by Shelly Brown
Kevin was passing out those cool pens that had red, blue, and black ink and I wanted one really bad but I couldn’t ask him for one. Of course voting took place during math. Kevin’s best friend, Matt, who was usually a very quiet kid, decided to get in one last jab. “You know you’re not going to win, right? I mean after yesterday, it’s clear that girls aren’t made to govern.”
I considered letting it go but it sparked something pretty fiery hot in me. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Matt chuckled. “You know. PMS.”
Honestly, I wasn’t even entirely sure what he meant by that, but I had never wanted to punch somebody in the face before that moment. How dare he pull gender into this? I could feel my head swelling with fury. The fight or flight in me said two very distinct things, SMASH HIM and Quit and cry. I couldn’t do either, so I just stood there looking like an idiot while I pinched my mouth shut, preventing bad words from slipping out.
“Matt, that’s rude,” Kevin said, stepping between us. He put out his hand and looked at the ground. “Good luck, Tiffany.”
My storm clouds of fury blew over but I couldn’t bring myself to shake his hand so I just gave him a head nod and went back to my seat. That kid might be about to lose his pants in this election but he was classy. Maybe even classier than me. That kinda made me hate him more.
I waited for Jessica by the gym because we agreed to go together to see the election results posted in the office window. She looked even more nervous than I was, bouncing from toe to toe and jabbering on as she walked.
When we got to the office there were a lot of kids standing around reading the election results. I spotted Kevin right away. He wasn’t smiling but he wasn’t frowning. Thinking. He had on a thinking face.
A kid from our math class patted him on the back and said something to him.
Congrats?
Better luck next time?
They were too far away to tell but Kevin smiled and nodded.
Chapter 24
The Results
Tiffany
Kevin saw me. He gave me an awkward wave and walked off in the other direction. I would have said that he was acting weird, but Kevin always was a little weird.
I skimmed past the ninth and eighth grade election results until I got to the seventh grade.
President—Kevin Sendheim
I felt Jessica’s hand on my back. What? How did nerdy Kevin Sendheim win the elections? Was he better than me? The candy bars failed me.
Treasurer—Cade Reed
Cade! The boy who picked his nose was on that stupid list. So what that nobody ran against him, at least he didn’t lose to Kevin plays-Dungeons-and-Dragons Sendheim.
So much for all of my great plans for the seventh grade.
I felt a familiar stinging in my eyes but I opened them really wide so that any moisture that might be gathering would have lots of surface area and wouldn’t spill on my cheeks. The baby squirmed in my backpack, but at least she wasn’t screaming. The other two were still waiting a few steps behind.
They voted for him—my class. Now they would have to listen to Kevin talk about being a team and getting good grades at assemblies. And I wasn’t going to be able to pick the songs for the Valentine’s Bash or get that cool sweater jacket thing with the word President embroidered on it.
Soon my nose was stinging and I sniffled.
No leaking! Not in front of the office. Not in front of Sendheim.
There went my failsafe reputation. Oh, and I wouldn’t be popular by title. The sob came right out of my throat without permission. My eyes and nose must have heard it because they turned the tap on full blast. Water poured out of my face and I tried to catch it all in my sleeves.
Jessica didn’t say anything but grabbed my elbow and pulled me away from the list. She dragged me all the way out to the huge sycamore on the far end of the baseball field and we both just sat down.
I leaned against the trunk of the tree, my head swirling in thoughts.
The man in the dark jacket made his way over so I grabbed the baby. “Go away,” I said clearly.
He laughed and disappeared.
“Am I bothering you?” Jessica asked. She thought I had been talking to her.
“No, you’re fine.” I wanted to say something. Something to show how strong I was, like no big deal, or there’s always next year, or now I’ll have so much more free time. But when I opened my mouth, all that came out was a huge sob. I raised my hands to my face and hid behind them for shame. Jessica just sat there silently with her hand on my back while I convulsed in chest heaves, tasting salty tears, and wiping my nose with my sleeve.
Was that really what people thought of me? Less than Kevin Sendheim? Was Jessica my only real friend? But even Jessica didn’t trust me that morning. Maybe I really wasn’t very likable.
I felt a nudge from under my elbow and a mop of hair snuggled up close to me. It wasn’t warm, but it was sweet. The worried face of the boy was inches from mine. He reached up, with furrowed brow and wiped my tears with his full palms right down my face, then cleaned them off on my vest. I chuckled.
“I’m really sorry, Tiff,” Jessica said patting me. “You wanna go get shakes at Hazels?”
“Sorry. She can’t. We have to go do something.” The voice was unexpected.
I looked up to see Justin standing in front of me with a hand out to help me up.
“I don’t want to go anywhere with you,” I said batting his hand away and pulling the boy snugly onto my lap.
Justin squatted down in front of me. “Tiffy, I’m sorry about the election. I really am but I think I have a way to make today better.”
Jessica spoke up. “So do I. Ice cream. It works like a charm.” She grabbed my arm acting like a territorial dog.
