Zee's Way

by Kristen Butcher

  Mike would’ve said I’d sold out, but I thought of the move more as insurance. I still wasn’t finished the mural, and if things didn’t work out, I’d go back to my original plan. But until the merchants made a decision about us, there was no sense getting them riled up.

  Mrs. Costello was the first test. She showed up just as I was packing up for the day. The guy who owned the dry-cleaning store was with her.

  “Ohhhhh!” she gasped, her gaze flitting over the entire mural and finally coming to rest on the caricature of herself.

  Though I continued to pack up my stuff, I kept one eye on her. For about a minute, she didn’t do anything but stare at the mural. I started to get worried. What if she hated it?

  But I guess she didn’t, because finally she put her hand over her mouth and started to giggle like a little girl. Then she pointed to the caricature and said to the guy from the dry cleaners, “Do you see that? It’s me! It’s a drawing of me.”

  The guy started to laugh. “Yeah. And it looks just like you. You and Peterson, Jackman, Mrs. Wilson and Bingham. You’re all perfect. What a hoot!”

  Mrs. Costello’s smile evaporated and she wagged a finger under the guy’s nose. “Didn’t I tell you the boy was an artist?”

  He nodded. “Yes, you did. You certainly did.”

  Though I was relieved that Mrs. Costello didn’t mind seeing herself on the wall, it felt weird to hear myself being talked about like I wasn’t there. I picked up my paint supplies and stood up to leave.

  Instantly Mrs. Costello glommed onto my arm and pulled me toward the dry-cleaning guy as if she was showing off a prize poodle. “This is him,” she beamed.

  The guy stuck out his hand, and then realizing mine were full, he pulled it back again. “George Riley,” he said. “I own Fairhaven Cleaners.”

  I nodded.

  Mrs. Costello poked me in the back. “Well, tell him your name. Go on.”

  A couple of days ago the woman had been afraid to come near me, and now she was giving me etiquette lessons. I have no idea why I didn’t tell her to mind her own business.

  “Zee,” I said to the guy.

  “That’s no kind of proper name,” Mrs. Costello clucked her tongue in disgust.

  I shrugged and turned to leave, but the guy stepped in front of Mrs. Costello and said, “Well, Zee, I have to tell you how impressed I am with your painting. For days now, Mrs. Costello has been bragging about you to anyone who’ll listen. She thinks you must be related to Michelangelo. She says the only difference is that he worked on ceilings and you work on walls.” He smiled self-consciously.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled and started for the store again.

  “But I didn’t come out here just to compliment you on your painting,” Riley called after me.

  I turned around. “No?”

  He shook his head. “No. As I said, I really like your style. I can visualize something like what you’ve done here on the front window of my shop. I’d like to hire you to paint it—if you’re interested,” he added quickly.

  Something inside me went ping—as if a wire that had been coiled tightly around my chest had suddenly been cut. I breathed deeply. I even allowed myself to smile.

  “Thanks, Mr. Riley,” I said. “That’s cool. And I’d like to, except—”

  Mrs. Costello pushed her way past the dry-cleaning guy. “Except what?” she demanded.

  “Except I already have a job,” I said, nodding toward the wall. “I work for Mr. Feniuk.”

  “Not anymore,” said a voice behind me. It was Feniuk. Once again he’d sneaked up on me. He stuck a yellow receipt under my nose. There was a big red Paid in Full stamp on it.

  Chapter Twelve

  “I’m not that skinny,” Benny protested. “And my nose isn’t anywhere near that big.”

  “You wanna bet,” Danny said. Of course, everybody laughed.

  The guys were sprawled on the boulevard in front of the wall, watching me paint. Even though Feniuk had said my debt to him was paid, I had to finish the mural. It was a matter of pride. The old man had offered to pay me, but I couldn’t let him do that. After all, I was the one who’d messed up the wall in the first place. Anyway, as soon as I was done, I’d be painting the window at Fairhaven Cleaners. And I would be getting paid for that.

  I moved on to the caricature of Mike. I curled his lip like Elvis, and around his neck I put a wide leather band with metal spikes.

