by Joan Bauer
“What did he mean about honor?”
Poppy runs her hand through her short gray hair. “I’m not getting in this fight, young man. There’s too many shadows. You just believe your mom is going to do the best thing for you she knows how to do.”
“What if she doesn’t do the best thing?”
“You’ll live, regardless.”
“If Dad was here, he’d be teaching me.”
“That’s right,” Poppy snaps. “But you just remember, whatever happens, that down deep inside you there’s a whale of a champion, just like your father.”
CHAPTER
Mom stands at the counter in the kitchen finishing her oatmeal. Camille’s already left for school. Poppy’s taking her morning energy walk. Mom’s talking fast about how Larry Troller called this morning to tell her that last night the citizens’ patrol got some drug pusher arrested who’d been using the abandoned Chrysler dealership on Krenshaw Street as his warehouse.
I’m glad about the pusher. Petie Pencastle’s brother started taking drugs last year and had to go to a special hospital to not want them anymore. I made a poster in school for Health Week with a skull and crossbones on it that said BAD DRUGS ARE BAD NEWS. Mrs. Riggles hung it in the best place in the hall, right next to the water fountain.
“We’re going to trumpet this all over town,” Mom says. “This will bring volunteers in.” She rinses her bowl in the sink, grabs her tan coat. “Got to run. You have a good day, honey.” She touches my shoulder and heads out the back door and down the steps like Joseph Alvarez never came to dinner last night.
I shove my oatmeal away.
I can’t believe she did that!
I race into my room, which is right off the kitchen, jump over my blue beanbag chair by my bunk bed, push the clothes aside in my closet, and open the secret door that leads to the roof. My room’s the smallest in the house; I picked it because of the passageway. I head up the dark stairs fast, touching the wall on either side to steady myself, moving toward the strip of light under the roof door. I get to it, push the door open, and step out on the flat, black surface.
I take a big breath and let it out slow. Poppy says that helps with anger. It doesn’t much today. I stare out at the stone bell tower at the Lutheran church, at the cop cars going in and out of the Botts Street police station, at the low-hanging clouds over Zeke’s Towing. When we studied weather in school, Mrs. Riggles gave me an A+ in cloud recognition. The clouds over Zeke’s are cumulonimbus—flat bottoms with flowing, puffy tops, the kind that bring showers.
It’s warmer today. The wind picks up over Mackey’s Auto Supplies and fills my windsock full. I made it with one of Mom’s old nylons—attached the nylon to a wire loop, stuck that with string onto a bamboo stick, and let it fly. A garbage truck blows black smoke in the air on its way to the dump as the bells at Grace Lutheran Church start ringing.
It’s eight o’clock; time to go to school.
I head down the stairs, through my closet, and down the back kitchen steps.
* * *
At school I tell Arlen about everything. He says adults need extra time to get reasonable when they’ve acted immature. He points at Mr. Borderbomb, the school principal, who’s walking down the hall fast.
“He’s wearing his mallard duck tie,” Arlen whispers to me. “He’s been mad five out of the last six times he’s worn it.”
Arlen sees patterns in everything.
Mr. Borderbomb stops at the big picture of Grover Cleveland hanging by the lunchroom. Grover Cleveland was born in New Jersey and became the twenty-second and twenty-fourth president of the United States, taking a break in between when he got beaten by Benjamin Harrison. We studied him last fall during Giants of New Jersey Week along with Thomas Edison, the inventor, Vince Lombardi, the football coach, and Joyce Kilmer, the poet. They all have rest stops named after them on the New Jersey Turnpike. Mr. Borderbomb looks like he’s got gas; so does Grover Cleveland. Mr. Borderbomb yells at three kids who are making noise outside the library and tells Mr. LaPont, the janitor, that the boys’ bathroom is a mess again.
We hide under the stairwell as he storms by. Arlen can also tell when Coach Crow is going to lose it—usually it’s right after Petie Pencastle misses his third free throw in basketball. Arlen can’t see patterns in parents yet.
