Eric Walters

Je réussis toujour les sauts. Ce sont les atterrissages qui me posent des problèmes.

Primero tratan de amenazarme. Después tratan de sobornarme. Y ahora hacen las dos cosas a la vez: tratan de sobornarme y me amenazan si no acepto el soborno.

—Tenemos que irnos de aquí. No podemos hacer nada. Ya hay gente ayudándolos y llamando a la policía. Lo único que podemos hacer es buscarnos un problema.
Titubeé.
—¡Dale! ¡Vamos!
Comencé a mover el carro. Tenía un ojo en la carretera y otro en el espejo retrovisor tratando de ver el accidente. Vi luces rojas intermitentes en la distancia. Por un momento quité el pie del acelerador. Entonces lo pisé hasta el fondo, gané en velocidad e hice una izquierda.

—Lo único que digo—continuó Wally—es que si le bajaras un poco a la velocidad, sólo un poco, podrías hacer el salto y evitarte las heridas.
—Yo siempre hago los saltos—discutí.
—¿De qué estás hablando?
—Yo hago bien los saltos. Lo que no me sale es el aterrizaje.

Chapter One

My mother tried to straighten the collar of my blouse and I brushed her hand away.

“I’m just trying to make sure you look all right,” she said, sheepishly.

“I look as good as I can . . . in this outfit,” I said. “But not as good as I could have looked if you hadn’t picked out my clothes for me.” I was just so glad that none of my friends were there to see me dressed like this: boring brown secretary skirt, white blouse with a Peter Pan collar, beige pantyhose, and flats . . . shudder!

My mother’s style was pretty much classic–nothing but the best–but it was old-people fashion. She wasn’t up on the latest.

“She was just doing what I instructed her to do,” said my lawyer, Mr. Collins. “Appearance means a lot.”

I huffed. I knew more about appearance than he ever would. The nerve of this man to decide how I should dress! Wrinkled suit, a stain on the tie, and the width of his lapels was so far out of fashion that it was almost back in again. For the amount of money my parents were paying him, you’d have thought he’d have the cash to dress better.

I heard the sound of a door opening and I spun around in time to see my father rushing in to the courtroom. Nice of him to find the time to make it.

“Sorry, traffic was terrible,” he said.

Traffic is always terrible when you don’t get into your car on time, I thought.

He came up and gave my mother a little kiss on the cheek. It looked really awkward. I hadn’t seen them kiss for years before the divorce, so what was this all about? Were they putting on a show just for me, or demonstrating how sophisticated they were to people in general? Divorced, but still friends. It sounded like an episode for Dr. Phil.

Either way, it was just wrong on so many levels. Like a little show of affection was going to make me forget those last few years? The yelling and screaming, the threats, the household objects chucked at each other? I wasn’t about to forget. In fact, I still used all that ammunition to my advantage. A little bit of guilt goes a long way, and a lot of guilt goes even further.

My mother didn’t look well. She was really pale, and I thought she was even shaking a little. She looked so fragile. Whoever said it’s impossible to be too thin never met my mother. She was painfully skinny. I always thought that a strong wind might blow her away and she’d just go flying off into the sky. Funny, she did look a bit like a bird.

My father glanced at his Rolex. “It looks like the judge got caught in traffic as well,” he said. “Do you think he’ll keep us waiting much longer?”

“His court, his time,” Mr. Collins said.

“It had better not be long. I have places to get to,” I said.

“You’d best put that attitude away, young lady,” my father scolded.

I wanted to tell him that my attitude was something I’d inherited from him, but I didn’t say a word. Never mind, I think my expression pretty well said it all.

“You just let your lawyer do the talking,” my father warned me sternly.

“First I’m told how to dress, and now I’m not allowed to talk. Is it all right if I breathe the way I normally do?”

My father shot me a look, and I knew I’d be pushing it to say anything else, although I was severely tempted.

“She’s just a little nervous, that’s all,” my mother said.

She put an arm around my shoulder but I edged away from her grasp.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” she continued.

“I’m not nervous, and I’m certainly not scared,” I snapped.

“Maybe you should be afraid,” my father said. “This isn’t a joke. This is a court of law.”

I started to chuckle but stopped myself. We both knew–we all knew–that my last trip to court was no big deal, just a slap on the wrist. It cost my parents time and a lot of money in legal fees, but for me it was nothing more than a minor inconvenience. This wouldn’t be any different. It wasn’t like I was going to get life in prison for stealing a couple of tops and a purse.

“I’m sure there’s nothing to be concerned about,” my mother said. She turned to my lawyer. “Right?”

“We can hope,” he said.

“For the money I pay your firm I expect more than just hope,” my father said. “I expect certainty.”

“Nothing is certain in a court of law. The outcome is solely in the hands of the judge. You have to hope he’s in a good mood . . . that he wasn’t caught in traffic.”

“I’m sure it will go just as well as the last time, sweetie,” my mother said, soothingly.

“I’m afraid that might be the problem,” said my lawyer. “Generally, judges are quite understanding the first time you appear before them, but I don’t think Judge Roberts will be happy to see you in his court again so soon. Sometimes they feel that you’re not just breaking the law but defying them. They take it very personally.”

“How can he take it personally?” I asked. “It’s not like I stole his clothes.” Unless he’s wearing something frilly under that black robe, I thought.

“But you did defy him by violating the terms of your probation,” Mr. Collins said. “He might feel that, in essence, you lied to him.”

“Lied? How did I lie?”

“You gave him your word that you would not break the law again. And yet here you are, less than two months later, back in his court.”

“But it helps that she pleaded guilty in the pre-sentencing, right?” my mother asked.

“It certainly shows that she is willing to accept responsibility for her crime.”

“Crime? I didn’t kill anybody. I only took a few things, a few little things.”

“Breaking the law and violating probation aren’t generally considered ‘little things’ by most judges. They tend to take the law rather seriously. That’s why they decided to become judges in the first place.”

“And I even offered to pay for them right then and there,” I said. “I pulled the money out of my purse, but the store people wouldn’t take it.”

“Stores usually operate on the premise that you pay willingly for their products, not simply offer to pay if you get caught trying to take them. They’re funny that way.”

Now I was getting attitude from my lawyer! Actually, where was my real lawyer? Why did I have this junior associate instead of the lawyer I’d had the first time I was in court? This guy was way too young to be a lawyer. And how good could he be if he couldn’t afford better clothes, or shoes that didn’t look like they came from Payless?

“You need to know that this could be serious,” he said.

“Whatever,” I snapped. “What’s he going to do, throw me in prison?”

There was an uneasy silence and I felt a shiver go up my spine. I looked from my mother to my father. Both were looking at the floor and not at me.

“He can’t send me to prison . . . can he?” I asked my lawyer.

He smiled. “Of course not.”

I felt a rush of relief. How stupid of me to even think–

“Prison is only for adult offenders. You’d be sent to juvenile detention.”

The anxiety came rushing back, only worse.

“Could you please explain to us what juvenile detention is?” my father asked.

“It’s a secure setting for young people who have committed crimes but are not old enough to be placed in an adult facility, i.e., a jail.”

“What does that mean, secure setting?” I asked.

“Locked doors, bars on the windows, locked rooms.”

“But that sounds like a jail!”

“It is,” he said. “It’s a kiddie jail. Cells, guards, no personal possessions, including, of course, no telephones.” He pointed at my purse. He’d made me turn off my phone and stash it in my purse because it had been ringing so much while we were waiting to come into court. Was it my fault that I was popular?

“You would share a room with two or three other prisoners,” he continued.

“I’d be with prisoners?” I gasped.

“You would be a prisoner.”

“Mr. Collins, isn’t that a little bit harsh?” my mother asked.

He shook his head. “That’s what they’re called. People who are in detention are prisoners. Most rooms have one or two sets of bunk beds and a shared toilet in the corner.”

“The toilet is in the room? That’s . . . that’s just disgusting!”

“And, of course, you’re issued a standard detention uniform.”

“You mean I couldn’t wear my own clothing?” I gasped. “But what would I wear?”

“Everybody dresses in the same jumpsuit.”

“But nobody wears jumpsuits any more! They’re so yesterday!”

“That’s what they wear. Orange jumpsuits.”

“Oh God! I look awful in orange! Everybody looks awful in orange!” I felt my lower lip start to quiver. I was on the verge of tears–the real kind, not the trying to-get-my-own-way type!

“Please, Mr. Collins, there’s no point in getting into any of this,” my mother said. She wrapped an arm around me. This time I didn’t brush it away.

“It’s my job to let you know what might happen,” he said.

“But you’re scaring her!”

“Still, detention time is one of the possibilities.”

“How possible?” my father asked.

“It’s hard to say.”

“Ballpark it for me. What do you think the odds are of her serving time?”

“Umm . . . I hate to make a prediction . . . maybe less than a 10 percent chance.”

“I like those odds,” my father said. “I’ll always take a business deal where there’s a 90 percent chance of success.”

Suddenly this had become a business deal? I didn’t know whether I should be honoured or insulted. After all, I knew how much his business meant to him.

“And if it all did go south and she was sent to detention, what sort of time would we be talking about?” he asked.

“There are established guidelines for each offence, but the judge has a lot of discretion within those guidelines.”

“So, what’s the worst-case scenario? How bad could the damage be?”

”Up to six months.”

“Six months!” I exclaimed as I jumped to my feet. “That’s crazy! It was just a few things! It wasn’t like I killed somebody! I’ll tell the judge I won’t do it again!”

“Unfortunately, that’s what you told him the last time,” Mr. Collins said.

“Anyway, just calm down,” my father said. “You can’t lose your cool. People smell fear in business deals.”

“This is my life, not a business deal!” I protested.

“Everything is a business deal. Besides, we’re not talking about what will happen, just what could happen.”

“But you won’t let me go to juvenile detention, will you, Daddy?” I pleaded.

“Your father has very little say in this,” Mr. Collins said before my father could answer.

“But still, six months for shoplifting, that makes no sense,” my mother argued.

“This wouldn’t just be for shoplifting. It would include the charge of violating probation and also the reinstatement of the original charge of vandalism.”

“How can that be fair?” I protested. “I even paid for her car to be repaired.”

“Your father paid,” Mr. Collins said. “And that doesn’t change the fact that you pummelled a car with a golf club, causing thousands of dollars in damage and terrifying the girl who was in the car during your temper tantrum.”

Hey, it wasn’t a temper tantrum. It was about getting even, getting back, not letting somebody get away with something. I almost smiled at the memory. She deserved to have a golf club taken to her car. Now that little tramp would think twice before trying to steal anybody’s boy­friend again.

“A lot will depend on the pre-sentence report, prepared by the court-appointed social worker,” Mr. Collins explained.

“Have you seen it?” my father asked him.

“It’s only for the judge to see.” Mr. Collins turned to me. “Do you have a sense of what the report might say?”

“How would I know?”

“The social worker did interview you. You were there.”

“Of course I was there,” I snapped.

“Well, how did the interview go?”

“It went fine . . . I guess.”

“You guess?” my father asked.

“Well, she was late and I had an appointment to have my hair done and I couldn’t hang around.” I turned to my mom. “You know how hard it is to get an appointment with Mr. Henri and how angry he gets when you’re even a minute late.”

“He can throw quite the little hissy fit,” my mother confirmed.

“Please don’t tell me you blew off the interview because of some haircut!” Mr. Collins exclaimed.

“First off, it was a style, not a cut.” I almost said something about him desperately needing a good stylist because apparently he cut his own hair, but that was beside the point. “And second, I did do the interview.”

My lawyer let out a big sigh of relief.

“Although I refused to answer some of her questions.”

The shocked look on my lawyer’s face actually startled me.

“Well, some of her questions were just so personal. I thought, Who does she think she is? What right did she have to ask me questions?”

“She had the right to ask you anything she wanted,” Mr. Collins said. “She had the authority of the court! She was asking the questions that the judge wanted the answers to!”

