Turn Left at the Cow (16 page)

Eventually everybody but me, Kenny, and Iz got too full of marshmallows and too tired of swatting the buzzing mosquitoes, and they drifted inside in ones and twos.

“Fifteen minutes,” said Jen, giving Kenny and Iz a look before she pulled Linnea away from me and off to bed. “Tomorrow's a big day, and I can tell you two haven't had enough sleep lately.”

The three of us sat watching the fire die down into gray ash, not really saying much, but it was quiet in that good way, where you don't feel the need to mess things up with words. The full dark settled around my sunburned shoulders like a warm blanket. Somewhere in the distance a series of fireworks popped in an uneven rhythm, like when the first few kernels of popcorn start heating, and I remembered that tomorrow was the Fourth of July. Independence Day.

“Time!” Jen's voice drifted out of an upstairs window.

I watched Kenny get to his feet and poke at the dead embers with a stick.

“Gram says I have to go to church in the morning. You going to be there too?” I asked him.

Kenny nodded. “Sorry about running out of gas today.”

“It's okay. I figure our bad guy decided to wait for dark. Maybe after he's read my note, he'll show himself tomorrow.” The adrenaline buzz I'd had earlier in the day had been smothered by too many marshmallows. I yawned and hauled myself to my feet.

Iz jumped up too. “I'll walk you home.”

Kenny looked over at her in surprise. Then he looked at the short distance separating Gram's house from his. Finally he turned and gave me one of those looks that tells you somebody is trying to work something out in his head.

I had the thought that maybe people didn't give old Kenny nearly enough credit for brain power, because I saw the light bulb go on almost right away. He winked at me and said, “Good idea. Wouldn't want you to get lost, bro. See you tomorrow.” And he loped up the slope to his front door.

Whoa—I owed him bigtime for leaving us alone without any flak. Not that I was stupid enough to think he was really going to let it die there, but I'd take whatever harassment I had coming from him without a whimper in the morning.

It really wasn't more than twenty-five feet between the fire ring and the door to Gram's place. I walked as slowly as I could manage, since I suddenly had a lot of big thinking to do. Part of me was thinking how grateful I was that the loon was quiet tonight. Part of me was thinking that I'd have to check for the new tattoo that I apparently had plastered across my forehead, which must have said something like “I ♥ Iz,” since it seemed as if everybody was clued into this little thing we had going, despite the fact that I wasn't completely sure what was up with it myself.

But most of me was thinking about how exactly you got the kissing thing started and what exactly you were supposed to do with your noses and where exactly it was safe to put your hands.

We had reached Gram's house, and I guess I was just staring off into space, looking like an idiot with all that overthinking, because Iz finally said, “Trav?” with this big question mark at the end, sounding confused but kind of hopeful, too.

This was it! I tipped toward her, closer and closer, watching her eyelashes fan against her cheeks as she closed her eyes.

Then Jen's voice floated out the window again. “Iz! Now!”

Iz's eyes popped open. She sighed and turned toward Kenny's house. Then she quickly leaned back toward me and gave me a soft kiss on the cheek, running off before I could do more than blink.

I stood there alone, listening to the breeze gossiping its way through the trees, whispering about the two of us like the newest rumor working its way down the school hallways at lunchtime. Then I ran my fingers down the cheek she had kissed and squeezed my fist, tightly. If only I could catch hold of the kiss, maybe I could hang on to the feel of those soft lips despite everything else that was going on.

I glanced at the lake as I turned to go inside. And saw a boat's running lights gliding across the dark, headed straight toward the darker bulk of the island.

I admit, I have a lot of questions about the Big Guy in the Sky. But Gram had made it clear that as far as she was concerned, He had game, man. So when the two of us settled into a church pew the next morning, I tried, for Gram's sake, to grab on to some holy.

Plus, I was thinking that if the worst happened and the note writer came gunning for me, it might help to have the Big Guy on my side.

Problem was, on that particular Sunday I was too distracted to make time for The Man Upstairs. I was too busy trying to figure out that other man in my life, the bank-robbing one, and all the problems kicking up around him.

