Picture This

by Norah McClintock

  “He said he talked to some people he knew in your old neighborhood,” she said at last. “Ethan, is there anything you want to tell me?”

  What was she talking about?

  “About what?” I said.

  She sighed. I knew by then that this wasn’t a good sign.

  “He told me that he had it on good authority that you were in some kind of fight a few weeks ago. He said it involved a gang. Is that true?”

  I knew Officer Firelli always thought the worst of me. He didn’t like me. Well, guess what? I didn’t like him either.

  “Not exactly,” I said.

  “Sit down, Ethan,” Mrs. Ashdale said.

  I sat.

  “What happened?” she said. “Why didn’t you tell Bill or me about it?”

  “Because I didn’t think it was important,” I said. “It was just one of those things.”

  I told her exactly what had happened. She listened without interrupting. When I had finished, she said, “I can understand why you wanted to help your friend. But it sounds like that boy who chased you was really angry. Do you think he would come looking for you? Do you think he would try to get even for what you did?”

  I wanted to tell her no. I wanted to tell her it was no big deal, because I didn’t want her to worry—not about me. I liked Mrs. Ashdale. I also didn’t want anything to happen that might make the Ashdales decide that they didn’t want to be my foster parents anymore. But I couldn’t lie to her, not now, not after what Officer Firelli had told her.

  “I don’t know,” I said. It was the truth. “Those guys have a reputation, you know?”

  She nodded.

  “But I went over it and over it, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t tell anyone I used to hang around with that I’m living here now. And I did what everyone told me to do—I put all that stuff behind me. I only went back there to see Mrs. Girardi.”

  “I’m going to have to tell Bill about this,” she said.

  That made me feel sick inside. Was she mad at me? Was she going to try to get rid of me?

  “We want you to be safe, Ethan. You’ve been doing well since you’ve been living here, and Mrs. Girardi told us that she thinks you’re a good boy.”

  “You talked to Mrs. Girardi about me?” She had never mentioned that.

  “Of course, we did.” She didn’t sound mad at all. “She was sad that she had to let you go. She wanted us to promise that we’d take good care of you. But that’s not easy to do if you don’t tell us everything. You understand that, don’t you?”

  I nodded. I was ashamed that I hadn’t told her right away about the Nine-Eights.

  “If you see any of those boys, you’re to tell Bill or me right away. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “And there’s nothing else you want to tell me?”

  I shook my head. Now she knew it all.

  I hoped that I would never see a Nine-Eight again. But hoping for something doesn’t make it true.

  Chapter Six

  “Don’t forget tomorrow,” Mrs. Ashdale said after supper that night.

  “Tomorrow?” I said.

  “Check the fridge.”

  I went to the big calendar on the fridge, and there it was. Ethan, Dr. Finstead, 11:00 am. Ethan and Anna, Eaton Centre, lunch. I groaned. Dr. Finstead was a dentist. When I lived with my dad, I never went to the dentist. The first thing Mrs. Girardi had done when I went to live with her was make an appointment. It turned out I had a lot of cavities. It took three visits to get them all filled. That’s when I decided that I didn’t like going to the dentist. I hated the sound the drill made. I also hated the smell that filled the air when the dentist was drilling my teeth. It made me sick to my stomach. But Mrs. Ashdale was even more fanatical about dentists than Mrs. Girardi had been. Her rule was that all of us had to go twice a year for a checkup and cleaning. She was also very big on flossing.

  So I went to the dentist. The dental hygienist scraped the plaque from my teeth. Next, she cleaned them with a little machine that made a high-pitched sound. Then she polished them. By the time she had finished, I was rinsing blood out of my mouth. But my teeth felt terrific. I couldn’t stop running my tongue over them.

  Then the dentist checked me out. I held my breath as she poked and prodded to see if I had any cavities.

  “You’re all good, Ethan,” she said finally. She sent me on my way with a new toothbrush, a little container of dental floss and a follow-up appointment in another six months.

