by Pat Schmatz
Travis let out a long, slow breath. The windows were open on the other side of the classroom, and warm air breezed in. Sunshiny bright and cooking up to be another hot one. The swamp would be thick with that baked summer pine-needle smell. Gallons of drool would be sliding down Rosco's sloppy tongue.
"Travis!"
Travis's face flushed hot, and he pretended he was trying to find his place.
"Would you like to pass?" Ms. Gordon asked.
"Yeah, pass," he said.
Velveeta started reading, and Travis relaxed. Her voice motored across the words as if they were a flat, smooth road - no bumps.
At lunchtime, two different groups of girls called
Velveeta's name out, but she walked right on by and set her tray across from Travis.
"Look, we're regular lunch buddies now," she said.
"You didn't have one clue where we were in social studies, did you? What were you thinking about?"
"Nothing."
"Do you have a talking quota?" asked Velveeta. "Like, a limit, maybe fifty words a day, and if you go over, you, what, lose your undercover badge? And you can't waste any of them reading out loud in class. Is your limit fifty or only twenty- five? No, no, don't answer - then you'll have to kill me."
"Ten," he said.
"Ha. And you've already used, two on me. Nothing and ten. Better shut up and eat."
He finished off his grilled cheese and started spooning up soup.
"Are you going to eat that cake?"
Velveeta had already finished hers. Travis cut his and handed half across to her.
"Okay, so sometimes the words are not so necessary," she said.
After inhaling the cake, Velveeta sat back and crossed her arms.
"I know what you're thinking. Why does she pick me? He wonders. She could be baaing with the popular sheep over there, or shooting baskets in the gym with the jockolas, or outside smoking with the delinks, so why is she sitting with me again?"
She leaned across the table, bringing her nose close to his. One end of her purple- and- blue scarf trailed on the tabletop.
"Because I saw you give Whistler his shoe back," she said. "That's why."
After the last bell, Travis walked through town, crossing the street so he wouldn't have to pass in front of the big glass window of the bakery where Grandpa worked.
He stopped at the bridge and leaned on the railing, trying to find the cardinal that was blasting its lungs out. He scanned the trees alongside the pond and finally spotted it, high in a birch, a hot patch of red in the swim of green.
"Hey, you gonna jump or what?"
Four guys sat on a picnic table in the green space on the other side of the bridge, smoking cigarettes and drinking sodas.
"You need a push?" yelled one of them. "Or a dump?"
"Dump, ha, I'll give him a dump."
"Maddox, you are a dump," said a heavy- shouldered guy with a hint of blond mustache trying to crawl across his lip.
Travis looked closely, measuring them. They must be high- schoolers. He hadn't seen them in the halls, and they were his age or a bit older. The two smaller guys he could take, no problem. Maybe the one called Maddox, too. The blond guy was solid, though, and he had that look. He was the one to watch.
Travis shoved away from the bridge railing and walked past. If they were going to come after him, they'd have to climb the little hill up to street level, and they weren't moving. But their eyes on him wrecked the bird and the water and the color, so there was no point in hanging around. That was the problem with living in town. Someone looked at him wherever he went. Even the houses had eyes, watching every move.
Travis headed up the hill, and as he rounded the curve, the sidewalk ended.
The houses became scruffier and farther apart, with shaggy yards and gravel driveways.
The paint- peeling yellow box on the right had an empty yard and drive. No old hound standing out front, waving his thin cord of a tail, droopy red rimmed eyes asking why they'd made him walk the whole twenty miles. Not today.
Maybe tomorrow.
Travis fished the key out of his pocket and opened the door. He made a peanut-butter sandwich and took it out to the back stoop. He pushed Grandpa's stinky soda can of soggy butts away and leaned against the house.
Three school days down. A zillion left to go.
In the back corner of the yard, a little pine tree tried to scraggle its way up past the shade of the tall wooden fence. The other corner was full of dried dog dookey, and a path was beaten all the way around the perimeter where some trapped dog had run in endless circles.
