The Exact Location of Home (19 page)

“I thought you said none of the actual, like, people would be here,” Bianca Rinaldi says. “I am not going in if it's full of bums.”

“Bianca, that's quite enough,” Mrs. Heath says. “There aren't likely to be any people here now who are staying at the shelter, but even if there were, I'd expect you to be polite.” She looks down at the clipboard she's holding in her black leather gloves. “We're meeting a Mr. Thomas, and he'll let us know where to put these things. Then we'll all get together with the pile of food and take a picture for the yearbook.”

I fall back into the middle of the line and keep my head down as we shuffle through the door. My chest is so tight it feels like someone's sitting on it. I force myself to take a deep breath. Bianca turns around. It must have been a noisy breath.

“What's wrong?” she says, as we walk down the hallway with its light green walls. We stop and wait for Mrs. Heath to talk with some office person.

“Sorry,” I say. “Just nervous.”

Bianca nods. “I know. Isn't it kind of freaky being in here? It creeps me out, even if the people aren't here, you know?”

I don't say anything. I drift further back in the line so I'm behind Max Hayes. He's a linebacker on the football team. A good hiding-behind guy.

“Okay, students,” Mrs. Heath says in teacher-voice from the front of our line. “I want you to meet Rob Thomas. He's been with the shelter twelve years. He's the person
who helps to get new people settled here when they need a place to stay, and he'll be taking our donations.”

“Thanks so much for coming here,” he says. “We appreciate your generous donations, but mostly, we appreciate your willingness to walk through these doors.” He walks down our line of kids as he talks. “I know I recognize a few of you from our volunteer food service program, since you've visited to help serve dinners.” He nods at Ruby. Great. One more thing to worry about. “But many of you have probably never been here before. Some of you might even be a little nervous.”

As he gets closer to my part of the line, I turn around and pretend to look at one of the announcements on the bulletin board behind me.

“But now that you're here,” he says. “I think you'll see this is a pretty normal place. Maybe more crowded than your house, but certainly a place where you'd be welcome if your family were ever in trouble.”

“Fat chance,” whispers Bianca.

Rob either doesn't hear her, or ignores her. “And I hope you'll realize that our clients are people just like you. Kids, some of them. Kids who do homework, and watch TV, and want to grow up and follow dreams. We just help through the rough times.”

I hear his footsteps pass me and move away, so I turn back around.

“Now,” he says. “If you'll come through this door, you can drop your donations off in our kitchen.”

“And we'll need a photo for the yearbook,” Mrs. Heath says.

Rob shakes his head. “I'm sorry, but we don't allow any photographs to be taken in the shelter. This is our clients' home, albeit a temporary one. And I'm sure you wouldn't want strangers taking pictures in your home while you were out for the day.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Heath says, but she doesn't look happy about it.

“Okay kids, you'll walk through the dining room and come back here.” The line starts moving. “And,” Rob says. “I'll be right here to say thanks personally on your way out.”

I look back at the door. Is there time for me to duck outside? I could hand my canned tuna off to somebody and say I need to use the bathroom. Or that I feel sick. That would be true enough. But that would just draw more attention, and the line's already shuffling me forward into the kitchen. I wish I had skipped a stone at the park yesterday and it had gone ten times. I'd wish to be invisible.

I plunk my can of tuna fish packed in water on the counter. The Corn Flakes I had for breakfast are sitting by the cupboard next to the sink.

I walk through the dining room, following Max between the tables. My chair—the one I always sit in—is pushed out a little. I push it in.

And then the line stops. Because Rob Thomas is at the front.

“It's so nice to meet you,” he says, shaking Ronald Boyer's hand. “Thanks so much for your donation today and for taking the time to visit the shelter.”

The line inches forward. Maybe I should slip back to the very end, so everyone else will be gone by the time I get to Rob. I look back to see how many people are behind me. Just six. But the last two are Ruby and Gianna. They'd wait for me for sure. Why couldn't they still be mad? Then they could stomp off and leave me alone.

