Nekomah Creek

by Linda Crew

  “Your dad is so nice,” Rose said.

  “Yeah.” I bet he would look good to someone who didn’t have a dad at all.

  And Amber seemed to like him, although I didn’t know what she was comparing him to.

  But how would he look to someone like Orin who had a dad? A big strong one?

  Suddenly, between the swing and thinking about Amber and remembering how Dad planned to dress up for the Halloween party, my stomach felt funny. Before, I always felt kind of proud when he would come in a costume and make everyone laugh.

  But now I had to think: What kind of grief would Orin give me when he saw my dad wearing a rubber pig snout?

  And what would Mrs. Van Gent say about a grown man with a curly pig tail attached to the seat of his jeans?

  5

  On the Hot Seat Again

  Mrs. Perkins’s timing was perfect. I was right in the middle of working on my diorama the next Monday when she motioned me up to her desk.

  “It’s time for your appointment with Mrs. Van Gent,” she said when I got there.

  I stared at her. “But I talked to her last week.”

  “Come along,” she said, and I had to follow her out into the hall.

  “Robert, you have to see the counselor more than once to get anything out of it.”

  “But I don’t have anything to say to her. And anyway, I already got the message about not reading so much.”

  “I’m not sure it sank in. Mrs. Elliot saw you pulling a paperback out of your pocket on the playground yesterday.”

  “Oh.” For Pete’s sake, this school was a spy network.

  “Besides, all this reading is just a symptom. We think maybe Mrs. Van Gent can get at your deeper problem.”

  My deeper problem. That sounded so gloomy.

  “Now run along.” She glanced at her watch. “She’ll be waiting for you.”

  I trudged down the hall. My feet felt so heavy I almost thought I was lugging some big problem. Good grief, how could this be happening to me? Me, Robby Hummer, who used to be known (I thought) as a pretty good kid.

  The door to the little room was open and Mrs. Van Gent was already sitting in there.

  “Come on in, Robby. How’s it going?”

  I gave her a bleak look. How could things be good if I was here?

  But at first it wasn’t so bad. She started making chitchat about things. I sort of liked it, her asking my opinion about a new movie and if I could tell her the best bookstore in Douglas Bay. She got me talking about a book I was reading. In fact, she seemed so interested I laid out the whole plot for her. I even got up to act out a couple of scenes. That made her smile, and she really did have a nice smile.

  Her laugh was even better. She loved the part where I showed how the hero wrestled the python—I was down on the floor—and how it got him around the neck and he started to choke … “Argh argh argh!!!”

  “Everything okay in here?”

  I opened my eyes and saw Mr. DeWeese, the principal, staring at me. I let go of my neck. I sat up.

  “Yes, fine, fine,” Mrs. Van Gent said. She cleared her throat. “Robby was just … ah … demonstrating something for me.”

  “Oh, I see.” I don’t think Mr. DeWeese saw at all. He looked at her. He looked at me. Then he pulled his head back into his office and closed the door.

  “Well,” Mrs. Van Gent said as I crawled back up into my chair. “Well.” Her lips pressed together, but her eyes were still smiling. “Maybe we’d better get down to business.”

  Now things started going downhill. First she went over what we’d talked about the week before—me reading so much, me avoiding sports, how I had to get used to not being an only child anymore …

  Then she brought up something new—Dad being unemployed.

  “That’s correct, isn’t it?” she said. “He doesn’t have a job right now?”

  “He has a job. He takes care of the twins.”

  “Of course, and that’s very important. But I meant a job outside the home.”

  “If he had a job outside the home,” I said, “we’d have to pay somebody else to take care of the babies. That would be a job for them, right? So how come it isn’t a job for my dad?”

  “Good point!” She beamed at me, surprised. “I can see not much gets past you.”

  For a moment I felt pretty good, but then she started talking about the stresses on a family when a father is unemployed and the mother is working, how it can be so hard for everyone …

  “But Mrs. Van Gent? I think my dad likes taking care of the babies.”

  “Well, of course he does, Robby. I’m sure he loves them very much.”

