by Susan Vaught
Ms. Jorgensen hesitated. Her head lowered. “Mr. Chiba. Please go back to your desk.”
Instead, Mr. Chiba came all the way into the office. He folded his arms and stared at her, and at Coach Sedon. “I’m not being quiet about this anymore. Fire me if you want, but I’m through with ‘let me handle this,’ because neither of you are handling anything and this is out of hand. Somebody’s going to get hurt a lot worse than a broken nose if you don’t put a stop to it.”
Coach Sedon pulled his wrist out of Ms. Jorgensen’s grip. “Are you letting him talk to you like that?”
“Actually, yes. Please stay out of it.” Ms. Jorgensen ushered Coach Sedon over to his chair and made him sit down. Then she turned back to Dad, Mr. Chiba, Springer, and me. “Can we agree to just give it the weekend?” To Dad, she said, “Please, just take Jesse home. We need to let things settle down.”
Dad didn’t respond. He just gave Ms. Jorgensen his dad look.
Ms. Jorgensen sighed. Without looking behind her, she said, “I know those three have crossed the line. They’re getting three days of formal. It’s got to stop, what they’re doing. All of them.”
Coach Sedon didn’t say anything. He just rubbed his hand and stayed that awful red color.
“Not Springer,” I said to Dad, pulling at his belt. “He didn’t—”
“No, not him,” Ms. Jorgensen said. “Springer followed the rules and came to get an adult.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Springer, relieved.
But he didn’t look relieved. He looked miserable.
Before I could ask him what was wrong, he hurried out of the office, passing Mr. Chiba without saying a word. I heard the gate at the front counter bang and figured Springer was headed straight out the front door of the school.
Dad and I headed out, too. With every step, I kept thinking Springer had just needed air, that he’d be waiting for us.
When Dad and I got outside, though, Springer was nowhere to be seen.
“I guess he decided to walk home,” Dad said.
“I guess he decided to walk home,” I echoed, feeling shaky and strange and hollow, glancing around and counting cars and people but not seeing anything remotely Springer-like.
“Get in. I’ll go let Mr. Chiba know he’s not with us, so he can check in with Springer’s parents.”
I nodded and got in the car.
And then as Dad went back into the junior high, I put my face in my hands, and I cried.
24
Friday, Three Days Earlier, Late Afternoon
Sounds like some good detective work, Private Broadview,” Mom said. Then she yawned, because it was somewhere around midnight in Mosul.
“But Dad didn’t even ask me what we found out,” I told her as I sat on my bed taking turns between painting my nails purple and gazing at the screen on the iPad Aunt Gus had delivered to me.
Sam-Sam lay right next to me, staring at Mom’s image just like I did.
“I think he’s a little overwhelmed,” Mom said. She had on a sand-colored T-shirt and sand-colored pants, and her hair lay against her shoulder in a sweaty ponytail. Shotgun sat next to her in front of the tent wall, tongue lolling out, panting faster than I could breathe.
“Why is Dad overwhelmed?” I asked Mom as I finished all the easy nails on my left. “Because of the money and the hearing?”
She smiled. “Maybe because you and your friend are turning out to be better detectives than the police, and because of one of those brats biting you in the head. He was so upset you got hurt at school. That’s why he made the emergency call to me.”
I reached up with the hand I hadn’t started on and patted the back of my head. “I didn’t really get hurt. No stitches or anything. My arms are just sore.” A lump seemed to jump into my throat, and I choked, then coughed, then managed to squeeze out, “But I’m not sure Springer’s still my friend.”
Mom’s expression turned horrified. “Oh, honey. What happened?”
I barely managed to get the lid on the polish before I choked again, and the tears came, and Sam started licking my face, and I told her. Everything. Every detail about what happened after we questioned our suspects. Even the parts about our observation session that went wrong, and the pine branch, and swimming across the pond, and bashing Chris’s nose with my head and cutting myself on his teeth, and how the coach treated us in the office. When I finished, I had my arms around my dog and my face in his fur as he frantically licked my throat and chin.
