The Exact Location of Home (7 page)

I shake my head.

“No talking,” says the monitor, not even looking up.

Mr. Teeter leaves, and I pretend to be busy with my exponents.

Richards leans over. “Seriously,” he whispers. “What'd you do? Usually you have to punch somebody to get in here.”

“Is that what you did?”

“Nah,” he says, kicking his backpack. It's scuffed up with a few holes, like it's seen a lot of Kevin's boot. “I stole Ben Martin's sneakers outta the locker room.”

“Why'd you do that?” I forget to whisper.

“No talking.” The monitor turns a page.

“Cuz I needed sneakers. You're pretty dumb for a smart kid.” He looks down at my backpack. “You still got the alarm on that thing?”

I nod.

He nods back. “Probably a good call.”

The monitor closes her magazine and stands up. “Time to go to the bathroom.”

“I don't need to, thanks,” I say.

“You've never been in here before, have you?” Kevin grins. “You have to go when they say you have to go.”

We get marched down the hall to the boys' room and marched back. The ISS room is right next to the vice principal's office, which is right next to the eighth grade entrance. I catch a glimpse of dark clouds through the hallway window before we're escorted back into our windowless cell.

Every time I reach into my backpack to get another already-finished assignment so I can pretend to work on it, my fingers brush the GPS unit. Every time that happens, my brain plays snapshots of the cache names I just entered. Skywalker Stretch. The Superhero's Lair. Tabletop Treasure. That one's right behind the school, not far from the cache Gee and I found yesterday.

The monitor is knitting now. She hasn't looked up in half an hour.

I reach for my social studies book and touch the GPS again. I take it out and press the on button, but you can't get a clear signal in a building like this. If I were closer to a window, it might work. Or if I took it outside.

I take out my social studies homework and pretend to check over the crossword puzzle I filled in over the weekend. A big fat hand darts in and snatches it off my desk.

Kevin puts his finger to his lips. “No talking in ISS,” he says, and starts copying my answers onto his blank crossword.

The monitor blows her nose.

I cannot stay here.

We don't get to leave the room again until lunch. By then, I've made up my mind.

The monitor walks us to the end of the cafeteria line and looks over at the faculty lunchroom. There must be more coffee there. “I'll be right back,” she says. “If you get through the line before then, return to the ISS room on your own.”

I go through the lunch line.

I pick up a milk from the cooler.

I hand my tray to the cafeteria ladies with the ladles and hairnets so they can serve up my sandwich.

I say please. I say thank you.

I'm through the line before the monitor gets back, so I return to the ISS room on my own.

I put down my tray, pick up my backpack, and head for the door.

“Hey!” Kevin says, walking back in with his double order of grilled cheese. “Where you going?”

“I forgot to get a napkin,” I tell him.

And I walk out of the room, right out the door to the street.

The wind feels like a splash of cold water in my face when I step outside. I take off running toward the path that winds through the woods. Best to get out of sight before the monitor gets back and figures out I've left the building for my napkin.

When I can't see the brick of the school building through the trees any more, I stop and lean against a boulder to get the GPS from my backpack.

I turn it on and wait for it to find the satellites. Then I press the button to select the page for Dad's new geocache, Tabletop Treasure.

It says I should go .57 miles south-southeast, which is weird. I'm pretty sure the river is closer than half a mile. Leave it to Dad to hide a geocache underwater.

I have to leave the path right away, which is probably good. I wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Frankenbush walks the nature trail at lunchtime, looking for kids skipping class.

A thorn bush catches my sleeve and leaves a big scratch on my arm. I smear away the blood with my other sleeve and keep walking. Just like last time, the GPS unit switches from miles to yards as I get closer. The trees thin out, and when the GPS says I'm 200 yards from the cache, I can see the river.

I keep walking and watch the numbers go down.

142 yards.

120 yards.

I have to loop around a big marshy spot so I don't get my feet soaking wet, but when I get back on the path, I'm even closer.

72 yards.

45 yards.

When the GPS unit says I'm 18 yards from Dad's geocache, I'm standing in tall, rustly cattails, right at the river's edge. I can't keep going. My sneakers are already sinking into the mud. A few more steps and I'll be in running water.

I try walking up and down the riverbank, to see if the coordinates are off, but every time I turn, that stupid arrow turns, too. It points back at the middle of the river, where there's nothing but rushing water laced with cold autumn foam.

Nice, Dad. Make a promise and don't deliver on it.

Again.

I'm about to turn back when a heron flies right over my head. Its wingspan is huge, maybe six feet. Ruby would flip if she were here. The bird soars with its toes pointed behind it, all the way across the river, then circles partway back and lands upstream on a tiny island I hadn't noticed before.

The heron stands tall and looks down its long beak into the water. Then all of a sudden, it blasts into the weeds with that beak and comes up with a fish, flopping back and forth. It spreads its wings again and pumps them to take off again, downstream toward the lake.

My stomach grumbles. I should have eaten my sandwich before I left. Even raw fish is starting to look good.

I start to turn around and then realize that the heron's island is right where the arrow was pointing. Great thinking, Dad. Everyone brings a small watercraft along when they go geocaching. No problem.

We've had a ton of rain this fall. The river's running too fast and high for me to even think about wading out to the island. Instead, I walk along shore to get closer.

Not far from where the bird caught its lunch, a rotten tree stretches from the bank almost all the way out to that little island. I step up onto the part of the tree that's resting on the rocks and bounce a little.

It feels solid enough. And I can see now that it ends just about three feet from where the rocks of the island begin. An easy jump.

I set down my backpack just in case I end up getting wet. No sense in wrecking my homework and the GPS unit if I go in.

It's easy to walk one foot in front of the other along the tree. I'm about halfway across when I take a step and the log dips into the water. Cold river water sloshes over my sneaker.

