Middle of Nowhere (5 page)

In other words, they would wonder where our mom was.

The man in Dominion Check Cashing with the toothpick in the corner of his mouth and greasy hairs glued on his bald head looked at the check and said Mom had to come in herself.

“She's at work,” I said.

The toothpick shifted to the other side of his mouth. “She can come after work.”

“She finishes at, like, six in the morning.”

He pointed to the neon sign in the window. I read
OPEN 24 HOURS
, backwards.

“What about the note?”

He nudged it back across the counter at me.

“Looks to me like you wrote that yourself. Are you stealing from your own mother?”

“No!” I said.

“Kids today. Ba-a-ad,” he said, crossing his arms and settling back on his stool.

“I'm not bad!” Artie cried.

“Not yet,” the man said, spitting out slivers. “But just you wait.”

We stormed out. I wanted to slam the door, but it was glass with hinges that eased it closed. I marched ahead. Artie trotted behind me, saying loudly, “I'm good!”

A man in a dirty coat came along pushing a cart. He stopped and said in a gravelly voice, “Just how good are you, kid?”

“Really good!” Artie said. He didn't even notice the man had a beard. That's how mad he was.

“Show us. Sing a song or something.”

“I'm a little teapot short and stout . . .” Artie began. He added the actions — one hand on his waist, the other stuck straight out while he tipped over and poured some imaginary tea onto the sidewalk.

Somebody with tattoos was coming out of the Pit Stop Mart, and he stopped to watch. A woman in the coin laundry smiled through the window. When Artie finished singing, everybody clapped. He took a bow.

“You
are
good,” the man with the cart said. He lifted the plastic sheet off his stuff and started rooting around. “Here. This is for you. It's the Bird of Happiness.”

It was a plastic bird with feathers glued all over it and wires sticking out of its feet. Some of the feathers had fallen off so it looked diseased. The woman from the laundromat came out and gave Artie the change she didn't need for the dryer and the tattooed man offered everybody gum. All because my funny little brother sang a kindergarten song.

That's the thing about Artie. He
is
good. He's the good thing that came out of a bad thing.

When I remembered that, I felt better.

If worst came to worst, I figured I could get him to sing and dance while I passed around a hat.

4

AFTER SCHOOL THE
next day Mrs. Gill said she needed to speak with me. First I had to wait while she walked up and down the squirming line of kids, checking that they all had their shoes on the correct feet and their backpacks zipped and their own paper-plate ladybugs, not someone else's.

I remembered being in that line. When your mother showed up, or your brother, or whoever was assigned to pick you up, Mrs. Gill sang out your name and you got to fly away.

Today Artie was the last one and he looked pretty cross as Mrs. Gill waved me into the room. He had his grumpy face on.

“How are you, Curtis?

“Fine.”

“How's everything at home?”

“Great.”

“Artie?” Mrs. Gill said. “You may have Happy back now.”

Artie pulled his bottom lip up to its normal place and dashed over to Mrs. Gill's desk. The Bird of Happiness was in the top drawer. Artie grabbed it and rubbed it all over his face.

“Poor Happy,” he told it. “Were you scared in that dark drawer all alone?”

“Bring Happy here please, Artie,” said Mrs. Gill in that firm, kind, kindergarten-teacher voice that is impossible to disobey. When Artie brought the bird over, Mrs. Gill said, “I won't take him from you again, Artie, but you must let Curtis see what I'm talking about.” Mrs. Gill pointed to the wires in the hideous plastic feet. “Curtis,” she said, “someone got poked today.”

“By accident!” Artie wailed.

“By accident, but it still hurt. Poor Thompson. These are sharp wires. We can't have things with sharp wires in the classroom, Artie.”

“He'll leave it at home,” I said.

“I can't,” Artie said. “I need Happy. If I don't have Happy, I'm sad.”

“You only got Happy yesterday,” I said. “You weren't sad before you got him.”

“I was so! I miss Mom!” And he started to bawl.

Mrs. Gill reached for him and pulled him close.

“Curtis?” she asked. “Is your mother away?”

Just yesterday I had been thinking how special Artie was, how funny and adorable when he sang “I'm a Little Teapot”
outside the laundromat. Now I wanted to grab that ugly, bald bird and stuff it down his throat.

I remembered Mrs. Burt saying, “Oh, shut up!” I wanted to say it now.
Oh, shut up, Artie!

Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!

But I didn't, or Mrs. Gill would know for sure that I was lying when I told her, “She'll be gone for two days. Our neighbor's looking after us.”

Before Mrs. Gill could ask Artie if this was true, he stopped kissing Happy and said, “Mrs. Burt?”

“Yes,” I said. “Mrs. Burt's looking after us tonight. Tonight and tomorrow night. Then Mom will be back.”

“She'll be back tomorrow night?”

“The day after that,” I said, and Artie smiled and wiped his tears away.

We left school and headed for the store. Artie wanted Happy to sit on his shoulder. I explained that for Happy to sit on his shoulder, I would have to poke the wires through his shirt. Then he'd have holes in his shirt.

“Small holes.”

“All right,” I said. I was trying not to let him see how mad I was, but my hands were shaking, I was so mad. I just wanted to get to the Pit Stop Mart and buy some food, but now I had to stop and wire the plastic bird onto Artie's shoulder.

When I finished, it flopped right over.

Artie stood him up. “Ow,” he said. “The wires poked me!”

“Now you know how that other kid felt.”

I walked on so Artie had no choice but to trot after me. He held Happy upright, then let him go. Flop! He did it again. Flop!

