Strays Like Us

by Cecilia Galante

  Margery nodded. “Sit in it,” she offered. “It’s pretty comfortable.”

  I settled myself into the bucket seat. She was right. It was wide and spacious, with just enough room on either side for me to cross my arms and legs and sit back a little. “How did you even think of making it into a chair?”

  “The first thing I did,” Margery said, “was to stop looking at it as a piece of junk. I even stopped looking at it as a wheelbarrow.” She shrugged. “The rest just came.”

  I wasn’t sure I understood what she was telling me. But it was pretty cool, whichever way you looked at it.

  I ran my hands up and down the metal sides. “How did you get it so smooth? And so red?”

  “I had to sand the sides,” Margery answered. “I’ve got a special tool that does that for metal. And then I painted it red.”

  “It’s nice,” I said, shaking my head. “It really is.”

  “I’m glad you like it.” Margery took one end of her scarf and tossed it over her shoulder. “Especially since you’re going to be sanding and painting a few things of your own for the next two days.”

  I looked up. “What?”

  “You heard me.” Margery tucked the ends of her scarf into the front of her leather jacket and zipped it up. “Being suspended from school does not entitle you to a vacation, Fred. You’re not going to sit around here twiddling your thumbs for the next forty-eight hours. Come out back with me, and I’ll show you what I need you to do.”

  It almost felt like a trick. Like she’d told me a really crazy story to throw me off-balance so that I’d agree to do whatever she wanted.

  Almost.

  Margery’s metal collection wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen before. It was like some kind of crazy playground. There were hubcaps and car doors, something that looked like the back of a refrigerator with thick black coils running up and down the length of it, and an upside-down wok. In the middle of it all, standing watch like an angry giant, was a rusty, rickety structure, complete with wide, slightly concave blades. I couldn’t be sure, but it almost looked like the top of a windmill.

  “This is all yours?” I asked, sidestepping something that looked like a gigantic wire Slinky.

  “Sure is.” Margery held open the door to the workshop. “There used to be more but I had to get rid of a lot. It was taking up too much room.”

  Inside, the workshop was about the size of Margery’s kitchen, with a single window on one end and a wide, steeply pitched roof. A table, cluttered with mechanical parts, took up most of the space, and the floor was a carpet of sawdust and metal shavings. It smelled damp, like wet wood, and the air was freezing.

  Margery strode over to the table and plucked three items from the mess. Two of them looked like miniature wheels, minus the spokes. The third object was unmistakably a candlestick, except that it was short and chubby. Margery set each item down in front of me and unhooked a long, narrow tool hanging on the wall. “This is a metal sanding bar,” she explained. “Watch me first.”

  I stood close to her as she moved the bar across the outside of the candlestick. Up, down, across. Up, down, across. Dull, flaky chips fluttered to the ground, and Margery’s hands disappeared under a pale gray film.

  Great, I thought to myself. This is exactly what I want to be doing over the next two days. Maybe I’ll learn how to fall asleep standing up, too.

  But my annoyance vanished as Margery stopped sanding and pointed to the cleanly rubbed section. Gone was the thick, dull veneer. In its place was a smooth portion of something so clean and shiny that it seemed to glow a silvery-rose color.

  “What is that underneath?” I asked.

  “Looks like nickel.” Margery picked it up and examined it more closely. “Maybe lead. Or a titanium metal. Hard to know until it’s all done.” She handed me the tool. “If you do it right, it will take you the rest of the day to finish this piece. The wheels won’t take you nearly as long. You should be able to do both of them tomorrow.”

  I could feel my heart sinking again. “You seriously want me to stay out here for the rest of the afternoon?”

  “I do.” Margery looked at me steadily.

  “It’s freezing.”

  She walked toward the back of the room and picked up a bulky space heater. “I don’t usually bring this out until November, but I guess special circumstances call for special actions.” She placed it near the table and plugged the cord into the wall. “It’ll take ten minutes or so to really kick in, but just leave it on medium.” She pressed the second of three red buttons on top. “Low doesn’t do anything, but high gets too hot for such a small area.”

