Swear to Howdy

by Wendelin Van Draanen

  Mama folded up the test and let it drop to the floor beside her. “In addition to the disappointment and embarrassment, Jenna Mae, you might've cost me my job.”

  “Get those clothes your mama bought you and bring them here!” Dad hollered.

  “But, Daddy!”

  “Bring them here!”

  Sissy got up, quivering. “But, Daddy, I wore an outfit to school today!”

  Dad took a deep breath. “It'll be the last time you wear it, Jenna. And the rest is going back to the store.”

  “But—”

  “Get!” Mama and Dad cried together.

  Sissy brought the clothes out, then got sent back to her room without supper. Shortly after, Mama and Dad shoved back from the table and went to discuss things out on the porch.

  Which left me and my growling stomach alone with a table full of scrumptious barbeque.

  Some times life's more fair than others.

  10

  THE GHOST OF LOST RIVER

  Mama was mortified, but she did not lose her job.

  Sissy stayed grounded, couldn't ride to school or back with anybody but Mama, and had to take the Civil War test over again.

  Amanda Jane must've done some fancy dancin' at home, though, 'cause she did not get grounded and got to keep her car. The only thing she couldn't seem to worm out of was retaking the test.

  It wouldn't be the same test, either. Mr. Hickle was making up a brand-new one just for the two of them. “Bound to be twice as tough as the first one,” Mama warned.

  And that meant studying for real, but they weren't allowed to do that together, either. Oh, it would've been okay with Mrs. Banks, but Mama said no way.

  Sissy did plenty of whining about it, saying how Mama and Dad were being overly hard on her, pointing out how Amanda Jane still had all her privileges, so why couldn't she?

  Mama just counted to ten and said, “I can see the lesson hasn't sunk in yet, Jenna Mae. When it does, we'll talk about privileges.”

  “But Amanda Jane's like my sister. You have no idea what this is doin' to me. She gets to go out and have fun, she gets to drive her very own car, she gets to—”

  “Jenna Mae, go to your room!” Mama would shout, then mutter under her breath for half an hour.

  The only time Amanda Jane and Sissy got to talk to each other was at noon-room duty. Aside from the humiliation of everyone finding out what they'd done, they were punished with trash duty for the final two weeks of school.

  Needless to say, Sissy was in a permanent bad mood.

  Now, Joey and me would've probably been in a permanent good mood if it wasn't for Amanda Jane's car. “It ain't fair!” Joey'd tell me when we'd see her zoomin' around. “So what if they can't return it. Least they ought to do is lock her out of it!”

  Didn't stop us from having fun, though. We spent time hunting for Tank. Up the river, down the river. We probably covered ground a mile past the Lee Street Bridge. Maybe two. Distances are hard to tell when you're traveling along a riverbank. There's boulders and trees and other obstacles of nature slowing you down, warping yards into miles.

  And every time we'd pass under the Lee Street Bridge, Joey'd try and scare me about the Lost Ghost, until finally I just told him, “Shut up, already. I ain't scared of no ghost.”

  He laughed and said, “I know you ain't, but lots of folks is, and I aim to keep that goin'.”

  “Why?” I asked him. “For when you bring girls down here?”

  “No, Rusty-boy!” But then he snapped his fingers, loud as anything.

  “What?”

  “I got an idea!”

  “What? What idea?”

  He ran back out from underneath the bridge and looked up and all around.

  “What, Joey? Whatcha thinkin'?”

  “Follow me!” he cried, and tore off under the bridge.

  When we came out the other side, he looked all around. He ran up the bank to the road, tested a tree branch that was hanging overhead, looked up and down Lee Street, then tore back down to the river, looking up, looking over… looking everywhere. Finally he planted himself right in front of me and gave me his loopy grin. “Rusty-boy, we're gonna be the Lost Ghost.”

  “Huh? How do you mean?”

  “Come on!” he said, charging up to the street. “I'll tell you on the way home!”

  That night we met up again outside Joey's back door. He had a sack of supplies and was already waiting when I arrived. “They know you're out?” he whispered.

  I shook my head. “I snuck out my window, just like you said.”

  “Stuffed your bed?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Good. Let's go!”

