“They’ve disappeared. No one knows where they went. My dad said Family Services considers him an abandoned child.”
“Wow, that stinks,” Charlotte said. “Isn’t there anything we can do?” Her eyes were bright with compassion. Justin smiled at her. His opinion of Charlotte had changed so much since the trip to the YO Ranch. He had a hard time believing she was the same girl he had thought of as ditzy and shallow before. How could he have been so wrong about someone?
“My dad is going to call and find out what’s happening today. He could stay at my house like he did before, but Family Services may not let him.”
“Why not? I thought they were supposed to do what’s best for the kid.”
The bell rang, and Justin went to the office on his way to his locker to ask for Lee’s assignments. The school secretary agreed to notify his teachers and collect them so he could pick them up on the way home.
“Is he sick?” the secretary asked.
Justin nodded. It wasn’t really a lie.
* * * *
“I made an appointment to talk to the people at Family Services tomorrow morning,” Justin’s dad announced at the dinner table. “I think you should come, too, Justin. You can explain better than any of us why we want Lee to stay with us until his parents are located.”
At the hospital, Justin could barely control his urge to tell Lee about the visit to Family Services in the morning.
“Let’s not get his hopes up until we’re sure we can work something out,” Justin’s dad had advised. “He doesn’t need any more disappointments.”
It was hard to sit on the edge of the bed and think of something to say that didn’t involve false promises. Lee’s eyes still had that dull look that reminded Justin of a puppy he had seen once at the animal shelter. A homely mutt with a scruffy brown coat, the puppy was no longer meeting visitors eagerly at the wire gate. He seemed to have accepted the fact that no one wanted him.
At eight sharp the next morning, the woman Justin had seen in Lee’s hospital room on the day he was admitted escorted Justin and his parents to her office and asked them to sit down. She opened a thin manila folder and read in silence for several minutes. The nameplate on her cluttered desk read Rachel Knowles.
“I have almost no information on Lee Boyd and his parents,” she said finally, looking up at them. “The insurance card lists an address on Oakdale, but the house looks empty. At least no one answers the door. The phone number listed on the insurance application is no longer in service. Can you tell me anything about his parents and where they are now?”
“We’ve only met them once,” Justin’s dad explained. “Lee says they travel, but he doesn’t know where they are, and neither do we.”
Rachel Knowles leaned back in her chair and looked at each of them appraisingly. Her perfume filled the office, giving the air a thick sweetness that was almost suffocating.
“What’s your interest in this boy?” she asked. “Why would you want to take on the responsibility for a suicidal teenager?”
The room was so quiet Justin could hear the wall clock ticking. His father turned and looked at him.
“He...he saved my life,” Justin said, looking up at Mrs. Knowles. “He hardly knew me, but he saved my life. I wasn’t even nice to him when he came to our school. Everyone treated him like a freak. I don’t even know why he did it, but he saved my life.”
“Can you tell me what happened?” Mrs. Knowles asked, her eyes softening.
Haltingly, Justin began to tell her about the Lee Boyd that only he and Charlotte knew, the competent boy who found enough strength to save all three of them when no one else could. When he finished, Mrs. Knowles stared at him for a minute in silence.
“That’s some story, Justin,” she said. “I wish I could give you an answer today, but I’m afraid I can’t. There are some things I have to look into. I’ll see what I can do, and I’ll be in touch.”
Justin’s backpack felt heavier than usual as he climbed the steps at school, clutching the excuse note explaining why he was late.
* * * *
“Mrs. Knowles called. We’re going to bring Lee home on Wednesday,” Justin’s mom said when he dropped his bulging backpack on the kitchen floor after school. “His psychiatrist said he would be better off in a familiar place while the police try to locate his parents. We had to agree to an investigation of our backgrounds, and there is a pile of forms we need to fill out. Your dad wants us to wait until he’s with us to talk to Lee about it.”
