Straight Punch (11 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Taking the metro to school with Pretty Boy had become a habit. He'd get on a few stops ahead of me and we'd meet up in the third metro car. If it wasn't too crowded, he'd save me a spot.

The morning after the open house, he wasn't on the metro.

I tried texting him, but he didn't answer, which was unusual for Pretty Boy.

No big deal, I told myself, right?

When I got close to New Directions, I noticed that Whisky wasn't smoking on the front porch. Maybe he was taking the day off on account of his nose. One thing was for sure: he wouldn't be in the boxing ring for a while. Hopefully, he'd still be able to do the warm-ups with Di.

It felt weird not seeing Pretty Boy or Whisky. Somewhere along the line, I'd gotten into a routine, gotten used to New Directions and the kids who went there. Maybe having to fight for the school's survival had made me feel more connected. I hoped that what had happened the night before hadn't made things too much worse.

Mom and I had discussed the situation on our drive home after the open house. She said she was impressed by the way Big Ron handled things. She liked his closing speech and what he'd said about none of us being perfect.

Then Mom did something she hardly ever does. She took her hand off the gearshift (she always keeps her hand on the gearshift), took my hand and squeezed it. Hard. The way she did when I was little. I didn't expect such a small gesture to feel so good.

“Why do you suppose he's so overweight?” Mom asked.

“Who?”

“Who else?”

“Oh, you mean Big Ron.” I don't know when I stopped thinking of him as fat. He was just Big Ron. “How should I know?” I didn't mean to be rude—it just came out that way. Besides, what gave Mom the right to speculate about Big Ron's weight?

“I bet it's emotional eating,” she said to the steering wheel.

“Since when are you a psychologist?”

Neither of us said anything more. But the spell that had started when Mom squeezed my hand was broken.

Florence came rushing out of her house when I walked by on my way to school. She must've been lurking behind the lace curtains, waiting to pounce. Her hands were planted on her hips.

“Hey you! Tessa!” she shouted as I passed her tiny front yard. “I've already been in to talk to your teacher and that boxing coach of yours. I guess they'll be filling you in soon. My house got robbed last night while I was at the open house! What do you think about that, hey?”

I couldn't blame her for being upset—getting robbed must be horrible—but it sounded like she was upset with
me
, as if she thought I'd had something to do with it.

“That's awful,” I told her. “I'm really sorry. But that doesn't mean you have a right to be mad at me.” I wasn't used to talking back to adults. (My mother didn't really count. Everyone talks back to their mother.) But I was glad I'd said it.

“So you don't think someone at that school of yours”—the way she said the word
school
suggested she didn't think there was much schooling going on at New Directions—“robbed me last night?”

“No, I don't think so.”

It would have been more accurate to say,
I sure hope not
. Because if last night's fight was bad publicity for New Directions, a robbery at the house next door was probably worse.

“Well, I think you're wrong,” Florence said. “And I'm going to prove it. If I do, you know what'll happen, don't you?”

I knew Florence wanted me to say that if she was right, the school board would be more likely to shut down New Directions. I turned my back and kept walking.

I didn't see the point of equations. Who would I ever discuss Pythagoras's theorem with? I was thinking all that when the police cruiser stopped in front of the house next door.

Randy rushed to the window, where he began giving us a full report—Randy-style. “Two…uh…cops just rang the doorbell. She's letting them in. The lady cop's got a notebook.”

“Randall,” Miss Lebrun said, “back to your seat, please. Now.” Miss Lebrun's voice was calm, but I noticed she was tapping the desk. I'd never seen her do that before.

“Oh, c'mon, Miss Lebrun,” Di said. “We're all dying to know what's going on over there. Admit it—even you are.”

“I'll admit,” Miss Lebrun said, and I could tell she was choosing her words carefully, “that I am curious. But if you're planning to pass the provincial math exam, you need to work on equations, not satisfy your curiosity. We all know the house next door was robbed last night. I just don't think it's the best idea for the police to spot any of you peering out the window right now.”

Randy backed off when she said that.

If a right-angle triangle has a hypotenuse that measures 5 cm in length, and one of the sides has a length of 4 cm, then the length of the third side is
—there was a loud, insistent rapping on the front door of the school. It had to be the police. Who else would knock like that?

Miss Lebrun was tapping again. “I'll handle this,” she said.

“What about Big Ron?” I called out. “Should I go downstairs and get him?”

Miss Lebrun gave me a sharp look, but then she smiled. “You wouldn't be suggesting, would you, Tessa, that I can't handle this on my own.”

When Miss Lebrun went to the door, the rest of us got up from our desks so that we could hear better. I wanted to get closer to the hallway, but Di was in the way. Was it my imagination or was her stomach getting the tiniest bit round?

“Good morning, officers,” we heard Miss Lebrun say. “How can I help you this morning?”

I remembered the first day of school, when I'd thought she was the receptionist. I wondered if the cops thought so too.

