Small Steps - Louis Sachar [42]
21
X-Ray paced back and forth by his car, which was parked in front of Armpit’s house. “We got nothing to worry about,” he said. “Nothing to worry about. The police have better things to do than to launch a big investigation over a couple of phony tickets.”
Armpit had told him everything, including how he had met Kaira.
“Man, I wish you had talked to me first,” X-Ray said. “I could have come up with something believable.”
“I think she believed me,” said Armpit.
“Habib?” X-Ray shook his head. “And you never should have mentioned the H-E-B.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t thinking.”
“Well, that’s obvious. Look, if she interrogates you again, just remember one word: ‘kiss.’ K-I-S-S. Keep It Simple, Stupid!”
“I think she believed me.”
“You know we’re in this together. We split the money, fifty-fifty.”
Yes, he realized that.
“Not to worry,” X-Ray said. “The cops have better things to do. Man, it’s just my luck the mayor was at the concert! What kind of mayor goes to rock concerts?”
“You’re lucky she was there,” Armpit pointed out.
“Oh, yeah? How’s that?”
“If the mayor wasn’t there, I woulda been sent to jail, Ginny woulda been taken to a hospital and had her stomach pumped, and you’d be dead.”
X-Ray laughed. “You’re such a joker.”
At school on Monday, Tatiana wanted to know all about the concert. “You still went, didn’t you?”
“Oh, I had a great time. Too bad you missed it.”
“Were you able to find someone to go with you?”
“Yeah, that wasn’t a problem.”
“A girl?”
He nodded.
“Well, good. I’m really glad you had such a good time!”
“She wore this thing with long white fringe—”
“You know what?” said Tatiana. “I really don’t care what your girlfriend was wearing.”
“My girlfriend? No, you asked me to tell you what Kaira DeLeon had on.”
“I don’t have time for this now,” Tatiana said, then walked away.
In economics he gave Matt Kapok the dollar back.
Matt seemed surprised. “Uh, thanks, Arm—” His white face turned even whiter. “I mean, I mean, I mean, Theodore. Thanks, Theodore.”
“You really helped me out,” Armpit said. “I owe you one.”
On the back of their souvenir T-shirts was a list of the fifty-four cities on the tour. Ginny and Armpit looked at them every day for the next week and a half and tried to predict where Kaira was.
“Maybe she’ll call from Albuquerque,” said Ginny, studying the T-shirt. “Al-bu-quer-que,” she repeated. She liked saying that word.
Armpit laughed. “She’s not going to call,” he said, as if he never gave it a thought, when in truth it was practically all he’d thought about since he’d last seen her. Every time the phone rang his body went to red alert. He hated leaving the house for school or work because he was afraid he might miss her call. But after a week and a half, that didn’t seem too likely anymore.
“It’s like she says in her song,” he told Ginny. “She’ll get around to you, and then she’ll be on her way.”
He just wished he could have held on a little bit longer.
He had failed a quiz in economics earlier that day. He hadn’t read the last two chapters. He couldn’t concentrate.
At work the day before he’d installed a sprinkler system in the front yard of a house. Jack Dunlevy had trusted him to do the entire job himself.
Armpit had made sure the sprinkler heads were evenly distributed, so that the water would cover the entire lawn. He had carefully secured each connection.
The problem was that it was all just attached to itself. The pipes formed one giant rectangle, with no way for any water to enter the system.
He ended up having to work overtime, digging a new trench, cutting into the pipes, and attaching the main water line. “You don’t have to pay me for the extra time it took,” he told his boss. “I’m the one who screwed up.”
“Unfortunately, I do,” said Jack Dunlevy. “It’s the law.”
How could he explain it was all because a Kaira DeLeon song came on the radio?
At least he hadn’t heard from Detective Newberg again. Maybe X-Ray was right. The Austin Police Department had better