Stealing Our Way Home Read online

  I don’t know if I’ve ever felt so scared in my whole life.

  I don’t know if I’ve ever missed Mom more than this moment.

  I don’t know if I know anything anymore.

  After a while, I sit back up and wipe my nose on the bottom of my T-shirt. I pull my bike out of the weeds and tear out the strands of honeysuckle vine that have gotten caught in the wheels. I don’t feel like getting back on it. My legs still feel rubbery and my head is pounding. I walk beside it instead, holding the handlebars with one hand so it doesn’t fall over and closing my eyes every few seconds to ward off the ache behind them.

  I don’t want to go home, but I’ve been gone longer than an hour and Dad has rules about being out too late, which means he’ll probably come looking for me if I’m gone too long. Besides, Pippa will probably get herself all worked up, worrying where I am. But then I see a yellow beam, like a flashlight, and a pair of pink boots dangling over one side of Finster’s Rock.

  “Shelby?” I whisper.

  She sits up quickly, wiping at her face. “What’re you doing here?”

  “I was just out riding my bike. Are you okay?”

  She sniffs through her clogged nose. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “Are you crying?”

  “Yeah. So? People cry, you know.”

  “Not unless something’s wrong, usually.”

  “Yeah, well.” She waves me off. “Nothin’s wrong with me, so I don’t know what to tell you.”

  I stand there like an idiot for a minute, not sure what else to say. Should I leave her alone or ask her if she wants to talk? I’m not sure I would have wanted to talk if someone had found me a little while ago.

  “Okay.” I back my bike up and swing my leg over the seat. “Well, I hope you feel better.”

  “Who says I was feelin’ bad?”

  Man, she’s weird. “All right, see you around.”

  And then, just as I lean on the pedal and push the bike forward, she says my name. “Jack.”

  I look up. “What?”

  “Don’t go.” Her voice is a whisper. “Please.”

  “Hey, guys?” Dad’s voice calls from out in the hall, but I don’t move. I’m still in Jack’s room, sitting on his bed, holding my little pink notebook. “I heard the front door slam.” Dad pokes his head into Jack’s room and frowns when he sees me. “Honey? What are you doing in here? Is everything okay?”

  I want to ask him the same question. But Jack already told me it would be all right, and I don’t believe him, either.

  “Pippa?” Dad comes into the room slowly and before I know what I’m doing, I’m off the bed and racing toward him. He catches me in both arms as I rest my head against his shoulder. “What’s going on, honey? Did you and Jack have a fight?”

  I nod my head as he rubs my back and try not to think about the Spider-Man or Batman masks. His hand goes around and around in little circles between my shoulders, just like he used to do to tuck me in when I was really little. “Oh honey, it’s okay. It’ll be all right.”

  I squeeze my eyes against the tears.

  I love him so much.

  No matter what, I will always love him so much.

  But I can’t stop worrying about Jack. It’s been almost two hours since he left. Dad’s downstairs in the living room, watching TV and waiting up for him. Dad’s going to read him the riot act when he gets home, maybe even ground him for a week, although neither of us have been grounded since Mom died. Still, Dad’s pretty strict when it comes to being out alone at night. He’s told us tons of times about the skunks and raccoons that come out looking for food, and there’s always a chance one of them could be rabid. One bite by a rabid animal and you’re done. Or at least you have to go to the hospital and get a whole bunch of shots.

  I try not to think about being grounded or rabid animals when I open my bedroom window a few minutes later, scoot out onto the roof, and monkey-swing my way down the water pipe. But I overshoot the distance the bottom of the pipe is to the ground, and when I let go, I land with a loud thud. The flashlight tucked in the waistband of my shorts tumbles out and rolls to one side. For a moment, I just sit there, frozen, waiting for Dad to come charging out of the front door. But a few seconds pass and nothing happens. I count to thirty. Then sixty. Finally, I stand back up, grab my flashlight, and race across the lawn for my bike.

