No Place (6 page)

The kid was still waiting for me to respond.

“Can I ask you something personal?” I said. “Why do you care? You homeless or something?”

The kid gave me a long, curious look, then said, “No, I care . . . because I’m
not
homeless.”

*  *  *

It was one of those days when no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get away from things I didn’t want to think about. I’d signed up for government and politics because Noah said the teacher, Ms. Mitchell, graded you mostly on class participation and multiple-choice quizzes. She didn’t like reading student papers, which was perfect because I didn’t like writing them.

Wearing a red tent dress and big hoop earrings, Ms. Mitchell waddled in and dropped into her chair. “All right, my little gremlins, today we start our unit on local government and politics,” she announced in her booming voice. “Pay attention because at the end of the unit each of you will give an oral report on a topic of local interest. So what’s going on around here? Do any of you ever look at the
Median Buzz
, or read that miserable excuse for a neighborhood newspaper? What are the issues?”

Ben Phillips raised his hand. “Dignityville?”

“All right, we’ll start there.” Ms. Mitchell gazed around. “I assume you’re all familiar with it?”

Meg sat across the room and I glanced at her just in time to catch her peeking at me out of the corner of her eye. Then she seemed to go rigid and stare straight ahead. We hadn’t spoken since that day a few weeks before when we’d nearly gotten thrown out of the library, and I felt a little bad about that. Of course, she didn’t know about the grief Talia had given me for laughing with another girl.

“Okay, for those of you who’ve been hiding under rocks,
Mayor George and the town council decided a while back to create a tent city in Osborne Park to house the homeless,” Ms. Mitchell explained. “If you’ve been in town you can’t miss it. Does anyone know why they decided to do that?”

Susan Barrow raised her hand. “To save money.”

“How would a tent city save money?” Ms. Mitchell asked.

“Because they’d all be in one place?” Susan guessed.

“Right,” said Ms. Mitchell. “Just because people are homeless doesn’t mean they don’t deserve the same services as the rest of us, whether that’s sanitation, or medical care, or public transportation. And given the financial problems towns and cities are facing these days, I don’t think anyone can blame the mayor for trying this. Here’s my next question: What do
you
think of Dignityville? Is it right to round up all the homeless and put them in one place?”

Ms. Mitchell was big on critical thinking. And sometimes on just trying to get us to think, period. Since class participation was a big part of our grade, you could usually count on the GPA zombies like Ben Phillips and Susan Barrow to speak up. Now Ben raised his hand. “They can’t really
force
them to move there, can they?”

“No,” said Ms. Mitchell. “All the town can do is point out the benefits, like free meals, electricity, and washing facilities. But there’s another reason why the idea appears to be working. Does anyone know what it is?”

Susan raised her hand. “The homeless feel that banding together makes them more visible and harder to ignore.”

“Very good,” said Ms. Mitchell.
“When they were scattered around town, they were easier to miss. Most of you probably didn’t know that there were half a dozen families living in the state forest out on High Bridge Road. Hardly anyone knew they were there. There were families living in cars and boats. I don’t think anyone realized how many there were. And why don’t they want to be ignored?”

Ben’s hand went up again.

“Let’s see if we can get someone else involved.” Ms. Mitchell scanned the room.

It was time to gaze out the window.

“Dan?”

An invisible weight pushed down on my shoulders. Do teachers get special training for picking the student who least wants to be called on?

“Why don’t the homeless want to be ignored, Dan?”

Kids turned to look at me. I even heard a few chair legs scrape. I thought about the ratty-haired kid and his crusade in the hall outside the cafeteria. “Because then nothing will ever change.”

Justin Smith’s hand went up, which was kind of interesting because he was a gearhead auto-tech troll, not a GPA zombie. “If they want things to change they should get off their butts and find jobs.”

That was the same thing Noah had said. And yet, you couldn’t find two more different kids.

Beth Perkins, an emo-punk type with dyed red streaks,
turned to him. “Sure, Justin, they could work at McDonald’s. But suppose you went to college and maybe even got a master’s degree in business or engineering? Would you be happy flipping burgers?”

