by Jamie Sumner
She tugs me toward the table where Jack and Gray pretend to sword fight with carrot sticks and Micah cheers. Vij turns his back when he sees us look over. I pull my elbow out of her hand.
“Em, I can’t.”
She shakes her head, half smiling. She still doesn’t get it. She thinks I’m joking.
“Of course you can.”
“No, Em. I can’t.”
Her mouth forms an O and then collapses. I step away from her and toward Andrew and Peter’s table with a feeling like wading into too-deep-water. Her dark eyes follow me, but I’m too chicken to look back.
* * *
When I walk in the front door that afternoon, the house is dead quiet. And when I say dead quiet, I mean I can hear the clock ticking from the living room and the heating click on and off, because there are no human sounds. For a reason I can’t name, I catch myself holding my breath.
“Mom?”
She answers from the kitchen and I jump.
“Hugo, can you come in here please?”
I hurl my backpack down the steps into my room and walk down the hall and into the kitchen as slowly as possible. The holding-my-breath feeling hasn’t gone away.
Mom sits next to Dad at the table. The afternoon sun scatters diamonds of red and green and yellow light from the bay window across the floor.
“Have a seat, kiddo,” Dad says, and points at the chair across from them.
I sit. But I don’t like it.
Mom takes hold of Dad’s hand.
“Hugo, honey, we want to talk to you about something, and we want you to hear us out before you say anything. Would you do us that favor?” Mom asks.
“Uh, yeah?” As if I have a choice.
Mom takes one of her deep yoga breaths. Dad gives me the smile he used when I had to get shots at the doctor’s office.
“I’ve had to stop seeing clients here at the house. It wasn’t feasible with your dad needing extra help,” she says. Dad looks down at the table. “And I wanted to be here for both of you as much as I could.”
Last week, an Amazon box showed up on the porch addressed to Dad. When he opened it, there were specially made armrest covers and a cupholder for his crutches. She’s accessorizing for him now. Since then, whenever I go into my room, Dad’s there, hanging out on my bed and playing FIFA soccer on the Xbox. He’s hiding from Mom, which means her plan to “be here” for him is basically backfiring in every way possible.
As if she’s reading my mind, she adds, “And I’m sure you’ve noticed that your dad and I have not been communicating as effectively as we could be.” They don’t look at each other.
“Sorry about the fighting,” Dad says to me, tugging at the beard he started growing in the hospital and still hasn’t shaved.
“That’s okay,” I lie. I’ll say whatever I can to end this conversation.
“No.” Mom lets go of Dad’s hand and places both of hers flat on the table. “It is not okay. And we are so very sorry. No eleven-year-old should have to watch his parents act like children. Even adults don’t always have it together, Hugo.”
She says it like it’s a big revelation. Doesn’t she know that every kid in the universe has already figured out that adults don’t know what they’re doing?
“And we’re working on that part.” Mom is still not done. “We are trying to be better communicators. But…” She pauses. “With me not seeing clients and your dad out of work, we can’t…” she trails off. Something about the way Dad looks away makes my stomach drop, and I start really paying attention to what she’s saying for the first time.
“Can’t what?” I ask.
“We can’t stay here, kiddo,” Dad says finally, when Mom can’t find the words. “It’s going to be months before I can walk on this thing.” He leans over and taps his knee brace. “And the doctors say it might be a year or more before I get the strength back to ski, so—”
“What do you mean, we can’t stay here? Like in this house?” If we have to move, I’ll miss my basement room, but I’m not married to it. We’ll find another place in town. I don’t know why this is such a big deal.
“We’re moving back to Denver,” Mom says when Dad doesn’t. “Your dad’s old boss has offered him his job back, and I can pick back up with my old practice. We really think—”
“Wait, what?”
My ears are ringing. Mom’s mouth is moving and then Dad’s, but I can’t make out the words. We’re moving? How can they do this to me again?
“NO!” I yell. “You can’t!” I look at Dad. “You promised. You’re the one who told me you have to work for what you want and how it means so much to make this big choice to follow your dream. And now you’re just… quitting?”
