I arrived at school in the middle of fourth hour. After getting a pass from the office, I went down the hall to Avanelle’s locker and took out the math book before going on to the gym. If Miss Cooper was in a halfway decent mood, maybe she’d excuse me from dressing out and I could do my homework before lunch.
As soon as I entered the gym, I saw Avanelle at the far end. She was playing volleyball, but she must have had one eye on the door, because she started waving.
I waved back as the ball sailed over the net and hit the floor at her feet.
“Way to go, turkey!” yelled Georgina Gregory, picking up the ball and tossing it angrily over the net. She might have been talking to Avanelle, but she was glaring at me.
Miss Cooper blew her whistle and called, “Gregory, watch your mouth. Shackleford, keep your eye on the ball. Jensen, bring me your pass.”
When I took it to her, she glanced at it and said, “All right. Go sit down somewhere.”
I climbed halfway up and sat in the bleachers, and as I opened the math book, an envelope dropped out into my lap. I picked it up and read the address:Trezane Shackleford
165320 HU 3-A-499
Missouri Training Center for Men
P.O. Box 7
Cumberland, MO 65277
It was a letter to Avanelle’s father in prison! Guiltily, I stuffed it back into the book.
I went to work, but it was impossible to convert decimals to fractions with the girls yelling and Miss Cooper blowing her whistle. I gathered up my book and papers and went to the locker room.
I was on the last problem when the bell rang. A few seconds later, the door banged open and several girls hustled in, their voices bouncing off the walls.
Among them was Georgina, dribbling the volleyball.
“We’ve got Michael Jordan in the girls’ locker room,” Sarah Ward said, laughing. She waved her arms. like a basketball player and tried to steal the ball.
Georgina, showing off, started dribbling harder. Sarah couldn’t get the ball with her hands, so she kicked it hard and it came hurtling across to my bench and slammed onto the math book.
The book, my papers, and Avanelle’s letter went scooting across the floor.
I jumped up and made a grab for the letter, but Lori Nicholson beat me to it.
“Hey, you guys, look at this,” she said. “A love letter. To Avanelle’s brother.”
“Give me that!” I cried, lunging for the envelope.
Lori clutched it to her chest and looked me up and down. “So you’ve got a crush on Trezane Shackleford.”
“Please,” I said, “give it back.”
She turned away from me and read the address. “Hey,” she yelled, “this isn’t for Tree. Not unless he’s in prison.”
“What?” cried Georgina and Sarah at the same time.
When Lori held the letter up for them to see, I grabbed for it again and missed. She tossed it to Georgina, saying, “Air mail!”
Georgina caught the letter and looked at it. “Must be Tree’s dad.” With an evil grin, she added, “Maybe he’s an ax murderer.”
“Oooh, that’s creepy,” squealed Sarah.
The door opened and in walked Avanelle.
Georgina glanced from her to me with a smirk, then shoved the letter at me. To Avanelle, she said, “So your dad’s a convict. Your weirdo friend here just spilled the beans.” Laughing, she and the other girls headed for the showers.
The letter was a hot coal in my shaking hands. I gaped at Avanelle, who stood still as a statue in a sunbeam from the skylight. Her emerald eyes were shooting sparks, and her orange hair was a ball of fire.
She streaked over to me and seized the letter. “You ... had ... no ... right,” she gasped.
“I didn‘t—”
“How could you, Delrita?” she demanded in a harsh whisper. “How could you show them my letter?”
“I—I—You’re making a mistake.”
“The only mistake I made was choosing you to be my friend! That’s why my dad went to prison, you know. Because he was a friend to the wrong person.”
I blinked back tears at the look of rage on the face of my one and only friend.
“Dad didn’t rob a bank or kill somebody,” she went on in that awful, raspy whisper. “He drove his truck to help a buddy move furniture. Only the furniture didn’t belong to that fellow. He was just using my dad to steal it.”
“Avanelle, listen to me! I didn’t show those girls the letter.”
“So how come they got to see it? Why should I believe you when the judge didn’t believe my dad?” Avanelle’s voice broke, and she pushed past me.
