Stealing Our Way Home Read online

  Title Page

  Dedication

  August

  Chapter 1: Pippa

  Chapter 2: Jack

  Chapter 3: Pippa

  Chapter 4: Jack

  Chapter 5: Pippa

  Chapter 6: Jack

  Chapter 7: Pippa

  Chapter 8: Jack

  Chapter 9: Pippa

  Chapter 10: Jack

  Chapter 11: Pippa

  Chapter 12: Jack

  Chapter 13: Pippa

  Chapter 14: Jack

  Chapter 15: Pippa

  Chapter 16: Jack

  Chapter 17: Pippa

  Chapter 18: Jack

  Chapter 19: Pippa

  Chapter 20: Jack

  September

  Chapter 21: Pippa

  Chapter 22: Jack

  Chapter 23: Pippa

  Chapter 24: Jack

  Chapter 25: Pippa

  Chapter 26: Jack

  Chapter 27: Pippa

  Chapter 28: Jack

  Chapter 29: Pippa

  Chapter 30: Jack

  Chapter 31: Pippa

  Chapter 32: Jack

  Chapter 33: Pippa

  Chapter 34: Jack

  October

  Chapter 35: Pippa

  Chapter 36: Jack

  Chapter 37: Pippa

  Chapter 38: Jack

  Chapter 39: Pippa

  Chapter 40: Jack

  Chapter 41: Pippa

  Chapter 42: Jack

  Chapter 43: Pippa

  Chapter 44: Jack

  Chapter 45: Pippa

  Chapter 46: Jack

  April

  Chapter 47: Pippa

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Preview

  Also by Cecilia Galante

  Copyright

  Two weeks after Mom died, I got a letter and a book in the mail.

  This is what the letter said:

  Dear Pippa,

  My name is Miss Rhodes, and I am going to be your fourth-grade social studies teacher next year. I am really looking forward to getting to know you and the rest of your class.

  Since we will begin the fall term by learning about Greek culture, I always ask all of my students to read Tito the Warrior (which I have enclosed) over the summer. Tito, as you will soon find out, was only a few years older than you. He lived in a part of Greece called Sparta and was raised to be a Spartan soldier. To this day, Spartans are regarded as some of the most courageous people who ever lived.

  As you read the book, please jot down at least six facts about the Spartans that you think might be important to share with the rest of the class. We’ll discuss the book and go over the information you’ve collected during the first week of school, so please come prepared.

  Have a wonderful summer, and I’ll see you soon!

  Sincerely,

  Miss Rhonda Rhodes

  I stretched out on my bed and read the letter twice, all the way through. I liked the two R’s in my new teacher’s name, the way they rolled over my tongue when I said them. My friend Susan can actually make a trilling sound when she says her R’s, almost like she is speaking Spanish, but I’ve never learned how to do that.

  Miss Rhonda Rhodes.

  She sounded pretty. Maybe even nice. Even if she was assigning homework over the summer.

  But I groaned when I picked up the book and looked at it. Definitely not my thing. The boy on the cover, who I guess was supposed to be Tito the Warrior, and which meant (at least according to Miss Rhodes) that he was just a few years older than me, looked like some weird old guy who was trying to pass as a kid. He was dressed in a long red robe and gold sandals that strapped up to his knees, and his face was all scrunched up, as if the artist had been trying to make him look fierce but instead just made him look as if he had a really bad stomachache. Plus, he was leaning forward at a weird angle, sort of crouching a little with his hands spread out in front of him, like he was about to pounce on someone or catch something. It was strange.

  But who cared about school anyway? Or some dumb kid named Tito? What kind of name was Tito anyway?

  Mom was gone.

  Forever.

  And there was nothing that anybody could do to bring her back.

  I slid Tito the Warrior between the side of my bed and the wall. Then I crumpled the letter up into a little ball and threw it in the trash can. It bounced off the lip and rolled into the corner.

  Sorry, Miss Rhonda Rhodes.

  Not this year.

  Not this girl.

