Slick (2 page)

“I know, I know.”

“But I count the thirty points twice because, going down, the
z
turns your
it
into
zit
. Let's see now, thirty plus thirty…”

“Okay,
okay
.” Mom laughs.

“Aren't you impressed by my intelligence?”

“No,” Mom says. “I'm not. Because the very first time I looked at wrinkled, red-faced, screaming you, I thought, ‘Goodness,
this
is a smart one.'”

“Yeah, right,” I mumble.

“Yeah.
Right
.” Mom watches me. Finally I nod, and she's satisfied that I believe her.

“Hello?” a voice calls from downstairs. It's Rachael, the boys' viola-playing, hot-chocolate-making babysitter. Usually I babysit the boys, but Mom's been going out so much lately, I'm fed up with looking after them.

“We'll be right down!” Mom sings. “If I can still walk. Liza has crushed me at Scrabble again.

“You know,” she tells me, “it fills me with joy when my children do something better than I can.” Then she looks at the clock by the bed, cries, “Oh, goodness!” and yanks her closet door open. “Clean up the game, will you? I've got to dress.”

Minutes later, Slick is at the door. Silas and Leland pelt him with marshmallows, which is great. I urge them on, “Harder! Harder!” Slick just laughs, scoops up the marshmallows and throws them back. What a nerd.

“Hi, Liza,” he says, his smile smeared on like veneer.

“Yeah,” I say, checking out his ugly shoes. Judging by the sour, deadly smell, he has recently polished them.

“I brought you something,” he says. He reaches into a plastic bag and pulls out five spools of embroidery thread and an instruction book for making friendship bracelets. “I know you like crafts.”

“Hm,” I grunt. I won't be making
him
a friendship bracelet.

“And I found this cheese grater for your mom. It's from the late 1800s, Southern US.” Slick pulls the metal contraption from his bag. “You put a cube of cheese in here, turn this crank and,
wham-o
, the stuff falls like snow.”

Wham-o?

Slick reaches into his bag again. “Boys!” he says. “Here are a couple of twirlers. An old guy in my neighborhood carves them from maple.”

Silas and Leland are easily bought. Thrilled, they spin the wooden propellers into the air and try to catch them. I can't wait to get my hands on one—once Slick and my mom have left.

“Say
thank you
, Liza,” Mom says, coming down the stairs. She's in a blue dress I've never seen before. It's shorter than her other dresses. Her hair is in a bun so elegant it whispers
chignon
, and she's wearing lipstick. Mom
never
wears lipstick.

“I
did
say thank you,” I blurt, hurrying into my room. Why does she make herself look so nice for him? She doesn't even look like a mom. I take my copy of
Pippi Longstocking
down from my bookshelf and start to read. Not much later, Mom calls from the front door, “Bye, Liza! I love you!”

Through my bedroom window, I watch her and Slick walk toward town. I can tell from the back that my mom's laughing, and—ugh—they're holding hands.

Chapter Four

It's the first day of October. The principal announces she's turned on the furnace for the first time this year. But the school still feels chilly because I have a cold. It's a relief when the custodian wheels in the video player. Our social-studies teacher, Ms. Catalla, turns off the lights, and I get to slump on my desk and just watch.

We're learning about Central America, the squiggle of land between North and South America. The film is about kids in Guatemala who live in houses of sticks lashed together with vines. The roofs are made with tree branches or sheets of rippled metal. The people in the film are called Maya. They lived in Guatemala long before the Europeans, like the Coast Salish people around here or the Navajo in the US.

“Mayans have a long history, strong customs and a deep relationship with the land,” sing-songs the narrator. “In ancient times they built pyramids and discovered the concept of zero at the same time it was discovered in India. They invented a calendar more accurate than ours and created the only full written language in this part of the world.

“But ever since the Spanish
conquistadores
arrived—nearly five hundred years ago—the Mayans have been treated brutally. Still, they've held on to their language, their food, religion and colorful weaving. Nearly half of Guatemalans are pure Mayan; another twenty percent share Spanish-Mayan heritage.”