“It wasn’t just the questions,” I said. “It was the way she asked them. She was totally rude. She had quite the attitude.”

“She had an attitude?” Mr. Collins questioned.

I knew what he was implying but I chose to show some class and ignore him.

“Yes, the nerve of some woman who shops at Wal-Mart, and doesn’t even have the sense to have her bag match her shoes, to think that she could sit there and judge me!”

Mr. Collins put his head down on the table. How unprofessional! Not to mention that from that angle his hair was even less flattering. Forget the hairstyle, a shampoo would have been helpful for a start.

The door off to the side of the bench sprang open and a large man in a uniform came in.

“All rise for the Honourable Judge Roberts!”

«Il y a des causes pour lesquelles je suis prêt à mourir, mais aucune pour laquelle je serais prêt à tuer», dit M. Roberts. Qui est l'auteur de cette citation?

When the sun goes down
   One moon rises
   Two stars come out
   Three owlets rest high in the treetops

When the sun goes down
   One moon rises
   Two stars come out
   Three owlets rest high in the treetops

Chapter One
 
 
The phone rang again, startling me so much that the nail polish brush jerked off my toenail and onto the white separator holding my toes apart. If any polish spilled on my new duvet, someone was going to have to pay!
 
“You’re awfully jumpy, Alexandria,” Olivia said, lounging at the end of my king-size bed.
 
“I’m not jumpy. I just don’t like the sound of ringing phones.”
 
The phone kept on ringing.
 
“Carmella!” I screamed.
 
“Just ignore it,” Olivia told me.
 
“I have been ignoring it,” I said.
 
This was the third time it had rung in the last ten minutes, and it was really starting to get on my nerves. Where was Carmella? It wasn’t like the call was going to be for me—anybody who knew me called on my cell—and it certainly wasn’t my job to be answering the home phone.
 
Four . . . fi ve . . . six . . . seven rings. You’d think the person on the other end would have fi gured out that nobody was going to answer. Couldn’t they just leave a message and move on? Were they deliberately trying to get on my nerves? And where was Carmella? She was supposed to get the phone. That was part of her job.
 
“Carmella!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.
 
“Either she’s out or she’s ignoring you,” Olivia said. “We’ve had a couple of maids like that. Some of them pretended that they didn’t understand English.”
 
“Some of them probably didn’t understand English,” I argued.
 
The phone stopped ringing, and I let out a sigh of relief.
 
I took the brush and dipped it into the bottle of polish, careful to take just enough. The way to get great nails—aside from using the very best polish money could buy—was to apply many, many thin coats. Some people either didn’t know that or didn’t have the patience, but I knew how important it was to have the details just right.
 
The secret to a great look is in the details. Any fool with a little bit of money can buy the right clothes or designer accessories—and there certainly are enough fools in L.A. with money to do that—but there’s an art to putting them together the right way, to making the look work for you. It’s easy to tell the pretenders from the contenders—although I was no mere contender . . . more like the champ!
 
“My mother says that good help is almost impossible to get,” Olivia said. “Do you have any idea how many maids we’ve gone through in the past year?”
 
“You’re on your seventh,” I said.
 
“Yes . . . that’s right,” Olivia said. She looked surprised.
 
“Your mother told my mother,” I explained.
 
“We even caught one drinking on the job!” Olivia exclaimed.
 
“Really?” I tried to sound shocked, but if I’d worked for Olivia’s family I might have started drinking too.
 
“She was going right into the cabinet and drinking my father’s private stock.”
 
“Oh, really?” I said. “Does that remind you of anyone you know?”
 
“That was ages ago,” she protested. “And I was only fi fteen.”
 
“As opposed to the old woman of sixteen that you are now?” I asked.
 
“Sixteen is much older than fi fteen,” she argued. “You’d have to agree with that.”
 
Actually, I did agree. “Touché.”
 
“Besides, it was my father’s alcohol I was drinking,” she added. “It wasn’t like I was stealing from somebody else . . . but you’d know all about that.”
 
So she was fi ghting back! I tried not to react. There was no way I was going to let her know she was getting to me.
 
“We all make mistakes,” I said casually. “Some of us learn from them.”
 
“Not necessarily the fi rst time,” she said, and chuckled.
 
Again, I didn’t react, although I really had the urge to see how her face would look with nail polish all over it.
 
I’d been caught shoplifting once. And before that I’d dented a girl’s car to pay her back for her catty comments about my at-the-time boyfriend. They were mistakes, and I’d paid for them. But really, I wouldn’t change anything that happened to me as a result, even if I could. The whole thing worked out for the best. There was no doubt about that. None whatsoever.
 
I didn’t answer. I just kept my complete focus on my toenails.
 
“You’ve had Carmella for years, haven’t you?” Olivia said.
 
“She’s been with us forever. I think we hired her when I was, like, three.”
 
“Thirteen years is a long time. You know, that’s when you have to be careful,” Olivia said.
 
“Careful?”
 
“Yes. Once they earn your trust, that’s when they start to slack off, or worse yet, things get up and walk away.”
 
“You’ve had maids who stole from you?” I asked.
 
“My mother had her favourite necklace, a very expensive necklace, go missing.”
 
“And the maid took it?”
 
“That’s why my father fi red her.”
 
“And did you call the police? Was she charged?”
 
“My father said it was too hard to prove anything. He said Manuela would just deny it and it would be her word against ours.”
 
“That’s too bad,” I said.
 
“My father said we could have made a claim through our insurance company.”
 
“Could have?” I asked.
 
“Well . . . ”
 
Olivia looked sheepish, and I knew there was more to this story, something she didn’t want to say. I might have let her off the hook if she hadn’t brought up my mistakes fi rst.
 
“Well, what?” I asked.
 
“Funny thing,” she said, although her expression wasn’t very amused. “It turns out it really wasn’t stolen. It had fallen behind the dresser . . . We found it a week or so after she was canned.”
 
“After you found the necklace, did you rehire Manuela?” I asked.
 
“Of course not!” Olivia protested. “That would have been too embarrassing. Besides, it’s not like it’s hard to fi nd another maid.”
 
“Or even six more,” I said.
 
The phone started ringing again. This time it set off my little Pomeranian, Sprout, who had been sleeping peacefully in his doggy bed but now was barking his yappy head off. As if the phone’s incessant ringing wasn’t bad enough by itself without the dog turning it into a duet.
 
“Carmella!” I screamed.
 
“At least our maids all answered the phone,” Olivia chuckled.
 
I’d had enough of the ringing—and of Olivia. I got to my feet.
 
“What are you doing?” she yelled. “You’ll ruin your nails!”
 
“I’ll take that chance.”
 
I hobbled forward, trying to walk on my heels, with the toe separators keeping my toes apart and up in the air.
 
“Carmella!” I screamed again. “The phone!”
 
That was a pretty stupid thing to yell because obviously if she’d heard it ringing she would have known it was the phone.
 
I went into my parents’—my mother’s—bedroom. There was a phone on her night table. Delicately I picked it up, trying not to smudge my fi ngernails.
 
“Yeah?” I snarled.
 
There was no answer. Had I stomped all this way for a hang-up? No, there was no dial tone, so there had to be somebody on the other end. Was it one of those stupid telemarketer calls where they make you wait for them? So rude!
 
“Hello? Is anybody there?” I demanded.
 
“Hello?”
 
It was a male voice with a foreign accent. Was it Spanish? If this call was actually for Carmella I’d be so angry—
 
“Hello,” he said again. “Could I speak to Alexandria . . . Alexandria . . . I think the last name starts with an ‘H.’”
 
“This is Alexandria. Alexandria Hyatt.”
 
Stupid telemarketer. If he was going to harass people he should at least know their full names. I should just hang up on him right—
 
“Alexandria, I did not recognize your voice.”
 
And just why did he think he should? It had to be some stupid telemarketer—we got them all the time. At least some of them were slick enough to get your attention, but this guy was simply hopeless.
 
“I thought that you were not home, or that I had the incorrect telephone number,” he said. “I called many times and no one answered.”
 
“That was you calling?” Now I was really mad.
 
“It was me.”
 
“When we didn’t answer the fi rst three times, didn’t you understand that maybe there was nobody home?” I demanded.
 
“That is why I called back again and again.”
 
Strange, there was something about his voice that did sound familiar.
 
“So why are you calling?” I asked. I just wanted to get to his pitch so I could blow him off.
 
“You told me to call.”
 
“What?”
 
“You said to call you. You gave me your telephone number.”
 
“Who is this?”
 
“It is Nebala.”
 
I was so shocked I almost dropped the telephone, grabbing it, smudging a nail as I caught it. “Nebala—my Nebala—from Africa?”
 
He laughed, and I recognized the laugh even more than I had the voice. “Do you have many other Nebalas in your California?”
 
“Of course not! I’m just so shocked, so surprised, so happy to hear your voice!”
 
“And your voice is very pleasant to listen to also,” he said.
 
I pictured Nebala in my head, in full Maasai costume—red blanket and dress, wearing sandals, a bow over his shoulder and a konga club under his blanket—standing there somewhere in Kenya with the phone in one hand and his spear in the other.
 
“I just can’t believe I’m talking to you!” I exclaimed.
 
“The elders in my village still think of phones as being magic, too.”
 
“I don’t mean the phone part. I mean talking to you. It’s unbelievable that we’re talking, that you called me!”
 
“Very believable. You gave me your telephone number and I just pushed the buttons. Very easy.”
 
“But it must be costing you a fortune to make this call.”
 
Long distance from Kenya would be incredibly expensive, and it wasn’t like he had a lot of money—like anybody in his village had a lot of money.
 
“Not too much, I do not think. I put in two of those silver coins. I think that is not much money.”
 
Silver coins? I tried to remember what the different Kenyan coins looked like, but it wasn’t coming.
 
“I wish to ask something of you,” Nebala said.
 
“Of course. What do you want to know?”
 
“Do you remember that when you left Kenya, you said that someday you would welcome me to come to your country, to your land?”
 
“Of course I remember!” I exclaimed. “That would be wonderful! I told my parents about everything in Kenya, but I especially told them all about you and Ruth! My mother and father said they’d be thrilled to meet you someday!”
 
“I would be honoured to meet them. They must be very wise people.”
 
“And I could show you around L.A. the way you showed me around Kenya.”
 
“That is so kind.”
 
“I owe you,” I said. “I don’t know what would have happened to me if you hadn’t been there for me in Kenya.” Because being “there for me” actually meant saving me from a herd of elephants—something not a lot of my friends could have helped with.
 
“You are strong without my help. You are so strong you could even be a Maasai.”
 
I laughed. “I don’t think anybody would ever mistake me for a Maasai. I think I sort of have the wrong skin colour.”
 
“You have the heart of a Maasai.”
 
I knew what a compliment he was giving me.
“Thanks, but I don’t think I could kill a lion.”
 
He laughed. “Of course not. You are a woman. Even Maasai women do not kill lions.”
 
“It would be wonderful if you could come to California. But it’s awfully far from Africa!”
 
I didn’t mention how expensive the plane fare would be—way more than he could ever afford.
 
“It is very far,” Nebala said. “Even your country is very big, and far from one place to another. It is a long way from New York to the other side in California,” he said.
 
“It would be a long walk.”
 
“It is a long airplane ride,” he said. “But a Maasai could walk from one side to the other of a country even as big as America.”
 
“I know, I know, because Maasai can walk without stopping,” I said.
 
“Never needing to stop from sunrise to sunset.”
 
It was something they prided themselves on. I could picture him with that long, bouncy stride. Given enough time, I was sure he could walk from New York to L.A., or even from Africa to L.A. if there wasn’t an ocean in the way. I imagined him moving along the interstate, and the shocked looks from the drivers of passing SUVs and cars and transport trucks.
 
“To walk across your country would take more than one hundred days,” he said.
 
“I don’t know,” I said. I guessed he must have been looking at a map. “I’m not sure if anybody has ever done that before, walked across the country.”
 