Not to mention that I got extra distracted once I recognized the back of Iz's head just six pews in front of us.

But I was sitting next to my grandmother in a church, so I really worked to push any thoughts of Iz aside. As soon as I cleared out a little space in my brain, this other thought popped through, and I started obsessing about the Monopoly money and the note we'd buried on the island and wondering whose boat I'd seen traveling out there in the dark.

I checked out the other heads in church—well, the backs of them, anyway—and wondered which one of them was trying to catch me while I was trying to catch him. When would he make his next move? And what would it be?

Was I going to need a miracle to stay in one piece?

Then Iz turned and looked over her shoulder all casually, like she was just scanning the room, but as soon as her eyes lit on me, they stayed stuck and she gave me that secret smile, and next thing I knew, Gram was having to poke me in the shoulder because everybody else was standing up to sing and I was just sitting there, all caught up in thinking about Iz.

Then the service was finally over, but rather than making the speedy exit I had planned, I got trapped by Gram's peeps, who were circling like turkey vultures to pluck up the backstory about my winning chicken-crap ticket.

I finally escaped the posse and headed outside. I was kind of hiding out in a little nook, trying to spot Iz, when some lady who looked like a walking flower garden planted herself in front of me.

“Travis, right?” She had one of those smiles where you could see way too many teeth. “My, you do look like your father, don't you? But I suppose the real question is, are you like him both inside and out?”

I thought I had perfected my delivery-to-the- following-recipient-failed-permanently look. But Mrs. Flower Garden must have misinterpreted my blank stare, because she just kept plowing on.

“Of course, none of us knew exactly how much trouble your father had in him until it was too late, did we?”

She was giving me the same look that the wolf had given Little Red Riding Hood. Just as I was opening my mouth to comment on what big teeth she had, a hand slipped into mine.

“Hello, Mrs. Svengrud,” said Iz.

Another Svengrud? What was with this family? Why did they hate me so much? Maybe one of them
had
written the anonymous note, even if it wasn't Cody. At the very least I was sure they were the reason the whole town had turned me into their fall guy.

Maybe they had actually found the stupid money long ago and now they were the ones spending it; Iz had said King Svengrud had been searching hard for it. Had he somehow pretended to find the bait money the day I'd been in his store so he could frame me for having the cash and then finally spend it himself?

The Teeth turned on Iz and then her eyes dropped down to check out our PDA. “Isabella, you poor dear, how are you feeling after all that trouble with your father the other night?”

I felt Iz's hand jerk in mine, but then she gave me a squeeze that clearly meant “be quiet.” “Oh, how nice of you to be thinking about me when you have your own worries. Kenny told me Cody is having big trouble in summer school. Poor thing—did he have to stay home and study? Is that why he isn't at church this morning? I can't imagine how hard it will be on all of you if he flunks again and can't play football in the fall.”

I was so happy to see the return of the evil fairy that I couldn't completely hold back a smirk.

Queen Svengrud heaved a big breath that set all her flowers waving in the breeze. She stared at Iz for a moment, but then she seemed to figure out there was no way she could make her fighting weight class and she turned back to me.

“I just worry for your poor grandmother, don't you? After all those years of coping with your father's wild ways, she really deserves to just relax, doesn't she? But now . . .”

“There's Trav's grandma now. Mrs. Stoiska, here he is.” Iz raised her voice and yanked me away before I could say, “Bite me,” or rearrange the barracuda's teeth to match Linnea's.

Gram didn't seem to be anywhere in sight but I wasn't about to argue. We pulled up next to Kenny.

“I saw boat lights heading out for the island last night, right before I went to bed,” I said as soon as it was just the three of us.

“Whoa—so today really could be D-day.” Kenny stuffed a whole doughnut into his mouth. I checked out the other two he was still holding, wondering how I could snatch one away without his noticing.

He must have sensed I was posing a threat to his food supply, because he pulled back a step. Then he started giving me this look that was a cross between the evil eye and a smirk. I followed his eyes down and realized he had picked up on my whole hand-holding thing with Iz. Man, it was starting to seem like I was setting myself up for even more crap from Kenny than from the note writer.

