I shove the notebook deep in my bottom drawer. This isn’t tra-la-las. This is work, more work than Miss Holloway ever asked for, so much work that I could never finish it—and find my dog—before my mum comes.
I was wrong about the tra-la-las and everything else that I thought Mr. Peterson was writing in my notebook.
Plague-sore.
Canker-face.
Goat-bellied-mule.
Shoot me, please.
This is how I feel two minutes after I start playing Monopoly with the boy in the gigantic wool coat.
“I am not going to be the iron,” I snap, uncramping my leg because we are sitting on the floor. Already I am at the boiling point.
They don’t even sell Monopoly games with irons in them anymore—that tells you how old this board is. Plus, the money is crumpled and the deeds are bent and frayed at the edges. My face is hot, my head aches. The boy’s bedroom is smaller than mine, and the air conditioner rattles and bumps and keeps shutting down. I pull the ice cube out of the baggie in my pocket and rub it on my brow. Then I suck on it, holding out my hand. “Give me the dog.”
The boy shakes his head and sweat sprays onto his coat, which looks like it came from the bottom of the bin at the Church of Our Risen Lord thrift shop. He tosses me the shoe.
I let it drop on the board. It rolls over to St. James Place. “I am always the dog,” I hiss. This is a lie because I never play Monopoly, but if I did, I would be the dog. I pull my springy curls off my neck and lean into the air conditioner when it clicks on. I lift my arms and let the cool blow under.
Philippe shrugs, picks up the ship, and holds it out.
I shake my head. “I’m not playing if I can’t be the dog.”
The only things not covered by the heavy wool coat are his eyes and his thin nose and the curls on top of his head, which are so pale they remind me of the donut filling Bavarian cream. He shrugs and puts the ship back in the box. “That’s okay. I like playing by myself better.” His voice is grainy and scruffy like when you walk on the boardwalk at the beach.
“You can’t play Monopoly by yourself,” I snort. I pull off my flip-flops and sit on my heels, sinking my toes into the blue shaggy rug, searching for a cool spot. Empty soda cans burst out the top of a garbage bag under the window. Harry would have a bug.
I wipe the sweat off my face. Philippe ignores me and carefully sets the Chance cards on the board and stacks the Community Chest pile. He has already fixed himself a bowl of cereal, which he pulls out from under his bed. He eats several spoonfuls without offering me any, and milk dribbles down his thin chin. When he finishes, he pulls a cereal box from under the bed and a quart of milk from behind his pillow.
If you knew Mrs. Salvatore, your mouth would be wide as a door, I can tell you that. Her kitchen looks the way kitchens in television commercials look. There are seven people living in this apartment—including Mr. Salvatore, who you never see because he hauls trucks long-distance—and you could eat mashed potatoes right off the floor without dusting them off, that’s how everything sparkles. The sink is bleached and shined, the inside of her coffee cups are white as Easter lilies, and there’s no sticky jelly prints on the refrigerator. When your head is cluttered up with too much going wrong, it’s good to be someplace neat and orderly like Mrs. Salvatore’s kitchen.
“What are you doing?” I am incredulous.
Philippe watches me nervously as he fills his bowl a second time. “Want some?” He looks back and forth from me to the door.
“Of course not, I already ate breakfast.” No one ever had to tell me not to eat in my bedroom—some things you just know. I get the feeling this boy might need a few lessons on how to get on in this world.
He pours another bowl. This is his third. I try and think back if I ever ate three bowls of cereal at once.
“Are you going to tell?” he whispers.
I dig my toes deeper into the cool spot, where they are happier. “Can I be the dog?”
Philippe scrapes the last of the cereal from the bottom of the bowl with his tongue and hides everything under the bed. He hands me the race car. “I have to be the dog,” he whispers.
I could wring his neck. Instead, I remind myself that I need to get out of here quickly so I can pick the lock on the toolshed, steal my bike, and hunt for my dog. Already the sun is high.
I stuff a pillow under me and try to relax my toes. They are losing patience. “Playing Monopoly by yourself is the stupidest idea ever,” I say, getting back to that subject. “How do you not cheat?”
