The Rise and Fall of Derek Cowell

by Valerie Sherrard

I’m not stupid. I knew she was trying to flatter me so I’d do what she wanted, but I decided it might be worth the effort. Maybe if I did something nice for her, she’d act a little more civil. I hadn’t asked her how many hours of community service she was stuck with, but however long we were going to be working together, it was bound to go easier if she was less hostile.

  So we switched places. I knelt down, looking for whatever she’d found hard to clean. It all looked pretty much the same as the other side. I shrugged and started cleaning.

  And then the door opened and Serge came in.

  “Break time,” he said. “You have fifteen minutes.”

  Riley stood up from where she’d been scrubbing vigorously when Serge arrived. She wiped the back of her hand across her forehead.

  “Wow,” she said. “Is it ten o’clock already?”

  Serge gave her a quick nod, but it was me he was mainly looking at. I could see him comparing the progress it seemed I’d made with the area Riley had apparently covered.

  He did not look impressed.

  “Maybe pick up the pace a bit, Derek,” he said while Riley gave me a huge smile in the background.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  And I did. She might have got me then, but for the rest of the day I worked like a madman, scrubbing and scraping like my life depended on it. Even though she kept working on the left I was soon ahead of her on the right side.

  That forced her to work harder to try to keep up, but I was still a good fifteen feet out front by the end of the day. My arms were aching as we carried our buckets and cleaning supplies to the office where Serge had to fill our shifts in on some forms and get us to sign them.

  Riley’s aunt was waiting for her near the entrance as we passed by, a detail I registered without interest.

  But then Serge said something that grabbed my attention.

  “I’ll get your paperwork done first, Riley, since your foster mom is waiting for you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Riley’s face flushed and she darted a glance at me, looking to see if I’d registered what Serge had just said.

  I had.

  Even so, she did her best to act nonchalant as she signed the form and slunk out of the office. I wasn’t buying it.

  She had to be worried. After all, I’d just discovered that what she’d told everyone about herself was a lie. She wasn’t staying with relatives, and her parents for darn sure weren’t working for Doctors Without Borders.

  I wondered what the truth might be. Why would she make all that stuff up? I could see why she might want to keep her status as a foster kid private. It was nobody’s business if her family was having problems that needed that kind of support.

  But if she was in care because of whatever she’d done to get community service, that was different.

  It was doubtful anyone else knew she wasn’t who she’d been claiming to be. Well, except for her fake “cousin” Trisha. But Trisha hadn’t told anyone. If she had, it would have gotten around. Maybe Riley had intimidated her into keeping quiet. It wasn’t hard to picture that happening.

  But now I knew.

  Here she’d been acting like she was so much better than everyone else when the whole time all her bragging had been nothing but lies. Which made her a liar and a lawbreaker.

  And sure, I’m doing community service over my own trouble with the law. But it’s hard to see myself as some kind of renegade outlaw for being on a roof.

  Anyway, it didn’t really matter what she’d done to get herself community service. It was enough knowing she’d lied about who she was.

  For the record, I had no actual plan to expose her. That would have made me a complete jerk.

  But she didn’t know that, which had to have her worried. That made me feel sorry for her for about two seconds. And then it passed.

  The walk home was suddenly a pleasant thing. The sky was bluer, the sun was brighter, the air felt light and clean.

  Until I remembered something, and a dark cloud descended.

  I was supposed to go straight home, but I changed direction without even thinking about it. A quick stop at Steve’s place had to be worth the small risk of getting caught.

  He was sprawled on the couch watching music videos and spooning globs of ice cream into his mouth straight out of the container — something that would be a capital offense in my house.

  “Hey!” He sat forward with the groan of someone who’d overestimated how much ice cream his stomach could handle. “You finally allowed out in the real world again?”

  “I don’t know yet, and anyway that’s not why I’m here.”

  Steve muted the sound on the TV and looked at me expectantly.

  “That video Riley shot on the roof of the train station—”

  “What about it?” he asked.

  “Did she really erase it off her phone?”

  “She said she did.”

  “But do you know for sure?”

  Steve squinted at me, like I was out of focus. “How could I know for sure?”

  “Like, did you see her erase it?”

  He hadn’t, of course. All he could tell me was what she’d told him. And if I’d just learned anything about Riley it was that she was not one hundred percent committed to the truth.

  Back on the street and headed for home I decided she’d think twice about sharing the video even if she did still have it. Not when I had information about her she wouldn’t want getting around. It was sort of a stalemate.

  These thoughts were interrupted by the familiar sight of my mom’s car, turning at the corner up ahead. I almost lifted an arm to wave her over for a ride, which would have been an incredibly dumb mistake. Not because my mom wouldn’t pick me up, but because she’d know by the street I was on that I was coming from Steve’s, not the rec center. It would have destroyed any chance that my grounding would end anytime soon.

  Panic rushed over me as the car swung in my direction and started down the street. If Mom hadn’t already seen me, she would in a matter of seconds.

