“I think that’s called eavesdropping, G.” I was pretty sure I was right.
G grinned at me, and then she quickly covered her mouth, holding in a giggle. “I still prefer town record keeper.”
She pulled all the journals from her backpack. “Let me show you. Black is for Laws of Three Boulders. Blue is People of Three Boulders. Red is Daily Events. Green is the Community Garden Log, and purple is the Duty Log. I write everything down that happens. That’s my job.”
I picked up the red journal and read aloud. “‘April 30: Millie Donald missed school due to a sore throat. Lettuce and carrots were planted in the community garden. Alan Stein began pitching practice for the softball season.’”
I slapped the journal closed. “Do you like this job?”
G took the red journal from my hand. “It’s the best job in Three Boulders.”
More weirdness. I had never heard of a place where kids had jobs like this.
“Who reads those journals?”
“Old Red looks at them every week.”
“So he knows everyone’s business here?”
“Pretty much.”
Well, crud.
I definitely had to do the right things and say the right things, ’cause if the honest truth slipped out, I feared that these next twelve days could turn into twelve weeks, or twelve . . .
My brain couldn’t even consider that.
Jane, Pop had said last time, before I went away with Mrs. Dubois, it’s only twelve days. You mind your business and I’ll mind mine, and we’ll be back together faster than you can bomb Applegate Hill.
Applegate Hill was my first big longboarding hill. I was eight years old. Pop and me lived in this town somewhere in Washington. I was scared to bomb that hill because it was majorly steep. My whole body shook, but Pop was there, and we were having good me-and-Pop days—months, actually. I got you, Jane Girl, he said. Pop rode slow right alongside me, grabbing my hand when I wobbled, picking me up when I fell.
Me and Pop. He picked me up when I fell. I picked him up when he fell. Those were our jobs.
I leaned forward and peered over my knees at a tiny, crawling ant, thinking about that hill—that good me-and-Pop time. If I could bomb that hill, I could mind my own business and get through these next twelve days in boonieville.
Even with all the weirdness.
Even with my achy hand.
Day Two
Officer D’s Room
I dreamed I was with Pop. We were plopped on our brown vinyl couch, smooshed together, watching his favorite news show. He had a bowl of popcorn in his lap. He shared it with me, Pop-style. Him tossing pieces in the air. Me trying hard to catch them in my mouth and mostly missing. I grabbed the bowl and took a turn. Pop caught every piece I put in the air. When I flung it too far, he just bounced the kernel off his arm or knee and it shot right into his mouth. He’d shout out “boo ya” and slap me a high five. He was a champion popcorn-catching athlete. I was in the middle of a standing ovation for Pop when I felt a tap on my shoulder, jolting me awake.
“Time to get up, Jane.”
I sat up, quickly realizing I wasn’t watching the news with Pop. Pop was in rehab. I was here in Three Boulders with Officer D, my newest foster person. I rubbed the sleep goobers out of my eyes.
“Sorry about that couch, Jane. I know it’s a bit lumpy.”
I coughed to clear my sleepy throat and said, “It was fine. I’ve slept on worse couches than this at other foster homes. The couch at the Yarbers’ smelled like old squishy potatoes.”
I looked around Officer D’s room, wondering again why she lived here, in this tiny room above the dining hall in boonieville Three Boulders instead of Willis.
“Officer D,” I said, “your room reminds me of this motel room that Pop and me lived in for a few weeks. Except that it doesn’t have itchy bedspreads and stiff pillows and ugly paintings of sailboats.”
“Thank you, Jane.” She sat down next to me on the couch. “We need to put a clean dressing on your wound.” She lifted my bum wrist and gently unwound the old gauze. I cringed and sucked in my breath. It felt like she was peeling off large chunks of flesh.
She squinted at all the redness, twisting my arm slightly side to side. “Is it hurting?”
“Just a little,” I said softly.
Not the honest truth.
“Need one of those pills?”
I nodded.
