‘You didn’t,’ my mom said, her head still in her hands.
‘No, I didn’t, because Cosmo wouldn’t let me. And he wouldn’t let Amanda, either. That’s the thing. He’s a very honorable guy …’
Now Mom snorted. ‘Honorable? What kind of “honorable” person would start up a friendship with a twelve-year-old boy?’
‘Mom, he’s not a pervert.’
She turned to Sergeant James. ‘I want you to arrest this man for … for kidnapping a minor … for whatever it is he had in his sick head—’
‘Mom!’
She turned to me. ‘Did he touch you? Did he say things to you? Did he take pictures of you?’
‘Mom, stop! He’s a good guy. He’s my best friend.’
She looked at Sergeant James again. ‘Help me out here, I’m begging you.’
Sergeant James shrugged. ‘Nothing the kid says leads me to believe …’ She gave him the biggest stink-eye I’d ever seen. ‘But if you want, I can ask him a few routine questions.’
‘You can’t do that!’ I said, my voice rising. ‘That’s just insulting. Why can’t you take my word for it, Mom? Why can’t you believe a word I say?’
She turned her stink-eye on me. ‘You’re asking me why I can’t believe a word you say? You have the gall to ask me that, after everything you’ve just said in here?’
She did have a point.
‘I think that’s everything for now,’ said Sergeant James. He stood up, signaling that the interview was over. ‘I may need to ask you more questions at another time, Ambrose, but for now you’re free to go.’
‘What about Cosmo?’
‘He’ll be spending the night in lock-up.’
‘But it wasn’t his fault—’
‘It’s just routine.’
‘Will they let him see a doctor? Those guys really hurt him.’
‘Don’t worry. He’ll be looked after.’
‘Let’s go, Ambrose,’ Mom said.
‘Please don’t charge him with anything. All he’s trying to do is lead a regular life.’
‘Now,’ my mom said firmly. She grabbed my arm and marched me toward Bob, who was wedged in between two women who looked a lot like prostitutes, if you ask me. Amanda was nowhere to be seen.
I thought I saw the sarge give me a sympathetic wave as we left.
Bob dropped us off and drove away pretty fast. Mom hadn’t been very nice to him on the drive home, saying things like ‘Don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.’ Once she actually said, ‘Shut up, Bob,’ even though saying ‘shut up’ in our household was a big no-no.
The Economopouloses’ Escort was parked out front. As we walked up the driveway, Mr and Mrs E hurried out of their house, still dressed up from their evening out.
‘We just got a call from Cosmo. He’s at the police station.’
‘I know, we were just there too. I saw the whole thing,’ I said.
Mrs E’s eyes widened. ‘Are you alright?’
‘No, he’s not alright,’ my mom said coldly.
‘I’m fine,’ I said.
‘Your son has been a terrible influence,’ said my mom.
‘He has not,’ I protested.
‘Ambrose, get in the house. Now.’ Mom grabbed my arm and started to pull me away.
‘We go to see Cosmo now,’ Mr E said.
‘My baby,’ Mrs E added, and she dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief.
‘Baby, my ass,’ muttered Mom, which, even under the circumstances, was unnecessarily rude.
‘None of it was Cosmo’s fault,’ I shouted, as the Economopouloses got into their car and backed it out of the driveway.
And that’s when I saw it.
My MOST PROMISING NEWCOMER trophy, lying right where the front left tire of the Escort had been. The little silver cup was crushed into a gazillion pieces.
‘What’s that?’ my mom asked.
‘It’s nothing,’ I said.
I picked up the pieces and tossed them into the bushes.
26
ENRLIBOLE
brine, brillo, loner, bile, lore, robe, rob, bone, lion
REBELLION
When we got inside, Mom asked me to tell her everything. Having told the worst of it at the police station, I figured I might as well come one hundred per cent clean. So I did tell her everything, from start to finish. On the one hand, it felt good to get it all off my chest because I wasn’t used to keeping so many secrets from her. On the other hand, I wasn’t so dumb as to think that my belated honesty would suddenly make everything A-OK.
When I was finished, she was quiet for a long time.