  I’ve never been out on the lake this late. I had no idea it was so dark. Even with the flashlight, which I hold with one hand while trying to steer with the other, it looks like I’m moving inside a wall of tar. The darkest dark I can ever imagine. To keep my mind off being scared, I try to think of my favorite songs, but the only one that comes is one Mom used to sing to me when we would work in the garden together:

  I plant my seeds

  I plant them row by row.

  I am a happy farmer

  And I like to see things grow!

  The sun and rain

  Are happy helpers too;

  They know that I

  Have lots of work to do

  So they just keep on helping out

  ’Til everything is through.

  It’s a dumb little song, but it makes me feel better, and I sing it in my head six times before I finally reach Jack’s favorite fishing spot by the quarry.

  But he’s not there. I look around for ten minutes, shining my flashlight in every crack and crevice I can think of, but there’s no sign of him. Where else would he have gone? Ben lives almost twenty minutes away, and I don’t think they’re even talking anymore. He wouldn’t go into Poultney, would he? No, it’s too far. Besides, there’s no one in Poultney that he’d go see.

  I try not to panic as I get back on my bike and start home again, but it’s hard not to. Everything feels so crazy and uncertain right now. There’s just no way to know what’s going to happen. Jack didn’t give me any real answers, but I have an awful feeling I already know what they are.

  But what if I’m wrong? What if the alarm bells in my head and the words in the paper and even Jack’s reaction to seeing the Batman mask I found are things I’ve gotten horribly, terribly wrong? I have to fight back tears, thinking of it.

  Just as I’m coasting past Finster’s Rock, I hear voices. My heart skips a beat as I realize that one of them is Jack’s, and I turn around quickly, parking my bike against a tree.

  “You’re the one who asked me to stay.” Jack sounds irritated. “And now you’re telling me that I’m bothering you?”

  “I didn’t ask you to stay so you could ask me ten million questions!” I slide in behind a tree, listening to Shelby argue with my brother. “I asked you to stay because … ”

  “Because what?” Jack interrupts. “Because you wanted another lunch buddy? You wanted some dumb conversation with someone who’s not your friend?”

  Shelby doesn’t answer right away and I bite my lip, looking around carefully for another place to hide in case Jack comes barreling out to the road again. He’ll kill me if he knows I’m here.

  And that I can hear every word they’re saying.

  “I guess I have been a little bit of a jerk about things,” Shelby says softly. “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to apologize.” I cross my legs, trying to get comfortable on the rock. “I get it, believe me. My life sucks right now, too.”

  The corner of Shelby’s mouth lifts up, and for the first time since I’ve met her, I feel like I’ve said something right.

  “You know, when I first got here, my aunt and uncle’s stove was on fire, so Nibs had to come pick me up at the airport,” she says. “We got to talkin’ a little bit, and she told me that there wasn’t any point frettin’ about the things I’d left behind. She said that the only thing I had to worry about was right here, right now. But I’ll tell you what, sometimes right here right now can really suck too, can’t it?”

  “Yup.”

  She shrugs, digging inside her pocket and withdrawing a bag of sunflower seeds. “You want some?”
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br />   I shake my head, watching her chew out of the corner of her mouth and then pucker her lips. Thwoot! A faint splash sounds out on the lake. “You’re pretty good at that, you know.”

  “I should be,” Shelby answers. “I’ve been doin’ it since I was five years old.”

  “Wow, really?”

  “Mmm hmmm. My Pops taught me. He used to draw a line in the dirt a little ways from our front porch and make me practice hittin’ it when I spit. Every time I did, he’d scrub out the line and draw another one farther away.”

  “So how far can you spit?”

  “The farthest I ever measured was sixty feet. Give or take.”

  “Sixty feet?” I try not to sputter. “Holy cow! I can’t even spit six feet!”

  “I’ve been doin’ it longer’n you.”

  “That’s insane.” I whistle softly. For a moment, neither of us says anything. The only sounds are the branches overhead stirring in the breeze and the soft murmur of the water below.

  “You miss him?” I ask after another minute.

  “Every second of every day.” Shelby’s answer comes so quickly that I wonder if it was already sitting there on the tip of her tongue.

  “That’s how I feel about my mom,” I offer.

