“How should I know?” I clamp my chattering teeth shut, but then my chin starts wobbling. The water is cold from below and above; gray sky and water make a box around us. I can taste the fishy warmth of the Canal water mixed in with the cool raindrops. “Maybe the Lightning Gods’ll get him.” I gulp out loud to Ted, who laughs and says, “Yeah!” too cheerfully; probably just glad I’m not crying. My eyes move restlessly, though, waiting for Charlie to come up for air.
“I guess you can put my initials up, though,” I mention to Ted.
“Definitely, E.F.B.” Ted nods. Steph’s ears perk up.
“Oh, no way. Being pushed doesn’t count,” she says.
“Definitely it counts,” Ted answers.
“Does not,” she insists.
“You want to walk home?”
Steph opens and closes her mouth like a goldfish. For a second I’m so happy that I’m embarrassed and I dunk my smile underwater.
“You see Charlie?” I ask in the next moment. It’s been a long time not to catch even one quick glimpse of him. The old electric charge of worry zaps through me. My mind starts picking through horrible possibilities and lands on one. “He was just kidding about alligators in the locks, right? It’s not like they can get in here, right?”
“Give me a break,” mumbles Steph. “I don’t know who’s crazier, you or him.”
“Ted, is it true?”
“Oh yeah, Charlie’s gourmet gator grub by now.”
When I see him hunched up in the prow of the boat, separate from the others who have regrouped there, I try to keep the relief out of my face.
Mary Jane stands up in the boat when we get within earshot. “We all climbed down,” she hollers through the rain. “How are you guys?”
“I’m okay.” I unhook my arms from Ted’s shoulders and climb aboard. Rat and Dan are using the emergency coffee cans to dipper out the water gushing into the boat. Ted pulls the throttle, which chokes, but then sputters to life in a surprised gasp.
“Good jump?” Charlie smiles.
“I’m telling Mom, just so you know,” I say, and then I refuse to look at him and sit as far away from him as the boat allows.
“Steph said she bet he was gonna try to drown you or something,” Mary Jane giggles nervously. The relief that she herself escaped the jump hums from every inch of her skin. She darts a look over at Charlie and slides nearer to me. “He’s pure sicko,” she says close in my ear. “Must be the worst thing in creation being his sister.”
“He’s just short-tempered is all,” I say tiredly.
Water is pouring on us like there’s a giant pitcher in the sky. A wind has kicked up, too, sending the rain down in heavy slanted sheets. The beating of rain on water sounds like a million snapping twigs.
“I can’t even see!” Ted cries, exasperated, trying to shake the water off his face. “Everyone keep your eyes peeled for the dock. Ay-ay-ay, I’ve never been so wet.”
“Hey, Lanie,” Charlie calls out to me through the noise. I ignore him.
I keep ignoring him through the truck ride back to Fort Bryan, too. I’m still pretty mad. Charlie doesn’t say much, except once to laugh at a bad joke Dan tells. He laughs and squints at me through the rain, but I look away. Charlie hates being ignored.
Midway home, the rain finally lightens to a drizzle and then abruptly stops. The truck’s flatbed drains out and the air smells like a perfume of soft wind and leaves. The sun reappears, bleached white in the sky and the breeze riffles against my cold wet skin. Ted stops the truck once, at a roadside bohío where we each buy a paper cup of orangeade and a sugar cake. I’m so hungry that it tastes amazingly good.
Above us a line of khaki-shelled helicopters rattle past, like a herd of flying armadillos. We watch their clattering path through the sky until they disappear.
“’Bye, Dad,” shouts Dan. “My dad’s probably up there. He’s flying today.”
“Good thing he wasn’t around to see you be such a wink earlier,” comments Steph. She puts her hand on her stomach and whines, “Probably too many ravioooh-leees.” Dan says a swear word that’s meant just for Steph, but she just shrugs it off and looks at him like she thinks he’s pathetic.
Steph’s kind of pouty and quiet for the rest of the trip, though, probably mad that everyone panicked for nothing over Charlie’s and my jump, that my initials are going up, and that Mary Jane never even jumped.