Justin felt a weight lifting from his shoulders. “That’s great!” he said. “Maybe they won’t come back and we can keep him.”
“Well, let’s take this one step at a time. He’s not a stray puppy. I’m sure his parents are going to want him back.”
“If they wanted him, why would they leave him by himself all the time?”
“That’s a good question,” Justin’s mom said. “Leaving a child by himself like that just doesn’t compute. There must be some reason why they couldn’t take him with them. There is such a thing as homeschooling. If they have to travel all the time, they could teach him themselves.”
“He told me they worked out of hotel rooms, and they had to move around a lot to keep anyone from tracing them.”
“The world is full of strange people. He seems like such a smart kid to have grown up mostly on his own.”
“He is smart. He reads all the time.”
Justin was suddenly hungry for the first time since Friday night, and he made quick work of his mom’s chili and corn bread. His dad seemed much more upbeat, too, and sang loudly along with George Strait on the way to the hospital, a habit that normally irritated Justin and his mom. This time they sang along. Carrying a pile of books and assignments, Justin was the last one through the door when they arrived at Lee’s room.
“Uh, oh. Here comes the make-up work,” the hairless boy in the first bed commented. “Had to happen sooner or later.”
Lee was sitting up in the chair. His hospital gown was arranged awkwardly around his knees, and he looked up, embarrassed, when he saw them come in.
“I brought you some clothes from your backpack,” Justin’s mom said, handing him a T-shirt, clean underwear, and a pair of sweatpants. “I hope you don’t mind my going through your stuff. I thought you might be fed up with hospital fashions by now.”
“Thank you,” Lee said, with obvious gratitude. Sliding his feet into the sweatpants, he stood up to adjust them under his shapeless hospital gown.
“What have they told you about getting released?” Justin’s dad asked.
Lee looked at the floor. “Nothing,” he said.
“Do you want to stay with us again until your parents come back?”
Slowly Lee’s eyes traveled up until they came to rest apprehensively on Justin’s dad’s face.
“Do you think I’ll be allowed to stay with you?”
“Family Services said it was okay until your parents come back.”
“I don’t think they’ll come back,” Lee said.
“Sure they will,” Justin’s dad said. “Your mom was very upset about what happened to you.”
“I know. I wish I could tell her I’m sorry. I hate it when she cries.” Regret crept across his face.
“You can tell her when they come back. Does it work for you to stay with us in the meantime?”
“Yes. God...yes,” Lee’s eyes filled with tears again. “I swear I won’t be any more trouble.”
“You’ll have to see your psychiatrist twice a week. Are you willing to do that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The hospital agreed to release you on Wednesday.”
For a moment, Lee’s face fell.
“I’m sorry it can’t be today, but they have their piles of paperwork to wade through. In the meantime, you can get started on this mountain of homework.”
“Lee will be back at school Thursday,” Justin told Charlotte the next morning. “At least I hope he will. My dad is going to
write a note to the school telling them he was sick. He’s going to stay with us, but the police are looking for his parents. I don’t know what will happen if they find them.”
“Will they be arrested if they get caught?”
“That’s what Lee told me. I think that’s why they left so suddenly when he got to the hospital. I guess they were afraid someone would ask too many questions since Lee tried to kill himself.”
“I feel so sorry for him,” Charlotte said. “My mom says leaving him alone in the house for days at a time like they did is a form of child neglect.”
“Do you want to come over on Saturday and go hiking or something? We could take some sandwiches and go down to the creek. Maybe it would take his mind off his troubles.”
“That would be fun. I’ll have to ask my mom, but I’ll bet she says yes.”
* * * *
Justin’s father took the day off from work to fill out forms and pick Lee up at the hospital. He and Justin’s mom had scheduled a visit from Family Services in the morning and would allow them to inspect the house to be sure Lee would be staying in a safe environment. The bathroom door had been repaired—without a lock. Even though his parents were both staying at home for the day, they made Justin go to school.
