He grabbed Chloe and Max and lifted them off the floor. They squealed, delighted.
Robbie appointed Chloe the note taker. She kept a log of the repairs needed as Robbie inspected the bus: Pound out dents in roof; replace broken windshield; replace windows; repair seats; tune engine; fix tires.
Henry suggested they paint racing stripes on the bus and Robbie told Chloe to put it on the list.
Robbie had a good sense of kids and how to manage them in a crowd. He sent Brayden and Alex off to get some supplies from Automotive and then he told the little kids that the first thing to do was to clear a working space around the bus. The kids set to work pushing the carts away and cleaning up any pieces of glass or debris that had been missed before.
“I’m good with engines. I have experience. Wanna know why, Mr. Robbie?” Max said in his cheerful way. “Because my dad sometimes works at a chop shop.”
“What’s a chop shop?” Chloe demanded.
“It’s a secret club where you go to take cars apart. It’s really fun.”
“What’s so fun about that?”
“Because it’s a secret and you can’t tell nobody! Especially not the police, because they’re never allowed in the club. They’re always so jealous. The cops would give anything to get in a chop shop.”
Robbie caught my eye and he grinned. I had to grin back.
“And sometimes the cars are really fancy, too,” Max continued. “BMW, Lexus, Subarus…”
“Wow,” Batiste said.
“Our mom drives a Subaru!” Caroline said, her sweet little voice excited and proud.
“It’s a Forester!” Henry added.
“Cool,” Max said.
They were pretty cute, our kids. I could see why Robbie liked to hug them. They were definitely huggable. At times.
I decided I’d better get working on lunch.
As I turned and headed into the Kitchen I saw that Sahalia was sitting on top of the low dividing wall between the Pizza Shack and the cart corral where the bus was sitting.
She was biting her cuticles with determination. She looked really left out and downhearted. I felt bad for her, but not that bad, since she’d been such a pain in the ass to us all in the last couple of days.
I saw Robbie notice Sahalia and walk over.
“We need everyone to help if we’re going to get this bus in shape,” he said softly.
“It looks like you have enough helpers to me,” she said.
“Yeah, but they’re little,” Robbie said. “I need people who can actually help.” He smiled at her and patted her on the knee. “Grown-ups.”
Was Sahalia a grown-up? Not really.
But he knew exactly what to say.
Sahalia smiled. She gathered her hair up and twisted it in a knot.
“Okay,” she said. “Show me what to do.”
“That’s my girl,” he said, giving her knee a squeeze.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
HANDS
I let Max help fix the bus instead of making him come do KP with me.
They were having a great time.
While Robbie, Brayden, and Sahalia worked on the tires and then on the engine, the little kids washed the bus with baby wipes, which was absurd but very cute.
Robbie gave Alex the task of figuring out how to replace the windshield and broken windows. Alex set off into the store to forage for Plexiglas. This was exactly his kind of challenge.
I made tuna sandwiches for lunch, with some peas and carrots on the side. I figured Robbie and Mr. Appleton could use the protein from the tuna and fresh (frozen) vegetables are something grown-ups seem to enjoy.
Mr. Appleton was still sleeping, so he didn’t come to lunch, which, truth be told, probably made lunch all the more fun. That guy was a grump.
And Niko had come, taken a plate of food and left, so we also didn’t have him there to be worrying in our faces and bringing us down.
Robbie had all the little kids play a guessing game called I’m Thinking of an Animal.
“I’m thinking of an animal,” said Chloe. “It’s black and white and wears a tuxedo!”
“A penguin!” Max shouted. “Now, I’m thinking of an animal. It’s brown and lives in the woods.”
“A bear?” asked Caroline.
“A squirrel?” guessed Batiste.
“It roars and eats people!” Max added.
“A bear!” Caroline insisted.
“No, a lion!” Max announced.
“They don’t live in the woods!” Batiste said.
“Yes, they do!”
“They’re not brown,” Chloe objected. “They’re yellow.”
“I’m think of animal,” Ulysses offered, interrupting the spat. He was more confident now, with Robbie around. “I’m think of animal—it’s a dog!” he said.
We all laughed.
Everyone was in their finest form.
Josie came and sat with me and Alex.
“What do you guys think about the outsiders?” she asked us quickly.
“I really like Robbie,” Alex said eagerly. “He knows so much about engines. I’m going to show him my video walkie-talkies later.”
Josie turned to me.
“Dean?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I like Robbie. I mean, everyone likes Robbie. But Mr. Appleton is pretty heavy.”
Josie nodded, chewing her sandwich.
“You know what troubles me? That Niko doesn’t like them.”
I was glad, for Niko’s sake, that Josie had even noticed his feelings at all. She seemed pretty oblivious to him, most of the time.
“I worry what the effect on the kids would be, if we all want them to stay and Niko still wants them to go…”
I had been wondering the same thing.
“God,” Josie said with a yawn. “Is it really just lunch time? This day already feels a million years long.”
“It’s because so much has happened,” Alex said through a mouthful of tuna. “Our whole universe has changed in just a few hours.”
Alex was right. As usual.
