Lucy Doesn't Wear Pink (21 page)

“Okay,” she said.

“Does J.J. have permission to go to the soccer field?”

That knot she couldn’t swallow formed in her throat again.

“I think that answers that question,” Dad said.

“His dad never lets him do anything,” Lucy said. “So he just didn’t ask him.”

“It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission,” Mr. Auggy said.

It took Lucy a minute to figure that out. When she did, the knot got bigger. Not much forgiving went on at J.J.’s house.

There was a silence in the room Mr. Auggy and Dad could have filled with a thing they weren’t saying. Lucy was sure of that. Mr. Auggy looked out the front window as if he were watching for something. Lucy felt dizzy again.

“I know you want to help J.J.,” Dad said finally, “but it isn’t really helping when you do things with him he doesn’t have permission to do.”

“What am I supposed to do? You want me to go tell on him?” Lucy closed her eyes so the room would settle down again. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but — ”

“I know. It’s a tough spot to be in.” Dad squeezed her wrist once more. “How about we talk some more over supper? I invited Mr. Auggy to stay.”

Lucy almost screamed, You
what?

“I didn’t accept yet,” Mr. Auggy said. “I wanted to see how you felt about that.”

“Um — ”

“Give it a minute.” He smiled the small smile. “It’s gotta blow your mind to find a teacher sitting at your table.”

Dad stretched his arm on the back of the sofa and touched Lucy’s shoulder. “Mr. Auggy says you’re a great soccer player.”

“One of my best,” Mr. Auggy said.

Dad tried to find Lucy with his eyes. They were softer now, as if something hard was over with. She wanted to keep it that way, at least until she had a chance to talk to J.J.

Lucy turned to Mr. Auggy. “Do you like pizza?” she said. “That’s what we’re having for supper.”

“I’m diggin’ it.”

“I’ll go turn on the oven,” Dad said.

Lucy uncoiled to spring off the sofa, but Dad squeezed her shoulder. “You two visit.”

It was the weirdest thing she had ever experienced, but it might also be a perfect opportunity.

“Hey, Dad,” she called. “Can I ask J.J. to come over for supper?”

Silence from the kitchen. Mr. Auggy’s eyes went to the front window again.

“I don’t think tonight is a good night,” Dad said. “Why don’t you throw a salad together, Luce? Impress Mr. Auggy with how nutrition-minded we are.”

If that wasn’t a bad try at distracting her, she didn’t know what was. Mr. Auggy himself sprang from the chair, to the disgust of Lollipop, who padded indignantly toward Lucy’s room. He headed for the kitchen, saying, “Great! I chop a mean tomato.” Whatever was going on, nobody was going to tell her.

Lucy managed to get to the kitchen without falling over. She was emptying a bag of greens into a bowl and listening to Mr. Auggy talk about how the Amigos and the Posse reminded him of his team in France when the phone rang. She got to it first. A voice like a hammer asked to speak to Ted Rooney.

“Mayor Rosa,” Dad said after he’d listened for a second. “To what do I owe the honor?”

Evidently it wasn’t an honor, because Dad’s face grew stiff, and Lucy could hear the hammer pounding away even from across the kitchen.

“Is that Miss Carla’s father?” Mr. Auggy whispered to her.

Lucy nodded and all but put up her hand for him to hush up.

“I’m equally concerned.” Dad said. He was now using his radio voice. “I‘ve already begun to speak to Lucy about — ”

Lucy’s heart started to dive.

“Absolutely — and here’s what I suggest. I’m happy to spend part of Saturday on the field with the kids so they do have some adult super — ”

There was more pounding, and Lucy watched Dad’s face take on the same look it did when waiters ignored him and Aunt Karen acted like he couldn’t even boil water. It was all she could do not to snatch the phone from him and put it down the garbage disposal.

“I see your point,” Dad said. He was no longer the radio announcer. “We’ll have to keep looking at that — I don’t think we need to make a final decision right this minute — ”

Lucy noticed that Mr. Auggy had stopped chopping, and his mouth was pulled into a small ball. When Dad hung up, Lucy and Mr. Auggy both looked at him expectantly.

