True (. . . Sort Of) (16 page)

I
t was September. It was school again.

The night before it started, Delly announced, “Ma, I'm thinking I'll do another project this year. After school.” Then she asked, “Okay?”

“And I'm still helping,” RB added.

“What happened to the other one?” Clarice wondered.

“Oh, that's over,” Delly said, like it was old news.

“And what's this one going to be about?”

“Human beings,” she answered.

“Hummin bins,” RB whispered, and Delly pinched him.

Clarice quit fixing food and stared at her daughter. She could barely remember the last time Verena's siren had screamed down the street or she'd had to pry Delly's fingers off Galveston's body. Now here Delly was, before school even started, thinking about extra work she wanted to do. Clarice was so happy it leaked out her eyeballs.

Delly got nervous. “Ma?” she rasped.

“Okay.” Clarice smiled.

The first day of sixth grade was like a surpresent: Ferris Boyd was in Delly's class again; Novello wasn't. And Lionel Terwilliger had moved up a grade to teach them.

“Happy Hallelujah,” Delly exclaimed when she saw him.

“I appreciate your expression of pleasure, Ms. Pattison,” he replied.

At three o'clock the three chumbudions met at the back door. The sun was shining as they strolled across the playground. RB was singing, “It's school again, but that's okay. We're going to the hideawaysis today,” and Delly was humming along.

Till she spotted him. She hadn't seen him since that day in the park, but the fury hadn't forgotten.

He was walking with his back to her. He was wearing a red shirt, like a target. A nasty, name-calling, needing-to-be-taken-down target.

She stopped in the grass. She turned her fists into balls of fight. Like a human cannon, she fired herself.

“Chizzlehead!” she shouted as she flew at him.

He turned, and she landed on his chest. He fell backward, screaming, “Ayeeeee!”

He hit the ground hard. “Oooooof,” he groaned as the wind went out of him, and she pinned him.

That quick, there was a crowd of kids around them. “Fight! Fight!” they yelled.

“Stop,” RB hollered, but his voice was too tiny to get through.

As soon as he got some air, Novello started gasping, “You . . . My . . . Smelly,” the meanness and the love fighting for his mouth.

Delly hacked up a giant goober. She set it on her bottom lip, so he'd know what was coming. Then she puckered up, to give him the biggest wet one ever.

“Nooooo,” he howled.

There was a voice, a deeper one, in the distance. “What's going on over there?” Ms. Niederbaum bellowed.

But Delly couldn't hear her for the screams.

Ferris Boyd was standing in the grass. She watched Delly take the Nasty One down. She saw Ms. Niederbaum barreling over, yelling, “Break it up!” In two minutes, Delly would be on her way to another school.

There was one more voice then. It was not pale and skinny; it was loud and strong. It blasted through the crowd. “Delly,” it cried, “run!”

Delly'd never heard the voice before, but she knew it. “Later,” she rasped, and jumped off Novello. She scooted through legs and got free of the crowd.

Ferris Boyd and RB were at the edge of it.

“Let's go,” she exclaimed, and they ran, across the playground, over the bridge, and out the River Road.

When Ms. Niederbaum got to the crowd, it went quiet. She stood over Novello. “Who did this to you?” she demanded.

His mouth pinched and puckered as love and meanness fought for his soul. Finally, he muttered, “Nobody.”

Love had won.

They went straight to the hideawaysis. Delly was on her back, rolling and laughing like a pig in a pool of mud. “That was perfect. Did you see him go down? Did you see his face?”

“Delly,” RB called, but she didn't hear him.

“One more second,” she crowed, “and he would have been covered in spit. If it wasn't for that Ms. Niederbaum . . .

“But you saved me, Ferris Boyd.” She went on. “You hollered, and I heard you.”

Suddenly she was still. “Ferris Boyd, I heard you,” she breathed. She turned to her friend. “I heard you!”