  “What happened to her?” Shelby asks.

  “She had stomach cancer.” My throat tightens. “By the time they found out, she only had two months left. It was fast.”

  “You get to say good-bye?”

  “Kinda.” I reach up, scratch my nose, which has started tingling. “I mean, she’d said her last things, I guess. You know, like I love you and take care of Dad and Pippa and all that, and I got to tell her some things too, but I wasn’t there when she actually died died.”

  “Where were you?”

  “Pippa and I were outside in the hall actually, arguing.”

  “About what?”

  “It was stupid. She was pestering my mom, asking her the same questions that she asked her every day. ‘Why can’t they fix you? Does anything hurt? Where’s your medicine?’ All this stuff, just over and over. I don’t know why she kept doing it; I mean, my mom had already answered everything like ten million times. So when the nurse said that Mom needed to rest that day and asked us to go wait in the hall, I kind of went off on her and told her to shut up, that all her questions were driving Mom nuts, and while we were in the hall arguing, Mom died.” I drop my head so that she doesn’t see me wiggling my nose. “That was the last time Pippa said anything.”

  “Wow,” Shelby says softly.

  “Yeah.”

  “But it’s not your fault that she stopped talking,” Shelby says. “I mean, she just sorta did that on her own, right?”

  “No, I should’ve never said anything like that to her. I should’ve just kept my dumb mouth shut.”

  “You were frustrated.”

  “Yeah. But I didn’t have to be mean. I didn’t have to say that.”

  “I didn’t get to see my dad ’fore he left,” Shelby says suddenly.

  “You didn’t?”

  “He just left me a note. I didn’t even know he was going anywhere.”

  “What’d the note say?”

  Shelby gets that faraway look in her eyes again, and for a minute I don’t think she’s going to answer.

  “I tore it up,” she says softly.

  “Oh.”

  “But I remember what it says.” She nods. “I remember every word.”

  “You do?”

  “Dear Butterbean,” she starts, and then looks up. “That’s what he called me all the time. Butterbean. You ever hear of ’em?” She shrugs when I shake my head no. “They’re a Southern thing, mostly. Kind of like lima beans. They don’t taste like much unless you put lots of butter and salt on them.”

  “Oh.”

  “Dear Butterbean,” she starts again, “I don’t know of two unhappier people than your Momma and me. We’ve tried just about everything to make things work between us, but it isn’t going to happen. At least, not in this lifetime.

  “You know how I’ve always told you that life is short? Well, it’s even shorter when half of it has already passed you by. So I’m heading out West for a while. I need to see if I can find some kind of happy while I still have something left in me.

  “I wanted to wait so that I could say good-bye to you in person, but my train will be leaving while you’re at school. Take good care of yourself, you hear? I’ll be back soon.

  “Love, Pops.”

  She looks up at me as she says the last word, and then drops her eyes again. I don’t know what to say. If I were her, I’d never want to memorize those words. I’d never want to repeat them. They’re awful. Every single one of them. I can’t imagine Mom or Dad ever feeling badly enough that they’d purposely leave us behind to go look for something else. And there’s no way that they wouldn’t say good-bye if one of them did have to go. I’ve never met Shelby’s father, but I know I don’t want to. Not in this lifetime.

  “How long ago was that?” I ask finally.

  “Four years,” Shelby says. “I was just starting third grade.”

  “And you haven’t heard from him since?”

  Shelby shakes her head.

  “Nothing?”

  “Not one word.”

  “Then why’d he write ‘I’ll be back soon’?”

  “Because parents lie.” Shelby turns on me in a flash. “Don’t you know that by now, Jack? They all lie, even the good ones, because they think that we can’t handle hearin’ the truth. But they’re wrong. If my Pops had just come right out and written somethin’ like, ‘Listen, Butterbean, I love you, but I gotta go. I don’t think we’ll cross paths again for a good long while, and I’m sorry for that, but that’s just the way it’s gotta be’—if he had just written that, I’d be sad, sure, but I wouldn’t be walkin’ around like I do, still waitin’ and prayin’ for a miracle. I wouldn’t be runnin’ to the mailbox every day, lookin’ for a letter from him, and my heart wouldn’t be jumpin’ outta my chest every time the phone rings.”

