by Mary Penney
Twee and I exchanged wary glances. We both knew instantly who “Twitch” was. But Switch—nice?
Ginger continued. “He saw my flyers while he was here and said he’d scout around for Mr. McDougall while he was out ‘making his rounds,’ as he called it.”
Twee blurted, unable to be still a moment longer. “If we find him, my half of the money is going toward a trip to Vietnam. I already have four hundred and thirty dollars saved so far.”
Ginger put a hand on her shoulder. “You’ll have to come back when you have more time to see my photos. The countryside there is more beautiful than anyone imagines. If you have just a second, let me show you this amazing landscape I have hanging in my office.”
Twee’s mouth was open, and I half expected her to start drooling onto the floor. I nudged her. “Go ahead. I’m going to look around, and then I’ll be out in the yard.”
I rounded up the glasses of milk chunks and carried our plates toward the kitchen. I paused to study a large photograph of Mr. McDougall. He was lying on the couch, his head in a man’s lap. It was the same man in the picture with Chuck. The guy had very white teeth and a nice smile. I was dying to know who he was and what he and Chuck were doing on Ginger’s mantel. I had hoped Twee would ask, but she didn’t. Twee is the queen of snoopy, embarrassing questions when you don’t want her to be. But when you need her to be, she falls down on the job.
I sighed and made a mental note to ask Ginger when she’d had her furniture cleaned last. That would help us get a better idea of how long her dog had been gone.
I poured out all the milk and dumped our plates on the kitchen counter. As I turned to leave, two ceramic bowls on the floor in the corner caught my eye. Both were full to the brim—one with water, one with dry dog food.
I picked up a piece of dog food and rolled it between my fingers. It was still sort of crumbly, not hard, and smelled fresh. Fresh as the cupcake I’d just polished off. Strange. I walked over and opened her pantry door. And if I could whistle, I would have then—one of those long, amazed notes.
All six shelves of Ginger’s tall pantry were packed with dog food, sacks and sacks of it. I moved to the overheard cupboards next to the pantry. Same exact thing. Nothing but dog food, dog biscuits, and dog treats.
I stood back and tried to sort this all out. Only one answer popped into my head.
Ginger must be stuck—like when you have a bad scratch on a CD and it just keeps playing the same thing over and over. She must be buying dog food and leaving it out like Mr. McDougall isn’t even gone, I thought. And she probably would keep doing it until someone stopped her.
From the look of it, she’d been stuck for quite some time. My gut and my nose were telling me there hadn’t been any Mr. McDougall around here for months.
Dear Mr. Jimenez,
The Second Thing About Me: my mom is a probation officer for kids, and my dad was an Airborne combat hero who fought in Iraq. Now he’s working on a special project for the government, so he is going to miss parents’ night. If my mom says anything bad about him, just ignore her. She probably won’t in front of you, but sometimes she gets a very stern look on her face about him. Dad told me that hormones from having a baby make her very sensitive. Twee’s mom, who is pregnant, has them too. (I am supposed to start getting hormones when I turn thirteen, but don’t worry, I’ll be in eighth grade then, and you won’t be my teacher.)
Unless you have considered my request for you to flunk me back to sixth grade. Then I would be thirteen when I finally make it to your class. But I give you my word that when the hormones come, I will still be your best student ever.
Yours very sincerely,
Macy L. Hollinquest
PS I was sick last March for a whole week and missed learning about possessive pronoun’s and contractions. Even though I studied Twees’ note’s, Im not sure I understood it. If you won’t be covering that this year, that’s’ another good reason I should repeat sixth grade.
CHAPTER FOUR
Just the sight of the Greyhound bus station on Anacapa Street was enough to jangle my nerves. C’mon, get a grip, girl. This is just a practice run. I wiped my hands on the front of my shorts and then checked my watch. The southbound would be in any minute now.