I scowled at Justin. “You said that yesterday and . . .” I had to be careful how I said this. “I ended up terrified and covered in cherries.”
Jessica looked confused.
“Look, the cherries were your idea.” Justin pulled a small pack of tissues out of his backpack and handed me the whole thing. “You know what?”
I wanted to make a snide remark, but he looked so serious I just listened.
“I thought you had this election. I really did. I voted for you.” He smiled and I couldn’t help it. One corner of my mouth slightly curved as well. “But there are things that have to be done today no matter what life throws at us in between. Sometimes our lives are not our own. This election is only one small part in your long rich life, even longer if you count the afterlife. A pinprick in time. A painful pinprick, but brief. Like an inoculation.” He looked up at the sky as if expecting rain clouds but it was clear and blue. “We don’t have a lot of time and if I could do it for you, I would, but I can’t. So on your feet, commando. We have to cover a lot of ground today.”
He stood again and put out his hand.
It was like one of those speeches from a movie or something, and I know I was supposed to feel inspired but all I could think was, “Shakes at Hazel’s sounds way better.”
His expression dropped and Jessica jumped up.
“You can come with us if you want,” she said, helping me to my feet. I stumbled a little trying to get the boy out of my lap as I stood. Once I was upright, the baby decided that she was tired of being held by her sister and started screaming. Ignoring the fact that Jessica was there, I took the baby from the girl and put it in my backpack.
“What are you doing?” Jessica asked. “You look like a mime.”
“Nothing,” I said wiping my face with the tissues Justin gave me. “Let’s get those shakes.”
“I’m heading to the Historical Society,” Justin said in a last ditch effort to get my attention. Little did he know how that phrase was not as enticing as milkshakes. “Nellie said she found some stuff that might interest you.”
“Have fun on your date with Nellie!” I said as I hobbled away.
Chapter 25
The Baby’s Name
Justin
I left Tiffany alone that night.
She even shut her blinds when she got home so I didn’t really see her at all. But she had her sage, and her parents, and a milkshake in her belly. I was pretty sure she would make it out all right.
Didn’t stop me from worrying though.
I tried to ease my fears with research and trying to solve her problem.
The next morning on the walk to school, I asked her if she wanted to hear what I found out.
“Nope,” she said without even looking in my direction.
“Are you mad at me?” I really could have done something to tick her off. I wasn’t the most observant person.
A scary grin spread across her face and she kept looking forward. “I’m mad at the whole world.”
Oh. I could respect that. Somewhere in fifth grade, after losing my parents, after nearly a year of shunning from my peers, and in the middle of my sister having a bit of a breakdown, I hated the world. Nobody could do anything right, the least of all me.
Tiffany just needed time and space. But those ghost kids weren’t going to really give her either. I let her hide through the school day and at the end of the day I met her and Jessica by their locker.
“I have somewhere we should go.” I said trying to talk around the topic.
“We don’t need to go anywhere,” Tiffany said, helping Jessica get her books out of the locker.
“I would just go by myself but I need them. And they need you. Therefore I need you.” I leaned against the locker to show her I wasn’t giving up on this one.
Jessica put the last book in and zipped up her backpack. “They who? What are you talking about?”
I ignored her question. “Just ask them if they know of a Heart and Grace Orphanage run by a lady named Lisette Hurtado.”
“Hurtado?” Tiffany squished her eyes shut really tight then shouted, “Yes. It looks like they know that name well.”
“Who knows what name?” Jessica asked. “What is this about?”
“Nothing,” Tiffany said putting a hand over her eyes. She shushed the invisible children.
Jessica’s expression turned deadly. She looked like her mother did that one time we broke their back fence playing wall ball. “Mentirosos! Liars!” She put her hands on her hips. She was tiny but there was still something scary about her—like being snapped at by an angry Chihuahua. “I guess you guys have all of these secrets now so, whatever. Why don’t you just go to secret places with secret people. I’m going home.”
Dumbstruck, I watched Jessica storm off.
Tiffany reached out a hand towards the fleeting Jessica then took a step in close to me. “What did she say?” she shouted at me.
“She’s mad at us for keeping secrets.” I tried to annunciate so she could read my lips.
Tiffany shook her head. “She made us keep sea carrots?” She brought her face close to mine as if to read my lips. “I can’t understand anything. Say that again.” Then she lifted one finger to indicate that she had an idea. “No, wait.” She sat on the ground, in the semi-crowded hall, then motioned with her hands for the invisible ghosts to come and sit so she could hold them. I could see her situating them on her small lap and holding them tight. She rested her chin on what I would assume was the top of someone’s head then said at a normal volume, “Much better. So what happened?” She rocked back and forth as she waited for an answer.
I looked around to see if anyone was watching her. Sitting on the ground in the hall was very un-Tiffany-like. I squatted down to talk with her. “Jessica? She’s mad at us for keeping secrets. Should we tell her?”
