The Rise and Fall of Derek Cowell

by Valerie Sherrard

  “The shelter won’t be open today,” she said, moving toward the phone. “Do you have the number for the woman who runs it?”

  “No,” I said. “And why do you want to call her anyway?”

  “To find out if the rabbit has been vaccinated for rabies,” Mom said.

  “Denise might have the number,” I said. I have no idea what prompted me to say this. Maybe Mom’s agitated state activated some kind of self-destruct auto-pilot in my brain.

  “Well call and ask her!”

  “I’ll send her a text,” I said.

  “Calling is faster,” Mom insisted. Her face told me there would be no arguing.

  I scrolled through my contacts, found Denise, and hit dial. She answered on the fourth ring.

  “Hey. Do you have Gabby’s number?” I said.

  The worried-mother expression hovering in front of me changed instantly to horrified.

  “Is that the way you start a conversation?” Mom hissed.

  “Uh, sorry,” I blurted, cutting off whatever Denise was trying to say. “I mean, Hello. This is Derek.”

  Silence for a second. A snicker and then, “Hello, Derek. This is Denise.”

  I repeated the request for Gabby’s number. I remembered to say please.

  So, of course she wanted to know why I needed it.

  “My mom wants it,” I mumbled.

  “Oh, yeah?” She hesitated. “Is it important? Because I don’t know if I’m supposed to give it out.”

  “Uh, kind of, I guess.” I glanced at Mom, whose eyes were boring into me. “I got attacked by um, a wild animal.”

  “Why would your mom be calling Gabby for that?”

  “It was a shelter animal,” I admitted slowly.

  There was a silent pause. I could tell she was waiting for more, or trying to sort out what I was saying in a way that made sense. Then she put it together.

  “You mean the rabbit your sister took home?” she asked.

  “Something like that,” I said, because being vague was almost definitely going to throw her off track.

  It took a minute for Denise to stop laughing long enough to give me the number.

  But when Mom dialed Gabby’s place (yes, to complain that a big vicious rabbit brutalized her precious baby) there was no answer.

  I foolishly thought that might be the end of it, but Mom had a new plan.

  “I think we should have you checked just in case.”

  “What do you mean, have me checked?”

  “At the hospital.”

  My mom isn’t much of a jokester, so I knew she wasn’t kidding around, even though it was hard to believe she was about to haul me to a doctor over a scratch.

  When we got to the emergency department, the nurse who registered me seemed to have a hard time grasping what I was doing there. (He wasn’t the only one.) I’m nearly positive he was holding back a smirk when he put the paper bracelet on my wrist and told us to have a seat and a doctor would see me shortly.

  Two hours later I was called into an examining room and moments after that the doctor on call walked in. My heart sank to see that it was Dr. Fenton, the same one who’d tended to me after the train station roof. Just my luck.

  Then again, I thought, he probably wouldn’t even remember me. There must be hundreds of patients through outpatients every week.

  Dr. Fenton looked at the chart, read, “Wild animal abrasion,” out loud, and then turned toward me. His eyes widened.

  “You can keep your clothes on,” he said quickly. “Now, let’s have a look at the injury.”

  “It’s this claw-mark,” Mom said, pointing. “On his nose.”

  Dr. Fenton leaned forward for a closer look at my dangerous wound.

  “And this scratch was from…” he paused to consult the chart again. “What kind of animal?”

  “A rabbit,” Mom said. “It doesn’t look like much, but we were concerned about the possibility of rabies.”

  “I wasn’t,” I said.

  Dr. Fenton smiled. “You were right to have it checked out,” he told Mom. He asked about the rabbit and when Mom told him it was from the shelter he said we should keep an eye on it for the next couple of weeks.

  “Rabies is more commonly transmitted through saliva, and rabbits aren’t typical carriers,” he said. “But if this rabbit should become ill, or display any unusual behaviors, bring Derek in again and we’ll re-evaluate.”

  I was back at home, recovering from the embarrassment of being taken to Emergency for a scratch you could barely see, when a message pinged on my phone from Denise.

  Are you going to pull through?

  I’m worried sick over here!

  I couldn’t help laughing.

  Looks like I’ll make it, but my nose might have to come off.

  A couple of minutes passed before she answered that.

  Tough break. But at least

  there’s a bright side.

  Yeah? What’s that?

  The rabbit’s okay.

  I smiled. That rabbit had all the luck. He’d gotten away with pooping all over the house and then attacking the person who saved him from eviction. His punishment had been to have a shelter and penned-in area built so he could run around and enjoy himself in the backyard.

  Meanwhile, I was practically a social pariah at that point. But after seeing things change overnight more than once I knew another turnaround was possible.

  All I needed was a lucky break.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Tuesday afternoon I got called to the office at school. Again.

  It had not been what you could call a good day up until then. The snickers and eye-rolling just kept coming and there’d been plenty of half-heard comments — the kind where I’d catch my name and a word or two. Enough that I could tell they weren’t whispering compliments.

