So far so good, in my new life as a fugitive.
I ate two more cheese sandwiches and refilled my water bottle at the water park fountain, then at 6:50, I found the same payphone I’d used to call my mom. Only this time I called the Economopouloses.
‘Ambrose? Your mama, she’s sick with worry,’ said Mrs E, when she picked up the phone.
‘Is Cosmo back?’
Suddenly he was on the line. ‘Ambrose, you idiot, where the hell are you?’
‘Did they charge you?’
‘No. They let me go with a warning.’
‘What about Silvio?’
‘He had some outstanding warrants for his arrest. They’re keeping him in till they set a trial date.’
‘Good.’
‘Now tell me where you are.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Your mom’s going crazy.’
‘I don’t want to move.’
‘I know you don’t.’
‘I have to hang up now, in case you’re having my call traced.’
‘Ambrose, you watch too much TV …’
I hung up.
I wandered over to the market, which was already showing signs of life, even though it was only seven o’clock. The shop owners were laying out their produce and trucks were making deliveries of fish and I could smell bread and cookies baking. It made me ravenous all over again and I sat down by the water’s edge and ate my second-to-last cheese sandwich.
When the market officially opened at eight, I ducked into one of the public washrooms and carefully counted out five dollars in quarters and put them into my pocket. Then I went to a bakery and, after making the shopkeeper swear that there were no peanuts in anything, I bought an enormous blueberry muffin and an equally enormous chocolate chip cookie, since my mom wasn’t around to tell me not to. I pocketed my change and took my treats outside.
While I ate them, I considered my options. I only had about fifty dollars in quarters left, and I knew they wouldn’t last me very long, even if I only had to use them for food. I thought about stealing, but stealing just wasn’t my style, and besides, it could get me arrested. I thought about garbage-picking or dumpster-diving, but that was simply too gross, and with my peanut allergy, it could also be deadly.
If I couldn’t steal or pick garbage, I concluded that there was only one option left. I had to earn some money, which meant I had to get a job.
I went back inside the market and asked a few of the shopkeepers if they needed any help, but they either laughed at me or ignored me. One guy looked at me and my backpack and my canvas shopping bag suspiciously and said, ‘Where are your parents?’
‘Shopping,’ I lied. ‘There they are now.’ I pointed to a couple strolling nearby and pretended to join them, before heading back outside.
I was stumped. If I couldn’t get a job, how could I make money?
Then I glanced down and my eyes just happened to land on my Scrabble board, sticking out of the top of the canvas bag.
And that’s when the lightbulb went on in my head. I had – if I do say so myself – a totally brilliant idea.
29
UETDSB
debuts, bused, debts, tube, bed, dubs, best, duets, stub
BUSTED
BY ELEVEN O’CLOCK the Granville Market was bustling, even though it was a Monday. Out back, facing the water, a magician had set up near one set of doors and a violin player near another. Crowds gathered around to watch them perform.
I picked an empty bench, right in between the magician and the violin player, and set up my Scrabble board. Then I pulled out a sign I’d made on a piece of cardboard from a recycling bin. SCRABBLE GAMES, FIVE DOLLARS, it read. BEAT ME AND I WILL GIVE YOU YOUR FIVE DOLLARS BACK!
I had nothing to hang the sign on, so I simply held it up over my head. A lot of people wandered past and laughed at my sign, but not in a mean way. After about half an hour, when my arms were starting to ache, an older guy, probably in his fifties, stopped. He was with a young woman and he wore a sailor’s cap.
‘So you think you could beat an old pro like me at Scrabble?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Well, we’ll see about that, won’t we, Ashley?’ he said to the girl, and he handed her a five-dollar bill. ‘Why don’t you hang on to the money, in case the Lilliputian here tries to scam us.’
We played a game. People stopped to watch, especially when it became obvious that I was crushing the guy. He had this vein in his forehead that I swear I could see pulsing as I bingoed twice, blocked good spots for him to place words, and built multiple words on one turn.
I won, 320 to 252. ‘Beginner’s luck,’ he said grudgingly. He stood up and started to walk away.
‘Your daughter needs to give me my five dollars,’ I said.
I thought the vein in his forehead was going to pop. ‘She’s not my daughter,’ he sputtered. ‘She’s my girlfriend.’
Ashley handed me my five dollars and he grabbed her arm and they hurried away. A few of the onlookers laughed, and a couple of them shoved loonies into my hand.
Then someone said, ‘Hey, I recognize you, Most Promising Newcomer.’ It was Sandy, my waitress from Milestone’s, and she was with some friends. Maybe because she wasn’t at work and therefore not looking for tips, she wore a baggy shirt that hid her beautiful boobs. But it was nice to see her anyway, and she gave me five dollars without even playing a game. More important, she didn’t ask questions about who I was with, or why I had so much stuff with me.
Business wasn’t exactly booming, but by three o’clock that afternoon, I’d played three games and had easily won them all. I was up over twenty bucks (including Sandy’s five) and I was counting out my five-dollar bills plus the few extra loonies I’d been given. Just when I was thinking it wouldn’t be so difficult to finance my new homeless existence, a policeman approached.