“Good move with that kid who grabbed you,” Mom said. “You remember our self-defense lessons, Private. I’m impressed.”
“I bet Dad didn’t think it was a good move. I bet Springer didn’t, either. Maybe that’s why he left like that—because I hit people yesterday and today, too, and he thinks it’s wrong.”
“Maybe,” Mom said. “But he probably just needs some time. That was an intense situation today, Jesse.”
“Intense,” I echoed, and Sam licked my teeth.
Mom let out a loud breath. “Did that boy really talk you out of a meltdown? In the hallway, after the fight?”
I pulled Sam gently away from my face and kissed his nose. “Springer was great. I can’t wait for you to meet him, except I think Shotgun would terrify him and I don’t think he’d ever shoot at people, even if they’re bad guys.”
Mom smiled again when I looked at her, then got a more thoughtful look on her pretty mom face. “Some people don’t see the world in terms of good guys and bad guys.”
That made me focus a little more, trying to sort through the confusion of those words. “But if they don’t—I mean, how do they see it?”
Mom shrugged one shoulder and leaned closer to her screen. “They see a world full of imperfect, troubled people. They see everyone as more equal.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to take that in, but I couldn’t quite get my head around it. “Do you think Springer’s mad at me for fighting?”
“I don’t know. He may be mad at himself because he didn’t fight.”
I felt better enough to shake the nail polish and start on my hard hand as I thought about the way Springer faced down Coach Sedon without ever getting out of his chair or raising his voice or saying anything ugly at all. “I don’t think Springer’s mad about not fighting,” I told Mom as I finished my thumbnail. “Springer’s brave and he got help when I asked him to. I mean, I understand why he doesn’t fight. He’s like Dad. Springer could have beaten the snot out of all of them, but he chooses not to. Is it wrong that I hit back?”
“Everybody has their wars, Jesse, and everybody fights their wars in different ways. You and I, we hit back. Springer and your dad don’t.”
It was my turn to frown. “Are we protecting them, or are they protecting us?”
“That . . . is a very good question, Private Broadview.” Mom’s eyes seemed to dance in front of me. I could even see the tiny drops of sweat in her eyebrows. “Anything else on your mind tonight?”
“Dad’s still mad at me for investigating.” I finished the last couple of nails, put the lid on the polish, then blew on my fingers to help everything dry.
“Those are seriously purple,” Mom said.
I smiled. Then I stopped smiling. “Doesn’t he know how important he is to me?”
“He does,” Mom said. “He just doesn’t want you in trouble or hurt.”
“Well, I don’t want him in jail.” I waved my hands around to increase airflow, and Sam ran around trying to lick my elbows. “But I didn’t really figure anything out, except it’s probably not Josh and definitely not Maleka. It’s probably not even Jerkface or the cockroaches, even if I wish it had been one of them, because I don’t think they could have gotten in the doors, or been over at the senior high without somebody knowing, except they might ride with Trisha’s sister’s friend a lot, since their parents always have to work late and they have study period at the end of the day. And, speaking of Trisha’s sister, it could have been her friend Nancy, or Ms. Jorgensen,
or Coach Sedon.” I stopped listing suspects long enough to groan. “I guess it might have been anybody.”
“Who do you really think it is? Not just your head thought.” Mom moved away from the screen so I could see her whole face, and she touched her temple. “But your gut thought.” She touched her tummy. “What do your emotions tell you? Your heart? Your instinct?”
I stared at the pad on the bed in front of me, feeling like Mom had just punched me in the stomach. Even though my nails might still be sticky, I wrapped my arms around my middle and rocked, trying to handle the huge rush of heat in my chest and face.
No meltdowns in front of Mom. No more meltdowns at all. Too old for meltdowns. Too strong for meltdowns . . .
“Jesse?” Mom sounded worried. “Honey? What is it? What did I say?”
The words wouldn’t come. Just the rocking. So I rocked. Then I rocked some more.
