Nest (27 page)

“Swan boats?”

“They’re boats that look like swans. A driver pedals you around the pond in the Boston Public Garden, and all the ducks and geese swim along. My mom and I—” I remember her blowy hair. I remember the way she laughed and turned pink when the handsome man with the dark hair and green eyes talked to her. I remember how warm her hands were in my hands when we danced up the dock together.

“Hey,” Joey says softly, “we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

“About what?”

“Going to see your swan boats.”

I don’t know if Joey can see me in the dark, but I’m nodding
yes
. My plan.
Our
plan. This is it!

“But now we should both do our business before we go to bed,” Joey says.

“Our business?”

“You know.”

“No, I don’t.”

Joey shakes his head and walks to the door.

“You go left and I’ll go right,” he says, and then I get it.

“You can just say
pee
,” I say, but he doesn’t hear me, because I guess he’s already doing his business.

I squat down and try, but I’m so cold, the pee doesn’t come. There are lots of crunchy night sounds, rabbits and bobwhites and chipmunks rustling around in the brush.

“All ashore who’s going ashore,” Joey yells, so I figure he’s finished and my coast is clear. It’s really hard to see him, since there’s only the tiniest slice of moon. I follow his
cheeup cheeup cheeup
raccoon sound back to our nest. He’s curled up on his side. I crawl in, right in front of him.

“Cheeup,”
he says.

“Cheeup,”
I say.

“Cheeup.”

“Cheeup.”

It’s cold. Joey snuggles in behind me. I think about getting Mom’s sea lavender sweater so I can smell her, but the air’s chilly and Joey’s warm, pressed in behind me. He’s breathing slow and steady, and the
wind is a quiet shush, telling me to close my eyes and go to sleep.

I wake up with my heart pounding from a bad dream I can’t remember. Joey’s asleep, and I’m not a baby. I’m not going to wake him. A dream is a dream, and now I’m awake. I’m awake in the dark in our glass house, and everything is okay. Mom isn’t here to say
All the bad dreams, go out of this house. Whoosh!
and wave her hands to scare the bad dreams away. All she is now is a cold, dark rock in my chest.

I have to pee, but I’m scared to stand up with my heart beating so hard. I take deep breaths and try to calm down. It’s awful, pulling myself away from Joey’s warmth and standing up, but I make myself do it.

Outside, it’s quieter now. Just the crickets. Just the splash of my pee on the ground.

I close my eyes and make my wish. I wish for the handsome man with the green eyes to take me for a ride on his swan boat.

A sound wakes me up. It’s Joey, right outside the window, brushing his teeth. I’m really thirsty, but he’s got the canteen of water jammed between his knees.

“Joey, I need some water.”

He doesn’t say anything, just keeps brushing.

“Joey!”

He still doesn’t say anything, so I make myself get out of our warm nest and go outside. I can tell it’s very early morning, because the light is the color of a ripe apricot and the birds are singing their heads off.

“I’m thirsty, Joey.”

He pours some water into his mouth, rinses, and spits. He puts more toothpaste on his toothbrush, like he’s getting ready to start brushing all over again.

“I’m such an idiot,” he says. “A stupid idiot.”

“No, you’re not,” I say. “Can I have some water?”

Joey hands me the canteen. “Pour it in. Don’t put your mouth right on it,” he says. “I can’t believe what an idiot I am.” He’s walking back and forth, shaking his head.

I take a long drink of water. It’s cold and tastes like metal. I drink some more.

“What an idiot! I didn’t brush my teeth last night. I ate dinner and then went to bed. Do you know what happens if you don’t brush your teeth? The bacteria eat your tooth enamel!”

“Well, you’re brushing now,” I say. “It’s probably okay.” I hand the canteen back to Joey.

“No, Chirp, it’s not okay,” Joey says. “The bacteria multiply, and they stick to your teeth and tongue. It’s so disgusting.”

“Gross.”

“And there are tons of different kinds, sliming away all night long.”

I want to go and get my toothbrush, but Joey grabs my arm.