  But somehow I had the feeling she didn’t understand. Dad didn’t just love the babies, he honestly enjoyed being the one who took care of them. That’s a different thing.

  “I think it’s wonderful he’s willing to pitch in like this until something comes up for him.”

  I sighed. I just wasn’t getting through to her. She seemed to have this picture in her mind of how our family lived, and nothing I said could change it. Maybe that’s why I didn’t try to explain about Mom getting the money from Grampa Brooks’s house when he died, how we weren’t rich but we had enough so Dad could stay home with the babies for a while if he wanted.

  “He must really have his hands full,” she went on. “Do you ever feel he doesn’t have as much time for you anymore?”

  I looked at her sitting there, so nice and sympathetic. She was trying to understand.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Sometimes.” I thought about how he’d promised to play checkers with me the other night after the babies were down, and then kept falling asleep right in the middle of the game.

  So I told her about that, and before I knew it, I was sort of complaining how Dad and I hadn’t really been able to hang out together since that first week when Mom and the babies had to stay in the hospital in Salem.

  I talked about what a great time we’d had then, sitting by the wood stove at night, eating chocolate cigars and listening to the rain beat on the cedar-shingled roof, how Dad told me again about my being born right in our house and my first bed being a wooden apple box.

  “He says I’m lucky. I can leave doors open all my life, and when people say ‘What’s the matter? Were you born in a barn?’ I can say ‘Yes!’ ”

  Mrs. Van Gent smiled at that.

  Then I told how one of my favorite things used to be riding with Dad in the pickup, coming home with a load of firewood we’d chopped, knowing Mom would fix hot chocolate for us. These days Mom used the pickup to get to work. I hadn’t ridden in it in ages.

  Before the babies, we used to take trips and visit my cousins, but that was too hard now. Heck, we couldn’t even go out to eat.

  Well, we did once, but between Lucy spilling ice water in my lap and Freddie unsticking somebody else’s old chewing gum from under the table and chewing it, Mom and Dad got kind of crabby.

  “Okay, I admit it,” I said to Mrs. Van Gent. “I wasn’t exactly Mr. Cheerful myself. But I still don’t think my mom should have made that crack about wishing they’d asked for a table in the No-Whining section.”

  Mrs. Van Gent nodded sympathetically.

  “I mean, how polite can a guy be expected to act with ice water in his pants?” I shook my head, remembering. “The last straw was when Lucy grabbed the hair of the lady in the next booth. I’m sorry, ‘Beth,’ my dad says to my mom, and he’s saying this loud enough for everybody in the place to hear. I’m sorry, but this is absolutely the last time we offer to take Mona’s kids anywhere!’ ” I rubbed my heel against my shin. “We haven’t been to a restaurant since.”

  “Is that something you miss?”

  “Not really. That doesn’t matter at all compared to our trip to Powell’s Books. You know, in Portland?”

  Mrs. Van Gent’s face lit up. “Oh, it’s a wonderful store. Are you going there?”

  “Well, I want to. Mom and Dad have been promising me we will. I mea
n, every time I see the ad on TV after Reading Rainbow I practically start drooling. You know, where they call it a City of Books? A whole block? Wow. I’ve been saving my allowance for months now.” I sighed. “We’ll never get there at this rate, though. Every time we plan to go something comes up—Freddie gets another ear infection, Mom has to work, the van breaks down …” I glanced at Mrs. Van Gent. “I don’t blame any of this on the babies, though.”

  “Of course not.”

  “I mean, they didn’t ask to be born.”

  Mrs. Van Gent smiled.

  “But sometimes …”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, sometimes it seems like I’m always getting in trouble over them. They do something bad and Dad gets mad at me because I didn’t stop them. I don’t think that’s fair!”

  “No, I can see why you’d feel that way.” She glanced at her watch. “Oh, dear, I wish I could hear more about it now but I’m afraid our time is up. Let’s remember to talk about that next week, okay?”

  “Uh …” Right then that didn’t sound so bad. Nobody had listened to me talk this long in ages. “I guess,” I finally said.

