“I’m fine.”
He starts to close the door behind us then stops. “Oh, almost forgot,” he says. “It’s Monday. The cleaning crew comes in tonight.” He pushes the door back open, and we walk along the hall, past the receptionist. She’s on her phone, but she waves.
Down on the street I toss my backpack into the car and climb in to sit in the seat behind Mr. VanLeer. He settles in and draws his seat belt out. I hear it click. He starts the car up and tunes the radio.
Then an idea lands in my brain. It’s like a dart coming out of nowhere. Maybe there is a way to know—
“Wait! Mr. VanLeer! I think I need to use the bathroom,” I say. “Like, right now. Can I run back upstairs?” I have the car door open and one foot on the pavement.
“Oh, of course, Perry! Go ahead.”
“I’ll be just a minute,” I promise him. I hurry. Inside the varnished door, I take the stairs two at a time.
The receptionist is still on her phone. I point down the hallway and mouth the word bathroom at her. She nods then turns her chair around to pull papers out of her fax machine. I hustle down the hall. At the bathroom door I look back over my shoulder. She’s not looking. I slip into VanLeer’s open office.
Smooth and easy, I think. I slide LAWSON aside and drag Mom’s case box out of the corner and lift the lid. Then I go and stand in front of VanLeer’s Spark Award and take a huge breath. Will this work? I’m not sure . . . but something will happen because of this. I have to do it.
I reach up with both hands, close my fingers around the frame, and lift the award off the hook. I carry it to Mom’s box and lay it inside, right on top of the papers—it just fits. I cover the box and slide it back into the corner. I push LAWSON into place.
At the door I feel dizzy. I puff two breaths then peek out into the hall. All clear. I slip into the bathroom, flush a toilet, and wash my hands with the squirty soap. Then I swing back out and down the stairs to the car where VanLeer is waiting.
He twists in his seat to look back at me. “Better?” he asks.
“Way better.” I buckle up, dry my hands on the legs of my pants. Then I ask him, “Mr. VanLeer, how is Zoey? Have you heard?”
chapter fifty-six
WHERE ONE ROAD MEETS ANOTHER
It turns out Zoey Samuels has a seriously bad tooth in her head.
“They gave us meds for the pain and said she needs a root canal.” Zoey’s mom is explaining it to VanLeer. “It’ll take two visits.”
“Oh my heck!” he says. “Zoey, honey. I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t care, I don’t care. I don’t want to think about it. I just want it over with,” Zoey says. She slumps on the couch in front of the TV and tunes into Desiree Riggs’s Monday evening segment. I think Stepdad Tom is going to play this right and leave her alone. Zoey doesn’t want to talk to anyone tonight—not even me.
“And you have to go all the way to Lincoln?” VanLeer asks.
“Well, just outside the city. It’s a hike, but she is one of the best oral surgeons for miles. And she had an opening for tomorrow.”
“Good. That’s the most important thing.” Mr. VanLeer nods. “So what if I take the day off and go with you? Could we make a day of it? A little getaway . . .”
I am invisible this evening. I don’t even have to sneak off—I just go.
I sit on my heels on the mat in the VanLeer closet. The camera screen glows. I look at pages and pages of tiny writing all about Mom’s case. The parts I can understand seem to tell the story the way she told it to me. I see where she lied and confessed. But of course, it doesn’t look like lying on these papers. It looks like facts. The court believed her. Maybe someone else could find important details in here—someone who knows what to look for, like VanLeer or Mr. Rojas. But I can’t.
I advance the screen to the picture of the intersection. It’s just a plain T. One road meeting another road. I zoom to one street corner and see a diner. There is a red-and-white sign that has a coffee cup on it. I zoom to the other side and pick out a square box of a building with gas pumps out front. It’s completely ordinary except for one thing. There is an old truck parked up on the roof. It’s the one funny thing about the picture, the one thing that pops out—red and rust against the sky.
