by Cheree Alsop
“Oh, man!” Chantelle complained. “I thought you’d be an easy date.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” I replied, but I threw Cassidy a look of extreme gratitude. She smiled back.
“Can you believe that fight?” a girl with bright red hair said to Cassidy.
Sandy and Chantelle came closer. “It was amazing!” Sandy said. “I’ve never seen Magnum beaten by anyone, let alone someone in a mascot outfit.”
Chantelle giggled. “He must have been so embarrassed.”
“All I can say is that he had it coming,” Cassidy replied. “It’s about time someone cut the Bullets down a notch.”
Everyone threw uneasy glances over their shoulders, but the gang was nowhere to be seen. As we walked through the crowd, I heard other students talking excitedly about the game.
“And did you notice,” a tall, skinny boy said to his date, “before the fight, we were losing by twenty-one points. After the fight, the Bulldogs scored on every drive and won the game forty-two to twenty-one. Whoever was in the mascot outfit was a good luck charm.”
I tried to remember back. I didn’t know what the score was before I put on the costume, but the team had scored a lot after the fight. A smile spread across my face that I couldn’t hide.
“What’s gotten you all cheery?” Cassidy asked.
“I’m sure Kelson was just as glad to see Magnum get beat up since his head’s on the chopping block,” Sandy pointed out.
Cassidy rolled her eyes. “I wish you hadn’t missed the fight. The bathroom could have waited. Mom’s eggs aren’t that bad.”
“You should give her some of my mom’s salsa,” Sandy commented before I could come up with a reply. “She uses green peppers, bell peppers, tomatoes, onions . . .” Her voice faded away as she and Cassidy wandered off to find their other friends.
I took a seat near a table spread with refreshments and watched the dance floor. It seemed everyone was in a great mood after the game. Three more groups of students walked by relaying the details of the fight, and two sets of girls were watching it on their phones. Even the teachers seemed happier, letting down their stern façades and joking with the students. The parents who were chaperoning danced on the floor instead of monitoring the dancers. The thought that perhaps I had added to the mood had me smiling again.
Cassidy brought me over a cup of punch and some cookies. “Thanks for the ride,” she said.
“Anytime,” I replied. I ate the cookies, but knew from previous school experience not to drink anything. I was contemplating whether I should go get more cookies when a commotion at the far end of the gymnasium caught my attention. Students moved quickly away from the doors and voices rose above the music. I fought back a grimace at the sight of the Bullets working their way through the crowd.
“You’d think after their humiliation at the game, they’d give it a few days to quiet down before showing their faces,” a boy behind me said to a girl with curly blonde hair.
“They never give up!” I muttered quietly.
The Bullets strutted across the dance floor, heedless of impeding the spinning dancers. One boy ran into Magnum and turned to snap at him for getting in the way, but when the boy saw who he hit, he shut his mouth and pulled his date off the floor without retaliating.
It was interesting to watch the way the students acted around the Bullets. Everyone cleared a path like traffic did for a cop car with the lights spinning. It seemed as if the students had a radar for Magnum’s presence and their goal was to steer clear of wherever the Bullets ended up. No one wanted to catch Magnum’s attention.
He stopped by the punch bowl just as Cassidy, Sandy, and their other friends were dishing up small plates of cookies, tuna fish on crackers, and frogeye salad.
“Don’t you think this punch is a little bland, Snipe?” Magnum asked the green-haired girl.
“Definitely,” she replied. She poured something from a flask into the punch bowl.
One of the teachers on duty saw them and hurried over. “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.
“Livening things up,” Magnum replied. “This party’s a little dull.”
The teacher moved to grab the punch bowl, but Magnum glared at him and held it down. “What do you think you’re doing, Mr. McConough?”
“Making this place safer for the students,” the teacher replied. “I’ll not have our Homecoming dance turned into a fiasco.”
“Oh, a fiasco,” Magnum replied. “Why don’t you speak English?”
