“Whatever,” I grunt before I turn and walk off. Once I’m through the gate, I look back at the porch where Mr. Wells, Dr. Sakata and that humongous dog stare after me.
Didn’t I tell you? Worst. Christmas. Ever.
THE SECRET IN THE ENVELOPE
When Dad finally gets back from Lisa’s Christmas dinner, I’m sitting at the kitchen table, smoothing out Mom’s wedding announcement and the photo. I figure they’ll be good conversation starters.
As Dad walks through the front door and stomps the snow off his boots, he calls out, “You gotta see what happened to Mr. Wells’s place down at the corner. Looks like that Christmas tree display of his got hit by a hurricane.”
When he enters the kitchen and sees me with Mom’s stuff, he freezes. It’s so quiet we can hear the ticking of the kitchen clock. Finally Dad pulls out a chair and sits opposite me.
“I didn’t know when to tell you,” he says.
“Obviously.”
“Sam, look—your mom and me, we have a complicated relationship. Since the divorce, I don’t always tell you everything that’s going on with us. Or with her.” He picks up the wedding photo. “I wanted to tell you about this the day it came, I really did. But that was a few weeks back, the same day you were running that fever, remember?”
Because of the business with my heart and my pills, Dad’s always worrying about me getting infections. And he gets everybody else worried, too. Like during flu season, if a teacher sees my cheeks are even a little pink, I get sent to the school nurse, who doesn’t even bother with a thermometer before she’s dialing Dad to come pick me up.
“And the day after that was our monthly meeting with Family Services,” Dad says. “I know how Mrs. Atkinson always stresses you out.”
After my fourth or fifth arrest, the judge made us go for counseling down at Family Services in Town Hall. Mrs. Atkinson—who’s always got dandruff on her shoulders and a pencil stuck in her hair bun—tries to get me and Dad to “open up” and “share.” What a joke! We always wind up yelling at each other for fifty minutes while Mrs. Atkinson scribbles like mad on her notepad.
“Even after I reminded you about the appointment,” Dad continues, “you still forgot about it. I got so upset and angry that I was tempted to tell you about your mom right then, but I didn’t want to use the news about her wedding to hurt you, so . . .” He shrugs. “I was hoping to find the right time. Sometime when you and I weren’t at each other’s throats, when we could discuss this calmly. But lately it seems like all we do is fight.”
I don’t disagree.
He points to the wedding picture. “You want to talk about this? Mom’s new family?”
I shake my head and look away. The pain of the Mom situation is alternating with the terror I’m feeling about discussing Mr. Wells. Just then, my cell phone blasts Jaxon’s ring tone. I pull it out and move to push the connect button.
“Don’t you dare,” Dad says, raising a warning finger. “Jaxon can call back.”
Dad doesn’t like me hanging out with Jaxon. Ivy, he’s okay with, ever since she won the eighth-grade science fair with a project about yeast and solar energy that I never did understand. But he calls Jaxon “a bad influence.”
Normally I’d ignore Dad and take Jaxon’s call anyway, but with Mr. Wells’s brown envelope waiting in my lap, I realize that I’d better not risk it. I make a big deal of snapping my phone shut.
“Thank you,” Dad says.
I lay the big envelope down and slide it across the table.
“What’s this?” Dad leans forward and reads the return address. “Mister Herbert Wells.” He looks up and jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “That Mr. Wells? Down on Sherwood? Did he come by?” When he reaches for the envelope, I put a hand on top of his.
“Before you open that, you should know,” I say carefully, “Mr. Wells wants me to come work for him tomorrow morning.”
“He what? Why?” Dad’s face goes slack. “Oh, don’t tell me.” He sits back and moans. “Sam. Did you have something to do with that . . . that disaster in his yard?”
I stare back, unblinking. Dad puts two and two together and comes up with four. “I thought I told you to stay in the house!” he wails.
“I did! But then I saw these”—I point to Mom’s stuff—“and I felt like I needed a little air.”
That takes the wind out of his sails. We’ve both got reasons to be upset.
