by Nancy Rue
“Don’t tip the boat!” she could almost hear Mr. Auggy shouting to her. That, she remembered proudly, meant stay in your position. She did. She did everything right.
Until on the final drive down the field, feet moving so fast she could hardly see them, she was about to make her shot when her foot hit something that wasn’t the ball. She felt herself leave the ground, and before she could stop herself, she slammed forehead first into the metal frame.
She had watched characters in cartoons hit their heads and then see stars spinning in a circle above them. She saw those same stars now, and she had to wait for their light to snap out before she could even think about standing up.
When she did, the whole soccer field spun. In near darkness. Another minute passed before she realized the sun was almost down. She tried to run for her bike, but the ground slanted up to meet her. She sank to the dirt again, and then got up, more slowly this time. If she put one foot very carefully in front of the other, she didn’t fall down, and she made it to her bike.
“I hope I didn’t dent the goal,” she said out loud. Talking hurt her head. So did riding her bicycle. She grasped the handlebars and walked it, still going slowly and carefully as if she were on a tightrope. At this rate, it was going to be completely dark when she got home. And she was going to be in trouble.
That was fine, she decided, when she finally crossed Highway 54. Dad could ground her for being late, but she didn’t want him to know about the head-banging incident. Maybe she could just tell him she was tired and go straight to bed. Lying down, going to sleep — those things sounded wonderful right now.
As she neared the house, her heart sank. Every light in the place was on, which wasn’t like Dad at all. He never turned on lights — he didn’t need them. Had he already called the sheriff or something?
She shuddered at the thought and made her way slowly down the last block. Just don’t let there be anybody there who can see me. Just let it be Dad — just let him take away all my privileges — except soccer — but don’t let somebody see that I can’t stand up straight.
Lucy leaned against the inside of the gate and took some deep breaths. With one last big one, she headed for the back door. It opened, and a kind-of-familiar figure stepped out onto the stoop.
“Miss Lucy?” Mr. Auggy said. “Is that you?”
13
Lucy couldn’t move.
Her teacher was at her house? Teachers didn’t even call parents unless you were totally flunking or you were a “behavior problem.” You practically had to rob a bank for one to come to where you lived.
Was that thing in the cubby hall with Dusty and Veronica that bad? Wasn’t an apology good enough?
With visions in her head of Dusty and Veronica’s mothers storming the school, screaming Spanish at Mrs. Nunez and demanding that Lucy be hauled into court, she walked toward the back door. She knew if she moved any slower she’d go backward. She wasn’t sure being a natural-born soccer player was going to count for anything when she got there.
Especially when she saw Dad behind Mr. Auggy, face pinched around his triangle nose. She hadn’t seen it do that since the very first day he came home without Mom. She felt sick.
“Are you okay, Miss Lucy?” Mr. Auggy said. The small smile didn’t appear.
“Sure,” Lucy said.
He seemed to let out all his air and stepped back into the kitchen, leaving Dad like a silhouette in the doorway.
“You’re not hurt,” Dad said.
Not if you didn’t count the headache. “No,” Lucy said.
“Come on inside.”
She would actually rather have spent the night in the toolshed. Even Dad’s voice was pointy, and that almost never happened. But she trudged up the steps and followed him into the kitchen. She heard Mr. Auggy talking in the living room.
“Who else is here?” she said.
“No one.” Dad leaned against the counter as if he were very tired. “It’s dark, Lucy. We have a rule about that.”
“I know — I lost track of time — you aren’t supposed to wear a watch when you play soccer so I — ”
“You couldn’t look up at the sky?”
“Sorry. I won’t do it again.”
“No,” Dad said. “You won’t.”
Lucy glanced over her shoulder toward the living room where Mr. Auggy was now quiet. Couldn’t they discuss this when her teacher wasn’t there to hear her get grounded for the rest of her life?
“J.J. and Januarie got home two hours ago,” Dad said.
“How did you know that?” Something big shifted in Lucy’s head. She held onto the counter and waited for the room to stop spinning.
