Shucked (8 page)

"So,
do you want to get together tomorrow?" Alex asked. He'd shuffled away from
me. Only a few feet, but enough to make me want to grab his hand and pull him
back.

"Sure.
Whatever." The final bell rang, giving students just two minutes to get to
their busses. "Crap. I'm going to miss my bus."

"It's
okay, I can give you a ride home," Illinois Jon said. "Go ahead and
get your stuff out of your locker and meet me back here in ten?"

I
shuffled my feet. "Um, isn't that against the law or something?"

He held
out his cell phone. "You can call your grandmother if you want. She'll
come back and get you. Either way. Doesn't matter to me."

I eyed
the phone. Alex looked at me. "What about you?" I asked Alex.
"Do you need a ride home too?"

"Nope.
I've got a car." He tossed me a smile, then sauntered out of the room.

I
suddenly felt really stupid. He could have offered to drive me and make all of
this awkwardness go away, but he probably enjoyed watching me squirm.

"Um,
yeah, I'll take that ride, Mr. Fenton. Thanks. Be back in a few."

I ran
out of the room and down the hall, in the opposite direction of Alex. I'd made
sure of that when I went through the doorway. I didn't want him to think I was chasing
after him or something equally degrading.

As I
pulled my books out of my locker and emptied them into my backpack, I prayed
Illinois Jon wouldn't pepper me with questions about my mom. Or my dad. How
awkward would that be? He didn't need to be reminded of how my mom dumped him
and how he's still single and probably pining after her. The whole thing was a
disaster waiting to happen.

Chapter Eleven

"So
tell me about living on the road with your mom. Did you love it?" Illinois
Jon asked not more than one second after he started the ignition on his black
Porsche. I'd seen it in the parking lot yesterday and assumed it belonged to
some spoiled kid. I was surprised when he unlocked it, instead of the beater
parked next to his shiny car.

I
wasn't sure if he was asking about me or my mom, but I figured I kind of had to
answer since I was trapped in his car. "Yeah. It's pretty incredible
growing up all around the world. I've seen more amazing vistas in fifteen years
than most people will in a lifetime. Studied at monasteries, walked the Great
Wall of China. Stuff like that."

"Learned
a little taekwondo too, I hear." He didn't glance at me, but I could see
the smile on his face.

"Look,
if this is some clever way to trap me into confessing something, it's not going
to work. Kailey tossed me and I nearly landed on my neck. If I hadn't had
training in falling properly, I would have really gotten hurt. Besides, it's
not like I was going to hurt her back. I just wanted her to know I could hurt
her way more than she could hurt me."

Illinois
Jon shook his head. "You are so like your mother." I couldn't
decipher his expression. Eyebrows furrowed, but he still had that stupid smile
on his face.

I
decided it was time to confront this awkwardness. "Look, I know you and my
mom used to date." I paused, debating whether or not to tell him about the
picture I'd found of the two of them, then decided against it. "I hope
that won't affect my grade or anything."

Illinois
Jon laughed as he flipped on his signal to turn onto Mimi and Gramps' country
road. The chipped rock crunched under his car as he slowed down. "You
don't have to worry about that. I'm a professional. If my feelings about my
students' parents mattered, I never would have gotten the job. I went to high
school with almost all of them. New families aren't common in this area."

That
was true. I'd barely interacted with them over the past few summers, but Mimi
always had the same friends over for tea and bridge. Other than my mom, the
only time someone left was for college or when they died.

"Okay."
I breathed a little sigh of relief disguised as a yawn. "That's good to
know. I mean, it's not like failing me because my mom dumped you is kosher.
You'd probably lose your job."

He
turned into the quarter-mile gravel driveway. "Is that what she told you?
That she dumped me?"

I
paused. I guess no one had ever officially told me the story of why they broke
up. I'd just assumed it was because she left him behind. "Um, no, I kind
of assumed..."