  From there I headed to the Eaton Centre to meet Mrs. Ashdale. Alan’s birthday was coming up, and she wanted me to help her pick out a present for him. We were going out for lunch after. Believe it or not, I was looking forward to it. I liked spending time with Mrs. Ashdale. Not only was she nice, but she was also interesting to talk to. I always learned something new. Most of the time she said things that made me think.

  I was supposed to meet her outside the mall entrance. I glanced at my watch. I was ten minutes early. But I headed down there to wait anyway. There was always something going on outside the mall—guys doing sketches of passers-by for ten or twenty bucks, musicians, some of them actually pretty good, busking for coins, chalk artists putting together huge sidewalk “paintings,” that kind of thing.

  I strolled down the sidewalk, looking at the charcoal portraits of Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, John Wayne and Brad Pitt that one of the artists had laid out to show people how good he was. Then, I’m not even sure why, it was just one of those things, I glanced across the street. There was a big square there with a stage at one end. Sometimes there were free concerts sponsored by a local radio station. But most of the time people just hung out over there, eating street dogs or take-out food from the mall if it was a nice day. Maybe that’s why I glanced over there—to see if there was anything special going on. My heart slammed to a stop at what I saw.

  It was the guy who had chased me onto the bus back in Mrs. Girardi’s neighborhood.

  He wasn’t alone.

  The two guys I had tripped were with him. So were four or five other guys, all of them from the Nine-Eights. They were standing in front of the square, not caring that they were blocking the whole sidewalk. They didn’t notice the dirty looks people gave them when they had to step out onto the street to get past. They were too busy scanning the crowd on my side of the street, like they were looking for someone. I ducked my head immediately. I had to get out of there.

  Still with my head down, I turned and glanced up the street. Mrs. Ashdale was standing at the corner on the other side, waiting for the light to change. Everything happened fast after that.

  I was thinking that I should make a run for the corner so that I could head off Mrs. Ashdale. Then I heard someone shout, and I couldn’t help myself. I turned toward the sound. Some of the people on my side of the street were standing like statues and staring at the other side of the street. Other people were scurrying away. I looked across the street and saw why. Standing right in among the Nine-Eights was a scruffy-looking guy with a hat pulled down low over his head. He had a gun in his hand. It was pointed across the street. And it went off.

  Blam!

  People screamed. People ran. Traffic ground to a halt. I heard a loud bang. This one was different—it sounded like two cars colliding.

  Blam!

  Something whizzed by me.

  “Ethan!” someone yelled. Mrs. Ashdale.

  I threw myself to the sidewalk.

  The Nine-Eights were still in front of the square, but now they were looking around, like they couldn’t figure out what had happened. The scruffy man with the hat had disappeared.

  Sirens sounded.

  The Nine-Eights looked at each other. Then they ran.

  A cop car showed up. Then another and another.

  I got to my feet. Mrs. Ashdale rushed toward me and grabbed me by the shoulders. She looked me over, then threw her arms around me and hugged me. It wasn’
t until later that night that I realized why she had done that. She’d been scared that I was hurt, and when she saw that I was okay, she was relieved. She really cared about me.

  “Someone could have been killed,” she said. She kept saying it, like she couldn’t believe what had happened.

  I couldn’t believe it either.

  “Those Nine-Eights don’t care about anyone who isn’t one of them,” I said.

  “What?” Mrs. Ashdale looked at me, surprised. “You know who did the shooting?”

  “I didn’t recognize the guy with the gun,” I said. “But those guys he was with, those were Nine-Eights.”

  More sirens sounded. People were swirling around us. Cops were getting out of cars. They spread out, trying to get everyone calmed down and, I guess, trying to find people who had seen what had happened and might be able to tell them about it.

  “Officer,” Mrs. Ashdale called. “Officer!”

  A cop turned toward her.

  “My son saw what happened,” Mrs. Ashdale said.

