Somebody on This Bus Is Going to Be Famous (21 page)

“Don't tell anybody,” she confided to Alice, “but Bender got a Christmas card from the bus stop—I mean, from somebody in the house. He wrote this dumb note to their address, and the kid who lives there wrote back.”

“How did Bender know it was a kid?”

“You would too if you'd seen it. He showed it to me: big letters, a little shaky, like a second grader would write.”

• • •

Actually, Ricardo would be in fourth grade if he were going to school, but the accident messed up his brain a little. Or so the grown-ups thought. Alice didn't think so—he'd misplaced some words and took longer to say anything while searching for them, but his brain was working fine otherwise. And he was as fond of practical jokes as ever, especially after he'd learned to get around in the wheelchair. Alice was the one who gave him the pompom that Shelly left at the nursing home back in September (the one she should have returned except she knew Ricardo would love it). She should have guessed what he would do with it. And who would help him.

What happened with Bender was even worse—or better, depending on how you looked at it. Ricardo wanted to know everything about the kids on the bus, so Alice told him about the rolled-up papers Bender liked to stick behind his ear. When she saw that paper rolled up in the mailbox, she was so surprised she tried to distract Bender with a spitwad, which totally didn't work. Then there was the Christmas card—actually two Christmas cards because Miranda got one too. Alice read the poem to Ricardo (which she knew was Miranda's because of an overheard conversation on the bus), and Ricardo figured out a way to let her know he liked it.

Sweet, in a way, but it was probably a good thing GeeGee finally surrendered in her campaign to get Ricardo in school. If she'd kept on turning down Farm Road 152 every morning, he would have been discovered sooner or later, and Mama just wanted everybody to leave them alone. Daddy wanted the same thing, especially since no one was supposed to know he was even there.

• • •

In March, Kaitlynn had the idea that a pet would be nice to add to the story: a little dog Albert could find under a bush or hiding in a tunnel. “Like where you found Panzer! How did you think to look in the culvert?”

Alice shrugged, even though she'd explained already: holes are great places to hide.

Actually, she knows this from experience.

Friday and Saturday nights were some of her best memories of the winter just past: her family sitting around the woodstove like a scene from
Little
House
On
the
Prairie
, Daddy with his book and Alice with hers, Mama with her needlework or a crossword puzzle and an open box of Cheez-Its, Ricardo with his sketchbook and pencils. Ricardo didn't read so well. Mama could read perfectly well but said she couldn't concentrate when Daddy was in the room. He'd always have to share whatever he was into. “Hey everybody, listen to this,” he'd say, then he'd read out loud about the great blizzard of 1934 or how gold mining got started in South Africa.

“Wow!” said Ricardo almost every time.

“Um,” said Mama, stubbing out a cigarette. “What's a five-letter word for ‘cured meat'?”

The sappy wood popped in the stove, Ricardo's pencils clicked softly on the wheelchair tray as he swapped colors, Mama hummed as she erased a word, and Alice wedged a bite out of her apple, crunching it to tall slivers of tangy-sweet juice. It was the kind of scene to make Kaitlynn jump up and down and wave her arms and say
What's
happening?!

Good memories are stitched together from plain materials.

However…if an outside sound invaded their cozy little scene, namely the mash of rubber tires on gravel, Ricardo would say “Hark!” Her parents would lay aside whatever they were doing and calmly but swiftly stand up. Daddy—without a word—would move his chair back to the table, put on his coat, tuck his book under one arm, and look around to make sure he left no visible clues behind. Mama, meanwhile, would go into the bedroom, flip over the rug beside the bed, and tug on the rope pull under the rug to lift up a slab of floor. She held it up while Daddy let himself down into the crawl space (stocked with food and blankets and a flashlight), and then let it carefully down. He pulled the rope back through the hole, she replaced the rug, and by then it was just about time to answer the door.

The visitor was usually GeeGee, stopping by to visit or drop off some groceries. But once it was a social worker, and another time a truant officer, wanting to know why Ricardo wasn't in school. Mama handled that visit all right, because Daddy was right there under the floor. She couldn't handle things too well when he was gone, and he was gone for two whole weeks in February.