“The mayor says no more soccer practice on the old field unless there’s an adult present. I volunteered my ser vices — ”

“But he thinks it won’t do any good because you’re blind,” Lucy said. “What is wrong with these people?”

“Watch it, Luce,” Dad said.

She didn’t want to watch it, and she might have said more if Artemis Hamm hadn’t sprung across the kitchen and down the hall toward Lucy’s room. She heard the toy chest slam shut.

“Is Artemis stalking Lollipop again?” Dad said.

“I’ll go see.” Lucy dropped the tongs in the bowl and slid all the way to her room. This could mean there was a “pizza delivery.”

With the door shut behind her, she leaned for a second to get the room upright and then opened the window. Januarie stood below, hatless and shivering. Her chubby cheeks wobbled, and even in the dark, Lucy could tell it wasn’t just from the cold.

“What’s wrong?” Lucy said.

“I — I have a message,” Januarie said in a squeak Lucy could barely hear. A Chihuahua itself couldn’t sound that forlorn.

“You want to come in?” Lucy said.

Januarie nodded and hiccupped out a sob. Lucy opened the window the rest of the way and stuck the top half of her body out into the night.

“Hold on to my shoulders and walk up the wall,” Lucy said. “I’ll pull you in.” It had been a while since Januarie had come in this way, but she definitely didn’t want to bring her in through the house, not with whatever else was going on with Dad and Mr. Auggy and all the questions about J.J.

With Januarie’s arms clinging to her like a baby monkey’s, Lucy backed slowly into the room, pulling Januarie with her. Januarie squeezed her eyes shut as she put her head through the window and held on harder.

“You can let go now,” Lucy said. “You have your top half in. Now just wiggle in.”

She lowered herself to her bed and waited for Januarie to pop through and bounce down beside her.

“I can’t.”

“Sure you can.” Lucy glanced over her shoulder. There were still man-mutters in the kitchen. “I’ll pull.”

“No.” Another hiccup. “I’m stuck.”

“No, you are not.”

Lucy slid her hands under Januarie’s armpits and gave a yank. She got nothing but a yip.

“Okay, wiggle back out, and I’ll meet you at the front door. My dad’s in the kitchen with — ”

“I’m stuck that way too!” The tiny-dog voice went up another notch, and Januarie’s face crumpled.

“Okay, okay, don’t freak. I’ll get something to pry you out.”

Lucy grabbed the wooden spoon that usually propped the toy chest open, but she dropped it. Not big enough. What
was
big enough? This wasn’t like getting the first pickle out of the jar.

“Is this because I’m fat?” Januarie said.

“It’s because the window’s not big enough,” Lucy said. “That’s not your fault.” It was
her
fault. Why had she even tried it this way?

“Okay, here’s what I want you to do.” Lucy put her face right up to Januarie’s so she could whisper. The voices in the kitchen had gotten lower. “Take the biggest breath you can and hold it, and when I tell you, pretend you’re a balloon with all the air going out of it. Okay?”

Januarie nodded.

“Go.”

The round cheeks puffed out, and her face f lushed the color of a strawberry. Lucy gathered as much of Januarie as she could into her arms, braced her feet on the wall, and said, “Go.”

There was a big whoosh of air, and Lucy pulled. Something came with her as she fell backward onto her bed. The door opened, and she got an upside-down view of Mr. Auggy. Dad right behind him.

“What’s going on, Lucy?” Dad said.

She wasn’t sure. The room wouldn’t stop going around and around. Besides, with Mr. Auggy there, it was clear she had to give it up. “I had to get Januarie through the window,” she said.

“I’m still stuck!”

“What on earth — ”

Mr. Auggy dodged past Lucy, who saw that she held only Janu-arie’s frog-green jacket in her hands.

“Is she okay?” Dad said. He felt his way into the room and promptly tripped over Lucy’s Uggs. He staggered forward, and Lucy lunged for him. They both tilted against the wall, in time to hear Mr. Auggy say, “Ted, do you have a screwdriver? We’re going to have to take out this window.”

