“Jane, what happened that night?” Officer D asked again.
I sucked in another trembly breath. “Pop fell asleep on the couch, facedown, and I couldn’t wake him up. I shook him as hard as I could. I yelled at him. I threw pillows at him. I wanted to throw that stupid bottle at him, but I didn’t. Nothing I did made him budge. He just lay there like he was dead, but he wasn’t dead because I checked. I know how to check for a pulse.” My voice and shoulders shuddered. “I had to get him to wake up, and I realized there was only one way to do it.”
“How?” G whispered.
I wondered what G was thinking of me right then and whether she was still going to be my friend when she knew the truth.
I honked my nose into Old Red’s handkerchief again. “I used to have nightmares when I was little. Pop said they were just bad ogres trapped in my brain, but I’d wake up screaming the strands of hair off my head.
“One time when we lived in Walport, a neighbor heard me. I was that loud. Pop always heard my screams. It never mattered how much he may have drank.” I tossed Old Red’s hankie on the floor ’cause it was a goobery mess. Officer D didn’t seem to care. She just grabbed a box of tissues from the table next to the couch and handed them to me.
“So that night,” I continued, “I sat on the floor next to the couch, and I screamed and shrieked just like when those ogres invaded my brain, but Pop didn’t wake up, so I screamed more. I even banged my fist on the wall. Then I realized that maybe he didn’t wake up because I was faking it. I can’t bluff Pop with nothing.”
Officer D slowly shook her head. She rested her man paws on my knees. “Oh, Jane,” she whispered.
“So that’s when I came up with the idea of making my screams real. It was the only way. I had to think of a way to hurt myself bad enough to let out my night ogre shrieks.” My voice was cracking. I wasn’t sounding like me at all, but it was me. It was my voice finally telling the honest truth.
“So . . . I went to the kitchen and turned on the stove. I waited until those coils got toasty red, and I—”
“Stop!” G yelled. “Please stop!”
G started sobbing, and Old Red scooted forward in the stiff chair and rubbed her back, but he was looking at me, gazing into my eyeballs with the kindest look I’d seen from him in twelve days.
G lowered her face into her lap, and I knew that my new friend didn’t need to hear any more of this story, so I stopped my gush of words. G was smart. She could figure it out.
“Why didn’t you just call nine-one-one?” Officer D asked, her eyeballs watery. “You didn’t have to do this to yourself.” She touched my wrist. “If you had called, I would have helped get your pop to rehab.”
“I tried, Officer D, but Pop’s phone was in his front pocket. He was lying on top of it. I couldn’t get it out. He was too heavy to turn over.”
Officer D rubbed her watery eyes, and I tried explaining some more. “Even if I had called you, I don’t know if Pop would have gone to rehab. He always told me that no one can really heal unless he wants to heal. No one could make him go to rehab except himself.”
I kept peering at Officer D, trying to make her understand. “When Pop heard my real scream, he did wake up. He saw how hurt I was. He called nine-one-one and he volunteered to go right to rehab.” I pulled in some trembling breaths, and then said softly, “I saved him.”
Officer D closed her eyelids tight, which squeezed out some tears. They dribbled down the sides of her face.
“So you see, you can’t let Pop be arrested. He didn’t do anything wrong, and we should be able to be together. I promise I won’t hurt myself again. I promise.”
Officer D let her tears drip right onto the stiffness of her navy-blue cop collar.
“Jane, don’t you see that this isn’t healthy?”
I held up my bandaged hand. “This?” I said. “My hand is doing fine.”
“I’m not talking about your hand, Jane.” Her voice was louder now. “I’m talking about you and your pop. You’re not a healthy family.”
“What . . . what do you mean?”
My deepest and worst fear in the universe crept into my gut. Even after spilling the whole truth, I was still losing Pop. They were going to take Pop away from me. I felt kind of numb. I could hardly even wiggle my fingers.
