“Thank God,” he says.
A police officer lets Toivo and Grandpa and Miss Tassel know that Alexi has been taken to the hospital. Then Grandpa and Toivo get into an argument about whose fault it is. Toivo says a swear word. He says, “If you’d keep those blankety-boom-boom pipe trucks off the road, this wouldn’t have happened!”
Grandpa says a swear word, too. “If you weren’t such a something, something loser, my grandkids would be safe and sound with me!”
This goes on for some time until an officer walks over and stands between them, saying that he’s going to arrest both of them if they don’t knock it off and that there are more important things to worry about right now.
A wooziness comes over me, and I lean into Mikko and close my eyes. Miss Tassel kneels down beside us and tells us everything is going to be fine.
“Yeah, right,” I say.
“Are we going to go to a foster home, too?” Mikko asks. “Like Gary?”
Miss Tassel doesn’t respond right away. Instead, she rubs my back, which feels awkward. When I stiffen, she stops. “Sorry.” She says she’s going to talk to Gramps, Toivo, and the police and get us home for today.
“I want Alexi,” says Mikko.
“Me, too,” I say. Up from my stomach comes a retchy slime of bile. I swallow it down. But up it comes again. This time I turn my head and puke all over the ground. Mikko jumps away.
“Gross!” he shouts. But then he comes over and holds back my hair while I puke some more.
My throat and nose burn. Behind my eyes is a ballooning pressure. I heave again.
Everyone runs over to me. An EMT asks me if I hit my head earlier. I tell her no. Toivo says, “Poor girl.” Grandpa says, “Let’s get her off the road.” Miss Tassel says she’ll take us home while Grandpa and Toivo go to the hospital to be with Alexi.
Toivo and Grandpa can’t find any way to argue with that, so that’s what happens.
Toivo helps me to Miss Tassel’s car. Grandpa carries Mikko over to it and buckles him up.
“I’ll be home soon,” says Toivo.
Beyond exhausted, I say, “I don’t care. I want my brother back with me.”
Toivo looks hurt. He closes the car door gently and speeds off to the hospital.
Late that night, long after Mikko and I are in bed, I hear Toivo return. Watching from my upstairs window, I see him carry Alexi, whose arm is in a sling, into the house. After a muffled conversation with Miss Tassel downstairs, she leaves quietly. I go back to bed.
Aside from giving him the details of what happened on the road, I give Toivo the silent treatment over the next couple of days. On top of all the unpaid bills and threats from creditors and Children’s Protective Services material lie his hiring papers. The top one reads, WELCOME TO KLOCHE INDUSTRIES, THE WORLD LEADER IN NATURAL GAS EXTRACTION!
Toivo thinks I don’t understand the constant itch of being poor, how it’s always a bug biting your back in a place you can’t reach. I do, though. Every morning, I’m the one darting my eyes over the cupboard, refrigerator, or freezer, gnawing my know-how for what to feed all of us. I don’t complain about that. So why does being poor bother him so much? So much that he’d go and work with the polluters?
I sit on the couch, pretend to be watching TV, and brush my hair over and over again.
“Fern,” he says, “I have to talk to you about something.”
I ignore him.
“Did you hear me?” he says.
I grab my hair into a ponytail down my shoulder and furiously brush the ends. “You’re the deaf one,” I mumble.
He blinks and adjusts his hearing aid. “What did you say?”
“I said, you’re the deaf one!”
He cocks his head and puts his hand on his hip. “What is that supposed to mean?”
I throw the brush onto the floor. “I saw you! I saw you at the fracking site!” I pause. And then I decide to let him have it. “At least Grandpa’s honest. You’re not! Maybe we would be better off with him.”
Toivo walks over to the television and punches the Off button. “You’re getting too big for your britches, missy.”
“Whatever,” I say.
His nostrils flare. “Fern.”
I don’t answer. I lie down on the couch and put a pillow over my face. The clean scent of freshly laundered and line-dried goodness fills my nose. Toivo must have done the laundry. So what, I tell myself. I bite the pillow to keep from screaming.