I click to the next image. It’s the diagram of an intersection. Someone has scribbled NE-79 and West Raymond Road. There is a sketch of the way the accident happened. Vehicle A proceeded into the path of Vehicle B. There is a tiny graphic of a stop sign. A penciled arrow points to it. I flick back to the photo and zoom in to find the stop sign. So what? I think. I close my aching eyeballs and sigh. How can any of this help Mom?
“Perry, suppertime!” Mr. VanLeer hollers in the hall.
I shut down my camera and hurry to the kitchen.
chapter fifty-seven
A CONVERSATION WITH KRENSKY
On Tuesday afternoon I tell Mrs. Buckmueller about Zoey’s root canal.
“Oh dear, oh lordy. Poor thing. We’ll miss her terribly on the truck today.” Mrs. B leans over a pile of books and uses her hands, arms, and elbows to push them into a stack. When she’s done, I pack the stack into a bin and heft it onto the cart.
“It seems sort of awful that a tooth has roots,” I say. “When I think of roots I think of carrots. But I don’t like the idea of carrots growing in my gums, and I don’t like the idea of orange teeth.”
This makes Mrs. Buckmueller laugh out loud. We are pushing the cart past the main desk, and Mr. Olsen puts on a serious face and shushes her. “This is a library!” he booms. Mrs. Buckmueller hoots again as we go out the door. I do feel bad that Zoey isn’t with us. Both her mom and Mr. VanLeer went with her to see the oral surgeon. They said they’d have a “day date” while she gets the work done. They were laughing and sort of lovey about it. I think they both just want to be with Zoey.
It’s a colossal win for me that VanLeer won’t be in his office today. Time will stretch before he’ll see that his award is missing. If he decides to work on Mom’s case like he promised, he’ll find it. If he asks, I’ll have to tell him that I put it in there, and why. If that’s a crime, well, I’ll tell him I must belong back inside Blue River.
The Bucking Blue Bookmobile motors along, and I let out a tremendous yawn. I rub my eyes with both fists. I was up late last night in the VanLeer closet giving the papers another look. The good news is, the zoom makes everything readable. The bad news is, I need help to understand what it means. The worst news is, I know exactly who I have to go to for help, and I’m dreading it. The good news is, I know where to find him.
I hit the silver button next to the big glass door at Blue River and peer up into the security cam. They are expecting the Bucking Blue Bookmobile this time of day. The door clicks and slides open. Mrs. Buckmueller uses the cart like a walker to give her bionic knee an assist. I guide us slowly. The first person I see is Fo-Joe.
I raise my hand, and he slaps it. “I heard they call you Temp-Joe now.” I want to congratulate him. But I feel so bad about Warden Daugherty.
“Somebody’s got to play the part,” he says.
Mrs. Buckmueller chimes in. “You’re a good man for the job.”
“Warden Daugherty said so herself,” I say. Then I ask, “Do you know where Mom is today?”
“Yep. She’s up in the main meeting room . . . where I am sure she has been moving all the furniture.” He rolls his eyes. I grin. He checks the gray clock in the common. “They’re scheduled to go until four thirty today. But she knows you’re coming. She’ll make it down before you leave.”
I have another question for him. But one of the forewomen shows up, and they begin flipping through papers on a clipboard. I shuffle my feet. Mrs. Buckmueller is tilting her head at me like she knows something is up. Fo-Joe and the forewoman keep talking. I know I can’t interrupt them, and I can’t hold up Mrs. B. I sigh and shrug. We rev up and push the cart through the common.
We unpack the book bins. As I finish filling up
the magazine rack, she stands close beside me. In a low voice she asks, “Where is it you need to go today, Perry?”
“Oh . . . uh . . . law library,” I say. “I need to see Mr. Krensky. Do you know him?”
Mrs. B makes wide eyes and clears her throat. “Um-hmm, um-hmm, I do. Unpleasant as the day is long, that one.” Mrs. B starts to hum. She draws the copy of Money Matters magazine off the rack. She collects a short stack of books and winds a rubber band around them, still humming away. Then she reaches into her bag and pulls out a fat marking pen and a notecard. I smell the ink and listen to it squeaking along the card. She writes: KRENSKY—LAW LIBRARY. She tucks the notecard under the rubber band.
