“I don’t expect you to understand,” said Janine.
For a second he thought she was talking about leaves, what it would feel like to be one, and he was set to argue.
“I’ve never really thought about people’s houses before,” he said after that second had passed. “I mean, what they look like from the outside.”
He could see from her face that this was of interest to her, and it pleased him that his words had done that.
“Do you and Russell want to come over and meet my dad?”
“Sure. He looked sorta neat, the way he could smoke without the cigarette leaving his mouth.”
Danny figured since he was so good at riding his bike with no hands, smoking that way would be a cinch once he got started on it. Maybe afterwards, in the fall. If he was still friends with Janine, he could go over to her house and smoke no hands with her dad.
They took a winding route back to her house and entered the yard from the lane. There was no fence, just lots of greenery for Russell to root around in. Her dad was still outside but the accordion was nowhere in sight. He was squirting oil into parts of a lawn mower. Janine was already at his side. Danny approached slowly, as if he was entering a special place where he might not belong.
“Come on over, Danny,” Janine said. “This is my dad. His name’s Jake. Jake, this is Danny Blue, the kid I told you about.”
Her dad held out a hand, and they shook. His eyes squinted against the smoke that floated in front of his face.
“Danny, is it? Short for Daniel?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I had a brother named Daniel once, a long time ago.”
Russell hadn’t made it past the scrub at the far end of the yard.
“That’s your dog?”
“Yes, sir. That’s Russell.”
Danny wondered what Janine had told her dad about him. Did he know about Cookie? About his slingshot skills?
“Is Daniel not your brother anymore?” he said, for want of something better to say.
“He died, I’m sad to say, when he was just a young whipper-snapper.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, sir.”
“Call me Jake, son. We’re not in the army.”
Danny had never heard of calling someone’s dad by his first name, but somehow it made sense in this case.
“Sorry, Jake.” By now he wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for.
“Nothing for you to be sorry about. It wasn’t you killed him.”
Janine’s dad seemed nice enough, yet Danny felt he wasn’t able to say quite the right thing. Not so far, anyway.
He wanted to ask who or what killed his brother, but he figured that might be another wrong thing. Or not wrong so much, as not quite right.
“It was polio got him,” said Jake. “Epidemic of ’36.”
Jake had the same thing going on with his words that Janine did. They had an interesting way of talking. Not the words they chose to say, but what they did with them.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Danny tried. It was the comment that he had heard the most at Cookie’s funeral.
Jake smiled. The crevices in his face went all the way around it, from his chin to his eyes and across his forehead. He had a lot of crevices for a dad. Usually you had to be a grandfather before you had that many. Other than that he didn’t look all that old. He was skinny, in his sleeveless undershirt, and gave the impression he’d had a hard time of it in one way or another.
“Thanks, son,” he said.
“My dad was in the war,” said Janine, as though she knew that Danny was wondering about the hardships her dad had been through.
“Oh?”
Most dads he’d met had been in the war, but he had never come across one that talked about it. He didn’t know if his own dad had been in the war. If so, he’d probably deserted. They were probably still looking for him so they could put him to death by firing squad.
“Danny doesn’t want to hear my war stories, honey.” Jake’s smile wasn’t so big now, and that put an end to that.
So Janine said wrong stuff too.
“Jan tells me you’re a dab hand with a slingshot.”
For a moment Danny didn’t know what he was talking about because he didn’t know who Jan was and he’d never heard the expression dab hand before. But he soon put it together.
“Yes, sir. I mean, Jake.”
“That’s good, son.”
Danny wanted to tell him not to call him son. It reminded him of the burly man at Sydney I. Robinson’s and that whole terrible day. But he didn’t figure kids were allowed to tell grownups what to call them. Then again, Jake had told him not to call him sir.
“I prefer not to be called son,” he said.
Jake smiled. “Well, good for you, boy. It’s good for you to speak up for what you don’t like. I can’t very well ask you not to call me sir and then turn around and call you son if you don’t like it, can I?”
Exactly.
Danny didn’t like being called boy either, but let it go. Maybe it was just a one-off. If it turned out not to be, he could deal with it another time. The effort of talking to Janine’s dad was wearing him out.
“Do you wanna go down to the river?” he said to Janine.
“Sure. Let’s go.”
They left Jake to his lawn mower and walked away down the lane.
“Your dad calls you Jan.”
“Yeah, sometimes.”
Russell trotted along beside them.
Danny waited till they turned left onto the drive before he said, “I’m worried that I’m too famous for my slingshot skills.”
Janine stopped walking.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talkin’ about, if I do something with my slingshot that causes some sort of result, I’m worried that everyone will know it was me.”
Tiptoeing around the plan wasn’t easy, but Danny didn’t want to be the first one to say the word that started with k.
