by Melissa Hart
“You can fetch?”
We played for an hour—me throwing, her retrieving, until she collapsed purring on my pillow. That’s when I got the stupidest idea I’d ever had—I decided to find her a lizard to play with. I didn’t have anything against reptiles. I was just bored.
“I’ll be back.” I kissed the top of her soft head. She reached out one white paw and yawned like she was saying good-bye.
Outside, rain clouds hung heavy and gray. Frog—not lizard—weather. I trudged through the trees toward the pond. If Rajen and Blinky were here, we could build forts and race model boats, but there was no point in doing that stuff alone.
Suddenly, a grasshopper jumped across my path and a weird-looking kid leaped out from behind a tree. He peered at me through a big black-handled magnifying glass hung on a string around his neck.
“What are you looking at?” I stared back at him.
“Dragonfly!” He pointed to a shimmering blue insect above my head.
The kid looked stocky, short arms and legs and a football player’s thick neck. His eyelids slanted a little, like mine.
“I Eric Miller.” He pronounced his Rs like Ws. “What your name?”
“Uh … Solo Hahn.”
He flashed a wide, crazy smile. I edged away from him, but he wasn’t finished with me. “You like Han Solo from Star Wars?”
Surprised, I answered, “Yeah. My mom’s nuts about that movie.”
Eric stepped out of the tall grass, knees muddy and grass stained under his denim shorts. “Wanna see my house? I have cookies.”
I couldn’t help it—I felt sorry for the guy. Here he was all alone in the woods on a summer day, nothing to do but stalk dragonflies. He probably didn’t have a single friend. Never in a million years would I have hung out with Eric in California, but I thought Rajen would probably forgive me this once. I mean, the guy had cookies and I was craving sugar.
I looked through the trees toward the trailer. Mom had gone to the market. Dad was hunched over an ancient typewriter in his bedroom, banging out research notes for his novel. A sign hanging from his doorknob read: GENIUS AT WORK—DON’T DISTURB.
“Where do you live?” I spoke slowly, so Eric could understand me. Turned out I was the slow one.
“I live next door to you!”
Only one house stood close to the trailer—a two-story with a red roof just visible through the trees. “Well … I guess I’ll come over. But just for a minute,” I said.
I followed Eric down a dirt path. Blackberry branches snagged my legs, gouging skinny trails of blood. Eric dodged the brambles with surprising grace and kept up a running commentary about bugs.
“Gnat!” We stepped through a cloud of little winged things, and I almost died coughing. “Yellow jacket! Cicada!” We stopped in front of his house. “Shoofly.” He pointed to a green-winged fly on the door.
I had to laugh. “That’s just a fly.”
“Nope. Shoofly. Come in.”
I could tell Eric’s mother didn’t follow my mom’s no sugar rule. A big, duck-shaped cookie jar practically quacked on the kitchen table. Eric grabbed two mammoth chocolate chip cookies and gave me one.
For an instant, I felt almost happy. Eric’s house reminded me of our place in Redondo Beach—white carpet, huge leather couch. Bookcases towered everywhere. I studied one shelf. Count Us In: Growing Up with Down Syndrome. A Parent’s Guide to Down Syndrome. The Upside of Down.
I knew Down syndrome was some kind of disability you were born with. My old school had a special class for kids like Eric. They ate lunch by themselves in the cafeteria and didn’t go to surf club or screenwriting class. If I passed them in the hall, they said hi and I said hi back—but I never invited them to my house or to a bonfire on the beach.
Why didn’t I?
Eric grabbed my hand. “Come see my room!”
“Okay … but just for a sec. Then I hafta go feed my kitten.”
Eric’s bedroom could’ve doubled as a science lab. Bug posters covered the walls. Jars full of plants and mysterious sludge crammed the windowsills. A microscope and two aquariums sat on the dresser.
“Look, Solo. Walking sticks!”
The walking sticks in the aquarium looked like twigs. How cool would that be, to walk up wooden window sills completely camouflaged? You could listen to people’s conversations undercover. Maybe then, you’d understand why they did the things they did.
I thought of my father alone in the trailer. There are knives in the kitchen. A rope clothesline. The propane stove. What if he tries to kill himself again?