  “Oh, by the way …” She handed me a paper. “I forgot last week. I’ll need to have your parents sign this.”

  I took the sheet. “What is it?”

  “A permission slip for counseling. Just a formality, in your case. I know how supportive your folks were about the idea of having a counselor at Nekomah Creek.”

  My smile must have looked a little sick. I was thinking they probably liked the idea a lot better picturing Orin Downard in the hot seat instead of their own kid.

  Just outside the door, Amber was waiting her turn. As I passed, she stuck her face up so close I could’ve counted the freckles.

  “You didn’t tell anything about your family, did you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I hope you didn’t get tricked into saying things you shouldn’t have.”

  “I didn’t,” I said uneasily. “At least I don’t think so.”

  “You didn’t complain about anything? About your parents or anything that happens at your house?”

  “No!” Why was I lying? Why was I feeling so guilty?

  “That’s good, because she can be so sneaky. Take it from me, I know. She acts so nice, but it’s just so you’ll spill your guts. Then they get you.”

  “Get you?” My legs felt weak.

  “Yeah, they use everything you say to prove what’s wrong with your family.”

  “Well, I didn’t say anything bad about my family.”

  But as I headed back down the hall, I was kicking myself. Me and my big mouth, complaining about Dad not having time for me, admitting how mad it made me when the twins got me in trouble. I’d probably just turned my whole family in. I pictured Mom and Dad sitting in those little chairs outside the principal’s office, hanging their heads. They’d have to wear those pointy dunce hats like you see in old movies. BAD PARENTS, the hats would announce in big black letters.

  And it would be my fault.

  Back in the classroom, it was free reading time, usually my favorite. Only now, when I opened my book, the words just buzzed around the page. No way would they line up in sentences and march the story into my brain. Already too crowded in there with all these bad thoughts, I guess.

  Now that really made me mad! It wasn’t enough that the school people were keeping me from reading as much as I wanted to—now they’d fixed it so I couldn’t concentrate on reading at all!

  6

  The Spaghetti Disaster

  Riding my bike home after school, I felt weighed down with dread. If I didn’t have a big heavy problem before, I sure did now. The school would be wanting this permission slip back. I had to tell Mom and Dad about the counselor.

  By the time I coasted down over our own little bridge, I had made up my mind to come clean, tell Dad everything, even admit how I’d ratted on our family by complaining to the counselor. I hated to do it, but he needed to know what we were up against.

  I took a deep breath and flung open the front door with a bang. “Dad! I have to talk to—”

  “Shh! The babies are still asleep!”

  “Oh. Sorry, I forgot. But Dad—”

  “Will you keep it down?”

  I winced.

  Dad softened his voice. “I’m sorry, Robby, but the kids have been extremely cranky today—”

  “I know, I know. And they really need their naps.”

  “I really need their naps.”

  “Okay, but Dad?”

  “Dadddeeeee!” The thin wail came from the babies’ room.

  “Ding-dong it.” Dad threw down his dish towel. “I s’pose I better get her. If I don’t, she’ll wake up Freddie and I’ll have both of them on my hands.”

  He hurried up the stairs, leaving me standing there with my story still stuck in my mouth.

  I climbed up into my loft and threw myself onto my pile of blankets. I lay there, watching the raindrops slide over my half-circle stained-glass window.

  Dad didn’t have any time for me. Maybe I was wrong to complain to the counselor about it, but it was true. Didn’t seem fair, getting in so much trouble for telling the truth. But I guess I should have paid more attention to Amber when she tried to warn me last week.

  Amber Hixon. Exactly why were they sending her to the counselor, anyway? Couldn’t be rowdiness. She was quiet. Sullen, you might say. Even when she read aloud she barely muttered. She was always telling me she had a shelf full of books at home, but I don’t think she ever read any, She didn’t have one single scoop on her reading ice cream cone. Were they bugging her for not reading enough just like they bugged me for reading too much?

