The Graham Cracker Plot (9 page)

“We have a bigger problem.” I pointed at the refrigerator. “Look what Graham did!”

“I didn't do it! You're the one who pushed!”

Ashley stood and crossed her arms. “It's all about you, you, you! I'm keeping this dog and giving him a name.”

“Can you name him
after
we get the refrigerator fixed?” I asked.

“No. I can't.” Ashley got back on her knees and hugged the beast. “I'm not helping someone who's mean to my dog and mean to my cousin. You have to defend your friends, Daisy. Don't you know that? I'm taking Fred upstairs until you're ready to say you're sorry.” She shook the Beefy Bits bag and “Fred” pranced after her, barking like a maniac for his treat.

I crossed my arms. “She's the worst partner ever!”

Graham turned to me and said, “Her head is messed up, and it won't ever heal right. You
are
mean, Daisy Bauer.”

I leaned forward and yelled at him, “Am not!
You
are mean. You pull my hair!”

“You'd suck the nice out of a puppy!”

Now that was a good line, and my mouth wanted to fire back, but I couldn't think of anything equal, except “You'd suck the nice out of a kitten,” and that would be the stupidest thing to say. Ever.

Then my brain came up with words, and they shot out my mouth. “If I'm so mean how come I have friends and you don't have any!”

Right away I wanted to take it back. I wished I had a net to catch those words before they got to his ears.

Graham's eyes flashed sad and mad but mostly mad. His hands curled into fists, and I thought he wanted to hit me. I dashed to the dining room, to the other side of the table. He followed and in seconds we were circling the table. Tigers ready to pounce.

I tried some different words, words to help forget the other words. “If I'm so mean, what are you doing here? Why are you going to Club Fed?”

“I'm a friend helping a friend helping her dad.” He said
friend
like he meant
turd
. “You don't know what friend means. You're clueless.”

“I'm not clueless!”

“Free of clues. That's what you are.”

“Stop it right now, Graham Cracker!”

“Or what? You'll watch Jesse push me? You'll ignore me at lunch? You'll pretend you don't hear Alice call me ‘spaz boy'?”

Judge Henry, I wish I could tell you Graham was a whiner and a fake. But I'd done all those things. When you asked me if I had any shame, I tell you, cross my heart and hope to die, my shame then and there almost burst my body into flames.

Graham stared at me. I bit my lip and looked at the floor. The quiet made me burn even hotter.

I said, “We have to find that coin.”

Graham's voice was growly. “Move.”

So I moved. He sat on the kitchen floor and inspected the bottom of the refrigerator, poking and pulling at cords and coils. His fingers came out covered with grease and spiderwebs.

I knelt beside him. “Nothing?”

“You sure it went
under
the refrigerator?”

“I'm sure! Two hundred percent!” I poked and pulled in all the places he'd just poked and pulled.

Graham kicked the refrigerator. “Now what?”

Tears trickled down the front of my granny gown. I ran past the tipped-on-the-door refrigerator, through the dining room, and out the front door. I ran. I ran across the driveway, across the grass, and into the old barn. The door opened with a creak and slammed behind me.

 

DEAR JUDGE HENRY,

Alone in the barn I couldn't hear anything but my sniffles and the
blop blop blop
of rain hitting the roof. I hate crying in front of people, except for my mom, who's good at back rubs. I wiped my eyes and nose on the floppy pink granny gown. My feet were wet and cold.

The barn was full of stink and junk—yard junk and farm junk and Fred stink. In the corner, right next to the door, were some smelly old pillows, huge bowls of water, and dog food. Fred's little home. I curled up on the pillow.

I'd ruined everything. The Idea Coin was lost, and we weren't going far without it. If fed-mates can't figure out how to escape from Club Fed, how could I? They were smart enough to hack computers and steal tax money. I was just a stupid kid. Queen Stupid.

The Idea Coin had
something
. I felt it. Graham felt it. Addison Kramer, who used to live by us, showed me her rock collection this one time. She said rocks and minerals hold energy and memories and history. Maybe the Idea Coin was like that. It's been on Earth since 1919. That's a lot of energy.

