Every Missing Piece

by Melanie Conklin

  Shailene jumps to her feet, looking like she’s about to go grab him. “What on earth are you doing? Get down before you ruin the walls!”

  He drops to the floor with a thud. “Let me go outside!” His eyes gleam with something dangerous that needs to break free.

  “I’ll go with him,” I say. “We won’t go near the road.”

  After a long, tense moment, Shailene finally agrees. We can go outside, but we can’t ride around the neighborhood. Which is fine. There are plenty of things to do in the woods.

  Frankie gallops ahead as we run across Dad’s field and down the slope to the gully, where the creek washes up quartz and arrowheads in silty drifts. Billy charges down the steep clay bank with his arms pinwheeling. I hop down after him, trying not to scratch my arms. Now that we’re further into April, the briars have come back to life. They’re thick along the edges of the gully, but thin out toward the water. Dad said briars don’t love getting their roots wet. That little bit of open space has let a few thin saplings take root.

  Billy fishes a branch out of the water and whacks one of the skinny saplings so hard the trunk vibrates. His stick makes a weird kind of music, like a drumbeat.

  Whack, whack, whack!

  I grab a stick and join in, smacking another tree until my stick breaks. Billy’s stick breaks, too, but he keeps hitting and hitting that tree. Whack, whack, whack!

  He’s not smiling anymore.

  “Billy,” I say, but he keeps whaling on that tree. His hands are red with effort. There are tears in his eyes. “Billy, stop.” He ignores me. The wildness has taken over.

  “I hate him!” he shouts. “I hate him!”

  “Billy!”

  “I. Don’t. Want. To. GO!” He smacks the trunk as hard as he can with each word. Then he stops and stands there panting, his arms hanging limp.

  “Where’re you going?” a voice says from overhead.

  We look up at the edge of the gully and find Diesel Jessup staring down at us.

  Frankie seems to have run off somewhere, probably chasing squirrels. I put my hands on my hips and give Diesel my meanest face. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Me first.” He looks at Billy. “Where are you going?”

  “We’re moving,” Billy says.

  “When?”

  “It’s none of your business,” I say. “You shouldn’t even be here.”

  Diesel’s nostrils flare. “Oh, come on. Enough with the territory wars.”

  “Enough? You’re the one who stole my bike! You said you’d rip my arms off!”

  “I thought it was a game!” he shouts back.

  Which is like a bucket of water dumped over my flames.

  “I didn’t take your bike,” he says. “My little brothers did that.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I didn’t know they were gonna do it or I would’ve stopped them.”

  Billy laughs. “Devin and Donny took her bike?”

  “Yeah,” Diesel says. “I don’t even like Kool-Aid Jammers.”

  My head spins while I try to wrap my brain around this new information. Diesel didn’t take my bike? The territory wars were just a game? “But you were going to smash my tire.”

  He laughs. “Come on. I was kidding, Gaines.”

  “You were not!”

  He puts his hands up. “Okay, maybe I was a little serious, but it was a dare game, right? You say this and I say that and we go back and forth until one of us gives.”

  Really? Was it me who’d been fighting Diesel all this time? I think back to what he said when he warned me to stay away from Billy.

  “What about when you called me a freak?”

  Diesel’s smile vanishes. “I’m sorry I said that. My daddy told me to make sure no one went back by the trailer, and I got caught up in doing the job. I was wrong.”

  Apologies must be contagious, because as soon as I hear him say that I say, “I’m sorry I threw dog poop at you.”

  Billy’s mouth falls open. “You threw dog poop at him?”

  “It was in a bag.”

  “It’s fine,” Diesel says. “We’re good.”

  There is a long moment of silence while me and Billy and Diesel all look at each other, trying to make sense of what just happened here. Did Diesel and I just become friends again?

  “Sorry I got on your case,” he says to Billy. “We’ve been worried about y’all since you moved over here. Dad’s a mess.”

  Billy’s face falls. “I’m tired of moving, but if my dad finds us, we’re dead.”

