They give me a look like I’ve just grown a horn out of my forehead. Mr. Gillan asks, “Do your parents know about this?”
“Oh, no. That’s not the scavenger hunt part,” Rose cuts in. “We just heard something at the pool about this Ruthie, and you know Birdie and her imagination.” Rose flashes her smile that deflects adult questioning.
Mrs. Gillan smiles back. “Yes, we do. Don’t we, Birdie?”
I feel myself blushing and take a sip of tea.
“What did you call him again?” Mrs. Gillan asks me.
“Oh, right. The imaginary monster who used to live in our backyard.” Mr. Gillan laughs. “Oh, what was it, Birdie? You were so scared of him.”
“Mr. Gotcha Man,” I say quietly.
“That’s right!” Mr. Gillan points at me like I just won a prize. “Mr. Gotcha Man. How could I forget that!”
“I don’t remember Mr. Gotcha Man,” Ally says.
“I was five.”
“So imaginative. Even then,” Mrs. Gillan says and beams at me.
* * *
“Daddy, don’t let go!” Zora yells.
“I won’t! Just keep pedaling!”
You would think a girl who wants to fly to Mars could ride a bike by now.
Ally, Rose, and I lie on the grass in my front yard looking up at the sky. It’s after dinner—Ally ate with us because her mom was working late—and the sky is the color of a pale blue robin’s egg. Lightning bugs disappear and reappear all around us. Dad is trying to teach Zora to ride a bike, again, on the driveway.
After we left the Gillans’ house, we talked about the Ruthie Delgado case, and Rose and Ally think we’ve hit a dead end. So what if the Delgados lived next door a long time ago? How does that help us find out what happened?
A caterpillar walks across my hand and I let it.
“Maybe you’re reading too much into this,” Rose says.
“What are you talking about?” I turn over onto my elbows as the caterpillar slips into the grass.
“Remember that UFO you said you saw last summer?”
“Yes,” I say. It was on a night much like this one and I remember it well.
“Do you really think it was a UFO?” Rose asks.
“Yes, I do!” I point above us where I definitely saw a UFO last summer. “It was right there. A triangle. It hovered there for almost a minute. Then, bam, it shot across the sky and disappeared. Just like that.”
“Bird,” Rose says, “have you ever thought that you see UFOs … and murder mysteries … where nobody else does?”
“Ruthie Delgado is not a figment of my imagination! We found the box together!”
“I know,” she says. “Just saying.”
Ally props up on her elbows. “Birdie’s right. We found the box together. And if she said she saw a UFO, I believe her.”
“Okay,” Rose concedes. “If you say you saw a UFO last summer, I guess you saw a UFO last summer.”
“Thank you,” I say.
“You’re welcome.”
“Hey, guys.” Ally sits up and holds her hand out, palm down. “Can we do the thing? You know, for my game tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” I say and sit up, too. Rose joins us and we form a cross-legged circle. We haven’t done the thing for a while now.
I put my hand over Ally’s, and Rose puts hers over mine, and we do it again so all of our hands fit together like a tower between us.
We look at one another. “I’ll start,” I say and take a breath. “With all the friendship power that runs between us.” I look at Rose.
“And everything that makes our friendship bond,” she says.
“This power of three that cannot be broken by distance or time,” I say.
Rose continues. “That makes us more powerful than one.”
“We give you, our best friend, all the power we have,” I say.
“All our good fortune and aid,” says Rose.
“So you can be…” I pause to find the right words. “So you can be Ally again. Queen of the pitcher’s mound.”
“Queen of the park.”
“Queen of the world.”
We gaze at one another and for this brief summer moment, everything is okay. Rose isn’t moving. Ally isn’t losing. And I’m not afraid of what’s coming next.
“Us three forever,” we say in unison, and throw our hands in the air, completing the ceremony.
Rose pulls out her phone and we lean in together. This selfie will surely end up on my corkboard. As we fall into one another happily, Zora screams with glee on the driveway. Dad yells triumphantly. We watch Zora pedal down the driveway all by herself, while the moon above us smiles.
