“There you go,” I said. “whoever returned the purse probably didn’t know where she lived.”
“Exactly!” Jana said. “And you know what that means, don’t you?”
I glanced around. Maybe Drew had got tired of waiting for me. Maybe he would come and look for me.
“It means that whoever returned the purse has to be someone who knows me,” Jana said.
What?
“How do you figure that?”
“My grandma got married again after my grandpa died. She doesn’t have the same last name as my dad. So how would anyone know to send her purse to our house unless they heard me talking about what happened?”
“Someone else in your family must have talked about it,” I said.
“Maybe,” Jana said. She didn’t sound convinced. “But it was a kid who knocked her over. And she told the police that he said he was sorry. She said he asked if she was okay.”
I started to get a bad feeling.
“I have to go, Jana,” I said. “I’m supposed to meet Drew.”
I started to walk away from her. She followed me.
“She said the boy who knocked her down was wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up. She said she’s not sure, but before she got knocked down, she thinks she saw a scar on the side of his face.”
I wanted to run away. I didn’t know what to say.
“Anyway,” she said, “I just wanted to tell you that she got her stuff back and that she’s really happy about the watch. I thought you’d want to know—you know, because you asked me about it and you seemed to care.”
I waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. She just turned and walked away.
When I got home and saw that my mom was there, I was sure that Jana had called the cops.
“How come you’re home so early?” I said.
“We have to talk, Kaz.”
Uh-oh. My legs started to shake. My face got all red.
“Mom, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
“Your dad called me at work today.”
That wasn’t what I had expected at all. I was relieved—until I took a second look at the expression on her face. She was really upset.
“He says you called him on Saturday, Kaz.”
It was true. I had phoned my dad right after I left the postal outlet. I still wanted to go and stay with him, but I had used up most of my money to buy back Jana’s grandma’s watch. I didn’t have enough left to pay for a bus ticket.
“He said that you asked him to send you bus fare so that you could go out there and live with him. He said—” Her eyes got all watery. “He said he hung up on you.”
I don’t know what surprised me more— that my dad had hung up on me or that he had called my mom and told her about it.
“Is that true?” my mom said.
I nodded. I didn’t tell her that after he hung up, I called him again, but he didn’t answer the phone.
“How did you even find out how to get in touch with him?” she said.
“Drew helped me.”
My mom sighed. “Sit down,” she said.
I sank down onto the couch. She sat down next to me and held one of my hands.
“It’s my fault,” she said.
What was her fault?
“What do you mean, Mom?”
“I mean...” She peered into my eyes. “I thought that it would be easier for you if you thought that I didn’t want you to be with your dad, if you thought I wanted you all to myself. Do you understand what I’m saying, Kaz?”
I had already figured it out. I mean, what kind of dad hangs up on his own kid and then doesn’t even answer when his kid calls back?
“Is it because I’m so dumb?” I said. “Is that why he doesn’t want me around?”
“No,” my mom said. “It has nothing to do with that. And you are not dumb.”
“Then why did he hang up on me?”
My mom squeezed my hand.
“Your father had a hard time dealing with what happened, with the fire,” she said at last.
She had to be kidding. He had a hard time dealing with the fire? What about me? I was the one who had been in the hospital forever. I was the one who had to have those skin grafts. I was the one with the horrible scars that everyone stared at. What could he possibly have had a hard time dealing with?
“I saved his life,” I said. My dad had fallen asleep on the couch with a lit cigarette in his hand. I’d been asleep, but something woke me up. Then I smelled smoke. I ran out of the house, just like my mom had told me I should do if there was a fire. I screamed for my dad, but he didn’t come out. So I ran back into the house to find him. “If I hadn’t woken up when I did, he would have died.”
“Kaz,” my mom said gently, “if you hadn’t woken up when you did, you would have died too.” I stared at her. I had never thought about that before, and she had never said it to me. I wondered if she had said it to my dad. I wonder if that’s what they had fought about.
“Your father blames himself for what happened to you. I think when he looks at you, it makes him remember what he did. I think he’d rather forget. I think—” She stopped suddenly. “I’m sorry, Kaz.”