  I sighed and rolled over in my blankets. I wished I thought it was something like that-dumb, but not so scary. But when Amber came out of the counselor’s that first day, she said it was about some picture she’d drawn of her family. I looked at my drawing on the wall, the one of us kids tumbling down the stairs. Mrs. Perkins had been so shocked when she saw it. Gee, maybe I should’ve stuck to animal pictures just like Amber should have stuck to unicorns. This was about our families. And now wasn’t Mrs. Van Gent asking the exact sort of nosy questions Amber warned me she would?

  How did I ever get myself into this? How was I ever going to get out?

  I thought of my python wrestling match and my cheeks went flaming hot all over again. Had I really done that? But the thing is, when you’re making somebody laugh, and they’re enjoying it so much, it seems only polite to keep it up, right?

  Downstairs, both kids were awake. I guess Dad had decided if he couldn’t keep them quiet he might as well crank them up.

  I heard my favorite Zydeco record start. That’s Cajun music—lots of fiddles and accordions and singing about the spooky black bayous of Louisiana. We like to scream along with the werewolves and zombies in the background. “Zydeco! Zydeco!” the babies are always yelling. That and a lot of French words none of us understands.

  Well, I doubt there’s a person alive who could keep from dancing when they hear this music.

  I hurried down the ladder and swept Lucy up. Now really, I thought, somebody ought to clue Mrs. Perkins in to Queen Ida and her Goodtime Zydeco Band.

  Beats the heck out of the hokey pokey.

  Maybe I should have mentioned the counselor at dinner, but by then I didn’t feel so determined about it, and I hated to spoil everybody’s good mood.

  As usual, Dad started the goofiness. We were having spaghetti, so he launched into that mushy Italian song from Lady and the Tramp. You know, where the two dogs have a romantic dinner and the waiters come out with violins and accordions?

  “Thees ees the night, eetsa beauuuuutiful night …”

  Freddie crooned along, batting his eyelashes, mugging like Dad. What a ham.

  So Lucy decided to compete for attention with noodle tricks. Flipping them, twisting them.

  Before long both kids were throwing
noodles, their little arms jerking out like spring-action catapults.

  I cracked up.

  “Robby,” Mom said in a warning voice. “Don’t encourage them.”

  “I can’t help it,” I pleaded, clapping my hands over my mouth. Parents are so weird. One time something makes them mad, another time they’ll think it’s hilarious. How’s a kid supposed to keep it straight whether they’re in a funny mood or a mad mood?

  Right now Dad looked serious. “We’ve told you over and over, Robby. Just ignore—”

  Whap. A glob of noodles smacked him in the eye.

  I sucked in my breath.

  Dad reached up, wiped it away.

  Freddie, flinger of the noodles, was waiting with a hopeful look.

  Dad’s eyes narrowed. His black brows went together.

  Oh, no, I thought. He really is mad.

  But Freddie was still smiling.

  Slowly, carefully, Dad picked up a noodle from his own plate.

  Then he tossed it at Freddie!

  Freddie shrieked with delight.

  “Oh, Bill.” Mom looked at the ceiling.

  Lucy stood up and squawked for attention, then she dumped her whole bowl over her head.

  We all about fell off our chairs. Even Mom started laughing in a tired, I-give-up sort of way.

  Through strands of orange spaghetti, Lucy grinned at each of us in turn.

  Mom and Dad were laughing. Hot dog! That meant I could laugh too. I wished the counselor could see this. My nutty family! I wanted to make them laugh too.

  I picked up my plate of spaghetti and turned it over my head.

  The laughing stopped.

  Mom and Dad jumped up.

  “Robby! For cryin’ out loud!”

  Warm noodles were sliding down my neck. Mom attacked me with a dish towel. I guess there was a lot more spaghetti on my plate than in Lucy’s bowl. Mom dragged me toward the bathroom.

  “What on earth would make you do such a thing?”

  “I don’t know,” I wailed as she made me kneel down and put my head under the tub faucet. Things had gone from good to bad so fast. “Anyway, Dad started it.”

  She muttered something about bad examples, then lectured me about me being nine and how I shouldn’t act like I’m two, et cetera et cetera …