The next day Ally pitches a practically perfect game. Rose and I sit next to the General and cheer for her every step of the way. Ally, queen of the pitcher’s mound, is back. And for the first time since the bet with the boys, I’m actually able to picture Joey Wachowski riding in the Fourth of July parade wearing a Hunters jersey.
11
EVERY NEIGHBORHOOD has a bad kid. The one everyone suspects when somebody’s yard gets toilet papered or mail gets stolen. That kid in our neighborhood is Rufus Ledbetter.
Rufus Ledbetter is fourteen. When he rides his bike down the street, you better look out because if you’re in his way, Rufus might run over you. We make it a practice to steer clear of him.
That’s why, a few days later, I’m so surprised to see Rose talking to Rufus when I come back to the pool after lunch. He’s sitting on one of the picnic tables outside the pool area and Rose is standing next to him. I watch him give her something, which she takes and stashes into her pocket.
“Hi,” I say. They look startled to see me.
“Oh, hi,” Rose says and pushes whatever it is deeper into her shorts pocket. Rufus hops off the table. “See ya, Rose. And good luck.” He gives her a bad-boy grin, then turns and walks away.
Stunned, I stare after him, then turn to Rose. “What did he give you?! What are you doing with Rufus Ledbetter, Rose?”
“Don’t worry. It’s not drugs or anything. Come on.” She takes off behind the pool and I follow her. Within minutes, we’re crossing the tree bridge to our island. We tag the willow tree like we’re finishing a race before she finally looks at me.
“What’s going on?” I demand while trying to catch my breath.
“Chill, Bird. Everything’s good.” I hate it when she says stuff like that. I wish Ally weren’t at baseball practice, because I feel like I’m going to need her backup.
“Seriously? Rufus is bad news.”
“He’s not so bad. And he’s useful for nefarious operations.”
“Nefarious?” That’s a big word for Rose. “What are you talking about?!”
“We’re having another open house this Saturday and my mom didn’t even tell me until this morning.”
“Okay,” I say tentatively, not knowing where this is leading.
“I’ve decided I’m not moving,” she says defiantly. “And then I realized they can’t make me.”
Technically, they can make her, but I decide not to argue that point right now. Instead I ask, “So what are you going to do?”
“Good question. As I began to take matters into my own hands, I had a thought. If they can’t sell the house, then we can’t move.”
I think about this for a moment. “Really?” I ask. “Do you really think it would stop you from moving?”
“Come on. At least it’s worth a try.” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out two small glass vials with some kind of liquid inside.
“What are those?”
Rose smiles. “Stink bombs.”
“Stink bombs! For what?”
“So far we’ve been lucky. Three open houses and no buyers. I’m not willing to rely on luck anymore. So I was thinking. Nobody will want to even come inside our house once they get a whiff of this.”
“That’s got to be illegal or something.”
“It’s not. And it won’t hurt anyone.
It just makes wherever you are stink really bad. I saw it online. Some kid set one off in a school bus and videoed the whole thing. Everybody wanted off that bus, big-time! So then I had a thought. Who do I know who could get me one of these stink bombs?”
“Rufus,” I say flatly.
“Rufus!” she says happily.
“Your parents will kill you.”
“Only if they find out.”
* * *
“Don’t get caught,” I whisper.
“I won’t,” Rose says and slips into the back door of her house.
I’m standing lookout for Rose, who is going inside of her own house to set off a stink bomb. How did I get here? As I feel my heart hammering, I wonder if the person driving the getaway car goes to jail for as long as the person who’s actually robbing the bank.
I hadn’t yet agreed to Rose’s nefarious operation by the time of Ally’s Saturday game. We had a whole conversation with Ally about it behind the concession stand before the game started.
“Come on, Al,” Rose pleaded. “Reconsider.”
“Are you crazy?” Ally exclaimed. “The General would kill me. And I don’t mean kill me like your parents would ‘kill’ you. If only. No, this would be with a bullet and a shovel. There’d be no trace.” She glared at us both. “So, no.” And she stomped away.
