Mom came down the steps and took me by the arm. “Are you all right, Harry? What did he do to you?”
“I’m going to kill him,” I said. I spit out blood.
“Don’t say things like that,” Mom said.
“I got him good,” Helen said. “Next time I’ll use a knife.”
“Helen, don’t say things like that,” Mom cried.
We heard water running in the kitchen sink, and I knew Dad was washing his face where Helen had scratched him. Then he came out of the house. For a minute he stood there looking at us. Then he said, “I told the two of you to git. I don’t want to find you here when I get back.” Then he walked past us, got into the truck, and drove away.
“Don’t pay any attention to him,” Mom said. “He’ll get over it. He’s just mad. He’ll get over it.”
She was right, I figured. If I stayed clear of him for a couple of days, and let him see that I wasn’t doing anything more about the carpet factory, he’d get over it. But I knew I wouldn’t get over it. I would never get over it. And I was going to get out of there as soon as I could—in a few days, a week, a month. As soon as I could work something out I was going to leave. I had an idea about where I might go too. I figured my grandpa and grandma might want to have me. They might let me live with them until I graduated. Maybe they would want to have Helen too. I would see.
And there was another thing. I was never going to worry about being trash again. That was for sure. I’d learned something. I hadn’t been able to do anything about the carpet factory polluting the Timber River, and I saw now that I would never be able to do anything about it. Even if I got somebody from Albany to come up, they wouldn’t find anything. The whole town would cover it up. The town council and the newspaper editor and Herbst and everybody would cover it up, and anyway, who was going to believe one fourteen-year-old kid whose whole family was trash?
There was one other thing I’d learned: It wasn’t me who was trash—they were. They lied and covered up and gave bribes and polluted the river so you couldn’t swim in it or eat the fish out of it. I wasn’t trash—they were. I would never forget that lesson.
“Harry,” Helen said. “Do you feel all right?”
“I’m all right,” I said.
“Do you feel like eating?” she said. “I’m going to make spaghetti and meat sauce.”
“It’s nice to have Helen around again, isn’t it, Harry?” Mom said.
THE END
When the Stars Begin to Fall Page 13