Bluefish (14 page)

"None of your business," said Travis.

"Ooooo." Maddox took a step back with his hands in the air. "Tough guy."

The short guy in the monster- truck T- shirt laughed.

Travis grabbed Bradley again by the collar and yanked him, making space between them and the three guys.

He started walking fast toward the bleachers, dragging Bradley with him.

"Don't cry, Bradley!" called Maddox. "Don't cry! Boo-hoo- hoo, Bradley!"

Travis pulled Bradley up past the back of the tavern toward Main Street, and let him go as soon as they were out of sight. Bradley crumpled on the ground next to the building.

"Bradley, get up. They might follow us."

Travis stepped to the corner of the building and looked back at the playground.

Monster Truck had found Travis's backpack by the building. He opened it and pulled out Haunt Fox. Travis turned to Bradley.

"Stay there," he said.

That guy had his book. If he opened it, he'd see the pencil marks. What if he ripped it up? You can't go around hitting people. Grandpa's voice spoke in his head as he stomped back across the park.

Chilson spotted Travis and grinned. Monster Truck tossed the book on the ground.

"Hey, Skinnyboy," said Chilson. "You think I'm stupid?

You think I fell for that?"

Travis stopped about five feet away. Maddox and Monster Truck moved up, one on each side. Travis took a couple of steps back so he could watch all three of them.

"What do you want?" asked Chilson. "You saved your girlfriend. Now, get out of here before we kick your skinny ass."

If Travis looked at the book - if they knew how much he wanted it - he'd never get it back.

"Why pick on Bradley?" he asked. "He's like half your size."

"Point." Chilson nodded. "But you're not. So you think you can take all three of us?"

Travis looked them over, one at a time, then centered back on Chilson.

"Probably not. But maybe."

"You think you're pretty tough, huh?" said Maddox.

He stepped in, chesting up close. Travis knocked him back. He shoved, and Travis shoved harder. Maddox stumbled and almost went down.

Travis's hands came up into fists, and he felt the heat moving through him, pumping but not boiling over. Maddox bounced back, and Travis zeroed in, gauging the distance between them.

"Hey, look," said Chilson. "There's Bradley cakes. I guess he's going to save you."

"Shit," said Monster Truck. "He's on his phone."

Travis didn't turn to look. He kept his eyes nailed on Maddox, who was moving in.

"You know what, Skinnyboy?" Chilson shouldered between them. He pointed his finger at Travis's nose. "I like you. You've got guts."

"I'll stomp his guts," said Maddox.

"Not now," said Chilson. He turned and left through the alley, and Monster Truck followed.

"I'll see you later," Maddox said, glaring at Travis.

He held up both middle fingers as he backed away. "Count on it."

Travis waited until they'd all turned the corner, then picked up Haunt Fox and put it in his backpack.

"I'm sorry," said Bradley, coming up behind. "I should have backed you up right away. I just - "

"Don't worry about it. The phone was smart. Did you really call anyone?"

Bradley shook his head and slumped slowly to the ground. "I hate them," he said, his hands over his face. "I really hate them."

Travis was still juiced from the almost fight. Grabbing Bradley by the shirt, shoving him around . . . he'd actually enjoyed that part a little bit. Even if it was to keep him from getting killed.

Bradley kept talking, shaky- voiced, heaving words as if he couldn't get them out fast enough.

"We were sort of friends, Josh and me, when we were little. Then he started picking on me. Last year, when he was still in middle school, I was scared to go in the bathroom even."

Travis stopped pacing and sat on the edge of the merry- go- round. He leaned over and picked up a couple of rocks.

"And when you came up, they were saying all the stuff they're going to do to me and . . . If you wouldn't have showed up, Travis . . ."

Bradley tried to suck in a sob, but it got loose and then he couldn't quit. Travis had never seen anyone cry that hard before, nobody but himself on the bridge.

The cold wind blew through, and Travis shivered. He wanted to leave before those guys came back, but he couldn't leave Bradley crying alone in the dirt.

"Hey, it's okay," he said. "Really, come on."

