Trouble Magnet (11 page)

W
e found Willy pounding on the front door. “Hide,” he gasped. “Look who's coming!”

Tito and Frankie Diamond were swaggering down the street. My scalp tingled with fear. “The fort!”

We ran into the jungle across the street.

In the summer Julio and I had dug a pit in
the sand. We'd covered it with boards and jungle trash, so it looked like a pile of rubbish. Inside, a cardboard box made a table, with a candle for light. Hiding in the fort was as good as being invisible.

I lifted a corner of the trash pile. We slipped in and disappeared.

Julio fumbled around in the dark for the matches. He lit the candle. Light wobbled on his face.

“Wow,” Willy said. “This is nice!”

“Sinbad will never find us in here.”

I cocked my ear, listening. I put a finger over my lips. Nobody moved. We sat, silent.

Above, voices mumbled in the jungle.

Thin rays of light streaked through the cracks.

“They're close,” Tito said.

He was nearly on top of us. I blew out the candle.

“I think they went out on the golf course,” Frankie Diamond said.

I heard the crunching of dry leaves and
jungle trash as Tito and Frankie Diamond moved around overhead. I imagined them hunched over, like soldiers on patrol.

The crunching stopped.

I held my breath.

“You smell wax?” Frankie Diamond said.

“Wax?”

“Like a candle.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. Why did I blow it out? Dumb, dumb, dumb.

“I don't smell no wax,” Tito said.

“I do,” Frankie Diamond said.

I looked up through the peepholes in the boards and thought I could see a piece of Tito's back.

“They gone,” Tito said. “We go.”

“Fine, but I'm telling you, I smell …”

Their voices faded away.

I let out my breath. I wanted to say, Man, that was
close!
But I was way too scared.

“Ho,” Julio finally said. “My heart is pounding.”

“What would he do if he caught you?” Willy asked.

“You ever see a cat eat a bird?” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Like that.”

Julio elbowed me. “Let's go on your boat. You're safe on the river, unless Tito swims after you … if he knows how.”

“Yeah,” I said, seeing a small glint of hope. “He can't get us there.”

“Not us,” Julio said. “You.”

I poked my head out of the sand pit. The coast was clear. We crawled out. Willy and Julio followed me through the jungle.

I kept my red skiff in the long swamp grass at the bottom of our yard. Two oars were tucked under the middle seat.

We dragged the skiff to the water. It wobbled as Willy and Julio climbed in. I pushed off and jumped aboard after them.

Willy sat in the bow. Julio settled into the stern seat. I sat in the middle and rowed up-river, not down toward the ocean, where Tito could trap us like mullet in the shallow waters near the beach.

Willy's face lit up. “Look at this place,” he whispered.

Along the shore, a thick mangrove jungle bulged out over the water. Dark, glassy coves sat back in mysterious inlets. If there were
snakes in Hawaii, they'd be hanging like vines from the branches.

Just upriver, a rickety wooden bridge crossed from one side of the river to the other. Golfers pulled their carts over it. Willy looked up at the creaky wood slats as I rowed under it. “This is so awesome!”

“Didn't you have rivers in California?” Julio asked.

“Sure, but not like—”

Julio turned when something plunked in
the water just behind him. “Jeez, those guys follow us around like germs.”

Tito and Frankie Diamond were down by the water in my yard. Tito threw another rock. This time it almost reached the bridge.

I rowed upstream. Fast.

Tito couldn't throw that far.

I let the skiff drift, rowing just enough to keep from moving back downriver.

Tito and Frankie Diamond walked up the slope of my yard and sat on the grass.

“They're going to wait,” Julio said.

I felt sick.

Willy said, “At my old school in Pasa dena, if you let somebody push you around, they'd just keep doing it. But if you stood up to them … sometimes they stopped bothering you.”

“Sometimes?”

“My dad said guys like that are cowards.
And cowards go after cowards, not guys who stand up to them.”

I stared at Willy.

Willy shrugged. “That's what he said.”

“Willy's right,” Julio said. “You can't just sit out here forever. Sooner or later you got to … you know … do something.”

I didn't like where this conversation was going. “What am I supposed to do? Just let him beat me up?”

“No,” Willy said. “You face him down.”

“How?”

Willy squinted across the water at Tito, who was on the grass, leaning back on his elbows. “You'll think of something.”

T
ito stood when the skiff slid into the swamp grass at the bottom of my yard. He was still wearing his ruined
SmackDown
T-shirt. Frankie Diamond leaned back on his hands to watch the show.

We stepped out of the skiff and dragged it farther up into the swamp grass. I stowed the oars under the seat. Take your time.

And think of something!

Tito strolled down to me. “You should know by now that you can't run away from Tito.”

I had to force myself not to jump into the skiff and push it back out into the water.

Julio and Willy retreated when Tito glanced at them.

Up the slope, Frankie Diamond grinned.

Think!

But my mind was blank.

Tito looked down at his shirt. “Look at this. Junk, now. I got to throw it away.”

“It was an accident.”

Tito slammed my chest with the palms of his hands.

I staggered back.

“Oh. Sorry,” Tito said. “That was an accident.”

Think of something! Now!

Tito stepped up to slam me again.

I put up my hand. “Wait! I'll buy you a new shirt.”

Tito laughed. “How? My uncle got me it at
SmackDown.
They gone now, so how you going buy me one new one?”

“I'll … I'll give you something, then.”

“What you got I want? LEGOs?”

Behind him Frankie Diamond stuffed a laugh. Tito turned and grinned at him.

The screen door slapped open, and Tito glanced toward the house. When he saw Stella, his grin turned into a crooked smile.

Stella crossed her arms. Darci stood next to her, both of them watching.

Tito turned back to me. “Like I was saying, Coco-loser … what you got I want?”

“I have … I have …”

“I give you one minute to think of something good,” Tito said. “I'm a generous person.”

Tick … tick … tick.

I thought.

And for once in my life an idea came roaring up. That's it! “I'll introduce you to … her.” I lifted my chin toward Stella.

Tito looked over his shoulder.

Stella squinted, too far away to hear us.

“We're really good friends,” I went on. “She just came to live with us. She has a … a horse.”

Stella glared at me. She knew I was talking about her.