Uchenna's Apples

  Jimmy fell silent, then shook his head, stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I don’t want to tar people’s roofs!” he said at last. “I don’t want to break up cars for parts! I want to stay in the same school a while. I want to get to know people I’m not related to, who don’t live like I used to. I want—” He stopped.

  “What?” Uchenna said.

  Jimmy dropped his voice as if he was about to say something weird or shameful. “I want to go to university,” he said. “I’m really— I like maths.”

  He let out a disgusted breath. “It’s not like it’s a secret,” he said, though his voice suggested that he wished it was. “Everybody at school knows. I get beat up sometimes for being too good at it.”

  “I didn’t know,” Uchenna said. “I wish I could do math. Boy do I wish I could.” Last spring she and her Mam had sat down with Uchenna’s teacher and experienced a truly searing commentary on her bad math grades. The rest of the season had been absolute torture for Uchenna—a never-ending series of “grinds” with a hired tutor, a university physics geek named Sean who came in and crammed Uchenna’s brain full of numbers three nights a week until she understood what was going on well enough to pass. While Uchenna was doing better this year, she still wished that maths was something she didn’t feel she was secretly cheating at because she’d learned the right shortcuts.

  “Back there, at Uchenna’s,” Emer said after a moment. “We wouldn’t really have called the Guards. You just freaked us out.”

  She sounded contrite. Jimmy laughed: the laugh was somewhat bitter. “Oh yeah,” he said. “Now that I’m a maths nerd, I’m okay.”

  “No,” Uchenna said, “now that you’re a nice person who worries about some animals starving, then you’re okay!”

  And without warning, the phone in her pocket started singing “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” at the top of its little lungs.

  5: Planning Ahead

  The horses’ heads went up. A flush of panic went straight through Uchenna like fire. “Oh God oh God,” she said, and got the phone out, popped it open. “Hi Mam—”

  “No, her phone was lying here, so I just used it,” her Dad said. “Chenna, where’d you go? I brought you out some Indian, but you and Emer had flown the coop. Where are you two?”

  Oh my God, Uchenna thought. She had absolutely nothing ready by way of an excuse. “We, uh, we heard something over the wall, Daddy. We climbed over to see what it was.” Not entirely a lie, she thought. Uchenna normally disliked lying because she always had trouble keeping the stories straight; but if she had to do lie, she preferred to have a really good one prepared.

  “Oh,” her dad said. He sounded a little bit suspicious, but not too much. “Well, okay, but you get back here right now. You know Mam and I don’t like you running around after dark! Especially out in those fields, God knows what goes on out there at night—”

  You have no idea, Uchenna thought. “Right, Daddy, we’ll be right back.” And her stomach suddenly growled. “You didn’t eat that Indian, did you?”

  He laughed. “No, there’s plenty left. Come on home now.”

  “Okay, bye!”

  She hung up and actually had to concentrate on taking a few deep breaths so she could stop shaking. “Okay,” she said to Emer. “We have to get back fast. We should run, so he doesn’t think we were too far away. “

  “What’s our story?” Emer said as they turned back toward the hedgerow and started squeezing back through, one after another.

  “We thought we heard something.” Uchenna thought about what. “I don’t know—”

  “A kitten,” Jimmy said. “Girls are suckers for kittens.”

  The statement was outrageously sexist, and possibly somewhat true, and almost certainly something that Uchenna’s dad would believe. “Sounds good,” Uchenna said as they made their way back across the boards over the Condom Ditch and across the lane. “But the horses— We need to make some kind of plan. Nobody else is doing anything for those poor guys. It’s up to us to get them something more than apples.”

  “If they’re still here in the morning—” Emer said.

  They broke into a trot, all three of them, as they got out into the next open field. “Yeah,” Uchenna said. “If they are, then we can think what else to do. I’ll get up real early and I’ll—” Then she stopped. “Oh no, I have that hockey game, Mam’ll already be up early to get me ready for that, I won’t be able to get away—”

  “I’ll go,” Emer said. “My mom doesn’t mind if I get up early. She’s always bugging me about getting more exercise. Tonight I’ll tell her somebody at school got me interested in jogging. Getting up early, going out for a nice run, all that fresh air..”