“There was a robbery last night at the house next door.” The male cop was speaking. “We wanted to have a word with one of your students—Percy Dewitt. Is he available to talk to us?”

“He's absent,” Miss Lebrun said. “But if you give me your card, I'll ask him to contact you as soon as possible. For the record, Percy is a lovely young man. Very talented, too.” Miss Lebrun said this loudly, and I wondered if she knew we were listening and wanted us to hear. “As a matter of fact, all of my students here are lovely—and talented.”

“We've heard about some of Percy's talents,” the female cop said. From her tone, I didn't think she was talking about Pretty Boy's butterfly people.

Pretty Boy turned up at lunchtime. I'd never seen him stoned before. His eyes were bloodshot and glazed, and he was talking more slowly than Randy. Plus, he kept laughing at things that weren't funny.

Like when we told him Florence's house had been robbed. “You gotta be kidding,” he said, cracking up. “Serves the nasty bitch right.” Then he cracked up again.

Miss Lebrun called Pretty Boy to the classroom for a private talk. From the kitchen, we heard him shouting,
“Why the fuck do they want to talk to me? Sure I've been in juvie, but I'm not doing that kind of stuff anymore, I swear!”

We couldn't make out what Miss Lebrun said after that, but whatever it was, it seemed to calm Pretty Boy down.

Being stoned didn't help Pretty Boy's boxing. His reflexes were slow, and the way he kept laughing got on all of our nerves. In the end, Big Ron told him to sit on the bench.

I was practicing my combinations on the leather bag. But every time I punched, I thought of what I'd heard Pretty Boy tell Miss Lebrun.
I'm not doing that kind of stuff anymore.
With Miss Lebrun, he'd been talking about B & E's. But hadn't he said something similar to me about using drugs?

Chapter Eighteen

Di had given up smoking, but when Jasmine lit up at recess, Di sniffed at the air like she wanted to eat it.

Jasmine took the cigarette out of her mouth and offered it to Di.

Di pushed Jasmine's hand away. “No way,” she said.

Just then Florence came outside. This time, she was carrying a red plastic dustpan. When she noticed the three of us, she scowled. Then she muttered loudly enough that we could hear, “Punks!”

Jasmine sprang up from the chair she was sitting on. “Who do you think you are calling us punks like that?” she shouted.

I tugged on Jasmine's arm. “She's not worth getting upset about,” I whispered.

“Why don't you try taking a few deep breaths?” Di said to Jasmine.

Jasmine rolled her eyes. “What do you think this is? Goddamn Lamaze class?”

“I'm serious,” Di said. “Haven't you heard Big Ron say it's important to breathe from your belly? He says most people are shallow breathers. Besides, Tessa's right. That woman isn't worth getting upset about.”

“Well, if anyone knows bellies,” Jasmine said, “it's Big Ron.” She laughed at her own joke.

“Speaking of bellies…I've been meaning to tell you guys. I've decided to keep the baby,” Di said softly.

“You sure that's a good idea?” Jasmine asked.

“I'm sure.” Di stroked her belly. “Mostly.”

Jasmine ran her hand over the buzzed side of her head. “I guess maybe we could do a breathing exercise. If we're keeping the baby…”

“We?” Di was smiling.

“We,” Jasmine said, nodding. “You know what they say—it takes a village to raise a child. We're your village, Di.”

So the three of us ended up doing this breathing exercise Big Ron had taught them the year before. Di called out instructions. “You gotta inhale really deeply…so you feel it here.” She stroked her belly again. Sometimes I got the feeling she was just looking for excuses to stroke her belly. “Then you exhale just as slowly. Try not to think about anything but your breathing.”

I was surprised by how quickly Jasmine got into the breathing exercise—especially considering the cracks she'd been making. She even closed her eyes. The deep breaths softened her face. Maybe she spent so much of her life fighting—and not just in the gym—it was hard for her to turn it off.

Di's eyes were closed now too.

I tried closing mine and focusing on my breath the way Di had explained. But I couldn't. Not with Florence shuffling around in the yard next door and the tinkling sounds of glass.

I opened one eye. Florence was on her patio, sweeping up the mess. The shards of glass in her dustpan glittered in the sunlight.

Di must've sensed the exercise wasn't working for me. “C'mon, Tessa,” she whispered, “at least try.”

So I tried harder. This time, I felt my body start to relax. Deep breath in, deep breath out. I observed my stomach rising and falling, and for a little while, it worked. All I thought about was my breathing.

From far away, I heard the sound of Florence trudging back up her stairs and opening the back door to her house. Then more tinkling as she emptied the dustpan into the garbage.

Deep slow breath in. Deep slow breath out.

There was something weirdly magical about the three of us—four, if you included Di's baby—breathing together like that.

I was the one who broke the spell.

“I just thought of something,” I said. “If someone broke
in
to the house next door, why was there glass
outside
?”

Jasmine rubbed her eyes as if I'd just awakened her from a deep sleep.