“How exactly did you destroy Mr. Wells’s front yard?” Dad asks.
“I climbed one of his Christmas trees,” I say with a shrug, “and I may have accidentally broken off a few branches.”
“May have?”
“It’s possible. When I fell.”
Dad sits up. “You fell out of a tree?”
“Only a little ways,” I lie.
“Are you hurt?”
“Do I look hurt?”
After a few more seconds, Dad sighs, and I know the worst is past. This is not the right moment, I decide, to mention the train station windows or the police chase or the gutter I tore off Mr. Wells’s house.
Dad pulls his chair up to the table. “Who is this guy, Herbert Wells?” he wonders, picking up the envelope. “And what is he sending me?”
“He told me to give that to you so you can see who I’m going to be working for.” Before he rips the envelope flap, I stop him with, “Oh, you better not tear it.” I slide a butter knife across the table. “Mr. Wells wants you to return that envelope. When you meet him tomorrow.”
“He wants to meet me tomorrow?”
I nod. “At eight.”
“Eight? Oh, Sam.” Dad groans, rubbing his forehead. “That’s right when I’ve got to mix the breads and start the ovens.”
“I know,” I mutter as he continues.
“And remember, we didn’t have Nickel Bay Nick to sprinkle holiday cheer all over town this year! So business is hurting. Everybody’s hurting.”
I bite my lip and shrug. “Mr. Wells said eight o’clock.”
With a sigh, Dad takes the knife, carefully slices open the envelope and draws out a stack of photographs. The large size. When he sees the first picture, Dad’s eyebrows tilt in a kind of “Huh?” direction.
“What is it?” I ask, but Dad doesn’t answer. Instead, he slides that photo to the bottom of the pile, and when he sees the second one, his eyes get bigger. That continues for the third and fourth and by the time he hits the fifth photo, his eyes are the size of hubcaps.
“What? Is something wrong?”
“No . . . no . . . ,” Dad mumbles as if he’s been hypnotized.
“What are they, then?”
Dad deals the photos out in front of me like we’re playing cards. In all of them, Mr. Wells is shaking hands with a different man, and in each one, they’re standing in front of an American flag. I squint at the faces. A couple of the hand-shakers look familiar, but I’m not exactly sure what I’m looking at.
“Who are these guys?”
“These . . . ,” Dad says slowly, “are the last five presidents of the United States.”
I look again. Dad’s right.
“Whoa.” I exhale. “I wonder why Mr. Wells wanted you to see these.”
“I think he’s sending us a message.”
“What kind of message?”
“Our neighbor is gently but firmly telling us that he’s not somebody we want to mess with.”
• • •
I don’t get much sleep that night. Every time I start to nod off, I see that monster dog yapping at the windowpane, and I jolt awake. And when I’m not remembering that, I’m seeing the photo of Mom, smiling from under her wedding hair. Standing next to Phil.
Dad tells me that when I was little, Mom and I used to play hide-and-seek at our old house, the one where we lived when we were a family. Sometimes if she’d
hide and I couldn’t find her, I would panic and start crying. And then Mom would come racing out of her hiding place and scoop me up in her arms.
“What’s the matter?” she used to ask with a laugh.
“I . . . thought . . . I . . . lost . . . you,” I would gasp between sobs.
“Never!” she always assured me as she danced us around the room. “You will never, ever lose me.”
But I have. I’ve pretty much lost Mom, I realize, to her new family. Maybe there will be visits, but she’s somebody else’s wife now. Somebody else’s mom. Not really mine. Not anymore.
THE HIGH COST OF FALLING
December 26
The next morning, Dad’s banging around in the kitchen. Crawling out of bed, I’m surprised I don’t hurt more than I do. Sure, there’re bruises and scratches and some stiffness here and there, but after running from the cops, after all the climbing and falling and crash-landing of the night before, I was expecting to feel like hammered dog meat. It’s not until I’m pulling on my jeans and sweatshirt that I remember drinking Dr. Sakata’s stinky tea. Did it work? I wonder. Does the big guy actually know what he’s doing?