“A Maasai could walk that distance.”
 
I wasn’t about to argue with that. They were pretty stubborn and determined people.
 
“And if you did come here, you know I would insist that you stay at our house,” I said. “We have a big house with lots of extra rooms.”
 
“I was hoping you would allow that.”
 
“That would be wonderful, if you did come someday.” That sounded like I was blowing him off. “I’d like it if you could come someday soon.”
 
“Yes,” he said. “Soon, very soon. Alexandria, I am at the airport.”
 
“In Nairobi?” I exclaimed.
 
“LAX. I am in Los Angeles.”
 
That time I did drop the phone.

"Altitude," Jerome said, answering the confused looks on our faces, "is how high you fly. You need to have a good attitude if you want to fly high. You have to believe."

The bell sounded. People jumped to their feet and gathered their things.
“And don’t forget there’s a unit test on Friday!” Mr. Herman, our math teacher, called out over the noise.
A collective groan rose up from the class. Some people started to argue for a postponement till Monday to give them more time to study. On any other day I would have stuck around and joined in the argument. But not today. Today I needed to get out of the classroom as fast as I could. I had something more important to think about than a math test. I threw my books into my bag and joined the crowd funneling out of the room. I’d gone only a few steps when I almost bumped into Natasha, my best friend. She flashed me a big smile. Smiling was the last thing on my mind.
“Are you ready, Shirli?” Natasha asked.
“No!”
“We don’t have to go,” she said. “We could go to the mall, get a soda instead, maybe buy something.”
“And just not look at the cast list?” I asked.
“It’ll still be there tomorrow.”
“Tash, I’ve waited all week. Do you really think I can wait another day?”
She flashed that smile again. “Patience is a virtue.”
“This coming from you, the least patient person I know?” I asked.
“Okay, you’re right, and I was just joking. Let’s go and look.”
The hallway was packed, and it felt as if we were salmon fighting our way upstream. We were the largest junior high in New Jersey, but the building didn’t seem big enough to hold all 1,600 of us who called this place our home away from home. We squirmed and shuffled our way forward.
“You know you have nothing to worry about,” Natasha said.
“Thanks. Neither do you.”
“Oh, I’m not worried, Shirli. You know that.”
Natasha and I had been friends, and pretty much inseparable, since third grade—like two peas in a pod, or peanut butter and jam. But there was a big difference between us. Natasha had never been in a school show before. In fact, she had only tried out this time because I’d practically dragged her to the auditions. It really didn’t matter to her whether she got a part or not. The problem was that for me it mattered way too much.
“Ms. Ramsey really likes you,” she pointed out. I knew she was trying to reassure me.
“She likes everybody,” I said.
“It’s more than that. I think she sees herself when she looks at you.”
I laughed. “Like she’s looking in some sort of fun-house mirror?”
Ms. Ramsey was our drama teacher. She was in her early thirties but looked a lot younger. She was blond and slim and moved in this slinky, smooth way like someone who’d had years of dance training. We couldn’t have been more different in appearance, but I guess I had the same way of moving, thanks to my own dance classes.
“I didn’t mean the way you two look,” Natasha continued. “Ms. Ramsey is so beautiful.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Come on, you know what I mean. You’re really pretty, but not like her. You look more like me!”
Well, true, we did look a lot alike, even though my family was eastern European and Jewish, and Natasha’s was Portuguese and Catholic. But where the heck was this going?
“I mean she sees you as being talented like her.”
“Thanks, Tash.” Now that was a compliment.

Desperately I looked around for a way out. We couldn't get over the fence. The strands of barbed wire on top of it would rip us to shreds. Behind it, in the distance, the baseball game was going on. Why couldn't I have been there? The only way was the street...we'd have to dodge the cars. I took a step toward the street, but Sam put a hand on my shoulder.

"Nope," he said, shaking his head. "We're not running any farther."

"But...but...we can't fight them...we can't win," I stammered.

"We can't win, but we're going to fight them. Get rid of this," Sam said as he pulled the "I Am Chinese" button off my shirt and then took off his and stuffed them both in his pocket. "Cover my back and I'll cover yours."

They came forward slowly. They knew there was no place to go.

Chapter One

august 7, 1942

“great shot, jack!” I exclaimed as the newspaper skittered across the porch and bumped into the front door of the house.

“I'm getting to be as good with my left arm as I am with my right,” Jack said. Good thing, too, because my brother's right arm was encased in plaster to allow his broken wrist to mend.

“You do the next one,” he offered.

“Sure.” I was trying to sound confident even though I wasn't. I pulled a paper out of the bag slung over my shoulder, folded it, cocked my arm and let it fly. The paper flew end over end, slammed into the porch railing and fell back into the bushes.

“You throw like a girl,” Jack said.

“Shut up!” I snapped. I walked across the grass, retrieved the paper and tossed it over the railing and onto the porch.

“Maybe I should call you Georgia instead of George.”

“I'm telling you to shut up!”

“And just what are you gonna do to make me?”

That was a good question. My brother wasn't just older, he was bigger and tougher, too.

“You gonna tell Mommy on me? You gonna tell her that I was mean to her little baby boy—I mean, baby girl?” He laughed at his lame joke and then reached over to tweak my cheek. I knocked his hand away.

“Oh, so you want to fight me, do you?”

He dropped his newspaper bag to the pavement and started bouncing around, fists out like a prizefighter.

“I can take you with one hand tied behind my back!” He put his broken hand behind him. “Does little Georgie think he's a tough guy now 'cause he's just turned twelve? I'm still your big brother and I'll always be your big brother!”

“You'll always be two years older than me but that doesn't mean you'll always be two years bigger than me.”

“Ooh! That sounds like a threat,” Jack replied, and he jabbed me in the shoulder. It hurt but I tried not to react.

“Maybe I should knock you around now before you get so big and tough that I won't be able to.” He laughed and punched me again.

“Stop it now!” I yelled. I was used to this kind of teasing from my brother, but I wasn't really in the mood for it.

“Or what, Georgie?”

“Or this.” I slipped the newspaper bag off my shoulder and let it drop to the ground. “Deliver your own papers.” I turned and walked away.

“Come on, George, I was just goofing around!”

I kept walking.

“Don't be such a baby!”

I didn't even slow down.

“Okay …; you win!”

Now I stopped and turned around. “Win what?” I asked.

“I won't do it again,” he said. I started to walk back. “At least I won't do it again today.”

That was what I'd expected. It was good enough for now. I picked up the bag and slung it back over my shoulder. We walked along again in silence. It was a hot day—a real scorcher—and we were nowhere near done.

“You're awful quiet today,” Jack said.

“Just thinking.”

“That's a first.”

I shot him a dirty look.

“So what were you thinking about?” Jack asked.

“I was thinking about how all of this is pretty strange.”

“Delivering papers is strange?” Jack asked as he tossed another paper up onto a porch. I wished he would hit the bushes every now and again.

“Yeah.”

“How do you figure that? We're on the same route, same houses, delivering the same paper we always do,” Jack said.

“That's what's so strange,” I replied.

Jack shot me a my-brother-is-an-idiot look.

“Just think. After everything that's gone on over the last few weeks—all those things that nobody would believe even if we could tell them—here we are acting like absolutely nothing happened. It's like it was all just a dream.”

“Maybe for you. I carry around a reminder everywhere I go,” he said, holding up his arm. “And every time I look in a mirror or try to eat anything.”

“How is your jaw?”

“Better, but still not perfect, not by a long shot.”

Jack's jaw had been fractured at the same time his wrist had been broken.

“But think about it,” I continued. “Here we are delivering the Whitby Reporter, the paper that Mr. Krum used to own, and now he's dead, and—”

“He's lucky he is dead or he'd have to deal with me!”

“Or Bill or Little Bill or the other agents at Camp X.”

“Keep your voice down!” Jack cautioned.

I looked around. “There's nobody to hear me. Besides, talking to you is the only thing that reminds me it was real.”

“Then just don't talk about that stinking Krum! He was nothing more than a Nazi, a traitor, a spy!”

Jack took another paper and heaved it onto the porch of the next house. This time it smashed against the door with a thunderous crash. The glass at the top of the door rattled and shook, and for an instant I thought it might shatter.

“You almost put that one through the door,” I said.

“At least I hit the door instead of the railing or the—”

“Young man!” We turned back around. A woman—an old, wrinkled woman who was probably at least seventy—was poking her head out of the door Jack had just hit with the paper.

“Do you realize that you nearly scared me half to death?” she called out.

“Sorry, ma'am,” Jack said. “It sort of got away from me. I'm not so good with my left hand.” He held up his right arm to show her the cast.

“I nearly jumped right out of my skin. It sounded like somebody shooting at my house.”

Jack and I exchanged a look. It had been loud, but nothing like a gunshot. We knew, from right up close, what that sounded like.

“I imagine I should just be grateful to be getting my paper again,” she continued.

After Mr. Krum's death the paper hadn't been published for two weeks. Then, on the front cover of the first new issue, was the story about how he'd died.

“I was so saddened to hear about the publisher's death in that automobile accident,” she said. “Mr. Krum was such a nice man.”

Without looking I sensed my brother stiffening beside me. I knew he wanted to say something—about how Krum had really died, about what sort of man he really was—but he couldn't. He was—we were—sworn to secrecy under the Official Secrets Act.

“Say …; your arm …; Were you one of the boys in the car? I heard that two of Mr. Krum's paper boys were in the car with him when he died.”

“We were both in the car,” I lied. Neither of us had been in the car with Mr. Krum when he'd died, because he hadn't really died in a car crash.

“How awful for the two of you!” she exclaimed. “Thank the good Lord that you both survived.” She paused. “I heard it was mechanical failure, that something went wrong with his steering.”

“That's what we were told,” Jack said.

“I'm sorry for raising my voice like that,” she said. “You boys have been through a lot …; I was just so startled by the sound. My Harold—my son—says I'm as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. It hasn't made it any easier with him serving overseas. He's fighting in Africa.”

“Our dad is there, too,” I said. “He's with the St. Patrick's Regiment.”

“I'm sure you're as proud of him as I am of my Harold. But pride doesn't chase away the worry, does it?”

She was right about that.

“And it doesn't make my nerves any better to hear about all those strange goings-on up at Glenrath,” she continued.

I felt a chill go up my spine.

“Glenrath?” Jack asked, trying to sound innocent and ignorant. “What's that?”

“Your family's not from around these parts, are they?”

“We've only been here a couple of months,” I answered. “We moved down here from our farm so our mother could work at the big D.I.L. munitions plant in Ajax.”

“Lots and lots of newcomers here in Whitby since the war. To us old-timers the Sinclair farm is called Glenrath. It's down by the lake, right by Thornton Road. The Sinclairs pulled up stakes and sold it, must be nearly a year ago now.”

“Don't know it,” Jack said, pretending.

“And you haven't heard about any of the commotion around there?”

We both shook our heads.

“Explosions, planes coming and going, lots of strangers. I heard it was some kind of secret training place for spies, that's what I heard.” She said the last few words so softly that her voice was barely audible.

“That's pretty hard to believe,” Jack said.

“I've heard stories,” she said. “Maybe it's only gossip, but there's often truth in gossip.”

“We haven't heard anything at all,” I said.

“Nothing?” she asked. “Not a thing?”

I shrugged, and Jack shook his head.

She started to chuckle. “Funny, you two are delivering the news but you know a lot less than anybody else in town.”

She'd have been shocked to find out what we really did know—probably a lot more than anybody else in Whitby!

“I guess we're just too busy working to spend time wagging our tongues,” Jack said.

The amused expression on her face was gone now—she looked as though she'd just bitten into something sour.

“We have more papers to deliver. Good morning, ma'am.”

Jack turned and started away. I gave the old woman a wave goodbye and hurried after him.

“Stupid old biddy,” Jack said as I reached his side.

“That was strange.”

Jack shot me another look.

“I mean her wanting to talk about the camp.”

“Other than the weather and the war, what else is there to talk about around here?”

