Stealing Our Way Home Read online

  “Why’s it taking you so long?” Molly tosses her head. “I’m already halfway through mine. It’s not that big a deal.”

  “It is when you hate to write!” Susan rolls her eyes, chewing. “I’d rather poke my eyes out than write a dumb essay.”

  “Well, you still have lots of time,” Molly says. “It’s not even due for three more weeks.”

  “That’s how long I’m going to need just to get through the next paragraph.” Susan looks over at me. “How about you, Pippa? Did you start on your Spartan paper yet?”

  I nod, making a little space with my thumb and index finger.

  “Just a little?” Susan encourages.

  I nod again.

  “Do you think it’s hard?” she asks.

  I nod a third time. I do think it’s hard. It’s actually one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. I’d been excited about it earlier, thinking how perfectly Mom fit the mold when it came to being a Spartan warrior, but finding the right words to say it in the kind of way that I want to has been a lot more difficult than I thought.

  “Who’s your paper about?” Molly asks Susan.

  “My great-grandfather,” Susan says. “He seriously could’ve been a real-life Spartan warrior. He was a soldier in World War II, and during one of the battles, he got captured by the Germans. They kept him in a cell for eighteen months and by the time the Americans came in and rescued him, he was covered with rat bites and he only weighed eighty-six pounds.”

  “Ewwww.” Molly shakes her head. “That’s disgusting.”

  Susan scowls.

  “I mean about the rat bites,” Molly says. “The rest is pretty cool.”

  Susan glances at me and inspects another piece of pineapple. “He’s in a wheelchair and everything now, but when he comes to the presentations, he’s going to wear his army uniform. With all his medals.” She pops the fruit in her mouth and points at Molly with her fork. “How about yours? Who’s it about?”

  “My uncle Roy,” Molly answers. She sits up a little straighter and shakes her hair. “He got hit by a train when he was a little boy and lost his leg. But now he’s the president of this huge plastics company that he built all by himself, and he’s a millionaire!” She raises one of her eyebrows. “I bet he’ll drive to school in a limo.”

  “Oh my gosh,” Susan says. “That’s so cool!” She looks over at me. “How about yours, Pippa? Who’s your paper on?”

  I shake my head.

  “You don’t want to say?” Susan asks.

  I shake my head again. I don’t think I’d want to say even if I could talk. Not now. Not yet.

  “Okay.” Susan smiles at me. Suddenly, she frowns. “Wait, how’re you going to present yours?”

  I look down at my tray.

  Molly stops chewing. “Yeah, I didn’t think of that. We all have to stand up and read our papers, Pippa. Out loud.”

  I look up again, but only for an instant.

  “Do you want me to read yours?” Susan asks.

  “Or me?” Molly chimes in. “I’ll do it for you, Pippa.”

  I press my lips together so I don’t cry. The weird thing is I don’t know where the tears are coming from. Is it because I’m embarrassed? Because I’m grateful? Or is it because deep down I have a terrible feeling that I’ve made a mistake choosing to write about Mom? She won’t be there the way everyone else’s person of honor will. And even if I could find all the words in the world to tell everyone how much of a Spartan warrior she was, I don’t want those words to come out of someone else’s mouth.

  They should only be coming out of mine.

  Except that they’re stuck.

  And I still have no idea how to get them out.

  “Who was able to use the word guile in a sentence?” Mr. Lavery, our English teacher, leans back in the wide, black leather chair behind his desk and props his shiny shoes up on one corner. First the right, and then the left, one on top of the other. He does this every day as we settle in, as if he’s getting ready to watch a football game.

  Various hands go up around the room, including Ben’s. He’s in his usual spot by the front window with John and Matt. I am on the other side of the room, a few rows behind them.

  “Go for it, Ben,” says Mr. Lavery.

  “I guiled my mother so that she would give me an extra piece of cake.” Ben reads his sentence from his notebook, following the words with his index finger. I have to give him credit. For being one of the weakest students in the class, he always gives it a go, even if his answers are almost always wrong.