  Son? I had never heard her call me that before. It sounded good when she said it.

  I wasn’t the only one who heard her.

  “Well, well,” a familiar voice said. “Look who’s here.”

  It was Officer Firelli.

  “The kid saw what happened,” the first cop said.

  “Did he?” Officer Firelli nodded to Mrs. Ashdale. “Ma’am,” he said, one of those people who was polite to adults but not to kids. “You saw who did the shooting, Ethan?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you know their names?”

  “No.”

  “But you’ve seen them before?”

  “Yes.”

  Officer Firelli looked around. “Show me exactly where you were standing.”

  I went back to where I had been when the shooting started.

  “Okay, Ethan,” he said. “A detective is going to want to speak to you.” He told the first cop to keep an eye on me. He said he’d be right back.

  An hour later, I was at the police station with Mrs. Ashdale, giving a statement to a detective named Catton. Officer Firelli was listening. After I had finished talking, Catton said, “So you recognized at least three of the guys on the other side of the street, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And as far as you know, those three and the others they were with are all members of the gang called the Nine-Eights?”

  I nodded.

  “But you don’t know their names?”

  “No.”

  “Officer Firelli tells me you had a run-in with some of those guys a few weeks ago. Do you think they were shooting at you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. I sure hoped not.

  “Did you see any of the gang members with a gun?”

  “No.”

  “But you did see another man with a gun, a man with the hat whose face you didn’t see, but that you’re pretty sure isn’t a gang member, is that right?”

  “Yeah. He wasn’t dressed right. And he seemed older.”

  “I thought you didn’t see his face.”

  “The way he dressed—it looked like an old guy,” I said. “Maybe around your age.”

  Detective Catton leaned back in his chair and sighed. He glanced at Officer Firelli before turning back to me.

  “I understand you’ve had some gang involvement, Ethan,” he said.

  “That’s in the past,” Mrs. Ashdale said firmly.

  “Please, ma’am,” Catton said, as polite to her as Officer Firelli had been. “Ethan needs to answer these questions himself.” He looked at me.

  “I used to hang around with some guys,” I admitted.

  “Who were rivals of the Nine-Eights,” Catton said.

  “Yeah. But I was never a gang member. I got out of that.”

  Another cop waved at Officer Firelli, who got up and went over to him. He was back a few minutes later, whispering in Catton’s ear. Catton was silent for a minute. Then he fixed me with a somber look.

  “Are you sure you’ve told me everything, Ethan?” he said.

  What was going on?

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And you answered all of my questions truthfully?”

  “Yes.” I really had.

  “I know how it is with gangs, Ethan. I know that people don’t like to speak out about what they’ve seen when there are gangs involved. They’re afraid what might happen to them.”

  “I’m not afraid,” I said.

  “But you told me you didn’t see any of the Nine-Eights with a gun,” he said. “Just some man with a hat that you’ve never seen before. Is that right?”

  “Yes.” What did he want from me? Did he want me to make up stuff?

  “We have other witnesses who saw one of the gang members with a gun, Ethan.”

  “That’s not what I saw.”

  “We also have a preliminary report from the firearms examiner. And another from the crime-scene boys. There were two guns, Ethan. We recovered the bullets. We found them a few feet from where you were standing. It looks like you were the target.”

  Chapter Seven

  Mrs. Ashdale gasped.

  “You mean, someone was trying to kill Ethan?”

  “I’m just saying where we found the bullets, ma’am. And given Ethan’s past and recent events…” He turned to me again. “Will you help us, Ethan? Will you look at some pictures and see if you can identify the Nine-Eights who were down on the street today?”

  “Of course he will,” Mrs. Ashdale said.

  Detective Catton was right about one thing. Most people are scared to rat out gang members. I’m not that different from most people. I was afraid too.