  Mrs. Floutworthy was sorting papers in front of a filing cabinet when I walked into the office and crossed over to the counter. She didn’t even glance up, though I knew she was aware I was there.

  “AHEM!” I said. Loudly.

  Mrs. Floutworthy darted a glance behind me and lifted her hands up like she had no idea what to make of this nasty kid in front of her.

  I turned uneasily. And there was my mother, getting up from one of the visitors’ chairs along the back wall.

  “Mom!” I said. “I didn’t know you were coming here.”

  “Obviously,” Mom said. She nodded toward Mrs. Floutworthy. “I believe you have something you’d like to say to the school secretary.”

  “Office Administrator,” Mrs. Floutworthy corrected, drawing herself up to her full height, which is about five foot two.

  “Of course. I beg your pardon,” Mom said. “Derek?”

  “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  Mrs. Floutworthy pressed her lips tight and gave me a stiff nod. She turned to Mom.

  “I imagine you’ve got your hands full with that one,” she said.

  That was a mistake. Mom will correct our behavior when she thinks one of us is out of line, but there was no way she’d ever put up with a stranger badmouthing a kid of hers.

  “Actually,” she said coldly. “Derek is a fine young man who, like the rest of us, sometimes makes mistakes.”

  That made me feel good — until we got to the car. That’s when Mom filled me in on why she’d pulled me out of class.

  “We have a meeting with a worker from the Diversion Program,” she said. She explained that our lawyer had made a deal to settle the trespassing thing.

  “I thought I could only get that program if I ratted out Ste … the others who were there,” I said.

  “Yes. Well, apparently the prosecutor felt differently.”

  Relief washed over me. I didn’t have to worry about being sent to a detention center full
of giant goons after all.

  “That’s great,” I said.

  “You were lucky — this time,” Mom said. “And I’m not going to lecture you because I know you’ve already had a lot of embarrassment over the incident, but you need to think things through more. You’re a smart kid. Your father and I expect you to act like it.”

  I hung my head. “Sorry,” I said. My second apology in less than half an hour, but this time I meant it.

  Mom reached over and patted my arm, which somehow made me feel horrible. I noticed that she looked tired and sort of sad and I knew I was to blame. She probably never expected she’d be dealing with problems with the law for one of her kids.

  The building she pulled up to was also tired and sad looking — built of chunky brown stones and cement steps that widened at the bottom like a frowning mouth. I trudged up them behind Mom and followed her down a gloomy hallway to a large wooden door with a frosted window in the top. A sign on the door said “Probation Services: Diversion and Public Education.”

  Inside, we found ourselves facing an empty desk, but there were two rooms that branched off the reception area and from one of these a woman’s voice told us to take a seat and said she’d be right with us.

  We sat obediently and a few moments later the clickety-click-click of heels tapped their way across the room to us. The woman balanced on the heels had a mean glint in her eyes that put me on instant alert.

  “I’m Sabrina Lake,” she said nodding quickly to Mom and then to me. “Please come with me.”

  In less than five minutes my first impression was confirmed. Ms. Lake (as she told me to call her) was hard and tough and wanted to make sure I knew it.

  “You’re on the wrong path, Derek,” she said, squaring her shoulders and frowning. “My job is to try to steer you onto the right one before it’s too late. If you don’t make changes — big changes — and make them now, you’re going right, straight down the toilet.”

  I thought Mom might speak up like she had with Mrs. Floutworthy, but she never said a word. In fact, she even nodded a couple of times, as if she totally agreed that I was on the verge of a life of crime.

  “Anyway,” Ms. Lake said after she’d finished with the dire predictions. “The first step toward rehabilitation is learning responsibility. In your case, that will start with community service.”

  On the way there, Mom had explained that part of doing this program meant I would be given 80 hours of whatever unpaid work they found for me. (This used to be called slave labor, but I decided not to mention that.) I was curious to know what I’d be doing so I paid close attention as Ms. Lake pulled some papers out of a file folder that topped a stack on her desk and slid them toward me.

  “I’ve found you a placement,” she tapped the top page. “You’ll be helping with a restoration project at the rec center every Saturday.”

  “What do I have to do?” I asked.

  “Whatever they ask you to do — you have no skills so it will be menial — carrying supplies, cleaning, that sort of thing.”

  She went over a few more details of the community service, got me to sign some forms and then gave me the name and number of the person who’d be supervising me. Serge Durand. I was to call him to get my schedule.

  “Mr. Durand will be reporting back to me on your performance,” she said pointedly. Then she added, “I expect to hear nothing but good things.” Her tone suggested she actually expected the exact opposite.

  When we got back home Mom said I should call Mr. Durand right away, so he’d know I was eager to get started. That wasn’t the word I’d have used to describe how I felt about 80 hours of unpaid labor, but I dutifully went to the phone and made the call.

  Mr. Durand told me to be at the rec center on Saturday morning at seven.

  “Seven o’clock in the morning?” I said, sure I’d heard him wrong.

  “I get there at five,” he said. “So you can come earlier if you want. But the other kid in the program starts at seven.”