This was as close as they had come, except for when she had mentioned that he missed. You missed, didn’t you? He heard it in his head from time to time; he even saw it — letters forming words inside his eyes — like Jake’s cigarette smoke, but more particular in shape.
“Let me do it for you,” said Janine.
That took him by surprise.
“No. Jesus, no,” he said.
“I’m as good as you.”
“That’s not the point.”
She took her slingshot out of her back pocket, picked up a smooth round stone, aimed at something on the other side of Lyndale Drive, and shot in a clear straight line.
“What were you aimin’ at?”
“What I hit.”
She picked up another stone. “What is the point?”
Danny took a couple of shots himself, hitting his targets both times.
“It’s not your fight,” he said. “Are we even sure we know what we’re talkin’ about, that we’re talkin’ about the same thing?”
“Of course we are. I told you. I saw you that day.”
“Did anyone else see me? Does everybody in the world know what I did?”
“Nope. Just me.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just do. We would have heard about it if it was out there.”
“And you didn’t tell anyone?”
“’Course not.”
“Your dad seems to know I’m a dab hand with a slingshot. What about him?”
“I didn’t tell him what you did. What you didn’t do. What we’re going to do.”
She started walking again, and Danny and Russell followed along.
“Honest,” she said.
They sat down on a patch of grass near the river’s edge.
“I bet you wouldn’t ha
ve missed that day if it hadn’t been for the barking dog.”
“Yeah, that’s what I think too. But I’m glad I missed.”
“Why?”
“It was supposed to be just a trial run. I need to be readier.”
“Maybe I could make sudden loud sounds sometimes when we’re practising,” said Janine.
“Yeah. I thought of that too, but I think it would completely destroy my concentration if I had to wonder when and what your next sound was gonna be. I’ll just have to chance loud sounds.”
“You need nerves of steel for something like this.”
“Like Superman.”
“My dad said that he had nerves of steel before the war.”
“Maybe we could time travel back to before the war and get your dad to go into the future and do it. Then we could zoom back to the present, and he could go back to the past, and no one but us would know what had happened. Your dad of the past wouldn’t exist in the present.”
“He was shell-shocked in the war,” said Janine.
“Shell what?”
“Shell-shocked.”
“What’s that?”
“Messed up inside his head in certain ways. He wasn’t the same when he came back as he was before he left.”
“How not the same?”
“I don’t know exactly because I didn’t know him before he went, but I guess for one thing, he no longer has nerves of steel.”
“Maybe it’s good that you didn’t know him before,” said Danny, “so you don’t have to compare the two versions.”
“Yeah, maybe. I like him fine the way he is now. He was an electrician before the war and now he works on an assembly line at Kub Bakery.”
“I noticed he smells a bit like bread.”
“Yeah.” Janine smiled.
“Where were you when you saw me?” Danny said.
“In the lane behind Birchdale Betty’s house. I was heading to the school grounds, to cut through, when I noticed a bush move — a honeysuckle — the type cats go berserk over. Bushes don’t usually move, so I went closer to see whether it was rabbits or kids necking or what. Turned out it was you.”
“You actually saw me.”
“Yup. I peeked in the back of the bush, and there you were. And then you did what you did.”
“Jesus. Imagine me not knowin’ you were right there.”
“I’m quiet.”
“Did you see the afterwards part?”
“Just the part where Hardass went screaming into the school. I took off down Balsam. I had my slingshot with me and I didn’t want them thinking I did it.”
Danny told her about what had happened next, Mr. Calder’s appearance on the scene, how that had gone.
“I feel sick,” he said. “What if it had been someone else who saw me, like Birchdale Betty?”
“It wasn’t, so quit worrying about it. She doesn’t leave her yard unless it’s in that boat of a car.”
“Birchdale Betty hates me.”
“She hates everybody. Who doesn’t she hate?”
“I don’t know, her husband?”
“No. I’m pretty sure she hates him too. I heard her yelling at him once, when he was vacuuming the trees. She shouted that he wasn’t doing a good job, that he was missing spots. She even said, what good are you anyway. That’s not a very nice thing to say to your husband.”
“I wish you hadn’t told your dad about my slingshot skills.”
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have. I’ll try and get him to forget about it.”
“How?”
“Maybe by talking about other things you’re good at.”
“I’m not good at anything else.”
“You’re smart in school, aren’t you?”
“Well, I’m pretty good in maths, I guess.”
He was exceptional in maths and good in everything else except phys ed but he didn’t want her thinking he was some kind of suck who studied all the time.
“Your dad shouldn’t know,” he said.
The grass was damp. When they stood up, they had damp rear ends. They walked, following the curve of the river.
“Lots of other kids have slingshots,” Danny said. “Nearly every guy in my class had a Wham-O hangin’ out of his pocket last year. I think they were in style or something.”
“What’s a Wham-O?”
