Savvy

  ‘May we please use your bathroom, ma’am?’ Bobbi asked plainly.

  ‘Lester!’ Carlene shouted, ignoring Bobbi as she stood up out of the chair, dropping her newspaper and shoving her feet into her fuzzy slippers. ‘Lester, you stupid, senseless man! Get your scrawny butt down here right now and tell me what’s going on! Who are all these kids?’

  Samson clogged in place, tugging on Bobbi’s arm. ‘Ma’am, please?’ Bobbi repeated.

  Carlene waved Bobbi off like a fly, rounding on Lester as he stepped down off the bus. Bobbi took the woman’s wave as permission, whether it was meant that way or not, and hurried Samson up into the trailer to find the bathroom. It gave me the heebie-jeebies to watch Samson and Bobbi disappear into the house as though they were Hansel and Gretel stepping unknowingly into an enormous oven. Fish and Will must have felt the same way too; we all looked at each other and then barrelled out of the bus, right past Carlene and Lester, following Bobbi and Samson up into the trailer and leaving Lill alone to wait things out on the bus.

  The inside of Carlene’s trailer was smoky and dim as the early afternoon sunlight tried to force its way through the thick gauzy curtains that covered all the windows. The pungent odour of mothballs and scented candles flooded my nose and throat, making me cough. Carlene’s furniture was garish and awful and every shelf or corner held tchotchkes and gewgaws and other tacky trinkets. Once Samson had finished taking care of his business, Bobbi and I took turns doing the same.

  I stepped out of the bathroom just in time to catch Samson slipping beneath a long tablecloth that draped nearly to the floor, cascading over a small table just in front of the panelled bar that separated the living room from the kitchen. As he shimmied under the table, trying to disappear into this new hiding spot in his usual, stealthy way, I grabbed my brother by one ankle and pulled him out from under the table backwards.

  ‘Not now, Samson,’ I said. ‘Not here. Stay where we can see you, okay?’ Samson looked back at me, his face as stony and expressionless as always, though I couldn’t help but notice how his thin shoulders seemed to droop ever so slightly.

  I was about to assure him that we’d be leaving soon, that it wouldn’t be long until we were with Momma and Rocket down in Salina and that we’d soon be seeing Poppa, but at that moment, Carlene burst into the trailer with Lester following at her heels.

  Carlene was shouting and covering her ears. Lester was trying to hand her a wad of money clipped with a paper clip, but Carlene wouldn’t even look at him. Ranting about Lester’s lack of intelligence and general witlessness, she ushered Fish away from a shelf filled with animal figurines all made from jumbles of dry macaroni, and pulled a leaking, half-empty, Sunny Miami snow globe from out of Will Junior’s hands.

  ‘I’m not taking that money, Lester,’ Carlene hollered, glaring suspiciously at Bobbi, who was simply standing by the sofa. ‘I’m not taking it because it’s not nearly enough. You come back here when you have twice that much.’ Carlene stopped talking just long enough to look around the room at each of us, her face twisted and contorted like she was trying to remember something, something that maybe we reminded her of.

  ‘Fine, C-Carlene,’ said Lester. ‘Don’t take the money. B-but just know that I won’t be coming b-back, whether you take the money or not. I’m moving on.’

  ‘How dare you speak to me that way!’ Carlene shouted, looking away from us kids and grabbing the money out of his hand greedily. The woman’s temper flared hotter and she pitched the leaking snow globe straight at Lester’s head. Lester ducked, then danced as Carlene began throwing other things at him as well; figurines and collector’s plates sailed across the room, crashing against a wall or a lamp or a table as Lester jumped out of the way.

  Both the flesh-and-blood Carlene and the Carlene inside Lester’s head were screeching and bellowing so loudly that the voice of Rhonda could barely get a word in edgeways.

  ‘I thought I raised you better than this, you idiot boy,’ Rhonda scolded him. ‘Brawling with a woman!’

  ‘You are such a washout, Lester! Such a complete dud!’ Carlene bellowed as macaroni poodles flew through the air.

