by Bridget Farr
“Now! Pull me up!” With one look over my shoulder, I see the dog thundering across the lawn toward me. “Now!”
Our fingers connect for a moment before the crack. His rough palms slide through my outstretched fingers, and then I am falling back to the ground.
WAKING UP IN THE NICKERSONS’
My eyes open to the blue glare of a TV screen, a clammy palm stroking my forehead. I flinch and feel a sharp pain in the back of my head before realizing that it’s cradled in Meridee’s lap.
“It’s okay,” Meridee says, her voice calm as she pats my forehead, smearing sweat across my skin. “Hush, little Pavi, don’t you cry. Meridee’s a-sing you a lullaby.”
I blink a few times, trying to get the rest of the dark room into focus, but I’m only able to decipher the light from a TV commercial for Marjorie’s laundry detergent.
“Meridee, where are we?”
“We’re on the bed, silly!”
Meridee bounces on the bed, jostling my head and sending another sharp pain through my skull. I reach a hand up to check the back of my head. Through my mass of hair, I feel a small bump and what might be blood but could just be sweat.
“How did I get here?”
“Poppa N brought you. He went to find a first-grade kit.”
“First aid kit. Is Poppa N the man who lives here?” I know the answer has to be yes, but she can’t mean Mr. Nickerson.
“Yep. His home is his camel.”
“What?”
“A man’s home is his camel,” she says in a low voice that is a freakishly accurate representation of Mr. Nickerson.
“You mean his home is his castle?” I don’t know how hard I hit my head, but nothing seems to be making sense. I try to get up and Meridee pushes my head down, her palm smashing my nose.
“Ow, Meridee, I’m fine. You have to let me get up! We have to get out of here.”
I push myself up again and take in the room. It looks a lot different than when I was here. There is a desk and a small chair I don’t recognize. I can’t tell the wall color, but it looks a bit lighter, and I can actually see the wall without the piles of cardboard boxes. The room’s bigger than I remember without them. I’m woozy when I stand up and reach a hand out, landing on Meridee’s head.
“Hey! Don’t bonk me!”
“Shhh. You’ve got to be quiet.”
I press my ear to the closed door and try to listen in the hallway. No sound except for the occasional barks of dogs. “You need to wait here, okay? I’m going to…”
I don’t know what I’m going to do. My head is throbbing, and I don’t have a plan. We could try to sneak out the front door and make a run for it, but who knows where he’s waiting. Would he try to stop us? I’m sure he was angry to find me in the backyard. Or someone in the backyard. I bet he doesn’t know it’s me, just some girl with a black jacket and blood on her head. And where is Hamilton and everyone else?
“Stay here,” I whisper as I step into the hallway. Meridee waves before I pull the door closed behind me. My heart slams in my chest, so loud I wonder if he can hear it. The hallway is dark, and I slide along the wall, afraid to land on any creaks in the warped floor. I take a step, pause, take a step, pause. If I can figure out where he is, I can get back to the room and take Meridee out with me.
At the end of the hall, I prepare myself to look around the corner into the living room before crossing the hall into the kitchen. Maybe he’s outside, checking the dogs who are still howling. With a quick inhale, I look around the corner of the living room, but it’s empty. There’s a throw blanket on the footrest by a cracked leather recliner, and a burnt bag of popcorn resting in the seat. The room looks almost the same as I remember, but slightly improved, as if my memories are the dusty version of the truth. It’s the same couch, but the cushions look straighter. The stained lampshade has been spun to the back of the room so the dark black mark isn’t showing. On a rough-cornered coffee table is a glass bowl of multicolored candies with twisted ends.
And then I spot it. On the floor in front of the TV is a small pink teddy bear. It looks new, its perfect fur a spot of joy in a familiar gloom. A gift from a heart I thought was stone. It must be Meridee’s, and suddenly I can’t breathe, suffocating under the weight of the past and a present I don’t understand.
“You’re awake,” says a voice that sends shivers up my spine.
I scream as a wrinkled hand grabs my arm.
“Easy there.”
