How to Break a Heart (18 page)

Thad looks at me expectantly. I look from him to the guy, who suddenly strikes me as a lot younger than his height suggests. “Where do you go to school?” I ask.

“Prestwood,” he says. It’s the name of the elementary school—
our
elementary school, the same elementary school where Thad dumped me on the playground.

Okay, this is
literally
child’s play.

“Oh, that’s great,” I say, turning back into a very embarrassed Mabry. “But we better go.”

“What about my riddle?”

Thad lets him tell it—(Eric: “If there are three oranges and you take away two, what do you have?” Thad: “I don’t know, what?” Eric: “Two oranges, Einstein!”)—and then we say good-bye, and as soon as we’re on the other side of the escalator, the back of my hand shoots out and hits Thad in the shoulder.

“Ouch,”
Thad says, but he’s obviously more amused than hurt. “How was I supposed to know he was ten? Is it somehow my fault that his mom feeds him steroids for breakfast?”

I’m annoyed. “Isn’t it time for you to go home?”

And he takes his phone out of his pocket and trips a little as he says, “Crap. Well past,” and takes off without saying good-bye.

“Oh, is it half past burrito o’clock?” I call after him. And then louder, I yell, “You’re so predictable!” It’s like the guy will turn into a freaking pumpkin if he’s a minute late. I make a point to give him a hard time about this. He certainly deserves nothing less.

T
had’s never late. Well, rarely. Three times max, and that includes today. Not bad for almost four months of such a tight curfew.
Curfew
seems like such a strange word for it. Like some minor nuisance that everyone his age has to cope with. No,
cutoff
is more like it.

As he gets closer to home, he has his usual panic. Will the cops be there? Did he just spend his last few minutes of freedom with
Mabry Collins
?
Seriously?

But by the time he skates up to the town house, the only alarming thing he sees is Aunt Nora, standing at the window, surveying the street, like she’s looking for him. He’s not sure who he’s most annoyed with—himself, for disappointing her, or everyone else, for expecting so much out of him.

He opens the door and goes in, and Aunt Nora stands by the sink now, wiping down the already clean counters.

“Sorry I’m late,” he murmurs to her.

She looks over at him and softens. “It’s okay, hon. I was just getting worried.”

“Yeah, I know. Sorry,” he says again.

She walks by and gives his shoulder a squeeze. “It’s fine. Now, I have to run, and your mom’s taking a nap. But wake her up in about fifteen minutes—she didn’t want to sleep too long. She’s just tired today. I think physical therapy wore her out.”

“Okay.”

“She had a little soup and rice—about a half cup of rice.” Nora brightens.

“That’s good.”

“It is. You hungry?”

“I’ll make something.”

“Well, the soup might still be warm,” Aunt Nora says.

Thad watches as she goes over to the stove and lifts the lid. He sees that the soup is green. Split pea.
Heave.
And it’s starting to turn solid.
Retch.

She sighs and turns the burner back on. “Sorry, it just needs a minute.”

He’ll turn it off and put it away the second his aunt leaves, but he doesn’t want to tell her that. She seems to think pea soup is a perfectly normal food, and nothing at all like demon vomit.

“All right, Mister Man, I’m off to work.” She smiles at him.

Sometimes when she smiles like that, he wants to hug her, but he’d never admit it. Aunt Nora looks like the word
warm
sounds. No sharp edges. He just says, “Okay, thanks.”

At the door, she puts on a sweater and wraps a scarf around her neck. It’s lopsided, which makes him feel kind of huggy again.

Jeez
!
he reminds himself.
Stop!

She points to his mom’s room. “Ten minutes, don’t forget to wake her up.”

“I won’t.”

And he doesn’t forget. He doesn’t have a chance to forget. Because in
five
minutes, when the pea soup burns at the bottom of the pot and he’s on his second peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, the smoke alarm goes off.

He calmly resets the alarm with the end of the wooden spoon—it’s happened before—and douses the soup pan with cold water in the sink. He won’t need to wake his mother now—she’ll be up like the rest of the block. All the neighbors are probably rolling their eyes.
Thad’s cooking again,
they’re probably saying.

The doorbell rings.

Thad groans. Must be the lady next door making sure he’s not about to burn down the entire row of houses.

He storms to the door and whips it open, saying, “Everything’s fine.” But the last syllable gets caught in his windpipe because suddenly everything’s
not
.

He is staring into the chest of Officer Dirk.

“THADDEUS.”

Thad steps back. “Uh, hi.”

“IS NORA HERE.”

“No,” he says, scanning the parking area in front of the houses. At least there are no flashing blue lights out there. No handcuffs in sight. “She just left for work.”

He’s holding a manila file in his hand. “I HAVE SOME PAPERS FOR HER.”

Papers? Is a warrant considered a paper? His foot feels like jiggling, but he’s standing on it.

“I can—take them for her?”

“I HAVE SOMETHING FOR YOU, TOO.”

His mind starts going in eight different directions. How much trouble could he actually be in? If a public school is government property, has he committed some sort of crime against the government? Could he be an enemy of the state? He had posted a question anonymously on a message board, asking the world what happens when you punch out a window at school. He got lots of different answers, but the one that sticks out in his head is the one posted from someone in prison:
A good friend will tell you to tell the truth, but a great friend will stand next to you while you lie
. But what if you have no friends at all—good, great, or otherwise—except for some crazy girl? What then?

He realizes that Officer Dirk is just standing there outside the doorway and he doesn’t seem to want to go away. And he’s pretty sure he shouldn’t be rude to someone like him—after all, his fate might be in this man’s gigantic hands.