  I stare at her with new eyes, imagining her inside the Andersons’ house, biting her lip when the phone rings, peering out from behind the front curtain as the mailman comes and leaves again. “That’s what it’s like?” I whisper.

  “Yes!” she whispers fiercely. “And even though I know better, I can’t make myself stop.” Her eyes fill with tears. “I want so much to be wrong about him. I want so much to believe that he’ll come back.”

  I don’t know what to say. But I can’t help thinking about Dad as she sits there, crying in the dark.

  I want so much to be wrong about him.

  I want so much to believe that he’ll come back, too.

  I know it’s hard for Shelby with the way things are for her. It can’t be easy having a mom that sent her away because she drinks too much or a dad who took off without even saying good-bye. But that doesn’t mean she has to hog all of Jack’s time. Or talk his ear off every time she sees him. They even sit together on the bus to school now. I’m always in the seat right behind them, and they don’t seem to mind that I’m there, but sometimes they’ll put their heads together or talk real low like they don’t want me to hear. That’s when I get really annoyed. I know Jack saw her first, but I was the one who helped her get to know him. Us, really. Not just him. Both of us. And now they’re acting like it’s just them.

  Like I don’t even exist anymore.

  Miss Rhodes might be old, but she has a lot of energy. Every morning, she claps her hands and says the same thing, with the same amount of excitement in her voice: “Who’s ready to learn more about the Spartans?” All the boys start yelling and waving their Tito the Warrior books in the air. They think Tito is the coolest person ever, now that we’ve learned about all the brave, bloody things he did.

  “All right,” Miss Rhodes says, smiling broadly this morning. “Where did we leave off yesterday?”

  “We were talking about the ways they lined up for
battle!” Mitch Stevens yells from the back row.

  “Ah, that’s right,” Miss Rhodes answers. “Who remembers what that was called?”

  Multiple hands shoot up in the air.

  Miss Rhodes surveys the class, looking pleased. “Jeremy?”

  “It was called a flanks formation,” Jeremy answers.

  “Very close.” Miss Rhodes walks over to the board and writes out a word: PHALANX. “It’s pronounced ‘FA-links,’ ” she says. “And what does this word mean?”

  “It means they stood side by side, locking their shields and moving like one gigantic wall,” Jeremy answers. “No one ever broke ranks or fell behind. That way, the enemy never got through.”

  “Excellent,” Miss Rhodes says. “Now let’s talk a little bit about the weapons they used. Which, out of all of them, was the most important?”

  I’m only listening with one ear, because I already know the answer. Any Spartan warrior’s most essential tool in battle was his shield, an enormous bronze disc that weighed close to thirty pounds. Besides protecting them from enemy blows, a hoplite shield was also used as a weapon on its own and to carry the dead off the field.

  Instead I’m thinking about what Dad did. Or at least what I think he did. Him and Jack, together. I still can’t get those words out of my head. Spider-Man. Batman. Middlebury. Or the way Jack’s face looked when he saw the Batman mask on the floor of his room. The way he grabbed my wrist and yelled at me to write down what I knew in my little pink book and then told me that everything was going to be okay. Why does everyone say that everything is always going to be okay?

  What if it isn’t?

  What if it never is again?

  At least Molly and Susan don’t seem to mind that I’m so quiet anymore. They save me a seat every day at lunch and even though they mostly just talk to each other, I don’t feel left out. At least, not really.

  “Oh my gosh,” Susan says today. “I must have worked on my Spartan paper for, like, four hours last night, and I’m still only on the first paragraph! It’s gonna take me forever!” She spears a pineapple chunk with the tines of her fork and examines it before popping it in her mouth. Susan does that with all her food, even French fries. She says you never know what might be on them, that one time her little brother was shoveling tater tots in his mouth, and he didn’t realize that there was a bug on one of them. He ate the bug, along with the tater tot, and then promptly threw up.