“Well, hello there.” A man had snuck right up on them.
Uneasiness tickled Hank’s throat, which suddenly felt dry. Surely, this was the evil Mr. Jorgensen himself. The man looked evil enough. He had a wrinkly neck and a suspicious amount of big brown spots on his loose and crepe-papery skin. His hair was thin and almost colorless. It was like an invisible beige, like a blend-into-a-person’s-beige-face kind of beige. If that wasn’t bad enough, he stood behind a very aggressive-looking walker. It wasn’t like the aluminum ones Hank had sometimes seen pushed by patients in the hospital where his dad worked. No. This seemed more like a scary, off-road-vehicle sort of walker. It had a bright red metal frame with thick black tires that could cover uneven ground. Plus, confusing the very purpose of a walker, it had a little basketlike thing in the front that attached to a little seatlike thing in the back. It was almost like the walker could not decide what it was supposed to be, and the sheer indecision of the walker paired with the well-documented cruelty of the man worried Hank.
When Hank didn’t say anything, the man said, “Cat got your tongue?”
Hank swallowed in the hopes of finding some moisture in his mouth. “My tongue is right here,” he said, sticking his tongue straight out while he spoke.
Mr. Jorgensen chuckled. “Oh, that’s a good thing.” He took one hand to pull up his too-loose pants, then he swiveled the walker around and sat on the little seat-thing.
“How you doing, Booler?” said the man.
Booler moved over to the man and bumped him with his nose. The dog let his tail flop from side to side as the man cupped his snout and wiped the sleep out of his eyes.
Honey and Cowboy came running forward. They ran straight toward Hank, and when a quick sniff convinced them that it really was Hank and not his robot clone, they sprang toward Booler.
Now excited, the three dogs retreated to the tree and began to sniff one another’s behinds.
The man stuck out his arm. “Frank Jorgensen.”
Hank looked at Maisie’s house—willing her, his mom, someone, to come—as he gave the liver-spotted hand a quick clap.
“You the friend of Maisie who helped her call the police?” Frank asked. “My goodness, that almost gave me a heart attack.”
Hank finally looked up at the man. “Is that why you have that walker? In case you have a heart attack? Because I don’t think that will help.”
Cowboy came and bumped against the walker. Frank reached down and scratched the dog’s head. “No,” he answered in a way that made him seem not entirely evil. “The walker is because I have low vision and a bad hip.”
Confused by this glimpse of humanness, Hank shifted in his seat. He thought carefully about his next words. “What is low vision?”
Frank scratched his forehead. “In my case it means that things look kind of flat, like on a piece of paper, not in 3-D. And even then I can’t see too many of the details.”
Hank held up two fingers. “Can you see how many fingers I’m holding up?”
Frank pulled a thick magnifying glass out of the basket and brought it up to his face. “Two.”
Hank crossed his eyes and said, “Can you see the face I’m making?” A moment later he pulled back from the giant crossed eyes staring out from the man’s magnifying glass. Hank said, “It seems like you see all right.”
Frank shrugged. He put the magnifying glass back in the basket. “You’re gonna have to trust me.”
Hank uncrossed his legs and sat on his calves. “Okay.”
Frank’s shoulders rose up and dropped. He cleared his throat. “You get old, things happen. It’s not always pretty.”
Hank nodded. “Yeah. My dad had to have a mole removed from his back once.”
“Oh, well, I certainly hope that worked out.”
Honey knocked into Cowboy, and Frank began to take turns scratching their heads.
Booler came and sat next to Hank, who tried to copy Frank’s head-scratching technique. He looked again at Maisie’s house, and when he still did not see her, he spilled out the words he had practiced with his mom. Sounding a little rehearsed, he said, “I am very sorry that we called 9-1-1 about your dog. We should never have done that.” He paused and then added, “And I’m sorry you almost had a heart attack.”
Maisie’s neighbor nodded. He scratched his nose and then cleared his throat again. “I appreciate you saying that. I really do. And I appreciate your concern about Booler. It’s a tough situation, that’s for sure. But, you know, I love Booler. I rescued him. I found him in a box near the side of the road when he was just about a month old. Somebody just dumped him there. The poor thing was thin as paper.”
