True (. . . Sort Of) (11 page)

T
hursday, the Pattisons were telling tales before they even got to the stoop. On the River Road, RB started it. “Delly, remember that time Tuba snuck into the IGA?”

“Yep,” she answered. “She went straight for the doughnuts.”

“She used her nose to open the case.” RB went on. “She gobbled up all the cream-filled ones, so she was drooling white goo.

“Then Clayton Fitch spotted her. ‘That dog's foaming at the mouth,' he screamed, and shot out the door. And Tuba ran after him, because she thought he was playing tag.”

The Pattisons were laughing so hard they didn't see it.

But Ferris Boyd did. She froze in the road. They turned to her. “Ferris Boyd?” Delly asked. She was paler than pale. Her eyes were fixed on one spot.

They followed her gaze down the drive.

The green Impala was parked in front of the garage, right where Ferris Boyd played ball.

“What's he doing here?” Delly demanded.

The girl didn't move.

The day was warm, but Delly shivered. She wasn't sure why, but she didn't want her friend to go where the man in the green Impala was. “Hey,” she said, “how about we go straight to the hideawaysis?”

Ferris Boyd kept staring.

So Delly stood between the car and her friend. “Ferris Boyd, how about you come home with us?”

She saw Delly then. She took out her pad and pen and wrote, You go home.

“We're staying with you,” Delly answered, and RB nodded.

Ferris Boyd pushed the pen hard into the paper, tracing go home over and over.

“You sure?” Delly rasped.

Ferris Boyd glanced at the green Impala and nodded. Then she slumped down the drive and into the house.

“Delly,” RB started to say, “I don't want to—”

“We're not leaving,” she told him. “Come on.”

She led him to the ditch, and they dove in. They peeked over the edge. “We'll watch from here,” she announced.

But Ferris Boyd didn't come out with her ball or the cat's bowl.

The Pattisons were concentrating so hard on the house, they didn't notice something creeping behind them. “Maow,” it called.

They jumped. “Bawlgram cat,” Delly barked.

The cat cringed. It was worried, too.

“Well, shikes,” Delly said. “Get over here.”

The cat slid up to her.

“We're waiting for Ferris Boyd,” she explained.

“Mooooowr,” it cried.

Then the three of them watched. Nothing moved around that place, though; even the birds were quiet.

When the whistle blew, Delly told him, “RB, go home.”

“I'm not leaving,” he replied.

“If you don't go, Ma'll be scared. They'll come looking and . . . ”

RB understood. “What do I say about you?”

“Say I'm in trouble at school.”

“They wouldn't keep you so late.”

He was right.

Delly was staring at the house, trying to come up with something, when she spotted a pale, skinny girl in the upstairs window. She looked like a ghost. She put one hand against the glass.

“There she is,” Delly whispered.

“Oh,” RB sighed.

And she was gone.

Delly turned to the cat. “You all right?”

It blinked once.

Then the two Pattisons ran, like something was after them, all the way home.

After dinner they lay on Delly's bed. They both had questions begging to be asked, like Why would somebody be so scared of her dad? and What happened to her when she went inside? But the only answers they could think of made their stomachs turn and their hearts sick. So they kept quiet.

“Lights out,” Clarice called, and RB shuffled to his room.

At 2:00
A.M.
, Delly was standing beside Clarice's bed again. “Ma,” she rasped.

“Delly,” Clarice murmured.

“Ma, you ever worry about somebody being in trouble?”

“Mmm,” Clarice answered. Because she had, a lot.

“You ever think . . . you ever wonder . . . ”

“Say it,” Clarice mumbled, because sleep time was ticking away.

“You ever worry somebody's getting hurt?”

And Clarice was wide awake. She was sitting straight up, shouting, “Who's hurt?”

Delly knew that tone. Clarice smelled trouble, and she was hunting for it. If Delly didn't throw her off the scent, Clarice'd track down the truth about her and RB's project. They'd be dead as ducks in a bird dog's mouth.

So she said, “You know how on TV there's a kid getting hurt, but nobody knows because she doesn't tell?”

Clarice had her arms crossed. “Mm-hmm.”

“Well, how would you know if somebody's getting hurt when she doesn't say anything?”

“Is this about something on TV?” Clarice demanded.

“I saw something,” was Delly's almost true answer.

Clarice calmed down. “Delly, TV isn't real.”

“But I need to know,” she insisted.

Clarice lay back again. “Well,” she said, “if somebody was getting injured, there might be marks. There are ways to hurt people without it showing, though.”

Delly was listening.

“Maybe she'd seem sad. Maybe if she had a friend she'd tell her, or give her hints.”

“Like what?” Delly wondered.

Clarice was quiet for a minute. “I don't know,” she said.

Then Clarice's voice was steel, so sharp it would cut through any untruth. “Delly, is somebody hurting you or one of your brothers or sisters?”

“No, Ma,” she told her.

Clarice let out a sigh. After a while her breaths got farther and farther apart.

“Ma,” Delly whispered, “can I?”

Clarice lifted the covers.