  I put my hand on his shoulder.

  “You can come live with us,” Diesel says. “My dad’ll fix it.”

  “I’ll help, too,” I say, wishing there was something more I could do.

  Frankie finally comes running back into the gully. She doesn’t even bark at Diesel when she sees him. “Some watchdog you are,” I say. She starts licking Billy’s hands and legs, any part of him she can reach until he finally cracks a smile.

  “Don’t you have some booby traps that need setting?” I ask.

  Billy gives me a funny look. “I’m not supposed to go out front.”

  “I won’t tell,” Diesel says.

  I nod. “Me neither.”

  Billy grins. “Let’s do it.”

  36

  RUNNING THE GAUNTLET

  I have to do something about me and Cress. As I climb onto the bus Friday morning, I know this, but my heart thumps as I walk up the steps. I feel like I’m stepping directly into the open during a game of hide-and-seek. Cress has no reason to forgive me, but I’m ready to apologize. I should have listened to her when she tried to tell me about Diesel.

  My stomach dips as I walk toward the back of the bus. The aisle is a dangerous path filled with knees and elbows and book bags. It’s like running the gauntlet. And if you don’t get where you’re going quickly, the floor lurches beneath your feet and sends you tumbling.

  There are two empty seats about halfway down.

  And then there’s Cress. She’s in the back with Diesel again, only this morning when he sees me coming he gives me this tiny nod, like he’s telling me I can do this.

  My feet scramble over people and book bags until I reach the back of the bus.

  Cress looks up at me. “What do you want?” she asks.

  I want to say I’m sorry. I want to tell her the truth about Billy. I want to be friends again.

  “Did you see the straws I left you?” I ask.

  “What?”

  Diesel slides his hand across his neck in warning, but Cress is waiting for an answer.

  “The straws for your Friendship 7 model? I left some on the art rack for you. They should help make the legs stronger, so it can stand up. The papier-mâché is too soft on its own.”

  I smile, but Cress’s eyes narrow.

  “You’re the one who squished my model?” she says. “You?”

  “What? No! I didn’t—someone squished your model?”

  Cress looks away from me, her jaw clenched.

  I am the world’s worst apologizer. Diesel makes this jerking motion with his big block head, like I should leave, but I’m not going to walk away when Cress is upset.

  The bus driver shouts at me to sit down NOW, so I cram into the seat across from them. The kid sitting there complains as I squish him with my book bag, but he’ll live.

  “Cress,” I say. “Cress.”

  She finally looks at me. “Where’s your new best friend?” she says.

  “Who?”

  “Eric. You know, the one you ditched me for?”

  “He’s sick,” I lie, because that’s what Mom told me to say if anyone asked. I’d rather tell Cress the truth, but I can’t do it here. Not on the bus. Not in front of Diesel.

  “Can we talk?” I ask her.

  She crosses her arms. “I shouldn’t have to explain why my hair looks different, or why I changed my clothes. You’re supposed to be my friend.”

  “You’re right,” I say, and she sits back a little. Her
eyes shine with tears.

  I was wrong. Cress hasn’t stepped into her new self, but she’s trying to. Just like I’m trying to. And she needs her friend. Just like I do.

  “Why are you acting so weird?” she says. “You’re obsessed with this new kid, then he’s getting on the bus with you every morning and you won’t tell me what’s going on. We’re supposed to have a blood oath.”

  “You guys took a blood oath?” Diesel says. “That’s so cool.”

  I ignore him. “I know. I’m sorry. I can explain—”

  Diesel shoots me a warning look.

  “—but I can’t do it here. Can we talk? After school?”

  Cress bites her lip. “I don’t know. I have ballet.”

  “Since when do you take ballet?”

  “Since I got back from Atlanta. You’ve been too busy to notice.”

  She’s right. I have been busy, and I haven’t been there for my friend. She was trying to help me, and I shut her out. “You were right about him,” I say, nodding at Diesel. “He didn’t take my bike. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you before.”

