The Exact Location of Home (17 page)

I shake my head. “It's a meeting at city hall. About the herons.”

Mom whips around and drops her apron on the floor. “What?” she says, like I've just cursed or something.

“It's a meeting about the herons.” I pick up her apron, and she ties it around her waist, but her eyes don't leave me. “Ruby's in Birds First, and I guess some jerks bought up a bunch of land on Smugglers Island to build condominiums for rich people. They want to wipe out a whole heron rookery to do it.”

“No.” Mom tucks her order pad in her apron pocket and picks up her truck keys.

“Well, I know,” I say. “Ruby says there no way they should be allowed to do that just because the city already approved their zoning request. When that happened, the herons weren't even there yet, but now they are, so—”

“No. Not that. No, you're not going.”

“Why?”

“Because … because that meeting's downtown, and it's likely to go late. No.” She turns away.

I move between her and the door so she has to look at me. “Why are you so concerned all of a sudden? I've been walking all over town, and you've never cared. This is stupid.”

“Enough.” Her eyes challenge me to argue, but today, I'm not up for it. I take the bunk ladder in two steps and flop down.

“Fine,” I say.

She walks out. Scoop catches the door and walks in with his mom behind him.

“Thank you so much,” Heather says and hands me up a plastic bag full of fur.

“What's this?” I ask.

“It's his lion costume.” She scratches Scoop on the top of his head, and he lets out a roar.

“What are you going to be?” he asks. “When we go trick or treating?”

Trick or treating.

I look up at his mom. “I'm really, really sorry,” I say, “I can still babysit, but I have a ton of homework. I mean, I know Halloween on a Friday is like the best, but we have…uh…a really big project and I'm behind on it, so I can't go out. I'll need to stay here with him. I honestly can't …”

Scoop's eyes fill and he turns to his mom. “You promised.”

She looks up at me holding the bag of lion. Her eyes are begging me to go. I nod. “Okay. But just a few houses.”

Half an hour later, Scoop is almost ready, but his tail keeps falling off, no matter how many times I Velcro it back on.

“Sorry,” he says. “It's an old costume my mom got from somebody at work whose kid is all grown up and moved to Ohio and works at a bank now.”

“Hold still.” I rip a piece of duct tape from the roll I keep in my backpack and stick his tail back on.

He wiggles, and the tail flops back and forth. It stays on, though. “Hey Zig? I think I might want to work in a bank.”

“How come?”

“Because you'd never ever have to worry about money. Banks have tons of money. If you needed to buy a house or something, you could just bring some money home from work.”

“It doesn't work that way.”

“Oh.” He picks up his tail and studies the tassel at the end. It's unraveling. “I was just kind of hoping.”

We leave the shelter—Scoop dressed as a lion and me wearing a box we found out back and painted to look like a nine-volt battery. Scoop starts to head for the expensive houses on Dahlia Circle.

“Not there,” I say, turning him around. Bianca Rinaldi lives down there. So does our superintendent. No way.

“Why not? They always have the best candy.”

“Because. That's why. You're lucky we came tonight.”

A station wagon pulls up to the curb. The mom waits behind the wheel while two witches, a football player, the Incredible Hulk, and a donut climb out.

“Well where
can
we go?” Scoop asks. “How about up Washington Street? My old neighbor lives there now and she makes cookies.”

“Nope.” Washington Street would mean Ruby's house, my old apartment, and Gianna's house, all in about three blocks. “We'll go down here.” I steer him down Stetson Ave, which I know from my old paper route. It only has a few houses, and most of them are old people with no kids.

I look at my watch as Scoop goes up the first set of steps. 7:15. He goes to bed at 8, so I only have to keep him out here for another fifteen minutes, so there's time to get ready and read and stuff. Fifteen minutes.

“Trick or treat!” Scoop hollers at an old lady who answers the door.

“Well, aren't you the cutest little bugger.” He roars at her, and she loads him up with a handful of candy. Maybe we'll be done sooner than I thought.