Helplessly I watched her snatch up her school clothes and head for a stall.
A cloud blotted out the sun and the locker room grew dark as another swarm of girls came in to get dressed. I sat on a bench, feeling naked, even though I had on more clothes than anybody in the room.
Georgina had succeeded in scaring off Avanelle. Not in the way I’d expected, but the results were the same.
Avanelle ignored me, and I was afraid that if I forced myself on her there’d be another ugly scene. At lunch we sat at opposite ends of the cafeteria, neither of us with a tray. In math fifth hour, she sailed past me as if I were invisible.
When the bell rang after seventh hour, I went out the back door. I was embarrassed by all the lovesick couples on the low brick wall, but I drew a deep breath and plunged on past. It was either go this way or go my regular route, and it would hurt too much to see Avanelle’s house and not be welcome there.
Crunching along through the leaves, I felt an overwhelming sadness. Mom had loved raking leaves, so she hadn’t minded when Punky and I rolled around in her leaf stacks, scattering them to the wind.
As I reached Uncle Bert‘s, a van pulled in the drive and Punky got out. The sun pinpointed the thin layer of sawdust on his whiskers.
“Bye, Punky,” came a chorus of voices from the van. “See you in the morning!”
“Yeah,” said Punky as he tipped his cowboy hat. “See you in the morning.”
All at once, an arm shot out the window, waving furiously, and I saw Barney’s round face beaming at me. “My wife,” he called.
“Barney!” cried Punky, shaking his fist. “She’s my girl, you old goat!”
The van pulled away, but not before Barney called again, “My wife.”
Punky jutted out his bottom lip, and I put my arm around him, saying, “Did Barney give you a hard time today?”
“Nope,” said Punky, tucking his lunch box under his arm and heading toward the house, “he’s my fwiend.”
I stood still and watched him go. Punky had a vanload of new friends after one day in the outside world, and what did I have?
That night, I hid in the bathroom to carve, hoping the act would soothe me as it had so many times before.
I held the ugly blob of a snowman in one hand and Walt’s perfect swan in the other. They symbolized the difference between what I was and what I wanted to be, and I had no idea how to get from one to the other.
I started working on Herkimer’s wings with the V-tool, but it might as well have been a chain saw. My mind kept going back to Georgina’s cruelly exposing Avanelle’s secret. The situation looked hopeless. I couldn’t blame Avanelle for thinking I’d stabbed her in the back. I squeezed my eyes shut, and a tear rolled down my cheek. Avanelle was my first real friend, and losing her felt a little bit like losing Mom and Dad.
I thought of Brownie, the big shepherd dog we’d had at the farm. Brownie was a good pet, playful and gentle, but he’d killed a chicken and Dad gave him away. “He’s tasted blood,” Dad had said, “and he’ll always want more.”
Well, I’d tasted Avanelle’s friendship, and I wanted more.
I knew the longer I waited to talk to her, the harder it would be to make things right. But was it even possible to make things right? Would she ever talk to me again? No, I thought sadly, remembering those blazing green eyes. Her humiliation in the lock
er room had been complete.
My fingers slipped and I stabbed myself with the V-tool. I wiped at the blood with toilet tissue, then put Herkimer away so I wouldn’t make a mess of him, too.
I’d been a loner before, and I should have been able to pick up where I’d left off, but it wasn’t that easy. School was torture now.
Avanelle wasn’t chummy with anyone else, but she avoided me. Once, when we came face to face in the restroom, she turned away quickly. I guess looking at me made her sick.
Every time I had to use the math book, I half expected her to sneak up behind me and accuse me of snooping in her locker. I started lurking in classrooms so I wouldn’t have to face her in the hall. At the last minute, when I had to venture out, I scurried along hunched over, as if hiding a brick in my shirt.
Sunday at church it was the same story. Avanelle wouldn’t look in my direction, but she took a special interest in Miss Myrtle Chambers, helping the fragile old lady up the steps and finding the pages in her hymnal.