“I better go.”
A shaggy black dog burst into the room and jumped up on Eric, mammoth paws on his shoulders. “Down, Hank!” Eric hollered.
The dog returned to all fours. He lumbered over and shoved his wet nose into my hand, tail wagging. I scratched behind his fuzzy ears. “Dude. He’s as big as a pony.”
“Howdy!” A tall woman in a cowboy hat appeared. “What’cha doing, partners?”
Eric threw his arm across my shoulders. “This my friend, Mom. His name Han Solo!”
I tensed. Back home, boys didn’t touch other boys except to slap each other five after a killer wave. But Eric was different—he didn’t know any better. I let the arm stay.
“My name’s Solo Hahn.”
Mrs. Miller didn’t make the usual jokes like, “Where’s Chewbacca?” or “Watch out for Darth Vader.” She just shook my hand. “Pleased to meet you, honey. Eric’s daddy’s working late tonight, so we have extra pork chops and a big ol’ chocolate cake. How ’bout I call your mama and tell her you’re staying for supper?”
It was the chocolate cake that got me. Stupid. If I could’ve rewritten the scene, I would have told Mrs. Miller thanks, but no thanks. Because if I hadn’t stayed for dinner, Eric and I wouldn’t have unlocked the door to his father’s off-limits office and swiped an encyclopedia while his mom was in the kitchen making corn bread. I wouldn’t have spotted the shotgun hanging high above his dad’s desk. And I would’ve been home in time to rescue my kitten, who chewed off the tape my father had stapled over the hole in the rusting screen door.
But I did stay for dinner, and I was too late.
After dessert, Mrs. Miller left Eric watching Bill Nye the Science Guy and his lecture on insects while she drove me home. “Too dark to walk through the forest, honey. All sorts of wild animals out there.”
I blinked at her. “Like what?”
“Well, mostly just raccoons.” She chuckled. “But they get mean if you surprise ’em.”
“Just let me out by the mailbox.” The trailer looked even trashier in the dark, a giant can of Spam tossed into the field after a picnic.
“All righty.” She put a foil-wrapped piece of chocolate cake into my hands. “I’m running down to the market for some milk. Eric’s daddy’ll be home in half an hour. The man can’t eat cake without a glass of milk.”
I got out of the truck. “Thanks for dinner, Mrs. M. It was really good … especially dessert.”
She smiled. “You’re a sweet boy. Come over and play with Eric anytime. He could use a friend.”
I mumbled something and closed the door, thinking of how to hide the piece of cake from my parents.
As I walked up the dark driveway, big band music poured out of the trailer’s open windows. My parents were slow dancing in the living room—Mom had her head thrown back, laughing in the candlelight. The sky glowed navy over the treetops.
Suddenly, something flapped over my head. A swift sweep of wind ruffled my hair, and a tiny cry sounded behind me. I turned and dropped my cake.
Mew! I heard, and then the scream that would stay with me forever.
Meowwwwww!
“Oh no … no!”
I leapt off the porch and ran toward the sound.
But the owl had gotten there before me.
I lunged toward it. The owl tumbled into a bush and flapped its wings, trying to free itself. I grabbed at it and talons seized my r
ight wrist. Dug in. Punctured flesh.
My left hand flailed. A beak jabbed into my arm. Yellow eyes flooded mine. I yelped in pain.
The owl let go of my wrist. Lifted, wings wide, and merged with the darkness. My kitten dangled from its talons.
“No! ”
The murderer sailed over my head. I crashed down the path after it, wrist throbbing.
Branches ripped at my arms and legs. “Come back!”
The creature glided up through the trees and vanished.
I fell to the ground, clutching my bloody arm. “No! Please, no!”
Nature was a horrible thing. It snatched up anything weak and helpless and slaughtered it.
“She was so little,” I cried. “I promised to protect her.”
Maybe there was still time.
If I could get to the owl, stop it somehow….
An image flashed into my head.
The shotgun.
I jumped up and raced through the stabbing blackberry vines toward Eric’s house. Hank jumped up barking as I burst through the door. Eric sat cross-legged on the couch, watching TV in his pajamas. “Solo? Your arm bleeding!”