  It’s crazy that the whole summer has gone by and Ben and I haven’t been fishing once. He called a few times to ask me to go after Mom’s funeral, but I wasn’t feeling it. Back then I wasn’t feeling much of anything except numb, I guess. Hollow. As if all my insides had been scooped out with a giant spoon and then chucked off a cliff. Plus, the effort I knew it was going to take to dig for worms, make a bunch of sandwiches, and ride my bike to the fishing hole on the west side of the lake felt like too much. Just the thought of it kind of knocked me out. So I told him no, maybe later. After a few conversations like that, he stopped calling altogether. Before I knew it, June and July were gone, and then August, with its stifling heat and soft, swarming clouds of mosquitoes, was almost over.

  But this morning, for some reason, as I woke up to the sun streaming through my window and the loons calling out on the lake, going fishing was the first thing that popped into my head. The thought of feeling that tug on the end of my line and reeling in a fish as it twisted and flopped through the water actually made me a little happy, which was something I wasn’t sure I was ever going to feel again.

  “Hey.” I called Ben a few minutes later. “You up for some fishing today?”

  No answer.

  “Ben?” I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me.

  “Sure,” he said, although he didn’t sound very sure at all. “Yeah.”

  I leapt out of bed and raced for the shower. It’d been almost four months since I’d seen him last, which hardly seemed possible since we’d literally done just about everything together since the second grade. That was where we met, after I spotted Paul Buck making fun of Ben one day on the playground. Ben was new that year, but everyone already knew he had a stutter, that when he spoke aloud in class his face got red and his words sounded like they were being pushed through a cheese grater. That day, sitting on my swing, I could see Paul flapping his hands and spitting nonverbal sounds in Ben’s direction. And for some reason, even though I didn’t know the first thing about Ben, and Paul was significantly larger than me, I walked over and told Paul to stop being a jerk. I’m pretty sure it was Paul who pushed me first, and he might have even gotten my arm behind my back before I started swinging, but what I remember most about that day was how Ben wedged himself between both of us and Miss Howell and told her that it was all his fault, that I never would have hit anyone if he had just gone and told her what Paul was doing in the first place. We were all given twenty minutes in the Time-Out Chair in the corner of the room, but that only sealed the deal. From that day on, Ben and I were inseparable.

  Now, I spot him from my bedroom window as he brakes at the edge of our driveway and leans over the handlebars. I pause for a moment, waiting for his usual “Heyyyy-oh!” greeting, but it doesn’t come. Instead, he just sort of drops his chin and stares straight ahead at something down the road. His head, which his mother always shaves over the summer, is covered in peach fuzz, and even from the window, I can make out a fresh set of road burns along his left arm where the skin has been scraped off. Ever since he learned how to ride a bike, Ben has pretty much lived on anything with two wheels. He’s got more scars from wrecking his bike than I probably have hairs
on my head.

  “Hey dog-face!” I call from the window.

  Ben turns his head quickly, but he doesn’t grin or say, “Takes one to know one,” the way he usually does. “Hey,” he says softly instead, talking to the front of my T-shirt. “You all set?” His voice sounds weird, like he’s nervous. Or hiding something.

  “Gimme a sec,” I answer. “I just gotta grab my stuff from the garage.”

  He still looks the same, I think to myself as we take off down Lake Road toward the fishing hole. He’s as tall and bony as he’s always been, and he still has ginormous feet, which are stuck inside a pair of size eleven black LeBron James high-top sneakers. The same blue mini cooler he always brings on fishing days is strapped to the back of his bike, which, if I know Ben at all, is filled with four baloney, cheese, and yellow-mustard sandwiches, a big bag of ranch-flavored Doritos, and six cans of Sprite. But something’s different. Something’s off, although I can’t put my finger on it yet. For one thing, he rides his bike slightly ahead of mine, instead of alongside, the way we always do. He still hasn’t looked at me straight on either, as if making eye contact is suddenly weird or painful. And we go the whole half mile without saying a single word, which has never happened, not once, in all the times we’ve ridden down to the fishing hole. Usually we can’t shut up, because the Red Sox are losing again or school stinks even more than it usually does, or Alice Jamison, who is the most annoying person on the planet, has suddenly gotten really, really pretty and neither of us knows what to do about it.