  Through her panting—for Uchenna was no great runner—she still had to giggle. Except where baseball was considered, Emer went to great trouble at school to paint herself as a jaded couch-potato type. If anybody saw her out running first thing in the morning, it was going to take a lot of explaining next week. “Okay,” Uchenna said. “That’s tomorrow handled. Now let’s hurry up!”

  They ran faster. It was only a matter of a few minutes until they were within sight of Uchenna’s wall again. “Slow down,” Uchenna said, “we can’t be too out of breath when we get back—”

  The three of them paused under the wall. Jimmy glanced around, looking as nervous as if he thought Uchenna’s dad might come over the wall after him. “Okay,” he said, “so when will we meet?”

  “Wait a minute,” Uchenna whispered. “We all need to have each other’s phone numbers first—”

  Everybody got their phones out. Uchenna was half expecting Jiimmy to have an old tired one, but to her slight surprise he came out with one that was newer and shiner than either of theirs. “Beam us yours,” Emer said, “we’ll beam you ours—”

  It only took a few seconds. “I’ll text you when the coast is clear tomorrow,” Uchenna said to Jimmy, “and we can meet up with some more apples—then go over to the field. We’ve got to get them more than just that, but for the time being it’ll have to do.”

  Jimmy nodded. “But listen,” he whispered. “You can’t tell anybody I’m in on this. You hear? Nobody!”

  “Okay, okay,” Uchenna said, wondering why he was so uptight about it. “Not a problem. Emer?”

  Emer shook her head. “Not a word out of me,” she said.

  Jimmy nodded, then ran off.

  “There goes a paranoid guy,” Emer said under her breath.

  Uchenna shrugged. “Who knows what his problems are like at home? Sounded like he had some. Come on, my Dad’s going to start having second thoughts…”

  Climbing the wall was as usual a little harder than just jumping off it: but Uchenna knew where the handholds were. It took only a minute or so to get up to the top. Uchenna paused there, checking out the lay of the land as well as she could through the branches of the apple tree. The backyard security light attached to the back of the house was turned on, but that was all: nobody was actually out back at the moment.

  “All clear,” Uchenna said. “Come on, let’s get down there—”

  “Take your time!” Emer said. “Don’t want you coming down faster than you planned.”

  Uchenna grinned and climbed down carefully to the main branches of the tree, from which it was just a jump to the ground. She stood there and brushed herself off while, amid more rustling and twigfall, Emer knocked down another couple of dozen apples from the tree. Shortly thereafter Emer herself followed them.

  “Good thinking!” Uchenna said as they headed for the door

  “Why have to climb again tomorrow if we don’t need to?” Emer said, brushing herself off as well.

  “Such a good point. Now. What color was the kitten?”

  “Gray tabby,” Emer said promptly, but not loudly enough to be heard by anyone inside. “It was so little and cuuuuute! And then its mommy came and took it away in her mouth.”

  Uchenna looked at Emer in complete admiration. “You think so fast,?
?? she said. “I wish I could do that! I just freeze.”

  They went in the side door. Sure enough, Uchenna’s dad was actually coming through the kitchen toward the utility room: as he saw them, he stopped. “Well, about time,” he said, though not in a particularly angry voice. “What was all that about?”

  “There was a kitten crying!” Emer said with complete assurance as they went into the kitchen. “We thought maybe it was lost—”

  She went on spinning the tale while Uchenna’s dad, looking more sympathetic than anything else, put the first of a couple of plates of Indian food into the microwave and fired it up. Uchenna took over from Emer once or twice and told about the nettles over the wall (which was true) and how the kitten was in the nettle patch and couldn’t find its way out (which could have been true if there had been a kitten…) and then let Emer take over from her again.

  Finally, when the microwave went off for the second plate, her Dad waved a hand at Emer to stop her as she started extolling the cuuuuuuteness of the kitten. “Please,” he said, amused. “My blood sugar. So you two did your good deed for the day. Fine.” Then he frowned a little. “But you need to not be doing them at night. Not around here.”