Cassidy and her friends stopped talking. Everyone around the table watched the argument with an air of uneasy expectation. I moved slowly toward them with my cup of punch.
“Maybe it’s time for you to leave,” Mr. McConough said.
Magnum’s eyebrows rose and he looked at the other Bullets in surprise. “Did you hear that? I think it’s time for Mr. McConough to be escorted out. Why don’t—”
“Hey, Cass,” I said loudly. I tripped on her foot and fell into Magnum, splashing red punch down the front of his tuxedo. I looked up into Magnum’s enraged face.
He pulled me up by the front of my shirt. “What on earth are you thinking?”
I fought back a smile. “That I’m glad I didn’t rent a tuxedo tonight. A little overdressed, don’t you think?”
His eyes widened and he threw me into the table. It flipped forward and the punch bowl went flying straight at the Bullets, covering all of them in the spiked drink. Magnum stormed over to me and I held up my hands. “I didn’t mean to, honest,” I protested. I hated sounding like a coward, but it was worth the price. “It was an accident.”
“Like the way you smashed up my bike and truck?” he demanded.
I nodded innocently. “I told you I’d never been on a motorcycle before. I didn’t know what I was doing.”
He looked like he wanted to pound me to a pulp. He raised a fist and I tried to keep from glaring at him.
“Mr. Fisher, what’s going on here?” Principal Dawson asked.
Magnum spun at the sound of his name. When he saw the principal, he calmed down a bit. “Just shootin’ the breeze with Keldon here,” he said.
Principal Dawson’s eyes narrowed when he looked at me, as if he was trying to remember where he knew me from. He finally nodded. “That would be Kelson,” he said, proud of his memory. He held out a hand and pulled me to my feet. “Looks like you need a bit of cleaning up.” He glanced at the Bullets. “You fellas as well. Perhaps you should take a trip to the restrooms and cool down.”
I nodded, but I knew better than to confine myself in a small space with the punch-covered Bullets. As soon as I stepped out the door, I hurried to the end of the hallway and disappeared around it.
“You’d better run, Kelson,” Magnum called. “We’re not finished yet.”
I slipped back into the gymnasium about a half hour later and was glad to see that the Bullets had gotten tired of harassing students and teachers and left. Mr. McConough filled up a new bowl of punch, then carried a cup over to me and took a seat nearby. “I don’t know if that was on purpose, but if so, it was the gutsiest move I’ve ever seen.”
I accepted the cup and sipped it while watching the students dance. “Thank you for the punch. The last batch looked a bit well-used.”
Mr. McConough choked on his punch and sputtered a laugh. “Yes, it did.”
“Does everyone know how to line dance here?” I asked him. The last two songs had been country-themed, and the sparse floor was now filled shoulder-to-shoulder with dancers.
Mr. McConough nodded. “They teach it in elementary school.” He glanced at me. “Not your style?”
I shook my head. “I grew up in California. If you danced, you were shot.”
He laughed. “Kelson, is it?”
I nodded and he held out a hand. We shook and I sat back feeling much better about my interference with Magnum. Playing both sides of the fence was hard, but the more I made Magnum think me a cowardly target, the less he would guess I was the one who wa
s trying to stop them.
I FELL INTO BED exhausted that night. I was tempted to take the four-wheeler to Madelyn’s, but my leg throbbed angrily by the time I sat on my cot, and my body screamed at me for all the unaccustomed horseback riding.
I glanced at my phone and was surprised to see a message flashing. I picked it up warily and hit the voicemail button. It rang and I entered my password. My mom’s voice filled the phone.
“Kelson, I miss you. I thought it would be easier without you here, but I find now I’m missing you both instead of only Zoey. I know it wasn’t your fault, and it was wrong of me to blame it on you. Lauren said you’re doing well and helping out. Thank you for being the tough one in all this. You’re a good son.” She paused as if she wanted to say something else, then she said, “Good night.”