Dad once confessed to me that he’d been super-scared the first time he had to jump out of a plane in the army. But earning his wings had been more important than anything, especially the fear. So the week before his first solo jump, he’d gone and talked to the jumpmaster. He’d told my dad that instead of focusing on the jump, he should just think about all the steps that came before that. The jumpmaster said if he did all those things right, the jump would take care of itself. Dad said he’d practiced getting his gear straight, packing his chute, breathing, and counting. His first jump went great, and he’d learned to love it. He’d done a ton more jumps after that because to him it was easy.
That was what all I had to do today. Just go through all the steps and try to breathe. The rest would take care of itself.
Bus number 17 downshifted with a big whine as it turned wide into the station. It was smoky and hot, like hell on big, wide tires. The exhaust filled my mouth with tar, and a cold sweat wet my armpits.
It was the same deal every time. Just like the first day of kindergarten, when I’d waited on the curb in my new Dora the Explorer sneakers. I couldn’t wait to start school like the big kids on my block. But Dad had been home on leave for just a few short days that time. I was torn right in two over wanting to be with him every second, but dying to go. I’d been waiting my whole life for it!
I tried to wake him up before I left, even though Mom said not to. I wanted to make him promise not to do anything fun until I got home.
But he was supertired that morning, and I couldn’t even get him to open his eyes. I still remember taking his car keys out of his pants pockets and hiding them in my room. I’d seen Mom do that too, when she wanted him to know she loved him a lot and didn’t want him to go away.
At the bus stop that day, Mom was quiet and held my hand too tight as we waited. When the big yellow bus finally came, it blew hot smoke right into my face. The oily smell made my head feel kind of dizzy. The bus seemed very big and scary up close. And it was so loud. I tried not to look nervous in front of all the other kids as I tiptoed on to the bus and took a seat as close as I could to the bus driver.
She looked big and scary up close, too. Maybe she didn’t even like kindergartners! I pressed my face against the window, making sure my mom was still on the sidewalk. She was waving and blowing kisses at me. And she was even crying a tiny bit.
The bus lurched away from the sidewalk. After one block my breakfast had started to grow inside my stomach. I felt fuzzy and swimmy—like the time Aunt Liv let me eat a chili dog and fries and then drink a whole bottle of root beer by myself. I had a bad feeling about what might happen next.
Then it happened. I bent over in my seat and threw up all over my new sneakers. And hoped none of the other kids would notice. But then I threw up on the back of the bus driver’s head. That got their attention right away. My name at school for a long time was Barferella.
All these years later, I still got icy sweats just being near a bus. It was so lame. I shivered beneath my hoodie.
The driver climbed out, squeezing a pair of giant hips through the narrow exit. He waited while the passengers got out. Everyone looked like they’d just woken up. They all had big hair dents in the back of their heads.
“Tweenty minute stop, everyone!” he shouted. “Let’s hurry back now.”
I stared at the bus door . . . and the unexpected opportunity. I could get over two hurdles today—being near the bus and actually getting on it. I’d be way ahead of the game for Wednesday’s trip.
I moved closer, and my gut began to boil. I backed away and sat down on the bench outside the station. I pretended I was tying my shoes and trying to keep from losing it. I did some mental calculations. Exactly how long would it take me to ri
de my bike to Los Robles? If I could ride 10 miles per hour, and Los Robles was about 102 miles away—uh, let’s see, it would be about next Thanksgiving when I arrived. Chuck might be carving the family turkey at our house by then. And maybe even staying to tuck Jack in and then trying for some kissy face with Mom. Forget it. I was out of options. It was the bus or nothing if I wanted to get to my dad.
I took a bracing breath and then bolted for the bus door. I took three steps in one leap. Then hunkered down in the darkness behind the driver’s seat and wiped the sweat from my lip. Bright lights danced across my vision. That was not a good sign.
Relax! My stomach began to roll in giant waves. Uh-oh. I looked around frantically for a trash can.