Dad and I eat breakfast in silence, and I take my pill without him having to remind me. “Got your gloves?” he asks before we leave, and I remind him, “Why? We’re only going to the corner.”
It’s cold and clear outside. As we walk up to Mr. Wells’s house, a truck that says REGAL ROOFING on its side pulls out, and an iron gate slides back across the driveway. Dad rings the intercom at the front yard entrance, and Mr. Wells’s voice crackles. “Meet me at the porch.” The buzzer buzzes, and as the gate swings open, Dad looks to me. Together we take a deep breath and enter.
In the light of day, my “accident” looks worse than it did the night before. Strands of Christmas lights, lengths of twisted gutter and roof shingles are flung all over the lawn. Tree branches are snapped, and all the oversize Christmas presents that broke my fall are crushed. Dad whispers out of the corner of his mouth, “That’s quite a mess . . . even for you.” Before I can respond, the big oak front door creaks open, and Dr. Sakata pushes Mr. Wells’s wheelchair to the edge of the porch. The demon dog isn’t with them.
“Herbert Wells,” Mr. Wells says, extending a hand. Dad reaches up, and they shake.
“Dwight Brattle,” Dad says before returning to my side.
“And this”—Mr. Wells nods behind his chair—“is my physician, Dr. Sakata.” Dad starts to step forward again, but when Dr. Sakata bows, Dad glances at me, confused. Finally, awkwardly, he bows back.
“Ordinarily I would say ‘Good to meet you,’” Mr. Wells begins, “but under the circumstances . . .” He stops and nods toward his front lawn.
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Dad says. “I’m sorry about this. We”—he quickly points a finger back and forth between him and me—“we are very sorry about this. Sam is . . . devastated!”
Devastated? I never said that.
“He’s ready to do whatever’s necessary to make things right,” Dad offers.
“Well, Sam can start with the cleanup out here,” Mr. Wells says, “but that will hardly begin to compensate me for the damages.”
“No . . . no, I wouldn’t think so,” says Dad.
I look around, and realizing how much work I’m facing, my stomach does a backflip.
“I’ve already had the roofers here this morning,” Mr. Wells says, slipping on his glasses and studying a piece of paper in his hand. “Just to give me an estimate, you understand?”
“Totally,” Dad agrees.
“The roof repairs alone are . . . my, my . . .” Mr. Wells wags his head, like he can’t believe what he’s reading. “And that’s not including the gutter work. Plus, the evergreen will have to be trimmed and reshaped. My decorations will have to be replaced. So much to do.” He removes his glasses and looks down at us. “In other words, this was no cheap prank.”
“No, sir, I understand,” Dad mutters.
“Call me Herbert, please,” Mr. Wells says. “After all, we are neighbors.”
Dad runs a hand through his hair. “Look . . . uh . . . Herbert . . . ,” he stammers, “financially speaking, right now, things are kinda bad. I can’t afford everything immediately, but maybe we could work out some sort of repayment schedule?”
In Dad’s voice I hear a combination of worry . . . and pleading. It’s something I’ve never heard from him before, and for the first time since last night’s fiasco, I feel pretty awful about what I’ve done.
Mr. Wells purses his lips and studies us from his perch up there on his porch. “I have a proposition to make.”
Dad tilts his head. “A proposition?”
Mr. Wells thumps the plaster cast on his leg. “I broke my leg at Thanksgiving.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Dad says quickly.
Mr. Wells waves a hand. “Ice on the back stairs. It was my own fault. Anyway, I called my old friend Dr. Sakata”—hearing his name, the big guy nods—“and asked him to come to Nickel Bay and lend a hand. In a house this size, with all these stairs, the simplest task becomes a nightmare.”
Dad grunts in understanding.
“Then I figured that if I’m going to be stuck in this wheelchair, I might as well spend my time profitably. So I’ve begun organizing. Boxes in the attic. Papers in the basement. A lifetime of clutter, you know what I’m saying?”
“Do I ever.” Dad nods.
“Sam?” Mr. Wells turns to me. “You do know your alphabet, don’t you?”