“Don’t you get it, Chirp? I know all about bacteria, and
still
I forgot to brush my teeth.”

“I’ll remind you,” I say. I want Joey to let go of me so I can get my toothbrush.

“You don’t get it!” Joey’s yelling now. “If I’m so stupid, if I can forget something as important as brushing my teeth, how will I make it out here without my parents? You think I can just head home when I feel like it?” He sounds so mad he’s scaring me. He’s waving his toothbrush around.

“This is it for me. I can’t go home. You think I can just walk in and say, ‘Hi, Pop! Sorry. I’m home now’? You think he’s gonna wrap his arms around me and say, ‘Glad to see you, son’?”

Joey’s asking me questions, but I know he doesn’t want me to answer them.

“Joey?”

“Shut up.” He’s crying now. He’s brushing his teeth really hard and crying really hard, and there’s snot dripping out of his nose and toothpaste dribbling out of his mouth.

I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do. I sit down, because even though Joey’s acting like he’s mad at me, I don’t think he wants me to leave him all alone. There’s an ant dragging a white hunk of something through the sandy dirt. It’s making the tiniest track. I can hear Joey sniffling and coughing and brushing, but I don’t look up. I keep watching the ant. One thing I know is that you can keep someone company without ruining their privacy. While Joey rinses and spits, the ant takes a little breather, but then it gets going again. The white hunk it’s dragging looks a lot like a grain of rice. I don’t know why no other ants are pitching in to help. There are tons of ants just wandering around doing nothing while this guy is working up a sweat.

Ant-watching is okay but not nearly as exciting as bird-watching. I can hear all kinds of birds calling and fluttering and hopping around in the woods. To get a good look at all of the action, I need my binocs. I peek to see what’s up with Joey. He’s walking back to our house, taking huge steps like he’s a giant. I wait until he’s inside, and then I take baby steps to give him some more time to pull himself together. When I walk in, he’s taking his clothes out of our nest, folding them carefully, and putting them in his duffel bag. His eyes are red, but he must have wiped his nose and mouth, since I can’t see any snot or toothpaste anymore.

“Hey,” Joey says in a quiet voice, “I’d like us to have a meeting.”

“Okay.”

“How about by the milkweed,” he says. “Two minutes.” He’s rearranging his clothes in his duffel bag.

I grab my binocs out of my knapsack and run outside.

Tons of chickadees in the bushes. Warblers like to hang out with chickadees. It’s still a little early in the season for them—they don’t usually get here until May—but I can’t help hoping I’ll see one. Mom called yellow birds lemon drops. She’d say
Sure do love those lemon drops
when we’d see a warbler or goldfinch flash by. I love the way she’d make up names for things, like—

“Earth to Chirp, come in, Chirp,” Joey says.

I put down my binocs.

“I’d like to call our meeting to order.” Joey smacks a bunch of milkweed leaves on the ground, like he’s the big boss, which is okay with me.

“Okay.”

“Well,” Joey says, “I think we need a plan. Agreed?”

“Yes.”

“You’re supposed to say
agreed
,” Joey says.

“Agreed.”

“I think I have a perfect plan. You like the swan boats, and I’ve never seen the swan boats. How about if we go see them today?”

“Agreed.”

“You only have to say
agreed
when I say
agreed
, okay?”

I nod. I don’t want to do anything to jinx our perfect plan.

“How are we going to get to Boston?” I ask.

“Bus. We can take the bus from in front of the general store. That’s what Vinnie did.”

“But Mrs. McCurdy knows us. She’ll ask why we aren’t in school. She won’t sell us bus tickets.”

“Yeah, but she’ll probably sell them to just you. Maybe you can go into the store by yourself and buy two tickets.”

Joey doesn’t say it, but I know what he’s thinking. The girl with the dead mother. The girl whose mom
drowned
. Everyone feels sorry for me.

“I guess I can say that they’re for me and Rachel. I can say that my dad thinks we need a little break, so we’re going to visit our aunt in Boston. You know,
My dad’s just getting our suitcases out of the car
.”