Januarie bawled anew.

“I do,” Dad said over her. “Lucy — get our tool kit — it’s outside — ”

With Januarie’s yelps from the window ringing in her ears, Lucy felt her way through the house and out the back door into the darkness. But the ground came up to meet her, and she slammed into the side of the toolshed with her shoulder. Somebody — probably Mudge — yowled — and somebody else whispered hoarsely, “You’re okay, right?”

Lucy slid down against the shed. J.J.’s face looked fuzzy in front of her.

“What are you doing out here?” she managed to get out. Her voice sounded furry too.

“Hiding.”

“From what?”

“Everybody.”

“Januarie came over — ”

“Tell her to shut up and go home. I’m spending the night here.”

“She’s stuck in the window.” Lucy closed her eyes so that maybe J.J. would stop twirling like a dust devil. “You’re spending the night with us?”

“In your shed.”

“What?”

“I do it all the time. Tell Januarie to shut up.”

“We’re not allowed to say ‘shut up,’ ” Lucy heard herself say. Then she let out a long buzz, just before everything went black.

14

Lucy felt like a character in a comic book again. The faces of the people in her thoughts popped up all around her head and talked to her.

Dad’s face begged her to wake up. Mr. Auggy’s said he was going to call 9-1-1. Januarie’s just cried. There was no J.J. face, but Lucy couldn’t quite wake up enough to tell them he was in the shed, having a sleepover.

Things got clearer when a tiny flashlight shined into her eyes and another face asked her what her name was and what day it was and who was the president of the United States. She told him who it was but that she’d rather talk about soccer players. People laughed like they’d been waiting for hours for something to be happy about.

She finally came all the way awake when somebody wrapped a thing around her arm and squeezed it. She found herself on the Sitting Couch, looking at Dad and two people in uniforms. They were all searching her face as if they were looking for clues to a major mystery.

“What happened?” she said.

“That’s what you need to tell us,” the Lady Uniform said. She pulled a stethoscope out of her ears. “You have a concussion. Did you hit your head today?”

Lucy almost didn’t answer her. She was using that too-loud voice like people used with Dad. Only Dad said, “Luce — ” and his face and voice were both pinched in tight.

“Yes,” Lucy said. “I tripped over a rock on the soccer field and hit my head on the goalpost thingie.”

From somewhere, a small dog whimpered. Lucy’s eyes found Januarie sitting on Mr. Auggy’s lap in Dad’s chair.

“You got unstuck,” Lucy said.

“Lucy — focus,” Dad said.

She closed her eyes.

“Don’t go to sleep,” the Man Uniform said. “Stay with us. Did you black out when you hit your head?”

“No,” Lucy said.

She felt a hand on her forehead. “No bump,” Lady Uniform said, “but there isn’t always one.”

Lucy wiggled down farther on the couch. She was so sleepy.

“We have to ask you some questions.” Man Uniform took her by the shoulders and sat her up. “Do you feel nauseous?”

“Like I’m going to throw up?”

“Yeah.”

She tried to shake her head. “Now I do. A little.”

“Does your head hurt?”

“Some.”

“Do you know where you are?”

Lucy gave him a look. He grinned at her. He had a mustache and twinkly eyes, and he didn’t look like he was going to give her a shot. It might be a good idea to try for a smile herself.

“There you go,” he said. “Okay — are you still dizzy?”

She opened her eyes wide. The room was still, but it could go any minute. “Not so much,” she said.

He snapped off his flashlight and turned to Dad. “I don’t think we need to take her to the hospital.”

“Hello!” Lucy cried.

Lady Uniform put a hand on Lucy’s shoulder, “If you stay quiet. For at least three days. No soccer.”

“For three
days
?”

“Here’s the deal.” Man Uniform swept his eyes over both Dad and Lucy and back at Mr. Auggy. “If you injure your head again before this concussion heals, you could suffer more serious damage.”