Nekomah Creek (16 page)

I had never understood how Mrs. Van Gent knew so much about our family—the twins, my mother going back to work, my dad staying home.

Now, sitting in class again on Monday morning, looking at Amber’s empty desk, I worried. Did Mrs. Van Gent have secret ways of finding out about all the arguing and yelling at our house?

And Mrs. Perkins—I just hated having to give her Dad’s note saying I’d been sick. She probably guessed the twins were sick too. Probably figured it was because of the apple bobbing.

Well, I’m no dummy. I could see where all this was heading. I had to do something about this, and quick.

I went up to Mrs. Perkins’s desk. I watched her
frown as she stamped each math paper with a smile face.

“Mrs. Perkins? Today’s the day Mrs. Van Gent comes, isn’t it?”

Stamp. Flip. Stamp. Flip. “That’s right. Why?”

I lowered my voice to a whisper. “I was wondering if I could talk to her.”

She stopped stamping and slowly raised her eyes to mine. “You
want
to talk to her?”

I nodded.

“But your father made such a point of saying you didn’t have to.”

Hoo-boy. I looked away from her, then back. “Well, I changed my mind about it. And my parents don’t
mind
if I see the counselor if I want to.” I added this part in case she was still thinking they were trying to hide something.

She sighed and shook her head. “I sure do have a hard time keeping up with you, Mr. Hummer.”

“Well, Robby, this is so nice to see you again.” Mrs. Van Gent gave me her most encouraging smile. “Your teacher says you wanted to talk.”

“Uh, right.”

“Did you think about the things we talked over last time?”

“Yes, I did,” I said, trying to sound confident. “I know you were worried about me, so I just wanted to let you know that everything’s going
better for me. I’ve been playing outside at recess. Games. Regular sports.”

“And how is it?”

“Not so bad.” This was the truth, anyway. “I thought people would make fun of me, but they didn’t.”

“I’m so glad to hear that.”

I nodded, rubbing my shin with my heel, trying to think how to plunge into the not-so-true stuff.

“Um, you might have heard about a picture I drew. Just a silly thing where I’m falling down the stairs with the babies. I didn’t want you to worry about that because it’s not true. We don’t really do that. My folks would never let us. It’s just sort of a fantasy—you know, like unicorns.”

“Oh. Well, actually, no, I hadn’t heard about that.”

“Oh.” A lie for nothing. “Uh, things are going great at our place. My dad’s spending lots of time with me. And he’s really cleaned up his act. The house is … just perfect now. Clean. Everything where it’s supposed to be. One day last week when I got home he had fresh chocolate chip cookies right out of the oven for me.”

“Mmmm. That sounds nice.”

“Uh huh. And uh …” I cast around for more good stuff to say. “Oh. My parents are never fighting. No yelling, ever. And the babies, they’ve been great. The other day, right out of the blue”—I
snapped my fingers—“they potty trained themselves!”

“Really.”

Mrs. Van Gent was starting to look skeptical. Maybe the potty lie was too much. Well, great. She didn’t believe me when I told the truth and she wouldn’t believe me when I lied either.

But I was in too deep to back out now.

“The other good thing,” I said, “is that my dad has a new job.”

“That
is
good news. What kind of a job?”

“Uhhh … a carpenter’s job. Yeah … he’s going to build houses.”

She was smiling now. Maybe she did believe me.

“You know, you’re a very special boy, Robby. I hear all the kids’ problems, but not many would take the trouble to let me know when things start going better. I appreciate that.”

Now it’s rotten when somebody says you’re bad when you’re trying to be good—like my mom yelling at me about leaving her studio door open when I
know
I closed it—but it feels even worse when somebody heaps praise on you for being good when you don’t deserve it.

I guess that’s why my stomach was doing funny things right then. Mrs. Van Gent just sitting there, looking so pretty, smiling at me so nice.

“By the way,” she said, “my husband and I are really looking forward to the gourmet dinner your
dad’s doing for us. It’ll be a great chance to meet your parents.”