She brought me a little pill and a glass of water and lifted my arm again, rubbing white goop all over my hand and wrist. “I’ll try to be gentle, Jane.”
The very first time I met Officer D, she fixed one of my wounds. It was about a year ago. I was testing out my longboard on our new street in Willis, and I crashed and burned near Miss Tally’s house. I trudged home with a skinned knee and elbow, and when I got there, Officer D was on our porch talking to Pop with a bag of groceries in her arms. When she saw my road rash, she went to her cop cruiser and snagged a first-aid kit, then cleaned my wounds and slapped on bandages, just like she did now.
She continued to come by our house, maybe once a month, always with groceries, which was good ’cause Pop didn’t earn a big paycheck. Sometimes she and Pop whispered together outside on the lawn. Pop never told me what they talked about. Officer D with her confidentiality probably wouldn’t tell me either.
“It looks like you and Gertie got along well yesterday,” she said.
“She gave me a tour of this place,” I said. “There’s weird stuff here.” I thought about the softball field; the stinky garden; all the tiny cabins; the record night; and that ancient dude, Old Red. “Officer D, did you tell Mr. Norton about me?”
She gave me a stare but didn’t answer.
“He knows about Pop, doesn’t he? About him being in rehab.”
She secured the fresh gauze around my wrist with a piece of tape but still didn’t answer me.
“Me and Pop shouldn’t be anyone’s business but me and Pop,” I said firmly.
“Jane,” she finally spoke, “you must understand that it would be nearly impossible to bring you to Three Boulders without sharing a little of your story with Red Norton.”
I lifted an eyebrow.
“Red has lived here for years. It’s his community essentially. He wants to understand why someone would want to live here, or why they might need to live here awhile.”
I pretty much wondered the same thing. Why would someone want to live in a place with no roads and no TVs and no McDonald’s?
“G told me he owns this land,” I said.
“That’s correct.”
“So he’s rich, like a billionaire.”
“Owning land doesn’t exactly make you rich.” Officer D rose from the couch and grabbed her holster lying on her bed.
“Well, it seems like he could do better than this.” I waved my good hand in circles, indicating Officer D’s room.
“I happen to like this, Jane.” She waved her hand, just like I had. “The quiet simplicity of Three Boulders is comforting. I’m not a fancy person.”
Me and Pop weren’t fancy people either. I wasn’t being rude on purpose.
Officer D didn’t seem upset with me, though, because she buckled her holster and kept on talking. “Since it’s his land, he has certain guidelines for letting folks live here. He wants to know their stories. And once they are here, he expects folks to follow the laws.”
I wondered if I met Old Red’s guidelines. I wondered if I’d be able to follow all the rules and not cause trouble. I wasn’t always good about that.
“This place is just weird. All of you living up here in the middle of nowhere. I miss Pop.”
“I know.” She put her hand under my chin and lifted it gently. Big, burly Officer D didn’t seem like a parent person, but the way she raised my chin reminded me of Pop. He always did the same thing.
“Can I call Pop today?”
“You know you can’t, Jane.”
“Will you talk to Pop today?”
/> She moved to her dresser and picked up a lint brush, swiping it down the sleeves of her cop shirt. “Possibly.”
“If you talk to him, tell him I’m doing good and that my hand is just fine. Tell him to watch our shows because I don’t have any TV. Tell him that I miss him but that we have only eleven more days. Okay?”
“If I see him, Jane, I’ll tell him. Now get dressed. It’s pushing eight o’clock, and we want to get to breakfast before the bacon is gone.”
She sure had that right.
“And, it’s your first day of school in Three Boulders. You don’t want to miss that.”
She sure had that wrong.
The Laws of Three Boulders
I followed Officer D down the stairs to the dining hall. Three Boulders folks were already seated and stuffing their mouths with pancakes and scrambled eggs. Last night, I’d learned that meals in Three Boulders were like one enormous picnic. Everyone sat at the long wooden tables, passing enormous bowls of food around, always from the right to the left. Me and Pop never did that. We just scooped our food right out of the pan off the stove. At the Nelsons’, I had to sit at a table with all their kids and pass food. Mrs. Nelson was a bad cook, though. Her tomato soup was cold, and she put mayonnaise on canned pears. I pretty much starved at that foster place.
