The Princess of Baker Street, page 10
Ms. Paloma steps out from behind her desk and comes to the front of the room. “The study buddy program has been very successful.”
Joey and me look at each other—he’s still got wild animal eyes. We don’t smile.
“And I have some good news for you. For second semester I’m going to let you choose your own study buddies.”
We look at each other again, and this time our gazes stick together. And he says one word, real quiet, but I can still hear it. “Please….”
“It’s you and me, Sinclair!” Travis’s voice booms across the aisle—I couldn’t ignore it even if I wanted to. “Right? We’re gonna be study buddies second semester, right?”
I turn away from Joey to look at him. “I guess so.”
“Okay, class, I can see that you want to mill around and decide who you are going to partner with second semester. Remember to choose wisely; your grade depends on a sound decision. You have five minutes to find a new study buddy.”
Travis gets up and comes over to our desks. He looks down at Joey and says, “Take a hike, princess. You’re in my seat.”
For a few seconds, I don’t think Joey’s going to move. It’s like he’s waiting for me to do the right thing and tell Travis to take a hike because I already have a study buddy who is working well for me, thank you very much. But I can’t… or maybe I just plain old don’t. Finally Joey gets up, grabs his backpack, and heads to the side of the room, where he stands until everybody except him is matched with a partner.
“Now sit down with your new buddy and….” Ms. Paloma notices Joey standing alone by the counter where she displays her globe collection under a rainbow-colored sign that reads It’s a Small World. She sighs and says, “Since we have an odd number of students, one group will have to be a threesome, like first semester. Which of you would like to have Joey as your third study buddy?”
I stare straight ahead. Travis lets out a loud laugh.
“Anybody? Oh dear…. You all realize that Joey would be an asset to any group, don’t you?” Ms. Paloma looks around the room for volunteers, but even after she tried her best to sell him, still there are no takers. “Well, then, Joey, see me after class, and we’ll decide what to do about this… this tricky situation. But for now just sit down at the table in the back.” Ms. Paloma clears her throat. “Now class, take out your homework, and let’s begin our discussion of South America’s topography.”
I lean over and pull my world geography notebook out of my backpack. The notes inside are highlighted in lime green from the last time Joey and me studied for a test together. I flip to the terms and definitions that we worked on before I went home yesterday.
And suddenly I feel sick. Real sick. I think I’m gonna barf.
I jump up and run from the room so I don’t throw up on the floor in front of the whole class. As I sprint toward the bathroom, I’m honestly surprised Joey isn’t the one to cut and run after the “find a new study buddy” ordeal.
I spend the rest of the afternoon barfing in the nurse’s office.
At the end of the day, when I get up off the cot to go home, I notice somebody brought my backpack to the nurse’s office. It’s waiting for me by the door. And I know it was Joey who did this. I just don’t know why.
I DON’T go to school for the rest of the week. Every morning I get up early so I can call the middle school before the secretaries get to the office to answer the phones. I pretend I’m Mom by making my voice sound high, and I recite my excuse into the answering machine when I hear the beep. “Hello, this is Mandy Sinclair, and I hope you will please excuse my boy Eric from school because he has a seriously nasty stomach flu, and he’s barfing like every other minute. Thank you.”
I’m not actually sick, but nobody questions it because the school nurse saw how sick I was on Monday afternoon, and probably they don’t want me to come back and spread a contagious disease around the school. Mom must’ve forgot about the December electric bill because the electricity in the cottage got turned off again, and it’s cold and dark—all I want is to go over to the Kinkaid’s house for a real dinner and that warm feeling I get from being close to Joey and his mom.
The feeling like they want me there.
But I messed up everything super royally with Joey in World Geography on Monday by dumping him as my study buddy.
What was I thinking?