“It reminded me of the way Mr. Krum always tried to pump us for information, that's all.”

Jack burst out laughing. “So you think that the old woman is a German spy too?”

“She could be!” I said defiantly. “You never can tell.”

Jack stopped snickering. “You know, considering all we've been through, I guess maybe you're right.”

“I am?” I asked, shocked that Jack was agreeing with me.

“I've learned the hard way that things aren't always what you think they are.”

“So you think she could be a German spy?”

“She could be Adolf Hitler's mother for all I know.”

It was my turn to laugh.

“More likely she's a spy for our side, though,” Jack went on.

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe she was told to talk to us to see if we'd reveal anything about Camp X, if we'd break the Official Secrets Act.”

“We'd never do that!”

“I know that, but maybe Bill doesn't,” Jack said.

“Bill trusts us,” I argued. Bill was military, in charge of security at Camp X. We'd gotten to know him pretty well after blundering into the camp and landing in a load of trouble.

“It really doesn't matter if he trusts us or not as long as we don't say any—” Jack stopped mid-sentence as a familiar-looking white panel truck slowly passed us, moving up the street. At the intersection it came to a stop, flashing its tail lights, and then turned to the right, disappearing behind a stand of trees.

I turned to Jack. “Is that the same truck?” We'd been seeing it—or one just like it—all over the neighbourhood.

“Maybe, maybe not. Even if it is, it doesn't necessarily mean anything.”

“But did you notice how slowly it was driving when it passed us this time?”

“It was probably looking for a number on one of the houses,” Jack said. “Whitby's a small town. It's probably just a coincidence.”

“Well,” I said, “I'm going to keep my eyes open and just see if—”

We both saw the truck as we turned the corner. It was pulled over, a hundred feet down the road.

“Another coincidence?” I asked.

“One more than I like. Come on, let's go straight ahead up the street.”

“But we have to deliver some papers down that way,” I said, gesturing toward where the truck was parked.

“We'll come back for them at the end of the route.”

I knew it meant a longer walk, but I wasn't going to argue. We started to cross the street. I looked at the truck. It was covered with dust and dirt, and the window was up despite the heat, and—

“Owww!” I howled as Jack punched me in the shoulder. My head spun around. “Why did you do that?”

“Don't look at it,” Jack ordered. “If they are looking at us, we don't want them to see us looking at them.”

“Why not?”

“Figure it out for yourself!” he snapped.

What I figured was that maybe Jack was getting even more paranoid than me. What I knew for sure, though, was that Jack was mostly right—and even when he wasn't right he was still bigger than me. And I didn't want another punch.

We crossed the road and continued up the street. If the truck reappeared now it would be a whole lot more than just a couple of coincidences.

“Third house in on the other side gets a paper,” Jack said.

“Oh, yeah, right.” I dug a paper out of the bag and started across the street. Looking back, I was relieved to see the empty road. No panel truck …; not even a kid on a bike. I trotted up the front walkway, getting close enough to the house to make sure my toss landed on the porch. I threw, and the paper skidded into the door. I started back across the street, looking both ways, and there it was—a white panel truck coming down the road toward us from the direction we were heading.

“Jack?”

“I see it. Get over here.”

I scrambled to his side. “Is it the same one?” I asked.

“I can't tell. Maybe.”

The panel truck moved slowly down the street. The sun was reflecting off the windshield and I couldn't see who was driving or if there was anybody in the passenger seat. It slowed down even more and came to a stop right beside us. I slid over so Jack was between it and me. Then the window rolled down and a young woman stuck her head partway out.

“Excuse me!” she called. She had a heavy accent …; but it wasn't German. French, maybe. “Do you boys know where is King Street?”

“That's in the centre of the village,” Jack answered. “Go back down to Highway 2, turn left and you'll find it.”

“What is …; highway?” the woman asked.

“It's a big road,” Jack said, “with lots of cars. And when you get there, go that way,” Jack said, pointing to his left.

“Ah,” the woman said, nodding her head and flashing a big, friendly smile. She was very pretty. “Could you show me on this map?” she asked, holding it up and partway out the window.

“Sure, easy,” Jack said, smiling back. He walked across the road to the driver's-side window. I trailed behind him. I think we were both feeling a little silly about our earlier suspicions.

“It's not hard,” Jack said. He took the map from her hands. “You just take this road right here and then—”

Out of nowhere two men dressed in black raced around the side of the truck. “Both of you, not a word!” one of them warned. The two men pinned us against the side of the vehicle.

“Into the truck!” one of them ordered. I looked down. There was a pistol in his hand!

Chapter One

august 7, 1942

“great shot, jack!” I exclaimed as the newspaper skittered across the porch and bumped into the front door of the house.

“I'm getting to be as good with my left arm as I am with my right,” Jack said. Good thing, too, because my brother's right arm was encased in plaster to allow his broken wrist to mend.

“You do the next one,” he offered.

“Sure.” I was trying to sound confident even though I wasn't. I pulled a paper out of the bag slung over my shoulder, folded it, cocked my arm and let it fly. The paper flew end over end, slammed into the porch railing and fell back into the bushes.

“You throw like a girl,” Jack said.

“Shut up!” I snapped. I walked across the grass, retrieved the paper and tossed it over the railing and onto the porch.

“Maybe I should call you Georgia instead of George.”

“I'm telling you to shut up!”

“And just what are you gonna do to make me?”

That was a good question. My brother wasn't just older, he was bigger and tougher, too.

“You gonna tell Mommy on me? You gonna tell her that I was mean to her little baby boy—I mean, baby girl?” He laughed at his lame joke and then reached over to tweak my cheek. I knocked his hand away.

“Oh, so you want to fight me, do you?”

He dropped his newspaper bag to the pavement and started bouncing around, fists out like a prizefighter.

“I can take you with one hand tied behind my back!” He put his broken hand behind him. “Does little Georgie think he's a tough guy now 'cause he's just turned twelve? I'm still your big brother and I'll always be your big brother!”

“You'll always be two years older than me but that doesn't mean you'll always be two years bigger than me.”

“Ooh! That sounds like a threat,” Jack replied, and he jabbed me in the shoulder. It hurt but I tried not to react.

“Maybe I should knock you around now before you get so big and tough that I won't be able to.” He laughed and punched me again.

“Stop it now!” I yelled. I was used to this kind of teasing from my brother, but I wasn't really in the mood for it.

“Or what, Georgie?”

“Or this.” I slipped the newspaper bag off my shoulder and let it drop to the ground. “Deliver your own papers.” I turned and walked away.

“Come on, George, I was just goofing around!”

I kept walking.

“Don't be such a baby!”

I didn't even slow down.

“Okay …; you win!”

Now I stopped and turned around. “Win what?” I asked.

“I won't do it again,” he said. I started to walk back. “At least I won't do it again today.”

That was what I'd expected. It was good enough for now. I picked up the bag and slung it back over my shoulder. We walked along again in silence. It was a hot day—a real scorcher—and we were nowhere near done.

“You're awful quiet today,” Jack said.

“Just thinking.”

“That's a first.”

I shot him a dirty look.

“So what were you thinking about?” Jack asked.

“I was thinking about how all of this is pretty strange.”

“Delivering papers is strange?” Jack asked as he tossed another paper up onto a porch. I wished he would hit the bushes every now and again.

“Yeah.”

“How do you figure that? We're on the same route, same houses, delivering the same paper we always do,” Jack said.

“That's what's so strange,” I replied.

Jack shot me a my-brother-is-an-idiot look.

“Just think. After everything that's gone on over the last few weeks—all those things that nobody would believe even if we could tell them—here we are acting like absolutely nothing happened. It's like it was all just a dream.”

“Maybe for you. I carry around a reminder everywhere I go,” he said, holding up his arm. “And every time I look in a mirror or try to eat anything.”

“How is your jaw?”

“Better, but still not perfect, not by a long shot.”

Jack's jaw had been fractured at the same time his wrist had been broken.

“But think about it,” I continued. “Here we are delivering the Whitby Reporter, the paper that Mr. Krum used to own, and now he's dead, and—”

“He's lucky he is dead or he'd have to deal with me!”

“Or Bill or Little Bill or the other agents at Camp X.”

“Keep your voice down!” Jack cautioned.

I looked around. “There's nobody to hear me. Besides, talking to you is the only thing that reminds me it was real.”

“Then just don't talk about that stinking Krum! He was nothing more than a Nazi, a traitor, a spy!”

Jack took another paper and heaved it onto the porch of the next house. This time it smashed against the door with a thunderous crash. The glass at the top of the door rattled and shook, and for an instant I thought it might shatter.

“You almost put that one through the door,” I said.

“At least I hit the door instead of the railing or the—”

“Young man!” We turned back around. A woman—an old, wrinkled woman who was probably at least seventy—was poking her head out of the door Jack had just hit with the paper.

“Do you realize that you nearly scared me half to death?” she called out.

“Sorry, ma'am,” Jack said. “It sort of got away from me. I'm not so good with my left hand.” He held up his right arm to show her the cast.

“I nearly jumped right out of my skin. It sounded like somebody shooting at my house.”

Jack and I exchanged a look. It had been loud, but nothing like a gunshot. We knew, from right up close, what that sounded like.

“I imagine I should just be grateful to be getting my paper again,” she continued.

After Mr. Krum's death the paper hadn't been published for two weeks. Then, on the front cover of the first new issue, was the story about how he'd died.

“I was so saddened to hear about the publisher's death in that automobile accident,” she said. “Mr. Krum was such a nice man.”

Without looking I sensed my brother stiffening beside me. I knew he wanted to say something—about how Krum had really died, about what sort of man he really was—but he couldn't. He was—we were—sworn to secrecy under the Official Secrets Act.

“Say …; your arm …; Were you one of the boys in the car? I heard that two of Mr. Krum's paper boys were in the car with him when he died.”

“We were both in the car,” I lied. Neither of us had been in the car with Mr. Krum when he'd died, because he hadn't really died in a car crash.

“How awful for the two of you!” she exclaimed. “Thank the good Lord that you both survived.” She paused. “I heard it was mechanical failure, that something went wrong with his steering.”

“That's what we were told,” Jack said.

“I'm sorry for raising my voice like that,” she said. “You boys have been through a lot …; I was just so startled by the sound. My Harold—my son—says I'm as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. It hasn't made it any easier with him serving overseas. He's fighting in Africa.”

“Our dad is there, too,” I said. “He's with the St. Patrick's Regiment.”

“I'm sure you're as proud of him as I am of my Harold. But pride doesn't chase away the worry, does it?”

She was right about that.

“And it doesn't make my nerves any better to hear about all those strange goings-on up at Glenrath,” she continued.

I felt a chill go up my spine.

“Glenrath?” Jack asked, trying to sound innocent and ignorant. “What's that?”

“Your family's not from around these parts, are they?”

“We've only been here a couple of months,” I answered. “We moved down here from our farm so our mother could work at the big D.I.L. munitions plant in Ajax.”

“Lots and lots of newcomers here in Whitby since the war. To us old-timers the Sinclair farm is called Glenrath. It's down by the lake, right by Thornton Road. The Sinclairs pulled up stakes and sold it, must be nearly a year ago now.”

“Don't know it,” Jack said, pretending.

“And you haven't heard about any of the commotion around there?”

We both shook our heads.

“Explosions, planes coming and going, lots of strangers. I heard it was some kind of secret training place for spies, that's what I heard.” She said the last few words so softly that her voice was barely audible.

“That's pretty hard to believe,” Jack said.

“I've heard stories,” she said. “Maybe it's only gossip, but there's often truth in gossip.”

“We haven't heard anything at all,” I said.

“Nothing?” she asked. “Not a thing?”

I shrugged, and Jack shook his head.

She started to chuckle. “Funny, you two are delivering the news but you know a lot less than anybody else in town.”

She'd have been shocked to find out what we really did know—probably a lot more than anybody else in Whitby!

