Thirteenth Child (2 page)

The boy stood up. The food seemed to have revived him and the color was coming back to his face, but he was still wary, still defiant.

“I haven’t been able to find anything—what am I supposed to do?”

Kate abandoned the dishes. “You know anything about boats?” she asked.

“Boats! I should think so. Been brought up around them all my life. Don’t really know anything but boats.”

“And motors?”

“Sure. You know boats, you know motors.” “Seems to me,” Kate said, “that a person who
doesn’t know about anything except boats shouldn’t be heading to the prairies, of all places.”

Suddenly, the boy relaxed. He looked straight at Kate, grinned, and his whole face changed. “You’ve got a point,” he said.

Kate felt a weird kind of flip inside her chest. It took her by surprise. When he grinned like that—he was really kind of good-looking…. She spoke quickly, trying to cover up her confusion.

“Old Jed, up near town,” she said, “he was in the other day. He’s starting to get his boats ready for the tourist season and he was saying he needs someone to help him.”

“You think he might hire me?”

“Don’t see why not.”

“A guy who tried to hold you up?”

“He doesn’t need to know that.” Kate turned away and started back in at the dishes. “His place is down by the river, just before you get into town. There’s a big sign there: ‘Jed’s Boats for Hire.’ You can’t miss it.” She began to stack the dishes in the drainer. Then she picked up the dishcloth out of the sink and started to wipe the counter again with it, rubbing hard at a burn mark that had been there for as long as she could remember. “We need worms too. The guy who supplies us left town last week. You know how to pick worms?”

“Sure. Who doesn’t?”

Who doesn’t, indeed, Kate thought, nose wrinkling.

“Anyway,” she went on, “there’s work around here if you want it, I guess.” She wiped her way down to the other end of the counter, her back to him.

“You wouldn’t say anything?”

“No. Why should I?”

“I can think of a lot of reasons why.”

“Forget it. You didn’t mean it. I never believed you, anyway.”

He turned to head for the door, then stopped to stare back at her for a moment. There was a strange look on his face. “You really should be more careful, you know,” he said.

Kate stared after him.

The Burrell’s truck pulled in soon after, Rob at the wheel. Rob was one of Kate’s favorites among the drivers. He always had a new joke and could usually josh her out of the blackest mood, but right now she was distracted. She flipped a grilled cheese sandwich onto a plate, threw a burger together, and poured coffee for two men at the corner table, then grabbed for the delivery invoice. Her mind still echoed with the boy’s words.

“You should be more careful,” he had said.

Was it a warning?

“Not quite with it today, are you, Kate?” Rob teased, as she ticked off the wrong item on her list for the third time.

“I’m tired.” The words came out with more of a snap than she’d intended.

“Hey! What’s with you?” Rob took a closer look at her, but Kate bent her head over the list and wouldn’t look back at him. “Anything wrong, Kate? Anything happen?”

Kate just shrugged, then the door opened and a group of late-afternoon regulars streamed in, all talking at once. She turned quickly to them.

“Hot enough for you, Kate?” Bob Dowles from the local hardware store called out.

“Iced coffee, Kate, quick before I melt,” Norris Lamont, the druggist, put in. He staggered a bit, wiped his brow with an exaggerated swipe, and sank into a chair at one of the tables. Bob and the other two men pulled out chairs and joined him.

“Cokes for us, Kate,” Jimmy Bent added. He and his son, the fourth member of the group, ran a sporting-goods store in town. The four men often dropped in afternoons for a drink before heading home.

“Your dad around, Kate? Didn’t see him out front,” Jimmy Bent asked.

“He’s … not here right now.”

“Kind of busy for you all by yourself, isn’t it?”

They exchanged glances; Jimmy Bent raised an eyebrow.

“I can manage,” Kate answered. “Just check off the rest of the stuff yourself, Rob, will you? Seem to think you can do it better than me, anyway.”

She’d seen the look that had passed between the men. They had used to be her father’s best
friends. Main reason why they’d begun coming in here in the first place. She busied herself with the coffee and Cokes.

That guy. He hadn’t had a knife. He’d just been bluffing. She was sure of it.

Wasn’t she?