He looks away.
“We weren’t looking to move, honey. But when Dad’s old boss called with this offer, it seemed like the right thing to do. It’s the smart thing to—”
“You never ask me what I want. You just tell me what to do and expect me to go along with it like, like I’m your dog and not your kid!”
“Hugo, that’s enough,” Mom says. “Your father and I are doing what’s best for this family. We are trying to make the responsible choice.”
I’m still staring at Dad. “So, what? You’re going to admit it now? That leaving your old job and moving us all here and making me start all over at a new school was the irresponsible choice? Now that I’ve finally made friends and have a life here?” I will not think about Vij. I will not think about Em and how her shoulders fell when I walked away from her today.
“It could have worked,” Dad says, more to himself than me.
“Sean—” Mom starts, and Dad shakes his head.
“I messed up, Hugo.” He looks at me. “I should never have left my job. Your mom’s been a trouper, but I can’t put our family through any more. We’ll let you finish the semester. But at Christmas, we’re moving back.”
“No!” I stand so fast my chair crashes backward onto the floor. “You don’t care about me or what I want!” I shout. “You only care about yourselves. You’re both selfish!”
“Hugo,” Mom warns.
“I’m not going!” The ringing in my ears is deafening now. I can’t stay another minute. Another second. I sprint down the hallway and out the door.
I walk for an hour, until the sun goes down and I can’t feel my fingers or nose or toes. When I get to the playground by the elementary school, I stop. Ice coats the chains of the swings and the seats. I pick up a stick and whack them until the ice breaks and then the stick. I take the steps up to the covered slide two at a time, slip on the last one, and bash my knee against the rail. The pain is distracting and good. Inside the slide, the tunnel turns the world into a porthole of gray. Someone has written SJ was here in black Sharpie on the yellow plastic. If someone walked by right now, they wouldn’t be able to see me. Hugo was never here.
The cold sinks into my back first and then my bones. They’re ruining my life, again. Dad moved us here because he said it would be better for our family. Now he’s moving us back for the same reason. How can both be true? I kick the slide and hear the snow roll off the top. It’s the diaper in the helmet all over again. They think they’re making my life easier when they’re just making it so much worse. I pull out my phone. Sixteen missed calls from Mom and Dad and one text from Andrew, asking if I can come over tomorrow after school. No text from Vij. My stomach clenches, and the tears I didn’t cry at home threaten to sneak out now. I start to type something to Vij, then hit delete. He’ll probably be glad I’m leaving.
When I get up, I’m heavy with sadness and the chill. It’s hard to walk home in the half dark. I keep tripping on invisible things. I use the flashlight on my phone. Back home, my parents greet me from the couch. Call me in to have a seat, talk things out. The house smells like rice and beans and enchiladas. My favorite. I walk straight past them to the basement. There’s nothing to “talk out”—they’ve made their choice.
* * *
The next day at lunch, I sit by myself at a table in the corner. I can feel Vij and everyone staring at me from across the room, but I don’t look up. What’s the point? Why go to the trouble of apologizing for yesterday if I’m going to be gone in a few weeks anyway?
I walk as slowly as possible to gym because the wobbly Jell-O feeling that started in my head this morning when I woke up and remembered that we’re moving has sunk to my shoulders and all the way down into my legs. I couldn’t move faster if I wanted to, which I don’t.
I turn the corner outside the band room and run straight into Chance. My head actually bounces off his shoulder.
“Whoa, little buddy!”
“Sorry,” I mumble.
“What’s the hurry?” He smirks. “Is it shorty plays shortstop day in gym?”
His two friends, fellow basketball players, laugh. I veer left to go around him, but he moves to block my path.
“Get out of my way, Chance.”
“Somebody’s a little feisty today,” he sneers. There’s a brown speck of food on his front tooth.
When I don’t respond, he raises his hands and steps aside.
I walk around him.
“Better learn to watch where you’re going,” he laughs. “You don’t want to end up like your dad!”
