Missing Pieces

by Carly Anne West

  “Cashier assistance” is what her mouth forms, but all that comes over the loudspeaker is the sound of Aaron’s juiciest, loudest, most earthshattering fart we could record after a night of Surviva bars and two hearts bent on class warfare.

  A collective silence follows as we all process what just happened. The kindergartners are the ones to break first.

  “Mommy, she tooted!” says the girl, laughing riotously.

  “Say excuse me,” the little boy admonishes.

  Color drains from Mrs. Tillman’s face as she starts to deny it, but her finger is still on the microphone’s button, and instead of “I did not,” her mouth farts again.

  The twins squeal and clap at the performance while the mother tries to settle them. I look at the man at the front of the line.

  “Must be the wheatgrass,” I say, and he sets it down so fast, the canister tips over and rolls down the aisle.

  I look up at the office, but I don’t see Aaron anymore.

  Mrs. Tillman pursues the wheatgrass down the aisle as the mother loses control of the twins altogether.

  “Let me try!” says the boy, who reaches the microphone first.

  He presses the button and releases another echoing fart, and the kids squeal and trade places.

  “Mommy!” the little girl screams into the microphone, sending flatulence thundering across the store. A few more people I didn’t even know were in the store pop their heads up from the aisles like groundhogs, looking mortified, like they were the ones who’d let it rip. Then they turn their silent judgment on Mrs. Tillman, who’s still chasing the can of wheatgrass down the far aisle.

  Right toward the stairs to the office.

  I hear her before I see Aaron.

  “You!” she says, and another fart tears through the store. The kindergartners have teamed up now, pressing their mouths against the microphone at the same time.

  The speakers begin to crackle, and the elation I felt for one glorious minute turns to horror as I realize that the speakers are getting ready to blow. Aaron must have turned the volume up too far.

  “I knew you two were up to something! You may have pulled one over on Betty Bevel, but not me. Not this enlightened soul!” Mrs. Tillman shrieks, chasing Aaron up the aisle, barely sidestepping the canister of wheatgrass.

  “Busted,” Aaron hisses as he flies past me.

  “Stop right there!” Mrs. Tillman screams, lunging after Aaron, but now I’m ahead of him, trying to pry the kindergartners off the microphone before they blow the speakers out.

  “Wait your turn!” one of them says while the other bites my hand.

  “Ah!” I pull my hand back just as the mother yanks him off of me, but the little girl is still at the microphone, scream-farting into the microphone as the speakers pop and crack.

  Aaron jumps on top of the checkout counter to escape Mrs. Tillman’s wrath, but it’s not him she’s reaching for. Instead, she reaches under the counter and slams her hand on a hidden button. Alarm bells sound, and red lights flash, and suddenly a mesh gate closes over both entrances of the store.

  I look at Aaron, and his wide eyes confirm what I really wanted him to deny—we’re cooked.

  Between the synthesizer and the alarm, the speakers buckle under the pressure, emitting one earsplitting pop before dying under a fizzle of static. Magically, the alarm still blares from a backup system. A tap at the door catches Mrs. Tillman’s attention, and she rushes to let the guest in.

  A tired-looking uniformed officer strolls in, hands over his ears, and surveys the store for what went wrong.

  “These boys! Arrest these boys!” Mrs. Tillman screams, but the officer refuses to uncover his ears.

  “Marcia, the siren, please?”

  He nods to the register, evidently aware that Mrs. Tillman is paranoid enough to have installed a full-blown Fort Knox-level alarm system in her stupid store.

  She hurries to the counter and types in a code, silencing the siren and stopping the red lights from flashing.

  The officer takes a slow scan of the now-silent store, meeting the gaze of every shocked face until he comes to Mrs. Tillman, who has been waiting impatiently to speak, tapping her fingers on the countertop. The officer takes his wire-framed glasses off, drags his palm down his face, then slowly puts his glasses on again.

  “Go on and tell me what happened, Marcia.”

  “I think it’s obvious, Keith,” she says, and it strikes me that she and the officer are on a first-name basis, which at first grosses me out because I think maybe they’re dating or something, but taking one more look at Officer Keith, it’s clear there’s someone else in Raven Brooks who dislikes Mrs. Tillman as much as Aaron and I.