Bradley's whole body shook and jerked so hard that Travis felt it himself, deep in his chest. Finally, Bradley slowed down and took a big shaky breath. He scrubbed his face with the back of his hand and turned to Travis.

"You're going to hate me now, too."

"Nope," said Travis. "Not for that."

"Why do I have to be so scared?"

"Everybody's scared of something."

"You're just saying that to make me feel better."

"No, I'm not."

Bradley stared until Travis looked away.

"You really are like the Master Chief," he said. "You neutralized all three of them just because I'm on your squad. Aren't you scared of them at all?" "A little." Travis shrugged. "Three on one, that's something to watch out for."

"I've never been in a fight. But you didn't even hit anybody - they just backed off ."

That was true. Travis hadn't hit anybody. He'd just growled like Larry the dog.

No concussions, nobody on the ground, no cold sludge in his guts.

"Come on," he said. "I'll walk you as far as the bridge in case they're still hanging around."

They walked in silence until they got in sight of the bridge. The picnic table was empty.

"I lied when I told Velveeta I don't lie," said Bradley. "I lie all the time to my dad. I leave early for school so I won't run into those guys and I say it's to study. That's why I was in the locker room yesterday morning. I say I have chess club after school, but really I stay in the school library or wait in the park until they leave the picnic table."

"Geez, Bradley," said Travis.

"I'm un- asking Velveeta to the dance. You should ask her. She likes you better. Are you scared to ask her? Is that what you're scared of?"

Travis shrugged.

"It's okay. I won't tell."

on THURSDAY

I've been wearing the same scarf for four days in a row. It's my only one now and forever. If I knew I could only have one, I would have kept that orange one.

Walking toward school, I thought about no scarves and no trailer, never again.

When I got to the library, my feet turned. They took me to the back door, and I sat there on the cold cement, freezing, until Connie showed up. She let me in, even though the library doesn't open until ten. I told her about Sylvia not giving me the scarves, and then I started crying and couldn't stop. Connie hugged me.

Nobody ever touches me anymore.

Not even a pat on the shoulder. That made me cry harder.

Connie got me some Kleenex and asked if I was ready to go to school, and I told her if I went there, I'd puke. She asked if I'd eaten anything and I said no. After some hemming and hawing, she said I could spend the day at the library, but I couldn't just sit there - did I have any homework?

I pulled out The Book Thief, and Connie got this funny squint- eyed look on her face, kind of like someone was stabbing her and telling her a joke at the same time. She asked me how far I was, and I told her I was almost done but it was too depressing to finish. The girl Liesel already learned how to read, and now everything is about war and people dying.

Connie said I could stay at the library all day if I finished the book. I told her she is in cahoots with McQueen and that's probably illegal, but she pointed at the book and said she'd be back before ten, and locked the door on her way out.

She came back with scones and muffins from the bakery and sent me to the study room to keep reading. I couldn't eat because that book made me cry so hard, I couldn't even breathe. Connie said to keep reading and keep breathing, like that was easy. Tears and snot just about came out of my butt, I cried so hard. After I finished the book,

Connie fixed up a spot in the study room with a pillow.

I told her that Calvin being dead is like a long- fingered claw that keeps scratching at my heart. She said she knows that claw. She said grief is a rough ride but the only way through it is through it. Then she told me to take a nap.

Liesel the book thief was tough.

I'm not tough.

I'm not anything.

CHAPTER TWENTY?? TWO

Travis high- low whistled, and Larry came barking down the driveway. Travis threw him half a muffin.

"Hey, Larry. Didn't know if you'd be out this early on a cold morning."

The rising sun touched the frost tipping the grass and weeds, painting a frigid sparkle picture. Larry swallowed the muffin and came closer. Travis knelt on the driveway, holding out his hand, palm up.

"Come on, Lar. It's okay. Look, I even know your name now."

"How do you know his name?"

Travis jumped to his feet. Larry turned and ran back to the old woman. She leaned on her cane and looked down at Larry, who now sat in front of her.

"How does this boy know your name, Larry?"

