Christopher Paul Curtis (22 page)

What am I talking about, “… three gold medals hanging on the wall …”? More like three gold medals rattling around in a cardboard box with my clothes, my CDs, my journal and my under-the-mattress magazine collection.

How did she know about those magazines? It's a good thing I've had lots of practice being humiliated, that's another shot that an inexperienced or nonphilosophical person would've fell apart after.

The crowd started thinning out and I saw Shayla and her parents heading toward the door. I guess now was the time to follow Chester X's plan. I guess there wouldn't be any other time to tell her that I loved and respected her even though I couldn't keep myself from talking to her like a dog.

Before I could get to her the reporter from the
Journal
grabbed me again.

“Luther, I just need to check some details.”

When the
Journal
was done with me Shayla and her family had disappeared so I decided to head home and start packing.

I'd just gotten through the doors of the auditorium when the hair on my neck started tingling. I heard the sucksucksuck of Darnell's jammed food.

He came up behind me and said, “Here you go, sport.”

He reached the weekly receipts briefcase toward me.

“Your moms says this here is time-sensitive and since we spent time at this lovely little ceremony we aren't going to be able to get to the bank. You've gotta take care of this today, you know what goes where.”

I took the briefcase from Darnell.

He stuck his empty hand out in my direction.

“Hand 'em over, sport.”

“What?”

“The keys to the ride. Your moms says you can call taxis for the Crew tomorrow morning. Welcome to the World of the Walking, my brother.”

“How'm I supposed to get home?” I was already twisting the bus's keys off my ring.

“Well, sport, the way I see it you've got two options. Either call some of your new homies from the mayor's office or wait here for a while and I'll send your old friend Patton Turner over to get you.”

Darnell took the two keys I handed him, then snatched my key ring away from me before I could get it back in my pocket.

“Hey!” I said. “She told me I had four days before I had to get out.”

Darnell called himself imitating me but he whined way too much and my voice has never been that high, even before I had these major hormones surging through my
veins. “‘Boo-hoo. She told me I had four days before I had to get out!’

“Relax, chump, I'm not taking the house keys from you, I'm just checking to make sure you don't have any copies of your ride's keys on here. I'm parking it at the home and I believe her orders were that you weren't even to
think
about looking at it.”

What kind of an idiot would think you'd make duplicate keys, then leave them on the same key ring as the originals?

I didn't say a word. He threw my keys on the floor, then stuck his hand out again.

I said, “What? I don't have any duplicate keys.” On the same ring, fool, but I know where the Sarge keeps them at the home.

He said, “The medal. She said since she supplied the paint that won that award it only seems right that the medal is hers too.”

“All they gave me was an empty box, I'm supposed to get the medal later.”

He snatched the box out of my hand, shook it twice, then threw it on the floor.

He stuck his hand out again.

I said, “I swear, Shayla got the only medal, mine's coming later.” My voice really was sounding high-pitched and whiny.

He said, “Wallet.”

He didn't think I was just going to hand over my wallet, did he? You can only push a man so far before something snaps in him.

I don't know how it happened but the next thing I knew, there my hand was, putting my wallet in Darnell Dixon's hand.

He pulled out all my credit cards and my fifty-dollar emergency money and tucked them in his front pocket.

He got ready to throw the wallet on the floor but said, “What's this?” He ran his fingers over the zero on my wallet.

Oh no! No! Not Chauncey!

He laughed and ripped Chauncey's package open and exposed him to the air.

I think the scientific word for what had happened to Chauncey is called vulcanization. He was powdery and stiff and you could tell there was no way he'd ever be unrolled. If this had been on the Cartoon Channel little moths would've been flying out.

Darnell shot Chauncey down the hall like he was a flour-coated rubber band.

He said, “Don't worry, sport. Let me go out to your momma's car for a second, she just bought three dozen of 'em for our trip to Washington. Maybe I can let you borrow one.”

This was so weak that I didn't even have to think “Your words cannot harm me, my mind is like a shield of steel.”

But it did come to mind.

What else came to mind was that Darnell was completely off the leash now. All the years that he'd been patiently waiting to get me were finally paying off.

He tossed my wallet down next to the keys and the empty first prize, Yes!, box and poor Chauncey's wrapper
and left. Good thing, too, I was about this far from putting some respect in him.

I didn't trust myself not to go off if I saw the Sarge in the parking lot so I went around to the front door of the school. I had a good half-hour walk ahead of me.

Things were bad. The Sarge had called me a dickens and Darnell kept calling me sport. There's no way that either one of these things could be called a good omen.

The sound of a car's horn ripped through the air and my heart.

I whipped around expecting to see the Sarge's Benz barreling down on me but it was a big black Cadillac limousine.

The passenger's window whizzed down and Shayla's mom said, “I can't believe the Three-peat Kid is walking home. You deserve a limo ride. Hop in back.”

Shayla's dad said, “Hold on for a second, Luther.”

He looked in the backseat and said, “Shayla, carefully slide Mr. Ramirez over to the other seat, his viewing isn't until five and I don't want to have his embalming fluid settle in one place before then.”

I think this is supposed to be what they call gallows humor.

Mrs. Patrick said, “You couldn't possibly imagine what we have to go through every day, Luther.”

I gave a weak laugh.

The back door opened and the clickety-click of beads rolled out of the car as Shayla slid over to make room for me.

I stuck my head in and looked all around the back of
the limo. I mean sure, it seemed like Shayla's dad was joking, but what if he wasn't? You never know how weird some people might be. I didn't need any more drama in my life and if I had to bump around in the backseat with a corpse I'd rather walk.