“Jane.” She glanced at Old Red, like she was expecting him to say something. Then she peered into my eyes. “I’m moving into an apartment in Willis. It’s in the same building as Mr. Norton’s new apartment.” She paused. “I’d like you to live with me. I’ll take care of you.” She looked at Old Red again. “We’ll take care of you. We’d both like that—very much.”
I stared at Officer D’s face real close. It wasn’t her serious cop face or her questioning face or her worried face, the three faces I knew so well. Her green eyes were a little blurry and her nostrils flared just a bit, and nothing but kindness gushed from her cheeks. She was the best foster person I’d ever lived with—the best foster mom.
But . . . didn’t she know that Pop needed me?
Didn’t she know that I needed . . .
I needed . . .
I shook my head. “I like you a lot, Officer D . . . and you too, Mr. Norton, but I’m supposed to be with family, right? That’s what Pop says. He’s the only family I have.”
G lifted her face and put her arm around me. I rested my head on her shoulder, and I felt this small moment of warmth, like G had pulled a fuzzy towel from a hot dryer and wrapped it around me. We sat like that for a while.
Then Old Red scooted forward in the chair and said, “Actually, young Jane, that’s not true. You do have more family.”
I lifted my head off G’s shoulder and Old Red and me had a sudden staring contest. I studied each and every wrinkle and warty spot on his ancient face. My eyeballs weren’t budging.
He blinked first, losing our staring contest. He scratched behind his mug-handle ears. “Jane, I know what I’m going to say will be a shock to you, but you have family. Right here in Three Boulders.” He paused, a long, clock-ticking pause.
“You have a great-grandfather.”
What was he talking about?
I did not have a great-grandfather.
My family was Pop. Only Pop. If Old Red had looked at G’s journal entry about me, he would know that.
I kept staring at Old Red. I still hadn’t blinked.
“It’s me, Jane. Old Red.” He cleared his throat. “Your great-grandfather.”
Redemption
Now what in the universe was a kid supposed to say when a shotgun-toting, wrinkly ancient dude confessed that he was your great-grandfather? Was I supposed to fling my arms around him and hug him? Was I supposed to act all relieved that I suddenly had another blood relative that I never knew existed? Why didn’t he just tell me he was my great-grandfather when we first met? Why didn’t Officer D tell me?
Why didn’t Pop tell me?
It was impossible to understand how I kept all these questions from spewing out of my mouth. But for some reason, I did. Maybe it was because this announcement was so incredibly big. It was a giant snake, squeezing my vocal cords, not allowing a single peep to be released.
So I did the only other thing I was capable of doing at that moment.
I bolted.
I shot off the couch past Old Red. I slammed Officer D’s door behind me and tore down the stairs and through the dining hall. Heads turned. I heard Timmy Spencer say “Hi, Jane!” but I kept running, out the doors of the dining hall and then up the gravel road. My shoes filled with tiny stones, and they wedged themselves through the holes in my socks and poked the skin around my toes, but I didn’t stop running. I ran up the hill, past all the tidy log cabins, through the fir-lined path, into the grassy clearing toward the three boulders. And when I got there, the bright morning sun was beaming on the rocks. They almost looked red in the sunlight, like giant, protective garnets.
I stepped onto Tortoise Back and slumped down in exhaustion. The rock was warm again
st the skin on my calves.
I thought about Pop and me and our house in Willis. I squeezed tears away wondering when I would see him again.
I thought about Officer D and that mom face and how she wanted me to stay with her.
I thought about my new best friend, G, and her special recorder song.
I thought about Loam and Dandy and their secret rainbow, and little Timmy Spencer, the pint-size Babe Ruth.
I thought about Old Red and his shotgun story and his claim that he was my great-grandfather.
I thought about this crazy little community of Three Boulders that would be gone very soon: the garden, Noreen’s dining hall, the softball game, record night, the laws, the fire pit with the pew logs, the talent show, the nicest folks ever.
I was thinking so much that I had no idea how long I had been there, and I didn’t even notice when G climbed onto the boulder and sat down next to me. She opened her backpack and pulled out a blueberry muffin wrapped in a napkin and set it on my legs. She handed me a bottle of orange juice and some shoestring turnip slices. I ate everything.
