Mostly the Honest Truth

by Jody J. Little

  When Old Red stepped toward me, he shook my hand, strong and firm, just like Pop always taught me to do. He said to everyone, “Folks, we have a special dinner planned for tonight.”

  There was applause. I wondered what yumminess Chef Noreen would create.

  “And,” Old Red continued, “we’ll be treating Jane to a Three Boulders talent show.”

  There was a smaller applause, mostly Dandy.

  “Yes, I know it will be our final talent show,” Old Red stated. “So let’s make it our best. For Jane. For all of us.”

  The Talent Show

  Chef Noreen made roasted chicken and fresh strawberry pie on a graham cracker crust for dessert. It was delicious and beyond. I was going to miss her cooking when I went back home to Pop.

  I sat with G and her family. Timmy Spencer perched right next to me and he kept asking me questions about my burned hand and if he could see it without the bandages.

  My brain didn’t understand why Officer D wasn’t here. I couldn’t believe she would miss out on my celebration or on this pie. I asked Mr. Biggs where she was, but he didn’t know. Then I asked Old Red, but he just told me that Officer D had lots of investigating to do tonight and she had to work late. I wondered why she couldn’t do that investigating later.

  There was a long twangy sound, and I looked up to see Alan Stein standing next to the fireplace blowing on a harmonica. He played us a song and rocked back and forth to his bluesy music. I drummed my hand on the table when he finished.

  “Thank you. That was called ‘Softball Game Blues,’” Mr. Stein said.

  I bumped G in the shoulder because she wasn’t clapping at all. “That was cool.”

  “He played the same song at our last talent show. He called it ‘Springtime Blues’ then,” G answered.

  “The same song?”

  “Yes. The time before that it was called ‘Blues for My Baby’ and the time before that he called it ‘Low-down Rotten Blues.’ Mr. Stein only knows one song.”

  “Well, he plays it good.”

  Mr. Stein continued. “Good evening to all the folks of Three Boulders and especially our guest of honor, Miss Jane Pengilly.”

  My ears soaked in all the clapping.

  “And now, let’s continue this talent show by welcoming Miss Megan Donald.”

  Blondie Megan walked to the fireplace and sang the national anthem with no extra music, just her voice. Everyone rose. Pop and me agreed that this song was way too long, and we always wondered what ramparts were. Maybe I’d have to ask Old Red. He’d probably know.

  After the clapping for Megan died off, Loam, Mitchell, and the Stein kid moved to the front of the dining hall and did a skit about a bus stop and a bench in which absolutely nothing happened, but they were cracking each other up. G had a grin on her face the whole time. It was the happiest she had looked all evening.

  When the skit ended, Mitchell and the Stein kid sat down on the benches, but Loam stayed at the fireplace. He waved his hand and Dandy joined him. Loam cleared his throat and announced, “Dandy and I have a confession to make.”

  G’s eyeballs bulged. She grabbed my good arm. The Three Boulders crowd hushed, waiting, watching Loam and Dandy. Mr. and Mrs. Moonbeam glanced at each other.

  “We actually want to explain something. Something about the Three Boulders vortex,” Loam said.

  Dandy clapped her hands.

  “You see, the vortex doesn’t really exist.” Loam scratched at his messy hair. “Dandy and I are the vortex. Everything you’ve lost, we have.”

  He walked to the front door of the dining hall where a large suitcase sat. He lugged the suitcase back to the fireplace, laid it down flat, and opened it slowly and carefully so nothing would fall out.

  “This isn’t all of it. We still have more, but we’ll return it all, we promise.”

  Loam’s voice cracked. Dandy stopped clapping. The Three Boulders crowd became a room of statues. No one moved. Not an inch. But me and G were smiling, especially me.

  “Oh, Loam.” It was Mrs. Moonbeam who finally spoke.

  “I’m sorry, Mom. Dandy is too. We’re stopping. We are done stealing things. For real. We promise.”

  “I believe you, Loam,” I said, walking straight up to the fireplace next to dirt boy. I was proud of him. Telling the truth was hard sometimes. I knew that. But Loam was doing the right thing. It was his first step toward shaking his ogre.

