Savvy (20 page)

Fish slid off the couch to sit on the floor on the other side of Samson. “We have to be strong for Poppa now,” he said, putting one arm around our little brother, and squeezing my shoulder once as he did. As worn out as Fish was, only the faintest of breezes blew through the room, and since the door to the trailer was still smashed in, nobody took much notice of a little bit of wind. Samson merely nodded silently, but his overlapping voice in my head grew busier and less musical, like a flock of nervous geese. I still couldn’t make out one thought from another—loud as he was thinking, my littlest brother’s innermost self was still a mystery, even to my savvy self.

Bill Meeks paused before continuing. When he did speak again, it was to all five of us. “You kids have caused more than a little trouble in the last twenty-four hours. A lot of people spent a great deal of time and energy looking for you, and you gave your families a huge scare.” Bill looked at us long and hard, until we all felt ready to crawl beneath the trailer and stay there. Then he took a deep breath through his nose and smiled sympathetically, giving Will a quick conspiratorial wink before continuing on in a lower voice, glancing at the caseworker sitting along the wall.

“I know how easy it is to make wrong choices and end up in difficult situations, but things don’t always turn out badly. There will be consequences, of course, but no one got hurt, and no hurt was meant. So, as far as I know, no one’s pressing any charges against those folks out there. Mr. Swan and Miss Kiteley may have made some ill-advised decisions, but they did do a good job of looking after you and keeping you all safe.”

“Lester and Lill aren’t going to go to jail?” I said, looking up at Will’s dad.

“No, Mibs, they’re not going to jail.” Bill’s smile widened. “In fact, I kind of need their help right now.”

“You do?” said Bobbi.

“Well, I need
someone
to drive you all over to Salina, don’t I? It would be a tight fit in the patrol car, and it seems Lill and Lester would really like to see you get there.”

I was flooded with such relief that I almost started crying again. Lester and Lill were going to be safe, and I would soon be with my family I wanted to thank Bill Meeks from the bottom of my mush-and-muscle heart, but I could find no words. For the first time, I wished that my savvy worked in reverse. I wished that all I had to do was draw a smiling face somewhere on my skin, so that others might know how I was feeling without me having to say a thing. But, from the way Bill was looking at me, I had the feeling he knew anyway.

The child welfare caseworker, still not entirely certain Bill’s plan was sound, insisted on riding along with us on the big pink Bible bus and requested that an armed officer be aboard as well. While Lester welcomed us kids back onto his bus without a grudge, the idea of having the extra official passengers on board made him fidget.

“It will be okay, Lester,” Lill soothed. “I’ll stay by you in the front seat. We can talk about your next delivery, if you’d like. Maybe we can even talk about starting up your very own Bible-selling business.”

“My own b-business, Lill?” Lester said in surprise, now clearly distracted from the fact that there was a police officer climbing onto his bus.

“Why sure, Lester,” she said. “I know you’ve got it in you.”

“What took you so long to come into my life, Lill?” Lester said with a sigh, shaking his head and staring at his feet. “I wish I c-could have met you years ago.”

“I’m always late, Lester,” Lill laughed. “It’s just a talent I can’t escape.”

I watched Lill calm Lester’s worries and thought about how good and kind she was, and about all the trouble I’d caused her. But while Lill didn’t seem to hold our deception at the motel against us, she did want to know how we’d managed it.

“You kids are too smart for your own good,” Lill said after we’d said our sorries and explained how we’d faked the call to Miss Rosemary. Lill hugged each of us to her in turn. “The world had better watch out for all of you. You’re big trouble in the making.”

Bill was going to drive ahead of the Heartland Bible Supply bus as an escort all the way to Salina and he asked Will if he wanted to ride along. Poor Will contemplated the patrol car, looking torn in two. I imagined that he’d love nothing more than to ride up front in that car with his daddy, like he was a state trooper himself. But then Will glanced at me.

“Next time?” he said to his dad with a sheepish grin.

“Go on with your friends,” laughed Bill, rumpling Will Junior’s hair, then pulling him toward him for another back-thumping hug.

“I guess you’ve been missing your poppa too,” I said to Will as we got settled.

