Nekomah Creek (18 page)

“Are you kidding? I won’t forget this if I live to be a hundred.”

“Now don’t be too hard on Dad,” Mom said. “After all, it was your counselor who got the date wrong, not him.”

I plopped on the sofa, thinking,
So what?
The point was, she
saw
us like this.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught Lucy tiptoeing over to the door of Mom’s studio. She turned the knob.

“Mo-om,” I said in a warning voice.

Lucy pushed open the door.

“Hey!” Mom darted over and scooped Lucy up with one arm. “Bill? Did you see that? She opened the door.”

Dad blinked. “That’s what she did, all right.”

“I mean, she opened the door by herself. It was shut tight.”

Slowly, they both turned and looked at me.

Mom’s voice was loaded with apologies. “Oh, Robby.”

“I tried to tell you,” I said, “but nobody ever believes me.”

“I’m so sorry, Honey.”

Yeah, great. Now I was so upset about everything else, I couldn’t enjoy this apology one little bit.

“I can’t go to school,” I told my parents Monday morning. “I think I’m sick again.”

“Do you suppose he’s having a relapse of the flu?” Mom put her hand on my forehead, TV-commercial style.

“Could be,” Dad said, studying my face. “Feel like you’re going to throw up?”

“No,” I said quickly. “No, it’s not that. My stomach just hurts.”

I don’t know why I felt like I was trying to get away with something. I wasn’t lying—my stomach really did hurt.

Maybe it was because I knew perfectly well it was Monday and Monday meant Mrs. Van Gent. I did
not
want to have to face that lady.

Maybe it was because as soon as they said I could stay home, my stomach felt better.

I had a lot of time to lie there and think that day while I pretended to be sick, and here’s what I thought: You’ve heard about every cloud having a silver lining? Well, the one good thing about this disaster was that at least I could get my diorama back.

Before, I had to stay on Mrs. Perkins’s good side. But what would it matter now? The damage was
done. I was sure Mrs. Van Gent had already told her what she’d seen at our house Friday night. By now the government probably had all the gory details too.

I might as well get the diorama for Dad. He could keep it as a memento of the great times we’d had before he blew it.

  16  

When I showed up at school on Tuesday, I half expected everyone to be talking about my family being a bunch of jerks. But before I even got into the building, I found out we were not the big news.

Orin’s dad was.

“Doctor says he’s lucky he didn’t get killed,” Orin was bragging by the bike racks.

By noon recess, everybody in our class had heard about Elvis Downard’s logging accident. Orin had thrilled us with the grisly details several times.

“That old fir just barber-chaired on him,” he said, using his hands to show how the tree had snapped at a funny angle. “Dad says he shoulda knowed something bad was up. He couldn’t sleep the night before, see, and his hands and feet were
cold. Loggers all know that means trouble’s ahead.”

I have to admit, I was listening. Standing in the foursquare line, pretending to watch the game, I was actually running a little movie through my head: Accident on Douglas Mountain. In a weird way it sort of fascinated me to picture Elvis Downard gutting it out, the pain of that tree pinning his leg. I shivered. Pretty soon now Orin would get to the part where the leg bone was sticking through the skin …

Gee, I thought. I wish I had a dad worth bragging about.
Hey, guys, did you hear about the time my dad sliced his finger making guacamole? Blood? Oh lemme tell ya, we’re talking two, maybe three Band-Aids …

After break I went up to Mrs. Perkins’s desk. She was counting up the Thanksgiving money we’d all turned in that morning. Mine was mostly from collecting returnable cans along the road.

“Mrs. Perkins, I’ve thought about it and I’m very sorry but I can’t let you have my diorama for Mrs. Appleman because I want to give it to my dad.”

She stopped counting. “Now hold on, Robert. When I asked you before …”

“You didn’t really ask me, Mrs. Perkins. You
told
me. I didn’t feel like I had any choice.”

“But Robert, it’s such an honor.”

Right then Orin Downard swaggered in. Well, so
what if he overheard? Orin making fun of me was the least of my worries.

“I made the diorama especially for my dad, Mrs. Perkins, and it just wouldn’t be right to give it to somebody else.”

Yeah, I know, I wasn’t making much sense. I was mad at Dad, right? But still …

“Ain’t this touching,” Orin said. “Got a hanky there, Darrel?” He faked a couple of sniffs. “Think I’m about to bust out bawling.”

Mrs. Perkins slid the yellow envelope of money into her desk drawer. Then she looked up at me and shook her head.

“For-e-ver-more. Robert Hummer, you sure do take the cake.”

I drew myself up. “Mrs. Perkins?” I said. “I really wish you’d call me Robby.”

The wind rushed by my ears as I coasted down the road on my bike that afternoon, keeping far to the right to let the school bus pass. By the time I reached the first little bubbling creek that spills into the main creek, the sun had broken through the clouds, making sparklies of the raindrops on every twig and tree branch.

I was starting to feel a little less gloomy. At least I was getting away from the school. At least I was heading home.

And most important, I had the diorama in my back basket. No matter what else happened, this
one thing was going to be the way I planned it. My dad was going to have the present I made for him.

And then, a rush of air as another bike swooped past. I swerved. When I’d steadied myself I saw it was Orin.

“Ya ya!” he yelled, pedaling away, holding something triumphantly over his head.

My diorama! He’d snagged it out of my back basket!

“Hey! You gimme that back!” I stood up to pedal, following him around the bend to the bridge. “Orin, come on! That’s not funny!”

Through the dark tunnel of the bridge, I saw a figure silhouetted against the pale green light at the end.

Orin crossed ahead of me, threw down his bike, and tossed the boot box to the figure.

Bumpbumpbump
. I pedaled furiously over the planks after them.

“Gimme a break, Orin.” My voice echoed against the old timbers. “You’re gonna wreck it.”

“It’s for his daddeee,” Orin sing-songed, dancing around.

Out the other side, I jumped off my bike. The figure was Cody Riddle. He tossed the box back to Orin.

I shut my eyes. I could just imagine the little deer coming unglued, rattling against the sides, the sea gull on a thread banging crazily.

“Orin, please?” I hated the wimpy sound of my voice.

“Please?” he mimicked me.

I hated him. I wished I were bigger than him. I wished I could grab him and pound him. Having to beg Orin Downard for what was mine—it killed me!

“Okay,” he said, “here it is!”

But instead of tossing it to me, Orin hauled off and sent the box in a flying arc over the creek.

“No!” I watched it splash into the gurgling water.

I scrambled down the bank, sliding through the wet ferns, keeping my eye on the box as it floated like a little ark, twirling in the eddies and bumping against a mossy rock, the rush of water holding it there for an instant.

I waded into the iciness up to my knees and fished it out. Standing on a rock at the edge, I held it up to the light and peeked through the eyehole.

That was Nekomah Creek all right. Nekomah Creek after an end-of-the-world flood. All the paint had run, the parts made of tissue looked like wet toilet paper. I tried the battery-powered lights—shorted out.

Above me at the bridge, Orin and Cody were laughing their heads off.

Hot tears sprang to my eyes. My throat ached. This is where I should have raised my fist and yelled
I’ll get you for this, Orin Downard. I’ll get
you for this if it’s the last thing I do!
That’s how it would have gone in a movie or a book.

But this was stupid, crummy, real life. So I just hugged the ruined box to me, climbed the slippery bank, and got on my bike.

“Hurry on home,” Orin sang after me in his nastiest voice. “Hurry up and tattle to that big tough daddy of yours!”

They didn’t chase me, but I could hear their stupid laughing at my back all the way down the road.

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