by Darlene Ryan
He ran his hand back over his hair. “So Miss Prissy-ass is getting detention. I’m not sure that’ll teach her the lesson she needs to learn.”
“What’re we going to do?” Brendan snickered. Mr. Harris may have looked like a salamander, but Brendan looked like a ferret. There was an old guy in the trailer park who had one. He took it for walks on a leash, just like a dog. That’s what Brendan looked like—a pointy face and tiny ears—except the ferret could grow more hair on its face than Brendan could.
Why did we have to do anything, I wondered.
“What did you say?” Nick said.
Crap! I’d said it out loud.
“What did you say, Frasier?” Nick asked again.
I was screwed. He was moving slowly, talking quietly, like a snake, waiting to strike. I had to say something.
“Why should we do anything? I mean, why even bother with her anymore?” I tried to grin but my mouth wouldn’t cooperate. “You got her sent to detention. Isn’t that enough?”
Nick slammed me against the stone wall under the stairs before I even knew what was happening. “I’ll decide what’s enough,” he hissed. “You saw what she did, putting that frickin’ mouse in my pocket. You think some stupid detention makes that okay?” He was holding me by the throat, and it was hard to breathe.
“No,” I managed to choke out. My mouth was filling with spit, but I couldn’t swallow. “I just...I just didn’t think...she was worth...worth it.” Nick’s thumb and finger were digging into the sides of my neck so hard his face was beginning to wobble and shimmer in front of me.
Then suddenly he let go and I sank to my knees. “Here’s a hint, Frasier,” Nick said. “Don’t think. You might hurt something.” He leaned over me. “And keep your mouth shut. Got it?”
I nodded. Nick straightened up and headed down the hall. The other guys followed him without saying a thing. Slowly I got up. My throat felt like the time I’d had strep throat when I was eight, but at least all my limbs were still attached to my body and there wasn’t any blood anywhere.
Nick made a big production of leaving Erin alone for the rest of the day. If they came near each other in the halls he’d hold up his hands and back against the wall. “Look. I’m staying out of your way,” he’d say, but there was a mocking tone to his voice and a sarcastic smirk on his face. Erin just walked past as if he was invisible.
I tried staying out of Nick’s way too. In gym when we played dodgeball—and who came up with that stupid game anyway?— Nick pretty much pounded me with the ball every chance he got, and I let him. He didn’t just have to get even for what I said. He had to get ahead, and everyone had to see it. By the time the class was over there were bruises coming out on both my arms, and my ribs on the left side ached every time I took a breath. Nick slapped me on the back as we headed for the showers. “Your timing sucks, Frasier,” he said with a grin. “You oughta work on that.”
I didn’t like it when Nick was so happy. It always meant he had a plan. He wasn’t just going to get even with Erin. He was going to do the same thing he’d done with me—get ahead.
That night I stood at the stove making Kraft dinner and hot dogs, wishing for once that my dad was home. The whole left side of my chest was a giant red and purple bruise that hurt when I moved, when I breathed, when I did anything.
I took my bowl over to the little table jammed in against the wall. I looked around as I ate and suddenly realized my dad’s guitar was gone. Not his precious ’54 Les Paul Goldtop, but his regular one. That meant he was out playing somewhere and wouldn’t be home till maybe one or two o’clock. Dad would probably tell me it served me right for hanging out with those guys in the first place. He would say, “Why do you hang around those punks? Stay out of things that aren’t your business? Don’t go looking for trouble.”
But I couldn’t stay out of things. Okay, I didn’t exactly go looking for trouble, but I did look for Erin, Monday after school. Well, I sort of looked for her. I really did need to do some more work on my tree project, so I spent about an hour in the art room after school, and it was Erin’s last day of detention. I took the trail along the river because I knew that’s the way she walked. Sometimes I walked home that way, even though it took a bit longer, and I’d seen her ahead of me on the gravel path. When I came out of the trees, there she was.
I had to run to catch up with her. Erin jumped when I touched her shoulder. She turned and took a step back. “What do you want?” she said, holding her bag to her chest with both arms.
