Crumbling Walls (Jack and Emily #1) (2 page)

▪▪▪

It took three more days of ride-bys before she was back outside on the porch. Slowing to a stop, he carefully avoided the replanted snapdragons, "Hey there."

"Hi."
"I haven't seen you for a few days. Are they trying to drown you in the egg-drop soup?"
She shook her head, "No, but this math is slowly beginning to kill me. You'd think it would sink in after awhile."
"Stuck, huh?"
"More like buried deep with no hope of resurrection." Shrugging, "But I'll get it eventually. I always do."
"You know, I know somebody who pretty much knows what X equals all the time. Maybe I could convince him to help you."
Emily, feeling just as nervous, if not more, took a bold step towards him off her porch, "You know a guy?"
"Last I checked he had an A or something like that."
"Would that be you?"
By now, she'd made it to the gate, girl on one side of the small picket fence, boy on the other.

"Am I that transparent?"
"Just a little bit, but I'll forgive you if you can tell me what a factorial is."
Jack, smiling, shook his head at her, "Oh lord, do we have some work to do."
She unlatched the gate so he could come in.

And they sat.

And learned.

And talked just a little bit.

All across the worn top of the rickety old table on the tiny porch.

And it was good.

Downloaded from www.twinkledot.com

▪▪▪

An unspoken routine developed and by the end of the next week, Emily managed to get her first ever B on a math test.

“We should celebrate.”

She looked at him, confused, “For a B?”

“Yeah. Are you kidding? Given what you didn’t know two weeks ago, I’d say that B is a miracle.”

This time, the look went from confused to bewildered to completely blank, “Well, thanks for the help. But I think I’ve got it from here.”

Now it was Jack’s turn to look taken aback, “What? You’ve still got another test and a final to take.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Not sure what the hell had just happened, “Wait? I think I missed something here. What’d I do?”

“I refuse to let anyone call me stupid ever again. You did and now we’re through.” Turning to go, “Like I said, thanks for the help, but I’ve got it from here.” Reaching out to stop her, the minute his hand touched her arm, she jerked away, “Get off me.”

The anger behind those three words made him cringe back slightly and not wanting to do anything else to upset her, he walked away quietly.

▪▪▪

It was an amazing thing, what happened next. Jack made it home and when he walked in, the house was quiet. Either the Earth had swallowed up the herd or they were all lying dead somewhere, victims of some stupid stunt involving catapults and flaming tennis balls.

Neither was true. All the younger ones were at the library for some afternoon programs and, of course, his older brother was at work.

That left him to find his mom, calmly sitting on the back porch, her feet up and a bowl of ice cream on her lap.

Without a word, he exited through the screen door and dropped down next to her. She finished the spoonful she was on and offered him the last little bit in the bowl, which he gladly slurped down.

“So, how’s Jack today?”

“Jack is beginning to wonder what makes girls freak out?”

“Ahhh. ‘Bout time you got around to her. I’ve been wondering how long you’d hold out before you cracked.”

“You knew?”

“Are you joking? You’ve been surreptitiously digging into old Algebra books, you disappear every day between two o’clock and four o’clock and you’ve been wearing clean shirts.”

“All that points to a girl?”

“Of course. That and, while I was driving to the store the other day, I saw you sitting on a porch with someone.”

“I assume you didn’t tell the rest of them?”

She shook her head, “I was kind of hoping you’d tell me first. It’s nice to know something before the mob for once.”

He grinned at her, then remembered, “But I think I’m finished anyway so it doesn’t matter.”

“Finished? It’s only been a few weeks.” Turning, she pulled her leg up next to her, “What happened?”

With a shrug, “She got a B on her test and I told her we should celebrate. She asked why we’d do that ‘cause it was just a B.’ I told her that with what she didn’t know two weeks ago, a B was a miracle.”

“Okay.”

“Then she said something like ‘I refuse to let anyone call me stupid again’ and she walked away. I reached out to stop her and the minute my hand touched her, she panicked, said ‘get off me’ and went into her house.”

“You didn’t grab her did you?”

“No, I swear. I barely even felt her arm.” Demonstrating, “I’m amazed she even knew I touched her.”

Both turned towards the house as the commotion of four boys began to leak out of the open windows, “So much for quiet.” Looking back at her son, “A piece of advice, something hurt her; from the sound of it, probably a lot of things. You’ve already walked away and I won’t say a thing if you stay away, but …” with a tilt of her head, “maybe she needs a friend and I know you’re good at that.”

With a grin, she ruffled his hair and stood, heading into the chaos of the house while he sat back, his head on the cushion and his eyes closed, contemplating the complicated life of a 15-year-old boy.

▪▪▪

The next day, Jack had to watch the younger kids so he didn’t have a chance to find Emily but, as luck would have it, she found him.

They’d all just gotten back from an extremely long bike ride. After dropping their bikes on the driveway and collapsing in various piles on the front lawn, all was quiet.

That silence, however, was broken by a girl.

A girl with a voice that made Jack smile in spite of himself.

“You weren’t kidding about all of you looking alike, were you?”

