Eleven and Holding (5 page)

Dad is so sad he can hardly work—
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Mom gets even madder at him—
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Mom talks everyone into selling Nana's shop—
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Nana dies—
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Dad disappears—
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—
Chuck!

Now I wait every single day for Dad to come home. Mom and I used to wait together, but it's changed. It feels like she stopped waiting.

“PeekaBOO!” Sticky, wet hands pawed at my eyelids. “Peek-a-me!”

“GENTLE, Jack!” I yelled, rolling over in the swing so he couldn't poke my eyes out. He climbed up behind me and tried to turn my head around, so he could continue a round of peekaboo, just about the dumbest baby game ever invented. Resisting was pointless, so I flopped over onto my back and pulled him up onto my stomach.

“Okay, okay, Jack, enough with the peekaboo!” I grabbed both his chubby little hands and pretended I was going to eat them, which always horrified and thrilled him. He threw his head back, screaming and laughing.

“It's time to play Hide the Baby! Yay! Yay!” I clapped his hands together.

He screamed, drool hanging from his chin. He
slid down off the swing and stood waiting, one small hand on my leg, his eyes big. He farted into his big diaper and then jumped, startled, his nerves already on edge.

“Reaaady?” I said. “Seeeett?”

He bounced up and down, chiming in “Gooo?”

“HIDE THE BABY, JACK!”

Squealing like a piglet, he pounded across the porch in his baby high-tops, ripping into the house. He'd always hide himself under his little bed or my mom's bed. Never my bed, though, not since I'd put up Cookie Monster. Jack was a whiz at the game. He could hide for a good ten minutes before he came hunting for me. Unless he fell asleep where he was hiding. That was always an unexpected bonus.

I loved him so much it nearly made me ache, but that didn't mean he didn't drive me nuts sometimes. It was hard being adored twenty-four hours a day. My dad was crazy about him too. Aunt Liv told me he broke down and cried when they first put Jack into his arms. Said that now he had everything he ever wanted in the world—first a daughter, and now a son. I knew it was really hard for him to be away from Jack. Babies change so fast, and Dad was missing so many of Jack's firsts.

The screen door opened back up, and Mom came
out. “Macy, I wish you wouldn't do that to him. If you don't want to play with him, just come get me.”

“I am playing with him! He likes hiding.”

“No, he loves playing with his big sister. Why don't you read to him or put him in the stroller and take him for a walk?”

“Tryouts went well, by the way. I made the team.”

“Oh, Macy, that is so fantastic! I was just going to ask—”

I leveled her a look. “I'm sure you were. You're a very polite mother.”

She drew in a breath, and I could tell I'd gotten to her.

“If Dad were home, he would have been at my soccer tryouts.”

“Let's not do this right now, okay? You're tired and hungry. Come in and get something to eat. I'm up to my armpits in grocery sacks, and I've got a runaway that work is calling me about. But first, I need to get out for a run. I've missed the last three days.”

“Can't you go later? I have stuff I need to do too!” I kind of made that part up, but I wasn't feeling very cooperative.

“I'm running with someone, so I can't reschedule.”

“Who?” I asked, suspicious. She usually ran alone.

“I bumped into Chuck while I was out shopping.
He had a lot of questions about the supplier contracts we used. I didn't have time to talk, so I suggested if he wanted to go out for a run with me, I'd fill him in.”

It took me a minute to digest this. First the phone calls, now running dates?

“Oh!” she said, looking out across the yard and then at her watch. “Here he comes already. I better go change.” She waved at him as he slowed to a jog and then stopped in front of our house. He pulled the cap off the water bottle he carried and took a swig. “Hey, there!” she called out to him. “Give me five minutes. I'll be right down.”

He nodded and wiped his forehead with the inside of his elbow. He gave me a small wave and then stretched his hairy calves against our tree.

I stared at him, still not believing he had the nerve to come onto our private property like this and, even worse, planned to go on a run with my mother. I thundered down the walkway toward him. When I reached him, I stood glaring at him while the thousand things I wanted to say fought to get out first.

“Hey, Macy. How'd tryouts go?”

“Wha
aat
?” I asked, exasperated that he'd been the first to speak and that he knew anything about my life.

“I heard you were trying out for soccer—”

“Who told you that?”

He folded his leg behind him and pressed his toe into his backside, stretching his quads. “Uh, I'm not sure. I overhear a lot at the shop.”

