“But he hardly ever takes it off,” Cynthia says, whining a little.
“Now!” Harry roars. “You can’t fish with it on, either.”
Philippe does nothing for at least a minute and I am just starting to think we have a showdown on our hands when he reaches up and slowly loosens the big black buttons. The coat slips to the ground.
I stop digging. Harry clears his throat a few times. “In my day when you were afraid of the dark, you went out at midnight and dug potatoes. You didn’t hide in your coat all the time.”
Philippe shivers. He is thin as a baby bird. He tries to hold the bike straight, but without his coat he loses his power. Harry looks at me and then over to Cynthia. Finally, after about a thousand years, he says, “Oh, for Pete’s sake, it’s probably going to rain again anyway—put it back on.”
My heart takes a deep breath. My toes relax.
“I won’t have to go swimming, will I?” says Cynthia, bouncing over to help hold my bike. “I don’t like to swim. My mama’s boyfriend—the same one who taught me about worms—he made me go swimming one day even when I told him I didn’t know how and he told me do the dog paddle out to the middle and then he pushed me under so I would learn real fast to hold my breath, but I almost drowned. You won’t make me swim, will you?”
Harry’s ears twitch. He stands up and looks at her a long while. Then he grumbles, “When you fish, you don’t swim. It scares the fish.”
My grandpa is still shaking his head when we set off for the pond.
—
Fishing is a disaster, as you can imagine. On the way home, Philippe and Cynthia walk together under the umbrella. I plod through the drizzle with my head down.
Harry makes me carry the fish—a scrawny perch that Cynthia caught and now we’re going to have to eat, God’s bones. I rub my throbbing temples.
My grandpa doesn’t mention throwing my bike into the dumpster ever again, but halfway home, when the sky opens up and it begins to pour, he takes off his old fishing hat and puts it on my head.
A yellow envelope, a little greasy and stuffed full, sits between us in Harry’s truck. It’s filled with cash, mostly ones and fives—donut money.
“It’s not like he’s done anything to earn it.” I say it with my snarkiest voice. You could slice meat with the sharpness of it.
“Stop talking.” Harry drums his thumb on the steering wheel as we head out to Mr. Peterson’s house.
Mrs. Salvatore is boxing donuts behind the counter when we bump through a new pothole in front of the JACK’S DONUTS sign.
After the doctor had that talk about Harry being too old to raise me, Mrs. Salvatore agreed to work a couple of hours when Harry needs time off to do the things you do when you have a grandchild—buy real toothpaste and get rid of the baking-soda-and-salt mix you keep on the sink, replace the cornflakes with brown sugar oatmeal and your worn-out towels with a few new ones from Walmart, hang curtain rods, fix the clanking pipes in the tub, buy window fans and bubble bath, make sure your life insurance is up to date, get a will done.
In return for this help at the donut shop, Harry does some dad things for the boy who never had a father. This explains the fishing trip. I roll my eyes.
Harry flips the radio to the sports talk station as we drive to where the roads narrow and the houses get smaller, then onto another road and up a pencil-thin driveway where the grass hasn’t been mowed and a late crop of dandelions bursts like a million tiny suns. Mr. Peterson stands high on a ladder, pulling soggy leaves out of his gutters.
Harry turns the engine off. He thumps his thumb on the steering wheel—one, two, three…eight, nine, ten. “Get moving.”
“I already told you there’s nothing in the notebook. So why are we even doing this?”
“I said we were coming today. If you chose not to do the work, that’s your problem. Now go.” He pours more coffee into his GONE FISHING mug and leans back, pulling his hat low to block the sun. It has been many days since we’ve had to blink brightness out of our eyes.
It is not every day you go to a teacher’s house.
This one has the same stained-glass jeweled windows up and down the sides of the front door that we had on Maple Street, and it is trimmed by juniper bushes, the kind that trap fat snowflakes in winter.
