Lost in the Sun (14 page)

I didn't tell Mom I knew about her and Ray. I was going to. I was going to tell her that it was great, I didn't care, I was happy for her, only why hadn't she told me? But by the time she got home, after Game 5 was well over and the stupid Orioles were the stupid World Series champs, she wasn't exactly in the mood to talk to me.

That's what she said to me as soon as she walked through the door and I opened my mouth to tell her I knew. “I'm not exactly in the mood to talk to you, Trent,” she said to me. “Do you know who I got a phone call from at work today? Your teacher,” she said, like I couldn't guess. “Ms. Emerson. Why didn't you tell me you were failing P.E.?”

Why didn't you tell me you were kissing your boss?
That's what I wanted to say. But I didn't. I can be smart sometimes.

So I stood there, and I listened to her yell at me. Listened to her
tell me that there was no way a smart kid like me was going to fail sixth grade. That she'd drag me to that basketball program kicking and screaming every Saturday if she had to. That wasn't I lucky I had such wonderful teachers who cared about me as much as Ms. Emerson and Mr. Gorman, that they'd go to all that trouble to find a makeup program for me when I couldn't even be bothered to get my rear end off the bleachers and play
dodgeball
?

I listened to it all. Didn't say a word, because I wasn't supposed to. Then I went to my room, because Mom was too mad to look at me. And when Aaron and Doug got back from dinner with Dad, I didn't much feel like looking at either of them, so I stayed in my room.

If I could've stayed in there for the rest of time, I would've. But even screw-ups have to leave their rooms sometime.

•   •   •

The next day was Halloween, and I think Mom really wanted to “ground the living tar” out of me, but since she wasn't going to be home, she decided to drag me with her to the store to hand out candy. I wasn't complaining. It was pretty much the world's best grounding.

Cedar Haven, California, didn't have a whole lot going for it 364 days of the year. But Halloween, that one it did right. All of Main Street shut down to traffic, from about four o'clock on. Not a single car was allowed through, only people. And all of the shop owners stayed open late, handing out candy to trick-or-treaters. Not the cheap kind of candy, either—Blow Pops and cracked peppermints with their wrappers half melted off. No, every single one of the shops handed out real candy, the good kind. Snickers. Kit Kats. Twix. Skittles. M&M's.
A kid could make out like a bandit on Halloween in Cedar Haven. I was too old to go trick-or-treating anymore, but I got to keep one piece of candy for every twenty I gave away, that was Mom's rule, so I still made out like a bandit.

This year I was the only one helping Mom because Aaron was out with Clarisse (even if he
still
kept trying to insist they weren't dating), and Doug had decided he
wasn't
too old for trick-or-treating, and was out with his two favorite girls in the entire world, Annie and Rebecca.

I thought I was in for an evening of handing out candy and pretending I didn't know about Mom and Ray, because it didn't exactly seem like the right time to bring it up, what with Mom practically wanting to murder me and all. But just about six o'clock, after I'd handed one kid ten whole pieces of candy just so I could eat a mini Twix, Fallon showed up.

“Hi, Mrs. Zimmerman!” she said to my mom, and my mom let her squeeze past the trick-or-treaters into the store.

“Hello, dear,” my mom said, smiling big like she really was thrilled to see her. Fallon had been right—moms did love her. “It's nice to see you.”

“What are you supposed to be?” I asked her. “A hippie?” She was wearing a big flowy skirt, and a dark green flowery top, with a woven leather belt at her waist. She even had bells in her hair, with braids.

“These are just my clothes,” Fallon told me. But she didn't look upset about me thinking it was a costume.

I didn't understand girl fashion at all.

“Anyway,” Fallon said, “I'm glad you're here.” She was standing right behind where Mom and I were handing out candy in the doorway, and started digging through my plastic pumpkin for candy bars, totally interrupting my trick-or-treat flow. I slapped her hand away. “I wanted to see if you'd go to the scary movie with me,” she said, unwrapping the mini Snickers she'd snagged and taking a big bite.

The movie theater showed a free scary movie every year on Halloween, except it was only scary if you were two. They were usually from about a million years ago, and almost always in black-and-white. I hadn't gone in years.

