It wasn’t there.
I needed a distraction. “Why exactly was Sophia so angry?” Not that she needed much of a reason.
Now he flushed red, not guilty anymore; he was mad. Furious. “She was stealing your college money. You need that money. It’s yours. So I called her a c—” His eyes slid sideways. “A dirty word. Like I said, she wasn’t as drunk as usual or she wouldn’t have tagged me.”
“Cal, you don’t provoke her. She’s insane.” She wasn’t. She was worse—evil, the Old Testament kind. Grendels and Sophia, they did their best to change my mind about the Fire. “It’s not worth it,” I said, touching a light fingertip to his bruise. “This isn’t worth it.”
The rest of what he said caught up with me. “And you don’t use that word. I know you’re getting older and hearing words like that at school. I know you’ll start using them sooner or later whether I like it or not, but never that word. Girls and women don’t like it and I don’t blame them.”
He leaned his head against mine with an unconscious affection Sophia hadn’t yet managed to tear out of him and considered. “I guess I could’ve called her what the old ladies down the street do. See You Next Tuesday.”
I swallowed an unexpected laugh. “No.”
See You Next Tuesday. That was as bad as when he’d bitten another kid in the first grade. The note he brought from school had said that was often a sign of acting out over issues at home—of which we had more than our fair share. A very unfair share in fact. When I’d asked Cal why he’d done it, he’d answered all innocence, “Because I wanted to know what he tasted like.”
All right, we had different issues from most people. When I broke Sophia’s arm, we’d have more, but that was life.
Our life anyway.
“Back in bed. I’ll get some ice for your bruise and get Mrs. Spoonmaker to call us in sick. No school for us today.” Whenever we moved, I made friends with the older ladies on the block starting the first day. They all ended up hating Sophia, but Cal and me, they felt sorry for us. And if I paid them five dollars, they’d pretend to be our grandmother and call us in sick if needed as Sophia was passed out most mornings.
He was back under the covers as quick as a cat finding a patch of sun and already yawning, looking forward to a lazy morning. “Mrs. Spoonmaker? She smells like kitty litter and Vaseline, but I like her. She always has Oreos. Bring me back some.”
“If anyone can teach me to find the silver lining, it’s you,” I said. Cal didn’t stop surprising me with his ability to bounce back from anything. And, yes, his ball bounced in strange, wild directions compared to everyone else’s, but what did that matter? “Cal, this won’t happen again. I’ll take care of Sophia. I promise.”
“I know that, Nik.” He said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, with faith unbreakable in every word. He then pulled the covers over his head, blocking out the pale morning light and the chill that came with it. It made his next words muffled. “And it’s the chocolate lining. Look for the chocolate lining. It’s better than silver.”
I snagged his pajama top off the fan and stuffed it under the covers with him. “Thanks for the lesson, grasshopper.”
My instructors had given Cal the nickname when I’d first talked my way into free lessons at the age of ten. Whether it was karate, jujitsu, Krav Maga, kickboxing . . . every master took one look at a six-year-old Cal tagging along with me and he was grasshopper from then on. I picked up the habit. I even knew where it came from. It wasn’t as if we could afford cable. They played a whole lot of shows made before I was born on the four channels our Sophia-boosted TV received.
I gave Cal ice wrapped in a ragged dish towel, locked the door behind me, and headed across the street. Mrs. Spoonmaker was sympathetic about Cal’s “flu” and quick to take the five bucks. Cal had been right. Sophia had taken my money, but only some of it. I had several stashes. Sophia could smell money. I’d be an idiot to put all my eggs in one basket. Mrs. Spoonmaker also gave me Oreos without my having to ask. Cal was hitting her up hard and often. I should warn him not to take advantage, but if we didn’t—if we hadn’t, we wouldn’t have made it this long.
I was walking back, plastic bag of cookies in hand, when I spotted our neighbor. Cal’s serial killer. He was picking up his paper from the tiny scrap of front yard. He was in sweats like me and a ragged terry cloth robe, but slightly blue bare feet. It was going to be full-on winter in another month or so. No bare feet then.
I seized the opportunity. “Excuse me, sir.” I didn’t believe he was a killer, but there was no harm in being polite. Just in case. He lifted his head from the paper and blinked at me. He had soft brown eyes, drooping at the edges, like a tired old hound dog. Friendly and happy, but ready to leave the running to the pups while he lay on the porch. In reality he was likely in his mid-thirties. It didn’t matter. Most people in this neighborhood looked at least ten to twenty years older than they were. They were either honest and worked far too hard for far too little or they were into drugs and nothing aged you like that, selling or buying.
This tired old dog also had a bit of a beer belly or fast-food flab and a receding jaw to match his receding hairline. He also had a small silver cross around his neck that looked like it had been worn to the brightest of shines from frequent fingering. He gave me a tentative smile that showed a gap between his two front teeth. “Can I help you, son?” He had a slight stammer, his eyes blinking more often as he spoke. Embarrassment, he hadn’t outgrown. Obvious signs and easy to read. Sophia was no kind of mother, but watching her work taught you things that were helpful. Since I didn’t use those things to steal, I didn’t feel guilty for using it for other things.
“Yes, sir. I was wondering where you worked. I’ve been looking for a job.” Not true. I had two part-time jobs already, but a harmless lie was the best way to bring Cal around to the truth.
“Sir?” He blinked again, more of a hound dog than ever. “I ain’t sure anyone’s ever called me sir. You can call me Junior.” He turned the paper over in his hands. His accent was a little Southern. We’d been all over the country. His wasn’t as far south as Georgia, more like Kentucky somewhere. His watery eyes looked me up and down, wary. While Cal looked younger, I looked older. I could pass for seventeen easily. And seventeen in this neighborhood was more than old enough to force you back in your house, take everything not nailed down, and stab you with a rusty five-dollar switchblade. I tried to look harmless, another trick I’d learned from Sophia—who was anything but.
Junior seemed reassured. “Well, son, I work in the hospital cafeteria. No openings there, sorry ’bout that. But if you go by human resources, they post pages and pages of jobs on a bulletin board outside the office. Might find something there.”
“Thank you, sir . . . Junior.” I gave him a friendly smile with no thought behind it. My mind was already elsewhere as I moved the fifteen feet over to our rented house. I didn’t think orderlies took a shortcut through the cafeteria to the morgue with the deceased patients, but hospitals were all about the sick and the dying. Maybe Cal’s nose had picked up on that. Or the smell of blood passing from a surgeon to this guy dishing up his mashed potatoes and gravy.
It was possible.
Cal didn’t agree.
He’d already wolfed down a cookie while telling me with a full mouth that was bullshit at the same time I was telling him eggs first, dessert later. No teacher could instruct you in multitasking and how to fail at it spectacularly as raising a preteen. Cal had deserted his bed to follow me to the kitchen. Followed the bag of cookies rather as I started scrambling an egg. “So why is it bull . . . I mean, not true? And I told you about the bad language.”