Almost Home

by Joan Bauer

  There’s a knock at the door. And my heart sinks. I just know.

  My father comes walking through the door with two bouquets of flowers. He smiles his Hollywood smile and bows. “Ladies, with my compliments.” He gives one to Reba and one to Helen. He puts a box of chocolates on the table. His eyes look funny.

  “Now you’re talking,” Chandler says, and takes off the box top.

  Mr. Leeland gives Reba a too-long kiss and I know. It’s over. All we built here. It’s done.

  Mr. Leeland goes to sit down and almost misses the chair. He’s drunk.

  I sit here like I’m made out of rock. I feel my face get tight and my jaw get hard.

  I feel the stone go into my neck and down my arms.

  I am the stone girl.

  You can’t reach me.

  I won’t let you.

  You can’t hurt me anymore.

  Nobody can.

  41

  REBA’S NOT PAYING attention, but Helen is.

  “Sugar, let’s go into the other room.”

  “You got any beer around here?” Mr. Leeland says.

  Reba pauses. “It’s morning.”

  He laughs and heads to the refrigerator. No beer.

  Helen takes my arm. “Come on.”

  I walk out with her into the living room.

  “You’re drunk,” I hear Reba say.

  “So?” Mr. Leeland says back.

  “I’m sorry this is happening,” Helen tells me.

  “It’s happened before.”

  “Your mom is stronger now.”

  I’m not so sure.

  “I don’t appreciate you coming here drunk!” Reba shouts from the kitchen. “I thought you told me you stopped.”

  He laughs. “Well, I did, baby, and it just wasn’t any fun.”

  “What are you doing, Lee?”

  A crash. Helen and I run back in. A chair is on its side by the back door with the leg broken.

  “Get out,” Helen says to him.

  “I’m here to see my family,” Mr. Leeland tells her.

  “This is my house. I’m telling you to leave.”

  Mr. Leeland picks up another chair, and now Chandler makes a big run at him from behind, shouts a war cry, and pushes him down. Mr. Leeland is on his face, moaning.

  “Stop it!” Chandler screams. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”

  Reba walks over to Chandler, puts both hands on his shoulders, and says, “It’s all right. Thank you.” She looks at Helen and there’s something new in her face. “I’m sorry about this.”

  And maybe it’s that she’s filled herself up with good things, maybe she’s just sick and tired of being treated bad, but my mother looks at the lump on the floor that is Mr. Leeland and instead of standing by her man, she stands on him.

  Right on his back.

  He groans a little when she does that. Reba isn’t all that big.

  “Get off me, woman,” he mumbles.

  “I’m not quite ready to do that, darling.”

  Joonie laughs. Of course, it’s not her father lying there.

  “First item, dear, and do pay attention because I’m only going to say it once.” Reba’s voice rises in full-out Southern disgust. “If you want any kind of contact with me or Sugar, you will need to be sober. Stone cold sober. Is that clear?”

  He mumbles something.

  She digs her heels into his back. “I can’t hear you!”

  He moans again.

  “You get up from the mess your life is in, Leeland. Do you hear me? You start living right, boy. You stop gambling and wasting your life and wasting my time with your hollow promises. I’m sick of your excuses. You be a man, sir, a man of honor. I’m not settling for anything less.”

  “Whoo-hoo,” Helen says.

  “Don’t forget the money he borrowed from King Cole,” I whisper.

  “And you pay back every cent you borrowed from my father!”

  “Come on, baby, you know I love you.”

  “If this is love, I’ll take a pass.”

  “You know you don’t mean it,” he says.

  “Go get some help, then we can talk. And by the way, spending time on a riverboat gambling is not getting help.”

  She jumps off his back, yanks him to his feet, pushes him out the door, and throws the flowers he brought out, too.

  “I’m keeping my flowers,” Helen says.

  Shush pads in from under the table. Butterbutt sits there on her perch by the back door. The two animals stare each other down. Animals don’t blink, so it’s hard to tell who wins.

  Reba’s back in the kitchen now, and she looks straight at me and in front of everyone says, “I want you to trust me again, Sugar. I’m going to make up for the lost time. You’ll see.”

  Helen goes back to making tea, and Reba finishes putting out the sweetie pies.

  “Does this mean we’re a family?” Chandler asks.

  Shush and Butterbutt glare at each other.

  “We’re a . . .” Helen starts. “What are we?”

  “A unit?” Joonie suggests.

  Reba giggles. “A gaggle?”

  “A team . . .” Helen says.

  Joonie is looking up appropriate words on her phone. “Band, clan, herd, pack, gang, group . . .”

  Chandler grabs a sweetie pie and walks out. “I’m sorry I asked.”

  “Maybe we’re a mob,” I say.

  “That’s cooler,” Chandler says from the other room.

  Helen pours the iced tea into glasses. She puts a sugar bowl on the table, milk, and packets of sugar substitutes.

  Please. In my mind there is no substitute.

  42

  DEAR SUGAR,

  Now that the school year is about to start I want to wish you a great seventh-grade year. I hope you’ll show your teacher some of your writing.

  You know what I learned this summer? I had all these things I thought I was going to do—organize my files, organize my life—but my mom was sick and that took most of my energy. Then two days ago, I did the craziest thing. You know that awful wall of mine across from the windows—the one filled with scratches and gashes from seven years of extreme teaching. Well, I painted it red. It’s beyond fabulous, if I do say so myself. When I finished painting I twirled Claus in the air. Even though he’s a rubber chicken, he appreciated the moment.

  You go out there, Sugar Mae Cole, and make a colossal difference.