He shrugged, and squeezed my hand tight. “Things don’t always happen the way you want them to, Mibs,” he said. I thought about that and I thought about my own poppa in the hospital. I thought about the way my savvy hadn’t worked out in the way I’d hoped or how our journey to Salina had taken its own twists and turns. Then I remembered what Lill had said just before falling asleep in the motel the night before.
You never can tell when a bad thing might make a good thing happen.
I realized that good and bad were always there and always mixed up together in a tangle. Though, at the moment, I wasn’t sure that made me feel any better.

T
he closer we got to Salina, the greener the world became, as rolling prairie transformed into rich, irrigated farmland. As soon as we’d found Samson behind the paneled wall in Carlene’s trailer, Fish’s storm over Tuttle Creek Lake had dissolved. Now the crisp white light of spring sunshine opened up the skies once more. But despite the sunshine and the brilliant green landscape, my thoughts were bleak and barren and black-and-white. All I could think about was Poppa.

Will Junior and I sat near the front of the bus so that he could keep watch on his daddy’s patrol car, and Fish and Bobbi were across the aisle, ignoring the caseworker just behind them. Bobbi was chewing her gum, and painting her nails with red Mega Mega Mart nail polish, cursing softly at every bump in the road, and Fish was leaning up against the window with his eyes closed. I knew he wasn’t asleep. I figured he was thinking about Poppa, same as me. I couldn’t get Officer Meeks’s words out of my head. I couldn’t forget what he’d said about Poppa.

He needs his family around him now.
It sounded terrifying to me. It sounded hopeless.

Not being able to get past the officer stationed at the back of the bus, Samson had curled up in the front seat with Lill, his head in her lap. Lill was using all of the alcohol wipes from the new first aid kit to scour away the black ink from Samson’s arms and hands. That ink burbled and shivered as it came off, paring down the mayhem in my head into a single pointed voice that pierced my heart before being scrubbed away.

Strong for Poppa.

Strong for Poppa …

We had one last stretch of interstate to travel, a slow clip-clop countdown of miles and exits, and I had to bite my tongue to keep myself from asking, “How much farther? How much farther? How much farther?”

It seemed like an hour longer than forever before Lester followed Bill Meeks’s patrol car off the interstate at exit 252, passing a sign with a large white
H
that told us we were on the right path to the hospital. I trembled at the sight of that stark, bone-white letter. It meant we were almost there, almost to Poppa at last.

With a left turn that took us under the interstate and onto Ninth Street, Bill led the bus into the town of Salina. The signal lamps at every intersection had been blasted out, looking now like upright rows of empty eye sockets. Cars crept and crawled across the busier streets, and traffic was backed up, even though it was Sunday afternoon. Crews were out trying to replace all of the broken red, yellow, and green glass, and the city was obviously still struggling to recover from Rocket’s electric wake. I swallowed hard; I’d never seen Rocket make such a mess. It made me shiver all the more. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea for him to take Momma to Salina after all. I hoped that the hospital had plenty of spare lightbulbs and that Rocket wasn’t getting too close to any of the important, life-saving equipment.

We were all sitting up on the edge of our seats now, any last trace of drowsiness having vanished as soon as we got off the interstate. Without Bill leading the way, it would have taken forever to maneuver through the jammed streets. But Bill turned on his siren, and even got out once or twice to direct the bus through intersections where frustrated drivers wouldn’t let us pass. The afternoon sky, arcing blue as cornflowers over the town before our arrival, was now beginning to cloud over. Precipitation gathered from the corners of the atmosphere to take the shape of a small dark storm cloud directly over the bus. But Fish held tight to his savvy with a strong and skillful scumble, and the cloud simply hovered grimly overhead, sending down neither a sprinkle nor a spatter.

Bill must have called ahead to announce our arrival, for as soon as the big pink Heartland Bible Supply bus followed his patrol car into the hospital’s parking lot, stopping right in front of the large sliding glass doors of the entrance, we saw our families waiting for us.

Pastor Meeks and Miss Rosemary appeared to be struggling between relief and anger, their faces going slack, then rigid; smiling, then stiff. Rocket and Momma were there too, looking haggard and sleepless. To my surprise, Momma was hanging on to a squirming Gypsy, and Grandpa Bomba was leaning on Rocket’s arm, holding tight to one of Grandma Dollop’s jars. The pastor and his wife must have brought the rest of our family down with them, and I was grateful to them. It was going to be good to have everyone in the family together again.