“I want to go back to the fort,” Charlie calls to Steph and Ted in the cab of the truck when we’re letting Mary Jane out at her house. “Check it out again.”
“On your own time, Charleston,” Ted retorts. “You know the way.”
As she scrabbles out of the truck, Mary Jane taps my shoulder and whispers to me. “Was it real scary, falling from so high up?”
“Not so bad.” I shrug. “It was actually sort of a relief.”
Mary Jane giggles. “What do you mean? No one said you had to jump.” But I can’t explain to her what I mean exactly.
“It’s not so bad as I thought,” I say again. “Now that it’s done.”
Steph leans out the window. “Tomorrow morning, M.J.,” she warns. “Official do-over, especially since your initials are up as a lie. I’ll call you tonight with the details and no winking out.”
“That’s right, my initials are up,” Mary Jane repeats. She surprises me by giving Steph a smirking grin. “See y’all tomorrow then, maybe, unless my momma’s gotta take me shopping in the morning.” She sweeps her ugly fishnet purse over her shoulder and walks away before Steph can answer.
Rat and Steph and Dan all jump out at the Wagners’ house. Steph lingers over the driver’s side window, making plans with Ted for tomorrow’s fort building; how to round up more kids, when to drive to Miraflores for Mary Jane’s do-over; while Rat and Dan rinse their muddy legs and sneakers at the outdoor water spigot. My own sandals are a skin of slime beneath my toes.
“See you tonight,” I say to Ted when he finally drops Charlie and me off. He flips the day pass off the dashboard and into my hands.
“Tell Lord Beck thanks for the loan,” he says. “And hang in there, trooper.”
“Yep.”
“See ya later, bud.” Charlie waves. Ted frowns slightly at Charlie and just barely waves back to him as he drives away. I feel better then, watching Charlie looking all sad at the truck’s rear bumper. He knows Ted’s disappointed in him.
I switch past Charlie up the walkway, my sandals squishing through the front hall into the house.
Marita is standing at the stove in the kitchen.
“Soon is dinner,” she says, nodding to me. “Ropa vieja and broccoli, flan for dessert.” She lifts a lid and the browning smell of simmering, peppered meat fills the kitchen.
“Hey, Lanie,” says Charlie, following me into the kitchen. “I’m running out to have a look at our fort again. Wanna come?”
I don’t answer him. Marita peers up from her cooking.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I tell Marita. “I fell in the Miraflores lock today and I smell worse than Charlie’s feet.”
“Wanna come?” Charlie asks me again. Marita knits her eyebrows as she studies Charlie, then me.
“I’ll set the table if you want, Marita, after my shower,” I say. She nods.
“You two fighting?” she asks, switching her finger back and forth between us.
“I’m not,” Charlie assures her.
“Charlie tried to kill me today, but oh no, that’s not fighting. Thanks, Charlie, for making me see the difference.” I turn around and stomp away to the bathroom, leaving him to explain himself to Marita.
11
MY SECOND SHOWER OF the day is warm and sudsy, to clean the moldy stink of the water off my skin and clothes and hair. I change into another sundress; it’s too short and frayed around the buttons, but it’s worn soft from many spins through the washer and dryer. I guess Nancy Drew would have slipped into a cool linen dress and low-heeled pumps for dinner and a party. For a minut
e, I look in my closet, wondering. Since the only linen thing I have is a black skirt that’s too wrinkly, I decide to forget looking cool and linenish.
I set the kitchen table for the two of us and then go to my room. My letter to Emily waits for me, unfinished. I sit at my desk and stare at the paper and think about telling her about Charlie and how he’s gone bonkers, pushing me off the tower. I pick up my pen and chew the end.
Guess what! I jumped off this really high tower into the water and so my initials are going on this cool board they have up there. I know it’s hard for you to believe, since I never even went off the middle dive at the Fort Lowthrop pool, but I promise it’s truly true! In other news, I have to report that I’m worried about Charlie. He thinks he can do anything, and Mom and Dad never seem to be around when he’s acting his worst, like today while we all were
“Lane.” I don’t even notice Charlie until he is breathing over my shoulder. I jump and swing around in my desk chair, slamming my hand over my letter, and glare at him.
