Grover G. Graham and Me (3 page)

T
he next week was as chaotic as the first. If Ms. Burkell didn’t call soon, I’d hunt up my own Number Nine.

My second Friday there, I was taking a well-deserved break in Jake’s room, thinking about my plans. I crunched a peanut butter cracker. Mrs. T.’s meals were okay—meat, mashed potatoes, red Jell-O—but I liked having my Jif close by. It gave me the same safe feeling as knowing $129.37 nestled snug in my suitcase and my blue light was tucked in the wall. The same feeling as having my plans stashed in my mind.

I caught crumbs carefully in my palm. Wouldn’t want to mess up Jake’s spread. Wouldn’t want the Torgles complaining to Ms. Burkell that the new kid was being difficult. I crunched again and, in my mind, began to lay out my plans. Even though I’ve laid them out a hundred—a thousand—times before, it is pure pleasure to get them lined up again, all in a row, neat as Saint Jake Jock’s trophies.

I’ve got goals. Most kids in the system have got nothing but dreams. When they grow up—oh, wow!—they’re going to be a rock star or a rich lawyer or a model. Right. They got no plan to go from A to Z.

Me, I don’t jet through the alphabet. I go A, B, C.

1. Start with “now.” I’m eleven years old.
   

2. At eighteen I graduate and leave school, leave the system, leave Greenfield County forever.
   

3. I get a job somewhere nice, maybe Safeway. There are Safeways all over the country. I could go to Wyoming. Or maybe New York City.
   

A, B, C. That’s how my life was laid out.

Bang!
went the door and—wouldn’t you know—the twins barged in.

“Ben,” said one.

“Guess who’s coming?” said the other.

I didn’t even open my mouth. I knew they’d soon answer their own question.

And they did.

“Tracey,” they cried together. “Grover’s mom.”

“Her purse is full of the coolest stuff.” Jango plopped beside me on the bed. “About fourteen lipsticks and black stuff for your eyes.”

“How do you know?”

“Kate looked. Mrs. T. made her apologize.”

I rolled my eyes. “Your snooping is going to get you in
big
trouble someday.”

“Your snooping is going to get you in
big
trouble someday,” Kate mimicked. She sniffed hugely, like
Charmaine. “Peanut butter,” she pronounced. “Are you eating in here? You’ll attract ants, you know. That’s what Mrs. T. says.”

I let her go on and on, knowing she’d soon find another topic.

“Tracey had Grover when she was fifteen or something.”

Here was the new topic.

“Ben, how old are you?”

“Older than you.”

“He’s eleven,” chimed in Jango. “I heard Mrs. T. say.”

Kate gave me this
look.
“So in four years you could have a baby.”

I snorted. “Don’t plan on it.”

“That would make us aunts.” Jango nibbled her Barbie’s foot.

“No, it wouldn’t,” I said. “You have to be related.”

“Well, we could
be pretend
aunts,” Kate said.

“Listen, you guys. You can’t be aunts, pretend or otherwise.” I spoke very slowly so these two ditzes would get it. “There … will… be … no …
baby.”

Jango giggled.

“But we’re aunts to Grover,” said Kate. “Mrs. T. said we could be. You can be his uncle.”

“No thanks.” The twins weren’t going to drag me into any make-believe family. I knew how that went. Kissy-kissy, huggy-huggy—but when foster Mommy and Daddy moved or found you “difficult” or had kids of their own, believe me, you were out the door. I remembered Mrs. Crawdich standing sadly at the window when I left—and quickly blanked her out. It was better to stay free of mush. It wouldn’t be long before Saint Jake Jock had a family of
his own. Once they had grandkids, the Torgles wouldn’t want strays.

Just then we heard the
bumpety-bump
of a car in the rutty drive, and Kate and Jango barged out the door. I stayed upstairs. Quiet in that house was so rare I wanted to enjoy it. Even Charmaine and her knee-cracking tail had disappeared.

