by EA Young
Chapter 6
Pop always found me. Early the following morning, his snoring automatically stopped, and I heard his feet stumble around the bed and kick me in the behind. Pop was better than an alarm clock for getting me awake. Then he lifted the spread off and tossed me in the bed without even an apology or a “good morning.” Terell was already wide-awake. Mom was the only one still sleeping.
By the time I got back home from school that afternoon, I couldn’t find my keys in my book bag. I remembered seeing them on my desk in the morning, but I didn’t remember packing them in my bag. I wasn’t thinking straight all day long and didn’t understand why I felt so tired.
I rang the doorbell, hoping somebody was home. I was in a rush to get out of my hot jumper and into a pair of shorts. I saw the van’s rear fender sticking out of the carport, so I banged on the door.
No one answered.
I glanced across our narrow alley up at Courtney’s window. I scooted over to her front door. “I forgot my keys,” I told her.
“Try calling,” she suggested, pulling off her jumper.
Might as well. I dialed the number from Courtney’s phone. It rang three times.
“Hello?” Pop grumbled.
“You’re not up yet?” I said.
Yawning, he said, “I am up.”
“No you’re not. You didn’t hear me downstairs. I had to go next door to call you.”
“Come on over,” he told me and hung up.
I hurried back before he could fall asleep again.
“Don’t change out of your clothes yet,” he told me, holding the front door wide open. “We have to pick Austin up and your mom, and I need to drop off some reports at work.”
I dropped down on the couch and waited.
Reports. Were his anything like what I had to do for English and American history? Would I be doing reports for the rest of my life?
I pulled out my assignment pad and totaled my whole list of homework assignments for this week when Pop came back downstairs in his short-sleeve shirt, gray slacks, and sandals and handed me the keys.
“Where’s Mom?” I asked.
“At a business lunch with a client in Crystal City.”
He went into the kitchen.
I walked out to the carport, trying to decide whether or not to start the engine. Instead, I unlocked his door, placed the key in the ignition, and waited for him to come out of the house.
I watched other kids walking down the street and wondered what kind of grades they were carrying inside their backpacks. Mine were still hidden in my closet. A few were stashed away in pockets of my backpack. How much longer could I keep hiding my stuff? I was running out of space.
I stared at a cardinal chirping madly, while perched on a branch, as we backed down the driveway.
If my parents knew about my grades, they would have already said something. Maybe Sister didn’t make copies of our work after all. But how could I be sure? I couldn’t go up and ask her.
I shut my eyes. All my thoughts seemed to be crashing together inside my head. I didn’t know what to believe anymore.
I looked down at my hands. I had been rubbing my fingers together. That was something I did when it was cold outside, not in weather like we had in May. I placed my hands inside my pockets.
As the van rumbled down the road and branches full of leaves appeared to brush their shadows against the corners of the window, I watched Pop sit patiently behind the steering wheel. He had gentle brown eyes just like those of his sons. I could have used his thick dark hair as a pillow. Pop sat up straight like my teachers were always telling us to sit. He tilted his head forward each time he glanced through his outside rearview mirror. He looked confident, like Courtney, but in a calmer way. I didn’t see the sadness in his eyes anymore either.
We turned onto G Street and rode down to his office building.
“You want to wait here or come inside?” he asked, parking the van against the curb.
“I’ll wait.”
Pop turned the ignition key and hopped out of the van with his small briefcase and three large envelopes.
I watched him pull the glass door open and disappear down the hall.
Grandma used to show me pictures of him when he was little. In my favorite one, he was rolling a spare tire beside Grandpa’s blue Oldsmobile while Uncle Darrick played with the steering wheel. Suitcases were stacked beside the car because they were leaving for the same beach where Grandma and Grandpa had spent their honeymoon.
I tried picturing that same little boy sitting at a desk in a classroom, but not wearing sandals, shorts, and an undershirt. Did he ever get confused? Did he ever feel lost about things? When I looked at him, it was hard to picture him that way.
I closed my assignment pad and sighed at the sky. I felt as though I was watching my summer pass by before it even began.
A tap against the window interrupted my thoughts.
I unlocked the door, and Pop got back in the van. “Miss me?” he teased. I grinned.
When we pulled up to the day care center he asked me if I was going or staying.
“I’ll go.” I jumped out of the van and slipped my assignment pad back inside my book bag.