Nothing—except for a knitting bag, and I couldn’t hurl on someone’s afghan. I peered down the aisle toward the bathroom, which at the moment looked impossibly far. But it was closer than the restroom inside the bus station. My mouth filled with something very bad like battery acid. Hunched, I ran through the bus, down a nightmare’s long dark tunnel, row after row after row of seats. Finally, I yanked open the narrow door and dove headfirst for the tiny steel toilet.
I waited for the torrent, an instant replay of everything I’d eaten in the last twenty-four hours. . . .
Waited.
Then waited some more.
For anything, really.
I heaved and hoed, but I was shooting nothing but blanks. I gagged until I was nearly hoarse and then gave up. I sat back on my haunches, waiting for the world to stop spinning. I groped in the dark cubicle for a paper towel to wipe up the drool, the only thing I’d been able to come up with.
The door opened behind me. “Here, kid,” a voice said, and a hand stuffed a paper towel into my hand. Mortified, I turned. Switch grinned down at me. “You’ve got some pipes there. You sounded like a rhino trying to chuck up a wild boar or something.”
My face burned as I glared at him. I turned on the tiny faucet and splashed myself with the miniature stream of water. It smelled like it came from a swamp.
“Hey, don’t get bent. I was kidding. Here,” he said, handing me a piece of gum already out of the wrapper. “This will help.”
I hesitated just a moment and then crammed it into my mouth, grateful for the taste of anything else. “What are you doing in here?” I hoped snottiness would hide my humiliation.
“Might ask you the same.”
I shrugged a shoulder and tried to get my vision back in line.
He cocked his head and studied me. “I see you around the coffee shop, right? You hang out with that chick, Tweetie?”
“Twee,” I said, with a look meant to maim. “And you almost got her killed yesterday. Not to mention knocking me on my keester!”
He passed me one of his famous slow and easy smiles. “Sorry about that.”
“And you made this poor old lady crash her bike into Nana’s window, a window that had managed to survive nearly thirty-seven years—until you wrecked it.”
He opened his mouth, but I cut him off, lightning-quick. “Even worse, you rode off and left. That’s hit and run, you know. It’s against the law.”
His brows crossed. “I made sure nobody was hurt before I took off. You just didn’t see me.”
“A decent person would have stayed and apologized!”
“I couldn’t,” he said. “I thought the cops might come, and I wasn’t in the mood to see them.” He ran his hands across his white-blond buzzed hair. “I did go over to that lady’s house afterward. Made sure she was okay. Chuck told me where she lived. Heck, I even offered to help her find her lost dog.”
I nodded suspiciously. “Yeah, she told me. She thought you were Mr. Manners in the flesh.”
Switch looked past me out the window of the bus. “Here comes Big Boy.” He backed up, snatched a paper sack and his skateboard off a seat, and hurried down the aisle. “Come on, kid. Unless you got a ticket, you better get off too.”
I rushed out behind him, and we both vaulted into the street, not slowing down until we turned the corner. We skidded to a stop in front of a row of newspaper racks. I sucked in my breath, still feeling a bit green. Switch dug into his pocket and fed a quarter into the Daily Post machine. He lifted a dozen papers out in one swoop.
“What are you doing? You can’t take them all,” I said, indignant. “They’re a quarter apiece, not a quarter a pile.”
He shrugged.
“You gonna go sell them? That’s classy,” I said.
“I’m not gonna sell them.”
“Oh, right, you’re going to read them all yourself!”
He shifted the papers over to his bony hip. “They’re not for me. There’s a nursing home over in my old neighborhood. I take them there.”
“You’re stealing . . . for old people?”
“I’m not stealing; I’m delivering. I hand out some papers and wish a few old geezers a good morning. They like having a fresh paper of their own. Not the day-old ones that the staff leave around.”
“It’s still not right,” I said, thawing slightly. “You should just ask the Post. Maybe they’d donate the papers, and then you wouldn’t have to raid their machines.”
“You call it raiding; I call it goodwill.”
“Let me see if I get this: you’ve got a big soft spot for old people, but you hate veterans?”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“I suppose you think you got away with it, but I saw you throwing stuff at the veterans’ float at the parade a couple years back.”
