Finding Fortune

by Delia Ray

  When Hugh nodded happily, Mr. Baxter pounced like a cat after a mouse. “And where do you go to school, Hugh? Over in Bellefield?”

  Hugh leaned his head to one side, thinking. “I don’t really go to school anymore,” he said. Then he turned to look at Mine. “Do I?” Before she had a chance to reply, Hugh let out a hiccupy laugh. “That’s kind of funny, huh? I live in a school, but I don’t have to go to school anymore.”

  Mine straightened uneasily in her seat. “Well, of course you have to go to school, Hugh,” she said with a flustered smile. “We’re going to start homeschooling in a few weeks, remember? Once you’re done with summer vacation.”

  Now Mr. Baxter was the one setting his fork down with a loud clink, and I stole a glance at Tucker just in time to see him spit something into his napkin. Of course that’s when he happened to look across the table, and our eyes finally met as he was trying to lower his hand from his mouth without being noticed. I glanced away, mortified, thinking that this dinner couldn’t possibly get any worse—until I spotted someone standing in the doorway across the room.

  My mother.

  The options raced through my head. I needed to leap up from my seat or pretend to choke on Mine’s roast … something … anything … to avoid the awful scene that was coming. I could see it etched across Mom’s face as she stalked toward us. I had never seen her so furious, with her arms rigid and her fists clenched at her sides. Even her hair looked like it belonged to someone else. Instead of wearing it loose around her shoulders like always, she had scraped every strand back in a tight knot.

  “And who have we here?” Mr. Baxter asked. Still, I couldn’t seem to move. When Hildy twisted in her seat, and Tucker and the Mayor and everyone else turned to see, I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out.

  Mom stopped a few feet behind Hildy, staring at me. Her neck was blotchy, and I could see her chest rising up and down.

  “Oh, hello there,” Hildy said as she stood up from the table. “You must be Ren’s mother. I’m sorry we didn’t hear the buzzer. How’d you manage to get in?”

  “The front door wasn’t latched all the way,” Mom answered in an icy voice. “So I took the liberty of letting myself in. Are you Mrs. Baxter?”

  Hildy nodded. “That’s me. You can call me Hildy.” She reached out her hand.

  Mom ignored it. “I’ve come to get my daughter,” she said. “But first, can you explain to me why on earth you would allow a twelve-year-old girl to run away from her family and hide out in this”—she let her gaze roam over the table and the stage with its dusty velvet curtains—“this place … surrounded by complete strangers … without the slightest effort to notify me?”

  “Twelve?” Hildy spluttered with an appalled glance in my direction. “She said she was fourteen. And of course I notified you! I called as soon as Ren showed up on my doorstep! And you told me very clearly that it was fine for her to stay and that you’d pick her up this afternoon. Frankly, I expected you much earlier than this.”

  “What?” Mom blinked her eyes closed, shaking her head in confusion. “That’s ridiculous. We’ve never spoken. In fact I’d never even heard of you until about an hour and a half ago when my older daughter finally broke down and told me that Ren was hiding out at some sort of rooming house in Fortune—run by a woman named Mrs. Baxter.”

  Somehow I had found my way to my feet, and now I lurched past Hildy to take hold of my mother’s arm. “Mom, it’s okay,” I pleaded. “I’ll explain everything later. Let’s just go.” But my mother wasn’t planning on going anywhere yet. She pulled her arm away and held up her palm as stiff as a stop sign in front of my face.

  “Well, then who in the devil was I talking to?” Hildy demanded. “Whoever it was said she was Ren’s mother!” Everyone was staring at me now, their faces caught in the gold light that had come slanting through the row of windows across the shabby room.

  “Ren?” Hildy asked.

  “That was my sister you talked to,” my voice creaked out. “Nora. She pretended to be Mom.”

  My mother’s face had gone pale. “What?” she gasped. “Ren, how could you? How could Nora?” She shook her head in dismay. “Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been? As soon as I read your note last night, I wanted to go get you at Allison’s, but it was late and I decided it’d be better for both of us if I gave you some time to calm down. Then I waited as long as I could to go over this morning, figuring you girls would want to sleep in. I nearly flipped when Carol told me you weren’t there. Nora was at work all day, but when I called her, she told me not to worry.”

