Grover G. Graham and Me

JOURNEY TO NOWHERE
,
Mary Jane Auch
FROZEN SUMMER
,
Mary Jane Auch
I WAS A THIRD GRADE SCIENCE PROJECT
,
Mary Jane Auch
PRECIOUS GOLD, PRECIOUS JADE
,
Sharon E. Heisel
CHEROKEE SISTER
,
Debbie Dadey
I REMEMBER THE ALAMO
,
D. Anne Love
IN THE SHADE OF THE NÍSPERO TREE
,
Carmen T. Bernier-Grand
BE FIRST IN THE UNIVERSE
,
Stephanie Spinner and Terry Bisson
WHEN ZACHARY BEAVER CAME TO TOWN
,
Kimberly Willis Holt
IN THE QUIET
,
Adrienne Ross

DELL YEARLING BOOKS
are designed especially to entertain and enlighten young people. Patricia Reilly Giff, consultant to this series, received her bachelor’s degree from Marymount College and a master’s degree in history from St. John’s University. She holds a Professional Diploma in Reading and a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Hofstra University. She was a teacher and reading consultant for many years, and is the author of numerous books for young readers.

To Brad, Roland, Travis, Jack, and Spence

With gratitude to the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, under the National Endowment for the Arts, for a grant in support of my creative writing during the time this book was written. A big thank-you to Sergeant Mel Quattlebaum of the Prince William County Police Department in Virginia for helpful insights into police procedures, and to Glenn Griffin, M.S.W., and Kevin Dailey, M.S.W., both with Arlington County’s Family and Child Division, for their insights into the foster care system. And many, many thanks to Jennifer Wingertzahn, my editor, for her kind, careful attention to the manuscript in its various stages, and to Christopher, my husband, and Christy, my daughter, for love and good cheer throughout.

I also want to mention Brianna Blackmond, who died at the age of twenty-three months in Washington, D.C. She had been taken from a foster home and returned to the custody of her mother, and died of “blunt force trauma to the head” on January 6, 2000. Her case is under investigation. I thought of Brianna often as I worked on this novel in the months after her death.

The events of this novel take place a few months before the implementation of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997.

T
his is the stupidest assignment in the history of school.

I stare down at the piece of paper on my desk. A picture of a tree. And on the tree, branches. And on the branches, twigs; and on the twigs, more twigs, tinier and tinier.

“This is your family tree,” the substitute teacher said. She smiled as she passed out the papers. She acted like this assignment was special.

Special. Right. I’d rather get an F than do this.

The other kids in the class are grinning and clicking their Bics. I know they’re thinking, Piece of cake. They’re thinking, Patty-cake easy. Fill-in-the-blank kindergarten stuff. The other kids get right to work matching up names with twigs. Fixing each mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, cousin, grandparent, great-grandparent, and great-great-grandparent to just the right spot.

I write three names on my tree.

Ben Watson.

Sarah Jewel Watson.

Nadine Watson.

Me. My mother. My great-grandmother, Gram.

This is pitiful. There should be more names but I don’t know them. I don’t know the name of my father. I don’t know the name of my grandmother, who is the twig between my mother and Gram. And there’s no one to ask. Nadine Watson is dead. Sarah Jewel Watson is gone who knows where.

I’m a foster kid. Ben Watson, child of the system. I could write “Division of Family and Child Services” on one of my twigs. I guess I belong to them. But the system is not exactly what you would call “family.” It’s an office in Greenfield County, Virginia. It pays real families to take in kids who don’t have one.

I think of all the foster families I’ve been with. I don’t belong on their trees; I don’t want them on mine.

I stare out the window at some real trees: sweetgums drooping at the edge of the school. It’s October and their seed balls, all thorny, have changed from green to brown. I watch one plop to the ground. Folks in books are always praising the mighty oak and pretty maple, but no one says a good word about sweetgums. That’s because they are pests, pure and simple. The only thing sweet is the name. This time of year, their prickly gumballs litter the earth. Kids kick them, cars squash them, grownups rake and burn them. And still they manage to take root and grow. I guess they don’t know they’re not wanted.

I hear other pens scratching. I make mine scratch, too. I’m coloring in my tree, a deep inky blue. The substitute teacher is giving us one whole week to complete this
assignment—the stupidest in the history of school—so I may as well make it last.

I run my thumb over the names on my tree. Three names, that’s enough family for me. But this past summer, for a while, I felt I had more. A brother. A crying, creeping, get-into-everything brother. A grimy, grinning gum-ball of a kid.

Grover G. Graham.

I write his name beside mine on my tree. Then I cross it out. That kid and I don’t belong together. We don’t share one single twig. I make a big ink block over his name. A blank.