When did the
Titanic
sink? Maybe the Idea Coin was on the
Titanic
and it sunk in the ocean and was eaten by a fish and the fish was caught by a fishing fleet and when the fish cutter split the fish, he found the coin and kept it. The Idea Coin might have traveled all over the world. Maybe it went from Spain to Utah to China. Maybe Grandma found it on the sidewalk and used it for cigarettes. Maybe it was in Mom's change jar,
in my very own trailer
, and she spent it, and it traveled to Graham's uncle, who brought it back. So many possibilities. So many memories. So much energy.

Without the Idea Coin, we were screwed. And the Chemist? I shivered and thought about terrible things happening to the Chemist.

*   *   *

It felt like an hour had passed when Graham opened the door. He turned on a dim light.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey yourself.”

Graham frowned when he saw the Fred corner. “These church people don't love their dog! Leaving him alone for five days with slime water—look, there are bugs floating in it.”

Graham picked bugs out of Fred's dish and flicked them across the floor. I was afraid he'd come to say he and Ashley were going home. Then what? No Idea Coin, no Graham, no Ashley, no car.

No escape for the Chemist.

Something snorted. Graham scrambled up and peeked over the stalls. “Oh, my God, Daisy! Check it out!”

“What?”

“Horses!” His voice squeaked from excitement.

I jumped up and peeked with Graham. A brown pony looked up at us and swished its tail. In the next stall was a white pony, and the one next to it had black spots. “Ponies!” I said. “Soooo cute!”

Graham inspected them. “Not ponies. Miniature horses. They might be exactly what we need, and they're small. Way easier to handle than big horses.”

“Cuter than puppies!”

I patted the pony's nose, and Graham rubbed its ear. “Who leaves animals for five days? That's abuse,” he said. “If I were those people, I'd rent a trailer and bring my animals and stay on a farm instead of a hotel.”

“A Jesus picture doesn't make you a real church person. Just another fake.”

He didn't call me a fake friend, and he didn't seem so mad. We scratched and stroked the ponies. They nibbled on our hands, looking for a treat. The wind howled through the trees. Thankfully we had a house for sleeping. But then what? When night turned into morning and morning turned into the Club Fed smoke break, and it was me—just me—then what?

Graham said, “I got two things to tell you. The first is we both got Mom messages on my cell.”

“I don't want to hear it.” I shivered.

“You have to listen before I tell you the second thing.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Just tell me.”

He got his phone from his back pocket. “There are two from your mom. Listen.”

“No!” I sat on Fred's pillow and plugged my ears.

“You gotta listen. That's the only way I'll know if you're gonna stick around. Because we got decisions to make.”

Graham was wondering whether
I
was going to stick around? I felt lighter, but only for a second, because he pushed that cell phone against my ear. It was Mom's you're-in-deep-trouble voice. “Daisy, call Kari. Now. Leaving without a note or phone call? That is NOT cool. I know you're mad about my vacation, but get over it or I will ground you for the entire summer!”

I pushed the phone away. “Enough. So what?”

“That's an old one. Here's the new one.”

I yelled, “What difference does it make?”

“I need you to hear it so I know!” Graham shouted. “I need to know if you're a big fat chicken who's going to cry about Mommy! Because I'm not. I don't wanna go back to school. I'm not going back to the play dump or any of it. There's nothing for us back there. Nothing. I can't even think of all the things I don't want to go back to.”

I took the phone and closed my eyes as Mom's voice began, soft and shaky. “Honey … I'm praying you ran off and that … that you're safe somewhere. I'm sorry if I hurt you. Please call me or Kari.” She paused. “When I quit drinking, I quit because of you. I knew if I didn't quit, I wouldn't get to be your mom anymore. And that's the most important thing. Being your mom. God, please be safe, baby. Here's Alex. He wants to say something.”

He said, “Hey, buddy. You're scaring us. Just call. Nobody's going to be mad. Nobody's going to punish you. We'll just come get you, no questions asked. Your mom … your mom's feeling real bad. Me, too, and—”

I tossed the phone to Graham. “I don't want to hear any more.”