Kate downed a glass of milk, praying the school bus would get there before her father appeared. No luck. Just as she was finishing, he walked into the kitchen from the garage where, presumably, he had spent the night. He’d come through the snack bar, and from the stormy look on his face she was sure he’d done a quick inventory.

Angie jumped up and headed for the stove.

“Coffee, Steve?” Pretending as usual there was nothing wrong, her voice artificially bright.

“Yeah.” He sat down heavily at the table and let his head drop into his hands.

Kate looked at him. Suddenly memories of how it used to be came flooding back. Movies on
a Saturday afternoon with him, and ice-cream cones afterwards. Curled up in the big chair in the living room, on his lap, with the wonderful, shaggy smell of him, and the feel of his arm around her. She’d felt so safe then. He had been so strong. She’d been so sure he could protect her from anything. And things were going to be so great. He had it all planned out. He used to sit her mom and her down in the evenings and describe how it was going to be ….

He glared up at her and the memories vanished. She tensed, not sure of what was coming next.

“Lot of food used up yesterday and not much money in the till.” Steve rubbed at his forehead and winced, as if with pain. “Either of you know anything about that?”

“I….” How to explain? “I gave some to a friend. You can take it out of my pay.”

Her pay. That was a laugh. Her father paid her the bare minimum he could get away with. At the same time he wouldn’t even discuss letting her work at the mall on Saturdays or evenings. Said it was her duty to help out here.

“How many times have I told you—” Steve began.

Mercifully, the school bus beeped outside. Kate scooped up her books and headed for the door.

“Kate,” her mother said, but she slammed on out, pretending she hadn’t heard.

It wasn’t until the bus pulled away that she realized she’d forgotten the lunch she’d made the night before and left in the refrigerator. That
was probably what her mother had been trying to tell her. A flash of guilt swept through her. It wasn’t Angie’s fault she couldn’t cope with things—she’d never been asked to in the old days. Steve had called her his “baby doll” and spoiled her rotten. She just didn’t know what to do now. Still, the way she crept around worried and half scared to death all the time, but trying to make out nothing was wrong, drove Kate wild. It sure didn’t help matters.

Barney tried to make conversation, but she answered him in monosyllables and finally he gave up.

“One of those days, eh?” he said.

“Yeah,” Kate answered, staring out at the fields as they flashed by, parched and dry-looking in the heat. For a moment she was tempted to let go and pour everything out.

“I know how it feels.”

There was something in his voice. Something grim. It didn’t sound like Barney at all. Then he whipped around in his seat, his face suddenly excited.

“There’s the bike, Kate! The one I was telling you about.” He pointed outside. “It’s used, but in fantastic condition, and dirt cheap. A 1982 Honda Nighthawk 400. And only seven hundred dollars. Isn’t that unbelievable? It is so cool, Kate.”

Kate looked, but all she had time to catch a glimpse of was a group of bikers in ripped T-shirts and helmets lounging around the storefront of a
motorcycle dealership that had just set up there. Some of them even had leather jackets on in spite of the heat. Must be sweltering, she thought.

“Great. All we need around here. A bunch of Hell’s Angels creeps.”

“They’re not Hell’s Angels. They’re the Black Widow Riders.” Barney flushed as she turned to stare at him.

“How do you know that?” she asked.

“Well … I met them, sort of. Some of them, anyway. When I went to look at the bike. And they’re not creeps. They’re perfectly normal—almost.”

Kate’s eyebrows shot up.

“They’re okay, really they are,” Barney insisted. “Bikers get a bad rap.”

The impulse to confide in Barney died. He wouldn’t be interested in her problems. Besides, this was family business. It wouldn’t be right to talk about it.

English was third period. Usually it was Kate’s favorite class, but today she couldn’t concentrate. Her dad was getting worse and worse. Two nights ago, after she had gone to bed, she had heard him ranting even louder than usual—suddenly there had been a loud thump. Her mother had cried out, then there was silence. The next day Angie’s eyes were swollen from crying. Nothing unusual about that, but there was a bruise on her cheek.

“Walked into the cupboard door,” she had mumbled quickly when she saw Kate staring at it.

Could he …? Could he actually have hit her? He’d never gone that far before, although, when Kate was smaller, even when things had been going well for them, he’d given Kate some terrible spankings. He’d always had a violent temper. That was the whole reason ….