Ferris Boyd was not laughing. She was rocking back and forth, fast. Her eyes were wild, and her hands were clamped over her mouth.

“Ferris Boyd?” Delly crawled to her. “Hey, Ferris Boyd.”

The girl only went faster.

“Delly, stop,” RB told her.

“But she spoke. She saved me. That's not bad, that's good. Isn't it?”

“She's really scared,” he answered.

Delly could see it. So she sat beside RB, and they waited for their friend.

After a long time Ferris Boyd slowed down. After a long, long time she stopped. Still, she muzzled her mouth.

Slowly Delly inched toward her. “Ferris Boyd, listen.” She used RB's soft cloud voice to say it. “Nobody heard you except me and RB. And we won't tell anybody. Promise.”

The girl's eyes searched Delly's, asking, Are you sure?

“Sure,” she replied.

Little by little, her body uncurled, but her hands kept clutching her mouth.

RB took her book from her bag and snuggled in beside her. He turned the page from time to time, but Ferris Boyd just stared into the green.

Delly sat across from them, her brain bursting with questions. Can you talk all the time? How did I know it was you? How could saving somebody be wrong? they wanted to know.

But she saw the fear in her friend's eyes and stayed still.

The whistle blew.

Delly let RB go first. At the ladder she rasped, “Ferris Boyd?”

Her friend turned to her.

“You're the best surpresent ever,” she whispered.

Ferris Boyd closed her eyes, as if she were taking the words to a place deep inside her.

When she opened them again, they were asking, Will it be all right? They were hoping and needing and praying.

So Delly nodded, hoping and needing and praying, too.

I
t was amazing, how many kids heard Ferris Boyd holler, “Delly, run!” “Ferris Boyd can talk,” they told one another.

By the next morning the speech therapist, the school counselor, and the principal knew it, too.

They called her to the office. They asked lots of questions like, “What happened yesterday?” “Why did you speak?” and “Can you do it again?”

The girl was silent.

They brought the green Impala to school. It was in the parking lot for an hour. Through math and social studies, Ferris Boyd watched it out the window.

At the end of the day, she moved so slowly she was almost walking backward.

“What's wrong?” RB wondered.

“The green Impala was here,” Delly answered.

“Oh,” he sighed. He turned to Ferris Boyd. He raised his hand, and wrapped his tiny fingers around hers.

Her fingers curled around his, and held tight.

RB grabbed Delly with his other hand. “We're the three chumbudions,” he tried to sing, but his voice was cracking.

They trudged out the River Road. When they got near the old Hennepin place, they saw it in the drive. They stopped.

“Ferris Boyd,” Delly whispered, as if the car could hear, “you want us to come with you?”

She shook her head.

“You want to come home with us?”

“Yes,” RB exclaimed. “You could stay with us.”

Ferris Boyd stared at the green Impala as if she were asking it, Would you know where I go? Could you find me? She shook her head again.

Delly leaned close to her friend. “I'm so sorry,” she rasped.

The girl's eyes gazed deep into Delly's. There was no blame, only the bluest sadness.

Then she shuffled to the house and went inside.

The Pattisons headed for the ditch. The cat met them there.

Right away the pale, skinny ghost was in the window. It put its hand against the glass. Go, it told them. Or, Good-bye. Then it was gone.

They stayed till the whistle, but they didn't see her again.

That night Delly didn't go to Clarice, because RB came to her. He crawled in bed and curled up beside her, and she couldn't leave him.

“Maybe he'll go away again,” he whispered.

“Huh,” Delly answered, because she wouldn't take that hope from him.

After a while he asked, “Del, should we tell Ma?”

“Tell her what?” she asked back. “About us being out there every day with nobody watching us?”

“About him.” RB was sobbing.

So she said softly, “What about him, RB?”

“That he . . . that he . . . ” But there was no finishing it, because he didn't know. Only Ferris Boyd did, and she wasn't telling.

Delly put her arm over him, and they pretended to sleep.