  Mom’s eyes flashed with anger. “She said you were probably hiding out at some other friend’s house. So I contacted everybody I could think of. Kelly, Emma, all the girls on your soccer team, Uncle Spence, everybody! By this afternoon I was in a complete panic. I called Nora back at work and that’s when she confessed you had called last night.” Then Mom let out a shuddery breath and turned to Hildy. “I apologize. Nora neglected to tell me she had spoken with you and played such a thoughtless trick, but at least she gave me the number here. I must have called a dozen times, trying to find out your address. But I kept getting your voice mail. Didn’t you get my messages?”

  Hildy was patting at her pockets, the same way she had last night. “I had that darn thing with me this morning,” she said, her voice faint. “How’d you find me then?”

  “I called the sheriff’s office,” Mom said.

  “The sheriff!” Hildy squawked in alarm.

  My mother nodded. “Thank goodness the deputy I spoke to knew about this place and told me how to get here.”

  “Good land,” Hildy muttered. “There goes my reputation.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. I could feel little pricks gathering behind my eyes as I met Hildy’s sad gaze. I wheeled toward the table. “I’m sorry, everybody,” I said, with my throat welling. “I never meant to cause so much trouble.”

  Hugh looked like he might be on the verge of tears too. So he’d been right after all. I’d never come back to visit like I said I would—just like Mine’s last boyfriend. How could I ever show my face at the school again after today?

  “Please, Mom,” I begged. “Come on. We need to let them finish dinner. And I’ve got to go upstairs and get my stuff.” This time Mom followed along as I tugged her toward the door to the gym.

  Before we had even made it over the threshold, I could hear Mr. Baxter blustering away. “What in the world was that all about? Mother? Who was that girl?”

  I couldn’t bear to hear Hildy’s answer. I dropped Mom’s arm and fled down the hall.

  ELEVEN

  I WAS GROUNDED FOR LIFE—or that’s how Mom made it sound the next day when she was on the phone with Allison’s mom. I had cracked my bedroom door open to listen. “I’m sorry, Carol,” I overheard Mom say. “Ren won’t be able to go to Adventure Bay with Allison and the other girls after all … No, sorry, next week won’t work either. I’m afraid you’ll have to go ahead without her. Ren’s going to be sticking close to home for a while.”

  I banged my door shut and didn’t crack it open again until I heard my sister going back and forth to the bathroom. Nora was grounded too, but at least she got to leave the house for work since Mom said she’d make an exception for official employment.

  “Pssst,” I hissed at Nora when she was on her way downstairs. She rolled her eyes, but turned and followed me into my room. “I feel like we did that whole thing for nothing,” I said after I had shut the door and thrown myself on my bed. “Mom won’t even admit that this was all her fault in the first place. She says that she did work late the other night and she only took a quick break to go out to dinner because she thought I’d still be at Allison’s pool party. Supposedly Rick called her at the last minute.”

  Nora didn’t answer at first. She bent down to tie her pink Converse sneakers. I was jealous of her waitress uniform—khaki shorts and a hot-pink polo shirt with her name stitched in green ac
ross the front.

  “So what do we do now?” I asked.

  Nora stood up, swinging her smooth brown ponytail over her shoulder. “What do we do now?” she repeated, so bitterly that my mouth dropped open. “How about we do nothing? Listen, Ren. I can’t believe I let you drag me into that crazy plan of yours. You went way too far. And now I’m grounded too, for agreeing to cover for you.”

  I stared at Nora. “Why are you acting like you don’t care all of a sudden?”

  “Of course I care,” she said. “But you need to stop thinking you can change things between Mom and Dad. They’re either going to work it out on their own or they’re not.”

  “How’s Dad supposed to work things out if he’s stuck out in a desert somewhere thousands of miles away?”

  “The thing is, Ren, we can’t tell Mom how to feel. We can’t make her want to stay married to Dad if she doesn’t love him that way anymore.”

  My breath caught. Nora might as well have plunged an arrow into me and twisted it. “But she does love him!” I cried. “She said so … in his birthday card.”