  ‘Lester’s a moron…’

  ‘Lester’s a –’

  ‘Shut up!’ At long last, it was Lester’s turn to cover his ears and shout, his turn to tell all of the voices to be quiet. ‘That’s enough!’ Lester roared, standing tall in his overalls inside Carlene’s trailer. ‘I’ve had enough of you, Carlene. I don’t care if you get me fired – I’ll find some way to keep my bus. I d-don’t care about your cousin Larry, and I don’t care about you!’

  A shocked silence stopped up the room. For a moment, no one moved. No one breathed. No one spoke or even thought.

  ‘Well, I’ll never…’ Rhonda started, then quickly faded out.

  ‘Nitwit…’ Carlene’s voice inside Lester’s head got in one final jab before it too sizzled out like a dying flame.

  As the living, breathing Carlene stopped throwing things and stared at Lester, speechless for the first time, she remembered that she had an audience, as Bobbi, Fish, Will and I all shifted in our places.

  I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach and the little hairs on the back of my neck began to prickle. Carlene looked from one of us to the next several times, and I could see her slowly dawning recognition. It was time to go.

  ‘Bless… my… stars. Lester, these are the kids on the TV,’ Carlene said low and slow like the first warning hiss of a poisonous snake. Lester looked from Carlene to the rest of us, obviously confused.

  ‘The TV?’ he repeated.

  ‘The alert on the TV…’ Carlene continued, stepping away sideways while keeping her eyes on us. ‘The missing kids. My Gawd, Lester! Did you help these kids run away?’

  ‘W-what?’ Lester stammered. ‘N-no… I mean yes. I mean – not on purpose, Carlene. Just 1-let me explain!’

  But Carlene was already reaching for the telephone. ‘You can explain yourself to the police, you defective dolt.’ She punched the buttons on the phone with one long, sharp fingernail.

  ‘The p-police?’

  ‘Not the police, Lester!’ I shouted, running out from my corner of the room. I grabbed Lester’s arm and tried to pull him to the door. ‘We have to get to Salina, Lester! Everything will be fine when we get to Salina, but we have to go now!’ Bobbi, Fish and Will all joined me in pushing-pulling Lester out of the trailer and back into the bus.

  ‘We’ve got to go, Lester!’ we shouted as we prodded him into the driver’s seat and Will pulled the lever to close the door behind us. Lester moved slowly, like he was in a trance, starting up the bus and putting it in gear, without paying any attention. His brain was still trying to catch up, trying to figure out if he were doing the right thing.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Lill wanted to know, having stayed on the bus to give Lester some room to fight his own battles. But we spared no time for her on explanations.

  ‘Just drive!’ shouted Bobbi as Carlene stepped out of the trailer with her cordless phone to her ear, waving and pointing as though the operator on the other end of the line could see us driving away.

  We were back on the highway, Lester sweating buckets and Lill’s face drawn tight, bewildered and worried. Sitting on the edge of our seats, we kept watch out of the windows for the first glimpse of flashing lights or the first sound of sirens on our tail. I remembered again that this was all my fault, that we wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for me and a savvy that had come and dropped me into hot water fast.

  That hot water turned cold as ice as I stopped thinking about how sad and sorry my life had become and realized something even more terrible with the same sudden pain as a brain freeze. I stood up and looked around, and my heart skipped a beat.

  ‘Where’s Samson?’

  30

  ‘Where’s Samson?’ I repeated frantically. I stumbled to the back of the bus and turned over Lester’s army cot. The others joined me, dumping out the bigger boxes and
checking under every seat. But it was no use. Samson wasn’t hiding anywhere on that bus. He simply wasn’t there.

  ‘We have to turn around!’ we all started shouting. ‘We have to go back!’ But Lester had his fingers knuckle-locked on to that steering wheel and was staring forward along the stretch of highway in front of him with the look of a man accepting the fact that his life was over and that he was probably going to end the day in prison for trying to do the right thing the wrong way. I felt bad, remembering my vow to keep Lill and Lester safe and out of trouble. But I couldn’t sacrifice my own brother on that account; we couldn’t not go back – even if the police were on their way.

  Lill got to her feet and stood up tall between us kids and Lester as he continued driving away from the Tuttle Terrace Trailer Park.