More glowering from me. “You sure have a
lot
of questions about running a coffee shop. Did it ever occur to you that if you still have this many questions after doing it for over a year, that maybe you're not cut out for it?” There, I'd finally gotten one good shot out there.

He didn't look like he'd been hit at all. He just gave me a friendly smile and said, “Well, I sure don't know as much as your nana did, and I don't know what I would have done if I didn't have your mom to help me.”

I felt like a big bull snorting and pawing in the dirt, and
he
just wouldn't wave the red cape like he was supposed to. It was maddening.

“Caffeine Nana's is a dumb name. You should have left it just plain old Nana's.”

He shrugged and nodded. “You may be right. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Mom came down the walkway just then in her extremely skimpy running shorts and top. It was what she always wore, but still, it griped me. She should have worn something that covered up her curvy parts.

“Your mom tells me it's almost your birthday,” Chuck said, turning his glance back to me. “Any fun plans?”

“Ab-so-lute-ly
none
!”

I turned and gave Mom a look that would spoil meat. She had Jack in her arms, and she handed him off to me. I tried to shield him from Chuck's view, but Jack squirmed around so he wouldn't miss anything. The little Benedict Arnold put up his pudgy hand for a high-five. Chuck gently slapped it. Jack laughed and drooled and then put his hand up for more. I twirled him around at that.

I thundered back up the walkway toward the house. Apparently, I lived in a whole house full of traitors.

I
grabbed Twee's shirt and yanked her toward me, one half second before she plowed right into a parking sign. She would have been seeing stars for days. But Twee was used to me steering her and kept right on talking, not missing a beat.

“Of course, most of the reward money would go toward my trip, but I'm going to take forty dollars to buy those green suede boots at Girls West.” She twirled, as if she imagined how they'd look on her.

I cut her off at the pass. “You keep forgetting the minor detail that first we actually have to find Mr. McMuffin.”

“McDougall, Macy! It's Mr. McDougall! Could you at least get his name right?”

“McWhatever. And you need to get your mind off
of the reward money and pay some attention to this dog hunt. You know, maybe we should let Switch in on this with us. He did say he had a lead.”

“If he does have a good lead, what does he need us for? He doesn't exactly strike me as the sharing type.”

We traipsed across the grass of Jet Park, named for the old jet that sat in the middle of it. Years ago the city had gutted the plane and cleaned it up. It had been my first jungle gym. I knew every curve and hollow of that plane.

We settled down in our favorite spot in the shade of the jet's wing. I rolled over onto my stomach and unwrapped a peanut butter sandwich on big slices of sourdough bread. Twee took the lid off a container of rice. She'd started eating Vietnamese food almost exclusively, like if she ate enough of it, her birth parents might just show up. Not that she wanted to leave her family here in Constant, but probably like other kids who were adopted, a part of her was always thinking about her other life. The one that she might have lived.

I opened my sandwich and ripped open a bag of M&Ms. I planted colorful rows into the gooey deliciousness of peanut butter. I slapped the top back on and sank my teeth into it. It was a good sixty seconds before I could speak again. I took a long swig
from a canteen my dad brought me from his first trip to Baghdad. I tried to bring up the subject of Switch again. “Well,” I said, clearing my throat, “you know, if he does have a clue, it could be worth some money. Maybe we should just offer him a cut, maybe fifty bucks, for his info,
if
we find the dog.”

She looked at me, shaking her head. “No way. If he does know something, which I completely don't believe, he learned it yesterday when he was cruising Ginger's neighborhood. Heck, we can do that.” She grabbed my sandwich and took a big bite, moaning when she hit my chocolate crop.

I took a whiff of something she'd brought in her jar and then moved it away from me fast. It smelled like someone had died in that jar.

Twee wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “So, what do you think he was doing on the bus, Macy?”

I snatched my sandwich back. “I dunno.” A quick rush of guilt flooded me. I'd told Twee I was at the bus station buying her ticket when I'd run into Switch.

She waved a carrot stick at me. “You know, I heard Cynthia Ramos tell my sister that they can't hardly keep Switch in foster homes. He just up and leaves when he feels like it.”

“So?”

She stared hard at me. “So, nothing. Just thought
you might be interested since you can hardly stop talking about him.”

“What's that supposed to mean? I've said two sentences about him all day.” I felt my face color.

