The Whole Stupid Way We Are

by N. Griffin

  “Yes?”

  But Dinah didn’t know what to ask.

  K. T. held up his cupcake. “This is a spaceship for my space guy,” he told her, and took a bite. “I just bit him a portal. Only I think I lost him somewhere in this church.”

  Under Dinah’s direction, he began laboriously to write. Dear Monks, Here are some dollars to help people with. We think you could use them for food.

  The toilets will be easy today; no choir rehearsal to contend with. Dinah sweeps the rest of the dirt from the aisles into her dustpan and empties it into the garbage bag, then drags the bag down the aisle toward the apse. She remembers Skint’s forearms, dragging it outside the other week. Her eyes fill, but she blinks and moves on.

  The grooved surfaces of the old wooden posts in the nave look dull, covered in dust and grit. She should clean and oil them. All the woodwork needs cleaning, really; the posts and the wainscoting and the altar trim, too. She’ll have to wait until it’s warm enough to keep the windows open, though, so the smell of the oil can drift out into the trees. In the meantime she’ll dust, starting with the posts.

  Skint came back before, when they were eleven. It stands to reason that he will come back again.

  Dinah will be walking outside, along the road or under the bridge. The sky will be clear and she’ll have a stone in her hand. A skinny figure will slouch down the road toward where she is. She’ll know that slouch, that coatless body, those boots and that hectic hair. He will be too far away for her to see his face at first. His head will be down, and she will be waiting, standing at the side of the road in her skirt.

  When he does look up and see her, his face will crinkle into smile lines. He’ll come meet her by the road and she will link her arm in his.

  “The Rural Routes’ house is lovely,” she’ll say. “It would be perfect for us to live in.”

  “With Mr. Rural Route, of course.”

  “Yes. And a fire in the grate and cups of tea by the wireless.”

  “We’ll have to practice our porch-standing and waving.”

  They’ll stay still for a minute, until he turns to her and asks, “Where’s Handcreature?”

  Dinah will make Handcreature rear up and nip at his nose.

  “Right here,” she’ll say. “She’s been waiting for you. She missed you so much she can’t even say.”

  But Dinah can’t imagine about it anymore right now, because if she does, the weight of the waiting will sink her and she’ll believe the opposite will be true.

  Dust, dust. The church feels huge; tall; full of air. Up there is where the choir performed. Over there is where her father stood to lead them. Behind her, above, is where the choir sings on Sundays. Dinah used to go up there, too, to stand by Granny when she sang. (Pear-powder smell and an arm around Dinah. “What wondrous love is this! O my soul, o my soul!”)

  Today Dinah doesn’t know that the rest of the school year will pass and Skint will not return. She doesn’t know he will not be back to rejoin the Friendly, or to be her co-sexton, or to help her train Beagie up to be their replacement. She doesn’t know any of that. What she does know is that right now she is grateful to be by herself in the church. Because with no one else here, the church smells like music and feels like a lap, like the walls and posts themselves are made of buzzy singing.

  And when from death I’m free

  I’ll sing and joyful be

  And through eternity I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on,

  And through eternity I’ll sing on.

  In her terrible, awful voice, Dinah starts to sing.

  Skint is on his bike, riding. Between Dinah and night he snuck back for his bike and even though he’s sore from spending the night in some shed, the sharp pain of his muscles feels good somehow, or at least better than the no-feeling of the rest of him.

  Ahead of him, alone, a tiny figure is walking. Skint stops, hands tight on the handlebars, and stares. Then he jumps back on the pedals and rides hard through the early morning light toward the child, bike gears grinding, frame solid and blue beneath him. The road is crumpled with ice and grit, but he rides steady and straight.

  Skint pulls up alongside the little boy, who is puffy in his coat and mittens with the drawn-on eyes. The boy’s nose is running, cheeks streaked over his scarf.

  “What’s up?” Skint asks him, but the boy shakes his head no. Skint can tell he doesn’t want to cry again.

  Skint waits. So does K. T., standing still, blinking hard.

  “Here,” says Skint. Straddling his bike, he plants his feet on the road. “Hop on.”

  “Hunh?” says K. T.

  “Up here,” says Skint. He lifts K. T. gently up onto the handlebars. “Can you balance okay?” he asks.

  K. T. shifts cautiously in place and nods. “Yes,” he says.

  “Hold on, then,” Skint tells him.

  “Okay,” says K. T. Crusty things in his eye corners, but his face is interested and clear.

  “Good,” says Skint. “Here we go.”

  He pushes off, hard. Ancient gears grinding. Air freezing around their cheeks. But Skint knows where he is going. He knows what K. T. deserves.

  Winter trees are watching and Skint veers left at the Winthrop fork.

  Much later, hours later, he stops in front of a house, green, with a path leading straight to its door.

  “Hey!” cries K. T. “It’s my mom’s!”

  “Yep,” says Skint, and sets K. T. down on the curb. “She’s home. See? Smoke’s coming out of the chimney.”

  K. T. looks up at the roof and Skint rests his hand on K. T.’s head.

  “Go on,” says Skint. “She’ll be happy to see you.”

  “She will?” asks K. T.

  “Of course.”

  K. T. chews his mitten. He smiles, a little, and wiggles his head out from under Skint’s hand.

  Hands flapping, he bounces up the path to the door.

  Creak crark—

  Skint’s looking straight ahead, standing on the pedals, pumping his legs as fast as he can. He’s sweating, straining, face steaming hot and red.

  Dad. Dinah.

  Thank God the road is smooth here, because he’s blinded, weeping; he can’t see for shit.

  So many people’s kindness and help made this book possible! My heartfelt thanks go to Kathi Appelt, Tami Lewis Brown, Ann Cardinal, Allen Kesten, Daphne Kalmar, Jessica Leader, Leda Schubert, and Sarah Sullivan for reading all or parts of this book at various stages of its life, and for providing wise counsel from their monstrously big brains. Extra big thanks to Joe Monti, who read the thing twice, even, each time thoughtfully and with so many helpful observations.

  Thanks to Barb Fecteau for letting me borrow her nemesis. I hope you have a less gross one to borrow next time.

  Thank you so much, Jane Gilbert Keith, not only for your wonderful reading, but for thinking up the title! You are the best.

  Enormous thanks to Caitlyn Dlouhy, the editor of my dreams. This book is so much better than I could ever have made it without you. I can’t express my gratitude enough. Thank you for believing in this book!

  More enormous thanks to Carol P., without whom this book could never, ever have been written. Your kind heart made all of it possible. Thank you. I owe you more than I can say.

  And finally, thanks to my beloved Tobin, who provided eyeballs for reading and sternums for miserable face-burying at every step of this process. Thank you, thank you, thank you. This book wouldn’t exist without you, either.

  ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely co
incidental.

  Copyright © 2013 by N. Griffin

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

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  Book design by Sonia Chaghatzbanian

  The text for this book is set in ITC Veljovic Std.

  First Edition

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Griffin, N.

  The whole stupid way we are / N. Griffin.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: During a cold winter in Maine, fifteen-year-old Dinah sets off a heart-wrenching chain of events when she tries to help best friend and fellow misfit Skint deal with problems at home, including a father who is suffering from early onset dementia.

  ISBN 978-1-4424-3155-3 (hardcover) — ISBN 978-1-4424-3158-4 (eBook)

  [1. Best friends—Fiction. 2. Friendship—Fiction. 3. Family problems—Fiction. 4. Maine—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.G88135934Wh 2013

  [Fic]—dc23

  2012002595