Hank imagined a puppy made of lined paper—a puppy both real and somehow unreal—all alone in a box near the side of the road. It had Booler’s big eyes. He could hear it whimper.
“Was he starving?” Hank said, remembering the starving boy in the book, the one who had now left his little hut to go find Leah and food.
“Oh, he could barely keep any food down, he was so starved. But I nursed him back to health.” The man paused. He stood and wheeled his walker closer to Booler, who sat right up, eager for the man’s attention. Frank leaned over and petted the pit bull’s head before adding, “You hurt me really bad when you accused me of neglecting poor Booler. I don’t like leaving him out here, but his anti-seizure medicine doesn’t work perfectly, and in the house there are too many things Booler can crash into if he has a seizure. He’s had to get stitches three times already because of that. And it’s really a bear getting Booler to the vet too. Truth is”—he lowered his voice to a whisper—“I’m really not supposed to drive anymore.”
Hank squirmed, confused. Frank Jorgensen did not seem that bad. Then again, the man’s coldheartedness was undeniable. Hank dropped his head so that his chin grazed his chest. “I’m sorry,” he muttered.
“And I appreciate that, like I said,” said Frank.
“No,” said Hank, lifting his head just enough so that he could see the man’s neck. “I mean… I am sorry… but you did not fix Booler’s sore paw. Maisie fixed it.”
Frank sat again on his little seat. He frowned. “No,” he said doubtfully. “I don’t think—”
Hank lifted his head a little more. “She did. She—we—put Vaseline on it every day. And Maisie picks up all the dog poop in your yard.”
The old man leaned back in his seat. Hank watched him scan the grass and then scratch his chin.
Finally, Frank said, “Dog poop doesn’t bother dogs, so that is not really necessary, but…”
“I’m sorry we called 9-1-1, but… Maisie says maybe Booler should live somewhere else.”
From the corner of his eye, Hank watched Frank look over at Maisie’s house. Then he looked back at Hank, who dropped his gaze.
“Here’s the thing,” said Frank, rubbing his palms back and forth on the legs of his pants. “Booler would have the same problem anywhere he lived. It’s sad, but this is what is best for him. This rope and the open space of the yard are the only things keeping him safe. Besides, he has Honey and Cowboy. They’re great company.”
Honey and Cowboy were great company for Booler. Hank could see that. As excited as Booler got when he saw Hank and Maisie coming over to play, nothing got Booler’s tail swishing more than the chance to sniff Honey’s and Cowboy’s butts.
“We are Booler’s family,” said Frank. “Would you like to be removed from your family?”
Hank looked up to see his mom and Sam listening at the fence. Maisie stood nearby.
His mom hollered an introduction to Maisie’s neighbor, and then a few minutes later, Hank exchanged a sheepish glance with Maisie as he left her to make her own apology. And as he walked home he thought about what Maisie’s neighbor had asked. He knew he would not want to be separated from his own family. His family was his greatest weapon against the a’a. They were his fire-resistant volcanologist suit. They were his heavy-soled boots. He would not quit them for anything. But wha
t did that mean for Booler? Was there really nothing they could do for him? Was he really destined to spend the rest of his life tied to a tree?
He asked Maisie what she thought. They whispered as they did their math in class the next day.
“Don’t listen to Mr. Jorgensen,” insisted Maisie. “Honey and Cowboy get to come and go as they please. They have a doggy door. They’re all, ‘La-de-da, we get to go wherever we want because we don’t have seizures. We get to play chase. We get to sniff bushes. We get to sleep inside and have sleepovers with friends who give us sugary doughnuts for breakfast. We get to have all the fun in the world and never worry about anything and our lives are better than yours.’ ”
“I’m pretty sure Mr. Jorgensen doesn’t give Cowboy and Honey doughnuts.”
“Urrg,” said Maisie. “The point is that Booler gets less. It’s not fair that he gets less. He deserves what everyone else gets.”
