The Buried Book (8 page)

Jasper knew it was his cue to leave, but he couldn’t give up that easily. “What did you want to tell her?”

The two men turned and raised their bushy eyebrows at him. The second, younger man looked like he’d been in a fight. His face was a map of cuts and bruises.

Big Bill just laughed. “Sorry, kid. I haven’t seen your little friend. Now, go have fun.”

CHAPTER 14

Don’t you want to identify all potential suspects? Then answer the question.

Jasper woke up early the next morning to the dull thump of Aunt Velma throwing fresh logs in the woodstove on the other side of the curtain. Wayne was still snoring at the other end of the bed. Jasper waited until the front door opened and shut again and the cabin went quiet before sitting up.

Utter relief washed over him when he felt the dry mattress. He climbed out of bed in silence and pulled on his clothes in the pink morning light filtering in from the window. Wayne rolled over but kept on snoring. Jasper carried his shoes to the door, not putting them on until he was out on the porch.

Twenty feet behind the cabin, he caught sight of his aunt disappearing into the outhouse. With the coast clear, he scuttled across the driveway and into the barn. The cows stirred in their pens as he slipped by them to the far corner under the feed bins where his mother’s book was waiting.

August 15, 1928

It was just as easy as he said it would be. I showed up at Mr. Hoyt’s barn at three o’clock, and he had a cart loaded with ten brown jugs like the one he’d had me smell.

“Now, just take this up to Burtchville to a little café called Steamboat’s. It’s on Lake Road. When you get there, ask for Big Bill. Can you do that?” he asked.

I told him I could.

“If anybody stops you to ask, I want you to tell ’em you’re haulin’ buttermilk. Alright? And if anybody wants to check, let him sniff the last jug on the right.”

He pointed to a jug that looked like all the others. I must’ve looked worried, because then he said, “Don’t worry. No one’s going to stop and bother a sweet young thing like you. Just look like your papa will whup you if you’re late, and they’ll let you go.”

“Steamboat’s. Big Bill. No problem,” I said and took off with Hoyt’s rickety old mare, Josie. The cart creaked and squeaked the whole way, and the jugs clanked and rattled as I tried to forget what Mr. Hoyt had called me. He’d called me a “thing.” I passed four carts on the road, but no one even looked at me sideways.

Steamboat’s was a small six-table restaurant just like the others that lined Lake Road. You could only pick it out by the tiny handwritten sign hanging from two hooks over the door, but I found it. When I walked in, there was nobody there but an old lady behind the lunch counter. I begged her pardon and asked, “Is there a Big Bill here?”

“You got a delivery? He’s in the back.” Her voice sounded like a rusty nail, and I wondered if she knew what I was delivering. Mr. Hoyt called it “giggle water,” but the lady looked like she hadn’t laughed in years.

I pulled the cart around to the back of the restaurant and found an enormous man with black hair sitting on a stool by the grease trap. It smelled worse than any gut wagon I’d ever whiffed, and I almost lost my lunch on his splattered apron.

“Are you Big Bill?” I asked.

He just looked up at me with his fat, stubbled face and didn’t say a word.

“I’ve got a delivery from um . . . Mr. Hoyt.”

Big Bill smiled with these big yellow teeth biting a cigar and asked, “You got a name, cupcake?”

Cupcake. How do you like that? I didn’t know if I should tell him my name. I would have given him a fake one if I could’ve thought that fast. “Althea,” I said, dumb girl that I am.

“Nice to meet you, Althea.” Then he shook my hand like I was an actual grown-up and not a cupcake at all. “Let’s see what you got.”

After he unloaded the jugs and placed them in the back room of the restaurant, he did something absolutely shocking. He gave me ten one-dollar bills like it was nothing. “You tell Hoyt I said hello.”

“Yes, sir!” And then I just hightailed it out of there before Big Bill could change his mind. I had half a mind to just drive right on past Hoyt’s farm and head to the next town with the cash. I played the fantasy out in my head the whole ride home. I’d get a room in a boardinghouse. I’d say I was fifteen and looking for work. Maybe I’d get a job with a seamstress or at a diner. If anyone asked about my family, I’d say I was an orphan.

It was a good plan, but I couldn’t seem to keep the horse on the road to Croswell. Instead, Old Josie found her way back to Hoyt’s barn, and I gave him his ten dollars. I nearly fell out of my shoes when he handed one of the dollars to me. It was the first whole dollar of my very own.

“See, now that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

I just stared at that green paper.

“I’m sure you understand that I’d like to keep this little transaction between us. Don’t you, Althea? Can we make this our little secret?”

I didn’t say nothing. I was too busy calculating. The dollar in my hand was enough to buy a new dress.