“Mrs. McCurdy won’t ask you a lot of questions,” Joey says. “She won’t give you a hard time.”

We’re all packed up in just a couple of minutes. We’ve only spent one night, but still, it’s kind of sad, leaving our glass house.

“Should we make more sparkle before we go?” Joey asks. He’s looking up through the broken windows. The sky isn’t apricot now. It’s gray blue, like the back and belly feathers of a great blue heron.

“Nah.” Crashing glass doesn’t feel right.

“What should we do?” Joey asks.

“Spit?”

“Perfect,” Joey says. “Meet you in the middle.” I walk to one side of the room and Joey walks to the other.

“On your mark, get set, go!” I say, and we both start taking big steps and counting them out loud. When we get to six, our toes are almost touching.

“Okay,” Joey says. “About-face!” We turn so we’re back-to-back. “One, two, three,” and we both huck a nice, wet looey onto the dried-out plywood floor.

“Sayonara,”
I say, looking around at the broken windows and the cobwebs and our pile of mad glass in the corner and our two hucked looeys.

“Sayonara,”
Joey says. We pick up our stuff and head out.

It’s hard to tell exactly what time it is. I’m pretty sure we’re ahead of the school bus, but just to be safe, we follow the dirt paths and side roads and stay off Route 6 as much as we can until we’re just about at the general store.

“I’m hungry,” Joey says. “We didn’t eat any breakfast, and eating breakfast is really important.” His forehead is wrinkled, and I don’t know if not eating breakfast is like not brushing his teeth and he’s going to have another freak-out because he’s scared that he doesn’t know how to take care of himself.

“Guess what?” I say.

“What?”

“Pop-Tarts!”

“What kind should we get?” Joey’s really excited.

“Strawberry? I’ll get them when I get the bus tickets.”

Joey starts singing
“Strawberry Pop-Tarts, here we come, right back where we started from!”
at the top of his lungs. Maybe I should shush him, since we’re kind of like fugitives and shouldn’t draw attention to ourselves, but I like the sound of his loud voice right next to me. I like that now he’s swinging his duffel bag back and forth and kicking up sandy dirt as if he could walk forever.

“We’re lucky it’s not raining,” I say.

Joey looks up at the blue sky.

“We’re lucky it’s not snowing,” he says.

“We’re lucky there isn’t a meteor speeding right toward us.”

“Or an atom bomb that would blow us up into smithereens.”

The wind smells like wet grass. All we have to do is walk down a little hill and past the bait shop, and then we’re at the general store.

“Maybe you should wait here,” I say.

“It’s against the law to skip school, you know,” Joey says. “We’re criminal elements.”

“How’s that different from just plain old criminals?”

“I have no idea,” Joey says.

I get my money and then hand my knapsack to him to hold.

“What if she wants to talk to my dad?”

“She won’t want to.”

There’s no one in the store. Mrs. McCurdy isn’t even at the cash register. I walk down the aisles, looking for the Pop-Tarts. It’s tricky figuring out how to look old enough that I could be trusted to buy bus tickets to Boston by myself but still sad enough that no one will bug me. I can’t stand too straight and tall, because that isn’t what sad looks like. It isn’t what sad feels like, either. Sad is a huge rock on your head that pushes you down. Sad is wishing you could crawl on the ground like a black beetle.

The Pop-Tarts are near the cereal. I grab Brown Sugar Cinnamon, too, to surprise Joey and help keep his spirits up. Two boxes of Pop-Tarts. And a bottle of apple juice. I hear a door slam in the back, and then footsteps.

By the time I get up to the cash register, there’s a man there. He’s skinny and has pimples and scraggly black hair, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before. He doesn’t even say hello or ask if that’s everything, like Mrs. McCurdy. He just rings up the Pop-Tarts and apple juice and sticks his hand out for money, so I give him the twenty-dollar bill.

“I’d also like two bus tickets to Boston,” I say when he hands me the change.