  I’m the one who finally breaks the silence after we’ve parked our bikes and baited our lines. The sun has retreated behind a screen of clouds and the sky is a pale gray color, like wool. The best kind of fishing weather.

  “So how you been?” I ask as we cast our lines into the water. “What’s new?”

  Ben clears his throat. “Not much. You know, same old stuff.” He reels a little line in, jerks his pole over to the right.

  I wonder if he realizes that how, since Mom died, nothing will ever be the same old stuff anymore, at least for me. “Whatcha been doing for the summer?” I ask.

  “Mowing lawns, mostly.” Ben stares at something across the lake. “My dad said I had to work, so I sort of set up a little business for myself. I have five—no, six—houses I do during the week.”

  “Yeah?” I straighten my shoulders a little, interested. “Is it good money?”

  “Twenty-five bucks a lawn. Thirty if I have to do any extra around the edges.”

  “Wow, that is pretty good. So you’re what, making like a hundred and fifty bucks a week?”

  Ben nods. “More or less. My dad said I have to put half of it in the bank, but that I can do whatever I want with the other half.”

  “New bike?” I guess.

  “You know it.” The corner of his mouth lifts in a small grin, but he keeps his gaze fixed on his line. “I got my eye on a real beauty down at Sickler’s. Electric orange, titanium frame, six-inch tires. I could take it all over the state if I wanted to.”

  “How much?”

  “Three hundred and fifty.”

  “Ouch.”

  Ben grimaces. “Yeah, I know. But I only need about a hundred more bucks. Besides, I’m not in any rush. My other bike is still in pretty good shape.”

  I stare out at the water, wondering what it might be like to try to focus my energy on something like a job or a new bike, or anything at all for that matter. It doesn’t seem possible. “Hear from anyone at school?” I ask.

  “Nah, not really.” He raises an eyebrow. “At least not since Field Day. Scooter Beasley ate six slices of pizza and three shaved ices, and yakked all over the rope-climbing wall. But then he nailed Mr. Lloyd in the dunk tank, so it all sort of evened out. Oh, and I won the weight-lifting contest.”

  “Oh yeah?” I hope Ben doesn’t ask me why Pippa and I weren’t there for Field Day, or why we didn’t go to school at all those last few weeks. I don’t know if I’d be able to explain it to him if he did, since I’m not really sure I know myself. I guess it was just a feeling of not wanting to be around anyone, maybe even ever again, although I’m not really sure why. And Dad didn’t make us go. He was in such a state after Mom’s funeral that I don’t think he even remembered we had school.

  “Yeah.” Ben nods. “It was pretty sweet too, especially since I beat Randy Plaska. He almost popped his eyes out trying to lift the last barbell.”

  I smile, thinking of Randy, who is one of the biggest kids at our school and, because he likes to brag about it, one of Ben’s least favorite people. “So what’d you get up to? Thirty pounds?”

  Ben snorts and makes a pfffttt sound with his lips. “Eighty-seven. And straight up, over my head.”

  “Shut up!”

  He nods, letting out some of his line, and glances a little in my direction.

  “Wow.” I can feel something that’s been balled up tight inside start to loosen. We’re getting back to where we used to be. Things will be okay. I can feel it. “Man, Ben, I’m impressed. So what else?”

  “Nothing.” Ben rubs the side of his nose. “You know, you guys’ve really been the only news.”

  Something zips up tight again inside when he says that, and a strange column of heat flashes down the sides of my belly. Ben looks over at me. His eyes are wide and fearful before he drops them again. “I mean … I didn’t mean it like that, Jack. Just, you know … everyone’s worried and stuff … and they still come up to me and ask for … ”

  “For what?” My voice is tight. I’m gripping the end of the pole so hard my knuckles are turning white.

