Making Friends with Billy Wong

by Augusta Scattergood

  All the way home to Ruby Street, the leaving Paris Junction thought flew out of my head like blackbirds soaring out of our garden. I was singing, pedaling, smiling. So happy that for a minute I clean forgot about that sneaky skunk I’d practically invited to live in my grandmother’s shed. Oh boy. Now what?

  Paris Junction School

  Observations

  Sidewalks swept.

  Flowers planted.

  Cafeteria ready.

  Coaches with sports equipment and practice times.

  Clubs, school supplies, school calendar: lists all sent.

  No broken chain-link fences.

  No cigarette butts near back doors.

  No bad words scribbled.

  Big sign on marquee:

  WELCOME TO PARIS JUNCTION

  JUNIOR AND SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL!

  Billy Wong, New Student

  I walked into the house quietly, not like a herd of wild buffalo.

  “Azalea?” My grandmother’s voice drifted down the hall.

  “Hey, Grandma Clark. Looks like you’re feeling better.” I fluffed her pillow and checked her water glass.

  She struggled to sit up. “You missed Dr. Wiggins. He says I’ll be right as rain in no time.”

  I didn’t ask how much time was no time. She sure as shootin’ needed me now.

  By bedtime after I tucked her in and dragged myself upstairs, I was ready to collapse. But I kicked off my thin white sheet and flipped my pillow over a billion times. Too worried to sleep and too hot to breathe, I opened the window next to my bed.

  Was that a light shining inside the shed?

  I knew they’d be back! My heart raced with worry. What if Willis was messing around in Grandma Clark’s things? Breaking cups and saucers. Getting into her collection of feathers and paints and canvases. He was mad as everything when we caught him wearing a hairnet and white apron. And washing their clothes at their trailer. Maybe he was mad enough to do something awful!

  I should march out there and order him to leave. But truthfully, I was still a little afraid of Willis. I flopped back on my bed, listening to my pounding heart. Almost as loud as my heart, a huge moth was now beating its wings against the screen. Bump, bump, swish. Bump, bump, swish—over and over again. I’d never get to sleep. The moon was so bright, maybe I’d tiptoe outside, see what Willis was up to.

  Hurrying down the back steps, then along the path, I squeezed both arms to keep from shivering. The shed was dark and quiet, the light now off. Where was Willis? My eyes shot up. Way up. And there he was in the moonlight.

  “Willis! Why are you sitting on that branch?” I hissed.

  He didn’t answer.

  “That you up there in the oak tree?”

  “Keep quiet. You’ll wake up Lizzie,” he said, swinging down from a thick, fat limb to stand on the walkway.

  I put my hand on my hip to show him I meant business. “You need to leave. When’s your mama coming home, anyhow?”

  He moved nearer the shed’s door as if he could guard his sister. “Would have gone back to the trailer tonight. But Lizzie started crying.”

  Under the moonlight, I saw Willis had stuck out his chin and turned his cold shoulder my way. He’d acted terrible to Billy. Saying hateful things about going to his school. Even if I was worried about his little sister being scared, I’d never ever feel sorry for Willis DeLoach again. Once Grandma Clark’s arm healed, I’d be back in Tyler, Texas. But honestly, I didn’t want to leave her mad at me over somebody trespassing in her garden shed. Willis needed to go home!

  “You’d better not tell anybody where you’ve been sleeping. Or mess up stuff.”

  Willis didn’t say he’d keep quiet. Didn’t even say thanks for letting him stay. He turned and disappeared into the shed, and I tiptoed back inside, shivering in the night air.

  First thing I did was pull down my bedroom window shade, closing the moonlight away. I shut my eyes and pictured funny things to help me sleep. But honest to goodness, with Willis and Lizzie and my grandmother’s garden shed jumbling up in my brain? It was hard to dream about somebody looking dopey in a hairnet.

  Tossing and turning and looking at a loud ticking clock every five minutes does not make you fall asleep. Neither does counting hairnets or paper dolls or rotten tomatoes. But I’d finally shut my eyes when I heard a noise and looked at my clock again. Almost midnight! What was that noise? It sounded like a shower of little stones hitting the house. Peeking under the window shade, I saw somebody pick up another handful of whatever he was tossing.

