Mostly the Honest Truth

by Jody J. Little

  “Is it your hand? Do you need some help?”

  I shoved my other hand in my pocket. “No, I’ll be fine.” I tried one of those Three Boulders silent prayers. I prayed that everything would be fine for both me and Pop.

  My eyes were pinched closed when I heard the voice.

  The best voice in the world.

  The only voice my ears wanted to hear.

  Pop’s voice.

  Pop

  “Jane Girl?”

  I looked in the direction of the voice. It really was Pop, dressed in his torn jeans and a black T-shirt. He was less than twenty feet away from me, standing in front of the vending machine. Forgetting my pain and dizziness, I sprang up and raced to Pop. I flung my arms around his belly, inhaling his cinnamon-grassy smell.

  “Pop,” I said, squeezing him tighter. That silent prayer really worked.

  I felt him kiss my hair. His scruffy whiskers tickled my forehead. He wiggled my arms away from his waist and held my shoulders. “I swore I heard your voice inside the clinic. What’re you doing here? Are you okay?”

  “I wanted to see you, Pop. You look good.” And he really did, just a little bit of sagginess around his eyeballs.

  “Jane, you’re not supposed to be here.” He glanced toward the door of the New Paradise Clinic. “Where’s Officer Dashell?”

  “She’s . . .” I had to make this sound legit. “She’s visiting a friend, and I told her I was getting a soda.”

  Not the honest truth.

  Not at all.

  Pop reached for my bum hand. His eyes got watery. “Oh, Jane, I’m so very sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “Shhh, Pop. It’s going to be okay.”

  “Are you in a lot of pain?”

  “Nah.” I was becoming a real professional at hiding pain, but right now, there were things way more important to discuss. I knew I didn’t have much time.

  “Pop?” I peeked over my shoulder. G was still sitting against the wall, watching us, but there was no one else in the hallway. “What did you say to Fran about that night?”

  Pop let go of my hand. “I’m a little unclear on that night. It’s hard to wrap my brain around it.”

  “Pop, listen. This is what happened.” I reached up and pulled his uncombed head lower, so I could whisper in his ear. Pop always had the best advice in the world, and I listened to him most all of the time, and I did what he said most all of the time, but right now, he needed to listen to me. Our stories had to be the same.

  “It went down like this,” I began. “You were resting on the couch after work, like you always do. Then you heard me in the kitchen, so you joined me. You turned on some music, and we did our dinner-making dance. Then I just slipped. It was an accident. I fell against the stove, so you called nine-one-one. That’s it.”

  “Is that really what happened?” He was staring at my arm again. “Jane Girl, did I—”

  “Just say that, Pop. Say that, and we’ll be back together faster than we can bomb Applegate Hill. Okay?”

  He sighed and scratched his head.

  I didn’t want Pop to question me anymore, so I said, “That’s G sitting down there. She’s been real nice to me.”

  “And Officer Dashell? She’s been good to you too?”

  “She’s been real good,” I said.

  Honest truth.

  “And you’re doing your schoolwork?”

  “Yes. I think my TBS might be cured.”

  Pop glanced up the hall again and then whispered, “Jane Girl, I’m making us new longboards.”

  “You are?” I bounced on my toes.

  “Yes. I got permission from my counselor. He agreed it was great therapy for me. I’m shaping our decks like fish. Mine’s a salmon and yours is a trout.” Pop was beaming.

  “That’s awesome!”

  And I meant it. I couldn’t wait to bomb hills on our matching fish boards.

  Pop put his finger to his lips and shushed me. “I can’t afford new trucks and bearings yet. That will come later.”

  “Pop, you’re the best.” I held up my good hand for a high five. “I haven’t boarded for six days. They don’t have paved roads in this Three Boulders place.” I paused. “It’s really weird there. Wait ’til I tell you all about it.”

  Pop combed his fingers through his hair. “So . . . you’ve met Red Norton?”

  I stepped back. “You know Old Red?”

