maybeI need to hear something nice. OrI need the truth from you right now. Or evenHey, you’re pushing too hard, you’re actually upsetting me, I need you to dial it down.

That is, to them, the Covenant.

21

Matty Says the Words

“Not how the Covenant works,bro.”

That sentence, an indictment, still hanging in the air like something altogether more acrid than the campfire smoke. A bitter, burning tang.

Something had gone wrong between her and Matty. It was plain to see that now. This wasn’t just a fight. This was, to Owen, something fundamental. And Matty didn’t like it. Didn’t like—what, exactly? Owen didn’t know. He could tell only that Matty was bothered by something—something had challenged him, had set him off his perfect axis, and now he was spinning wildly. It was strange to see.

Good,he thought.

Followed up by:Fuck you, Owen, these are your friends.

No one else said anything. The campfire crackled—the only response.

“Fine,” Matty said, laughing it off at first, but then the reiteration of that word came with a harder, sharper edge: “Fine. Figures, right? Time comes I want to call on the Covenant, I don’t get to? Whatever. I don’t need it. I don’t need you. You guys don’t want to come with me, don’t come with me. But no one can stop me. I’m going to go out there. I’m gonna climb those creepy-ass steps. And then I’m going to jump off them, into the dark. If I’m not allowed to invoke the Covenant, then I’ll get you the old-fashioned way. I dare you. I fuckingdareyou.” He grabbed up a flashlight and gave it a baton twirl. “You coming? Or are you all cowards?”

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