I Kill the Mockingbird (9 page)

Michael doesn’t reply, but he doesn’t pull away so we stand there, hand in hand, for a very long time. “Okay,” he finally says to me. “I’ll believe you.”

13

Patron Saint of the Blind

Less than twenty-four hours later, I’m the one saying my prayers. This time, I’m making my appeal to the tiny plastic St. Lucy statue that Dad keeps on the television set in our living room. My namesake is the patron saint of eye disorders, and her statue is supposed to remind us not to sit too close to the TV screen.

“This is not the kind of help Michael
was talking about,” I say to the saint.

St. Lucy doesn’t look at me. She can’t because she gouged out her own eyes to avoid marrying a pagan. In fact, images of St. Lucy always show her with two eyeballs on a tray. Our own Lucy statue holds a simple, silver platter. I used to think she was carrying two eggs over easy. Now I know that the whole Catholic thing can be seriously weird sometimes.

“Can you believe this?” shouts Elena. Her voice is loud and clear in the phone against my ear.

“I cannot believe this,” I say.

On television, a reporter with a microphone stands beside a small man in front of a long bookshelf.

“It’s Mister Dobby!” Elena screams.

“I know.”

“MISTER DOBBY!” Elena yells again.

“He can’t hear you,” I say, but Elena does not reply.

On the screen, our old friend
Mr. Dobby looks a little stunned. “According to store manager, Algar Dobby…” says a reporter who looks like an aging supermodel.

“Algar?” says Elena.

“Shhh!”

“… it’s not unusual to run low on a book like
To Kill a Mockingbird
.” The picture cuts to a close-up of Mr. Dobby who is nodding like a bobble head doll. The reporter continues talking. “
To Kill a Mockingbird
is an American classic and
a regular part of many schools’ summer reading lists.”

The camera cuts to Mr. Dobby. “We always make sure we have enough copies of books like that,” he says. “But someone or some group has been working to sabotage that effort this summer.”

“SABOTAGE?” yells Elena.

“Sabotage?” asks the reporter.

Mr. Dobby holds one of our flyers up to the camera. My mockingbird bull’s-eye fills the television
screen. “These ransom notes have been discovered throughout the store.”

“Hold it so that we can see it!” Elena yells at the television.

As if he can hear us, Mr. Dobby lifts the sign a tiny bit higher so that the camera gets a better angle. Now, the whole thing—including our web address—is as clear as day.

“Thank you, Mr. Dobby!” shouts Elena.

“I kill the mockingbird dot com,” says the reporter.

“Thank you, pretty reporter lady!” Elena adds.

The camera pulls away to show the reporter giving Mr. Dobby a serious look. “Do you think this is some kind of a threat?”

“I don’t know what it is.” The top of Mr. Dobby’s head barely reaches the woman’s chest. Beside her, he looks like a small, balding sixth grader. “But whoever is behind this should know that we have contacted all the proper authorities.”
He turns toward the camera. “Stealing books is against the law, and censorship is just plain un-American.”

“You tell ’em, Mr. Dobby!” shouts Elena.

“Also,” Mr. Dobby adds, “people should know that we will have every copy of
To Kill a Mockingbird
on sale for half off the regular price.”

“Are copies of the book available now?” the reporter asks.

“No,” says Mr. Dobby, “but they should be arriving
soon.”

“Not if we can help it!” says Elena.

The reporter stares straight into the camera. “If you have information in regards to who might be killing the mockingbirds, please call the Action News Hotline today. This is Dontine Flora reporting.”

“Dontine?” says Elena.

“Lucy,” Dad calls from the kitchen, “I could use some help in here.”

“I’ve got to go,” I whisper into the phone.

“This is
awesome!” says Elena.

“It’s something,” I admit before I hang up.

In the kitchen, Dad fills a bowl with fresh greens and sliced tomatoes. Before Mom got sick, we were a mostly fast-food family. Now I can’t remember the last time that Dad and I pulled supper out of a paper bag.

“How are your friends?” Dad asks while he places dishes on the table.

“Elena’s fine,” I tell him. “Michael had a baseball
game today.”

“I’m talking about Dontine Flora and Algar Dobby.”

I don’t reply.