  “I’ll help you return those vortex treasures,” I announced.

  “Me too,” G said, marching up to the fireplace.

  We all reached into the suitcase. Dandy pulled out purple gloves and took them to Millie Donald. G grabbed a yellow candle and handed it to Mrs. Carter. I didn’t know who to give stuff to, but Loam told me. One colored item at a time, we delivered the sucked-away things that once formed Dandy’s rainbow masterpiece.

  “We know we can’t apologize enough,” Loam said when we finished, “but I want to show you what we did with everything. What Dandy did.” He held up a photograph of the bookshelf in their closet. Dandy held up a piece of paper with a rainbow she had drawn. “Pass these around.”

  I watched, and I could tell by the way their jaws moved and their eyes glowed, that every person who saw that photo was as amazed as me and G had been just a few days earlier. Mrs. Moonbeam threw them kisses into the air.

  Then Old Red thumped his shotgun cane one time and got everyone’s attention. “Loam and Dandy, your confession is appreciated.” He scanned all the pleased faces of the folks holding their long-lost possessions. “Shall we continue our celebration? I believe we have more talent to showcase, don’t we, Alan?”

  “Indeed we do.” Mr. Stein rose and announced, “Next up on the Three Boulders stage is Miss Gertrude Biggs.”

  Was I ever surprised to hear that name. “G! You didn’t tell me you would be in this show.”

  G walked cautiously toward the fireplace with her backpack. She reached into her pack and pulled out a thin felt bag. Her hands shook.

  I quickly looked around for Officer D, but she still wasn’t back from Willis.

  From the felt bag, G slid out a smooth, black recorder. It was just like the recorders I learned to play in third grade, and I held in a groan because those recorders were harsh on the ears. My music teacher always told me I blew too loud, and usually she took my recorder away from me.

  But G began to blow, and the sound that came from her stick was not the shrill recorder-snatching sound I was expecting. She didn’t play “Hot Cross Buns” or “Pop Goes the Weasel.” She played a song I’d never heard before. It was comforting like Noreen’s mac and cheese, but with a dash of that red pepper to give it zest. The whole audience became silent. Our eyeballs locked on G. Our ears soaked up her notes.

  G was . . . well, G was awesome. It was the best I had ever heard that little squawk stick played.

  When she finished, I stood up and stepped on the bench and hollered, “Woo-hoo, G!”

  The applause was huge, the biggest of the night so far. Mrs. Biggs had tears in her eyes and so did Chef Noreen.

  Every member of the sunshine gang stood and lifted their hands over their heads to clap for G.

  G bowed, then slid her recorder back into the felt bag, scooped up her backpack, and walked toward me.

  “You rocked the dining hall down, G! How’d you learn to do that?”

  She beamed. “Thanks. I taught myself. It’s kind of my secret.”

  “What was that song called?”

  “It’s something I wrote that reminds me of you. I’m calling it ‘When Jane Came to Three Boulders.’”

  My brain went blank. It couldn’t find words to send to my mouth.

  Not one.

  Not even a gulp or a peep.

  I think that concerned G because she asked, “Jane, did you like it? It’s kind of an early going-away present for you.”

  I still couldn’t talk.

  All I could do was nod my head because I did like G’s song. I really, real
ly liked it.

  I think I couldn’t talk because my brain was attempting to sort out thoughts and feelings from this night and my other days in Three Boulders that I’d never had to sort before. It was like a bunch of socks had been tossed in my brain drawer, and none of them were matching. The drawer was a mixture of sock colors and sizes. I needed the blue right sock to go with the blue left sock and the right-smiley face sock to go with the left-smiley face sock because that had always worked for me . . . two socks made a pair, like me and Pop. There were suddenly so many socks in my drawer, but I couldn’t find any pairs.

  I didn’t understand why there was so much messiness in my brain.

  Day Twelve

  What Social Services Fran Thought

  On the last day of Pop’s rehab, my hand was barely even aching, just a teeny-weeny little throb, and only when I pushed on it. My brain felt better too after all that muddled confusion from the night before. These had to be good signs, signs that everything was going to be okay with me and Pop. I couldn’t wait to see him.