In the streetlight, I see three kids heading our way.
Don't let them be from here
, I think.
Don't let me know them
. There's a tall one that looks like a girl in a princess dress, another tall guy with paint splattered on his clothes, and a short round kid dressed all in green.

“Come on!” Scoop calls. “Let's go to the next house.”

I climb the steps behind him holding his tail so he doesn't trip over it.

“Trick or treat!”

“Well there! Look at you, Mr. Lion!” It's Mr. Benson, who I used to see on my paper route. He'd be up at 5am, watching for me at the window with his coffee so he could open the door and get the paper right from my hand. “Betty! You have to come here and see this little lion!”

Scoop smiles. “I'll roar for her.”

Mr. Benson looks past me. “And look what we have here! Wait—don't tell me … a princess and … a tennis ball? And let's see … you would be?”

“Jackson Pollack. The artist.”

I recognize her voice, and I want to disappear. But I know I'll have to turn around eventually, so I get it over with. “Hey, Gianna.”

“Hey.” Her mouth turns down a little. “I thought you weren't going out tonight.”

“I wasn't.” I look down at Scoop, trying to tear open a Twix bar with his lion paws. Finally, he just bites it. “But I had to take … my cousin out.”

Scoop looks up at me, confused. Thankfully, he can't say anything through his mouthful of Twix.

“I thought your Aunt Becka didn't have kids,” Gianna says, watching him chew.

“She doesn't. He's … my dad's brother's kid.”

“Your dad has a brother?”

“Not a brother-brother, but a really close friend who's … like a brother.”

“Oh.” She steps up past me. “Trick or treat.”

Ruby the princess is behind her. “Hi,” she says.

“Hi.”

I look down at Ian, Gianna's little brother. He's in love with Ruby and always insists on holding her hand instead of Gianna's when they take him places. “Nice tennis ball outfit,” I tell him.

“I'm not a tennis ball. I'm a pea.” He points to Ruby. “Get it? The princess and the pea?” He leans in and whispers to me. “Actually, I thought it would be funnier if I
dressed up like a toilet. Then we'd be the princess and the pee—like P-E-E. The princess and the pee? Get it?” He laughs so hard he doubles over. Finally, he stands up again. “But Mom said no.”

I nod. “Moms are like that.”

Ian and Ruby step forward for their mini-Hershey bars, and we end up all walking down the driveway together. Gianna won't look at me. She keeps picking at the paint splashed on her overalls. Little flakes drift down in the streetlight.

“Hey, Gianna,” I say. “I really didn't think I was coming out tonight. I hadn't planned on it or anything, so when you asked, I just—”

I start to step toward her, but she holds up her paintbrush to stop me. “It's fine,” she says. She says the “fine” part so loud I know it's not.

“Okay. See you Monday.”

“Fine.” She takes Ian's hand and pulls him down the street.

“I like that guy,” Scoop says.

“Ian? Yeah, you would like him. You guys are a lot alike.”

“Do you like him?” Scoop pulls a Tootsie roll from his bag, and I help him unwrap it.

“Yeah, I do.”

“And you
really
like her.”

“We're friends.”

“Remember when I asked you if you had a girlfriend and you said no and I said I didn't believe you?”

“Yeah. Hey—got any Starbursts in there?” He hands me one as we start walking back to the shelter.

“Know what?” he says.

“What?”

“I still don't believe you and I think that's the girl that you say isn't your girlfriend but who really is. That Gianna girl.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Can you open this for me, too?” He pulls out a little bag of M&Ms.

“This is the last one. You have to go to bed soon.”

“Okay.” He dumps all the M&Ms into his paw and shoves them into his mouth.

“Know what else?” he says, chewing as we walk up the shelter steps.

“What?”

“She's mad at you.”

“I know.” I hold the door for him. “Go get ready for bed. I'll guard your candy while you brush your teeth and change into pajamas.”

I hop up on my bunk and wait for him. Gianna's mad all right. And there's nothing I can do about it. When we get out of here, maybe I'll tell her why I acted so dumb. When Mom and I get our new place.