  “To be fair, we were in a war,” Diesel says. “I mean, it was only a game, but she didn’t know it. It’s okay. My little brothers get confused, too.”

  I slap his arm. “I wasn’t confused.”

  “Just sayin’!” he says as Cress watches us, surprised.

  The bus swings onto the road that leads to the middle school.

  “Can I call you this weekend?” I ask Cress.

  She doesn’t say anything for a minute.

  “I think she’s really sorry,” Diesel says. “I mean, she sure looks like she is.”

  Cress’s mouth stretches into a smile in spite of itself, revealing the gleam of her braces.

  “Maybe,” she says.

  And that is good enough for me.

  37

  GREAT MINDS

  Attics are strange places. Today when I pull the hatch in the upstairs hallway, dust swirls through the opening. Usually, Mom’s the only one who comes up here, when it’s time for holiday decorations or when I’ve outgrown my clothes and she puts them away for donation. Now I’m the one on the hunt, this time for Dad’s stuff to use in the Living Museum.

  The folding stairs wobble as I climb up. The air is warm and dusty, but in a good way, like quilts and books. Overhead, the roof narrows to a sharp ridge, as if I’m inside the hull of a ship, only upside down. Thick, roughhewn boards line the floor. Boxes line the eaves. Mom has labeled most of them. Christmas. Easter. Baby Clothes. Donation.

  I poke along the edges, peering behind the boxes into the steep, slanted space where the roof meets the walls of the house. Behind the Christmas Lights box is a faded green canvas bag.

  My heart skips a beat.

  It’s not easy to squeeze behind the Christmas boxes, but I duck my head and try not to step off the rafters into the insulation, where Dad once warned my foot could go through the ceiling. I remember thinking that if I did fall through, I’d land somewhere else, maybe a place full of fairies and ponies. Now I know it’s just my bedroom beneath this part of the attic.

  After I drag the canvas bag free, I settle on the attic floor to open it.

  My chest squeezes like it’s in a vise. I’m not sure what I’m going to find inside this dusty old thing. Probably nothing other than Dad’s old surveyor’s tripod, but it still feels like I’m about to fall through the ceiling and land somewhere new.

  Outside, car tires crunch down our gravel driveway.

  I pull out my phone and text, “I found your stuff, Dad.”

  Then, before I lose my nerve, I pull the thick copper zipper down the length of the canvas bag, revealing a folded tripod and a dozen clear plastic tubes with rolled-up papers in them.

  I was expecting the tripod, but the tubes are a surprise. This is how Dad stored his survey papers so they would be safe from water and bugs. I pull one of the tubes from the bag and spin it, looking for the label, but the outside is unmarked. The cap twists off after a couple of tries and the rolled-up paper slides into my hand. It’s not easy to lay it flat after all these years, but when I finally manage to pin down the corners with some boxes, I find a detailed drawing of our property.

  I run my fingers over the paper’s smooth surface.

  There are so many familiar details, like the gully and the rock at the top of our driveway. The creek is drawn in dashes. Arrows extend from many of the lines, marking the coordinates with neat rows of numbers. The box in the bottom corner says Green Thumb Land Surveyors, which was Dad’s survey company, but the project name is Gaines Property Extension.

  Inside another tube is a drawing of our house, but where the deck is now, the drawing shows a whole new section of house. The bottom floor is labeled as a sunroom and the top floor is labeled as a third bedroom. Lightly penciled letters in Dad’s handwriting spell out Nursery. My heart lurches.

  Dad was planning to expand the house.

  He was planning to have another kid.

  It’s always felt so wrong to go on without him, but maybe that’s not what we’re doing. Dad’s life was interrupted, like mine and Mom’s, but none of us planned on that. He expected to go on. Maybe I should, too.

  Feet creak on the stairs, and I wipe the tears off my face so Mom won’t think I’m upset, but it’s Stan who appears in the opening.

  He sees me and jumps a little. “Hey, kiddo. I didn’t realize you were up here.” He has a brown paper shopping bag that he’s trying to hide behind his back.