‘I can’t believe that you lied to me like that. Over and over again.’
I didn’t know what to say. ‘Sorry’ seemed pretty lame.
‘You never used to lie. We used to tell each other everything. Then we moved to Vancouver and, for some reason, that all changed.’
It was like she was talking to herself more than to me. I couldn’t hold back a huge yawn; it was one o’clock in the morning and it had been a long day.
‘You’re exhausted. We’ll pick this up in the morning.’ She stood and held out her hand to help me off the couch.
I went to bed and lay under my Buzz Lightyear sheets, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling.
Then I turned to the photo of my dad. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you,’ I whispered.
I knew I wouldn’t sleep a wink.
Next thing I remembered, sunlight was streaming in through my basement window and my clock read 11:00 A.M. I’d slept like a log for ten hours straight.
When I wandered into our living room, Mom wasn’t there. I looked in her room, but she wasn’t there either. I felt a sudden rush of panic and I yelled out ‘Mommy?’ like a five-year-old. I kind of looked like a five-year-old too, standing there in my rocket-ship pajamas, which were way too small for me now and even had a new hole right by my you-know-what.
But then there she was, walking through the front door. I was flooded with relief, but only for a moment because I saw how grim she looked.
‘You’re up,’ she said.
‘Were you out shopping?’
She shook her head. ‘I was upstairs, talking to the Economopouloses.’
‘About what? Is Cosmo OK? Is he home?’
She started tidying up things that didn’t need tidying, like moving a cushion an inch or two, and lifting up a plant, then putting it right back down in the same spot. ‘I don’t know, nor do I care, about where Cosmo is or how he is. I was giving our notice.’
My heart sank. I knew what ‘giving notice’ meant because we’d done it over and over again – in Calgary, in Edmonton, in Regina, and in Kelowna. It meant that we were leaving.
‘Where are we going?’
‘I’ve been making some calls,’ she said. ‘Apparently they need sessionals in English lit at the University of Manitoba, in Winnipeg.’
‘Winnipeg?’
‘Who knows, maybe this time I’ll get lucky and be offered a full-time position.’ She looked almost hopeful.
‘But why?’
‘I’m surprised that you even need to ask me that.’
‘What about Bob? I thought you liked him.’
She shrugged. ‘Your well-being is far more important to me than any man.’
‘Mom, please. My well-being is weller than it’s ever been. And I’m sorry I lied, unbelievably, enormously sorry, but I don’t want to move again—’
‘What you want is irrelevant, Ambrose. You clearly can’t be trusted to make reasonable decisions on your own behalf, so I have to make them for both of us.’
‘But I have friends here. Real friends. Not just Cosmo and Amanda, but all the Scrabble Club people.’
‘Ambrose, those people aren’t your friends. I saw a documentary once about people who join Scrabble Clubs. More often than not, they’re a bunch of misfits.’
‘You haven’t even met them! And has it ever crossed your mind
that I’m a misfit?’
‘Don’t say that about yourself.’
‘And that every time we go somewhere else and I have to try to start over, I fit in even less? And this time, finally, I’ve met some people who accept me for me, and I don’t care if they’re older or whatever.’
‘Well, I care …’
‘You know what I think?’ I shouted. ‘I think you like it when I don’t have friends because then all I have is you, and it’s just you and me against the world. And maybe that’s why you want us to leave again because I’m finally happy, Mom, I’m happy! But maybe you’d rather I be miserable, like you. So instead, we’re going to keep moving and twenty years from now, I’ll be a total loser who still lives at home with you, but maybe that’s what you want. Because it’s the only way you’ll have a piece of Dad with you forever.’
By now tears were rolling down my face, and I must’ve looked totally pathetic in my rocket-ship pajamas with one testicle peeping through, but I was beyond caring. Then I saw that my mom was crying too.
‘That is a terrible thing to say.’
Maybe it was, but I couldn’t help it. The words just came flooding out, words that had been there, hiding, for a long, long time. ‘I think you’ve gotten so used to being miserable, it’s just easier to stay that way. It’s just easier not to trust anyone, to just keep to yourself and drink too much wine all the time. And I feel sorry for Dad because it must make him so sad to see what a bitter bitch you’ve become.’