“How’d you know I was here?”
G shrugged. “I just knew.”
I slugged down the last drops of orange juice, and G spoke again. “I think you are the bravest person in the world, Jane Pengilly.”
I didn’t feel brave right now.
“You mean the stupidest?”
“No,” G answered. “You were trying to help your pop. The whole way up here, I tried to figure out if I could ever do something like that, risk myself for another person in my family. Loam did it too. He risked himself for Dandy, but I just don’t know if I could. I’m not as strong as you, Jane. I’m mostly scared.” She turned her head away from me. “I’m terrified of leaving Three Boulders.” She ran her pointy finger down the side of Steel Marble.
“Everyone is scared of something, G.”
And I knew that was the truth. I was scared of losing Pop. Pop was scared of losing me. Loam was scared of losing Dandy. Even Old Red Norton was scared. I think he was scared of me, scared to tell me the honest truth when he first met me.
I stood up on the flat boulder that I called Tortoise Back and put my hand on the Majestic Spire, feeling the grooves in the rock.
“Redemption,” G said. “It means ‘the act of setting free, or making up for, or saving from sin.’”
I tossed that definition around—setting free—making up for—saving from sin. I think Pop needed redemption a lot. That’s why he went to rehab. I thought that burning my hand would save him and set us both free, but it didn’t. Burning my hand was wrong. Maybe it was a sin.
Maybe I needed redemption.
G dusted the crumbs off her skirt. “I talked to Loam a few minutes ago. He told me what he saw in that old blue People of Three Boulders journal, the one he wanted us to look at the other day.”
I stared at G.
“There was an entry for your pop, Jerry Pengilly. He lived in Three Boulders when he was seven. It mentioned that Old Red was his grandfather. That’s what Loam wanted to tell you.”
I couldn’t sort this all out. Why didn’t Pop ever tell me that? He said there was only us. Pop and Jane.
But that wasn’t true. We did have more family.
“My brain aches, G,” I said, clamping my hands over my stocking cap.
G rubbed my back, and we sat quiet together.
“Guess what?” she asked after a bit. “I’ve brought camping gear for us. Officer Dashell and my mom and dad said that you and I could spend the night right up here at the boulders.”
She jumped off Community boulder and picked up a bag. “I brought a tent.”
“We’re going to camp on the boulders?” I asked.
“Not on top of the boulders,” she said. “We could set up the tent over there.” She pointed to a small area of dirt and pine needles.
Me and Pop lived at the Lizard Creek Campground once for four weeks while he searched for a job. It was my least favorite home ever. I didn’t like the ants that crawled on me inside the tent, or how our hot dogs got charred in the fire, or how my sleeping bag was damp in the morning. The only thing I did like was snuggling next to Pop, staring at our lantern, and watching the bugs in the halo of light while he told me stories.
“My dad is bringing sleeping bags and food for us later. It’ll be fun. I brought my recorder to play and some of my favorite books.”
G’s usual pale face had a little tinge of pink. Even her frizzy hair looked tame. At the moment, she didn’t look scared of anything, and that made me smile on the inside.
There was no way I was ready to face Officer D and certainly not Old Red, so maybe camping with G would be okay. Maybe she would play that song again for me on her recorder, or something else she had written. Maybe I could forget about Pop for just a little bit . . . maybe.
For some reason, I glanced at her unzipped backpack. I saw the tip of her recorder bag poking out and two or three books, but nothing else. “G, where are all your journals?”
“I gave them to Old Red last night, right after the talent show. I realized he should be the one to have them. This is his community. He needs to keep all those memories when he leaves.”
I looked at G again. G without those journals she loved so much.
I filled up with a whole gallon of pride for her right then. Handing over those journals was like G’s way of letting go and moving forward. She was setting herself free.
That was G’s redemption.