I made another peanut butter cracker but couldn’t get my mind back on my list. Maybe the house was
too
quiet. I better go see what those two snoops were into.

As I tromped down the stairs and passed the living room—that shrine to Saint Jake Jock—I caught a glimpse of Grover. The little guy was sitting up, proud as could be, patting a skinny tin case. “Ga-ba-da. Ga-
ba
-da.”

The girl with him had long, frizzy hair and some black goop on her lashes. This was Tracey? She didn’t look much like a mother to me.

“Do you like your present, Grover?” the girl asked.

The kid was scratching, scratching. At a scrawny brush and five dabs of paint.

Was this girl stupid or what? Grover, the human vacuum cleaner, would suck that stuff—
shloop
—straight into his mouth.

Sure enough, out flicked his little red tongue.

“No, Grover,” said the girl.

He lifted the case to his mouth.

“No.”

No
wasn’t going to stop Grover. I remembered him blinking at me when I had yelled the word. Then popping my night-light into his mouth.

“No.” The girl removed the paint case from the pudgy fist.

Of course, Grover howled.

I knew I shouldn’t get involved—this was his mother— but that “waaah” sounded pitiful.

“Hide the paints,” I suggested. “Give him a toy to play with.”

The girl flashed a look at me. Like I was calling her stupid or something. Then her eyes hardened.

“Everyone tries to tell me how to take care of my kid,” she said. “He has to learn the meaning of ‘no.’”

Grover continued to cry.

Poor little guy. I waited for the girl to do something, but she didn’t move. So I reached down and picked the kid up. Pat-pat-patted his back. Grover sniffled once and rubbed his face on my shirt. Tears and drool all over.

That fast, the girl grabbed the baby.

I stumbled back. “Hey! I was just trying to help.”

“I know what to do.”

Grover whimpered and reached for me.

The girl’s face turned red. “You an expert?” she sneered at me, jiggling Grover in a way I knew he hated. “You been raised by a perfect mama?”

Her words stung. What did she know about me or Sarah Jewel? As for “expert,” I probably knew her kid better than she did. Where was she when I was taking care of him every day?

I looked the girl up … down, from the spider-lash eyes to the tight T-shirt to the red stuff on her toenails. “My mama’s probably about as perfect as you,” I said coldly, walking out the door.

Back in Jake’s room I sat on the bed. I tried to blank out the paint set. I tried to blank out the girl.

But there are some things you can’t blank out. What if Grover had choked on that teeny brush? Or poisoned himself with the paints?

I gazed up at Jake’s gold trophy men. It’s not fair, I thought. Some kids get born to two parents, their own rooms, refrigerators stuffed with hot dogs and Twinkies.

And other kids get a mother like Tracey.

I bet Sarah Jewel was like Tracey. If so, I’m glad she disappeared. I’d rather be alone than with a mother like that. I can take care of myself.

But Grover was a baby. Who’d take care of him?

I marched back downstairs, straight to the kitchen, where Mrs. T. was cracking eggs in a bowl.

I said, “Shouldn’t you be supervising?”

Mrs. Torgle’s wrinkles folded up in surprise.

No wonder. Up to this point, our conversations had consisted of her asking whether I wanted more potatoes or Jell-O and me answering yes or no.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Well, if there’s one thing the system teaches, it’s not to squeal. Do you think you’d last long running to foster Mommy with tales about another kid? No. Keep your mouth shut, stay out of the way. That’s the best way to deal.

But here I was, steering dead straight for trouble.

I crossed my arms. “You should be in the living room with Grover.”

Mrs. Torgle put down her spoon. “What’s wrong?”

So I told her. I squealed like a piggy going to market.

Wee-wee-wee.
All about the paint set and the stupid mother and the crying baby.

Mrs. Torgle sighed. “Poor Tracey.”

Poor
Tracey?
What about Grover?