Justin tucked his chin down. “If that was the only job I could get.”

“And what if you had a family?” Beth asked. “And there was no way you could earn enough at McDonald’s to house and feed them?”

Justin shrugged. “I’d make sure they got a lot of Happy Meals.”

The class laughed. I glanced again at Meg and saw that she was smiling. Given that she and her family were homeless, it seemed kind of remarkable.

When the period ended, I made sure we left the room at the same time. Her eyes darted uncertainly at me when we started down the hall together.

“How’s it going?” I asked.

“Why do you ask?” she replied stiffly, not looking in my direction.

“Just because of what we were talking about in class.”

“You’re wondering why I didn’t say anything?” Her voice was ripe with defensiveness. “Like why I didn’t raise my hand and claim to be an authority on Dignityville?”

“No.”

“Then what? Why are you even talking to me? Why are we walking together?”

I thought I understood her guarded attitude. Sometimes something happens with someone, and you don’t think much about it. But what you don’t realize is that the other person has thought
a lot
about it. Maybe they’ve even gotten kind of worked up over it. I’m not saying that day in the library when we laughed meant more to her than it did to me. It did mean something to me. But maybe it just meant something different.

We passed an empty classroom. “Come in here for a second?”

Meg frowned. “Why?”

“Just do it.”

We went in. Meg crossed her arms, her eyebrows dipping. “What? You can’t be seen with me in the hallway? I’m a pariah now?”

I did the two-finger swipe. “Two points for vocabulary.”

She wasn’t amused. “So?”

“You’re not a pariah. I just have a girlfriend with spies everywhere.”

She blinked, as if astonished. “
That’s
why you’ve been ignoring me?”

So I was right. She thought I’d been ignoring her. No wonder she sounded hurt and defensive. Look at it from her point of view: I’d started to get friendly, we’d really connected, and then I’d backed away. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make it seem that way. I . . . there’s actually been a bunch of times when I wanted to talk to you.”

“But you were afraid
she’d
find out?” Meg rolled her eyes. “Boy, Mr. Popular Stud, I’m glad I’m not in your shoes.”

Ouch!
This girl didn’t pull any punches.

She quickly looked around the room. “Wait! What if she’s got all the classrooms bugged?”

“Very funny. No, I just . . . I don’t know. Tal and I are pretty happy together.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s
so
obvious,” Meg replied facetiously. “My best relationships have
always
been with people I was afraid were spying on me.”

That made me chuckle. “You’re pretty sarcastic.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t blow myself up like a puffer fish and show my spines when attacked.”

“You’re under attack?” I asked, confused.

“From embarrassment and humiliation? Duh. You
especially
should know that.”

Now I got it. “Hence the pariah comment?”

“Welcome to my world,” she muttered, skidding across the ice from sarcastic to bitter. She raised her head as if she’d just thought of something. “By the way, are we still keeping that secret about why you’re living at your uncle’s house?”

Before I could answer, the classroom door opened. Maybe I swiveled around a little too quickly to see who it was—a kid I didn’t know. “Sorry, wrong room.” He backed out. When I turned back to Meg, she had a thoughtful expression. “So
which is it? Afraid of being caught consorting with the homeless? Or just of her jealous wrath?”

“Neither.”

But she’d already turned toward the door. “Gotta get to my next class. You better stay here and count to ten so no one sees us leave together.”

She went out.

I stood there
way
past a ten count, wondering . . . how right was she?

 9 

“You
sure
that’s what you want to wear?” Noah asked. It was Friday night and I’d just gotten into his car. He was wearing sweatpants and an old hoodie.

“Aren’t we doing some church thing?” I said.

“We’re
cooking.
For Dignityville.”

“Be right back.” I jogged back into Uncle Ron’s, quickly changed clothes.

“You okay?” Noah asked when I returned.

“I think so, why?”

“I don’t know. You seem a little out of it lately.” He started to drive.

“Everything’s cool.” It wasn’t. And now here was the idea of cooking for the homeless, which felt strange considering my family’s current situation. There’d been a time when it would have been just another excuse to hang out with friends, no
different from really, making a fire at the beach or going to the movies. But now?