He also can’t see why we have to sing these dumb songs in music appreciation when there are plenty of good songs around like “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” Ms. Weisenberg is planning the big spring concert and the fifth grade has to sing a song about the first robin of spring. T. R. Dobbs, who has the best speaking voice, is supposed to shout, “Look, everyone, here comes a robin!” right in the middle of the song. T.R. says he’s going to eat soap and puke the night of the concert so he doesn’t have to do it. Arlen and I are having a slow-walking contest to music appreciation class to postpone the pain.
We get there eventually (I win) and sneak into our seats. Ms. Weisenberg stretches that long neck of hers and yells at the boys to “Sing out!” This always makes the girls laugh, especially Cindy Gunner. Then the boys have to sing our part alone, which is worse than eating creamed spinach, because Ms. Weisenberg’s hands are waving in the air trying to get us to sing “fuller.” We sing a little louder, which is the last thing anyone wants to do with a loser song. By the time the bell rings, the only thing we appreciate about music class is that it’s over.
It’s raining when school gets out. Arlen and I take the school bus home and sing “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall” loud with the rest of the fifth-grade boys so the girls know we can do it. Arlen and I get off at the sixty-eighth bottle right before his carsickness hits and walk the last two blocks down Mariah Boulevard.
All day long I’ve been thinking how to say it.
Maybe “You don’t like Joseph Alvarez, do you, Mom?”
Or “Mom, is there something about Joseph Alvarez that bothers you?”
Arlen heads off to his cousin Francine’s house, where he stays after school when his parents have to work late.
“Just remember,” he says, “your mother isn’t going to want to talk about it. When my mom hung the beechwood kitchen cabinets too high in the Krebbs’ new addition and had to rip them out and hang them lower, she wouldn’t talk about it for two months.”
* * *
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Mom’s face has that hard look it gets when she’s had it; even her freckles look mad. I don’t want to talk about it much either, but . . .
“You don’t like Joseph Alvarez, do you, Mom?”
She stiffens. “Mickey, I’ve had one lousy day. We took nineteen three-year-olds to Toy Town to see how a business is run. Donny Palmer threw up on the bus. Cybil Docks and Jenny Romano had a fight in aisle twelve over the last Baby Oh-So-Sweet doll. Joshua Cohn lost his shoes!”
She collapses on the blue corduroy chair in the living room and covers herself with the little plaid blanket. I push the footstool over, put her feet on it.
“You don’t trust him, do you, Mom?”
Her eyes crash shut. “We haven’t seen Joseph for a very long time, Mickey. It bothers me that he thinks he can just stroll in here like—”
“Poppy seems to like him,” I say.
Mom nods. “Poppy always did.”
“Dad liked him?”
“Yes.”
“I kind of like him, Mom.”
Nothing.
“Is it okay if I like him?”
“It’s okay,” she says, rubbing her eyes. But I don’t think she means it. I hear the echo of pool balls clicking up from the hall.
I say the next part fast. “Is it okay if he helps me with my pool game so I can beat Buck into the dirt?”
Mom sighs deep and looks at me. “Mickey, I understand how much you want this.”
“He’s the awesomest player, Mom, because Dad taught him!”
She throws off the blanket. “There are things, honey, that you don�
�t understand. I need to think about what’s right for you!”
“Winning is right for me!”
“This is not about winning!” Mom bolts up. “There are things, young man, that you don’t understand!”
* * *
Mom goes to lie down in her bedroom. Since it’s Friday afternoon, she says I can go to Francine’s house as long as I’m home by dinner. Francine’s house is a good place to go to when there are things you don’t understand. Camille offers to drive me; she’ll do anything to get behind the wheel.
Camille twirls up her long curly hair, sticks it under her floppy black hat, and steers Mom’s old red Chevy down Flax Street. “Ugh. There are parts of this town that are positively decaying. Look at that sign over Cassetti’s Bakery, Mickey. The wood’s so cracked you can hardly read it.”
“Mrs. Cassetti’s helping her granddaughter go to college,” I remind her. “She said signs cost money and everybody already knows where the bakery is.”