I pull Dad's journal from under my mattress, where I keep it with the GPS unit now. All those geocaches, and I still have no clue where he is. Not even a dumb phone number or email address. I check the geocaching website at the library every afternoon to see if he's posted anything new, but he hasn't.

“All set.” Scoop gets into his bed, and I toss down his bag of candy.

“Don't eat any more now. You brushed your teeth.”

I lean back on my pillow. Maybe Dad's been away on a longer business trip. Maybe when he's back he'll call. Or at least post something on the website so I can get in touch with him. He'd know what to do about this whole Gianna thing.

“Hey Zig?”

“Yeah?

“Wanna know one more thing?”

“Sure.”

“You ought to just tell her you like her. I bet then she wouldn't be mad.”

“It's not that simple.”

“I figured. I was just hoping. Good night.”

“You gotta quit hoping all the time,” I say. “Some things are just complicated and crummy. G'night.” I push the little black journal back under my mattress and try to sleep.

On Saturday, I try the last geocache that Dad logged on the website. It's next to a drainage pipe by the road that leads to the hospital. There's no log book. There's no Canada key chain. No note that says, “Hey, Circuit Boy! Got your last message and I'll be calling soon.” Nothing but a Tupperware container packed with two dozen Smurfs. They smile up at me with stupid blue plastic faces that make me want to throw them under a passing truck.

Instead, I snap them back into their Tupperware and hope they suffocate. I sit down on the drainage pipe, feel the damp, cold moss seep through my jeans, and scroll through the GPS entries, through all the coordinates I thought would lead me to Dad.

All places on a globe. None of them the right one.

My sneakers squish the soft earth when I jump down from the pipe to start walking back to the shelter. Maybe you just can't find someone who doesn't want to be found.

When I get back, everyone's in the dinner line except Scoop. He's waiting at the door.

“Darn,” he says. “You're here.”

“Thanks for the warm welcome,” I say.

“I was hoping you went to that dance with your girlfriend.”

“She's not my girlfriend.”

“Fine.” He gets in line and hands me a packet of silverware. “But I still don't believe you.”

“Fine.” I take a serving of macaroni and cheese, even though the top looks kind of burned.

“And you know what?”

“What?” I say, adding wilted lettuce to my plate.

“You should have gone.”

 

Mom's working Sunday, but Heather isn't, so nobody harasses me to take care of Scoop, which is good. I need a break.

Mom hands me a box of corn flakes and gathers her nursing books into her bag. “What are you doing today?”

I shrug. “Does it matter?”

She stops and turns to me. “Don't say that.”

“Does it?” I say again. The edge in my voice scares me a little. Mom looks at her watch. She has to leave for work, but I don't even care. “We've been here a month, Mom. A
month
. You said it was going to be a few days.” My eyes burn. I wipe them with the back of my sweatshirt sleeve. “And you
still
won't call Dad to ask for help. I've done everything except take out an ad in the newspaper to find him, and I'm tired of this.”

“Kirby… you don't—”

“Don't tell me I don't understand because I understand fine. I'm tired of living down the hall from a bunch of creeps who steal my stuff and try to get me to buy it back from them. I'm tired of being a free babysitter for your friend. I'm tired of wishing and I'm tired of hoping. I'm tired of everything.” I slam the cereal box on the night stand, and cornflakes fly out the top.

Mom brushes them, slowly, in to a little pile. She brushes the pile into her hand. It's red. Chapped.

“You've been looking for him,” she says.

I nod and feel the tears spill down my face.

“How?”

I pull the GPS unit from my backpack. “His geocaches. They're all logged on a website. I've been going on the library computers after school.”

Mom shakes her head. “He hasn't geocached in a long time, Kirb.”

“June fifth.” I turn the dial to get to Dad's last set of coordinates. “This was the last one.”

She takes the GPS unit and scrolls through my list. When she gets to the end, she looks up and hands it back to me. “I'm sorry,” she says.

“Now will you call him?”

She looks at me for a long time. Then she shakes her head. “I can't. And stop looking. You're not going to find him. I promise, pretty soon you'll understand why he can't help but until then, please … just let it go.” She looks at her watch. “I have to go to work. I'm late.”