‘Quite the operation you’ve got going here, son.’
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘Do you have a license?’
‘For what?’
‘To run your little business here.’
‘This isn’t a business. It’s a board game.’
‘All the buskers down here – that magician over there, that violin player – they all have to apply for a license from the city to perform in a public place.’
‘I’m not performing.’
‘No … but performing without a license is a lesser offense than gambling, which is technically what you’re doing.’
‘It’s just a game.’
‘But you’re playing for money.’
I quickly shoved my earnings into my pocket.
‘Look, I don’t want to give you a hard time, but I am going to have to ask you to pack it up.’
I realized there was no point arguing with him. ‘OK.’
‘Do your parents know what you’re doing?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, they have an enterprising young son,’ he said, then he laughed.
I packed up my Scrabble board and shook the policeman’s hand.
Then I walked to the other side of the market, to a square outside a building called the Loft, and set up my game and my sign on another bench.
The same policeman found me there less than half an hour later. I was partway through a game with a big burly guy, who looked like he could be a pro-wrestler. This time the cop wasn’t so friendly.
‘OK, kid. You’re coming with me.’
So I packed up again. And even though it was obvious I was going to beat him, the pro-wrestler guy didn’t give me my five bucks.
The policeman marched me over to a little office near the information center. I made up my mind that he could use all sorts of interrogation techniques and I would not crack: he could bully me, threaten me, use sleep deprivation or Chinese water torture, but it would be like drawing blood from a stone.
My resolve lasted about five seconds. ‘What’s your parents’ phone number?’ he said, and I told him.
/> Well, I sort of told him. He called the number I gave him, and when someone picked up at the other end, he said, ‘Cosmo Economopoulos? I have your son here with me. Ambrose.’
A minute later he hung up. ‘OK, kid. Your dad’s on his way.’
Thirty minutes later, Cosmo showed up. His face looked worse than it had the last time I’d seen him, because the bruises were in full bloom now. He sported a swollen lip and a black eye.
‘Ambrose,’ he said, and he pulled me into a tight hug. ‘We were worried sick.’ Then, when he saw the cop staring at his bruised face, he said, ‘Fishing accident. The fish won.’
The cop let us leave after he told me never to set up my Scrabble board on Granville Island again. We started walking to Cosmo’s car.
‘Fishing accident?’ I said.
‘It was the first thing that popped into my head.’
‘Thanks for coming to get me.’
‘I’m not going to lie to you, Ambrose. Your mom’s waiting in the car.’
I stopped walking. ‘Why did you do that?’
‘She was at our place when you called. She’s beside herself.’
‘Then, thanks for nothing. I’ll see you later.’ I started to walk in the opposite direction, but Cosmo grabbed my arm.
‘Ambrose,’ he said.
My eyes filled with tears, even though I didn’t want them to. ‘I don’t want to move again.’
‘I know that. Your mom knows that. I think she might be willing to listen.’
So I started walking with him again. When we approached Cosmo’s car, Mom leaped out. She gave me a suffocating hug. Her eyes were puffy and red.
‘Thank God you’re alright.’ She peppered me with questions, like where had I slept, what had I eaten, had anyone tried to hurt me.
‘Mom,’ I said.
She stopped talking.
‘I’m only coming home on one condition.’
‘What’s that?’
‘That you agree to have supper with the Economopouloses tonight. And that you agree to actually listen to what we all have to say and try to keep an open mind.’
OK, so maybe that was three conditions.
My mom opened her mouth to argue when a funny thing happened. Cosmo laid a hand gently on her arm. She turned and looked at him. Then she turned back to me and said, ‘OK. I’ll agree to that. Now, please. Let’s go home.’
Which I found kind of ironic because that’s all I’d ever wanted to begin with: to go back to a place I could truly call home.
30
EECPA
pace, cepe, cape, cap, ace, ape, pea, pee, pa
PEACE
THE SKY IS different here. More blue and more vast. I gaze up at it as my mom and I drive down the highway in a rental car.
It’s my thirteenth birthday, July 19th.
It was almost exactly two months ago that I ran away to Granville Island. We had our dinner at the Economopouloses’ that night, and Mr and Mrs E and Cosmo and Amanda were all waiting for us. They each had a turn at crushing me with hugs. When they finally stopped, my body felt bruised and tired but also good.
The dinner was delicious. Mrs E had gone all out, and I stuffed myself with lamb and tsatziki and dolmades and salad and roasted lemony potatoes and her famous peanut-free baklava.
The conversation wasn’t too bad either. It had its ups and downs, but my mom actually listened to what I had to say. I told her again how happy I was in Vancouver and in this apartment. I told her how much I loved the Economopouloses and the Scrabble Club and especially Cosmo, who’d taught me things that, whether she liked it or not, I needed to know. ‘Like how to stand up for myself,’ I said. ‘Like how to have more self-confidence, even when I feel like a speck.’