Switch’s expression didn’t change, but a muscle in his jaw flickered. He spun the wheels of his board with his hand.
“Remember? You were up on the roof of my nana’s coffee shop. I saw you from down below.”
“I remember.”
“My dad was on that float! You nailed him with a water balloon!”
“Sorry ’bout that. I wasn’t trying to hit him. I was—” He shifted the papers on to his other hip. “You know what? Just forget it.”
I could feel the spit gathering at the side of my mouth, like it does when I’m really mad. I swiped at it.
“You’re kind of sweet when you’re mad,” he said. He reached over and tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “I respect that.”
I untucked the hair out from behind my ear and changed the subject. “So you really are going to help Ginger?”
“Who’s Ginger?”
“The woman who you could have killed yester-day?” I rolled my eyes. “The one you went and apologized to?”
“Oh, her, right. Hey! Why don’t we look for her dog together?”
“No way. Twee and I are going to find him, and we aren’t splitting the reward with anyone.”
“Fine by me. I don’t want reward money. I just wanted to help her out. And since I already have a lead on the pooch,” he said, backing down the street, “I thought maybe you might be interested.”
“Well, wait a dang sec,” I yelled.
“You chicks have at it. Good luck!” He slammed his board onto the sidewalk, jumped on, and sped away.
Leaving me wondering if I’d just been had. Or not.
Monday afternoon, I kicked my soccer ball up onto the porch. Then I fell into our old creaky porch swing, bone tired. I’d made the Kit Carson team, but just barely, I think. Coach Reeves was surprised, though, to see me show up. He’d been hoping I’d come to basketball tryouts instead. He lived in my neighborhood and watched me play for years in the cul-de-sac that had a hoop set up.
My dad was not a basketball person. He was pretty terrible at it. I could outdribble him and outshoot him by the time I was eight. He said basketball was an easy game for lazy athletes and that if I really wanted to develop skills, soccer was the only way to go. Soccer, he was great at, and he’d played all through school. He loved showing me all his moves. I was working at it. My feet were kind of all thumbs.
I peeled off my shoes and ripe, steamy socks. I slumped back in the swing and closed my eyes.
I was glad tryouts were over. My stomach was so empty it felt like a dried-up old raisin. I closed my eyes and gave in to the sway of the swing.
I wished Dad were here so I could tell him that I’d made the team. He’d be really happy.
I remembered the last time I’d sat out here with him. Mom was mad at him about something, so he and I had escaped the house together. It was raining like crazy, and he took my hand to read my palm. He said a fortune-teller would probably charge me extra because my hand was so big. Kind of like how car washes charge extra for trucks and vans. We laughed about that. Then I teased him that he could get a half-price special at a manicurist, because his nails were so short—he had them bitten down nearly to the moons. Sometimes he peeled the sides down until they bled. It drove Mom crazy.
God, I wished he would just come home. Seemed like I’d spent my whole life waiting for him. Even after I was first born, it had taken him two days to get to the hospital to meet me. I’d once figured out that in my whole lifetime, I’d been away from him more than I’d ever been with him.
When Nana first got sick and the army let him out early to run the café, I thought we had him for good. But then Mom went and ruined it all. To her, whatever Dad did was wrong. When he’d have to stay late at the café, she’d get mad. When he had to go on business trips to buy supplies, she’d stomp around the house with her lips sewn up tight.
When she got pregnant with Jack, I was so glad. I figured it would change everything. Mom would finally be happy, and Dad would stay home forever. No such luck in my sorry life. Instead, it was like watching a long line of dominoes fall—
Nana’s cancer starts to spread like a wildfire—clack-clack-clack-clack-clack—
Dad is so sad he can hardly work—click-click—
Mom gets even madder at him—click-click-click—
Mom talks everyone into selling Nana’s shop—clackety-clackety—
Nana dies—click-clack-click-clickclickclickclickclickclickclick—
