Lucy Unstrung

by Carole Lazar

  I’m wrong. A few days later, I’m in homeroom when my name is called over the intercom. I’m supposed to go to the office. Sister Cecile wants to see me. She couldn’t be nicer about it, but that doesn’t help when it’s all bad news. There are three kids from our school who come in from Langley each day. Their parents take turns driving. The problem is, they’d have to backtrack and go really far out of their way to come pick me up.

  “I can get a ride in with my mom,” I say. “It’s a way home that I need. They could just drop me off at a bus stop on their way home and then maybe I could get a city bus to my place.”

  “Have you ever ridden a city bus?” Sister Cecile asks.

  “No, but I’m sure I could figure it out.”

  “Well, it was Mrs. Dejarlais and Mrs. Murphy I was talking to. I’ll call them again and see what they think of that plan. You need to check out the bus routes and find a drop-off place that would work for you.”

  After I leave the office, I head back to class, but all I can think about is going to the library to use the computers to look up bus schedules online. I’m so preoccupied I don’t even hear Sister Alexis when she asks me a question in class. She gives me a warning. If she catches me daydreaming again, I’ll have to write an essay for her. I’ve heard some of the really horrible topics she picks for punishment essays, so I work hard at paying attention until the bell finally rings.

  When lunchtime comes, I don’t bother eating. I go straight to the library.

  It takes me awhile, but Ms. Renaud, the librarian, and I finally figure out how to use the bus company’s Web site. If you put in the starting address and the destination address, it tells you what bus to take. I wonder where these other kids live. The Willow Brook Mall is pretty much in the center of town, and there’s a bus that goes from there right past the entrance to our trailer park. I wonder if Mrs. Dejarlais or Mrs. Murphy could drop me off at the mall.

  I’m waiting for Sister Cecile when she gets back from lunch.

  “I checked the buses,” I say. “I can get one from the Willow Brook Mall right to my door. Is the Willow Brook Mall on their route home?”

  “I don’t know, Lucy,” she says. “I told Mrs. Murphy about your suggestion, and she said she’d talk to Mrs. Dejarlais about it. She called back just before lunch, and they both feel very uncomfortable about dropping you off at a mall or at some bus stop on the highway. They’d feel responsible for you if anything went wrong and you didn’t get home safely.”

  “So what does that mean?”

  “They feel badly about it, but they’re going to have to turn you down.”

  It takes every ounce of strength I have not to burst into tears right there in the principal’s office. I’m halfway out the door before I remember to thank Sister Cecile for trying. It’s not her fault it didn’t work out. I guess it’s not anyone’s fault.

  I’m a total zombie all afternoon. It’s not until fifth period that I come up with a new plan. I’ll just have to use the city buses.

  As soon as the final bell rings, I head back to the library. I look up the bus company Web site again. It will plan my trip for me. All I have to do is put in the address of my school and the address of the trailer park – and voilà! I get a map and a list of all the buses I have to take.

  I head out the front doors of the school and walk down to One-hundred-and-sixtieth Street. It is pouring rain and I forgot my umbrella, but I’m not too worried. There’s a bus shelter. There are a couple of other kids wearing Holy Name uniforms who are already waiting. I check my instructions. I need the 335 Fleetwood bus. When it pulls up, I have my money ready and I drop it into the box as I get on. I start to walk down the aisle to find a seat.

  “Do you need a transfer?” asks a girl’s voice from behind me.

  I don’t know what she’s talking about. I can see she’s glancing down at the instruction sheet in my hand.

  “Are you going to be taking another bus after this one?” she asks.

  “Yeah, I have to take three of them,” I answer.

  “Ask for a transfer,” she says. “Otherwise you’ll have to pay again when you get on your next bus.”

  I don’t have to ask for a transfer. The bus driver must have heard the girl because he just hands me one.

  I find a seat and the girl who helped me with the transfer sits down next to me.

  “You don’t happen to be going to Langley, by any chance?” I ask. It would sure be a lot easier if I could tag along with someone who knew the system.