There’s a barn, a tree house high in a pine off to the side, and a big yellow Labrador on the porch, its tail already wagging. Laughter rolls out of the tree house and everybody-do-the-twist music bebops out the window.
The scene makes a happy picture and for just a moment I breathe in the joyfulness of it all. I see where Mr. Peterson gets his tra-la-las.
—
When he notices me, he gives me a little salute and climbs down. “I am very interested to see what you have written, Rosie.”
The trees all around his yard are so big their branches touch. I kick a clump of dandelions. I let my silence speak for itself.
“I see,” he says, reaching for the notebook, glancing over at Harry’s truck. He wipes his fingers on his overalls, opens the cover, and hands it right back. “You know, Rosie, writing can light a fire. Writing like this can light your life on fire.”
I kick another clump of yellow. God’s bones, he sounds like a teacher.
He prods the dandelions back up with his foot.
I snort and give him the envelope, which he leafs through and hands back without taking the money.
“I don’t have time for this, Rosie. I would only take an extra student in my class who wanted to make something of herself, who was willing to put in the effort. I am very demanding, and since you’re not willing to do the work, good luck in Mrs. Barrett’s class.”
I wince.
“Yes?” he asks gently.
I scrunch my face, trying to come up with something. Finally, I shove the envelope back to him. “Harry wants you to take the money. He says he hired you to tutor me and you’ve done your part.”
“I haven’t done anything, not yet.” He waits for some kind of answer but I don’t have one to give and I concentrate on my sneakers, listening for the far-off rumbling of the train heading into town.
Mr. Peterson reaches for the ladder. “You won’t know the potential in yourself, Rosie, until you learn how to look inside to find it. Writing can help you do that.”
Hornets whirl themselves into a frenzy.
As he climbs, I’m left holding the notebook and the envelope stuffed with cash. His sneakers squeak against the rails, probably from all the holes in the soles. Across the lawn, his twins have poked their heads out of the tree house to watch.
I have that funny feeling you get when you wake up after you weren’t expecting to fall asleep on the bus, a little dizzy and embarrassed and everyone is watching.
“That’s it?” Harry jumps a little when I stomp back to the truck, kicking all the dandelions in my path. He has nodded off. There must be a blue moon tonight because Harry never naps.
I sizzle as I toss the envelope at him.
“He won’t let me in his class.”
Harry shoves the envelope into his shirt pocket and backs down the driveway. “Finally, a teacher with sense.”
My head pounds; a thousand barracudas swarm behind my eyes.
When we reach our apartment, I head straight for the ice cubes.
At six o’clock the phone rings.
I let it go until it stops.
I pull the army blanket over my head. The wool smells musty from all the rain and I doze off, feeling my papa near me telling me something about Augustus, over and over like a jackhammer.
I jolt awake. The phone is ringing again. Harry yells, “Aren’t you going to answer that thing?”
I bury my head under my pillow. When the telephone rings a third time, Harry picks it up and mumbles something. I roll myself tighter in the army blanket and close my eyes.
I want to talk to my papa about a lot of things, like how to get the light on my bike to stay on and how I am going to wait another day for
Harry to stop keeping such a close watch on me so I can go rescue the true-blue friend of my soul.
I might mention Philippe and how we are not really friends anymore. My papa would understand how annoying he is, and also how maybe you don’t always want to be friends with the girl who doesn’t brush her hair, and why do you have to?
Harry stomps in with his frown the size of Saturn. He’s got the ledger he uses to make sense of the donut shop profits, which lately haven’t been adding up. My grandpa doesn’t believe in computers.
“She wants to visit.”
I sit up. “You invited her? I can’t believe you’d do that.”
“She’s your mother. You talk, even if it’s hard, even if you don’t want to.”
“You’re going to let her take me away? I thought you wanted me….” My voice trails off, footprints in the snow.
Harry stares at me like I have two heads. “You haven’t seen her in a year. She wants to visit. That’s all.”
—
I have so many things to say to my mum I don’t know where to start, but believe me, I will give her bucketloads.
