Everyday Hero (10 page)

Mom hurried into the back of the house and left Grandpa to close the oak door behind
us. Looking around, I saw now that their front hall was different. The usual round
rug had been picked up so that the oak floor was bare, and cardboard boxes lined
the wall.

“Did you buy a lot of stuff?” I asked Grandpa.

The desk in my bedroom had come in a cardboard box, although the box wasn’t as big
as my desk is now. This is because the desk was flat-packed, and Dad had to assemble
it. I remembered that he’d used a bad word.

“We’re moving.”

“To Quebec?” I asked.

“What?”

“Claire Pardieu in my class moved to Quebec,” I said. We’d had a cake with cream-cheese
icing.

“We’re going to a home,” Grandpa said. He spoke loudly, and his eyebrows pulled together.
“Actually, your grandma’s already there.”

“You already have a home,” I said.

“That’s what I’ve been saying.” He turned and, leaning on his walker, shuffled past
the boxes and down the hall.

We followed him into the kitchen. It also looked different. Grandpa’s clock had been
taken down, and all that remained was the wallpaper with its familiar pattern of
teapots and roses. I missed its steady, rhythmic tick. The spice rack had gone, as
had the copper saucepans that used to hang from the ceiling. Everything—the ladles,
the Henckel knives, the cookbooks and Grandma’s collection of silver teaspoons, which
I’d always counted—gone.

I’d often counted the roses on the wallpaper too—thirty-six.

Mom came into the kitchen. “Your dad is very relieved you’re safe, and—uh—Megan—uh—thank
you for getting her here.”

Mom spoke slowly and quietly, like she was being careful. Megan did not talk slowly
or quietly.

“What a line of crap. You sound like a social worker.”

“She used to be a social worker,” I said.

“Should have known,” Megan said. She folded her arms across her chest, the chains
at her waist jangling.

Mom flushed. “Look, Megan, I know you and my husband had words. And you said some
stuff you shouldn’t, but the truth is that Alice would never have made it here safely
without you. Vancouver can be dangerous for a girl on her own. And Alice—well—for
her it would be worse.”

“Yeah? And that’s the dumbest thing you’ve said yet. Alice made it to Prince George
just fine on her own,” Megan said.

Mom’s forehead crinkled. “But—I thought she left and you followed.”

“Other way ’round.”

“Oh.” Mom’s forehead puckered again. “Well, tell me everything later. Do you want
something to eat or drink? I have orange juice.”

Mom gives me orange juice because I cannot drink milk.

“Yes,” I said, because I realized I was thirsty and hungry.

“Whatever,” Megan said. “I’m not staying long.”

Mom poured a glass for each of us. Then she stopped, her hand jerking so that the
juice splashed onto the counter. “Oh. I phoned your dad and the police, but I must
let the neighbors up the street know. I asked them to look out for you,” she said,
speaking in hurried staccato sentences.

Even though she was wearing slippers, her footsteps sounded loud to me against the
bare hardwood floor. Grandma and Grandpa had had a runner before, made in Persia.
Persia is not called Persia anymore.

“Alice.” Megan circled her finger around the rim of her glass so that it made a high,
thin whine. “I won’t stay.”

I wondered where she would go if she didn’t stay. But I couldn’t find the words.
She looked down at her glass as though studying her finger as it circled the rim.

I did not like the high whine. I pressed my fingers to my ears, and Megan’s finger
stopped. “Sorry,” she said.

“If you are not staying here, are you going back to Kitimat?” I asked at last.

She shrugged. “Dunno.”

“Oh.” I stared at the wallpaper. I could hear Mom on the phone, her voice echoing
in the empty hallway. The hallway measures four feet by twelve feet.

“Why do you care?” Megan asked. “Why do you even want to be my friend?”

“Gold stars.”

“Huh?”

“You don’t do things for gold stars,” I said.

“Yeah, well, it would probably be better if you hung around people who do. They’d
listen to the teacher. They wouldn’t have told you your mom wasn’t coming back. They
wouldn’t be so stupid.”

I studied the thirty-six roses on the wallpaper. “And you don’t smell.”

Megan laughed. “I don’t smell?”

“I liked sitting on the bus with you because you don’t smell.”