“Why are you in my room without knocking?”
“The fort,” he says, his voice flat. “It’s wrecked. They wrecked it.”
We sprint out of the house together, tearing across the front and back lawns that divide First Street from Second, then Second from Third. My bare feet squish over lumpy mud and grass until I’m looking over a half-collapsed side of the fort.
“Kids from the other side,” Charlie gasps between ragged breaths.
“Maybe so, maybe not.” I stoop to examine one of the fallen boards. “This all might have come down in the rain.”
“Lane, it’s wrecked. No rain did this.” Charlie picks up a long splice of wood and hurls it like a javelin across the grass. “Why won’t they play fair? They’re breaking the rules, why won’t they just play fair?”
“Charlie, for one thing it’s not about any rules and for another thing, with enough people it’s easy to hammer it all back into place, and for another thing I really do think it was the rain that knocked it down.”
Charlie folds his hands into fists and stretches his mouth into a lipless line. “I’ll get him. That kid Jason McCullough who was in the tree. It was him who destroyed our fort, I bet. He’ll wish he was never born, I’ll get him so bad.”
“You don’t even know if it was Jason McCullough in the tree. Look, see how the wind must have blown all this over?” I point to the tipped over boards. “No kids did this, see?”
The rain turned the floor of our fort into a black batter of mud. I can’t resist stepping into it, letting it ooze over the tops of my feet. It feels so good that I give a little from my grudge against Charlie.
“Stick your feet in.” I point to mine. He looks at me and grins, then hops with both feet in the mud, spraying dark speckles all over my dress.
“Now look what you did!” I jump out of the puddle to the grass and try to brush off mud polka-dots, which just end up smearing.
“I’m sorry Lane, I didn’t mean it.” Charlie tries to help me, but his hands are damp and dirty from lifting the wet boards of the fort.
“Stop—you’re making it worse.” I push off his help and then leave him standing alone as I run back to the house. When I’m far enough away from him, my anger slows me down until I’m walking and muttering under my breath like a bag lady. Charlie can get on my nerves more than anyone else I know. I can’t believe he made me come over here in the first place just to look at a little bit of stupid rain damage.
Dinner has been ready. I slip into my seat and pick up a fork. Marita leans against the counter, holding her paperback square in front of her eyes.
“Sorry I’m late,” I mumble and quickly shovel a forkful of ropa vieja in my mouth.
“Where is Charlie?”
“Coming. He’s outside.” I chew and swallow in silence, staring at my plate. I feel Marita’s eyes on me for a long minute, then she burrows back into her book.
“Sorry I’m late.” Charlie speeds in from the kitchen door to his seat and smiles at me, but a worry wrinkle shows in his forehead. “How’s your dress?”
“The same.” I look down the front of my blotched dress.
“Sorry about that again, Lane. You know I didn’t mean to mess it up.”
“Mmmm-hmmm.” I half-bow my head toward him, the way the Chinese people do after they sell you fruit or vegetables in the downtown market—distant-polite. Charlie apologizing twice for a dumb little thing like getting mud on my dress, but refusing to even acknowledge a big thing like practically trying to kill me is another snarled string of Charlie-logic; it makes me mad, knowing this is the best he can do.
“I’m going to go beat up that kid after dinner,” he mutters behind his hand to me so that Marita can’t hear.
“Which kid? Jason McCullough?”
“Of course him. And if it wasn’t him throwing those mangoes”—Charlie pauses dramatically to pop a broccoli tree in his mouth—“then I’ll beat on him until he snitches.” He clenches his hand and raises it into the air. “Heigh-ho, Sil-ver!” he shouts. “The Lone Ranger” comes on TV at five o’clock every Sunday, and Charlie and I never miss it since it’s one of the only our-age programs aired.
“That’s one of the advantages of living in this country,” Dad told us once. “Classic all-American programming.” He said this like outdated old “Lone Ranger” and “Flipper” and that annoying Zsa-Zsa in “Green Acres” are all some special treat. Charlie and I both think the Lone Ranger’s a dork and we always say “Heigh-ho, Silver!” as a joke to each other. But the military broadcast services believe in getting classic all-American programming out to everyone.
