by Laura Dragon
Maleeki puffed out his chest.
“So what you want to do now?” Hollis went on.
Maleeki’s scowl returned. “I’m not tellin’ them what I did. I’m only tellin’ you, because . . . well, I don’t know why I’m tellin’ you. But I’m not tellin’ them.”
“Why not? They already know you steal. You didn’t mean for the man to go after Lolo. Go apologize. They’ll forgive you.”
Maleeki lowered his chin. “No!” he yelled.
“Why?” Hollis yelled back.
“Because they’ll hate me!” Maleeki screamed.
Hollis dropped his voice back to normal. “No, they won’t. They’ll like you, because you admitted what you did. If you don’t tell them, you’re gonna keep moping, and they’re gonna keep buggin’ you. If I were you, I’d just do it.”
Standing up, Hollis extended his hand to Maleeki. Maleeki scowled, but he let Hollis pull him to his feet. Together, they went inside to find everyone else.
When Maleeki told his story, they all praised him for being honest. Hollis left as they began patting Maleeki on the back. I guess for Maleeki, being honest at all is a big deal.
Maleeki started talking to Kiki and Lolo again and ignoring everyone else, who seemed fine with that. Happy that Hollis had gotten Maleeki to return to the group, Eden was being extra nice to him.
The next morning, Leta strolled over and plopped down on Hollis’s cot. “Y’know, Hollis, this place isn’t so bad. I’ll be glad when we find Jonas and Gee, but I’ll be sad to leave here. Is that wrong?”
Hollis shook his head. “I know what you mean. I’ll miss them all, too. Even Miss Violet.”
Leta sighed in relief. “Yeah. But Algie is having such a hard time. I’m worried about him. He’s gotten so quiet. All he does is watch TV, sleep, and drag that stupid gnome around. He isn’t even hanging with Lolo anymore.”
Hollis frowned. “I don’t know what to do. We just have to find Gee—she would make him all right.” He paused. “Leta, I’ve been thinking. D’you think Dad is like Oscar or Maleeki?”
Leta bit her lip. “I never thought of that. Yeah, he could be. It seems like he’s one of those people who don’t do the right thing.”
“We don’t know if he’s still like that.”
“Sure we do,” Leta said. “He’s not here.” She went off to play with the other girls.
Lying back on his cot, Hollis closed his eyes but found it hard to close his thoughts, too.
What if Dad is in jail like Oscar or Maleeki’s mom? Do I really want to find him if that’s how he is? He rolled on his cot. He wasn’t so relaxed after all.
Chapter 23
Hard Heads
Two days later, Eden approached Hollis again. He was sitting alone under a tree when she found him, and he watched as she came toward him.
Maleeki again.
“Hey, Hollis?” she said, appearing unsure of her welcome.
“Yeah, Eden?”
“Well, Maleeki . . .”
I knew it! “No way, Eden. I’m done.”
“But last time you got him to come clean!” She waved her hand, and Kiki trotted across the playground to join them. “Just let me tell you what it is. It’s important, I swear.”
“No!” Hollis said, feeling like they were ganging up on him.
“The Wiley brothers are missing their Game Boys. Mrs. Wiley is going to call the police.”
“Good!” Hollis snapped. “He needs to get arrested.”
“But Hollis,” Kiki pleaded, “what if he gets stuck in jail here and can’t go home when Mom and Dad find us?”
“They’ll probably throw a party,” Hollis grumbled.
“No, they won’t. We took Maleeki in because his parents weren’t any good and we wanted to help. No matter how bad he acted, we always knew he could change.”
“Well, he ain’t gonna change,” Hollis shot back. “People don’t change unless they want to, and Maleeki don’t want to. Besides,” he said, glancing at the court where Maleeki was shooting baskets, “my Dad did wrong, and I turned out okay.”
Kiki said something else, but Hollis stopped listening. I’ve changed. I don’t want to find him anymore. He don’t deserve it. Looking up, he realized the two girls were staring at him.
“You okay?” Eden asked.
Hollis pulled himself together and stood up. Nodding at Kiki, he said, “I didn’t hear you.”
“I said, you can’t throw someone out of your family just because they’re jerks. I thought you’d understand that more than anyone, Hollis.”