I'm still too far from the island to jump, so I step forward again. The log dips lower, but only a little. I take another step and it holds. Another. And another.

But then I slip on the rotten wood, and my feet slide right out from under me. The log catches me across my left shoulder blade so hard I can barely breathe, and I fall in. The icy water shocks my whole body.

I grab onto the log with both arms and hold tight as the current tries to rush the rest of me down the river. I cling to the old tree and catch my breath until I can pull myself back on top to sit. Finally, I get my feet back under me and stand up.

My jeans feel like they weigh a thousand pounds as I take the last tiny steps toward the island. When I get to the end of the log, I can see bottom, and it's not like I can get any wetter, so I step off into the water and slosh to shore.

The GPS unit is back on the other side of the water, so I have no idea which direction I should even be looking for Tabletop Treasure. The weeds here are tall and tangled. I keep tripping on roots, maybe because my legs are so cold I can't feel them any more.

I step through a thicket into a small clearing, a spot where the weeds aren't so high. And there it is—a rock formation that looks exactly like somebody's dining room table. It's a small block of rock, maybe two feet wide and four feet long, with a much bigger rock slab balanced on top of it. If you pulled up a chair, it would be the greatest picnic spot ever.

I step up and run my hand over the smooth rock tabletop. Dad wouldn't leave the cache right on top, so where could it be? I poke through the weeds under the table to see if there's any Tupperware stashed there.

Nope.

I walk around the table in concentric circles. That's how police set up searches when they need to cover all of a certain territory. I cover all of mine but come up empty.

I pull myself up onto the tabletop and flop down to look up at the clouds.

My mood is grayer than they are. I'm sopping wet, freezing, and hungry. I didn't find the cache, and now I have to get back across the stupid slippery tree somehow.

Kevin was right. For a guy who's supposed to be smart, I'm pretty dumb sometimes.

And I can't even imagine the trouble I'm in for walking out of ISS. They've probably called Mom at work.

I slip my hand under the edge of the table so I can pull myself up and get going, but I don't feel the hard, flat rock I'm expecting.

I feel something round. Cylindrical.

I climb down and squat to look up at the underside of the rock. A film canister is duct taped there. My heart races as I work the tape lose and pry the lid off the container.

I found it.

Rolled up in Dad's film container is a cache log with a little pencil, a Vermont state quarter, and a bookmark-sized scrap of paper with a quote written on it.

Everything that is done in the world is done by hope
.

—Martin Luther King, Jr
.

“Okay, please do, and if you hear anything—” Mom stops mid-sentence when I walk into the house. She whips around so fast her cell phone goes flying. I bend to pick it up but she swats my hand away and grabs it back. “Sorry—I dropped the phone. He just got home. Yes, he's fine. Thanks… Okay … Bye.”

She slams the phone onto the counter with a
ka-thunk
and looks at me with eyes that could bore through steel.

“I do not know
what
you could have been thinking.”

I stand there in my wet sneakers and stare at her, leaning on the counter in her diner outfit with the checked red and white skirt, her apron with her order pad and pencil still sticking out of the pocket. She must have raced out of work.

I don't know what I could have been thinking either.

“Do you have any idea what this afternoon has been like? First, I get a call saying that you defaced school property. And then, they go on to tell me that not only were you sent to in-school suspension for the day, but that you then proceeded to walk out of the building and disappear. That was three
hours
ago. Where have you been?”

What can I say? Nothing. That's what.

I can't tell her that chucking one dumb chestnut at a sign isn't “defacing school property.” I can't tell her about that ogre Kevin showing up to be my neighbor in the ISS room. And I sure can't tell her about looking for Dad.

“It was stupid,” I say finally.

“I know
that
. I asked where you were.”

“The woods.”

She looks down at my sopping sneakers, the dripping cuffs of my jeans, the puddle of muddy water growing on the kitchen floor.

“And the marsh next to the river. I kind of fell in the water.”

She shakes her head and looks as me as if I still haven't answered her question. But she asked where. Not why. And I told the truth. I fold my arms and stare back.

After a minute, she sighs, turns to get a glass from the cupboard, and fills it with water. She takes a drink, then another deep breath. Her voice is softer this time, like she's afraid I might run out of here, too.

“Kirb, what were you
doing
?”

I shake my head. “Just thinking. It's been a crummy week, and I needed to get away. Haven't you ever felt that way?”

Now Mom looks like she's going to cry. She blinks fast and rubs her hands on her apron, even though there's nothing on them to rub off that I can see. “I have to get back,” she says. “Clean up this mess. Stay home. I'm going to call.”

“I will.”

She leans in to give me a quick hug.

She steps back and leaves. My cheek is wet where hers pressed against it.

 

I change into dry clothes and mop up the river water. I
should
be her responsible kid and do my homework now.

But I don't feel like it. And I can't concentrate.

Everywhere I go feels like the wrong place tonight.

The kitchen table. The computer desk. The sofa.

Even my bedroom. Usually, it's my favorite place in the world. Posters of Nicola Tesla on one wall. A calendar with moon phases and astronomical events on the other. Last year's science project—a model hydrogen car—takes up half my bookshelf. My favorite Lego creation takes up the other half. I made it when I was ten, using the parts from five of those sets that tell you exactly what to build and how to build it. I never built the space shuttle or the working dump truck or the knight's castle, but I made a killer city of the future with the parts. I even wired the whole thing so the little Lego townspeople would have power.

Tonight, I don't even feel like turning on the streetlights.

I wander down to the computer and log on to the geocaching site.

Senior Searcher hasn't posted anything new.

I pull the paper with the quote from my pocket. It's already getting so crumpled it feels soft in my hand, like cloth instead of paper.