Nekomah Creek (19 page)

I shoved open our front door.

“I hate Orin Downard!” I shouted. “I hate hate hate him!”

Mom came out of her studio. “Honey, what’s wrong?” She took a closer look. “Robby, your feet are all wet. You’re all muddy.”

“Just look at this!” I flung down the soggy remains of my diorama and told her what Orin had done.

“Oh, dear.” She stooped and picked it up.

“And I was going to give it to Dad for his birthday.”

“Well …” She peeked through the eyehole. “Maybe we can fix it.”

“No, it’s ruined. It’s just totally ruined.” I swallowed hard. “And it was really neat, too. Even
Mrs. Perkins said it was the best one in the school.”

“I’m sure it was wonderful.” She held it up to the light. “I can tell that even now.” Then she set it down and let out a big disgusted sigh. “What is the
matter
with that kid, anyway?”

“He just hates me. And I don’t even know why.”

She looked out the leaded windows in the direction of the Downards’ place. “Maybe today he was upset about his dad’s accident.” She turned back to me. “You heard, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, everybody did. How’d you find out?”

“Oh, you know how fast news like that gets around Nekomah Creek. So. Orin took it pretty hard?”

“Oh, Mom, are you kidding? Orin
loved
it—bragged and spouted logger talk all day. No, he just wrecked my project for the fun of it, that’s all.”

“Now, now …”

“And I’m going to get him for this, Mom. I’d like to beat him up.”

“But Robby, what good would that do? It wouldn’t fix your diorama.”

“I know, but it’d make me feel better.”

“Think so, huh?”

I nodded stubbornly. Then I realized something funny was going on. Mom and I were talking and nobody was interrupting.

I looked around. “Where is everybody?”

“The kids never did settle down for much of a nap, and since I’d be here when you got home, Dad thought he’d take them to the library and then grocery shopping.”

“Oh.” I’d been so upset, I hadn’t even noticed the minivan was gone.

“Now let’s get these wet shoes off you. Sit down by the fire here and I’ll fix you some hot chocolate. When you’re warmed up we can drive in to The Palette for supplies to make a new diorama.”

“Start it all over?” I let out a big sigh. “I just couldn’t.”

“Start something else, then. Come on, how about it?”

Usually a trip to the art store perks me right up, but not today.

It was dark and raining hard by the time we chugged our way home around Tillicum Head.

Mom glanced at me. “Think maybe you’ve still got a touch of the flu?”

I shook my head.

“You feel okay, then?”

I shrugged.

We drove a little farther. Weird, having Mom to myself—no sounds but the rumbling engine and the squeak of the windshield wipers. I took a sideways peek at her face, faintly lit by the dashboard lights. Now that I had a chance to talk, I couldn’t
bring myself to mention what was really bugging me. Instead I tried to edge in around it.

“Mom?”

“Hm?” She kept her eyes on the curvy, rain-slick road.

“This is really dumb, but sometimes I feel two different ways about one thing.” I was thinking how I half admired Elvis Downard and half hated him. How I sort of liked Mrs. Van Gent but was scared of her too. How I loved the way Dad acted but also felt embarrassed by him. “Do you know what I mean?”

“Sure. That’s what grown-ups call having mixed feelings.”

“Oh.” Mixed feelings. So there was an official name for this? Part of me was relieved. Maybe I was normal. On the other hand, if it was normal to be confused, did that mean I’d feel this way forever? I watched the string of orange reflectors snaking toward us along the center of the road. Oh, great! Now I was having mixed feelings about mixed feelings!

“Well, one thing I know for sure,” I said. “I’d still like to beat up Orin Downard.”

“Robby—”

“And I wish Dad could beat up Elvis.”

Mom sighed.

“Well, Orin’s always bugging me about that. I never want to tell Dad this, but Orin’s always saying,
‘Nyeah nyeah, your dad’s a wimp. My dad could pound your dad any day.’ ”

“That is
so
silly.”

“I know, but … I can’t help it, Mom! Sometimes I wish I had the kind of dad who would be bigger and tougher than all the other dads.”

She glanced at me. “Robby, this isn’t the stone age. We don’t rate fathers on which one can beat up the others. What do we need with that? Wouldn’t you rather just have a dad who loves you, a dad who’s a lot of fun?”

“But Mom, you always act like Dad wants to have
too
much fun.”

“Oh, I know …” She laughed. “But really, is there ever such a thing as too much fun?”

There is if your counselor sees it
, I thought darkly.

“I’m sure your dad’s right with all his talk about priorities. You kids will remember those pumpkins all your lives. You won’t care that the shed was always a mess.”

