Somebody on This Bus Is Going to Be Famous (19 page)

“Uh-huh.” Next, a gallon of milk from the fridge. “Mom, do you ever, like, write to anybody?”

“What do you mean?” A spoon stops halfway to Jade's mouth.

“Like letters. Or email.”

“Sure I do. That's how I keep up with your Aunt Beth. I'd rather call, but she likes the emails. Or that crazy Facebook. I just can't get into that stuff.” She shoves a spoonful of oatmeal in Jade's mouth and goes for another. “I mean, why stick yourself up on some website where
anybody
can find out all about you?”

Igor takes a breath. “Do you ever write to…my dad?”

His mother's hand stops again then glides on toward Jade's mouth. “Why should I? He calls almost every night when he's gone.”

“You know who I mean.”

The spoon dives into the oatmeal and sticks up like a flag. “Do I?”

“Come on, Mom. What if he gets out on parole?”

Her eyes shift to the disposal and back again—really quick, but he sees it. “I'm not going to talk about it.”

“But, Mom—”

“I'm not talking about it!”

“Not even when he shows up?”

“What do you mean?”

“He will sometime, won't he? He's not dead!”

Jade winds up her I-want-my-breakfast siren, but the spoon is now flipping little chunks of oatmeal at Igor. “Keep your voice down!”

“Why? Afraid the neighbors will find out my dad's a jailbird?”

“Shut
up
! And listen, mister, I don't know what kind of game you're playing with all these questions, but don't think I haven't noticed!”

“Noticed what?”

“All these questions!”

“About what?”

“You know what!”

“I don't know what,” says Little Al, now dragging himself into the kitchen. “What?”

“Out!” yells their mother, standing up and pointing to the door while Jade cranks the decibel level up to a ten.

“But I haven't had breakfast yet!” Little Al yells back.

Mom fumbles in the cabinet for a package of Pop-Tarts and throws it at them. “There's breakfast! You can share.”

“But—”

“
Out!!
”

Igor is already on his way. He snatches their jackets off the hook by the back door. “Let's go, Ally.”

“But my lunch! And I didn't brush my teeth!”

“That never bothered you before. Come on!”

They leave without lunches, snacks, or even backpacks; if anybody asks, Igor intends only to say that his mom threw him out of the house ten minutes early.

“What's the matter with her?” Little Al whines as they trudge across the common.

Igor shrugs, even though he knows. But he doesn't know enough! That's why the crazy thought that occurred to him last night, which seemed so far out it might have been Jupiter, is now speeding toward earth like a comet.

It's a soft spring morning, all pink and cream about the edges with a touch of lilac in the air. Bender and Matthew are already at the gazebo, arguing over some science thing. Jay arrives soon after, flinging his backpack on a bench and collapsing beside it. Spencer is close behind.

“What's the matter?” Bender asks Jay.

“Shut up.”

“He lost the soccer game last night.” Spencer climbs the gazebo steps with his backpack over one shoulder and his guitar case in the other hand. Lately he's been taking the guitar to school on Tuesdays so he can jam with the junior high jazz band during lunch. “Had the ball lined up with the goal and kicked it with the side of his foot so it went out of bounds. Coach ripped him a new one, right there on the field.”

“Soccer's a stupid game,” Jay mutters, pushing his glasses up on his nose. “Sissy, European runaround.”

“So stick to running,” says Spencer. “You're a
great
runner.” Jay makes a noise, something between a snort and a laugh. “No, seriously. You ran over seven miles that day, and it might have been farther if—”

“Dude,” Jay says warningly.

“If what?” asks Bender.

Spencer says, “Remember that night he was late and everybody was looking for him?”

Jay rounds on him furiously. “
Dude!
”

“He found some kind of hermit's hideout on the old railroad bed. Hey, let go!” Spencer squirms out of the half nelson Jay locks on his neck. “Scared the crap out of him.”

“I told you not to tell!”

“I didn't promise!” Spencer rubs his neck. “It's not the kind of secret you ought to keep. What if he's somebody wanted by the FBI?”

