Gertie's Leap to Greatness (11 page)

Gertie sighed.

“I just … I just … couldn't.” Junior hung his head. “I don't deserve to wear a Riptide.”

They rode in silence, Junior scrubbing at his hair, which was starting to grow out, and Gertie's hands clenching when they passed the house on Jones Street.
For Sale,
said the sign,
by Sunshine Realty.

“I'm sorry.”

“It's okay,” Gertie said, even though nothing was okay.

The bus moaned to a stop in front of the school. Gertie had been staring out the window so long that she couldn't see anything beyond her own reflection.

“Oh no,” said Junior.

“What?” Gertie blinked and rubbed her eyes until she saw what Junior was looking at.

Outside the bus, most of the fifth grade was in front of the school, bundled in coats, chanting and marching in circles around a card table that was set up beside the main doors. The front of the table had a poster that said
Clean Earth Club
. Stacks of pamphlets covered the table, and the three girls behind it—Mary Sue, Ella, and Jean—handed them out to people.

The kids on the bus didn't scramble for their bags like they normally did. They looked at the scene outside the windows. Their mouths hung open. The first-grade boy in the seat in front of them turned around to look at Gertie.

“They're gonna get you so bad,” he said in a nasal voice. “What are you gonna do?”

Up front, the bus driver pulled his toothpick from between his lips and stuck it behind his ear. He shook his head and reached for the lever that unfolded the doors.

Most kids would have crawled under a graffitied, gum-studded seat. Most kids would've refused to come out so that the driver would've had to drag them off the bus. That's what they expected Gertie to do.

But Gertie was not most kids. She stood up and slung her bag over her shoulder.

“You aren't going out there, are you?” Junior's fingers touched the cat scratches on his face.

She pushed past him and walked down the bus aisle, ignoring all the children who were leaning to look out the window. She strode down the steps and into the horde of marching, chanting students.

The noise pounded against her eardrums.

“We need clean seas! We need clean seas!” they chanted.

Gertie's plan was to walk through the crowd and go into the building like she couldn't even hear them, like they weren't even there, but before she could take another step, a voice shouted.

“There she is!”

Ella pointed at Gertie. Then she snatched a pamphlet and waved it at Gertie so that she could see a drawing of an oil rig with a big red
X
scratched over it. For Gertie it was like that drawing wasn't just any rig. It was her father's. And Gertie couldn't ignore them anymore.

“You don't care about clean seas!” she yelled. “You're doing this to be mean! All of you!”

“Save the planet!” Mary Sue called to the crowd of students streaming off the buses. A few of the parents who were dropping their children off walked over to the table.

“Stop the drill-ing,” Roy chanted into a megaphone. He pointed the megaphone into Gertie's face. “Stop the drill-ing!”

Gertie pressed her hands to her ears. Her father was a good person. If he were here right now, they would all see that. They would all know. He was a good person. They couldn't yell at him if they knew him.

But … but Jean did know Gertie's father. She had come over to Gertie's house and listened to Frank Foy's stories and eaten the fried pickles he'd cooked and gone to the beach with him. She knew what an amazing person he was, but here she was taking money from a kid and stuffing it into a can.

“Thank you for supporting the Clean Earth Club,” Mary Sue said in a sugary-sweet voice.

“Stop the drill-ing! Stop the drill-ing!” The marchers turned around and started circling the table in the other direction.

“You're all…” Gertie grasped for a word bad enough to fit. “You're all FICKLE!”

Gertie had once thought that word sounded sweet, but when she spit it out at the members of the Clean Earth Club it didn't sound sweet at all. Leo's mouth fell open, and he stopped marching. June crashed into him, and Roy crashed into her, and the chanting cut off.

*   *   *

“We need to talk,” Ms. Simms said to the class. Her voice was quiet and careful.

The children looked at one another.

Ms. Simms folded her hands on her desk. “Do you think it's nice to say that we should stop drilling oil when you know that Gertie's father works on an oil rig?”

The class was silent.

“How do you think it makes Gertie feel?” Ms. Simms asked. When no one answered, she said, “June, how do you think this makes Gertie feel?”

Gertie swallowed. Her feelings belonged inside of her and not out in the open with everyone prodding at them. Ms. Simms must hate her. Gertie stared at a spot on her desk.

“Probably it makes her feel embarrassed,” said June, “that her dad's doing something so horrible.”

Ms. Simms looked at June until she squirmed. “How else do you think she feels? Ewan?”

“I think she should feel ashamed. Because she's jealous. And because she thinks she's better than us.”

Gertie bit her lip. She had always liked Ewan, even after the Band-Aid thing. At least he had never teased her like Roy did.

“And now we all know it,” finished Ewan.

In the first row, Mary Sue turned and smirked at Gertie over her shoulder.

“I think,” said Ms. Simms, “that if I were Gertie, your club would hurt my feelings.”

No one said anything.

“Gertie, is there anything you want to say to the class?”

Seventeen pairs of eyes stabbed Gertie like pins.

Gertie lifted her chin. “My feelings aren't hurt.”

Ms. Simms sighed. “I'm glad your feelings aren't hurt, Gertie. But all the same, I think the class should consider whether or not it's going about this club in the best way.”

“She called us a bad word,” said Ella.

“It started with an
f
,” said Ewan, tipping his head back so he could peer through his glasses.

Ms. Simms blinked. “Gertie shouldn't have called you a bad word. But—”

“It wasn't bad,” Gertie said, even though she'd meant for it to be the most horrible, hurtful word in the dictionary.

