It still feels like a selfish slice. And what if Papa Ross’s Neverfail looks good but tastes like dust? Then I’ll be stuck having to eat it all just to be polite. I move the knife over to the left. But that looks like the kind of slice Otis would take, all twiggy, like his legs. Back over to the right some. That looks like a good, hungry boy’s slice of cake. But what if this cake really is as good as Ross said? Then I’m going to be wanting more, but if we start out on the honor system and then ask for seconds, is that dishonorable? Little more to the right. That’s good. Small enough to satisfy Mr. Khalil if he was watching. Big enough to satisfy me.
That’s where I start to saw. But you don’t need to saw one of Papa Ross’s cakes. It’s so light and moist, gravity makes the cut for you. My hand is just the guide. Pretty soon I’m lifting my honorably sliced piece onto my plate.
The whole Ross family is staring at me like I’m on TV.
Charlie
Armstrong’s fork breaks off a square and lifts some cake to his mouth. We watch the cake float past his lips. We watch the bite go in.
He doesn’t say a word. You can see tiny bulges appear and disappear inside his cheeks, his lips, and just above his chin as his tongue roams around the inside of his mouth. He looks at his plate, then takes a second bite. This time, as the fork comes out it gets stopped by his teeth, which bite down on the tines, scraping them clean.
Still no verdict. Here comes a third bite. Armstrong’s eyes never leave his plate. Our eyes never leave him. Soon there’s nothing left but crumbs and a streak of frosting. He presses the back of the fork onto the crumbs, drags them to the edge of the plate, and brings them up to his mouth for his final bite.
“Well?” my father asks. “What do you think?”
Armstrong sets down his fork slowly, like a kid giving up a toy at the end of a turn. Then he drinks the whole glass of milk my mom poured for him, cleans the corners of his mouth with his napkin, and looks straight at my dad.
“Mr. Ross,” he says, reaching into the pocket of his jeans, “that was the finest …”
He looks at the shiny coin in his hand.
“The most— …”
He rubs the coin between his finger and his thumb. He takes a deep breath, sighs, and shakes his head.
“It was the BEST GODDAMN CAKE I’VE EVER HAD!”
He drops a quarter into the Cuss Box and we all bust up, as Armstrong would say, laughing, really laughing, all of us, for the first time in a long time.
Armstrong
After dinner we go up to Charlie Ross’s bedroom. I see some Hardy Boys books, a record player with some speakers attached to it, and a Nerf hoop hanging from the closet door. On the wall beside his bed he’s got a signed poster of Roman Gabriel, which is nice but would be nicer if it was Deacon Jones.
“You don’t got a TV in your room?” I say.
“Do you in yours?”
“Oh, yes. Sometimes I let my sisters watch it. And sometimes I let my mama and daddy, too.”
“That’s lucky. I have to watch in my parents’ room or downstairs with my dad.”
Ross finishes packing his bag for Clear Creek. Toothbrush and toothpaste go in one plastic baggie, hairbrush in another. That’s something I never have to give much thought to: my hair. But Ross has so much of it, long and wavy, he probably loses time every morning getting it right. Whenever we play basketball, he has to dribble with one hand and whisk the hair out of his eyes with the other. That’s how I know he’s about to shoot. If he got a haircut, he’d be harder to guard.
He opens up a drawer in his desk, takes out some batteries and a pair of walkie-talkies, changes the batteries, and tosses the walkies into his bag. Then he zips up the duffle and sets it on the floor next to mine.
Now, his bedroom has got two beds. One is a single bed like my sisters get to sleep in at home. Long enough for growing legs, high enough to keep the dust out of your nose. It’s made up with the pillows tucked under the bedspread and a squeaky stuffed dog peeking out from underneath.
Next to that is an army cot. Looks like a half-thick mattress on chicken wire with wheels under the metal frame. Nothing on it but a blanket and a pillow and already it’s starting to sag.
“You expecting a soldier?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“What exactly is that thing?”
“A rollaway bed.”
