Watch Me

by Norah McClintock

  Watch Me

  Watch Me

  Norah McClintock

  orca currents

  Copyright © 2008 Norah McClintock

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  McClintock, Norah

  Watch me / written by Norah McClintock.

  (Orca currents)

  ISBN 978-1-55469-040-4 (bound).--ISBN 978-1-55469-039-8 (pbk.)

  I. Title. II. Series.

  PS8575.C62W38 2008 jC813’.54 C2008-903392-2

  Summary: A battered watch might change Kaz’s life.

  First published in the United States, 2008

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2008929298

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Cover design by Teresa Bubela

  Cover photography by Getty Images

  Orca Book Publishers Orca Book Publishers

  PO Box 5626, Station B PO Box 468

  Victoria, BC Canada Custer, WA USA

  V8R 6S4 98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada

  Printed on 100% PCW recycled paper,

  11 10 09 08 • 4 3 2 1

  To the ones who are gone.

  chapter one

  I knew as soon as I saw the package that I wasn’t getting what I wanted for my birthday.

  “Well?” my mom said, beaming at me. “Aren’t you going to open it?”

  I ripped off the paper. I was right. It wasn’t a games system. It was hockey equipment.

  “Well, what do you say?” Neil said. Neil is my mom’s boyfriend. He’s an accountant, plus he coaches hockey. I hated that he lived with us.

  “It’s not what I asked for,” I said.

  The smile disappeared from my mom’s face.

  “But you used to love hockey,” she said. “You used to play all the time.”

  “I used to play with Dad,” I said.

  My mom and dad split up a couple of years back, not long after I got out of the hospital. I saw my dad exactly twice after that. Then my mom got custody of me, and she wouldn’t let me see him anymore. She blamed him for what had happened.

  “Your mom put a lot of thought into that gift,” Neil said. “I think you should apologize to her, Sport.”

  “I don’t want to play hockey,” I said. Phys ed was bad enough. There was no way I wanted to spend more time in a locker room with a bunch of guys who would only stare at me.

  “But Evan said hockey would be good for you,” my mom said. Evan was my social worker. “Team sports are a great way to make new friends. And you were good, Kaz. You could be the star of the team.”

  She just didn’t get it.

  “I’m not going to play hockey,” I said. “I hate hockey.”

  I grabbed my jacket off a hook in the front hall and headed for the door.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Neil said. “You are not leaving this house!”

  “Oh yeah?” I said. “Watch me!”

  I slammed the door behind me and stood on the porch for a moment, breathing hard. Neil must have decided to come after me because I heard my mom shout, “Neil, please! Leave him be.”

  Then I heard Neil say, “You can’t let him get away with that type of behavior. It’s time he learned—”

  I ran down the front walk. I wanted to get as far from Neil as possible. I hated him.

  Once I was outside, I pulled up the hood of my sweatshirt. I always wear it up when I’m not at school so that people can’t stare at me. I’d wear my hood up at school too, if it wasn’t against the rules. I hate being stared at.

  I walked down the street as fast as I could. I hated my stupid so-called birthday present. I hated Neil and the way he called me Sport. I hated that my mom thought he was such a great guy. And I really hated that she had made my dad move out. That happened about a year after I saved my dad’s life. He would have died, burned up in a fire, if it hadn’t been for me. The whole thing was written up in the newspaper. It was on TV too. They said I was a hero. But being a hero isn’t as great as you might think. For one thing, I was in the hospital for a long time and ended up with big ugly scars on one whole side of my body. The worst were the ones on the side of my neck and face. I missed a lot of school. When I finally went back, kids didn’t treat me like a hero. They treated me like a freak because of all the scars. Plus I was way behind everyone else. I hate school. I hate phys-ed class. Sometimes I feel like I hate everything.

  chapter two

  “Neil’s a jerk,” Drew said the next day. “Forget about him.”

  “Easy for you to say,” I said. “You don’t have to see his ugly face everyday.”

  “True,” Drew said. “Hey, I have to drop something off at my mom’s work after school. You want to come?”

  Drew’s mom works at a bank on the other side of town. I didn’t particularly want to go, but I had nothing better to do. Besides, Drew has been my best friend since he transferred to my school the year before last. He never makes fun of me. He never says anything about how I look—ever. He asked me about it one time, but he asked nicely, like he was just wondering, not like he thought I was some kind of freak. And when I answered, that was the last I heard of it. He never brought it up again. He never teases me about wearing my hood up all the time, and he doesn’t try to pull it off me the way some guys do. As soon as school is over, and I pull up my hood, he puts on his baseball cap. He always grins at me when he does. It makes me feel like we’re kind of the same, like we have our own way of doing things once the final bell rings. That’s why I feel relaxed around him.

  We rode the bus across town and then walked a couple of blocks to the bank.