That was after the big fight following Ricardo's spill, when Daddy stormed out of the house and hitched rides to Oklahoma to see his buddy Ed. After a week or so, Ed gave him the money for a bus ticket back.

The whole incident was silly; he didn't have to lose his temper and take the risk of catching pneumonia while hiking over the countryside in dead winter. But risk-taking was in his nature—one of the reasons GeeGee called him a screwup. GeeGee began to suspect he was hiding out in the neighborhood but didn't know for sure until she found a box of library-sale books in the bedroom closet. That led to a fight between her and Mama, which Alice didn't hear but Ricardo told her about.

One good thing about living with her other grandma: she missed most of the fights.

• • •

Kaitlynn couldn't make up her mind about how to rescue Albert. Or rather, she had lots of ideas but couldn't settle on just one. Maybe his sometimes-crazy uncle could go all the way crazy, like poor Mr. Pasternak Senior, and be sent away to a nursing home—asylum, that is—but of course that wouldn't leave much room for a heroic rescue. The brave girl on the bus could train a commando team to overpower the bus driver and storm the underground lair. Or she could outwit the bus driver, castle guards, sorcerers, dragons, snakes, and whatever else stood in her way to reach the prisoner and fetch him out. “What do you think?” she asked Alice. “Strong or sneaky?”

“I think sneaky is better. It's more interesting.”

Alice never thought of herself as sneaky, but eight whole months of keeping a huge secret was making her think again. GeeGee found out through her own investigations, but Grandma still didn't have a clue that her son was hiding out within five miles of her house. As to exactly why he was hiding, that's what Alice can't figure out. True, he was breaking GeeGee's one condition for helping Mama and Ricardo and herself, but she has an idea there's more to it. GeeGee never liked Daddy, but you'd think his own mother would. And you'd think he would want to see her, if only to say “Hi, I'm okay, but I'm not supposed to be here and I know you can keep a secret.”

Grandma had arranged her life pretty much the way she wanted it—which probably didn't include having a granddaughter move in with her. But she'd agreed it was best the girl go to school and have a normal, routine life for a change.

And that's what Alice had, if “normal” meant the meals came on time and the floors were swept and dishes didn't stack up until you had to wash a few or else eat out of the box.

As for “routine”—it sounds good until you have to get up at 6:30 just because Grandma volunteers at the hospital from eight to noon Monday through Thursday and needs that time to get her chores done so she can golf in the afternoon if the weather's nice or play bridge with the gals if it's not.

“I lead an active lifestyle,” says Grandma. “I'm not one to sit around watching the tube and griping about the world.” This was often said after dinner, while watching the tube and griping—about food prices, politicians, nice linen slacks that shrink in the wash, shoes that don't fit right after you buy them, greenskeepers, TV quiz show contestants who don't know enough to pass eighth grade, bread that goes stale, and fish that tastes fishy. And sons who never take advice because they think they know better, and daughters-in-law who just let things happen to them and may not be all that bright.

And what about neighbors who don't let you borrow stuff because they say they might need it again? As if they thought you'd never return it! When old Mr. Pasternak turned down Grandma's request to borrow their wheelchair for poor little Ricardo, Alice had heard her complaining about it to one of the gals on the phone. “This is all about what happened twenty years ago, mark my words. As if I had anything to do with it! I haven't been able to control Jason since he was nine, so what could I do with a high school senior?”

That was the first Alice had ever heard about something happening twenty years ago. Grandma seemed to think it served the Pasternaks right when the item was stolen. Nor did she put two and two together when Mama told her they'd found a wheelchair for Ricardo anyway.

Grandma wasn't speaking to GeeGee—from both her grandmothers' random comments, Alice gathered it was because each blamed the other for how their kids turned out. One thing they agreed on was that Ricardo should go to school where there were qualified teachers and assistants who could help him. But Mama turned out to be more stubborn about that than anyone expected. Nobody knew that Daddy was right there, backing her up.