  Holy moly. Why was Billy Wong throwing gravel at my window? Was he waking up my grandma? Dr. Wiggins’s medicine made her extra tired. I hoped she hadn’t heard!

  I threw my raincoat over my pajamas and jammed my feet into my tennis shoes without even unlacing them. I raced outside and grabbed Billy’s hand. “What are you doing?”

  What he was doing was gulping air and trying to talk at the same time. “They took Great Uncle off in an ambulance.”

  “Oh no! What happened?”

  Even though there was hardly a breeze fluttering in the night air, Billy’s teeth were chattering. “He may have had a heart attack.”

  Tears sneaked down behind his glasses. I looked the other way. “A heart attack?”

  “Somebody threw rotten eggs. At the store’s sign. And a big rock. Broke the glass. Scared us all!”

  “Who would do that?”

  Billy shook his head, slowly catching his breath. The porch light hit his black hair, his glasses, his face. “The meanest boy in Paris Junction,” he said. “My archenemy, Willis DeLoach.”

  “Willis? Why?”

  “Getting back for not letting him in the store? For you and me snooping around his house? Seeing him acting helpful? Laughing at that hairnet? I don’t know.”

  I chewed on a fingernail for the hundredth time since I’d come to Paris Junction. “I don’t think it was Willis.”

  “It was Willis all right. He’s sure I want to take his place on the track team. He’s mad at my great-uncle for reporting he was shoplifting.”

  But it wasn’t Willis. When the grocery store’s window shattered, Willis and Lizzie were sound asleep in my grandma’s garden. And if Grandma Clark finds out they’re sleeping in her precious room—full of things she cares about—and I hadn’t told her the truth, I will be in bigger trouble than Willis.

  “My family warned me to stay away from him. If they hear I went to play with that dumb puppy? They’ll be mad.” Billy grabbed my arm. “I had to come tell you that, Azalea. Nobody can know we trespassed on their property.”

  “I won’t say anything. Promise.”

  “I’d better go. Great Aunt will be worried.” He shook his head like he was trying to get rid of an awful picture, then whirled around and walked toward Main Street.

  Behind us, my grandmother’s bedroom window was dark, the house still and quiet. The honeysuckle’s sweetness filled the air and mixed with things I didn’t recognize, smoke or firecrackers, or maybe pure meanness. I was shivering and my stomach was in knots. But Billy was my friend. He needed me.

  “Wait! I’m coming.”

  Billy’s bright white T-shirt lit up in the moonlight, but the sidewalk was dark and bumpy and I stumbled. Billy didn’t even notice. By the time I was close enough to touch his arm, he’d scooted across Main Street.

  An idling police car beamed light on broken glass, on the glistening yellow egg yolks dripping down the door. Red paint splattered the crooked Lucky Foods sign. Even though it was past midnight, people gathered on the sidewalk, shaking their heads and talking. Billy walked closer to the store and a Chinese lady hugged him. Behind them, a little girl sobbed her eyes out. He pulled away, asking, “Is Great Uncle going to be okay?” They disappeared behind the grocery before I heard the answer.

  “See you later?” I called. But Billy had vanished into a circle of family. A policeman holding a small notebook walked toward me. Standing in my raincoat and pajamas, I froz
e.

  “Aren’t you a little young to be out here by yourself?” he asked.

  My tongue was thick in my mouth and my heart pounded so hard I couldn’t talk. When he reached down to pick up something shiny on the sidewalk, I dodged behind a car. I ran all the way to Grandma Clark’s.

  I hoped she was still sleeping. I wasn’t ready to talk. What would I say about anything that happened tonight? I tiptoed by her closed door and up the stairs.

  Outside my window, I heard that gigantic moth flapping against the screen again, and I put my hands over my ears, tight. I squeezed shut my eyes. But I couldn’t escape the memory of Billy’s tears. Or of people huddled together, pointing at the shattered window and the ruined Lucky Foods sign.