“Oh what, you’re just going to walk up to his house and knock on his door and say, ‘Oh, hi, I’m Charlie Beck and if you’re Jason McCullough I’m here to beat you up?’ That sounds like a really smart idea, Charlie.”
“No, cucaracha, tonight I’m going to go to their fort to hide.” He quirks his eyebrows up and down like Groucho Marx. “I’ll hang out in the tree and wait and then—a commando surprise attack on the wing.” He shapes his thumb and pointer finger into a gun and makes a clicking noise with his tongue. “Gotta love it,” he says.
“You’re imitating Ted.”
“So?” he lifts his chin. “Anyhow, tonight don’t tell Ted about my plan ’cause he’ll want to come with me.”
“He will not—he’ll tell you not to be loco, climbing up trees late at night when you’ll get bug-bit to death plus you can’t see anything. Charlie, you’re making too much out of it.”
I suddenly notice Marita’s listening. I drop my voice and lean in very close to Charlie’s ear. “I mean, building the fort’s really just for us, dummy. It’s not like we’re really going to kill those kids from the other side or they’re really planning to get us. It’s just good to have a fort to go to and make better and stronger and stuff. You—you’re the only one who thinks it’s some kind of war. Even Steph knows better.”
“What fighting kids?” Marita’s alert, looking at Charlie, who stares down at his plate and says nothing. “Lane, you fighting with who, what kids?”
“I’m telling Charlie not to fight with some stupid kids he wants to beat up,” I explain. I feel sort of like a tattletale, but maybe just the threat of Marita’s knowing something will stop him. Charlie crosses his arms over his chest and tips himself back onto the hind legs of his chair. He watches me with eyes like pinpricks.
“Don’t worry about it, Marita,” he scowls. “No one’s fighting anyone. It was just something I was thinking about for a minute.” But I can hear the lie hanging in the words that don’t even sound like Charlie’s own.
“So that means you’re not going to hike all the way to Ninth Street and hide out in a tree, even though the rule is no going out after dinner?” I ask brightly, for Marita’s benefit.
Charlie’s scowl deepens.
“Ninth Street?” Marita grates back her chair and stands to clear the table. “No no no, Charlie, or I am telling Señora
. Too far and dark for fighting.” She exhales heavily. “You both of you are”—she twirls a finger in the air—“spinning very fast, always, close to trouble. Opino que ustedes, los dos, necesitan ayuda.”
“What did you say? I need your opinion?” asks Charlie.
“She said, ‘I think Charlie needs help,’” I answer.
“She did not. She did not say Charlie.” He crunches up his napkin and beams it at me. It hits my nose and drops into my plate. “She said, ‘Lane has fish eyes and scabby knees.’”
“She said Charlie deserves to be slow-roasted on a spit and served to Cat Face, Rat Face, and The Toothless Wonder for lunch,” I reply.
Charlie almost spits out his milk through his nose, laughing. Cat Face is what we named our slobby school bus driver who fights with Charlie almost every day because he never sits down in the same seat for the entire ride. Rat Face and The Toothless Wonder are our names for her two little kids, who sit in the front seat. Cat Face feeds them candy all day, so they stay quiet.
“She said, ‘Lane is a skunk-faced, bug-eyed, sloth-bodied—’”
“Bastante, both of you. Ay-ay-ay.” Marita lifts our empty plates from the table and clatters them in the sink. “I am going to do laundry. Dessert is there for both.” She taps the dish of custard sitting on the counter. “No fighting, or I tell Señora. Sometimes I think even all the laughing is loco, too much …” She shakes her head at us, but keeps her unfinished thought hovering in the air as she leaves the kitchen.
12
CHARLIE AND I USE up about five minutes splitting the custard, so that we each get exactly equal shares. Then we have a speed-eating contest that gives me a stomachache. After dinner, feeling full as two stuffed potatoes, we sit in the den and play a round of Clue, but it’s too easy to guess the murderer with only two of us playing.
“We need a third,” Charlie mumbles. I think of my letter to Emily resting unfinished on my desk.
“Mom said she and Dad were coming home from the change of command at seven-thirty.”
Rainy Season Page 8