  Nora heaved out a sigh. “I can’t think about this right now. I have to go or I’ll be late for work.”

  I watched helplessly as she slipped through my door. What was going on? Was I the only one who hadn’t jumped ship on our family?

  Mom called me down for lunch a few minutes later, and I decided to find out once and for all. When I came into the kitchen she was standing at the sink washing dishes, and a turkey sandwich made exactly the way I liked it—toasted with honey mustard and pickles—sat waiting for me in my spot at the island. “So just tell me,” I said to the back of my mother’s head as I hoisted myself onto the bar stool and took a bite of her peace offering. “Are you and Dad getting a divorce or what?”

  Mom’s shoulders went as limp as the dishrag she was wringing dry. She gazed out at the backyard beyond the kitchen window. “I don’t know, Ren,” she replied, “but that stunt you pulled this weekend isn’t making things any easier for anybody.” She turned to face me, leaning against the sink with her arms crossed. “Honestly, if you were going to run away, why didn’t you go to Uncle Spence’s or one of your friends’ houses? Why would you pick that run-down old school with all those bizarre characters hanging around? Who knows what could have happened if I hadn’t come when I did?”

  “They’re not bizarre,” I said hotly. “Hildy’s grandson is spending his whole summer there. Do you think his dad would let him stay if it wasn’t safe?” Each time I thought of the school felt like a fresh slap. All night long I had tossed and turned, picturing those shocked faces at Hildy’s dinner table staring up at me. I’d never been so mortified. But even worse, I’d never get to go back—to finish exploring the school and help Hugh solve the mystery of the missing treasure.

  “Did you call Dad and tell him what happened?” I asked.

  “Of course not. What good would that have done? He would have been worried sick, with no way to help.”

  I pushed my plate away. “I bet you didn’t call him because he would have asked why I ran away and then you would’ve had to tell him about Rick.”

  “Ren.” Mom looked up at the ceiling in frustration. “There’s nothing to tell about Rick. The issues between your father and me started a long time ago—way before Rick ever moved to town. And like I’ve told you before, Rick and I are friends. That’s it!”

  “Yeah, and you also told me you weren’t going to hang out with him anymore!”

  “I know I did,” Mom said quietly. “And that’s something I do want to apologize for—for agreeing to such a silly promise. It would be ridiculous for me to tell Rick that we can’t be friends. That would imply that there’s something going on between us, and there’s not.”

  “Oh, really?” I scoffed.

  Mom grabbed the dishrag again and began scrubbing at an invisible spot on the counter in front of me. “Honestly, Ren, this has got to stop. It isn’t healthy, this silly obsessing over Rick. I can’t have you sitting around here all summer monitoring my every move and brooding over whether it means anything. You need to keep busy. That’s why I decided to sign you up for that camp that we talked about. I sent the form in a few days ago and I was just waiting for a good time to tell you.”

  “What?” I stiffened on my stool. “What camp?”

  Mom didn’t answer. She turned back to the sink to rinse out the dishrag.

  “No, Mom,” I moaned over the sound of the running water. “You didn’t. Not SAG. I already told you I didn’t want to go!”

  SAG. The Summer Academy for the Gifted. By invitation only. Guaranteed to stimulate talented young minds … and guaranteed to be just as terrible as it sounded. I already knew two kids in my class who had signed up the day after their letters arrived. Olivia Pasternak and Arnold Morales. No way was I spending five weeks of my summer with a boy whose favorite hobbies were topping his latest Rubik’s Cube time and turning his eyelids inside out.

  “Please, Mom,” I said desperately as I hurried around the island. “I’m already signed up for soccer camp at the end of July. And what about swimming lessons? I’ll be plenty busy.” Mom’s profile remained stony. “I could even do those art classes at the rec center. Anything! But I’m not going to that stupid SAG!”

  Mom whirled around to face me. “Listen, young lady. You are in no position to tell me what you will and won’t do this summer. You’re signed up for the Academy and that’s it. The bus picks up kids at the junior high tomorrow at nine a.m. and you’re going to be on it!”