Officer D was right about the food here in Three Boulders. It was the best I’d ever had.
That was the honest truth.
I scanned the people at the tables and saw G sitting with her mom and pop. She was wearing that sunshine shirt again. So were most of the other kids.
I made my way toward her, and she scooched over so I could slide onto the bench next to her. Mr. and Mrs. Biggs said good morning and passed the pancake plate. I took four, watching the steam ghosts rise from the big doughy disks. With my good hand, I carefully added butter and warm maple syrup and dug in. Pop would sure love these.
“Jane, we’re starting a new project in school today,” G said. “It’s a nature project.”
“That’s right,” Mr. Biggs chipped in. “I’ll be telling you all about it this morning. Nine o’clock by the fire pit.”
I swallowed a bite of pancake goodness. Why did they have to ruin my breakfast by mentioning school?
“Do I really have to go?” I asked, because maybe the rules were different if you were only staying a few days, like me. My TBS was kicking in just thinking about school.
“Of course you do!” G put her fork down. “It’s actually written down in the Laws of Three Boulders. I can show you.”
She reached behind her and grabbed her backpack, pulling out her black journal, labeled Laws of Three Boulders. She flipped forward a couple pages and handed me the journal, pointing to law number 26: All children under the age of 19 must participate in school activities as directed by a qualified adult.
“She’s right, Jane,” Officer D said, taking a slurp of coffee. “I’m going to buy you a shirt in Willis today so you’ll have the right uniform too.”
So those sunshine shirts were uniforms. I guess it was better than the uniforms all the Nelson kids had to wear to their school, those green polo shirts and ironed khaki pants. Maybe I could just wear the shirt and pretend to be in school. I could pretend real good for the next eleven days.
Officer D began chatting with Mr. Biggs and another man about the softball diamond, but I got distracted when I saw Old Red slowly making his way around the tables, hunching over his shotgun cane, talking to folks, one at a time. G was watching him with her hawk eyes as well. I could almost see her brain churning, figuring out what he was saying. When he came toward us, he nodded at me. “Good morning, young Jane. I trust you slept well.”
I remembered my dream about watching TV with Pop, and I thought this might be a good time to suggest a satellite dish and televisions here in boonieville, but Officer D spoke first. “She slept like a baby, Red. Lumpy couch and all.”
“Wonderful.” He gave his shotgun cane a big thump on the floor. “Doris, a word with you before you leave for Willis this morning?”
“Certainly. I’ll meet you in a bit.” She gulped one last mouthful of coffee and turned to G. “Gertie, I trust you can show Jane all the ropes today?”
“Of course, Officer Dashell.” G smiled.
Mr. and Mrs. Biggs rose too, waving goodbye, and pretty soon me and G had some space around us. I didn’t plan to leave anytime soon, especially if leaving meant going to school, so I scooped scrambled eggs onto my plate and turned a page in the Laws of Three Boulders journal. There was a law about stealing, a law about feeding wild animals, and a law about what time families had to be in their cabins. There were lots of laws about softball games. Softball seemed to be a major topic of conversation around this weird place.
Then I read law number fourteen: There is to be no alcohol consumption, nor possession of alcohol in the community boundaries at any time.
That put a little spark inside my brain. That law wasn’t being followed. I remembered the pie I ate yesterday.
I nudged G with my elbow. “Hey,” I said, pointing to law number fourteen. “This law is being broken.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That pie I ate yesterday. It had alcohol in it.”
“What?” G said loudly, and then she glanced around the table. A few folks were looking at us. G whispered, “How do you know that? Do you drink alcohol?”
“Of course not!” That was a Three Boulders law I intended to follow way beyond my twelve days here.
