Thirteenth Child (7 page)

To get out of here. To get out of here.
To get out of here!
A whole new life. A whole different life. Kate’s head swam. Her mind blocked out her mother, the snack bar, her father in the kitchen with his beer. Everything. She wasn’t here anymore. She could see herself—older, successful, beautifully dressed. Courted by rich, famous men.

“Why do you never mention your home, Kathryn?” they would ask.
(She would have
changed her name by then.)
“Your family?”

“I have no home,” she would answer. “I have no family.”

When she finally stumbled up to bed that night, her schoolbooks still lay where she had tossed them when she had come in. There were two review tests the next day. She hadn’t studied for either of them.

I don’t care, she thought as she turned off the light and pulled the covers up between herself and the world. I just don’t care.

The rest of the week passed in a daze. She couldn’t concentrate. Exams came; she wrote them. It was as if she weren’t really there at all, but somewhere outside herself, just watching. It was almost a shock to find out she had done well in spite of everything.

Summer holidays meant spending all day every day in the snack bar instead of just Saturdays and Sundays and after school. Mike turned up with worms about twice a week. She paid him, he thanked her, and they were both very polite to each other, but they didn’t talk much. Once or twice Kate caught him looking at her with a strange expression, but when she did he looked away quickly and made any kind of an excuse to get away from her.

Her father was drinking again. Trying to hide it, but spending more and more time in the room over the garage. When he did, Kate had to
tend the pumps and Angie took over in the snack bar sullenly. She’d obviously given up the brief hope she’d had, and seemed depressed, spending more and more time in front of the TV.

“Can you take over for a while, Kate?” she asked one day when there was a lull at the pumps. “I’ve really had it today.”

For the first time since school had let out, Kate took a good look at her. Angie didn’t look well. Her skin was pasty and her eyes looked dark and sunken. Her hair hung in limp strands. She wiped at her forehead with the back of her arm, and slumped on the counter. Kate was moved in spite of herself. Her mom was—what? Not even forty yet. She looked so much older. She looked so hopeless.

“Take off, Mom,” Kate said. “I can manage.”

“Thanks, Kate.” Angie headed toward the kitchen with a sigh of relief.

“Mom?”

“Yes?” She turned, with one hand already on the swinging door, her face blank.

What was it Kate wanted to say?

I’m sorry.

That was crazy. Sorry for what?

Sorry for everything.

She didn’t say it. Angie looked questioningly at her for a moment. Kate shrugged.

“Nothing. Forget it.”

Angie went on into the other room. Seconds later the TV blared out.

Kate looked down at her hands. Her nails were chipped and broken. There was a hangnail on her thumb. She pulled at it with her teeth. The piece of flesh ripped off and there was sudden pain, a pain too great and out of all proportion to such a small wound.

The heat wave didn’t let up in spite of a couple of thundershowers that just turned everything into a steam bath. Half the time Kate felt she was dragging herself through air as viscous and heavy as soup. On the first of July there was to be a parade and fireworks on the town beach at night. She had no intention of going, but Barney turned up after lunch with other ideas.

“Come on, Kate,” he said. “Get your mom to take over and grab your bathing suit. We can swim, stuff ourselves silly with hot dogs, and watch the fireworks. Everybody will be there.”

“I don’t want to, Barn,” she said. “I’m going to bed early.”

“Kate, I haven’t seen you since school let out. You can’t just spend all your time here. Come on—it’ll be fun!”

The more she argued, the more he insisted. When he even went so far as to get Angie to agree, albeit reluctantly, to take over, she finally gave up.

“You win, Barn,” she sighed. “You really know how to get what you want, don’t you?” For a moment she wondered why he
did
want her to go
with him so much, then pushed the thought out of her mind. Understanding Barney was just too much work.

“Get what I want?” he echoed. “I wish!” The tone of his voice was joking, lighthearted, but for a moment his eyes went as hard and blank as Mike’s. Kate was suddenly disconcerted.

When they reached the town, however, Barney’s enthusiasm returned to the point where it was almost feverish. It was contagious, and, despite her conviction that she wasn’t going to enjoy herself, when the parade started she found her feet keeping time to the music in spite of herself.