And while I was busy turning red, he shoved both remaining doughnuts into his mouth at once.

“Kenny!” We looked over and saw Big Ken pointing at his watch. Kenny swallowed the last of the doughnuts and looked from me to Iz. “I gotta go get in the lineup. You two coming to the parade?” he asked.

Earlier that morning Gram had said something about a Fourth of July parade, but I hadn't paid much attention.

“You'll watch with me, right?” Iz asked eagerly. “Everybody else in the family is in it. Even Linnea is marching with the baton twirlers. Let's go down and be there for the start of the route.”

A gang of Linneas armed with batons sounded like a whole new level of scary, but for the chance to spend the afternoon alone with Iz—well, with Iz and a parade route full of people—it was worth the risk. And I needed to make myself publicly available so the note writer could find me, right?

“Yeah,” I said. “Just let me find Gram and tell her.”

Gram said she and her posse liked to watch from right there in the churchyard. I agreed to stop back for her after the last float had floated by.

“I'm starving,” I said as Iz and I headed toward the other end of town. “I guess I didn't pay enough attention when Gram told me lunch would be late today.”

“The Frosty Freeze is open,” Iz said. “They always make a killing on parade day.”

We waited our turn for ice cream. It was clearer than ever that in Boondocks I was some kind of D-list celebrity; people were slapping their eyes on us from all the way down the street at the Big Store. I remembered Iz's fight with Kenny; it probably wasn't doing her reputation as a freak any good to be seen playing guide dog for the outlaw's spawn, but she looked happier than she'd been all week, so I gave up worrying and bought her a double cone.

We wandered farther down the road, searching for an open spot on the curb so we could sit. Iz spotted a space right in front of the giant fish statue and we settled in.

I looked over my shoulder. “That's got to be the ugliest fish I've ever seen. What kind is it, anyway?”

“Bullhead,” said Iz. “Uncle Ken says there aren't even that many of them in the lake. But I think all the other Minnesota fish had already been taken by other towns, so I guess we ended up with the ugly one.”

She said it like there was some law that you had to build a giant fish statue to qualify as a Minnesota town. Maybe there was—who knows?

Suddenly I noticed that a shadow had fallen over us. I turned back around and saw Crazy Carl standing there staring, not two feet away.

“It's you again,” he said, drilling into me with his watery eyes. “It's you.”

Iz pressed her shoulder into mine. “Hey, Carl. How are you?” But it was like she wasn't even there.

Dude was still lasering me with crazy, but then I swear his eyes shifted and somebody inside his head who must have been as sane as anything peeked out at me and said, “I know where it is. I know what you're looking for. And I know where it is.”

I could feel my muscles knotting, getting ready to jump up, and Iz must have felt them too, because she put her hand onto my knee to stop me. And in just that space of time, Carl's eyes shifted back to loco again and the Non-Crazy Carl inside his head went back into hiding.

“You stinking space men. Falling into the lake like shooting stars. I'll get you, though.”

A siren screamed and I jumped and looked around. The parade was starting; Deputy Dude was cruising by slowly in his sheriff's car to clear the street. Passersby started racing for seats, scrambling in every direction like kids in school hallways when the final bell has rung, and before I could pull it together, Mr. Maniac and his alternate personality had vanished into the crowd.

“Did you
hear
that? I think he knows where the money is!” I was on my feet now, trying to see where Carl had been swallowed up by the river of people.

Iz yanked on the bottom of my shorts and pulled me back down beside her. Her eyes looked even bigger than usual. “Trav, he's always saying strange things. It probably doesn't mean anything.”

“No, listen. Gram told me that he used to be really close to my dad. He totally could know something! I think I should go after him.”

“You'll never find him again with all these people around. And I promised Linnea I wouldn't miss the twirlers. Look, I'll help you track him down tomorrow, okay? Cross my heart—we'll spend the whole day looking for him. He lives out at the dump. I'll even take you there if I have to.”