“You’re my only friend, and you like me because I don’t smell. What does that say
about me?” She started to laugh and then to cry.

Laughing means you are happy. Crying means you are sad. This made my head hurt.

And I also had a peculiar, squeezing, aching feeling in my chest that I hadn’t felt
before.

Megan turned. She picked up her backpack, swinging it onto her back. “See ya.”

“But where are you going?”

“Just leave it.”

That is another phrase I don’t like.
It
is a pronoun, which stands in place of a
noun, but I didn’t
know what the noun was and I didn’t know what I was supposed to
leave.

“Where—what—?” I managed.

She stared at me, her eyes shiny and her face pink. “Not home, that’s for sure. You
can tell my stepfather that from me. I’m not coming home.”

But I didn’t know her stepfather. I had never met him, and I am not supposed to talk
to strangers. “Can—I—write it?” I asked, because I can write to a stranger if I don’t
give him my address.

Megan pushed her hand through the dark tangles of her hair and laughed again. “You
know—you know why I like you? You don’t lie. You don’t promise stuff you can’t deliver.
You don’t say everything will be all right when it won’t. You don’t say you’ll do
something when you won’t. Or you’ll leave him when you won’t. Or—or crap like that.”

Crap
is a bad word. And I didn’t understand a lot of what Megan had said, so I pressed
my hands to my ears.

Mom came back. Megan straightened, so that she seemed even taller in the small kitchen.
I saw Mom step forward, but Megan backed away, her glance darting about the bare
kitchen.

“You can’t go,” Mom said so loudly that I could hear her even through my hands. “I
need to phone someone—your family must be worried.” Mom put her hand out, touching
the black leather of Megan’s sleeve.

But Megan swung around. Her backpack hit the counter with a thwack. “Don’t touch
me.” Her hands balled into fists as she jerked her body backward.

“I can help—”

“No adult ever helped me.”

“I—I can try,” Mom said.

“I don’t need your help. I don’t need anyone. Just leave me alone.”

Then Megan pushed past Mom and left. I heard her boots clumping down the bare hall.
I heard the front door open and slam. The noise was huge in the empty house.

Thirteen

I picked up my rain jacket and walked past Mom.

“Alice, what—where are you going?” Mom asked. Her voice squeaked.

“Megan,” I said.

“Alice, sit down! Now!”

“Friends help friends,” I said.

“Megan looks capable. You know, like she can look after herself. She’s tough. There’s
nothing you can do.”

“You said Vancouver was dangerous for a girl on her own.”

“I can call the police. They can do something. You can’t.”

“Friends help friends.”

“You can’t just go out alone,” she said.

“I will not be alone after I find Megan.”

“Do you know how worried we’ve been?”

I shook my head, because it is hard for anyone to know another person’s experience.
Then I realized that Grandpa had entered the kitchen and was standing in the doorway,
stooping low over his walker.

“Let her go,” he said.

Mom swung around. “What! Are you crazy? I’m not going to let her walk out and tramp
around Vancouver alone.”

“We’re on Angus Drive. Not East Hastings. She’s been walking about this neighborhood
most of her life.”

“But—”

“She’s safer than most kids. You know she’ll not talk to strangers.”

“I will not talk to strangers,” I said. “It is a rule.”

Grandpa looked at Mom, and his eyebrows lifted. She opened her mouth, and her eyebrows
pulled together. “But what if there’s smelly garbage or too much noise or, well,
you know, any number of things? I mean, someone needs to look after her.”

Grandpa shrugged. “Maybe it’s Alice’s turn to look after someone.”

“But she can’t—”

Mom looked at him and at me. She bit her lip.

“It’s a good feeling to help someone,” he said.

“Yes, but—I mean, that girl, Megan, looks troubled. She needs—well—she needs a lot
more than Alice can give her.”

“Maybe. But what she needs and what she’ll accept—well, that’s another matter,” Grandpa
said.

I saw Mom’s gaze shift between us.

“It’s a good feeling to help someone, to be needed,” he said again.

There was a silence. Not even broken by the ticking of a clock, because it had gone,
leaving only its yellowed outline on the teapot-and-rose wallpaper.