What I didn’t admit was, thanks to Cosmo, I was even thinking of retiring my purple cords. But he didn’t need to know that. It would just go to his head.
I won’t lie and say it was perfect. I could tell my mom was still having trouble with a lot of it. Cosmo tried to reassure her. ‘Ambrose is a really special kid, Irene. He’s taught me things, too. He saw the possibility in me, which I wasn’t seeing in myself. I feel lucky to count him as my friend.’
That made Mrs E cry and she pulled out her hanky and blew her nose, making a sound like a Canada goose. Then I looked at my mom and I saw that she was crying too.
‘His father was like that,’ she said. ‘Always seeing the good in others. Always seeing the possibility.’
That brought tears to Amanda’s eyes, and even Cosmo looked all choked up. Then I started thinking about my dad and how it really did suck that I never got a chance to know him, and pretty soon we were all crying. Mr E had to leave the table and watch sports in the other room because he couldn’t take it anymore.
After dinner, all the grown-ups got drunk on ouzo. At first they were laughing a lot, but then they all got maudlin and embarrassing. Mom and Amanda apologized to each other, which seemed kind of phony to me because I could tell they still didn’t like each other very much. Finally, at one o’clock in the morning, I had to drag my mom back to our apartment. As she tried to get her shoes on, she kept saying, ‘I love you guys,’ and her words were all mushy and slurred. Eventually she picked up her shoes and walked back to our apartment barefoot.
The next morning she told me we weren’t moving to Winnipeg, or to anywhere else for that matter. She also told me that if I ever pulled a stunt like running away again, or any other extreme tactic to get my own way, she would have me drawn and quartered.
I could safely say, this was an idle threat.
There are a lot of things that are still hard for my mom. Like thinking about me driving with Cosmo, whom she still doesn’t totally trust. She’s asked me to always sit in the backseat with my seat belt tightly fastened, and on the driver’s side because, apparently, it’s the passenger side that gets hit more often. I’ve promised, and so has Cosmo. I can’t help but notice that every time she sees him, she always checks out his eyes to see if he’s high. I’m pretty sure Cosmo’s noticed it too, but he never says a word.
She’s also made me promise not to go back to the climbing gym until she can afford to take me there and see it for herself. And every time we go into a restaurant, she still has to lecture the staff about my allergy, which I guess I’m kind of happy about because it saves me the trouble of doing it.
But she doesn’t hold my hand when we cross Broadway anymore, and she’s agreed that I can keep going to the Scrabble Club. She even came once, getting Jane to cover her summer-school classes so she could check it out. When she watched me play, I could tell she was really proud of me, especially when some of the other players told her how much they liked having me around.
Last night (the day before my birthday), I came home from picking up my first very own deodorant stick at the drugstore on Broadway because Mom and I had agreed that I kind of needed it. I walked into our apartment and almost had a heart attack when Mom, Cosmo, Amanda, and Mr and Mrs E all jumped up from behind the couch and yelled, ‘Surprise! Happy Birthday!’ Mom had made a massive cake, and Mr E grilled hot dogs and hamburgers on the barbecue in the yard. Mr and Mrs E gave me a cheque for fifty dollars, and Nana Ruth sent me another cheque for twenty, so altogether I had seventy bucks. Amanda and Cosmo gave me a Franklin, a sort of calculator for Scrabble players. You can punch in your letters and the Franklin will list all the words you can make. You can’t use it during a game, but it’s a great way to review your plays afterward.
‘We have one more gift for you, too,’ Amanda said, as I was trying out the Franklin. She reached into her purse and pulled out a brand-new MOST PROMISING NEWCOMER trophy, identical to the first one. I gave it a place of honor beside the photo of my dad on my bedside table.
Just before we cut the cake, Bob showed up. He and my mom hadn’t seen each other for a few weeks after the cooking class, but one night I heard Mom talking to him in a low voice on the phone and I’m pretty sure she was apologizing. Bob even brought me a gift. I
t was a book called The Catcher in the Rye, which sounds like a baseball book, but Bob tells me it isn’t.
And Mom gave me this: a road trip to Calgary. We left early this morning. When we get there, we’re going to stay with Nana Ruth. Then I’m going to play in the Calgary Scrabble Tournament. Mom, Cosmo, and Amanda entered me weeks ago, without telling me. We’re going to spend some time camping in the Rockies too, after the tournament. My mom’s even packed her camera, so she can take some nature photos. And for the first time ever, I’m going to see where my dad is buried, and while it may sound weird, that’s the part I’m looking forward to most.
‘The joke I was telling your father,’ she says to me now.
I look at her, confused.
‘The photo you have in your bedroom. You’ve always wondered what joke I’d told him to make him laugh like that.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Knock, knock.’
‘Who’s there?’
‘Little old lady.’
I groaned. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’
‘I’m telling you the joke; at least play along.’
‘Fine. Little old lady who?’
‘I didn’t know you could yodel.’
‘And Dad laughed at that?’ But even as I said it, I realized I was laughing, too.
Mom smiled. ‘Dad and I laughed all the time. The quality of the joke was beside the point.’