Lost in the Sun (19 page)

When I got to the Community Center on Saturday morning, Julie was waiting for me, standing next to Annie.

“Hi, Trent,” she greeted me. “I was just telling Annie here that we have a new volunteer today. So if the two of you are still interested in switching, I can arrange that.”

“Oh,” I said, because I guess I was surprised. Then I looked at Annie, who shrugged, so I shrugged, too.

“So that's a ‘no,' then?” Julie asked.

“I guess not?” I said slowly. And Annie nodded to agree with me, but the nod was mostly toward her shoes and not Julie.

“We're fine,” Annie said.

“Well, great then,” Julie told us. “All right, when the rest of the group gets here, I'll explain our first game.”

“Just so you know,” Annie said, looking up to talk to me when Julie had wandered off, “I'm not done hating you.”

But she didn't actually look that mad, the way you would if you truly hated someone.

“Good,” I told her. “Because if you were, they might make you stop being the president of the club.”

“Exactly,” she said.

The new volunteer, it turned out, was Noah Gorman. Julie paired him up with another volunteer and a really little kid who looked like she could use extra help.

The first game was a relay race, where we had to dribble two balls at once while running to the far side of the gym, and then on the way back we had to cross the balls at least once before passing them off to our buddy, and then it was the second person's turn. Everyone was terrible at it. There were basketballs flying everywhere, and kids knocking into each other, and two second-graders got so confused about whose basketball was whose that for a second it looked like they were going to wrestle each other for it. Annie and I came in third. Noah's team was dead last.

He waved at me across the gym when he saw me. I waved back.

One thing was for sure. Basketball Buddies was
way
better than volleyball.

•   •   •

When Julie let us out for the day, after our afternoon snack (another thing this program had going for it over P.E. class), Annie and I left the Community Center together. And there was Doug, sitting on his bicycle, waiting for us.

Well. Waiting for Annie, anyway.

“Hey, Annie!” he greeted her, waving her over. “Want to help me get some stuff for a”—his eyes darted at me—“thing?”

I knew it was a prank. I'm not a moron.

Annie stuck her hands into her pockets. “I can't,” she said. “Rebecca wants me to help her set up for her hamster's birthday party. She would've invited you, too, but her mom said she could only have one friend over this afternoon.”

“Oh,” Doug said. I could tell he was disappointed. “That's fine. Anyway, I should work on the . . . thing.”

“I know it's a prank, Doug,” I said from where I was kicking up my bike's kickstand.

“It's not a prank!” he said, way too loudly. Which meant that it was definitely a prank.

Annie left, and I waved good-bye to Noah, and there was Doug, looking sad and pathetic on his bicycle. I rolled my bike over to him and punched him in the shoulder, the way Aaron always did to me. “You want to go to Rosalita's?” I asked him.

He looked up at me. “Yeah?” he said, rubbing his shoulder.

“Yeah. I have some money from the store last weekend.”

“All right,” he said. “But I'm not going to tell you about my prank. That's a secret.”

“Deal,” I said.

It wasn't far to Rosalita's. We locked our bikes outside and ate indoors instead of ordering from the window, because of how cold it was. Marjorie even gave us an extra taco to split, just because she liked us.

It wasn't until we were chowing down on our meal that I realized something.

“Hey, why aren't you at Dad's?” I asked Doug. I did the math in my head, and it was a Dad weekend for sure.

He took a long slurp of his soda, then pushed it away from him and picked up his second taco. “You're not the only person who's allowed to hate going there, you know,” he said. Which, okay, surprised me.

“I thought you and Dad got along fine,” I said.

“You're not always there,” he replied. Which I guess was true.

We went back to tacos.

After a while more of eating, Doug said, “You're being nice to Annie, right?” He took another slurp of soda. “Because she needs people to be nice to her. Because of everything that happened. You know, with her brother.”

I clenched my jaw tight. “I
know
what happened with her brother, Doug,” I said.

