Strays Like Us

by Cecilia Galante

  It was a huge question. My brain whirled, trying to imagine the possibilities, but I couldn’t get past stale Frosted Flakes, which was all we ever had at home. “No idea,” I said, poking the side of my bowl with my spoon.

  “Oatmeal?” Margery encouraged.

  I shrugged.

  “Waffles?”

  “Sure.”

  “How about an everything bagel with cream cheese, sliced tomato, and a hard-fried egg on top?”

  I looked up. “What’s an everything bagel?”

  Margery’s eyes went wide and then softened again. “You’ll find out in the morning.” She tossed her braid back over one shoulder and reached for my bowl. “Finished?” I nodded. She took the bowl and put it inside of hers. Then she stood up. “I’m going to put these in the dishwasher and pull your clothes out of the dryer. They should be just about done.”

  “Okay.” I could feel her eyes on me as I lifted up her robe and headed toward the stairs.

  “Your bedroom is the first one on the left,” she called. “I’ll be up in a few minutes.”

  I kept walking.

  “Oh, and, Fred?”

  I stopped and looked down at the floor.

  “If you can think of anything else you might need, don’t hesitate to ask.”

  Man, I wished she’d stop being so nice. It wasn’t that I wanted her to be mean or anything; it was just that her obvious concern for me made me like her a little bit. And I didn’t want to like her. I didn’t want to dislike her. I just didn’t want to feel anything toward her. Not feeling anything was easiest.

  I made my way upstairs, where I sat on the edge of the bed. I was exhausted, but I didn’t want to go to sleep. Mostly because I didn’t want morning to come. If it was any other morning, I’d get dressed for school and Mom would get dressed for work, and we’d walk the first three blocks together, holding hands and singing Lady Gaga songs until we reached Woodrow Wilson Middle School. Right before I went inside, Mom would take my face in her hands and tilt it up a little.

  “I love you,” she’d say.

  “I love you, too.”

  She’d start to grin. “I love you three.”

  “I love you four.”

  She’d grab me in a hug. “I love you more.” She would kiss the tip of my nose and stand there at the end of the sidewalk until I disappeared inside the front doors.

  Neither of us would be able to do that tomorrow. And I couldn’t be sure when we ever would again.

  There was a skylight above my bed, and for a long time that evening, I just stared up at the inky rectangle of black, trying to make out a few stars that glittered in the left-hand corner. Last year, my sixth-grade science teacher had taught us that some stars, which scientists called binary stars, came in pairs. When I told Mom about it later that night, she kissed me and said that was what we were—two shiny binary stars, drifting in the heavens.

  My belly was full and I was clean and warm and comfortable beneath Margery’s flannel sheets, but remembering that made me so sad just then that it literally hurt to take a breath. Every time I inhaled, something inside would catch and then crack a little, and the more I thought about it, the bigger the cracks got, until I thought that maybe something really had broken inside.

  And then I heard it.

  A long, terrible howl outside my window. I held my breath as it dipped and then faded, a small, mournful cornucopia of sound. A few seconds later, it came again, longer and even more despondent than the first one, and this time I got out of bed. I tiptoed across the room and pushed the curtains to one side so that I could look over at Mr. Carder’s yard. Toby was sitting on his haunches with his head tipped back, wailing so pitifully that it made my teeth hurt. I pressed my hand against the cold glass and listened to my heart thump inside my chest. I knew that if I could push what I was feeling out of my chest just then, it would have sounded exactly like that howl.

  “Shut your trap!” Mr. Carder’s voice shot out from the upstairs window. It was followed by a heavy thud.

  Toby yelped as something hit the ground a few inches away from him. He ducked behind his tattered shed and stayed there for a moment without moving. I could only make out the barest outline of him since it was so dark, but I watched as he licked his haunches and then slowly, slowly settled himself down on the ground, resting his head between his front paws. He looked defeated. Exhausted.

  And utterly alone.