  Now Pop’s eyes scrunched up and his head tilted. “I, uh . . .” But he didn’t finish. He wrapped his arms around my shoulders and squeezed. “I’ll explain everything to you when we’re back together. I promise.”

  I wanted him to explain right this second. How could Pop know about Old Red?

  But he peeled me off him and whispered, “I have to get back now, Jane. A meeting is starting. Go back to Officer Dashell.”

  “Remember what I told you.” I squeezed his hand tight. “Just seven more days, Pop.”

  He winked at me. “Stay out of trouble.”

  “Of course.”

  I was trying to do that.

  “We got this,” I added.

  “Of course.”

  Pop headed back to the entrance of the New Paradise Clinic.

  I was feeling a gazillion times better after talking to him. My plan had worked perfectly thanks to G and Loam Moonbeam and my silent prayers. Now I was sure Pop would tell our story just like I told him to.

  “I’m glad you got to see your pop,” G said. We began walking down the hallway toward the elevators.

  “Me too. He’s making me a new longboard.” There was a big grin on my face and she grinned back.

  “So, everything is okay now?”

  “Sure,” I said, even though everything was not okay. My brain was still puzzled about Pop mentioning Old Red.

  “Hey,” I said, “let’s go to the park. I can show you the skate ramps, and maybe we can find some coins. I always find coins in the park. We can add them to our Three Boulders collection.”

  The elevator doors opened and G and I stepped inside, pressing the lobby button. “Look,” G said, opening her palm. “I grabbed those quarters the lady left on the front desk.”

  “You’re as slick handed as Loam!”

  “That’s not funny,” G said.

  But what really wasn’t funny was what we saw when the elevator doors opened.

  Standing there in the hospital lobby, tapping her polished black shoe on the floor, gripping her walkie-talkie, and frowning, was none other than Officer Doris D. Dashell.

  Crud, crud, crud!

  Me and G were so busted.

  The Ride Back to Three Boulders

  I walked right to Officer D and held out both my wrists, preparing to get handcuffed.

  She scowled at me. “Outside. Both of you.” She wore her one-hundred-percent cop face. She was boiling-hot mad. I wondered if she would send me to a new foster home. Maybe I was too much trouble for her.

  The hospital doors whooshed open, and Officer D marched to her cruiser. We followed. G’s head dropped below her shoulders.

  Last Sunday, when Officer D brought me to Three Boulders, I was secretly hoping that I would get a ride in her cop car. Now it was the last thing in the world I wanted.

  “Do we have to sit in the back seat behind that window cage?” I asked, imagining people peering at us as we drove by, wondering what two girls could have done to be tossed in the back of a cop cruiser.

  Officer D scowled again. “A part of me thinks you should sit back there.” She shook her head. “You can both climb in the front seat.”

  G got in first. She was stony silent, just staring at the cruiser’s dashboard.

  “I don’t know what you were thinking, Jane,” Officer D said, slamming the driver’s door.

  What I was thinking was that Pop needed to get his story right.

  What I was thinking was that social services Fran needed to stop questioning us and threatening to keep us apart.

  Now I didn’t know what would hap
pen. Maybe I blew it. Maybe I won’t get to ride my new trout longboard because maybe twelve days would become twelve . . . forevers.

  I squeezed my eyelids to stop the rogue tear from dripping down my cheek.

  Officer D took a deep breath. “You knew it wasn’t possible to see your pop.”

  But I had seen him.

  G’s head rose a milli bit. Our eyeballs met.

  “Do you know how much seeing and talking to your pop could have jeopardized the investigation?”

  Me and G’s eyeballs remained locked together.

  Officer D didn’t know.

  She didn’t know I had seen Pop.

  Maybe I hadn’t blown it.

  “I do not know the details of how you managed to get into Willis this morning, but let me go over the laws you girls broke with this escapade. First, you came without parent or guardian permission. Second, you failed to complete your daily duties. Third, you lied about your whereabouts. Fourth . . .”

  Officer D’s cop words all ran together after a while. When she finally turned off her word faucet, I asked a question. “How’d you know we were here?”

  I got a big eyebrow lift from her.