A look of disbelief sprang up on Rose’s face, so foreign that it made me laugh. It’s rare that anyone says no to Rose so thoroughly.
We watched the game sitting next to the General and didn’t say a word to each other. Mark wasn’t there for the second week in a row because of summer soccer practice. And Ally played great. Maybe being mad at Rose made her throw even harder.
Between innings, when the General went to the concession stand, Rose leaned over and whispered to me. “Please.”
I hit her leg. “No! I’m not doing it, either.” I’d do almost anything for Rose, but this Nefarious Operation with Stink Bombs stuff was too much.
Ally won the game but we weren’t celebrating. The General drove us to my house, Rose and I in the backseat and Ally in the front. I knew Ally was frowning, even though I couldn’t see her face. “You girls are awfully quiet,” the General said. “Are you okay, Ally?”
“Sure, Mom. I’m fine.”
What a liar.
When we got to my driveway, Rose and I got out. “You coming, Al?” Rose asked.
Ally glared at her. “Can’t. Got to clean up my room.”
WHAT A LIAR. She would never do that voluntarily.
“That’s a good idea,” the General said. “You’ve had a big day anyway.”
As they pulled out of the drive, Ally stared at Rose with such intensity I thought she might actually get through to her. Said the lookout man.
When we walked past Mrs. Hale’s house, I asked, “Are you sure nobody’s going to be there?”
“The open house starts at one, so only the real estate agent should be there. And she’ll be upstairs or out front.” Rose pulled out her phone and saw it was 12:45. “My parents will be gone by now. All you have to do is keep watch.”
I stopped in the middle of the street. “Rose, this is so dumb.”
She turned and said, “You want me to stay, don’t you?”
We stood there staring at each other. Yes, I wanted her to stay! Of course, I wanted her to stay. The thought of going to middle school without her terrified me. And I knew that without a doubt, she’d help if I ever staged a Nefarious Operation of my own.
And I felt guilty about Romeo.
And she was standing there looking at me, needing her friend.
And that’s how I became the lookout man.
I stand by the back door as Rose slips inside the house after using the key from under the hide-a-rock.
The plan is that Rose will tiptoe to the top of the basement stairs, break one vial (she’s saving the other) with a small hammer that she left on the stairs, and open the basement door so that the stink can rise into the house. And ruin the open house.
In one sense, it’s not a bad plan. It probably will ruin the open house. But when her parents find out, it will probably also ruin Rose’s life. But Rose doesn’t think ahead like that.
The door opens quietly. I look at Rose. She nods, but doesn’t need to; the smell is already reaching my nose. “Oh, you stink,” I say.
“I told you. Come on.” We take off toward my house.
My mom and dad are cleaning out the garage, so it’s easy to sneak upstairs. Rose takes a shower while I sit on the edge of my bed, waiting for the police to arrive.
It takes more than an hour for me to start breathing again. I don’t ever want to be a lookout person again, but I’m beginning to think that maybe Rose got away with it. Maybe they’ll think some random neighborhood kid set off a stink bomb in their house. Maybe Rufus Ledbetter. Why not? Everyone blames Rufus.
Then the doorbell rings. Three times. Urgently.
Rose’s eyes and mine meet. We hear the murmuring of adult voices, then a loud, deep one booms up the stairs. “India Rose Ashcroft!” It’s Rose’s dad’s voice. “India, you get down here right this minute!”
“Oh, crap,” says Rose. He only calls her India when he’s mad. She rolls off my bed and starts for the door, dead girl walking.
“India! Don’t make me come up there!”
“Don’t say a word, Bird,” she pleads before opening the door. “Coming, Dad.”
I follow her down the hall and watch as she walks down the stairs toward her red-faced father. Beside him stand my bewildered parents.
“You are in a world of trouble, young lady,” Rose’s dad says. “Your mother is out of her mind right now.”
