Outside Looking In

by James Lincoln Collier

  The next morning at breakfast I still felt terrible about it. I sat there with my poached egg in front of me, stabbing at it but not eating it, feeling rotten. Grandfather said, “Fergy, there’s no point in borrowing trouble. We don’t know what’ll happen until they come. Perhaps we can work something out.”

  “It isn’t that, Grandfather,” I said. “I’m worried because it’s all my fault. If I’d sent them a note saying we were okay, they wouldn’t have got into trouble.”

  “How on earth did you expect to send them a note, Fergy?” Grandmother said.

  “I could have figured out some way.”

  “Fergy, they didn’t get into trouble because of you,” Grandfather said. “They got into trouble because they stole that motor home.”

  That was so; I could see that. “Well, even so, I should have sent them a note.”

  “Fergy, you blame yourself too much,” Grandmother said. But I didn’t think I did.

  They had got caught out in Kansas and were in some jail there. Grandfather arranged for the bail money to be sent out there. They would be allowed to go free until the trial came. “The bail money is to make sure they come back for the trial,” Grandfather said. “If they decide to disappear, we lose the money.”

  That was pretty worrisome, for it sounded likely to me that J. P. and the Wiz would say it was just another example of the system ripping them off. Grandfather was part of the system and hadn’t earned all of his money but inherited it, and so they were just as entitled to it as he was. They’d come and get us and not go back for the trial, but just take off for someplace. After that, we’d be on the run from the police the whole time.

  So Grandfather sent the money, and we waited for a day, and then another and another. Finally, on the fourth day, around three o’clock in the afternoon when I was in my room doing my arithmetic homework, I heard the front doorbell ring, and Ooma shouting and racing down the front hall, and I knew it was them.

  I didn’t want to see them. I wanted to hide up there in my room until they went away. I heard Grandfather’s voice, and then J. P. saying loudly, “Where have you got Fergy?” Then Gussie said something soft, and I knew I would have to go down there and see them.

  I went down the stairs to the front hall. The front door was wide open, and they were all standing there, sort of half in the house and half out on the porch—Gussie and J. P. and Grandmother and Grandfather and Ooma. Ooma had her arms around Gussie’s waist and her head resting on Gussie’s side, and Gussie had her arm around Ooma’s shoulder.

  They all stopped talking and looked at me. “Fergy,” J. P. shouted. “What the hell did you think you were doing pulling a stunt like that? Can’t you see what a mess you’ve got us in?”

  I looked at him. “I don’t want to go back with you,” I said. “Ooma can go if she wants, but I’m not going.”

  “Oh, yes you are, Fergy,” J. P. said, “You’re going to do what you’re told, you’ve got a lot to make up for to the rest of us.”

  Grandfather said, “We don’t have to stand here in the hall. Let’s go in and sit down and talk about it calmly.”

  “No, thanks,” J. P. said. “I don’t want anything from you. I came to collect my kids and go. Fergy, go get in the van. I don’t want to be in this house a minute longer than I have to.”

  Gussie unwrapped Ooma’s arms from her, came over to me, and gave me a hug. I didn’t hug her back, but stood stiff with my arms straight down my sides and looked past her. “It’s all right, Fergy,” she said. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Don’t put ideas in his head, Gussie,” J. P. said. “He’s already too big for his pants.”

  “I’m not going back with you,” I said.

  “Mr. Wheeler,” Grandfather said, “Fergy’s done so well here. He’s getting caught up in his studies, and I think by fall he may be ready for school. I’m quite willing to stand the expense of—”

  “I’ll bet you are,” J. P. said. “You’ll spend anything you have in order to poison his mind with your dirty ideas. No, thanks, Hamilton, they’re going with me.” He grabbed Ooma by her shoulder. “Go on out to the van, Ooma.”

  She started to go, but then Gussie said, “Just a minute, Ooma. J. P., I’m going to stay here for a couple of days. I haven’t been here for fifteen years. I want a chance to talk to my mother and father a little bit.”

  “Gussie, I told you before I don’t want you doing that,” J. P. said loudly. “We’re all going now. Right now. Ooma, Fergy, go out and get in the van.”

  “No, J. P. I want them to stay here with me for a couple of days.”

  J. P. grabbed Ooma’s shoulder and gave her a push toward the door. “Out, Ooma. I’m not going to stand for any back talk from any of you.” He jerked his head toward the street. “Out in the van, all of you.”

  “Mr. Wheeler,” Grandfather said, “take your hand off that child or I’ll have the police on you in five minutes.”

  J. P. stared at Grandfather. “Don’t you try to pull anything on me, Hamilton.”

  “I’m warning you, Mr. Wheeler, I’ll have the police on you. The children’s mother wants them with her. If you think that isn’t sufficient, I advise you to get a lawyer and go to court. Now, get off my property, before I have you arrested.”

  “I’m taking my kids,” J. P. said. He snatched Ooma off the ground and swung around to head off the porch to the street. But Ooma shrieked, “Let me go, J. P. I want to stay with Gussie.” She made a grab for his hair and started pulling.

  “Why, you little brat,” he shouted. He pulled her hand loose from his hair and dropped her onto the ground. Gussie ran over to Ooma, picked her up, and darted back into the house with her. “She’s staying with me for a couple of days, J. P.”

  J. P. stood there glaring around. “You can bet I’m going to see a lawyer,” he said. “You can’t take a man’s kids away from him.”

  “It’ll only be a couple of days,” Gussie said. “Come back in a couple of days.”

  Nobody said anything. J. P. looked around at us all. “Please get off my property, Mr. Wheeler,” Grandfather said. J. P. slammed the door with a big bang.