* * *
Everyone worked on the bus in the afternoon except Jake (high), Niko (pissy), Mr. Appleton (sleeping), and Astrid (AWOL).
Robbie, Brayden, and Sahalia got the engine purring nicely.
Robbie and Sahalia got along really well. It turned out that if you treated her like an adult, she acted like one.
Josie helped Alex with the windows. For the front windshield they used Plexiglas that Alex had taken out of the Media Department display cases. The side windows they decided to just cover with wooden shelves from the Home Improvement section. Robbie helped them screw them into place.
The little kids were given the delightful task of putting epoxy glue into every dent, chip, nook, or cranny that looked like it might let air into the bus.
Josie and Alex used the same epoxy to seal around the windows.
“Looking good,” I heard Robbie say, inspecting their work at the end of the day. “Looking very good.”
He boarded the bus and walked down the aisle.
I couldn’t resist, I put down my spatula and went over to see how they’d done.
“Look, Dean,” Alex said, showing me the interior.
The inside of the bus was dark, now. Most of the side windows had been replaced by wood.
It smelled kind of dank in there.
All in all, I did not like being on a bus again.
“We have a little more work to do,” Robbie said.
He pointed up.
We could see slivers and shards of light coming in through the dented roof.
“I guess you guys can do it tomorrow,” Robbie said. “After we’re gone…”
“No,” Alex said. “Niko will let you guys stay longer. I know he will. Now that he sees how helpful you guys are. Don’t you think, Dean?”
I shrugged.
“A deal is a deal.” Robbie sighed.
* * *
The atmosphere at dinner was co
mpletely different than it had been at lunch.
Mr. Appleton came over, looking a lot better for his day’s sleep.
“Look what we did, Mr. Appleton,” Max said, bounding over to him. “We fixed the bus!”
“My goodness,” Mr. Appleton said. “What good work.”
Robbie walked over to him.
“You’re looking better,” Robbie said.
Chloe came over and snuggled up to Robbie. Robbie tousled her hair.
I saw a flicker of surprise on Mr. Appleton’s face at Chloe’s gesture of closeness.
“Thank you, Robbie,” Mr. Appleton said. “I must be feeling better, because I feel like I could eat a horse!”
* * *
Anticipating this, I had prepared like eight bags of chicken alfredo frozen pasta.
Mr. Appleton clapped Niko on the shoulder. “Niko, I think we hit on the right antibiotics. I am feeling a lot better.”
“Good,” Niko said. “Then you two will be ready to leave in the morning.”
“Of course we will. Perhaps you’ll lend me an alarm clock so we can wake up at a reasonable hour. Then we’re on our way.”
All the friendly chitter chatter of dinner stopped suddenly.
“What?” Chloe said. “Who died? Why’d everyone stop talking?”
“Niko’s going to make Robbie and Mr. Appleton leave tomorrow,” Sahalia said.
“Nooo!” shouted half the kids, and the others screamed, “You have to let them stay!”
“We have a deal!” Niko shouted, but the ruckus was too loud.
Ulysses was crying in Spanish and Robbie drew him onto his lap. Those fat tears welled up in Ulysses’s eyes and he put his head down on Robbie’s shoulder.
“We have a deal with these men and they can only stay for one day,” Niko repeated.
“Now, kids,” Mr. Appleton tried. “Be reasonable now…”
“I hate you!” Chloe screamed at Niko. “I wish we had elected Jake president! He wouldn’t care if they stayed.”
Niko turned to me and Josie.
“How about some backup here?” he asked us.
But it was basically futile to try to talk to the kids when they were so worked up.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” shouted Alex. “They should stay at least until we’re finished fixing the bus and Mr. Appleton is feeling better.”
Part of me was happy that Alex was now mad at Niko, his hero.
But truly Alex was right. What would a couple more days do? The men were safe. They could be trusted. Why couldn’t they stay a little longer?
“We made a deal,” Niko insisted.
“If you make them go, I’m going with them,” Brayden shouted.
“Whoa now,” Mr. Appleton said, holding his hands up.
“Me, too!” Sahalia announced. “I’d rather take my chances out there than stay here with you losers!”
This caused more screaming and crying from the little kids, who, I think, were less insulted by being called losers than afraid their new “family” was breaking apart.
“Everyone, please quiet down,” Mr. Appleton said. “Quiet down!”
The kids tried to rein in their distress, sniffling and hiccupping back their tears.
“Right. Good,” Niko said sarcastically. “Listen to him, but not to me.”
Mr. Appleton turned to Niko.
“Niko,” he said. “I give you my word that we will leave. But the truth is … my leg is worse than I thought. Robbie could finish fixing the bus. I could rest … If perhaps we could stay one or two more days…”
The chorus of whining “pleases” went up from the kids and Niko stormed off.
Josie got up.
“I want you all to settle down,” she said to the little kids. “I am going to talk to Niko and see if we can’t work something out. Dean?” she said, turning to me.
“Yeah.” I rose and followed her.
“I’m coming, too,” Alex said.
“No, Alex,” I said. “You’re too upset. You won’t be impartial.”
He nodded, looking down at the table. He prided himself on remaining impartial.
“You think he’s just insecure about losing his power?” Josie asked me as we looked for Niko.