  “No, I’m getting off at Fraser Highway.”

  “I’ve never tried riding the buses before,” I say.

  “Where are you going?”

  I hand her my trip plan.

  “You sure picked a complicated trip to start with,” she says. “But you’re changing buses at Fraser Highway, so you’ll be getting off at the same stop as me.”

  At least that’s a help. She also shows me where I’m supposed to wait for my next bus.

  “Do I put this transfer in the coin box when I get on?” I ask her.

  “No. Just show it to the driver and keep hold of it. You’ll need it again when you get to Langley Centre.”

  I have a half hour wait. It seems longer than that. The bus shelter doesn’t help when the wind is blowing the rain right into it. I’m soaked. When the bus finally arrives, it’s so full I can’t get a seat. I try to hang onto one of the straps, but I’m too short to get my hand through it. Eventually, I just grab the back of one of the seats. Every time the bus stops or turns a corner, I just about go flying. The ride goes on forever. My feet are cold and wet. If I wiggle my toes, I can feel the water squishing up between them. Finally, we get to Langley Centre, which is a big bus loop. It seems like everyone is getting off at once. I almost get trampled.

  Once I get onto the pavement, I start looking for Bay 4. I check my schedule. I have another half hour wait. It’s still raining and windy. The bus shelter at Bay 4 is full of people. I have to stand in the open. Buses are coming and going, and one pulls right up next to me, spraying water all down my left side. I wonder what time it is. This is taking way longer than I expected. I thought I’d be able to make my trip and still get home before Mom, but it’s almost five o’clock and I still have one more bus to take.

  I find a pay phone and call home. She isn’t in yet, so I leave a message. I tell her to pick me up in front of our trailer park. I say I should be there in about half an hour. Then I go back and wait some more. People are forming lines. When the C63 bus comes in, it’s already half full. Everyone starts pushing toward it, and before I even get close, the driver closes the doors. The bus is full.

  I’m totally panicking. “What do I do now?” I ask the woman in front of me.

  She shrugs. “We’ll just have to wait for the next one.”

  “And how long will that be?” I ask.

  “About half an hour.”

  It’s the longest half hour of my life. Finally, our bus arrives. This time I get on; I even get a seat.

  The route this bus takes jigs and jogs all over the place. At every stop, it seems like more people get on; no one is getting off. I start to worry. I’ve only been to this trailer park once before, and it’s not like I was paying much attention to the route. How will I know where to get off?

  I get out of my seat and make my way up to the driver. The next time he stops at a light, I tell him where I’m going and ask where I should get off. He says at the intersection of Two-hundredth and Twenty-fourth. He’ll call out the stop just before we get there. I go back to my place, but this guy with a shaved head and a lot of tattoos has taken my seat. I hang onto the back of it and try to pierce the guy’s bald head with my steely glare.

  The driver calls my stop and I’m barely down the steps before I hear my mom yelling. Her car is parked on the other side of the road, but she’s gotten out and is heading for me. For a wild minute, I think about climbing back onto the bus. She looks that mad.

  “What possessed you
!” she yells. “I’ve been worried sick. I have your granddad out looking for you. Your dad’s on his way home so he can help.”

  “But I left you a message.”

  “Yes, and you said you’d be here at five-thirty.” She’s waving her arm in front of me, pointing at her watch. “It’s 6:25!” she says.

  “Well, one of the buses was full, so I had to wait for the next one.”

  “And how am I supposed to know that? You’ve never been on a bus before. You could easily have made a wrong connection. I had no idea where you were.”

  She’s soaked and her hair is all frizzled. Mine is hanging in clumps, and water is dripping off all the pointy ends. I’m shivering.

  “Shouldn’t we get in the car?” I ask.

  Mom turns around and stomps back to it. She stops at the first gas station we come to on the way back to Surrey and she uses the pay phone to call Grandma and Dad. After that, she doesn’t say a word until we’re almost home. By then, the car heater has warmed me up and I’m feeling almost human.