“Not anymore,” Hollis said. Noticing Kiki’s distressed face, he sighed. I don’t like Kiki being upset. She really is like family. “Fine. I’ll take care of it. For you, Kiki.”
She clapped her hands and hugged him. “Thanks, Hollis,” she said over her shoulder as she skipped away.
Hollis turned to Eden. “I’m gonna do what you want. Now go on with Kiki.”
“What’re you going to do?” she asked.
“Eden,” he said, staring her in the eye, “I said I’d take care of it. You don’t need to worry how. I’ll let you know when it’s done.”
Looking both impressed and uncertain, she went off to huddle with Kiki and Calaya, who sat watching Maleeki outshoot Dray. Hollis, feeling out of his depth, decided he needed bigger guns to help with this assignment.
An hour later, Hollis was back under a donation table. These things sure are handy. He peered out of the gap between the tablecloths but ducked when Maleeki approached, escorted by Mr. Red Beans.
“Come over here,” said Mr. Red Beans. “There’s somethin’ you’ll like on this table, Maleeki, I promise you.”
“What is it?” Hollis heard Maleeki say. Footsteps shuffled closer.
“It’s the opportunity not to go to jail,” Mr. Red Beans said.
“Huh?” Maleeki sounded startled.
“I want the Wileys’ Game Boys back.”
“I don’t have them.”
“You do.”
“I don’t.”
“I know that you do.”
After a short silence, Maleeki asked, “How do you know?”
Hah! Hollis thought. Gotcha.
“Someone saw you.”
“Hollis!” Maleeki growled.
“Hollis? No. Hollis has other things to do. You don’t know who it is, trust me. But they know you. And if you don’t get those Game Boys, I’m goin’ over to where you sleep, and I’m gonna go through everything until I find them.”
Hollis pictured the towering size of Mr. Red Beans. He didn’t think Maleeki would argue.
“He’s gone to get them, Hollis,” Mr. Red whispered.
“Thanks, Mr. Red Beans.”
“No problem, boy. Anytime, I told you. Here he comes.” After a pause, Hollis heard him say, “That’s good, Maleeki. Now. Listen carefully.” Hollis found himself leaning forward to listen, too. “If I ever hear of you stealin’ again, I’ll—” Mr Red Beans stopped.
“You’ll what?” Maleeki asked, sounding scared.
“I’ll make you give back what you took again. I’m not gonna hit you, boy, or yell. I’m just tryin’ to keep you out of trouble. Think you could help me with that?”
“I’ll try,” Maleeki mumbled.
“Well, I appreciate that. Now you go on and have a blessed day.”
Hollis heard Maleeki run off.
“Hollis?” Mr. Red Beans called. “You want me to give them back to the Wileys for you?”
“Yeah. That would be perfect. Thanks again for your help.” He thought for a moment. Still under the table, he said, “Mr. Red Beans?”
“Yeah?”
“You got any kids?”
“Nah. I work with them though. I teach first grade.”
“You got to get your own. You’d be a really good dad.”
“Why, thanks.” Red paused. “Hollis, you sound sad. Your dad not who he needs to be?”
Hollis hesitated before answering. “No.”
“Don’t give up, boy. Life has a way of makin’ a man wake up.”
“Like Oscar?”
“Well, that’s a good point. Maybe what happened here will make Oscar think. You’re right, though; some people never learn. I did. I stopped runnin’ the streets, went back to school, and now I’m a teacher. I’ve never been happier.”
“What made you stop?”
“Well, Hollis, I . . . ” Mr. Red Beans cleared his throat, paused, and cleared it again.
“That’s okay. You don’t have to tell me. It’s none of my business anyway. I just wondered what kind of thing has to happen before people change who they are.”
“It has to be somethin’ big.” He paused. “For me, it was nearly gettin’ myself shot.”
Under the table, Hollis’s eyes widened. “Really?”
Red Beans sighed. “I haven’t thought about it in a long time. I was somewhere I had no business being, and the guy I was trying to get something from decided to rob me instead. I snatched his gun out of his hand, but it went off, grazing my head. I’ve still got a scar where no hair’ll grow. When I got home, I decided that my life needed a new direction.”