  “They’re just checking,” Ben says helplessly. “You know, to see how you are, if I’ve heard anything … ”

  Deep down, I know that what he’s saying isn’t as bad as it actually feels, that Ben’s not really being a jerk and that I’m probably getting way too upset about all of it. But right now, finding out that people have been talking about me and my family like we’re the local news feels almost as bad as being at the funeral and looking up to see my entire class traipsing in behind Mr. Lloyd’s bald, freckled head. Almost as bad as trying not to look at that sea of grim, somber faces as they tried to make eye contact with me and Pippa and Dad, and forcing myself not to cry. Alice Jamison was crying of course, which she had absolutely no reason to, since she’d never even met Mom. And even that felt pretty terrible, because her face was all squished up and her eyes were red and swollen. It felt like my fault, for some reason.

  Suddenly, I know exactly why Ben won’t look me in the eye and why he’s been acting so weird. It’s for the same reason I knew I couldn’t go back to school those last few weeks and why I’m so furious now. He feels sorry for me. They all feel sorry for me. And everyone knows that when people start to feel sorry for you, it means they’ve stopped looking at you like they used to. That they probably won’t ever look at you the same way again.

  “That’s great, Ben.” I’m reeling in my line so fast I can feel the heat of it between my fingers. “I’m glad all this stuff has been such interesting news to all of you.”

  “Jack.” Ben puts down his pole. “Come on, man. You know it’s not like that.”

  “Here’s what I know.” I already have one leg over the seat of my bike, my pole rammed underneath the handlebars. “I know everyone in our class is a big, fat idiot. Especially you.”

  My front tire skids on a loose pile of gravel as I start to pedal, and I almost lose control of the bike. But at the last second, I yank it up straight and hightail it down the road.

  In all the years I’ve known Ben, I’ve never called him a name, much less something as mean as a big, fat idiot.

  I guess there’s a first time for everything.

  The lake is the color of charcoal as I tiptoe out to the dock and sit on the edge. I love this time of the morning, when tiny slivers of pink light peek out across the water, and the soft slope of mountain behind it is draped in shadow. Pretty soon, all the dark will drain away
, and the whole sky will look like the inside of a cantaloupe.

  I peer carefully at the trees along the shoreline and even stand up so I can see inside the cluster of cattails bunched up to the right of the dock, but there’s still no sign of Mr. Thurber. Where could he be? This is the first summer I can remember that he’s been gone more than he’s been here. Usually, he’ll perch in the willow tree in back of our next-door neighbor Nibs’ house and preen his feathers with his long, yellow beak. Sometimes he’ll watch me when I sit down on the dock, and he’ll tip his head, like he’s about to ask me a question. And then, without warning, he’ll spread his great white wings and lift himself out of the tree gliding across the water like a long, thin airplane. Those are the times I like best, when he’s flying. When he’s part of the sky and the water, all at the same time. It makes me feel safe for some reason, watching him. Like everything’s the way it’s supposed to be. Like nothing else can go wrong.

  “Is that you, Pippa?” Nibs is standing in a yellow square of light just inside her kitchen door, still in her bathrobe and slippers. I raise my hand and wave. “How about a chai?” she whispers loudly. I nod yes. “Blueberry?” I nod a second time. “All right. Give me five minutes.” She disappears inside the house again.

  Nibs has lived next to us on the lake for as long as I can remember. She is famous for her garden and her chai lattes. She drinks at least four of them every day and adds in all different kinds of flavors. One time she even put a little jalapeño pepper in a batch, but it didn’t go over very well. My favorite is the blueberry, which is not too sweet and tastes a little like licorice. Nibs likes cinnamon.

  I pull Mom’s pink sweater down over my knees and look out over the water again. The surface is smooth as glass and just as still. Mom’s sweater has white buttons in the front and deep pockets. She wore it in the hospital during the very last week, and now I wear it every morning when I come out here. I put my head down against the soft material and inhale. Lilacs. Wrigley’s Doublemint gum. Cough syrup. For some reason, the smell of her doesn’t make me cry this morning. Does that mean I’m starting to miss her less? I can’t even imagine such a thing. Most days, I miss her in a way that I didn’t know I could ever miss someone. I don’t wake up crying anymore, but lots of times during the day, I’ll think about her and something will start to hurt in the back of my throat. I have to keep swallowing to make it go away, and sometimes even that doesn’t work.