The Last Chance Texaco (6 page)

Adults were always accusing us of not respecting rules, but it was only their rules we didn't respect. We had rules of our own, and we respected them a whole lot.

Having gotten what she wanted from Yolanda, Joy turned her sights on me. "Have a nice day at school?" she asked innocently.

My eyes never left the television. "Oh, yeah. Everyone gave me a real warm welcome."

"It don't have to be like that, you know," Joy said. "Just be nice to me like my friend Yolanda here."

Suddenly, I felt like I had a starring role in some chicks-in-prison flick. I was all set to start a cellblock riot right then and there. But I heard Ben's footsteps coming down the stairs. So rather than punch Joy in the face, I casually stood up to go close the window again.

Ben stepped into the doorway of the front room. "Gina's not up there," he said, looking at me. "Did you actually see her?"

"No," I said. "I just saw the door closed, and I thought I heard her inside." Then, with Ben staring right at me, I sniffed the air twice. Joy was looking at me too, so I knew she saw me do it.

Ben hesitated, still preoccupied with finding his wife. But some part of him had noticed me smelling the air, just like I hoped. He sniffed too.

"Hey!" he said. "Who's been smoking inside?"

"Not me," I said, sitting back down to watch television.

"Not me!" Damon said.

"Not me," Yolanda said.

"Joy?" Ben said, facing her.

"It wasn't me!" she said.

Ben sighed. "Come on. Everyone stand for a pat-down. Arms up."

Ben searched us all, but of course none of us had any cigarettes except Joy--the ones she had just taken from Yolanda. As for Damon, Ben didn't find that slice of half-eaten cinnamon toast on him anywhere.

"Joy?" Ben said, holding up the lone pack of cigarettes.

"It wasn't me!" she said.

"You're the only one with cigarettes." He slipped a finger inside the pack, pulled out the half-smoked one, and felt the tip. "It's still warm."

"It wasn't
me
!" Joy repeated, even stamping her feet a little.

"
That's it
!" Ben said. "Five points for smoking, five points for lying!" He spun around to go, gesturing with the pack of cigarettes. "And I'm throwing these away! You shouldn't be smoking anyway."

My plan had worked perfectly. I'd gotten Joy in trouble, but without violating the Group Home Code. I hadn't actually said anything to Ben, so in the eyes of any group home kid, I hadn't squealed on her. This was the plus side of group home kids being so literal-minded.

But Joy wasn't stupid. She knew exactly what I'd done.

After Ben was gone, no one said anything for a second. It felt like the moment after you light a fuse, but before whatever you lit blows up.

Then it blew.

Joy went berserk, flailing her arms and spewing spit.

"
You fucking bitch
!" she shouted at me. "I'll get you for that!"

Great, I thought. I'd been at Kindle Home for barely forty-eight hours and my list of mortal enemies now included Emil, Fire and Ice, and Joy. And they could all get me in a whole lot of trouble, each in their own special way.

Even so, it was worth doing what I'd done to Joy, if only to see the idiotic expression on her face.

• • •

Speaking of Fire and Ice, I saw them again the next day in my second-period biology class. I'd seen them in class the day before too, when they'd walked in and looked absolutely shocked to see me, like they couldn't believe a groupie would actually be taking biology and not some Science for Boneheads class. Alicia had walked by me first, still reeking of chocolate bidi smoke, and she'd done this snotty press-her-books-tightly-against-her-chest thing, like I was suddenly going to lash out and knock them down again. And when Nate had walked by me, he'd tipped over the avocado sprout on my workstation.

The next day, he and Alicia walked by me again, and Alicia did the same thing with her books. Then, when Nate walked by me, he pointed to an aquarium full of crabs in the back of the classroom and said to Alicia, "Damn hermit crabs. They don't have any shell of their own, so they have to go around stealing other animals' shells. I bet the other animals wish those hermit crabs would just go back where they came from." He may have sounded like he was talking about crabs, but I was between him and that aquarium, and I and everyone around me knew he was really talking about me, about my living in a group home.

I'm still not sure what came over me just then. It was partly what Nate had said, and what he and Alicia had said and done the day before. But it was also partly the way Emil had treated me two days earlier, and the way the school principal had been so rude to me, and the fact that for no reason at all, Joy had decided to make my life a living hell. It suddenly seemed like the whole world was out to get me, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it.

Whatever the reason, I leaped up from out of my chair and shouted to Nate, "Go to hell!" Then I hauled off and slugged him in the face.

I was up Shit Creek. Hell, I was floating in a shit raft just above the gigantic shit waterfall at the headwaters of Shit Creek.

"
Two days
!" the principal said to me after the biology teacher had hauled me to the principal's office. "You've been at my school exactly
two days
, and you're already attacking the other students!"

Nate had been brought to the principal's office too--after I'd hit him, he'd hit me back, and then we'd really started going at it. We'd knocked over a filing cabinet and ripped down a chart that showed the parts of a flower, and it had taken six sophomores and two juniors to finally tear us apart. He'd gotten in a couple of punches but had never really gotten a direct hit on me. Nate, on the other hand, already had the beginning of a very nasty black eye--a perfect match for the black ice of his eyes.

