“How many does she have?” Banks asked.
When Gilroy gave him the number, the girls gasped.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “That sounds a little high to me.”
“Are you accusing me of something?”
“Let’s reconsider,” Banks said. “These girls need all the help they can get. Even convicts get time off for good behavior.”
He laughed.
I didn’t. Neither did Gilroy.
“What if we cut her number of detentions in half?” Banks suggested. “With the requirement that she help the committee every day.”
“That would be great!” Nat chirped.
Gilroy’s eyes reminded me of a ferret we used to have. It liked to bite, too. “A noble idea, Mr. Banks, but contrary to district policy. The board wants us to enforce a ‘no exceptions’ discipline. If we let Miss Hannigan off the hook for her infractions, we set a dangerous precedent. I’m sure she understands.”
“But, but . . .” Nat said.
I wanted to pick up Gilroy by his smelly ferret tail and dangle him out the window.
“I see your point,” Banks said. “We’re sorry, Ashley. You earn detention, you serve detention.”
Gilroy opened the door. “That’s the way things work in the real world.”
We were on the third floor. If I was dangling a ferret out the window and it tried to bite me, I’d drop it.
Nat grabbed Mr. Banks’s sleeve. “But she can still help, can’t she? I mean, as long as she does her detentions, too.”
“You said we need all the help we can get,” Lauren said.
“I don’t see a problem with that,” Banks said. “Do you, Mr. Gilroy? I think it shows character, to help out friends in need. What do you say, Ashley?”
Everybody turned and stared at me.
Like I had a choice.
57.
My so-called “knight in rusting armor” was not waiting for me after school. Not that I expected him or anything. Jerk.
Nat said she’d drive me to work. We stopped at my house first ’cause I wanted to change. Before I opened the front door, I put my finger in her face.
“Do not, I repeat, do not, say anything about the prom. Don’t even say the word ‘prom.’ Promise me.”
Nat rolled her eyes. “Promise.”
My brothers and father and dog were in the kitchen. Dad was dressed for a softball game: dirty cleats, tube socks, bright red shorts, and a tank top that showed too much hairy back. He was using tongs to pluck hot dogs out of a giant pot of boiling water. Mutt was spinning in the middle of the floor, his spit flying through the air like Silly String.
So far, so good, you’re thinking. All-American dad cooking All-American food. Hungry dog freaking out.
Think again.
Dad waved a steaming hot dog in the air, shouted, “Pop fly!” and threw it across the kitchen. Mutt jumped and missed.
“I got it,” Shawn screamed. He reached over Mutt and caught the hot dog in his glove. But the play wasn’t over. “First base!” he hollered.
Steven, his nose in a book at the table, flopped open his glove. Shawn tossed the hot dog high, but Steven looked up in time, stretched, and snagged it before it smashed into the window screen. Mutt sprinted towards Steven, hit the brakes too late, and slid into the wall.
“Ouch,” Nat said.
“Look out!” shouted Dad. “Runner stealing home!”
Steven put his elbow on his book so he didn’t lose his place, picked up the hot dog with his right hand, and threw it back across the kitchen to Dad who caught it and handed it to Billy, standing on a chair next to him.
“We got ’im!” Dad said.
“We got ’im!” Billy squealed.
Mutt shook his head, turned once in a circle, and lay down.
I turned to Nat. “And you wonder why I want to move out?”
Dad reached in the pot. “Give your sister a glove, Shawn. Ash—go long.”
“Time out.” I teed up my hands. “Where’s Ma?”
“At Aunt Linny’s,” Steven said. “She won’t be home for hours.”
Billy waved his arms. “She won’t be home for hours!” His hot dog snapped in two, and the top piece fell to the floor. Mutt was on it in a flash.
“Time in!” Dad lobbed a dog at me. “Catch!”
Damn thing was hot. I bobbled it twice, then tossed it to Shawn, who flipped it to Steven, who took a bite out of it before he threw it at Billy. Billy caught it in both hands, stuck it in a smushed-up bun, laid down a line of mustard and offered it up to me. “Hungry?”
“What is going on here?” I asked.
“Softball game tonight,” Dad said. “Cabbies against the roofers.”