Still, getting away from the Angriest Mom on the Planet didn't sound like the worst idea. I craned my neck around the gaggle of kids currently begging me for candy, until I could see the marquee across the street.

“I Was a Teenage Werewolf,”
I read.

“Yeah,” Fallon said. “I already watched the trailer online. It looks
terrible
!” I'd never seen anyone so excited about going to a terrible movie before. “With, like,
the
worst special effects. And wait till you hear this tagline.” She shifted her shoulders back, stood up a little straighter, and put on her best movie-trailer voice. “‘You'll fall flat on your face'”—she paused for dramatic effect, and her eyes went huge on either side of her scar—“‘
with terror!
' Seriously, doesn't that sound amazing?”

I couldn't help it. I laughed.

“Can I go, Mom?” I asked. I wasn't super hopeful about it, but I figured if anyone could convince her, it was Fallon.

Sure enough, Fallon jumped up and down and said, “Please,
pretty
please,
Mrs. Zimmerman?” She swept the back of her hand up to her forehead like she was a swoony lady in an old-fashioned movie. “If I don't go, I just might
die.
”

“All right,” Mom said at last, with only a hint of a sigh. “You can go. But only to the movie and back. I expect you back here the second it's over.”

“Deal,” I told her. And I didn't wait another second. I handed her my plastic pumpkin full of candy, and Fallon and I pushed our way through the mountain of kids at the door.

“You don't even know how big I owe you right now,” I told Fallon as we made our way through the sea of costumes to the theater.

“I'll keep that in mind,” she said with a smile.

•   •   •

“Hey there, Trent,” Mr. Jacobson greeted me as he handed Fallon and me each a blue ticket from a giant roll like they have for raffles at carnivals. The Halloween movie was free, but there were only so many seats, so you needed a ticket. “Hi, Fallon.” So I guess Mr. Jacobson knew her, too. “Your dad on duty today?”

“Yep,” Fallon said.

“Well, you tell him thanks for keeping our community safe,” Mr. Jacobson said.

I wondered how a perfectly pleasant person like Mr. Jacobson could have such a terrible son like Jeremiah. I wondered if Mr. Jacobson knew that his son was terrible, and if he felt bad about it, if he stayed up late at night wondering where he had gone wrong in raising his monster of a child.

“Better hurry and get a good seat,” Mr. Jacobson told us. “The theater's really filling up.”

“Thanks.”

While Fallon went to load up on popcorn, I hurried to the bathroom.

And so obviously that's exactly where I whammed right into Jeremiah.

Wham!

He was right behind the door, standing there with one of those industrial-sized toilet paper rolls hanging off each arm. Noah Gorman was in the bathroom, too, picking his teeth or whatever he was doing in front of the mirror at the row of sinks. There were probably eight other people in there, peeing, washing their hands, doing things you do in bathrooms. So of course Jeremiah was the one I whammed into.

“Oh, sorry, didn't see you there,” Jeremiah said, eyes on the ground as he shuffled away from the door. And then, one second later, he looked up and noticed that it was me who'd accidentally whammed into him, and not some super-important movie theater customer like he must've originally thought. Which I guess is also the moment he realized he'd just apologized to me. Which, as you can guess, he didn't seem too happy about.

“Look where you're going, butthole.” That's what he said.

I guess I could've let it go. Not said anything. Peed and washed my hands and gone to see the movie, no problem. But I didn't exactly feel like peeing in front of Jeremiah Jacobson, even if he couldn't think of a worse thing to call me than “butthole.” So instead, I
decided to hold it, and I spun around on my heel, heading back toward the door. And okay, I'll admit it, I sort of not-so-accidentally
whammed
my shoulder into Jeremiah's as I went by.

“You already peed yourself?” Jeremiah called after me as I opened the door.

“Nah,” I said, walking out into the lobby of the theater. “I'm just gonna whizz all over the floor later, so you'll have to clean it up.”

And I really thought that would be that. I guess I thought I could get the last slam in, just this once, maybe.

I guess I thought wrong.

Thump!

Thump!