My stomach knotted.
Check on your parents
, that’s what she meant. I swallowed hard and nodded.

“My dad’s really a good cook,” I said. Then I added the biggest whopper of all. “Of course my mom’ll have to help him.”

  13  

On Wednesday, just after recess, Mrs. Perkins called me up to her desk.

“I’ve got some exciting news for you, Robert. All the teachers have looked over the dioramas. They’ve looked over the art projects from the other grades too. Everyone thinks yours is the best.”

“Gee.” Some kids coming in were overhearing this, so I felt pleased and embarrassed at the same time.

“We all agree you’ve completely captured the feeling of Nekomah Creek.”

“Really? Oh, I don’t think so at all. I wanted to, but how can you without sounds? I mean like the wind in the trees, and the way the little creeks sound rushing down the—”

“Of course, of course,” she said, “but we all think it’s so cute, the way you even used those bitty electrical bulbs for lighting. Now, you know Mrs. Appleman?”

I nodded. She was the sixth-grade teacher and pretty old.

“Well, she’s retiring and we thought it would be so special to give her something to remember Nekomah Creek by.”

“Yeah …?”

“So your project is the one we’ve chosen!”

I stared at her. “You want to give my diorama to Mrs. Appleman?”

“That’s right. Aren’t you proud?”

“Uh, I guess so, but …” I looked around. I wished Orin’s desk wasn’t so close. I lowered my voice. “I was planning to give it to my dad.”

“Oh, you can always make another one for him. And just think, this is quite an honor. We’ll give it to her at an all-school assembly.”

Mrs. Perkins was smiling at me like she never had before. Somehow I couldn’t look at her. I rubbed my shin with the heel of my other shoe.

“I have to admit,” she said, “I’m really proud it’s one of my students whose project was picked.”

I nodded, not knowing what else to do. Then I went back and dropped into my seat.

Maybe all this should have made me feel good, but it didn’t. Nice that the teachers liked my diorama,
but taking it away from me didn’t seem like much of a reward.

And what would I do about a birthday present for Dad? I didn’t have time to make another diorama. Besides, anyone knows you can never do something like that the same way twice. Even if I could, I didn’t have any more of the lights from my robot costume to put in a new one.

I buried my face in my hands. If I had any guts I’d have told her to forget it. But I couldn’t do that, not the way things were. I had to stay on her good side.

“Oh, too bad,” Orin said to Darrel Miskowiec. “It was for his daddy.”

His voice was right at my ear now, close enough I could feel his breath. “If it’s for your dad,” he said, “how come you didn’t put him in it? You coulda stuck him out front of the house there in his apron, hanging up the laundry.”

“Shut up,” I muttered.

“Boo hoo,” Orin said. “Boo hoo.”

I felt something poking my arm. I moved my hand away from one eye.

“Here’s a little horsey to cheer you up,” Orin said. “Since you like girlie things so much.”

I stared. He was nudging me with a little lavender pony. It had a flowing mane and tail.

It wore a purple bridle studded with rhinestones.

“Orin Downard.” It was Mrs. Perkins. “Please
get back in your seat and keep your hands to yourself.” Then she came around from behind her desk. “What’s that you’ve got there?”

Orin hid the horse behind his back. “Nothing.”

Wordlessly, she held out her hand.

“Just somebody’s stupid ‘My Little Pony,’ ” Orin said, giving it to her.

“Where’d you get this?”

Orin kept his eyes on the floor. “Amber Hixon’s desk.”

“You took it from her desk?”

“Well, she’s gone, ain’t she? Don’t look like she wants it.”

Mrs. Perkins held the little horse in her hands. She looked sad as she gave the flowing mane one long, thoughtful stroke. Then she turned on her heel.

“We’ll see Amber gets this,” she said, and put the pony in her desk drawer. “And you,” she said to Orin, “had best keep your hands off of other people’s things.”

Orin slid back into his desk, surprised that Mrs. Perkins seemed so upset about the toy horse.

Well, it upset me too, somehow. I kept thinking about that purple bridle, about those rhinestones …

  14