“Lee’s going back to school tomorrow. We’re hoping he can pull his grades out of the basement and pass for the semester. It would be a shame for him to have to go to summer school.”
Apprehension hovered over Justin’s head all day. There were so many things that could go wrong. He had forgotten about Lee’s horse, but now that he remembered he worried whether someone was feeding it. He needed to ask Lee about it when he got home.
“Have you heard when Lee is coming back to school?” Mrs. Farr asked. “He must be really sick. Can you take the exam study sheet to him?”
“Sure,” Justin said. “I think he might be back tomorrow. He’s feeling a lot better.”
Casey fell in step beside Justin in the hall on the way to lunch.
“What happened to Bamboo Boy?” she asked.
“He’s sick,” Justin said. “And he’s not Chinese. His mom’s Korean.”
“Big whoop,” Casey said. “I was hoping he’d moved back to Ch—, uh, Korea.”
“Tough luck then,” Justin said irritably.
“Look, I can see why you stick up for him since he pulled you out of the river and all. But you have to admit he’s crazy.”
Justin fixed Casey with an angry glare. “I don’t think he’s the one who’s crazy,” he snapped, turning into the boy’s bathroom to get rid of her.
Justin headed straight for the bus when school let out.
“Justin...wait,” a familiar voice called as he headed out the school’s front door. He looked back and saw Charlotte running to catch up with him, her enormous backpack bumping into kids in the hall as she raced past them.
Justin moved out from in front of the after-school stampede and waited for her to catch up.
“It’s done,” she said, panting from the effort of lugging the huge backpack at a run. She took Justin’s arm and guided him away from the crowd of kids hanging around outside the front door.
“I asked Mrs. Farr to call me out of class during her conference period so I could talk to her. She did, and I really spilled my guts about Casey. Mrs. Farr is one unhappy little lady now. She said she was going to think about what to do overnight and call Casey’s parents in tomorrow for a conference. I was worried that she might not believe me, but when I was telling her about seeing Casey on the bus just before it started to roll, you could almost see smoke coming out of her ears.”
“Did you tell her about the toilet paper?” Justin asked.
“Yep. And I told her about how mean Casey is to Brenda and some of the other girls.”
“All right!” Justin said, slapping her with a high five. “I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes when Mrs. Farr gets ahold of her.”
“Me either. Course, I wouldn’t want to be in my shoes when Casey decides to get her revenge.”
“Will you tell me if she starts giving you trouble?” Justin asked. “I don’t know what I can do, besides let her know that I’m on to her, but I’ll stand right there beside you while she screams and tears your hair out by the roots.”
“Oh, thanks, pal! Right now I’m so mad that I’m not very scared of her anymore. Let the games begin,” she said with an angry gleam in her slate-gray eyes.
* * * *
“Where’s Lee,” Justin asked, bursting through the door into the kitchen.
“What’s this? No ‘Hi Mom?’”
“Sorry. Hi Mom. Where’s Lee?”
“He and your dad went down to the horse pens an hour or so ago. I think your dad wanted to talk to him alone.”
Justin grabbed a chocolate chip cookie off the plate on the table and headed out the door. The horses were gone and there was no sign of his dad or Lee. They must have gone riding without him. Disappointed, Justin turned back toward the house. In two weeks his cast would be taken off, and then he could take Lee down to the creek and show him how to slide down the bank on horseback and jump off into the biggest pool. Right now, he wasn’t supposed to get his cast wet, and the infernal itching started if he stayed out in hot weather too long.
The weekend stretched ahead of him filled with promise. He wanted to take Lee hiking in the woods. On the other side of the creek, acres of brushy woodlands and limestone bluffs led down toward the Leon River. There were clearings and rock shelters to explore, and Justin knew where to find animal footprints, armadillo holes, and crawfish scooting backward in shallow water with a flip of their tails. With a little bacon tied to a string they were easy to catch. Maybe Charlotte would come with them.