What did I want? I stumbled over the words. “I just...I just wanted to tell you...to warn you to...watch out for Nick.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“No!” I held up my hands. “Jeez, I swear, no. I just...you shouldn’t trust him. Just be careful.”
She studied my face. “Why? what did he say?”
“He didn’t say anything.” I jammed my hands in my pockets. “I’m tryin’ to help you here. You’ve known him way longer than I have. You know what Nick’s like. He’s not going to let this thing between you just die.”
She shrugged. “If you’re so sure he’s going to do something then why don’t you go to Mr. Harris, or even the police?”
“Going to Mr. Harris didn’t do you much good, did it?” Did she have to be so difficult when I was only trying to help her?
“That’s because no one else will speak up,” Erin snapped. “No one will say anything. You’re all a bunch of mindless sheep. Everyone is so damn afraid of him. Well, I’m not afraid. If he tries something, he’ll be sorry.”
She stalked away, still holding her bag to her chest, her shoulders hunched. I didn’t bother going after her. I could taste something sour in my mouth. I knew for sure that whatever Nick did, he wouldn’t be sorry about it—but Erin would.
Chapter Four
On Friday morning, I was getting my books when Nick came up and leaned against the locker beside mine. He smiled. It made me think of one of the trailer park cats, George, a big ginger missing most of an ear. George got the same look on his face that Nick had, though when the cat looked that way there were usually a few feathers poking out of his mouth.
Nick punched my arm right on one of my fading bruises. I sucked in a breath and swallowed my gum trying not to yell.
“Hey, Frasier, you spend a lot of time in the art room, right?” he said.
“Yeah,” I said slowly.
He leaned closer, and the smile got more George-like. All he needed was a dark gray pigeon feather sticking out of the corner of his mouth. “And Ms. Henderson’s there, right?”
“She’s around,” I said.
Nick looked over his shoulder and then back at me. “See, I’ve got this little bet going with McCarthy that Ms. Henderson doesn’t wear a bra. I figure today after school, when you’re working on your little project, you’re going to need some up-close and personal help. You can do a buddy a favor and report back what you see, you know what I mean?”
“Umm, yeah, sure, I can do that.”
“After school today, okay?” he said.
“Yeah, all right.” I nodded.
“Perfect.” Nick slugged me again and took off down the hall.
It was the only thing I could think about all day. I was going to have to look down the front of a teacher’s blouse and see what kind of underwear she had on. Thinking about maybe seeing a woman’s breasts should have been exciting, but it wasn’t. This was Ms. Henderson. I knew a lot of the guys thought she was hot, but I liked her, I mean as a teacher.
After school I went to the art room and got my tree poster out. I didn’t know what I was going to say to get Ms. Henderson into the room, but I didn’t have to do anything. She just came in to see how I was doing, and when she leaned over I looked.
“It was a purpley-colored thing with lace,” I told Nick and the guys. They’d been waiting for me out on the picnic tables. “Like a slip or something.”
Nick nodded. “Nice work, Frasier.” He looked a
t Brendan and jerked his head toward the street. “We gotta go.”
I knew he didn’t mean me. I watched them walk across the grass, laughing, and somehow I knew the whole thing had been a setup. Since when did Nick get someone else to look at someone’s boobs—even a teacher’s? He was always checking Ms. Henderson out. He’d just wanted to see if I’d do it. I wasn’t one of the guys, not like Brendan or Zach. They’d all been friends since first grade, back when Nick was swiping the fruit rollups out of other kids’ lunchboxes and looking up the girls’ dresses from under the swings. Me, I didn’t really belong. Never did.
When I got home, the car was parked next to the trailer. My dad was sitting at the table inside. “What are you doing home?” I said. “The job can’t be done yet. You said there was at least six more months of work.”
He ran his hand across the back of his neck as though his shoulders hurt or something. “Yeah, well, the job’s done for me,” he said. “I got fired.”
“What do you mean you got fired? what for?”