  We tore down to the river and over to the bridge. It was black as pitch out, too. No moon, no stars. Just thick river air and darkness.

  Lee Street was deserted. We could see the stoplight where Tank had bummed a ride home, but up Lee the other way was like a tunnel of blackness.

  “We ain't gonna spook no one if the road's deserted,” I told Joey.

  “We want it to be deserted while we're settin' up, Rusty-boy Come on! Let's get the rope up.”

  It wasn't exactly rope. It was more heavy string. And it took a lot of hurlin' to get it over the branch right. There we were, in the middle of the road, tossing a ball of string back and forth like it was opening day, Joey talking the whole time. “Higher, Rusty!” “Shoot! It's too far over.” “Pull it down!” “Okay, now catch!” “Shoot!”

  It took us forever to get it just where Joey wanted, and when he finally said, “That's perfect,” headlights came over the rise and out of the tunnel of darkness.

  We dove under the bridge, but in doin' so we pulled the string clean out of the branch. “Shoot!” Joey said when the car passed and we saw the string laying on the street like a giant noodle. “We got to start all over again!”

  This time we got it looped over the branch quicker,though, 'cause Joey decided not to be so picky. Then we ducked under the bridge and started fixing up the ghost.

  Now, Joey hadn't exactly told me how we were gonna make the ghost. He just told me to meet him. So when I saw him blowing up a balloon I said, “Joey! Nobody's gonna fall for that!”

  “Just hold on, all right, smart-boy?” He pinched off the air. “You'll see.”

  He stuck the balloon inside a black pillowcase, and I couldn't help asking, “Black? Ain't ghosts supposed to be white? And where'd you get a black pillowcase, anyhow?”

  He rolled his eyes. “I tried white in my room. It looked fake. Black's way better. And don't ask me—it was in the closet.”

  Next he put his flashlight inside the pillowcase, turned it on, and pinched the case around the base of the light end. “See?” he whispered, holding it up.

  “Hey… that's good,” I said.

  “Told ya.”

  We tied a piece of string around the Lost Ghost's neck so the balloon and the top of the flashlight were both stuck inside the head. Then Joey stapled on some tattered jeans so they hung down from inside the pillowcase.

  “Jeans, Joey? You think the Lost Ghost wears jeans?”

  “He does now, Rusty.” He tied one end of the tree rope through the neck rope and said, “He's gotta be big enough to notice, don't he?”

  Joey switched on the light and hoisted him up the tree branch, and I had to admit—he was one fine-looking ghost. “Say,” I whispered. “That's scary!”

  “Told ya!”

  About three cars had gone whizzing by while we were fixing up the Lost Ghost. They hadn't seen us 'cause we were doing everything down the hill. But now we were ready, crouched low beside the bridge, Joey holding tight to the string. “Whatcha fixin' to do?” I asked him.

  “I'm gonna do like this,” he said, letting out the string. The Lost Ghost came down from the tree, slow and scary.

  “Cool!” I whispered.

  He gave me a loopy grin and hoisted it back up. “Told ya!”

  About two minutes later, a car came up Lee from th
e stoplight. And as it zoomed up the hill toward the bridge, Joey whispered, “We're gonna scare the bazooka out of him! We're gonna make him run home to mama! We're gonna…”

  “Hush up, Joey! Here he comes!”

  Joey let the Lost Ghost down real slow and scary-like. But the car just barreled by without slowing.

  “Dadgumit!” Joey said, hoisting the ghost back up. “I don't think he even saw it!”

  “Maybe you gotta let it down quicker?”

  “Yeah. Quicker and lower.” He pointed to headlights coming out of the darkness. “Get ready!”

  “Maybe it's the same guy. Maybe he flipped a U-ie. Maybe he's gonna—”

  “Hush up yourself, Rusty!”

  He dropped the ghost quicker and lower, and it wasn't the same car, but it did the same thing—just kept on driving.

  “Maybe I gotta drop it and yank it back up as they go by”

  We waited probably five minutes, but it felt like an hour. And when we spotted headlights coming out of the darkness down Lee, Joey cried, “Here's one now! Come on, car, I'll show ya… the Lost Ghost lives!”