  “Did either of you truly believe that in a community of fifty-six people, no one would figure out you were missing?”

  We said nothing.

  “There was a search of every cabin and all the surrounding area of Three Boulders once Mr. Biggs became suspicious. When you were not found, Mr. Norton contacted me. It didn’t take advanced detective skills to figure out you would be at the hospital.”

  I crossed my arms over my belly, holding my bum hand tight. There was nothing else to say.

  “We’re really sorry, Officer Dashell. Really, really sorry,” G said softly.

  I knew G meant it.

  But me? I wasn’t really, really sorry. At least I wasn’t sorry about sneaking out of Three Boulders because I had talked to Pop, and the only people who knew that truth were me and G.

  I was sorry about G, though. About causing trouble for her.

  And I was sorry I let down Officer D because the honest truth was that she was a good foster person.

  She drove us all the way back to Three Boulders wearing her cop face.

  I tried silent prayers to wash that face away, but those prayers didn’t work too good.

  Day Seven

  Punishment

  Me and G were told to report to Old Red at nine o’clock in the morning. I was prepared for some harsh punishment. I thought about the possibilities while I changed my bandage. I still didn’t want Officer D to see all the disgusting greenish goobers. Maybe Old Red would tie us to chairs and guard us night and day like prisoners. Maybe he’d make us do hard labor for hours on end, like cleaning all the toilets and showers in Three Boulders. Maybe he’d shoot us in the toes.

  I brought up this possibility with Officer D before breakfast.

  “Good grief, Jane. He is not going to shoot you.” She was way calmer this morning than she’d been yesterday, probably because for the last several hours I had been doing my best to be a good foster kid and follow her directions. I didn’t want her mad at me anymore.

  “Red Norton has the biggest heart of any man I’ve ever known. He will not shoot you. He will not harm you,” Officer D insisted.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I just am,” she said. “And also, I happen to know that there are no shots in his gun.” She tapped her holster with her thick fingers. “This is the only loaded weapon in all of Three Boulders.”

  I still wasn’t sure I believed Officer D, so just in case, I spent extra time getting myself ready so I looked presentable for my sentencing. I put on my last clean pair of cargo shorts, my favorite blue hoodie, and Pop’s gray stocking cap. I washed my face, which was getting tan from all the boonieville outdoor time. I wiped the dirt off the edges of my shoes and brushed my teeth an extra ten seconds.

  At breakfast, G didn’t want to talk. Her face was blotchy and baggy like she had cried all night. Her hair was an awful frizzy mess. After we ate, we made our way to Old Red’s cabin. G still hadn’t said a word, not even a reminder for me to be polite. We sat down carefully, side by side, on his musty blue couch. Old Red faced us, sitting in a rocking chair.

  There was a terribly long silence. It made my burned hand pulse with pain. I took a deep breath, trying to ignore the achiness.

  “Gertrude and Jane,” Old Red said, shotgun in hand as always. “I don’t intend to lecture you because you both know what you did was wrong.”

  That was relief to my ears.

  “I also know that Officer Dashell spoke with you at length.”

  He sure got that right.

  “I have considered numerous consequences for both of you”—I braced myself, pushing my shoulders back and sitting up taller—“and I have determined that neither of you will be able to play in tomorrow’s softball game.”

  Huh?

  Really?

  That was it?

  I was just about ready to leap off that couch and shake Old Red’s hand in gratitude when G started to cry.

  Actually, it wasn’t even crying. She started to sob, as though Old Red had canceled Christmas or something really horrible like that. I elbowed her, but she just kept bawling.

  I knew G loved softball, but it was just one game. Apparently her brain didn’t understand how easy we got off.

  G just kept crying, loud wails and fat tears that I was afraid might drown us if she didn’t stop. I shot a glance at Old Red, but not one word came out of his mouth. I began to wonder if she was faking those tears.

  But the thing was, if she was faking, she deserved one of those naked gold statues. This was good acting.

