by Lynne Ewing
I could still hear Mina’s crying. I stood and walked down the hall to comfort her.
Something was wrong.
I stopped. The crying came from another part of the house.
I tiptoed to the back of the house.
Mom sat at the kitchen table, crying. She held a picture of Jimmy in her hands.
“My poor funny bones,” she said, and then she cried some more.
I went back to bed, shivering, and bit my pillow.
I didn’t want to cry, because I knew it would make Jimmy sad if he could look down and see all of us crying.
I cried anyway.
5
Mom walked Mina to school.
The morning kindergarten starts twenty minutes before the other grades. Usually I walk Mina to school, but sometimes when Mom has the day off, she walks Mina to kindergarten. Then she comes home and talks to me for a few minutes before I leave. I like going to school early so I can hang out with my friends or work the computers.
After Mom and Mina left, I dug in the back of the closet for Jimmy’s old tennis shoes and put them on. I knew Mom wouldn’t want me to wear them. She’d say they were too big and would ruin my feet, or I’d fall and break an ankle.
I wore them anyway.
Someone knocked on the front door.
I knew it was pesky Zev.
I dodged out the back and ran down the alley. I tried to feel what Jimmy’s feet must have felt like in the shoes. He was a good runner.
At Mountain Street School, plywood covered most of the windows. Graffiti covered the plywood. The names don’t make sense anymore. That doesn’t stop anyone from spraying on his own tag.
Lots of schools in L.A. have metal detectors. Mountain Street School doesn’t have one yet. I try not to think about it, but sometimes you hear about kids sneaking guns to school.
Mrs. Bilky stood in front of class showing us magnets. As if we hadn’t seen that a million times before sixth grade.
Everyone was zoning out.
I stared at Lisa Tosca. She was the prettiest girl in school. I had never spoken to her. Yet. I liked to plan ways to meet her. Maybe I’d win an award and she would come up and congratulate me. Or maybe I’d crawl up a tree and save her cat, if she had one.
Gus Clayton sat in front of me in Mrs. Bilky’s class. Gus was my best friend since first grade. He hadn’t gone to Jimmy’s funeral. I wanted him to. But I understood. He had problems of his own.
He turned to me.
“I’m going to run away,” he said.
“Don’t, Gus,” I said.
I felt sorry for him. He had no one at home who cared enough about him to go looking for him if he did run away.
“Gus,” Mrs. Bilky yelled at him, like he was the only kid in class not paying attention.
I wanted to stand up and tell her that enough people were yelling at Gus already.
“I was the one talking, Mrs. Bilky,” I said.
“I see,” she said, as if it made sense that I was talking because my brother had died.
She turned back to her magnets. I could hear the magnets clicking together on her desk.
“You’re the fastest runner at school,” I whispered to Gus. “Stay, and maybe if you keep running you can win an award or even go to the Olympics.”
“I’m going to run,” he said.
I knew he didn’t mean track.
6
I didn’t have time to worry about Gus. Things were changing too fast to think about anything but Mom and Mina and me.
I walked home by myself. I watched the street now. Passing cars made me nervous.
I had a strange feeling as I got close to the house.
The house looked different.
For one thing, all the shades were pulled. For another, I couldn’t hear the TV. I should have been able to hear Nickelodeon. Mina was always watching it.
I decided to check the back of the house first.
I walked around to the alley, then climbed over the fence into Mrs. Washington’s yard.
I know her dog. Spider. I think everyone does. His legs don’t match his body. He looks as if he’s walking on stilts. His body is round and his legs are spindly and long like a spider. That’s how he got his name.
Spider wagged his tail. It’s as long and as skinny as his legs. I guess he thought I was coming to play with him.
I stood on his doghouse.
Spider barked and tried to jump on top of his doghouse with me.
I looked over the fence.
I couldn’t see anyone in the kitchen window. It was too dark inside to see anything, really.
Mom should have been making dinner. She always spends a long time cooking dinner. She’s a great cook; even when it seems like there’s no food in the house for dessert, she makes something. She can make candy from grapefruit peel and apple pie from crackers. Sometimes she makes candy with leftover mashed potatoes, powdered sugar, and peanut butter.
I climbed over the fence and walked slowly up to the back door.
I opened the door and walked inside.
The house was empty.
7
I stood in the kitchen for a long minute.
Even the refrigerator was gone. Little gray dust balls wiggled in a draft where the refrigerator had been.
I looked on the counter for a note, then peeked inside the living room. What I saw made my blood run cold.
Spray-paint graffiti covered the walls.
A crew of taggers had broken into the house and written on the living-room walls.
These guys write anywhere. One time I saw a guy shove his foot in the exhaust pipe on a bus. He jumped up and wrote his tag while the bus pulled away from the curb.
I took another step.
The floorboards creaked. I knew this house. I had lived here since I could remember. One thing I knew, the floorboards didn’t creak where I was walking.
The sound came from the back of the house. Someone was inside with me.
I crept from the living room to the hallway. All the time I prayed the other person in the house was Mom. I hoped she was packing my things. I wanted her to tell me what was going on.