“I guess we're just too busy working to spend time wagging our tongues,” Jack said.

The amused expression on her face was gone now—she looked as though she'd just bitten into something sour.

“We have more papers to deliver. Good morning, ma'am.”

Jack turned and started away. I gave the old woman a wave goodbye and hurried after him.

“Stupid old biddy,” Jack said as I reached his side.

“That was strange.”

Jack shot me another look.

“I mean her wanting to talk about the camp.”

“Other than the weather and the war, what else is there to talk about around here?”

“It reminded me of the way Mr. Krum always tried to pump us for information, that's all.”

Jack burst out laughing. “So you think that the old woman is a German spy too?”

“She could be!” I said defiantly. “You never can tell.”

Jack stopped snickering. “You know, considering all we've been through, I guess maybe you're right.”

“I am?” I asked, shocked that Jack was agreeing with me.

“I've learned the hard way that things aren't always what you think they are.”

“So you think she could be a German spy?”

“She could be Adolf Hitler's mother for all I know.”

It was my turn to laugh.

“More likely she's a spy for our side, though,” Jack went on.

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe she was told to talk to us to see if we'd reveal anything about Camp X, if we'd break the Official Secrets Act.”

“We'd never do that!”

“I know that, but maybe Bill doesn't,” Jack said.

“Bill trusts us,” I argued. Bill was military, in charge of security at Camp X. We'd gotten to know him pretty well after blundering into the camp and landing in a load of trouble.

“It really doesn't matter if he trusts us or not as long as we don't say any—” Jack stopped mid-sentence as a familiar-looking white panel truck slowly passed us, moving up the street. At the intersection it came to a stop, flashing its tail lights, and then turned to the right, disappearing behind a stand of trees.

I turned to Jack. “Is that the same truck?” We'd been seeing it—or one just like it—all over the neighbourhood.

“Maybe, maybe not. Even if it is, it doesn't necessarily mean anything.”

“But did you notice how slowly it was driving when it passed us this time?”

“It was probably looking for a number on one of the houses,” Jack said. “Whitby's a small town. It's probably just a coincidence.”

“Well,” I said, “I'm going to keep my eyes open and just see if—”

We both saw the truck as we turned the corner. It was pulled over, a hundred feet down the road.

“Another coincidence?” I asked.

“One more than I like. Come on, let's go straight ahead up the street.”

“But we have to deliver some papers down that way,” I said, gesturing toward where the truck was parked.

“We'll come back for them at the end of the route.”

I knew it meant a longer walk, but I wasn't going to argue. We started to cross the street. I looked at the truck. It was covered with dust and dirt, and the window was up despite the heat, and—

“Owww!” I howled as Jack punched me in the shoulder. My head spun around. “Why did you do that?”

“Don't look at it,” Jack ordered. “If they are looking at us, we don't want them to see us looking at them.”

“Why not?”

“Figure it out for yourself!” he snapped.

What I figured was that maybe Jack was getting even more paranoid than me. What I knew for sure, though, was that Jack was mostly right—and even when he wasn't right he was still bigger than me. And I didn't want another punch.

We crossed the road and continued up the street. If the truck reappeared now it would be a whole lot more than just a couple of coincidences.

“Third house in on the other side gets a paper,” Jack said.

“Oh, yeah, right.” I dug a paper out of the bag and started across the street. Looking back, I was relieved to see the empty road. No panel truck …; not even a kid on a bike. I trotted up the front walkway, getting close enough to the house to make sure my toss landed on the porch. I threw, and the paper skidded into the door. I started back across the street, looking both ways, and there it was—a white panel truck coming down the road toward us from the direction we were heading.

“Jack?”

“I see it. Get over here.”

I scrambled to his side. “Is it the same one?” I asked.

“I can't tell. Maybe.”

The panel truck moved slowly down the street. The sun was reflecting off the windshield and I couldn't see who was driving or if there was anybody in the passenger seat. It slowed down even more and came to a stop right beside us. I slid over so Jack was between it and me. Then the window rolled down and a young woman stuck her head partway out.

“Excuse me!” she called. She had a heavy accent …; but it wasn't German. French, maybe. “Do you boys know where is King Street?”

“That's in the centre of the village,” Jack answered. “Go back down to Highway 2, turn left and you'll find it.”

“What is …; highway?” the woman asked.

“It's a big road,” Jack said, “with lots of cars. And when you get there, go that way,” Jack said, pointing to his left.

“Ah,” the woman said, nodding her head and flashing a big, friendly smile. She was very pretty. “Could you show me on this map?” she asked, holding it up and partway out the window.

“Sure, easy,” Jack said, smiling back. He walked across the road to the driver's-side window. I trailed behind him. I think we were both feeling a little silly about our earlier suspicions.

“It's not hard,” Jack said. He took the map from her hands. “You just take this road right here and then—”

Out of nowhere two men dressed in black raced around the side of the truck. “Both of you, not a word!” one of them warned. The two men pinned us against the side of the vehicle.

“Into the truck!” one of them ordered. I looked down. There was a pistol in his hand!

"I don't like cats," Simon said. "They're dirty."
   "They're not dirty," I said, defending Blinky and all of catkind. "They wash themselves all the time."
   "They wash themselves with their tongue," he said and made a face like he was grossed out. "But if you love cats, then this is the place to be. There are dozens and dozens of them here. I'll show you."
   My desire to get out of the junkyard wasn't as strong as my curiosity. Why would there be dozens of cats here?

—Tu as été accepté en édu spéciale? demande Kevin, suffoqué.

—Pas encore.

It looked like a giant butterfly fl uttering through space, the wings of its solar panels extended to gather in the power from the sun’s rays. Different instruments attached at strange angles gave it an awkward and fragile look. But it was strong—strong enough to survive as it sailed silently across the frigid, bleak, black expanse of open space.
 
With each second it left Earth farther and farther behind. But attached to the satellite was a small part of its planet of origin, a gold disc showing a diagram of our solar system and an illustration of a man and a woman with their hands open in a gesture of friendship. No one could hope to predict, but maybe, just maybe, this wanderer might someday meet somebody in its travels.
 
First it travelled toward the giant of the solar system, the planet Jupiter. The journey of 759 million kilometres took nearly three years. Arcing into a perfect elliptical orbit above the poisonous atmosphere, it began its task. The lifeless satellite bristled with activity as it observed, recorded, analyzed, and transmitted information. Never before had man observed this mysterious planet at such close range. With this job completed the satellite was ordered out of orbit. Using its booster rockets and the gravity of the planet, it was slingshot farther out toward the more distant planets at the very edge of the solar system.
 
It was connected to Earth by a continuous trickle of information, like the string on a kite. Travelling at 300,000 kilometres per second, the signals raced back to Earth as the satellite continued on its relentless journey. With each passing hour it moved a further 17,000 kilometres away from Earth, and to places never before visited by man or his instruments. Six years after leaving Jupiter, having made close passes of five different planets, it passed beyond the outermost orbit of the outermost planet. In breaking this imaginary line, it left behind the solar system of its birth, but it refused to die. It kept travelling, kept recording, kept transmitting.
 
No one could have believed that despite the passing of eleven years and more than 24 billion kilometres, the satellite still had the will to live. As it rocketed farther and farther it continued to send back its messages: a faint, feeble voice coming from somewhere out there. Like a little lost child in the dark night sky, it called out, “I’m here. I’m still here.”
 
The scientists who had dreamed and conceived and then watched the life of the satellite would have marvelled at its continued existence. But the country that had sent this satellite skyward, the Soviet Union, no longer existed. It had been broken into smaller pieces, none of which now had the will or the resources to track the ongoing journey away from our solar system. The satellite called out, “Look at this!” but nobody was there to hear.
 
Thirty-three years after its launch, twenty-two years after it left our solar system, the satellite cruised toward a small planetary body. With the gentle pull of gravity it settled into a perfect orbit. This new home was a lifeless chunk of rock with a diameter of 500 kilometres, roughly one-sixth the diameter of Earth’s moon. This became the centre of the satellite’s universe as it sailed around and around and around, once every fourteen hours. And like the good machine that it was, it started to observe, record, analyze, and transmit its findings.
 
Just by chance, somebody was listening. The satellite transmitted its messages in its only true language, the language of mathematics. Its faint signals were accidentally heard and translated.
 
At first nobody thought it could be possible that the traveller still existed. This was cause for great celebration. With each orbit, at fourteen-hour intervals, as it faced toward Earth, it sent back information. But the messages didn’t seem to make sense. Somehow the satellite appeared to be moving closer. Somehow the world that it was attached to was moving closer. And the one message that the satellite wasn’t transmitting was the most important—perhaps the most important message in the history of mankind.
 
“I’m coming back, I’m coming home . . . and I’m not coming alone.”

I never sounded as confident as Kia did because I never felt as confident as she did. She was always that way - completely sure of success until she failed. Me, I was sort of the opposite. Completely positive it wasn't going to work out until the final moment of success. I knew that Kia was already convinced we should try out for the team, and that I was probably fighting a losing battle at this point. I just didn't know. This wasn't just the big kids at our school, but the big kids at other schools.

"All I'm saying is that if you took it down a notch or two, you'd make the jumps and save the injuries."
    "I always makes the jumps," I argued.
    "What are you talking about?"
    "I make the jumps. It's the landings that I'm having trouble with."

I followed them into the living room and was met by a mass of people. My sudden courage seemed to deflate. How could I ever get this many people to leave?

Just then I heard the sirens.

There was a playful combat everywhere. I didn't have time to look around, but there had to be close to a hundred people around me, yelling, laughing and swinging their pillows.
On the edges of the battle other people watched. THere were grown-ups holding their kids by the hand or loaded down with shopping bags, looking stunned or amused or confused. Some laughed and pointed, and others hurried away like they were scared. There had to be almost as many people watching as there were participating.
One of the pillows burst, and a million white feathers shot into the air like a billowing cloud! The crowd—watching and fighting—erupted into gasps and screams and laughter.

“What happens between you and me stays here. It’s nobody’s business but ours.”
“But isn’t using steroids sort of like cheating?” I asked.
“It would be if you were the only one doing it. Half the kids on the line who are standing across from you, trying to block you, are on the juice. We’re just trying to give you what you need to even up the score.”

Our school teams always lost. It didn't matter what sport—basketball, soccer, baseball, volleyball or hockey—we sucked at them all. I'd been on all our school teams every year since grade six and we'd never had a winning team. Forget winning team, we'd hardly ever had a win.

"We have to get out of here. There's nothing we can do. Besides, there are already people there to help and to call the police. There's nothing we can do but get in trouble."
I hesitated.
"Go! Get out of here!"
I got the car moving. I had one eye on the road in front and the other on my rearview mirror, trying to see the accident. I saw flashing red lights behind me in the distance. For a split second I took my foot off the accelerator. Then I pressed down harder, picked up the speed and took a quick left turn.

chapter one
–

Suzie and I huddled beneath the umbrella. It gave us at least some protection from the rain that had been coming down in buckets all day. The whole schoolyard was filled with kids bobbing about under umbrellas or in bright yellow slickers. A few of the boys from my Grade 8 class just turned up the collars of their denim jackets, like the rain wasn’t any great inconvenience. They were too busy trying to look cool to even attempt to stay dry. Most of them were all wet even when it wasn’t raining . . . although a few of them were cool even without the jacket. I looked around. I was waiting for Suzie’s brother David, but I was hoping to catch sight of Donnie Davis. He was nowhere to be seen. Too bad.

Almost everybody was rushing to get away from the rain and home or to a friend’s house. All my friends were going over to Debbie’s to listen to some 45s on her new record player. Debbie had all the new songs–“Shake, Rattle and Roll” by Bill Haley, both versions of “Sh-­Boom,” by the Chords and by the Crew-Cuts, and “That’s All Right” by Elvis Presley . . . Elvis was so dreamy . . . he would have been my favourite even if he couldn’t sing.