  ‘Just what’s going on here, kidlings?’ she wanted to know, calm but firm, her tone as parental as any mother’s.

  ‘Samson’s not on the bus!’ Fish shouted, and a gust of wind blew Lill’s hair away from her face as the temperature and humidity began to rise perceptibly inside the bus. My brother set his jaw and clenched his fists, wrangling his savvy self before continuing. ‘Samson must still be back at Carlene’s. We’ve got to go back!’

  Lill’s eyes widened and she looked back at us in shock. ‘We left the critter behind?’ We all nodded at her mutely. Then Lill spun around towards Lester.

  ‘Lester, turn the bus around!’

  ‘B-but…’ Lester stammered. ‘Carlene’s called the police.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Lester,’ Lill assured him, resting one hand on his nervous, shuddering shoulder. ‘We’ve got to go back.’

  Lester drove forward another quarter of a mile before he gave in. He made a wide-arcing U-turn faster than any old school bus should ever do, and for a moment I thought for sure that the big pink bus was going to tip right over. We all held on to whatever we could to keep from falling, and boxes of Bibles tumbled and slid.

  We were nearing the trailer park when we heard the first siren in the distance. At the wheel, Lester had gone as pale as Gypsy’s imaginary ghosts. The bright afternoon sun slipped behind thick dark clouds rising up from the distance, and the sky began to turn a funny shade of grey green. I remembered how close we were to that fair-sized body of water, Tuttle Creek Lake, and threw Fish a warning look.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he barked at me through clenched teeth. Nevertheless, I kept my eye on those clouds. Trouble was brewing.

  Ignoring the sirens, Lester turned into the trailer park. He’d hardly got the door of the bus open before the rest of us, including Lill, blew right out like we were riding on a gust of Fish’s wind. Lester followed on our heels, looking around him at the rising weather, at the trees bending and swaying, and at Carlene’s garden chair clattering down the street along with other rubbish picked up by the impending storm.

  Carlene stood just inside her doorway. ‘The police are on their way, Lester,’ she shouted over the wind as we ran towards her through the first drops of rain.

  ‘Where’s Samson?’ I demanded when I reached the woman. I could hardly catch my breath, I was in such a panic. ‘Where’s my brother?’

  Samson had to be inside. No one remembered seeing him leave the trailer. Bobbi and Lill moved towards the door, but Carlene blocked the way with her rawboned arms outstretched.

  ‘This is my home and you are all trespassing,’ Carlene said, her pink lipstick sticking to her teeth as she sneered. The sirens were getting closer. Carlene smiled. ‘Left one behind, did you? Well, the boy is safe and sound and locked up tight until the officers get here.’

  ‘Locked up?’ Lill boomed, her little voice growing as big as the thundering sky overhead. ‘Locked up? He’s just a child!’

  ‘Where is he, woman?’ Lester demanded without a stutter or a stammer. The sky grew darker and darker and the wind sashayed in every direction, carrying the sound of the approaching sirens away and back. But Carlene just looked at us, smug and priggish, laughing at us with her eyes.

  ‘You’ll never find him,’ she said. ‘That one’s got a knack for keeping hid, I can tell.’

  ‘You know where he is, don’t you,’ Lester proclaimed, stating facts more than asking a question. Carlene just shrugged. Lill rose up to her full height, hovering like a heavenly avenger over the smaller woman; the look in her eyes was as fierce as the storm rising up from the lake, the storm that Fish was trying hard not to unleash in full.

  But it was all just too much for my brother. His anger and worry got the best of him and he let loose with a blast of wind, directing it straight at Carlene, knocking her all the way to the far wall inside the entryway. We tumbled into the shaking trailer, leaping past Carlene to look everywhere for Samson. The first place I thought to look was under the long tablecloth over the table by the kitchen bar. But Samson wasn’t there.

  Everyone spread out, looking under the bed and behind the furniture. We checked in closets and cupboards. We emptied out the laundry basket and looked behind the curtains and the shower curtain. I even looked inside the oven – just in case. All the while, Fish’s fury raged both inside and out, making the curtains thrash and wave and setting every loose piece of paper and every stringy grey ball of dust flying through the air, his wrath threatening to pull the roof right off that old trailer.

