I Kill the Mockingbird (11 page)

The next day, Dad corners me in the kitchen. I made some hummus for lunch, but Mom doesn’t want to eat it. “Lucy,” Dad says when he sees me, “we’ve got to talk.”

Mom is in the backyard taking photographs, so Dad and
I are alone in the kitchen.

“About what?”

“Stephanie Buskirk is coming to visit me in my office tomorrow.”

“Michael’s mom?”

Dad nods. “Officer Buskirk.”

“What does she want?”

Dad looks toward the back door. It’s clear that he’s checking to be sure we won’t be interrupted.

“Mom is outside taking pictures of bugs,” I tell him. “She didn’t eat any lunch.”

“She’ll eat when she’s hungry.”

“I don’t think she’s getting enough sleep,” I say.

“She’ll sleep when she’s tired.”

“Have the doctors—?”

“Lucy,” Dad interrupts me. “I’m trying to tell you something.”

“What?”

He leans toward me and speaks in a low voice. “I think there’s a detective on your trail.”

I don’t reply.

Dad grabs a spoon, scoops some of my hummus onto a tortilla chip, and takes a bite. “I’ve been spending some
time on I Kill the Mockingbird dot com.”

“Oh?”

“Nice photographs.” He takes another chip. This time, he digs right into the bowl. “And I like the I Kill the Mockingbird Manifesto, too.”

“That’s good.”

“So what should I tell Officer Buskirk?”

“Tell her I said hello.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Hello!” Mom calls from the doorway.

Dad jumps back and so do I. “There’s still hummus!” I blurt
out.

Mom makes a face and heads toward the refrigerator. “Do we have any ice cream?”

“You should be eating healthy foods,” I tell her.

She turns to face me. She looks annoyed. “Are you free this afternoon?”

“For what?”

“Simple photo shoot,” she says, “but I could use an assistant.”

“Sure.”

“You don’t have other plans?”

Michael is playing baseball all day, Elena is working at the store,
and Mort doesn’t need me. “Nope.”

“Good,” says Mom. “Meet me at the car in ten minutes.” She grabs a handful of chocolates from a wooden bowl and leaves the kitchen.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Dad says in a low voice.

“No answer is an answer,” I tell him.

“Is that what I should give Officer Buskirk?”

“That works for me.”

17

What I Want

A half hour later, Mom and I are standing in the cemetery across the street from St. Thomas United Church of Christ. The church, all worn red brick, is located in the far west end of West Glover. Mom parks the car beneath a big weeping willow, and then we wander among the battered grave markers.

“What are we doing here?” I ask.

“Location shots.” Mom kneels down, balances
her camera atop one of the headstones, and points the lens at the bell tower above the church’s double-door entrance. When there’s time, she likes to drive around and take pictures of local churches in all kinds of different light and weather. That way, she always has extra photos to add to couples’ wedding albums. But this church hasn’t seen a wedding—or any other kind of service—for a long, long
time. The windows are boarded up. The doors are chained shut, and the front steps are covered in dirty brown leaves that look like they’ve been here for years.

I point at the building. “You need pictures of this?”

“Not really.”

“But you asked me for help.”

“I lied.”

“Then why are we here?”

Mom lowers her camera. “There’s something I want to tell you.”

“What is it?”

“Lucy,” says Mom, “here’s
the thing…”

I feel my heart begin to speed up. “Is something wrong?”

“I don’t like hummus.”

“Excuse me?”

“Hummus,” says Mom. “It’s like garlic peanut butter except it’s made out of beans.”

“Okay,” I say.

Mom continues. “I don’t actually like salads or soups or lentils, either. Also, I wish you’d stop trying to get me to eat so much fresh fruit. It gives me a stomachache.”

My mother has
just listed most of the foods that I’ve been trying to put in front of her since she got home from the hospital. “But—”

“And there’s one more thing.”

“What?”

“Lucy,” says Mom, “I am going to die.”

Suddenly I feel like I can’t catch my breath. “What?” I say again.

“You heard me.”

A cicada’s whine splits the air. A pair of swallows darts past my head. “You brought me into a cemetery to tell
me this?”

Mom reaches out and squeezes my hand. “It seemed appropriate. But that’s not all.”

“There’s more?”

“I am not going to die today.”

I pull my hand away from her. “What are you talking about?”