  “Especially if it’s out in those fields,” her Mam said, wandering into the kitchen as Uchenna and Emer sat down at the table, and her Dad handed them cutlery from one of the kitchen drawers. “I don’t know if I want you out there at all, whether it’s night or day! There are people roaming around there who’re up to no good, Uchenna.”

  Hearing that, Uchenna made it a point to look at her Mam and nod very seriously, like she was actually agreeing, since it was always a bad sign when her Mam called her by her name. “You must have heard about the folks over in the next circle who had a break-in the other night,” her Mam said. “The thieves came right over the wall. Made off with all their garden furniture, even some of their plants, would you believe, how they did all that without somebody hearing them I have no idea—”

  Emer looked a little haunted, hearing that. But Uchenna thought, Oh jeez, God knows what Daddy would have done to Jimmy if he’d caught him. I’m so glad he didn’t come out till after we were all gone—

  “—so you should really stay out of there,” Uchenna’s mam said, “you hear now—”

  “Flora,” Uchenna’s Dad said, “give her a break. She can’t live entirely on concrete: everybody has to go over the wall sometime. Daylight’s safe enough. But not alone, Chenna.”

  “No, Dad,” she said.

  He sighed and sat back, looking over at the laptop now sitting on the kitchen counter as if it was something he’d prefer to avoid. “Hardly know why they bothered with those walls,” he said. “If someone wants to steal from you, they’re going to find a way, doesn’t matter whether there’s a wall there or not—”

  “Which reminds me,” her Mam said, sounding more concerned now, “did you see what’s down at the junction with the Naas Road? A couple caravans are parked there all of a sudden.”

  “Uh oh,” her Dad said. “Time to put a lock on the toolshed…” For a couple of caravans turning up on the roadside was how a Traveller encampment got started. Pretty soon it was five caravans, or ten, if there was room for them on the spot: and then the county council had to call in the Gardai, and it would take months to get the Travellers to leave, and whether they did it in a week or two or stalled for months, all their garbage would still be left behind.

  “I thought they were going to put in those big rocks so they couldn’t park there,” Uchenna’s Mam said.

  “Too late now,” her dad said wearily, picking up the laptop and taking it into back into the living room. Uchenna breathed out as her Mam went in after him.

  Emer glanced after them, seeing that they were still in earshot, and pulled out her phone, worked over it a moment. In her pocket, Uchenna’s phone vibrated with the incoming SMS. Uchenna pulled it out, looked at the screen. U got lucky, it said.

  Uchenna glanced at her, nodded, and texted very fast, & U must be rattled. U didnt spel a word out al the way!

  Emer made a face at her. “So did you see ‘You’re A Star’ last night? Did that Sammy kid completely tank, or what?” she said innocently, while at the same time texting at top speed. OK, better. Will text you in the AM early, put phone under your pillow.

  “Saw that,” Uchenna said. “What a waste of time. I don’t know how he got on there in the first place. Something to do with his weird hairdo, if you ask me; not even the backup singers could save him.” Her own text went back a little more slowly, as she didn’t have Emer’s lightning speed, and her fingers were bigger. OK. Save rest til we go out.

  They finished their dinners and chatted small-talk by voice while discussing more urgent business by text. The problem was that neither of them was able to come up with ideas about anything more substantial to feed the horses—nothing they could actually get, anyway— and then Emer’s mom called to find out where she was and told her to come home.

  She got her stuff quite cheerfully and said good night to Uchenna’s folks. “I’ll walk her down to the end of the driveway…” Uchenna said.

  Out there in the dark, they paused to giggle briefly together. There was no need for further plotting or planning: they’d done everything they could at this point. “Text me,” Uchenna said. “First thing.”

  “You’re on.” Emer threw her backpack over one shoulder.

  “And Jimmy,” Uchenna said.

  Emer made a face. “Not real sure I like that one,” she said. “Especially when the first thing out of his mouth when he sees you is a bunch of trash-talk. Where was he getting that ‘druggy’ stuff from?”