“It’s the one you can order from the back of comic books. I sent away for one. I think it was one of my Lone Ranger comics that had the ad in the back pages. It was pretty good actually; I might still have it lyin’ around somewhere.”
“Jeez. I must have read the wrong comic books.”
“What comic books do you read?”
“Well, none anymore, of course, but I used to read a lot of Archie and Little Lulu.”
Of course she doesn’t read comics anymore. Danny wished he could take back his little-kid words.
“Let me do it for you,” Janine said again. “People probably do know how good you are.”
“Maybe just you and Paul and your dad and me,” Danny said.
“Likely more.”
“Maybe.”
“Nobody knows how good I am,” said Janine. “My dad, but he doesn’t count in terms of me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if I were to do something bad with my slingshot, my dad wouldn’t let anything happen to me. He’d lie or kill to keep me safe.”
Kill. She’d said the word that hadn’t yet been spoken.
Danny envied her a dad that would kill to keep her safe.
“If I do it,” she went on, “and they suspect you, they won’t be able to prove it because you won’t have done it.”
“There’ll be circumstantial evidence.”
“What?”
“Circumstantial evidence,” said Danny. “You hear about it all the time on Perry Mason. It’s when there’s no actual proof, like fingerprints or bein’ caught red-handed, but there are so many things that point to the culprit that they capture him anyway and send him down. Like in my case, it would be my hatred of Miss Hardass and my skill with a slingshot.”
“It won’t go to trial like on Perry Mason,” Janine said. “Kids don’t go to trial.”
“Where do they go?”
“Reform school. It’s a home for juvenile delinquents. But neither of us will have to go there. We’re going to plan this and pull it off so that won’t happen. It’ll be perfect, and I’m going to be the one to do it.”
“What if you get caught red-handed?”
“I’ll pretend it was an accident. Like I said, no one knows how good I am except you and my dad and me. I could be just learning, and the shot goes wildly astray. Stuff like that happens all the time.”
“It does?”
“Yeah. I’ve got a second cousin with a glass eye because of a slingshot accident.”
“Really?”
“Yup.”
“Who shot him?”
“Me. I was just learning. See? I’m experienced in these things. I got in no trouble over it. Zero trouble.”
“Was it really an accident?”
“Of course. I like my second cousin.”
“What’s his name?”
“Who cares? Plus, it’s a her.”
“And she didn’t die.”
“No. She didn’t die.”
Danny was mildly disappointed. He wondered if she was making up the story just to talk him into letting her do it. Then he realized it didn’t matter one way or the other, like the cousin’s name didn’t matter. Janine wanted to help him. Period.
“Do you have lots of cousins and second cousins and stuff?” he said.
“No. As far as I know, just that one second cousin. Around here, anyway.”
“How do you have second c
ousins without havin’ first cousins?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t know the legalities surrounding it.”
“I don’t have much in the way of cousins.”
Danny figured they had a lot in common family-wise: her with no mum (that he had seen), him with no dad (that he had seen); both of them with no brothers or sisters (anymore, for him); no cousins to speak of except the one-eyed girl. As far as he was concerned, second cousins were too distant to even mention, unless they’d had eyes shot out. He had a dog.
“Do you have any pets?” he said.
“Yup. A cat named Pearl. You’ll meet her.”
Any time she said anything about the future, even if the future was just later that day, Danny’s heart leapt up with the knowledge that he would see her again.
“Pearl loves honeysuckle bushes. She rubs up against them and goes cross-eyed.”
“That’s funny,” said Danny.
“Yeah.”
Neither of them laughed.
There was no doubt in his mind that she was as good as he was with her aim. In fact, they both knew she was better. But still.
“You can’t do it,” he said. “There’ll be trouble, and it shouldn’t be your trouble. It’ll be way too suspicious that Miss Hardass gets targeted twice. Mr. Calder will figure it out.”
“I want it to be my trouble,” said Janine. “She’s a vile human being. Plus, Mr. Calder probably hates her. Didn’t you say he put his hands over his ears while she was screeching at him?”
She picked up a stone.
“It’s true,” said Danny.
“Like I said, if I do it, and they suspect you, they won’t be able to prove it. Never mind circumstantial evidence. You can be somewhere else, somewhere definite where a trustworthy person sees you and can stick up for you.”
“Who?” he said.
“I don’t know. Another teacher, maybe. The janitor, Mr. Potter. We could plan it so you’re inside the school in full view of people while I’m outside doing it.”
“Mr. Calder,” said Danny.
It was sounding more and more like a good idea.
“Sure. And it’ll be an accident. You can’t get punished for accidents.”
“Can’t you?”
“Nope.”
Janine fit the stone neatly into the pocket of her slingshot and aimed for something low, far into the shrubbery.
Blue Vengeance Page 8