  “Lucy, just don’t ever do anything like that again, you understand? You really scared me.”

  She doesn’t have to worry. I’m feeling so stupid. My trip plan is a soggy mess in my hands, but now I see that it says right at the top that my arrival time would be 5:46. I was so busy concentrating on getting to the right buses, all I worried about was whether I’d be on time to catch them.

  “I won’t,” I say. “It seemed like a good plan at the time. I thought I’d be able to show you I could take the bus home from school.”

  “You showed me all right.”

  “I wouldn’t want to do it again anyway. It took me almost three hours, and it was a totally miserable trip.”

  It’s seven o’clock when we get home. Lucky me, I get through the door first. The dog is frantic, but before I can even bend down to pat her, the smell hits me. Mom turns on the light. I look down at the floor. The dog’s had an accident. I’ve just stepped in it.

  “Put on a pair of my boots and take the dog out,” Mom says. Her teeth are clenched. I think it would be a good idea for both the dog and me to get out of her way for awhile. We take a long walk.

  By the time we get back, Mom has cleaned up the mess and heated up some soup. I take off her boots and she throws a couple of cheese sandwiches on the stove.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say. “I didn’t ever think I’d cause this much trouble.”

  Mom shrugs. “Part of it’s my fault. I knew the dog had been cooped up all day. I should have taken her with me. I could have walked her while I was waiting for you. I was just in such a panic I wasn’t thinking straight.”

  She puts her hands on my shoulders and leans her forehead against mine. After a second, she says, “I get first dibs on that bathtub!” she says.

  “That’s okay. I can wait till I get to Dad’s.”

  “Oh,” she says, “I told him you might as well spend the night here. He brought a pile of work home with him anyway.”

  That’s fine by me.

  eight

  The next day, I’m telling Siobhan and Mariah about my horrible bus trip and how it seems that there’s no way I can stay at Holy Name, that I’m going to have to go to Carey High near the trailer park.

  “I bet the public school won’t be all that different,” Mariah says. “Just no religion classes. Will you still go to church?”

  “Of course,” I answer. “Just because I live too far away to get to a Catholic high school doesn’t mean I’m turning into a godless heathen.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way …”

  “Well, I should hope not.”

  “I wish I could go to the public school,” Siobhan says.

  “Why?”

  “I’d really like to lose this uniform.” I haven’t even thought about that part. “I don’t know what I’ll wear. Probably I’ll put on the wrong thing and everyone will think I’m a geek.” It’s one more thing for me to worry about.

  “I know what I’d wear,” says Siobhan.

  “I can just guess: a short skirt and a plunging neckline to show off your boobs.”

  She looks offended. “You’re just jealous because you don’t have any.”

  I don’t even bother replying. Mom and I are moving on Friday, so this will be my last week in school with Siobhan. I don’t want to end up having a fight with her.

  It’s a good thing that I don’t, because she can be very nice sometimes.

  On my last day, just as we’re finishing lunch, she says she has to get something from her locker. We’re sitting at a table with a bunch of the other girls from our class, and when she leaves, they all start acting a bit weird. They keep looking toward the door she went through, then exchanging sideways glances.

  A few minutes later, Siobhan comes back, carrying a cake tin with a plastic lid. She sets it down in front of me, and everyone yells, “Surprise!”

  She takes the lid off.

  The cake has cream-colored icing and she’s drawn a face on it. The eyes are outlined in brown icing, but the irises are filled in green, like my eyes. The mouth is pink and sad. She has made blue tears below the eyes.

  I take one look at it and start to cry.

  Siobhan’s face falls. “It’s supposed to make you feel better,” she says. “I made it myself. I thought you’d like it.”

  “I love it,” I say between sobs. “It’s a beautiful cake. You’re the best friend in the world.”

  “Hey! A cake! Do we get some?” Jason has come up behind us and is looking over my shoulder.

  Siobhan jumps. He shouldn’t sneak up on her like that. Brad and Thomas are there too. The three of them always hang together. I keep my face turned from them and wipe my eyes and nose on a napkin so they won’t see I’ve been crying. I don’t have to worry. No one notices me. They’re all busy talking.

