The Swift Boys & Me

by Kody Keplinger

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Actually,” Mama continued, “I asked her to start checking in on you during the day, too. I know Mrs. Swift usually does that, but with everything going on …” She trailed off, sighed, and finished with, “Well, she’s got a lot going on. And I’d feel better if Mrs. Hooper looked after you a little.”

  For some reason, I immediately wanted to defend Mrs. Swift, even though Mama hadn’t said nothing bad about her. But the truth was, Mrs. Swift hadn’t checked on me at all over the past couple weeks. I hadn’t even seen her since that last day of school when she was drinking sweet tea in her lawn chair. Pretty much anybody in the subdivision could tell you where I’d been. Someone was always looking after me while I was working for them. But not Mrs. Swift.

  So I just nodded and said, “All right.”

  Mama stretched out her arm and ran a hand through my messy hair. Then she turned toward the kitchen, staring at the cabinets full of groceries. “This is pathetic,” she said, “but I don’t feel like cooking. Pizza?”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said.

  * * *

  I was already in bed when Mama got home from her date with Richard the next night, but I hadn’t quite fallen asleep yet. I heard the key turn in the lock, followed by a bunch of laughing and whispering. And I thought I heard Mama singing, too. Something was definitely up.

  And I found out what the next night, when Mama and Richard sat me down on the couch after dinner.

  “We need to talk to you about something, kiddo,” Richard said.

  “Something good,” Mama said quickly. “You’re not in trouble or anything, baby. I know you’re a worrier, but this is something good. Real good.”

  Richard nodded. “Very good. Superb, even.”

  I laughed. “Superb” was another one of my vocabulary words from last year.

  “Well,” Mama said. “Something happened last night. Richard and I made a decision, and, well …” She lifted up her left hand, pressing her fingers to her mouth. And that’s when I saw the ring. A tiny little diamond on a gold band. I’d seen enough TV to know what that meant.

  “Y’all are getting married?” I asked. I could feel the grin splitting my face as the words tumbled out.

  Mama nodded, hand still over her mouth. But I could tell by the way her eyes scrunched up that she was grinning, too.

  “You okay with that, kiddo?” Richard asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s about time!”

  They both laughed. Mama wrapped her arms around me, pressing her face into my hair. “I’m so happy, Nola Baby,” she whispered. Then she kissed my cheek and pulled away.

  “There’s more,” Richard said. “The wedding will be at the end of the summer, right before you go back to school. And then —”

  “And then we’re moving!” Mama exclaimed. She threw her hands over her head when she said it, like she had just told me we were going to Disney World. Like she expected me to scream and jump up and down when I heard the news.

  I didn’t.

  My heart sank into my stomach and I felt the grin slip right off my mouth. “What?” I asked.

  “Not far,” Richard said quickly. “You’d still go to the same middle school.”

  “But … we’d be leaving the duplex?”

  “Of course,” Mama said. “Nola Baby, this place is hardly big enough for me and you. It’s way too small for all three of us.”

  “Where would we be going?” I asked.

  “Just across town, probably,” she said. “Not that far.”

  But it was far. Across town was too far to ride my bike to Rocky’s. Across town was too far to walk to Felicia’s house or Mr. Briggs’s front porch or Teddy Ryan’s trampoline.

  Across town was too far from the Swift boys.

  “I don’t wanna go,” I said.

  “What’s wrong, kiddo?” Richard asked.

  “I don’t wanna go,” I repeated, feeling like a baby but unable to help myself. “Can’t we just … can’t we just stay here?”

  “Nola,” Mama said. “We can’t live in this little duplex forever.”

  But we were supposed to. I was always supposed to live next door to Canaan and Brian and Kevin. Always. How could I ever live all the way across town? How could I be that far away from them?

  I felt tears burning my eyes.

  “Oh, baby.” Mama reached out to hug me, but I jumped off the couch, ducking under her arms, and took off for my room. I was mad at her. And at Richard. I wanted to yell and stomp my feet and throw things — but I didn’t want to get in trouble, so instead I just ran. It was bad enough they wanted me to move, but the way they’d treated it, like it was some sort of exciting present, was the worst.