The front door banged.
"Want a doughnut?" Grandpa called.
Footsteps tromped around the house. Then Grandpa stepped out on the stoop, lighting a cigarette.
"It's a sticker out here," he said. "Musta been hot in school. Want a doughnut?"
"You said that already."
Grandpa looked down and gave Travis a very unsmiley smile.
"Did you manage to stay there all day?"
Travis handed him the butt can. Grandpa sat down and tapped the ash of his cigarette. Then he squinted at
Travis through a curl of smoke.
"Everything okay? Teachers and all?" he asked.
Travis shrugged, looking away. Grandpa dragged off the cigarette again, then turned his head sideways to blow out the smoke.
"Can you give it a chance? I miss the woods and the dog, too. But we're both going to have to buck up and make the best of what we've got."
The dull ache chewed on in Travis's chest. Everything he'd ever cared about was gone. Every single thing.
"Okay, don't buck up, then." Grandpa dropped his butt in the can and stood.
"Make it as bad as you want. I'm going to the six- thirty meeting. I'll pick you up a burger on the way home."
Footsteps, bathroom door, shower, and Grandpa headed out to his AA meeting.
He hadn't had a drink since that hot and horrible afternoon in August when Rosco went missing, but he smoked six times as much, and he was full of useless advice. As if not drinking meant he could tell Travis how to feel.
Travis got up and wandered around the yard, stopping at the little pine in the corner. He ran his fingers over the soft needles. Even if it stretched tall enough to look over the fence, it didn't have anything to look at but another scraggy backyard.
Because I saw you give Whistler his shoe back. That's why. Velveeta's voice slipped in and interrupted the chewing ache. That was the best thing anybody had ever said to him inside a school building.
The neighbors' TV noise rose over the drone of the air conditioner next door. A car backfired on the street.
Travis leaned his head against the fence, looking down at the skinny half- bare white pine. He bent over and pressed the green needles to his nose, breathing deeply, trying to fill himself with the smell of woods. The tree had nothing to give.
"It's okay," said Travis, petting the needles like they were Rosco's ears. "Not your fault, trapped here. If I could, I'd dig you up and take you someplace good."
on THURSDAY
Your buddy Connie was lying in wait for me after school.
When I passed the library, she waved me over like some street- corner drug dealer and off ered me a J- O- B. I asked her why, and she said maybe it would make her not miss you so much.
I told her I wasn't going to be joining the old people's canasta club, so forget it.
She said she doesn't want me to play canasta. She just wants me to shelve books and do whatever else she says. Five bucks an hour. Four hours on Saturdays and two hours Wednesdays after school.
She said since I'm not fourteen yet, it'd have to be under the table, and she'd pay me in cash and was that okay?
Ha. Is that okay? Now, THAT is funny.
Thirty dollars a week for whatever I want. Maybe I can get the electricity turned back on in your trailer so I can watch movies. Do you know how much torture it's been to not watch movies? I even watch
ed reality TV with the madre last night. That is desperate. That should be a reality show.
CHAPTER FOUR
Today we start individual conferences," said Mr. McQueen in reading. "When I call your name, bring your book into my office and we'll discuss."
He called Heather first. Travis glanced over at Velveeta. She was staring at the cover of a book and playing with the end of her scarf. This one was an October maple blast of red, orange, and yellow.
Travis traced his finger around the black paw of the fox on the cover of his book. They made such small, neat tracks, those fox paws. One day last winter, he'd followed fox tracks in a new snow and spent all morning tromping circles around the woods and swamp, over brush and under barbwire, until he ended up in a sweat more than three miles from home. He never did find a fox hole.
He opened his notebook and drew fox prints from the upper left to lower right corner of the paper. Then he made some rabbit tracks on the other side of the page.
"Mr. Roberts."
Travis grabbed the fox book and walked to the front of the classroom. He stepped through the office doorway.
Stacks and gangs of books and magazines leaned in from every wall, shrinking the small room down to nothing.
