Shelter (6 page)

I nodded.

We stopped at a door that read GUIDANCE. I always found that term wonderfully vague. The dictionary definition of the word is “advice or information aimed at resolving a problem.” In short, an attempt to help. But to us students, the word—this office—is far more frightening. It conjures up our college prospects, growing older, getting a real job—our future.

Guidance
seemed more like a term for cutting us loose.

Spoon fished out another key and opened the door. The school, I knew, had twelve guidance counselors. Each had a small private office within this larger office. Most of the doors were unlocked. We entered the first private office. It belonged to a young guidance counselor named Ms. Korty. Like most people, she had left her computer on for the night, settling for “standby” mode.

Spoon handed me the penlight and nodded for me to go ahead. I sat at her desk and started typing. As soon as I hit the keys, the following prompt popped up:

USER NAME:
PASSWORD:

Damn! I hit the return key several times. Nothing. I sighed and looked back at Spoon. “Do you have a clue?”

“The user name is easy,” Spoon said. “It’s just her e-mail. Janice Korty, so it’s JKorty at the school dot e-d-u.”

“And the password?”

Spoon pushed the glasses up his nose. “That’s going to be a problem.”

I tried to think. “How about paper files?”

“They’re kept off-site. And if Ashley is a new student, she probably doesn’t even have one yet.”

I sat back, defeated. Then I let myself think about Ashley. My shoulders relaxed. I thought about the way she nervously played with a loose thread on her sweater. I thought about the way she smelled like wildflowers and when I kissed her, she tasted gently like berries. I know how corny this sounds, but I could kiss her all day and never get bored. Barf, right? I thought of the way she would look at me sometimes, like I was the only person in the universe, and then I thought that this girl, the one who looked at me like that, had just vanished without a good-bye.

It made no sense.

I had to think harder. Ms. Korty was young—the youngest guidance counselor at the school. Something about that triggered a thought. I turned to Spoon. “Who are some of the oldest guidance counselors?”

“Oldest? You mean, like age?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Humor me.”

“Mr. Betz,” Spoon said without hesitation. “He’s so old he teaches a class on Shakespeare because he knew him personally.”

I had seen Mr. Betz in the corridors. He used a walking stick and wore a bow tie. I thought about it—he could definitely be my man. “Which office is his?”

“Why?”

“Just show me, okay?”

When we got back into the hallway, Spoon pointed to the office in the far corner. As we headed toward it, I peered quickly into each office we passed, glancing at the computer monitors for Post-it Notes. No luck. Mr. Betz’s desk had antique-globe bookends and a matching pen holder with his name engraved on it. There was an old Swingline stapler and several Lucite awards.

I sat at his desk and turned on the computer. The same prompt came up:

USER NAME:
PASSWORD:

Spoon looked at me and shrugged. “What did you expect?”

Exactly this. I opened the drawer on the right. Pens, pencils, paper clips, a box of matches, a pipe. I moved to the middle drawer. I looked inside, smiled, and said, “Bingo.”

“Huh?”

While it never pays to generalize, those who appear not to be the most computer literate often rely on keeping old-fashioned notes so that they don’t forget stuff like user names and passwords. There, on a classic three-by-five index card, Mr. Betz had written the following:

GLOBETHEATRE1599

If that wasn’t a password . . .

Spoon said, “Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre was originally built in 1599. It was destroyed by fire on June 29, 1613, and rebuilt in 1614 and closed in 1642. A modern reconstruction of it was opened in 1997.”

Terrific. Mr. Betz’s first name was Richard. I typed in the RBetz user name and typed GLOBETHEATRE1599 in as the password. I hit the return button and waited. A little hourglass spun for a second before a screen came up:

WELCOME, RICHARD!

Spoon smiled and held up a palm. I high-fived him. I clicked the link for student files and then typed in the name: Kent, Ashley. When her photograph came up—the one we’d both taken for student IDs the first day of school—I felt a hand reach into my chest and squeeze my heart.

“Man,” Spoon said, “no wonder you want to find her.”

If you were creating a graphic dictionary and needed a definition of
demure
, you would use her expression in this picture. She looked pretty, sure, beautiful even, but what you really felt was that she was quiet and shy and somewhat uncomfortable posing. Something about it—something about her, really—called out to me.

Her file was brief. Her parents were listed as Patrick and Catherine Kent. Their home phone and address on Carmenta Terrace were there. I grabbed a pen from Mr. Betz’s holder and found a scrap of paper.

“Fingerprints,” Spoon said, pointing to the pen. “For that matter, your fingerprints are probably on his keyboard.”

I made a face. “You think they’re going to dust for prints?”

“They might.”

“Then I choose to live dangerously,” I said.

I jotted down the address and phone. I scanned the rest of the page. It said: TRANSCRIPT PENDING. I guess that meant that they didn’t have anything from her old school. There was a list of her current classes, but I already knew those. The rest of the screen was blank. I was tempted to check out my own file—just out of curiosity, I guess—but Spoon gave me a look to hurry. I carefully put the pen back in its place, pretended to wipe away all my prints, and followed Spoon out.

Once outside I checked my phone. Another voice mail from Uncle Myron. I ignored it. Darkness had fallen now. I looked up at the stars in the ink-black sky. It was a clear night.

“Do you know where Carmenta Terrace is?” I asked Spoon.

“Sure. It’s on my way home. Do you want me to take you?”

I said I did. And off we went.

Spoon was on my right, a good foot shorter than me. He watched his feet while he walked.

“In the morning,” Spoon said, “I’m making waffles.”

I smiled. “I know that one,” I said.

“You do?”