The film shows that they mostly grow corn, beans and coffee. The kids eat black beans and corn tortillas that their moms shape with their hands and cook over an open fire. Chicken is a treat for them. One kid tells the camera about a storm that ripped the metal roof off his house and landed on a chicken in the yard, killing it. “I heard the crash in the night.” She laughs. “The sound of chicken soup!”

Even though they're poor and wear torn clothes and no shoes, the kids still laugh. Poverty isn't as simple as I thought. Some things about their lives are pretty cool, in fact. In the film, everyone in the town bathes in the same river, upstream from where the women wash clothes, which is upstream from where the farm animals drink. And everyone makes what they need. They build beds using branches they cut from the jungle. Kids as young as Leland use machetes to get firewood.

Near the end of the film, the kids are playing soccer with a paper bag they'd stuffed with leaves. I watch closely, so I can make one myself. Everyone's happy: the kids shout, birds caw in the nearby jungle. I am just thinking that their life is pretty great when, all of a sudden, a kid grabs the ball and everyone scurries to the side of the road.

A massive eighteen-wheeler barrels along the narrow dirt road, raising huge clouds of dust and spewing iodine-colored blooms of exhaust. The noise drowns out every other sound. The kids shut their eyes tight. They lift their T-shirts to their mouths to keep out the dust. Some clap their hands over their ears.

Once the truck passes, the kids slowly lower their hands from their faces. But then another truck bullies through. The side of the truck reads
Argenta Oil
. It's a name I know, but how?

Then it comes to me.
That's the
company that Slick works for!

“Elbows off the table, Liza. Silas, please chew with your mouth shut.” Mom rolls her eyes at Slick, who winks at her. Mom doesn't usually care about our manners. Our house is totally clean too, cleaner than I've ever seen it. She's changing herself for him, changing
us
.

“So, Liza, how was school today?” Slick asks.

“How was
work
today?” I ask back.

“Boring,” Slick says. “A meeting, then a meeting about that meeting, then a meeting about those two meetings.” Silas and Leland giggle. Mom laughs too.

“I'm having dessert in my room,” I announce, sliding off my chair. I can't take him anymore.

“Liza!” Mom calls, but I'm gone. She doesn't come after me.

For a while I throw a ball against my bedroom wall, over and over. It makes smudge marks on the wall. The marks remind me of that dirty landscape in the film, and I get angrier.

I get a paper bag and stuff it with newspaper. It's pretty difficult to make it round. I have to make cuts in a few places and bind it with masking tape. By the time I've made a soccer ball, I'm feeling better. I hear Mom say goodbye to Slick.

A few minutes later she comes into my room and sits on the end of my bed.

“Liza, it's natural for you to dislike Robert,” she says. “You're worried he'll hurt me or take me away.”

“I don't dislike him, Mom. I
hate
him. There's a difference.”

“Oh, come on, Liza! He's a very nice man. But, sweetie, you have to know that no one,
no one
, will ever separate me from you or water down my love for you. That is impossible. My love for you only grows. Which is mathematically difficult, because it's already infinite. Can something infinite get bigger?”

Mom hugs me. I hug her back and cry. It's warm in her arms. Over her shoulder, I see the smudges on the wall. They are like a message of bad news.

I start to wonder, if she really loves me and knows how much I hate Slick, why does she keep dating him?

Chapter Five

Ms. Catalla lets me stay in at lunch to watch the documentary again while she marks homework at her desk.

“Why are you so interested in Guatemala?” she asks. Ms. Catalla reminds me of a sparrow. She's small and quick. She grew up in Colombia and speaks with a Spanish accent.

“I'm interested in how people who are poor can be happy,” I lie. I glance at the sculpture of three monkeys on Ms. Catalla's desk. One has its hands over its eyes, another its hands over its ears, and a third covers its mouth. “And…and…,” I stammer.

“Yes?”

“And those trucks that drive through when the kids are playing soccer. It's rude! I want to know about those trucks. How often do they rip through that town? Does the company make amends?”

“That's easy to research, Liza,” Ms. Catalla says. I can tell she's really listening. “What do you think those trucks are doing?”

