Adam Canfield, Watch Your Back!

by Michael Winerip

  Adam had never opened up such a big lead. When he glanced over his shoulder at the other runners, they were so far back, he had to admit that he almost felt sorry for their sad, little turtle legs. But still he picked up his pace to make a point. Glancing that way again, he saw that they were gone. Victory was sweet; total victory, totally sweet. But wait. If this was total victory, what was that uneasy feeling creeping over him? Was he really that far in front? Or had he taken a wrong turn and gotten lost again? Please, anything but that. As he reviewed the race in his mind, he realized that it wasn’t so much a question of being lost, as — wasn’t there something he had to do? He definitely had a nagging, squirmy feeling, then worse, an unmistakable ache, a sense that there was very urgent business to attend to.

  Pee! He had to pee! He opened his eyes. The bedroom was dark. Of course it was. Those six glasses of water before bed — the Adam Canfield 100 percent foolproof wake-up system. It had worked! He raced to the window. Snow! Beautiful snow, lots of it. The street, the bushes, the sidewalks, and cars were all covered in a thick coat of frosty, white, unspoiled snow, and it was still coming down heavily. No way there’d be school on Friday. Adam was beaming. And chilled. He rushed to the bathroom, rushed back to bed, buried himself under the covers, thrust both hands into his boxers, and curled into a ball. Lying there, he tried to get himself back to that lead in the running club race.

  But in the morning, there were no new dreams to remember.

  Adam shoveled his own walk and driveway quickly, then went looking for jobs. He was in high spirits. The snow was good for shoveling: wet enough so it didn’t blow off the shovel but not too wet — it wouldn’t just melt away. Usually, the Tri-River Region got only two or three big storms a winter, so Adam wanted to get as many jobs as possible. On his best day of shoveling ever, he had made two hundred dollars.

  First up was the house across the street. They wanted Adam to shovel whenever it snowed. He didn’t even have to ring the bell, and later they’d leave the thirty dollars in his mailbox. Older people like them didn’t want to do anything to aggravate their clogged arteries, so they were happy to pay. Some other customers were weird, though. The next woman stood outside watching Adam the whole time. She wanted only half her driveway cleared — said she had just one car. And she wanted her walk done just one shovel wide. She supervised every shovelful, as if Adam were going to steal her snow. He finished fast, but all she paid was ten dollars.

  He walked down the center of the street, between the high banks that the snowplows had made, to where the block dead-ended at the Tremble River, then headed along the back path. To get a look at the river, he climbed a bluff, barreling upward through the undisturbed snow. He loved stepping in unstepped-in snow and then tumbling back down.

  He brushed off, then placed the shovel over his shoulder and marched up the next street. It was getting colder and windier. The wet snow would soon ice over, making the shoveling harder. Adam might be forced to charge double.

  He did a big house that took almost an hour for thirty dollars, then decided it was break time. He wanted to play. The boardwalks over the bluffs leading down to the river would be getting icy by now, good sledding conditions. He’d go home, tank up on hot chocolate, then hit the boards.

  “Little boy! Little boy!”

  Adam looked around. A front door was open just wide enough for a very old lady to stick out her head. Her hair and skin were so white, he could barely make out her face against the snow.

  “Little boy, are you looking for shoveling work?”

  “Actually,” said Adam, “I’m quitting.”

  “Good,” said the old lady. “I like a boy who never quits. You’ll do my house?”

  Adam tried again but could see this was hopeless. The lady had to be deaf as a post. In a loud voice, he said he’d been shoveling for hours and was FINISHED and she told him how much she’d loved visiting Helsinki.

  He surveyed the driveway and walk. Not even a footprint. He felt like running away. But what if she couldn’t get out to go to the supermarket? What if she starved to death? It would be all his fault.

  “Delighted to meet you,” the old lady said. “What’s your name?”

  “ADAM,” he shouted. It felt good to scream at her.

  “Benjamin?” she said. “That’s my son’s name, too. You remind me of him. He lives in New York. He’s sixty-four.”