I sighed. I hadn’t even been invited. Everybody knew there was no point. I couldn’t go, and asking me would have been cruel. Instead I was standing here, my saddle shoes soaked through, waiting. Couldn’t David ever get here on time?

Suzie was pressed close against my leg, dressed in her little yellow raincoat and matching hat. It wouldn’t have been nearly so dreadful if I were just babysitting her every night after school. She was a nice, sweet, friendly little Grade 2 kid. Nothing like her brother at all.

“How about if we just leave him here this time?” I asked.

Suzie giggled. We’d talked about this before. It was something we’d both have loved to do, but of course we couldn’t. I was responsible for her brother as well, even if he didn’t like it. I had to admit–­at least to myself–­that I understood why he felt he didn’t need a sitter. He was in Grade 6 and should have been able to take care of himself. But his parents didn’t trust him to watch out for Suzie, so I was in charge of both of them.

I looked at my watch–­it was almost ­three-­thirty. School had let out over ten minutes ago. That meant he wasn’t just dawdling–­he had a detention. David had to stay after class at least three times a week. Sometimes it was because he hadn’t finished his work. Sometimes it was because of his behaviour. That boy just didn’t like to be told what to do, and he loved to argue about why he shouldn’t. I was tired of having those arguments with him. I could only imagine how much he must have annoyed the poor teacher who was stuck with him all day.

“Did he get in this much trouble at your old school?” I asked Suzie.

“Not as much,” she replied.

They had moved to our neighbourhood this past summer. Mr. McBride had bought some land by the river. It seemed as though there were new houses going up there all the time. My father said they were “springing up like mushrooms.” This was the third straight day of rain, so if what he was saying was true I guessed I could expect to see a dozen more there tomorrow.

Our house sat up on the hill overlooking the valley. I could see all those new houses from my bedroom window. Some seemed to go up all at once, started and finished in a few weeks. Others were ongoing projects, built little by little while the owners lived in them. That was the case with the McBrides’ house. They had had the outside shell built for them–­foundation, walls, roof, electrical, and plumbing–but then it was up to Mr. McBride to finish the inside. He was an accountant. I hoped he was better with numbers than he was with a hammer and saw because the work was going pretty slowly, and even I could tell that it wasn’t being done particularly well.

“Here he comes,” Suzie said.

David came out of the front doors. He didn’t seem to be in any kind of hurry. He sort of swaggered toward us. He was carrying his school bag slung over one shoulder and he wasn’t wearing a raincoat. I knew he had probably been sent to school in one this morning, so either he’d left it on a hook in his cubby or it was stuffed inside his bag. I could have asked him, but what was the point? It would only have led to an argument, and it wasn’t as if I could physically force him to wear it.

“I’m not putting it on,” he said defiantly, as if he were reading my mind.

Apparently he wanted an argument. Big surprise.

“Not putting on what?” I asked innocently.

“My raincoat. I have one, but I’m not going to wear it.”

“What do I care?” I asked. “It’s not me who’s going to get soaked to the bone.”

I took Suzie’s hand and spun around, starting to walk away before he had a chance to react.

He scrambled to catch us. “My mother would want me to wear it.”

“Then maybe you should.”

“Are you telling me I have to?” he demanded.

“I’m not telling you anything.”

“But you should,” he argued. “That’s your job, to make me do things that I don’t want to do. You’re the babysitter, aren’t you supposed to make me do things, or at least try to make me do things?” He was really trying to get into it.

“They don’t pay me enough to do that. Wear it or don’t wear it. I don’t care. Although your mother probably will when I tell her that you didn’t wear it.”

“You’re going to tattle on me?”

“No, I’m not going to tattle. That would be so childish. I’m going to report to your mother. That’s one of the things that babysitters do, tell the parents what their children did. She won’t be happy.”

“You’d better not tell her. She’ll be just as mad at you for not making me put it on.”

I shrugged. “Maybe she’ll be so angry she’ll even fire me.”

“She might,” he said smugly.

“And then she’ll hire somebody else.”

“Couldn’t be anybody worse than the sitter we have.”

“And you’d have a long, long time to learn to like her, because she’d probably be your sitter for the whole school year . . . maybe all of next summer.”

“No way! We’re only having a sitter until my birthday in January. Mom promised.”

“She promised that it would only be to January if you proved you were responsible. Do you think it’s responsible to have a detention after school, to not put on your raincoat, to fight with your sitter?”

He started to say something but stopped himself. I had him, and he knew it. He didn’t want a babysitter now, but what he really didn’t want was to put up with a sitter for any longer than necessary. The way out involved co-operating–­unfortunately, not something that David was good at. At this rate, he might have a babysitter right through high school, and until he was married. Then his wife could be in charge.

David dropped back. I looked over my shoulder. He had put down his school bag and was pulling out his raincoat. I allowed myself a smile.

“I like having you as a babysitter,” Suzie said.

“And I like being your babysitter.”

We came to a stop at Weston Road. There were cars splashing along in both directions and we backed away from the road to avoid being sprayed. I squeezed Suzie’s hand. We’d just wait for a big gap before we crossed and–David stepped onto the road! He dodged one car and then sprinted the rest of the way, reaching the safety of the sidewalk just before a truck rumbled by.

I waited for the light to change down the block at the corner so that our stretch of road would be free of traffic. Carefully I led Suzie across.

“You should be more careful of traffic,” I warned him.

“You call this traffic?” he asked. “Traffic is what we have in Toronto, not up here in the sticks.”

David was always making fun of Weston. He acted like it was a million miles north of the city instead of a thirty-minute car ride. I knew it wasn’t the city, but it was a pretty big town and a really nice place to live. I liked Toronto, but I didn’t really want to live there. I guess the way David didn’t want to live here.

We turned onto my street, Hickory Tree Road. My house wasn’t far ahead, just where the street curved, but we were heading to the McBride house, down the valley and across the Humber River. Their house was almost exactly twice as far from school as my house, a twenty­minute walk instead of just under ten. Twice as long was twelve times as miserable when the weather was like this. Thank goodness I wouldn’t be walking with them all through the winter.

The road followed the lip of the valley, overlooking trees and grass and river. With all the rain, the Humber was brown and angry and wider than usual. It had burst its banks and was spreading out onto the flats. That wasn’t so unusual during the spring floods, but it was strange to see it happen in the fall.

My house was just up ahead. I would have loved to have gone inside. I could have changed my clothes and dried my hair. Mom would have made me a snack and a hot cup of tea, or maybe hot chocolate. I knew I could have hot chocolate when we got to the McBrides’ but it would be me fixing it for all of us. It always tasted better when somebody else made it. Actually, it tasted best when my mom made it.

I looked up. Mom was standing in the window. She was always there, each day, as we passed. I knew she was just worried–­she was a worrier by nature–­but it still felt as though she was spying on me, like she didn’t trust me. It was embarrassing to have your mommy standing over you, watching and–­she waved and smiled. I waved back weakly and gave her a little smile in return.

It was always such a strange thing to just walk past my house as though it didn’t belong to me. I guess after six weeks I should have been getting used to it, but I wasn’t. By January it might be different. Part of me would miss the money, but it would be nice to have my time back again. Time to spend with friends, or do my homework, or just not be responsible for two children. It was only a couple of hours each night, but sometimes the time really dragged. Funny how slowly time moves when you want to be someplace else.

This job sort of fell into my lap. My father runs a garage, and he had fixed Mr. McBride’s car. He’d mentioned to my father that they needed a sitter every night for a couple of hours, from the time school dismissed until he and his wife arrived home, usually around six. It would only be for a few months, until David was older and able to look out for both himself and his sister. My father volunteered me, and when they offered me the job I jumped. I’ve always liked kids. I thought someday I might want to be a teacher. It was good to have my own money. I had my eye on a new record player like Donna’s.

I had to walk them home from school, get them a snack, help Suzie with her homework, and, in the words of Mr. McBride, “try to stop David from doing anything too stupid.” That last one was the real work. He was very creative in finding new and exciting ways to cause me trouble. After six weeks of taking care of him, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to ever have children–­at least not boys.

I also tried to straighten up the house a little every night. I’d wash the snack dishes, and the breakfast ones if they hadn’t been done. In all the disorder of a house being constructed I needed to find some order. Once they’d had their snack and Suzie had done her homework, we’d sit on the chesterfield and turn on the television. The McBrides had the biggest television I had ever seen. Not that I’d seen too many–­only a few of my friends had one–­but their set was huge. It sat on the floor in a big, solid wooden cabinet with four legs. The screen had to be fifteen inches across, and the reception was so much better than on other sets. When the weather was good the picture was so clear that the faces were like you were looking right at the real person. If, that is, the real person was black and white and grey.

There was only one thing wrong with their television. Because their house sat at the bottom of the valley the only signal they could get was the CBC station from Toronto. They couldn’t get either of the Buffalo stations which meant they didn’t get any of the top American shows, as David constantly complained–another lousy thing about living in Weston. For me, one station was better than none, and that’s what I got at home. We didn’t have a television, and I didn’t know if there was one in my immediate future.

While Mr. McBride hadn’t yet attached the kitchen cupboards, he had just installed a big antenna on the roof of the house. Of course, true to form, he hadn’t actually run a wire down and hooked it up to the television yet, but when he did he hoped to get those extra stations. But my father said that unless the antenna was higher than the sides of the valley he wouldn’t be getting any new stations.

We got to a long set of wooden steps that led down the hill toward the river. They were wet and slick and slippery, and I held Suzie’s hand even tighter. At the bottom we started along the gravel footpath. It was slightly elevated, and that rise put us above the surrounding grass, which was now more like a series of big puddles, so numerous and large that they were almost linking together into a shallow lake, an inch or so deep. There had been so much rain that it couldn’t soak in or run off, it was just pooling up.

By the time we came to the footbridge that crossed the Humber the noise of the river had risen to a roar. The water raced by, brown and foamy and angry. Caught in its flow were tree branches, bobbing and bouncing along in the current. Some of the larger branches were now jammed into the underside of the bridge, trapping other garbage that had fallen in.

Suzie slowed down as we got closer to the river. She was always nervous around the bridge. She didn’t like crossing it. Today I wasn’t so crazy about it myself, even though it was a big, solid, wood-and-metal construction with high railings on the sides, anchored at both ends in gigantic concrete pilings. It was safe and secure, and there was nothing to worry about. My brain knew that. I just wished my stomach didn’t have so many questions.

“So, what did you do in school today?” I asked Suzie as we started across, to take her mind off the rushing water below.

“We had a spelling bee, practising the words for the test on Monday.”

“I hate spelling bees,” I said.

Actually, what I really hated was the strange feeling in my stomach as the water rushed underneath our feet. I could just see it through the narrow cracks between the planks. It made me feel like I was being pushed sideways.

“I like spelling bees because I win a lot,” Suzie said.

“Maybe that explains why I don’t like them.”

With each step toward the middle the roar of the water got louder, and Suzie’s hold on my hand got stronger. For a little kid, she had one strong grip.

The bell rang, and instantly books were slammed shut and people started to get to their feet.

“Everybody sit down!” Mrs. Tanner yelled out.

The noise lessened but didn’t stop.

She moved over to the door and took up a position directly in front of it. Nobody was leaving without going through her, and while she wasn’t big, she was formidable. Nothing short of a truck was going to move her out of the way.

I slumped down into my seat. I knew this teacher well enough to understand that she wasn’t going to be letting anybody out until she was good and ready.

“I’ve got all day!” she said. “Or at least all lunch period, so talk as long and as loudly as you want.”
Kids shushed each other until the last people sat back down and closed their mouths.

“Just because the bell rings, that doesn’t mean I’m ready to dismiss you. You so-called intelligent young people are acting more like Pavlov’s dogs,” Mrs. Tanner said.

“Are you calling us dogs, Mrs. Tanner?” Taylor asked with a playful smile.

Taylor—head cheerleader, perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect clothing, perfect everything else—was as far away from a dog as you could possibly imagine. Although, if she were a dog, I could see her as a well-coiffed white poodle wearing a sparkling, bejewelled collar.

