Immortal Max (4 page)

I let out another loud sigh.

The bus door grinds open at the first stop, a white blocky building with a circle driveway. The sign outside the covered entry is bright green with
MIDWEST JEWEL INN
written across it in white paint.

Holding George's cage, Sid grins at me. “Maybe you can come see me this summer. And bring your scrapbook? I know very little about dogs and would like to learn more. If no guests are using the pool, we can go for a swim.”

“Well,
maybe
. I have to help my mom in the plant shed and watch Rosie when's she gone. But if I get a free day, I'll call.”

Sid's smile fades. His shoulders slump.

I get it. He doesn't think I'll call him.

“But hey, maybe you can come to
my
house. We don't have a place to swim, but we have big shade trees in the backyard so it's a cool place to hang. And bring George, we'll let him out of his cage.”

“That would be stupendous.” Sid is all smiles again. “I can strap George's cage on the back of my bike.” A frown replaces the smile. “Of course, it depends on the pageant. I have to help my parents build a stage and set up chairs—”

Suddenly, Sid's mouth freezes in the shape of an O. Quickly, he turns to face the kids on the bus. “Our motel is hosting a contest this summer!” he yells. “A Little Princess Beauty Pageant. It is a big deal for us, so please show the slips I gave you to your parents.”

He exits the bus, grinning. “I will call you later, Sammy.”

“A beauty pageant? For
real
?” Rosie's face is a hundred-watt bulb. “What slip's he talking 'bout?”

Bailey pulls out her yellow slip. Yee and Anise look at theirs, too. Curious, I dig mine out of my backpack.

“June fifteenth!” Rosie's eyes turn to round saucers. The bus seat a trampoline. “But today is June first. I have to enter quick. I always wanted to be a princess.”

“Not so fast, Rosie.” I read the slip again. “Where you gonna get the money to enter?”

“It costs money? How much? I got five dollars and thirty-nine cents in my bank.”

“Doesn't say . . .” Bailey pauses, reading her slip again, too. “But your mom can call and find out. And you can still be thinking about your costumes and the talent show—” Bailey starts bouncing on the seat, too. “
Ohmigosh
, I can design your costumes—just like on TV. It'll be my first professional job.”

Forget the tiara. . . .

“Cool,”
Rosie says. “And I got lots of talent. I can sing and dance, and I already have a costume. A ballerina tutu.”

“That won't work.” Yee looks up from her yellow slip. “At
least, not for the ethnic beauty contest. Your costume needs to portray your cultural roots.”

“What's cultural roots?” Rosie twists in her seat so she's facing Yee.

“Like Chinese American. If I were going to enter, which I'm not because I'm too old, I would dress up as Fu Hao. You know, someone Chinese.”

“I never heard of Hu Fao,” Bailey says.

“Fu . . . Hao.”
Yee's face pinches up, like she's in pain. “She was a high priestess and military general in the Shang dynasty. If I were going to enter, that's who I would go as.”

“And I'm African American,” Anise says. “So if I were entering, I would dress as Cleopatra.”

“Cleopatra wasn't African. She was Egyptian.”

“I believe Egypt's in Africa, Sammy,” Bailey whispers across the aisle to me.

“Oh . . . yeah.”

Anise claps her hands. “No, wait—I'd wear my
Igbo Mmwo
costume.”

“Your
what
?” Yee's eyebrows turn into little black worms wiggling across her forehead.

“
Ig-bo Mm-wo
. It means ‘maiden spirit.' They're
humongous
costumes. Bright colors and weird designs all over them. The mask hides your face so no one can tell who you are. My oldest sister had one but she didn't want it anymore so she gave it to me.” Anise pauses. “But I don't wear it because it's a keepsake. Besides, I'm almost twelve—
way
too old.” “I don't have a little sister,” Bailey says. “Or an older one, either. I'm an only child.”

Lucky her.

“I do,” Justin says, butting in again. “My little sister Patty's been taking dance since she was three. She's really good at Polish dances 'cause that's what we are.” He glances at Yee and Anise, looking smug. “Wysocki's a Polish American name. I bet Mom enters her right away. She's dying for her to become a New York model.”

“What's my culture, Sammy?” Rosie looks at me, eyes expectant.

“You don't have one.” Our house is the next stop, so I slip into my backpack.

Rosie's eyes dissolve. Two Alka-Seltzer tablets in water.

“But if I don't have a culture,” she says, “I can't be in the contest.”

“Come on.” Bailey leads Rosie to the bus door. “Your mom can call and get more information.”

Yee tugs my sleeve and leans close. “We need to check on some things, then we'll call you.”

“Yeah . . .” Anise glances at Justin. “When the
Jerk
's not around.”

Why are they whispering?

Bailey hears them, of course. “Call me, too.” She's also whispering. “You can get me a gate pass, and I'll bike out so we can practice together. I've been
dying
to see what CountryWood's like.”

Yee and Anise morph into stone statues.

“Okay?” Bailey's smile is plastic now.

Yee and Anise nod. Barely.

Though Bailey doesn't stop smiling, I know she reads the same thing in those nods that I do. She's not going to get a call from either of them.