“Remember I told you I was gonna sell some stuff—you know, a couple of saws and that cordless drill—so we could make the rent on time?”
“Yeah.”
“One of the air nailers is missing from the job site. I was using it yesterday. Then somebody saw me selling stuff out of my trunk last night...”
“You told them you didn’t steal it, right?” I threw my bag on the floor by the table and opened the fridge, looking for something to drink.
Dad leaned back in the chair and stuck his feet out under the table. “’Course I did. But I can’t prove it.”
I twisted the cap off a bottle of root beer and took a gulp before the brown foam spilled over the side. “And they can’t prove you took anything,” I said.
“Well, it doesn’t work that way. I’ve been working on that job for three months. The guy who saw me selling stuff out of my car has worked for the company for twelve years. Who you think they’re gonna believe?”
“That sucks!”
“Yeah, I sort of pointed that out to the foreman.” He rubbed the back of his right hand, and for the first time I noticed his knuckles were bruised.
“You didn’t punch him out, did you?” I said.
He half grinned at me. “Naw. I did this on the driver’s door of the car.” Then his face got serious. “But I did take a swing at the fat old fart. I was pissed off and I didn’t think. Lucky for me a couple of guys stopped me. It coulda been a lot worse than just me getting fired.”
I looked down at my running shoes. There was a small hole in the right one. It didn’t seem likely I’d be getting new ones any time soon. “So we’ll just move,” I said. “So what?”
Dad looked around the trailer. “Don’t you ever get tired of moving, Kev?” he asked. “Wouldn’t you like to stay in one place for more than a few months? Maybe...maybe even live in a house instead of a tin can?”
Sure I would have liked to live in a house and be in the same school at the end of the year as I had been at the start. Like that was gonna happen.
I shrugged. “I don’t care.” I finished the root beer, tipped the bottle on its side and set it spinning. “Your boss is a jerk,” I said.
Dad nodded. “Yeah, but so was I, and I’m the one without the job, not him.”
He reached across the table and his hand came down on the twirling bottle. “You’re going to stay in school, and when you graduate you’ll learn how to do something. Hell, maybe you’ll even go to college.”
“Right, me in college,” I said. “There’s a laugh.”
“I don’t know how the hell I’d pay for it anyway,” Dad said. “But you’re getting some kind of education. You want to go from one crap job to another the way I have my whole life? That’s no life, believe me.”
He got up, opened the refrigerator and grabbed the last root beer, but instead of opening it he just stared at it for a minute and then put it back. He grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair. “I’m goin’ out for a while. Get yourself something to eat and do your homework.”
Chapter Five
I was dead asleep when Dad came into my room and shook me awake. “Get up,” he said. “Your old man’s gonna be on TV.”
I stared at him, only half awake, with drool running down from the corner of my mouth. It had to be almost midnight.
“C’mon,” Dad said. I staggered down the tiny hall to the front room of the trailer. Dad turned on the TV and used the remote to flip through the channels. “I hope we didn’t miss it,” he muttered. Suddenly, there was my father’s face on the screen. I yanked the remote out of Dad’s hand and upped the volume.
“There was more than three thousand dollars in the envelope,” a chirpy blond reporter was saying. “Did you ever think about keeping the money, Mr. Frasier?”
“No,” the TV Dad said. “It wasn’t mine. It wouldn’t be right.”
I looked at my dad—the real one. “You found a bunch of money?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Close to four thousand dollars in the middle of the street, right outside of Greer’s junkyard. I took it to the police station.”
I thought about what four thousand dollars could buy—running shoes without a hole in them; something, anything besides Kraft dinner and hot dogs; somewhere else to live other than this tuna can on wheels. I shook my head. “Four thousand freakin’ dollars just sitting in the middle of the street and you take it to the cops. Hello? You don’t have a job. We can’t even pay the rent this month.”
He didn’t look at me. “It wasn’t my money,” he said quietly.
“It was in the middle of the street,” I said. “It wasn’t anybody’s money. Did you at least get a reward?”