  “He looks like a bulldog!” Benny howled, obviously glad it was someone else’s turn to be in the hot seat.

  Doing his best to look like the painting, Mike waved his studded wristband in Benny’s face. “And don’t you forget it,” he snarled.

  It was great to see everybody in a good mood again. We still hadn’t found out if we were welcome in the shopping center, but Feniuk, Riley and Mrs. Costello were clearly on our side, and that was a start.

  “Why so many chains?” Horace complained when I got around to painting him. “I know you said a caricature is supposed to exaggerate stuff, but there’s so much metal around my neck it’s a wonder I can stand up. And what’s with the head? Do you think it could get any bigger?”

  “That’s a question we all ask,” I grinned.

  Horace opened his mouth to zing me back, but a woman’s scream cut him off.

  I guess we should’ve stayed out of it, but there was so much commotion going on outside Jackman’s Market, we had to find out what it was about. Besides, by the time we got there, a huge crowd had gathered and no one noticed us anyway.

  A woman was sobbing and clawing at Jackman’s chest. “My daughter, Jessica, I only took my eyes off her for a second! Where could she have gone?”

  “She can’t be far.” Jackman patted the woman’s back in an effort to comfort her. But she just wailed louder.

  “What happened?” I whispered to a woman in the crowd.

  She shook her head. “The lady’s little girl wandered off.”

  That’s when we heard the police sirens.

  “C’mon.” Horace instantly started jogging toward the street. I thought he just wanted to clear off before the cops arrived, but when we hit the sidewalk, he said, “Okay, Mike, you and Benny take Beaver-brook. Go a couple of blocks if you have to. Zee, you and Danny look on Madison. I’m gonna search Fontaine. How far can a little kid get in five minutes? One of us is bound to see her.”

  He was right. Danny and I hadn’t even gone a block when we heard Horace whistle. By the time we caught up with him he was halfway across the shopping center parking lot, heading for Jackman’s Market. And there was a little girl riding on his shoulders.

  “Hello,” she beamed at us. She had one of Horace’s chains around her neck, and it was puddling on the top of Horace’s head.

  “Jessica!” The little girl’s mother came running toward us at full speed.

  “Hi, Mommy,” Jessica smiled.

  Horace put the little girl down. Instantly the woman swallowed her up in her arms. Eventually, of course, Jessica started to squirm, and the lady had no choice but to let her loose. Hanging onto the kid with one hand, the woman stood up and put out her other hand to Horace.

  “Thank you,” she said, and you could tell she meant it. “Thank you so much.”

  The crowd—which had followed the woman over—broke into applause.

  Horace grinned self-consciously. “You’re welcome, but I didn’t really do anything. She was playing with a cat in somebody’s yard. I just called her name and she came.” Then his expression got all serious again and he said, “But you know, lady, you really ought to teach your little girl not to go with strangers. What if I’d been a weirdo or somethin’?”

  Even the guys and I could see what a goofy thing that was to say, and we laughed right along with everyone else.

  Until Jackman stepped up.

  The day got quiet again, and I held my breath. Jackman stuck his hand out. For a few seconds Horace just looked at it. Finally he took it—and shook it—Jackman with it. The crowd
laughed again. So did Jackman and Horace.

  And that’s when I knew everything was going to be okay.

  I waited until everyone had cleared off the shopping center parking lot before I headed back to the wall. There was still one more part to do on the mural, and I wanted to do it alone.

  When I was done, I stood on the boulevard and drank it in. I thought about how I’d tried to send a message to the merchants with my graffiti—and how that had failed. Then I thought about Horace and Jackman shaking hands. I looked at the mural again. Yeah. It was right. It told the story as it really was.

  It was a storefront. There was a door in the middle and display windows on both sides. A blue-and-yellow awning hung overhead. On one side of the door stood the merchants, eying the broken window in the door and the incriminating soccer ball on the sidewalk. On the other side of the door stood the guys—the obvious culprits. And in the middle, kneeling on the sidewalk and picking up the pieces of glass, were Feniuk and me.

  “I told you that door needed something, didn’t I?” Feniuk said from behind me. “You were bound to figure it out sooner or later.”