I stand with my mouth agape as I look at a face that has the same wash of… hope?… that covers this house. Mr. Nickerson looks so… small. I don’t remember him being this short. He has glasses now, thin wire rims that remind me of a farmer in one of the books at Crossroads. His shoulders are hunched as he extends his arm out toward me, the cuff of his plain button-down shirt sliding up to expose age spots.
“You better sit down.” He watches me like I’m a startled deer as he walks toward the kitchen. “I’ll get ya a glass of water.”
For a second I hesitate, a moment of fight or flight or go back and get Meridee, but I follow him into the kitchen. I stand beside the fridge, the fluorescent lights above us blinding in the dark house. The dark cabinets seem crowded into this tiny room, the green countertops matching the green linoleum floor. I run my shoe along a clear piece of tape sealing a slice in the floor I used to look at every morning when I got myself a glass of water.
“I oughta call the cops on you kids,” Mr. Nickerson says as he places the glass on the table, which is now covered by a faded white tablecloth and a plastic flower-basket-shaped napkin holder. “I don’t know where your friends are. Musta run off.” Mr. Nickerson shakes his head. “I’m not gonna call the police. I was a kid once. You lookin’ at the dogs?”
“Yes,” I say, my first words since the scream.
“You better sit down a minute.”
He walks back to lean against the sink. I don’t really want to sit down, but the throbbing in my head is making it hard to keep my eyes open. I sit on the edge of the folding chair.
“How’s your head?”
“It’s okay.”
“Knocked you out good.” He rubs a hand across the graying stubble on his chin. “Your mom better take you to the doctor, just to be sure.”
“I don’t have a mom,” I whisper, the words pulsing out from my pain.
“Well, then, whoever takes care of you. You got someone we can call?”
I take a sip of the lukewarm water.
“Yes.”
“You’ll have to use the phone in the entryway. We don’t have cell phones.”
Suddenly Meridee’s giggle pierces the silence, and Mr. Nickerson smiles. I think. It was almost too small to notice if I hadn’t been staring at him.
“Goofball,” he mutters. He pauses, his head cocked as he looks at my face.
“You look real familiar? Do you go to church with Janet? I don’t go often.…”
Janet. She leaves her room now?
“I don’t go to church with Mrs. Nickerson. I lived here with you three years ago. For almost a year.” Swelling inside me is a deep rage. “And for that entire time, I slept in that little room with all the boxes where you are now keeping another little girl.”
Mr. Nickerson swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbling in his throat.
“You’re the kid who threw up on my shoe.”
“Yes, I’m the kid who threw up on your shoe,” I say, his forgetfulness stinging in a way I didn’t expect. “I’ll go home now. I can catch the bus. I’m just going to get Meridee.…”
“She’s not going anywhere and neither are you.” He takes a step toward me, and I put my hands up.
“Don’t!”
“I’m not going to hurt you; you just can’t go out in the night. And she lives here. Sit down or at least calm down. Jesus.” He rubs his chin more fiercely, the pressure moving the wrinkled skin on his face. “I remember you now, just took me a minute.”
“What’s my name?”
/> He hesitates. “Something with a p: Patty?”
I don’t bother to give him my real name.
“Sorry, but my brain’s pretty fuzzy. I was drinking a lot back then. Janet had lost the twins, and she wasn’t getting out of bed. I thought having another kid would help. I thought it might… Shoulda known it’d be like getting a kid a dog. They say they’ll take care of it, but it ends up being you doin’ all the walks and feedin’ it. I wasn’t prepared to be a dad to the twins, and I sure wasn’t prepared to take care of some stranger’s kid.”
I stare at him, this man folding inward like a crushed aluminum can. He sits down at the table across from me.
“I didn’t think we’d ever want to foster a kid again after you left, but then last year she took all the baby clothes and stuff to her church. Wanted to go back to those foster parent classes. I stopped fighting the dogs a couple of years ago, just kept them all eating and howling out there. Then we got Ms. Meridee.…”
At the sound of her name, Meridee enters the kitchen. “Poppa N, can Pavi and I have popcorn?”