“Yes it was! It was, too, bad,” Leo interrupted. “I heard it.”

“Quiet!” said Ms. Simms, abandoning her careful voice and switching to her I-have-had-enough voice. “What we're talking about now is what direction you think your club should take. And whether or not it might be better if you didn't discuss your club during school.”

“Are you saying we aren't allowed to do our part to make the world a better place?” asked Mary Sue.

“No, I'm not saying that,” said Ms. Simms.

“Wouldn't the world be a better place if nobody worked on oil rigs?”

Everyone looked at Ms. Simms.

Her eyebrows drew down. “Yes,” she said. “I suppose, if that's how you want to look at it.” She sighed and opened her desk drawer. “But you'll have to have club meetings on your own time and at your own place.” She pulled out the school handbook. “You're not to engage in club activities on school property unless they're sponsored by the school.”

Ms. Simms saw their confusion. “No more chanting and marching.” The class mumbled. She dropped the handbook back in her drawer and slammed it shut. “Now take out your homework.”

“It's always one person who ruins it for everyone else,” whispered Ella.

As they unzipped their bags, the others grumbled and glared at Gertie like it was her fault they couldn't have their club anymore, when she hadn't done anything.

Her whole class hated her. Jean was sitting beside her, her arms crossed, acting like Gertie didn't even exist. And what if they were right? What if, thought Gertie, her father was destroying the whole planet and he'd lied to her about how wonderful his job was? What if she
was
stupid and wrong?

A knock on the door came just in time, making Gertie shake off her despair. She grabbed her locket. She was on a mission, she reminded herself. And she couldn't give up.

The door swung open before anyone could get up to answer it.

“Junior!” said Ms. Simms in surprise.

The bus driver held his toothpick in one hand and Junior's shoulder in the other. Junior's spikes stuck out in every direction, and his shirt was twisted. Gertie realized that she didn't remember Junior getting off the bus behind her. She also realized that he looked exactly like he'd been in the kind of struggle where someone drags you out from under a bus seat against your will.

The bus driver pushed Junior through the door. “One of yours, isn't it, ma'am?”

“Oh, Junior.” Ms. Simms closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “
Where
have you
been
?”

 

16

A Very Good Opportunity

On the first day of winter break, Gertie stood at the front window, propping her elbows against the sill and peering at the crumbly road with the faded yellow lines.

She sucked in a breath and then huffed it out onto the cold glass. She dragged her finger through the fog, making a heart. When that faded, she fogged up the glass again and wrote her name. Then the Zellers' phone number. She was writing the name
Rachel
, but before she finished, through the letters she saw the blue pickup truck slow down on the road. She lifted her fingertip off the window as the truck turned into the yard.

“He's here!” she yelled, and ran outside.

The moment her father stepped out, Gertie threw her arms around him, and he hugged her back so hard he lifted her off the ground.

“I've got something to show you!” she said when he put her back down.

He reached into the cab of the truck and pulled out his duffel bag. “You do?” He raised his eyebrows. “Is it a surprise?”

“Yes. And oh my Lord, you are going to
love
it!” she promised.

They went into the house, and Aunt Rae distracted everybody with what Gertie's father called “the usual.”

Give me that bag and let me get started on your filthy, nasty socks
and
How was your trip?
and
Did you hear that what's-his-name died last week?
and
Gertie, let the man breathe
and
The gutters need cleaning out again.

But finally Frank Foy collapsed in the recliner. He cranked his footrest up and wiggled his socked toes in the direction of the artificial Christmas tree. “All right, Gertie Reece,” he said, “where's my surprise?”

Gertie ran to her room and flung herself on her bed. She reached under her pillow and pulled out the newspaper. She ran back to the living room and flapped the paper at him until he took it. Leaning over his shoulder, Gertie pointed to a paragraph in the classifieds. She had circled it in blue ink.

“There,” she said. “Right there.”

“Truck drivers needed,” he read. He glanced over the top of the paper.

Gertie nodded and waved for him to go on.

He lowered his eyes to the paper again and read, “Must have a CDL license. Fifty hours a week. Call Josh for more information.” He looked up.

Gertie nodded.

He rubbed his chin. “Do we know Josh?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Let me guess. You want a truck driver's license?”

“No! Well, maybe one day. But not right now. No.
You
can be a truck driver!” She clasped her hands together against her chest. “It's a very good opportunity.”

He folded the paper and swatted her on the head with it. “Gertie, I don't want to be a truck driver.”

“Why not?” She'd searched through all the classifieds, and it was the best job. She thought it would be nice to drive a truck. You could listen to the radio all day and wear sunglasses and slurp those drinks that had the good crushed ice.

“I already have a job.”

She walked around him and sat on the edge of the coffee table. She leaned her arms on her legs and sighed. She'd hoped that he would go for the truck driver job without asking any questions. She looked at him. “But, Daddy, it's a bad job.” She reached out and patted his knee.

“Says who?” He tossed the paper on the sofa.

“Everybody!”

He leaned back in the recliner. “What does
everybody
say?”

“Drilling for oil is dirty and bad,” Gertie said quickly, like she was ripping off a Band-Aid.

“I see.” He frowned and was quiet for a long time.

“Well?” she asked. “Is it true?”

He gazed at the tinsel-strewn tree. “Yes,” he said.

Gertie squeezed her fingers together.