“Where does it roll away to?”
“A closet, when it’s not being used. My dad rents them to his customers when they’ve got around-the-clock nursing. That way the night nurse has someplace to stretch out.”
“I see,” I say. “Which one of us is going to be the nurse?”
Charlie Ross blinks a few times like he doesn’t comprehend the question.
“I mean, which one of us will be attempting to sleep on that thing?”
“I don’t sleep well on a rollaway,” he says.
“Who does? But the thing is, Ross, etiquette.”
“Etiquette?”
“Etiquette says you give the guest the good bed. But since you’re already showing me a lot of hospitality—for which I’m grateful—toss me that Nerf ball. We’ll start the game at sixteen–nothing, you in the lead. First one to twenty gets the good bed.”
“There’s no room for a court.”
“We’re playing rugby hoops. It’s a game I just made up. You take it out over there by your desk. You can be traveling, jumping up onto the beds, rolling across the floor—any method of transportation you want. All you got to do is get the ball in the hoop. I’ll even let you take it out.”
I toss him the ball.
He steps back to his desk, then leaps onto his bed, and that’s when I ram my shoulder into his thigh like Deacon Jones would do, flipping him onto his back. Then I Indian-burn his wrist. He lets go of the Nerf, and I fly up to the hoop. Slam dunk.
We’re five minutes late to bed. It takes me that long to score the rest of the points and tuck Ross into the rollaway, along with his little stuffed dog to comfort him after his loss.
The door opens and Mrs. Ross steps in, wearing Andy’s camera around her neck. She holds up a powder-blue jacket, all puffy like it’s full of feathers.
“This was Andy’s parka,” she says. “Your Windbreaker will be warm enough during the day, Armstrong. But I checked the weather and the nights might get cold. Would you like to take this along?”
“You sure you want to let it out of the house?”
“I’m sure.”
“I appreciate that, Mrs. Ross. I’ll take good care of it.”
She sets the jacket on my duffle bag and says, “Good night, Armstrong. Good night, Charlie.”
She says it in one breath, like we’re brothers.
After a few minutes of lying beside him in the dark, I say, “Ross?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“For what, missing almost every shot I took?”
“For volunteering to have me stay at your house.”
Charlie
I’m awake half the night, wishing that I did.
· 12 ·
Clear Creek
Armstrong
EARLY SATURDAY MORNING WE STEP onto the long bus and make our way down the aisle. Ross and I call the back bench. Otis and Alex are the only ones we’ll share with. Otis because he’s got work to do—he promised everybody he’d finish up their astrology charts on the ride to Clear Creek—and Alex because we want to know what kind of snacks he brought.
Now, Leslie is sitting halfway up the bus. Got her left arm resting on the seatback, dark hair spilling over it like smoke. And Charlie Ross is mesmerized. Probably wishing he could move up there and sniff her.
“You’re stuck on the wrong girl,” I tell him. “If you want to learn something, aim your eyes on the left side of the bus, up there toward the front.”
Ross’s head turns to look. Eyes double in size.
“Mrs. Gaines!?”
“Not the Yard
Supervisor. The girl by her side.”
“Shelley?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Shelley with the green hair?”
“That’s right.”
“And freckles on her face?”
“Yep.”
“You’re crazy.”
“She ain’t that ugly, Ross. She’s starting to develop.”
“Oh, please.”
Then Ross starts in about how in kindergarten they called her Four Eyes. In first grade she was Freckle Face. In second grade she was Four-Eyed Freckle Face. By the third grade they called her Shelley Smelly Belly Button. She was Silly String Hair in fourth, Fish Eyes in fifth, and Class Clown in sixth—on account of the pimple she brought to school one day, on the tip of her nose.
“I see,” I say, “so you thought up a bunch of cruel names for her. Did you know she’s the smartest person in the school?”
“She is not.”
“Is too. That’s how come she covers up her tests when they come back. Hundred percent on every one.”
“Why hide it, then?”
“’Cause she’s classy, that’s why.”