“Of course I’m not calling any of you dogs. I have great respect for dogs. I’m referring to Pavlov and his famous experiment involving canines, bells, and salivation. A discussion of Pavlov certainly isn’t out of place in a sociology course.”

“Still not getting you,” Taylor said, and there was supportive head-shaking and a chorus of murmured agreement.

“Nobody here knows about Pavlov and his dogs?” Mrs. Tanner asked.

Those paying attention just shook their heads, while the others were much more interested in the door, the clock, their pending lunch, and the grumbling in their stomachs. Or they were simply too busy looking at Taylor. That wasn’t unusual.

Girls stared at her to find out how to act or what to wear, while guys just plain stared at her, often with eyes and mouths wide open. Personally, I often looked at the people looking at her instead. That girl could cause guys to walk into each other, or into open lockers or closed doors, or trip and stumble up or down stairs.

Before this semester, Taylor had really been somebody I only knew of rather than knew. I guess everybody in the school knew who she was, but I’d never even thought of talking to her. That changed when we were partnered up for a project in Mrs. Tanner’s class. We ended up spending a lot of time after school, mostly in the library, working together. She really was
nice, and she was pretty smart, and she laughed at my stupid jokes and made me feel comfortable. I didn’t get that feeling around most people. To top it off, we got a 97 on the assignment.

In the back of my mind I assumed that once the project was finished we’d be finished. But instead, she kept going out of her way to talk to me, or just say hello, and not just in class but around the school. I got the feeling that we’d really become friends. I liked that. Watching Taylor—and people in general—was for me more than just idle curiosity. It was part of my ongoing quest to figure people out. Sometimes human interaction left me a bit confused. Sometimes it left me a lot confused. But I was working at it. That was part of my high school journey: to try to figure people out, and by doing so to become more like them, and, I guess, less like me.

CHAPTER ONE
 
 
I looked up at the board behind the counter and then at the clock suspended from the ceiling. We’d be boarding in less than ten minutes if the flight was on time—were Air Canada flights ever on time? I took a sip from my Timmy’s—the last good cup of tea I was going to have until we got back on Canadian soil in two weeks.
 
I guess I shouldn’t have complained. It was a small price to pay, because it also meant leaving behind the winter weather of January in Canada for the tropical warmth of Haiti. Technically it was their winter, too, but that just meant that the temperature would be down in the low thirties. It was also their dry season, so not only would there be no snow, there’d probably be no rain, either. I’d been checking the weather reports on the Internet every day since Christmas. The coldest day had been thirty-one degrees, with the long-range forecast predicting two weeks of nearly perfect weather. Hot, dry, and not only away from winter weather but away from school. This extended Christmas holiday was more like an extended Christmas present!
 
If this had been the summer, with no school and good weather at home, I would have kicked up a lot more fuss about being dragged along in the first place. It probably wouldn’t have done much good, but I’d have at least tried to make it so uncomfortable for my father that he would have found somebody to take care of me in Toronto while he went. After all, he wouldn’t have wanted me to be an embarrassment.
 
And that, of course, was the biggest downside to all of this—my father was not only coming along, he was the leader of our little mission trip to Haiti. All of the other kids—with the exception of my sister, of course—got to leave their parents behind. But my father would be there, front and centre, all the time. And the worst of the worst was that there was some sort of bizarre expectation that I would be a good role model on this trip, a reflection of his goodness. Barely three months into his appointment at a new church, with a new congregation, I knew that everybody was still watching us closely, and this little trip would be 24/7 observation. I pulled my cap down lower on my head, slipped on my sunglasses, and went to reinsert my earbuds.
 
“Air Canada Flight 950 to Port-au-Prince will begin boarding shortly for executive class, business class, and those passengers requiring additional assistance or travelling with small children.”
 
I always thought it was strange that those groups were put together—were businessmen like children? Did executives require physical assistance because their wallets were so big?
 
My father got to his feet. “Could I have everybody gather around, please?” he called out.
 
The rest of our group got up—some practically leaping to their feet in response to his request. If I’d put on my earbuds sooner I could have maybe faked not hearing, but that wasn’t going to work now.
 
We all trailed after him into an open space away from the seating area.
 
“Could we all gather in a circle, please?” he called out in a loud voice.
 
Oh, goodness, now I knew what he was going to do. Maybe I could slip away or—my little sister, Sarah, took my hand. She knew what was going to happen next, too.
 
Kids started tentatively taking places and sort of shuffling and bumping until a rough circle of people formed, with my father on the far side, directly across from where I stood. “Please join hands,” he commanded.
 
Suddenly there was more significance to the person each one of us was standing beside. Some quickly grabbed hands while others hesitated or rubbed their hands against their pants to wipe away the sweat. Sarah was already holding my right hand and a girl named Naomi grabbed my left—she obviously wasn’t worried about the sweat factor because I could feel the wetness of her palm. I had the urge to take away my hand to wipe it off but she held on with an iron grip that was well beyond what I’d have expected from somebody of her size.
 
“As we get ready to take the next step, I want to take a moment to ask for God’s blessing. Please bow your heads in prayer,” he ordered.
 
I lowered my head slightly but kept my eyes open.
 
“O God, you called Abraham your servant out of Ur and kept him safe and sound in his wanderings,” he said.
 
His voice was much louder than it needed to be to reach our little circle. The looks on the faces of other passengers waiting and walking past were a combination of curious, amused, disgusted, and embarrassed. Take out the amused and curious and that was basically how I was feeling myself. I almost closed my eyes to hide, like a two-year-old who covers his eyes and figures because he can’t see you, you can’t see him. That made no sense, but still I lowered my gaze so I wasn’t looking beyond the circle any more.
 
“Be for us a support when setting out, shade from the sun, a mantle against the rain,” he called out, “and provide friendship along the way.”
 
Friendship along the way? I raised my gaze to carefully, discreetly look around the circle. There was my father, a woman next to him named Iris, another much older woman from our church congregation named Michelle, and fifteen kids, including me and my sister. The oldest was only a year older than me at seventeen, but most were my age or a year younger. My sister, at twelve, was the youngest and had been allowed to come along only because my father was leading.
 
I could look at people with impunity. Every head was bowed, every set of eyes tightly closed, as ordered, so nobody could see me looking. And, if somebody did look up, who were they to tell on me since their eyes were open, too?
 
I looked from person to person. I knew most of these kids, by appearance if not by name, but there was nobody here who I’d have even remotely considered a friend, nobody I spent time with outside of the obligatory church events, and, quite frankly, nobody I wanted to spend time with. The few friends I’d been able to make since we’d moved were at school—a couple of guys from the basketball team, some people I ate lunch with—but nobody who went to our church, or, for that matter, any church.
 
Our little group had five boys and ten girls. That would have been good odds for the boys if the girls had been hot. But they really weren’t. The style theme for this trip was a combination of Baptist bland and fashion faux pas. The dress code, apparently, was clothing your mom bought for you that you didn’t have the good sense or the guts to refuse to wear. Naomi—the one holding my hand in a sweaty iron grip—was the best-looking of the bunch. If she’d dressed better she could have actually been good-looking, period.
 
I really didn’t much care about the kids, though. I was more concerned about Iris. Okay, concerned wasn’t the right word. I was more annoyed by Iris. There she stood, head down, eyes closed, standing at my father’s side, holding one of his hands. No surprise there. I actually would have been shocked if she hadn’t been standing there.
 
Iris was one of those women . . . those . . . those . . . groupies who seem to be drawn to ministers. They flirt and flit around ministers, volunteering for committees and fawning over the pastor as if every word from his mouth is gold. My mother had pointed them out to me. They’d been at every church we’d ever been assigned to. It was stupid and really rather insulting that they behaved that way even around my mother, and . . . I guess that wasn’t a problem any more.
 
Iris was single, at least a few years younger than my father, and dressed in a style that was almost too revealing, almost too young, but not quite. I was positive that she was only coming on this trip because my father was leading it. But so far, in spite of her advances, my father wasn’t biting. Not yet, at least. Maybe he was still too hurt. Maybe he was being respectful. Maybe he still couldn’t get my mother out of his head. I knew I couldn’t.
 
“Bear us up in fatigue and defend us under attack!” my father said, his voice rising, taking on that minister-like quality, a sort of Southern twang that evangelists pick up once they get going. I just wasn’t sure what he thought was going to happen . . . defend us from attack? Were we going to Haiti or Afghanistan? Was this a mission trip or a military operation?
 
“If it is your will, protect us, Lord!”
 
If it was God’s will to protect us? Talk about making up an excuse. So, if something did happen it wasn’t because God didn’t listen or didn’t care, but because he’d decided to do something bad. Yeah, right, God sat up on his throne thinking, “Yep, I’m going to kill that girl Ashley because she didn’t pray hard enough.” What a cop-out: It is God’s will . . . God works in mysterious ways. People use that quote like it was something that Jesus said, or as if it was a quote from the Bible when it’s just a line from some old hymn—and not even a good hymn.
 
My father continued with his sermon . . . his prayer. I had to hand it to him, he did know the Bible, and he could throw out a good sermon, prayer, or service. If I hadn’t heard this one so many times before, I would have been more impressed.
 
My father had an impressive repertoire of well-rehearsed ad libs, set pieces, and quotes that all sounded completely spontaneous. Didn’t fool me, though. I’d heard them all a million times before. He was like a live remix tape, a “best of ” compilation available only on TV from Time-Life, like music from the Seventies . . . no, that wasn’t right, I liked music from the Seventies.
 
Strangely, that was one of the few things my father and I still had in common. He loved the music from the Sixties and Seventies. I’m not sure how his congregation would have felt about him grooving on Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and the Stones, but it was at least something we could agree on, listen to, and talk about. He definitely didn’t think that Eric Clapton was God, but he probably thought he was as close to God as a guitar player could get. Well, maybe Hendrix fit in there, too.
 
As my father continued to ramble on, I couldn’t help but think what would have happened if a bunch of Muslims had gathered to praise Allah and say prayers before they got on a plane. Well, really, I didn’t need to wonder. The whole bunch of them would have found themselves in a back room being stripped down and exposed to a cavity search. God may be great in all religions, but there was a definite advantage around here if your God was from the Bible and not the Koran.
 
“With your grace let us fulfill the purpose of our trip and return safe and sound to our homes.” He paused. “Amen.”
 
“Amen,” we echoed.
 
Everybody looked up and released hands. Everybody except the girl holding my hand.
 
“I think you can let go now,” I said.
 
“Oh, yeah, sorry!” Naomi started to blush.
 
Great. I hadn’t meant to make her feel bad, I’d just wanted her to let go of my hand. I knew she had a little crush on me. I’d made the mistake of being nice to her after church one day and she’d taken that as a sign of interest instead of polite indifference.
 
I shuffled away, trying to wipe the sweat from my hand on my pants nonchalantly, without her noticing.
 
“This is very exciting,” she said as she trailed after me.
 
“Yep. Exciting,” I agreed.
 
“I’m sure we’ll fulfill the purpose of our trip,” she added enthusiastically.
 
“The purpose?” Did she mean making my father look like a good Christian leader, or making a bunch of rich, white teenagers from a rich suburb feel that they were somehow doing something for the world?
 
“You know, helping to build the addition to the orphanage and caring for the needy,” she said.
 
“I’m sure we’ll do something,” I agreed, “although I’m not sure I’d want to live in any house that a bunch of kids helped to build . . . unless you’re a trained bricklayer and didn’t tell anybody?”
 
She looked confused. “No . . . I’ve never done anything like that before. Have you?”
 
I chuckled slightly. So much for subtle sarcasm.
 
“No. And I’m afraid I’ve never trained as a bricklayer, either,” I said.
 
“General boarding will commence for all remaining passengers on Air Canada Flight 950 to Port-au-Prince,” the P.A. announced.
 
“That’s us,” I said. “See you on board.”
 