  Then he hung up.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “So, are you still grounded now that your lawyer got everything taken care of?”

  Good old Steve. He didn’t waste any time sympathizing over the 80 hours I’d be slaving away at the rec center, or the crazy time of morning I was going to have to drag myself there. Nope. He got straight to the part that affected him. Or, as he’d mentioned a few times already, he was bored when I couldn’t hang out.

  I wasn’t feeling a whole lot of sympathy for his misfortune.

  “Dad says he and Mom will talk it over and let me know this weekend,” I said.

  “At least if they let me come over we could find something to do at your place,” he said, then added nervously, “But do they know I was involved? I mean, did they ask you?”

  “Seriously? You think they needed to ask?” I said. “Because they’d never have figured that out on their own?”

  Steve offered me a weak grin, said, “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” and promptly dropped it.

  That was the end of him complaining about not being allowed over when I was grounded. No one would ever accuse Steve of being overly sensitive, but even he probably wasn’t eager to face my folks when they knew he’d gotten off scot-free for stuff I was in a bunch of trouble over. Especially when the whole thing had been his idea.

  On Friday I made a suggestion.

  “Hey, I know a way we can hang out for a while. You could give me a hand at the rec center tomorrow. As a volunteer.”

  He gawked at me open-mouthed for so long I started to think his jaw had come unhinged. As soon as he regained control, he stammered out a question.

  “Don’t you think that would make me look guilty?”

  “You are guilty,” I pointed out.

  His eyes narrowed. Red patches blotched his neck and chased each other all the way up to his hairline. It almost amused me, how the conversation was doing such interesting things with his face.

  “Yeah, but—” he said. Not much of an argument, and yet apparently all he had just then.

  “I’m messing with you,” I said, which he immediately claimed he’d known the whole time.

  And of course, I went to the rec center by myself on Saturday morning. I’d mostly been joking when I’d suggested Steve should come along, but as I trudged sleepily toward the hulking building, I couldn’t help thinking it would have been nice to have a friend with me.

  It was just past seven when I pushed open the wide double doors that led into the entrance area. I hoped Durand wasn’t too much of a stickler. I sure didn’t want him telling Ms. Lake that I’d been late the very first day, even if it was only a few minutes.

  He was nowhere in sight, but I could hear voices coming from the auditorium so I made my way there and stuck my head in.

  The first person I saw had to be Mr. Durand. He wasn’t a whole lot taller than me, but thick-chested and swarthy with a few days’ growth of chin stubble. His hair was thick and dark and didn’t appear to have met up with a comb that morning. He didn’t look much like the manager of a town building.

  As soon as he noticed me he gestured for me to come in. I’d taken a couple of steps when my brain registered who the person standing next to him was.

  Riley!

  “What are you doing here?” I blurted.

  “Same as you,” said the man. “She’s here to work. Assuming you’re Derek Cowell.”

  I told him I was.

  “I’m Serge Durand,” he grunted. “You can call me Serge.”

  Serge bent to pick up a clipboard, which was laying on top of a box of assorted cleaning supplies. As he scanned whatever was written there, I turned to Riley.

  “How did you get caught?”

  She gave me a deadly glare. The kind that means I’ll pulverize you if you say another word. I stopped talking.

/>   Serge glanced up from his clipboard and looked back and forth between us. “What’s that?” he said.

  “Who knows?” Riley shrugged. “He’s a weirdo.”

  Serge cleared his throat.

  “I’m not here to babysit, so whatever your personal history is, you’d better be able to work together.”

  “Yes, sir,” Riley said quickly.

  “No problem,” I agreed.

  “Good,” he said. “So, I’ll go over what I want you to do today.”

  Our first job was to clean the thick wooden baseboards in the gym so they could be repainted. We each got buckets along with scouring pads and sponges for scrubbing.

  I started on the left side and Riley took the right. As soon as we were alone, I asked her again how she got caught.

  “You really aren’t very smart are you?” she said. “If I was here for that, why would I care if you asked about it in front of Serge?”

  Slowly, like a fluorescent bulb, flickering and fizzing at first, the light came on.

  “You mean you’re in trouble for something else?” I asked.

  “Yeah, genius,” she snapped. “So keep your mouth shut about the roof business.”

  “I’m no rat,” I said. “So, what are you here for?”

  As soon as I’d asked, I knew it was a dumb question. Riley didn’t bother answering. She rolled her eyes and shook her head without even glancing in my direction.

  That summed up our conversation for the next few hours. I got to work, scrubbing and scraping — you wouldn’t believe the amount of crud that was built up on those baseboards. I was still about ten feet from the first corner by the middle of the morning.

  That’s when Riley lowered her standards and spoke to me again, but it was only because she wanted to switch places.

  “You haven’t even finished half as much as me,” I pointed out. I didn’t bother mentioning the reason for that, which was the amount of time she was spending texting and messing around on her phone instead of working.

  “Just for a little while — then we’ll trade back,” she said. “There’s some tough stuff here that needs more muscle than I have.”