  A funny feeling was growing inside me. If I hadn’t come to Three Boulders, G wouldn’t be here now, sobbing. Ever since I’d arrived, G had been helping me, being a friend, and being my teammate. Now I needed to be her friend.

  “Mr. Norton,” I said. “I’d like to negotiate with you.”

  “Would you?” he asked, his face stern.

  “Yes . . .” I had to get this right. My brain thought about all the punishments Pop had handed me in my life. He always said the punishment needed to make sense, so I said to Old Red, “It doesn’t really seem right to have us miss a softball game when we broke rules by sneaking into Willis. That would be like shooting us in the toes for getting an F on a spelling test.”

  I glanced at Old Red’s gun. Maybe that was a bad example.

  “I think it would make more sense for me and G to play a little catch-up.”

  “Catch-up?”

  “Have us do everything we were supposed to do yesterday, like help wash some dishes, complete our schoolwork, and have us do all our chores today as well. We could even pluck a few more weeds from the garden beds. Then, if we finish, maybe we can play in that softball game tomorrow.”

  I knew that this offer was going to involve more work than I normally did in a whole week, and I didn’t know if it was even humanly possible to do two days of work in one, but G was no longer crying, and that relieved my brain.

  “That’s a very logical offer, young Jane.” Old Red rocked slowly back and forth. “You remind me of my daughter, Florence. She was a feisty one and a quick thinker. Two qualities that often got her in trouble, but just as often got her out of trouble.”

  I peered at Old Red’s face. I remembered how Officer D said he had an enormous heart. I wasn’t sure it was enormous, but I was beginning to see that at least he had a heart inside that skinny chest.

  “I accept your offer, Jane,” he said.

  “Oh, thank you, Mr. Norton!” G sprang from the couch and leaned over his rocking chair and kissed his wrinkly cheek.

  I was not going to kiss Old Red Norton, but I did smile at him.

  The Old Blue Journal

  As soon as we left Old Red’s cabin, our day of slavery began. We started in Noreen’s kitchen. She asked us to clean the oven racks, but she
quickly realized I couldn’t soak my bum hand in water or use it to scrub, so G did all the scrubbing, and I just wiped the racks dry when she was done. Next we pulled weeds from the garden beds. Preston Farmer loomed over me pointing out all the pea-size weeds.

  “G,” I said. My hand was throbbing, so I took a break and sat on the edge of the garden bed. “What’s up with this softball game tomorrow? Why is it so important to you?”

  “It’s important to everyone, not just me,” G said. “This could be our very last game ever. We have a long history of softball in Three Boulders. We’ve played almost twelve hundred games over the past fifty years, and the details of every game have been recorded. Would you like to see all the softball journals?”

  “Um . . . that’s tempting, but I’ll pass.”

  “If the Royal Hitters beat the Mighty Catchers tomorrow, they will have the longest winning streak in history.”

  “Which team are you on?”

  “The Hitters. Officer Dashell is a Royal Hitter too. Winning tomorrow means she would be part of another Three Boulders softball record. Can you believe that?” G gushed.

  In my seven days in Three Boulders, I’d discovered you can believe just about anything.

  “And since you’re her guest, you’ll be on our team too.” G beamed at me. She was a softball-loving soul.

  I tugged at the bandage on my hand. It was getting loose, probably from all the work I had done today.

  “Thanks for what you said to Mr. Norton about negotiating our punishment,” G said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  The honest truth was that the extra work hadn’t been horrible.

  After Preston Farmer inspected our weeding, we headed down to the shady church fire pit to cool off and work on our nature project. Loam and Dandy were leaning against a log pew, side by side, on the dirt when we arrived. Dandy saw us first and she jumped up and squeezed us both around our bellies at the same time.

  Loam stood up too. “Hey. I want you to know that I worked really hard not to rat on you. My dad got a phone call at the nursery, and then he started asking me questions. At first I said nothing, but then he started to say how worried folks were and how they were afraid something bad would happen to you both, and . . .” He kicked the log with his beat-up sandal. “So I told them you hid in the back of the car, but that’s all I said. I didn’t say anything about going to see your pop, Jane.”