Illinois
Jon turned off the engine and opened his door. What was he doing? Staying? No,
no, no, this couldn't be happening. I jumped out of my side, dragging my
backpack behind me. "Thanks for the ride. I'll see you at school tomorrow,
I guess."

I ran
up to the front door, peeked behind me and was horrified to see he was still
following me up the sidewalk. What was his problem?

Mimi
opened the door before I could put my key into the first lock.

"Jon!"
She pushed past me with her arms wide open. She gave Jon the biggest hug,
wrapping her hulking arms around him and squeezing tighter than a python.

"Birdie,
I'm sorry I haven't been out to visit since last spring. I thought I'd drop off
Tabitha and stop in and say hi." He smiled at her. It was genuine too. And
he called her Birdie. Everyone called Mimi by her given name, Bertha, except
Gramps. Where did he get off calling her Birdie?

My eyes
narrowed. This was weird. All the summers I'd spent here and he hadn't visited
once. Now they were old friends? I was missing something.

"Come
on in, Jon. I just made a batch of fresh cookies." She turned to me.
"Do you have homework Tabitha? I suggest you run upstairs and get started.
I already set out a plate with a couple of cookies on it. You can take it to
your room."

Jon
rubbed his stomach. "Best cookies in the county. Your mom and I ate them
all the time when we were kids." He winked at me. "Don't worry about
your math homework for today. I won't require you to do it since you haven't
had your first tutoring session yet."

Mimi
patted Jon on the shoulder. "Such a good man, don't you think,
Tabitha?"

They
both stood on the porch smiling at me like pod people. Someone had to be
playing a joke. This was just bizarre. "Um, yeah. Thanks." I ran into
the kitchen, grabbed my cookies, and bounded up the stairs. I slammed the door
shut, and then opened the grate in the floor. All the old houses around here
had them. Back when they were built, that's how they made sure air circulated
through the house before central heating ducts. I used to use them to spy on
Mimi and Gramps when I was little. Today they'd come in handy.

I
kicked off my shoes, making as much noise as I could so they'd think I was
doing homework like I was supposed to. Then I laid down on the threadbare
carpet with my ear up to the metal grate. Their voices wafted up into my room.

"How
much does she know?" Jon asked, his voice a little muffled. I imagined
he'd taken a bite of a cookie. I reached behind me, pulling the plate closer
and took a nibble of my own. Crumbs tumbled into my open palm. I couldn't risk
letting one of them fall on the off chance they might see the cookie shower and
bust me.

"Nothing.
My daughter has sworn me to secrecy. And really, I shouldn't be the one to tell
Tabitha the truth. Maggie should, but she won't. It's absolutely ridiculous. I
hate lying to Tabitha."

"She's
almost sixteen. Hasn't this gone on long enough?" He let out a long sigh.

My
hands formed into fists. Great. What did they know that they weren't telling
me? I fought the urge to run down there and demand answers. But then they'd
know I was spying and I didn't want to give up my only advantage in this house.

"I
agree, but we're bound to secrecy." Mimi stood up and started doing
dishes. This was even stranger. Mimi never did dishes when guests were over.
She said it was rude and only reserved for family.

"Okay,
well, I'm going to head home. I just wanted to make sure Tabitha got home okay.
She seems like a good kid. I'm glad I'll finally get to know her."

Me? Why
would he want to get to know me? If Mimi trusted him, then he probably wasn't a
child molester. Did I remind him of my mom? That was even creepier. I sat up,
wrapping my arms around my legs. Everything was changing too fast and it was
all too strange. Was it so wrong to want to go back to normal? Living in the
jungle seemed to make a lot more sense than anything here.

I
tiptoed over to the bed, grabbed my dogu off the shelf, and crawled under the
covers with it, snuggling into the warm fleece sheets Mimi had put on the bed
while I was at school. The nights were getting chilly. She always thought of
everything.

I
glanced at the clock, telling myself I had plenty of time to take a little nap
before dinner.

***

I woke up in the middle of the night,
drenched from a cold sweat, still clutching the dogu in my hand. Light powder
covered my palm. “What a crummy reproduction,” I whispered to myself as I set
the doll on the nightstand. “It’s falling apart already.”