Underneath thick green trees, both day care center doors swung back and forth as parents came to pick up their kids. I headed down a long, wide hallway filled with cupboards. Construction paper in many colors and shapes decorated the pre-kindergarten windows. It was a lot like my kindergarten room back at school, where Terell was spending his school year.
Kids were singing nursery rhymes in one of the rooms.
I remembered being in day care. The work wasn’t hard like fifth grade. We went to day care to have fun and discover new things and not worry about passing exams. Why couldn’t grade school be fun and easy like day care?
I entered the nursery. “Hey Austin,” I called, interrupting his game of blocks.
Dozens of tiny hands reached out to grab my uniform. They shook a pleat of my jumper and watched the wave spread around my waist.
Just then a bigger girl with dark shiny hair stood at the doorway of the pre-kindergarten room, pointed, and exclaimed: “You go to my school!”
Another preschooler came out and stood beside her.
“I go to another school,” I told the first one.
Her eyes widen. “That’s the school I go to next year. My mommy’s buying me that dress.” She pointed at the girl next to her. “Cynthia’s going to catholic school too.”
Cynthia stood next to her with wide brown eyes and a droopy bottom lip. Clasping her hands, she leaned forward and stared at my huge book bag, which was almost as big as she was. I placed it down in front of me, and she backed away a little.
“I can count to a hundred,” the first girl said, walking up to me.
I placed Austin’s cap on his head while he tried to unbutton all the buttons on his shirt.
“I know my alphabet; I know all my colors; I know how to jump rope. . . .”
Smiling, I nodded. I looked over at Cynthia again, wondering what she was thinking. She still had that frightful look on her face. She didn’t seem excited about starting kindergarten.
Austin tried to pick up my backpack and tipped all of my school supplies onto the floor. I looked down the hall but the noises inside the rooms prevented anyone from hearing us.
Cynthia’s eyebrows arched as she studied all the items on the floor. I started to put everything back.
“What’s that?” the other girl asked, pointing at the floor.
“A ruler,” I said.
“What’s a ruler?”
“A measuring stick,” I told her. I slid it into my side pocket.
“Is that a big storybook?” she asked, staring at my history textbook.
“Sort of,” I told her. “Only the stories in here are real.”
Cynthia still wouldn’t say anything. Was she really that scared about starting kindergarten? It was different from preschool, but it wasn’t all that bad. The real
work didn’t begin until first grade.
“Miss Robin says I wear the prettiest dresses in our garden,” the other girl said, twirling it just like Tanya did. She called her classroom a garden. I peered through a window at the colorful toys and plants inside. Maybe to her it was a garden.
“Miss Robin wants you to come in,” a boy hollered from the room.
“Bye!” She waved and skipped past Cynthia.
I watched Cynthia chew on her forefinger and tilt her head. I wanted to tell her that grade school wasn’t so scary, that it was just a little more work. I wanted to tell but instead I just gave her my biggest smile.
See? If I could still smile like this in grade school then she could too. I waved at her, and smiling, she waved back.
I took Austin’s hand and walked him back to the van.
When we reached Crystal City, Mom was standing on the corner, leaning against a lamppost. She smiled when she saw us. Pop pulled over to the corner. “How did it go?” he asked her.
“Fine,” she said after she got in the van. “We opened the new account and everything went well. They really were impressed by the Silverman account we got earlier.” She placed her purse on the floor. “That presentation conference we had hit some key issues.
“Your work really is an extension of yourself. You take care of your job and it will take care of you. Now I’ll be able to take some time off. How you doing back there?”
“Fine,” I said as I kissed her cheek.
Looking out the window at the shiny office buildings passing by, I remembered that I still hadn’t chosen a topic for my composition. But I figured: if I had made it this far in grade school, an idea would eventually come up.
I pulled my window down an inch and sniffed the fresh spring air. Maybe I could enjoy the summer after all.
We stopped at the drug store and post office before Pop pulled into the carport. As we got out, Mom looked around suspiciously.
“What’s wrong?” Pop asked her.
She rubbed her stomach. “I don’t know. It’s too quiet.”
Pop looked back at her. “Where, in there?” He pointed at her stomach.
“No,” she said. “In there.” She pointed at the house.
“No dogs barking, nobody yelling, screaming, or running past a window?” She stepped up to the front door behind Pop and shook her head. “Something’s wrong.”
As she said that, I thought I saw the tip of a tail zip past the living room window.