He darted his eyes up at me, his mouth still around his soda straw. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, yeah, I guess so.” He leaned back in his seat. Used his fork to push around a couple stray pieces of shredded lettuce on his plate. “I just feel bad,” he said. “That's all. So I always try to be extra-nice to her.”

“Why would
you
feel bad?” I asked him.

“Because.” He sighed big, like he wasn't sure he wanted to talk about it. He popped two lettuce pieces into his mouth and talked while he was chewing. “I was the one who told you they needed an extra for hockey.” He wouldn't look at me.

“Doug,” I said. “That's stupid. Anyone could have told me that. That doesn't make it your fault her brother died.”

“Yeah, but”—Doug went for another piece of lettuce—“they only needed another person because I convinced Brad not to play. I wanted to hang out with him, so I told him not to. And if I never would've done that, then . . .” He didn't finish his thought.

He didn't need to.

“So that's why you're always hanging out with Annie?” I asked Doug. “Because you feel guilty?”

Doug chewed some more, looked up at the ceiling. “Well, that and 'cause she's nice,” he said.

I reached for my second taco, but I couldn't bring myself to eat it. I just kept staring at Doug. I couldn't believe that all this time, while I'd been feeling so guilty about Jared and that hockey puck, he'd been feeling the exact same way.

“You couldn't have known,” I told him. “You didn't do anything wrong.”

He slurped at his soda and didn't say anything. I slurped at my own soda and didn't say anything either.

“Thanks for the tacos,” he said at last.

“Now what's this big prank of yours?” I asked him.

Doug threw a shred of lettuce at me. “Wouldn't you like to know?”

•   •   •

“So?” I asked Aaron on Sunday night, when Mom and I got home from Kitch'N'Thingz and Aaron had returned from his solo weekend at
Dad's. He was in the kitchen tidying, even though he'd been gone all weekend so none of the things that needed tidying were his. “Are you ready for your big test tomorrow?”

Aaron didn't say anything, just looked up from where he was standing at the sink, rinsing dishes to put in the dishwasher.

“Your trig test,” I said. “Did you study some more? Are you going to pass it?”

“Maybe instead of being nosy,” he replied, his eyes darting past me to the door. No one was there to hear us, so I guess that's why he went on. “You could help me with the dishes.”

Well.

I started gathering Doug's cereal bowl from the table—what else did I have to do?—and pushed past Aaron to rinse the empty milk carton for recycling.

He still didn't answer my question, though.

“I'm sure it wouldn't be so bad,” I said after a little while of tidying, with Aaron not talking to me. I didn't like when he wasn't talking to me. “If you had to take summer school, I mean.” I'd had to take summer school once, for extra reading help back in fourth, and it wasn't as terrible as I'd worried it would be.

“What do you know?” Aaron snapped.

“It's just one class,” I said. “And in summer school they make everything easier anyway, so—”

“If I have to go to summer school,” Aaron said, “I have to cut back at Swim Beach.” He held a plate over the sink, right in front of the stream of water from the faucet, but not under it, so it didn't get
rinsed. He was staring at me, not the water. “If I work fewer hours, I get less money. And if I get less money, how am I supposed to pay for college, huh, genius? You tell me that. If I ever get
into
college in the first place.” He went back to rinsing the plate. He scrubbed it with a sponge, kept scrubbing even after all the food was off.

“Hey, Aaron?” I said softly. “Aaron?” He didn't answer, just kept rinsing.

“I don't need you to tell me that it's okay, all right?” he said. “It's not okay.”

“Uh.” I blinked. “I was going to tell you that I think that plate is super clean now.”

Aaron closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then slowly set the plate down on the counter and turned off the faucet. He flicked driplets of water off his hands, and turned around to face me.

“I'm sorry I exploded,” he told me.

“It's okay,” I said.

“It's not your fault I'm failing trig.”

“Duh,” I replied.

Aaron laughed.

I picked up the plate and started drying it with a dish towel. “So?” I asked him again. “Are you ready?”

Another deep breath. For a while I thought he might blow up at me again, but when he did answer, he sounded much calmer than before. “I think so. Maybe. I guess we'll find out on Monday.”

