On My Honor

by Marion Dane Bauer

  Joel stood on the bank clutching at himself and swaying.

  Tony was dead ... dead.

  Chapter Eight

  "JOEL!" THE ANGRY VOICE CAME IMMEDIATELY after the slammed door. "Joel, where are you?"

  Joel lay on his back in the middle of his bed staring at the darkened light fixture. The shadow of the fixture stretched across his ceiling like an elasticized gray spider and bent down the wall. When he had first lain down on the bed, the shadow had been a small blob right next to the light.

  "Joel, are you up there?" came his father's voice again, and Joel shook his head slowly from side to side.

  No, he wasn't up here. He wasn't anywhere. Hadn't Mrs. Zabrinsky told his father that? All afternoon the telephone had rung at frequent intervals. Then the doorbell. Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Knock, knock, rattle, rattle. First Bobby calling, obviously sent across the street by Mrs. Zabrinsky, then Mrs. Zabrinsky herself. "Joel! Tony!"

  But the house key was in Joel's pocket, and no one could get in ... except his parents when they got home from work. They had their own keys. Joel had lain there through the long afternoon and waited for one of them to get home. He had thought it would be his mother who would get there first, though. She usually did get home before his dad because she started work earlier in the morning.

  The papers for his route had been dropped on his front porch about two hours before. He had heard the thunk when they hit the concrete, but he hadn't been able to make himself get off the bed to do anything about them. I could be gone on my route when they come home, he had thought, but still he hadn't moved.

  "Joel!" His door shot open with a report like a firecracker and, as if connected to the door by a spring, he leaped off the bed. The blood rushed from his brain with the sudden movement, and he swayed giddily in the middle of his floor.

  "So you are here. Mrs. Zabrinsky thought you were."

  Joel didn't say anything. He studied a spot on the floor in front of his father's feet.

  "What are you doing, locking yourself in the house all day? What do you mean by this kind of behavior?"

  Joel's gaze traveled to his father's belt buckle.

  His father was now looking around the room. "Where's Tony?" he asked. "Mrs. Zabrinsky said you two boys spent the entire afternoon locked in the house."

  "Tony's not here," Joel said.

  "Where is he, then?"

  Joel gave a small shrug.

  His father ran his fingers through his hair in exasperation. "What's going on, Joel? This isn't like you ... sneaking into the house, leaving Tony's mother to worry." He took a step toward Joel, but Joel didn't flinch.

  He looked into his father's face, waiting for the blow that he was sure would come ... must come. His father had never hit him, but he would now. "I guess I fell asleep," he said. "I didn't hear a thing." He spoke out of the deep calm that had taken hold of him sometime in the long afternoon. "Besides," he added, "it's my house. I can come here if I want to."

  Now! His father would hit him now!

  Joel's father quit tugging on his hair and dropped his hand. "Of course it's your house," he said quietly, "but you don't have permission to lock yourself in here when Mrs. Zabrinsky is supposed to be looking after you. She wouldn't have even known you were here if Bobby hadn't caught a glimpse of you going through the door."

  "Snoop," Joel said.

  "What?" his father asked, beginning to look exasperated again.

  "Never mind."

  "Well, where is Tony, then? His mother will want to know."

  In the river, Joel thought, but out loud he said, "On the road to Starved Rock."

  His father tipped his head to one side. He looked skeptical. "Alone?" he asked.

  "I came back," Joel said. "Starved Rock was too far, so I came back." Was this what he had planned to say? He wasn't sure.

  Bobby appeared in the doorway, his fists cocked on his hips in imitation of their mother's favorite stance when she was cross with either of them. "You guys aren't supposed to be in the house when Mommy and Daddy are gone," he said in his best boy-you're-going-to-get-it voice.

  "So what?" Joel snapped back and, instantly deflated, Bobby ducked his head, tucking his thumb into his mouth.

  Joel's father was studying his face minutely. "You mean to tell me," he said, "that Tony rode all the way to Starved Rock by himself?"

  "I guess he did," Joel said.

  "He lied to me, you know, about his mother's giving him permission to go. I found that out from Mrs. Zabrinsky, too."

