Promise (21 page)

The students started talking again, so Yo-Yo clapped his hands to get their attention back.

“First,” Yo-Yo said, looking at the directions, “the ground must be watered thoroughly. Sarah-with-an-H, that will be your job. You can start right now while I'm talking. Get it wet, but not muddy.” Kaden screwed the hose to the spigot and turned it on for Sarah. As she pulled the hose to the middle of the courtyard and started spraying, Yo-Yo held up a trowel.

“There are eight boys and we have eight trowels, so the boys will dig little holes.”

“I'm not digging nothing,” Luke called out. “And who said you could give orders, anyway?”

To Kaden's surprise, Coach Dosser came forward out of the shade. “Mr. Price said Kaden and Yo-Yo are in charge. Luke, you're digging. My orders.”

Yo-Yo continued reading the directions aloud. “The holes need to be about three inches deep and six inches apart, in a chessboard pattern.” He stopped and looked out at the students. “Sara-without-an-H, go to Mr. Herd's room and get eight rulers.”

“I don't understand,” Phillip called out.

“Of course you don't, Phillip,” Luke scoffed. “It takes brains to play chess.”

Yo-Yo ignored Luke. “Picture a chessboard, Phillip. Dig holes only on the black squares. The white squares are the six inches of dirt in between.”

“Oh, I get it, the rows are staggered,” Phillip said.

“Kind of like your brain,” Luke said.

Kaden had had enough of Luke, and without even thinking, the words going through his mind came out of his mouth, loud and clear. “Shut up, Luke.”

It startled Kaden that he actually said that, and it must have startled Luke, too. He looked at Kaden in surprise but before he could say anything, Elana spoke up.

“Yeah, Luke, be quiet,” she said. But Luke had regained his composure.

“Has everyone forgotten we'd all be sitting nice and cool in study hall having a good time instead of out here planting grass in the hot sun if Kaden's grandma hadn't stuck her nose where it didn't belong?”

“I think she was right,” Elana said. “The courtyard needs work.”

“Me too,” several of the other students chimed in. Kaden smiled to himself, surprised by how many had the courage to
stand up against Luke.

“Well, do what you want,” Luke said, “but I'm not going to be treated like a prisoner sentenced to hard labor.” He stomped off and sat under a tree at the far end of the courtyard. A couple of other boys joined the mutiny.

“Get back up here,” Coach called out. Luke didn't budge. Neither did the other boys.

“Extra laps in PE for those who don't participate,” Coach said sternly. The other boys got up and joined the rest of the class but Luke stayed under the tree. Coach crossed his arms and took two steps forward. Luke got up and slowly started sauntering back.

“Okay, back to directions,” Yo-Yo started up again. “The girls will be planters.”

“I thought I was the waterer,” Sarah said. As she spoke, she turned to look at Yo-Yo. The hose changed directions and water sprayed all over Luke.

“Hey, watch what you're doing,” Luke snapped at Sarah.

The whole class laughed.

“Sorry,” Sarah said, but then started giggling. “Looks like you peed your pants.”

The class laughed even harder. Yo-Yo let them laugh for a while before he clapped his hands again.

“Yes, Sarah, your job is to water the ground to soften it
up,” Yo-Yo continued. “Watering Luke was a nice try but I don't think he softened up any.”

Luke scowled. The class laughed again. Yo-Yo was on top of his game.

“Okay,” Yo-Yo said. “Let's get to work.”

Coach opened the library door. “Behave yourselves,” he said. “I'll be watching from inside.” Kaden could see through the window as Coach Dosser sat in the air-conditioned room, his feet up on a table.

Everyone worked diligently, talking and laughing as they dug and planted. Everyone but Luke. He had gone back to the shade of the tree. Kaden kept an eye on him but Luke seemed focused on Elana and Yo-Yo. They were digging and planting as a team. Elana pulled out a pair of earbuds, the cord running down to the pocket of her capris. She gave one earbud to Yo-Yo and put the other in her ear. As they worked closely side by side sharing the earbuds, Luke's scowl got bigger and bigger.

Kaden was about to give Yo-Yo the heads-up about Luke when Coach opened the door and stepped onto the patio.

“Five minutes 'til the bell rings,” he announced. “Go wash up before your next class.” Luke was the first one in the door.

As the rest of the class filed inside, Yo-Yo and Kaden put down their trowels, stood up, and stretched.

“Ten empty and two rows gone from the eleventh box. Barely a third,” Yo-Yo groaned.

Kaden slid the half-empty box of plugs over to an area of dampened dirt and returned to his hands and knees.

“Next time,” he told Yo-Yo, “be more selective about what you read aloud in front of Gram.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

SHARING MUSIC

When the last student to come out the middle-school door stepped on the bus, Doris didn't pull forward.

“Where's Luke?” she called out.

No one knew where Luke was, and Doris was obviously irritated. She radioed in to the school office to report Luke missing, then pulled forward to the elementary door. The younger students boarded the bus but Doris stayed put. She waited until Luke had been located, not at school but at Pillie's. Doris was fifteen minutes off schedule and not too pleased.

As the bus let out the last student before heading up the hill out of town, Kaden moved up to the seat behind Doris.

“Could you stop at Emmett's?” he asked. “I want to let
him know Yo-Yo and I can help him split wood on Saturday. And you could use a little treat.”

“Well, for just a second,” Doris said as she swung the bus into Emmett's driveway.