She’s like an angel sweeping light into the room. Now I can see she’s wearing a new pair of purple Barbie pajamas. Her braids aren’t as neat as when I last saw her, but I doubt Mr. Nickerson knows anything about doing her hair. When she smiles, I notice she’s lost one of her bottom teeth. Mr. Nickerson’s face softens as he reaches out a hand to her. She takes it, and he pulls her up onto his lap. Her hands clamp around his whiskered chin, and he pretends to chomp her fingers, the two of them laughing together.
“I got popcorn in the living room.”
“Is it burnt?” Meridee asks, her eyebrows skeptical.
“Probably.”
“Poppa N! Why you burnin’ it every day?”
He smiles. “I like it burnt.”
He pushes her off his lap. “You go eat some popcorn in the living room while Pavi calls her family. It’s late, and she needs to get her head checked out.”
We both watch Meridee walk into the living room on her tiptoes, then hear an aggressive knock at the door. Before Mr. Nickerson can cross the kitchen, we hear the swing of the door opening and Meridee’s voice.
“Poppa N, the polices are here!”
I race to the living room to see two officers standing in the doorway, and behind them, her arms outstretched, is Marjorie.
TELLING MARJORIE THE TRUTH
Marjorie and I sit crammed together on the front step, our bodies tight between the narrow metal railings. The tips of my shoelaces dip into the slats of the wooden steps, bobbing up and down with the tap of my foot, like a fishing line waiting for a bite. Inside, the police are talking to Mr. Nickerson, probably at the kitchen table where he and I were sitting moments before. They’ll talk to me next, but Marjorie wanted to see me first, to get me outside the house so I could breathe normally.
“Where’s Hamilton?” I ask, my eyes on my shoes.
“In the car.”
“And Piper?”
“She’s in the car, too; her parents are on the way.”
I groan, thinking about all the people who are involved now: police officers and parents, soon the caseworkers at Crossroads, and… I wonder if Santos’s foster mom will come. I wonder if he’s still here, though I can’t picture him shivering in the back of Marjorie’s station wagon while Piper films a testimonial of her near-death experience. I don’t know how to ask Marjorie so that she won’t suspect he was here. I don’t want to get him involved if I don’t have to.
“Are they both okay?”
Marjorie nods. “I’ll have to take Hamilton in to make sure he doesn’t need stitches, but it doesn’t look very deep. Piper is… overstimulated, but she should calm down soon.”
“I’m really sorry I got them both into this,” I say, realizing I am sorry. Hamilton could have been home practicing his baritone, but instead he’s in the back of a station wagon bleeding all over the seat. Stitches.
My head throbs, and I lie my head down on my lap, crossing my arms under my cheek. Marjorie’s hand rubs swirls along my back, her fingers occasionally curling to make a sunburst shape, fireworks along my spine. Now I know why Hamilton begs his mom for a back rub sometimes. It’s soothing, like waves to ease my breaths, and I think I will finally answer all the questions she has yet to ask.
“We didn’t come to break in. We came to save that little girl, Meridee.”
“Is she in danger?” Marjorie’s eyebrows furrow, and I pause because I don’t know anymore. Just an hour ago, I was certain her whole life was falling apart, and then there was the teddy bear and Poppa N and it doesn’t make sense anymore why we are here, sitting on his front step with the police inside.
“I don’t think so. Not anymore.”
“Can you tell me why you thought she was in danger? Enough danger that you would risk your own life to come get her?”
“We weren’t going to kidnap her. We were just gathering evidence.”
“Evidence?”
“Do you hear the dogs in the backyard?”
Marjorie nods.
“It started with the dogs.…” I take a breath and let the memories I’ve been holding back flood out of me like a broken dam. I tell her everything about the dogs, the loneliness, Lucky.
“Oh, Pavi,” Marjorie says, pulling me tight to her body, and I claw my way out of the past by describing my present. Marjorie smells like a rose. My shoelaces are untied. “That’s awful. I’m sorry about your puppy, and I’m sorry you had to be around such terrible behavior.”