I follow her and Rosie off the bus, take a last look at the Burbies lining the windows, and exhale slowly, relieved to be rid of them. As the bus starts up, Justin's face appears at the rear window. An
L
pressed to his forehead. His mouth, grinning ear to ear.

My face flames. My hands clench into fists.

As the bus rolls away, the tailpipe stutters
a-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh
.

Aww, man.

Like always, Max is waiting on the side of the road, imitating a pile of dead brush. Everything sticks to him like Velcro. Sticks.
Leaves. Bird feathers. Stringy hair covers his eyes, a shaggy curtain he peeks through. His nose glistens like a shiny black ball, perpetually wet. The first thing he does is stick his nose in my hand, giving it a big slurpy lick.

“Not now, Max.” I push him away and wipe drool on my pant leg.

He walks over to Rosie, but she pushes him away, too. “Go 'way, Max. I've got to find Mama.” She runs toward the plant shed, the pageant slip a paper butterfly fluttering in her hand.

Max migrates to Bailey, but she's hypnotized. Eyes glued on the school bus, she watches as it rounds the corner for Country-Wood and disappears in a brown dust cloud.

“We've been here longer than they have,” she mumbles. “Why are
we
the outsiders?”

I figure Bailey isn't expecting me to answer, so I don't. At least she's stopped smiling. She's always Miss Happy Face with everyone else. I don't know why I'm the only one she shows that other face. The real one.

“See you tomorrow, Sammy.” Bailey heads for an old white farmhouse across the road, cradling her treasure chest. A cardboard box filled with purple-and-orange plastic strings stapled to sticks.

On the way to the house, the show-and-tell begins to replay. A bad movie on rewind.

Did I
really
brag that I would make hundreds of dollars this summer?
And
buy a pedigreed puppy?

A lopsided shadow streams ahead of me, pointing the way. Mine and Max's, blended together. I had forgotten about him.

“Go away, Max. I just want to be alone.” Our shadows stay linked.

Dumb old dog.

Leaving Max and his shadow on the back porch, I trudge upstairs to my bedroom, toss my backpack in the closet, and flop
on the bed. Summer has finally started, but the excitement I felt this morning has faded.

Just once, couldn't something go my way?

“Samuel Smith! Get down here this minute!” Mom's voice is loud. So loud, I can hear it all the way from the plant shed.

And she called me Samuel.

Great, just great. What've I done now?

“How could you tell Rosie she was uncultured?” Mom is wearing her furious face. A traffic light blinking chili-pepper red. “Are you ashamed of us? Is that it? Why? Because we live in an old house instead of a . . . a warehouse with cement floors and granite countertops? I'll have you know this house has an upstanding history. It was built the same year Lincoln freed the slaves. Why, it could be on the historic register . . . if we had the money to restore it.”

“I didn't mean it like that, Mom. I like our house. It's cool. Not because of that historic stuff. Because it belonged to Grandpa before we moved in.”

Our house is made of limestone blocks. Settlers who came to the Midwest dug quarries in the hillsides and chiseled building stones out of huge chunks of limestone. A lot of the houses they built are still lived in. Like ours.

“Then why?” Mom's faded blond hair is tied on her neck. Her chambray shirt is dirt-stained. Her jeans are grubby at the knees. “It's because I do this kind of work, isn't it?” She holds out her hands, studying fingernails worn to nubs.

Mom's sore spot is showing. Someone has made her feel like they're better than she is. When she's really tired, she talks to herself. Saying things like
What's so important about Bluetooth technology?
And
When did a secretary become an executive assistant?
And
So what if I don't know how to play Mah-jongg?
Mom didn't go past high school, but that didn't matter until Dad died. She's determined that Rosie and I go to college. Like Beth.

“Not that, either.” I tell her about the bus ride home, replay the talk about cultures, and watch the traffic light blink from red to normal: suntanned and weathered. “Read the slip, Mom.”

Her face blinks red again, from embarrassment this time. She turns to Rosie and wipes tears off her freckled cheeks. “I didn't understand, Rosie. You see, everyone has a culture, ours is just mixed up. We have a little bit of a lot of things in us. That's the way it is for people who've been in this country a long time.”

Rosie's eyes light up. “So I can dress up as anything I want?”

Mom nods.

“Then I want to be an Igloo Mojo. I just know Anise will loan me her costume.”

I groan and tell Mom about Anise's
Igbo Mmwo
costume and Yee's talk about Chinese warrior priestesses.

“Maybe I spoke too soon.” Mom's eyes blink slowly. “Some things we're not. Chinese or African, for example. But we are part Scottish. And
Indian
, too.”

“We're Indian like Sid?”

I let out a bigger groan and explain that Sid is from the
country
of India.

“No, not that kind of Indian.” Mom blows out her breath, looking tired. “I don't have any proof of it, but your grandpa told me once we were part Chippewa. A great-great-grandmother, I think.”

I envision a pink feather headdress, green sequins on fake buckskin, and tell Mom that Bailey wants to design Rosie's costumes. “But since we can't
prove
we're Indian, maybe Rosie should dress up as someone from Scotland.”