“Yo-Yo made the wall,” Emmett announced as Kaden and Doris entered the kitchen.

“You got the fishing pictures developed already?” Kaden asked. Emmett's old camera used real film and sometimes it was months before he took enough pictures to use up a whole roll.

“Right there,” Emmett said, pointing to a photograph. Yo-Yo was holding up a not-very-big sunfish but a record-size smile stretched across his face. His hair was sopping and his wet shirt clung to his body. It was the first fish Yo-Yo ever caught. He was so excited when the fish tugged on the line, he fell off the log he was standing on, right into the water. But he landed the fish.

“Sweet! He'll love it when he sees it,” Kaden told Emmett.

“Never seen a boy fall into the river as many times as that boy did,” Emmett said, “but he always came up grinning. I took two. You can give one to Yo-Yo.”

“You can give it to him yourself,” Kaden said. “He'll be here with me Saturday to split wood.”

“Good,” said Emmett. “So, who wants pie and ice cream?”

It was more than an hour before Doris let Kaden off at the cabins. Gram sat on the couch with her feet up. The TV was on. She had a glass of iced tea in one hand and the remote in the other.

“Don't know why people are so enamored with televisions,” she said, not even glancing at Kaden, who went straight to the refrigerator and put in half a pie. “Used to be good shows on TV, but there was nothing on all afternoon worth watching.”

Gram turned off the TV and looked up as Kaden turned around.

“What happened to you?” she said. Kaden's face was streaked with sweat and dirt. His T-shirt had dirty hand marks down the front and his knees were covered with caked mud.

“Zoysia grass,” was all he said. He had to explain it thoroughly to Doris and Emmett but Gram didn't need any more of an explanation.

“Oh, good. I was wondering if it got there,” Gram said. “How much did you get planted?”

“One thousand, nine hundred and fifty-seven,” Kaden said.

“All in fifty minutes?” Gram said. “I should have bought
a thousand more.”

“No, you bought enough,” Kaden said. Plopping down on a kitchen chair, he told her how he and Yo-Yo planted 907 by themselves.

“Don't worry,” Gram said. “I'm not going to order any more. We'll see how these take first. Why don't you go take a shower?”

“That's exactly what I was planning,” Kaden said. “Where's Dad?” The white truck was not in the driveway.

“He was gone most of the day. He has to meet with his parole officer every Monday and Wednesday,” Gram said. “But when he came back this afternoon, we had a little disagreement.”

“About what?”

“He wanted you to go with him to visit his friends and I told him you couldn't, not on a school night.”

“He got mad about that?”

“That and my telling him I wasn't too keen on you hanging around with his friends. I told him I need to know where you are and who you're with,” Gram said.

“I was at Emmett's,” Kaden said. “I needed to tell him Yo-Yo can come help split wood Saturday.”

“I knew where you were,” Gram said, “or at least I assumed I knew.”

“What if Dad had stopped at Emmett's for me?”

“I thought of that,” Gram said, “but I trust you would have the good sense to say no on a school night. And to tell me where you were going.” Gram paused and started chuckling. “Not to mention, I know Doris and her rules. Doris would insist she bring you to the proper destination. Your dad would be no match against Doris when it came to obeying her rules.”

Kaden laughed with Gram, imagining Doris in a standoff with Dad. As he walked over to his cabin to get clean clothes, Kaden thought about what Yo-Yo would be saying if he had heard Gram. Yo-Yo would have Doris holding Kaden hostage in the bus with SWAT teams aiming guns at Dad's white pickup. Yo-Yo's influence had taken over and Kaden was in full TV-cop-show mode when he opened the screen door and stopped cold. Sitting on his bed was another gift. An MP3 player. A note was sitting beside it.

Got this from a friend. Thought you'd like to hear something besides that old stuff your grandma plays. —Dad

It kind of creeped Kaden out that when he least expected it, Dad had been there. In his room. In the tower. If Dad was
going to give him gifts, he wished he would do it in person, face-to-face.
Maybe it's just hard for him to show his feelings
, Kaden thought. Kaden put the note under the mattress with the photo album. Then he picked up the MP3 player, put the earbuds in, and turned it on. It was already loaded with a ton of music. He listened as he grabbed his clothes and went to Cabin Four. When he got done with his shower, Gram was on the porch.

“What's that?” Gram asked, pointing to the cords coming from Kaden's pocket to his ears.

“It's an MP3 player,” Kaden answered. “Dad left it on my bed.”

“What's an MP3 player?” Gram asked.

“It plays music,” Kaden said, pulling it out of his pocket and showing it to Gram. “Didn't Dad show it to you?”

“No, didn't say a word about it,” Gram said. “How much does one of those cost?”

“I don't know, quite a bit,” Kaden said, “but I don't think he paid anything. There was a note. He said he got it from a friend.”

“Is that right?” Gram stated. “So how does it work?”

Kaden told Gram how music was downloaded onto it.

“Just no playing music while you're supposed to be studying,” Gram said as she got up.

“Okay,” Kaden said, following her into the cabin.

“Now put some music on the turntable so we can both listen,” Gram said, pulling out an album from under the sink. Soon Gram was singing along about a big tough guy nobody messed around with. Kaden got Gram laughing as he drowned out the chorus, singing how you couldn't mess around with Gram either.

The rest of the evening felt good. Just Kaden and Gram. Back to normal. Except after dishes, Kaden turned on a TV and Gram watched, too.