Nobody knew that Ricardo was smarter than he let on.

Nobody knew how long Alice's parents could keep their secret, but surely not forever.

• • •

By May, Daddy is becoming very edgy after too many nights spent outside in the rain because of nosy county officials and mothers-in-law. “It sounds like something in a book,” Alice tells him. “Like a fugitive hiding from the law.” Grandma has just dropped her off for the weekend, and she's got two brand-new books from the library to read.

“It belongs in a book,” he sniffs. “
The
Count
of
Monte
Cristo
meets the great outdoors.” He sneezes twice in a row. A damp, chilly spring is hanging on and so is his cold. “But wait'll you hear my escape plan. Got a surprise for you, Lissa. Let's take a walk.”

It's a beautiful sunny day, with more in the forecast. As they hike a threadlike path that leads up from the house, Daddy seems to expand, like one of those sponge creatures that swell up when you drop them in water. Except in his case, he's finally drying out.

The path leads to the top of a limestone bluff overlooking a little valley. The view opens up like a postcard: branches clothed in fuzzy green, white blossoms blowing like wedding veils, a deep cleft in the ground where Drybed Creek runs—when it's running, which it only does in rainy seasons. A red-tailed hawk circles at eye-level, wings spread like he's hanging on invisible strings.

“How about that?” Daddy asks.

“It's beautiful.”

“You like it? It's yours.” Daddy opens his hand and sweeps it over the view, like one of those girls in evening dresses showing off a prize in a game show. “Slip it in your pocket to take with you when we go.”

“What?” She's not sure she heard those last few words correctly.

“It's time to say adios, Lissa-girl.”

Her voice seems to fall off the bluff. “Say wha-a-a-a-t?”

“It's time to go. Don't you think?”

She realizes, of course, that they've seldom stayed in one place even this long, but the when-where-why questions are coming so fast, she can hardly hear his explanation.

They are starting a new life (again!) up north—way up north. Daddy is going first, hitching a ride with a friend of a friend who drives a truck and has a regular run from Tulsa to International Falls, Minnesota. The truck driver will pick him up just outside Centerview and (after a little money changes hands) keep on truckin' north, while Daddy takes it easy in the bunk. The following weekend, Mama will borrow the pickup and fail to return it.

“But that's GeeGee's truck! And it's stealing.”

“No, it's borrowing. We'll get it back, uh, sooner or later.”

“When will all this happen?”

“Next week.”

Alice can't speak for a few minutes, during which Daddy lays out a time line: the trucker picks him up on Wednesday morning and gets to International Falls on Thursday night. Daddy has a prepaid cell phone and a calling card so he can be in touch with the family, and as soon as he finds a place, he'll let them know—maybe by Friday night. Then Mama will hit the road with Alice and Ricardo.

“But…” Alice begins.

Daddy isn't listening. “That was my mistake all along, coming back here. To make a new start, you need a totally new place where nobody's ever heard of you and you can make your own reality out of whole new material. After a year or so, we'll be settled. I'll have a job and start working Ricardo's therapy again, and we'll be taking care of ourselves, just like we were before—”

“But I don't want to go.”

Now it's his turn to be dumbfounded and speechless.

“I—like it here,” she goes on. “I like my teacher and my school and…and I have a best friend and our story's not finished yet and—”

“What story?”

“The…the one I'm writing with Kaitlynn. My friend.”

“You're not spilling any beans to Kaitlynn, are you?”

“Of course not! It's just a story.”

“Lissa, you want stories? You've already got more'n you know what to do with. Stick with me, kid, and you'll never lack for stories.”

“But, Daddy, that's not it. It's just—”

“Just what? You're family's not enough for you anymore?”

“No!”

“You want your old man to be a loser all his life?”

“
No!
”

“What's it going to be then? We stick around so you can go to some government school where they stuff your head with crap and you can have some cookie-cutter friend who'll probably drop you like a brick next semester or—”