The Next Day
The Rest of the Story
A squawking bird woke me in the morning. I had slept horribly on my earth mattress. Too many little rocks had poked into my back, and my brain couldn’t stop thinking of Pop. He was probably packing his bags at the New Paradise Clinic, expecting to see my face when he came into the lobby, ready to take me home, make a box or three of mac and cheese, and watch some TV with me right at his side. But now that probably wouldn’t happen. Now he might be greeted by social services Fran and a cop with handcuffs. I shook that thought away as fast as I could.
I rolled over and discovered G’s sleeping bag was empty. There was a note on her pillow: Hi, Jane. I went down to the dining hall to get us some breakfast. Don’t go anywhere. Love, G.
I was a little sweaty inside my sleeping bag. The morning sun beamed into the tent from the open gap near the top. I stretched my arms and legs, pulled on Pop’s orange stocking cap, and unzipped the door.
Resting on top of the Community boulder was Old Red Norton. There was a big crooked stick leaning against the Forgiveness boulder. I wondered how long it had taken him to trek up the hill from his cabin. He turned when he heard the zipping and nodded at me. I wanted to zip the door up and crawl back inside, pretending I hadn’t seen him, but I had to pee something fierce.
I slipped on my shoes and walked toward the little grove of trees that G and I decided would be our outhouse. I made sure I was well hidden from Old Red before I did my business.
As I walked back toward the tent, he spoke calmly, “I imagine you have a lot to say to me.”
He sure had that right. Angry words gushed from my mouth. “I’m not real happy with you for keeping a secret like you did. You should have just told me the truth the first time we met. You watched me with your hawk eyeballs all week. You listened to me tell what I did to my hand, and then when it looks like I can’t go home to Pop, you blurt out that you’re my great-grandfather. You should have told me before!”
There, I said it. My cheeks were heated up, and my fists were clenched in balls, but I felt a wee bit better.
“If I had told you when we met on your first day in Three Boulders, would you have believed me?”
“How am I supposed to know that?”
“You get brought to a strange place by a cop, thinking you would stay for twelve days, and the first person you see is an old geezer in a rocking chair who tells you he is your great-grandfather. Would you have believed me?”
I kicked
my shoes into the dirt, popping up little stones. “No.”
Old Red let out a big exhale. “That’s what I thought.” He shifted on the boulder, moving closer to his crooked stick. “Sit down, Jane.”
“No, thank you.”
But Old Red gave me a shotgun-raising look, enhancing those wrinkles around his nose, and I moved to the boulder, sitting as far from him as I possibly could, my back to his side.
“I didn’t finish my whole story the other day in the hospital. I have more to tell you.”
I peeked over my shoulder. Old Red grasped his crooked stick and perched it between his legs. “I’ve mentioned my daughter, Florence, and how you remind me of her. Florence loved Three Boulders as a child, just like I’d hoped. As she grew older though, she wanted to move on, to see what the world beyond this little haven had to offer. She left to find a new life.” Old Red made a soft snoring sound as he inhaled a new breath of air.
“Florence sent me letters telling me of her life, how she had finished college and worked as a journalist, how she had met a wonderful man named Clark Pengilly, and they had married on the coast, barefoot in the sand.”
My brain clicked and recognized that Florence was my grandmother, and I found myself turning toward Old Red, inching closer to him to hear his words better. I wished I could see a picture of my grandmother, standing in the sand. I wondered if she was skinny like me and Pop, and Old Red, and whether her hair was stick straight like mine.
“And then she sent the wonderful news that she had a son, a son she named Jeremiah. It warmed my heart knowing that I had a grandson. I ached to meet him and to see Florence again, so I invited them all to return to Three Boulders.”
Old Red looked older all of a sudden, if that’s even possible.
I finally spoke. “And they came. I know that Pop lived in Three Boulders.”
“Did he tell you that?” Old Red asked.
I shook my head. “No.” But I didn’t explain how I knew. “How long did he live here?”
“Sadly for me, not very long. Perhaps two years.”
Mostly the Honest Truth Page 13