  “Got it.”

  “All right, then.” She refastened her riding gloves around her wrists. “You’re all set.”

  I got this weird feeling then, and it didn’t have anything to do with the fact that I’d gotten in trouble and was being put to work. I sort of didn’t want her to leave. Or maybe it was just that I didn’t want to be alone. “Are you going to be gone the rest of the day?”

  “Yep.” Margery looked at her watch. “And I’ve got to hightail it out of here now, or I’m going to have to stay even later. Factory regulations.”

  “What time will you be back?”

  “Six.” She winked at me. “Six ten, if there’s any traffic.” She reached for a small, portable radio on a shelf above me and fiddled with the knobs. “The time’ll fly if you’re doing this right, but I like to listen to music while I’m working.” We both listened as the static moved to a man’s voice and then to the sudden, happy explosion of music. Beyoncé. I lifted my eyebrows, careful not to show my enthusiasm.

  “Yeah?” Margery nodded as I shrugged. “Okay, then.” She put the radio back on the shelf. “I’ll see you for dinner.”

  And just like that, she was gone.

  It was still too cold to work. I decided to look around until the space heater warmed the place up. The table was a mass of screws and nuts and bolts and car hubcaps and wrenches and silverware, even a rusty bicycle bell. The wall was littered with hooks, each one holding a hammer or a drill or some other kind of tool. There was an entire row of antique skeleton keys, each one hanging by a thin leather cord. I ran my fingers over them and stood there for a moment, watching them sway back and forth in the light. And then in the corner of the workshop, I spotted a green tarp with something blue and purple and a little bit glittery sticking out of one side.

  Underneath was the strangest thing I’d ever seen. I guess it was a sculpture of some kind, although honestly it just looked like a bunch of weird items all stuck together. I could make out a rusty kitchen spatula on one side, and an old soup ladle on the other. Something that looked like a clock had been crammed right in the middle. Nothing about it gave any indication as to what it was. Or what it might become. But apparently, Margery cared enough about whatever it was to protect it.

  I arranged the tarp on her project as best I could, straightening the sides and smoothing the edges. Then I walked back over to the worktable in the middle of the room. The small wheels and the candlestick were still there, lined up in a neat little row, waiting for me. It was warm inside now, almost toasty. I took off my jacket and hung it on one of the hooks. Then I sat down on a stool and picked up the sanding bar and went to work.

  I’d only been working for an hour or so when Toby started to bark again. My heart sank. He was like an alarm you couldn’t turn off. I couldn’t hear the music on the radio anymore, and it was getting hard to concentrate. My hands slipped as I moved the sanding bar over the candlestick. It spun out of my hands and fell to the floor.

  Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof!

  I’d promised Margery I wouldn’t go anywhere near Toby. And I wouldn’t. I’d just say something. Loudly, so he could hear me. So that he knew I could hear him.

  I grabbed my coat. Outside, the barking was piercing, a steady, repetitive complaint of distress. What was he trying to say? He was probably cold. Maybe even freezing. I
wondered if he was hungry, too. Had Mr. Carder bothered to feed him today? Had he even bothered to look at him?

  Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone on Margery’s porch. I ducked behind a big maple tree and peered around the trunk. A girl who looked very much like Lardvark was standing there, ringing the doorbell. She had on a big army-green coat with fur trim down the front and a white knit hat on her head. Her blond bangs stuck out from the hat like a little shelf. She pushed the doorbell a few more times and looked around. Toby kept barking. Lardvark bit her lip and sighed. She reached out and rang the doorbell a third time.

  “Hey!” I stepped out from behind the tree. “You need something?”