“I couldn’t help overhearing the news.” Dad holds a spoon up to his face as if he’s speaking into a microphone. “Hi,” he says in a breathy voice, “I’m Dontine Flora reporting to you live from ground zero in the summer reading sabotage scandal.” Dad lowers the utensil then reaches into his back pocket. He pulls out
a folded piece of paper and hands it to me. I unfold the sheet and discover a torn, wrinkled version of the flyer that was on TV a moment ago.

“Look familiar?” Dad asks.

I study the paper. “I saw it on the news.”

“This one was stuck inside the copy machine at school.”

I say nothing.

“How do you think it got there?”

“That is a very good question.”

“That is not really an answer.”

Again,
I choose silence.

Dad studies the flyer. “I kill the mockingbird,” he says out loud. “It’s a catchy slogan.”

I take the salad bowl and carry it to the table.

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

“Not really,” I say.

“Does it involve stealing books from Mr. Dobby?”

“Nobody is stealing,” I promise.

Dad hands me a loaf of fresh bread then lifts a pot filled with gazpacho, which is a cool,
tasty vegetable soup. “Have any laws been broken?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Has anyone put themselves into danger in any way?”

I place napkins and bowls on the table. “I don’t think so.”

“So making copies without permission is probably the worst of it.”

“Probably.”

“Probably?”

“Definitely.”

“Lucy,” says Dad, “I don’t want this summer to end with me having to extricate you from the clutches
of some mall cop.”

As far as I know, there’s not a mall within fifty miles that still has
To Kill a Mockingbird
copies in plain sight. “That’s not going to happen,” I promise.

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

“Good.”

Together, the two of us finish setting the table. A moment later, Mom comes in through the door that leads from the kitchen to the garage. “Hi!” she says.

Dad points at a big white
bag in her hand. “What’s that?”

“Burgers and fries,” she announces. “I’m starving!”

14

Wanting Is an Act of Courage

After a supper of greasy burgers and fries plus a healthy soup and salad, I head to my room and text Michael. DID YOU SEE THE NEWS?

He responds a moment later. TV NEWS?

NO, I write back. SMOKE SIGNALS & SEMAPHORE.

I DON’T WATCH TV.

I happen to know that he’s a huge fan of
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
reruns. YOU ARE A LIAR.

SAY THAT TO MY FACE.

WITH PLEASURE.

MEET ME IN FRONT OF YOUR HOUSE.

WHEN?

RIGHT NOW.

I look outside my window. Michael is sitting on the lawn with his bicycle beside him. I head downstairs and join him in the grass. “What are you doing here?”

He nods across the street toward his driveway. “I’m your neighbor.”

I put my hands on my hips.

“And I’m locked out of my house.”

“How did that happen?”

“I had a baseball game. I forgot
my keys. My mom’s not home from work yet. I was sitting on our front steps when you texted me.”

“You are a liar.”

“No.” He points at his knee-high socks and pin-striped pants. “Really. It was a double-header.”

“I believe you. I just want you to know I don’t mind calling you a liar to your face. How was the game?”

“Two wins for us,” he tells me.

“I don’t care who won. I care about…” I’m about
to say YOU, but then I realize how that might sound. Actually, it would sound a lot like the truth. “Did you get any hits? Any runs? Any homers?”

“No outs. A few hits.”

“Home runs?”

“Four.”

“You hit four home runs?”

He grins. “Two in the first game and two in the second.”

“Maybe you really will play in the big leagues one day.”

Michael finds a piece of clover and pulls it out of the grass.
He gets uncomfortable when people talk about his baseball future. He just likes playing the game.

Around us, the neighborhood is settling into the quiet of a summer night that is really not that quiet at all. Crickets and toads chirp and peep. Someone nearby is practicing scales on an out-of-tune piano near an open window. A jangly ice-cream truck song plays in the distance. Michael points at
a couple bats that swoop and whoosh through the trees above us. “It’s hard to believe that they’re blind.”

I think of St. Lucy with her eyes on a plate.

“Sometimes,” says Michael, “I feel like I could be blind and still hit anything a pitcher throws at me.”

“How would you do that?”

