Wish (9 page)

“Let's get some treats and teach him to roll over,” Howard said.

“That's a good idea.” Mrs. Odom ruffled my hair. “I've got some squirrel pie fresh out of the oven.”

I wanted to sink right into the ground when she said that. Or disappear into thin air. Poof! Gone. But of course I couldn't, so I just stood there with my face burning and my stomach in a knot.

Dwight and Cotton hooted and hollered, slapping their knees and saying, “Squirrel pie?”

Mrs. Odom put her arm around my shoulder, and when I got up my courage to look at her, she winked at me. “I'm so glad to have a feisty female around here to help me keep these boys under control. I been needing a girl on my team.”

On her team? Mrs. Odom needed me on her team?

I wished I could've saved that moment there in that weed-filled yard surrounded by those good-hearted Odoms, with Wishbone sitting there on the cooler in front of us. Just pack it into one of Bertha's canning jars to keep in my room. Then when I was feeling bad about myself or loaded down with all my troubles, I could open it up and breathe in the goodness of it and I'd feel better.

But the moment passed, and Howard brought a piece of chicken out to the yard and we tried to teach Wishbone to roll over, but all he wanted to do was eat that chicken.

“Back in Raleigh, we've got a fence around our yard, so he can run free back there,” I said.

Howard's smile faded and he said, “Do you think your mama will let you keep him?”

Shoot! I wished he hadn't said that 'cause it stirred my worries up and I'd been doing such a good job of keeping them locked in tight. The truth of the matter was, there was no telling what Mama would think about me showing up back there with Wishbone. But I managed to push that worry away and say, “Sure she will. She's gonna love him.”

“When are you leaving?” Howard asked in a tiny, quivery voice.

I shrugged. “I don't know,” I said. “Soon, I bet.” But I knew in my heart that Mama still didn't have her feet on the ground. I mean, I hadn't even gotten so much as a postcard or a phone call from her since I'd been in Colby. I knew she was still laying around in her bathrobe in the dark, drinking diet soda for supper and not thinking about me one bit.

Howard got quiet after that, so I finally tied Wishbone to the bike and headed back up to Gus and Bertha's. When I got there, Gus was sitting at the kitchen table while Bertha sliced green peppers from the garden and jabbered about that fancy new drugstore they were building out on Route 26.

“Well,
there
they are,” Gus said when he saw me and Wishbone. “A girl and her dog.” Then he reached in his pocket and pulled out something that he held out to me in his palm. A little bone-shaped dog tag with
Wishbone
engraved on it. He turned it over and showed me it had a phone number on the other side.

“Gus!” Bertha squealed. “You are a prince.” She kissed his cheek. “Ain't he a prince, Charlie?”

I nodded.

“Then I might be a king when you take a look at that,” Gus said, nodding toward the coatrack by the back door. Hanging there with the raincoats and cardigans was a red dog leash.

“I figured he needed a real leash instead of that ole rope,” Gus said.

Bertha kissed him again. “Now you are a king,” she said. “Ain't he, Charlie?”

I just couldn't get over Gus going and doing such a nice thing for me. “Yes, ma'am,” I agreed. “He is.”

Then Gus took Wishbone's collar off, attached the little tag to it, and put it back on. When I looked down at him with his collar on and his very own tag with his very own name, he seemed like he'd been mine forever. Like he belonged right here with me, not a stray anymore.

And in the middle of that happy moment, I had a tiny seed of a thought that I hurried to push out of my mind before it had time to grow. That thought was this: Where in the world do
I
belong?

 

Fifteen

The next day before Sunday school, I raced to the fellowship hall where that Garden of Blessings was up on the bulletin board. I searched the paper flowers until I found mine. The other kids had made a bunch of flowers 'cause I guess they had a bunch of blessings. But I had only made one and for my blessing, I had written, “I am healthy,” because Audrey had written that on one of hers. I took my flower down and with a purple crayon I added, “I have a dog named Wishbone.”