“Yes,” said Hank, thinking of all the things Frank had said. “But Mr. Jorgensen gets less too. He doesn’t get to have Booler in his house. He’s not supposed to drive his car.”
“He shouldn’t drive his car. I’ve seen him. Man, that’s a scary thing.”
“The point is, Booler is part of his family. He wants to be with him. He just can’t be with him all the time. That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t get to see him ever. Would you like to never see your family again?” He said it like it was the most reasonable question in the world, like it was plain common sense.
Maisie’s mouth fell open. Agog, she said, “What? Are you taking Mr. Jorgensen’s side now?”
“I’m taking Booler’s side,” said Hank firmly. “Family counts.”
Mrs. Vera’s head spun toward them. “This is math time, not talking time. Are you talking about math, Hank? Are you talking about fractions? Multiplying fractions?”
Hank dropped his head. Shook it. He could feel the eyes of the class on him, but he didn’t care. Family did count. He knew it did.
Maisie nudged him and handed him a note. It read, “Fine. But clearly further investigation is in order.”
8.
“I’m a master at investigating,” said Maisie. It was two days later. They were in her garage—and they were not even looking at rocks. They were plotting to figure out if the mysterious Frank Jorgensen really thought of Booler as family or if he was just saying that so people would leave him alone and let him mistreat Booler all he wanted.
Maisie had drawn a blueprint of Frank’s property on a big piece of paper. It included the fence separating their yards, the backyard, the maple tree, Booler’s doghouse, Booler, the toolshed near the back fence, and a big square representing the house itself. Along the big square she had drawn short, darker lines that stood in for the windows.
With the tip of a pencil she pointed at the fence. “We begin here,” she said with such conviction that Hank knew that she must be right. “We very sneakily hop the fence like we always do.” She moved the pencil tip to the drawing of Booler. “Then we’re all, ‘Hi, Booler. We’re just here to see you like we always are.’ Then, one of us distracts Booler—because remember, he is a very good watchdog—while the other quietly peeks through the windows and looks for evidence.”
Hank nodded. “What kind of evidence?”
Maisie pulled her hair into a ponytail and held it like that for a minute. “We’ll know it when we see it.”
That being the case, Hank told Maisie she could be the one to look through the windows, because he was quite sure that he would not recognize good evidence when he saw it.
The plan started out perfectly. They snuck out of the garage. They hopped the fence into Frank’s yard. Hank distracted Booler by showing him his rocks of the day (garnet, pyroxene, graphite), and Maisie ran back and forth from the windows to collect evidence, which was harder than it looked because the windows were dirty and, of course, one of the windows was actually covered in wood. Still, she persevered.
“Okay,” she whispered as she ran from the first window back to Hank. “There is a really tiny laundry room where he keeps all his dog supplies—including dog biscuits. Have you ever seen him give Booler a dog biscuit?”
Hank shook his head. Already they were finding such good evidence! “I’ve never seen him give Booler any food.”
She pointed a finger at him and looked like she was about to say something. Then she dropped her hand and said, “Actually, he does feed him breakfast and dinner. I’ve seen that.”
She ran back to the house and peered in a second window. She rushed back, her expression furious. “Get this! Get this!” she said in a hoarse whisper. “Cowboy and Honey are sleeping on Mr. Jorgensen’s bed! On. His. Bed!”
Before Hank could answer she ran back to look in another window, but this time she just turned around and ran back. “Abort mission! Abort mission! He’s coming. He’s coming.” Flustered, she plopped next to Hank. She tossed her hair back and smiled. “Just act casual. Pretend we’re talking—no, pretend we’re singing!” She started swaying and singing the song they had heard in the car. “Though nothing, nothing will keep us together. We could beat them, forever and ever.” She nodded at Hank, trying to get him to sing along. “Oh, we could be—”
“Heroes,” sang Hank nervously as he remembered the words. “Just for one day.”
“I thought maybe you had a question for me,” said Frank. He was breathing kind of hard and did not seem nearly as friendly as before.
“A question?” said Maisie, shaking her head and looking at Hank. “I… um… no… no question. Do you have a question, Hank?”
Hank swallowed.