  I hurled myself on the ground between a couple of bushes and crawled snake-style through onto the nearest yard. Then I turned and watched between the lower branches to see if Mom slowed down or pulled over.

  The car crept into view and rolled right on by. I caught a glimpse of Mom, facing forward with no sign that she’d spotted me.

  I relaxed, realized I’d been holding my breath, and exhaled in a huff of relief. I figured I’d give Mom a couple of minutes to be well out of sight and then I’d be on my way.

  That’s when I became aware of footsteps approaching from the direction of the house. I turned slowly, expecting to find myself looking up at a curious, or possibly angry, homeowner.

  Instead, I found Denise bent over and staring into my face!

  “Is this your place?” I blurted.

  “Mmm hmm. But most of our visitors just use the front walk,” she said, grinning.

  I scrambled to my feet. “You’re probably wondering what I’m doing,” I said.

  She straightened up so we were face to face and smiled wider.

  “The question crossed my mind,” she agreed.

  I wasn’t about to tell her the exact truth — that I was a loser hiding from his mommy. But for some reason, I didn’t want to tell her a complete lie either. So I compromised.

  “The thing is, I’m a criminal on the lam,” I whispered, leaning in. “There’s a posse out, hunting me down like a dog, and I needed somewhere to hide.”

  Denise laughed. And she leaned in too, and whispered back, “You can hide out here — unless — do you happen to know if there’s a reward for turning you in?”

  That made me laugh too. But once we both stopped laughing something weird happened. We stood there, not moving, just looking at each other.

  Our face
s were close. Really close. And the next thing I knew, our mouths were touching and my heart was banging and thumping so hard I bet she heard it.

  I don’t know much (anything, actually) about kisses. It felt like it was over awfully quick, but I had no idea how long it was supposed to last. When we moved apart Denise smiled again — but it was a different kind of smile than I’d seen from her before. It was like she was happy and scared at the same time. Like she was confused.

  She wasn’t the only one. My whole brain was short-circuiting, which is the only way I can explain my next genius move.

  I blurted, “Okay, so I gotta go!”

  Then I shoved my way through the bushes back to the sidewalk and took off for home.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Fortunately, I didn’t bump into anyone I knew on the rest of the walk home. It’s impossible to say what kind of babble might have come out of me if I’d been required to speak just then.

  I, Derek Cowell, had kissed a girl!

  Or, had she kissed me? Maybe we’d kissed each other. I had no clue and didn’t much care. What mattered was that it had been the real thing, not something that happened because of some silly challenge. It was a regular kiss — with someone I liked.

  Which was another surprise. I’d never thought of Denise quite that way before. Except, as soon as that thought came to me, I knew it wasn’t true.

  Somewhere along the way I’d started to like Denise. I mean, I liked her as a friend almost right away, but it had turned into a different kind of like. I just hadn’t put it all together until now.

  I wondered if it was the same for her.

  And now one or both of us had made a move — I seriously had no idea how I was ever going to figure out if it had been me or her. It’s not like I could ask. And maybe she didn’t know either.

  Whatever. Not only had we kissed, but it had been nice. Really nice. Better than nice.

  It had been great.

  As I crossed the lawn toward to my front door I pictured Denise’s face and the sort of trembling smile she’d given me right afterward. She was so cute!

  I smiled like a goof. Hopefully no one was watching.

  But then the rest of the scene unfolded in my head.

  I stopped dead in my tracks.

  What had I done?

  Horror flooded me as I heard the echo of my brilliant, after-kiss words.

  “Okay, so I gotta go.”

  And now, as the haze cleared a bit from my brain, I saw how her face had changed and I understood why her eyes had darted downward as her smile crumpled and disappeared.

  What the heck was wrong with me? What kind of weirdo kisses someone and then races off like a lunatic?

  The Derek Cowell type of weirdo, apparently.

  I wondered how long it might take a girl to go from kissing a guy to never wanting to speak to him again.

  I decided not to panic. (I think I’d covered that with the frantic dash out of there anyway.) This was probably fixable, but only if I acted quickly.

  Living with three sisters has taught me that the human brain can make a lot of rapid (and not necessarily logical) leaps. I remember once when Kim had this boyfriend named Cal or Carl or something that started with a C (I’m not actually sure about that either) and she broke up with him because he left his watch on the coffee table.

  That has to sound crazy. It was. I remember him taking it off to check the back because Kim wanted to know if it was waterproof. He apparently forgot to put it back on and Kim found it after he’d gone home. And here’s what happened next.

  Kim: Oh, look, Cal (or Carl or whatever) left his watch here.

  Everyone else:

  (That’s right — nada. Because seriously, who cared?)

  Kim, looking it over: Hmm. I never heard of this brand before.

  Everyone else with any sense:

  Paige: Oh, yeah? What kind is it?

  Kim: Gubbi.

  And then, in case we were all intrigued enough to want to know how it was spelled, she added: G. U. B. B. I.