“Donkey to Shrek.”

“You play basketball,” Spoon said.

I couldn’t tell if it was a question or statement. I nodded. When you’re six-four, you get used to that question.

“Your name is Mickey Bolitar,” he said.

“Yep.”

“The name Myron Bolitar is all over the gym. He holds almost every basketball record at the school. Most points, most rebounds, most wins.”

As I knew only too well.

“Is he your father?” Spoon asked.

“My uncle.”

“Oh.” We kept walking. “The basketball team was eighteen and five last year,” Spoon said. “They lost in the state finals. The top six players are all returning. They’ll be seniors this year.”

I knew all this. It was one of the reasons I, a lowly sophomore, was keeping my own game under wraps for the time being. I hadn’t played in town yet, choosing instead to find more competitive pickup games in Newark.

We passed a football practice for kids who couldn’t have been older than ten. The coaches screamed like it was Division I-A. This town was big on athletics. The first week of school I asked someone how many pro athletes had come out of this high school. The answer was one: my uncle. And in truth he never really played pro basketball. He was drafted in the first round but blew out his knee in preseason.
Boom
, like that, his career was over. Uncle Myron never got to suit up for the Celtics. I thought about that sometimes, about what that must have been like, and I wonder if that explained the tension between him and my dad.

But it was still Myron’s fault—what happened between him and my dad. So I saw no reason to forgive.

“It’s up this way,” Spoon said.

The stone sign in front of what looked like a new development read THE PREMA ESTATES. The area reeked of new money. The streets were well lit. The lawns couldn’t have been greener without using an industrial-strength spray paint. The landscaping was almost too polished, like a show that had over-rehearsed. The sprawling mansions were brick and stone, trying to look old and stately but missing.

When we hit the top of Carmenta Terrace, I looked out at the Kents’ house and felt my heart drop.

Four police cars, all with spinning lights, were parked in front of it. Worse, there was an ambulance in the driveway. I broke into a run. Despite being a foot shorter, Spoon stayed with me stride for stride. There were police officers on the lawn. One was talking to what I assumed was a neighbor. The cop was taking notes. The front door of the Kent house was open. I could see a foyer and a big chandelier and a cop on guard.

When we reached the curb, Spoon pulled up. I didn’t stop. I ran toward the door. The cop at the door turned, startled, and yelled, “Halt.”

I did. “What happened?” I asked him.

Spoon came up next to me. The cop frowned his disapproval with everything he had. Not just his mouth frowned. All of him joined in. He had a unibrow and Cro-Magnon forehead. They frowned too. He glared at Spoon, then turned it back at me. “And you are?”

“I’m a friend of Ashley’s,” I said.

He crossed his arms over a chest that could have doubled as a paddleball court. “Did I ask you for a list of your friends?” he said with a gigantic sigh. “Or did I ask who you are?”

Oh boy. “My name is Mickey Bolitar.”

That got the brow up in the air. “Hold up a second. You’re Myron’s kid?”

He said Myron’s name like he was spitting something really foul out of his mouth. “No. His nephew. If you could just tell me—”

“Do I look like a librarian?” he snapped.

“Excuse me?”

“You know. A librarian. I mean, do you think I’m here to answer your questions? Like a librarian.”

I glanced at Spoon. He shrugged. I said, “No. No, I don’t think you’re a librarian.”

“You being a wise guy?”

“Me? No.”

He shook his head. “Smart mouth. Just like your uncle.”

I was tempted to tell him that I didn’t like my uncle either. I figured that it would bond us, like pulling a thorn from his paw, but no matter what I felt about my uncle, I wasn’t about to sell my family down the river to appease Mr. Cro-Magnon.

Spoon said, “Officer?”

He turned hard at him. “What?”

“You’re being rude,” Spoon said.

Oh boy.

“What did you say to me?”

“You’re a civil servant. You’re being rude.”

Cro-Magnon pushed his chest so it was right up against Spoon’s face. Spoon did not step back. Cro-Magnon stared down at him and then narrowed his eyes. “Wait a second. I know you. You were picked up last year, weren’t you? Twice.”

“And released,” Spoon said. “Twice.”

“Yeah, I remember. Your father wanted to sue us for false arrest or some crap like that. You’re that old janitor’s kid, right?”

“I am.”

“So,” Cro-Magnon said with a sneer, “does your dad still clean toilets for a living?”

“Sure, that’s his job,” Spoon said, pushing up his glasses. “Toilets, sinks, floors—whatever needs cleaning.”

The guilelessness threw him. I quickly stepped in. “Look, we aren’t looking to cause any trouble. I just want to make sure my friend is okay.”

“Big hero,” he said, turning back to me. I saw now that he wore a name tag—TAYLOR. “Like your uncle.” Taylor made a big production of putting his hands on his hips. “Strange you two being out so late on a school night.”

I tried not to make a face. “It’s eight o’clock.”

“You being a wise guy again?”

I needed to get past this guy.

“Maybe you two should come with me.”

“Where?” I asked.

Taylor put his face so close to mine I could bite his nose. “How about a holding cell, smart guy? You like that idea?”

Spoon said, “No.”

“Well, that’s where you’re heading if you don’t start answering my questions. There’s this one we got down in Newark I think will be perfect for you two. I can put you in separate cells. Adult population. One guy we have in holding right now, he’s seven feet tall and got these really long fingernails because, well, he likes to scratch things.”

He grinned at us.

Spoon swallowed hard. “You can’t do that,” he said.

“Aw, you gonna cry?”

“We’re minors,” Spoon said. “If you arrest us, you need to contact our parents or guardian.”