“See? See why you had to hear it? Because you're going to miss her! And her smoochy boyfriend, too.”

“Like you're not going to miss your mom?”

“I got an idea. We can talk to them every day on the Internet. If they see our faces and know we're safe, they won't care where we are. They can have their lives, and we'll have ours. They want boyfriends and friends. Better jobs and not so many bills. Mom won't shut up about how much I cost.”

“Everything's messed up.” I sat back on the Fred pillow and pulled my legs into the nightgown.

“Everything's always messed up. We roll with it. So what?” he said.

“People with cars that start can roll with it. In our case,
it
rolls over
us
.”

He sat next to me on the stinky pillow. “You're wrong! Remember when we wanted to surprise our moms with some cool food and we lit those candles and one fell over and set the napkin on fire?”

I didn't get the point. “The place would've burned up if I didn't grab the pot and dump it on the table. And your mom slipped on all those wet macaroni noodles! And the fire made a black stain on the tablecloth my mom just bought at Thrift 'N' More.”

“Right.”

“Right? What's your point?”

“We fixed the problem. Daisy, everything about us is messy. Clothes. Hair.”

“Speak for yourself! My grandma's a stylist.”

“Rusty trailers. Frank the Creeper and his beer bottles.”

I thought about the clankity clank of those beer bottles in the wind. And Mrs. Mundez, and the smell of lard and refried beans. And the cold winter that wrapped icy arms around our trailer.

Graham said, “You know what I mean?”

I nodded. “Car batteries dying halfway to the grocery store. Mom using nickels from the coin jar to buy milk because she's out of dimes.
Nickels!
I want to crawl under the counter and
die
.”

“See? It ain't easy. Ever. The worst thing of all? Thrift-store shoes.”

“Yes!” I yelled. “Thrift-store shoes! They smell like … like…”

“They smell how feet would smell if feet had butts!”

We laughed so hard my stomach hurt.

After the laughs were out, I felt my chin shaking. “Why is it always messy and hard for us? Why can't the easy stuff be big and stay a long time?”

Graham shrugged and kicked at the dead bugs he'd flicked out of Fred's water.

“On the voicemail, Alex said if we came back, we wouldn't get punished and they wouldn't ask any questions.”

“Do you believe him?” he said.

I thought for a minute. “Yes. I believe Alex.”

“So you're going back?”

“I kinda want to, but I can't. The Chemist. We need each other. But maybe you should go back. Maybe Ashley should.”

“You can't do it without us,” Graham said.

I knew it was true.

“And there was a second thing I need to tell you.” He reached into his pocket. “I found it.”

The Idea Coin. He held it between his thumb and finger and showed me. I tried to grab it, but Graham backed away and put it in his pocket. “I found it under the rug by the sink. It must have rolled under the refrigerator and bounced out. It was there the whole time, sticking out from the rug.”

“Let me see it.”

“Umm … hmm … let's review. Did I lose the Idea Coin? Or was it you?”

“I accept complete and total responsibility.” I jumped up and down and screamed and hugged Graham. “You! Are! Amazing! Graham, you're a rock star plus a world-champion wrestler multiplied by three superheroes and Harry Potter times ten.”

He turned red and looked at the ceiling.

It was creepifying that I'd hugged him like that. I needed words to escape the weirdness and quick.

“I … like … ponies.”

“Me, too!” Graham finally looked at me. “Ponies. Horses. Even donkeys.”

“Me, too.” I picked straw off the pink granny gown. “So this means we're back, right?”

“We're back.”

“Today was just for practice. Tomorrow, it's the Graham Cracker Plot.”

I snapped off the light and the barn went dark. Graham pulled hard on the barn door and as it closed behind us, I heard him mumble, “Only you get to call me that, you know.”

 

DEAR JUDGE HENRY,

After the phone messages and horse discovery, the rain stopped. The storm had turned the yard into mud soup. Our feet squished in the grass. But we could see fine through the darkness. Ashley had turned on every light in the house. I could hear something, too. A low, steady thumping.