When I got to Sunday school, I tried to tell kids about my new dog, but it seemed like nobody cared. They were busy calling out sins for Mrs. Mackey to write on a blackboard.

Cussing.

Bullying.

Lying.

Disobeying your parents.

The sins were flying around that room like blackbirds in a cornfield.

“Charlie,” Mrs. Mackey said. “Can you think of a sin?”

I bet leaving your children behind so you can start a new life is a sin. But, of course, I wasn't about to add that one to the list, so I just said, “No, ma'am.”

“What about
kicking
and
shoving
?” Audrey said.

Then Howard started muttering under his breath next to me, “Pineapple. Pineapple. Pineapple.”

And maybe it was because we were in church, but a miracle happened. I was able to push my temper down and put a lid on it. I smiled and clamped my mouth shut tight so I wouldn't say anything to ruin this miracle moment. And then another miracle floated through that Sunday school window and settled on my shoulder and nudged me to say, “I shouldn't have kicked and shoved you like I did, Audrey. I'm sorry.”

Well, let me tell you, that took the wind right out of her sails. Her eyebrows shot up and her mouth dropped open and then she said, “That's okay.”

After Sunday school, on our way to the fellowship hall, Howard slapped me on the back and said, “Good job, Charlie. I told you that pineapple trick would work.”

*   *   *

I'd been counting the minutes until the last day of school. When it finally came, I skipped up to the bus stop in Jackie's majorette boots. I didn't care that they were hot and rubbed blisters on my heels. I strutted up the aisle of the bus and winked at those giggling girls like Jackie'd told me to do.

“Just wink at 'em,” she had said on the phone one night. “That'll throw 'em for a loop and they won't know
what
to do.”

But some of those girls still giggled when I dropped into the seat next to Howard and handed him one of Bertha's banana muffins.

“Thanks,” he said. Then he broke it in half and started picking out the raisins, placing them in a little pile on the seat between us.

“Wishbone dug up some beans last night,” I said.

“Uh-oh.” Howard took a bite of muffin and made a face. Then he fished a raisin out of his mouth and added it to the pile on the seat. “Gus get mad?” he asked.

“Naw. He just said I couldn't let him in the garden anymore.”

“Bertha get mad?”

I shook my head. “She told me a story about her cousin's dog who ate corn right off the stalks in her grandaddy's garden and got so sick he almost died.”

As the bus made its way down the mountain, I thought about my old school back in Raleigh. It felt like I'd been in Colby forever and I hadn't heard from a single one of my so-called friends back home, except Carlene Morgan. She had sent me a postcard with a picture of the capitol building where my class had gone on a field trip.

You are lucky you didn't have to go
, she had written.
It was boring. LOL.

Jackie told me she had seen my best friend, Alvina, at the movies with some girls from our Girl Scout troop.

“Did she ask about me?” I said.

“No, but I told her you were doing good,” Jackie said.

Doing good?

Ha!

How would Jackie know? She was too busy living her perfect life with Carol Lee to think about me. She hardly ever even called anymore.

One time when I was in third grade, I went with Scrappy to the cemetery to see where his daddy was buried. We found the moss-covered headstone that read:
Albert Eugene Reese
. At the top, it said
Gone but Not Forgotten
. I wasn't even laying under the cold hard ground like Albert, but I was gone
and
forgotten.

Bertha kept telling me I should invite some of my old friends from Raleigh to visit me this summer. I didn't want to hurt her feelings, but that sounded like a bad idea to me. What would we do? Watch the squash grow out in the garden? Stare at Pegasus on the porch all night? Where would they sleep? Squished in my little bed with me on my Cinderella pillows? No, those Raleigh girls would not have fun here in Colby.

When the last bell of the day rang, I couldn't get out of there fast enough. Every day I had counted the minutes until I could get back home to Wishbone. Bertha told me he stood at the door and whined for me when I was gone. “That's the truth,” she said. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

On the way up the mountain, I stared out the window while Howard told me about Burl buying a motorcycle and his mama being mad as all get-out.