I put on my raincoat.

At last Mom shrugged. “But be back in an hour and…and don’t leave the neighborhood.
Keep to 41st. And don’t—don’t get on any buses alone.”

***

I walked toward the nearest bus stop, which is at Granville and 41st. Grandma and
I had sometimes met Grandpa there after the doctor had taken away his driver’s license.

I counted my steps.

I was at sixty-seven when I saw Megan, a tall black silhouette outlined against green
grass and shrubs.

She must have heard my approach. She turned. “Alice? Can’t you just leave me alone?”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

She shrugged.

“Kitimat?”

“No!” The word blasted from her.

“Then is this—are you—running away?” I asked.

“What?”

“Are—you—running—away—from—home?” I said again.

“I—yeah, I guess.”

“
Most adolescents who run away return home after two days, but those who do not return
often become involved in stealing, begging, prostitution and Dumpster diving
,” I
said.

I do not know what Dumpster diving is. I do not even like real-life diving in a swimming
pool, because I do not like the smell of chlorine or getting water up my nose.

“What the—? Jeez, did you swallow an encyclopedia?”

“No,” I said.

It would be hard to swallow an encyclopedia because encyclopedias are big books.

Actually, I had read an article about adolescent runaways in
Maclean’s
magazine.
Dad had brought it home and put it in the bathroom. Dad likes to read in the bathroom.

“Look, Alice, I know you mean well, but leave me alone. If you want to be my friend,
leave me alone! Give me space!”

Megan shouted the last words and turned, walking up the hill toward the whooshing
rush of traffic.

Space—unlimited room or expanse extending in all directions and in which all things
can exist.

The definition circled my mind. I’d looked it up for a science project, which was
why I knew the definition even though
space
comes after
mineralize
.

I heard a bus approach. The buses in Vancouver run on trolley lines. Poles are attached
to the buses’ roofs and connect to overhead wires strung above the roads. Trolley
buses do not smell of diesel or gas. They run on electricity and make a low rumble
and a
click-click-click
as the poles move on the twin overhead wires.

Mom had said not to get on the bus.

“Don’t get on the bus,” I said as Megan moved toward the bus stop.

“I
am
getting on the bus.”

“But—” Mom had said not to get on the bus
alone.
“I’ll come too then,” I said.

The bus stopped with a squeak of its brakes, and the door swung open. The driver
looked out.

Megan turned to me. “Stay! I don’t want you to come!”

“But Mom said not to get on the bus alone.”

Megan swore. “She meant for you, not me.” She stepped forward, placing one foot on
the step.

Swearing is against the rules. Friends help friends.

I looked down, running the beads through my fingers.

Megan swore again. “Just leave me alone!”

I started to rock.

“Okay, okay. Enough already.” Megan turned, almost stumbling into me.

“You kids coming?” the bus driver shouted.

“No!” Megan yelled, stepping back.

“Suit yourself.” The doors closed. The bus moved away.

We stood facing each other. Megan put her hands at her hips, her fingers curved into
fists. “A month ago you couldn’t even get on a bus in Kitimat if it didn’t say
After-School
Special
, and now you’re, like, ready to follow me on a bus across Vancouver?”

She must have been angry, because she was shouting and there wasn’t a sports game
or an emergency. Plus her face was red.

I looked down at my runners. “You must not go,” I said.

“I can do what I want.”

“Mom said it wasn’t safe for you to go alone.”

“Your mom—” Megan didn’t finish the sentence.

“My mom doesn’t lie,” I said.

Megan’s fists tightened. “Great—your mom’s a freak of nature. She’s an adult who
doesn’t lie, probably the only one on the whole planet. Sure doesn’t help me much.”

I sat on the sidewalk. I looked at my runners. I felt my rocks, running them through
my fingers.

“Just let me get on the next bus,” she said. “Then you can go back to your mom and
play happy family.”

One…two…three…four…

“You’ll be better off without me anyhow,” she said. “I don’t know why you give a
crap.”

“No gold stars,” I said.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. You said. Plus I don’t smell. But there are other people who
don’t smell and don’t do things for gold stars.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.” She threw herself on the grass beside the sidewalk and stared at
the sky. “People.”