The rest of her family was friendly, though. Birdie sat with Punky and me before going to her class, and when the service ended, Mrs. Shackleford asked me how Punky liked working.
“Okay,” I said, but that was a lie. Punky was in seventh heaven at the workshop, and I’d decided he no longer needed me at all.
Tree said, “He had a great time at the athletic field yesterday. I showed him how to shoot baskets, and his aim is terrific.”
No wonder, I thought, he’s got the best horn-flinging arm in the country.
“You ought to come with him next time,” Tree said. “We’d let you be water girl or sweep off the track.”
I knew he was teasing, but the words irritated me. “No, thanks,” I said. “I’m busy on Saturdays.”
As soon as I could, I went to the car. A wave of homesickness washed over me when the smell of the upholstered seats reminded me of Dad’s antique shop.
I watched Avanelle help Miss Myrtle to Elsie Golden’s car, climb in the backseat, and ride away with them.
Soon the rest of the Shacklefords came out. Tree carried Birdie in one arm and hung on to Eddie’s hand. His mother, holding Gordy, laughed when the wind caught Randolph’s papers and he started chasing them.
My mind played back in slow motion the last glimpse I’d had of my parents at Silver Dollar City—Dad backing up the trailer and Mom hanging out the window and blowing kisses. More than anything, I wished they’d come walking out of the church with Punky. I ached to have a whole family again, to be like we were before the accident.
NINETEEN
Big Bucks
It rained that afternoon. Aunt Queenie drove off somewhere, Uncle Bert curled up for a nap, and I was left with Punky, who cried because I couldn’t stop the rain. He sat at the dining room table twisting his hair, while I pretended to call the news three times.
The rain drizzled down, filling up Aunt Queenie’s outside flower pots and washing muddy water across the patio. As I stood looking out the double doors, I had an idea.
“Punky, remember the mud mats Rudy makes?”
“Yeah,” he said, wiping his face with his sleeve. “Rudy’s my fwiend.”
“If it didn’t rain, nobody’d ever need mud mats, and he’d be out of a job. Boss would have to send him home.”
Punky looked at me with puppy-dog eyes. “Rudy cry.”
“He’d cry if it didn’t rain, but I’ll bet he’s laughing now.”
Punky folded his arms on the table and thought about that for a minute. Then he smiled, opened his lunch box, and started lining up his clowns.
I sat down and leafed through the Sunday paper.
In a little while, Aunt Queenie came home. She shivered as she hung her dripping jacket on the coat rack and removed the scarf from her hair. After pouring herself a cup of coffee, she sat down with Punky and me and said, “Those Shacklefords seem like nice children.”
What brought that up? I wondered without saying anything.
“Tree and Avanelle are so good to help with Special Olympics. And Avanelle is looking after Miss Myrtle Chambers, who’s been having fainting spells. Her mother said she spends—”
Suddenly I was suspicious. “When did you talk to Mrs. Shackleford?”
“I just came from there. I always call on new members of the church. I meant to go sooner, but—”
“What else did she say about Avanelle?”
“That she’s lonely here. She doesn’t fit in. Gardenia—Mrs. Shacklefbrd—said you and Avanelle seemed to hit it off for a while, but then something went wrong.”
“We had a misunderstanding at school.”
“Can’t you straighten it out?” asked Aunt Queenie.
“Not likely.”
“But you’d have someone your own age to laugh with, to share your troubles with. Before, you had Punky, but now he’s branching out on his own. Bert and I are here, of course, but you don’t talk to us. You’ve kept everything bottled up inside since Shirley and Sam—It’s not good for you.”
“I’m okay.”
“You’ve both been through the fire, so to speak. You, losing your mom and dad, and Avanelle, facing the shame of having a father in prison.” Aunt Queenie chuckled at my look of astonishment. “Yes, I know about that. Gardenia confided in me. She said her husband was wrongly convicted.”
And so was I, when Avanelle caught me holding that letter. I folded the newspaper and got up. It wasn’t fair. If everybody already knew about Mr. Shackleford’s being in prison, why had Avanelle blown up at me over something that wasn’t my fault?