“My what?” I can’t figure out what Mr. Wells is getting at.
“Your alphabet.”
“You know the alphabet,” Dad prompts me. “A, B, C, D . . .”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. L, M, N, O, Z,” I snap. “Why?”
“Well, if you can carry boxes up and down stairs and arrange files alphabetically,” Mr. Wells explains, “I will pay you the minimum hourly wage and apply your earnings to my repair bills as they come in. And at the end of your Christmas break, we will consider our accounts settled. Are we agreed?”
I panic. “But, my dad . . . ,” I say, “he needs me at his store!”
“I’ll manage!” Dad says louder.
“Wonderful!” Mr. Wells announces. “Sam can start immediately.”
Mr. Wells closes the discussion with a nod and indicates to Dr. Sakata to wheel him back inside.
“Wait a second,” Dad calls out, and offers up the brown envelope of photographs. “You wanted these back?”
“Ah. Thank you,” Mr. Wells says. Dr. Sakata reaches down to take the package from Dad.
“Herbert, I have to ask . . . ,” Dad blurts out.
“Yes?” Mr. Wells replies.
I can see Dad trying to figure out how to phrase his question. “Those photographs . . . I mean . . . you seem to know some important men. And they seem to know you.”
“You want to know about my career,” Mr. Wells says. “What I did before retirement?”
Dad snaps his fingers. “Exactly!”
“Let’s just say that I worked in Foreign Services. For our country.”
“Sounds . . . interesting,” Dad says.
“It was never dull.” Mr. Wells smiles mysteriously.
Dad’s not a nosy person, but I could tell that he was itching to know more. And to tell the truth, so was I. Dad starts to ask, “Where did you . . . ?”
“Work?” Mr. Wells finishes the question. “Asia, mostly. Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Indonesia. And a half dozen other countries.”
A sudden thought hits me. “So that’s how you know about that poison!”
Dad looks to me. “What poison?”
“Sam and I,” Mr. Wells interrupts, “we were discussing exotic botanicals of Southeast Asia last evening. My wife, Bernice, used to say . . .”
“Oh, you were ma
rried?” Dad asks.
“Thirty-seven years. That’s a long time to be happy.” For the first time since I met him, I see Mr. Wells’s jaw unclench. His eyes unfocus, like he’s watching a video playing inside his brain. “Bernice was fearless. Certainly more fearless than I. Orders would come down from the State Department that we’d been reassigned, and she’d have the house packed within the hour. From the biggest modern cities in Asia to the most remote jungles of Thailand or India, she embraced every challenge.”
“Sounds like quite a woman,” Dad says. “Did you have any kids?”
Mr. Wells takes a deep breath and draws himself up in his chair. “A boy and a girl, yes. My daughter married an Australian and lives there now. And my son . . .” Mr. Wells hesitates, then smiles at Dad. “Well, I don’t have to tell you.” He nods in my direction. “Sons can be a handful.”
“No argument there.” Dad laughs, and I can tell that he likes this guy. He raises a hand like he’s in a classroom. “Oh, one more thing?”
“Yes, Dwight.”
Dad drops his hand and wipes it on his pant leg. “Sam has . . . uh . . . a medical issue.”
“Oh?”
I can see Dad struggling to find the right words, so I save him the trouble.
“I got a heart transplant when I was nearly four. Got a big scar from here”—I place one finger at my navel—“to here.” I point another finger at my upper rib cage. “That’s why I’m small for my age. And as white as rice.”
“And the medicine,” Dad prompts me.
But Mr. Wells interjects, “Oh, I know about the pills, Dwight. Twice a day, right?”
That catches Dad by surprise. That his neighbor knows about my medication schedule.
“Right,” Dad mutters. “Seven thirty a.m. and seven thirty p.m.”
“And don’t worry about meals,” Mr. Wells says. “Dr. Sakata is an exceptional chef.”
My stomach seizes, remembering the pukey tea he’d made for me the night before. Am I supposed to eat garbage like that every day until school starts again?
“Well, good, he’s all yours, Herbert,” Dad says, checking his watch. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go start my ovens.”
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