“Perry!” she says, and her voice rises into the quiet common. “Be a darling and deliver this up to the law library for me, will you? It’s urgent,” she says. She thrusts the package at me. Her arm hinges open, like a wing, her sweater sleeve draping. She points up the stairs. She whispers to me, “I’ll ask for forgiveness later. You go.”
So I do. With the book bundle under one arm, I hoist myself along the candy-red railing, all the way up the stairs. It’s strange to walk past my Blue River bedroom, past the warden’s office with no warden in it, and it’s strange not to run the Block C corridor to Mom’s door. But she wouldn’t be there anyway. I take the turn toward the law library instead. At the door, I steel myself then step inside.
It’s quiet here now. It’ll fill up in about an hour with residents who want to work on their cases. But I see the law library’s constant occupant. Or rather, I see the two white poofs of his hair. Mr. Krensky’s back is to me, he’s looking down, probably studying a case for someone—someone who will owe him a week’s worth of bed making or personal laundry service or gifts from the commissary. I wish I could talk to Mr. Rojas instead. But he’s Mom’s good friend, and I don’t want either of them to know what I’ve done.
I walk around to the other side of table and stand in front of Mr. Krensky. He looks up—when he pleases. I get the feeling he’s seen my feet and has identified me by my sneakers.
He speaks. “Well, look who’s back. Not to stay, I hope.”
“Hi, Mr. Krensky,” I say. “Mrs. Buckmueller sent me up.” I set the book and magazine bundle down in front of him. I try not to let him see that I’m nervous.
His mouth tracks out on one side, a complaining sort of straight line. “Right. You and I both know I would’ve stopped by the common on my own later.”
“Well, I guess that’s true—”
“No pleasantries,” he says. “Cut to the chase. You want something.”
I’m going to have to get him to forget that I’m Perry Cook, the kid he hates to have underfoot.
“I-I need your help . . . with my . . . with a case—”
“Too busy,” he snaps. He looks down at his work. I take a breath, but I don’t let him hear it.
“I know you don’t like me,” I say. “But you don’t have to. This is business.” I try to sound like one of the residents.
“Too busy,” he repeats. But I hear the tiniest break between the two words. He is listening to me.
“Never mind,” I say. I take one step back from the table.
“Hold on,” he says. “I happen to want something from the outside. I’ll take it as payment if you can get it.”
“What if I can’t?”
He turns his palms up and makes a sour face. “Then I guess you lose,” he says. He goes back to his reading.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“Fish,” he says. “Sardines.” He points a finger at me like he’s putting me on a skewer. “Three cans of Wild Planet sardines, California caught, packed in one hundred percent virgin olive oil. No substitutes.” He looks over his wire glasses at me.
“No second choice?” I ask.
“Were you listening?” A tiny spit ball lathers at the corner of his mouth. “If you don’t bring me Wild Planet, I don’t give you that case analysis.” He stares at me a second then goes back to his reading.
“I’m in,” I say. I unzip my backpack and pull my camera out. I hesitate. I’ve saved all my photos and videos on memory cards. But this camera means a lot to me. Krensky could keep it. He could sell it! I’d never see it again. With a leap of faith, I set it down in front of him.
“What’s this?” he says, giving me a cranky, closed-eye look.
“Everything is on the camera. Well, almost everything. I couldn’t shoot it all becau—”
“What? You bring me part of a case and expect me to read it from a two-by-three-inch screen?”
“I-I got most of it. And you can zoom in.”
“Baw!” Krensky puts his hand over the camera. He slowly slides it across the table back to me. “You give me a headache just thinking about the eyestrain, you little piece of—”
“Fish!” I say. “I’ll pay you in fish! For any advice you can give me—”
“I don’t give advice. I analyze.”
“Fine. I just need anything you see here that doesn’t look right. Three cans of Wild Planet sardines, California catch, in olive oil.” I say it so he’ll know that I intend to get it exactly right.
“Double compensation,” he says. “For the pain of eyestrain.”