“Don’t talk about my dad!” I shout.
“Ohhhh, somebody’s got daddy issues,” he says, each syllable a punch. He laughs louder while he walks away, and it echoes down the hallway. After he’s out of sight, I wrap my arms around my stomach and squeeze tight to try to hold the pieces of myself together.
I don’t go to gym. I tell Nurse Ruby I might throw up, which is true, and she calls Mom to come get me. Mom feels my forehead, which isn’t hot, and asks me how I feel. I slump against the seat and don’t answer. When I get home, Dad asks me if I want to watch hockey, but I slink down to my room instead.
I lay on my bed, staring at nothing. Chance is right. Me and Dad are the two biggest losers in town. Life’s going to keep kicking us unless we give in and accept defeat. Our one job is to keep our heads down. Forget seizing the day. It’s about surviving the day. In just over a month, I’ll be out of here and I’ll go back to Denver. I’ll hide behind Marquis and Jason and Cole, if they’ll have me again, and I’ll make it through middle school and then high school and then I’ll go to any college that will give me a scholarship and then I’ll get a job and I’ll leave the house in the morning and come home at night and in the middle I’ll do whatever my boss tells me to do and every day will basically be the same for the rest of my life. And it’ll be fine. Just fine.
My phone buzzes next to my ear. It’s a text from Andrew. He made starting point guard on the basketball team.
He sends me twelve fist bumps and a “Thx for the help, man!”
I sit up.
I never did anything anyone would remember me for back in Denver. I was a champ at blending in. But here, I’m Hugo O’Connell, the Garbologist, master trash reader and manipulator of fortunes. I’m a hero—a hero who has still not used his most profitable piece of information. Locker number twenty-three still needs to be aired out.
I move to my desk and open my laptop. I hear Mom and Dad walking around upstairs, creaking footsteps, the TV turning on and off, a flushing toilet. Eventually the noises stop, but I don’t. By two in the morning, I hit send. My head pulses and aches, but it’s that good ache like from playing too many video games. I lean back in my chair and breathe slowly through my nose. There’s no going back now. If I’m going down, I’m going down swinging. It’s time for the Garbologist’s grand finale.
* * *
I wake up in a puddle of drool at my desk. For a beautiful few seconds, I don’t remember what I’ve done. Then it hits me. And I can only think one thing: Em. What is this going to do to Em? Last night it seemed like the perfect revenge. But it’s not just Chance who’s going to get hit by this. It’s Em, too, and the entire newsletter crew. With a feeling like falling, I realize I just torpedoed my friends.
I check the time. I’ve overslept. But maybe it’s not too late. Maybe I can fix this? Heart pounding, I sprint up the stairs where Mom is toasting waffles.
“Mom, you’ve got to drive me to school.”
“Why?” she asks. “I thought you were sick.”
“What? No, I’m fine.” I tug my jacket on and try to shove my feet into both shoes at the same time, which is as complicated and unproductive as it sounds. I fall into Mom with an “oof,” and she pushes me into a chair.
“Sit down. What’s the hurry? Why can’t you take the bus?”
“Mom, no! I have to get there, like, ten minutes ago!” She puts her hands on her hips. Why won’t she just get in the car? I huff and she crosses her arms. I breathe slowly through my nose and try again. “Mom, listen. The newsletter comes out today and it’s only the second one and it’s really important to me and my friends.” I cringe. My friends. Can I even still call them that?
She untucks my hood from my jacket and I shift from foot to foot. Come on.
“All right. But take a waffle with you.”
The waffle sits in my lap, uneaten. Mom drives exactly the speed limit. I lean forward until the seat belt locks, but I can’t get us there any faster. We pull in just ahead of the bus.
The front steps are covered in grainy pieces of salt, and I slip but grab the rail at the last second. The school is empty. I’ve made it just in time. I race down the hallway, shoes squeaking in the silence, and grab hold of Mrs. Jacobsen’s door.
“Mrs. Jacobsen!”