  “Well, then pretend like it’s not clear to all of us,” he says.

  “That lady farted,” says the boy who bit my hand.

  “I did not—”

  “It was the wheatgrass,” says the man at the front of the line.

  “Nope. Surviva bars,” Aaron says, and the twins dissolve into giggles. Aaron starts to laugh, too, and I can’t believe it. We’re up to our eyeballs in trouble, and he’s laughing like a kindergartner?

  “It wasn’t—Oh, for heaven’s sake,” says Mrs. Tillman. “These, boys, did something to my intercom system!”

  She says “boys” like she doesn’t actually believe we’re boys. Urchins, maybe. Or aliens. Or meat products. Officer Keith looks between me and Aaron, then settles on me.

  “Is that true, young man? Did you vandalize Mrs. Tillman’s intercom?”

  “I, uh—it’s more like—it wasn’t …”

  “I did it.”

  The entire store turns to Aaron, and I’m too shocked to say anything for a moment.

  “You did what, exactly?” asks Officer Keith.

  “I blew out her speakers. I was the one. It was all me,” he says. “I guess the gas made me do it.”

  “That’s not true,” I say, trying to understand why Aaron would take the fall, why he’s making so light of it.

  “It is true,” he says calmly, like he’s lied a thousand times before.

  “No, it’s not. Aaron, what are you—?”

  “It was both of them!” Mrs. Tillman shrieks, and Officer Keith puts his hands up.

  “Okay, okay, I think I’ve got a clear enough picture of what’s going on,” he says, looking back at the boy who accused Mrs. Tillman of farting.

  “Sounds to me like a couple of young gentlemen owe Mrs. Tillman a heartfelt apology and a new sound system.”

  A rock sinks in my stomach at the thought of how much a new sound system will run, how I’m ever going to scrape together enough to pay for it. I can barely conceive of how I’m going to apologize to Mrs. Tillman.

  I look at Aaron, but he won’t meet my gaze.

  Our parents arrive at the same time, and this is how they finally meet—with Officer Keith between them, explaining that they owe Mrs. Tillman $5,000 for new speakers, describing the prank in enough detail to take all the magic out of it that it might have held after the seriousness of our offense had passed.

  Mom and Mrs. Peterson catch each other staring a couple of times, I notice, and in those moments, they almost look like the same woman—strong and tired and angry, and not altogether surprised. Dad stands behind my mom, arms folded tight across his chest. Mr. Peterson stands beside Aaron, and this is the first time today I actually see fear in Aaron’s eyes.

  I want to say goodbye to Aaron, but something tells me this would be the worst thing to do right now. I immediately regret not trying once we get in the car, though, because the first thing out of Mom’s mouth is:

  “Well, I hope you had fun with your friend, because that’s the last you’re going to see of him.”

  “Mom! That’s not fair!”

  “You want to talk about fair? Let’s talk about what my signing bonus is going to buy, shall we? Do you suppose it’s a new washing machine?”

  “No,” I mutter, rubbing the bruise on my hand where the ki
ndergartner bit me.

  “Are we going to get cable so you can watch all those ridiculous movies you’ve been begging me to see?”

  I don’t answer.

  “No? Oh, that’s right. We’re going to be buying Little Miss Namaste a new sound system so she can sell more eighty-dollar salt crystals to morons who can’t see how pretentious—!”

  “Lu,” Dad says quietly, and she calms down immediately, not that she should.

  Not only did I cause Mom to have to give money to a person who looks down on people like us, but I have no idea when I’m going to be able to hang out with Aaron again.

  Tonight was supposed to be epic. I’ve never laughed so hard as when we were recording those farts for the synthesizer that night at his house. Now I can hardly remember why we thought this would be such a good idea.

  I have never felt worse. Not after my grandma died. Not after that time I ate expired SpaghettiOs and thought I’d die of food poisoning. Not after we had to leave my favorite town, where I managed by some miracle to blend in. Nothing feels worse than being driven home with your parents explaining to you that you’ve disappointed them.

  Nothing feels this bad.