“What’s compensation?” I try not to blink.
“Payment.”
“You’re doubling your order of sardines?”
“You heard me.”
“But as long as I get the fish, you’ll put the case in plain English for me?” He sneers but he dips his chin twice as if to say yes. “Done,” I say. “When do you think you’ll have it?”
“When can you deliver my fish?”
“Friday,” I say.
“All up to you,” Mr. Krensky says. “Now, do me a favor.” He sticks his pinky finger in his ear and gives it a twist. He says, “Get lost!”
chapter fifty-eight
A QUESTION FOR ZOEY’S MOM
“It feels better because of the medicine. But it’s like I have a chunk of cement in there now.” That’s what Zoey tells me when I ask about her tooth.
“You do sound like you have a mouthful of marbles.” I tell it to her gently.
“One thing is for sure,” she says, “I wish I could have it all done in one appointment. I don’t want to go back.”
“Oh . . . not so sure about that, Zoey,” her mom says. “There’s a reason the surgeon breaks it up into two appointments.”
“It’s quite a procedure.” Mr. VanLeer nods. He’s chopping and mashing Zoey’s supper. He’s been changing out her compresses to keep the swelling down. If she feels well, she can go to school tomorrow. She’ll see the oral surgeon again next week. I’ve caught her up on homework—except for her Coming to Butler County project. Miss Maya gave us all of fifth period to work on the projects today, and Zoey missed it. They’re due next week. Kids are talking about presenting them. I should talk to Zoey before the project becomes real trouble for her. But tonight I think we all just want to take care of her. It’s good to see her slowly eat her mush. I make a scene of smashing up my supper too. She laughs from her lopsided mouth. Then the adults mush up their food too.
Later, I help Zoey’s mom carry the freshly painted duck-egg blue chairs from the garage to the cellar. She’s put three coats of paint on them. They look new, but not new. Recycled, I guess. Together, we move some boxes out from under a little round table. The boxes make me think of VanLeer’s office. My supper goes a little cold in my belly. Zoey’s mom has no idea how many boxes I’ve moved recently—and that’s not all.
“You okay, Perry?” she asks.
“Sure.” I add a nod.
“Okay, let’s just push the chairs right up to the table.” She lifts one, I lift another. We get them all in place. She stands back looking at the arrangement.
“You almost have a dining room in your basement,” I say.
“Ha! I was thinking the same thing.” Zoey’s mom laughs.
I point to some broken-down bed parts
and a little couch with curly arms. “A bedroom and a living room.” I keep the joke going because I like to hear Zoey’s mom laugh, and she does again and again.
Together we pack things in a little tighter. “Because who knows what I’ll be bringing home next,” she says. I help her slide an old trunk against the wall. “Good muscle!” Zoey’s mom says. She dusts her hands off. “Hey, I didn’t even ask you, how was your mom today? Was there time to see her?”
“Yeah . . .” I have to think to remember how the afternoon went. “I visited with another resident while she was finishing up her meeting. But we got to sit in the common with Mrs. Buckmueller for a while.”
“Oh, that sounds nice.” She tilts her head.
“Yeah . . . except Mom is low. She wants that new parole date.” I catch myself. I shouldn’t talk to Zoey’s mom about this.
“Hmm . . .” Now Zoey’s mom looks sad to me. “She will get that date, Perry.” She sits down sideways in one of the duck-egg blue chairs. She folds her hands over the high back and rests her chin on them. “In the meantime, is there anything I can do for you?” She waits then says, “I know I keep offering, but you never ask for anything.” She gives me one of her sweet, soft smiles. The moment stretches, and my jaw begins to ache a little.
“Fish!” I say. “Could you help me get some special sardines for a . . . for one of the residents? He has expensive tastes,” I warn. “But he wants them so much.”
“Sardines? Sure. We’ll run out tonight. We need to get Zoey some pudding and oatmeal anyway.”
“That would be great,” I say.
“If fish is your wish, I can grant it,” she says. She draws swirls in the air with one magic-wand finger.
I have to smile. She’s become a real friend.
All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook Page 18
