Something was wrong.
“Mem,” I shouted over the racket, “I think Millie wants to take us to Mr. Boots.”
Mem stopped pulling on Millie. “Then we got to go.”
“I’ll go,” I said, heading for my bike in the garage. “You stay here, okay?”
“No!” he said fiercely. “Mr. Boots is my best friend. I can run there.”
“Not in flip flops, you can’t. Hold on.” I got my bike out of the garage and pulled it into the driveway. “Here,” I said, straddling the bike. “You sit on the seat, behind me. I’ll pedal standing up.”
“But what about Millie?” he asked as he climbed on.
“Don’t worry—she’ll lead the way.”
For an old dog, Millie sure could run. She cut her corners short, jumped a pothole, and darted in front of two cars. With the extra weight I was lugging, it wasn’t easy keeping up.
“Where’s she taking us?” Mem shouted in my ear as we turned a sharp corner.
I was wondering the same thing. Maybe Mr. Boots fell—or collapsed—while he was out walking Millie. Maybe we were about to find him sprawled on the roadside. But I couldn’t tell Mem that, so I just shrugged.
In the end, Millie led us all the way to my house—mine and Mr. Boots’—and tore into the backyard. Mem jumped off the bike and chased after her before I even came to a full stop. I let the bike fall to the ground and ran after him. When we got to the backyard though, Millie wasn’t there.
“Millie?” Mem hollered. “Millie girl?”
An eerie stillness answered Mem’s call. He took a step closer to me. I felt the blood pulse through my temples and then drain from my face. What had Millie discovered that silenced her so completely? What were Mem and I about to find?
A yap from around the far corner of the house disrupted my panic. Mem dashed toward the sound. I followed close behind, turning the corner of the house right as Mem froze. Ten feet in front of us, Mr. Boots lay on the grass with one leg tucked under him at a strange angle. Millie was licking his face furiously, and he rested a shaking hand on her side.
“Chip!” Mem shouted, kneeling at his side.
Mr. Boots lifted his head a couple of inches to see him. “Remember? How did you—?”
“Millie came and got us.”
“Well, I’ll be,” he smiled weakly and touched Millie’s muzzle.
“Chip, why are you lying down out here? If you’re tired, you should go to bed.”
“I’m not taking a nap. I tripped over that darned thing,” he said, pointing to the hose that was attached to the yard sprinkler. “I don’t know if my leg’s broken, but I sure as heck can’t get up.”
“Mem, you wait here with Mr. Boots,” I said. “I’ll go inside and call for help.”
“I don’t think there’s anyone inside to call,” Mem said. “Let’s call right here. Help! Help! Somebody help!” Poor Mem.
I ran into Mr. Boots’ house—for the first time ever—found his phone on a pile of newspapers, and called 911 for the second time in my life.
• • •
Mr. Boots winced in pain as the paramedics lifted him onto the stretcher and up into the ambulance. Millie growled savagely at the two uniformed men who, for all she knew, were kidnapping her master. It took both Mem and me to pull her, yanking and yelping, into the house. I could still hear her barking as we climbed into the back of the ambulance and sat on the bench alongside one of the paramedics.
The driver didn’t use the siren or any extra speed, so the ride to University Hospital in Burlington took almost an hour. Mr. Boots tried to make chitchat for the first few miles, but the effort tired him, and he closed his eyes. One of the paramedics, a heavyset, suntanned man, gave him an extra blanket, and Mem gave him the weather report.
Mem was surprisingly unruffled the whole way up there. Maybe because he was with his best friend. Maybe because he likes car rides. Or maybe because he didn’t really know what was going on. I seemed to be the only nervous one in the group. I couldn’t help it. The sterile, too-bright lights and all the emergency equipment inside the ambulance gave me the creeps. At one point, the paramedic had to take off Mr. Boots’ shoe because his foot was swelling up so much. The sight of it made me queasy. Plus, I had no idea how Mem and I were going to get ourselves back to Hull. I wished I could fast-forward through the day and find out how it all ended.