Then guess what? I saw three birds perched together up on the telephone line along the side of the road. Three birds on a wire was on my list of things to wish on. But it has to be exactly three birds according to Scrappy's friend Ray, and that's not as easy as it sounds. So I made my wish quick before one of them flew away.

 

Sixteen

“Guess what?” Bertha said when I got home. She reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out an envelope. “You got a letter from your daddy!”

“I did?” I stared at the envelope in her hand. That was Scrappy's handwriting all right. Giant wiggly printing, like a first grader wrote it.

I put Wishbone's leash on and took him out front. I sat in Gus's lawn chair by the garden and stared down at the envelope.

Miss Charlie Reese

If Mama had sent me a letter (which she never would) she would have written
Miss Charlemagne Reese
to aggravate me. Then she would probably tell me goodbye because she was starting her new life without me.

I studied the envelope some more.
Wake County Correctional Center
was printed in the corner.

Well, now, that didn't sound nearly as bad as
county jail
. I think folks in the county jail have to stay for a long time. But if Scrappy was just getting corrected, maybe that wouldn't take too long.

I sniffed the envelope to see if I could smell his aftershave, but I couldn't. I took out the folded notebook paper and smoothed it on my lap.

Dear Charlie,

It's your old Scrappy pappy here saying hello and how are you?

I am fine.

This place is okay except for the lumpy gravy and lousy pillow.

Jackie came to visit and brought me Hershey bars and toothpaste.

I bet you are having fun with Gus and Bertha. Tell them I will send some money when I can.

Love,    

Scrappy

I turned the paper over to see if there was more on the back.

Nope.

That was it.

I looked at the word
love
. I traced the letters with my finger. Then I folded the paper up and put it back in the envelope.

*   *   *

The next day, I was bored by lunchtime. I'd practiced sit and stay with Wishbone. I'd helped Bertha inspect the okra to figure out how many jars we'd need for pickling. I'd looked for four-leaf clovers over by the back porch, but I didn't find one. Then I'd shared my peanut butter sandwich with Wishbone, and that was it. Nothing else to do.

So I figured I'd ride Lenny's bike down to Howard's. I hooked Wishbone's leash on the handlebars and off we went.

When I got there, the Odoms' house was buzzing like a beehive. Cotton was making something with sticks and rocks in the small square of shade next to the porch. Burl and Lenny were over in the driveway peering at the engine of Burl's motorcycle. Every now and then, one of them would bang on something with a wrench. Dwight was tossing a basketball into the hoop on the streetlight pole at the edge of the yard. And Howard? I couldn't believe what he was doing. A crossword puzzle! Sitting on that ratty couch on the porch doing a crossword puzzle. What kind of kid does that on the first day of summer?

“Hey,” he said, adjusting his glasses.

Wishbone jumped on the couch next to him and flopped over on his side, panting.

“Hey.” I lifted the hair off the back of my neck and fanned myself. “It sure is hot,” I said.

“Wanna study for Bible Detective?” Howard asked.

Bible Detective?

I almost said, “Are you nuts?” but for once I managed to keep my thoughts to myself and I said, “No, not really.”

“I'll give you some of my Bible bucks,” he said.

I shook my head. “That's okay.”

“Then what do you want to do?”

I shrugged. “I got a letter from Scrappy,” I said.

Howard sat up straight. “You did?” He put the crossword puzzle on the couch beside us. “From jail?”

“It's not jail,” I said. “It's a correctional facility.”

“Same thing,” Howard said.

“It is not!”

“I'm pretty sure it is.”

“It is
not
!” I said so loud Wishbone's head shot up and he looked at me like I was crazy.

Pineapple.

Pineapple.

Pineapple.

I did
not
want to get mad at Howard on the first day of summer.

I must admit that even though me and Howard hadn't known each other very long, he could read me like a book. I could tell he knew I was wrestling with that temper of mine again, 'cause he changed the subject and just said, “Well, that's good that you got a letter.” He scratched Wishbone behind the ear. “What'd he say?”