“Tracey had a hard go of it when her parents died. But she’s learning how to take care of her baby. There’s a special class—”

“Well, she’s flunking.”

Mrs. Torgle’s wrinkles settled into a frown. “Don’t be too hard on her, Ben—”

“What did Tracey do,” I interrupted, “that made her lose Grover?”

“She didn’t
lose
him.” A sharp tone edged her words. “This is a temporary arrangement.”

Believe me, I know the system. A mother’s got to mess up bad to lose her baby. Even temporarily. I know kids with more bruises than a stomped-on banana. A gift from home sweet home.

“Grover seems fine now.” Mrs. Torgle listened to the quiet murmurs from the living room. “Would you like to lick the cake bowl?”

It took a moment for her words to sink in. Would I like to lick the cake bowl? Give me a break. I was looking for answers, not some little-kid treat.

I didn’t bother to reply. I’d get the truth from Kate and Jango. Those two snoops were bound to know more than Mrs. T. wanted to tell.

T
he next day, Saturday, Mr. Torgle clapped on his cap, uttered his “ahhh,” and asked if we’d like to go into town. The girls carried on like we were headed to Disneyland.

“Can we go to Uddleston’s, Mr. T.?”

“They have the best milk shakes there.”

I tried to blank out my own excitement. Downtown Greenfield. Big whoop. I wished we could go to the new shopping center that had just opened on Route 3. There was supposed to be a toy store there as big as a barn. I bet it was stuffed with the latest computer games. Right then, though, I’d have gone anywhere. At least visiting stores— even the ones downtown—was better than sweeping floors and watching a sweetgum grow.

As we chugged down that snake-skinny road and onto the highway, the front door beside me jiggled. “Broken lock,” Mr. T. sighed.

“You’ll fix it soon!” Kate yelled from the backseat.

“Better sooner than later,” hollered Jango.

I had to smile. The girls had caught the Torgles perfectly: Mr. T.’s talk about fixing things—that never got fixed—and Mrs. T.’s reply.

“I guess I’m a later man.” Mr. T. grinned at me while the girls giggled. “So, Ben, any place you want to go today?”

I cut my eyes at the man, surprised. Basically I was along for the ride. I never liked to ask for too much. Didn’t want to be difficult.

But even though the twins squealed, “How boring!” when I answered, Mr. T. just nodded. “The library it is,” he said.

Our first stop was the bank, where Mr. T. withdrew a hunk of cash from the ATM. He stuck some of the money in his wallet. The rest went into an old deposit envelope, which he tucked in the glove compartment. “If I lose my wallet,” he explained to the twins, “I’ll still have enough for those milk shakes.”

I thought of the locks on my suitcase. Obviously Mr. T. had never met any light-fingered boys from Saint Stephen’s.

Our second stop was the hardware store where Mr. T. worked. That place was such a jumble of parts and pieces and dusty stuff it’s a wonder the nuts didn’t think they were bolts. That new shopping center on Route 3 was supposed to have a hardware store even bigger than the toy store. I remembered seeing the picture in the newspaper when it opened. Beside it, Mr. T.’s rickety place, with its faded paint, was no better than a nail-selling shack.

But to see the man open the door, you’d think we were strolling into a palace. He said he was going to buy
washers, but I knew better. He really wanted to show off the twins.

Of course, everyone oohed over their identical cuteness, mixed up their names, laughed.

I did my camouflage-fish thing, blending in. I wondered what Grover was doing back at the house. Yesterday he had noticed the gumballs on the sweetgum for the very first time. Playing under the tree’s useless shade, the kid had gazed up, completely amazed. Then, murmuring, “ga-ba-da,” he had reached for the prickly things hanging up there. Like he was trying to be friends.

Funny little guy.

Suddenly, in the hardware store, Mr. T. put his hand on my shoulder. “This here’s Ben,” he announced to nuts, bolts, and people alike. “Smart as they come. And right good with the baby.”