Bender is all over it:
Where? When? Who?
Igor, preoccupied with his own thoughts, can't muster much interest in some old hermit, whatever that is. Bender pulls a piece of newspaper out of his pocket. The other boys are gathering around it when Little Al tugs on Igor's shirt. “There's Mom.”

A blue station wagon pulls up, hand frantically waving from the window. Sighing, Igor slouches over. “Here's your lunch,” his mom sniffs. “And Little Al's.” She hands over two paper bags, and Igor imagines the contents: a slapped-together PB&J, a bag of chips, and maybe an apple if she had one to throw in. “And here's your backpack. I couldn't find Little Al's. I'm sorry, honey, but I wish you wouldn't bring up…certain things. It makes me crazy.”

“I know,” Igor says simply, his arms loaded with stuff. He doesn't say
I'm sorry
.

“I've gotta go—Jade's in her playpen and Samantha's waking up.”

“Okay.” Igor steps back from the car, hands Little Al his lunch, and is all the way back to the gazebo before he hears the station wagon rev up and make a wide U-turn.

“Zip it,” Bender is saying. “Here come the girls. If Kaitlynn gets hold of this, we'll have to have a neighborhood garage sale for the guy.”

“Just forget I said anything,” Jay says. “Or
he
said anything,” he adds with a kick at Spencer. “My dad would have a cow if he finds out I didn't tell him first.”

“My dad would think it's a hoot,” Spencer says.

“My dad wouldn't hear even if I told him,” Bender says. “Even if he still lived with us.”

“My dad doesn't seem to exist,” Matthew says.

And my dad,
Igor is thinking,
is going to hear from me
. He's made up his mind; the comet has crashed.

• • •

Dear
Dad Bobby
Mr. Price,

This is Jim. Even tho evrybody calls me Igor. I am in 5th grade now. I dont do too good in scool but evrybody likes me. Almost, ha. My step dad is cool. He got us a snake for Cristmas. Its a corn snake. She belongs to both of us but I get to keep her in my room. I want to know if you will get out on peroll soon. Thats all for now.

Love,

Igor (Jim)

p.s. Dont tell mom I wrote to you.

Rereading the letter, he realizes he should have started over after the cross-outs on the first line rather than going on. His teacher is always making the class turn in a sloppy copy, then rewrite after corrections, so he was probably thinking he'd make a neat copy after the first draft. But the joke is on him: aside from the first line, the letter is almost painfully neat, much better than his usual work. If he tried to copy the whole thing, it would probably look worse than the original.

But how does it sound? Does he say too much about his stepfather, like enough to make his real father jealous? Probably okay—there's more about the snake than about Big Al. Is it bragging to say that (almost) everybody likes him? Even if it's (mostly) true? Should he include one of his wallet-size school pictures from the kitchen drawer or wait to see if Bobby Price writes back?

But wait—what if his dad does write back? What would that do to Mom, to receive an envelope addressed to “Jim” from Tanglewood Medium Security Prison? After pondering for a minute, Igor adds one more postscript:

p.s.s. If you write back, dont send it to me. send it to Miranda Scott at 370 Courtney Circle ect.

That raises the stakes. He'll have to admit the truth to Miranda: that the man in jail is a closer relative than he'd said. It would also mean breaking numerous promises to his mother that he wouldn't tell anybody—but the promise is half-broken already.

Igor decides to let the letter go, just as it is. He sneaks a stamp and an envelope from the desk drawer in the family room, copies the return address on the face of his envelope, slides his letter inside, and slaps a stamp on it. Tomorrow morning, he'll slip it into the Mulroonys' mailbox and raise their flag—they both leave for work early, so nobody will know.

It'll be easy. So why is his heart pounding like a jackhammer?

• • •

On Wednesday, achievement tests start. For two days, he sits in strange classrooms filling in ovals in test booklets, pushing his brain like a wheelbarrow past rows of words and numbers. It seems tougher this year than usual, and maybe that's because the letter is on its way west, taking his brain with it.

Friday is an early dismissal day. In the morning, he and the bus arrive at the gazebo at the same time. He lines up with the others, feeling perfectly still inside. So much so that Mrs. B remarks, “Are you okay, Igor?”