She slapped me hard across the face.
I was going to make a run for the door, but even though I was more emotional than I’d ever been in my whole life, I still had enough sense to remember that a) I was in my pajamas and b) that you could see one of my nuts. So instead I ran into my bedroom, which was anticlimactic since I didn’t have a door and beads don’t slam.
I waited for my mom to come in and apologize for the slap because she had never, ever hit me before. But instead, I heard our front door open and close.
After a few minutes, I got up and went into the living room. She’d left me a note that read, Gone out to clear my head. Back in an hour. She’d written an XO at the bottom of the note because we’d made a vow to each other years ago to never leave mad.
I gazed at the note. Then I walked back into my room and got changed into my purple cords and a T-shirt. I rummaged around for the backpack I’d used for school and filled it with two pairs of underwear, one pair of socks, one T-shirt, a rain jacket, and my library book. I tried to stuff my dad’s sweater in too, but it wouldn’t fit, so I tied it around my waist.
Then I went into the kitchen and used up almost a whole loaf of spelt bread, making cheese sandwiches. I filled a big water bottle and placed it in its own pouch at the side of the pack. My EpiPen went into the outer pouch. I found an old sleeping bag in the closet. It wouldn’t fit into the backpack either, so I grabbed a canvas shopping bag and put it into that instead.
I was just about to leave when I thought of three more things.
I took our Scrabble board from the shelf and stuck it into the canvas shopping bag next to the sleeping bag. Then I went back into my bedroom and got my quarter collection out from under the bed. I poured as much of it as I could carry into my backpack’s hidden inner pouch. Last but not least, I grabbed the photo of my dad from my bedside table and wedged it gently between the sleeping bag and the Scrabble game.
Then I tied up my Ikes and walked out, locking the door behind me.
I dropped my backpack behind the same tree Silvio had hidden behind only last night, then I knocked on the Economopouloses’ door. Mrs E answered. She’d been crying. I kind of threw myself at her and we hugged each other for a long time. ‘Oh, Ambrose,’ she said, ‘I’m going to miss you so much.’
‘Me, too.’
I cried a little as she squeezed me tight, then I asked her if Cosmo was back.
‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘He seemed OK, but I’m worried for him.’
‘It’ll be alright,’ I said. ‘He didn’t do anything wrong.’
She nodded and blew her nose into her handkerchief. ‘But, sometimes, when somebody’s done something wrong before … they think he’ll do it again.’
‘Yeah, but there were witnesses. Me and Amanda.’
She sniffed again. ‘She called me this morning. Such a nice girl. And you, you’re such a nice boy.’
I told her I’d see her later, then I grabbed my backpack from its hiding spot. I walked down to the bus stop at Bayswater and West 4th Avenue and, a few minutes later, I boarded the number four.
I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t know what I was doing. I only knew that I wasn’t moving again. If mom really wanted to leave, she’d have to leave without me.
27
WNYRAUA
ray, way, ran, wary, raw, war, warn, yawn, run, away
RUNAWAY
FIGURING OUT WHERE to go wasn’t easy. It wasn’t like I had an army of friends to choose from. Cosmo was still in jail. Amanda might still be mad at me, and even if she wasn’t, she’d probably feel obligated to call my mom. I didn’t know where Mohammed or Joan lived, and besides, I couldn’t really ask them to harbor a fugitive.
I had to face it. If I was doing this, I was doing it alone.
I knew I didn’t want to wind up downtown with the other homeless kids on Granville Street because I’d seen them when I’d been down there with my mom. They were tough and they hung out in packs and a lot of them had dogs and body piercings and tattoos, while I had Spider-Man underwear and a Scrabble board. I just couldn’t see it being a good fit.
I could catch a Greyhound bus to another town in B.C., or to Calgary to see Nana Ruth, but that would defeat the purpose, since the whole point was that I wanted to stay in Vancouver.
Then I had an idea, and a pretty good one at that. I jumped off the bus after only about six stops.
I would go to live on an island.