  I was searching the closet in the entryway as the first police car roared through the rain to stop behind the big pink Bible bus in a frenzy of multicoloured noise. That was when a thought struck me. I knew how to get Carlene to tell me where Samson was.

  All I needed was my pen.

  31

  I reached down deep into the pocket of my skirt, looking for my fancy silver happy-birthday pen but found only the broken, useless bar of paper-wrapped soap. I remembered that Will Junior still had it.

  Will was searching the bedroom at the back of the house and I could hear Carlene in there with him, shouting at him to stop pulling all of the blankets off her bed.

  Through a slim window set into the front door, I watched as two police officers stepped out of their patrol car and dashed through the rain towards the trailer. I quickly locked the deadbolt in the door and pulled a heavy chair in front of it to buy us more time, hoping that there might be another way out. Then I dashed down the narrow hallway towards the bedroom, passing the others on the way. Lester and Lill were in the kitchen looking again in all the cupboards. Bobbi was searching inside the washing machine and dryer. Fish was sitting on the floor in the bathroom with his head in his hands and his eyes squeezed tightly shut. He was struggling to keep that storm outside under control.

  ‘It’ll be all right, Fish! I know what to do!’ I shouted to my brother, trying to reassure him as I ran past. Fish got up and followed me into Carlene’s bedroom with Bobbi right behind him.

  ‘Will! I need my pen!’ I cried.

  Will stopped a violent game of bed sheet tug-of-war with Carlene, letting go of his end so abruptly that the bony woman fell backwards and landed in her now-empty laundry basket, her arms and legs flailing and kicking, one fuzzy slipper falling off, the other sailing through the air to hit the ceiling just over Bobbi’s head – Bobbi ducked to keep from getting hit. We were almost out of time. I could hear the police officers pounding on the front door.

  ‘Will! My pen!’ I thrust my hand out like a surgeon asking for a scalpel. Will dug deep into his own pocket and slapped the shiny pen into my hand, knowing exactly what I had in mind. We all shimmied around and over the bed, converging on the woman in the basket and trying to hold her down. Carlene started up such a noisy, hissing, spitting yowl it was like trying to catch hold of a feral cat. The police pounded again on the door and I knew my time was up.

  Carlene screamed, ‘Help! Help me!’ But Fish blasted her with another whip of wind, making her flinch and turn her head aside, but it didn’t stop her caterwaul.

  ‘Help me! I’m being attacked!’

  To shut the woman up, Bobbi pulled her roll of Bubble Tape from the
pocket of her jeans, yanking a full arm’s length of gum from the package and tearing it off. Quickly wadding the long ribbon into a tight tangle in her hand, Bobbi leaned forward and jammed the big gob of gum inside Carlene’s open, roaring mouth, muffling the woman’s shouts, at least momentarily.

  Uncapping the pen, I grabbed for one of Carlene’s kicking feet; it was the only part of her I could get close to.

  ‘Lemme go!’ the woman garbled around her enormous mouthful of sticky, juicy Bubble Tape, trying to spit it out but finding it difficult to dislodge the gum from her teeth. Kicking at me again, Carlene pulled her foot out of my grasp, her big hair flying up around her head like a mane as though the angry cat was turning into a lion.

  ‘Try to keep her still,’ I shouted. ‘I only need a second!’ As Fish and Bobbi struggled to pin Carlene’s arms, Will grabbed hold of both of her feet. Carlene landed a rock-solid kick to Will’s chest, knocking him backwards against the bed, but he got up quickly and took hold of her feet with a tighter grip.

  It took less than an instant – a dot, a dot and a line – just long enough to draw a simple face on the bottom of Carlene’s cracked and calloused left foot.

  ‘Where’s my brother?’ I demanded, trying to shut out everything except Carlene’s voice inside my head, but finding it difficult to ignore the increasingly loud pounding at the front door and the sound of the rain now pummelling the metal siding of the trailer. ‘Where is he?’ I repeated, shouting to Carlene, then pausing to listen for the single voice of her thoughts.