“That would be great . . . maybe we’re seatmates.”
 
“Maybe,” I said. I didn’t really care. I was going to put on some headphones, watch a movie, and try very hard to ignore whoever was sitting beside me. Especially if it was my father. No, I probably didn’t have to worry about that. My guess was that Iris would somehow manage to snag that seat.

You've been designated special ed?" Kevin gasped.
"Not yet. They still have some testing to do, but they're letting me work there on a trial basis."
"Wow," Kevin said. "I can't believe that you did it...you fooled them."
"It wasn't hard."
"You're, like, a genius," Ahmad said. He sounded impressed.
"An evil genius," Cody said.
"There's nothing evil about this. Nobody gets hurt. Besides, I don't want any more talk about me being a genius. I'm just Ed... special Ed.

I reached down and picked up one of the tomatoes. It was so overripe it was squishy and soft to the touch. My fingers sunk in, almost breaking the skin. I tossed it a few inches up into the air and caught it again. Nice weight. Nice.
Keegan still had his back to me. There was a slight wind—left to right—so I'd have to take that into account. I drew my arm back and threw the tomato. It flew through the air, slightly spiraling, toward him and—splat! It smashed right into the back of his head and exploded into a thousand pieces of pulp!

“So, do we have a deal?” Mr. Evans asked.
“Unbelievable,” I muttered under my breath.
“I don’t understand,” Mr. Evans said.
“The whole thing is unbelievable. First you try to threaten me.
Then you try to bribe me. And now you do the two together, trying to bribe me and threatening me if I don’t take the bribe.”
“I don’t like to think of it in those terms,” he said.

I was going to kill Oswald when I found him. What was he up to?

The conductor picked his way down the aisle, collecting fares, making change and giving tickets.
    "All the way to Machakos?" he asked Kioko's grandfather.
    "Yes, to the end."
    "Eighteen shillings for two."
    "Eighteen?" his grandfather asked. "He is so small, you should only charge half the fare for him."
    "He is small. If you want a cheaper fare, we can tie his feet together like the chickens and put him on the roof."
For a moment, Kioko thought they were serious, but then the men laughed.

The conductor picked his way down the aisle, collecting fares, making change and giving tickets.
    "All the way to Machakos?" he asked Kioko's grandfather.
    "Yes, to the end."
    "Eighteen shillings for two."
    "Eighteen?" his grandfather asked. "He is so small, you should only charge half the fare for him."
    "He is small. If you want a cheaper fare, we can tie his feet together like the chickens and put him on the roof."
For a moment, Kioko thought they were serious, but then the men laughed.

1

“Can’t you keyboard a little bit faster?” Todd asked.

We were in the computer room during study hall, our second-to-last class of the day. Not exactly where I wanted to be, but there were worse places to be than hanging with my best friend—even if we were working on his essay.

“It’s not the speed of my fingers that’s slowing us down. I can only type what you say. And you’re not saying anything,” I answered.

“Come on, Adam, I’m counting on you to fill in the blanks on this thing.”

“It’s your essay.”

“Don’t you want me to pass?” Todd cajoled.

“Of course I want you to pass.”

“Then you’d better get busy, because that whole passing thing isn’t likely to happen if you don’t contribute.”

“You wouldn’t need my help if you didn’t wait until the last minute to do your homework, you slacker,” I said.

“It is not the last minute. This isn’t due until final period.”

“Which is in forty minutes,” I replied.

“That’s my point. It won’t be the last minute until thirty-nine minutes from now. If I handed it in now, technically it would be early.”

This was Todd logic at its finest. He was almost impossible to reason with but totally impossible not to have a laugh with. The freshman girls seated on either side of us in the computer lab seemed to agree as they started giggling.

“Please don’t encourage him,” I said.

“And now you don’t want me to be encouraged. What sort of best friend are you?” Todd demanded. “If you ladies want to offer me encouragement, please feel free.”

They giggled again. This was obviously becoming more about him trying to impress them and less about helping me help him avoid flunking another assignment.

“Why didn’t you just do this last night?” I asked.

“I was worn out from football practice. Physically and mentally. You’d have been worn out, too, if you hadn’t quit the team.”

I snorted. “I didn’t quit. I just didn’t try out this year.”

“Same thing.”

“It’s not the same thing. I chose flying lessons over football.”

“What kind of normal sixteen-year-old chooses flying lessons over anything?”

“One who wants to be a pilot.”

“Just like Daddy.”

“Sure.” My father was a commercial pilot for Delta. He had been in uniform at the breakfast table and said he was heading to O’Hare this morning. I knew he would be taking off on his return flight soon, so he’d be home in time to read with the twins before they went to bed.

“Personally, I’d rather be like your mother,” Todd said.

“My mother is a woman,” I pointed out. “And I gotta tell you that picturing you in a dress, heels, and makeup is a bit unnerving.”

“First off, I want to be a police officer, like your mother. Second, the idea that you are picturing me in a dress, makeup, and heels is more than a bit unnerving,” he replied. “Just how long have you been fantasizing about me as a woman?”

Once Todd got started it was hard to turn him off.

“Excuse me!” Todd called out. Everybody in the lab turned to face him. “How many people find it disturbing that Adam has been picturing me as a woman?”

Lots of hands went up.

“Ignore him, please!” I protested.

“Adam, don’t be ashamed, embrace your feelings!”

“Let me know when you’re done, Todd.”

“In this day and age it’s important that all of us accept you for what you are and how you feel. In fact, I take it as a compliment that you fantasize about me.”

“I don’t fantasize about you!”

“Don’t be embarrassed. I’m sure you’re not the only one who fantasizes about me.” He turned to the girl on one side. “Right? You must admit I’ve entered your dream world at least once or twice.”

She stopped laughing and looked like she was choking on something.

“Don’t be shy,” he said. “Embrace your feelings, too. Live the fantasy and you could become part of the total Todd experience.”

She turned beet red, gathered up her things, and practically ran away. The other two girls beside us pretended to ignore us now.

“Nice,” I said.

“Mean, possibly. Fun, tremendously. That’s why God created high school—so kids in older grades could torment kids in younger grades.”

I knew that Todd could be neither embarrassed nor contained. He was as relentless as an avalanche. All I could do was redirect him.

“Since when did you decide you wanted to be a police officer?”

“Recently. I decided it would be cool to run around with a gun,” he said.

“The fact that you don’t have a gun right now is at least a small blessing for all of us.”

“I’ll ignore that crack—but if I had a gun I would force you to play football.”

“Like I said, I have no time.”

“You could have time for both football and flying lessons if you didn’t waste so much time on school. That’s my solution.”

“And just how is that working out for you?” I asked.

“It would be going extremely well if somebody would stop giving me a hard time and help me finish up this essay.”

“Let’s just get it finished. I have to get out of here right after school. I have a flight lesson.”

“Okay, Orville Wright,” he said.

“Hey, better Orville Wright than Orville Redenbacher. Three more lessons and then I solo.”

“When you get your license, do you know who I want to be the very first person up in the air with you?”

“You?”

“I was thinking anybody except me!”

The two girls to my left started giggling again—as well as a couple of other people in the lab.

“You better not insult the man who has your future at his fingertips or—”

The lights suddenly went out, the computer screen went blank, and everybody in the lab collectively groaned as we were thrown into darkness.

“What happened?” I wondered.

“Power failure or something. More important, did you at least save my essay?” Todd questioned.

“I saved it . . . a few minutes ago. It’s almost all there.”

“But I need all of it there! What am I going to tell Mr. Dixon?”

“You’ll tell him about the power failure.”

“He won’t believe me!”

“Of course he’ll believe you. The lights are out everywhere, so I think he might have noticed.” I gestured to the darkened hall. “This isn’t just a power failure in the computer lab. Besides, I’m sure everything will be back on soon,” I said.

“Soon may not be soon enough, and he won’t believe me that it was almost done. You have to tell him!”

“Why me?”

“He’ll believe you! You hand in your assignments on time, you never skip class, you do your reading, and you’re always polite to teachers. You are such a suck-up!”

“It’s called being responsible.”

“Suck-up . . . responsible . . . different words for basically the same—”

“Hey, my computer is down, too,” the girl beside us said.

“Everybody’s computer went off,” Todd said. “Computers need a magical substance called electricity.” He turned to me. “Today’s younger generation doesn’t understand much.”

“I understand that this is my laptop and it has a battery,” she said.

“The battery must be dead.”

“But mine went down as well,” another boy said.

“Mine, too,” a girl at the other end of the lab added. All of them were on laptops.

“Well, that’s because . . .” Todd turned to me. “Well, Adam?”

“How should I know?”

“Didn’t you win the science fair last year?”

“That was for designing a two-seated ultralight, not because I know everything about electricity.”

“Come on, you know everything about everything. I wouldn’t let you do my homework if you didn’t. Can we go and find Mr. Dixon and explain to him about my paper?”

I wasn’t going to do that. But I did want to see what was going on. I gave a big sigh and got to my feet.

_______________

The halls were filling with kids. The only light was coming from classroom windows and scattered emergency lights running on batteries. Classes had ended unexpectedly, and everyone was streaming out. There was a lot of laughing and loud conversation as kids enjoyed an early break.

“Can I have your attention, please!” a deep voice boomed. “Please, everybody, stop where you are!” It was our vice principal yelling through a handheld bullhorn. “We need everybody in the gym for a brief assembly!”

There were groans from the crowd.

“I say we head for the doors,” Todd said. “In this commotion there’s no way they’re going to be able to stop us from leaving.”

“What about the assembly?”

“And you wonder why I call you a suck-up?”

We headed down the stairs, only to find two teachers at the exit deflecting the river of students toward the gym.

“So much for leaving,” I said. I knew Todd was disappointed, but I really did want to hear what they had to tell us.

We went with the flow. The gym was dimly lit with just a few emergency lights. It was already crowded, and I felt a little claustrophobic as we pushed in. The bleachers were filled to capacity and we were herded onto the court, shoulder to shoulder. I was grateful to be taller than most everybody else. Did they really think they could cram fifteen hundred kids into this space?

“My phone isn’t working,” Todd said.

“You know there are lots of dead spots in this school.”

“No, I mean it’s as blank as the computer screens.” He showed it to me.

“Your battery is dead. Your phone needs that magical substance called electricity to—”

“My phone is dead, too,” a girl said.

“Same here,” somebody else added.

All around us people who had overheard were pulling out their phones. There was a chorus of disbelief and upset. It was strange how they seemed more upset about their phones not working than there being no electricity.

I pulled out my phone, just to confirm things. It was off—as per the school rules—but when I pushed the button to turn it on, it remained blank. I knew my phone was fully charged. The cell phone towers probably needed electricity to work. Is that why we weren’t even getting a screen? No, that didn’t make sense. Even without the towers there should have been power to run other apps.

“Can I have your attention!” Our principal was on the stage with a bullhorn. “Please!” he called out. “We need everybody to listen carefully . . . Please stop talking!”

There was a murmur of conversation that faded to a semisilence, an acceptable level of cooperation.

“As you are all aware, we have a power failure,” he started. “We’re assuming that it’s probably countywide, as there is a complete breakdown in telephone service, both landlines and cell phones, which must be related to the power failure.”

The crowd noise went up as those who hadn’t noticed previously all pulled out their cell phones to confirm what he’d said.

“Quiet down, people! The sooner we can finish here, the sooner you can all go home!”

A cheer went up from the crowd and then applause.

“Silence, please!” The noise faded. “Whatever the issue is, I’m confident it is being addressed and will be corrected shortly.”

For some reason I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be so simple. I was still thinking about why the batteries in the laptops had gone dead.

“We’ve decided to cancel final period today and let you all go home early.”

A cheer went up from the audience once again.

He raised a hand to quiet everyone. “You can stay here in the gym to wait for the buses. If you’re driving or walking, keep in mind there will probably be no functioning traffic lights, so please be careful. Dismissed.”

There was an even bigger cheer as we all started for the exits.