D
uring the night Delly put together a plan: in the morning she and RB would run out to the old Hennepin place and walk Ferris Boyd to school.

She woke him early. They were racing around the house, trying to get ready.

“Hurry up,” she told him.

“I know,” he told her back.

“Hey, Ma, we got to go,” she hollered. “Okay?”

They didn't wait for an answer. They shot out the back door.

And almost fell over the packages on the porch.

Delly's name was on the box; RB's was on the bag. “Surpresents!” he exclaimed.

RB opened his first. “Ferris Boyd's book,” he breathed, and hugged it to him.

Delly reached for the box.

“Maoh,” it cried.

She jumped back. “What the glub?” she rasped.

“Maooooh,” it yowled from inside.

“Mowr.” RB smiled and lifted it out. He cuddled it, and the cat purred.

“Won't she miss Mowr?” he wondered.

Delly didn't answer; she was thinking. “RB,” she finally said, “take the book and go to school. I got to take care of that cat.”

“What about meeting Ferris Boyd?”

“She was already here,” Delly explained. “She left her house a long time ago.”

“She's at school?” he asked.

“Huh,” she answered, because she hoped so.

“I want to stay with you,” he insisted.

“RB, I need you to do this for me. Please?” She wasn't asking; she was begging.

“Okay,” he agreed, and took off.

She snuck the cat to her room. She put it in her closet with food and water and a bunch of paper in the box. “You got to go in there,” she told it. “And be quiet. You hear me?”

“Maoh,” it whispered.

Then she ran, through backyards and over fences, the fastest way to school.

She checked the classroom first; it was empty.

She went to the back door. The first bell rang, but there was no Ferris Boyd.

The second bell rang. The corridors cleared, except for Delly.

And Ms. Niederbaum. She was rounding up latecomers and lollygaggers. She grabbed her by the shoulder.

“Ferris Boyd's not here,” Delly rasped.

“But you are,” Ms. Niederbaum replied, and escorted her to her room.

“Ferris Boyd isn't here,” she told Lionel Terwilliger.

“That is true, Ms. Pattison,” he answered. “Please be seated.”

But she couldn't.

“I'm not feeling good,” she said. “Can I please go?” She pointed toward the nurse's office, next to the exit.

She did look ill. Lionel Terwilliger nodded.

Delly stood by the door for a moment. It could be big trouble; maybe being-sent-away trouble. But the friend paper in her pocket was pressing.

“For Ferris Boyd,” she whispered. Then she ran, across the playground and out the River Road.

She slowed at the end of the drive, because the green Impala was there.

It couldn't stop her, though. She ran to the door and banged on it. “Ferris Boyd,” she hollered. “Ferris Boyd!”

The man opened it.

For a second Delly couldn't speak. Because, up close, he looked like a dad, not somebody to be scared of. “F-F-Ferris Boyd?” she sputtered.

“She's at school,” the man said. And he sounded like a dad, not somebody who made marks on a girl's back. “Who are you?”

“I'm her friend.” Delly's voice got stronger saying that. “Petunia Poopenhagen.”

“How come you're not in school?” He squinted at her.

“I'm—I'm—” Delly stammered, “I'm late!” She took off down the drive.

She pretended to head toward town, then dove in the ditch and backtracked to the woods. She climbed to the hideawaysis. “Ferris Boyd,” she called, “it's me.”

But there was no Ferris Boyd. No birds, either, as if they'd migrated overnight. Other things were missing, too: the extra food, the blanket, the boots.

Delly sat alone in the hideawaysis, and the questions came at her. Is he hiding her? Did he hurt her? Is she . . . ? She couldn't finish the last one.

She started shaking. This was trouble. Not tiny getting-grounded trouble. This was her friend gone missing, maybe worse, trouble. It was more trouble than Delly could handle. “What do I do?” she gasped.

There was only one person who could handle this much trouble. “Bawldoublegrammit,” Delly grimaced. She was desperate, though.