  “Old business,” Uchenna said under her breath. “They used to say that at school last year when I first got here: before you and I started hanging out. There was this giant drugs bust up at Dublin Airport, some Nigerians were trying to smuggle heroin or hash resin or something in their luggage… It was beyond stupid. But the kids in school made a big deal out of it.” She shrugged. “They learned better. But for the time being, we’ve got to give him the benefit of the doubt. I mean, he is worried about the horses…”

  “And especially the Mammy Horse,” Emer said. She looked up and smiled one of those little sideways smiles at Uchenna. “So you’re his sucker…”

  “I am not anybody’s sucker!” Uchenna said, making an indignant face.

  Emer just let the sideways grin get broader. “Going home now!” she said, and headed on across the circle. “Text you first thing.”

  “Yeah…”

  She went back inside, already planning how to manage the situation that was about to unfold—especially in terms of her Mam and Dad. Better keep Jimmy away from them, Uchenna thought, and paused in the utility room to see if there was any of her laundry there, and bring it upstairs herself. That always pleased her Mam, and Uchenna was going to need all the Mam-pleasing she could come by while this weird stuff was going on. Especially, better keep Jimmy away from Mam, she thought, pickingup a few of her tops and a pair of jeans that were lying there folded up. Mam gossips with all the people in the circle, and she’ll find out all about Jimmy in a hurry if I introduce him. It’s not just that his secret’ll get out, either. She’ll pitch a fit because I’m hanging around with the ‘wrong kind of people’…

  With her armful of clothes, Uchenna went upstairs quietly past her Mam and Dad, who were lounging in front of the TV again; off to one side her Dad’s laptop, ignored for the moment, flashed with new e-mail. Her Mam threw Uchenna a glance as she went up the stairs: Uchenna virtuously kept on going as if she always remembered to grab her laundry and this was nothing unusual.

  As she reached the landing she heard a chuckle down behind her: that was Mam, saying something amused under her breath to Uchenna’s Dad. Good, she thought. I’m off the hook, even though I was over the wall. And she grinned at the silly phrase as she shut the door to her room and dropped the laundry on the cushion-covered chest at the foot of her bed.
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  Uchenna flopped down on the bed, gazing at the bedroom window. The poor Mammy Horse… she thought.

  Fretting again! she could just hear Emer saying. But this was something that had to be fretted about. And once you start thinking about something that way, it’s not so easy to just stop, Uchenna thought.

  She rolled over on her back and lay staring at the ceiling, turning over and over in her mind the problem of where to find horse food. This is how Mam frets about me, I guess, Uchenna thought. Where I’m going and what I’m doing, what I should be doing to stay okay… Sometimes it was a nuisance: yet at the same time, she wouldn’t like to wake up one morning and find that Mam had stopped worrying about her. She flopped over on her tummy again. But she’s got a million more things to fret about than I have. Me and Dad, and her own life, her work. And the baby…

  For that was something else that had occurred to Uchenna while she was looking at her Mam during the talking-to. The baby was really showing now, even when Mam came home wearing floppy medical scrub clothes. It was becoming more than just “the bump”, as her Dad called it. I’m not Jimmy’s sucker at all, Uchenna thought, amused. It’s because my Mammy’s about to be a mammy again that the Mammy Horse is a big deal.

  For a few moments she tried to imagine what it was going to be like. The other kids at school mostly went on and on about how the way your house got stunk up with diapers, about parents who didn’t have time for you any more because they were either up at four in the morning feeding the baby, or spending all day online applying to fancy preschools for something that couldn’t even keep its butt dry, let alone talk: about the money troubles that came with another mouth to feed, how you weren’t going to be getting the latest cool gadget when everybody else did any more, because the stupid baby needed a new car seat or something like that. But Uchenna, having heard it all endlessly, now found herself wondering, Is it because the kids think everybody’ll laugh at them if they admit to liking the idea of a little brother? A little sister?—and then she muttered under her breath, because her Mam had refused to get the test that would tell them all ahead of time which it was going to be. Which do I want? Which would be better? It could be cool to have a little brother, if you whipped him into shape real early. But a little sister’s just going to wind up wearing your old clothes and resenting you for it…