“Come back to me,” Mom said, her voice tinny in the pad speakers. “Please.”
I tried, and Sam-Sam helped by standing on his tiny back legs and pawing at my sore shoulder.
“Jesse?” Mom said again. And then more army-stern. “Private Broadview.”
My head snapped up at her tone.
The world inside me slowed down a little, enough for me to count to twenty and back down again, fast at first, then slower.
“That’s it,” Mom said. “Take it easy.”
It took a few more seconds before I could stop moving, stop the heat, and glance in Mom’s direction.
She waited, her expression intense and worried, but not mad.
I paid attention to my breathing, getting air all the way in, then all the way out. When I thought my voice would work, I said, “All those things you said. Emotions and heart and instinct.” Deep breath. Bigger breath. “Do you really think I have those things the same way normal people do?”
“Of course you have them.” Tears glistened in the corner of Mom’s eyes, turned sandy-colored by reflections and the tent lighting. She leaned toward the screen again. “If I were there, I’d ask to hug you.”
“I’d let you,” I told her.
“Why would you think you don’t have emotions and heart and instinct the same way normal people do, Jesse?” she asked.
“Because whatever’s broken in me, I sort of thought those were the things that got most messed up.”
“Nothing’s broken in you,” Mom insisted. “You see and experience the world differently. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just harder on you, trying to live in the society we’ve set up.”
“I want to believe that, but—”
“But what?” Mom asked.
“Do you ever regret naming me after your brother?” The words came out so fast I couldn’t stop them, even though I sort of wanted to as I started saying them. “Since I’m not . . . well, exactly like everybody else, and all?”
Mom’s serious face got even more serious. “I absolutely don’t regret it. Your uncle would think you’re the most perfect thing in the universe.”
I looked at her eyes for just a few seconds, her brown eyes, so like Uncle Jesse’s in the picture, and mine, too. “How do you know that?”
“Because my brother saw the truth of people,” Mom said. “He’d know how strong you are.”
“I don’t feel very strong.” I tried to smile but couldn’t. “I don’t ever do anything important. Not like you do. Not like Uncle Jesse would have done if he lived.”
“Private Broadview, I order you to see your own worth.” Mom reached her hand toward the screen again. “What you do doesn’t matter. Who you are is enough. It’s more than enough, Jesse.”
“But, Mom, what I do does matter.” Why was my voice so quiet? I didn’t mean to be whispering, but I was. “Because it matters to me.”
Mom’s hand lowered to her lap, and now she was the one who looked like she’d been punched. Only, Mom had never been one for the whole freak-out-and-rock thing. “All right,” she said. “I hear you. If that’s the case, then get out of your own way, Private. Stop treating yourself like you’re broken and tell me, in that heart you really do have, in that gut that really knows things your mind isn’t seeing, in those beautiful emotions you really do feel in your very own way—who stole your father’s money?”
I thought about it, and felt it, and thought about it some more, and held my dog, and kissed my Sam, and finally, I said, “Coach Sedon or Ms. Jorgensen.”
Mom scratched her chin. “Explain.”
“Ms. Jorgensen keeps not being where she’s supposed to be, and her reactions to stuff have been . . . weird. She makes a pinch-face every time we bring up anything about the money.”
Mom blinked. “A pinch-face?”
“Like this.” I mashed my hands against my cheeks and squinted my eyes.
“I see,” Mom said. “And Coach Sedon?”
I stopped mashing my face and sat very, very still on my bed. The thought of the Sedons, Chris and his dad both—yuck. “Jerkface and Trisha, they’re mean buttheads. But Chris and his father, it’s more than that. Coach Sedon, it’s like he’s—well, something’s really wrong with him, Mom.”
Mom’s face tightened, and her eyes got a flinty, stern look. “Then stay away from him, Private. Investigate all you want, but don’t go one-on-one with Chris or his father.”
I nodded.
“Promise,” Mom said.
“I promise,” I told her.