I felt numb all over. I didn’t know what to say.
“I love you, Kaz,” she said. “No matter what. I love you and I want you to stay here with me—and Neil. I don’t know what I would do without you.”
She started to cry. I hugged her to try to get her to stop. Then I said something that was guaranteed to make her start all over again.
“Mom,” I said. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
chapter thirteen
Two Saturdays later, I was standing on a chair in Jana’s grandma’s kitchen, handing dishes down to Drew. He was stacking them on the counter. After we emptied the cupboards, we were going to wash the shelves and put down new shelf paper. Then we had to put everything back. Drew wasn’t too happy about it, but I didn’t mind. In fact, I was glad to be doing it.
Jana’s grandma was sitting at the kitchen table watching us. She was telling us about Jana’s grandfather, who had died when Jana’s father was in high school. She was friendly and smiled a lot, which wasn’t at all what I had expected. I’d been terrified to ring her buzzer. Even Drew was scared, and he always acted like nothing could ever get to him. We were sure she was going to call the cops on us. But she didn’t. Instead she asked me and Drew and our moms to come in, and she made us tea. My mom was as nervous as I was, but it worked out okay. Jana’s grandma said that she was glad I’d returned her watch and her purse and that we could make up for everything else by doing some chores for her. I agreed for both of us before Drew could say anything.
It turned out that I liked her. I liked listening to her talk about her brother and what it had been like reading all about the war in his letters and wondering all the time if he was okay. I also liked listening to her talk about what it had been like when she was raising Jana’s dad. Things sure had been different then.
We finished washing all the cupboards. I put in the shelf paper, just like Jana’s grandma showed me. Then we started putting the dishes away. We had just finished when the doorbell rang. Jana’s grandma excused herself and went to answer it. I heard Jana’s voice. I wished I could hide. I hadn’t talked to Jana since that day in school.
She came into the kitchen with her grandma. She said, “I heard you were here,” and she didn’t even sound mad.
“I was just going to offer the boys some tea and cookies,” Jana’s grandma said. “Would you like to join us?”
“Sure,” Jana said. She pulled a little box from her pocket. “Dad picked this up today,” she said. “He asked me to give it to you.”
Jana’s grandma gasped when she opened the little box. There was a watch inside, but it wasn’t rusty anymore. It was bright and silvery, and I could see the second hand moving. She lifted the watch out of the box and turned it over. There were tears in her eyes when she read the name and the identific
ation number engraved on the back.
“I’ll pack it up and send it to your brother first thing on Monday,” she said. She reached out and squeezed my hand. “Thank you, Kaz,” she said.
I just stared at her. I had taken the watch from her in the first place and here she was thanking me. Even if I’d known what to say—which I didn’t—I couldn’t have spoken. There was a big lump in my throat.
Jana’s grandma smiled at me. “There are some cookies in that tin over there, Jana,” she said. “Would you put some on a plate while I start the kettle boiling? You boys sit down. You’ve done enough for one day.”
I sat down next to Drew and watched Jana’s grandma bustle around her kitchen. She wasn’t at all what I’d thought when I first saw her. I hoped she felt the same way about me. I looked down at the watch in that little box and was glad for at least part of what I’d done.
Author’s Note
In November, 1990, a hunter came across the wreckage of an airplane in a remote area in Burma (also known as Myanmar). Among the wreckage, he found a watch that was inscribed with the name and service number of Flying Officer William Kyle. William Kyle had been a crew member on a plane that had disappeared in June, 1945. The hunter gave the watch to a missionary, who realized that it had belonged to a serviceman. Five years later, the watch made its ways to Veterans Affairs Canada, which returned it to William Kyle’s family. In 1996, the bodies of William Kyle and his crew members were recovered and given a proper burial. To the best of my knowledge, the watch was never stolen from William Kyle’s family.
Norah McClintock is a five-time winner of the Arthur Ellis award for Best Juvenile Crime Novel. Norah lives in Toronto, Ontario.
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