  I turned. Feniuk was smiling, but for once it didn’t bug me. Jackman was standing beside him. And surprisingly, that didn’t bug me either.

  Jackman was soaking up the mural and moving his head up and down like one of those bobble-head dolls.

  “It’s good,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I replied and began gathering up my paint things for the last time.

  They watched me for a while, and then Jackman cleared his throat. “You know,” he said, “one of the problems with getting old is that you forget that you used to be young.”

  I thought about that. Since I hadn’t been old yet, I couldn’t really argue. So I nodded.

  I hadn’t realized Jackman had been holding his breath until he let it out in a gush. “Did you see the shoe repair shop has closed?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I saw that.”

  “It’s a small space—hard to rent.” He cleared his throat again. “Well, the thing is, the other merchants and I have been talking, and we thought that…I mean there’s no point in having the place sit empty…we can’t have you kids standing around the—”

  “Leo,” Feniuk interrupted, “if you don’t get to the point soon, the boy will be as old as we are.”

  Jackman frowned and waved him away. “All right, all right.” Then he looked back at me. “It’s like this. You kids need a place. We have one. I can’t promise you it’ll be forever, but until something better comes along…” He shrugged. “Well, it’s a start. What do you say? If you’re willing to give it a shot, so are we.”

  NEW Orca Soundings novel

  Overdrive by Eric Walters

  “Go! Get out of here!”

  I saw flashing red lights behind me in the distance. For a split second I took my foot off the accelerator. Then I pressed down harder and took a quick left turn.

  Jake has finally got his driver’s license, and tonight he has his brother’s car as well. He and his friend Mickey take the car out and cruise the strip. When they challenge another driver to a road race, a disastrous chain reaction causes an accident. Jake and Mickey leave the scene, trying to convince themselves they were not involved. The driver of the other car was Luke, a one-time friend of Jakes. Jake finds he cannot pretend it didn’t happen and struggles with the right thing to do. Should he pretend he was not involved and hope Luke doesn’t remember? Or should he go to the police?

  NEW Orca Soundings novel

  Blue Moon by Marilyn Halvorson

  Bobbie Jo didn’t set out to buy a limping blue roan mare—she wanted a colt she could train to barrel race. But the horse is a fighter, just like Bobbie Jo, and that’s what made up her mind. Now all she has to do is train the sour old mare that obviously has a past. While she nurses the horse back to health and they get to know each other, Bobbie Jo realizes that the mare, now called Blue Moon, may have more history than she first thought. With the help of the enigmatic Cole McCall, she slowly turns the horse into a barrel racer. Then, when everything seems to be going well, she finds out the truth about Blue Moon and where she came from. Will Bobbie Jo be able to keep the horse? And will she find out why Cole seems to have so many secrets?

  NEW Orca Soundings novel

  Thunderbowl by Lesley Choyce

  Jeremy’s band is hot—really hot. Thunder-bowl is on the way up, and they have had their first big break. After beating archrivals The Mongrel Dogs in a Battle of the Bands they have landed a long-term gig at a local bar, and now a record company might be interested. The only problem is that when-Jeremy should be doing his homework and keeping up in school, he is spending most nights in a rowdy club, trying to keep the band together while his life is falling apart and he is pretending to be older than he actually is. Trying to balance his dreams of success with the hard realities of the music business, Jeremy is forced to make some hard choices.

  Other titles in the ORCA SOUNDINGS series.

  Blue Moon by Marilyn Halvorson

  Bull Rider by Marilyn Halvorson

  Death Wind by William Bell

  Fastback Beach by Shirlee Smith Matheson

  The Hemingway Tradition by Kristin Butcher

  Hit Squad by James Heneghan

  Kicked Out by Beth Goobie

  No Problem by Dayle Campbell Gaetz

  One More Step by Sheree Fitch

  Overdrive by Eric Walters

  Refuge Cove by Lesley Choyce

  Sticks and Stones by Beth Goobie

  Thunderbowl by Lesley Choyce

  The Trouble With Liberty by Kristin Butcher

  Tough Trails by Irene Morck

  Truth by Tanya Lloyd Kyi

  Who Owns Kelly Paddik? by Beth Goobie