Mom sighed and reached her fingertips toward the screen one more time. “When you go back to school Monday, just be careful and stay away from that whole bunch of people. Your dad and I, we’re through letting this play out on its own. We’re making a school board complaint about the bullying—and about Coach Sedon for how he acted in the office, and Ms. Jorgensen for not putting a stop to all of this.”
I thought about arguing, but every time I moved my arms and felt how sore they were, I knew I was done with Jerkface and the cockroaches.
“I’ll stay away from them,” I told Mom. “Or I’ll make them stay away from me.”
Mom gazed at me across sand and oceans and trees and miles and miles, one warrior to another. Then she gave me a single, quick thumbs-up that meant just . . . everything.
After that, she stretched out her arms, and I had to smile as she said, “I love you this much.”
“And I love you this much.” I blew her the big slobbery kiss she was waiting for.
Then, across those same sands and oceans and trees and miles and miles, Mom punched a button on her screen, and left me in Kentucky, without her.
• • •
“Here.” I nudged Sam-Sam toward the pile of leaves and dirt in front of the clubhouse, where I’d buried his container. We were at one of fifteen on tries so far. Not much improvement. But I kept lying on the ground beside him, doing my best, because I absolutely was not giving up on this, even though it was getting close to dark.
Sam dug at a leaf near my hand.
My eyebrows lifted, and a tiny bit of hope surged in my chest. “That’s it,” I whispered. “Keep looking. You can find it. I know you can.”
Sam looked at me. At the leaf. At me.
He picked up the leaf and offered it to me.
I sighed and dropped my face into the dirt.
Stretching my neck felt good on my sore shoulders, so I just stayed still for a minute, letting my muscles rest.
Sam darted around and around my stretched-out arms and legs, bouncing off my head as he searched for my face like he never seemed to want to look for the hidden containers. After a few laps, he gave up and tugged at the leg of my jeans, growling as he pulled.
I smiled into the dirt.
Sam suddenly stopped tugging and started growling for real, a loud throaty rumble too big for his fuzzy little body.
I sat up so fast I got dirt on my lips and had to scrub it off before I reached for him.
He darted away from me and the clubhouse, toward the main path, barking like a maniac. Scrambling to my knees,
then my feet, I lurched after him, barely able to catch my breath. What if it was Jerkface or Trisha? Worse, what if it was Chris—or his dad?
“Sam!”
His barks rattled the leaves.
“Sam-Sam!” I called, running now.
And then Sam stopped barking.
Before I could start screaming, Springer walked into view in the gray-blue twilight, carrying Sam in his arms.
I stumbled to a stop, mouth open, drooling dirt onto my blue shirt.
Springer looked from my drool to my hands to my dog as he got closer. “Working with the containers again?”
I nodded, brain buzzing but not itching, which was good, but I really didn’t know what the buzzing meant.
Springer handed Sam to me. “Maybe he’s just not going to learn to do that.”
I wiped my mouth on Sam’s fur, then made myself look at Springer. “Are you still my friend?”
“Of course I am.” He sounded genuinely shocked. Looked shocked, too. “I figured you and your dad were really mad at me—I mean, Chris hurt you. He bit your head and I didn’t even try to fight. So I deserved you being mad, and I thought you wouldn’t want to ride in the car with me.”
“We weren’t mad at you.” I handed dirt-drool Sam-Sam back to him, because he looked like he needed a dog. “You probably only thought that because of all the mean stuff Coach Sedon said to you.”
Springer kissed Sam’s head, away from the dirt-drool, and he nodded.
“He’s a bigger Jerkface than Jerkface, and an even huger cockroach than his kid,” I said. “We’ll call him Jerkface Cockroach, enemy of OBWIG.”
Springer laughed, but he was still hugging Sam tight and close. “You . . . you really aren’t mad? I was hoping we could talk when I came here, but I was ready to apologize and everything, if I needed to.”
“Come on,” I told him, jerking a thumb toward the clubhouse. “I’ve got cold Cokes and some Twinkies. And I thought you were really brave, when you stood up to Jerkface Cockroach, enemy of OBWIG.”
