Squirm

  Sorry, Dad, but the deal’s off. I can’t keep your secret anymore. The stakes are too high.

  “It doesn’t take three people to carry a bag of feathers down the stairs,” Lil says, “so somebody please speak up.”

  Slowly I raise my hand, like we’re in algebra class or something. Lil turns off the music. Now the basement is as quiet as, well, a basement.

  “Dad doesn’t really work for the government,” I say.

  His shoulders sag. Summer looks down at her shoelaces. It’s possible I’ve actually stopped breathing.

  Lil calmly takes off her glasses.

  “Oh, Billy, I know that,” she says. “I’ve known for a long time.”

  EIGHTEEN

  She had discovered the truth on a frigid January day when Summer was at school, Dad was on a trip, and the river was full of ice. A person called the house identifying himself as a lawyer in the Bahamas. It was the same man Summer would later speak to about Hubert the parrot.

  The lawyer told Lil he was updating some legal papers regarding the money from Dad’s aunt Sophie, and he needed to double-check the mailing address in Montana.

  Lil didn’t know what he was talking about, so she asked, “And how is dear Aunt Sophie these days?”

  “Uh, actually…she’s deceased,” the flustered lawyer replied. “Didn’t Mr. Dickens tell you?”

  By the end of the conversation, Lil knew far more than the lawyer should have told her. Yet she didn’t say a word to Dad. Instead she decided to tail him on one of his “missions.”

  After leaving Summer with a relative in Billings, Little Thunder-Sky spent seventeen hours tracking my father through knee-deep snow in the Absaroka Mountains. He had no clue that somebody was spying on him while he was spying on a poacher, or that the somebody was his very own wife.

  Hidden by a hillside boulder, Lil watched through binoculars while Dad sent his quadcopter to dive-bomb a trophy bull elk, causing it to bound into the heavy timber moments before the poacher’s bullet would have struck. Lil crept away and returned home, torn about how to deal with the situation. As risky as Dad’s drone expeditions might be, she understood that protecting those animals was a passion, something that gave him a sense of duty.

  There are worse hobbies a man could have, she thought.

  “So I decided to let you keep thinking your secret was safe,” Lil says to Dad, “but enough’s enough.”

  He winces like he stepped on a rusty nail. “I am really, really, really sorry,” he says. His face shows regret and also relief that he no longer needs to lie about his mystery missions.

  Lil isn’t mad, but she’s far from happy. We’ve already told her about the panther expedition, and the possibility that Baxter came here to settle the score with Dad.

  She says, “Dennis, I figured you were going to Florida just to see your kids, and I was cool with that. You should have done it a long time ago. But now I find out you took Summer and Billy along while you chased some armed psycho through the Everglades. Have you totally lost your mind?”

  I jump in: “That wasn’t all Dad’s fault. We didn’t give him a choice.”

  “Oh, he had a choice.” Lil’s cutting stare swings from Dad toward me and Summer. “He is a full-grown, functioning adult. It’s his job to be in charge of himself.”

  My father says, “She’s right. I took you two along because I was afraid you’d spill the beans if I didn’t. But listen, Lil—you know I’d never put these kids in any danger. Baxter didn’t know he was being followed, until we wanted him to know.”

  “And we never got close enough for him to see us,” I add, Summer nodding at my side. We both feel guilty about our sneaky role in the Everglades trip.

  Lil says, “None of us can be sure what this creep is capable of doing. It’s time to call the sheriff.”

  Dad raises his hands in protest. “And tell him what? A man sold his beat-up SUV to some stranger on the street. That’s not a crime. Being in the same town with me isn’t a crime, either. We’ve got no proof Baxter came here for revenge. He hasn’t made a single threat to me, or to any of you.”

  “He sliced your tires,” Summer pipes up, “and shot a hole in your truck.”

  “Yeah, but we can’t prove that was him,” Dad says. “The sheriff’s going to listen to our story and, basically, shrug.”

  He’s right, and Lil knows it.