  Joel could feel his father's gaze like a burning pressure. He held his breath, waiting for the moment when all would be known ... but his father only shook his head, looked away. "I feel responsible...."

  You are responsible, Joel wanted to say. But instead he asked, his voice dull and flat, "Do you want me to go see if I can find him?"

  "No, of course not." His father sighed. "It's too far to go back on your bike. Anyway you need to get started on your paper route." He turned and started out of the room, calling back over his shoulder, "I'll telephone the Zabrinskys and tell them that Tony will probably be late."

  Very late, Joel thought, and he had a strange urge to laugh. Tony's dead! Don't you know that? he wanted to yell. But since it was obvious his father didn't know, that his father didn't know anything, he kicked the leg of his bed and muttered, "Frigging newspapers!"

  Bobby's eyes grew round, but his father, though he must have heard, didn't turn back. He wasn't going to do anything, no matter what.

  "Can I help you with your route today, Joel?" Bobby asked. Bobby was always wanting to help him with his route, with his Scout projects, with anything he did. Sometimes Bobby even helped him when it was his turn on dishes. Dumb little kid.

  Joel didn't usually let Bobby go along on his route, though. Tony went along lots of times, but he had his own bike. Balancing Bobby on his bike along with the load of papers was a real trick.

  Besides, Tony really helped. He didn't just tag along asking questions and getting in the way.

  Tony! Would the Zabrinskys ever find him? The teenager had said something about a body maybe washing up at one of the dams ... next week, next month. Maybe. Why hadn't Joel told his father about Tony's going down to the river to swim, about his going on to Starved Rock while Tony went to the river? Then his father could tell the Zabrinskys and the Zabnnskys would know where to look. Somehow nothing had come out right.

  "Can I, Joel? Please?" Bobby repeated, and when Joel looked down at his brother, at the eagerness in Bobby's upturned face, his throat closed, and he had to turn away.

  "Yeah," he managed to croak, "I guess you can help with my route today."

  "Whoowee!" Bobby yelled, and he clapped his pudgy hands and skittered out of the room and backdown the stairs.

  Joel squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. Then he stopped, breathed again, sniffed. What was that smell in the air? Almost like ... almost exactly like dead fish. Joel sniffed his arm, his shirt. That's where it was coming from ... him.

  Joel drew the neck of his shirt up over his nose and inhaled deeply. There was no question. The stink of the river had followed him home ... and his father hadn't noticed that either.

  Joel pulled the shirt off, got another from the drawer. The new shirt was fresh—it smelled like his mom's fabric softener—but the light fragrance couldn't cover the stench of the river clinging to his skin.

  Joel started down the steps. Maybe nobody knew what a river smelled like.

  Bobby was holding the screen door open for their mother. Looking tired and a little bit frazzled, she set down the grocery bag she was carrying and came to the bottom of the stairs. She stood with her hands on her hips exactly the way Bobby had when he was imitating her earlier. "What on earth were you doing today, Joel? Mrs. Zabrinsky says you and Tony hid in the house all afternoon."

  Joel closed his eyes. It was going to start all over again. That was the problem with having two parents. You never heard anything only once. He drew
in his breath, composed his face, and continued down the stairs. There was nothing he could do about the smell. "Tony wasn't here," he said, "and I wasn't hiding. I was lying down."

  "Lying down?" Joel's mother reached to feel his forehead. "What's the matter? Are you sick?"

  "No," Joel answered, submitting to the cool hand pressed to his head, "just not feeling good for a little bit."

  "What did you and Tony do today?" his mother asked, her other hand circling the back of his head as though she could feel his temperature better by pressing with both hands. Her eyes were on his face.

  "Just rode our bikes" The musky river smell was so strong it made his eyes burn. She had to smell it. There was no way she could miss it.

  "How far did you go?"

  Joel jerked free, ducking and coming up a few feet down the hall with his back to his mother. "Not very far. Tony was going to ride out to Starved Rock—Dad said we could—but I didn't feel good, like I told you, so I came home."

  He couldn't tell what she was doing, behind him as she was, and he didn't want to turn around to look.