“Well, I don’t like it when she chases me. She’ll kiss me if I get caught.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“She keeps a pencil tucked behind her ear.”
“Ross, you don’t know what you’ve been missing.”
“How would you know what I’ve been missing?”
“I know what I know.”
“Which is?”
“She likes two kinds of Now and Laters: watermelon and lime. If a cherry or grape comes up in the pack, she’ll offer it to you. She’s got green hair—you’re right about that—but it’s only green from the chlorine in her swimming pool. She washes it every day with Hawaiian Tropic shampoo. And I know she’s got those twig lips you think aren’t worth a smack, but when they pucker up, they come with a surprise.”
“What kind of surprise?”
“Gonna have to let her catch you to find out.”
Just for the record, I made that last part up. I’ve never kissed Shelley.
Charlie
On the freeway toward Glendale and Pasadena, Armstrong points out the window. “That’s the San Gabriel Mountains,” he says. “I looked it up in Mr. Khalil’s atlas. The camp where we’re headed has an elevation of two thousand three hundred seventy-four feet. Not much chance of snow this time of year, but the weatherman’s talking about rain on Wednesday.”
I tell him how, from the Club, most days are too smoggy to see the San Gabriels. He says that from his house you couldn’t see them even if it was clear.
“Downtown standing in the way.”
“Is this your first time away from home?” I ask.
“I’m away from home every day I come to your school.”
At Glendale the bus sails onto Highway 2, northbound. “Getting colder out,” Armstrong reports, touching his hand to the glass. A trucker misreads the gesture and gives him a friendly honk.
Up the long aisle I can see through the driver’s window. The road ahead is empty, except for the round back of another Crown bus, the same yellow-orange as ours. Mrs. Wilson said that Wonderland wasn’t the only school that would be spending a week at Clear Creek. One other school was chosen too.
I start to wonder about the other kids who’ll be there. What if the second school is Holmes Avenue, Armstrong’s neighborhood school? Will he feel like he belongs with them, or with us?
I stretch my neck for a better look at the other bus, but we’re too far behind to see any faces inside.
Then Otis slides into the seat in front of me. “Done with your chart,” he says.
He unfolds a piece of wrinkled paper that you can tell he’s spent a lot of time on. At the top, in his large block letters, is my name and birth date. Underneath is a long paragraph in neat handwriting, all about me.
Charlie Ross, you are a Cancer. Cancers are homebodies, which means you are happiest when you are at home. Cancers are sensitive, which means you care about other people. You care about them sometimes even more than you care about yourself. Your zodiac animal is the crab and that shows how you move through life: side to side. It means you don’t like to stand up to people. You go with the flow. But sometimes the flow can lead you the wrong way. So be careful picking your friends. Your birthday comes just after the middle of the month, which means you got some qualities of Leo in you too. Deep down, so far you can’t always see it, there’s a lot of courage in you. That comes from the lion inside. But most times, you want everybody to like you, so your lion stays in its den. Since you’re sensitive, you’re real popular with the girls. But stay away from the Taurus ones ’cause they get emotional, which you, being sensitive, take to heart. What you need in a girlfriend is a Sagittarius because they are easygoing and just a little dangerous—not afraid of taking a risk or bending the rules.
I, Otis Greene, your astrological advisor, think you are a good friend, to me and to Armstrong. You made us feel welcome at our new school.
It’s probably the nicest letter I’ve ever gotten. But one thing about it bothers me.
“Is it true I’m afraid to stand up to people?”
“Your astrology is the tendencies you’ve got, Charlie. Some people tend toward ’em. Some tend away. It’s mostly up to you.”
Armstrong has been reading so far over my shoulder, I feel like I’ve got an extra head. Now he slides out of his seat, drifts up the aisle, and sits behind Shelley.
In a voice he’s sure I’ll hear, he says, “SAY, SHELLEY, WHAT SIGN OF ASTROLOGY ARE YOU?”
Shelley turns around, blinks twice, and pushes her glasses back up her nose.