Another part of me knew the other person could be some bandit tagger or a gangbanger.
I held my breath and hid in the first bedroom.
The room was empty except for a broken Christmas-tree light on the floor.
Floorboards creaked again.
Someone was coming toward me.
I pressed flat against the wall.
Then I heard loud music. The music hurt my ears and made the walls vibrate. I eased to the window and peeked outside.
A chopped black Chevrolet swerved against the curb.
Suddenly someone grabbed my shoulder and yanked me into the hallway, then dragged me into the kitchen, pulling me with a force I couldn’t believe.
Next thing I knew, I was facedown in the dirt in the backyard as if I had lost at mumblety-peg.
That’s when gunfire opened on the house.
8
I couldn’t breathe. Someone was on top of me. I tried to scream, but grass and dirt filled my mouth. Mud packed into my nose.
Plaster and stucco flew around me.
Terrible explosions thundered in my ears; then the gunfire stopped.
Tires screeched.
It was silent for about two seconds before police cars skidded to a stop at the front curb. Police radios crackled in front of the house.
The weight lifted off me.
I turned.
Gus stood over me, brushing dirt off his jeans.
I spit out dirt and grass. Then I wiped my nose on my T-shirt.
“Man, you’re a sorry case for staying alive in this city,” Gus said. “Don’t you know they’re after you?”
“Me?”
“’Cause of your brother, man,” Gus said.
“Jimmy was no gangbanger,” I said.
“Everyone in this town is ganging and banging,” Gus said.
We heard steps inside the house, and then tires crunched gravel in the alley.
“Run!” Gus yelled.
“Why?” I asked.
“You don’t know anything about surviving in this city.”
He jerked my hand, and then I was flying over the fence with him, splinters sinking into my belly.
I fell near Spider. Spider growled and pounced at me.
I was dead for sure.
Spider jumped over my head and lunged at Gus.
Gus ran for the next fence and pulled himself up.
Spider bit his jeans and held tight. The dog yanked his head from side to side and growled.
The jeans slipped off. Gus fell behind the fence.
Spider brought the jeans to me as proud as if he had caught a cat.
I took the jeans and petted his head.
Someone looked over the fence into Mrs. Washington’s yard. I could see the shadow on the lawn in front of me.
I hoped it was a cop but I wasn’t going to test my luck and see. Maybe it was one of the guys in the black Chevrolet.
I hid inside the doghouse with the jeans.
Fleas thought I was dinner.
Spider pushed into the doghouse with me, his skinny feet poking my legs. His wagging tail hit my face.
I didn’t know what to do. How would I know when it was safe? Would it ever be safe?
9
It felt like I was in that smelly doghouse with Spider breathing in my face for at least half an hour. Then someone called my name.
“Timothy Thomas Cahill, what are you doing in the doghouse?”
No one except Mom ever calls me Timothy Thomas, not unless I’m in a world of trouble.
I peeked out. I could hardly see, the way Spider licked my face like I was a giant human lollipop.
“You come in here right now.” Mrs. Washington stood on the porch, her hands fisted on her wide hips. She wore a green robe, and pink curlers in her hair.
You don’t argue with Mrs. Washington.
I started to the back door. Gus leaned over the fence with his hand reaching out. I tossed his jeans to him.
“Man, you’re a sorry case for keeping your pants on in this city,” I said, and smiled.
He smiled back, but then he made some kind of gang sign with his hand.
That made me sad.
I went inside. Our refrigerator sat on the back porch. I’d know that refrigerator anywhere. When I was three, I colored on it with a green marker. Mom never got all the color off.
In the kitchen Mom sat at the table with a cup of coffee. She had a wide-eyed look on her face like she’d seen a ghost.
Detective Howard sat next to her, slapping his notebook against his thigh.
Mom stood and filled a coffee cup three quarters full of milk, then added coffee and put it in front of me.
She handed me a sugar bowl and spoon.
“Detective Howard wants to talk to you.” Her voice sounded sad.
I spooned sugar into the cup and stirred my milk coffee.
“Son, do you know who was shooting at the house?” Detective Howard asked.
“No,” I said, and sipped the sweet milk coffee.
“Did you see anyone?” Detective Howard asked.
“A black Chevrolet,” I said. “It was chopped. I didn’t see any faces.”
“What if we had been there?” Mom could barely speak.
“I don’t think the shooting was meant for you or your son, Mrs. Cahill, if that’s what has you worried,” Detective Howard said. “From the graffiti on the walls, it looks like rival gangs are trying to claim the house.”
That seemed to make Mom feel better. But it couldn’t make her feel great to know rival gangs were fighting over the house.
Detective Howard folded the notebook and gave a business card to Mom.
She was so nervous, she began chewing on the edge of the card.
“Try not to worry,” Detective Howard said.
Then he stood and left.
“If there’s no need to worry, then how come we moved in here with Mrs. Washington?” I asked.
Mom got a strange look on her face.
Mrs. Washington said, “I need the rent money, for one thing.”