Delly crawled in. She wouldn't cuddle up to Clarice, because she wasn't a baby. But she kept one arm against her mother, the warm softness of Clarice telling her she wasn't alone.

F
riday morning, Delly and RB were waiting at the back door to the school.

“There.” Delly pointed.

They watched her shuffle toward them. She was still pale and skinny. She still hunched over.

“She's okay?” RB asked, and they both nodded, because they wanted it to be true.

When she got to the door, they fell in on either side of her. They walked her to her desk, then stood beside her like sentries.

“Mr. Pattison,” Lionel Terwilliger announced, “your presence is required elsewhere.” So RB had to go.

“See you later, Ferris Boyd,” he said softly.

When he was gone, Delly leaned over. “You all right?” she whispered.

Ferris Boyd just sat there, but Delly waited. After a long time, her head dropped to her chest.

Like a nod, Delly thought. Or giving up.

All day Delly watched her friend from her seat. At recess she left Alaska for the tree next to Ferris Boyd's. The creatures stayed close, too.

It was a long, slow walk to the old Hennepin place.

When they got to the drive, they saw it: no green Impala.

Delly let out a big breath, like she'd been holding it all day. “It'll be okay.” She sighed.

And it was. Almost.

The cat came. They told stories. Ferris Boyd and RB played ball.

But everywhere they went, a shadow followed them. It cast a gloom over every happiness. It was shaped like the man in the green Impala.

At the hideawaysis, Delly took out some string and Boomer's pocketknife. She cut a groove in the end of each stick, slipped a piece of limestone in, then tied it tight.

“Those are nice spears.” RB touched the tip of one.

“For invaders,” she told him.

She set them standing around the rails, like soldiers. “Nothing can hurt us here,” she breathed.

But all the while Delly was working, a question pestered her. What if the enemy's not at the hide-awaysis? it asked.

She was too busy to answer.

When the whistle blew, she kneeled down beside her friend. “Okay, Ferris Boyd, you got rocks and spears. There's the blanket, food, and the rope for quick escapes. You going to be all right?”

Ferris Boyd gazed at all her friend had done. She looked into Delly's eyes; they were filled with wanting her to be safe. And she nodded.

Then they left her, surrounded by every protection Delly knew how to give.

S
aturday was the first-ever Delly Day. “Happy Hallelujah!” she hollered when she woke up. She galloped downstairs, smiling so big you could see her tonsils.

After breakfast, Clarice asked her, “Well, Delly, what do you want to do?”

But Delly didn't know how to ask for what she wanted most. So she said, “Can we get doughnuts?”

“Sure,” Clarice told her, and they headed out the door.

At the IGA, Clarice got a bag. “How many do you want?”

Delly didn't need a dozen, because she had Clarice, but two seemed too few. “Six,” she announced, and selected them.

“Hey, Norma.” Clarice greeted her at the checkout.

“Hey, Clarice. What you up to?” Norma replied. “Celebrating.” She smiled at Delly. “No trouble, for a month.”

Delly waited for Norma to snort or snicker. Instead she stood there thinking, It
had
been a long time since she'd kicked Delly out for spitting or writing nocuss words on the windows. “Huh,” she said.

Outside, Clarice asked, “What do you want to do next?”

“Could we go to the river?”

So they did. They sat on the bank and watched the water, just the two of them.

Delly opened up the doughnuts. She picked a chocolate-iced chocolate-filled chocolate one and passed the bag to Clarice. She was about to load her mouth with lusciousness, when her mom stopped her.

“Let's have a toast.” Clarice raised her doughnut in the air. “To Delly,” she said, and took a bite. “Now you eat it,” she told her.

But Delly couldn't move. Clarice toasting her made her insides so warm and mushy, her whole body got floppy. Her floppy fingers dropped the doughnut in her lap.

Delly didn't mind. Because suddenly the whole world was a doughnut: sweet, beautiful, and delicious. And she was the floppy cream filling. She hummed the song of gooey, goopy happiness, “Hmmmm.”

When Clarice was done with her doughnut, she turned to Delly. “You ready to go home?”

Just like that, all the deliciousness disappeared. Even on a Delly day, Clarice had something else to do.

“Okay,” she started to mumble. Till the question paper pinched her.

Still, she could only whisper it, she wanted it so much. “Ma, can we stay for a while?”

Clarice heard the wanting in that tiny whisper. “Sure,” she said.

The sweet wonderfulness surrounded Delly again. She rolled back onto the bank, smiling.

Clarice lay down beside her. They stayed like that for a long time.

Finally, Delly had what she wanted most. So she said, “Want to go home?”

“You sure?” Clarice asked.

“Sure,” she answered. Because she knew, someday soon, she'd have it again.

E
very week, Brud Kinney and Ferris Boyd's games got longer and longer, because Brud kept thinking of animals with longer and longer names. Plus he was getting better.

But there was never enough basketball for Brud.

Sunday morning he walked down the drive to the old Hennepin place and held up his pad. T-Y-R-R-A-N-A-S-A-U-R-U-S R-E-X, it read. No Touch.