  “I’m not sure how long I’m going to be,” Drew said. “It’s old-lady day, so there might be a lineup.”

  “Old-lady day?”

  Drew explained that a lot of seniors live in the neighborhood where his mom works. Once a month, when their pension checks are deposited into their accounts, they trek to the bank to stand in line to take their money out.

  “My mom says they don’t like to use the instant teller,” Drew said. “And a lot of them live alone. So they stand in line to take out their money and to talk to the teller. My mom says sometimes that’s the only conversation they have all day.”

  It sounded pretty sad to me.

  “I’ll wait for you out here,” I said.

  Drew went inside. I hung out on the corner and watched one old lady after another come out of the bank. They all had grey hair and they all had purses hooked over their arms. Seven or eight of them came out while I waited for Drew. They all crossed at the light on the corner and walked toward the high-rise apartment buildings a few blocks away.

  Finally Drew came out.

  “You hungry?” he said.

  I was always hungry. We picked up a couple of pizza slices. Drew said, “There’s a park down that way. You want to hang out for a while, or do you have to go home right away?”

  Neil usually gets home from work before my mom, so I was in no hurry.

  “Let’s go to the park,” I said.

  Another old lady came out of the bank while we waited for the light. She was wearing a black coat with a big pink flower pin
ned on it, and she was carrying a black purse. She was also wearing thick glasses. She walked down the street in front of us.

  Drew finished his pizza slice and dug in his backpack for his Frisbee.

  “Go out for a pass,” he said.

  The old lady was still ahead of us. She had already reached the park and was walking alongside it. I ran past her into the park. Drew’s arm arced back and over his head. He sent the Frisbee sailing through the air. But it didn’t come straight at me. Instead it curved to the left. I ran for it. I was in the clear too—until the old lady in the black coat suddenly started down the path that cut through the park. She must not have been paying attention. I yelled for her to look out, but all she did was turn and stare at me. Maybe she hadn’t heard what I said. Then, boink, the Frisbee hit her on the side of the head. I saw the startled expression on her face. She staggered a little to one side. Her foot slipped off the path. Her ankle twisted. Then she crashed to the ground and just lay there.

  I ran over to her.

  “Are you okay?” I said.

  Her glasses had fallen off, and her purse had slipped off her arm and was lying on the path. She reached out a hand so that I could help her up. And that’s what I was going to do. I totally planned to help her. After that, I don’t know what I was thinking.

  No, that’s not true. I do know.

  I bent down to help her, and, all of a sudden, I thought about the stupid hockey equipment I got for my birthday because my mom and Neil thought it would be good for me. I thought about the games system I had asked for—and imagined Neil talking my mother out of it. I thought about my dad and how everything would be different if I lived with him instead of with my mom and Neil. I also thought about what Drew had said—that all those old ladies stood in line at the bank to take out money. Instead of helping the woman, I grabbed her purse.

  Then I looked at Drew.

  He stared at me like he wasn’t sure what I was doing. He started toward me.

  The old lady opened her eyes. She saw me with her purse in my hand. She tried to get up, but she couldn’t. Drew was standing closest to her, and she grabbed him, startling him. He tried to shake her off, but she must have been stronger than she looked, because he had to really work at it. Finally, he shoved her. She fell backward onto the path. I heard a cracking sound and saw her head hit the cement. After that she didn’t move.

  I stared at her. Was she even breathing? I didn’t know. I tucked the purse under my hoodie and ran.

  chapter three

  Someone grabbed my arm and yanked me to a halt.

  Drew. He’d been pounding down the sidewalk behind me.

  “There’s a bus coming,” he said, panting. He pointed up the street. We raced to the bus stop and got there just in time to jump on. Neither of us said a word all the way home. I didn’t want to talk about what I’d done. I guess Drew didn’t either. But as soon as we got off the bus, he grabbed my arm again and dragged me into an alley behind a bunch of stores and restaurants. After checking to make sure that no one could see us, he said, “So, let’s see what you got.”

  By then I was shaking all over. I couldn’t believe what I’d done. If Neil had been there, he would have been in the middle of a big lecture about how I never thought before I acted and how I got into trouble because I let my temper take over.

  Drew pulled the old lady’s purse out of my hands, took out the wallet and tossed the purse back to me.

  “Five bucks,” he said after he pawed through the wallet. “Check the purse, Kaz. There’s got to be more money in there.”

  There wasn’t. There was just a bunch of old lady stuff—lipstick, a little package of tissues, a mirror and some powder, a change purse filled mostly with pennies, an empty glasses case—and a small box. Drew snatched it and opened it.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “It looks like a watch,” Drew said. He lifted it out. It was old and rusted.

  “Does it even work?” I said.

  Drew held it up to his ear. He shook it. Finally, he turned it over and looked at the back. It was as rusted as the front, but I could make out some letters and numbers.