  “There were a lot of people on the street,” Mrs. Ashdale told me. “I’m sure the police have spoken to as many of them as they could. And you heard what they said—someone else saw one of the gang members with a gun. I’m sure they’ve asked that person to look at pictures too. They’ve probably asked a lot of people. So if the police arrest someone, it’s not going to be just because of what you saw, Ethan.”

  I knew what she said made sense. But it didn’t make me feel any better. The Nine-Eights didn’t know everyone on the street today. But they knew me. And some of them already had a grudge against me. But I went with Officer Firelli and I picked out the ones I recognized.

  “You did the right thing,” Officer Firelli said. “It’s a miracle someone wasn’t killed or seriously injured. It’s a miracle you weren’t killed. You know that, right, Ethan?”

  “Yeah.” I glanced at him. “Do you really think they were trying to kill me?”

  “You tell me,” he said. “Look, I know you’ve been working hard at changing…”

  “Is that what they told you at the youth center?” I asked.

  He frowned. “What youth center?”

  “The one where I go to my program.” Officer Firelli gave me a blank look. Nice try. “I know you were there. I know you were asking about me.”

  “Not me,” Officer Firelli said. “The only person I spoke to was your foster mother, and she had nothing but good things to say about you.” He dug in his pocket and pulled out a business card. “If you see any of those gang members around or if you get scared and just want to talk, call me. I mean it, Ethan.”

  Right. Like I was going to call a cop who didn’t even like me. That would be the day.

  Before we left, Mrs. Ashdale quizzed Officer Firelli and Detective Catton about my safety.

  “What if some of those gang members come around?” she said. “What if they still want to hurt Ethan?”

  “After what happened today, they’ll be lying low for a while,” Detective Catton said. “But we’ll have someone keep an eye on your house tonight. If you see anything, anything at all, call us.”

  It was late by the time we left the police station. Mrs. Ashdale wanted to go back to the mall to buy Alan’s birthday present. I asked her if she would mind if I didn’t go with her.

&
nbsp; “I don’t blame you for not wanting to go back there,” she said. “But I’d feel better if you were with me.”

  “I want to stop by the youth center,” I said. “Then I’ll go straight home, I promise.” Mr. Ashdale was at home with Alan and Tricia. “I’ll call you on your cell when I get there if you want.”

  “That would be much appreciated,” she said.

  She headed back to the mall. I headed for the youth center. DeVon was there. He was always there.

  “What’s up, Ethan?” he said. “Come to work on your project?”

  I shook my head.

  “It’s about that cop who was here the other day asking about me,” I said. “Did he tell you his name?”

  “He did,” DeVon said. “But I don’t remember. I saw his badge though. Why?”

  “Was it Firelli?”

  DeVon thought for a moment. “No,” he said, “it wasn’t an Italian name. It was something ordinary, like Mason or Manson, something like that. I’m pretty sure it started with an M. Or maybe an N.”

  “But it wasn’t Firelli?”

  “Definitely not Firelli.” He peered at me. “Is everything okay, Ethan?”

  “Yeah. Everything’s fine.” At least, it was if you didn’t count the fact that someone was trying to kill me.

  It should have come as no surprise that I had trouble getting to sleep that night. I kept thinking about what Detective Catton had said. There had been two shooters and two guns, both aimed at me. It was a miracle I hadn’t been killed. It was a miracle no one else had been killed either. I started to shake all over.

  I kept thinking about what had happened.

  Then I thought: how had the Nine-Eights found me? Was it just a coincidence that they happened to be walking down the other side of the street at exactly the time I was standing there? Was it some weird kind of accident that they looked over and saw me standing there?

  Except that wasn’t the way it had happened. When I first noticed them, they had been standing near the square, scanning the crowd on my side of the street. They had been looking for someone. Had they been looking for me? But how could they have known I was going to be at the Eaton Centre? I started to shake even harder. Had they been watching the Ashdales’ house? Had they followed me and Mrs. Ashdale downtown? Had they been planning all along to shoot me? What if they were watching the house now? What if they were waiting for me the next morning when I left the home?