  Adam smiled weakly and started shoveling out the end of the driveway, where big chunks of snow had been piled high by the street plows. He was trying to think pleasant thoughts, and there were plenty, considering all he’d missed with school being canceled. No math chapter test. No baritone horn lesson. No before-school/after-school voluntary/mandatory test-prep class for the state exams. No Quiz Bowl Gladiator meet — he wondered if they’d make it up or cancel it. He didn’t even mind missing basketball practice. The one nice thing about being the most overprogrammed middle-school kid in America was that doing nothing felt like a special treat. Even shoveling snow seemed enjoyable.

  No way Adam was checking his e-mail when he got home. He knew there’d be at least ten messages from Jennifer, about stuff they had to do for the next issue of the Slash, Harris Elementary/Middle School’s student newspaper. They had planned a big story meeting that afternoon for the February issue — right about now, actually. Jennifer was so hard-core, she’d probably schedule a makeup meeting at her house tonight. Sorry, Jennifer. Could he help it if his e-mail was down?

  He heard something and looked up. He hadn’t noticed, but an SUV had stopped nearby and some big kids were hopping out and coming toward him.

  One said something. Adam didn’t hear the whole comment, but it sounded like they were trying to ask about shoveling jobs. He wished they’d come twenty minutes earlier; he gladly would have given them this job.

  “Making much?” one said.

  Adam nodded. “Lot of snow,” he said.

  “Give me your money,” the kid said.

  “I know that kid,” another boy said.

  Adam looked at the second boy, who was smaller. Why did they want his money? That was weird. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a quick movement — an arm? — and there was a sharp flash of pain in the middle of his face. He felt dizzy, then nauseous. His breath smelled sour and he gagged. He didn’t want to throw up in front of these kids.

  His sweatshirt hood was yanked over his head, and someone had him in a bear hug from behind and was going through his pockets. They shoved him into a snowbank. Car doors slammed. By the time he got to his feet, the dark SUV was at the end of the street.

  Adam was supposed to go around back and leave his wet stuff by the furnace, but he walked in the front door. His mother opened her mouth, then stopped. “What happened?” she asked.

  “You need to call someone,” Adam said, “to finish shoveling on Marlboro Street. An old lady could die of starvation.”

  “Your nose is bleeding,” she said.

  “Yeah,” said Adam. “A kid hit me.”

  “Hit you?” said his mother. “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” said Adam. “I didn’t do anything to them. They took my money.”

  “Oh, my God,” she said. “You’ve been mugged.”

  Mugged, Adam thought. He hadn’t been mugged. They just hit him and took his money. His mom got a washcloth and cleaned his face. She kept asking questions, then went into the kitchen. She was calling the police? It was only forty dollars, not some big deal.

  Within ten minutes three police cars had arrived. “The benefit of living in a suburb where nothing ever happens,” said his mom as she watched them come up the walk. Six officers filled the Canfields’ living room. They looked huge to Ad
am. Each had a gun strapped in a holster. His mother talked to them, then they wanted to ask Adam questions.

  He told them what he remembered and one wrote it down on some kind of report sheet. Adam felt like he was watching this happen to somebody else. They kept asking the same questions. He wasn’t sure how many boys there were, he told them, but more than two. He wasn’t sure how old; they looked like high school. The police asked him to describe the car.

  “SUV,” said Adam. “Like a Ford Explorer. Like, black.”

  “Sure it was an Explorer?” the officer asked. “Not a Tahoe? They’re pretty close.”

  Adam wasn’t sure.

  “So a black SUV the size of an Explorer?” said the cop who was filling out the report. “Not navy blue or midnight charcoal, right?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Adam. “A dark color, though.”

  “You didn’t get the license plate?”

  He thought he remembered AK3 something, something, something, 5.

  The police kept asking if there was any bad blood with these kids from school. “Tell me again,” said one. “What did they say?”

  “Almost nothing,” said Adam. “Just give them the money. And one kid said he knew me.”

  “OK,” said the cop, looking up from the paper and staring directly at Adam. “And did you know him?”