It turns out when the phone rings half an hour later, she is the one who talks first: “Rosalita?”
“It’s Rosie.”
She pauses. “Yes.” She stops, takes a breath. “I called to say I’m coming for a visit at the end of the month.”
The knot in my belly tightens.
She takes another breath.
“I would like to plant the idea of moving you out here with me.”
“But my dog!” I can’t help the screech that flies out of my mouth.
My mum groans. “Rosalita, I am sick of you asking about that dog. It would never remember you at this point anyway. I’m sure it’s settled in with a new family and it would be very cruel to take it away.”
I double over from the sword in my belly and wrap myself tighter in my army blanket. I don’t want to consider this.
Except for her breathing, my mum is quiet. Then she says, “I would just like you to make something of your life, and I don’t see that happening in that town. Your father never wanted to leave, but I did. You can, too, Rosalita.”
“It’s Rosie.”
“Yes.”
“I’m fine here,” I tell her.
“Yes, I understand that, Rosalita. But I’m offering you a golden ticket—one your grandfather could never give you. You do want to amount to something, don’t you?”
But I’d never find my dog.
“Did you hear me, Rosalita?”
The early-evening train rumbles through town. The floor shakes. My toes brace themselves.
“This is so frustrating, Rosalita.” My mum breathes sharply. “I just don’t understand you. That dog smelled and it drooled and it jumped out the windows, for God’s sake.”
And he was the best friend of my soul.
“Rosalita, can you hear me? You could amount to something if only—”
“My name is Rosie!” I scream, interrupting her tight hard voice, finding my own.
When the line goes dead, I pull my knees to my face and hug them.
After a while, I dump two trays of ice cubes into an empty bread bag (which Harry makes me recycle) and climb onto the fire escape, but Philippe and Cynthia are already out there playing Monopoly, so I crawl back into my room and slam the window shut.
That night I dream about my Augustus getting tangled in my wheel as I fly the Blackbird home. Puddles everywhere, an ocean racing through the streets, I can’t get us through the roaring flood in front of me, I can’t get us home.
My heart skids out of my chest—thump thump thump. I try to breathe, but my lungs take in only water.
I wake. The night outside my window is licorice black.
It has begun to pour once more.
I make myself tough as boiled bear and march the Blackbird past Cynthia and Philippe.
The snake thuds softly in the suitcase. The handle squeaks.
Cynthia rushes after me. “My mama says it’s going to pour really hard again today, do you know that, Rosie? There’s going to be so much rain you could drown, maybe even it’s going to hail. Did you know you could die from getting hit on the head by hail? My mama told me that happened to a man she read about. It was in a book about crazy things that can happen to you.” She points at my helmet. “Is that why you’re wearing that ski hat under there, because it’s going to hail?”
My ears twist with fury. “Get your nose out of my business, Cynthia.”
Harry believes in sharing my papa’s umbrella and now I have to watch the two of them dragging it through the mud while the volcano roars inside me.
“Where are you going with that?” Cynthia reaches for the suitcase.
I yank it away. “Leave me alone, Cynthia.”
“Yes, what are you doing with that suitcase?” Philippe snorts in a way that lets me know exactly how furious he still is about me calling him a baby and everything else that happened in the basement. His coat is unbuttoned and nearly hanging off him.
Seething, I crush his bones with my eyes. Don’t you dare tell her.
He hardly blinks. “Yeah, well, it’s the dumbest idea ever. I already told you that.”
The hornets can hardly believe he is saying this. They swarm.
You can see the question in Cynthia’s eyes. She takes a step closer to the suitcase. “My mama says I can be with you.”
“Well, you can’t. Now go away. And I can’t believe you want to be friends with someone so stupid he hides in that huge coat all the time.” My oatmeal churns in my belly, and my papa says in my head how maybe I am going too far to take it back.
Cynthia crosses her arms over her chest. She is wearing her tie-dyed shirt. “You’re a terrible friend, Rosie.”