“I'll keep my fingers crossed for you,” I told him.

On Monday, Fallon sat with me at lunch, like usual.

“How's the play going?” I asked her.

“Fine,” she said.

“How's art class?”

“Fine.”

I was starting to figure out why my mom got so annoyed when she asked us about school.

I tried another tactic.

“Why can't you ever get hungry at the beach?” I asked her.

She rolled her eyes at me. “I'm not really in the mood, Trent,” she said.

“Well, what
are
you in the mood for?” I grumbled.

We didn't talk much after that.

I was getting pretty sick of this Fallon—the moody, grumpy one
who never talked to me anymore. I was beginning to wonder if it was even worth it, trying to be her friend.

“Hey, here's a joke I bet your uncle never told you,” I said after a while of not talking. I don't know why. Because not talking at the lunch table was worse than not playing volleyball, probably. “I read it in one of Doug's joke books a million years ago. It's terrible. You ready?”

She plopped a stewed carrot into her mouth and didn't say anything.

“What will a pirate pay to cut off your ears?” I said.

She chewed. “What?” she asked. She didn't really seem that interested.

I put on my best pirate voice anyway. “A buccaneer,” I told her, squinting one eye like I was wearing an eye patch or something. “Get it? A
buck-an-ear.
”

“That's
awful,
” she told me.

But her eyes were lit up, on either side of her scar. And she was smiling at me.

“Right?” I said.

She was worth it, I decided. Fallon Little was definitely worth it.

•   •   •

I went to Ms. Emerson's room that day after school, just like I always did. I filled up the watering can at the sink just like always, too.

But then I set it down.

Ms. Emerson was at sitting at her stovetop desk, as usual, grading papers. She sure had a lot of papers to grade all the time. I wondered
if she'd had nearly so many when she was a home ec teacher. Probably not. I wondered if she'd liked teaching home ec a lot better.

“Ms. Emerson?” I said.

She didn't look up from her papers. “Yes, Trent?”

“Would it be okay if I didn't water the plants today?”

At that, she did look up. “You don't want to anymore?”

I thought about that. It wasn't, actually, that I didn't want to water Ms. Emerson's plants. I didn't hate going there after school as much as I had at first. Not at all, really.

“I do,” I said. “It's just . . .” The reason I'd started watering the plants to begin with was so Ms. Emerson wouldn't hate me so much. And it seemed like it had worked okay. I was pretty sure she didn't hate me anymore. There was even a tiny chance that she sort of liked me.

That didn't mean that the plants didn't need to be watered anymore, of course. Plants needed to be watered nearly every day, or they would die.

“I was just wondering if it might be okay if I took a day off,” I said.

If watering Ms. Emerson's plants had made her not hate me anymore, I wondered if it might work on someone else.

“There's something I sort of need to do,” I told her.

She raised an eyebrow at me. “Everything okay?”

I nodded. Then I stopped. I shook my head. “I think Fallon's still mad at me. She won't talk about it, and I don't know what to do. I mean, I don't really want to talk about it either. But . . . ,” I trailed off. I didn't know what came after the
but.
Instead I stared at the watering can, like there might be some answers in there.

“Talking can be hard sometimes,” Ms. Emerson said. I was sort of surprised she said anything, because she didn't say too much too often. “I can understand about not wanting to talk.”

I nodded at that, still staring at the watering can.

“But Trent?” She paused. “Here's something I think is very important.” I waited. She took her sweet time to tell me, that was for sure. She must've thought that what she was about to say was
extremely
important, that it deserved my absolute full and undivided attention.

I looked over at her. “Yeah?” I said.

“When you do choose to speak,” she told me, “speak truths.” And with that, she went back to her grading.

I stood there, staring at her as she graded papers, feeling like a bit of a moron for a while, because I didn't know exactly what to say. What I finally said was “So it's okay if I take the day off?”

She nodded.

“Thanks,” I told her.

“And Trent?” she called after me on my way out.