Scrambling to his feet, “Um, yeah. Mom likes to joke that at least we don’t look like the mailman.” He motioned for the other four to stand up, “These are my younger brothers.” Pointing first to the tallest of them, “That’s Dave, he’s thirteen and a compulsive sock changer,” moving down the line by height, “next is Nate, eleven and willing to sell any one of his brothers for a jar of crunchy peanut butter.” Shifting his finger to the next boy, “Then we have Tucker, who’s ten and the only left-handed, double jointed one in the bunch.” After a quick demonstration by Tucker of his thumb bending backwards to touch his arm, to which Emily could not contain her combination wince and grin, Jack finally turned to the smallest boy, “And this is Sam. He’s six, believes that any food dropped on the floor is fair game and that if he wishes hard enough, he truly will be able to fly one day.”

Emily said hello to them and once the boys settled back on the ground, Jack nodded towards the book in her hand, "So, math being a bitch again?”

“Kind of. Think you could help a girl out?"

And that’s how they ended up on a different porch on a different street, the same Jack and the same Emily, only this time, surrounded by talk of ninjas and Spider-Man and the occasional friendly arm-wrestling match between the younger boys.

Jack only joined in when his ample knowledge of the ninja was needed to settle several arguments.

Emily could only smile, realizing that maybe people weren’t so bad after all.

▪▪▪

Emily was gone before Mrs. Callaghan got home, but from the look on her son’s face, it appeared that everything would be just fine and, grinning, she informed him that she would eventually have to meet this girl, for security purposes and all.

Chapter 2

Three weeks later, Emily found Jack sitting on her front porch, biting his nails. Now, normally, this was a disgusting habit to her, but given he was waiting to see just how well she had done on her newly graded final, she only smiled.

Standing up, “Well, how’d you do?”

“Geez Jack, do you really think I want to advertise my grade to the entire world?”

His face fell immediately, “I’m sorry  ... I just … I’ve been waiting here for almost an hour and I didn’t … sorry.”

For the first time he heard her laugh outright as she held up the exam, “But I’ll advertise to you my big, fat B+.”

He had her in a hug before he realized what he was doing and to his thankful amazement, she didn’t slug him. He then thought about letting go but realized she hadn’t pulled away either, so he held her for a second longer before backing away, “You know we get to celebrate now, don’t you?”

Just as surprised by her reaction to his hug, she took a step back and prayed he would mistake her blushing cheeks for a simple summer sunburn, “You mean by forgetting everything we just learned in hopes we’ll never need it again?”

With a chuckle, “Nuh-uh. If I’m gonna keep helping you, I’m gonna need you to remember a few things. As for celebrating, I was thinking some ice cream at the Dairy Queen in town.”

Her cheeks continued to burn, “You want to keep tutoring me?”

“Of course. I can’t let all those good skills go to crap. Unless you don’t want me to?”

“Are you joking? There’s no other way I’ll get through high school at this point. I was just too embarrassed to ask if you’d keep helping me.”

Walking backwards away from her, “Then it’s settled. I’ll keep you mathematically inclined and you’ll let me take you out for ice cream whenever you’re free.”

Not wanting him to leave, “Actually, I’m free now. Someone switched days with me.”

He stopped so suddenly that his momentum made him stumble backwards, “You’re not doing anything tonight?”

Shaking her head, “Nope. Free as a bird who knows entirely too much about X and Y.”

Totally torn by what he should do, he finally stepped back, “I’ve gotta get home now, but how ‘bout I come back after dinner around six-thirty? We can walk down there or I can give you a ride on my handy-dandy 12-speed?”

Looking over his shoulder at the beaten up bicycle, “I think walking’ll be just fine.”

“Cool.” Turning before continuing to walk, “See you later.”

“Bye.”

▪▪▪

Jack, out of breath, met her on the porch at 6:40. Apologizing for being late, "With eight people trying to eat at the same time, I’m amazed I got here so early.”

“What happened?”

As they started down the sidewalk, “More like what didn’t happen. Sam spilled his glass of juice all over Tucker. Tucker decided to retaliate by flinging a spoonful of mashed potatoes at him. Sam knew it was coming and ducked, which plastered Nate in the side of the face.” By now she was grinning at him so he continued, “Nate shoved Sam’s chair with his foot and broke one of the supports underneath, which caused the chair to collapse. Given my brother has this thing with tucking his napkin in his collar and under his plate to catch anything he drops, when he fell, he took the plate with him and you can just picture that.”

Fighting back the laugh lodged in her throat, “Your mom must have wanted to kill everybody.”

“Oh, that was just the beginning. When his chair went down, he knocked into Nate, who jumped over to get out of the way. And being the original napkin tucker, his plate went onto the floor and pretty much right on top of Sam.”

Now she just let the laugh loose, “Did your parents explode?”

“No, but Tim, my older brother, nearly did. You could see him getting redder and his eyes rolling around. Sometimes I think he would have been happier as an only child.”

“What about you? Ever wish you were an only?”

“No way. It'd be too boring. Anyways, the rest of us just kept on eating because, in all honesty, it's probably one of the less eventful meals we’ve had. Remind me to tell you about Thanksgiving sometime.” With a shake of her head, they continued on in silence for a minute until Jack suddenly remembered, “Hey, got my class schedule today.” Digging it out of his pocket, he handed it to her, “did I get any good teachers?”

Taking the crumpled piece of paper, “I keep forgetting you’re new around here. Let’s see.”