  Well, I didn’t know what was going on, or what to think. Gussie and J. P. had had some kind of big fight, that was clear enough. What was it about? I wanted to get Gussie aside and ask her, but I didn’t have a chance. First Ooma wanted her to go upstairs with her and show her about having a bubble bath, and then she and Grandfather and Grandmother went into the living room to talk. They talked all afternoon. Around five o’clock Grandfather and Gussie went out somewhere in the car. Ooma and I had dinner with Grandmother. I asked her some questions, but all she would say was, “I think we’ll leave it to your mother to explain it all.” So Ooma and I went to bed, and when we got up in the morning, Gussie and Grandmother and Grandfather were already in the living room drinking coffee and talking some more. I wasn’t surprised that they were talking so much. They hadn’t seen each other for fifteen years. They had an awful lot to catch up on.

  Finally, they told Ooma and me to come in. We sat on the sofa side by side, and Gussie sat on the other sofa with Grandmother, and Grandfather sat in his big chair. Gussie said, “Ooma, do you really want to go back and live in the van again?”

  “We don’t have to live in the van,” Ooma said. “We can live in the motor home.”

  Gussie shook her head. “We had to give the motor home back.”

  “I thought J. P. said we had a right to it.”

  “J. P. was wrong about that. We had to give it back.”

  “Oh,” Ooma said. “Maybe we could swipe another one.”

  Gussie frowned. “Ooma, we’ve all got to stop stealing,” she said. “We got caught stealing the motor home, and we all may have to go to jail.”

  “You might go to jail?”

  “Yes,” Gussie said.

  Ooma put her thumb in her mouth, and in a little bit I could see the tears start to come out of her eyes.

  I felt like cry
ing myself; the idea of your own mother going to jail was pretty terrible. “It’s all my fault,” I said. “It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t made Ooma run away.”

  Gussie shook her head. “It isn’t your fault, Fergy. It’s my fault. I should have left J. P. the minute he took the motor home. In fact, I’ve been thinking about taking you away with me for some time. I could see what was happening to Ooma. But I didn’t have a way of making a living. I didn’t know how we would live. Then J. P. stole the motor home and I knew I would have to do something. It’s been terrible the last few weeks, riding around in that thing and being scared to death every time we passed a police car. And then you kids disappeared, and after that I knew I couldn’t go on living like that any longer. What use were J. P.’s big ideas if I’d lost my kids on account of them? So I decided to go to the police. J. P. told me not to do it. He said you two hadn’t been kidnapped; he’d noticed how moody Fergy had been and that it was clear that you’d run away. We’d find you ourselves. But I didn’t want to take a chance, so I went to the police and, of course, they wanted the license number of the motor home. They checked it out and found out it’d been stolen. We were camped out in some woods, and they came and arrested us.”

  Ooma took her thumb out of her mouth. “What did they do with the motor home?” she said.

  “The insurance company took it,” she said. “They’d already paid the Clapperses for another one, so it belonged to them.”

  “Did you see Mr. and Mrs. Clappers?” Ooma said.

  “No,” Gussie said. “I don’t think they would have wanted to see us very much.”

  That made me feel sad, and I decided someday I would try to find out their address and write them a letter saying I was sorry about what had happened. But I didn’t say anything about that. Instead, I said, “But, Gussie, that farmer told you he’d just given us a ride, you must have known we weren’t kidnapped.”

  Gussie shrugged. “In a way, that made it worse. We knew you were wandering around out there somewhere and didn’t know what kind of people you might run into. J. P. said we’d find you ourselves, but I didn’t want to take a chance.”

  Nobody said anything. Then Ooma said, “Are you really going to jail, Gussie?”

  “I might have to,” she said. “Your grandfather took me around to see his lawyer yesterday evening, and he said he thought perhaps he could arrange for me to get a suspended sentence, but I would have to tell the whole truth about everything. J. P. and the Wiz and Trotsky would be found guilty.”

  “Are you going to do it?” I said.

  “Fergy, it’s either that or spend the rest of my life running away. I’d rather face up to it now and have it over with than worry about the police forever. I was against stealing the motor home, and I didn’t help them take it. But, still, I’m an accomplice: I should have taken you two right then and left.”

  “J. P. has to go to jail, too?” Ooma said.

  Gussie came over and sat down between us and put her arms around both of us. “No, he won’t, Ooma. Not right now, anyway. He and the Wiz and Trotsky won’t go back to stand trial. They’ll take off for somewhere in the van, and it’ll probably be a long time before they catch them. That’s why I couldn’t let him take you with him. How would I ever find you again if I went back to Kansas and stood trial and you were on the run with him?”

  My mouth dropped open. “You mean, we’re all going to stay here?” I said.

  “Yes, I think we will for a while,” she said. “First, I have to go back to Kansas and see if the judge will give me a suspended sentence for telling them the whole story. Then, I have to see about finishing my education myself and getting a job.”

  “But won’t J. P. come after us?” I said.

  “He won’t dare, Fergy,” Grandfather said. “He won’t dare take the case to court, because it’s bound to come out that he’s wanted for car theft in Kansas. Besides, no judge in his right mind is going to send children off to live with their father in a van, when they have a good home with their mother. And J. P. won’t dare come and try to scoop you up. He knows we’d have the police on him in five minutes, and he wouldn’t stand a chance of getting out of Cambridge, much less Massachusetts, before they caught him.”

  Now I began to cry, because it was going to work out in the end. I sat there crying, feeling stupid. Then Ooma put her arms around my neck. “Don’t cry, Fergy,” she said. “I’ll try to eat right and stuff, and I won’t steal anymore. Mostly.”

  THE END