  I hummed one of Pop’s silly songs as I began grabbing some of my shorts and T-shirts that I had shoved under Officer D’s couch. I was folding up my black hoodie when there was a knock on the door. It was G.

  “Hi, Jane. I was going to go practice my recorder before breakfast. Do you want to come?”

  Half of me wanted to go with G more than anything, even more than eating three or four of Noreen’s sticky doughnuts. But the other half of me remembered how I felt last night when I heard her play, that sock drawer confusion.

  I didn’t actually have to decide because there was a second knock at the door, and Officer D let in Old Red.

  “Good morning,” he said to all of us and made himself at home in the stiff chair next to my lumpy sleeping couch. He wasn’t carrying his shotgun.

  “Gertie, I’d like you to head downstairs. Mr. Norton and I need to have a confidential conversation with Jane.” Officer D wore her serious cop face.

  G moved toward the door, but I grabbed her arm. “G can stay.”

  Officer D and Old Red exchanged lingering glances. Officer D frowned. “Fine. Sit on the couch, girls.”

  I tossed some clothes over to one side. G sat on the end, near the chair where Old Red was, and I perched in the lumpy middle. Officer D scooped up a folding chair by her bed and propped it open directly in front of me. She sat her burly self down with her spine all tall and straight.

  Officer D’s face changed to her worried look, so I said, “You don’t have to worry about my hand anymore, you know.”

  “I’m not worried about your hand, Jane.” She pressed her lips together and rubbed her palms. She was having a hard time getting words out right now, kind of like me last night when I felt all confused about G and Three Boulders.

  And then I figured it out.

  Officer D was sad about me leaving tomorrow. And she didn’t have a squawky recorder to play to tell me how she felt.

  “Officer D,” I said, helping her out, “you’ve been a real great foster person to me these last twelve days, my favorite foster person yet—”

  “Oh, Jane. I . . .” She stared at me intently. Old Red stared at me too. I didn’t like those looks. I didn’t like them at all.

  “Jane, I need to give you some news about your pop,” Officer D said.

  I felt a little warning zap in my head. “Is Pop sick?”

  She let out a huge sigh. “He’s not sick. It’s just that there’s been—”

  “Did he do something wrong?”

  Officer D shook her head. “That’s not it. He’s doing fine with his rehab, following all the rules like always.”

  “Then what’s wrong?” My stomach was queasy now, but not from hunger and not from my infected burn like a few days ago. Something was wrong, and all the parts inside my chest could feel it. It was like all those little inner cells of mine were kicking and screaming.

  Officer D dropped her head, looking at her legs. She kept rubbing her hands, forward and back, forward and back. I think everyone in the room could feel the heat she was making in her palms.

  “Doris, tell her,” Old Red said.

  Officer D sucked in a long breath. “Jane, yesterday I spoke with Fran. After you were admitted to the hospital with the infection, she became more concerned. She insisted she needed more time to investigate the night your hand was burned so badly. She won’t let you return to your pop until she is certain of what happened that night. She needs to believe what both of you have said.”

  Officer D’s words shoved me into the back of the couch.

  What?

  I can’t go back to Pop?

  Memories of that night swirled in my brain, the red coils on the stove top, Pop real deep asleep, lying in the living room.

  I had told Pop exactly what to say. He was supposed to say he was resting. He heard me start dinner. We danced. I slipped and burned my hand on the stove. He called 911. End of story.

  Why didn’t they believe him?

  Did Pop say something different?

  “What . . . what do you mean?” I asked instead, reining in those other questions.

  “Fran doesn’t think your father is telling the truth.” Officer D paused. “She doesn’t think the burn on your hand was an accident.” Her voice was quieter and softer than ever. She reached her man paw for my good hand and squeezed it.

  So Pop had told them it was an accident. He told them exactly what I had told them.

  There shouldn’t be a problem.

  I squirmed a bit on the lumpy couch cushions. I could feel three sets of eyeballs on me.