“Why would I cheat?” He rolls his eyes. “I play with Teddy Roosevelt. Why would I want to cheat with him?”
I push the pillow away, sit up. My mouth is open again. “He’s dead.”
Philippe shrugs and hands out the money to himself and to an imaginary player on the other side. He leaves me out.
Shoot me.
After a moment of watching him, I grab the shoe out of the box and pull Teddy Roosevelt’s money over to me.
I rub my hands together so hard they sizzle and I throw the dice. I roll a perfect pair of snake eyes.
This is how you pick a lock.
First, you need two jumbo paper clips. These aren’t easy to find in our apartment because Harry is out of practice about school supplies.
I have to dig to the bottom of all our kitchen drawers to find two. I straighten the first clip. This will be the pick. The World Book of Unbelievable and Spectacular Things says that’s all there is to the first one.
For the second, the tension wrench, things are more complicated. I straighten two of the curves in the wire. Then, with a pair of Harry’s pliers, I squeeze the last bend together, creating a double thickness. I twist that into a right angle about half an inch down. Next, I twist the bottom where the wire is a single thickness, to make it look like a piece of licorice. The World Book says I should now have two tools that look like this: L l
Out at the toolshed, I hold the wires up, pushing at them with my finger. They wobble because Harry bought the cheap ones at Walmart.
The World Book of Unbelievable and Spectacular Things says I need to force the tension wrench into the slit at the bottom of the padlock to wedge things open. Then I push in the other clip and wiggle to move the tumblers. I do this. Nothing happens.
I lift the padlock and look into the slit. I push the bent wire in, but this time I do it harder. I stick the straight wire in and wiggle it around. Nothing happens.
The sun pastes my springy curls to my neck. I grind my teeth and try again, but it is windy today and grit flies down from the sandpits and gums up the works. I trace my finger all around the place in the lock where my wires are supposed to go.
The phone rings in our apartment. I bet it is my mum calling to have that talk with Harry, but—ha ha—my grandpa isn’t home. I snort and shove the tension wrench back in, closer to the top. I push it with my thumb to try and open things up. Then I push in the straight wire, wiggling it twice as much as I did before.
Nothing happens.
Louse-head. Fish-breath. Mealy-mouth. I cuss at Harry and the lock at the same time.
This gives Mrs. Salvatore and her big nose a chance to get right up behind me without me noticing. She’s got her laundry basket, and all her foster children stand quietly behind her (I swear they’ve never been this silent before; my toes can hardly believe it), and then the peacefulness is too much for everyone and Francesca wedges Paulie’s fingers apart so she can get at whatever he’s hiding in his hand, and he yelps. Sarah, the oldest, has a book and the baby in her arms and then the baby turns beet red and screams and she drops the book and Philippe burrows in his coat. I would like to ask him where is his best friend, Teddy Roosevelt, but then Paulie screams about how Francesca is going to hurt his turtle and Mrs. Salvatore pushes him behind her, and this gives Francesca a chance to step closer to me.
“What’s she doing to that lock?”
That’s all Mrs. Salvatore needs to start sniffing like an ol
d hound dog again.
I walk five times as fast as Philippe and every time I have to stop and wait for him, I breathe in a gush of hot dusty grit. I pull my shirt over my nose.
“It’s hot enough to fry an egg—can’t you walk faster?” My voice is machete-sharp under my shirt.
Philippe treads a dozen paces behind me, the buckle from his coat clacking along the hot pavement. His head is the only thing not covered by the coat. It’s like I’m walking with a rolled-up rug.
We are headed to the hardware store because Mrs. Salvatore needs a new mop. Plus, she figured out I was up to something with the lock.
“Night and day your grandfather works his tail off to feed you, and this is how you treat him?”
I snort. I don’t think we are talking about the same Harry.
—
This is the Harry I know: On that first day after I moved in, all I found in his cupboards were soggy saltines and graham crackers that were floppy as worms. And who knew how long the can of tuna had been sitting on the shelf with its label missing (and was it even tuna?), plus the mayonnaise was sour-lemon-smelling and it made me crabby to even look at it.