  “Yeah,” said Adam. “Kenny Gilbert. I don’t really know him, but I know who he is. I played soccer with him a few years ago in the Tremble Rec league. He was older. It was my first year. He played A line; I was on B. I play A now.”

  “You sure?” said the cop.

  “Oh yeah,” said Adam. “I’m one of the best now; I always play A line.”

  “That it was this Kenny Gilbert?” said the cop.

  Adam nodded.

  His mother found the skinny phone book that had listings for their town. “There are two Gilberts,” she said, handing the book to an officer. He studied the names, and asked to borrow the book; then all the cops left.

  Within thirty minutes one car was back. The police said they had the kid and needed Adam to make an ID.

  Adam and his mother rode in the backseat of the police car. What Adam remembered most — besides his mom holding his hand the whole way — was that you couldn’t open the doors or roll down the windows from the patrol car’s backseat.

  They drove a few miles, then turned onto a side street. The houses looked normal — not rich, not poor. Up ahead, he saw two police cars double-parked in the center of the block. The car Adam was in stopped one house before them.

  The policeman driving Adam did not turn off the engine. He did not ask Adam to get out. “They’re going to walk this kid to the sidewalk and have him stand there. I want you to look at him real good and make sure it’s him. He doesn’t know you’re ID’ing him, and he won’t be able to see you from here. He’ll be looking straight ahead.”

  Adam waited. The front door of the house opened, and a detective in a navy-blue Windbreaker with TREMBLE POLICE in big yellow letters on the back came out, a boy standing beside him. A woman stayed behind, at the front door — probably the kid’s mom — and while she waited, Adam noticed that she checked the mailbox.

  The boy reached the sidewalk and stopped, standing kind of slouchy. People in nearby houses peeked out from behind curtains and blinds.

  The police officer turned to Adam in the backseat. “That him?” the officer asked.

  Adam nodded.

  “You sure, kid?”

  “Sure,” said Adam.

  The officer picked up a handheld radio, pressed a button, and said, “We have a confirmation from the victim.”

  That’s fifty-eight, Adam counted to himself. Or was it fifty-seven? Normally Adam couldn’t wait to get his seventy-five laps done. Swimming was his least favorite sport. He’d been known to cheat at practice. Pull himself along with the lane dividers when the coaches weren’t looking. Touch his feet on the bottom and walk-swim. Count two laps for every one.

  But this morning, he was in no hurry. He liked having his head underwater. He wanted to be someplace where no one asked questions.

  He touched again, and thought he heard someone calling his name. That never happened at Saturday practice. Getting in the pool at 7:30 A.M., everyone was dazed; the coaches could go the entire two hours without saying a word. Adam broke stroke just enough to peek up. Oh, cripes — even with his goggles on, he recognized those long brown feet, their red-painted toenails wiggling in flip-flops. Jennifer! The girl was indefatigable. He tumbled into a flip turn so deep, his belly scraped bottom.

  Jennifer! Didn’t she ever get worn down? The combined December/January issue of the Slash had just come out last week, and all she wanted to do was talk about what was going to be in the February issue. Adam could not take it. He did not have the endurance to be coeditor of the Slash with Jennifer. They filled one issue, but there was no time to enjoy it; the very next morning he woke up and there was a ton of fresh news to worry about.

  He’d been so proud of the last issue, especially the lead story on the resignation of Mrs. Marris as Harris principal. Adam had caught her red-handed stealing $75,000 of the school’s money, and once they printed it in the Slash, she was fired. They called the paper the Slash, after the slash mark in Harris Elementary/Middle School, but Adam liked to think that their pens were so mighty, they slashed like swords through thick, swampy lies until they reached the truth.

  Slash! Sammy, the Slash’s undercover food critic, exposed problems with the cafeteria mashed potatoes in a groundbreaking investigation. It was Adam and Jennifer’s story in the Slash that had saved all the basketball hoops in Tremble County. And thanks to the Slash, kids at Harris learned that the new acting principal would be Mrs. Quigley before many teachers knew.