Well, that’s an easy question to answer. I know exactly what I was thinking: I couldn’t choose to be study buddies with the only boy at Wild Acres Middle School who wears lip gloss, leggings, and a scarf to school. Everybody would think I’m gay, and then they’d torture me too. And I’d be out on a ledge, alone, with nobody at all—Joey at least has his mom to look out for him. Besides, I don’t think I’m gay. I really don’t know what I am when it comes to Joey. Maybe it doesn’t even matter. And I’m not in the mood to figure it out either—I got other stuff to deal with, like not freezing my ass off.
I grab a sweatshirt because I lost track of my winter coat, and before I even put it on, I jump to the ground from the front door of the cottage. Once I throw my sweatshirt on, I drag my bike out of the shrubs and head to the Downtown Diner. Last time we all had detention, Lily told me on the walk home that the management there lets you charge your phone for the price of a small soda. I can’t exactly go to the library to charge my cell phone, seeing as I’m not up for a heart-to-heart chat with Jan. So I can’t exactly afford not to go to the diner for a small ginger ale and electricity to charge my phone. The bonus is light and heat.
20
EARLY MONDAY morning, Travis calls to tell me our bus stop has been changed.
“What?” I ask. “The bus stop isn’t in front of the Kinkaids’ house anymore?” On the corner of Baker Street, by the Kinkaid’s mailbox, has been the Baker Street bus stop since forever, it seems.
“Nope. Something crazy is going on at the Kinkaids’ house. Joey hasn’t been in school since last Thursday. He probably caught the stomach flu from you.” He laughs. “At least I hope so.”
“Weird,” I say. But it’s actually really weird because school bus stops only change over the summer, and hardly ever even then. “So where do we catch the bus now?”
“In front of Emily’s house. It’s only a few minutes more to walk on Baker Street, so it’s no big deal.”
“Yeah, I guess.” I still think it’s messed-up.
When I get to Emily’s house, the strangeness in the air smacks me hard in the face, and I know something’s seriously wrong. There are parents at the bus stop, which hasn’t happened since the first day of kindergarten—and we’re in eighth grade now. Even Chuckie is here. And the grown-ups are all leaning in toward each other, talking real quiet while stealing sneaky peeks at us. The kids are clustered at the other side of the driveway, and they’re whispering with their heads down but refusing to look at each other.
Since I’m the last one to get to the bus stop, I race right into the middle of the group. I surprise Emily so much that she spins around and stumbles back, and then she gapes at me with somber eyes. I ask in my coolest voice, “What’s going on? You guys are acting like somebody died.”
Every single kid’s head snaps my way at once, and they all gawk at me like I got three heads and they’re all wearing bright purple wigs. I know I stuck my foot in it big-time, but I just don’t know how. Freaked-out faces with eyes as round as dinner plates, like Mom used to say, back when I had a mom, are all focused square on me. Emily steps forward and puts her hand on my shoulder. Even through my coat, the weight of her hand feels good because I been so lonely in my cold house this week, but the panic in her expression rips the good feeling away.
Plus the pink patches around her eyes scream out “I been bawling all morning!” even if the wetness has dried. She’s got the strangest, most haunted look on her face when she says the words I won’t ever forget. “Joey… Joey Kinkaid almost died.”
“What the—” It’s like a bolt of lightning shoots into my body through the top of my head and rips out through my belly, destroying everything in between. It’s too hard to steady myself, so I grab at Emily’s hand on my shoulder and I cling to it. “Did… d-did he get hit by a car or something?”
Travis is the one to answer. “Word on the street is Joey tried to hang himself in his bedroom closet over the weekend. I wonder if he used his fancy pink scarf to do it.” His smile is evil. “If he succeeded, he’d be doing the whole school a huge favor—nobody wants to look at a dude in leggings.”
Suddenly everything in front of me is one big blur—the kids, the parents, the sidewalk, Emily’s house on Baker Street. Everything. And then my entire world is set on fire. Next thing I know, I’m on top of him.
I somehow got Travis underneath me on the ground, and I’m pounding on him with all my might. My teeth are gritted and my eyes are squinted and my brain is exploding. It flashes in my mind that Mom once said when she got the most pissed off at me possible, she was “seeing red,” but I’m really seeing red because blood is spurting from out of Travis’s nose and his top lip.