“Of course I could get hit by a school bus or accidentally electrocute myself or something, but that’s unlikely. It really would take some kind of weird, long-shot mishap for me to be dead by
tomorrow or even the next day.”

“Are you going to die or not?” I ask my mother.

Mom points at the gravesites all around us. “We all die, Lucy. Me. You. Everybody. But you know what we do first?”

I shake my head.

“We pretend that it’s not going to happen. We make believe that we’re never going to die. Do you know what that’s called?”

“Lying?” I say.

“Living, Lucy. It’s called living. That’s
what I’m going to do now. So please stop tip-toeing around the house because you’re afraid that loud noises might disturb me. Please stop giving me carrots and granola and organic skim milk. Please stop looking at me like I might fall and break into a million pieces any minute. It’s depressing.”

“Milk is good for your teeth!”

“I had cancer,” says Mom, “not cavities.”

“What do you want to eat?”

“A hot dog would be nice.”

“Hot dogs? Why don’t we just go buy a bag of chemicals so that you can gobble it up with a spoon?”

“We did that,” says Mom. “It was called chemotherapy. It saved my life. Now I’m going to eat what I want.”

“What exactly are you trying to tell me?” I say.

Mom stares at me for a moment before answering. “Be happy.”

“Be happy?”

“Be happy,” she says again.

“That’s
it?”

Mom shrugs. “That’s all I’ve got.”

I lean against a nearby grave marker. Mom swings her camera up and before I can protest, she snaps a couple of pictures of me. “Can you please stop?” I say.

She lowers the camera.

“I mean can I say something?” I ask.

“Of course you can,” Mom tells me.

“Would it be so hard for you take a little better care of yourself?”

“I take care of myself.”

“You
don’t!” I yell at her. “You eat junk. You don’t sleep. No wonder you got cancer!”

“Lucy,” Mom says, “you don’t catch cancer.”

“You don’t seem to be trying to avoid it either.”

“That’s not fair,” says Mom. “Do you think I wanted to get sick?”

“Of course not, but—”

“But what?”

“You were dead!” I holler. “The doctors told us that you were going to die. You don’t remember, but we were in your
hospital room, and we kissed you goodbye.” I start to cry. “And now you’re alive. It’s like a miracle. It should mean something. It’s like a second chance. When something like this happens to people, they change their lives.”

“You want me to change my life by eating more fruit?” Mom says.

“I don’t know what I want.” But then I think about what Michael said about me, and I realize that I do know
what I want. I just have to say it. “Mom,” I begin. “I love you. And Dad loves you.” Now I’m sobbing as if my mother really did die. “And I want you to take care of yourself as if you really believed it.”

“Oh, Lucy,” says Mom.

A gentle wind moves through the cemetery and rustles the trees so that a soft
shhhh, shhhh, shhhh
fills the air around us.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “You were so sick. I was
so scared.” I’m just blubbering now, but I can’t stop. “I’m still scared.”

Mom opens her arms and I rush into them. “It’s okay to be scared,” she whispers to me. “I’m scared, too. But we can get through this.”

“How?” I ask.

“Together, Lucy. We get through this together.”

18

The Secret Circus

Michael lifts a cardboard box filled with used books onto Mort’s counter, and I start sorting through them. People are always leaving cartons and grocery bags filled with worn titles at the shop’s door. I guess they feel bad about throwing books away. Mort asked Michael and me to see if this week’s contributions include anything worthwhile, but I can already see that
most of it is going to end up in the recycling bin.

“My mother is asking Mockingbird questions,” Michael whispers to me.

“I know,” I say.

Elena ran out to get us some lunch. Mort is assembling a new set of bookshelves along the store’s back wall. There are Christmas carols on the record player again, and a bluesy, big-voiced soul-singer is belting out
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
. For some
reason, the way the singer draws out the word
I …
makes me think of St. Lucy with her eyeballs on a plate, and, God forgive me, I laugh out loud.

“What’s so funny?” Michael asks.

“The song,” I tell him.

Just then, Elena enters the shop with our lunch. “What’s going on?”

“Lucy thinks that kissing is funny,” Michael tells her.

I toss an old Scrooge McDuck comic book at him. “I do not.”

“It
is kind of funny if you think about it,” says Elena. “Who decided that smashing faces together would be a good way to improve a conversation?”