Granville Island.
A fifteen-minute bus ride from my home.
28
NTOIUSLO
slit, lost, not, soot, suit, lotion, sun, nut, loot, loon, lust
SOLUTION
SINCE IT WAS only one o’clock in the afternoon when I arrived on Granville Island, walking from the bus stop and along the road that traveled under the Granville Street Bridge, I had a lot of time to kill. Lucky for me, it was a beautiful day, so I spent a couple of hours on a bench by the water, eating two of my cheese sandwiches and reading Inkspell and dozing in the sunshine. Then I took out a bunch of my quarters and paid to go into the Miniature Train Museum. I’d been there only once before, but it was a great place, especially the working model train set with its own separate room. The man who ran it didn’t seem to mind that I stayed for a long time, and he told me all about the different model ships and planes that he also had on display.
I spent the rest of my afternoon and evening watching the buskers perform for money, including a sword swallower and an excellent magician who used me as an assistant for one of his tricks. It felt nice being among the throngs of locals and tourists enjoying their Sunday, although, to be honest, all my gear was getting a little heavy to lug around, especially my quarters.
Since it was mid-May, it didn’t get really dark until close to ten o’clock. But when it did get dark, the feeling on the island changed. It didn’t feel super dangerous or anything, just … lonely, even though there were still quite a few people around, enjoying the restaurants and theaters.
But by midnight most people had cleared out, and I had that overwhelming feeling again that I was a mere speck in the universe. It wasn’t a terrible sensation, or even a depressing one, just, I don’t know, sort of profound and true, and it made me kind of melancholy. I sat down by the water’s edge and looked at all the lights shining brightly in the buildings downtown. I thought about all the people going about their lives in those buildings, and I thought about my mom, who, by now, was probably worried sick. I got up and found a payphone by th
e visitor’s center and used one of my quarters to call home.
She picked up halfway through the first ring. ‘Ambrose?’ I could hear the fear in her voice.
‘Hi, Mom.’
‘Oh, thank God, Ambrose, where are you?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Is someone telling you to say that? Just answer yes or no.’
‘I’m alone, Mom.’
‘Then let me come get you. We can talk—’
I hung up then because I’d seen enough movies to know that the police could trace my call if I stayed on too long. Then I wandered over to the water park, which hadn’t opened for the summer season yet. I thought about pulling out my sleeping bag and camping out under some bushes for the night, but then I saw a bunch of homeless guys. They were setting up camp with their shopping carts near some other bushes nearby and even though they were probably harmless, like Preacher Paul, I didn’t really want to stick around to find out.
So I walked to the far end of the island, past the Emily Carr School of Art to the Granville Island Hotel. It was a low-rise building, and if I was ever lucky enough to be able to stay in a hotel in my own city, I would choose this one because it looked so friendly and so quiet and so off the beaten path. The doorman was busy helping some people to their car, so I scooted inside. There were washrooms down a side corridor, and I slipped into the men’s with my stuff.
It was warm in there, if a little smelly – a mix of disinfectant and pee. I locked myself into a stall and put the seat down on the toilet and did my best to get comfortable, unzipping my sleeping bag and wrapping it around me like a blanket. Then I took out the picture of my dad laughing and propped it up on the toilet tank.
‘I wish Mom could remember the joke she told you to make you laugh so hard,’ I said to him, looking at his smiling face.
Then I closed my eyes and tried not to feel too scared as I settled in for the night.
It’s not something I’d recommend to anyone, sleeping on a toilet. All night I drifted in and out of sleep, mostly out, and my body was sore and achy all over. About six o’clock, the washroom door banged open. I could see a cleaning lady’s cart and a cleaning lady’s feet. She was singing tunelessly to herself. I peered under the stall. She was a big cheerful-looking woman, and she was wearing an iPod. She didn’t seem to notice that the last stall was occupied. When she entered the first stall to scrub the toilet, I jumped up and ran out, clutching my backpack and my shopping bag and the photo of my dad, my sleeping bag flapping around my shoulders like I was a superhero. I ran right out of the hotel and I was pretty sure that no one saw me leave.
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