  There was no way that flame-shoed Fran could know what really happened that night.

  I tried to think back to the emergency room, sitting on the crinkly white paper on the examining table. Fran had asked me so many questions: Was Pop good to me? Did he ever hurt me? Did I ever feel afraid with him?

  And I had answered her questions.

  Yes. No. No.

  Those were my forever answers.

  “Young Jane,” Old Red said, “sometimes when a person has been drinking, he does things that he wouldn’t normally do. Sometimes he may not even remember doing those things.”

  I glared at Old Red and swallowed a big gulp of air. “What does she think happened?”

  The room went dead quiet. Old Red leaned back. G’s bottom lip quivered. Officer D lifted my hand and pressed it to her cheek, but I pulled it away.

  “Wait.” My inner cells were in a full-out war now. “She thinks Pop did this?” I held up my burned hand. “She thinks he hurt me?”

  Officer D put both her hands on my shoulders now. “I don’t know exactly what she thinks, Jane.”

  I twisted away from her and stood up. “It isn’t true!” I hollered. “Pop didn’t hurt me! He would never, ever hurt me!”

  I was stomping my feet hard as I said those words, and I didn’t care if all the Three Boulders folks in the dining hall below could hear me.

  “Officer D, you go tell that social services Fran that Pop didn’t hurt me!”

  Officer D shook her head. “Jane, we have to be thorough in our investigation. We have to follow the law.”

  “What law? What are you talking about?” I stomped my foot again. “When can I go back to Pop?”

  Officer D looked at Old Red. “Jane, please sit back down.” She was almost whispering now. “It’s possible . . .” She hesitated, glancing at Old Red again. “It’s possible your pop will be arrested.”

  The room went stony silent, silent enough to hear an eyelid blink. And it stayed that way for what felt like a lifetime, my whole lifetime with Pop.

  I remembered the way he twirled me over his head when I was real little and I giggled so much I drooled on his forehead. I remembered longboarding times, bombing the big hills and chillin’ down the gentle slopes. I remembered watching all the dumb reality shows, eating popcorn together.

  Arrested?

  Did she really say that?


  I gripped my head with both hands and squeezed hard. It felt like my sock drawer brain had been flung open. The Pop socks flew one way. The Jane socks flew the other way. I squeezed tighter and tighter and tighter.

  I inhaled a shaky gulp of air.

  I’d been holding in the truth for twelve days, keeping it secret from everyone.

  I kept squeezing and squeezing my head, holding in that sock explosion.

  I didn’t want Pop to get arrested. I had to tell the truth. I might get in trouble, and Pop might be really mad at me, but the honest truth might be the only thing that could save Pop—save us.

  I felt tears making a path down both my cheeks, and I looked into Officer D’s eyes. “I lied,” I whispered. “I lied about my hand. It wasn’t an accident.”

  Confessions

  G gasped. Old Red leaned forward. Officer D grabbed my shoulders again and gripped hard. “Oh, Jane. What happened?”

  My nose started dripping alongside my tears. I was shuddering now, and Officer D pulled me into her beefy chest. Old Red rose from the chair and handed me a handkerchief. I gave a big blubbering blow and shook some more.

  I let the honest words gush from my mouth. “You know Pop, Officer D. You know that he’s a good person. It’s just that this time, he was real bad off. I don’t know why. I think his sadness was just too much. We were having lots of bad me-and-Pop days.”

  I took a deep, shaky breath. “He was still walking me to school, and he still went to the warehouse to work, but he drank his yucky alcohol every night instead of coffee. He was falling asleep on the couch. He wasn’t talking to me much. I was really lonely, and I missed him bad.”

  I stopped and rubbed the tears from my cheek. “I had to help him. He needed to go to rehab.”

  G reached for my hand. For just a teeny moment, I wished I was Gertrude Biggs, a girl who had lived most her life in the safety of Three Boulders with all the nice people around her every day, and all the weird laws that everyone followed . . . mostly. But then I was mad at myself for thinking that, for thinking of a life without Pop. I loved Pop.