I deleted the voicemail and stared at the phone. Mom’s words ran through my head. “It was wrong of me to blame it on you.” “Thank you for being the tough one in all this.” I rose from the cot and set the phone back on the end table, then limped to the door. All thoughts of staying in for the night fled. Memories from last night’s nightmare threatened to swarm me. I had to get away.
I climbed on the four-wheeler and drove toward Madelyn’s house. Jake followed faithfully behind. He had to have been at least as tired as I was, if not more, given his efforts at herding, but he didn’t show it as he loped gracefully beside the four-wheeler.
I stopped at the edge of her property like I always did, but instead of waiting for me, Jake darted ahead. I heard Buck’s playful growls. He was untied, which meant Madelyn was outside. I limped toward the house.
“You’re looking a little worse for wear.”
I turned with a smile at the sound of her voice coming from the shadows of the tree. It was amazing how such simple words—demeaning words, really—could make my heart dance away from the cares and worries that drove me out into the night. I didn’t realize until that moment how much I had missed Madelyn. I had searched for her at the game and dance to no avail. Now that I was near her, I felt complete and relaxed again.
“I feel a little worse for wear,” I admitted. I eased down to sit at the base of the tree and looked up at her.
She was barefoot and her toes dangled just out of reach. “Enjoying the farming life?” she asked in a teasing tone.
“Oh, so much,” I replied. “I can’t even begin to describe it.”
She laughed quietly, a musical sound that made me smile without realizing it. “I think farm life is doing you well, Kelson Brady.”
I straightened my leg out. Most of the pain wasn’t coming from the stitches—it was coming from the part of me that hit the saddle a million times before I learned to ride. I winced. “Are you sure about that?”
She was silent a moment as she scrutinized me. I felt a bit self-conscious under such close consideration. She finally nodded. “A farmer’s tan, dirt under your fingernails, manure on your shoes, and the impression of a cowboy hat in your hair. Yep, I’d say this life is good for you.”
It was my turn to laugh. “You can’t see all that. You’re too high in the tree and it’s the middle of the night. You’re just guessing.”
“But it made you laugh,” she said with a note of triumph.
I grinned. “It did.” I reached up and pulled on her toes. “Come down here.”
She obeyed and climbed down the tree as if she had lived in branches her entire life. She settled next to me and I was surprised to find how comfortable I felt with her head against my chest and my arm around her shoulders. I hadn’t realized the night was cool, but the side she was on definitely warmed quickly. “I missed you today. I looked for you at the Homecoming dance,” I said into her hair.
“I missed you too,” she replied, her voice soft. “I’ve never been to a dance.”
I looked down at her. “You’re kidding, right?”
She shook her head. “I’ve never been on a date. It’s hard with . . . things that go on here.” She toyed with a fraying thread that hung from the edge of her shirt and it was obvious she didn’t want to talk about it.
I caught the thread and rolled it between my fingers. “I’ll bet you could fix that. I hear you’re pretty good with a needle.”
I felt her smile against my chest. “I am, aren’t I?”
“Maybe you should be a doctor.”
Her shoulders rose and fell in a silent sigh. “I would love to.”
The emptiness in her tone left little hope to her words. “But?”
“But I’m not getting out of Sparrow. There’s no way,” she replied quietly.
“Sure there’s a way.” I looked down at her in surprise. “Maddy, you’re brilliant. You could get out on a scholarship easy. You’re taking all the AP classes and I know your teachers would give you rave recommendations.”
She shook her head before I finished speaking. After a moment of silence, she said, “It’s not that I can’t get out—it’s that I won’t.”
I realized by her tone that there was something deeper that I didn’t know. I tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and held her close. “Why not?” I whispered gently.
I didn’t think she was going to tell me. Crickets chirruped around us and the call of an owl echoed off the tapestry of night. Stars winked from their midnight bed and the grass beneath the tree was basking in swirling light and shadow that looked as if it had been painted by a master hand. Above it all, I heard Madelyn’s breathing and felt her sigh against my chest. Her shoulders bowed slightly as she said, “I can’t leave my mother. She needs me.”