  Except being forbidden to hang out with the one person you’ve met in your entire life who maybe—just maybe—knows what it’s like to be utterly alone and not okay with it.

  That feels worst of all.

  After a week at home with no TV, no games, no dessert, and no outside contact, I’ve grown feral. I keep my shades shut in my room, and on the rare occasion I venture out for meals, the light hurts my eyes. I’ve showered twice. I’ve left the protest state of punishment and just given up on basically everything, which I think is what finally wears Dad down. He has to get some work done this weekend, and watching me sulk around the house is making him edgy.

  Still, I almost fight him on it because there’s pretty much nothing more embarrassing than when your parents try to make friends for you. Except when your dad calls it a “playdate.”

  “Dad, answer me seriously. Do you know how old I am?”

  “I didn’t mean an actual playdate.” Dad’s hovering over an early proof of tomorrow’s newspaper, a red pencil behind his ear and another in his shirt pocket.

  “Because I’ve got this case of the sniffles I can’t kick, and you know how grumpy I get after naps.”

  “Okay, okay, Narf. You’re a crusty old sage, a bona fide adult with bona fide adult interests. You don’t ‘play’ with friends. You …”

  This new thought tugs him away from his proof. “What the heck do humans your age do?”

  His eyes scan me for answers, none of them the right ones. Even Dad knows that, and he looks torn between quizzing me further or meeting his deadline.

  “Just do me a favor,” he says. “Go hang out with Miguel’s kid. If you don’t like him, I owe you a Twinkie.”

  A Twinkie. Dad means business. He’s pondering the big, important stuff.

  Which is why I up the ante.

  “Two Twinkies,” I say, and Dad lifts his eyebrow. “That’s right, cowboy.”

  Now Dad knows I’m pondering the big life stuff, too, the kind that has me debating how much I’m willing to do to make friends in this place.

  “You’ve got a deal,” Dad says.

  * * *

  The Espositos live three blocks away, in the newer part of town, and I fight back the usual pangs of envy when I look at the neatly trimmed hedges and colorful flower beds and fresh paint jobs. The Espositos probably own their home. They can probably paint it any color they want or put as many holes in the walls as they need to. They could mount a basketball hoop or dig an in-ground pool in the backyard.

  I wonder if it’s too late to hate Enzo. He was cool at the Square, but maybe his dad was counting on him to take pity on me. Then he opens the door.

  “Cool hat,” he says, and he ruins everything because he’s nice again.

  Enzo pushes the door open and leads me through the living room to the kitchen. The house is big and new, but it doesn’t have the fancy furniture and white carpets I was expecting. The sofa looks old and worn with its cracked leather, and the floors are covered in a warm, rose-colored tile that makes our voices echo when we talk.

  Enzo tears open a bag of chips that we eat by the fistful.

  “My dad said your dad made him laugh so hard once, he puked,” he says.

  I believe him. My dad makes everyone laugh like that.

  “My dad said your dad went to school on a full ride,” I say with my mouth full.

  “Academic. He’s gonna be pretty disappointed when he figures out I’m not as smart as him.”

  He laughs first, so I feel like I can, too. Enzo’s that breed of nerd who can laugh at himself and skim by on mediocre grades. Something undefinable keeps him protected from embarrassment. I think it’s a total lack of self-awareness.

  Enzo also has more video games than I’ve even heard of. We sink into two beanbag chairs, boot up a tag-team brawling game, and trade insults the way you can when you’re a pro basketball player or a dragon slayer or a half-human, half-bird ninja warrior because insults don’t really matter anyway.

  By the time we look up from the screen, I’m blinking from the light of the TV screen and burping nacho cheese.

  “I don’t think I’m going to be able to bend my thumbs tomorrow,” I say when my character is KO’d. I lean back and rub my eyes.

  “So who else have you met yet?” he asks. “I mean, it’s practically impossible to meet anyone when school’s out.”

  “Yeah,” I agree. “Pretty much just you and Aaron.”

  Enzo keeps button-mashing and staring at the screen. He hasn’t died yet. His warrior lizard is still throttling some cat man.