  Crime on Main Street

  The Reporter’s Five Ws, Just the Facts

  When?

  11:30 p.m., August 10, 1952.

  Where?

  Lucky Foods.

  What I heard:

  Bang! Glass breaking. Feet running.

  What I saw:

  Yellow egg yolk, sticky and runny.

  Smeared over the Lucky in the Lucky Foods sign.

  Red paint, ugly and bright. Not good-luck red.

  What I smelled:

  Rotten eggs and maybe firecrackers.

  What I know:

  My friend says everybody loves my family.

  Somebody must not.

  What I feel:

  Sick to my stomach.

  But newspaper reporters aren’t supposed to

  write what they feel.

  Just the facts.

  Who?

  I don’t know.

  Why?

  I don’t know.

  Billy Wong,

  Reporting from My Cot Next to the Kitchen Door,

  Behind the Grocery Store

  Crime on Main Street

  How I Really Feel

  Torn up inside.

  Like a jagged chunk of broken glass has sliced my

  heart in two pieces.

  One piece wants to knock Willis down.

  Grind my shoe’s heel into his thick head

  until he says sorry.

  The other punches

  my pillow.

  All

  Night

  Long.

  Billy Wong, Mad as Everything

  Early the next morning after I’d run away from that policeman at Lucky Foods, I tiptoed to our kitchen. Remembering the smell of those rotten eggs closed my throat up, but I grabbed a banana and a glass of water and stared out the back door. One thing was for sure: Billy and his family had each other. Willis was my problem. Scary or not, I knew what I needed to do.

  After a quick glance back at my grandmother’s bedroom window, I tapped on the shed door. Nobody answered. The key was under the roof eave. I opened the door and whispered across the morning light. “Willis? Lizzie?”

  They were gone. Not even a muddy shoe print left behind. Grandma Clark’s china collection was safe on the shelves. But a big chair was pulled out like somebody had slept there. I leaned over to push it under the desk, stumbled, banged my knee, and let out a loud “Ow!” When I grabbed my knee, my sandal hit a cardboard box. It spilled open. Letters fell out. All over the floor.

  I picked one up. Then another. They were addressed to me! Grandma Clark’s beautiful writing slanted across every single sealed-up envelope. The same script that was on my birthday card and on her note inviting—no, ordering—me to Paris Junction.

  But on these letters in my mama’s handwriting, Return to Sender was scribbled across the envelope. Why hadn’t she read them to me?

  Stuffing three letters in my pocket, I put the shoe box back under the desk.

  Then I pulled it out again. I shouldn’t take them. Somebody had carefully hidden the letters in the shed. I should put them back in the box, sealed up, as neat as I found them. Billy says it’s against the law to mess with somebody else’s mail.

  But these were mine.

  So I kept the letters, locked the shed door, hid the key, and tiptoed back inside.

  While Grandma Clark was still sleeping, I took one out and smoothed the envelope flat on the table.

  Azalea Ann Morgan

  321A Hillcrest Street

  Horseshoe Bend, Texas

  Our apartment when I was in first grade.

  The second letter was addressed

  Azalea Ann Morgan

  RFD 3

  Shamrock, Texas

  We had to ride a bus into town. Daddy claimed good luck grew on the trees at the little farmhouse we rented. Turns out, it didn’t.

  I flipped the envelopes over. On every back flap, the same address.

  Mrs. Robert C. Clark

  14 Ruby Street

  Paris Junction, Arkansas

  All those places Mama, Daddy, and me lived, the different houses and schools and streets? My grandmother has lived on Ruby Street in Paris Junction since forever.

  Before I could unseal a single letter, I heard Grandma Clark’s cane clacking! I stuffed them in my pocket just as she hobbled into the kitchen, one arm in a sling and her gray hair sticking out every which-a-way.

  She propped her cane next to the sink, sank into a chair, and pursed up her lips like Mama does when she’s mad. “Azalea? Do you have something to tell me?”

  “No, ma’am.” I didn’t think Grandma Clark had X-ray vision. So she couldn’t know I’d found her letters. I picked at a rough edge of my thumbnail. I didn’t bite it this time. I was trying to keep a promise to Daddy about my fingernails.