  I grabbed the comforter off my bed and snatched the smaller blanket beneath it. It was late—the digital clock next to my bed read 1:06 a.m.—but I didn’t care. I rummaged through the dresser drawers, pulled on two long-sleeve T-shirts, a pair of jeans, and a hoodie, and tiptoed down to the kitchen.

  Inside the refrigerator was a blue-and-yellow ceramic bowl covered with plastic wrap. I grabbed it and looked inside. Bingo! Tucking the bowl into the crook of my arm, I snuck out a side door and closed it softly behind me.

  As I looked out at the darkness with my arms full of blankets and beef stew, for a split second I thought of turning around and going back in again. I’d been outside at night lots of times of course, but it was different in the city. The streetlights were always on, and even at one in the morning, someone was always awake, driving down McCord Avenue or walking along the sidewalk.

  The darkness here wasn’t like any darkness I’d ever seen before. It was total. Complete. Like being covered with a blanket or walking into a cave and having the opening sealed shut. There was a sliver of a moon overhead, and even though I knew that the moon was the second-brightest object in the sky after the sun, it didn’t feel very bright. And it sure wasn’t giving off much light.

  I could feel the hairs on my arms stand up and the pounding of my heart inside my chest. And then I heard the clink of the chain in Mr. Carder’s yard. The soft movement as Toby shifted his weight in the dirt, followed by a long, doleful sigh.

  I took a deep breath and started walking.

  Woof! Woof!

  “Hush your mouth!”

  “Fred! Can you hear me?”

  I thought I was dreaming at first, all those noises and voices, coming from somewhere far away. Big hands shook me awake, and all at once, like a slap, I felt the cold. The sun was out, shining directly above me, but I couldn’t feel my cheeks or the tip of my nose. Even my bones felt cold, all the way to the inside and then back out again. I shivered and burrowed down more tightly into the comforter around me.

  “Fred!” It was Margery. “Fred, you have to get up. Come on. Right now.”

  Woof!

  “I want to know what in tarnation is going on,” uttered a growly voice. “And if I don’t get an answer, we’re going to have some serious issues!”

  “Don’t you threaten me, John.” There was an edge to Margery’s voice that I hadn’t heard yet. “She’s not on your property. Besides, we’re leaving.”

  “She’s fooling with my dog!” the old man spat back. “And my dog is my property!”

  Woof!

  I got to my feet slowly, my body stiff and sore. My neck felt lopsided, as if I had lain on it wrong, and my toes were asleep. I wrapped the comforter around me more tightly and looked over at Toby. He was straining against his chain, the tip of his nose barely reaching the small opening where we’d lain, side by side, all night. I’d been able to wedge the bowl of beef stew through when he’d first caught sight of me, and after he’d eaten it all, I’d wrenched a little bit more of the rotted section of fence away so that I could stretch my hand through the opening and pat him. He smelled terrible and his fur was matted down to just a little bald spot on the top of his head, but I kept stroking him and telling him what a good boy he was. He licked my hand so hard and for so long that I knew he was trying to tell me something. He wasn’t just grateful for the food. He was grateful I was there. He was afraid I would leave again. More than anything in the world, he just wanted me to stay.

  And so I stretched out the comforter next to the broken slat of fence and rolled myself up in it,
and when Toby lay down on his side of the yard, I reached in and draped the other, smaller blanket over him. His eyes were so sad and so grateful, and even though it was cold, I slid my hand through the little fence slat again so that he could lick it. He licked it and licked it and licked it, and that was the last thing I remembered before I fell asleep.

  “She’s not fooling with anything,” Margery said now in the same stiff voice she’d used before. “It looks like she just came out here to give the poor animal some company, and she fell asleep.” She turned, looking at me. Her face was flushed and her jaw was set like a square. I couldn’t tell if she was angry with Mr. Carder or me. “Is that right, Fred? Is that what happened?”

  Woof!

  I nodded.

  Mr. Carder grunted as he leaned down to retrieve something. “Just comp’ny, huh? Then what do you call this?”