The heaviness of her words attested to the burden she carried. I ran a finger down the back of her hand, tracing the veins and tendons to the tips of her fingers. “What’s wrong with your mother, Maddy?”
She was silent, then said, “She’s quadriplegic. She got bucked off a horse three years ago and broke her neck. Dad can’t do everything for her, so I take care of her when I’m not at school.” She paused. “That’s why Dad gets mad at night. He drinks when she goes to bed. It’s his way of coping. He really is a good father.” She said the words in a rush like it felt good to tell someone.
I didn’t know what to say. I had never known anyone with a parent who was paralyzed. I wasn’t sure what their care entailed, but it was obvious Madelyn spent most of her time with her mom. I tried to think of how I would feel. “I’m sure your mother appreciates everything you do,” I replied softly.
She nodded. “I know she does. She tells me she does. It’s just . . .”
“You feel trapped?” I guessed.
She nodded, and tears spilled down her cheeks. “I don’t want to sound selfish. I want to be there for my mom. I love her so much and I know she loves me. I am so grateful for all she did for me before her accident, and I’ll never be able to do enough to repay her.”
I wiped the tears away. “It’s all right, Maddy. You’re a good child and your parents are lucky to have you,” I whispered.
She sniffed and was quiet for a few minutes, then she said, “I like it when you call me Maddy.”
I smiled. “I was hoping it didn’t bother you. Cassidy said it the other day and it just fit.”
She looked up at me. “You have a neat family.”
I nodded. “They’re good to me. I don’t know if I’m good for them.”
She laughed and leaned against me again. We watched the wind whisper across the grass, creating endless swirls and whirls in the dark carpet.
“Why are you in Sparrow?”
The question was soft and gentle. The words didn’t deserve the sharp stab of pain they evoked, but the memories felt fresh and raw, piercing and shrill. A high-pitched ringing sounded in my ears. I took a deep breath in an attempt to calm the way my heart pounded, but Madelyn moved her head down and set her ear against it.
“It must be something awful,” she breathed, her words heavy with compassion.
I bit my lip. It was the only way to keep the emotions at bay, create pain to f
ight pain. I tasted blood and blinked quickly against the burning in my eyes. I wasn’t going to tell her. I didn’t want to tell anyone. Nobody should know what I did and what happened.
“It was all my fault,” I said past the knot in my throat. My words were tight, a whisper when I hadn’t realized I said anything at all.
Madelyn kept still, listening and holding me as much as I held her. Her fingers brushed gently down my arm. I felt a memory of blisters along my arms and legs, and burns covering my back. A shudder at the remembered pain ran down my spine.
“Zoey is,” I swallowed, “was my sister. She was a junior in high school and a year younger than me. We lived in a rough part of California where half the city was high rises and the other half was low-income housing. When Dad left . . . ” That admission was painful. I didn’t know if I’d ever said the words out loud. We had skirted around it for four years.
I took a breath. “When he left, Mom worked night and day, but couldn’t make ends meet. We moved to a little apartment lost in miles of concrete and closely packed buildings, the kind where dirty toddlers cried on the steps and drugs raids occurred almost every day. Zoey and I were left to our own means.”
I didn’t know what drove me to tell Madelyn, but once I started, I couldn’t stop. I pushed the hair back from my forehead. “We found an old abandoned warehouse, one of the thousands scattered through the city. It was our place, mine and Zoey’s. We went there after school and hung out until it was time for Mom to get home from work. Then I had an idea.”
My words twisted, filled with the hatred and self-loathing I felt for my actions. “I decided we should have a party. The warehouse was huge and empty. It seemed like the perfect place.”
I saw shadows in my mind, figures dancing to music from the car someone had parked in the warehouse and left thumping with all its doors open. Alcohol flowed readily from kegs and bottles. A profusion of snacks provided by the girls were spread on empty crates and planks turned into tables. Students sprawled on the rickety stairs to the second level Zoey and I usually avoided. But she was up there with Jeff, a friend of mine who was pushing the bro code by hanging out with my sister.