"Have a seat." McQueen settled behind the desk.
The pile of books at Travis's feet crowded his legs, making him sit slightly sideways. If all the books in the room jumped him at once, they'd bury him. It would take days to punch his way up through the covers and the pages.
"Let's see the book."
Travis handed him the fox.
"Why'd you choose this one?"
Travis shrugged.
"You like foxes?" McQueen held the book up, tapping the cover.
Travis nodded. The cover of that book was the most open space in the room.
Rolling snowy fields and distant pines against a gray winter sky.
"You ever see one in the wild?"
Travis nodded again, remembering the fox pups he'd watched in June. The way they'd rolled and dodged as they wrestled, and that one who'd jumped straight up like a lit furry firecracker.
"What was it like? Did you see it up close?"
"Pups last summer," Travis said. "They were cute."
"Lucky!" McQueen popped his eyes wide. "Not many people get to see that - but you're good at being quiet, blending in. Do you spend a lot of time in the woods?"
"Used to, at our old place."
"Miss it?" McQueen flipped through the pages.
"Yeah."
"Well, if it's woods you like, you picked the right book. Kjelgaard is terrific with outdoor and animal stories, beautiful. I mean, listen to this:
"Chapter One. The Raider. It was a night so dark that only the unwise, the very young, or the desperately hungry ventured far from the thickets, swamps, and burrows where wild things find shelter in times of stress."
McQueen continued to read in his deep, rumbly voice, and Travis sat back in his chair. McQueen's voice brought a starless winter swamp night to life, with rattling leaves and the movement of a fox through the snow. Travis closed his eyes, shutting out the crowd of books, breathing in the cold, clean air.
McQueen stopped reading, and Travis opened his eyes. The swamp disappeared.
"Nice writing, isn't it?"
The mass of books leaned in from the shelves again, waiting to hear what Travis would say.
"How far have you gotten?" McQueen tapped the cover.
"Not very."
"Anytime you want to talk about it, let me know. Or if you need help with anything."
"Okay." Travis stood and reached for the doorknob.
"Some nice line drawings at the start of each chapter,"
McQueen said. "Funny how a little thing like that can add to a book."
Travis took the book from McQueen and went back to his desk. He spent the rest of the period paging through and looking at the sketches. The second chapter had a drawing of a hound that looked just like Rosco - floppy jaws, skinny tail, and ribs showing. He wished McQueen would have read more.
The bell rang, and Travis headed for lunch, wondering if Velveeta would sit with him again. Returning the shoe was good enough for two days, but probably not three. He almost knocked into Bradley Whistler coming around the corner into the lunchroom.
"Hey, Travis."
Travis stopped short.
"Thanks for my shoe the other day."
"Sure."
Bradley stood there looking up at him as if he had something else to say, but Travis didn't know what it could be. Bradley was a smart kid, for real. He had his hand up all the time with the right answer or another question, and he went over to the high school for math.
"Well, anyway, thanks. See you around."
Travis nodded, and Bradley went to sit with a group of guys. Travis got in line and loaded up his tray. When he came out, Velveeta was half standing at the back table, and she waved him over.
"Hey, why are you smiling?" she said as he set his tray on the table. "I haven't said anything funny yet. That means you're thinking something funny and not letting me in on it. Not fair, Mr. Confidential Comedy Man.
Come on, share."
Travis shook his head, still smiling.
"Maybe you're thinking how beautiful I am, and you're too shy to say. Hey, look, you're blushing! Is that it? You're filled with passion for Velveeta?"
"Shh!" hissed Travis, although no one was paying any attention.
"Interaction! You're actually in there!"
The girl at the end of the table looked up from her book.
"Don't worry, Rural Robo Cop." Velveeta lowered her voice. "I won't tell anyone.
Unless you keep stonewalling me. If you don't start talking soon, I'll tell everyone you're madly in love with me and you pay me twenty dollars every time I sit with you at lunch.