“Fern,” he says again.
“Go away,” I muffle.
Somehow Toivo hears that loud and clear. He leaves the room and goes into the kitchen. The refrigerator door opens and closes, and then a can top cracks open. Then nothing. I turn and peek out from beneath the pillow. He stands there with a beer can in his hand, staring out the window.
Go ahead. Drink it, I think.
He stands there for another minute. “That job pays fifty grand a year.” He throws the full beer can into the sink, where it lands with a tin thunk. Beer and foam spill down the drain. He pulls a cigarette from the pack in his shirt pocket and goes outside, slamming the door behind him.
I sit up and tap my feet on the floor. A faint scent of cigarette smoke wafts from the doors and windows, which all need to be resealed. Or, better yet, replaced. For the first time, I wonder how much that costs.
As I pass the door on my way to my room, I stop and think about going out and talking to Toivo.
But I don’t. I go upstairs, take the hottest shower I can stand, and then go to my room, where I slam my door, too.
I can’t sleep. And it’s not because of the trucks—they’re not running. I lie there and make a list of all the things I have to worry about. From least important to most important. Then I think about them and shuffle them again.
The STEM fair is one thing on my mind. But it’s the least of my worries.
So is Mr. Flores, who is trying to do something about the fracking problem.
And Toivo, who’s making the fracking problem worse.
So is Alkomso, because she’s making me wonder whose side to be on.
Alexi’s wonky arm is on my mind, too, which is all my fault.
So is Mark-Richard, who didn’t do anything wrong at all but was punished.
So is Horace Millner, who I’ve been so unfair to, whose dog might die, which is also all my fault.
So is Ranger. Who I might never see again.
And the woods, which is right in the middle of it all. Which might be cut down.
And Grandpa, who, if he has his way, will make sure I never see Toivo or the woods or Ranger again anyway.
I lie facedown. My pillow is damp from my freshly washed hair. Yuck. I flip it over and put my face back down. But when I close my eyes, there’s Ranger on the road. The pool of crimson. The blood splatter, like a perfectly round rose hip, on Millner’s boot.
I go to the window and lift it open. Cold wind blasts in and whips up my hair. For a while, I stay there with my eyes closed, leaning on the windowsill, as the breeze dries my hair. The stars sparkle above. Long, dark, wispy clouds blow across a half-moon, silver and gray.
Maybe there’s this other place I don’t know about, kind of like a heaven, I guess, or a garden or a forest where all the dead people and animals are having a nice time. Maybe it’s up there in the sky. It’s a pretty simple thought or hope, but on this night that goes by so slowly, the simple thought brings me a little peace.
I run my fingers through my hair, which is dry and cold, like metal. When my eyes finally get heavy, I lie back down in my bed and bury myself deep under the comforter.
Chapter 16
When I get to school the next morning, I drop the boys off at their classrooms, give Alexi’s toad teacher the evil eye as I tell her why his arm is in a sling, and then bound up the stairs to my classroom.
Margot and her mom are whispering near her locker. Margot is holding on tight to her backpack and crying. Her mom is all dressed up in heels and a blazer, which is w
hat she wears when she’s subbing. I guess Mr. Flores isn’t here. Maybe he’s never coming back. Maybe Margot’s mom finally got her way and got him fired. Nothing is going right.
I try to mind my own business, but then I hear Margot say, “It is not going to be all right!”
Those were almost the exact words I was just thinking.
Then she adds, “I don’t understand, and I never will!” And “Can’t you and Dad just try one more time?”
I guess Margot Peterson’s family is falling apart, too.
Mrs. Peterson cups Margot’s chin. “You’ve got to get a hold of yourself now. The bell’s going to ring. I have to get in there.” Mrs. Peterson straightens her pencil skirt and clomps her three-inch heels into the classroom.
When I walk past Margot, I should keep going with my head down, the way I normally do, but she’s heaving with crying. I gulp and stop.
She faces her locker, with her back to me.
“Margot?” I say softly. “Are you all right?”