“No,” Tiffany said without even thinking about it. “I’ll talk to her later. What was all of that about the orphanage?” The word “orphanage” must have set them off again because she started shushing and rocking more.
I pulled out my phone. It was already 3:45 and we needed to get moving if we were going to fit it in. “That . . .” I hesitated to say the word, “place is only five blocks towards the waterfront from here. It’s now the Hacienda Restaurant.”
“The really old fancy joint? We went there for your sister’s graduation.”
“Right. Well, that’s the same . . . place . . . that I mentioned before. I was going to see if we can’t find clues to help you with your problem. I’d do it myself, but the kids could help a lot.”
She took a big deep breath then hefted herself off of the ground. “Come on guys. We’re going for a field trip.”
It didn’t take me long to realize that we were taking G Street to get there. The school was on G Street and the restaurant was on G Street so it didn’t make sense to go any other way, but I was trying to find an excuse to go the long way around.
“How did you figure out . . .” She looked down by her side then clasped her hand around what I figured must have been the hand of one of the children as they walked down the sidewalk.
“Well, the article said they were trying to locate the children’s family. If they were unsuccessful, the kids would have gone to . . . one of those places so I went to the Antioch Historical Society yesterday, and Nellie helped me figure out that there was only one of those during their time period and it had been converted into the Hacienda restaurant. It was built for Lisette Hurtado and she ran it from 19—”
“Wow, they really don’t like that name,” Tiffany interrupted.
“Well, she ran it from 1918 until 1934 when she got sick and died. Some rich guy bought it and used it as his house, and then it was changed into a restaurant in the early sixties. If you remember, they have an entire room in there dedicated to the history of the area. I’m just hoping that might have something we can . . .”
I couldn’t finish. The light post was staring me in the face. Not a light post—the light post.
I stopped walking.
I hadn’t been this close to that light post since the day of the accident. The childish part of me wanted to run in the other direction until I couldn’t see it anymore. The adult-like part of me was patting myself on the back for making it this far and encouraging myself to keep walking and put the whole thing in my past. The twelve-year-old part of me was stuck, my heart racing with fear, staring at the post I had watched swaying in the wind while I told the officers everything that had happened. The post I had memorized while they took my parents’ dead bodies out of the mangled car. Like magic, it transported my mind and heart to my scariest memory.
Stuck between childhood and adulthood, between the past and the future.
“Justin, what is it?” Tiffany came and stood right next to me, cupping her hand over her eyes to block the sun while she looked in the same direction. “Is it a ghost?”
Ghosts. Right. I looked around the intersection but didn’t see any ghosts. “No, it’s just . . .” But I chickened out. I wanted to tell her, but the truth of the matter was that after telling the police that day, I had never talked about it again.
I found my feet under my legs and made them move. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”
One step in front of the other and it was all behind me. Within a couple blocks we were standing in front of the Hacienda. It felt old but happy, like Betty White. Its bright white Mexican-style arches spilled sunlight into its shaded porches.
“Aw, crud,” Tiffany shouted. “The baby’s screaming and the other two are holding onto my pants, shaking.”
Sure enough, her pants were sticking out strangely at the hips. She bounced her arms vigorously. “They seem really scared of this place. I’m getting a little freaked out.”
Goose bumps formed on my arms.
By the time we were in the parking lot, I had a strong urge to turn around and forget about the whole thing. It ca
me on suddenly, like a burst of anger, but subsided as I ignored it. In the back of my head I tried to figure out if it was a premonition of some sort, but I had never felt that feeling before and had nothing to compare it to. Unsettling, yes, but not enough to make me leave. I had to help my friend.
When we got to the front doors Tiffany handed the baby off, to the girl I suppose, and read aloud, “Open from 5:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m., Monday through Thursday.” She turned and looked at me. “How early are we?”
I looked at my phone. “Half an hour more.” Waiting until five was going to be a problem. It was Wednesday and I needed to get home.
I heard her breath speed up and looked up to see her eyes filled with panic. “They disappeared. The kids are gone.” She looked around the front of the building and into the parking lot. “Maybe they started heading back.” I followed her across the street where she squealed then pointed back at the Hacienda. “I see them; they’re in the backyard.” She looked both ways then shot into the road and around to the kitchen door side of the restaurant. There weren’t arches in the back, but there was a pillared patio with herbs in huge terra cotta pots. Tiffany pointed to a slightly overgrown grassy corner right outside the kitchen door. “They’re standing there.” She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Guys?”
Her body language was strange. Stock still, she seemed to be studying the situation. “They won’t even look at me,” she said in a hushed tones. “They’re not doing anything, actually. Like they’re empty shells.”
Just then we heard a car pull up and a man with an apron over his shoulder got out. “Can I help you?” he asked us as he made his way to the back kitchen door.
I hesitated for a moment because I was scared to go near the grassy spot where the ghost kids were, but I eventually shook it off and ran up beside the man. “We’re doing a report for school on the history of this house, and we were wondering if we could see that history room you guys have before you opened to customers. We don’t want to be in the way.”