  “The telephone rang. Woke me up. Where were you?”

  In her shed looking for Willis and his sister, snitching my letters. “Guess I was brushing my teeth and didn’t hear,” I fibbed.

  “Melinda’s mother called. Mavis Bowman, the operator.”

  Uh-oh. Could she see me all the way from the telephone company across town? Did she know I was outside opening the shed door? I took a sip of the water I’d left on the kitchen table and tried to act normal. I couldn’t tell anybody about Willis and Lizzie in the shed. Anybody, right now, meant my grandmother, of course.

  “Mrs. Bowman called to say Melinda had choir practice and couldn’t help today.”

  I breathed easier. For about a second.

  “Told her I didn’t need help today. Of course, she had to gossip about a ruckus at Lucky Foods. She took the call for Dr. Wiggins.” Grandma Clark leaned in close and held my hand tight. “I thought I heard something late last night. Or did I dream that siren racing toward downtown?”

  I couldn’t confess I’d sneaked off to Mr. Wong’s store long after I was supposed to be asleep, so I answered, “Want me to go find out?”

  Grandma Clark leaned back, twisting the unraveling edge of her scarf sling. “I should call the Wongs. But I hate to disturb them if things aren’t right.”

  “I’ll go. I ate breakfast already.” I held up my banana peel.

  “Jump on your bike. Go see what’s what.”

  I already knew what was what. The Lucky Foods grocery store had been vandalized. The Wongs blamed Willis DeLoach. Willis and Lizzie had slept in my grandmother’s off-limits shed.

  And somebody—possibly me—was gonna be in big trouble.

  As I pedaled toward Lucky Foods, two thoughts played in my head like a broken record. Grandma Clark can’t find out I knew Willis slept in her shed. Mr. Wong needs to be okay. Willis in the shed. Mr. Wong okay. Okay, okay, okay. Please.

  But things weren’t okay. The minute I stopped my bike, I saw a lady scrubbing caked-on raw eggs from the Lucky Foods sign.

  Inside, the sun streamed in and landed on the counter, making me think of my first time here. Back when I was afraid I’d never be able to talk to Billy or his great-uncle. The day Willis’s pocket change rolled under the cash register and he hightailed it outside with Mr. Wong mad as the dickens.

  I squeezed my hands together to keep from shaking, and I walked toward the bins of pears and apples. “Hey, Bil
ly. How’s Mr. Wong?” I asked.

  Propping his broom against a shelf of detergent boxes, he said, “Can’t talk about it now,” and he disappeared behind a neat shelf of Martha White Flour bags.

  The air inside Lucky Foods wasn’t moving. I had to get out of here. To run as fast as I could back to Grandma Clark’s. But Billy was my friend. Why didn’t he want to talk?

  I stepped away from the shelves and toward the broken glass. “Want some help? I could sweep up.”

  Billy kept his back to me while he straightened soup cans, but his voice was quiet and steady. “If Willis DeLoach did this, and it was because he was mad at me for trespassing on his property, I’m not sure you and I can be friends.”

  Tears rushed into my eyes before I could even answer. When you only have a few friends, you don’t like it when they’re mad. Or sad. I had to tell Billy the truth about Willis and Lizzie.

  “It wasn’t Willis,” I said quietly. “I promise.”

  Billy turned around and took off his glasses, cleaning them on the tail of his shirt. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Azalea.”

  I stared at the broken glass, the toppled-over cereal boxes near the front window, the red paint. Anywhere but looking Billy in the eye. “Willis and Lizzie were sleeping in my grandmother’s garden shed,” I said. “All night.”

  Billy’s mouth flew wide open. “What? Her shed?”

  “They sneaked in because Lizzie was afraid to be by herself. I didn’t know till I caught them out there.”

  “You should report it to the authorities. Or at least to Mrs. Clark.”

  I followed Billy to the door of Lucky Foods, brushing past the cooling box full of milk bottles. But it wasn’t ice making me shiver. “I can’t tell! My grandmother doesn’t allow anybody inside that shed, and Willis and Lizzie slept there.”