She exhales loudly. “What do you care?” She glances over her shoulder to see who she’s talking to. “Oh,” she says. “It’s you. Where’s your best friend?”
My stomach flops at that. I’m not sure I even have a best friend anymore.
Margot wipes her nose and then her eyes on her sleeve. I’m about to walk away when she turns around, straightens her back, and lifts her chin. “I’m fine.”
“Okay,” I say. “Um… do you want me to go and get one of your friends?”
“Ha! They don’t care. Marley said, ‘Everyone’s parents are divorced, so what the big deee-aaal, Margot?’”
“Oh.” I need to get into the classroom, but I don’t know what to do with Margot. “Um… I’m really sorry about your parents.”
At that, her eyes fill with tears again. She fights back a sob. “Thanks,” she barely gets out. She grabs my arm and I stand there, paralyzed. She digs her fingernails into my biceps. “I just don’t understand,” she says. “Parents are so selfish. Me and Kayla are going to have to live in different houses. Mom’s moving to the city with Kayla. And I have to stay with Dad. For school. Kayla is only, like, three years old!”
“That’s ridiculous,” I say. It seems like all the kids I know are at the mercy of the whims of grown-ups.
She looks me right in the eye. Tears overflow hers. “Right? I mean, why do they have to separate us?” She wipes her tears away again. Sniffs. Then exhales. “Well, let’s go before Mom gets mad and divorces me, too.” She leans on me, and we walk into the classroom together.
The bell rings.
Margot scurries for her desk, and I dash for mine. That’s when I see that Alkomso has moved her desk right next to Mark-Richard’s.
“Mark-Richard!” I say.
His cheeks redden. I smile at him and raise my hand and wave to him. He lifts his fingers in a small wave back. I know why he’s feeling embarrassed. When you have to come back and face your whole class after the whole town’s been talking, it’s like you’re a stuffed bird that everyone is studying. And while they’re studying you, what everyone is thinking is, Yuck.
Between their desks, Hatchet lies open. But Alkomso’s eyes are on me. She doesn’t smile at me like she usually does. She looks from me to Margot and back again. I know what she’s thinking, too. She’s thinking that now I’m going to try and be friends with Margot again. Maybe she even thinks I’ll start teasing her again. I want to explain, but there’s no time. Mrs. Peterson says, “Good morning, class.”
“Good morning,” we say in staggered greetings. Everyone is looking around at everyone else. It’s pretty hard to concentrate.
Margot Peterson has obviously been crying.
Mark-Richard is back after the fire.
I’m back after the crash.
“Where’s Mr. Flores?” a kid asks.
Mrs. Peterson snaps her eyes up at us. “He’s been put on leave.”
“Why?” the kid asks.
“That’s none of your business,” says Mrs. Peterson.
Margot sneers. “Why don’t you just tell everyone, Mom? Tell everyone how you get rid of people who don’t agree with you.”
Kids whisper and murmur. A lot of us put our heads down.
“Margot!” says Mrs. Peterson. “Don’t start!”
She passes out a half sheet of paper with the STEM fair rubric on it, 100 points total. “Class,” she announces, “this project-based assessment bears considerable significance.” She stands at the front of the room, behind the podium. “And due to recent events, I must now implore you to look upon this assignment as your chief priority, as its outcome will be the sole factor in your final evaluation.”
Kids knit up their eyebrows. Mark-Richard whispers “What?” to Alkomso.
Margot leans back in her seat, crosses her arms, and stares at her mother. “She just means that it’s the only grade we get for science because Mr. Flores has been put on leave.”
“Ooohhhh,” goes the class.
“That’s not fair,” some kids whine.
“I haven’t even started,” someone says.
“Mine’s terrible,” another kid confesses.
And one student tells everyone, “Mine’s done! My mom did the whole thing.”
Mrs. Peterson glares daggers at her daughter. “Yes,” she says. “What Margot expressed so simply is correct. But you can blame that on Mr. Flores, who for some reason never administered even one test for proper assessment.”
“He said he didn’t believe in tests,” says Mark-Richard.