Di said, “Oh my god! Tessa's right!”

If I was right, whoever had smashed Florence's window had been
inside
her house. Jasmine pointed out that it could still have been Pretty Boy. “That boy could break into a bank vault,” she said. “And he did take off during open house. I saw him go.”

“And we all know he hates Florence,” Di added.

“That doesn't prove anything,” I said. “We all hate her.”

Jasmine and Di couldn't argue with that.

“Maybe she did it herself—staged a robbery so she could pin it on one of us.” I was talking quickly. “It'd help build her case that having a school like New Directions is bad for the neighborhood.”

“You know what I think, Tessa?” Jasmine said. “I think you've been watching too many cop shows.”

“I don't know,” Di said. “I think maybe she's on to something.”

“Okay, here's what I don't get,” Jasmine said. “Why didn't the cops figure it out?”

“You saw how long they were in there with her this morning—maybe ten minutes,” I said to Jasmine. “They weren't exactly scouring the lawn for clues.”

Even Jasmine was coming around to my idea. “Maybe it's true,” she said. “Maybe. So what are you gonna do about it?”

“Talk to Florence,” I said.

“She's a psycho,” Di said.

“I talked to her at the open house. She may not be the friendliest,” I said, “but she's not that bad.”

“If you've been in and out of as many foster homes as I have, let's just say you know a psycho when you meet one.”

All Jasmine said was, “You're nuts, Tessa.”

Miss Lebrun had made Pretty Boy phone the cops. They were going to come by New Directions later to talk to him. Miss Lebrun and Big Ron both wanted to be there. Pretty Boy had been moping around since the phone call.

When I went in to try to talk to him, he was carving his initials into his desk with a razor blade.

“You sure that's a good idea?” I asked him.

Pretty Boy kept carving. Then, without looking up, he said, “So you think I robbed that bitch next door?”

“No,” I said. I hoped I sounded like I meant it.

“Once you've been in juvie, you get blamed for everything.” Pretty Boy didn't say it like he felt sorry for himself—more like he was reading a fact from a history book.

“I'd say people need to get to know you before they judge you,” I told him.

Pretty Boy stopped carving. “You'd say that, would you?”

“Yeah, I would. That's the way it worked for me. You're not what I expected.”

“What are you saying exactly, Tessa? Come on.” At least now Pretty Boy was grinning. Maybe I'd cheered him up. “Spit it out.”

“What I'm saying is, you're a lot smarter and nicer than I would have expected.”

Then Pretty Boy did something else I never would have expected. He blushed.

When Florence opened the door, she scowled at me. “What do you want now?” she barked.

“I just want to ask some questions—about what happened here last night.”

She didn't invite me in, but she didn't slam the door on me either. “Why?” she asked.

“Because I don't want my best friend”—I'd never called Pretty Boy that before, but the words felt right—“getting blamed for something he didn't do.”

Florence put her hands on her hips. “What if he did do it?”

I ignored her question. “I noticed you cleaning up glass from the patio before. If someone broke into your house, shouldn't most of the glass have been
inside
?”

Florence was wearing what looked like a cross between a nightgown and a dress. I wondered if she'd sewn it herself. When she rubbed her eyes, I noticed she looked older and more tired than usual. She probably wasn't sleeping well. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Whoever broke your window must have been inside—not outside.”

I could see that Florence's house had the same layout as New Directions. There was a long hallway leading to the kitchen. One end of a scratched-up old piano was sticking out of the living room and into the hallway. There was an empty cut-glass vase on top of the piano.

“Does Eddie play piano?” I asked.

“Leave him out of this!” Florence said. “None of this has anything to do with Eddie!”

I took a step back. I was beginning to think maybe Di was right about Florence being a psycho. “I was just asking if he plays piano.”

“Yes, he plays. He's good too. But he won't practice. Why am I telling you all this?” Florence threw her arms up into the air. I wasn't sure whether it was because Eddie didn't practice piano or because she felt she had told me too much.

A kid who refused to practice piano. Whose mother must have had to scrimp to pay for piano lessons—and to send him to private school.

I tried to imagine what it would feel like to be Eddie. Pressured by a stressed-out, demanding mother. Probably the poorest kid at that fancy private school. Possibly picked on by the other kids who went there. Rebellious. Definitely.

In his worst moments, Eddie probably hated his mom as much as those of us at New Directions did.

“Maybe Eddie needs you to cut him some slack,” I muttered. I didn't say what I was starting to think: maybe Eddie was so frustrated and tired of his mom's demands that he wrecked her sunflowers. And maybe even robbed his own house.

Florence's face contorted. She reminded me of a pot about to boil over. “Did you come over here to give me child-rearing advice? Is that why you're here?”

“That isn't why I came over.” I tried to keep my voice level. “I came to talk to you about the broken glass.”

Florence had her hand on the doorknob. “I heard what you had to say. Now get out of here and let me get back to my sewing.”