There was a lot more yelling, and Principal High Expectations directed all of it at me. "Nate Brandon, of all people!" he kept saying. "Out of the whole school, you had to attack Nate Brandon!" I said to myself, Who gives a rip about Nate Brandon? Why is he so special? But I already knew the answer. Nate Brandon was a rich kid, and a jock. They obviously got special treatment. The principal never did give me a chance to speak, to tell my side of the story. I wouldn't have bothered telling him anyway. He wouldn't have cared that Nate had said the things he'd said, or that he'd knocked over my avocado sprout.

Finally, Leon arrived. The principal had called Kindle Home right after the fight, and someone was supposed to come and take me home. For a split second, I was glad it was Leon. Then I remembered it wouldn't make any difference.

"Get her out of here!" the principal yelled at him. "Get her the hell out of here, and don't bring her back!"

"You can't kick her out," Leon said, absolutely calm.

"Why the hell not?"

"Because it's only her first infraction."

"She
attacked
a
student
in the middle of
class
!" The principal looked even angrier than Joy had the day before. I thought he was going to pop a blood vessel in his neck.

"It doesn't make any difference," Leon said. "Read your own handbook. You can't kick her out on the first infraction."

"That's not true! I have leeway!"

Leon shook his head. "Not here, you don't. And zero tolerance applies only when there are drugs or weapons involved. But there weren't any drugs or weapons. The worst you can do is put her on detention and probation."

"Well, she probably
has
a weapon! I just didn't search her!"

"So go ahead and search her. Just make sure you search this other guy too. And if you're going to kick her out of biology, kick him out, too. "

"
She
attacked
him
!"

"Yeah, well, the handbook also says it doesn't matter who 'starts' a fight--all the people involved have to get the same punishment."

The principal glared at Leon. Meanwhile, from behind his shiner, Nate glared at me, and I glared back at him. There was a hell of a lot of glaring

going on in that office.

"Just get her out of here!" the principal said at last. Then he looked at me. "As for
you
, you're going to have detention until the day you graduate--assuming you ever
do
! If you so much as forget to tie your shoes, I'm going to lack you out of here so fast it'll make your head spin!"

Leon didn't say a single word to me until we were out in the parking lot and inside the car. Then, before he'd even turned on the ignition, he said, "Well?"

"What?" I said.

He didn't look at me, just clenched the steering wheel and stared out the front window. "Don't do that. Don't you
do
that whole 'What?' thing! Do you know how hard you make it for every other kid at Kindle Home when you pull bullshit like this? Now I want an explanation!"

I turned and stared out a window of my own.

"God
damm
it!" he said. "I just put my butt on the line for you in there! The least you can do is tell me why!"

I didn't say anything, just kept staring out that window.

"Lucy, don't you know I'm trying to
help
you!"

I mustered a cackle. "Yeah, right." Emil had said exactly the same thing--that he was trying to "help" me too.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Leon said.

I looked at him at last. I still had some glare left in me.

"Eat-Their-Young Island?" he said. "You think this means you're going to be sent to Eat-Their-Young Island?" This stopped me cold. I'd never heard an adult refer to Rabbit Island as Eat-Their-Young Island before. Not only didn't they use that expression, they always made a really big deal whenever one of us kids did.

"Doesn't it?" I said.

"It sure don't help," he said. "But it's only your first offense. They never send a kid there after only one offense. Not something like this, anyway."

I shrugged. "It doesn't matter. It's only a matter of time."

"
No
!" he shouted, so loudly I jumped a little in surprise. "You're
not
going there! Not if I can help it."

I looked over at him again. Who the hell was this Leon Dogman guy? But as much as I'd been certain that Emil had been lying to me, I suddenly had this unmistakable feeling that Leon was telling the truth.

"But I can't keep you from going there by myself," he said, more softly. "You have to help."

I looked out the front window. The windshield was getting foggy. Finally, I said, "How?"

"You can start by telling me what happened back in that classroom."

I thought about this. I knew he was probably just humoring me. Or trying to get some dirt on me for my file that he could then use against me later on. But I still had the feeling he was being straight with me. And I sure as hell didn't want to be sent to Rabbit Island.

So I told him everything that had happened with Nate and Alicia in the hallway the day before, and what Nate had said to me in the classroom right before I hit him. The Group Home Code didn't apply to non-group home kids, so I laid it on as thick as I could while still telling mostly the truth.

When I was done, he just sat there, fiddling with his eyebrow ring.

"Do you believe me?" I asked him.

"I don't know," he said. "I just met you. You might be lying."

"I knew it." I tried to sulk, but the truth was, he had a point. We group home kids are pretty good bullshitters.

"You said if I told you what happened, you'd keep me from being sent away," I said.

"No," he said. "I said if you helped me, I'd help you."

"And I helped you!"

"You
started
helping me. But there's still more you have to do. A lot more."

Suddenly, I knew exactly where this was heading. I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it before. I knew now we'd drive to his apartment, or maybe some hotel.

I took a deep breath. "All right," I said. "Let's go."