Within a couple of seconds, somebody strong with huge, rough hands drags me off Travis, but I keep on swinging and yelling and… and crying.
Travis is bawling too. “You’re gonna get booted outta school for doin’ this to me!” His moaning and whining is like music to my ears. “Dad—go ahead and punch Eric’s lights out!”
I wait for Chuckie to slug me hard—I expect it and I want it. I look at him and grin instead of shutting my eyes to get ready for the blow. But nothing happens. Chuckie and Mr. Monterey stare at me with straight-line mouths and hold me back from finishing what I started with Travis.
“I don’t care what they do!” I scream in a raspy, high-pitched voice that I never heard come out of my mouth before. And I fight like a raccoon with rabies to get loose from the grown-ups who are holding me back. When I can’t get loose, I shake my head and yell, “Let ’em boot me outta school! I don’t give a shit!”
All I want is to run away. But I can’t go to Joey’s house because he tried to kill himself on account of me, and my hands are too bloody to go see Jan at the library—I’d get blood all over the nice hardcover books—and my house is dark and cold and loaded with bugs and mold and that smelly juice leaking out of the fridge…. and I can’t get away from the grown-ups anyhow. “Lemme go, you assholes!”
I need to be free of the squeezing arms and the gawking eyes and the pain in my gut that feels like somebody set my belly on fire.
I’m losing it.
When the blackness comes, along with the peace and quiet, there’s really nothing I want more.
I’M IN the nurse’s office again. This time I’m sort of alone because the curtain’s drawn around the cot, but I can hear the low rumble of concerned grown-up voices. I know they’re talking about me, and I don’t care.
It’s all kind of hazy, but from what I remember, when I got to the bus stop, I found out that Joey tried to kill himself; then Travis made a wisecrack about Joey’s pink scarf, and I lost it. All hell broke loose in my head, and I snapped like a twig on the pump house path. I beat Travis senseless, even though he’s twice my size. Then I mentally exploded, or maybe I just fainted, and Mr. Monterey, who was helping to hold me back from finishing what I started with Travis, seat-belted me in his car and took me to the nurse’s office. And here I am.
This is what I know, but all I care about is Joey.
Guilt sucks, and I know for a fact that I’m a big part of the reason Joey didn’t want to have a tomorrow. It’s just all too much—it’s way too freaking hard.
And I’m so tired.
One by one, the nurse and the guidance counselor and the vice principal step around the curtain and flash me what I figure are fake smiles. But once they’re all in my little hideout from the world, their lips turn down, and they look at me with sad eyes.
I expected angry eyes.
I just beat the living daylights out of another student, and they look sad, not mad.
Something’s up—and it’s bad. Maybe I’m going to jail.
But I ask them about the only thing that matters. “Is… is J-Joey okay?” I don’t usually stutter, but finding out Joey’s condition is the only thing that counts at this point. “Are you all friggin’ deaf? I asked if Joey Kinkaid’s okay!”
The grown-ups don’t answer, plus they don’t seem to care that I said “friggin’,” which isn’t any grown-up’s favorite word. Both of these things seriously worry me.
“What happened to him? You gotta tell me ’cause even if nobody knows it, Joey’s my best damn friend!” I don’t care if these grown-ups know the truth about Joey and me—I don’t care who knows! I just need to find out if Joey’s okay. “Tell me right now if Joey’s all right!”
I can’t cool down until I know he isn’t dead! I won’t!
The nurse sits beside me on the cot and pushes my long hair off my face. My real long hair that hasn’t been cut in months because I didn’t have the extra five bucks for a haircut, and now I kind of like it because it gives me a new place to hide. I slap her hand away.
Vice Principal Eickler steps forward and says, “Eric, we found out what has been going on with you. We know that you’re living alone.”
“Didn’t Mom answer her phone?” I ask, my voice suddenly calm. She’s hit a new low in being a mother if she didn’t answer a phone call from her kid’s school. Or maybe she did answer but refused to come here and bail me out. Wouldn’t surprise me. She pretty much told me that her boyfriend’s kids come first.