  "Starved Rock," she repeated. "But that's so far!"

  "Dad gave us permission," he said. And then he amended, "He said I could go."

  "Well"-a light sigh-"you'd better get busy with your route before people start calling. They'll be complaining about their papers being late."

  Joel felt his body go limp. His mother hadn't smelled the river. She hadn't even guessed he was lying. Relief swirled in his brain, curiously mixed with anger. Didn't anybody around here pay attention to anything?

  He pushed out the screen door, letting it slam behind him ... hard.

  Chapter Nine

  BOBBY WAS SQUATTING ON THE PORCH OVER the stack of newspapers, tugging on the twine that held them, his small, dirty fingers making little headway against the knot.

  "You cut it, dummy," Joel said, pulling out his pocket knife. "Like this." He cut the twine on the papers and also on the stack of inserts next to them, his hands moving with angry impatience.

  Bobby watched, his lower lip poking out. "You know I don't got a knife."

  "Don't have" Joel corrected gruffly, looking away from Bobby's face. "You don't have a knife."

  "Well, I don't," Bobby said, and he grabbed an advertising circular and stuffed it inside a paper, crumpling both.

  "Take it easy," Joel ordered, thumping Bobby on the top of the head with the handle of his knife. "You're going to mess everything up."

  Bobby's face rumpled, and he began to cry. "That hurt!" He rubbed the top of his head.

  "Everything hurts," Joel mumbled, but now the anger was replaced by shame. What was he on Bobby about? The poor little kid was only trying to help. Joel began pulling the circulars off the stack, one at a time, snapping them into place inside the fold of the papers, rolling the papers to ready them for throwing. Everything hurts, he repeated to himself, except maybe being dead. Being dead's probably the only thing that's easy.

  The thought made his skin go cold and tingly.

  "What's wrong, Joel?" Bobby asked. "Why do you look like that?" His own pain forgotten, Bobby was staring with enormous green eyes.

  "Nothing," Joel said, but the word came out sounding squeezed. "If you're going to help, start putting the papers in the bag."

  Bobby began bagging the papers, but he didn't take his eyes off Joel's face.

  "Watch what you're doing," Joel snapped, pulling the anger around himself again like a cloak. "We've gotta get this show on the road."

  Bobby nodded sharply and set to loading the rolled papers into the bag as fast as Joel could get them ready.

  Joel stuffed and rolled, the fury taking over again, but this time he knew whom he wanted to punch. It was all Tony's fault. All of it! Tony knew what a poor swimmer he was. He had to have realized the risks. And now he had gone off and left Joel to answer for him. And what was he going to say?

  Tony's parents would probably be asking questions by the time he got home from his route. Tony isn't home, Joel. Where could he be? You're the last one who saw him ... alive.

  "Damn it all, anyway!" Joel cried, pushing the rest of the stack of papers off the porch. "I'm sick of this stinking paper route."

  Bobby was sitting back on his heels, his eyes in danger of swallowing up his face. He peered over the edge of the porch and then up at Joel. "You squashed three of Mommy's purple things," he said.

  Joel looked, too. The papers were lying in the middle of his mother's petunia bed.

  "Do you want me to get the papers back?" Bobby asked. "I think if we brush them off they'll still be okay."

  "All right," Joel consented. "Get them back."

  Bobby climbed down the steps and then up again. He peered cautiously over the stack of papers he carried. "They're okay, Joel," he said, laying them down reverently, as though they were jewels.

  Joel shook his head, trying to dispel the red fog that had taken possession of his brain. If he could get his hands on Tony now, he would ... But that was ridiculous. What would he do? What could anybody do? Beat Tony up?

  At the thought he let out a choking guffaw, half laughter, half sob.

  Bobby was watching him again, his face wary, his lower lip clenched between small, white teeth. "Are you okay, Joel?" he asked.

  "Yeah," Joel said. "I'm okay." He went back to preparing the papers. "I'm alive, aren't I?"