“Feels weird for me to hope that my dad gets shot.”
“Maybe it don’t have to be that drastic. Anyway, I’m gonna go find Mrs. Wiley before she calls the police. Remember, Hollis, you can’t control much in this world.”
Katrina taught me that.
Hollis heard Mr. Red Beans’s footsteps fading away. Crawling to the end of the table, Hollis sneaked out from under the tablecloth and went to give Eden the report that his job was completed.
“What did you do?” Eden asked.
Hollis walked away, smiling.
“Hollis!” Eden called out. “Tell me what you did. C’mon!”
Shaking his head stubbornly, Hollis went back to his cot and thought about everything that had happened. Leta was right. He’d miss it here. He even wished he could take his cot home. He’d done so much changing and growing and thinking on it that he’d become quite attached to it.
But now he had a decision to make about his father. Asking Gee to find him would upset her a lot. He’d always known that, but for the first time, he realized why. He wanted her to know that he understood now. He knew he’d been wrong about Gee and his mother being the reason his father left. As these thoughts tumbled through his head, he drifted off to sleep in a well-deserved nap.
Chapter 24
Katrina’s Kids
On Friday, twelve days after Katrina hit New Orleans, Hollis woke up to find the shelter aflutter with excitement. With the news that a television crew was on its way to the shelter to conduct interviews, everyone was in a high state of anticipation. Everyone, that is, but Algie.
“He’s gettin’ worse and worse, isn’t he?” Dray asked Hollis after Algie picked up Gnomie and announced that he hated everyone.
Hollis sighed. “We been here too long for Algie.”
“We been here too long for me. Nothin’ we can do about it, though. I guess he’s still too young to get it. Where’s Lolo? She usually cheers him up.”
Hollis nodded. “She does, but the ‘Lolo maneuver’ hasn’t worked lately. She’s tired of being here, too.” He pointed to Lolo, who was leaning against Kiki with a mulish expression on her face.
Shaking their heads, Hollis and Dray went to eat a late breakfast. The only person still in the dining area was Maleeki. When Dray sat down across from him, Hollis sat on Dray’s other side and wished he’d been the one to choose the table. It wouldn’t have been anywhere near Maleeki.
Maleeki scowled and pointed his fork at Hollis as he sat down. “You ratted me out to Mr. Red Beans.”
Dray’s eyes slid from Maleeki to Hollis and back again.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hollis said through a mouthful of egg. He avoided Maleeki’s eye.
Maleeki snorted. “Stop followin’ me around and pay attention to your brother.”
Hollis looked up defiantly. “I can take care of Algie.”
“Oh yeah?” Maleeki asked. “I see he’s not at breakfast. As usual.”
“He doesn’t have to eat breakfast.” Hollis continued to shovel eggs into his mouth.
“What about lunch? He says he’s not gonna eat lunch either.”
“He’ll eat lunch. I’ll see to it.”
“Oh yeah?” Maleeki’s voice squeaked in glee. “You haven’t been.”
“Whaddaya mean?” Hollis asked, irritated.
Maleeki smiled. “Algie hasn’t eaten since he got here.”
“That’s impossible. It’s almost been two weeks.”
“I know,” Maleeki said. “You didn’t notice. You were too busy bein’ all over me like you are.”
Hollis narrowed his eyes. “If that’s true, how did you find out about it?”
“Algie told me. Miss Violet found a sweet potato pie she was gonna buy for him. He told her no. I asked him why. He said he wasn’t gonna eat until they found his grandmother.” Maleeki picked up his tray, cocked an eyebrow at Hollis, and left the dining room.
Dray sat forward. “Huh. Think he’s lyin’?”
“I hope so.” Leaving his breakfast behind, Hollis went to find Algie.
“Why’s everyone s-so excited?” Algie asked Leta as Hollis joined them.
“There are TV people are coming to interview us,” Leta said.
Hollis surveyed Algie from his curly head to his Spongebob tennis shoes. He did seem thinner. Maybe a lot thinner. Part of the problem was that Algie took new clothes out of donations every day. Since he always picked oversized, baggy shirts and pants that Gee would never have let him wear, his actual size was hard to see. Hollis decided to talk to Leta before he confronted Algie.