Three hours, two Dr. Peppers and a phone call later, Mr. Boots was on his way into surgery for a broken leg. Since Aunt Collette was stuck at work, Leesha and her Aunt Holly were on their way to meet us at the hospital. By the time Leesha and Holly found us in the waiting area, I’d calmed down a lot.
“How you boys holding up?” Holly asked, taking a seat on the waiting room bench.
“All right,” I said.
“All right,” Mem yawned.
“And Mr. Boots?”
“A doctor came by a few minutes ago and told us it’s a simple fracture, whatever that means,” I said.
“Gotta be better than a complicated one,” Leesha noted.
“Do you have any coins for the candy machine?” Mem asked.
“Sure,” Leesha said. “C’mon, Mem, you lead the way.”
After an hour or so, another doctor, this one wearing green scrubs, a paper hat and clogs, appeared in the waiting room. “Are you the family of Chetwin Boots?” she asked.
“We’re his friends,” Holly answered. “He doesn’t have family.”
“I’m Dr. Gold, his surgeon.” She pulled off her cap, letting a brown braid fall down her back. “Mr. Boots is in the recovery room—still groggy, but doing fine. He’ll just need an overnight or two for observation and pain control.”
“So he can go home tomorrow?” Mem asked. “Can we pick him up tomorrow?”
“It’s not quite that simple,” Dr. Gold said, turning to Holly. “I can’t send him home if he’s going to be alone. He’ll be in a cast for six to eight weeks, and at his age, he’s going to need help negotiating stairs and bathrooms, and he says he has a dog. I don’t want him tripping over any animals. I’d like to send him to a nursing home for his recuperation.”
“Nursing home?” Mem blurted. “But Chip will die there!”
Dr. Gold made a small smile. “I have a very nice nursing home in mind. You don’t have to worry—”
“No!” he howled. “Chip told me so himself. He said a nursing home would kill him, just like it did Imogene. Right, Johnny? He’ll die in a nursing home!”
“Mem,” I said, “I think he was exaggerating. He didn’t mean he’d actually die.”
“He did mean it!” Mem’s eyes were getting wet. He stepped closer to Leesha, and she patted his back. “He’ll die there! I know it! He’ll die!”
“Look, I know this is hard,” Dr. Gold said. “Home is the best place to get better—but only if it’s safe. And right now, it’s not.”
“I don’t care! I don’t care one little bit!” Mem yelled. Then his voice turned to a choked whisper. “I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care. No nursing home. I don’t care.”
“Why don’t you all get some rest tonight?” the doctor said. “You can see Mr. Boots tomorrow—visiting hours start at ten. I’ll be making rounds in the late morning, and I’ll explain all about the nursing home to him then.”
“Good idea,” said Holly before Mem could say anything more. “Thank you.”
A voice came over the loudspeaker: “Dr. Gold, Dr. Debra Gold, please call extension 34.”
“That’s my next case,” she said. “Now don’t worry. No one likes the idea of a nursing home when they first hear about it, but he’ll come around.” With that, she hurried down the hall and disappeared into the elevator.
“He won’t come around,” Mem said to his feet. “He’ll die. He’ll just die.”
“Stop that, Mem,” Holly said. “He’s going to be just fine. Now come on, let’s go home. I’m exhausted.”
We all crowded into Holly’s car—Holly and me in front,
Mem and Leesha in back—and got on the road toward Hull. Holly had a Beatles CD on, and for a while I zoned out on the music. I didn’t feel like making conversation, and, from the look on Mem’s face, he didn’t, either.
“Hey Mem, guess what,” Holly said after a while.
“What?”
“Before we came to pick you up, your mom had me bring Millie to your house. She’s there now.”
Mem looked confused. “My house? Millie?”
“She needs someplace to stay. It’s not like she can fill her own food dish and let herself out in the morning—although she is a smart one, isn’t she? Getting you when Mr. Boots needed your help and all.”
“She loves Chip more than anything,” Mem said.
Holly sighed. “I sure do hate to see that old dog and that old man separated.”
“Don’t worry,” Leesha said. It was the first time she’d spoken since we’d gotten in the car. “They’re not going to be separated.”