  The paper route seemed endless. Bobby rode behind Joel on the bicycle seat and chattered the whole way. Joel tried to listen, with half an ear anyway, but he couldn't. With each thunk of a paper on a porch, he heard, instead, Tony's voice, challenging, teasing. "I'll bet you can't get one in the middle of Mrs. McCullough's hanging geraniums. I'll bet you can't clip the Smiths' cat. Why don't you...?"

  Joel wanted to yell at Tony, to tell him to shut up, but even Bobby would think he was crazy if he started yelling at a voice inside his own head.

  Why did he feel so responsible, as though he had pushed Tony in? Why did he always have to feel responsible for everything that happened? If they had gone climbing on the bluffs and he, Joel, had fallen, Tony wouldn't have blamed himself. Would he?

  Tony had said once that Joel was like an old grandmother, fretting all the time. Well, Tony ought to see him now. He would laugh.

  At the thought of Tony laughing, Joel almost smiled. He and Tony always had so much fun together. Besides the tree house they were building this summer, they had a lot of other projects going. They always did.

  For one thing, they had been pooling their allowances to buy a worm farm. Their plan was to get rich selling bait. Tony had even had the idea of using his mother's meat grinder to grind whatever worms were left at the end of the summer and sell them as goldfish food. (That was because Joel's father had pointed out that neither family would want worms multiplying in the basement over the winter.) For his part, Joel was skeptical about whether there were very many people anxious to buy worm mash for goldfish food, but he hadn't said that to Tony.

  Last summer they had concocted a wonderful scheme for getting rich selling decorative pennies. They flattened fifty pennies by leaving them on the tracks to be run over by the 3:45 train, turning them into thin, coppery disks. Their plan hadn't been exactly what anybody could call successful, though. They sold only one penny, because every other kid in town knew how to flatten pennies, too. The one they sold (for a nickel) was to a prissy girl whose mother wouldn't allow her to go near the tracks. They had been left with forty-nine pennies they couldn't spend, not even in a gum-ball machine.

  Joel tossed the last paper and turned his bike toward home. Bobby had finally fallen silent, and Joel was grateful for that. He could feel his brother's small, hot hands gripping his shirt and the puffs of breath on the back of his neck, so close, so alive.

  A surge of protectiveness passed through Joel. He would have to teach Bobby how to swim. Bobby was afraid even to get his face in the water. Joel would start working with him right away. Every kid needed to know how to swim. So
metimes parents didn't seem to realize what a dangerous place the world is.

  When Joel turned the corner by his house, he could see his mother and father in the front yard, talking to Mr. and Mrs. Zabrinsky. Seeing the four of them standing there, their faces solemn and intent, sent a chill through Joel's bones. What were they talking about? What did they know? By now, someone must have seen through his lie.

  Or maybe the teenage boy had come back and turned Joel in.

  Joel coasted up the driveway and stepped off his bike, pushing it into the garage before Bobby had a chance to climb down. Inside the garage, he scooped Bobby off the seat and set him on the floor.

  "Thanks, buddy," he said. "I appreciate your help." He propped his bike along the wall, out of the way of the cars.

  "I'll help you again tomorrow, Joel," Bobby said, his face glowing in the semidarkness of the garage.

  "We'll see," Joel said, patting Bobby's shoulder. He began tinkering with his bicycle, shifting the gears back and forth uselessly, pretending to be engrossed.

  Bobby watched him for a moment, then turned and headed outside with a one-legged skip. "Mommy, Daddy," he called before he was even beyond the front of the garage. "Joel's gonna let me help him with his paper route tomorrow, too."

  Joel stood where he was, trying to control the way his hands trembled, the way the muscles in his face seemed to jerk. They were talking about him out there. He was certain of it. But there was no way past them without being seen, and if he stayed in the garage any longer, they would probably notice that, too. He shifted the gears one last time, slumped his shoulders, and pulled his head in, like a turtle retreating into its shell. Then he stepped out into the staring light of the driveway.

  Chapter Ten

  "JOEL, WOULD YOU COME HERE FOR A MOMENT, please?" Joel's father called.

  Joel hesitated, wondering if he dared pretend he hadn't heard, but then he turned slowly and, keeping his head down, moved in the direction of his father's voice.