  “Fine,” she says, “but the kids and Christine need to leave right away, just in case.”

  “Now, hold on a second—”

  Lil cuts him off. “No discussion, no debate. It’s too risky for them to stay—even if there’s only a one percent chance this guy’s coming after you.”

  My father looks whipped. He’s got no ammunition for an argument. “So, what am I supposed to tell Chrissie and Belinda?”

  “I don’t know, Dennis. Truth twisting is not my department.” Lil sits forward, eyeing me and Summer. “We don’t want to alarm Billy’s mom and sister, so you two come up with a good creative excuse why we’ve got to cut short the family visit.”

  Summer says: “Grandma got real sick and we’ve got to drive up to the reservation?”

  My suggestion: “The government called Dad for an emergency drone assignment in, like, Utah?”

  Lil nods. “Sounds good. We’ll use both those stories.”

  Dad stands there wilted and depressed. His only comment: “It sucks to do this.”

  On that we all agree.

  * * *

  —

  This one kid, he got kicked out of school because he brought a BB pistol.

  The gun wasn’t loaded, but he still got expelled. That’s the rule. They warn students at the start of every year: no weapons of any kind, period.

  The kid was in two of my classes. Jervis was his name. He was a pretty good student, had never been in trouble before. They didn’t tell us why he’d brought the pistol to school, but I found out the reason. Some fool was messing with him on the bus ride home, almost every afternoon.

  The other kid’s name was Tickmore.

  For real. Timmy Tickmore.

  He wasn’t much bigger than Jervis, but he was loud and mean and dumber than a mud fence. You know the type. He didn’t throw punches, but he specialized in using his elbows and knees. Sometimes he’d stomp on somebody’s foot, and then laugh when he saw how much it hurt.

  One afternoon, Tickmore elbowed Jervis in the back of the neck and told him he was going to do something bad to Jervis’s little sister when she got old enough to ride the bus. Cut off all her hair or throw her books out the window, whatever.

  When Jervis went home from school that day, he took the BB pistol from the garage and hid it in his book bag. It was a cheap target gun that could barely shoot a hole in a soda can, but it looked like a real nine-millimeter. Jervis’s idea was to flash it at Timmy Tickmore, scaring him so much that he’d promise to leave Jervis’s little sister alone. Obviously it was a terrible plan, something only a frightened and desperate person would try.

  In addition to being frightened and desperate, Jervis was also unlucky. The same morning he brought the BB pistol to school there was a random locker search. You can guess what happened. After finding the gun, Officer Thickley called Jervis’s parents to come get him, and that afternoon he was officially kicked out of school. He never rode the bus again, never saw Tickmore again—and never told the principal why he was carrying that stupid BB pistol.

  But he told me. A week after the locker search, I saw him in the dairy aisle at the supermarket. When he recounted what had happened, he didn’t sound bitter. He just sounded defeated.

  That night, I locked the door to my room, opened my laptop, and typed a letter to the school. The letter said I needed to ride bus number 537 for one day because I’d be staying with an uncle on that pickup route while my mother was out of town for
a funeral. Then I signed Mom’s name to the letter—Christine Jane Dickens. I even put a double dot over the last i, the same way she does.

  I know, I know. It was weaselly, dishonest, and totally wrong—though not as wrong as what Timmy Tickmore did to Jervis.

  The letter I wrote to the school looked super-legit. I took it to the office, and with no hesitation, Mrs. Lipton gave me a yellow pass to get on the bus. She didn’t call Mom to double-check, because she didn’t want to bother her before the (nonexistent) funeral.

  “Please tell her we’re so sorry for her loss,” Mrs. Lipton said sincerely.

  “That’s very kind of you,” I replied.

  Problem solved.

  The next morning I woke up early, walked to Jervis’s bus stop, and waited with the other kids for number 537. I knew from talking with Jervis that Tickmore boarded at one of the earlier stops and always took the bench seat in the back of the bus. That’s straight where I headed after handing my permission slip to the driver.