“He won't sit up,” Artie complained.

“He's sleeping,” I said, though I really wanted to say that Happy was dead.

“Oh,” Artie said. “Then
shhh
.”

I was happy not to say anything. Until we reached the Pit Stop Mart, we didn't speak.

There was a different clerk this time who was talking on the phone in another language. She barely looked at us as we moved down the aisle, filling the basket.

“Happy wants a Slushie,” Artie said.

“Too bad,” I said. This made Artie suck in his lips. He trudged along behind me with the bird flopped over on his shoulder.

“What do birds eat?” he asked after a minute.

“Seeds,” I said, though I should have said bread. It was already in the basket.

“Happy wants seeds.”

“No seeds,” I said.

I should have just bought a package of sunflower seeds. They were cheap and good for you, but I knew what would happen. It would be too hard for Artie to shell them. I would have to sit there for a week doing it for him, all so the dead, bald bird wired to his shoulder could pretend to eat. Then I would get fed up and Artie would snatch the package and spill them all over the carpet. It would be me, not him, on my hands and knees picking them up one by one.

“You have a grumpy face,” Artie said.

I swung around and in a low, hissing voice said, “Do you remember what I told you about that kid Brandon Pennypacker? How he spat in my food? How he shrank my side of the room? Do you want to go and live with Brandon? Because that's what's going to happen if you go around telling people that Mom's away. They are going to send you to live with Mrs. Pennypacker and you won't have Mom and you won't have me. You'll have
Brandon
.”

Artie's eyes rolled back in his head and his face went all purple. He shrieked and flung himself down and pounded the floor of Pit Stop Mart with his hands and feet.

The clerk was still talking on the phone. I knelt and apologized to Artie. I asked him to stop crying. When I tried to cover his mouth, the monster inside him bit me, so I left him there screaming and ran up the aisle where I'd seen toothbrushes and deodorant. I grabbed a bottle of baby lotion and dumped some in my hand. Then I ran back to Artie and smeared his face with it. He stopped screaming right away and sat up spitting.

The clerk bent over us on the floor. “What's going on?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Sorry.”

“Did you open that?” She pointed to the bottle in my hand. “You have to buy it now.”

“I want to buy it.” I put it in my basket. It cost $5.99 for a tiny, tiny bottle.

We got up off the floor and followed the clerk back to the counter, Artie rubbing his face, trying to get the lotion off.

“That doesn't smell like Mom! Not at all!”

I was too shocked by the awful thing I'd said to Artie to remember to feel nervous about the credit card. I passed it over, the note folded around it like before, but she didn't even read it. She just swiped the card and handed me a pen.

Now it almost seemed funny — me slathering Artie, him screaming. I glanced at him working his tongue in his mouth to get rid of the taste of the lotion. The bird was flopped backward over his shoulder. I laughed and he laughed.

The machine spat out the receipt. “Declined,” the clerk said.

“What?”

“Declined.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means the card's no good.”

“I used it a couple of days ago.”

“Well, you can't use it anymore. It's probably maxed out.”

“What does that mean?”

She turned the card over and read the name. “That's your mom? She's over her limit. Go home and ask her if she's got another card.”

“Okay,” I said, stunned.

“I'll just put this behind the counter till you get back.” She lifted the basket down.

“She's at work.”

“Okay. Do me a favor then and put the milk back.”

I returned the milk to the cooler and she didn't mention the lotion I was supposed to pay for.

As soon as we were out of the store I sat down on the steps of the Pit Stop Mart and pitched a fit of my own. I put my face in my hands and cried for the first time since Mom left.

Artie just stood there. After a minute he started stroking my hair and when that didn't work, he ripped Happy off his shoulder and made him hop all over my head and tweet. The wires stabbed my scalp and hurt like hell, but I was glad. It made me cry harder.

Finally Artie gave up and started bawling, too. I figured we'd better do our crying at home or somebody would call the police.

Mrs. Burt was standing in her yard, her body squeezed between the walker's chrome rails. She had the hose out and, when she saw us, she started waving it in the air so the water sprayed all around her, catching the light.

“You-hoo! Fellas!”

And then we saw it — a rainbow, shimmering above her.

“You still got my plate!” she called.

And Artie pulled away from me and went running to her, full tilt.

“WHERE DO YOU
think she's got to?” Mrs. Burt asked.

“I don't know,” I said.

“Has she ever done something like this before?”

I didn't answer.

“I see,” said Mrs. Burt.

We were sitting at her kitchen table, Artie drawing a picture of Mrs. Burt. I knew it was her because he'd drawn the walker, making it look like a ladder. In her hand was the hose with a rainbow shooting out of it.

After a big gulp of tea, Mrs. Burt patted her knitted cap and said, “I hate to tell you this, Curtis, but if she's done it before, she'll do it again.”

“She won't,” I said.

“People never change.”

“They do,” I said.

“I change,” Artie said. “I change when my clothes are dirty. I wash them in the tub!”

“I've got a washing machine,” Mrs. Burt offered. Then she asked, “Don't you have relatives?”

I told her my grandma died when my mom was in grade nine. All we really needed was to figure out the bills and the rent. I asked Mrs. Burt if she could help with that and she sent me home to get the stuff.

In the apartment I collected everything I could find, including the government check.

While I was there the phone rang. I froze, staring at it. If I answered, it would be Nelson, the landlord, demanding the rent. If I didn't, it would be Mom. Mom calling to say where she was and what had happened and when she was coming back.

“Hello?” I said.

“Bring over some crayons or something so he can color his picture,” Mrs. Burt said.