Mick Harte Was Here (8 page)

I
DON’T KNOW
if what I said at that assembly will make a difference. I don’t know if it will help anyone use better judgment than my brother did. I hope so, though. Honest to God, I do. Because Mick died from a massive head injury. And yet the doctors said that just an inch of Styrofoam would have made the difference between his living and dying.

It’s been a month since the accident now. Things have gotten a little better at home. Nana from Florida went back to Orlando. And my mother gets dressed in the mornings, usually. She’s
gone back to work, too—just two days a week, but it’s a start.

We sit down to dinner every night at our new places. Eating still isn’t a big deal with us, though. Like last night we had grilled cheese sandwiches and mashed potatoes. And on Sunday all the forks were in the dishwasher so we ate potato salad with soup spoons. My mother’s eased up on stuff like that. Death sort of gives you a new outlook on the importance of proper silverware.

It’s called
perspective
. It means your father doesn’t iron a crease in his pants every morning. And the hamburgers come in all shapes and sizes.

I’ve started to laugh more often. But I still feel guilty when I’m having too good a time. Which is totally ridiculous. Because if I want to feel guilty, there’re lots better reasons than that. Like I’m just now starting to deal with how Mick asked me to ride his bike home that day and all.

I kept that whole memory tucked away in the back of my mind after the accident happened. But bad memories must grow in the dark, I think, because it kept on creeping into my thoughts, till it was with me almost all the time, it seemed.

Then last Saturday, when my father and I were riding home from a soccer game, my stomach
started churning like it always does right before I’m about to blurt out an unplanned confession.

It’s one of the sickest feelings there is, by the way. To realize you’re about to squeal on yourself like that.

The only thing sicker is keeping it inside.

So it all came busting out. All about how Mick asked me to ride his bike that day. And how I had soccer practice so I told him I couldn’t do it.

“See, Pop? Don’t you get it? I could have kept the accident from ever happening. If only I had ridden his bike home, Mick would still be here right now.”

I was crying a little bit now. But except for handing me the travel tissues from the dashboard, my father hardly seemed to notice. Instead, he just kept staring out the window at the road in front of us.

Then slowly, he began shaking his head from side to side.

“I’m sorry, Pop. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I said over and over again.

My face was buried in my hands when I finally felt him touch my shoulder.

“I’m going to make a list, Phoebe,” he said. “And I want you to keep a count.” His voice was real low and steady as he began.

“If only
you had ridden Mick’s bike home, Mick would still be here.

“If only
the truck had been going a little faster or a little slower, Mick would still be here.

“If only
his meeting had been scheduled one day earlier or one day later, Mick would still be here.

“If only
it had been raining that day, I’d have driven him to school and Mick would still be here.

“If only
one of his friends had kept him talking a second longer at his locker that afternoon…

“If only
the house he was riding to had been in the other direction…

“If only
that rock hadn’t been on the sidewalk at the exact spot …”

He stopped then. And I was pretty sure he was finished. But all at once, he heaved this God-awful sigh and whispered, “If only I had made him wear his helmet.”

My heart broke for my father at that moment and I reached my hand out to him.

He held on to it tight. Then he smiled the saddest smile you’ve ever seen.

“What number are we on, little girl?” He sounded so old.

I scooted closer to him.

“I think we’re done, Pop,” I said softly.

He pressed my hand to his cheek.

The two of us drove home in silence.

Y
ESTERDAY
was the official one-month anniversary of the accident. I used to think that anniversaries only celebrated happy things. But now I know that they’re just a way of measuring time.

I went to soccer practice after school. I didn’t feel much like running, though. Coach Brodie must have sensed something was wrong, because she didn’t push me or yell at me for dogging it, like she usually does.

The weird thing is, after practice was over, I didn’t want to leave the field. All I wanted to do was sit on the sidelines by myself for a while. And think about Mick.

It sounds depressing, but it wasn’t. I mean there were lots of good memories of Mick at that field too. Living so close to school, we used to go down there all the time and kick the soccer ball around or throw the Frisbee or something.

A couple of months ago, we even tried playing polo on our bikes using my father’s golf clubs. It wasn’t that much fun, though. I kept hitting myself in the foot with the sand wedge and Mick kept getting the putter caught in his pants.

I grinned at the memory and sat down in the grass.

Unfortunately, right across the field from me, a group of noisy workmen were banging around putting up a new set of permanent bleachers. They were setting them in concrete. So it was pretty clear they were going to be working there for a while.

Even so, I decided to wait them out. It’s another talent of mine, I guess you’d say. In addition to staring you down, I can also wait you out.

It was almost dark when they finally went home. I still can’t believe no one stayed behind to guard the new sidewalk they’d just poured. I mean you’ve gotta be nuts leaving wet cement unguarded at a junior high school.

Especially if there’s an eighth-grade girl sitting across the field who’s been watching you all afternoon. And she’s already spotted a little stick lying in the grass next to her hand. Which was totally weird, by the way. Because there’s not a tree anywhere near the soccer field. None even in
sight
, I mean. And yet there was this stick.

It can give you the shivers if you think about it too much.

The stick was just the perfect size, too. Small enough to do a neat job, but still strong enough to
carve the letters deep into the concrete so they would be there forever.

That’s what’s so great about cement, you know. The forever part, I mean.

I was totally calm when I did it. I just walked over, bent down, and printed the letters, large and neat and clear as they could be.

I stood up and looked at it.

I smiled.

Mick Harte was here.

And now he’s gone.

But for twelve years and five months, my brother was one of the neatest kids you’d ever want to meet.

And I just wanted to tell you about him, that’s all.

I just thought you ought to know.

BARBARA PARK is one of today’s funniest authors. Her Junie B. Jones books are consistently on the
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestseller lists. Her middle-grade novels, which include
Skinnybones, The Kid in the Red Jacket, Mick Harte Was Here
, and
The Graduation of Jake Moon
, have won more than forty children’s book awards. Barbara Park holds a BS in education. She has two grown sons and lives with her husband, Richard, in Arizona.

Arizona Young Reader’s Award

Dorothy Canfleld Fisher Children’s Book Award (Vermont)

Emphasis on Reading Award (Alabama)

Flicker Tale Children’s Book Award (North Dakota)

Georgia Children’s Book Award

Great Stone Face Award (New Hampshire)

IRA-CBC Children’s Choice

IRA Young Adults’ Choice

Maud Hart Lovelace Award (Minnesota)

Milner Award (Georgia)

Nevada Children’s Book Award

OMAR Award (Indiana)

Rhode Island Children’s Book Award

Tennessee Children’s Choice Book Award

Texas Bluebonnet Award

Utah Children’s Book Award

Young Hoosier Book Award (Indiana)