On Friday when I got home from school, Punky stuck a slip of paper in my face and said, “Look, D.J., my dollar.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s his first paycheck,” said Aunt Queenie cheerfully.
I took the check from Punky and saw that it was made out to Richard Holloway for forty-eight dollars. “That’s not much money for two weeks’ work,” I said.
“Well, to him it’s a fortune. He’s rich as a king.”
“My dollar,” Punky said, removing the check from my hands and stashing it in his lunch box. Every few minutes he’d haul it out and show me again, but he wouldn’t let me touch it.
I sat sipping a Coke and thinking how much he’d changed since he’d been at the workshop. His bald spot had sprouted wiry brown hair, and he’d stopped chewing on his fingers. He even went to bed earlier now, and every morning when his feet hit the floor, he was a man with a purpose.
When Uncle Bert came home, Punky met him at the door and waved the check at him, saying, “My dollar. ”
“Well, this calls for a celebration!” exclaimed Uncle Bert. He yelled into the kitchen, “Queenie, whatever you’ve got on the stove, take it off. We’re going out to eat.”
On the way to the restaurant, Uncle Bert stopped at the supermarket and insisted that we all go in while Punky cashed his check. “This is a big day for Punk-Man,” he said, “and I want everybody to see it.”
At the cashier’s window, he showed Punky where to make an X on the check and signed his name for him. Sliding the check under the glass, he said, “Give it to us in ones.”
The clerk, a short, plump man with a yellow shirt and plaid suspenders, squinted at the check and frowned. “Did you say ones? I haven’t got that many in my drawer.”
“Clean out the registers,” said Uncle Bert. “We’ve got to have ones.”
Grumbling to himself, the clerk stepped out of the office. It took several minutes for him to make change at the registers, and when he came back, he tried to count out the money to Uncle Bert.
“Not to me,” said my uncle.
My dollar,” said Punky, holding out his hand.
As the clerk, looking peeved, counted the money into Punky’s hand, Punky’s eyes got bigger and bigger.
“... forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight,” finished the man, rudely slapping the last dollar onto Punky’s hand and turning to walk away.
Punky reached out and s
napped his suspenders. “Thank you, buddy, ” he said. “You’re fat. ”
We ate supper at a seafood restaurant, and afterward Uncle Bert drove to a furniture store. “Bail out,” he said, and I wondered what else he had up his sleeve as we all got out of the car.
Taking Punky’s hand, I followed my aunt and uncle to the television department.
“Now, Punk-Man,” said Uncle Bert, rubbing his hands together, “let’s pick out the one we want.”
Punky didn’t say a word. He was hypnotized by all the TVs running at once, and he paid no attention to the salesman who had come to talk to us.
Uncle Bert and Aunt Queenie chose a portable color TV with a remote control and a price of three hundred dollars. The salesman carried it up front.
As I dragged Punky along after them, he looked back over his shoulder, still staring at the bank of TVs.
“Punk-Man,” said Uncle Bert, “here’s where you spend the big bucks. Show the man your money.”
“My dollar,” replied Punky, setting his lunch box on the counter and flipping open the lid to show off his pile of ones. As he lined them up on the counter, I noticed Aunt Queenie writing out a check to cover the difference.
When I checked on Punky at about nine-thirty, I found him propped up in his bed, watching television.
He pointed a stubby finger at the TV. “My show.”
“You look awfully busy.”
“Yeah, D.J.,” he said, grinning as he punched the buttons on the little black box and changed the channel by remote control.
TWENTY
Herkimer
“Hurry,” said Punky. “Play ball.” It was his second Saturday to go to the athletic field to train for Special Olympics.
“I can’t hurry any faster,” replied Aunt Queenie, “unless you want your eggs raw.”
“Clock.”
“Well, I declare.” Aunt Queenie pointed the spatula at Uncle Bert and said, “Two weeks ago I couldn’t blast him out of bed. Today we oversleep by fifteen minutes, and he’s like a cat on a hot roof.”