He thought about the excitement before the trip to the YO Ranch. He had been so sure that his outdoor savvy would make him stand out in the crowd, and he would be able to dish out bits of outdoor lore whenever the need for an expert came up. But when the chips were down, he had needed Lee to get him out of trouble. He was more than a little disappointed in himself. He had overestimated his own abilities and underestimated Lee’s. And Charlotte’s. Maybe there had been a purpose behind the accident—to make him see that overconfidence was dangerous. Before the accident, he had felt invincible, and his mom’s constant reminders to be careful only caused a moment of irritation. The sight of Charlotte’s horse bolting down that game trail had left him without a choice. He knew he couldn’t have stayed with the others and let her deal with the runaway alone. If he hadn’t hesitated for a few seconds, it might have ended differently.
Lugging his backpack to his room, Justin threw himself down on the bed to watch TV.
His ribs cried out in protest. They still weren’t completely healed. Flipping through the channels, he heard voices coming from the kitchen. His dad and Lee must have come in. Sitting up slowly, he pushed the power button on the remote as Lee came in the bedroom door.
“Hey, man,” Justin said. “They finally let you out.”
Yeah,” Lee said. “I thought I was going crazy in there. Wait a minute—I already am crazy.”
“No, you’re not,” Justin said. “You’ve just had some rotten luck lately.”
“Rotten luck is the only kind of luck I’ve ever had.”
“No, its not, man. You’re forgetting about the day you met me.”
“Oh, right. That was my lucky day.”
He flopped down at the foot of Justin’s bed and stared up at the ceiling.
“You know...when I heard the car horn honking and knew my parents were here, I suddenly just couldn’t do it anymore. You are the first friend I’ve had in years. I knew it was dangerous for me to make friends, but after what happened at the YO Ranch, things changed. I wanted to stay someplace where someone cared whether I was alive or dead.”
Lee got up and walked restlessly to the window and looked out. “I don’t know what will happen now, but your dad said I should try to put the future out of my mind and concentra
te on the present.”
Justin couldn’t think of anything helpful to say, and an uncomfortable silence settled over the room.
“I promised your dad I would never try something like that again. Hurting myself, I mean. He said if I would promise that, he would promise to try his best to find a way to keep me here. You have a pretty cool dad. But I guess you know that.”
“Yeah, I know that,” Justin said.
Chapter Twelve
“What about your horse?” Justin asked at supper. “Is someone taking care of him?”
“It’s a her, and the stable feeds her twice a day. I guess she’s all right. On the first of the month, my parents send the stable a check for her board. I don’t know whether they’ll keep doing that or not.”
“Maybe we should go out there this afternoon and check on her,” Justin’s dad suggested.
“That would be cool. I could let her into one of the outdoor pens for a while. She may not have been out of her stall for a long time.”
The stable had two long barns with open alleyways in the middle. Lee led the way down the alleyway in the second barn. The pungent smell of hay and horse manure filled Justin’s nostrils. The barn was peaceful and cool with only the soft sounds of contented horses snorting and moving around quietly in their stalls. Lee led the way to a stall near the back and slid the door open. A black mare pushed her nose under Lee’s arm.
“Hi, Rita,” Lee said, putting an arm around her neck affectionately. He reached for the halter hanging on the front of the stall and expertly flipped it over her nose and buckled it, leading her out into the alleyway. Straw clung to her black coat, and one long stem hung down her face from her foretop, giving her a comical expression. Lee pulled it loose and ran his hand over her sleek neck.
“What’s her name?” Justin asked, approaching the mare with his hand out.
“Rita. Rita Hayworth. She’s named for an actress who used to be in old-time movies.”
“She’s pretty enough to be in the movies,” Justin said, rubbing her under the chin.
“She’s part Arabian and part quarter horse,” Lee said. “My parents got her for me when I was eight. She’s really gentle.”
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