“Now aren’t you glad you came?” Barney asked later on, as they sat side by side on the beach after their swim. The lake was still chilly enough to make the sun actually feel good.

“I guess,” Kate admitted. “Thanks, Barn, for dragging me out. You’re a good guy.”

“You bet,” Barney agreed. “The greatest. Now, if you could just convince Melanie Davis of that, you’d be doing me a real favor.” He looked over at a group of kids sitting on blankets near them.

The group had parked their car as close to the beach as possible, taken the stereo speakers, and propped them up on the roof. Music blasted out at an unbelievable level. Any other day the police would have turfed them out in seconds, but this day they could get away with it, it seemed. Melanie Davis was one of them, and Barney’s
eyes were fixed on her. Melanie, fully aware that most of the boys around her, as well as Barney, were looking at her, lay back with an exaggerated sigh. She flipped her hair away from her face, loosened the straps of her bikini top, and slipped them over her shoulders.

So that was it. That was why he’d been so insistent on her coming here with him. He just wanted to see Melanie. And have Melanie see him. With her. Was he hoping to make Melanie jealous? Lots of luck. The corners of Kate’s mouth twitched down. She brushed sand off her legs irritably and tugged at her grungy green bathing suit. As if anybody would be jealous of her in
that,
anyway.

Why should I care, she thought. It’s not as if I had a crush on him or anything. He’s just a friend. But still, deep down inside, no matter how ridiculous she told herself she was being, she felt betrayed.

The fireworks were to begin as soon as it was dark. Kate and Barney found a spot from which to watch them and settled down. As Kate glanced around, waiting for the show to begin, she saw Mike sitting by himself near the dock. He saw her at the same moment. For an instant she was tempted to call to him, even lifted her hand to wave, then Barney grabbed her arm.

“Look,” he shouted. “They’re starting!”

Kate jumped as the first bomb burst exploded overhead. Her eyes were drawn immediately to
the shower of multicolored stars falling toward them, but not before she had seen Mike half rise as if about to come over to her, then sink back down when she didn’t wave after all.

Not my problem, she thought, and soon forgot about him.

When the fireworks were over and she and Barney went to retrieve their bikes, she remembered him and looked for him back at the dock. He wasn’t there.

The next morning, the Davidson boy was through the door the moment she opened up.

“Another robbery!” he told her, bursting with the importance of being the first to bear the news.

A small variety store had been held up at around midnight. The thief had been wearing a ski mask and had brandished a knife. It was a family-owned business and the owner had made the mistake of trying to fight. The thief had stabbed him in the arm before taking off with everything in the cash register.

“It’s one of those bikers, I’ll bet.” The group of regulars had come to their own conclusions around their table that afternoon.

“No way,” Barney countered, when Kate told him what the talk was. “They’re good guys. They wouldn’t do anything like that. It’s somebody from out of town. Has to be.”

A couple of days later Kate was surprised to see Jed’s pickup pull into the station just as she finished gassing up a car. Mike eased himself out of the cab.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” Kate answered.

“I….” He shrugged and tossed his hair back out of his eyes. “I brought something. Peace offering, sort of.” His voice was carefully offhand.

She replaced the nozzle in the pump, wiped her hands carefully on a paper towel, and bent down to the car to accept the money from the driver.

“Figure it’s my turn to apologize.”

The car drove away. Kate found herself wishing
somebody else would pull up, her dad would appear, her mother would call—anything. She didn’t know what to say.

“Bad idea, I guess,” Mike muttered, as the silence lengthened. He turned to hoist himself back into the cab.

“No. Wait.”

He checked himself. “Want to see what I’ve got?” His eyes lightened and a grin began at one corner of his mouth.

“Well … sure.”

He loped around to the back of the truck and lowered the panel with a crash. There was something long and rectangular sitting in the bed of the truck, covered with a tarpaulin. There were also two large coolers in there, and a fair amount of water was sloshing out of them.

Mike’s grin widened. He pulled the tarpaulin off. “A tavern the other side of town just folded. They had to get rid of all their stuff and they said I could have this if I’d truck it away.”

“What is it?” she asked. “Looks like a glass coffin.”