  “Not quite,” Mr. Lavery says, steepling his fingers beneath his chin. “Guile means what again?”

  Ben glances down at his notebook. “Using dishonest methods to achieve a result.”

  “Correct.” Mr. Lavery nods. “And what part of speech is it?”

  Ben stares at his paper. “A noun,” he says finally.

  “Look at your sentence again,” Mr. Lavery says. “Have you used the word as a noun?”

  Ben is about as weak a grammar student as you can get. I’m no genius when it comes to it either, but I do remember my parts of speech and how to use them. For the most part.

  “No?” Ben answers.

  “No,” Mr. Lavery says. “You’ve used it in your sentence as a what?”

  Ben’s eyes begin to shift around the page, as if looking for the answer. That’s when John leans forward and whispers something under his breath.

  “A verb?” Ben asks.

  “Are you asking me, or are you telling me?” Mr. Lavery swings his feet off the desk, hitches his pants up around his waist, and starts meandering around the room.

  “I’m telling you,” Ben says.

  “Good,” Mr. Lavery answers. “Shift your sentence around now, so that the word guile is being used as a noun.”

  Ben’s forehead begins to furrow, a sure sign that he is completely lost. I know he has just as much chance answering correctly as we do of ever speaking today. Mr. Lavery crosses his arms and waits a few moments. When Ben doesn’t answer, he looks around the rest of the room. “Can anyone help Mr. Crenshaw out?”

  For a moment the room is silent. I’m pretty sure I know the answer, but I’m not going to say anything. It’s kind of an unspoken rule that you don’t show another guy up in school. Especially in English class. Even if you’re not friends anymore.

  Finally, Stella Rutherford, who has one gigantic eyebrow across the middle of her forehead, and is a grammar genius, raises her hand.

  “I know Stella knows the answer,” Mr. Lavery says, looking at the rest of us. “And I appreciate your willingness to share, Stella, but I’d like to hear from the rest of you, too. Jack, how about you?”

  I shake my head, look down at my notebook.

  “Oh, I think you might be able to figure it out.” Mr. Lavery walks over to my desk and glances at my notebook. “You’ve used it correctly in your own sentence. Help Mr. Crenshaw out please, Jack. I’ll even start you off. ‘To get an extra piece of cake … ’ ”

  I can feel the pressure of Mr. Lavery’s presence next to me. He’s even got a hand on my shoulder, as if he’s going to crush me in my seat if I don’t answer. “ ‘I used extreme guile,’ ” I answer quickly, reading off my paper. My words are barely audible, but Ben turns and shoots daggers in my direction.

  “Exactly right,” Mr. Lavery says, still perusing my work from where he is standing. “Thank you, Jack. Why don’t you share your sentence using the word contentious with the class? It’s a good one.”

  I glance down at my notebook. My father and I have a contentious relationship, which is something I never thought we’d have. Well, I won’t be saying that one out loud. To anyone.

  “Jack?” Mr. Lavery taps his red pen against the bottom of his chin. “We’re waiting.”

  “Uh, my sister and I have a contentious relationship because she is very annoying,” I say, thinking quickly.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Ben lean over and mutter
something to John, who laughs and nods. Idiots, both of them. They can have each other, for all I care.

  “Excellent,” Mr. Lavery says, looking slightly puzzled. “Thank you, Jack.”

  Everyone swarms for the door when the bell rings. I guess I could have been more careful, but I don’t really care enough, so when Ben and I collide trying to get out of the classroom, I give him a little bit of a shove which in turn, leads him to give me a big shove, which for some reason, makes me see red.

  “Lay off, man,” I say, pretending not to notice John and Matt and Randy circling behind Ben like a pack of hyenas. This is really it, I think to myself. It’s really them against me now.

  “You pushed me first.” Ben glowers at me, and for the first time ever, I see his height and size as a serious drawback. He really could hurt me if he wanted to. For some reason, the thought of this makes me so angry that my whole face flushes hot.