“But I don’t understand,” I say. “I got here and the dogs were just in their cages and there was a teddy bear on the floor. He’s supposed to be a bad guy, but he gave her a teddy bear.”
Marjorie rubs her hand over my hair. “It sounds like he’s a very different man now than he was when you were here. He didn’t know how to be a good guardian to you. Or to his dogs.”
“But it’s not just him!” I shout, pulling myself out of her grasp. “It’s my mom, too! I did everything she wanted me to! I never cried in front of her, and I found us dinner when she couldn’t, and I got good grades on my report cards, and waited for her to come back, but none of it mattered.”
Something in me breaks, like the snapping of branches in a windstorm, and I feel myself slowly collapsing, no more support beams to hold me up.
“I don’t think I’m ever going to see my mom again.”
Marjorie reaches out to grab my hands. She pulls me toward her, my head resting on her shoulder, her cheek pressed against my hair. “I’m so sorry, sweetie. I’m sorry your mom doesn’t get to see how wonderful you are.”
She pushes me back so she can look at me, placing her hands around my cheeks.
“You are an incredible girl. You are kind and smart and funny and brave. So brave that you would come back to such a scary place to try and save someone else. You’re a hero, Pavi.”
Marjorie tilts her head so she can look right into my eyes.
“But you wouldn’t have to do any of that. I love you and Hambone loves you, just for you. Without you doing anything at all. It’s a shame that people like Mr. Nickerson couldn’t see that.”
I sniffle, rubbing my sleeve under my nose to prevent the drips. The door creaks.
“Excuse me, ma’am, can we speak to you inside?” The young officer looks sympathetic as Marjorie helps me to my feet. “Shouldn’t take long. I know you want to get your kids home.”
He pushes the door open wider to accommodate the two of us, since Marjorie still has me tucked under her arm. As we step toward the door, I glance across the street and there he is, Santos, resting against the telephone pole at the end of the block. When our eyes connect, he nods. Then he turns and heads off down the dark street.
THE END
When I get to the stairs, Santos is sitting on the cement ledge, his backpack beside him, an open bag of Hot Cheetos on his lap. Around him swirl students heading home, some in packs, some alone, some ready to bolt from the school g
rounds, and others wishing they could stay at school a little longer, eat one more meal, have one more person ask about their day. It’s his one-month check-in even though we talk almost every day. His foster mom let him finish out the grading period here, but his school transfer finally goes through next week, and then we won’t see each other anymore. At least not until his six-month appointment.
He pulls out his headphones when he sees me climbing the stairs. He grabs a handful of Cheetos and tosses them in his mouth, his head tilted back like he’s a sword-swallower preparing for a performance.
“That better not be my payment you’re eating,” I say, hopping on the ledge beside him.
“Nah,” he says as he unzips his backpack, pulling out a family size bag of Hot Cheetos and two packs of multicolored Sharpies. There’s even a set of the metallic Sharpies, which are never on sale.
“You only owed me the Cheetos and a four-pack of Sharpies.” I hold the rainbow twenty-four-pack, imagining the work I can do to the plain lunch box Marjorie bought me last week.
“You can have them.”
I don’t argue and shove the supplies in my backpack. I grab the manila folder with his name on it, reviewing the research I originally did on his foster mom and his one-week check-in form. I skim over his grade reports and some notes I took after our first meetings. “Doesn’t seem to want services,” I wrote, and beside that a frowny face and “Those earbuds.” Out of my general folder I pull the one-month form and hand it to him on a clipboard.
“Fill out the top portion; it’s a basic survey. If nothing much has changed at home—which it sounds like it hasn’t—then it should be pretty easy. We’ll talk new-school information when you’re finished.”
He nods, grabbing a pen from his back pocket. He pulls the cap off with his teeth and continues to hold the lid in his mouth, crunching the edge as he writes.
“Meridee is going back with her family,” I say, and he turns, the faintest hint of a smile on his lips. “Not to her mom yet, but to an aunt in Georgia. The Crossroads staff wouldn’t tell me more than that.”