"I heard you call him that one day." He turned around, walking quickly back to the road. "I'm leaving."

"This boy heard me call your name?" The woman talked louder, so Travis would hear. "I wonder where he heard that? I've never seen him before. And Larry, it looks like you're friends with him.

You let him walk right up the drive. I wonder why you did that."

"It's not his fault." Travis turned around to face her. "I gave him some baloney."

"Bribed! By a boy with baloney."

"Sorry, I won't do it again."

"Larry, I wonder if this boy would want to take you for a walk sometime. I bet you'd both like that."

"He wouldn't go with me. I tried."

"Since this boy is not afraid of you and seems to feel free to wander around our driveway, maybe he would come up to the house sometime.

Maybe he'd knock on the door and introduce himself."

Larry wagged his tail. If Travis had one, he might have twitched the end of it.

"Okay, then, let's hope he does that. But right now, I think the boy should go to school and we should go indoors. It's cold out here."

She started back up the drive, Larry next to her.

Travis watched until they went around the curve and out of sight. Then he hurried to school so he wouldn't be late for McQueen.

"Before we get started," McQueen said, "I want to check in with you again about your other classes. I've mentioned to your other teachers that you're working with me - "

"Did you tell them?" Travis's head snapped up.

"Mr. Roberts" -

McQueen's voice dropped so low,

Travis leaned forward to hear him - "do you think they don't know? You never turn anything in, you don't do class projects, and math is the only class where you participate at all."

The skin on Travis's neck started the slow burn upward.

"If you'd kept pretending with me, you wouldn't be rattling off lists of words now," said McQueen. "You need to talk to your teachers. And start paying attention in the classroom."

Travis couldn't pay attention. Haunt Fox and word lists were all he could handle.

"Don't worry so much. Might be more slack lying around for you than you know. Ask Ms. Gordon about that reading program. Plenty of kids with vision or reading problems use it. Now, let's see, I think we were starting chapter two, weren't we?"

McQueen started reading about a boy and his hound puppy who found the fox's tracks. Travis let himself fall inside the story and forget about everything else. The boy headed out in the new snow to follow his hound and the fox.

"So, how are the words going?" McQueen closed the book.

"I need a new list. And I've circled all the way through chapter four."

McQueen wrote down a new list of five words, and they went over them a few times.

"You know quite a few words now, and you've got some uncircled space to run in," said McQueen. "I'd like you to start looking at a sentence or two, where you know all the words. Read them out loud, and take it slow. When you hit a comma, stop and chew. When you hit a period, swallow.

Don't try to eat any circled words."

"Only the ones that go down easy?"

"Right." McQueen grinned. "I don't want you gagging.

Now, go on - the first bell's about to ring."

Travis stopped in the doorway to Ms. Gordon's room.

Velveeta was there in her seat, watching the door. She smiled. A soft, close-lipped smile. Relief whooshed over Travis as he sat in front of her.

"Where've you been?" he asked.

"I was here Wednesday - where were you? I thought maybe you had the bubonic plague."

"So were you sick those other days or having Velveeta time?"

"Neither."

Bradley popped up at Travis's locker before fourth period.

"Hey, I un- asked Velveeta to the dance," he said. "Plus I told my dad about what happened in the park. He said to invite you over. Want to come home with me after school tonight?"

"What did she say?" Th ey walked into McQueen's room.

"She who?"

"Velveeta. About the dance."

"She doesn't care. She didn't want to go with me anyway. So what about tonight?"

"Mr. Whistler," said McQueen. "Seat, please."

Travis pulled out Haunt Fox, but he couldn't concentrate. Every time he looked over at Velveeta, she was staring straight ahead at nothing. Then McQueen called her into his office and she was in there for a long time.

When she came out, she put her head down on her desk.

The bell rang and she didn't move. Travis started to walk over and see if she was okay, and then he stopped. Took another step forward. Then another one back. Finally he backed out of the room and got in line for lunch.

When he came out with his lunch tray, she was sitting with Bradley. He waved, and Travis sat across from them.

Velveeta didn't have any lunch in front of her.