There were no Ramirezes in there.

I got in.

Well, if nothing else good happened on this trip at least the seat was still warm from Shayla sitting there!

The divider window between the front seat of the car and the backseat started up. Shayla rolled her eyes and said, “No need, Daddy.”

We drove along not talking for a while, her looking out the left window and me looking out the right.

Finally I said, “Hey, Shayla.”

She said, “Hey.”

I said, “Congratulations, your project was bad.”

She looked at me for the first time since I got in.

She said, “Thank you,” turned her head back to look out the window, then whipped it right back around to look at me. “But you know what?” she said. “I've decided I'm not gonna allow myself to feel the least bit guilty. I'm just going to look at this as us finally being even.”

“Huh?”

She said, “You know what I mean. Your project was great, Luther. You showed much more imagination and initiative than I ever did. You should've won the gold this year. I should've won the gold last year, so I guess that makes us close to being even.”

This was another one of those branded moments, but
this was one of those rare good ones! Between the warm seat and that comment, this ride home in a hearse was something I'd be remembering till the end of my life, or for the next four days, which were close to being the same thing.

I was doubly surprised, first because Shayla was out-and-out giving me much respect, and second because it seemed so important to me, it seemed like it made me glow!

Now was my big chance to let her know what my heart was really feeling. Finally I was going to be able to tell her what I'd been practicing on since Mr. X said I should.

I said, “Yeah. Whatever.”

She rolled her eyes again and looked back out the left window. I looked back out the right. I saw my reflection in the glass and got the third surprise of my ride in the Death Mobile. Here I was, pretty much a walking dead man, but I was grinning like the biggest fool in the world!

After the Munster Mobile let me off at the home I peeked through the window of the dayroom. Cool! Everyone was watching TV and no one had their noses plugged. After I checked on the Crew I headed down to my room.

Chester X was reading the newspaper.

“Hey, Mr. X.”

“Well, did you do it, did you win again? By that expression I'd say someone lobbed another grenade at Luther T. Farrell's confidence.”

“No, Mr. X, it went good. I won the three-peat, but I tied with Shayla Patrick.”

“Great! Are we going to have a special ceremony to hang that third medal?”

“I won't get it until tomorrow at the earliest.”

“That's why you're looking so down?”

“No. The Sarge found out what my project was on and gave me my four days' notice.”

“Your what?”

“My four days' notice. I got until she gets back from Washington to pack my stuff.”

“Mercy! That's gotta be some kind of record, I don't believe I've ever heard of anything less than two weeks' notice before, on anything.”

Mr. X started counting off on his fingers. “Not on getting fired, not on getting evicted, not on even getting axed by your woman, usually you get a lot more time than that. No, four days is surely some kind of record.”

“Well, I got a plan. I don't want you to get your hopes up but I think you might be involved.”

“Really? You aren't thinking about …” From the tone of his voice you could hear his hopes rising.

“Like I said, Mr. X, I've got to do some investigating before I say anything.”

“Luther,” he said, “you don't get to be my age by being impatient. I know you're going to do the right thing! I knew you were too smart to take this forever. And don't you think for a minute that I don't know what would happen if I was in this home without you looking over me.”

I ignored his try to make me feel guilty. “Mr. X, after what I did I don't think ‘smart’ and the name Luther T. Farrell belong in the same sentence.”

“Well, how 'bout a hand of tunk? Maybe if I take some of your money from you it'll help you forget your problems.”

“Thanks, but I've got to get all this stuff”—I patted the weekly receipts briefcase—“into the bank before it closes. I'm gonna try and find where she's got my education fund, maybe it's in something that I can withdraw right away.”

“Don't you forget, son, I've got a little salted away myself. We can live pretty good for a while on that if we're careful. I can get a job and with all those gorgeous Florida women and their naturally generous Southern nature you'll be rolling in dough.”

I said, “If I've been figuring right I should have at least ninety grand in that account, Mr. X, I think I'll be OK.”

“You keep me and my little savings in mind anyway.”

The phone rang.

Mr. Foster opened the basement door and yelled down, “Luther, it's your mom and she doesn't sound too happy.”

Uh-oh.

I picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“What are you still doing there?”

I said, “You said I've got four days, who am I supposed to get to look after the Crew if I leave now?”

“You know what I mean. Don't you play dumb with me, Mr. Lead Crusader. You'd
better
be there through Monday. I'm talking about why aren't you at the bank making those deposits?”

“How'm I supposed to get there? Darnell took my keys and my money.”

“Use petty cash and take a cab. Listen,” she said, “I'm calling from the plane. Something told me to call and make sure you got those deposits in. Don't jerk me around on
this, it's very important you get them to Elaine before the bank closes. I could lose some houses if this isn't done in time. Need I say more?”

I couldn't believe she'd waste money on a plane phone call to remind me to do something I'd been doing for years. And those calls cost about a hundred dollars a minute! But maybe she'd gotten nervous thinking that I'd get revenge on her by deliberately not putting the deposits in.

Hmmm!

I took too long to answer her.

She yelled, which she almost never does, “Need I say more!”

I yelled back, “No!”

“OK,” she said, her usual calm, Darth Vader voice coming back, “OK, I see that your testosterone level has gotten so high that you're man enough to shout at
me
, huh? Let me tell you something, you'd better pray that these next four days do something to mellow me out because if they don't, may God have mercy on your soul.”