“We’re still trying to locate her. But that’s nothing for you to worry about right now,” Vice Principal Eickler tells me with a pasted-on smile.
I sit up on the cot and cross my legs. “How much trouble am I in?” I think about how bad I bloodied up Travis’s face. And there were plenty of witnesses, so there’s no use in trying to deny I did it. I do my best to fake a yawn so they think I’m bored instead of scared, but it’s an epic fail because a weird squeak comes out of my mouth.
The guidance counselor, Mr. Weeks, is the one to answer. “Don’t worry, son. It’s not your fault that your mother abandoned you. That’s her issue, Eric.”
I’m starting to get the picture. These grown-ups aren’t as worried about Travis’s nose as they are about my home life. “When can I go home?” I ask.
“A social worker is packing up your clothes. You’re not going back to Baker Street today,” Mr. Weeks replies in his practiced counselor’s voice.
This is when I clam up, because according to what I heard from this kid on the soccer team whose cousin got yanked out of his house on account of his folks were dealing drugs, I’m either going to juvie or foster care. But I’m not going home. And whatever I say will probably be held against me in a court of law. Mom used to tell me, if I ever get arrested, to shut up until I have a lawyer beside me, but I guess I didn’t listen to her good enough, because I already blabbed.
I flop back on the bed and say the only important thing left. “Just tell Joey I’m sorry.”
PART II: River Otters, Science Scholars, and Finally Friends
21
MOM DRIVES me to school on the first day of high school. I’m going to have to take the bus home this afternoon because she’ll still be at work. It’s okay—I’m cool with that.
She pulls over in the drop-off loop in front of the Wild Acres High School, and I hop out of Mom’s new-to-her Honda Accord. “See you tonight,” I say, hopefully in an upbeat way, even though I’m not feeling hopeful or upbeat about returning to school in Wild Acres. This is a whole new place—the building isn’t familiar, and in lots of ways, I’m a different person.
Home’s different too. And setting up a new way of being normal with Mom hasn’t been easy.
“Have a good day.” Even though it’s cloudy, I squint when I bend down to look at Mom through the open passenger door. I’m not used to emotional moments like this with anybody, and squinting makes it easier to take. “I’m glad you’re back, Eric.”
She looks so young with her brown hair in a high ponytail, wearing her waitress uniform for her job at the Downtown Diner. And the fact is, she is young. Mom was just fifteen, a year older than I am right now, when she got pregnant. She decided to keep me and did the best job a sixteen-year-old could do with bringing up a baby.
Things didn’t start majorly sucking for me until Grandma went into the old folks’ home in Rhode Island at the end of fifth grade. Before that Mom kind of came and went, and Grandma mostly took care of me. I guess this explains a lot about how I ended up in foster care in Plainsfield for the second half of eighth grade and most of summer vacation. Mom had to finish growing up and then prove she had her act together to our social worker.
I didn’t get this mature perspective on what went down with Mom and me by watching sappy Lifetime movies or by reading books about teenage challenges from the Young Adult shelf at Wild Acres Public Library. I’ve been in counseling since the week after I went nuts on Travis Jenkins’s face and got shipped off to live with Mrs. Marzetti. In counseling I got clued in on how hard it was for Mom to be a teenage single parent. She said Mom needed to mature and finally put her priorities in order. And I’m cool with Mom now because I think she did it…. I think she grew up while I was gone.
“I’m glad I’m back too, Mom.” We wave at each other awkwardly. All in all, this little goodbye is kind of lame, but I focus on the fact that it’s also kind of cool. And that it makes Mom smile. Still grinning, she pulls out into the high school’s big circle driveway, and I’m alone again.
I’m not all alone out on a ledge anymore, though.
When I look at the stretched-out brick school building, I smile too, even though I’m sort of scared to enter it. I suck in a deep breath, hoping it’ll give me the courage I need to move in the direction of the high school, and I run a hand through my freshly cut hair.