“Oh, c'mon. It's been nothing but ‘Switch, Switch, Switch' around here since Saturday. First you won't stop talking about him because he beans you on his board. Then you're all fired up because Ginger thinks he's a nice boy. He's Robin Hood Junior stealing newspapers for the poor. And now, of course, he holds the case-cracking clue that would lead us right to Mr. McDougall.” She paused for a moment and looked off into space. “But no, other than that, you haven't really mentioned him much.”

I balled up my trash and got to my feet. “Are you done? Let's go. We're burning daylight here.”

The clatter of skateboard wheels nearby made me jump. My head whipped in their direction. But it was just some little kid wearing a helmet. Not a big kid with long feet and brush-cut hair. I was disappointed, and I didn't even know why.

Twee snapped a bite of her carrot stick and glowered at me. “I rest my case.”

An hour later I parked myself on the back fender of an old pickup across the street from Ginger's house.
Twee and I had split up so we could cover more territory in the neighborhood. I'd probably knocked on twenty doors, enough to send my mother to an early grave.

I hadn't run into any real psychos, but the man in the green house on the corner did ask me if I knew Jesus. Then he threw his head back, opened his mouth wide into a giant O, and belted out, “He's my Loorrrrdd, He's my Guiiide, He's my Ladderrr to the Skiies!”

I split before verse two, no disrespect intended to the Big Ladder.

The old lady in the tiny house with the sign “Beware of Killer Cats” insisted on giving me a dollar, even though I kept telling her I wasn't selling anything. I put the dollar back in her mailbox when she closed her door.

The only worthwhile piece of information I'd discovered was that those who actually knew Mr. McDougall hadn't seen him for months. “Curiouser and curiouser,” I mumbled. Of course, he was an old dog, so maybe he hadn't gone out much in the last year. Or maybe my hunch was right, and he hadn't been around in a long time.

Twee hurried down the sidewalk toward me, pulling a young kid by the arm of his shirt. He was
probably eight or nine and looked like he'd made the acquaintance of way too many pizzas. Twee stood next to him, beaming, like she was showing a prize heifer at the county fair.

“Go on. Tell her what you told me,” she said, bumping him with her elbow.

He looked at me over a juice Popsicle while sticky rivers of red ran down his pudgy arm. “Pay up,” he said to me. He pointed his chin toward Twee. “She said you would.”

“Do what?”

“Oh, yeah. You have to pay him, Macy. It was the only way he'd come down here. I already gave him a buck. Give him another, and he'll sing.”

“Sing?” My best friend had apparently turned into a gangster since I'd last seen her. “And why am I paying for information that you already have?” I asked her.

“Because I promised you would. And because some of it's about Switch. I thought you should hear it from the kid yourself.”

I dug deep into my jeans and pulled out a wad of rumpled cash. My piggy bank had suffered a serious hit this morning. I had taken out my trip money for Los Robles, plus some extra for investigation expenses. I pulled a George Washington away from
the pack and held it out to him. He reached for it, but I held it away.

“Nope. First you talk. Then if I think what I hear is worth it, I'll pay.”

The kid had his mouth planted on the end of the Popsicle, making gross sucking sounds. Like Jack used to do when he was nursing. I took the Popsicle out of his mouth and handed it over to Twee.

“Hey! Give it back!” he cried, all little boy now.

“I will just as soon as we finish our deal. It's not polite to eat, and really not polite to slurp while you're doing business. Now, do you want the money or not?”

He wiped his mouth on the soft inside of his arm. He sighed. “Okay, s'like I already told her,” he said, pointing his chin at Twee. “Mr. McDougall isn't lost. I keep trying to tell Ginger that, but she won't listen. Every time I try, she gives me a cookie and tells me to run on home.”

“What do you mean he's not missing? Are you saying she's making this up?” I asked. I shot a look over at Twee and then back to the kid.

“Oh, he's missing all right. He's just not lost.” He pulled his T-shirt down over his sizable boy boobs, which, for the record, were bigger than Twee's and mine combined. He leaned in toward me and
whispered, “He was
kidnapped
!” He paused while Twee and I shot wild looks at each other. “And right before my eyes,” he added.

“Kidnapped!” I repeated, incredulous.

“Yep, kid-napped.” He rolled back on his heels, letting it sink in but dying to tell more. “Round 'bout last February, on a weekday. I was home, sick from school, lying on my couch, just looking out the window. I live right there, the one with the Christmas lights.” He pointed. “I see this guy pull up in Ginger's driveway in some kind of delivery van. He comes out a few minutes later carrying something all covered up in a blanket. I thought maybe it was laundry, but then I saw a long tail hanging out.”