  Mrs. Quigley. Adam repeated the name to himself as he went into another flip turn. A very liquidy name. Adam worried she might be like Marris, another mortal enemy of the Slash. He wondered if she was going to battle them on every story they wrote, like Marris, and if they’d have to investigate her, too. At the very least, he figured she was a nut job; she’d insisted on having her photo taken hugging the school.

  Heading to the wall, Adam spotted those two long feet, this time kicking up a storm of bubbles. Jennifer would want to know what he had for the February issue.

  With every stroke he heard her; she must be running along the side of the pool, screaming. Too bad for Jennifer — everyone knew it was impossible to hear underwater.

  Only the blast of the lifeguard’s whistle made him stop.

  He stood and pushed up his goggles — just in time to see Jennifer hand the whistle back to the lifeguard. “You didn’t hear me yelling?” she asked.

  “You can’t hear underwater,” he said. “I had to finish my seventy-five laps.”

  “Seventy-five?” she said. “I counted a hundred and two. You’re the only one left.”

  Adam looked around. Whoa, even the coaches were gone. He’d really been in a fog.

  “You didn’t get my e-mails?” Jennifer asked.

  “Computer’s down,” Adam said.

  Jennifer shot him a look. Adam really was awful at lying, which she was normally able to twist to her advantage. “Not a problem — we’ll walk over and use the library computers,” she said. “I don’t know about you, but I have to research my science project. And it’s a quiet place to talk about the February Slash.”

  “I really can’t,” said Adam. “I have to —”

  Jennifer was staring. “Your nose!” she said.

  He’d forgotten for a minute. “It’s nothing. Hit it on the boardwalk sledding.”

  “It’s fat as a banana,” she said. “Let me see.”

  “Please, no,” Adam said, pulling away. “I didn’t turn quick enough, hit a boardwalk post. Anyway, I can’t go to the library; my mom’s picking me up. We’re doing errands.”

  “Not a problem,” said Jennifer. “When you didn’t e-mail, I called your mom. She said it was
fine to go to the library and even thanked me, because my dad’s driving us home.”

  Adam felt like Robert E. Lee in the social studies unit on the Civil War. Ulysses S. Jennifer had him surrounded.

  “Your mom sounds worried,” Jennifer went on. “She said, ‘Jen, be nice to him; he had a tough day yesterday.’”

  “What’d she mean by that?” Adam snapped.

  “She didn’t say,” answered Jennifer. “I guess she meant the sledding accident.”

  Adam nodded. He felt relieved. He’d made his parents promise not to tell anyone. The last thing he wanted was to be known as the idiot who got his shoveling money stolen.

  They were almost to the locker rooms when Adam noticed — Jennifer wasn’t wet. “Didn’t you even go swimming?” he asked.

  “Just put on a bathing suit. You need one to get on the pool deck. I hate pools in winter. I freeze.”

  “Really,” Adam said.

  He was impressed — for a skinny person, Jennifer made a huge splash.

  As she bobbed up, she looked outraged. The lifeguard was blowing his whistle and yelling, “You do that again and you’re out of here.”

  “Sorry,” Adam said. “My arm slipped.” The fact was, he’d had no choice.

  He offered Jennifer a hand up, but she spit water in his face. So he hurried to the locker room, fast-walking instead of running. He didn’t want to get whistled at again.

  Even on a Saturday morning after a big snow, the Tremble children’s library — on the second floor of the main branch — was crowded. Instead of getting a table by the young adult section, Adam and Jennifer were lucky to find one near the picture books.

  Jennifer pulled a thick stack of printouts from her backpack.

  “Geez,” said Adam. “Looks pretty scientific.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “My dad showed me how to run nitrate levels for these river samples. He set up this program for me — makes it a lot easier. This won’t take long,” she said, and headed off to find a computer.

  Adam hadn’t quite got his science project going. His dad gave him a few ideas that he’d written up as abstracts, but they seemed boring. He’d come up with something — the fair was still a few months away.