Frank pinched his lips together and leaned forward on his walker as he looked at Maisie. “It’s just that I thought I saw you looking in my window.”
Maisie licked her lips. She whispered to Hank, “I thought you said he couldn’t see.”
Frank tilted his head. “I can see a big blurry head through a window. And I can hear perfectly.”
Maisie swallowed and began to pull on the bottom of her shirt.
“Um,” said Hank, thinking fast. “Do you have any cool rocks?”
This seemed to surprise Maisie’s neighbor. “Rocks?”
Maisie’s eyes widened. “Hank is obsessed with rocks, Mr. Jorgensen. That’s why I was looking in your window. To see if you had any.”
Hank was pretty sure Frank would see this for the lie it was, because at first the man sighed and frowned. But then Mr. Jorgensen scratched his stubbly chin and said matter-of-factly, “I might have a few fossils. Found them in the central part of the state probably—I don’t know—forty years ago. Why don’t you come see?”
He led them to the small house. Then, leaving his walker at the back door, he guided them past rooms stuffed with furniture and boxes. Although Hank was not about to say anything to Maisie about it, he could see why Mr. Jorgensen didn’t want Booler in there. One seizure and Booler would collapse into a pointy end table, or a pointy bedpost, or a pointy file cabinet. It was a real danger zone. In fact, it was treacherous for anyone moving about in that house—Mr. Jorgensen included.
Cowboy and Honey fell in behind Hank and nudged the backs of his knees. “You have a lot of stuff,” said Hank, glancing at the dogs, who looked up at him and sniffed.
Frank chuckled. “You sound like my daughter, Colleen. She is always telling me to clear some of this stuff out.” He led them into a tiny bedroom. “But, see, you never know when things might come in handy.” He reached for a box from a shelf inside the closet. When he began to wobble a bit, Maisie put a hand on his arm.
She said, “You want me to get that?”
He pulled his arm free. “I can do it.” More kindly, he said, “Thank you.”
He took the box and placed it on a bed covered in a ratty pink quilt. Dust particles floated into the air and began to dance around as he shuffled the contents of the box, finally pulling out two pieces of tan-colored sandstone, each about the size of a jam-jar lid. Dark, feathery lines crossed
each rock. He held them close to his eyes and then handed one each to Maisie and Hank.
Maisie looked closely at hers. “What kind of fossil is it?”
“It’s from a pine tree,” said Hank.
“That’s right,” said Frank, impressed. “Probably a redwood.” He nodded at the fossils. “You can have those.” He still sounded more businesslike than friendly, but Hank was never one to look a gift rock in the mouth.
It was a complicating factor, that gift. Because what did it mean? Was there an ulterior motive? was the question. Was it a bribe—a means of shutting them up, keeping them off the scent of Mr. Jorgensen’s cruel and neglectful nature?
Hank didn’t think so. He was really starting to like Mr. Jorgensen.
But Maisie was more skeptical than ever. “I’ve played this game a million times,” she told Hank. “You can never get something for nothing. If you could, I’d have figured out how.”
They were in Hank’s kitchen eating pretzels. They had wanted to put some space between themselves and Mr. Jorgensen so that they could sift through all their evidence without attracting suspicion. From the doorway they could see Hank’s mom in the living room. She was on her hands and knees attaching a slippery sort of padding to the edges of the coffee table. She called it babyproofing. She was doing it everywhere. Apparently, it was supposed to keep Sam from cracking his head open if he fell, just like all the annoying locks she’d put on the cupboards were supposed to keep Sam from eating something he wasn’t supposed to eat.
It was all a little a’a, frankly. Hank’s home, once so comfortable and predictable, was suddenly so… well… different. It was a weird kind of different too, a different that no one else noticed, no one else wanted to notice, a different that—if you pointed it out to anyone—they would just get mad and say, “It’s just padding. Don’t you want your baby brother to be safe?”
“He’s definitely a tricky one, that Mr. Jorgensen,” said Maisie, taking a pretzel and trying to nibble off the salt. “You know what I think? I think we can’t just investigate. I think we need to go undercover.”
We Could Be Heroes Page 8