But still I know the name is there, underneath. Just like I know the real Grover was with me.

I continue inking the trunk of my tree. The summer comes back to me: June, July, August. Especially August. And what I did. Did I help Grover or make his life harder? My social worker, the police—everyone has an opinion.

Me, I’m not sure anymore.

I want to think through what happened. That hot June day, the day I met Grover, seems the best place to start. I remember I was headed to my eighth foster home.

B
ounce-bounce-bounce. With each bump of the car, the beads in Ms. Burkell’s cornrows bounced. Red-green-blue. Bounce-bounce-bounce. Cheery as bells on a Christmas reindeer.

Except this was June. And Ms. Burkell, my social worker, was frowning.

“Ben,” she said, “I’m sorry things didn’t work out with the Hartmans.”

I shrugged. Moving happens in the system. I know kids who’ve been with fifteen, sixteen families, with group homes in between. Here I was headed for Number Eight.

“I think you’ll like the Torgles,” she went on.

Torgle. Sounded like a troll, squatty and dumb.

“They have three kids with them now. You’ll have lots of company.”

I didn’t want company.

“This is just for a few weeks, you know. We’ll work on finding you something more permanent.”

Permanent. Right. The only thing permanent about the system is that nothing is permanent.

“Let’s see, what else can I tell you?” Ms. Burkell tugged at a bead. “The Torgles are in their late fifties and used to young kids. But I told them you were not mouthy, not difficult. I said, ‘Not Ben. No. You’ll hardly know he’s around.’ I said …”

Ms. Burkell’s words went on and on and
on.
So the Torgle trolls didn’t want me, huh? I was used to that. Leave me alone, that’s all I ask.

“Just for the summer. At most,” Ms. Burkell finished up. Bounce-bounce-bounce. She sighed. “Ben, sometimes I wonder what you’re thinking.”

“Nothing,” I said, staring out the window at the brown grass by the highway. Greenfield—right. Whoever named this county must have been as stupid and cheery as Ms. Burkell’s beads. Dirtville—that’s more like it. The most boring county in the state of Virginia. A place people left as soon as they could. Hadn’t the Hartmans given Greenfield the boot as soon as they found decent jobs? They’d given me their new address in North Carolina so I could keep in touch.

Keep in touch. Right. No one bothered to keep in touch with me, so why should I be the first?

“I think we’re almost there.” Ms. Burkell squinted at a faded sign.

Jeesh, this was the sticks. Grass, trees, grass, trees, and once in a while—whoa, big excitement—a dingy farmhouse. At least the Hartmans had lived in town, close to the library, to Safeway, to Greenfield’s lame idea of civilization. Too bad school was out for the summer. Sixth grade had been boring, but it was Disneyland compared to this.

I eyeballed the long stretch of heat-shimmered highway. Let my mind go blank. Before moving to a new family, I always tried to clear my mind of what happened before, sharpen up for what was to come. That’s a trick I learned young. Let your mind go empty—blank as white paper— and see what happens to fill it. If a face came up, I pushed it out quick. No sense dwelling on families I’d lived with. But sometimes it took longer to push some folks out. I’d have to work on my blanking technique.

Updike. Blank. Crawdich. Blank. O’Donald. Blank. Englesham. DeBernard. Shaw. Hartman. Blank. Blank. Blank. Blank. Seven foster families. Seven blanks. And my parents, probably the biggest blanks of all. I mean, my father was a blank to the entire county. To hear Gram tell it, my mother, Sarah Jewel Watson, boarded a Greyhound bus two days after graduating high school. She returned seven months later. Returned with a baby big in her belly.

I was that baby. She left again not long after I was born.

When I lived with Gram, I never gave my mother much thought. I had never known her, so what could I miss? Gram said Sarah Jewel had inherited the footloose gene from the Watson side of the family. Some families pass on blue eyes or curly hair; the Watsons passed on feet always wanting to leave.

No one could call Gram footloose. After all, she was a Watson only by marriage. Gram had stayed stuck in Greenfield like a stubborn old pine, with roots deep in the soil.

Only her mind had roamed. It never traveled to real places, though, like Wyoming or New York City. It headed for the past. With no suitcase and no ticket to mess with, Gram’s mind could be gone in a flash. I’d be sitting with
her at the kitchen table, she’d stare at the checked curtains and—
poof!
—she’d be off visiting folks she knew a long time ago. And dropping names I’d never heard of. Gram could go on and on and
on.
I’d just fool with the salt and pepper shakers and wait for her mind to come back.

And when it did, Gram would give a slow, surprised blink, then smile and murmur, “Ben.” I’d carefully line up the shakers—they were shaped like horses—and smile back. It was a relief to hear my name. I worried sometimes she might forget who I was. Or get stuck forever in the past.