“I need to borrow your dad’s shotgun!”
He shook his head. “Unh-uhn. That gun off-limits. My father say so.” He peered at me through his magnifying glass. “Why your eyes wet?”
She was so small. I could still feel her paws against my cheek.
I smothered a sob. “I need that gun! Something … someone took something.”
Eric’s forehead wrinkled. “Oh, you shoot a robber?” he said slowly. “My father say that okay.”
For the second time that night, he reached into a tobacco pouch on the bookshelf and fished out a key. Then he ran to unlock his dad’s office door. He hoisted a chair onto the desk, climbed up, and reached for the gun. “Here you go.”
I’d never held a gun. It was heavier than I’d expected. In movies, people made it look so easy—they just held out their weapon and fired it. I wasn’t sure I could even lift the thing high enough to aim for the owl. I slung it over my shoulder and stumbled outside.
Now the moon was up, a huge yellow disk. It lit the path to the pond, but tears filled my eyes. I tripped on a rock and almost dropped the gun.
“Watch out!” Eric cried.
I spun around. “What’re you doing here? Go home!”
“I come with you. Kick some robbers.”
That was my second mistake—letting Eric come with me. But how could I tell him no? It was his father’s gun, after all.
We crawled under the barbed-wire fence and stopped to listen. Nothing but the chirp of cicadas, and then WHOO-hoo-oo-oo-oo-WHOO-WHOO!
Something rustled in the trees.
“Great horned owl,” Eric whispered.
Maybe my kitten was still alive. I gripped the cold metal and cocked back the trigger, the way I’d seen people do in movies. Suddenly, the owl glided across a clearing, flapping its huge wings. Talons gripped a fuzzy gray and white body. I still had time to save her.
I pulled the trigger right as Eric darted in front of me. “No, Solo!”
The gun barrel struck my shoulder. Eric fell to the ground.
The world went silent.
Eric curled into a ball and held his eye with both hands. Blood seeped out between his fingers. “Ouch,” he mouthed.
“Oh … crap.” My knees buckled and I slid to the ground.
What if I’ve blown his eye off?
I hugged my knees to my chest, shaking.
What do I do?
I closed my eyes and rocked back and forth in the dark, gasping for breath in the swampy night air. Mosquitoes rose off the pond and spun around us, stinging welts into my arms and legs.
Should I carry Eric back to his house? Take him to my parents? Should I run away? What should I do?
Eric’s father didn’t let me wonder for long.
Hank led him straight to us. The man’s eyes went from the gun on the ground to his son’s bloody face. His black trench coat swirled around him as he bent to pick up Eric. He stalked off into the trees without looking at me.
Who knows how long I sat there, tears and snot congealing on my chin. Over and over, I felt the owl’s talons pierce my wrist. Again, I heard the scream, the tiny cry.
Suddenly, an arm yanked me to my feet. Sounds began to return, slamming against my eardrums. “Get up!”
Mr. Miller marched me through the forest to the trailer. My parents were still dancing in the living room. He pounded on the screen door.
“Didn’t you hear the gunshot?” he demanded when they opened the door.
The happy notes of big band music surrounded us. My father’s face went white at the sight of his son’s arm covered in blood. My mother dug her nails into her palms.
“What gunshot?” they said in unison.
•
Eric ended up in the hospital with five stitches above his eye where the shot had grazed him. I ended up with eight weeks hard labor at the Raptor Rescue Center and a new label—At-Risk Youth.
FADE IN
INTERIOR. JUVENILE COURT - DAY
A judge sits at a high desk. Two tables below. At one sits ERIC MILLER, a kid with a football player’s thick neck. He wore a bandage over one eye and a beetle T-shirt. MRS. MILLER sits on one side of him, her cowboy hat on the table. MR. MILLER stands on the other in his trench coat. At the second table, MR. and MRS. HAHN sit near their son, SOLO. In their stylish clothes, they look like a magazine ad for a perfect family … except for their grim faces.
MR. MILLER
(pointing at Solo)
That boy is a menace to society.
Mr. Hahn chews his knuckles and looks sadly at Solo. But Mrs. Hahn leaps up, tears streaming down her cheeks.
MRS. HAHN
He’s a straight-A student. He loved that kitten!