Then I pretty much blurted out the honest truth, but real quiet, so only G could hear me. “I know because it smelled like the stuff my pop sometimes drinks.”
“But that can’t be true. In Three Boulders everyone follows the laws, even Chef Noreen. Officer Dashell makes sure of it. So does Old Red.”
“Well, that pie had liquor in it, and just because you have a law, it doesn’t mean that people will always follow it.” I knew that was true. Not everyone in the world was a law-abiding citizen like Gertie Biggs.
G scanned the big room with her worried face. She leaned in toward me and said, “About two years ago, a man named Marty Muldoon lived here. One night he came back from Willis and was staggering up the road, and then he just passed out right in front of the dining hall. Officer Dashell saw him. She yanked Mr. Muldoon to his feet, slapped cuffs on him, and schlepped him all the way down the path and back to Willis. He wasn’t allowed in Three Boulders again.” G paused and sat up straight. She held up the black notebook. “These laws are what keep our community strong. There is no alcohol here.”
“Maybe there’s a different law for cooking?” I suggested.
“There’s not a different law. Alcohol is not allowed.” She gave one solid nod of her frizzy head.
All this yummy food was definitely waking up the smartness in my brain, because an idea came to me right then, an idea that just might delay school and all the work that came with it.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go find out.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s search the kitchen and see if we can find the alcohol.”
“But we can’t,” G whispered. “We have to get to school. And there will be people in the kitchen cleaning up after breakfast, so we can’t be rummaging around for mysterious alcohol.”
Pop’s words, stay out of trouble, whizzed through my brain. But how could searching for something cause trouble?
“Fine. We’ll wait ’til they’re done cleaning,” I suggested. “As the Three Boulders record keeper, don’t you think you should find out?”
G was silent, but I could tell she was thinking hard. I’d only known her for one day, but in that one day, I’d learned that her eavesdropping, law-abiding nature had to find the truth, the honest truth.
And I was right because she squinted at the silver watch on her wrist and then said, “Okay. We’ll search. They should be done in the kitchen about 8:40. I’ll prove there’s no alcohol in Three Boulders, and then
we’ll still make it to the fire pit by nine.”
The Kitchen Search
When G’s watch read 8:39, we took a soft dirt path around the dining hall to a red door at the back. G put her ear against the door, using her fine-tuned hearing to listen for voices. After a few moments, she nodded to me, turned the knob, and pushed the door open. I entered the kitchen behind her. There were three sinks the size of bathtubs, four refrigerators taller than Pop, and two wide ovens stacked along the walls. In the middle of the room were long, shiny steel countertops, with open cupboards above, filled with blue and yellow dishes. Swinging metal doors on the far side of the room led to the dining hall. “Cool. It’s like a restaurant.”
“Shhhhh.” G put her finger to her lips. “Be quiet.”
I ran my good hand along the smooth steel counters. “It’s so clean. I could eat right off these counters. I could eat off the floor!”
G tiptoed across the black-and-white tiles, her long flowered skirt shifting from side to side.
“Where’s all the food?”
G waved and I followed her into a little room lined with open shelves. “This is the pantry. See for yourself. Spices and baking goods here. Canned foods on that shelf. Dry goods on this one. Root veggies in the floor bins.” She pointed to each section of the room. “See? No alcohol.”
“She wouldn’t store it out in the open if it’s not allowed. She’d hide it. It’s probably in a paper bag.”
I moved to the canned food shelf and lifted cans, setting them on the floor.
“Don’t touch anything! Noreen will know if something is out of place.”
G grabbed the cans off the floor and carefully placed them back on the shelf, facing all the labels forward.
“We’re just looking. We’re not stealing.”
G exhaled. She glanced over her shoulder and wiped her hands on her skirt.
“Come on, help me.” I reached for a box of cereal, the nutritious wheaty kind that Pop never bought. I opened it and grabbed a handful of flakes, tossing them into my mouth. “Yuck. These aren’t any good.” I accidentally dropped the box, and cereal scattered on the floor.
Mostly the Honest Truth Page 3