“But they don’t allow pets in nursing homes,” Holly said.
“He’s not going to a nursing home.” She said it like she knew it for a fact.
Holly squinted at Leesha in the rearview mirror, then glanced over at Mem. “We’ve got to be realistic here, Leesha. We all need to be realistic.”
“I am being realistic. All we have to do is manage the system.” She smiled a funny kind of smile at Mem. “Anyway, I’m starving. Can we stop at that Dairy Queen up there?”
• • •
“Hello?” I said, picking up the phone in the kitchen. We’d only been home from the hospital for ten minutes. I figured it was Aunt Collette checking in on us.
“It’s Leesha.”
“Oh, hey.”
“Is Mem there?”
“Yup. Mem, it’s for you,” I called into the living room.
Mem was watching Jeopardy with Millie, but he came running in when I told him who was calling. “Hi, Leesha!” he hollered into the receiver. Whatever she said to him then, it made him glance up at me suspiciously and turn his back before answering. “Okay, all right,” he said in a loud whisper. “Yup…nope…I promise, honest…when?…yup…okay, bye.” He hung up, took another wary look at me, and rushed back to the TV.
Something was up. Definitely. Obviously.
The phone rang again a minute later. This time, it had to be Aunt Collette. “Hi,” I said.
“Johnny?” said Jo.
Jo—oh, no! I’d totally forgotten our lunch plans at Niko’s! “Jo, I’m sorry—”
“Did you forget? Again?” Her voice was a knife.
“No—I mean, yes. I mean…Mr. Boots got hurt, and Mem and I had to—”
“Who?”
“Mr. Boots. The old guy who lives next door to me. He tripped in the yard and broke his leg. I had to go to the hospital with him.”
“Why—are you related?”
“He doesn’t have any relatives. He’s a friend.”
“Oh. Well, you could’ve called to let me know.”
“I should’ve.”
“Yeah, you should’ve. We had plans.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not gonna keep giving you chances.”
“I know, I know. Just one more chance, please? Tomorrow. Let’s do tomorrow.”
“I don’t know. What did you have in mind?”
“We could…um…well…”
She exhaled loudly. “Okay, look. I’m getting my sports physical first thing in the morning, and then my mom and I are going out to breakfast. I can have her drop me off at the Fort River bridge after that—I’ll bring my tube. Let’s make it eleven.”
“O-okay, but I’ve got Mem till three. I’m not supposed to leave him alone for long.”
“Fine, whatever. Just be there.”
“We’ll be there.”
“Eleven sharp, Johnny. I’m not waiting around.”
“You won’t have to. Tubing at eleven. See ya.”
“See ya.”
When I hung up, I didn’t know whether to feel like a Romeo or a scolded puppy. But it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that Jo had agreed to see me. Tubing down the river with the beautiful Josephine. Eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. I’d be there by 10:30. And even though Mem would be there too, I knew it would still feel like a date.
Chapter 15
On her way out the next morning, Aunt Collette said she’d probably be late getting home, in which case we’d have to put off visiting Mr. Boots until the next day. That was rotten luck, but at least I wouldn’t have to rush home from my date with Jo.
Once Aunt Collette backed out of the driveway, I let Millie run around the yard and then fed her some leftover spaghetti. As I was scrounging around the kitchen for my own breakfast, the phone rang, and Mem flew in to pick it up. He cupped his hand around his mouth and the receiver, as if that was going to stop me from overhearing. “Hello?” he said. “Uh huh…yeah, I know where it is…okay, if you’re sure…all right…I said I promise…okay…” So he and Leesha were still scheming. Fine—I didn’t care. In less than an hour, Mem and I would be on our way to meet Jo. I found a bag of popcorn in the pantry and took it to the kitchen table while they conspired.
When Mem finally hung up, he marched to the table and plunked down in the chair opposite me. “We gotta go to the bus,” he said.
“What?”
“The bus, Johnny, the bus station. Leesha’s gonna be there at ten.”
I pushed the popcorn away and sat back. “Why? Is she expecting someone?”