Saint Stephen’s was the biggest church in town. When Noah and I got downstairs, Tory and Talia and a couple of others had already gathered around the big countertop island.

“Glad you two could make it,” Tory said in a snarky tone.

Noah clapped me on the shoulder. “Wonder Boy here was dressed for dinner with the archbishop.”

I sidled up to Talia, who gave me a concerned look and a quick peck on the cheek.

“Did you say we were cooking for Dignityville?” I whispered.

“Yes.”

That was weird, because I couldn’t remember her telling me. Was Noah right about me being out of it?

Tory tapped a metal ladle against the countertop, upon which were bags of beans, onions, and other ingredients. She was a planner and organizer (did someone say “control freak”?). If twenty years from now she became governor, I wouldn’t be surprised.

“Order in the court,” she said. “Dignityville doesn’t have a kitchen, so dinners are prepared by volunteers off-site. Tonight that’s us, so let’s have fun while doing something good, okay?”

Everyone got to work. Noah and I were assigned to the onions.

“Punishment for being late,” he muttered while Tory’s back was turned.

“Why?” I whispered.

“You ever chop onions?”

I shook my head. Cooking wasn’t my thing, and besides, Mom was so good at it. Noah smirked and handed me an industrial-size knife.

In no time we both had tears running down our cheeks.

“Aw, look at duh big stwong ath-a-weetes cwying,” Ben Phillips teased in his best Elmer Fudd imitation. He might have been a GPA zombie in government and politics class and president of our school’s chapter of Young Entrepreneurs, but what he had in brains he lacked in brawn, and seemed to have a chip on his shoulder about being on the chubby side and unathletic.

“It takes a strong man to cry.” Noah wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “Something you wouldn’t know about, Ben.”

“Enough,” Tory quickly interjected. “We’re in a house of brotherly love, remember?”

The stoves were on, everyone was busy, and it started to get hot. Noah and I peeled off our hoodies. The girls were chattering, and the guys, now stirring big pots of chili, looked like they just wanted to finish quickly and go hang out at someone’s house. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when I felt something bounce off my shoulder. Turning, I found a clove of garlic lying on the floor and saw Zach Raines, a switch-hitting outfielder who doubled as a relief pitcher, give
me a furtive glance. He couldn’t really be proposing a food fight, could he?

I continued to stir. A moment later a clove must have hit Noah, because he swiveled around.

“Ignore it,” I whispered.

“Hell, no,” Noah whispered back. He picked up the clove, waited until the coast was clear, and threw it.

In no time another clove bounced off the pot of chili and another made a little
clink
when it struck the stove hood above us. Then one landed
in
the chili. I started to get an uncomfortable feeling that had nothing to do with whether Tory caught us. This was food people were going to eat.

Noah glanced in Tory’s direction to make sure she wasn’t looking, then rifled the cap from a bottle of chili powder at Zach. It missed and made a loud enough
clack!
for Tory to turn and look. Instantly, the guys all pretended to focus on cooking, but the second Tory turned away Noah and I were pelted by half a dozen cloves. As Noah searched for something to throw back, Ben cleared his throat loudly: “Hey, Tory, you want to come over here and make sure I’m browning the beef right?”

It was a warning for us to stop fooling around. Obviously Ben was also feeling uncomfortable. But unlike us “big stwong ath-a-weetes,” he’d had the courage to do something about it.

*  *  *

When the chili was done, we poured it into big plastic containers and put it in refrigerators, where it would be stored until it was reheated and taken over to Dignityville. Then
Tory invited everyone back to her house for a little “reward celebration” for doing good work. Her father owned Pizza Grandé, a chain of pizza places with a Hispanic theme, and they must have been doing really well, because the Sanchezes had this amazing rec room downstairs with a pool table, big-screen TV, and some cool old arcade video games like Space Invaders and Pac-Man. At least one night every weekend we wound up hanging out there with Tory’s parents providing pizzas and only half joking that they liked having us around because that way they knew where Tory was.