“What’s wrong?” Dad said.
“I’m fine.” The table slid back into place, and her eyes cleared. She moved closer to her father. “Dad, why is Mr. Auggy here?”
“He was out jogging when I was outside worrying about you.”
“He just happened to be in the neighborhood?” Lucy said.
“At the right time. J.J. and Januarie passed us when we were talking, so we waited for you,” Dad’s face darkened. “We were about to get his car and come looking when you finally got here.”
“Oh,” Lucy said. The room took another tilt. “I’m gonna go put my stuff away, okay?”
“Let’s go in the living room first. We have something we want to discuss with you.”
Wishing the room would turn upside down and dump her out somewhere, Lucy followed Dad into the living room. Mr. Auggy sat in Dad’s chair, murmuring to Lollipop, who was curled up in his lap. There was something very wrong with that, especially if he had come there to ruin Lucy’s life. Mr. Auggy ran his hand down Lollipop’s back, and she melted right into it. The traitor.
Dad sank into the Sitting Couch, and Marmalade appeared from nowhere to fit herself into his lap. Lucy would have headed for the Napping Couch, but she knew Dad wouldn’t have it.
“Luce,” Dad said, “I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to tell me the absolute truth, even if it means breaking a promise to somebody else.”
The pinch was gone from his face, and he put out his hand to squeeze her wrist. His skin was cold and damp, the way hers got when she had to take a test.
“Okay,” she said.
“Does J.J. have permission to go to the soccer field?”
That knot she couldn’t swallow formed in her throat again.
“I think that answers that question,” Dad said.
“His dad never lets him do anything,” Lucy said. “So he just didn’t ask him.”
“It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission,” Mr. Auggy said.
It took Lucy a minute to figure that out. When she did, the knot got bigger. Not much forgiving went on at J.J.’s house.
There was a silence in the room Mr. Auggy and Dad could have filled with a thing they weren’t saying. Lucy was sure of that. Mr. Auggy looked out the front window as if he were watching for something. Lucy felt dizzy again.
“I know you want to help J.J.,” Dad said finally, “but it isn’t really helping when you do things with him he doesn’t have permission to do.”
“What am I supposed to do? You want me to go tell on him?” Lucy closed her eyes so the room would settle down again. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but — ”
“I know. It’s a tough spot to be in.” Dad squeezed her wrist once more. “How about we talk some more over supper? I invited Mr. Auggy to stay.”
Lucy almost screamed, You what?
“I didn’t accept yet,” Mr. Auggy said. “I wanted to see how you felt about that.”
“Um — ”
“Give it a minute.” He smiled the small smile. “It’s gotta blow your mind to find a teacher sitting at your table.”
Dad stretched his arm on the back of the sofa and touched Lucy’s shoulder. “Mr. Auggy says you’re a great soccer player.”
“One of my best,” Mr. Auggy said.
Dad tried to find Lucy with
his eyes. They were softer now, as if something hard was over with. She wanted to keep it that way, at least until she had a chance to talk to J.J.
Lucy turned to Mr. Auggy. “Do you like pizza?” she said. “That’s what we’re having for supper.”
“I’m diggin’ it.”
“I’ll go turn on the oven,” Dad said.
Lucy uncoiled to spring off the sofa, but Dad squeezed her shoulder. “You two visit.”
It was the weirdest thing she had ever experienced, but it might also be a perfect opportunity.
“Hey, Dad,” she called. “Can I ask J.J. to come over for supper?”
Silence from the kitchen. Mr. Auggy’s eyes went to the front window again.
“I don’t think tonight is a good night,” Dad said. “Why don’t you throw a salad together, Luce? Impress Mr. Auggy with how nutrition-minded we are.”
If that wasn’t a bad try at distracting her, she didn’t know what was. Mr. Auggy himself sprang from the chair, to the disgust of Lollipop, who padded indignantly toward Lucy’s room. He headed for the kitchen, saying, “Great! I chop a mean tomato.” Whatever was going on, nobody was going to tell her.