  She looked so startled—and so overjoyed—to see me that I thought maybe she’d been thinking of someone else. “Oh!” She brought her hands to her cheeks. “You are here! I was just about to give up! I thought maybe I got the wrong house, or you’d gone out to do something. Like, in town.”

  I took a step back as she lumbered down the porch steps and raced up to me. Man, she was eager. A little too eager for my taste. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose were pink from the cold, and she had the most beautiful skin I’d ever seen. It was like marble, with a faint glow about it, like a cloud lit by the sun.

  “How are you?” she asked happily.

  I frowned. “How’d you know where to find me?”

  Her smile faded. “I knew you’d ask me that.”

  “And?”

  “I asked the secretary at school. You know, in the front office. She gave me your address.” She winced. “You’re not mad, are you? I didn’t mean to be nosy or like a stalker or anything. I just …” She paused, shaking her head. “We heard that you got a two-day suspension, and I … I just couldn’t wait.”

  “Couldn’t wait for what?”

  “To thank you.” Lardvark’s eyes were so full of gratitude that for a moment I thought of Toby and the way he’d looked the other night when he was licking my hand.

  “What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything.”

  “What’re you, nuts?” Lardvark’s eyes went wide. “You went flying across that table and beat up Michelle Palmer! All because of me!”

  “Okay, first of all, I didn’t beat anyone up.” I shoved my hands inside my pockets. “I got mad at the way that girl pushed you and then the way she talked to me and I pushed her and maybe tried to sit on top of her a little bit, but you know what? I shouldn’t have.” I shook my head. “I totally should not have done that. It just made everything worse.”

  Lardvark stood there, staring at me. “But you’re wrong,” she whispered. “It made everything better.”

  “I got suspended from school for the rest of the week! How is that better?”

  Behind me, Toby started to bark again.

  Lardvark pulled on her bottom lip. Her eyes were moist around the edges, and I thought she might cry. “I’m sorry,” she said finally. “I meant it made everything better for me.”

  “For you? How?”

  She let go of her lip. “Because … well … Michelle didn’t tap me on the shoulder during science class today.”

  “What?”

  “Michelle didn’t—”

  “I got that part,” I said. “But what does that even mean?”

  Toby gave two more barks and then whined. I could hear the chain clinking behind us as he paced back and forth. He was probably dying to know what was going on. Desperate to join us.

  Lardvark took a deep breath. “Ever since last year, Michelle has come up behind me in whatever class we have together and tapped me on the shoulder.”

  “To say hi?” I was thoroughly confused.

  “No.” Lardvark twisted her fingers. “To let me know, I guess, that she’s there. That she’s watching me.”

  “Watching you how?”

  Lardvark dragged the toe of her boot through the leaves. “I don’t know how to explain it, really. It’s just a thing she does. We’ve never talked about it. But she knows what she’s doing. And I know, too. Every day, I sit at my desk in science class and I close my eyes and wait for that little tap. And then it comes, and for a little while, you know, it’s kind of over.” She shrugged again. “At least for science class.”

  “What’s over?”

  “Her …” She blushed furiously, searching for the words. “I don’t know. Her thing over me. You know, like her … her …”

  “Power?” I offered.

  “Yeah.” Lardvark shrugged, defeated. “Yeah. I guess that’s kind of it.”

  I felt disgusted. For Michelle to do something like that, day after day, week after week, month after month, just because she could was revolting. Absolutely and entirely sickening. But I felt even more disgusted with Lardvark, who allowed it, who sat there every day, quaking in her chair, waiting for that stupid shoulder tap. Why didn’t she stand up for herself? She was at least three times bigger than that girl, for crying out loud! She could probably lift Michelle over her head and toss her across the gymnasium if she wanted to.

  “Today was the first day she didn’t tap me.” Lardvark’s voice quivered. “Since the beginning of sixth grade. And I know it was because of you. Because you stood up for me in art class. Maybe she knows I have someone now who won’t let her get away with it. And I just wanted to find you and come here and tell you that. Because even though you probably think I’m kind of pathetic and everything, I just …” She paused, glancing down at the leaves. “I don’t know. I guess that’s really all I wanted to say.”