“Well, it looks like they're polluting,” I say. “I bet the company pulled oil out of the ground near where those kids live. And they sell it for lots of money. The president of the company probably lives in a mansion. Those kids can't even afford a decent soccer ball.”

“Those are good points, Liza.”

“Argenta Oil's head office is downtown, you know,” I say.

“I didn't know that,” Ms. Catalla says. “How did you know?”

“I've seen it,” I say. I glance at the monkeys and feel guilty for lying. “Actually, I know someone who works there. Or rather, I
hate
someone who works there.”

“Is that why you're interested?

“I want to do something for those kids,” I answer.

“Out of the goodness of your heart?” she asks. “Not out of revenge against this person you don't like?”

“Yes,” I say. But Ms. Catalla has a point. Do I just want to dig up dirt on Slick? I think about it for a minute. No, it doesn't matter how I feel about Slick. Now that I know those kids are getting choked out of their games, I have to see if I can help.

Righting a wrong is the priority. Exposing Slick's evil company will just be a convenient bonus. I look over at Ms. Catalla's monkeys again. She follows my gaze.

“Mizaru,” she says, patting the monkey with its hands over its eyes. “He sees no evil.” Ms. Catalla strokes the one covering its ears. “Kikazaru. He hears no evil.” Ms. Catalla puts her hand over her mouth, muffling her voice. “And Iwazaru speaks no evil. In Japan, these monkeys are a reminder to be of good mind, good speech and good action. Here in North America, they've come to represent people who pretend nothing bad is going on.”

“Well, I don't want to be like that,” I say.

After school, Olive and I borrow my mother's laptop. Ms. Catalla said I could research Argenta Oil's work in Guatemala for my next social-studies project. Olive takes a research class at her school and has agreed to help me. We google
Argenta Oil Guatemala
to start. The first site we find is Argenta Oil's company site. It's about how wonderful the company is and how happy they are to have oil rights in Guatemala.

“What was the town in the documentary called?” Olive asks.

“Las Angelitas,” I say.

We google
Las Angelitas Argenta
Oil
. Nothing. “Don't worry,” Olive says. “Research is mostly dead ends. Research. Like rewind, redo. You search over and over. Let's check out the town on Google Earth.”

Pretty soon we are bearing down on the town, so close we can see the patchwork of steel roofs in the leafy jungle. I look for kids playing soccer. Okay, we're not
that
close.

The town is in the region of Riviera Selequa. We google
Argenta Oil Riviera
Selequa
, and bingo!

“Wow,” Olive mutters. “We've caught a big fish!”

We're on the website of Oilwatch, a citizens' group dedicated to “Uncovering the Eco-Crimes of the Oil Industry.” The website says that farmers who live along Selequa River are taking Argenta Oil to court.

“They drilled on our land and made a mess,” reports a farmer. She says the company's drilling killed animals, broke fences and polluted wells. “They must pay for repairs.”

The website says the farmers have waited two years. Argenta should have paid up a long time ago.

“So, he
is
wanted by the police, Olive!”

At that moment, Mom walks in. “There you are.”

She has had her hair cut. It looks nice. But there is something else… What?

“
Mom
, did you get your
eyebrows
done? You swore you'd never pluck! What happened to ‘My shaggy, bushy, wooly, fuzzy, furry, fluffy, rugged, scraggy, tufted, bristly brows'?” This is a ditty she sings. “Or, ‘So what if I'm wild? Better than mild!'”

“Liza, a person can change her mind, you know,” says Mom.

“Changing ideas is different from changing
ideals
, Mom,” I sputter.

Olive elbows me. I'm not sure if this means “Good one!” or “Be nice!”

“I'm going to a movie,” Mom says. “Rachael's downstairs.”

“Why don't you watch a movie here?” I ask. She and I often curled up together to watch a
DVD
.

“I'm going with Robert, sweetie. I'll be back to kiss you goodnight. Look, you guys can watch a bit of tv. Okay? Even though it's a school night. I'll tell Rachael—”

“Yeah, sure,” I pout. “Have a good time with your boy-felon—”