Moonlight filtered through the
curtains and my iPhone told me it was around two-thirty.

“Thanks for waking me up for dinner,”
I grumbled in the general direction of Mimi and Gramps’ bedroom.

I sat up in bed, pushing back the
quilt. Mimi said it was the same one my mom used when she was my age. It
definitely looked like it, all torn and moth-eaten. I wish she’d just buy me a
new blanket or a comforter. I was tired of my mom’s hand-me-downs. Her junky
sweats, her old blankets, and her old boyfriend happened to be my math teacher.

Rubbing my eyes, I looked around the
room and realized that I was wide awake. No sleepiness pushing down on my
eyelids.

I grabbed my iPhone and typed dogu
into Google. “Huh, not too many hits.” I scrolled down the page with my thumb,
clicking on Wikipedia.

“So they’re either goddesses or
aliens. Huh. Mimi was right.” I looked mine over by the glow of my cell’s
screen. Short, fat, wide hips, alien eyes like goggles. But mine had
something the others didn’t. It was completely intact. According to the
article, very few of them still had both arms and legs. It was a common problem
in archaeology. Few items remained whole after thousands of years buried in the
dirt, much less from the regular use in daily life.

The article also went on to talk
about the purpose of the dogu, or at least what they speculated it was used
for. No one really knew without written records. A common theory held the dogu
was used in fertility rites. Ew! At least the ushabti were replacements for the
dead in Egypt. That I could handle. But a doll that increased fertility? That
was something I didn’t need.

“So my mom sent me a fertility doll.
Creepy.” I rolled my eyes. We’d never spent any time in Japan. Korea, China,
Tibet, yes, but other than a few layovers, my feet had never touched Japanese
soil. So why this figure? It’s not like it had any meaning for me, other than
being kinda cute.

I put my iPhone back on its charger
and rolled over. My mom hadn’t ever made much sense. Why would she start now?

Chapter Twelve

Too much sleep wasn't ever a good
thing. I woke up groggy in the morning and ravenous. Mimi didn't mention
missing dinner and neither did I. We didn't talk about the cheerleading
incident or Illinois Jon. "I've got to stay after school today for
tutoring," I said through a mouthful of bacon.

Grease dripped down my chin and I
licked up. This was the one food I missed when I wasn't in America. Other
places had bacon, but there was nothing like farm-fresh cooked in its own
grease. Like a piece of heaven on earth is what it was.

"That's fine. Call me if you
need a ride home. I'll be here."

"What if you're not? Will your
cell phone be on?" Mimi owned a cell phone, but she never turned it on
unless she needed to make a call. I'd told her a zillion times that defeated
the purpose of carrying one, but she claimed her phone was only for
emergencies. I tried to explain that sometimes in an emergency, it's important
to be able to get a hold of her. She would just brush me off. I loved her, but
it was her logic or nothing.

"No. I'll be home. Don't worry
so much." She held out the skillet, offering me another pancake. One she'd
cooked in bacon grease. It was a wonder she and Gramps didn't have heart
problems.

I waved my hand in the air, and then
wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. If I had any more, I'd probably
explode.

A loud honking noise erupted from
outside. "Better run or the bus'll leave without you," Mimi said. She
handed me my backpack and I ran out of the house, waving my arms wildly as I
sprinted down the quarter-mile driveway to the bus. The driver honked again and
waved to me to hurry up. I rolled my eyes; I was running as fast as I could.

When I got to the bus, I swung myself
up into it, skipping all three steps. I eyed all the kids. Some ignored me,
others whispered in each other's ears while staring at me. A few scooted to the
center of their seat, making it clear I wasn't supposed to sit anywhere near
them. I just sat down in the first seat behind the driver, the smell of
faux-leather dancing around my nose. I couldn't complain, though. The smell was
far better than the one I'd encountered on public busses in South America. Try
mixing serious body odor with pigs and bananas. I'd take the school bus any day
over that.