  Young lady was a sure sign that there was no use arguing anymore. I stormed back to my room and stayed huddled on my bed, scribbling in my little-kid diary with the gold latch and tiny key that somebody had given me a few birthdays ago. I’d barely used up twenty pages. And most of those were this year, since I only wrote in it when I had a crush on somebody or when I was mad.

  But that afternoon I filled up ten whole pages on Mom and Rick and SAG, and then I found myself thinking about Fortune again and filling another page with doodles of the school and Wayne the donkey and the leopard cats. The hours limped by until Mom finally flung open my door and ordered me to go “get some fresh air” and to weed the flower beds out front while I was at it. After the dim light of my bedroom, the sky was such a dazzling blue that I felt like a groundhog poking out of its hole as I sat in a scraggly patch of weeds, ripping the tops off dandelions. I was trying not to think about the school or my friends swooshing down waterslides when a voice called from the sidewalk.

  “Hey, Ren.”

  I didn’t turn around.

  “I fixed your bike tire for you.”

  Now I’d have to talk to him. I slowly looked up from my weeding, making my eyes into slits. Rick was already walking my bike up the driveway. He was decked out in his wraparound sunglasses and flashy running gear and he had Chauncey, his Portuguese water dog, with him. I stood up and went down to meet him halfway. “Thanks,” I muttered as I took the handlebars. Chauncey whimpered and lunged toward me, but I willed myself not to pet him or meet Rick’s eye. Unfortunately Chauncey was about the cutest dog I had ever seen—a squirmy black puff with markings like white socks on his feet. I had loved playing with him before Rick’s secret mission to steal my mother became not so secret.

  I started pushing my bike back up the driveway. “I’m glad you’re home safe,” Rick said behind me. Mom must have been giving him a minute-by-minute update on my whereabouts yesterday. He raised his voice over Chauncey’s whining. “Your mother was really worried about you, you know.”

  I could feel the blood rushing to my face as I parked my bike by the flower bed. It was something Dad would have said if he were here right now. And Rick had no business standing in our driveway trying to sound like my dad.

  “Yes, I did know that,” I shot out before I could stop myself. “And did you know my father gets home from Afghanistan in thirty-four days? He’s moving in here again as soon as he gets back.”

&
nbsp; I could see how shocked Rick was, even through his mirrored sunglasses. But he didn’t have time to answer. The screen door creaked open behind me and Mom stepped out on the porch. I quickly bent down, pretending to focus on a stubborn hunk of crabgrass.

  “Hey there, Rick,” she called. “You fixed Ren’s bike already? That’s wonderful.” I let out the breath I’d been holding. She hadn’t heard me.

  “No problem,” Rick answered in a tight voice.

  “Nice day for a run,” Mom added.

  Rick nodded. “Sure is. Well, I better get going. Chauncey and I are cranking it up to twelve miles today.”

  I smiled slyly to myself as he turned and jogged off. Ha. I didn’t need Nora’s help after all. I could get rid of Rick on my own.

  * * *

  Dad must have known somehow that I needed to hear his voice that night. He called just before bedtime, and Mom pressed the receiver against her sweatshirt before she handed me the phone. “No drama,” she whispered with a warning finger. “Your father doesn’t need that right now.”

  I gave a snippy nod as I took the phone and went to flop on the couch in the dark living room. “Hi, Daddy,” I said.

  “Hey, Schnitzel,” Dad said, sighing like he had been waiting a million years to talk to me. I had to pinch the inside corners of my eyelids so I wouldn’t start crying. Who knows why Dad called me Schnitzel? He had been calling me that forever. I didn’t even know what a Schnitzel was. Why hadn’t I ever asked?

  Sometimes the phone connection with Dad was so bad that his voice came through all tinny and muffled, like he was calling from the bottom of the ocean. But tonight he sounded like he was in the next room. “How you doing?” he asked me.

  I kept my eyes squeezed shut. “Good.” He let out a hoot when I told him about my award, and I forced a cheery note into my voice when he asked me about my plans for the summer. “I’m signed up for some camps,” I told him. “And I’m going to go over to Uncle Spence’s as much as I can to keep Blue company. But what about you?” I asked, rushing to change the subject. I wanted to tell him about SAG, but I also knew it would be selfish to waste all our phone time with my complaining. “What are you doing today?”