“I d-don’t want to be inter—inter—I d-don’t want to be on TV!” Algie announced. “I want Gee!”
“We do too, Algie,” Leta said, trying to hug him. He pulled away and lay down on his cot, tucking his face into Gnomie’s hard beard.
Hollis jerked his head for Leta to follow him into the hallway. Out of Algie’s earshot, Hollis explained. “Maleeki says Algie hasn’t eaten since he’s been here. Is that even possible?”
Leta covered her mouth with her hands and nodded. “It could be! He’s always either tearing up his food or taking it off somewhere. And he’s been losing weight. I thought it was just because he wasn’t eating breakfast, but . . . That little brat!”
Hollis drew in a deep breath. “Go get him.”
Leta scuttled off and returned with a scowling Algie in tow.
“He says he’s not eating until we find Gee,” Leta said.
“You will so,” Hollis said.
Algie glared.
“If you don’t eat, you’ll get sick. If you get sick, you’ll have to go to the hospital. If you go to the hospital and we find Gee, we won’t be able to leave right away ’cause you’ll be in the hospital. And what do you think Gee’d say? She’s gonna be mad.”
Algie shook his head. “I don’t care what you say. I’m n-not s-sick. I f-feel good. And I’m n-not gonna eat nothin’.”
“Just when do you feel good?” Leta asked. “You sleep all day, you have no energy, and you’re crabby all the time. If you’re not sick now, you will be soon.”
Algie folded his arms and glared at her.
Hollis lectured, threatened, and reasoned with his brother for another half hour before he gave up. He watched Algie stomp away. It was nice being the hero to make Maleeki ’fess up. But with Algie, I’m always the bad guy. How can I get him to understand?
“We need to find Gee or Jonas fast,” he told Leta. “We can’t let Algie just starve himself to death.”
“Think he’ll keep refusing to eat?” she asked.
Hollis nodded. “Algie? Yeah, I do.”
“Shouldn’t we tell Miss Violet?”
Hollis thought for a moment. “Let’s try to get him to eat today. We’ll tell her tomorrow if he keeps sayin
g no.”
Although Leta and Hollis no longer cared, the excitement in the shelter continued to grow. Women lined up for Calaya to fix their hair, and a crowd formed around the donation tables as people searched for new outfits.
“Finally, somethin’ fun to do,” Hollis heard one woman say.
“Yeah,” said another. “It’s been awful borin’.”
The CNN crew arrived with their lights, cameras, cords, and microphones, along with a silver-haired man named Harry Hathaway in a tight black T-shirt and jeans. Miss Violet gave the men a brief tour. After she told Harry Hathaway about the shelter, the lights came on, the cameras whirred, and the crew taped Hathaway telling the world about the state of New Orleans’s refugees. He told Miss Violet that the segment would run at five that evening, when Alex Payne’s show aired.
After recording Hathaway’s conversation with Alex Payne, the crew filmed the evacuees eating lunch, the adults going outside to smoke, two men playing cards, and two others playing chess. Their cameras caught Calaya braiding Mrs. Wiley’s hair and one of the families reading their Bible.
Near the end of the shoot, Harry Hathaway noticed the children’s area. As Hollis watched, Hathaway pointed out the area to Miss Violet, and the two of them walked toward it.
“. . . children here without their families,” Miss Violet was saying as they reached Hollis’s cot. “We’re trying to locate them, but we haven’t had much luck so far.”
“That’s terrible,” Mr. Hathaway said, surveying the children sadly. “Thank you for letting us film here, Violet.” He shook Miss Violet’s hand.
As Mr. Hathaway turned to walk back toward the front of the shelter, Hollis jumped up from his cot. An idea dangled in front of him, and he grabbed it like a drowning man. “Excuse me,” he said, waving at Mr. Hathaway.
The newscaster raised an eyebrow.
Hollis cleared his throat. “Do you think you could take a video of us and put it on TV? Our families might see us, and then we’ll get found and you’ll be a hero.”
Harry Hathaway frowned. “Well,” he said after a moment, “that’s a really good idea. Let me see what I can do.” He hurried off to get his crew.