“You keep that dollar for yourself. You earned it. Now here’s a dime for the housework you did for Alice. Go and give that to your daddy, alright?”

And that’s just what I did.

“Jasper? Is that you down there?” It was his aunt standing at the entrance to the barn.

“Uh. Yeah.” Jasper turned toward her, stuffing the book down into the hay behind him.

“What are you doing back there?” She walked over to him with an empty milk bucket in each hand.

“Oh . . . I . . . uh,” Jasper scrambled for an answer. “I thought I heard a rat rustlin’ around. I really wanted to catch one.”

“Good God. Why?”

“I thought . . . it’d make a fun pet?” He didn’t mean to make it a question. It just came out that way.

“Nuh-uh. Not in my house.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, since you’re out here, might as well make yourself useful. Here.” She handed him a bucket and pointed him to a stool near one of the cows’ gigantic pink udders. He settled down next to the animal and began pulling milk until his aunt went back to the house.

The minute her white apron turned the corner, he rushed back to the book. He read the entry again, letting his eyes linger on the words
Big Bill
for a moment before tucking it back in its hiding place.

CHAPTER 15

Did you do well in school?

“Hey! What’s your story, shrimp?” A huge sixth grader named Cecil Harding shoved Jasper in the shoulder that day at school. They were outside in the yard for recess.

Jasper didn’t answer. He scanned the school yard, hoping someone would intervene. Miss Babcock was still inside grading papers. The door to the school was open, but her head was down. All seven of the girls had gathered at the fence to admire Lucille’s new dress. The boys were scattered about playing games. Wayne was at the far corner with his buddy Mel, practicing walking on his hands.

Cecil pushed him again. “You deaf, boy?”

Jasper shook his head.

“Why don’t you talk? You stupid or somethin’?”

“No,” Jasper said softly. In fact, he was quickly learning he wasn’t stupid at all. Miss Babcock had already bumped him up to sixth grade math, and he could read some of the seventh grade books.

Cecil, on the other hand, was sort of stupid. He was supposed to be in sixth grade but had to do some of his math on the chalkboard with the third and fourth graders. He shoved Jasper again. “Why don’t you talk, huh? Is it true what they’re sayin’?”

“I don’t know,” Jasper mumbled. “What are they saying?”

“That you’re staying with Wayne Williams’s family instead of yours. That right?”

Jasper didn’t want to answer but finally shook his head. “Wayne’s my cousin.”

“Is it true your mama just up and left you there?”

Jasper studied his shoes and didn’t say a word. A couple of the other younger boys had wandered over to listen.

“My ma says she wouldn’t be surprised if she did.”

Jasper looked up at this revelation.

“She says Althea Williams was the most notorious hussy in all of Burtchville. A real hell-raiser. Ma says I ought to be nice to you ’cause you had the misfortune of bein’ the hussy’s son. So, what do you think?” He grinned. “Should I be nice to you?”

One of the older boys snickered at this, and Jasper could already see the song,
Your mama’s a hussy! Your mama’s a hussy,
dancing in their eyes. He didn’t know what the heck a
hussy
was, but he could tell from the smug smile on Cecil’s face it wasn’t good.

Jasper balled his small hands into fists. If getting beat up at school in Detroit had taught him anything, it taught him that you had to nip this sort of thing in the bud or it would haunt you all year. He was too angry to care that the boy was bigger. In fact, if he wanted to make an impression, he suspected the bigger the better. Besides, he’d been dying to hit something ever since Big Bill had left him with nothing. No answers. No hope of finding her. Just more goddamned questions.

You tell her to come see me when you find her.

Without a word, Jasper punched the boy hard in the stomach. The blow caught him by such surprise that Cecil doubled over to where Jasper could reach his big, stupid head. With a low growl, he slammed his fist into the giant boy’s nose.

Blood instantly came pouring out of it.

One of the girls at the fence screamed. The boys that had gathered took a step back. Jasper braced himself for Cecil’s retaliation, but the boy just stood there, eyes bulging, holding his bleeding nose.

“Jasper Leary!” Miss Babcock shrieked from the doorway.

He dropped his fists.

She stormed over to him and grabbed him by the ear. “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?”

Jasper knew better than to answer. He looked out in the yard for Wayne. His cousin was staring at him slack jawed and holding up his hands as if to ask,
Jasper, are you crazy?

As she dragged him back to the schoolhouse, he realized with a sinking heart that he must have been crazy indeed.

The other kids poured into the room after Miss Babcock and her hostage, taking their seats for the show. She pulled him over to her desk, grabbed the paddle off the wall, and slapped it down on her desk. “I do
not
tolerate fighting in this school.”

She left Jasper gaping at the paddle and walked around to her seat to pull a first aid kit from a drawer. “Cecil? Come here.”