  “Hmm,” he says, and at first I think it’s a distracted “Hmm,” but then his lizard warrior dies, and he keeps staring at the screen without restarting the game, and now I think his “Hmm” had to do with Aaron.

  “You don’t like him, do you?” I ask, feeling weird bringing it up, but the thing is, I’ve made a whopping two friends in Raven Brooks, and it’d be great if they didn’t hate each other.

  And if Enzo really does have something against Aaron being not rich, then screw him and his impressive collection of video games.

  Enzo looks uncomfortable, and I take that as a good sign because if he is a shallow jerk, at least he feels bad about it. He sets his remote control down but keeps staring at the game’s title track with the sound on mute.

  “My little sister, Maritza, she’s the same age as Mya,” Enzo says. I didn’t even know Enzo had a sister.

  “She used to hang out a bunch with Mya and Lucy.” He looks cautiously at me. “You know, the girl who …”

  I nod, thinking back to the grainy newspaper photo of the Golden Apple Young Inventors Club. The third girl in the picture. The caption called her Maritza.

  “So since I had to watch my sister and Aaron had to watch his sister, we used to hang out a lot together, too.”

  “Okay,” I say, bracing for whatever bomb Enzo seems so reluctant to drop. So far, the only weird part of this story is the fact that Enzo’s sister was the other girl in the picture, and she and Mya used to play with a girl who isn’t alive anymore.

  “We used to mess around at the construction site for the park. We were there all the time, and all the girls did was ask questions about how the rides worked. They were there so much, Aaron’s dad even made up this Young Inventors Club for them. I thought it was pretty cool. But Aaron …”

  I can feel the bomb dropping. It’s like the air is getting heavier.

  “I don’t know,” Enzo says. “It’s like Aaron didn’t want them to be a part of the park, or around his dad at all. But it wasn’t like he was jealous of us being with his dad. I just—don’t think he liked his dad very much,” Enzo says, but I can tell that’s not quite what he means to say.

  “Like he was afraid of him?” I ask, and it feels like a betrayal even wondering ab
out what Aaron feels when he’s not there to tell me if I’m full of it.

  Enzo’s eyes widen, though, so I know I’ve hit on something.

  “After Lucy …” he says, then trails off. He takes a drink of soda absently before continuing again. “It just got weirder. I’d bring Maritza over to their house, but it was like Mya and Aaron didn’t really want us around.”

  This is a turn I wasn’t expecting. If Enzo was icing Aaron out because he didn’t have money, why would Aaron be the one blowing Enzo off?

  “It was what Mr. Peterson said to Maritza, though. That’s what creeped me out the most.”

  My guts churn because I think I’m starting to understand. I swallow, but my throat still feels dry.

  “We were all in the kitchen, but he stopped her in the hallway. She didn’t tell me until after we got home. After that, we didn’t hang out with Mya or Aaron anymore.”

  I ask, even though I don’t really want to know.

  “What did he say to her?”

  Enzo looks straight at me for the first time that afternoon.

  “He said, ‘Did you see Lucy fly? She looked just like an angel.’”

  It’s like all the sound has left the room, and the only thing I can hear is the fan blowing in Enzo’s tired game box. The lizard warrior cycles through his fight sequence over and over on the screen, but all the fight has left me. I’m not sure who to defend anymore—Aaron? Enzo? Mya?

  What does make a person bad, then?

  Being happy when bad things happen.

  One thing I know, though. It’s getting harder and harder to defend Mr. Peterson. At the least, he’s just incapable of saying the right thing at the right time.

  At the worst, there’s something really wrong in the Peterson house.

  Technically, I’m not breaking the rules.

  I say it to myself at least twenty times as I cut my way through the woods and edge past the overgrowth on my way to the Golden Apple factory.

  I’m not going there to see Aaron. I don’t even know for sure that he’ll be there. I’m just trying to keep myself from going completely out of my mind with boredom during my last week of grounding. I mean, honestly, what do my parents expect of me? I can’t ask Enzo to hang out every single second. And besides, he’s in San Diego visiting his cousins. I mean, if you really think about it, I have no choice but to wander over to the factory where I’ve spent half of my summer. And if I happen to run into Aaron there, how is that my fault?