Mrs. Peterson rolls her eyes.
Kids keep talking and interrupting until Mrs. Peterson claps her hands together and tells everyone to quiet down. “As a concession, I have decided to give you the entire period to work on your projects,” she says. “So get busy.”
As everyone takes out their notebooks, I’m frozen in place. Doing a STEM project was scary enough, but now it’s my entire grade. I might not even pass science if I don’t do well, and that would for sure help Grandpa get me and the boys taken away from Toivo.
I peek over my shoulder now and again. Alkomso is talking with Mark-Richard, and I can tell by the way he’s looking over her project that they’re going to be partners.
When I open my backpack and pull out my notebook, I realize I brought the wrong one. This is Mom’s recipe book.
I tap the eraser of my pencil onto the desk.
“Hey, Fern.” Margot comes up and sits her butt on the corner of my desk.
“Yeah?”
“Your hair looks nice today.” She holds up the ends of her hair and picks at them like she’s pulling seeds off a puffy dandelion. “I wish I didn’t have these frizzy split ends.”
I smooth the top of my head. I’m not sure what to say. Normal people would respond with a thank-you, but I’ve still got my guard up. Sometimes when Margot gives a compliment, she’s really just testing whether or not you agree with her compliment. Then she goes behind your back and says that you “think you’re all that.”
“I like your hair,” I tell her. I clear my throat. “I wish mine were blond like yours. With the pink color, too.”
Her face lights up. “No way! Mine is a rat’s nest.” I know that she doesn’t really think that. I know that we’re really just playing a dumb communication game. “Um,” she goes on, “um, have you started your project?”
“Well…” I point at my notes with the tip of my pencil. “No.”
She leans over and reads my mom’s writing. I move my hand so she can’t see.
“What is it? Like a recipe book or something?” She adjusts a hair clip behind her ear.
“Yeah,” I say. “I guess so. It was my mom’s.”
“What’s a groundnut?” she asks.
“Food you can find in the forest.”
“Oh,” she says. “That sounds like a cool project.”
“It’s not my pro—” I begin. And then I think about it. “Thanks, Margot. I hope so. I hope it is a cool pr
oject.”
“I’d be your partner, but I don’t like to go outside and get dirty collecting food and whatever.” She scans the room and waves at a girl named Emily, who has a birthmark on her cheek that Margot calls a “skunk punch.” Emily raises three fingers and waggles them in an uneasy wave back. Then Margot zips toward her.
I guess Margot is feeling like her old self a little bit.
“Psst!”
I look over my shoulder. Alkomso smiles at me and lifts up her hands like What’s her deal?
I just shrug. Alkomso rolls her eyes in a way I can tell is about Margot and not me, and then she turns back to Mark-Richard and her project. Maybe she’s not quite so mad at me anymore.
Chapter 17
At the end of the day, Alkomso, Mark-Richard, and I meet like we used to before picking up our little brothers. We stand in a circle. Neither Alkomso nor I say anything. She adjusts and readjusts her hijab, and I pretend to be fiddling with the zipper on my backpack.
Mark-Richard’s new shoes don’t smell like raisins. He’s got a new coat on, but he’s got a long-dog face. He looks from Alkomso to me, maybe wondering why we’re acting so strangely.
“Boy,” he says, “it sure is great to see you guys again.”
“You, too!” says Alkomso.
“Yeah,” I add. “We were really worried about you and Gary.”
Mark-Richard’s eyes get watery.
“You all right?” I ask. “I saw your house.”
He shrugs his shoulders. “I’ve been better.”
“Where are you living?” asks Alkomso.
“With this family on the other side of Colter. They’re nice. I have my own room.”
I don’t know if I should ask about his parents or not, so I don’t.
“What about Gary?” asks Alkomso.
“He’s with a different foster family. The ones who took my little sister, Hattie. It’s nice they get to be together.” He smiles tightly. “But that family was too full to take me, too.”
My tongue feels swollen. Like I can’t talk, and I worry that anything I say will just sound dumb. So I just nod.
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