Lucy managed to get to the kitchen without falling over. She was emptying a bag of greens into a bowl and listening to Mr. Auggy talk about how the Amigos and the Posse reminded him of his team in France when the phone rang. She got to it first. A voice like a hammer asked to speak to Ted Rooney.
“Mayor Rosa,” Dad said after he’d listened for a second. “To what do I owe the honor?”
Evidently it wasn’t an honor, because Dad’s face grew stiff, and Lucy could hear the hammer pounding away even from across the kitchen.
“Is that Miss Carla’s father?” Mr. Auggy whispered to her.
Lucy nodded and all but put up her hand for him to hush up.
“I’m equally concerned.” Dad said. He was now using his radio voice. “I‘ve already begun to speak to Lucy about — ”
Lucy’s heart started to dive.
“Absolutely — and here’s what I suggest. I’m happy to spend part of Saturday on the field with the kids so they do have some adult super — ”
There was more pounding, and Lucy watched Dad’s face take on the same look it did when waiters ignored him and Aunt Karen acted like he couldn’t even boil water. It was all she could do not to snatch the phone from him and put it down the garbage disposal.
“I see your point,” Dad said. He was no longer the radio announcer. “We’ll have to keep looking at that — I don’t think we need to make a final decision right this minute — ”
Lucy noticed that Mr. Auggy had stopped chopping, and his mouth was pulled into a small ball. When Dad hung up, Lucy and Mr. Auggy both looked at him expectantly.
“The mayor says no more soccer practice on the old field unless there’s an adult present. I volunteered my ser vices — ”
“But he thinks it won’t do any good because you’re blind,” Lucy said. “What is wrong with these people?”
“Watch it, Luce,” Dad said.
She didn’t want to watch it, and she might have said more if Artemis Hamm hadn’t sprung across the kitchen and down the hall toward Lucy’s room. She heard the toy chest slam shut.
“Is Artemis stalking Lollipop again?” Dad said.
“I’ll go see.” Lucy dropped the tongs in the bowl and slid all the way to her room. This could mean there was a “pizza delivery.”
With the door shut behind her, she leaned for a second to get the room upright and then opened the window. Januarie stood below, hatless and shivering. Her chubby cheeks wobbled, and even in the dark, Lucy could tell it wasn’t just from the cold.
“What’s wrong?” Lucy said.
“I — I have a message,” Januarie said in a squeak Lucy could barely hear. A Chihuahua itself couldn’t sound that forlorn.
“You want to come in?” Lucy said.
Januarie nodded and hiccupped out a sob. Lucy opened the window the rest of the way and stuck the top half of her body out into the night.
“Hold on to my shoulders and walk up the wall,” Lucy said. “I’ll pull you in.” It had been a while since Januarie had come in this way, but she definitely didn’t want to bring her in through the house, not with whatever else was going on with Dad and Mr. Auggy and all the questions about J.J.
With Januarie’s arms clinging to her like a baby monkey’s, Lucy backed slowly into the room, pulling Januarie with her. Januarie squeezed her eyes shut as she put her head through the window and held on harder.
“You can let go now,” Lucy said. “You have your top half in. Now just wiggle in.”
She lowered herself to her bed and waited for Januarie to pop through and bounce down beside her.
“I can’t.”
“Sure you can.” Lucy glanced over her shoulder. There were still man-mutters in the kitchen. “I’ll pull.”
“No.” Another hiccup. “I’m stuck.”
“No, you are not.”
Lucy slid her hands under Januarie’s armpits and gave a yank. She got nothing but a yip.
“Okay, wiggle back out, and I’ll meet you at the front door. My dad’s in the kitchen with — ”
“I’m stuck that way too!” The tiny-dog voice went up another notch, and Januarie’s face crumpled.
“Okay, okay, don’t freak. I’ll get something to pry you out.”
Lucy grabbed the wooden spoon that usually propped the toy chest open, but she dropped it. Not big enough. What was big enough? This wasn’t like getting the first pickle out of the jar.