“I am not,” I snap, pushing the Blackbird around her.
“Are too,” Philippe says, picking up a trash bag filled with old cans and pulling it toward the road. “Worst ever.”
Something inside me erupts as I watch them being together. “You are wrong. No one ever called me a terrible friend before, so I don’t believe you.”
Cynthia turns around. “Oh no? Then how come you don’t have any, Rosie. How come?”
The snake thuds inside the little suitcase as I pedal furiously past the donut shop. The downpour over the past week washed most of the grit away, but what is left on the road is thick as flour paste.
Harry’s wrench bounces in my basket in case the wheel wobbles, and a thin file and screwdriver jab through my back pocket. I have also tied a rope around and around my waist in case Augustus forgets how to follow me home.
I drag my feet to slow down and steer around mounds of wet sand, turning onto a side road and heading up the next. The suitcase bangs against the crunched fender. The rope around my waist tightens when I lean forward to pedal. A garbage truck plows by, spewing greasy puddle water in my face, and I have to pull over and wipe under my goggles.
When I test my brakes, they freeze and won’t clamp the tires. My head wants to think about holding Augustus in my arms, but when you have lousy brakes you have to concentrate on the road.
Halfway up the first hill it begins to pour. It is almost impossible to stand up and pedal through the rain when you have a suitcase in your hand, and I wonder about the airholes: Can snakes drown? I hear my papa in my head: You need grit in this life, Rosie—which is the biggest joke of all in our town because we all have enough grit to taste it in our sleep.
As I start up Swanson’s hill, bits of hail form a thin coat of ice on the road and my tires can’t grip the pavement. Sharp frozen nails pierce my face. I have to keep taking my hand off the handlebar to wipe my goggles, and this isn’t a very good thing to do, because if you’ve ever ridden your bike through icy grit, you know how slippery it is.
I hold the suitcase tighter. At the top of the last hill my toes sing a few hosannas because Swanson’s farm spreads out in front of me and—good news—her jeep isn’t in the drivewa
y. I tighten my grip and start downhill. The milk truck flies up behind me, swerving at the last minute, spraying slush, and I cut my wheel hard to the right, flying along the side of the road, dragging my feet to keep from crashing.
A runoff gully cuts into the side of the road and my toes scream, Hold on! as we soar across, then tumble and flip over and over until I am splayed on the road and icy gravel slashes my face and sand rips the skin off my elbow.
I see stars. My head throbs. Icy rain pelts my skin. I lie like this for a very long time.
Dizzy and winded—sprawled several feet away from my twisted Blackbird—I wonder if this is how it feels at the end of everything. I open my mouth because my tongue would like a little rain. My toes give up.
The thing about being smashed on the ground like this with your cheek pressed into the wet dirt is you can hear the grinding motor of a big sand truck from far off. It’s a deep growling, a snarling rumbling engine sound—and the earth vibrates under you.
I sit up, groaning with dizziness, and flop back down. How long does it take everything to stop whirling?
I lie on the edge of the road, the ground spinning, light-headed as an ant on a merry-go-round. The truck downshifts as it slowly grinds up the steep grade.
Frantically I roll into a clump of prickers, cover my head with my good arm, and wait for the end to come.
When the sand truck finally roars over the hill, it swerves to dodge my bike and comes so close I feel the heat of the engine in my eyes. I press myself deeper into the wet gravel as it thunders by.
I hear my papa in my head: You’ll never even live if you keep this up.
After a while, I remember the snake.
Harry’s suitcase lies open on the far side of the road. I watch bleary-eyed as the rain bounces off the blue satin lining and spatters the ground.
The strap of my helmet cuts into my nose and a knife twists where my elbow used to be. I try to stand, unsteady and swaying. My head roars as gorillas stomp behind my eyes, and when the dizziness is too much, I sink back on the road and watch helplessly as the little snake pokes its head out of the suitcase.
Chasing Augustus Page 11