  “It’s junk,” Drew said. “What a bust.” He shook his head. “Make sure no one is watching us, Kaz.”

  I looked up and down the alley, but I didn’t see anyone. Drew took all the ID out of the wallet. Most of it was plastic cards. He broke them into pieces. The rest was paper, which he ripped up. He walked down the alley and dropped all the pieces down a drain grate.

  “What did you do that for?” I said.

  “We don’t want someone to find the wallet and connect it to that woman,” Drew said. “We don’t want the cops to know that we’re not from her neighborhood.”

  He tossed the purse into a Dumpster.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  We walked to my street together. By then my legs were all wobbly. I kept thinking about that old lady and the noise her head had made when it hit the pavement.

  “What if someone saw us?” I said.

  “The cops have serious crimes to solve,” Drew said. “Purse snatching isn’t a big deal, especially this purse. It’s not like there was thousands of dollars in there, Kaz. It’s five bucks. The cops aren’t going to put a bunch of ace detectives on the case. It’ll probably take them a couple of hours to even show up. Maybe they won’t even go to her place. Maybe they’ll make her go down to the police station and file a report.”

  Maybe.

  “She looked right at you, Drew.”

  “She’s old,” Drew said. “Her glasses came off. She probably just saw a big blur. Besides, we don’t live anywhere near that neighborhood. I’ve only been over there once since my mom got transferred. No one knows us around there. If she tells the cops that some kids took her purse, they’ll check out the local schools— assuming they check out anything at all. They’ll never find you.”

  You. Because I was the one who’d taken the purse. Me—not Drew.

  “You’ll be fine, Kaz. Besides, you take stuff from stores all the time.”

  “I do not,” I said. “Not all the time.” Sometimes I took stuff. Usually I did it when I was mad about something. It made me feel better. I don’t know why. It just did.

  “What I mean is, you’ve never been caught,” Drew said. “Right?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” But that was different. Stores weren’t old ladies. Nobody ever got hurt. “But—”

  “It’s kind of late to worry about it now,” Drew said. “If you were going to get all nervous about it, you shouldn’t have taken the purse in the first place.”

  He was right. It was too late to worry. What was done was done.

  chapter four

  Neil came through the front door at the same time he did every weekday. Usually he headed right into the kitchen. That was one of the things my mom liked about him. He didn’t sit around waiting for her to show up. Instead he made supper. I was in the living room, watching TV. I slumped down on the couch, hoping he would walk right past me.

  He didn’t. He stopped, looked at me and said, “What are you up to, Sport?”

  Was he blind? What did he think I was up to? I pretended I hadn’t heard him.

  He didn’t go away. Instead he glanced at the TV.

  “Watching the news?” he said. He sounded surprised. “You must really be bored. Why don’t you get a start on your homework?”

  That was typical Neil. No matter what I did, he had a problem with it. This was a perfect example. Neil liked to sit at the table at supper and talk about what was happening in the world—what wars were going on, what the politicians were doing, what the big issues in the city were. He usually gave me a hard time because I didn’t care about stuff like that. So you’d think he would be happy that I was watching the news. But, no, he was making fun of me and telling me to do something else.

  “This is homework,” I lied. I hoped that would make him go away. It didn’t. He stepped into the living room.

/>   “You’re doing current events in school now?” he said. “What’s the focus? National? International?”

  “My teacher wants us to see what’s going on in the city,” I said.

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “What’s going on? What have you learned?”

  So far, I’d learned that it looked like Drew was right. I had been flipping through all the local news stations, but I hadn’t seen anything about the woman in the park. Not a thing.

  The weather came on. I flipped off the TV, got up and brushed past Neil on my way to my room. He didn’t try to stop me. I guess he thought I was going to do my homework.

  If Neil hadn’t already been reading the newspaper the next morning, I might have taken a look at it. Might have. But probably not. I don’t like newspapers. I don’t like magazines either. Or books. I don’t like reading. It’s too hard.

  Neil glanced at me while I got myself some cereal. My mom was finishing a cup of coffee while she slid her feet into her shoes. She always leaves before Neil. She has to take two buses to get to the hospital where she’s a lab technician. Neil can walk to work from our place. My mom pulled me toward her and kissed me on the cheek, which told me that she was in a good mood.

  “All your homework done, Kaz?” she said.

  I nodded. “Is it okay if I eat in the living room?” I said. “I have to watch the news.”

  She grinned. “Finally an assignment that’s fun for you, huh?” she said. She knew how much I hated to read. She also knew how that made me feel about school.

  Neil cleared his throat. My mom glanced at him before turning back to me.

  “They’re having sign-up for hockey at the arena tonight,” she said. “If you want, we can go up there after supper and check it out.”

  That again.

  “I already told you, I don’t want to play hockey.”

  “But it would be fun,” my mom said. “and maybe Drew would be interested. That way you’d already know someone—”