After her mind trips, Gram would always fix us a snack. She’d rub some Ben-gay into her knobby hands—to get them working right—and slowly, slowly untwist the lid on the Jif jar. “Time for a little pick-me-up,” she’d say, smoothing peanut butter on a cracker for me. Sometimes her arthritis was so bad the cracker trembled and broke. She’d just stick it back together with Jif.

Jif, extra crunchy, was our favorite food—even if it gummed up Gram’s false teeth. “I’ll just clean them extra good,” she’d mumble, then gently tap my head. “Ben, do you know why my teeth are like the stars?”

I knew the answer—Gram asked the question at least once a day—but I’d always respond, “Why?”

She’d grin her perfect-teeth grin. “Because they come out at night.”

It wasn’t a very good joke—Gram wasn’t much good at jokes—but I liked the mind-picture it made. I liked imagining the stars above shining bright at the very moment Gram tucked her dentures into their cup. I liked knowing those stars were up in the sky, like Gram was right there, in the next room, snoring her old-lady snore.

I lived with Gram until she died. Six years ago. I was five then. Although I have never tried to blank her out, somehow she is disappearing. I can’t remember the exact color of her eyes. Her hair is a blur. I’ve tried sneaking up on a mirror, hoping to catch a glimpse of Gram in my face. No luck. I see only me. Brown eyes, brown hair, a blend-in kind of face. I’m like a camouflage fish I once saw on TV. It could go freckled like sand while on the ocean floor or go brown while floating near rock. You couldn’t tell it was there.

Not that I’m complaining. Blend in—that’s my advice to any kid in the system. Don’t be too loudmouth tough or too sweet-soft. Don’t be too smart or too stupid. Don’t do drugs; you’ll get so needy-greedy you’re sure to be squashed. Keep cash in a safe place. Keep secrets to yourself. Keep holding on to that mind-picture of you at eighteen, leaving the system, walking away from it all.

Yeah, walking away from it all. Walking away from this place. Running … racing …
rocketing.
Leaving everything and everyone behind. I guess I inherited that Watson footloose gene after all.

“Ben, do you want to listen to the radio?” Ms. Burkell reached for the knob but I shook my head no.

I kept my face to the car window so she couldn’t guess my thoughts. We passed a few sweetgum trees, limp in the heat. Of the families I’d lived with, two had moved on. Number Five and Number Seven. The DeBernards and Myron, their dog, were sunbathing in Florida. The Hart-mans were setting off tomorrow for North Carolina.

Blank. Blank. Actually, the Hartmans, my Number Seven, weren’t so bad. They were young. They liked me to call them Kitty and Ken. At their house I’d had my own room, plus an old TV and computer.

But I never saw such a couple for kissing. Smooch-smooch in the kitchen. Smooch-smooch in the living room. I never knew where I’d find them. I guess they were practicing parent stuff on me until they made a kid of their own.

All that kissing was embarrassing, so I spent a lot of time in my room. I kept a jar of Jif there and a box of saltines, for any times I got hungry. When the two Ks didn’t get home till late, I’d make me a peanut butter supper, read a book, watch some TV. Maybe I’d mosey into town.

My feet always made tracks for the library and Safeway. Their air-conditioning was the best in Greenfield. And I liked their long rows of careful shelves where each thing—each book or carton or can—had its own place. Not to mention the discount tables! You could buy stuff cheap off those tables. Smashed cupcakes and spotted bananas at Safeway. Old magazines and books at the library.

The library discount table always held a big stack of
National Geographics.
I loved turning the pages, studying the photos of oceans and deserts. I loved the names of far-off places: the Amazon, Mozambique, Zaire. I’d imagine setting off with my suitcase, going wherever I wanted. Wyoming, maybe. That state had miles of mountains and fields. Or New York City, with thousands of buildings jutting clear to the sky. What did Greenfield County have? Faded houses. Scrubby grass. Sweetgum trees.

No wonder the Hartmans decided to leave. And of course, they didn’t want to take a foster kid with them.

“Keep in touch.” Kitty had pressed the scrap of yellow paper—their new address—on me before Ms. Burkell drove up. Ken tried to shake my hand.

The road to the Torgles’ wasn’t long enough for a good blanking out. I barely had time to say “Good-bye, Number Seven. Hello, Number Eight” before the car had jerked off the highway, wound round some snake-skinny road, then hit a dirt driveway so rutty it set Ms. Burkell’s beads to jumping like frogs.

“Here we are.” Ms. Burkell nodded at a house as dingy as all the others we’d passed. The front porch sagged. I saw a busted lawn chair, a rickety stroller, a bike with only one wheel. And a sweetgum, of course.

Number Eight. Home sweet home.