Everyone smiled at me and nodded. I blinked back. I felt like a camouflage fish in the spotlight. Somehow, though, the spotlight seemed inside me, not outside. Kind of glowy.
Smart.
The word repeated in my head. Mr. T.’s hand on my shoulder was heavy and warm.

That glowy feeling hung on as we piled back in the car but dimmed as we drove through town. The broken lock jiggled while I gazed out the window. Everything looked so bleached by the sun that, I swear, this place should be called Fadefield. We passed the dingy cobbler’s, the pharmacy and its cluttered window, the beauty salon where the haircuts all looked the same. The Hartmans’ house, freshly painted not three weeks before, was the hard yellow of a yolk boiled too long. My Number Seven. I wondered if
Kitty and Ken were happy smooching in North Carolina. I blanked out a sudden sadness.

The Torglemobile kept chugging and soon was turning into a parking lot. Seven red letters gleamed on a huge store:
S-A-F-E-W-A-Y.
As its doors parted before me, I stood on the black mat for a moment, looking in. I felt the air, soundless and cool, drying the sweat on my face.

Safeway. Everything here was bright and clean. I liked rolling a wire cart up and down the ten white aisles. I liked choosing one perfect apple from a pile of fruit or comparing the prices of soup.

Shopping with Mr. T. and the twins, though, was nothing like that. Mr. T. read aloud from his list, the girls whizzed the cart, and I tossed—no,
flung
—boxes and cans into it. I bet that wire cart had never rattled so fast.

The twins chattered all the way to our next stop: Uddleston’s, the ice cream shop next to the Greyhound bus station. I remembered trips there with other foster families. I always ordered a vanilla shake, thick and sweet, and tried to make it last.

As I stirred my vanilla shake I watched a Greyhound bus pull up. Sleek and silver. So full of shine it outdid the sun. I watched folks climb down the stairs, swinging their bags and cases. I watched others stepping in.

Where had they come from? Where were they going? I wondered if Sarah Jewel had watched the buses when she was a kid. If that was when her footloose gene had kicked in. I started daydreaming about the day I would be leaving. Leaving Greenfield and not looking back.

“Earth to Ben.” Twin milk-shake slurps and giggles. “Come in, Ben.”

Kate and Jango. Were they ever quiet? They would have
lived
in the time-out closet at the Crawdiches’.

Turning, I caught a look from Mr. T. Almost as if he could see my leaving-town dreams. I let my face go blank.

But all he said was, “Ready for the library?”

When we chugged up, car door jiggling, it was good to see the blue doors again, the space inside neat as Safeway. Almost closing time, but the twins set up such a boo-hoo for library cards that Mr. T. completed the forms right there. I spun the paperback rack, checking out covers, avoiding anything with a rose, a bird, or the color pink. Bound to be mushy.
Where Eagles Dare
showed an icy mountain, a cable car, some guy dropping to his death. I grabbed it and headed for the checkout desk, passing a row of little-kid books.
The Cat in the Hat. One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.
The
Hop on Pop
cover showed two baby bears bouncing on a big one. Like Grover bouncing on Charmaine. Maybe the little guy would like a book. And if he didn’t, at least I wouldn’t be out any cash.

The librarian was looking at me, then at her watch. As I passed the used-book table one title caught my eye.

Baby and Child Care.

I picked up the book. It had a torn cover and dingy pages. It must be a hundred years old.

You an expert?
I remembered Tracey Graham’s sneer.

I glanced at the name of the author. Dr. Benjamin Spock. Doctor. That would make him an expert, right?

I read the back cover. The book was enlarged, revised, updated. And only twenty-five cents. Sure, it was old, but
how much could babies have changed? From all I’ve seen on TV, the basics stay the same. Babies poop, cry, eat, mess with stuff they shouldn’t. I figured I could give the book to Mrs. T. to give to Tracey. It might help more than those classes.