  Thanks for the inspiration.

  Mr. B

  Mr. B—

  I would like to see your red wall someday. That desk of yours was pretty ugly—maybe you should paint it red, too? But don’t slam Claus down on it until it’s totally dry.

  Thank you for everything you keep doing for me. I hope they’re paying you enough at the school.

  Yours very truly,

  SMC

  Dear Sugar,

  They’re not paying me nearly enough, but kids like you make up for it.

  TGB

  I’m working on a piece of writing for my new school. We’re supposed to take a word and define it and use an example out of our life. My English teacher, Mrs. Nord, sent a letter to all the kids in her class and asked us to do this before school even started.

  ALMOST HOME

  by Sugar Mae Cole

  Home isn’t always a place you picture in your mind

  With furniture and cookies and music playing and people laughing.

  Home is something you can carry around like a dream

  And let it grow in your heart until you’re ready for it.

  Losing things helps you appreciate when you find them again

  And finding things
gives you hope that when you lose things

  It might not be forever.

  Once, long ago, a girl lost her home, but she didn’t lose her dream.

  She hung on to it as the wind kept trying to blow it away,

  But that just made it stronger.

  So now she has keys and walls of many colors

  And people around her who think she’s something.

  x x x

  It’s the first day of school. I look at Shush and deliver the news.

  “Dogs can’t come to school.”

  He jumps up like we’re going somewhere.

  “I think it would help to have dogs at school, but education doesn’t always get it right. I’m sorry.” He cocks his head listening. “I’m going to be gone all day, but Lexie needs guarding.”

  “I really do,” Lexie adds, smiling.

  “And Mr. Cockburn says Boris needs someone to play with, so you can go over there and be a role model. Okay?” I scratch his good head. “We’ve been through a lot of change together, right? And we can handle this one.”

  I pick him up and give him a hug. He lays his head against my shoulder.

  “Yes, you’re the best dog in the world. And that girl Jenny who had you, she loved you, but not as much as me.”

  Shush wags his stump of a tail.

  “Okay, I’ve got to go be a seventh-grader.”

  That sounds so old.

  “You knock them dead,” Lexie tells me. “Come on—I’ll walk you out.”

  Mac comes, too, and just as we’re heading out the door, Reba waves and crosses the street. “You have the best day now, you hear?” She hugs me with strength.

  Mr. Cockburn salutes me from his porch. “Kick butt!” he shouts.

  “Yessir!”

  Mrs. Boylston shouts, “They’re lucky to have you.”

  Helen starts up the car and Joonie puts a sign in the back window for all the world to see.

  PROUD PARENT OF THE WISE ONE OF ZIDDO

  Helen sighs. “What happened to ‘proud parent of an honor roll student’?”

  Joonie makes a face. “Helen, you’re so much more than that.”

  Dante runs over. He’s going into eighth grade, but he never turns down a ride.

  He smiles at me. “You look good.”

  I look down. “You do, too.”

  “Hmmmm . . .” Joonie says and gets Chandler in his seat belt.

  Helen shouts, “And we’re off.”

  “Way off,” Joonie adds.

  Puffypoo, Greg, and Boris bark. Shush whines at the door, and Lexie lets him out. I wave at everyone.

  It’s awesome to have a crowd cheer you on.

  x x x

  I turn my “Almost Home” poem in to my teacher, Mrs. Nord. I stand by her desk, hoping she’ll read it in front of me, and she does. A big smile spreads over her face.

  “I love this, Sugar.”

  I grin back. “I’ve got more.”

  “I’d love to see your writing.”

  I stomp my foot. I can definitely work with a person like this.

  But this school I’m at, it needs fresh paint on the walls.

  I ask Mrs. Nord, “Did you ever think of getting bolder colors in here?”

  She nods. “Every day.”

  I picture the red wall Mr. B is going to be looking at all year. I see him leaning against his desk, twirling Claus his rubber chicken.

  I sent him an e-mail last night.

  You should get an award for being a teacher.

  He wrote back.

  I’ve been waiting by the phone.

  And I’m able to say, I miss him, but I’m here now.

  It’s okay here.

  More than okay.

  It’s a good place to grow, and I plan to do that.

  I’m working hard to have a good life.

  You don’t need fancy things to feel good.

  You can hug a puppy.

  You can buy a can of paint and surround yourself with color.

  You can plant a flower and watch it grow.

  You can decide to trust people—the right people.

  You can decide to start over and let other people start over, too.

  Every morning Reba tells me, “You go out there, Miss Sugar, and show ’em what it means to be sweet.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I will.”

  It’s a natural gift that I have.

  Click here for more books by this author

  JOAN BAUER

  WRITES ABOUT

  I WAS ON a plane to New Zealand to visit my sister when I first “heard” Sugar’s voice in my head; I felt an urgency to write down what she was saying. Who was this girl? Where was she? On the street, that much I knew, but not on her way home. No, this girl had lost her home. What was that like? What kind of a girl was she, who had influenced her, where did the strength come from that would help her survive? The first lines I wrote were these:

  I’m in front of you, but you don’t see me.

  I’m behind you and you don’t much notice or hear my voice.

  With those words, she had me. I had to write her story, and I realized that sometimes home, a real home, is a thing you have to search for with all your heart. This girl’s got a heart big enough to carry her through.

  Books by

  JOAN BAUER

  x x x

  Almost Home

  Backwater

  Best Foot Forward

  Close to Famous

  Hope Was Here

  Peeled

  Rules of the Road

  Squashed

  Stand Tall

  Stick

  Thwonk