Mom held up her hand. Her hands were always red from cleaning hotel rooms even though she wore big yellow rubber gloves. “Without Jimmy’s money from his job at the restaurant, we can’t afford to live there,” Mom said.
I felt really bad I had asked now.
Mom’s work cleaning hotel rooms wasn’t enough.
“You left for school this morning before I got back,” Mom said. “I didn’t have a chance to explain everything to you.” Then she choked up. “What would have happened to you if you had gone home to the old house?”
I didn’t bother to tell her that I had. Or how Gus had saved my life.
I sipped the sweet milk coffee instead.
I didn’t mind moving. I liked Mrs. Washington. Good smells always came from her kitchen. The best part was now I had a dog.
Spider must have read my mind. He jumped on my lap. His bony feet poked me like someone jabbing me with the blunt end of a knife.
“Get down, Spider,” I yelled.
Mrs. Washington gave me a pooper-scooper. “I guess this will be your job now, Tito.”
She and Mom laughed. Mom laughed too loudly, like she was desperate to make herself happy again.
I stood on the back porch with the pooper-scooper and watched Mom.
Mom saw me watching her and gave me the smile I used to see her give Jimmy.
“Take Mina with you,” she said.
Mina and I went outside. I could hear police radios crackle on the other side of the fence.
I cleaned the yard with the pooper-scooper. Spider danced around my feet with a ball in his mouth.
“Why aren’t dogs neat like cats?” Mina asked, following me.
“I don’t know.”
“Why doesn’t Spider clean himself?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why do dogs leave such a mess all over? Can’t dogs pick one place?”
“It’s nature, Mina.”
“Oh,” she said.
I guess neatness is important if you’re going to be a princess.
I had other things on my mind.
“Listen, Mina,” I said. “You can’t keep wandering off now. Things could be dangerous.”
“Don’t say that,” Mina said. “You’re making Spider scared.”
Then she ran inside to Mom.
I guess if you’re going to be a princess, you want to live in a safe world, too.
Jimmy had made our world safe.
At least I thought he had.
10
Mrs. Washington’s house doesn’t look like it from the outside, but it has two bedrooms upstairs. The walls slant and the windows jut out on the roof.
Mrs. Washington gave one upstairs room to me and the one across the hall to Mina. The rooms smelled of mothballs and Lysol spray, but even that couldn’t cover the old smells of heat and dust.
I opened the window and hoped Mom didn’t see. She’d make me close it so I wouldn’t catch a cold. I think she really just felt better with the windows locked.
Mom had put my clothes in two drawers and in the closet. She’d even tacked my G.I. Joe posters on the walls even though I’d outgrown them.
I had never had my own bedroom.
Then I noticed Jimmy’s clothes were gone.
“Mom, where is Jimmy’s stuff?”
“I’m going to give it to people who need it more,” she said.
“There’s no one in the world who needs it more than I do,” I said.
She looked at me curiously as if she was going to cry. I didn’t want her to cry. Not again. I knew Jimmy would be mad at me if she did.
Then she smiled and said, “You’re right. Help me carry the boxes up to your room.”
Mom and I each carried a box up to my new room. Mina carried a shoe b
ox filled with track medals and shoelaces and a stop watch.
Later, Mina and I went through the boxes. Jimmy didn’t have much. He never got all the things he wanted. Jimmy always said he wanted money so he could hear life sing. He thought money made life better.
I looked in the first box, stuffed with T-shirts and jeans, and wondered how money or things could make life better. Maybe in the end Jimmy knew his life was singing with the way he made everyone laugh. I hoped he did.
I slept in Jimmy’s old Raiders T-shirt. Mina slept with his track medals clutched in her hands. A princess needs treasures, I guess.
That night something woke me. I sat up in bed, listening.
Spider had his nose on the windowsill, whining as if something had scared him.
When I was little, I woke up in the night. Many times. Because I thought I heard Dad coming home. He left when Mina was born. He couldn’t take living here. He said if he had to be poor, he’d rather be poor in Tennessee, where he didn’t have to breathe smog all day long. Mom wouldn’t go back to Tennessee with him. She had dreams about a new life here in Los Angeles. She didn’t want Jimmy and me to grow up and work in the mines.
I wondered if she had told Dad about Jimmy or if she even knew where Dad lived now.
I don’t think about Dad the way I used to.
I stared at the dark and wondered if I would forget Jimmy the same way.
I promised myself that I would think about Jimmy at least once a day for the rest of my life.
Spider whined again.
A car door slammed.
I crept out of bed and looked out the window.
The blue Oldsmobile was parked in front of our old house.
Spider licked my hand. I kept scratching him behind his ear, trying to keep him quiet.
Lamar and Ice Breaker Joe stood on the sidewalk. The guy in the baseball cap, the one who wore the bandanna across his face like a bandit, used a crowbar to break open the front door to my old house.
They went inside.
A fourth guy stayed at the car and looked up and down the street, watching.
I didn’t know if I should call the police or wake Mom.
Before I could decide, they ran back outside.
They jumped in the car and drove away. I wondered what they’d been doing inside. The house was empty.