  The minute the car hit the bridge, Joey let out his bundle of slack. The Lost Ghost fluttered down fast, then Joey yanked it up and away.

  “You practically hit the windshield, Joey!”

  Before the words were even out of my mouth, the car swerved and started fishtailing all over the place. It spun out of control toward the stoplight, smoke coming from the brakes, sparks coming from who knows where. And as I saw it heading straight for a phone pole, my heart froze in my chest.

  “Uh-oh,” Joey whispered as it crashed into the pole. “Uh-oh.”

  Then headlights from a car coming up the hill lit up the crashed car, and that's when Joey said what I was seeing but not believing. “That's Amanda Jane's car… !”

  “Can't be,” I whispered.

  “It is. Oh maaaaaaan! She's gonna tattle! And you watch—I'm gonna pay for that old clunker with my hide.” He shook his head. “Boy, that Amanda Jane's an awful driver!”

  The other car had stopped to help, and almost right away after, there was a third car pulling up to the crash.

  I wanted to run down to help, too, but Joey grabbed my shirt and dragged me back. “There's plenty of folks there already. What we gotta do is get the ghost down. Get it down quick.”

  There were folks all over Amanda Jane's car, and it didn't seem that us joining them would do any good. So I helped Joey cut the ghost down and pull everything under the bridge.

  Joey popped the balloon and shoved all the stuff back in the pillowcase, saying, “Dad cannot find out about this, Rusty. If he does, he's gonna kill me. He's gonna beat me to a inch of my life, then beat me some more.”

  I chased after him under the bridge and along the river, saying, “Maybe Amanda Jane'll think it was the Lost Ghost. Your parents don't know you snuck out, right?”

  “If they do, I'm doomed. I'm dead. It'll all be over but the cryin'…”

  Then we heard sirens in the distance, and Joey said, “The cops are comin' already!”

  He stumbled down to the river and started to fling the pillowcase in, but I grabbed it in time. “No, Joey! It'll just float up to shore. You gotta take it and put it all back where you found it.” The sirens were getting louder. “Just get yourself back in bed before they notice you're gone!”

  But before we split up to go our own ways, Joey stopped me and said, “I swear to howdy, if you tell a soul…”

  “I won't, Joey! Don't you know that by now?”

  He opened his knife, skipped the fists, and went straight for blood. And when we'd rubbed our fingers together good, he whispered, “You're my friend, Rusty. My true friend.”

  “You're mine, too,” I told him.

  Then we hurried home to creep through our windows and shake in our sheets.

  11

  BLACKBERRY MUD

  When they told me Amanda Jane was dead, I went into cold, hard shock. I didn't believe it. I wouldn't believe it. My family just shivered on the street in our pj's along with the rest of the block, listenin' to folks say how horrible it was.

  Joey's mama had been the alarm that had woken up the neighborhood—screamin' and wailin' and runnin' in circles, cryin', “Not my baby! Not my baby!”

  But it was true. And while Joey's mama and dad followed the ambulance into town, Joey and Rhonda stayed with us, Joey and me shiverin' the night away on the floor of my room.

  At four in the morning I saw his eyes wide open, staring out the window. “What are we gonna do?” I whispered.

  He just shook his head.

  Mama made sticky buns for breakfast, but it was hopeless. No one ate. Sissy's eyes were puffed nearly closed,and she wound up going back to her room to cry 'em out some more.

  Mrs. Banks came and fetched Rhonda and Joey in the morning, and tried to fight back the tears as she told us how a mechanic had checked the car over and found the brakes to be faulty. “If only we'd bought her a better car,” she said as she broke down in Mama's arms. “If only she'd been wearing her seat belt!”

  Dad was real solemn. And I know he and Mama were both thinking about what it would be like to lose your girl like that. And that, if not for the grounding, Sissy might've been in that car, too.

  A short while later, Joey was back, knocking on the door. Said he couldn't take being in his own house. Mama tried to say soothing things to him. “She's in heaven now,” she told him. “It'll be some time, but you'll see her again.” She patted his hand. “Then you can take up fightin' with her from where you left off.”