Dad slowly pulled a fifty from his pocket.
“Oh, that’s sweet. That won’t even buy groceries,” I said. “I’m going back to bed.”
Dad wasn’t home when I got up in the morning. The Les Paul was there, but the other guitar was gone. I had the last of the cornflakes—dry because there wasn’t any milk—and half the orange juice. Then I put some cheese slices in my pocket—the kind wrapped in plastic—and went outside to sit on the steps. In a few minutes Penelope peeked around the side of the Jensens’ place. As soon as she was sure the coast was clear, she bolted across the grass strip between the two trailers, scampered up the steps and hopped onto my lap. She tapped the pocket of my jeans with a front paw.
“Hang on, you little mooch,” I said. She started to purr. I pulled out a cheese slice, peeled off the plastic and fed her little bits while I stroked her black fur. She might have looked like a sleek black panther, but Penelope was about as menacing as a teddy bear. Suddenly her head came up and her ears started twitching. She bolted down the stairs and across the space between the two trailers in a flash.
George was on the way. Somehow Penelope always knew. A couple of minutes later he came strolling down the middle of the chip-sealed road like a lion crossing a dusty African plain. He climbed the steps and sat down beside me. After a moment he butted my arm with his head. I unwrapped the other two cheese slices and fed them to him while I scratched behind his one ear. Then we sat there in the sun for a while, watching the world go by.
George was Charlie Hetherington’s cat. Charlie and my dad were friends. Charlie was sort of the trailer park caretaker. That meant when there was trouble, Charlie would stop by your place and pretty soon you’d be wishing you’d kept your mouth shut, your pants zipped or your hands to yourself.
Dad claimed Charlie had won George in a poker game along with a 1972 El Camino and a case of beer with one bottle missing. Dad also said George and Charlie were a lot alike. I suppose they were, as much as a big ginger cat with one ear and a big bald dude with half a middle finger on his right hand could be.
After a while George decided he had things to do. He gave me another head butt and wandered away. I thought I’d go for a walk. I locked the trailer, cut around the back of the park and got on the trail. Charlie said that years a
go there had been railroad tracks all over, but there hadn’t been trains around for years. Most of the tracks had been dug up and replaced with gravel walking trails—the “green” solution.
I wandered up behind Sloppy Joe’s Takeout. I checked the pockets of my jean jacket. Nothing. I didn’t even have enough for an order of small onion rings.
There were a few benches, a couple of garbage cans and a beat-up picnic table on the strip of grass behind Sloppy Joe’s. Oliver, the twerpy grade nine kid who had started hanging out with Nick and the others, was sitting by himself on top of the table, eating a burger. I walked over to him. “Hey,” I said.
“Hey, Kevin,” he said with a mouth full of cheese and meat. He really was a twerp.
There was a small plate of onion rings beside him on the table, the grease already soaking into the cardboard. I took one without asking. They were just the way I liked them—hot and greasy.
“I thought you’d be getting ready,” Oliver said. “You know, for later.” He reminded me of a puppy, all eager and twitchy.
I grabbed another onion ring. “What do you mean?”
He looked all around—not that there was anyone else there but us. “I know what you guys are going to do tonight,” he said, and I swear to God his tongue was hanging out just a little bit.
If my mouth hadn’t been full I probably would have asked what the hell he was talking about. But I couldn’t talk for a second and that was just enough time for my brain to catch up. He knew what Nick had planned, but I didn’t. But how did he know? There was no way Nick had said anything. He wasn’t that stupid.
“Yeah, well that’s not till later,” I said. “How did you know, anyway?”
Score! His face got all red and he looked down at his feet. “Don’t say anything to Nick, okay?” he whined. “You know I can sort of get around those controls they put on the library computers, so you can’t play games and stuff? I was overriding the program—it’s not that hard to do—and Nick was standing there talking to Zach and Brendan about that girl, Erin.” Oliver glanced up at me. “I have really good hearing. Really. I got tested and everything, and I can hear stuff when other people can’t—”