  Tickmore was sitting with two kids who looked equally brainless.

  “Could you guys scoot over?” I asked nicely.

  “What?” cackled one of the nitwits.

  “I need to sit next to Timmy.”

  “Yeah? How come?” snarled the second nitwit.

  “Because I’ve got some key information for him. What they call a game changer.”

  Tickmore looked at me warily. “Aren’t you the dude they call Snake Boy?”

  Immediately Nitwit One slid over on the seat. I sat down between him and Tickmore. My backpack was on my lap.

  “What you talkin’ ’bout, you got ‘information’?” Tickmore said, trying to sound like he wasn’t interested. “I never seen you on this bus before.”

  “That’s right. You’ve never seen me at 1728 Mango Lane, either.”

  That’s where he and his family lived. It was easy to find the address. They were the only Tickmores in the city phone book.

  “Timmy, what’s the reptile situation in your neighborhood?” I asked.

  He clenched up and began to squirm. I mean, physically squirm, like a slug on a hot sidewalk. He was extremely nervous, but he didn’t want to look like a wimp in front of his friends.

  “You must like pain,” he said, working his face into a sneer. It was actually comical.

  “Pretend I’m Jervis,” I whispered to him. “Stomp on my feet. Slap me in the head. Hey, you can even jab me in the neck with your elbow. Go on, don’t be scared.”

  Nitwit Two howled. “Dude, the Timminator’s not scared of nuthin’!”

  Tickmore’s forehead got pink and sweaty. He started looking around the bus for other seating options. I didn’t mind watching him tremble, the way he made other kids tremble.

  Leaning sideways into him, I said, “Yo, check this out.”

  I lifted my backpack and shook it lightly from side to side, like a bag of popcorn. Tickmore and the two nitwits were mystified.

  “Listen close, Timmy,” I said.

  Inside the backpack, something started to rattle. It was a sound made by only one creature in all of nature. Tickmore’s phony sneer disappeared, and his eyes got wide.

  “No sudden moves,” I advised.

  Even if he’d wanted to, Tickmore couldn’t move a muscle. Fear bolted him to his seat. Every time the rattling stopped, I’d shake the backpack again.

  By the time we arrived at school, Tickmore and I had reached an understanding. If I heard about him bothering anybody on that bus—or anybody in the halls, or anybody in the cafeteria, or anybody in the gym, or anybody anywhere—there would be serious snakes in his future.

  As he bounded for the exit door, he was clutching his books low, in front of his pants. I assumed that he’d peed himself. Maybe I’m an awful person, but I still didn’t feel sorry for him, not after what he did to Jervis.

  You’re probably thinking: What kind of maniac gets on the school bus carrying a live rattlesnake?

  Not me, don’t worry.

  Hidden in a side pocket of my backpack was my cellphone, cued to a SlitherTube post of a real six-foot diamondback shaking the rattle on its tail. Every time I jostled the backpack, I’d slip a hand inside the zipper and tap the play button. Even with the volume only halfway up, the noise was impressive. Tickmore’s nitwit peeps practically climbed over his shoulders in their rush to flee the bus.

  The point of the story is that while honesty is a good thing, lying is occasionally necessary in order to protect people. I wrote a totally bogus letter and forged my mother’s signature just to get on bus number 537, so I could deal with Timmy Tickmore. And though I never actually told him there was a real rattlesnake coiled inside my backpack, I definitely made him think there was.

  So that’s basically two lies, which is nothing to be proud of. On the other hand, nobody at my school has to worry about that creep anymore. He won’t mess with any other kids the way he did with Jervis.

  And now I’ve got a few more lies to tell if I want to make sure Mom and Belinda go straight home to Florida, safe from anything bad that might happen here.

  * * *

  —

  “My pics of the golden didn’t turn out so fabulous,” my mother remarked, scrolling through the photo file on her phone. In the pictures, the distant eagle looks like a chunky brown post planted on the side of the cliff.

  “But you saw one. That’s all that matters,” I told her.