“But you care.”

“Well, there you go—mixed feelings! But actually—and this might surprise you—if you gave me a choice, I’d go for those pumpkins every time.”

“You would?”

“Of course! And believe me, Robby, I’ve seen a lot of dads. They don’t come any better than yours.”

My throat got tight. Good thing it was dark and
Mom couldn’t see my face. Sure, deep down I thought Dad was the greatest. But who cared about my opinion? Not Mrs. Van Gent, not Mrs. Perkins, not the government.

I stared at the zaps of rain shooting straight at the windshield through the headlights.

Up Nekomah Creek Road, we passed the Downards’ place. All dark. Probably they were at the hospital.

Then we turned between the two big fir trees and there was our house. Usually I loved the way it looked on a rainy night, lit from inside, each window a rectangle of gold. Best of all were the colored jewels in the stained-glass half-circle over my loft. But tonight it almost made me feel bad somehow. I stepped down into the crunchy gravel, taking in the smell of wood smoke, the faint sound of Zydeco music blasting away inside. In the window, the faces of two happy little werewolves pressed against the glass, waiting for us.

Our home on the banks of Nekomah Creek. Orin ruining my model of it was bad enough, but that was nothing compared to worrying about losing the real thing.

  18  

When I got home from school the next day, I dropped my backpack on the kitchen floor and stared at Dad. “You’re going to
what
?”

“Shh! The kids are still asleep.”

“Oh, sorry, but—”

“I said I’m taking the Downards a casserole.”

“But why?”

“Because we heard they brought Elvis home from the hospital this morning and it’s the neighborly thing to do.”

“Dad! The Downards are our enemies!”

“Robby, we don’t want enemies. We didn’t move up here to fight with people. We wanted to live in a small community where neighbors still helped each other like in the old days.”

“But you don’t
like
them,” I accused him. “Don’t
you remember after those hearings you went to? You said Elvis Downard’s ancestors were probably the ones who first started killing off all the buffalo and that their family hadn’t changed since. You said Douglas Mountain would be nothing but stumps if they had their way.”

Dad sighed. “I know I said that, Robby. And I still think it’s probably true. But the Downards are in trouble, and trouble has a way of putting things in perspective.”

I frowned. “What’s that mean?”

“Well, in your drawings you make something that’s farther away smaller, right? It’s like that. It’s seeing which things are big and important and up close and which things ought to be smaller and in the background. Right now I’m putting Elvis Downard’s broken bones up closer than his politics.”

“Okay, but even forgetting politics, it’s only been twenty-four hours since Orin tossed my diorama in the creek. At school he teased me about it all day long. And now you’re going to reward his family by being nice?”

“It’s not a reward. It’s got nothing to do with anything they’ve done or not done.” He put foil over the casserole and tucked it into a grocery bag. “I just wouldn’t feel right, that’s all, pretending we hadn’t heard about his father’s accident.”

“Okay,” I said, “but do you have to take”—I made a face—
“food?”

“What’s wrong with food? When people are in trouble, they sometimes don’t have time to cook. Or they forget to. But they need to eat to keep up their strength.”

“Yeah, but … Dad? I didn’t want to tell you this, but … well, their whole family thinks it’s weird that you cook.”

Dad smiled. “Oh, do they?”

“Yes, and it’s not funny! Orin says it’s disgusting and not normal that you stay home and Mom goes to work. He’s always saying his dad can pound you.”

“Oh. So that’s it.”

I nodded.

“Well, even if he feels that way, Robby, the man is completely laid up. He’s in no condition to … to
pound
me.”

“Okay, so he’s probably not going to punch you out over a casserole. But what if they laugh?”

“Laugh?”

“Yeah! What if they laugh at you?”

“Then I’ll laugh too, and we’ll all have a good yuk. Hey, should I take my kazoo? That might cheer him up!” He pulled a kazoo out of his shirt pocket, stuck it in his mouth, and started humming Mr. Rogers’s “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” song.

I blew a slow stream of air up at my forehead. How could I tell him I was just plain tired of people thinking of me as the son of a nut?

“Dad, could you be serious for once?”

He stopped. He tossed the kazoo on the counter and sighed. “Okay, Robby. Here’s how it is. I don’t like the idea of going over there any better than you do. Actually, I dread it. I will be
extremely
glad to have it over with. I know how they feel about us. But you can’t always take the easy route. That saying—‘a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do’—it isn’t just a joke. You have to do what you know is right whether you like it or not, that’s all. And who knows? Maybe something good’ll come out of it.”