  “I did not,” I mutter, pushing past him again. “Don’t be such an idiot.”

  “There’s that word again!” Ben yells behind me. “You sound like a parrot, you know that? Can’t you come up with something a little more original?”

  It takes everything I have not to turn around and barrel headfirst into him, especially since I can hear John, Matt, and Randy laughing too. I walk quickly toward the bathroom, desperate to get away from them before I explode or do anything I’ll regret.

  Or before any of them see my furious, useless tears.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.” Shelby lets another rock sail from her fingers; it skips onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnine times before disappearing beneath the surface. “Dang it! I wanted ten.” She turns and plops down next to me. “Sorry. Shoot.”

  We’re sitting on Finster’s Rock, where we’ve been meeting almost every night for the past few weeks. It’s hard to believe that we’ve become such good friends. Especially because of how things started. And because Shelby didn’t want any friends to begin with. It’s funny how things can change like that. How people can change like that.

  “Say we walked back to the house right now, and you saw your dad on the front porch. What would you say?”

  Shelby drops the rock she’s been fingering and stares out at the lake for a long moment. “You mean what would I want to say to him?” she asks. “Or what would I actually say?”

  I shrug. “Both, I guess. But start with what you’d want to say.”

  Her eyes crease at the corners. “I’d want to say, ‘Where you been?’ ” She pauses, looking at me out of the corner of her eyes. “Maybe throw in a few unladylike names in there.” She picks up a rock and tosses it into the lake. It makes a loud plop. “I’d also want to say, ‘Why’d you think I’d be okay with you droppin’ me like some kind of hot potato? Don’t you know I have feelin’s? Don’t you know what I been goin’ through?’ ” She pauses. “ ‘You jerk. You dumb, stupid, selfish jerk.’ ”

  I nod. I’d probably want to say something like that to her father, too, if I was in her shoes. Actually, I can hear myself saying exactly that to Dad. More or less. “Okay. What would you actually say?”

  Shelby bites her lip. In front of us, the last remnants of the waves from a passing motorboat roll in, flattening at the water’s edge and leaving a rim of foamy bubbles.

  “I probably wouldn’t say anythin’,” she says finally. “I’d probably just run to him.”

  I nod.

  I know.

  I would, too.

  “Haven’t seen you in a while,” Nibs says behind me. The dock creaks under her step. She looks like a bear, with an enormous brown afghan around her shoulders and a gray wool hat pulled down low over her ears. Steam rises out of the top of the two mugs she’s holding, twirling and disappearing into the air. “Where you been, sweets?”

  I point to the house.

  “Getting tired of coming out here?” Nibs settles herself next to me, handing me one of the mugs and tightening the afghan under her chin. “Or just getting tired of me?”

  I shake my head. I’ll never get tired of the dock. And I feel the same way about Nibs. But I haven’t wanted to go outside much. Not since I found out about Dad. I’ve gotten less scared of the police showing up, since it’s been a few weeks now and nothing’s happened. But I still feel really nervous about Nibs. I guess it’s because she was the one who read me that article. I don’t think she’s put anything together, but you never know. Nibs is a pretty smart lady.

  “Here.” She opens the afghan, enclosing me in it. I press up against her, holding my mug tightly with both hands. We sit there for a long moment without saying anything. The sweet smell of vanilla drifts up from the mugs, tickling the tip of my nose. On the other side of the lake, the sun is just starting to peek over the rim; pink and white clouds break apart on both sides of it like cotton candy.

  What if she knew about Dad? I can’t imagine what she’d think if I came into her house one day and showed her the newspaper article. What she would she say if I showed her the Batman or the Spider-Man mask.

  “Can you believe it’s almost October?” Her voice cuts through my thoughts. She sighs deeply. “Look at all those colors. It’s like a patchwork quilt, isn’t it?”

  I nod, taking a small sip from my mug, then frown. It doesn’t taste like it usually does.

  Nibs is watching me. “I’m out of blueberry syrup. I had to make you one of mine, with the vanilla and cinnamon. Is it okay?”