It's my lunchroom prostitution scheme."
Travis's face burned hot- red. Velveeta sat back and drummed her fingers on the table, watching, until his skin was about to explode off his skull.
"Fine," she said. "Keep your funny thoughts to yourself. But don't keep them too long, or I'll get hurt feelings.
Hey, you were in there with McQueen for a long time.
Did he hypnotize you?"
"What do you mean, hypnotize?"
"McQueen and his hypno- eyes - don't tell me you didn't notice. You ever see The Jungle Book, old Disney animation? No? You got something against Disney? Anyway, there's this python, and he hypnotizes his prey by staring into their eyes and swaying back and forth and singing, 'Trust in me.' That's McQueen, all the way."
As usual, Velveeta polished off everything on her tray in a hurry. When he looked up, she was staring at his brownie. Maybe she sat with him to get the extra desserts.
Was he supposed to give up half his dessert every day?
"So, tell me one of your still water running deep thoughts," said Velveeta.
"I don't have any," said Travis.
"Okay, then give me a shallow one."
"I like your scarf."
That popped out all on its own, before Travis could reel it back.
Velveeta's head jerked, as if his words had leaped across the table and slapped her. She blinked a couple of times, then pushed away from the table and walked off without another look at his brownie.
on FRIDAY
I had a theory that Travis didn't talk because he's dumb as a post. As of today I am trashing that theory.
I brought the scarves back over here yesterday. You never know when the madre is going to decide she needs a rag to wipe up spilled beer or something. I don't want her touching them - they're mine. They're all shimmery and soft and old- lady- looking, and they go perfect with my gray hoodie. Did you give them to me because you knew you were about to leave? If so, you should have told me so it wouldn't have been such a shock.
Does being dead mean that you don't miss Janet anymore? Your wedding picture is still on the kitchen table. I haven't moved anything.
I remember that time you said, "Velveeta, you may be full of baloney, but you are a realist." I wasn't sure what you meant. Now I know. Dead is dead is dead.
You're not watching me. You won't ever read this.
I never talk to anyone else like this. If I don't write it to you, I'll stop thinking this way and I'll turn into whoever I would be if there'd never been a Calvin. I can't even think about how horrible that would be. I can barely even think about tomorrow with no Calvin. Or tomorrow after that.
The madre saw me coming out of here yesterday. It freaked her out. She said it's creepy that I hang out in your trailer. But she said that even when you weren't dead, just old.
CHAPTER FIVE
Rosco!"
The word tore up from Travis's gut, burning through his chest, but he couldn't get any sound out. His voice caught in the back of his throat, strangling him, keeping him trapped in the dream.
The trees on the path to the swamp wavered and morphed and became the crowded hall of Russet Middle School. A whiff of warm, dense smell let him know Rosco was close, weaving among the sea of legs and sneakered feet. He scrambled behind, trying to catch up. Grandpa stepped in front of him, laughing, and blocked his vision.
Travis shoved, and Grandpa flew back. His head bounced off the lockers, and he crashed to the floor. Blood came out of his ear and trickled down his neck.
Suddenly, the hall was empty. No kids, no dog. No smell.
Travis's voice finally came out in a squeaky whimper, waking him. His heart hammered, and he lay there, sweaty and shivery, alone, no warm stinky dog weight at the foot of his bed. A soft light shone through the yellow towel he'd stapled around the curtain rod. Cool fingers of breeze stretched through the half- open window, and the birds hollered a racket outside. The house was quiet -
Grandpa left early for the bakery on Saturdays.
Travis got dressed, opened the front door, and looked out on the day. Five houses in view, all with their empty eyes looking back at him. He grabbed a jacket and a day- old muffin, took a right out of the driveway, and headed away from town. He took another right, turning onto a narrow asphalt road with no centerline. By the time he finished the muffin, the houses had thinned out and dropped off to nothing. No cars, either, just his feet scuffing along the gravel shoulder. Cornfields stretched on either side of the road.