“Every once in a while, when I’m standing at the plate, I start to feel really, really quiet. I almost feel invisible,
but at the same time I can see and hear every single thing that’s going on around me. The catcher flexing the leather on his mitt. The runner on first chatting with the first baseman because they used to be in cub scouts together. A squirrel dragging a popcorn box beneath the bleachers near the third baseline.”

“You see all that?”

“It’s not really seeing. It’s more like knowing. By the time
the pitcher steps into his windup, I know exactly what he’s going to throw. I know where it’s going to be over the plate. I know where the ball is going to connect on the bat. It’s a sure thing. It’s almost like I can see the future. Right then, I could close my eyes and hit anything out of the park.”

“Have you ever tried it?” I ask. “Closed your eyes?”

Michael shakes his head. “Baseball is
a team sport.”

“So?”

“So playing with your eyes closed is not what teammates do.”

“Even if it’s a sure thing?”

Michael turns and looks into my face. The sun is low now and long shadows stretch across the neighborhood. “Even if it was a sure thing. That would take a pretty big leap of faith.”

Suddenly, I think that we are not talking about baseball anymore. “I guess there are no sure things.”

Michael doesn’t respond. Part of me wishes that he’d just come out and say that he likes me. I mean, if he does like me, that’s what he should say. But then again, maybe he doesn’t like me. Not like that. Maybe Elena is wrong. And maybe I am going insane.

“Lucy,” Michael says to me, “you have a really funny look on your face.”

“Gee, thanks.”

He laughs which makes me laugh too. “What were you
thinking?”

“I was thinking—” I hesitate. “You know,” I tell him, “sometimes I don’t know what I want.”

He nods as if he is agreeing with me, but then he says, “I don’t believe you.”

“What?”

“You always know what you want.”

“I do not.”

“Sometimes you just don’t want to say what you want. There’s a difference.”

I don’t reply.

“You’re doing it right now.”

I still don’t speak.

“According
to my baseball coaches, everything is about wanting. They always say, ‘You have to
want
it.’ You have to want to win. You have to want to get a hit. You have to want to make the catch. You spend a whole game wanting.” He shakes his head. “Another definition of wanting is to be missing something.”

“I never thought of it like that,” I say.

“When you want something,” says Michael, “it’s like admitting
that your life has a hole in it.”

“And to fill that hole, you need something that you don’t have and you might not get.”

Michael gives a little laugh. “I never thought of it like that.”

I recall a lesson from our world religions class. “Didn’t the Buddha say that wanting is what makes people suffer?”

“The Buddha didn’t play baseball,” says Michael.

“If he did, maybe he’d think that wanting
isn’t such a bad thing.”

Michael nods. “In some ways, I think that wanting is an act of courage.”

“What do you mean?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know exactly, but it’s okay if you don’t want to say what you want, Lucy. You’re one of the bravest people I know. You’ll say it eventually.”

Michael’s words take me by surprise. They are so kind. Even if they’re not true. “I’m not brave.”

Michael
reaches over and puts his hand on mine. His palm is rough and warm. “You saved your mom’s life. I think you saved your dad, too. That was brave.”

I think back on the days and weeks and months of running from doctor to doctor. At first, I wanted to cry all the time. But then, I just decided that tears would not be helpful. Keeping the house clean, on the other hand, that was helpful. Learning
how to cook, that was helpful, too. And getting better grades than usual so that Mom and Dad would have one less thing to worry about … I think it made a small difference.

I lean into Michael a little bit. “I couldn’t have done it without Elena and you.”

Michael takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. “We know it.”

Headlights from a passing car sweep over us, and we pull away from each other.
It’s Michael’s mom pulling her police cruiser into their driveway.

“I’d better go,” Michael says.

We both stand. “Don’t you want me to tell you about the news?” I ask.

“I almost forgot,” he says.

“Mr. Dobby was on TV. Apparently, there’s some kind of conspiracy to keep people from reading
To Kill a Mockingbird
.”

“You don’t say?”

“I do say.”

Michael lifts his bike off the ground then swings
a leg over the seat. He must not be paying attention to what he’s doing because he nearly loses his balance. I reach out and put a hand on his shoulder to steady him. Suddenly, we are very close together again.