  Margery and I both ducked as he hurled the bowl over the fence. I stared wide-eyed as it landed heavily in Margery’s yard, rolled a little bit, and then settled upside down among the leaves like a large blue-and-yellow mushroom cap.

  “Is that my bowl?” Margery seemed less concerned with the fact that Mr. Carder had thrown her dish than she was with it being outside. “Fred, is that my bowl? Did you bring my bowl out here?”

  “Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “I kind of figured he’d be hungry.”

  “That was …” Margery narrowed her eyebrows. “That was the rest of the stew.” It was a statement, not a question.

  I nodded.

  “You have no right goin’ and feedin’ my animal!” Mr. Carder’s eyes were hard little slits. “He gets what I give him, and that’s plenty. It’s more’n enough.” He stuck a gnarled finger in my direction. “You stay away from my dog.” He jabbed his finger in the air. “He’s mine, you hear? Mine!”

  Toby was watching me, waiting, I could tell, for me to turn around and walk away from him. His eyes were heavy, like he was bracing himself for my turned back, getting ready for me to disappear behind a closed door. Maybe I’d made a mistake, coming out here and showing him some affection. Maybe giving such a thing, only to have it taken away again, was worse than never having it at all.

  “There’s no need to yell, Mr. Carder.” Margery tugged on one end of the comforter. “I’m sure she’s heard you loud and clear.”

  “She better have.” Mr. Carder spun on the heel of his boot. “’Specially if she knows what’s good for her.” He stomped up his front steps and disappeared behind a slammed door.

  “Let’s go.” Margery strode across the lawn, stooped down to pick up her bowl, and headed for the house. “Now, Fred!” Her voice was sharp.

  I kept Toby’s gaze level with mine as I dropped my voice to a whisper. “Don’t you worry, okay? I’ll come back to see you as soon as I can. I promise.” I moved across the lawn slowly, one backward step at a time. Toby’s pink nose quivered as the distance between us increased, and then, just as I reached the front door, I held up my hand, a short little wave, before I disappeared inside again.

  Woof!

  “Come in here and sit down, please.” I stopped in my tracks as Margery called from the kitchen. There was no mistaking the tone of her voice.

  “I’m going to get dressed fir—”

  “You are going to get in this kitchen.” Margery appeared in the hallway, pointing behind her. “Now.”

  I plunked down in one of the chairs, clutching the comforter around my shoulders.

  Margery sat down across from me and rested her hands on the table. Man, they were big. Like paws. I hunkered down inside the comforter a little bit more and held my breath.

  “Do you remember what I told you yesterday about that dog?”

  I looked down at the table.

  “I made you promise me—”

  “I didn’t promise you anything.” I lifted my head. “I didn’t.”

  “That’s right,” Margery said. “You didn’t have to. Because you said you wouldn’t go near that disgusting dog even if someone paid you.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “He’s not yours.”

  “He shouldn’t be Mr. Carder’s.”

  Margery shook her head. “But he is, Fred. And I know it’s awful that someone can treat an animal like that and get away with it, but there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  I didn’t want to get on this merry-go-round again. There weren’t any answers. Or at least, none that made any sense. Instead, I pressed my lips together and stared down at the table, which was bare, now that last night’s tablecloth had been taken off. It was mostly metal and fashioned somehow out of five or six gigantic wheels, all stuck together side by side. A large plate of glass covered the wheels so that there was a stable, flat surface to eat on, but the rest of it was just the wheels and a strange mishmash of metal parts.

  “Did you make this table?” I pointed down at the wheels.

  Margery sat back in her seat, looking slightly confused. “Yes.”

  “How?”

  She shrugged. “I found the wheels and cleaned them up and made them into a table.”

  “Where’d you find them?”

  “Just sitting in front of someone’s house, I think. Big ‘For Free’ sign on the front of them.”

  “You take people’s junk?”

  “Sometimes. Only things that I think really have potential. Things I know I can make something out of.”

  “How do you know?”