Even though Rose’s dad is the one who gets loud and red-faced, he’s not the scary one. That would be Rose’s mother.
“I didn’t do anything,” Rose says, her voice so innocent even I almost believe her.
“Didn’t do anything,” he says. “Let’s go.” Then he sets his eyes on me. “Birdie, I hope you weren’t part of this. And if you were, you have a lot of explaining to do to your parents.”
Rose gives me one last look before being marched out the front door. As I hear the door close behind them, I see the look on my parents’ faces. And I realize that Rose isn’t the only one in a world of trouble.
12
“IT WAS dumb, I know, but you don’t understand.”
Mom sits at my desk with Peg Leg Fred in her lap. I’m across from her, sitting cross-legged on my bed.
“I understand more than you think, Birdie, but you’re at the age when you have to make smarter decisions than this. You know better than to set off a stink bomb in someone’s house. Even if Rose doesn’t.”
“But I didn’t do it!”
“You didn’t stop it. And that’s almost as bad.”
I stare at the floor. Her disappointed voice makes my stomach hurt. “I’m sorry,” I say, and we sit there in silence.
“Okay,” Mom says. “There are going to be people like Rose through your whole life, and you need to learn to stand up to them.”
That’s when I realize my mom doesn’t get it at all. “I can stand up to Rose, Mom! That’s not it. She didn’t make me do it!”
“Then why did you do it?”
The truth is burning in my throat. Because Rose is going to leave and I may never see her again. Because she was going to do it anyway and I didn’t want her to have to do it alone. Because I am going to be a friendless freak without her and Ally at school next year. Because I’m sad and afraid. But all I say is, “I don’t know.”
“Is this about middle school?” she asks.
“Maybe,” I mumble. “I’m going to be by myself. I’m not going to know anybody. I’m going to be…” The words drift off.
“What are you going to be?” she asks.
“I don’t know.” My eyes search hers. “Alone.”
“Hmmm,” she says. “You haven’t been alone for a long time.”
“And
it’s middle school and there’ll be new kids and I just don’t know how to do it without them.”
Mom looks at me long and hard. “Is this because you look different than them?” She places her vanilla hand on my mocha knee and I know what she means.
“No!” I say. “I mean, I don’t think so.” It’s true, where I go to school, most kids are white, but nobody cares much about things like that. Even in Atlanta. But I’ve been sandwiched in between my two white friends for a long time. Maybe without them, I will be different.
“I know we haven’t made it simple for you and Zora. But we’re always here to help you through any of it. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, I know. It’s just … I don’t know how to make friends anymore. Rose and Ally, they’ll make new friends. Not because they’re white. Because they’re … Rose and Ally. I’m not like them, Mom. I’ve already made my friends. It might be over for me.”
“Oh, Birdie. You’ll make friends. It came so easily for you with Ally and Rose. You’re just out of practice. There’re new friends waiting for you. New middle school friends.”
“I don’t want new middle school friends,” I say quietly.
“You will.” She hands me Peg Leg and stands up. “Now, listen. You’re grounded. No pool, no friends. Our yard, our house. Until your birthday.”
“Until my birthday! That’s almost two weeks away!”
“Play with your sister and be a model citizen and you might get off early for good behavior. Okay?”
I can’t believe it. We can’t afford to lose two weeks! “But, Mom!” She doesn’t say anything, just gives me that look that says This is final.
“Okay,” I finally say.
Mom kisses me on the forehead. “It’s going to be all right, little one. I promise.”
“Mom?” I ask as she starts to leave. “I can still have my birthday sleepover, right?” It’s been planned for months.
“Model citizens get sleepovers. Which might leave Rose out for quite some time.”
* * *
Our yard. Our house. I am allowed to text Rose and Ally from my mom’s phone to tell them not to come over or call until my birthday. I’m to have no contact other than this. Mom is going to talk to their mothers if there will be a sleepover. So I’m completely in the dark. I won’t know how badly Rose gets punished. I won’t know if Ally wins the game before the championships. And I won’t know if I’m having a birthday.
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