Shawn grinned. “Dad’s team is gonna get crushed. You coming to watch?”
“Can’t,” I said. “I have to work until ten.”
“Your loss,” Dad said. “Hot dog, Nat?”
“I’d love one, Mr. Hannigan.”
I shook my head. “Eat that at your own risk. It’ll take me two seconds to get changed.”
58.
My room was over the kitchen, so I could hear them babble. Dad asked Nat if there was any more news about our thieving Math teacher, and Nat filled him in. I had just pulled off my shirt when she explained how I was helping with the new prom.
“Shut up!” I grabbed my clothes and ran down the stairs. “Shuttin’ up, Nattie, for real!” I skidded into the kitchen pulling on a clean T-shirt. “You swore you wouldn’t say that word!”
“Is it true?” Dad asked. “You really going to the prom after all?”
I stepped into one leg of my jeans. “Read these lips: I am not going to the prom.”
“She’s just helping,” Nat explained.
Dad spread relish on a hot dog. “Helping? Like what, serving punch?”
Billy hit Steven’s arm. “Punch,” he said.
Steven took a bite out of Billy’s hot dog. “Bite.”
Billy leaned over to bite Steven. Dad grabbed Billy’s collar, pulled him off Steven and handed him another hot dog. Mutt sat up and whined and Dad tossed him a bun.
I pulled up my jeans and zipped them. “Nobody drinks punch anymore. I’m just helping with . . . what was it you said?”
“Organizational details,” Nat said.
“Yeah, that.”
“Cool,” Dad said. “You gonna need a limo? I know a guy down in Fishtown, he owes me, has classic cars and limos in his fleet. Your ma is going to flip about the dress. God knows that woman can shop. I suppose you’ll need shoes, too. The strappy kind you can dance in. Your mother loves those.”
“No dress. No shoes. I don’t dance.” I buckled my belt. “I am just helping. And get this—nobody, and I mean nobody, is going to tell Ma. If she finds out I’m helping with this dance—”
“It’s not a
dance
, it’s the
prom
,” Nat said.
“—with this dance, she’ll flip. She’ll have such a fit about dresses and flowers and shoes and limos and food and hair and fifty million other stupid things that she will have her baby right here in the kitchen, in front of everybody. Trust me, that is one kind of gross you don’t want to see.”
“Ew.” Shawn put down his hot dog.
“Serious ew,” I said. “Think about last year, Dad, when you renewed your vows. It got so bad around here you almost divorced. When it comes to this celebration stuff, she’s out of control.”
Dad stroked his beard. “You have a point, princess.” He jogged towards the living room. “Hang on, I know what to do!”
I took a freshly boiled hot dog out of the pot and stuck it in a clean bun. Mutt licked my ankle and I pushed him away. “You have no idea the bullet we just dodged,” I told Nat.
Dad came back holding a thick book. “We’ll swear on this. Like a holy oath.”
Nat read the title. “You guys swear on
The Lord of the Rings
?”
“I couldn’t find the Bible.”
Steven stuck a piece of hot dog roll in his book to mark his place. “For some people,
The Lord of the Rings
is holy, too.”
The boys gathered around, each one with a hand on the book.
“We swear that we won’t say a word,” Dad said.
“We swear that we won’t say a word,” my brothers repeated.
“About the prom to Mary Alice.”
“About the prom to Mary Alice.”
“No, I mean, to Mom.”
“No, I mean, to Mom.”
“So help me God and Tug McGraw.”
“So help me God and Tug McGraw.”
“All right then, men. Let’s crush the roofers!”
59.
I had one question rattling around my head the whole time at work.
What was I thinking?
I took orders, delivered them to the kitchen, served flat soda and undercooked pizza, smiled, danced, cleaned tables, mopped floors, and danced some more, a confused rat on cruise control.
What was I thinking!?
No way could I help with the prom. I had a million detentions to serve and was behind in most my classes. I had to go to work and help Ma at home. And I had a social life, sort of, if I was still speaking to TJ and he was still speaking to me.
What the hell was I thinking???
I messed up three orders and spent fifteen minutes switching pizzas from one table to the other. My manager made me mop the floors.