The sound of two industrial-sized toilet paper rolls hitting the floor.

A hand on my shoulder.

“What did you say to me?” That was Jeremiah, obviously.

I took a deep breath. “I said,” I told him over my shoulder, and I tried to think my words through very carefully as I said them. I could feel the rage building up in my chest, the hot, angry fire, and I didn't feel like ignoring it this time.

“I said that you couldn't tell a butthole from your own face.”

It was pretty obvious, from the way Jeremiah tightened his grip on my shoulder, that he wanted to punch me, and wanted to punch me hard. It was also obvious, from the way his face fell when I turned around to look at him, that there was no way he was going to do that in his parents' movie theater.

I grinned at him. “You're supposed to tell me to enjoy my movie,” I said, pulling my shoulder away.

“You're right,” Jeremiah called after me as I walked away. He was so mad, his voice shook a little. “I hope you and the Bride of Frankenstein have a wonderful time.”

It didn't take longer than a blink for all the rage I'd been carrying around to boil over.

Before I knew it, I had Jeremiah Jacobson pressed against the wall, his back slammed into the drinking fountain, and I was giving it to him. Punching my fists into his ugly little face, and it hurt my knuckles, it burned, but I didn't care, because the burning in my knuckles was better than the burning in my chest, so I kept going,
pound pound pound.
And Jeremiah was grabbing at me, trying to get a punch in, a kick in, but he gave up, he couldn't get me anywhere, I was too fast—
pound pound pound
—so he grabbed my hair, but that wasn't going to do it. I threw my head forward—
whack!
—and slammed him farther into the drinking fountain, and I must've set it off spurting when I slammed him, because I heard the
whish!
of it, the stream of water, and that was the first sound I remembered hearing, but after that it was like I was bombarded with sound. Jeremiah groaning, shouting at me. Screams from the crowd in the lobby. Popcorn popping. Noise from the theater as the door opened and movie trailers got louder. And a holler, a real holler, as I was wrenched off Jeremiah.

“Get
off
him, Trent, jeez!”

It was Noah Gorman. He tossed me back, and I fell to the ground. Noah propped up Jeremiah, slumping over the drinking fountain. He
was wet, down his front, and I didn't know if it was water from the drinking fountain or if he'd peed himself.

“Oh, my God.”

I'd been in a haze, I guess, with the rage and the punching and the fire and everything. But when I heard Fallon's voice, I snapped back. Fallon was standing, not ten feet away, holding a jumbo tub of popcorn, and she was staring at me, her mouth hanging open. But only for a second. Because as soon as her eyes caught mine, she dropped the popcorn. Right on the floor, kernels everywhere.

And she ran out the door.

I wanted to run after her, tell her to wait, but I couldn't. Just at that moment I was yanked off the ground and slammed into the drinking fountain myself. At first I thought it was Jeremiah, back to really take a go at me, or maybe Noah, even, deciding to beat the crap out of me for beating the crap out of his best friend. But it wasn't.

It was Mr. Jacobson. Jeremiah's dad.

“You do
not,
” he shouted—and he didn't need to shout, seriously, because he was only one inch from my face, but I guess he felt like shouting anyway—“mess with my son. Do you hear me?”

Of course I heard him. He was shouting into my face. I looked over my shoulder at the floor, where the popcorn kernels made a yellow rug.

“Do you hear me, you little creep?”
Mr. Jacobson shouted at me. He shook me as he said it, too.

I blinked and focused back on him. And when I looked at his face, it was like I could see into his brain, hear the thoughts that he was thinking.

You killed one kid already,
that's what he was thinking.
I'm not going to let you do it again.

The fire twisted in my chest. It wrenched at me, pulled all my internal organs up into my throat, until they were choking me. I couldn't swallow.

I couldn't breathe.

I broke free of Mr. Jacobson's grip, because I needed air. I needed to go outside. My face was wet. I needed air. I needed to find Fallon.

“Don't think I won't tell your mother about this!” Mr. Jacobson shouted after me as I ran out the door.

I didn't care. I was running, pushing through the zombies, the witches, the ninja turtles, trying to find her. Fallon.