There were margarine sticks instead of real butter, and all the spices in the rack were packed in little cans with rusted covers. I read in The World Book of Unbelievable and Spectacular Things that folks in the Middle Ages thought rust would jump from one piece of metal to another like fleas if you weren’t careful. I told this to Harry and I said it really snippy because cornflakes made my belly ache (my papa gave me brown sugar oatmeal) and I was starving half to death and a girl as skinny as me needs three meals a day of food she likes, plus good snacks, and he just said, “Humph,” and opened a can of corned beef and put half on my plate and there was no mustard and this riled me up even more, I can tell you that. He ate a lot of canned sardines and fried potatoes and his favorite was Spam sandwiches. I was bad-tempered and weak with hunger for a week, until I took matters into my own hands.
—
My World Book says:
Wait for a distraction, or create one yourself, but by all means never attempt to pickpocket without one. Children on the streets of London knew how two hundred years ago, and you need to understand this if you are to be any good.
My papa told me when we were reading this chapter that this was horrible advice—especially if you want to be a good person—but he doesn’t have to live with Harry now. I do.
—
Philippe and I aren’t even halfway to the hardware store when he picks a grimy Pepsi can off the culvert on Main Street and puts it in his pocket.
He reaches into the trash bucket outside the dentist’s office, pulls out two empty cans of Mountain Dew, and puts them in the other pocket.
My toes sizzle to the tops of my flip-flops. “What are you doing?”
He ignores me and searches through the trash bucket by the Rockdale Savings & Trust.
When I get to the big house where Gorilla Dog lives, I race past. I am so far ahead of Philippe I don’t bother to warn him.
Gary’s Hardware is a little shoe box of a building at the edge of the rail tracks.
When the train screeches through town, the whole place trembles and the racks of ROCKDALE: WHERE FOUNDATIONS ARE BUILT key chains and paperweights and plastic gravy boats tumble to the floor. You would think someone would have sense enough to move the racks.
The old cowbell on the door clanks when I walk in, and Mrs. Gary looks up from her crossword puzzle.
It’s not your usual hardware store, like Home Depot or Lowe’s. Here everything is pushed against something else. A barrel filled with nails and boxes of daffodil bulbs are shoved against a wall of wrenches, hammers, light sockets, and wood glue. There are crochet hooks, knitting needles, and embroidery hoops hanging on a wall beside a big drum of dog biscuits, painter’s canvas, and garden hose. There is a whole wall for cleaning supplies: Windex, Pine-Sol, vacuum cleaner bags, Swiffers, water buckets, and Mop & Glo.
I hurry past a stack of cast-iron fry pans, glass casserole dishes, a cluster of wooden spoons, turkey basters, and salt and pepper shakers, but instead of going to the aisle with the mops, I stop at the shelf of junk food, which might be unusual merchandise for a hardware store, but not this one.
Harry says we don’t have money to buy Yodels and Yankee Doodles and those little cupcakes frosted with pink coconut icing—if I want something sweet, eat a donut. This might leave your mouth watering, if you haven’t eaten a donut every day for your entire life.
“What do you want, Rosalita?” Mrs. Gary asks me as I look through a box of Ring Pops.
“A new mop,” I say, looking up, snorting to myself that Philippe hasn’t even made it inside yet. I decide on the box of Jolly Rancher sticks and position myself.
I look for cans to topple to create a distraction. My papa says in my head: This is a very bad idea.
“You won’t find mops in that aisle,” Mrs. Gary says. “That would be by the Windex, next aisle over.” She gets up and walks around the counter.
When Philippe finally opens the door, I am trying to quickly decide between a watermelon and a green apple stick.
The bell over his head clangs. Mrs. Gary’s husband, who reads the newspaper all day, looks up from the wheelchair he’s been in since the Vietnam War. I quickly choose the watermelon stick and stuff it in my pocket.
Philippe is such a sight to behold that Mrs. Gary stops midstep.