  She beamed. “And it was awesome, Billy. Better than awesome! Awesome squared.”

  Then came the hard part: “Mom, I’ve got some bad news.”

  I deliver the two phony stories—that Lil’s mother is ill on the Crow reservation, and that my father is being called away on another government mission.

  “We’ll have to go home earlier than we planned,” I said.

  She was really disappointed, but she said she understood. “I hope it’s nothing serious with Summer’s grandma,” she added.

  “Me too. Dad’s rebooking our flight to Florida.”

  “I’ll tell your sister in a minute.” Mom went back to studying her golden eagle photos. “You know what I’m wondering, Billy? Where was this bird’s mate?”

  “Probably back at the nest,” I assured her, “feeding their little ones.”

  “Of course. That makes sense. I bet you’re right.”

  The next morning it was still dark when Dad dropped us at the Bozeman airport. Mom gave him a proper peck on the cheek and that’s all. She gets the whole Montana thing now, and seems honestly okay with Dad’s new life—what she calls his “second act.” Even Belinda offered a hug. Waving goodbye, he looked sad enough to be going to a real funeral. All that was missing was his grim black suit.

  Now I’m sitting in seat 9C, wondering how much my ticket cost and—since the airline doesn’t do refunds—how long it will take me to pay him back.

  When Dad rebooked our flight, he couldn’t get us three seats together, so Belinda is four rows behind me. She’s still sulking because my mother wouldn’t buy her a three-hundred-dollar pair of hand-stitched cowgirl boots. Mom is sitting five rows farther back, dozing with a book on her lap.

  Meanwhile, my eyes are locked on the no-nonsense flight attendant holding the microphone at the front of the plane. He’s been patiently telling passengers to please clear the aisles, buckle up, and get ready for takeoff.

  He’ll say it once more, right before he closes the cabin door. I know the drill because I went online and found a Delta Airlines flight attendant training manual.

  So, the moment I hear the words over the intercom, I undo my lap belt and march up the aisle. The flight attendant thinks I’m going to the restroom. He tells me I have to wait in my seat until after the aircraft takes off and reaches cruising altitude.

  I nod agreeably, slide past him, and dart out the ca
bin door.

  “Stop, you can’t get off now!” he calls after me.

  “I left something at the gate!”

  “But they won’t let you reboard!”

  Exactly.

  Technically, what I told the flight attendant wasn’t a lie. I really did leave my carry-on at the gate—accidentally on purpose.

  The bag is still under the seat where I put it. As soon as I’m out of the terminal building, I text Mom with another fake story:

  “I forgot my bag in the airport. They wouldn’t let me back on the plane!! All OK now. I’ll catch a flight home 2morrow. Call u later.”

  Either she is still asleep or she’s already turned off her phone, because I don’t get a response to my text. The cab ride to Livingston costs way more than the thirteen bucks in my wallet, so the driver parks in front of Dad’s house to wait.

  Summer has a toothbrush in her mouth when she comes to the door. “Whath inna whirl are you doon here?”

  “Can I borrow some money for the taxi?”

  The cash comes from Lil’s cookie-jar stash, and the driver leaves happy. Summer doesn’t fall for my story of how I missed the flight.

  “You came back here because of Baxter, right? Well, guess what, Billy Big Stick. We were wrong, you and me.”

  “Wrong about what?”

  “He’s not stalking Dennis,” she says.

  “And you know this…how?”

  “Your dad got a call from Mrs. Baxter this morning. She said her hubby came here to shoot a grizzly.”

  “Hold on—Baxter admitted that to his wife? That he’s poaching?”

  “Of course not. But he had her FedEx one of his big rifles to the Murray Hotel. He made up a story that it’s broken and the best gunsmith is here in Livingston.”

  “Total bull,” I say.

  “Exactly. Dennis says it’s strictly a bear gun, too. I called the hotel pretending to be Baxter’s assistant, and they said the package was delivered this morning.”

  “Where’s Dad now?”