Tangerine (20 page)

Joey stood up and moved his desk back. He looked at me with disgust. "
You
agreed to that. You'd agree to anything. Not me. I'm joining another group." He started to drag his desk away, but then he stopped and looked at Tino, adding sarcastically, "Not that your brother and his new type of banana aren't fascinating."

Tino jumped up and lunged at him, but Joey was too fast. He leaned back, and Tino flew past him, landing on the desks of the next group. Mrs. Potter was there before he could recover. She got a grip on Tino's arm and hustled him out into the hallway.

Joey turned on me. "This is how you get by here, right? You kiss up to these guys? You're scared of these guys?"

"What are you talking about? I'm not scared."

"You're a gutless wonder, Fisher. You're afraid of girls. You're afraid of your own brother. Now you're afraid of these lowlifes. They treat you like a dog, and you take it! Take it? You like it! You think they're your friends!"

Everyone's eyes were on Joey. He was red faced and angry. "Let me tell you something. You're bigger than this little punk. You know that? And I'm bigger than you. If he ever messes with me again, I don't care where it is, I'm gonna punch him out!"

Mrs. Potter stepped back into the classroom and signaled for Joey to join her in the hall. He walked out, and everybody's eyes turned to me. I had no clue what to do. I just stood there.

Finally Theresa broke the tension. "So are you joining another group, or what?"

I answered immediately. "No. I want to stay here."

Theresa spoke to the class. "Then let's all sit down."

I spent the rest of the period staring at a blank piece of paper, trying to sort out what had happened. Joey came back at the end of the period and sat down with the leftover group behind me. Tino didn't come back at all. The word at practice was that he had been suspended for three days.

I type these journal entries, and my homework assignments, on the little PC clone up in my bedroom. For anything major, like a school report, I use Dad's big IBM, which is down in an alcove off the great room. Dad has a CD-ROM encyclopedia, a fax modem, and a Web navigator that gets hundreds of information services. I can find out anything about anything without ever leaving the chair.

Tonight I was down in the alcove searching for information on tangerines when Mom announced, "I've got people coming over tonight, Paul. You might want to work upstairs."

"Who's coming?"

"It's a meeting of the Homeowners' Association. I think it's going to be a loud one."

"Why's that?"

"Mr. Costello has been getting a lot of phone calls about a lot of different things. There's the termite problem. And there have been break-ins over on his side of the development."

"Robberies?"

"Yes. People are talking about organizing a neighborhood watch patrol or even hiring a real guard to sit in the guardhouse." She stopped and looked at me. "You haven't heard anything about break-ins, have you? Are kids involved?"

"I haven't heard a thing."

"Joey hasn't said anything to you?"

"No."

The doorbell rang. I went back to my search as the homeowners started to arrive. I could hear them file in behind me—the yellow Tudor, the York with the three-car garage, and a loud group from Joey's street, the street where all the houses are getting blue tents put over them.

I stopped working when Mr. Costello came in. I rolled my chair to the entrance of the alcove so he could see me.

"Hi, Paul. How's it going?"

"Fine, Mr. Costello."

Mr. Costello's face has looked lined and tired ever since Mike got killed. He carried a thick black appointment book in one hand. He walked to the kitchen end of the great room and said quietly, "All right, let's get started."

The meeting began like the town meetings we used to have in social studies class—treasurer's report, old business, new business; "I move"; "I second the motion." I had turned my attention back to the computer screen when I heard a man call out, "What's with Donnelly's house? It looks like something that landed from outer space!"

I rolled my chair back and watched Mr. Costello. He checked his notes and said, "All right. Mr. Donnelly applied for permission to install a lightning rod on the roof of his house. The Architectural Committee, because of his unique problem, did approve that addition. But then, for some reason, Mr. Donnelly went and installed a series of ten lightning rods across the top of his roof. It does look odd."

"It looks like hell."

Mom spoke up. "The Architectural Committee has sent Mr. Donnelly a strongly worded letter about it. I think he clearly took advantage of us."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"As I just said, we sent him a letter. I had hoped he would show up tonight so we could work this out. If he doesn't respond, we will take further action."

Another homeowner stood up. "I've been keeping track of our fish population, what there is of it, and I'd like to announce that it is now down to zero. As far as I can tell, we have zero fish left in that pond."

Mr. Costello nodded grimly and flipped to another page. "You're probably right, Ralph. The koi appear to be all gone. We're not sure why, but we think someone may have stolen them."

I thought,
Think again, Mr. Costello. Your koi are a gourmet meal for the ospreys out on Route 89.

Another voice called out, "What about the muck fire?"

Mr. Costello knew right where to flip for this one. "All right. We've certainly heard your complaints about the muck fire, and we certainly share your ... distaste for it. Since our last meeting, Mr. Porter and I have contacted the Tangerine Fire Department on three different occasions."

Mr. Costello began to read directly from his notes: "The captain there basically told us that he can't do anything about it. We said, 'Why don't you pour water on it until it goes out?' and he said, 'Why don't you?' So we did."

Mr. Costello slammed his book closed with one hand. "We hired a contractor to sink four wells in the muck-fire field. We rented pumps and spraying equipment and started saturating the area last month. To make a long story short, the muck fire is still burning, and now we have swarms of mosquitoes breeding in the swamp that we created out there."

I heard Mom speak up again. "These mosquitoes carry encephalitis. Two children died in Tangerine last year after they were bitten by mosquitoes."