  Any normal person, if they were bored enough to waste the time and energy thinking about it, would have figured it was a lame take on Gucci, and not given it another second’s thought. Not Kim. She pondered it. The watch, and the brand, and why Cal/Carl/Whatever had left it behind.

  One theory she never seemed to consider as she thought her way through this great mystery was that maybe he just forgot it.

  Nope. This is what Kim’s teenage brain came up with: Her boyfriend had left his watch — specifically his Gubbi watch — as a message to her. And that message was (I am not making this up) it was TIME for them to say GUBBI/GOODBYE. Obviously (to her) he wanted to break up, but couldn’t get up the courage to tell her directly.

  So, of course, she dumped him first. She didn’t ask about the watch, or share her nutty theory with him first either. Straight for the jugular and that was that.

  I ran into the poor sap at a skate sharpening shop a couple of days later and when he saw me this sad, hang-dog look crept over his face. I could have told him he should be celebrating his escape, but that would have meant talking to him about it. There was no way I was risking that kind of conversation.

  The scary part of this is that Kim is actually the most level-headed of my sisters. She’s not kooky like Paige, or devious like Anna, and yet she went off the rails over a watch!

  That worried me. I knew I had to act fast to make sure Denise didn’t take my mad dash out of there the wrong way. (Okay, that implies there’s a right way to take it. Let’s just move along, shall we?)

  I pulled out my phone and texted her. It seemed obvious that I needed to apologize and I wasted no time getting right to the point.

  Me: Hi Denise. I have no clue why I

  did such a dumb thing — sorry!

  It seemed like a long time went by, but she finally answered.

  So forget it ever happened.

  I stared and stared at those five words, trying to feel relieved. There was something making me uneasy, but after I thought it over for a few minutes I decided I was probably just hungry.

  I went ahead and texted her back:

  Okay, great. :-)

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Iguess it’s pretty clear this is totally new territory to me, this business of kissing and maybe having a girlfriend. Since I’m basically clueless about how these things work, that was the biggest question in my head.

  Did the kiss mean Denise was my girlfriend? I remember hearing Paige tell one of her friends that she and Junior “just kind of happened.” I had no idea what she meant so I put it down to the usual nothingness that comes out of Paige, but maybe it made sense after all. I could be in the middle of a situation exactly like that and not even know it.

  Normally, when I wonder anything related to girls I shrug and forget about it. Because I don’t usually care enough to go any further than that. Once in a while I might bring something up with Steve, but this wasn’t something I wanted to talk to him about. Not until I knew what was up.

  And so, I found myself looking for information from the unlikeliest source ever. My sister Paige.

  Since she clearly knew how becoming a couple can “just happen,” I decided to ask her a few questions. Nothing obvious — just a casual inquiry or two that might help me figure out my next move with Denise. (Okay, “next move” implies I actually made a first move, which isn’t exactly true, but still.)

  I waited until I found her by herself in the kitchen, sauntered in and plunked down at the counter. I yawned, to show her I was bored, so she’d understand anything I said was of no particular importance.

  “Hey, Paige.”

  She glared at me. Not a great start. I ignored that and pushed ahead.

  “How’s Junior these days?”

  The glare morphed into a cl
early suspicious look, where her eyebrows crept closer and closer, and her mouth got small and mean.

  “Whaddya mean?” she asked.

  “Nothing. I was just wondering.”

  “You’ve never wondered anything about Junior before,” she pointed out. By now she’d assumed what I can only describe as a combative stance, feet spread and arms crossed in front of her.

  “Well, don’t flip out, it’s no big deal or anything. Can’t a person make conversation around here?”

  Paige took a step closer, then another. She jutted her face forward and stared at me fiercely, which I have to say was more than a bit uncomfortable.

  “How dumb do you think I am? Something’s going on and you will tell me what it is.”

  This was not going the way I’d planned. At all.

  “Actually,” I said, somehow convincing myself I could still climb out of the hole I was digging, “I was trying to remember how long you guys have been, uh, a couple.”

  Paige lunged at me, grabbing my T-shirt and almost hauling me off the stool. “You tell me what’s going on right now!”

  “Nothing’s going on,” I insisted. I tried without success to pull free of her death grip. “Don’t be such a psycho.”

  “Don’t lie to me,” she yelled into my face. “You’ve heard something! Now what is it?”

  I don’t remember ever being afraid of Paige before, but she was definitely scaring me. Her face was red and contorted, her eyes crazed, and she looked capable of ripping me limb from limb if that’s what she decided had to be done to make me talk.

  “Would you calm down?” I said. It sounded a bit like a whimper.

  “DON’T YOU DARE TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!” Flames began to shoot from her eyes and mouth, or, at least, it looked like they might any second.

  At that point I’d have told her anything to save myself, but I couldn’t because she’d launched into an interrogation of rapid-fire questions that I barely had time to process much less answer.

  “He’s going to break up with me, isn’t he? ISN’T HE?”

  “He likes someone else, doesn’t he? ANSWER ME!!”