Why did I raise my hand in that meeting? Could I blame my hangover?
Maybe.
Was I just trying to piss off Gilroy?
Probably.
Did this prove that bad things happened when you raised your hand in school?
Absolutely.
60.
When I came home, Mutt was stretched the entire length of the couch, his belly fat with hot dogs and buns. Something was up. The house was too quiet for ten-thirty at night and the dog never got the couch to himself.
“Ma?”
“In the kitchen, Ash,” Dad called.
He was on his knees behind the kitchen table, scrubbing the wallpaper in his softball clothes.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He dipped the scrub brush in a bowl of soapy water. “Cleaning up.”
I looked him over for bruises. “Did you get hit on the head?”
He muscled out a red spot on the wall. “After you and Nat left, we had a little food fight. See that yellow by the window? That’s mustard. This is ketchup, obviously.”
“What’s the green?”
“Relish. But I don’t about the brown stuff.”
“Chocolate pudding,” I said. “From the craving Ma had at Easter, remember?”
“That’s right. I forgot.”
I took an orange soda out of the fridge. “How was the game?”
He started on a huge ketchup stain. “We got robbed. The freaking roofers paid off the umpire. What do you expect? I had a couple good hits, though. Sent one out of the park.”
“Good for you.”
I took a long drink. The only sound in the house was the wet brush on the wall. The wallpaper was coming off and the drywall was dissolving, but the stain was still there.
“TJ called,” Dad said.
“I’m not talking to him.”
“How come?”
“He stood me up last night.”
“Then who were you out with last night?”
“Moira O’Malley. At the park.”
“You got drunk at the park without your boyfriend there to protect you?” Dad stopped scrubbing and stared at me. “That was stupid, Ashley Marie. Stupid and dangerous. You coulda got in all kinds of trouble.”
“Yeah, whatever,” I said. “I won’t do it again.”
“Better not.” He picked soggy bits of wallpaper from the brush. “And you should cut TJ some slack.”
“I’ll think about it. Where is Ma?”
“She’s, ah, spending the night at Linny’s.”
“Why?” I put down the soda. “She’s not in labor, is she?”
“No such luck.” A piece of wallpaper slid down the wall. “Damn.”
“So why is she at Aunt Linny’s?”
He tossed the scrub brush in the bowl. Water sloshed over the side and dripped on the floor. Dad pulled out a chair and sat down across from me. “She’s a little irritated, with, um . . .”
“She’s pissed because you guys totally trashed the kitchen.”
“You could say that.”
“Ma went nuclear.”
“Pretty much, yeah. She went to Linny’s to cool down. It might take a few days.”
I pushed my soda across to him. He chugged it and tossed the can in the trash.
“Sucks to be you.”
He got up, opened the utensil drawer, and pulled out all the big spoons. “I’m sorry, princess.”
“Why? It’s not my kitchen.”
He took a spatula out of the drawer and dumped the spoons back in. “Not about this, about your bedroom.”
“They trashed my room, too?”
He held up the spatula. The handle was bent. “No, your new room. Downstairs. Fixing this is going to take a while.”
“Fixing that spatula?”
“No. The kitchen.” He used the spatula to scrape off a piece of wallpaper. “When I’m done stripping this, I’m going to give it a coat of primer and then paint it. Then I’ll have to do the rest of the kitchen so it matches, or your mother will have my head on a platter. Your room ain’t gonna be done before the baby shows up. That’s what I’m sorry for.”
“Don’t worry about it. I was thinking maybe I could look for an apartment or something.”
He snorted. “That’s a good one, Ash. You, out on your own.” He pulled the trash can closer. “You feel like helping me get this paper off?”
“Not really.”
“So that means you’ll get your brothers ready for school in the morning.”
“You’re worse than Ma, you know that?” I put my hand out for the spatula. “Give me that thing.”
By the time we were done, the wall looked like it had been through a car wash. Dad said he knew a guy who knew a guy who could get him some primer for cheap. I said whatever, I needed some sleep, and it was after midnight.
61.
I woke up in the middle of an earthquake. No, wait. Not an earthquake. Natalia Shulmensky, flipped-out best friend, was shaking me like the house was on fire.