This makes Philippe stiffen like a starched sheet. He locks his eyes on the sliver of black high-top that sticks out from under his coat. Somehow a maple leaf got stuck in his hair.
He looks up for a second and sees all of us watching him, and his face gets so red it looks as if he has been slapped, and he clamps his teeth shut. It’s like he straps a muzzle on so tight he couldn’t talk even if you pinched him. He sinks further into his coat and accidentally brushes against a display of charcoal briquettes and lighter fluid and marshmallows and graham crackers and Hershey bars and everything you need to toast s’mores.
“My goodness, he’s going to tip it over,” Mrs. Gary says, hurrying around the counter.
This makes Philippe burrow inside his coat like he is diving under a wave.
Only the tops of his eyes and his pale curls show. This is one weird kid. I notice a display of geranium beauty soap and I push a bar into the back of my waistband so I don’t have to smell like Harry’s Irish Spring.
“Careful!” Mrs. Gary yells, and I jump, but she is rushing past the tomato stakes and garden wire toward Philippe, her hands waving.
This is too much for Philippe and he backs up and the whole s’mores pyramid sways, and before Mrs. Gary can get to it, everything topples to the floor.
“Don’t touch it, don’t touch anything!” Mrs. Gary bellows. Mr. Gary wheels around the counter.
Philippe trips over a can of lighter fluid and slips and an empty can of Mountain Dew rolls out of his pocket. Mrs. Gary raises her arm like she is going to hit him. Mr. Gary picks up a broom.
Do something, I hear my papa say in my head, or maybe it is me saying it, it is hard to tell. Watching Philippe feels like seeing a puppy about to be kicked. I grab his coat, haul him up, and hurry us out the door. I don’t bother checking to see if Gorilla Dog is waiting or not.
“I saw your grandpa locking up your bike,” says Cynthia, the girl from the attic apartment above us who thinks I am her friend (but I am not).
She pops up behind me while I am scrubbing fingerprints off the donut case. A Barbie sticks out of each front pocket of her shorts. She is wearing the same tie-dyed shirt she wears nearly every day of the week and she sips from a can of grape soda. Her lips are stained. She scratches.
“Did he lock it up for the whole summer?” Cynthia’s voice has a hummingbird flutter in it.
“No, of course he didn’t lock it up for the whole summer. Keep your nose out of my business, Cynthia.” I spray more Windex, seething because I am in such a hurry to get my chores done.
/>
Cynthia coughs and wipes her hand on the donut case.
Hornets whirl. “I said go away!”
“But I don’t have anybody to play with. I never have anybody to play with. My mama says I should play with you because you are alone all the time. Even Miss Lindsey said I should play with you.”
Miss Lindsey is the third-grade teacher who reads to her students every afternoon after lunch and makes them put their heads on their desks so they will relax. I outgrew teachers like her a long time ago.
I pull the ice cube out of the baggie in my pocket and dab my forehead. Cynthia edges closer. She flips her hair out of her face, and when she does, her hair flops over in a thick clump and you can see the nest underneath from where she doesn’t brush. On the bus I sometimes have to sit behind her, and when you are close, you can see how she just sort of combs the top of her hair over everything and pats it in place. It makes me wonder why her mother doesn’t take better care of her. It feels good to think bad things about someone else’s mum for a change.
“But I just wanted to ask you to come over and play. What’s wrong with that? Or I could help. I can wash things. I like to do things like that. I do all the cleaning at our house and I never break a dish or anything.”
I squirt my bottle of Windex and listen to the glass yelp about all the ammonia. I scowl. “Go away, Cynthia.” It is infuriating she is pestering me when I am in such a hurry to find my dog.
Harry already made me brew five hundred pots of coffee and fill ten thousand jelly donuts. My bike is still locked up and I hear it calling for me.
The new conditions of my life are these: I will work out front at the donut shop. (Harry does not believe in small talk or chatter and customers give him a headache.)
If I don’t want to do that, I can help Mrs. Salvatore and be friends with her new boy—which, after the Monopoly game and the trip to the hardware store, I wouldn’t do in a million years.
Chasing Augustus Page 4