She spins around in her chair. “Hugo! You’re here early.”
“Mrs. Jacobsen, don’t print the newsletter! I, uh, made a mistake. There’s something I need to change.”
“Well, Hugo, I appreciate your diligence.” She lifts her glasses into her hair, so slowly, as I dance in place. “But I’m afraid it’s too late. Emilia decided lunch was not the optimal time for distribution. I slipped them in the lockers myself just a few moments ago.”
“But—can’t we take them out?”
The sounds of school are beginning—laughing, yelling, backpacks crashing, lockers clanging.
Mrs. Jacobsen smiles at me kindly, and I turn to walk back out the door.
It’s too late.
My heart is rocketing around my ribcage like a pinball. My body doesn’t know it’s over. But my mind does. I tell my foot to move. It does. I plod back down the hall, now filled with people, with my head down and hood up.
“Hugo! I can’t believe you did it!”
Em gives me a million-dollar smile when I get to my locker. She thinks I came through. My heart shudders to a stop. It’s game over.
“I’m so sorry I doubted you. I—” She stares down at her shoes. “I thought you didn’t have time for us, for me, anymore.”
Now it’s my turn to look down. Em is apologizing to me. Hot tears make the linoleum go blurry.
“But you did it! Just like you promised on the mountain.”
Then she leans in and kisses me on the cheek. It is the best and worst feeling in the world, because she has no idea I’m about to break every promise I ever made to her. I’m not a good friend. I’m not a friend at all. I can’t look at her. I’m not sure I will ever be able to lift my head again. She doesn’t seem to notice, though. She’s celebrating our “victory.”
“I didn’t have time to check the puzzle myself, since Micah had to send it straight to Mrs. Jacobsen, but I know it will be great. And see?” She turns me around toward the crowded hallway. “Everyone’s actually reading it this time.”
She’s right. I watch with a sinking feeling as people cluster around our Paw Print. Most of them have already flipped it over to the back and are pulling out pencils and gel pens to do the puzzle. How could I not have thought about what this would mean for Em? I just wanted revenge on Chance, and I figured if I put my name on it for the world to see, I’d get the credit and the blame. But it’s Em’s newsletter. If I go down, she�
�s going with me.
“Listen, Em, there’s something I have to tell—”
“Dude! Did you see? Our letter’s crushing it!” Gray says, running up and clapping me on the back so hard I fall forward into Em.
Em gives me another huge smile, and for the zillionth time in two days, I want to puke. There’s no way I can tell her—not when she’s looking at me like that.
“I better go. I’m gonna be late for class,” I say, and walk away from their celebration, because it’s only a matter of time before it turns to grief.
Vij won’t look at me when I sit down. I know he already knows. He would be the first one to check the puzzle because he’s learned not to trust me by now. The whispers start two minutes into first period. Mrs. Jacobsen is explaining the research project we’re supposed to start after Thanksgiving break, but no one’s listening. They’re passing the newsletter back and forth under their desks. After class, Vij brushes by me on his way out, and our eyes accidentally meet. I open my mouth to say something—Sorry, and I take it all back, and Please, talk to me, you’re my cousin. But he keeps walking, shaking his head as he disappears out the door.
* * *
Em is already at our table when I get to lunch. She won’t look at me. Micah and Gray and Jack and Vij, too.
“Em, I’m sorr—”
“Don’t. Just—don’t.” Her voice is full of tears.
I sniff back tears I don’t have a right to cry. And then I turn, shoulders hunched in shame, and make my way to an empty table all the way in the corner.
But to some people, I’m a hero. Thomas, the eighth grader who has never once spoken to me but is now dating Jasmine, thanks to me, passes by and tosses me a balled-up copy of the newsletter. “Nice work, Garbologist,” he chuckles, and I cringe. I unfold it and press it flat on the table and make myself read the crossword title: Taking Chances.
Six-across: This bball player isn’t worth the RISK. Still unsure? Why don’t you HAZARD a guess. And there it is, filled out in Thomas’s green pen.