“You think it’s a conversation?” Michael asks.

“It is if you’re doing it right,” Mort hollers from the back of the store.

“Remember when Mr. Nowak told us that being a good reader is like having a good conversation?” says Elena. “I bet good readers make
good kissers.”

“That’s not what I was laughing about,” I tell my friends.

Elena places a bag of sandwiches on the counter then heads toward the stairs. “I’ll be right back. In the meantime, maybe the two of you want to have—” She makes air quotes. “—a conversation.”

She leaves the two of us alone at the counter. Suddenly, we both find the pile of used books incredibly interesting. Around us,
tiny specks of dust sparkle in the summer sunshine that’s pouring through the bookshop windows. Meanwhile, the Ronettes or the Crystals or the Bobby Soxers are still singing about Santa.

The lunch bag between us reminds me of Mr. Nowak who said I should enjoy every sandwich and be brave and pay attention to the world and share beautiful things. Somehow, those thoughts lead me to Mom who wants
me to be happy and eat more hot dogs. And then there’s Michael who believes that I am brave and that I should say what I want. And he’s right.

“So…” Michael finally says.

Before he can continue, I lean forward and just barely brush Michael’s lips with my own.

“Hey!” Mort yells at us. “That’s enough of that!”

I feel my face turn beet red. “We were just—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” says Mort.
“You’ve got work to do.”

I push a strand of hair out of my face. I feel a little bit breathless. I don’t even know if what just happened counts as a real kiss. If it was, it was the tiniest kiss in the history of the world. On the other hand, it felt pretty big to me.

A moment later, Elena returns with napkins and water bottles and chips. “What did I miss?” she asks.

I feel my face begin to
burn again. “Uh…” I say.

“Ummm…” offers Michael.

Elena nods. “You kissed him, didn’t you?” she says to me.

“I—”

Elena holds up her hand. “Stop,” she says. “Don’t talk.”

“But—”

“I’m serious,” she says. “If you talk, you’re going to ruin the moment.”

I open my mouth, but before I can speak Elena pops a chip into it. Suddenly, my tongue is on fire, my eyes are watering, and I feel like I’m
going to gag.

“Smoky jalapeño bacon,” Elena says to me. “Do you like it?”

I shake my head. “No!”

She holds the bag toward Michael. He pushes it away. “I’m good.”

I take several huge swigs out of my water bottle. “You’re not just saying that?” I finally ask him.

“I’m not saying anything,” he replies.

My heart is pounding. I’m not sure if it’s from the kiss, the conversation, or the snack
food. “Why not?”

“I’m trying to not ruin the moment.”

I grab a napkin and try to wipe the taste of pork rind, hot pepper, and house fire off my tongue.

Elena rolls her eyes. “It might be too late for that.”

Michael smiles. “It’s not.”

We eat the rest of our lunch mostly in silence. When we’re done, I glance at the clock and realize that a transit bus will be heading to the mall in just a
few minutes. Somehow, this seems like a better idea than hanging out shoulder to shoulder inside Mort’s shop for the rest of the afternoon. “Anybody want to visit Mr. Dobby?” I ask.

“If you’re going, we’re going,” Elena says. “We’re the three musketeers.”

“Or the three stooges,” offers Michael.

“Or the three little pigs,” I say.

Elena crumbles up the sandwich wrappings and tosses the balled-up
paper at me. “Who are you calling little?”

A few minutes later, we step inside the mall. I wish I was holding Michael’s hand, but we’ll be heading in different directions once we get inside. Over the summer, we’ve learned that a teenager shopping alone gets almost no attention—and no assistance—from your average retailer. On the other hand, three teenagers shopping together make some people want
to call in a SWAT team.

Once we get to Mr. Dobby’s bookstore, I wander into the children’s section.
To Kill a Mockingbird
copies are shelved there sometimes, but today I find nothing but titles and characters that are like old friends to me. There’s
Because of Winn Dixie
,
Officer Buckle and Gloria
,
Ella Enchanted,
Harry Potter,
The Tiger Rising,
the Grinch, Emma Jean Lazarus,
Pictures of Hollis
Woods
,
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy
,
Shark Wars …
Elena and Michael tease me about my love for
Shark Wars
, but I don’t care what they think. Talking sharks are cool, and not every book has to be a classic.