  I nod and take another sip so she doesn’t feel bad. But I don’t like it as much as the blueberry.

  “How’s it going with Miss Rhodes?” Nibs asks.

  I shrug.

  “Can you tell me in your notebook?” She gives me a little nudge. “Write it down?”

  “I’m stuck on my paper,” I write.

  “The Spartan paper?” Nibs asks.

  I nod.

  “But I thought you said that was all set. Didn’t you tell me … ” Her voice drifts off as I bend my head again to write. “I thought it was all set,” she reads. “But I changed my mind.” She nods. “Okay. So you changed your mind. That’s hardly the end of the world. You just start again.”

  “But it’s due in two weeks,” I write. “And I still can’t think of anything.”

  Nibs is quiet for a moment. Then she says, “Sometimes the best way to find an answer is not to look for it. Do something else. Anything else except the paper. And you watch—one of these days, a new idea will pop right into your head. Right when you least expect it.”

  I frown and put my pen down. That doesn’t sound like very good advice to me. Why would I make myself not think about something I’m supposed to be thinking about?

  Nibs squeezes her arm around me. “What else is bothering you?” she asks. “I know it’s not just this paper for school.”

  I get nervous when she does this. It’s like she can read my mind or something. Like she can see inside me. Down deep, where all my words are hiding. I shake my head, hoping she’ll drop it.

  “Does it have anything to do with Jack?” she asks. “Or a certain young girl he seems to have taken a liking to?”

  I look over at her, frowning. She’s noticed that they’re leaving me out, too? How embarrassing.

  “I don’t care about either of them,” I scribble quickly.

  Nibs pushes her bottom lip out after reading my answer. “Oh, I know,” she says. “But let me tell you a story. A long, long time ago, I used to live in a little town called Goose Creek in South Carolina. And then one day, I decided that I needed a new start, and I drove up here. I bought this house, dug myself a garden, and found a teaching job. And”—she pauses here, making eye contact with me—“I met your mother next door. She was just a teenager then, not even fourteen yet. She was a shy little thing too; I barely heard her say a word the whole first year I was here. But I noticed her working in a little garden of her own, right over there, right under Jack’s tree house. And she had the biggest, most beautiful tomatoes I had ever seen in my e
ntire life. When I tell you I was jealous of those tomatoes, Pippa … ” Nibs shakes her head. “My whole world went green with envy. I had to find out how she did it. So I went over one day and introduced myself and asked her what her secret was to growing those gorgeous tomatoes. And do you know what your mother told me?”

  I shake my head, wide-eyed.

  Nibs leans in. “She said she talked to them.”

  I draw back, confused.

  “That’s exactly what I did!” Nibs laughs, pointing at me. “I looked at your mother like she was plumb crazy. Talking to plants! Who in their right mind talks to plants?” She turns her head and looks out over the water. “But you know what? It was such a crazy, foolhardy idea that I knew I had to try it. So I did! Every morning that summer when I went out to water my row of tomato plants, I talked to them.”

  “What did you say?” I write in my book.

  “Well, everything and anything, really,” Nibs says. “Something like, ‘Good morning, gentlemen. I hope you all had a fine rest last evening. I know you’re looking forward to all the sunshine coming in today, so stretch out those long arms of yours and get a nice, long suntan. There’s no rain forecast for the next three days, so I’m going to water you a little extra so none of you get too thirsty.’ ”

  I smile a little, thinking of Nibs having a one-way conversation with her tomato plants, imagining the tomatoes listening inside their hard, green skins.

  “And you know what?” Nibs asks.

  I shake my head, although I think I do know what.

  “I ended up with the most beautiful, rosy-red, perfectly ripe tomatoes I had ever seen in my entire life.” Nibs nods. “I brought them over for your mother to see, and she was so happy for me she laughed out loud. I’d never even seen her smile ’til then. We were friends from that day on, your Mom and me, always talking from our gardens about this and that.