The boy read it while Brud held his breath. Then he nodded.

The happiness was going to shoot Brud like a rocket into outer space. His feet were already blasting off. So right there, in front of the boy, he hollered, “A-A-A-All right!”

And Ferris Boyd didn't flinch or make fun. She just waited for him to come back to earth.

Then they played. The game went on and on, like heaven's supposed to. Ferris Boyd beat him, but not by much.

After, they were worn out. They both went to the stoop. They lay back on it, stinking with sweat.

Even if he didn't have the stutter, there wasn't much Brud wanted to say. He didn't need to chat, “Nice day,” or talk about his new sneakers.

But there was something that mattered more than anything to Brud. He'd never told it to anybody. He wanted his friend to know.

So he wrote it: I want to play like nothing nobody's ever seen, only better.

The boy read it. He stared at the sky for a while. Then he wrote, You will.

Brud turned to his friend to see if he was making fun, or feeling sorry.

The boy's eyes were steady and sure. He meant it.

Then Brud didn't smile, or nod, or write anything. It was all too small for how he felt. He just stared at the sky, thinking, Thanks.

F
inally, it was the date Delly Pattison waited all year for: the last day of school. But Delly wasn't yelling “Yahoo!”; she was worried. “Summer's vacation from school. And people, too, if you want,” she murmured.

So she didn't ask as they walked out the River Road, with RB singing, “No more school, no more schoo-oo-ool.” She didn't ask during basketball, even though the paper was pinching her. She didn't get it out till it was two minutes to the whistle.

“Ferris Boyd, I got a question,” she said, and the rasp was rough. “On Monday, there's no school—”

RB started singing again, “No more schoo-oo—”

“Quit it,” she commanded.

“So we won't be walking out here together. We got chores in the morning, but we could . . . in the afternoon . . . if you want. . . .” It was too hard; Delly couldn't finish.

But the paper was pinching her a purple herman. It was going to make her ask. “Bawlgrammit,” she muttered. Then she took a big breath and pushed it out. “You want us to come here and hang out with you?”

Now, there were about ten questions in those ten words, like Are we really friends, even outside of school? and Could you stand seeing more of us? For every one of them, a No would hurt horribadibly.

Ferris Boyd stared into the green. She took out her pad and pen.

Delly felt sick, knowing the answer needed more than a nod. She had to make herself read it.

In big, dark letters it said,
Yes
.

“All right then.” Delly grinned so her cheeks puffed up like peaches.

“Yay,” RB cheered. He started dancing around the hideawaysis. “Yay, yay, yay.”

Then he stopped. “What about Gal?” He was worried, because she'd be watching them.

“I got that covered,” Delly told him.

He went back to dancing.

The whistle blew.

At the ladder, Delly said it, smiling. “See you Monday, Ferris Boyd.” Because now they weren't just after-school friends. They were summer friends; they were every-bawlgram-day friends.

And Ferris Boyd nodded.

After dinner, Delly went to Galveston's room. She knocked on the door.

“What?” Gal hollered.

“Can I come in?”

Gal waited awhile before she said, “Okay.” That made Delly mad, but she had questions for her sister, not a fight.

Galveston was on her bed with a book.

“Gal,” Delly began.

“Huh.”

“You know how you're watching me and RB this summer?”

“Baby-sitting you. Yeah,” she said. It was just mean calling it that, but Delly let it slide.

“You know how you got to be with us all day and take us every place you go?”

Galveston groaned.

“What if you didn't have to be with us so much? And you'd get paid.”

“Go on,” she said.

“Me and RB will do our chores in the morning; then we'll take off for the afternoon,” Delly explained. “We'll be home before Ma, and we'll act like we were with you the whole time.”

“And where are you going to be?” Gal demanded.

“At the old Hennepin place.”

“Doing what?”

“Hanging around, with my friend.”

It was too good to believe, and it was too good to say no to. Gal started grilling her. “You going to the river?”

“Nope.”

“Taking people's stuff?”

“Nope.”

“Fighting? Setting off firecrackers?”

“Nope.”

Galveston paused. If it worked, it'd be heaven. If something went wrong, there'd be the flames of Clarice's fury. “What if something bad happens? What if you get in trouble while I'm supposed to be watching you?”

“I'll say we snuck out on you. I'll say it was me,” Delly replied.

Gal squinted at her. “Swear on it.”

“Cross my heart or cover me with cow chips,” she promised.

“Okay.” Gal went back to her book, letting Delly know they were done.

But Delly had more. “What's Ma paying you to watch us?”

“Two dollars an hour.”

“How about splitting it with us?” she suggested.

Galveston laughed out loud.

“Gal,” Delly said, “RB tells Ma everything. I bet some money would help keep him quiet.”

Gal heard what she was meaning. She made an offer. “Two dollars a day.”

“A dollar an hour.” Delly countered it.

Gal chewed on that. “Okay, but if you mess up, I get all of it.”

“Deal,” Delly told her.

And that's how the youngest Pattisons came into some extra money that summer.