I spun around. “The plants will be thirsty again tomorrow?” I asked. But I guess maybe I was sort of smiling when I said it.

Ms. Emerson was maybe sort of smiling, too. “Yes indeed,” she replied.

•   •   •

Pedaling my bike was practically the hardest thing in the world that afternoon. Right foot up, left foot down. Steer around the corner, but not too hard. Don't forget to balance. It hadn't rained since Friday, the
street was dry as a bone, but still, you would've thought I was pedaling through quicksand, what with how difficult it was to just ride in a straight line. But I got there, eventually.

To the Littles' front door, I mean.

Knocking was hard that afternoon, too. Form a fist, bend your right elbow, reach out with your upper arm, bend your wrist, and rap on the door. Once, twice, three times. Arm down at your side.

Half of me was sort of hoping he wouldn't be there. But he was.

“Oh,” Mr. Little said when he opened the door. That's what he said.
Oh.
Like he was hoping to find the mailman with an early Christmas present, and instead he got me. “It's you.”

“Hi,” I said. “Um—”

But Fallon's dad cut me off.

“You shouldn't be here, Trent,” he said. And he didn't sound entirely mean when he said it, even though it was sort of a mean thing to say. He said it more like he felt sorry for me. “Anyway, Fallon's not home right now.”

“I know,” I said. “She's at play rehearsal. That's why I came now. I wanted to talk to you.”

Mr. Little was on his way to closing the door on me when I said that last part, but as soon as he heard it, he opened the door again.

“Me?” he asked.

I scuffled my feet against the doormat. “Yeah,” I said, even though I was starting to think that this had been a really terrible idea.

“I have an early shift today,” Mr. Little said, super annoyed. He looked at his watch. “I leave in an hour.” His eyes darted back to me. “What was it you had to say?” He didn't invite me in.

“I . . . um . . .” I was starting to realize that I hadn't thought through this part of it very well. “I wanted to water your plants.”

Well.
That
went over about as well as you'd expect.

Mr. Little sighed. It was the sigh of a man who was about to slam the door in a twelve-year-old's face and felt kind of bad about it but not bad enough not to do it. “Good-bye, Trent,” he said.

“Wait!” I said. And for whatever reason, Mr. Little didn't slam the door closed. “It doesn't have to be plants. It can be anything. I just . . . I know you and Mrs. Little don't like me, that's why you don't want me hanging out with Fallon. But I thought if you
did
like me . . .” I went back to scuffling the doormat with my feet, then realized that kicking around the doormat of the person I was trying to impress was maybe not the best idea I'd ever had. I straightened it out against the edge of the doorframe with my toe and went back to talking. “Fallon's really important to me,” I said. I was trying to speak truths, like Ms. Emerson had said. “She's my friend. And I want to hang out with her. But only if it's okay with you and Mrs. Little. So I guess I just thought . . .” Mr. Little was giving me a look like I had three heads. “If you have anything that needs dusting?” I said. “I'm good at dusting. I do it at my mom's shop all the time. Or vacuuming? Or . . . I can come every day. As many times as you want. As long as it takes.”

Mr. Little looked at me. Up and down. Very slowly. And in case you didn't know, being looked up and down very slowly by an enormous police officer is not the most fun thing that could ever happen to a person. But I didn't squirm. Not even a little.

“Fallon is very important to me, too,” he said at last.

I nodded. I got the feeling I wasn't supposed to say anything right then.

“Did she tell you to come here?” he asked me. He was squinting at my face, like he was using his special police officer skills to decide if I was telling the truth.

He didn't really need to do that, though, because the truth was exactly what I planned on telling. “No,” I told him. “She doesn't know I came. I thought she might be . . .” I was going to say
mad,
but Fallon didn't exactly get mad. “I didn't tell her.”

Mr. Little straightened up to his full height and looked down his nose at me for a long time. That wasn't entirely comfortable either, but I still didn't squirm.

“Well, I'm not going to force a sixth-grader to do manual labor just to get in my good graces,” he said.