  I heard Mama start to come after me, but then Richard said, “Let her go.” And I was glad. I didn’t want her to comfort me. Not unless she’d change her mind and say we could stay here.

  I slammed my door and buried myself under the covers on my bed. Tears were running, hot, down my face. I wiped them off with the corner of my blanket. I could hear movement through the wall. Muffled words and footsteps. I reached out and knocked, using the code me and Canaan had made up years ago.

  Maybe this time he’d answer.

  Maybe this time he’d know that I really needed him.

  I knocked again and again and again. Waiting.

  But he never replied.

  The next morning I sucked up my pride and walked over to the Swifts’ side of the duplex. No matter what was happening between Canaan and me, I knew he’d want to know about Mama’s news. And maybe, deep down, I hoped that hearing I was leaving would make him snap out of this mean streak and be my best friend again, while I was still around.

  Brian answered the front door. He looked just as bad as the last time I saw him, only this time he wasn’t crying. So that was good.

  “Hey, Nola,” he said. He sounded exhausted. “What’s up?”

  “Can I come in?” I asked. “I need to talk to y’all. Especially Canaan.”

  “Sure.” He stepped aside so I could walk into the house. “Kevin’s asleep in my room, but Canaan’s playing video games.”

  I couldn’t help looking at the living room. If Mama was there, she’d say it looked like a tornado had come through. There were pizza boxes and dirty dishes and piles of clothes all over the place. And not to be mean, but it sort of smelled. I’d never say that to any of the boys, though.

  “Where’s your mama?” I asked.

  “She got a new job at the gas station,” he said. “She’ll be back later.”

  “So she’s doing better?”

  Brian just shrugged. “Come on. Let’s tell Canaan you’re here.”

  Canaan was sitting on his bedroom floor with a controller in his hand. His hair was dirty and his clothes looked like they’d been worn for a few days. He didn’t look up from the TV when we walked in.

  “Hey,” I said. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Then talk,” he said, still clicking buttons on his controller.

  I looked over at Brian, standing in the doorway, then back at Canaan. “Mama and Richard are getting married,” I said. “They told me last night.”

  The old Canaan would’ve looked up at me and grinned. He would’ve been happy for Mama. He would’ve told me to tell her congratulations. Or he would’ve told her himself the next time he came over for dinner.

  Not this Canaan, though. Instead, he just shrugged and said, “So?”

  “Canaan,” I said, sitting down on the floor beside him. He still didn’t look at me. “Canaan, we’re moving. At the end of the summer, after the wedding, Mama and Richard and me are moving — probably across town. We won’t be neighbors anymore.”

  He kept playing his game. It was a racing game. His car swerved and weaved all over the road, bumping and scraping the other vehicles. For a second, all I could think was, I’m sure glad people don’t drive like that in real life. A second later, though, I realized Canaan still hadn’t said
a word. Realized he wasn’t gonna.

  “Did you hear me?” I asked. “I’m gonna be moving. I know you’re going through a hard time right now, and I know we ain’t talked much lately, but this is a big deal. We’ve always been neighbors. I … I kinda thought we always would be.”

  “That’s dumb,” he said.

  “You didn’t used to think so,” I mumbled.

  We were both quiet for a while. Every second of silence made my heart hurt a little worse. I wanted to curl into a ball. I wanted to cry. I even wanted to scream at him, but I didn’t have the nerve. He didn’t even care I was leaving. I knew this summer had been off to a bad start, but was he really not gonna miss me? I’d miss him. Even after what he’d said about me being lucky not to have a father — well, I’d still miss him every single day.

  I missed him every day already, and I was just next door.

  Brian left and headed back into the living room. I didn’t move, though. Part of me hoped Canaan would realize how much I was hurting and apologize. I tried not to let myself hope, though. Instead, I just focused on not crying. My stomach ached and my eyes burned. But I didn’t want to start sobbing right then. He’d already said he thought I was dumb. That would make it worse.