Mr. Costello nodded gravely. "Right. We've already contacted the county about it. They have a spray truck that is for hire. Starting tomorrow night, they will drive through our development spraying a cloud of insecticide
every other evening
until the mosquito problem is under control. Do not—I repeat—do not allow your kids to ride their bikes behind the spray truck. They'd be inhaling a powerful pesticide. Also, you should keep your pets inside, and you should move any delicate plants from your porches, patios, whatever, into the house."

Everyone got quiet at the thought of the spray truck spewing insecticide every other night. Finally the man who had asked about Mr. Donnelly's house said, "OK, what about all the robberies?"

Mr. Costello opened his book once again and addressed the man. "The Sheriff's Department has assigned someone to our case, Sergeant Edwards." He looked at the rest of the homeowners. "For those of you who don't know, five of the houses that were tented for bugs have been robbed of jewelry, watches, and other valuables."

The man interrupted. "My lawyer tells me that the exterminator is required by law to either post a guard or to arrange for guards to patrol around the houses that are tented."

"That may be true, Dan. But our local guy says he was not aware of that law."

"He shoulda been. It's his business."

"Maybe so. But I've talked to the guy, and his attitude is that you'd have to be crazy to go into a house that's been pumped full of deadly poison. Therefore there's no real threat of anyone doing it."

"But somebody
is
doing it. Somebody busted in my patio doors with a baseball bat, too. And whether his attitude likes it or not, he's liable for that and for my missing property."

Mr. Costello turned his palms upward. He answered patiently, "If you think you have a case against him, then by all means, pursue it. But is it really worth your time and money to hire a lawyer and go to court just to take some guy's dilapidated pickup truck away? Because that's what it'll come down to. That's just the way it is around here."

The homeowners just sat there glumly until Mr. Costello said, "OK. Somebody move to adjourn."

I turned back to the computer as the meeting broke up. I took out the disk and got into Dad's personal library, looking for another information service.

I saw a file listing that had definitely not been there before. I would never have missed seeing this. "
Erik—Scholarship Offers.
"

I looked around for Dad. He and Mom were saying goodbye to people in the foyer, so I clicked on "Erik—Scholarship Offers."

The file was two pages long. It was carefully designed, like someone had spent a lot of time thinking about it. Each page was filled with rectangular boxes stacked on top of each other. But get this: The boxes were light green football fields, with white grid lines at ten-yard intervals. Over the green-and-white fields, printed in red, were vital statistics. Each box contained the name of a university, its address and phone number, and the name of its head football coach. The top three boxes on page 1 were set up for the University of Florida, Florida State University, and the University of Miami. Ohio State had a box on page 1. So did Notre Dame, Penn State, and the University of Nebraska.

It didn't look like any of these schools had expressed any interest in Erik. Not yet. I scrolled to page 2 and found some that had. Rice University, Baylor University, and the University of Houston had sent letters to Erik. From the dates of the letters, they must all have contacted him at the same time—right after his junior-year season in Houston. Dad, apparently, had not written back to any of them.

I heard the front door close, so I quickly clicked out of the file.

But I'll be back.

Joey didn't come to school today. I wasn't surprised. I know exactly where he was. He was in the office at Lake Windsor Middle School, re-enrolling. It's the right thing for him to do. It's the right place for him to be.

I never should have talked Joey into coming to Tangerine. He doesn't fit in here. I should have seen that. Joey's not me. Joey fits in with his family; he fits in with his friends; he fits in with Lake Windsor Downs. That's where he belongs. That's where he is now. And that's all there is to say about it.

Right before science class began, I went up to Theresa and handed her six pages of research. She seemed pleasantly surprised. I said, "So what's up with Tino?"

She said, "Not much," and started to look at my papers.

"Does the coach know that he got suspended?"

"Yeah. I guess so. Everybody else knows."

"Is he gonna miss tomorrow's game?"

"No. He's coming back tomorrow."

"Yeah? I heard he got three days."

"Luis went in and talked to Dr. Johnson. She said that since Tino didn't actually hit anybody she'd reduce his time out to one day."

"Oh? That's cool."

Theresa stopped thumbing through my report. She looked me right in the eye, like she never had before. "Yeah. Look, uh, Paul Fisher. You got to understand one thing. You can't come in here and start talking about Luis any way that you like. Luis means too much to us."

I nodded quickly. "Yeah. Yeah, I understand."

"Tino and Victor, they don't play that kinda stuff. I told them last night that they should leave you alone—but you better tell your friend to keep out of their way."

I thought about that. "I don't think he goes to school here anymore. And I don't think he counts me as his friend. Not anymore."

"Well, I don't know anything about that. I'm just tellin' you what I'm tellin' you." She pulled a piece of white paper out of her back pocket. "Here. This is a map to our house. Henry's coming over after practice to meet Luis. If you want to meet him, you can come, too."

I stared at the map, and at the large black
X
marking their house. As coolly as I could, I said, "So what about Tino?"

"What do you mean?"

"He won't be mad if I come?"

"No. Why should he?"

I shrugged. "You know. The stuff with Joey..."

"You're not Joey. Are you?"

"No. But is he mad about getting suspended?"

"You're not the one who got him suspended. Are you?"

I shook my head and said, "No." But I thought to myself,
Not this time, anyway.

I went over to talk to Henry D., and we wound up working out a great plan. Henry's brother was going to drive him from Tangerine Middle School to Theresa's house, come back to get him, and then drive over to Lake Windsor Downs to do a job. Henry said that he and his brother "would be pleased" to drop me off right at my door. I called Mom and explained the plan. She sounded doubtful, but she agreed to let me do it.