“If Poppy just painted Vernon’s purple like I’ve suggested, it could start a major trend.”
“Yeah, nobody’d come in the hall anymore.”
“A creative trend, Mickey. We’re too limited here. Boring brick stores, apartments on top.”
“What’s wrong with brick?”
She sighs and turns the corner a little fast. The tires screech.
I hold on to my seat belt. “What about those new stores going up on Botts Street?” I ask her. “What about Pinkerton Park getting all cleaned up?”
“Honestly, I don’t know why Mother stays here.”
I look out the window at Officer Hack, who’s waving from her patrol car as we drive by. I wave back.
“You do too know why.”
Camille bites her lip and holds the steering wheel so tight all the rings on her fingers stand up. Mom loves Cruckston. When Dad died, people poured out to help, even folks she didn’t know. We had to borrow space in people’s freezers to hold all the casseroles neighbors sent. That’s why Mom started up the citizens’ patrol. She says at the heart of Cruckston is something that won’t die—hope.
I shout to Camille to slow down, the light just turned red. She hits the brakes and almost rams a bus.
“This is close enough!” I yell. I jump out of the car and run the last block to Francine’s.
* * *
“See,” says Francine, holding out her official Magicians’ Society card. “There’s a rabbit on it. I’ve got to have a rabbit for my act.”
Arlen and I look at the picture of a little rabbit coming out of a black hat and nod. Francine is eleven years old and the only official magician either of us knows. I asked her once if she could make Buck Pender disappear and she said she couldn’t.
Francine opens her mouth and picks at her braces. “You can’t play Vegas without a rabbit. I talked to Sister Immaculata about it and she said that what could really convince my parents to get me one is if I come up with a list for why I need it.” Sister Immaculata is the new nun at St. Xavier’s Academy and Francine talks to her all the time.
“She has a past, you know,” Francine continues. “She used to work in advertising. It’s better when nuns have a past because it means they understand life. I’m going to be a nun after I’ve played Vegas.”
Francine adds glitter to her sign that she made out of posterboard. She’s used four bottles of red glitter on it already. It says
!!!!!!!THE AMAZING FRANCINE!!!!!!!
You can read it from half a block away if your eyes are decent. Francine wants a paying magic job more than anything.
She steps back, brushes glitter off the plaid jumper the nuns make her wear, and squints at the poster. “Well,” she says, “Buck Pender’s been at it again.” Arlen and I move closer. Buck got transferred to Francine’s school in January after getting kicked out of Thomas Edison Junior High for being a scum. Francine says Catholics let anybody in. The nuns like a challenge.
Francine watches Buck’s every move, too, even though he’s in seventh grade and she’s in sixth. “Buck took longer in confession today than anyone,” she reports. “Only God and the priest know what he’s been up to. But his parents came to school yesterday and I overheard them talking to Father Gilly about military school.”
Francine overhears things by standing near open doors and listening.
“One that’s far away,” I add. “Maybe he could get transferred before the tournament.”
She puts her hands on her hips. “You’re going to have to think of another way to win, Mickey.”
“I’ve thought of one.” I tell about Joseph Alvarez and my mom.
Francine wrinkles her long nose. “This Joseph Alvarez smells fishy. I’m sure your mother is protecting you from the truth about him. He’s probably a criminal. Sister Immaculata once sat next to a man on the train all the way to St. Louis and they talked for two entire days and then he tried to rob her when they got off the train and she had her nun suit on! But then this other man came out of nowhere and frightened the robber away. Sister Immaculata got to keep her money and her life because she walks with God.”
“I don’t think he’s a criminal,” I say.
“You never know about people,” Francine says. “Maybe only your mother knew his terrifying secret and she was keeping it from the family because your dad was so sick. Maybe his whole family is crazy!”
“My dad taught him how to play!” I shout. “I need to learn from him!”
Francine smiles, reaches her empty hand out to my ear, and makes a quarter appear. It’s one of her better tricks.
“Just lay it on thick,” Francine says, pocketing the money. “It’s the only way to handle mothers.”