“Sagittarius,” she says.
Armstrong looks down the aisle at me. He doesn’t leave any of his teeth out of the biggest I told you so grin he can give.
Armstrong
After he gives Charlie Ross his astrology report, Otis goes up and down the aisle, handing out charts to everybody but me. The bus gets real quiet. Paper airplanes crash. Space Food Sticks go back into bags. No more singing about bottles of beer on the wall. All heads are bowed to study the charts Otis made.
I don’t know much about astrology. But from what I see, it’s got the power to put people together. Soon heads are up again, looking around the bus. Hands reaching out to tap shoulders. Same question going around, just in different ways.
“Hey, Melanie, what sign are you?”
“Hey, Christopher, what’s your sign?”
“When’s your birthday, Jason?”
Ever since Charlie Ross heard he goes well with Sagittarius, and ever since Shelley said that was her sign, he’s been looking at her with a new set of eyes. Not the loving kind—yet—but the wondering kind. Like his curiosity got stirred by what Otis said. Now here we are, waiting to get off the bus, and he’s right behind her in the aisle. How’d he get up there so fast? Floated on Otis’s words, that’s how. Just one hint that two people might be a good match makes them pay a different kind of attention. Who knows if it’ll go beyond the floating phase? It might just crash like those paper planes. But look at that—his arm is brushing up against hers. Would that have happened without astrology?
I told Otis I don’t want to know which sign is right for me. I’d rather find out on my own. For instance, we’re not the only school here. A whole other sixth grade just got off a whole other bus. I don’t know about the birthdays or the personalities or the general fineness of the girls on that bus, but I am looking to find out. Maybe I’ll say hello to one, see where it goes.
We come off our bus and see a crowd of other kids with their bags packed, waiting to get on. Looks like their week in the mountains is done.
“How was it?” I hear Alex Levinson call out.
“Awesome!”
“Bitchin’!”
“You get to watch an owl eat a live rat.”
The trees stand taller up here than in the Canyon where Ross lives. T
hey’re pines, and you can hear the wind telling secrets through their branches. Way up past the top of one, I see blue sky.
Soon as we get our bags from under the bus, Mr. Mitchell leads the boys’ line and Mrs. Valentine and Mrs. Gaines lead the girls’.
“The cabins are across the river,” a guide tells us, “a quarter mile from here. There are five girls’ cabins and five boys’. You’ll be mixed in with kids from the other school, a chance to make new friends.”
We cross a bridge and go along the banks of the stream, past trees and more trees. Sound of water running over rocks means one thing: beauty rest tonight.
Mrs. Valentine and Mrs. Gaines take the girls into their cabins. Mr. Mitchell takes us into ours. Me and Ross land in the same one. Otis, too.
The boys from the other school are already flipping coins for top or bottom bunk. Digging sweaters from their duffles. Got their backs to us when we come in. But all at once they turn around, and all at once I see this is not one of the schools that had Opportunity Busing.
Every last face is white.
And then a surprising thing happens. Charlie Ross steps up to one of the boys and says, “Keith?”
“Charlie Ross! What are you doing here?”
They do a little high-five, and then Ross says, “Wonderland got picked for Clear Creek this week.”
“Carpenter too.” Then the boy who goes by Keith turns to his friends already kicked back on bottom bunks. “Tim, Randy, you remember Charlie Ross.”
They slouch over and say hello.
Then Keith’s eyes slide over to Otis and me.
“Which one of you is Armstrong?”
“That’s me,” I say.
“Charlie Ross told me all about you.”
Ross’s cheeks catch fire, like maybe he didn’t say the nicest things about me.
Out comes Keith’s hand with an open palm, and we shake. It ain’t no soft shake neither, I can tell you that.
· 13 ·
Spin-the-Bottle
Charlie
“EROSION IS HAPPENING all the time,” Cody, one of the naturalists, tells us. We’re standing by the bank of a stream, and he has to shout over the rushing water. “Does anybody know the three types of rocks?”
Armstrong and Charlie Page 12