“A fish tank. And wait until you see the fish. They’re in the coolers. Not your usual fish, that’s for sure.”

“Mike, a fish tank? That size? I don’t know if Dad—”

“Where is he? Let’s ask him. I got to get those fish out of the coolers pretty quick—they’re too big to stay there very long.”

Where was her father? Up over the garage, of course. Had been all day. Kate would rather be torn apart by wild horses than admit that to Mike, however.

“He’s in town.”

“Never mind. You could put it on that counter beside the worm refrigerator,” Mike said. “Your dad wouldn’t care. Probably think it’s great.”

Kate had doubts about that, but Mike steamed on. She’d never seen him so enthusiastic.

“Word gets around, you’ll get people pouring in here just to look at the fish. Business will boom. Your dad couldn’t object to that.”

No telling what her dad could object to, Kate thought.

“Here,” Mike went on, jumping up into the back of the truck. “Come on up and take a look at these guys.”

Reluctantly, Kate climbed up and peered in, then jumped back, startled, as a fish almost leaped out of one of the coolers.

“Mike! They’re huge! What in the world are they?”

“That big white one there, see? With the whisker sort of things? That’s an African walking catfish.”

Kate looked at him, eyebrows raised.

“I’m not kidding. That’s what it’s called.”

“It walks?”

“Who knows? Anyway, the flat black one lying around on the bottom is a stingray. Honest to
god stingray. Bet you’ve never seen one before. Name’s Fred. You can feed him worms right from your fingers.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. My fingers aren’t going anywhere near that thing.”

Mike laughed. “Chicken. That other one on the bottom, that’s a peco-something-or-other. I’ve forgotten just what. He lies around eating junk and fish guck that falls on the bottom. Keeps the tank clean.”

“Delightful.”

The dark-striped fish that had almost leaped out of the cooler suddenly made a dash for a blunt-nosed gray one.

“That nasty one’s a cichlid. Real fierce. They’re freshwater fish, the guy said, but sometimes they can live in water that’s not too salty. He seems to be doing all right, anyway.”

“Sure doesn’t seem to slow him down any.”

“The one he’s trying to boss around is a goby. Weird sort of face he’s got, isn’t it? Looks like somebody punched in his forehead.”

“Maybe your cichlid did,” Kate said.

“No, he just bites.”

“Oh. Very reassuring.”

“Here, look at this one in the other cooler. It’s a little shark.”

“Sure
it is.”

“Really.”

A small, torpedo-shaped body twisted itself desperately around in the cramped space.

“Doesn’t look too happy,” Kate commented.

“That’s why I’ve got to get them out quick. They none of them are. We’ve got to get them into the tank as soon as we can. We can fill it with the hose, and I’ve got all the stuff to make the water salty. Heater, too, light, everything. I’m telling you, Kate, this outfit is worth a pile of money. Your dad—he couldn’t help but want it.”

Angie wasn’t even around to ask, not that she’d probably dare make a decision about it anyway. It was up to Kate. She hesitated. At that moment, the cichlid leaped again.

“Okay,” she said. “I guess….”

Mike vaulted out of the truck. “Got to get somebody to help us take the tank in. Even empty, it’s really heavy. I was hoping your dad would be here.”

At that moment Barney bicycled up.

“A body!” Mike exclaimed. “Just what we need.”

Barney propped his bike up against a gas pump and walked over toward them.

“I don’t think Barney’s too strong,” Kate began.

“Looks pretty wiry to me,” Mike said.

Barney stopped in front of them. “Hi, Kate,” he said. His eyes were on Mike.

“Hi, Barn. This is Mike. Mike Bridges, Barney Phillips.” To her surprise, Barney’s face had gone cold and closed. He eyed Mike with distrust.

“New around here, aren’t you?”

“Not too new,” Mike answered. His voice was carefully controlled. “Been around a while.”

“Yeah? How long a while?”

“Long enough.”

“Hey, Barn. We need some help. Look what we’ve got,” Kate broke in with a nervous laugh. She wasn’t sure just what was going on here.

“What is it?” Barney was still staring at Mike.

“A fish tank. It’s pretty heavy. Can you help carry it in?”

“I guess.”