My shoulders might have slumped just the tiniest bit when he said that, but quick as I could, I straightened them again.

“But . . .” My shoulders got even straighter when I heard that
but.
Mr. Little looked behind him, into the house, like he was deciding something. “I was just about to eat dinner before I left for my shift. Why don't you come join me?”

He definitely said that last bit the way you'd ask a skunk to spray in your soup, but I didn't care. He was asking. My heart leaped up in my chest, but I did my best not to leap in real life. “Thank you, sir,” I said. “I'd love to.”

•   •   •

For dinner, Mr. Little made baked chicken and a pasta dish from scratch, with tomatoes and basil and mozzarella cheese, and there were green beans, too, which he boiled in a pot and then at the last
minute doused in a bowl of ice water. Most of the food was already prepared when he let me into the kitchen, except for the green beans. I swear, he really did that, dumped fresh-cooked green beans into a bowl of ice water. It was the craziest thing I'd ever seen.

“It makes them crispy,” he muttered at me when he saw me looking at him funny. That was the first thing he said to me after we came inside the house, and the last thing he said for about ten minutes after that. I was starting to figure out where Fallon got her knack for not talking when she didn't want to.

Mr. Little got down two plates from the cupboard, and spooned some pasta and green beans onto each one. On one of the plates he added a chicken breast. Then he spent a long time packing up the other two chicken breasts he'd baked, and putting the rest of the pasta and the green beans into plastic containers, and setting it all carefully in the fridge. I figured that was for Fallon and her mom, for their dinner, but I didn't want to ask. I knew Mr. Little probably only had a few answers left in him, so I wanted to save them up.

When he was finished packing up leftovers, Mr. Little handed me the plate without chicken on it, and a fork, and said, “Here.” Then he walked past me into the living room with his own plate, where he sat himself down on the couch. “Sit,” he told me, glancing down at the couch next to him.

I found the farthest bit of couch I could, and I sat.

As soon as I did, Mr. Little looked at his plate of food on the coffee table and said, “I forgot the pepper.”

“I'll get it!” I said, shooting out of my seat. I figured that was the
least I could do, since Mr. Little was feeding me afternoon dinner, not to mention talking to me at all. But Mr. Little scowled at me.

“Sit down, Trent.” He said it like an order. “You're not going to make me like you just by getting me pepper.”

Well.

When he sat back down with the pepper, Mr. Little glanced sideways at me. I took an enormous forkful of pasta and shoved it into my mouth, then smiled at him like it was the most delicious thing I'd ever eaten. It
was
really good, actually, but I was having trouble eating, because, one, it was like three forty in the afternoon, so I wasn't exactly starving, and two, Mr. Little was making me pretty nervous.

“So,” he said. And he said it in the sort of way that I imagined he'd say “So” to a criminal he was about to grill in his interrogation room down at the station. “Tell me about yourself, Trent.”

“Um.” That was the sort of question that sounded easy enough to answer, but wasn't at all. “What do you want to know?” I asked.

Mr. Little sawed at his chicken with his knife. “Whatever you think I should.”

“Um,” I said again. “Well, I'm twelve. I, uh, go to school with Fallon. I'm in sixth, too.” Mr. Little nodded. He already knew all that, obviously.

“Parents?” he asked me.

“Sorry?” I said.

“Do you live with both your parents?” He took another bite of chicken. “What do they do?”

“I live with my mom and my brothers,” I said. “She works at
Kitch'N'Thingz, across from the movie theater.” He nodded. “My dad and my stepmom live in Timber Trace. He does investing, or something, I don't really know. She makes jewelry. They just had a baby.”

Mr. Little was looking at his plate, not at me, but somehow I still felt like I was being drilled down to my soul. “Do you get along with your family?” he asked.

When you choose to speak, speak truths.
“Most of them,” I said. “My mom and brothers, yes. Most of the time. Not my dad so much, or Kari. The baby's fine, I guess.”

“I see.” I couldn't really tell what that
I see
meant, so I didn't say anything. I ate some green beans instead.