“There were some good stories, some not-so-good stories, and some that seemed copied out of a
True Confessions
magazine. Kate, we’ll start with yours.”

Kate’s head snapped up. Hers? Her story? Surely Mr. Evans wasn’t going to read it aloud!

“The sun beat down on the blinding white sands of the beach. Palm trees swayed in the slight ocean breeze. People lounged on deck chairs, swirling cold drinks casually in their hands. It looked like an ad for paradise, but Stephanie knew the evil that lurked behind the scenes. She knew the terror that stalked this same beach when the full moon replaced the blazing sun, and the sands chilled ominously….

“Kate, when was the last time you ‘lounged on a tropical beach,’ let alone with a ‘cold drink swirling in your hand’?”

Kate grew very still and started to shrivel up inside. She kept her face so expressionless it felt like a mask.

“You really can write well, Kate,” Mr. Evans went on, ignoring the giggles coming from various parts of the room, “but how often have I told you—told all of you,” he said, addressing
the whole room now, “write about what you know!”

Kate stared straight ahead, willing herself to block out Mr. Evans, the whole class, everything around her. Write about what she knew? Selling worms and pumping gas. That was what she knew. Day after day after day. Write about that? Sure.

A few days later, when she pushed through into the snack bar after school to start work, there were more people than usual there. The room was noisy with an unaccustomed buzz of conversation.

“Kate, did you hear?” The Davidson kid was back, his eyes wide with excitement.

“Hear what?”

Angie was frantically washing cups, and she motioned Kate toward the table where the usual group of men were talking.

“See if they want more coffee, Kate,” she hissed.

“The drugstore was robbed!” he said, his voice shrill. “Wasn’t it, Mr. Lamont?”

“Sure was,” the druggist answered. “Last night. Just as Ned was closing up. Guy came in, ski mask over his face, and threatened him with a knife. Got near a hundred dollars—luckily I’d taken most of the money to the bank when I left—then got clear away. Police are out all over looking for him.”

“Any idea who did it?” The Davidson boy seemed about to burst with awe.

“Nope. Ned said he couldn’t recognize the
voice. Said the guy sounded young, though.”

“Probably just some punk passing through,” Bob Dowles put in. “Probably miles away by now. Bring us some more of that great coffee of yours, Kate, will you?”

“You never know,” Jimmy Bent said. “Lot of new people around town. Kind of people we never had here before. I don’t like it much, myself.”

Kate apologized as she spilled the coffee on the table. She mopped it up quickly with shaking hands. A coincidence? It had to be. That guy hadn’t gone through with the robbery here. He probably had a job by now—he wouldn’t have tried another hold-up so soon, and in the same town….

The snack bar didn’t usually close until ten, but by nine there was no one there. Kate sat behind the counter, staring at the homework spread out in front of her. Her mind was not on math, however; it was whirling in confusion. When the door opened, she looked up, startled.

The boy walked in.

Her heart took a painful leap and she let out a gasp before she could stop herself.

He came up to the counter. He seemed to loom over her—taller than she’d remembered. She caught her breath, tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come out.

“What’s the matter? Did I scare you? Sorry.” He looked around. “You always stay here alone at night? Not too safe, that, is it?”

“My dad,” Kate finally managed to get out.
“He’s in back….” A lie. Her father was out and Angie was in their living room, television blaring so loudly she wouldn’t have heard a bomb go off. The boy shrugged.

“I got that job with Jed.” He leaned up against the cash register. One hand reached out casually to play with the keys. “Got some money now.”

Kate went rigid. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a few bills.

“How much do I owe you for the food the other day?”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to….”

“Sure I do. I want to. Anyway, money’s no problem now. Ten dollars okay?”

“That’s too much….”

“Well, you need a tip, don’t you? And taxes and all. Take it. I mean it. Money’s going to be okay now.”

Woodenly, Kate allowed him to press the bill into her hand.

“Came by to pay that and to see about the worms.”

“Worms?”

“Yeah. Remember? You said you needed someone to pick worms.”

“Oh. Yes. Worms.” Kate forced herself to move toward the door to the back room. “I’ll just get the stuff.”