Mrs. Miller gives her a sympathetic look and addresses the judge in a Texas twang.
MRS. MILLER
It’s our fault. I’ve told Paul a hundred times to lock up that shotgun.
The judge peers down at Solo and frowns. He brandishes his gavel.
JUDGE
Eight weeks of community service.
You’re getting off easy this time.
Next time, you won’t be so lucky.
Solo shuffles out of the courtroom, his head hanging low. Mr. Miller leans over as he passes behind Solo’s parents; he whispers something in Solo’s ear.
MR. MILLER
(whispering)
You’re a criminal. You should be locked up.
FADE OUT
That day in court, I knew my parents had chosen the wrong name for me. I was about as far from a hero as you could get. Mom should’ve named me Darth Vader, Lord of the Dark Side, instead.
Now, here in Oregon, kids I didn’t even know had slapped a new label on me.
I was the scary kid … the bad kid.
CHAPTER SIX
SERGEANT BIRD NERD
This bus is a piece of cr … poop!”
“Poop?”
A laugh rose in my throat, bitter as acid. My arms and back muscles hurt from loading bags of trout into the raptor center’s deep freezer for the eagles. The last thing I wanted to do was go hiking. But when Mom picked me up after my second week of community service, The Big Grape made it to the bottom of that giant hill on the road to the trailer, then hacked a miserable hiccup and seized.
My mother’s lips shaped curses, but she’d given up swearing along with sugar.
“The Corvette never even had a flat tire.” I opened the door and felt a blast of hot air. “It was an awesome ride.”
Mom heaved a bag of groceries into her arms and slammed her door shut with her butt. “I don’t want to hear it, Solo. It won’t kill us to walk a mile.”
I jumped ship, and she handed me a bag from the backseat. My arm muscles groaned in protest. I plodded behind her at the side of the road, sweating waterfalls down my shirt. Mom’s sandals slapped the
ground, smashing little waffle imprints into the dirt.
Just make it to the mailbox.
I pictured Rajen’s postcard waiting for me. I hadn’t heard from him in a couple of weeks; I wondered if he’d gotten my card or if one of his nosy sisters intercepted it. The bag in my arms held all the refrigerator groceries; I felt the paper dampen and rip under my hot hands. “I’m gonna lose the tofu,” I told Mom.
“Just hold on, Solo. We’re almost there.”
We made it to the two dented silver boxes nailed to a crooked wooden shelf. Mrs. Miller and Eric met us there, down from their house to get their mail. Eric studied my sweaty face through his magnifying glass. “You go jogging?”
His mom looked up from a stack of letters. “Pretty hot for a … oh, what happened?”
Mom sighed. “The VW broke down.”
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.” Mrs. Miller reached for the bag of groceries in Mom’s arms. “Eric, honey, take Solo’s bag. He looks exhausted.”
They walked us down to the trailer. I hated the thought of Mrs. Miller seeing my parents’ metal shack, but she appeared not to notice the dented sides, the faded paint, or the torn screen door. “Solo, honey,” she said, “you wanna come with us to the ballgame this weekend? Eric loves those Emeralds.”
“Dodgers rule.” The words flew out before I could stop myself.
Mom shot me the evil eye. I could practically see the lecture hovering in the air.
Mrs. Miller invites you to a ballgame after you shoot her son, and you give her cr … poop about it?
“Thanks for the invite, Mrs. M.,” I mumbled to my sports sandals.
Eric slapped me five. “We catch a shoofly, Solo!”
Mrs. Miller grinned. “He means a fly ball.” She and Eric held our grocery bags until Mom pushed through the front door. I took mine and the bottom gave way. My knee saved most of the groceries, but the tofu plopped to the ground.
“No harm done. I hear it makes real good cheesecake.” Mrs. Miller handed the package to Mom and registered the look on her face. “Well, we’ll let you two go get cleaned up. See ya later.”
“That woman is entirely too cheerful,” Mom muttered. Like she always did now, she stood still in the doorway for a minute and listened. Probably took a big sniff, too, praying she wouldn’t smell car exhaust. But we didn’t have a garage anymore, and the only vehicle we owned was gathering moss a mile away.