Pop pushed the front door open and blocked the entrance. “Who set these dogs loose in here?” he blasted.
Mom, Austin, and I peeked in around him.
Jumping over Mom’s furniture, two huskies chased each other in and out the living room. Princess stood propped on top of the back of the couch with her furry chest raised in front of the air conditioner and her nose sniffing the cool air blowing from it. I didn’t see any brothers anywhere.
“Tyrone!” Pop called. “Terell . . . . Kriston!” He headed for the kitchen with us right behind him.
“Who put all these dishes in the sink?” he yelled.
Mom tapped her fingernails against the counter and went back into the living room.
Austin and I stayed quiet.
Pop stormed out the back door, circled the yard, and stormed back in. Scanning the dishes again, he marched to the basement, swung the door wide open, flipped the light switch on, and there they were, all of them, right there on the staircase.
Pop leaned in. “What are you doing?”
“Uuhhh,” Kriston started until the sight of Terell’s one foot caught everyone’s attention.
“Where’s your other foot, boy?” Pop demanded. Mom put her briefcase on the cabinet and walked up behind him.
“In there,” Terell said, pointing at a fresh new hole between the stairs.
Pop stepped down to investigate while the rest of them backed away. “Go get the crowbar,” he ordered Terence while the look of fear ripped across Terell’s face. “Get those dogs out the house,” he commanded me.
I wanted to stay and watch but I went back into the living room and tried to grab King by the collar.
He thought I was playing and started ducking me. He leaped over the couch. I threw my shoe at him. He ran up the stairs so I started on another one.
Getting the same idea as the other dog, Precious ran to the basement steps, saw Pop, and then sprinted through the kitchen.
“Come here!” I called, chasing her around and under the table until she slithered out the back door. I locked the screen door.
“Uh ex-cuse me, sweetheart,” Mom said, waving her hand at Tyrone, “put that bag of chips back where you got it from.”
“Mo-om!” Tyrone whined.
“Don’t ‘mom’ me, boy,” she snapped, scooping a bowl of dog food out from the bag under the sink. “You’ll eat your supper after you clean up this mess.” She carried the bowl out to the backyard.
I had thought to ask her the identity of the vegetable in the plastic bag in the fridge and if I would have to eat it for supper, but I figured I’d better wait until later to find out.
In the living room, Princess was stretched across the couch and was rubbing her wet nose against my stuffed teddy bear. I crept in as slowly as I could, hoping she wouldn’t budge.
She raised her head at me and cocked one ear. I sat down gently beside her. She swished her tail and rested her paws on my lap. I rubbed her forehead and we cuddled.
Then the doorbell rang.
“I giddit, I giddit!” Austin hollered, running to the front door. “Who is it?” he demanded after he opened it.
“I have a letter here for a Mrs. Celeste Collins,” the delivery man said.
Austin slammed the door in the man’s face and raced to the basement steps. He hurried back and opened the door. “I take it!” he announced.
The man handed him the letter.
“Dank you!” Austin said and slammed the door in the man’s face again.
The sound of heavy feet thumping up from the basement forced me to jump off the couch and hurry Princess out to the backyard.
“Did you get all three?” Pop asked, carrying Terell into the kitchen.
“Three?” I asked as Mom shut the screen door.
“What?”
“I only got Precious and Princess.”
“Well go get the other one,” he ordered, putting Terell in a chair and taking a hammer and some nails back downstairs.
His pounding faded as I ran upstairs to check the bedrooms. I poked my head into my parents’ room. Nothing. I skipped Terence and Tyrone’s. Nobody could find anything in the mess those two created. I went into my room and searched the area.
“AAAAAHH!” I screamed! I looked at my bed and saw something disgusting that had no business being there!
I burst back out. “King messed on my bed!” I shouted. “King messed on my bed!” I bolted up and down the hallway until Pop flung his arm out to snatch me before I hit the banister.
“Get that dog!” he blasted. “Kriston go roll up Justine’s bedspread and bring it downstairs!”
The beast shot across the end of the hall with his head bowed low and his furry tail curled between his legs.
Terence and Tyrone chased after him while Pop carried me down the stairs.
Mom stood at the foot of the stairs with a surprised look on her face. She was pressing the lower part of her stomach with one hand and holding the opened letter up with the other.
Pop shrugged his shoulders at her, sat in his easy chair, placed me beside him, and tried to stop me from crying.
I refused.