As soon as Lester opened the door of the bus, Momma set Gypsy down, taking her by the hand and rushing forward as we all began to climb down those three steep steps.

“Where in the world have you all been? What were you thinking?” Momma cried as she grabbed Fish and Samson and me and held on tight, tight, tight, crushing us together along with Gypsy, like a big bouquet of flowers in a perfect hug. When at last she let go, she pulled us inside, fussing over each of us as if she were checking for any missing fingers or toes.

“I wasn’t worried,” Rocket said, his face so lined and hardened that I knew not to believe him. He gave me a sideways shoulder squeeze and an unintentional electric shock that made me jump. His voice cracked as he said, “Savvy birthdays always tend to cause a rumpus.” Then he punched Fish on the arm and mussed up Samson’s hair, leaving it standing on end and crackling with static. It hadn’t occurred to me until then that Rocket hadn’t only been worried for Poppa, he’d been worried about us as well. Guilt nearly crushed me—no wonder he’d caused so much damage.

Grandpa Bomba stood, tears streaking his wrinkled face as he looked from each of us to the next. He held the glass jar with its faded label tucked into the crook of his arm, and I knew immediately which one it was.

I threw my arms around my old grandpa, hugging him as hard as his ancient bones could bear. “It’s okay, Grandpa,” I said. “We’re all together again just the way we should be.”

Letting go, I turned back to Momma. Samson was at her side, tugging on her shirt. Ignoring Gypsy as she tried to pull her hand free, Momma bent down so that Samson could whisper in her ear. Samson’s eyes were round and dark as he looked up into our momma’s face and I could see his lips form the word that was on all of our minds.

“Poppa?”

Momma’s face drooped, the warm smile she’d greeted us with vanishing for a half second before being replaced with a very different kind of smile—the kind of smile born from love and sorrow and the desire to protect us all from our very worst fears.

“It’s good you’re all here now,” Momma said softly. “It was a mistake for me not to bring you with me in the first place.”

“But, Momma,” I said. “You don’t make mistakes.”

Momma’s face pinched and tightened as she tried not to cry. “Oh Mibs,” she said, pulling me to her again. “I can make awfully perfect mistakes.”

Rocket dropped his head and stared at the floor, his knuckles white and his jaw clenched as the lights in the waiting room dimmed and pulsed once but did not burn out or shatter.

“I’ll let you all say your good-byes,” Momma said, letting go of me and wiping her eyes. “Then we’ll go up to see Poppa.”

“Let’s just go now,” implored Fish, picking up Gypsy and grabbing Momma’s arm.

But Momma stood firm. Running a hand absently through Fish’s messy hair, she continued, “Nothing will change in the next two minutes, Fish. You can say good-bye to your friends.”

A sobbing wail drew my attention. Nearby, Miss Rosemary was trying to rein in her dripping tears. She dabbed her eyes with a white handkerchief and took turns squeezing Will and Bobbi to her, while Pastor Meeks kept his eyes closed and his hands clasped together, looking as though he might be sending up a silent and mighty prayer of thanks.

Bill had joined us all inside the waiting area, hanging back a bit during the emotional family reunion—watching keenly as Miss Rosemary clucked over Will’s black eye like a mother hen. But when Pastor Meeks finished his prayer and opened his eyes, he reached out a hand, giving Bill’s a firm shake and pulling him into the group with a hearty thump on the back.

As soon as Bobbi could, she detached herself from her mother and sidled closer to Rocket with a smile, looking at the way my brother’s T-shirt stuck to him with static. Rocket noticed Bobbi’s smile quick enough, and despite everything, he managed a half smile back her way. I remembered the way she’d talked about my brother in the pool, and watched to see what Bobbi might do.

“Hey, Rocket,” said Bobbi, pushing her bangs out of her eyes and shifting her weight onto one hip.

“Hey, Bobbi,” said Rocket with a nod, a stray spark of blue popping at his fingertips.

Bobbi noticed that spark even if no one else had. Smiling wider and raising her eyebrows, she pulled the gum from out of her mouth and stuck it on the back of a nearby chair without taking her eyes off my oldest brother, as though getting herself ready to kiss him then and there, while she had the chance.