  “I was looking for something.”

  I slide the boxes off the corners of Dad’s papers and they spring back into rolls.

  Stan hesitates, uncertain if he should come up or not.

  “Whatever you’re hiding up here, I won’t tell,” I say as I slide the papers back inside their tubes, which is hard to do without creasing them.

  “I don’t want to intrude,” Stan says, still uncertain.

  “It’s okay. I was getting some of Dad’s stuff for my Living Museum project.”

  Stan finally comes closer. The shopping bag has an oval stamp on it with the store name: Little Wonders. “Did you find everything you need?” he asks.

  “Yeah.” My fingers hesitate. Then I tip the drawing of our house out of the tube again and spread it out so Stan can see it. He sets his bag down and crouches next to me.

  “Oh, wow. This is the house.” His fingers travel over the kitchen and the den. I can tell when he sees Dad’s note about the nursery because his hand stops moving.

  “I guess Dad was thinking the same thing as you and Mom,” I say, wondering how Stan will take it. I would probably be jealous, but he smiles.

  “Great minds think alike,” he says.

  Then he reaches inside the shopping bag and lifts out a blue box covered in yellow stars.

  “I was going to wait to try this out until your mom wasn’t around, but she won’t catch us up here,” he says as he opens the box and pulls out a small white dome with a cord.

  There are no power outlets up here, but there is an extension cord in the corner, which I unwind while Stan pops down the stairs to plug it in.

  When he gets back, he turns the attic light off and connects the dome to the cord.

  Stars fill the room, turning the tiny attic into an endless galaxy.

  I gasp as they rotate slowly around us.

  “‘For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love,’” Stan says with a smile. “Carl Sagan said that. He was a fellow star nerd. You’d like him.” He watches for a minute, his face reflecting the stars. “They say the shapes and movement are soothing for infants, but your mom probably knows better than me. Do you think she’ll like it?”

  The stars wink a little, on and off, like they are coming to life.

  “She won’t like it,” I say. “She’ll love it.”

  38

  A PERSON-SHAPED LUMP

  Sometimes, after I talk to Dad’s photo and curl up wit
h Croc to fall asleep, I dream about Dad. Usually I can’t see his face, but I know it’s him by the way he feels: steady, warm, and strong. He’s both Dad and Not Dad, and sometimes he morphs into other people—Grandma Evans, Miss Rivera, or even my math teacher—but never Stan.

  My brain keeps them separate, like there is a barrier in my dreams, too.

  The night that Stan shows me the star machine, suddenly they are both there. Dad, strong and steady. Stan, fading in and out of Dad’s image like an old-timey movie reel.

  I try to say something to them, but my mouth isn’t working. My lips are stuck together, and no matter how hard I try to speak, the words won’t come. I try harder.

  My eyelids flutter.

  I start to realize that I’m dreaming and none of this is real, but for a few seconds, I see Dad and Stan so clearly in my mind that I bolt upright, looking for them across the room.

  What I find is Billy, standing at my window, staring outside.

  “Fudgesicle! What on earth are you doing in here?”

  Billy holds a finger to his lips and motions for me to come over.

  I tug on my socks and slip out of bed, hugging my pajamas to my sides. When I get to the window, I look outside but don’t see anything. Not at first.

  He points at something. “By the crooked tree. Next to the driveway.”

  My eyes seek the outline of the tree that died over the winter. Most of its branches have already fallen off and the trunk leans a little to one side, like a person about to fall over. The moon is covered, the clouds low and gray, so it takes me a while to figure out where the edge of the tree turns into the edge of the driveway, but when I do, my breath catches.

  There is a person-shaped lump leaning against the tree.

  As we watch, a lighter flares. The shadow person’s face glows to life for a second, then disappears, leaving only a tiny orange circle of light—a lit cigarette.

  I scramble back from the window, afraid of being spotted.

  “Do you see him, too?” Billy asks. “I thought maybe I was imagining it.”

  “Yes, I see him.” My heart pounds against my ribs. “You think that’s your dad?”