The Hole in the Wall - Lisa Rowe Fraustino [26]
“Oh, puh-leeze, Seb. If you want me to help find your missing chickens so Ma won’t kill you, you’d better cut out the melodrama right now. I’m serious.” She crossed her arms to show me. But I wasn’t acting, and the tears came to prove it. That melted her down.
“Sebby, what’s wrong? Your stomach again?”
I nodded.
Barbie put her arm around my shoulders. I didn’t push her away. I was really scared.
“We gotta go tell Ma. You probably need a doctor.”
Probably. Except that Ma had enough to worry about. And I had other plans, too. Spying is hard to do in an emergency room. So I wiped my eyes. “No big deal. I’m fine. I’ll just get some fresh air, and then I’ll come back and help you.”
The Shish looked doubtful, but she nodded. I took her umbrella and went outside. The fresh air did help. My stomach went back to the same dull ache I’d been living with for a couple of days.
While I was out there, the Post Office truck came by, so I crossed the road to get the mail. Making myself useful. Ma and Grum would love that. On the top of the stack sat an envelope with the Mildew School logo in the return address. Uh-oh. The letter was addressed to Ma and Pa in the tiny, neat handwriting I saw on all my school papers. Ms. Byron. And then I remembered that she’d said she was writing home to my parents about my homework.
Suddenly a very unfortunate accident occurred. An ORC truck whizzed by with a whoosh of air that dragged the envelope right out of my hand. It tumbled like an autumn leaf into the ditch and sank into the frothy wastewater from the gore.
I’d have swum for it, honestly, but I couldn’t keep Barbie waiting any longer.
8
By now Barbie had most of the closet emptied out in neat stacks. It seemed impossible that so much had fit into such a tight space, including the broken furniture and toys Pa was going to fix someday. Seeing the rusty red wagon he used to pull me and Barbie around in made me smile. Until I saw what was in it. Jed’s protest signs. So much for smiling. Those signs depressed me.
Nobody in town liked what Boots Odum had done to the gore, but nobody hated it more than Jed. The week before he ran away, he had started a protest all by himself. He made picket signs and marched them back and forth across the main entrance to ORC. One read:
THIS NATURAL BEAUTIFICATION PROJECT
BROUGHT TO KOKADJO BY
OUR RICHEST CITIZEN
Another one had a picture of the gore from Kettle Ridge before ORC, all glorious with fall foliage and curls of wood smoke coming out of stone chimneys, most of which Pa had built. Then another picture of the same area stripped down to the crumbly dirt. The caption said:
DON’T YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY?
My favorite one was a picture of Boots Odum from one of his billboards, pasted next to a picture of Grum packing all her stuff up in garbage bags. It said:
WHAT DO YOU EXPECT
FROM A GUY CALLED “BOOTS”?
HE BOOTS PEOPLE.
That one was my favorite because it made you feel something, even if the sad little old raggedy lady wasn’t your own grandmother kicked out of her home. But Grum was embarrassed when she rode by and saw Jed and his signs on her way to the church coffee klatch one day. “I wasn’t booted, I was bought out,” she said and made Pa stop the truck.
It wasn’t pretty what Pa did to Jed right out on the street at the edge of town. Jed stayed to himself for a couple of days afterward, like always after Pa got after him. But then he up and disappeared.
It upset me terribly to see those signs again. I hadn’t forgiven Pa yet for driving my brother off. I didn’t know if I ever could.
“Hey, Seb, I can’t see anything back here. Will you come back from Pluto and get me the flashlight?” Oh yeah, I was supposed to be helping the Shish look for the chickens.
“I’ll get us a flashlight. Have to take the mail inside anyway.”
“Well, hurry up. I still have my own chores, you know.