“I guess. I don’t know. He’s so disciplined. Maybe he just really wants them to stick to the deal, even though it makes sense for them to stay.”
Niko wasn’t in the storeroom or in the Living Room.
We passed the towel aisle.
Jake was lying on a hammock, strung between the aisles.
“Hey, Jake, you seen Niko?” I asked.
“Naw,” he drawled.
There were shadow circles under Jake’s eyes. His sunny blond hair looked gray and dirty. He looked like his own evil twin.
“What’s all the ruckus?” he asked us.
“Everyone wants the outsiders to stay, but Niko says they have to go.”
“Oh.”
That was it?
He didn’t have an opinion?
He reached out his foot to the shelf and pushed himself into a gentle sway.
“Don’t you think they should stay?” Josie asked him.
“Who cares?” he said. “We’re all gonna die anyway.”
He looked up at us.
His blue eyes were dark like a stormy nighttime sky.
“Maybe Niko’s in the Train,” I said, steering Josie away.
We hurried away.
Josie stepped into the Train.
“I’ll knock on his door,” she said.
A moment later I heard, “Dean, can you come here?”
I opened the door to Niko’s berth. Josie was standing there, looking around, totally transfixed.
Niko’s berth had a hammock, like mine.
It was the only thing in the berth, besides drawings.
Drawings covered all three walls.
Each drawing or sketch was meticulously stuck into the soft wall with thumbtacks. The drawings were on all different-size pieces of paper. Some eleven by fourteen. Some no bigger than a Post-it. There was a little edge of the fuzzy, orange Greenway dressing-room wall showing between them. The berth looked ordered and neat, and at the same time, it was wonderful and wild. It boggled my mind.
For one thing, who had any secrets left?
We were all with one another all the time.
This guy, the leader of our group, had kept his drawing a secret. How did he do it? I guess I’d seen him sketching on his clipboard at times. I think I just assumed he was making lists or something.
I looked more closely at the drawings. On one whole wall, there were hands, lots of hands. They were rendered in charcoal or felt-tip pen. Some in plain old ballpoint pen.
On the other walls the drawings were varied. There was a drawing of Henry and Caroline, looking at a book. One of me, cooking something. From the grimace on my face, I guess I’d burned it. I looked taller than I remembered myself. There was a drawing of the bus, broken-down and leaning on its two flat tires near the front entrance. There was a beautiful color pastel of Josie. She looked radiant and glowing, her brown skin captured in a spectrum of chocolate and mocha tones.
“Did you see this?” I asked her, pointing.
She nodded yes.
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
There was a sketch of the ink cloud pouring up into the sky. A drawing of our memorial circle—the one we’d had after Josie woke up. A really crazy-good drawing of Luna, which he had to have made in the last twelve hours …
Josie had her back to me, looking at the wall with the hands.
I saw that they were all different hands. Hands from different people. They were labeled at the bottom-right corner in Niko’s neat block printing: Dad. Grandpa. Tim. Mrs. Miccio. I saw Chloe’s chubby little mitt. And one of Jake’s big meat paws.
Josie was looking at one drawing in the center of the wall. Tears were streaming down her face.
I knew whose hands they were before I read the label. The h
ands were open, as if welcoming, or calling someone into them. The palms seemed soft, drawn with gentle lines and a sort of a rosy effect from the charcoal. The fingers were long and thin and tapered off at the tips. A wedding band and engagement ring were on the ring finger, but you only saw the back of the rings because of how the hands were opened.
They were the hands of Niko’s mother.
* * *
Sometimes, when you’d least expect it, the grief would chop your legs out from under you.
And that’s how it was with me when I saw that drawing there.
* * *
“What are you guys doing in here?” Niko said from the doorway.
“Oh, Niko,” Josie said, turning to him. “Your drawings are so beautiful.”
“And private,” he said. He motioned for us to leave.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “We were looking for you.”
“Please get out of my room!” he said, raising his voice.
We went into the Living Room and he followed.
“Thanks for making me the enemy with the kids, by the way,” he said derisively. “I’m trying to keep everyone safe and now everyone hates me. I really appreciate it.”
His jaw was tight. I could see this was pretty much Niko at his worst—uptight, being a stickler for the rules, going for sarcasm to try to defend himself.
“We just want to understand your logic here,” I said.
“We made a deal. One. Day. That’s my logic.”
“But, Niko, Robbie is really helpful and the kids love him,”
“I know,” Niko said. “But don’t you think he might just be trying to win everyone over so we’ll let them stay?”
“But Mr. Appleton needs more time to recover,” I protested.
“I know! Look,” Niko turned to us. “Robbie’s just…”
“Just what?” Josie asked.
“I don’t like him.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Why?”
“The way … I don’t know. The way he’s all over everyone. It doesn’t feel right.”
“Come on, Niko,” I protested.
“I saw him put his arm around Sahalia. They were going to get motor oil. He had his arm around her. It just wasn’t right.”
“Niko, she’s thirteen,” Josie said. “You can’t think…”
“I don’t know what I think!” he exclaimed. “Except that everyone is putting pressure on me to do something that feels wrong.”