Bender, Matthew, Jay, and Spencer are holding a conference in the back. As Igor takes a seat by himself, Shelly climbs aboard with a pair of sparkly pompoms, which she pumps up and down while screeching, “I have an announcement!!”

From the back, Bender groans loudly.

“When I got home from school yesterday, there was a letter waiting for me. From Shooting Star Camp.” She pauses. “I got a partial scholarship! And…I'm…IN!”

Shelly waves the pompoms again and leads three cheers. On her way down the aisle, she slaps high fives with the littles, Kaitlynn, even Alice, finally dropping down beside Miranda.

“Does this mean you can stop selling stuff?” asks Jay.

“And making announcements?” asks Bender.

“Congratulations,” says Mrs. B. “Let's roll.”

Sitting one seat behind her, Igor can feel the energy radiating from Shelly. But Miranda seems to wilt like yesterday's french fries. He hears her ask, “Why didn't you call and tell me last night?”

“Last night? I had a
ton
of people to call. My grandmas and Aunt Maria and Aunt Shonda and my dance teacher and voice coach and everybody on the Y-Team and this booking agent I've been talking to. Plus I had to write a letter of acceptance, and then Mom and I went through all my costumes to see if I should take any with me, and we made a list of the supplies we had to buy—the baby crying all the time—and listen to my dad wonder how we were going to find money for the airfare and…”

Shelly chatters happily all the way to school. At every single stop, she jumps up to wave her pompoms and make her announcement. Miranda barely says two words. Igor notices—funny how feeling quiet makes him notice stuff. Like the little sniffs Miranda is making and the way she flicks at her eyes with her index finger.

When they finally pull into the bus line at school, Shelly is first to pop up. While she's hurrying to gather her stuff, one of the pompoms flips to the floor under Miranda's feet. “Oops! Hand me that, would you, Mir?”

Miranda picks up the pompom. Then she stands and hurls it with all her might to the rear of the bus where it bounces off the seat Bender and Matthew just vacated.

Shelly looks more puzzled than angry. “Wha—What's with you?”

“Get your own stuff from now on!” Miranda clutches her backpack in both arms and pushes past Shelly, marching up the aisle like she'll plow right through the windshield if Mrs. B doesn't let her off. Mrs. B is not supposed to let anybody off before they're all the way in the bus lane, but she takes one look at Miranda's face and pushes the door lever without a word.

Igor's eye falls upon a lunch sack listing sadly on its side where Miranda's feet used to be. He squeezes past Shelly and scoops it up. Hurrying up the aisle, he waves the bag at Mrs. B and points out the window. “She left it. Can I—”

With a sigh, the driver opens the door again. Igor glances back; every face has the same stunned expression except Shelly, who throws up her hands in total cluelessness. “
What?
” she asks Igor. He shakes his head and leaps all three steps with a single bound.

Though she's moving right along, Miranda's not hard to catch up to. “You left this,” he says, holding out her lunch bag.

She snatches it out of his hand, walking a little faster as their bus inches up beside them. Soon the doors will open and spill everybody out, and he knows she wants to get out of range. They turn the corner of the bus lane and head up the big curve of sidewalk leading to the main entrance. Two flags snap on the wind as they pass the flagpole.

Miranda says, “She could have called me.” Her voice sounds weepy. “I helped her with all that. I managed her campaign, made most of the Christmas ornaments she sold, let her steal my poem, collected canned goods—”

“Steal your what?”

“My
poem
.” Miranda sniffs loudly. “My poem about the empty bus stop, that Shelly got me to turn in with her name, and she got a one on it and it was in the book. But somebody knew it was mine, because I got an anonymous Christmas card with a copy of the poem in it.
My
poem. And besides”—
sniff
—“I did almost all the baking for her bake sale—which was my idea too. She—she could have at least called me.”

He recognizes the sounds of an oncoming meltdown from long experience with his mom and has already started feeling the side pockets of his backpack for a wad of Kleenex.

Miranda almost runs the last few steps, aiming at a spot under the porch roof where a shadow waits to hide her. Pressing her back against the concrete wall, she gulps out, “I'm not jealous or anything. I'd be happy for her if she'd let me be happy
with
her. I don't mind being the ugly boring friend, I just—just wanna be—I just—”