  Toby started barking again as Lardvark turned and walked back down the driveway, her head ducked low, her long arms dipped inside her pockets, and I’m not sure what it was, but something came over me then.

  “Wait!” I yelled as she moved farther away. “Hold on a second!”

  Lardvark whipped around. Her eyes were wide and round, and inside her pale face, they looked like blue marbles pressed into a mound of soft dough. She stood still as I ran up to her, and for a split second, I saw something like fear flit across her face. “What?” she asked. “I didn’t mean—”

  “No, no. I just …” I shook my head, trying to catch my breath. “I was just wondering if maybe you could do something. You know, for me.”

  Lardvark’s eyes hardened a little and she raised her chin the slightest bit, and it occurred to me that she’d probably been shoved around for a long time. Maybe even longer than Michelle had been in the picture. “Sure,” she said casually. “What?”

  I pointed back to the fence. “You hear that dog barking?”

  Lardvark raised one of her eyebrows. “No, I’m deaf.” I grinned a little when she said that, and she did, too. “Of course I can hear it,” she said. “It hasn’t stopped barking since I got here. What’s wrong with it?”

  “He’s not being taken care of. He lives with some old guy over there who keeps him chained to a pole and never lets him inside.”

  “Chained to a pole?” Lardvark’s eyes got moist around the corners again. “That’s terrible. Why would anyone do that?”

  “Because the guy’s an awful person.” I shrugged. “Because he doesn’t care.”

  “Then why does he keep him?”

  “Who knows? The point is, I’m not allowed to go anywhere near Toby. I got in trouble for feeding him the other night, and if I do it again, Margery’s going to—” I stopped, catching myself before I said any more.

  “Who’s Margery?” Lardvark asked.

  “A friend of my family’s,” I said hurriedly. “This is her house. I’m just staying with her for a while.” I held my breath, waiting for Lardvark to press me further, but she only said, “So why would she be mad at you for feeding it?”

  “She doesn’t care if I feed him. The guy who owns the dog does. He made a whole stink about it this morning. Said Toby was his property, and I wasn’t allowed anywhere near him. He even threatened me.”

  “Threatened you?” Lardvark looked alarmed. “How?”

  “Oh, nothing
really. He just said there’d be problems or something like that if I did. You know. But Margery was upset with me. She made me promise I wouldn’t go anywhere near him again.”

  Lardvark raised her right eyebrow again. “So let me guess. You want me to feed him?” She was good at moving that one eyebrow. She could arch it up really high without moving the other one. I was impressed.

  “Would you?” I dug a fingernail into my palm. “I just can’t stand listening to him bark all day long. I know he’s hungry.”

  “I don’t know.” Lardvark looked down at the ground. “I’m really not a dog person.”

  “You don’t really have to be a dog person to feed one.”

  “I know. But I really … I just don’t like to go anywhere near dogs.”

  “You won’t have to go anywhere near him. All you have to do is throw some meat over the fence. You won’t have contact with him at all.”

  Lardvark puffed her cheeks full of air and then blew it out. “What if the owner threatens me? I’ve got enough problems. I don’t want to get on some nut’s bad side.”

  “He won’t see you. No one will.” I stared at her hopefully. “It’ll take, like, ten seconds.”

  Lardvark’s eyes swept over my face for a moment, as if considering all the options. She looked pained, as though her stomach hurt. Behind us, Toby barked and barked and barked.

  “Okay,” she said finally. “I’ll do it.”

  It wasn’t hard to find something for Toby to eat. Margery’s refrigerator was stocked. There were stacks of thinly sliced turkey and bologna wrapped in white butcher paper, a long stick of hard salami encased in yellow netting, and even a whole baked chicken inside a foil pan, the skin as wrinkled and shriveled as a raisin.