“Do you”—
please say no, please say no, please say no
—“want to come in?”

“WOULD BE GREAT.”

Thad steps aside and Officer Dirk wipes his feet off carefully on the doormat, then steps inside and heads right to the kitchen.

What now?

“Do you, uh, want a Yoo-hoo?” Thad asks.

“NO.”

“Or some water?”

“NO THANKS.”

Thad hopes he doesn’t have to offer him herbal tea, like the kind he drank with Aunt Nora. He doesn’t want to stand around avoiding eye contact while waiting for the water to boil, for the tea to steep in the mug.

“Thad?” He hears his mom calling. Her voice is so quiet that he’s pretty sure Officer Dirk hasn’t heard it.

“Be right there,” he calls back. He looks at Officer Dirk, accepting just a fleeting moment of interrogative eye contact, and says, “That was my mom. She’s calling me.”

Dirk nods, even though Thad worries Dirk thinks he’s mak-ing it up.

He goes to the back of the house and peeks into the door. “Mom?”

“Hi, sweetheart. Is everything okay?” she asks. “It sounds like there’s a lot going on out there.”

Yeah, no doubt. The smoke alarm. The doorbell. And she can’t even hear his own personal security system screaming that something’s not right. “Everything’s fine. I just burned some soup and someone came to the door.”

“Oh. A neighbor?” she asks.

He opens his mouth to tell her the truth but then just nods his head. “Yeah, but no worries.”

No worries. Yeah. Right.

“Okay, sweetie,” she says.

He pulls the door closed again and walks back into the kitchen. Officer Dirk has his arms crossed over his chest. He’s leaning on the counter, with that same heavy expression on his face as always. The manila file lies on the counter next to him. Thad never knew that a file folder could appear so menacing.

“YOUR MOTHER.”

Thad waits for him to continue, but then realizes it’s another odd Dirk-like statement-question, which translates loosely into
Was that your mom
?

“Yeah, she’s—”

“NORA TOLD ME.”

Dirk leans forward and places his heavy, monstrous hand on Thad’s shoulder, which makes Thad suck in air and hold it in his lungs.

Finally, Officer Dirk removes his hand and picks up the folder.

“I’LL LEAVE THIS HERE FOR YOUR AUNT.”

Thad nods.

“BUT THERE’S AN ENVELOPE IN THERE FOR YOU.”

“Okay.”

“IT MIGHT…” Officer Dirk shakes his head. “WELL, I HOPE IT WON’T BE TOO UPSETTING.”

Oh. Okay. There it is. Thaddeus Bell, please report to juvenile hall at eight a.m. tomorrow. It could be that. Or maybe not. He’s not sure of much at this point. Except for the fact that he’s not in the market for anything upsetting.

Officer Dirk stands up straight. For a second, it looks like he’ll go for another one of those sudden-attack hugs, but this time he just nods. “GIVE NORA MY REGARDS.”

Sure,
Thad thinks,
whatever regards really are.

He walks Officer Dirk to the door and locks it behind him. Back in the kitchen, he glances at the folder. Whatever’s in there, it can’t be good. He puts it with a stack of papers on a shelf behind the table. Not exactly lost, but hopefully never found.

yo enciendo
tú enciendes
ella enciende
nosotros encendemos
ellos encienden

I
t’s Monday, and I’m at the lunch table waiting for Sirina, who’s in the toxic-food line. Jordan’s blabbering on about
The Biggest Loser
, and although I couldn’t care less about what she’s saying, I turn to her and try to pretend I give a hoot, like Amelia apparently does. But I guess I fail at it, because Jordan finally comments on the fact that my eyes are visibly glazing over.

“Oh, sorry,” I say. “I just don’t watch that show.”

“Yeah, now you know how I feel when you start talking about your telenovelas,” she says.

I guess I do, then. “Sorry,” I say. I stare at my chicken Caesar salad until Sirina sits down. She’s got a Chipwich, a bag of Bugles, a roll of Donettes, and a Slim Jim.

“Holy cow,” I say.

“Yeah, rough day. The worst,” she says. “I tried to talk to Officer Dirk, but he just brushed me off
again
. And so I went to see Mrs. Neidelman, to tell her I’m getting nowhere with him. She just shrugged it off, and said maybe I wasn’t catching him at the ‘right time.’ Like, when is the ‘right time’? Never?”

“Did you tell her we wanted to enter it for the YoJo?” I ask.

“Yeah, and she was like, ‘Oh, yes! The
YoJo
! Speaking of, the Spiritleaders are performing at the Goat Festival in Wheatland this Wednesday!’ Like she thought
that
was YoJo-worthy.” Sirina throws her hands up. “
Clearly
the woman has no real journalistic background.”

“What are we going to do?” I ask.

“I have no clue, but we have to think of something. I mean, if this case is stalled, then so are we.” She sighs, and then adds, “I know I’ve been down on Nick, but so far, he’s the only source we’ve got.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I say, and smile weakly.

She gives me a tired smile back, then starts in on her Chipwich. Jordan and Amelia pull her into their
Loser
discussion by telling her that her lunch choices would be grounds for dismissal on the show.

And I look up from my romaine, and when I do, I see Nick staring at me. He looks away when our eyes meet, then back to me again. For one second, then two, then three. Three full seconds! And I’m pretty sure it’s not just a look. It’s like the look Hermana Ampuero gave the doctor she used to work with when he came to find her in Suelo. It’s a Meaningful Gaze.