“For Ferris Boyd,” she said. Then she scrambled down the tree and sprinted into town.

M
s. Niederbaum had seen a child, a tiny one with copper curls, tearing across the playground. She checked with Lionel Terwilliger; then she called the police.

Officer Tibbetts hung up the phone. She grabbed her keys and handcuffs. She was on her way to catch a tiny, copper-curled school skipper.

And Delly burst into the station. “Ferris Boyd's gone,” she declared.

Officer Tibbetts shook her head; she knew Delly's tricks. “To the cruiser,” she ordered.

So she screamed it. “Ferris Boyd is disappeared!”

“Hey!” Verena shouted back, but she saw how worked up the child was. “Tell me without yelling,” she commanded.

Delly took a breath. “Ferris Boyd's not in school, so I went to her house. He says she went early—”

“Who's he?” Verena interrupted.

“The man in the green Impala. Her dad.”

“Then you're both skipping school,” the police-woman announced.

“Yes. No.” Verena was messing her up. “Listen, something's wrong. Bad wrong. I'm afraid”—Delly could only whisper it—“he hurt her.”

“Why do you think that?” Officer Tibbetts inquired.

So Delly told about how Ferris Boyd didn't talk and you couldn't touch her. She told how the green Impala was almost never at the old Hennepin place, but when it was, the girl sent them away. She described the marks on Ferris Boyd's back. Then she told about Ferris Boyd saying two words, and everything getting worse. “Now she's giving her stuff away, and the boots and the blanket are gone.”

Officer Tibbetts listened. Then she asked, “Did she say her dad hurt her?”

And Delly exploded. “She doesn't talk! Now you got to help me find her before—before—”

“Delly,” the policewoman told her, “her father should be the one reporting her missing. I can check with him and the school—”

But Delly'd been in enough trouble to know the rules. “Ferris Boyd is truant. I'm reporting her. Now you got to go get her.”

Verena studied her, searching for signs of monkey business. All she found was a scared kid. “All right,” she agreed. “Let's go.”

When they got to the cruiser, Delly went to sit in back like the criminals. “Up front,” the police-woman ordered.

Officer Tibbetts went into the school alone. When she was done asking her questions, she told them, “Delly Pattison's with me.”

They drove to the old Hennepin place.

“You stay in the car.” Verena directed her.

So she did. She opened the window so she could hear.

“I'm Officer Tibbetts,” the policewoman was saying. “I'd like to see Ferris Boyd.”

“She's at school,” the man replied.

“She's not at school,” Officer Tibbetts informed him. “Do you know where she is?”

The man was quiet for a minute. “She'll show up.”

“Any of her stuff missing?”

“It's packed,” he said.

“For what?”

“We're moving.”

“Hmm.” Verena let that sit for a bit. Then she asked, “You got a number I can call if I find her?”

“I don't need you looking for Ferris,” the man told her. “I'll find her myself.”

Officer Tibbetts wouldn't be told. “You let me know if she shows up. And I
will
be looking for her.”

As soon as Verena got back in the cruiser, Delly whispered, “Do you think he hurt her?”

“Not sure,” she answered. “She might have run away.”

“She left us?” Delly rasped.

“She didn't leave you,” Officer Tibbetts explained. “She left him.”

“But she could have come with us.”

“Maybe she didn't want to get you in trouble. Or she didn't think anybody could help her.”

“I would have helped her,” she hollered. “She's my friend.”

Officer Tibbetts turned to Delly. “Sometimes, when someone's been hurt a lot, the perpetrator seems very powerful. Too powerful to stop. The victim thinks the best she can do is try to get away.”

The policewoman started the car. “Now, let's find your friend.”

Delly's eyeballs were swimming. As they drove, she put her head out the window so the breeze would dry them.

When they passed over the bridge, she glanced at the river. It was down some since the rains. You could walk it, with boots.