The older boy obeyed. Blood was still running from his nose. He shot Jasper a knowing glance and took a wad of gauze from the teacher. She inspected his face and asked him a few questions.
How many fingers am I holding up,
that sort of thing. Jasper stood frozen at the front of the room, trying not to look out at the beady eyes of his classmates staring up at him and the paddle.

When Miss Babcock had finished with Cecil and sent him back to his seat, she turned her attention to Jasper. A breath caught in his throat. He knew better than to try to explain why he’d hit the older boy, and she didn’t ask.

“Cecil, how many lashes would be fair?”

Jasper’s jaw dropped. He couldn’t help but look at Cecil, sure he’d see a wicked grin spread across his stupid face. But Cecil didn’t smile at all. The boy didn’t seem to want any part of it. In the back, Wayne was shaking his head.

“Cecil?” she prompted again.

“Five.” The word was barely audible.

“Jasper, grab the chair.”

With shaking hands, he grabbed the wood. No one made a sound as the paddle whistled through the air and landed with a deafening
thwack!
It took all of Jasper’s strength to not cry out.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

By the last crack of the paddle, Jasper’s legs were rubber and silent tears were streaming down his face. The tears were just as much from the humiliation as the pain. He’d been spanked plenty of times before but never in front of a whole school.

“Back to your seat,” Miss Babcock commanded. Jasper hobbled back to his chair with his head down, trying like hell not to snivel.

“Cecil?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Are you satisfied?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Do you feel any need to fight this boy?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Good. If I hear of any of you attacking this boy or fighting in any way here at school or on the way to or from, there will be ten lashes for each of you. Understood?”

“Yes, Miss Babcock,” the class said in unison.

“And Jasper?”

It took Jasper a moment to find his voice. He wiped his face with his sleeve. “Yes, ma’am.”

“If I ever hear of you starting fights at this school again, you will
not
be welcome back. Am I making myself clear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I will be sending a note home to your family about this.”

A murmur swept through the classroom. A voice in the back muttered, “You’re dead meat.” It might have been Wayne.

“Enough!” Miss Babcock barked. “Now. I want you all to write a hundred-word essay explaining why fist fighting cannot be permitted in a civilized society. Little ones, you may draw a picture showing better ways to handle problems that don’t involve fighting.”

Jasper suffered through the rest of the school day with his eyes locked on his desk. As the pain in his rump faded, the feeling of dread grew in the pit of his stomach. Miss Babcock was sending a note home to his aunt and uncle.

What will they do to me?

The knowledge that he’d made the worst mistake of his life swelled inside him until he was certain he was going to throw up.

When the teacher dismissed the class at the end of the school day, the kids poured out in twos and threes, none of them looking at Jasper. He didn’t move.

“Jasper?”

Jasper looked up from his desk and realized he was the only pupil left in the room.

“Take this note home to your aunt and uncle.” Miss Babcock held up a crisp piece of paper that surely spelled his doom. “I don’t know what sort of school you came from, but we do things differently here. I trust you won’t make this mistake again.”

There was almost a hint of sympathy in her eyes as he stood up and took the paper from her hand.
Almost.

Jasper shuffled out of the building to find a pack of boys waiting for him at the edge of the school yard. Cecil was among them. He had the beginnings of a black eye, and his nose was swollen. Jasper looked over his shoulder, not knowing if his teacher’s warning would hold outside the schoolhouse. Miss Babcock had her head down in a book. Wayne was nowhere in sight.

The five boys were all bigger than Jasper. Three were sitting up on the split-rail fence. A huge boy named Bobby was standing next to Cecil. Jasper remembered something Wayne had said about them being cousins. He debated running the other way but figured there was no point. He was fast but not fast enough. Besides, his uncle was going to murder him when he got home anyway.

Jasper took a breath and walked straight up to Cecil. “What do you want?”

“Hey, kid. I just wanted to say sorry. I shouldn’t have said that stuff about your mom.”

Jasper couldn’t have been more surprised if balloons and fairy dust had shot out the boy’s ass. “What?”

“I didn’t know you’d be so bothered by it. It was pretty stupid.” The other boys sort of nodded. They were all at least two years older than Jasper, but they were looking at him with something akin to respect.

“Sorry about your nose,” Jasper said and realized he actually was sorry.

“Nah. I’ve had worse.” Cecil socked him in the arm hard enough to let Jasper know he could’ve whupped him something fierce. “You got a decent swing.”

Jasper shook the sting out of his arm and managed a smile.

“You gonna git killed at home?” Bobby asked as though he knew the answer. All the boys nodded.

“I’m not sure. Probably. Never seen Uncle Leo get really mad before.”

Cecil patted Jasper hard on the back. “Just grab the chair and hold on.”