CHAPTER
It’s so thick around here, I’m choking.
I make Mom breakfast in bed on Saturday with little sausages and my Mickey’s Famous Banana Bread. All she says is that I’m a terrific chef and a wonderful son. Then she goes out for her Saturday-morning bike ride with her best friend, Serena Gillette, who taught Camille how to sew since Mom falls apart with a needle and thread. Serena and her husband are fixing up the broken-down movie theater on Botts Street. They’re going to call it Gillette’s Movie Palace. It’s going to be the best thing this town has ever seen next to Vernon’s. Serena and Mom are riding to the old clock tower near the General Tire plant and when I say that’s really far for women their age, Serena slaps me on my butt with her helmet.
It’s my day to do laundry. I’ve got to wash all Camille’s neon blouses in cold water or she’ll hang me out to dry. I drag the big laundry basket down Flax Street making groaning noises.
Mr. Kopchnik walks outside his fix-it shop with Cindy Winsocki, who’s sniffling; he’s holding her doll Matilda. Matilda’s head and arms are off again. Mr. Kopchnik fixes toys and dolls for free.
“I’m going to glue Matilda up and stick her in the little bed in the back while she dries overnight. It’s going to be like nothing was ever wrong with this doll.”
Cindy nods and runs to her mother, who’s standing in front of Cassetti’s Bakery.
Mr. Kopchnik looks at me through his round wire glasses. “So, champion!” he says. “You famous yet?”
I smile. “Not yet.”
“Just a matter of time,” he says, and bends over halfway to watch Mrs. Petrillo stomp across Flax Street, holding a toaster.
“It’s sick,” she says, handing it to him. “I tried everything.”
Mr. Kopchnik puts Matilda in his big jacket pocket and holds the toaster like it’s a baby.
“It burns the toast,” Mrs. Petrillo goes. “It doesn’t burn the toast.”
“You want the toast burned, Sophie?”
“I want it regular, Oscar.”
Mr. Kopchnik scratches his partly bald head and smiles at the little sign in his window:
IF I CAN’T FIX IT,
YOU’VE GOT A PROBLEM
He holds the shop door open for Mrs. Petrillo.
“I never lost a toaster yet,” he
says, following her inside.
By the time I get the laundry done all the pool tables at Vernon’s are filled with paying customers. Paying customers always get to play before me—Poppy’s rule. I wait around until four o’clock, grab table sixteen by the window, and only play okay.
On Sunday Mom doesn’t once ask me what’s wrong even though I walk around with that miserable expression on my face that always makes her feel sorry for me. I practice pool for two hours in the afternoon, but I’m still not shooting great. My English shots are sloppy. English is the spin you put on the ball to get it to line up for the next shot. Buck’s watching me, laughing every time I miss.
I think he’d look real nice in a military-school uniform.
I can hear him laughing all the way through Monday.
In school Mrs. Riggles tells us about the Minutemen, who were volunteer soldiers who fought against the British in the American Revolution. They trained fast, were ready to fight “at a minute’s notice,” and pushed back the British in the first battles of the war, Lexington and Concord. I’d like to be a Minuteman.
My mom probably wouldn’t let me do that, either.
Rory Magellan is acting like he knows the secret of the century, and it’s making Arlen crazy. Rory’s one of those smart kids who makes sure everybody knows it. He’s got a pinched-in face and looks like he just took a big breath. Rory’s sitting on the front school steps during recess talking loud with his fourth-grade friends about the anemometer he made, which measures how fast the wind is blowing. This year Rory’s mother is organizing the science fair.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” Arlen screams.
Petie Pencastle and I look at each other.
“It means that he’ll get the best table for his experiment. It means he’ll know everything before I do! It means she’ll pick the judges!”
“So what?” says Petie. “You won the last two years and your mother didn’t organize it.”
Petie doesn’t understand how bad Arlen wants to win. No one’s ever won the science fair ribbon three years in a row. Arlen storms off saying his mother never volunteers for the right things at school.