  “Siobhan baked Lucy a good-bye cake,” says Mariah.

  “You baked it yourself?” Jason asks. He’s smiling at Siobhan, and I can almost see her heart beating right through her shirt. She has a major crush on him. She says she doesn’t, but her blushing and giggling are a dead giveaway.

  “I’m a multitalented girl,” she says. “If the three of you behave, we might even let you have a piece.” She doesn’t have to offer twice.

  “Cool, I’ll get a knife and plates,” Jason says, and he heads off to find them.

  When he gets back, he hands Siobhan the knife, and she starts cutting the cake. The boys are hanging over the table like a flock of vultures. Who’s this cake for anyway? I don’t appreciate these guys barging in.

  Siobhan gives me the first piece. “This is for Lucy, who we’re going to majorly miss.”

  Then she cuts pieces for the other girls and for Jason and his friends. The boys’ pieces are bigger than mine, but I don’t get time to worry about how unfair that is because Jason holds up his piece of cake and says, “To Lucy!”

  All the kids hold up their pieces of cake like they’re toasting me. I almost start crying again.

  nine

  I stay with Dad on Friday night and all day Saturday because Mom’s busy moving and I’d just be in the way. After mass on Sunday, Dad and I go out for lunch. It’s about one-thirty when we drive through the gates of Highland Estates. When we get to the trailer, the only car parked by it is a red Miata. I know that car. It belongs to Gina. Sure enough, she opens the door of the trailer and comes out onto the little porch before I even get out of the car.

  “Where’s Mom?”

  “She’ll be back in a minute,” Gina says. “She’s gone with her landlord and his friend to pick up the couch. They have a truck.”

  We’re still standing there talking about it when a big Dodge Ram pulls up. There are two guys in the front seat. They pull ahead of our trailer and start to back into the space next to the door on the side. Dad’s car is in the way. I can see Mom looking out the back window of the crew cab.

  “Harold, they need to swing the truck in here,” says Gina. />
  “Yeah, well, I’ll be on my way then. See you next Saturday, Lucy.” He puts the van in gear and backs out.

  As soon as the truck is parked near the trailer, the two guys jump out. One, the cute guy I saw working on the car the first day I came here with Mom, pulls his seat forward and helps Mom out. It’s a big jump for her. Then he and the guy who was driving start unloading a couch off the back of the truck. The pattern is orange and gold flowers against a cream background. There’s a chair to go with it.

  “A Sally Ann special,” Mom says. She’s come over to stand by me, and we’re watching the men wrestle the couch up the stairs and through the door of the trailer.

  Just as the two men come out to get the chair off the truck, Mom’s car pulls up. Ian gets out of it and reaches into the back seat for the very big case of beer he has there. I don’t know why he’s driving Mom’s car. I’m about to ask when I see Dad’s car coming back. There’s no room for him to park, but it doesn’t matter because he’s not staying. He just stops his van in front of the trailer and leaves the motor running.

  “You forgot your homework.” He hands me my backpack.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  He’s not even looking at me. He’s watching Mom and Gina and the two guys who are carrying the chair now. When he notices Ian and the big case of beer, he frowns. “Looks like they’re planning a party,” he says to no one in particular. Then he drives off again without even saying good-bye.

  Dad’s not the only one who’s noticed the activity. I see someone peeking out the window of the pig trailer.

  We go inside. Mom is telling the men where to put the couch and chair – not that there are a lot of choices. There’s only one wall in the living room area that is long enough for the couch. I look around. The orange and gold flowers of the couch fabric go pretty well with the brown paneled walls, the brown carpet, and the grungy gold fridge and stove. Today, Mom’s also somehow come up with a coffee table and two end tables that are wood patterned but definitely not wood. The end tables are two tiered. On the top of one is a brown wood lamp with a bright orange shade. There’s a twenty-one-inch TV in the corner and a table with an Arborite top and chrome legs right next to the door we’ve come in.