“Just us. We gotta catch the 10:15 to Burlington. To see Chip.”
“No way, Mem. We’re not going to Burlington this morning. We’re going tubing this morning. Aunt Collette will take us to see Chip tomorrow.”
“No!” he pounded his fist on the table, but he looked more excited than mad. “We have to go this morning, and we have to go with Leesha. It’s the only way, Johnny.”
“The only way for what?”
“The only way to save Chip’s life.”
“His life isn’t in danger, Mem.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Well, if Leesha thinks she can save him, let her do it herself. I’m not cancelling out on Jo again.”
“Huh?”
“She’s meeting us at the bridge at eleven. You want to see Jo, don’t you?”
“You want to see Jo, don’t you? C’mon, Johnny, we got to do this—for Chip. Just tell Jo to meet us later. Or tomorrow.”
“I can’t. She’s out and she doesn’t have a cell. Besides, what does Leesha think she’s gonna do that can’t wait?”
“I told you, she’s gonna save Chip’s life.” He looked up at the wall clock, and so did I. It was almost 9:45. “Johnny, let’s go.” His voice climbed an octave. “Please. Please please please please!”
But I wasn’t giving in. “Look, Mem. Leesha’s a big girl. She can take the bus by herself if she wants to go so badly. She doesn’t need us.”
“She does! She needs me.”
“Why?”
“I’m her ambassador. Whatever that means.”
“Well, she’ll have to find another ambassador because I can’t come.”
“Then I’ll go without you. Leesha will take care of me.”
“Not a chance, Mem. My life would be in danger if Aunt Collette found out. We’re supposed to stick together. You know that.”
“Then just come. Come on, Johnny, don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried. I’m just not going.”
Mem hung his head, and when he lifted it back up, his big owl eyes were moist. “In school we learned that people help their friends.”
“I know, but—”
“We learned that people trust their friends.”
“C’mon, Mem.”
“I thought we were friends, you and me,” he said.
“We are.”
“I thought you and me and Leesha and Chip were all friends.”
“Mem, we are.”
“We s
hould trust Leesha. We should help Chip. We should go.”
I thought about how Mem rescued me the day Dirk tried to pound me. How he taught me his video game maneuvers and then taught my friends. I thought about how much harder Mem’s life was than mine—how much harder it would always be. How he almost never asked for anything because he liked his summer just the way it was. And now here he was, asking me for this one thing—this one thing that wasn’t even for himself, but for a broken-legged old man in the hospital.
“No,” I said. “I’m not going.”
He wiped his eyes and pushed his chair back so hard, it fell over. “Well, I am!”
“Mem, you can’t. You can’t go anywhere without me.”
“Watch me!” he said, and then he ran out of the room.
“Mem, stop,” I yelled, but when I got to the living room, he was already out the front door. Great, just perfect. If I let Mem try to go to the bus station by himself, he’d end up leaping into traffic or mutilating himself with broken glass or something. And even if he somehow managed to get as far as the station, Leesha wouldn’t know how to handle him on her own, no way. I sprinted after him without bothering to put shoes on.
Mem had reached the street by the time I caught up with him. “You can’t do this,” I said, grabbing his arm, but he was stronger than I realized, and he pulled away.
“Yes, I can!” he said, walking fast. “I can. Because I’m a good friend, that’s why.”
“I’ll call Aunt Collette.”
That stopped him dead. “You’re gonna squeal on me, Johnny? You’re really gonna?”
“That’s right.” I glanced at his big grey eyes but had to look away. “I mean, listen…” I stood up taller. “Look, Mem…” I coughed and rubbed my forehead, and then I sighed a sigh from the very pit of my gut. There was no way I was going to win this fight. The sooner I admitted defeat, the sooner we could get on with it. “You know,” I said, “Jo is never gonna speak to me again.”
He gazed at me solemnly. “Did she lose her voice?”
“No, she’s just gonna be that mad at me.”
“Oh. I like Jo. She’s pretty.”
“Yeah, well anyway, I’m barefoot. Hold on while I get my flip flops.”
• • •
Remember Dippy Page 13