Every time the line moves, I take two more baby steps forward, and the vise that's clenched around my stomach gets tighter. Finally, Max Hayes steps up.

“Hi! What's your name?” Rob asks.

“Max Hayes.”

“Max, you play football, right? I think I saw you play against my son's school last weekend. Linebacker?”

Max nods.

“Great game,” Rob says. “Thanks for coming by today.”

Max steps aside to wait in the hallway.

I take a deep breath and look up at Rob. He doesn't look surprised to see me. Not even a little.

“Hi there,” he says. “What's your name?”

I stare at him for a second before I figure it out.

He knows me. He's just not telling.

He gets it.

I'm saved.

“Uh…Kirby,” I say.

He reaches out to shake my hand. “Kirby, it's great to meet you. Thanks for your donation today.”

I nod, and he nods, and I step over next to Max and almost collapse against the wall, I'm so relieved. I stare up at the ceiling while he greets the rest of the line.

“Hi, Dylan. Thanks for your donation. It will be a great help to us.”

“Hey, Ryan. It's great that you came to visit.”

“Gianna, good to meet you. I'm glad you came today.”

“Okay class,” says Mrs. Heath. “We're going to head out now. Make a single file line, and we'll stop at the corner.”

I look back. Rob nods at me the slightest bit, and everything makes sense.

The tuna fish left on the counter this morning.

He knows I'm in eighth grade. He knew the Lakeland eighth graders were donating food today.

Rob's done this all before. A hundred times, probably. He has bunches of classes come with donations every year, and every year, some of those kids must be clients. He keeps their secrets.

My secret.

The first person in our line opens the door, and the cool November air spills in. It feels like a cold drink of water on a hot day. I can't wait to get back outside.

But then the line moves back a little. Whoever's in front had to step away from the door to let somebody in.

“It's people who
live
here,” Bianca whispers, too loud, back to the rest of the line.

Rob steps to the front to meet the people coming in. I can't see over Max's head, but I hear Heather's voice.

“I'm so sorry, but I forgot that Scoop had a doctor's appointment this morning, and I need to pick up my insurance paperwork. We'll just be a minute, and then we won't be back until the regular time.”

“No problem, come on in.”

Our class line starts heading out. When I figure Heather and Scoop must be gone down the hallway, I lift my head to look.

“Zig?”

I duck and try to walk forward, but Max is hard to get past.

“Hey Zig! What are you doing here now? Are these the kids in your class? Is your girlfriend here? Hey, Zig! After dinner tonight, will you play Sorry with me?”

“You
know
them?” Bianca's eyes are huge.

I could say no. I could ignore him. I could pretend I don't know him. I could pretend he's some stupid, crazy, homeless kid.

But he's not. He's Scoop.

I step out of line and bend to give him a hug. “Yeah, we'll play tonight. Right after dinner.”

“Cool!” He waves and runs down the hall after Heather.

Max and Bianca and the rest of the line are out the door now. The whole line, except me. And Ruby and Gianna. They're staring at me.

“You didn't tell me,” Gianna whispers.

There's nothing I can say except the truth.

“You're right. I didn't.”

I can't look at Gianna all day.

At lunch, I grab my sandwich and hole up in the library. Mr. Smythe leaves a pencil and extra paper there for me every day now. He never asked if I needed them; he just knew. If he had asked, I'd have told him no, I was fine. Maybe he knew that, too.

I try to solve equations but they all remind me of Mom's checkbook. I doodle bricks around the edges of my paper instead.

When lunch ends, I go to my other classes and finally, the last bell rings. I poke around in my locker, rearranging binders until I'm sure Gianna and Ruby are gone.

When I walk past the park, I expect an ambush, but they're not waiting.

I sit down on the swing and turn, twisting the chains into a tangle that looks the way I feel.