“Is this because I’m fat?” Januarie said.
“It’s because the window’s not big enough,” Lucy said. “That’s not your fault.” It was her fault. Why had she even tried it this way?
“Okay, here’s what I want you to do.” Lucy put her face right up to Januarie’s so she could whisper. The voices in the kitchen had gotten lower. “Take the biggest breath you can and hold it, and when I tell you, pretend you’re a balloon with all the air going out of it. Okay?”
Januarie nodded.
“Go.”
The round cheeks puffed out, and her face f lushed the color of a strawberry. Lucy gathered as much of Januarie as she could into her arms, braced her feet on the wall, and said, “Go.”
There was a big whoosh of air, and Lucy pulled. Something came with her as she fell backward onto her bed. The door opened, and she got an upside-down view of Mr. Auggy. Dad right behind him.
“What’s going on, Lucy?” Dad said.
She wasn’t sure. The room wouldn’t stop going around and around. Besides, with Mr. Auggy there, it was clear she had to give it up. “I had to get Januarie through the window,” she said.
“I’m still stuck!”
“What on earth — ”
Mr. Auggy dodged past Lucy, who saw that she held only Janu-arie’s frog-green jacket in her hands.
“Is she okay?” Dad said. He felt his way into the room and promptly tripped over Lucy’s Uggs. He staggered forward, and Lucy lunged for him. They both tilted against the wall, in time to hear Mr. Auggy say, “Ted, do you have a screwdriver? We’re going to have to take out this window.”
Januarie bawled anew.
“I do,” Dad said over her. “Lucy — get our tool kit — it’s outside — ”
With Januarie’s yelps from the window ringing in her ears, Lucy felt her way through the house and out the back door into the darkness. But the ground came up to meet her, and she slammed into the side of the toolshed with her shoulder. Somebody — probably Mudge — yowled — and somebody else whispered hoarsely, “You’re okay, right?”
Lucy slid down against the shed. J.J.’s face looked fuzzy in front of her.
“What are you doing out here?” she managed to get out. Her voice sounded furry too.
“Hiding.”
“From what?”
“Everybody.”
“Januarie came over — ”
“Tell
her to shut up and go home. I’m spending the night here.”
“She’s stuck in the window.” Lucy closed her eyes so that maybe J.J. would stop twirling like a dust devil. “You’re spending the night with us?”
“In your shed.”
“What?”
“I do it all the time. Tell Januarie to shut up.”
“We’re not allowed to say ‘shut up,’ ” Lucy heard herself say. Then she let out a long buzz, just before everything went black.
14
Lucy felt like a character in a comic book again. The faces of the people in her thoughts popped up all around her head and talked to her.
Dad’s face begged her to wake up. Mr. Auggy’s said he was going to call 9-1-1. Januarie’s just cried. There was no J.J. face, but Lucy couldn’t quite wake up enough to tell them he was in the shed, having a sleepover.
Things got clearer when a tiny flashlight shined into her eyes and another face asked her what her name was and what day it was and who was the president of the United States. She told him who it was but that she’d rather talk about soccer players. People laughed like they’d been waiting for hours for something to be happy about.
She finally came all the way awake when somebody wrapped a thing around her arm and squeezed it. She found herself on the Sitting Couch, looking at Dad and two people in uniforms. They were all searching her face as if they were looking for clues to a major mystery.
“What happened?” she said.
“That’s what you need to tell us,” the Lady Uniform said. She pulled a stethoscope out of her ears. “You have a concussion. Did you hit your head today?”
Lucy almost didn’t answer her. She was using that too-loud voice like people used with Dad. Only Dad said, “Luce — ” and his face and voice were both pinched in tight.
“Yes,” Lucy said. “I tripped over a rock on the soccer field and hit my head on the goalpost thingie.”
From somewhere, a small dog whimpered. Lucy’s eyes found Januarie sitting on Mr. Auggy’s lap in Dad’s chair.
“You got unstuck,” Lucy said.
“Lucy — focus,” Dad said.
She closed her eyes.