  I cleared my throat and tried to make my voice sound upbeat and happy. “Well,” I said, “at least we have the circus. That’ll be right before the wedding, and I’ve been working a lot, so I think I might even be able to save up enough money for all four of us. It’ll be like a going-away party.” I laughed. “A going-away party with people riding elephants and walking tightropes. And —”

  Canaan threw his controller on the floor and stood up so fast that I jumped. “Stop talking about the stupid circus!” he yelled.

  My lip started to tremble the way it always did when somebody yelled at me. “But —”

  “Just stop it!” he yelled. “And go home!”

  “Canaan.” I stood up. “I just —”

  “Go!” He pushed me out of the bedroom. Not hard or nothing. He just put his hands on my arms and made me walk backwards. Then he slammed the door in my face.

  I stood there, staring at the silver knob while a lump the size of a baseball worked its way up into my throat.

  “Sorry,” Brian said from somewhere behind me. “He’s been like that with everybody lately. Not just you.”

  That didn’t make it better, though. I wasn’t everybody. I was his best friend. His best-best friend. I was supposed to be the one person he liked when he was mad at everybody else. That’s what he was to me.

  “He’ll come around eventually,” Brian said. But he didn’t sound too hopeful.

  “Will you tell Kevin for me when he wakes up?” I asked. “About me moving.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Sorry, Nola.”

  Two “sorrys” didn’t make it hurt any less, though. I shook my head and walked out the front door, walking fast so that he wouldn’t see the tears starting down my cheeks.

  It sure felt like I’d been crying a lot lately.

  I don’t know why I headed toward Teddy Ryan’s backyard. I just didn’t want to go home yet, and I saw that his parents’ car wasn’t in the driveway. The trampoline, where everything had been good once, where we’d all had fun, just seemed like the right place to go.

  I wiggled under the fence’s broken board and climbed onto the trampoline. I jumped for a few minutes, but then I stopped and sat down. It was the first time I’d been here by myself. Canaan had discovered the broken plank first. He’d told us all about it and brought us here. After that, the trampoline had always seemed like a magical place. Our secret — the boys’ and mine. No one else in the neighborhood knew how to sneak through the fence. No one knew we came here. And when we did, we were always laughing.

  And now I was here alone. It was the same place. The same trampoline. But it felt all wrong.

  I buried my face in my knees and let myself cry — really cry — because no one could see me and because it all hurt so much.

  I’m not sure how long I sat there. Or how long I cried. But I was so wrapped up in everything that I didn’t even hear the Ryans’ car pull into the driveway out front. I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard it. Maybe I did before, but Kevin was always the one to let us know, alerting us with his robot voice. Without him, I didn’t even know they’d gotten home. Not until the back door opened and Teddy Ryan walked out.

  “Nola?” he said.

  I scrambled off the trampoline, wiping my face with my hands and running toward the fence, my heart pounding. I heard Teddy’s mother call from the house.

  “Teddy? Who are you talking to? Is there somebody there?”

  I’d just started shimmying through the gap when I heard Teddy yell back, “No. I was just talking to myself. No one’s out here.”

  I had no idea why Teddy had lied to his mama. He could’ve gotten me in real trouble. But the damage was done. He’d seen our secret way of sneaking through the fence. Soon his parents would know, and that board would be fixed.

  And Canaan would have even more reason to hate me.

  I’ll never forget the day we first snuck into Teddy Ryan’s backyard. It was June. Me and Brian were sitting on the swings, teaching Kevin how to make dandelion crowns while Canaan kicked a soccer ball around the yard. It had rolled into the neighbor’s yard a few minutes ago and he’d run off after it. I wasn’t paying much attention, though. I was too focused on not breaking the stems on the dandelions we’d collected.

  “Here you go,” I said, placing the finished chain on top of Kevin’s head. “A crown.”

  “I wanna make another one!” he said. He was already wearing a necklace, and so was I. We never had a lack of dandelions in our yard. In the summer, it was a sea of yellow behind the house. Mama and Richard hated them — said they were weeds — but I thought they looked more like flowers.