  Margery shrugged. “It’s kind of a feeling, I guess.” She glanced over as the copper teakettle began to whistle. “You learn as you go.” She got up, flicked off the flame, and poured boiling water into two mugs.

  “I told you I don’t drink—”

  “It’s not tea,” Margery said. “It’s Mexican hot chocolate.” She shook a tiny tin over the mugs. “You need to drink something hot to warm up those bones of yours. They must be practically frostbitten after lying on the ground all night.” She raised an eyebrow in my direction. “It’s October, Fred. Not July.”

  “What’s Mexican hot chocolate?” I asked, sidestepping her comment.

  “Have you ever had regular hot chocolate?” Margery placed the mugs on the table.

  “Sure.” I leaned over and peered into mine. A thick, creamy foam, sprinkled with something that looked like brown freckles blanketing the top of it. “But nothing that looks like this.”

  “That’s because it’s made with very, very good dark chocolate, ground-up chipotle peppers, and cinnamon.” Margery took a sip from her mug and closed her eyes. “Go on and give it a try. It’ll warm you right up.”

  “There’s peppers in it?” I drew back in disgust.

  “Try it before you snub it.”

  I lifted the mug to my mouth. The scent of cinnamon was okay, but there was something else, something biting and harsh-smelling that made me wrinkle my nose. “I don’t think so.”

  “Just a sip.” Margery took another gulp of hers and raised an eyebrow. “I dare you.”

  I brought the mug to my lips again and took a tiny sip. The warmth of the liquid felt so good sliding down my throat that I shuddered. But a few seconds later, a different heat filled my mouth. It was spicy and a little tingly, but delicious, too, in an odd, almost unsettling way. “Wow,” I breathed, taking another sip. “That’s really good.”

  “I told you.” Margery leaned forward. “I know what I’m talking about. Especially when it comes to food, junk, and neighbors.” She waited until I looked at her. “You’ve got to stay away from that dog, Fred. If you don’t, I’ll have to call Carmella and tell her that it just won’t work out.”

  My eyes narrowed. “You’d do that?”

  “I wouldn’t want to.” Margery paused. “But I won’t be able to live with myself if that man goes off and does something foolish because you’ve decided to feed his dog again.” She leaned in a little closer. “When I tell you that John Carder is the world’s meanest person, I’m not exaggerating. He’s miserable and rotten and full of hate and
I don’t know why he’s that way, but it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that he’s capable of anything, and he’s got nothing to lose, which makes him even more dangerous.”

  Margery’s nostrils were white around the edges, and there was a little bit of spit in the corner of her mouth. I’d only needed the past twenty-four hours to learn that she was a tough cookie. Maybe one of the toughest I’d ever met. But she had a nice side, too. She was fair. And generous. And a pretty good cook. I didn’t want to go back to Carmella’s office and wait for her to find me some other strange family that might be willing to take me. It was too much of a risk. Too much more to lose.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Okay, what?”

  “Okay, I’ll stay away from the fence.”

  “And the dog.”

  I nodded. “And the dog.”

  Margery sat back again. Her nostrils softened and the square in her chin went back to its soft, round shape. “Thank you.” She stood up. “Now, you ready for your everything bagel?”

  I shrugged. “I guess.”

  Margery reached into a brown paper bag and withdrew a bagel. I recoiled at the sight of all the strange specks that dotted the outside and made a face. “I’m not eating that.”

  “These are just seeds,” Margery said. “Poppy, sesame, caraway. There’s salt on it, too, and a little dried garlic and onion. That’s why it’s called an everything bagel. Because they put a little bit of everything on it. Give it a try, at least.”

  I didn’t say any more. She’d been right about the Mexican hot chocolate. Maybe she was right about this, too. I watched as she sliced the bagel down the middle and dropped it into a toaster.

  “Tomorrow’s a big day for you,” Margery said, taking the cream cheese out of the fridge. “First day at Conestoga Middle School.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Well, yeah. Tomorrow’s Wednesday. You went to school on Wednesdays in Philadelphia, didn’t you?”

  “Well, yeah, but …”

  “But what?”