  Normally that would've made Joey laugh—which was what Mama was tryin' to get him to do—but now he just looked down and shook his head.

  It was the slowest day in existence. Sissy cried. Joey and me sat and shivered in my room. None of us went to school. Mama cooked a casserole to take to the Bankses. Dad went to work, but didn't stay long. He came home and offered to take us out. “Anywhere,” he said. “Anywhere you want to go.”

  Sissy kept on cryin'. Joey and me shook our heads, and we went back to my room, where Joey finally said the words. “I killed my own sister,” he whispered. “I killed Amanda Jane.”

  “You did not,” I whispered back. “It was an accident, is all. You heard your mama saying how the brakes on that car were no good, and that Amanda Jane should've been wearin' her safety belt. It was an accident, Joey. An accident.”

  He just shook his head.

  I was trying to make him feel better, but my stomach wasn't buyin' it, either. If there'd been any food in it at all, it would've come up right then and there.

  Every time there was a knock on the door, we'd scramble to the window, sure the police were on to what we'd done. But the police didn't come. Not that day, or the next. Or the day kids from the high school brought a truckload of plastic flowers to the crash site and nailed a white cross to the phone pole. The cross had AMANDA painted in pink down the length and JANE painted across.

  No police showed up at the funeral either. Or later at the graveyard, where we watched her coffin get lowered into the ground.

  It was my first funeral, and I'm hoping it'll be my last. Folks cryin' all over. Everyone in black. The minister dronin' on about a lovely flower being plucked from the earth, joinin' the everlastin' bouquet at the good Lord's side.

  But what really got me was Joey's dad. He bawled his eyes out. Worse even than Joey's mama, who was trying to be strong for Joey and Rhonda.

  Summer came and sweltered on. Mama got Sissy counseling 'cause she hadn't stopped crying. Joey and me were still walking around like zombies. We tried going down to the swimming hole. Tried looking for Tank. But everything reminded us. The bridge. Smoky's grave. Everything.

  Dad tried to get me to talk about things, but I wouldn't. I couldn't. I had a pact with Joey. And besides, who wants to tell their dad they're an accomplice to murder?

  Every time I passed by the phone pole cross, I felt like puking. Every time I saw Joey's
mama, I felt like crying. Every time I heard Sissy bawling in her pillow, I wanted to beat myself silly for not thinking things through.

  How come we never thought someone might get hurt?

  When school finally started up again, I was hoping things would change, but they didn't. Joey and me just sat. Not listening. Not talking. Not caring.

  Three weeks into the school year, Mama showed up in the middle of the day and pulled me from class. She stuck me in the car and started driving.

  “Where we goin', Mama?”

  She kept her eyes fixed on the road. “Your daddy and I have been so concerned about Jenna Mae for all her cryin' that we didn't realize how deeply Amanda Jane's death was affecting you.”

  “I'm okay, Mama.”

  “No, you're not. According to the school, you're seriously not.”

  “But, Mama…”

  Her eyes were brimming with tears now, and she gripped the wheel tighter. “Honey, you don't eat, you don't sleep, you don't cry, you don't talk…” She glanced my way. “Look at those bags under your eyes. Look at you sitting there shivering!”

  “But, Mama…”

  “Just give her a chance.”

  “Who?”

  “The counselor.”

  “Sissy's counselor?”

  She nodded. “She knows a lot about what's going on already.”

  “But—”

  “Honey, sometimes it helps to talk to someone you don't know.”

  Dr. Louise was nice enough, but I didn't talk to her, either. Not that day, or the next, or the one after that. She tried to get me to play with little figures, tried to get me to move little magnet people around a board, tried to get me to talk about my feelings. But I just sat there, staring at my feet.

  Joey and me had a pact.

  Sealed for life.

  Finally she said, “Russell? If you keep it buried, it's going to rot.”

  I thought about Amanda Jane, restin' six feet under. “Fine choice of words, ma'am.”

  She caught my meaning and hurried to say, “What I'm trying to tell you, Russell, is if you keep it bottled up too long, you'll destroy yourself from the inside. You've got to let it out.”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  She sat there, blinking at me for an eternity. “Well?”