I knew it would wreck everything. I knew Gianna wouldn't understand. She doesn't get it. How can you, when you go home to your warm house with your mom and dad both there, with your dad actually working and paying bills, and your mother home to make sure there's broccoli or something with dinner and not just macaroni and cheese served up by some church lady.

“Are you using that one?” A little kid in a puffy blue coat points to my second swing.

“No, go ahead.” I let it go.

He jumps on and wiggles himself into the middle of the swing. “Ready Dad! Push me high!”

Two big hands grab the bottom of the swing on both sides, lift it high into the air, and let go.

“I can see the roof of the library!” the boy calls before he sinks back down again. His dad stands behind him and keeps pushing so he doesn't lose altitude.

“Higher, Dad!” The dad lets go for a second to button a couple buttons on his jacket. He pushes up his glasses and reaches out to push again.

I stand up and start for the sidewalk.

“Hey, did you want a push?” the kid calls after me. “'Cause my dad will push you, too, if you want.”

“No thanks,” I say. “I have to go somewhere.”

 

I climb the library steps, swing the door open, and wave to the front desk lady. She nods me toward the open computer. The one I checked every day until last week.

I type in the geocaching URL and wait for it to load.

There's not going to be anything. I know there's not. But it doesn't matter. I have to check.

I type the words into the website search box: SENIOR SEARCHER.

The list comes up and I scroll through his found caches, a travel log of my past five weeks. Nest Egg. The Superhero's Lair. Tabletop Cache.

I scroll to the bottom of the list and see it.

High H2O.

A new cache, with coordinates that put it right here in town.

I'm sure it wasn't listed here last week. My heart pounds in my ears as I click on the cache name for details. And I see the date: November 3.

Yesterday.

He was here.

My heart's full of the kind of rush you get when you're a little kid and see your Easter basket full of candy or money under your pillow from the tooth fairy.

He was here.

I fumble with my backpack until I find the GPS unit and enter the coordinates. I check the website for the clue and jot down the code. I'm about to log off when I see a note in the log at the bottom of the cache page.

Comment from Senior Searcher… Nice hide! Couldn't find this one before it got dark tonight, but I'll be giving it another try first thing Saturday morning. It's a tough one, but Senior Searcher hasn't failed yet!

I read it again.

I'll be giving it another try first thing Saturday morning
.

He'll be here. My dad will be
here
, at these coordinates on this screen on Saturday morning.

My hand shakes. I put down the GPS unit and log off the computer.

“Thanks!” I call to Miss Light, the librarian. She waves as I fly out the door and bound down the steps two at a time.

I have to go now. I know he won't be there until Saturday, but I need to see it now. And I'll leave him a note. I pull out a pencil and scribble on the back of my social studies homework as I walk.

Senior Searcher:

PLEASE don't leave Saturday without seeing me. I have your journal
.

-Circuit Boy

The GPS unit points southeast, so I head back towards school. Past the football field. Past the big houses on Stetson Circle. Past the shelter and south.

When I get to the trailer park by the river, it points to a left turn, only there's no street or sidewalk to turn down. Just an empty field where the old water tower stands.

I step over the curb, and my sneakers squish in the wet grass. My toes are freezing, but I barely notice. The numbers on the GPS unit count down—54 yards. 48 yards. 36 yards—as I head straight for the water tower.

When I walk up to it, the unit says I'm four yards away.

Four yards away from what? I search the ground all around the perimeter, looking for a Tupperware container, but there's nothing. And there's really nowhere to hide a cache down here. It's all just dead grass around the tower.

On my second lap around, I find the ladder. It's not a regular ladder that starts at the ground and goes up. This one starts maybe five feet off the ground and then leads all the way to the storage tank at the top of the tower, maybe sixty feet over my head. I
reach up to see if the ladder pulls down but it doesn't. There's probably a bottom piece of it that the city workers used to bring when they came here to do maintenance.

But the city uses the reservoir out in Brookfield now. The tower is empty, and nobody goes up there any more.