  “We can make one for Brian,” I said, since he was the only one without dandelion jewelry, even though he’d been helping us for the past hour. “Go pick some more dan —”

  “Y’all!” Canaan ran up to us, panting like a thirsty dog on a hot summer day. The soccer ball was tucked under his arm, but he dropped it and grabbed my arm. “Y’all gotta see this! Come on!”

  “What is it? Is something wrong?” I asked.

  “No — it’s great. Come on! Brian, Kevin, ya’ll, too! Come on!”

  The four of us ran through our neighbors’ lawns, heading toward Teddy Ryan’s house. Canaan led the way, not letting go of my hand until we reached the fence.

  “I was kicking the ball,” he said, kneeling down and running his hand across the planks like he was looking for something. “It rolled over here and I kicked it again and it hit the fence and a board — here it is! Look!” Canaan pushed one of the fence’s wooden planks and, to all of our amazement, it swung upwards.

  “You broke it!” Kevin squealed. “You’re gonna be in trouble.”

  “I didn’t break it,” Canaan said. “Don’t be dumb. It was already broke. I just found out. And we can fit through there. You know what that means? We can use the trampoline!”

  “Won’t we get in trouble?” I asked.

  “Not if no one catches us. Come on — they ain’t home right now. I already looked.”

  I glanced at Brian. He was older and smarter, and even though I really wanted to play on Teddy Ryan’s trampoline, I knew that if Brian said we shouldn’t, he was probably right. But Brian’s eyes were shining behind his glasses, and I realized he was just as excited as Canaan was.

  One by one, we wiggled under the fence. Then we all just stood there, staring at the trampoline in awe. To anyone else it was just a trampoline, but to us it was like stumbling into a fairy-tale land — new, exciting, something we’d wanted for what felt like ages. Even if we had to keep it a secret.

  Canaan was the first to climb on, and then he pulled me up with him. The four of us jumped for over an hour, whooping and laughing until we were all lying on our backs, staring up at th
e clouds and catching our breath.

  “We can’t tell no one,” Canaan said. “Not Felicia or anyone else from the neighborhood.”

  “Ain’t it mean to leave them out?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” he said. “But we can’t tell them. If they knew, they’d tell other people. Then we’d all end up getting caught. This needs to be our secret. Our place.”

  We all agreed and pinkie-swore that we’d never tell a soul. After that day, we snuck over to Teddy Ryan’s backyard every time we saw that his parents were gone. No matter how often we were there, the trampoline never lost its magic.

  On Saturday, Mama drove me up to Grandma Lucy’s house in Bunker. I was still feeling cranky about moving, but I wasn’t mad at Mama anymore. I was never able to stay mad at her too long.

  Before we left the duplex, I insisted on taking my bike along. I told Mama that I might need to make runs to the Dollar Store to get cleaning supplies if Grandma Lucy ran out. I guess it was a good enough excuse, because she let me load it into the trunk before we left the subdivision.

  Grandma Lucy didn’t act happy to see us, but we didn’t take offense. She never acted happy to see nobody.

  “Come on in,” she said when she met us at the front door. She sounded like she’d rather us not come in, though. She didn’t hug us or ask us how we’d been. She just walked back into her house and left the door open so we could follow her.

  Mama glanced at me, probably wondering if I’d changed my mind about spending the day here yet. I pretended I didn’t notice and just kept smiling. It didn’t matter how scary or mean Grandma Lucy was. Mr. Swift was somewhere here in Bunker, and this was my only chance to track him down.

  Grandma Lucy’s house was spotless and it smelled like peppermint. I looked around at all the hanging pictures and little knickknacks on the shelves and tables. Even though she lived just a few miles away, in the next town over, I’d hardly visited my grandmother in years. I’d seen my daddy’s parents, Mamaw and Papaw, more than I’d seen Grandma Lucy in the past few years. And they lived in Tennessee, a good two hours south of us.