Twee and I stared at each other, our eyes big.

He continued. “It was Mr. McDougall's tail! And the kidnapper was talking to him. I could see his mouth moving, like maybe he was telling him to shut up or something.” He paused, his forehead clouded with the remembering.

“
Then
what?” I said, my impatience like a bulldozer pushing him on.

The kid shrugged. “Then the kidnapper guy laid him in the front seat of the truck and drove off.”

Twee shook her head. “Did you call 911?”

“No way,” he said. “I'm not allowed. Not unless I'm
on fire. That's what my dad says. I did tell my mom, though. She told me to stop spying on the neighbors.”

“This is unbe
liev
able,” I said. I stared over at Ginger's, trying to visualize it all. “Tell me more about the van. Did it have any writing on it?”

“Yeah, but I couldn't really read it. The writing was sort of loopy and fancy. I couldn't read the first word, so I gave up.”

“Was there anything else on the van that you remember?” I pushed, but gentler now, not wanting to scare away any valuable clue.

He screwed his face up, thinking. “Nooo, nothing else. Except . . . ,” he said, his face lighting up, “the wheels had custom mags, definitely not factory issue. Dual tones. Trailblazer tires. Urban squealers, they call 'em; steel belted, sixty-five-thousand-mile warranty, run you about hundred twenty-five bucks apiece.”

“Thank you, Mr. Goodyear,” Twee said. “How do you know all that?”

He shrugged. “I like cars.”

“But can you remember anything useful,” I pressed, “like what color the van was?”

“Hmmm . . . Well, some dark color, for sure. Maybe blue or green or brown. Oh! Oh!”

“What?” Twee and I screamed in harmony.

“Little lima beans!” he said, triumphant.

We looked at each other, puzzled, and then back at him. “Lima beans?” I asked.

“Yep, bunches of them—next to the writing.”

Just then, a woman with lungs the size of Texas stuck her head outside the kid's front door and bellowed, “BUSSS
TTTER
! Get home right now!”

“Gotta go. S'my mom,” he added, putting his palm up for the money.

Twee handed him his drippy Popsicle, but I held on to George. “One more thing. Did you tell all this to a kid on a skateboard a couple of days ago?”

He nodded. “Uh-huh. He gave me nearly a pocket full of quarters, and a candy bar. Said if I remembered anything else, or if anybody came sniffing around on the case, he wanted to know what and who. Said to leave him a note.”

“Leave him a note where?” I asked.

“On the left wing of the plane at Jet Park. Under one of the flaps. He called it his ‘mailbox.' Said his initials were on it. Cool, huh? I'm gonna get me a secret mailbox, too, and then—”

Twee interrupted. “Did you tell him everything you told us?”

“Not the part about the brown lima beans. 'Cos I just now remembered that.” He looked anxiously toward his house. “Look, I gotta go. Just give me my
money like you said, okay?”

I handed him one buck and then pulled out another to go with it. He licked his lips.

“Okay, Buster. But keep the lima beans just between us. You got that?” I said.

He raised two juice-stained fingers in a poor imitation of a Boy Scout pledge. “Okey-dokey, Smokey.”

He turned to run, and I reached for the neck of his shirt gently, reeling him back in. “You remember anything else, Buster, you leave me a note. Not the kid on the skateboard, me. You got that? I want you to try real, real hard to remember what the writing said on the van. I'll give you ten dollars for that.”

“Ten bucks!” Twee elbowed her way in between Buster and me. “No way!” She looked at me, stunned, like I'd just promised the kid he could be our date for our junior prom.

I shushed her with a look that silenced her.

“You can leave me a note over at Caffeine Nana's, Buster. You know where that is over on Alameda?”

He nodded, solemn, ever the good double agent.

“Give it to Chuck, the owner. Tell him the note is for Macy and that I promised you a free double-chocolate mocha. He's good for it.”

Buster ran his tongue over his lower lip. “With alotta whipped cream?”

“The works. Now, get out of here before your mom dies of old age waiting for you.”

Buster hurried toward his house, hooting as he mounted the porch stairs, his life suddenly more exciting than he could bear.

I blew out a big gust and wiped the sweat off my forehead. This latest development changed everything! Twee and I traded a long, serious look, a silent conversation about our next move. Twin-speak had nothing on the two of us.

She bobbed her head in agreement. “Cops.”

“Yep, let's try Divine—” I said.

“Doughnuts,” she finished. “On our way to—”

I nodded. “The library.”