The Old House (14 page)

“She
likes nothing better than to find out what's wrong with everybody, and then make a big public display of it. If you go in with a cast on your arm, she has to know how you broke it, and all the particulars, then tell all the details to the whole class. When she had her gallbladder out we got to know all about it, including how she threw up from the anesthetic. I was surprised she didn't show us the scar. So if I were you, I'd keep quiet about how your dad disappeared. She'll make a federal case of it, for sure. She probably already knows about Pa falling down and getting a concussion. I guess everybody in Hayseed knows.” He sounded glum.

Buddy decided her stomach was too uneasy to finish her breakfast. “Hayseed? Is that what you call Haysville?”

“It's a hayseed town. Nothing happens here. No movies, no bowling alley, a library that's only open two days a week. Everybody knows everybody else's business, and they tell. Don't be surprised if people ask you about Pa, and Grandpa, and all your own business that's none of theirs.”

For a few more minutes Buddy lingered, hoping against hope that Bart would call with good news and make going to school today unnecessary.

But the phone was stubbornly silent. Talking clock going off every few minutes, Grandpa retreated to his bedroom, refusing Cassie permission to come and straighten it up. There was nothing to do but leave.

Buddy had expected that Max would not even want to be seen walking to school with her, but he fell into step beside her. Obviously he had decided the smell would be gone from his room, or if it wasn't, the class would have to use it, anyway.

“I've been a Hayseed all my life,” Max said. “My mom liked it here when she first came, she said. She liked a small, friendly town. Until Pa took to drinking too much, and everybody in town knew about it. Nobody actually came out and said anything to
her
about him, but she said she always knew they were thinking about it. It was humiliating and embarrassing.”

“Where is she now?” Buddy asked, grateful that she wasn'
t making this walk alone. She saw other kids heading toward the school, too, and some of them glanced at her curiously, but none of them spoke except a couple of boys who greeted Max.

“Last two letters came from Fort Worth. Texas, you know. She said she had a good job there, and had met an interesting man. They were just friends, but she liked him a lot. She sent me money for some new jeans and a shirt. She said she'd have sent more but she wanted to save enough so maybe by next summer she can get me a bus ticket and I can go see her. I was never in Texas, but I've read about it a lot. I hope I get to go.”

“I hope you do, too,” Buddy said sincerely. She wondered where she would be next summer, or even if she might still be stuck here in Hayseed. It seemed a more appropriate name than Haysville.

That morning there were kids in the office at the school, along with Mr. Faulkner and Sylvia. The secretary was speaking sharply to a tall, unkempt-looking girl dragging a battered backpack on the floor.

“I've told
you before, Myra, you can't come to school smelling like horse liniment and the barnyard. The other kids refuse to sit next to you.”

“I can't help it,” Myra whined. “My ma makes me.

“Then tell your mother I want to talk to her. You'll have to take a bath before you come to school.”

“There's no hot water. The heater's broke, and we can't get a new one until Dad gets paid next week. I'm not taking a bath in cold water, even if I have to stay home from school,” Myra said defiantly.

“You have a kitchen stove, don't you? Put some water in a pan, heat it on the stove, and take a sponge bath. And use soap, or that smell won't come off.” Sylvia glanced past the unhappy student and saw Buddy. “Oh, good morning, Amy Kate. I'll be with you in just a minute. Now, Myra, you can ask Mrs. Murphy if she wants you to stay and sit in the back away from everyone else, or go home and scrub up before you come back. Dust yourself with baby powder afterward; that might help.”

Myra turned sullenly away from the desk, and Buddy felt a moment of compassion for her. The girl might not be homeless, living in a car, but she certainly had problems.

“Now,” Sylvia said, smiling, “let's see who we can find to take you to your room.” She glanced around the office at the milling kids, most of them looking unhappy. “Sara Jenks, you're in Mrs. Hope's homeroom. Will you take Amy Kate back with you, please, and introduce her?”

Sara was a small, thin girl with very thick glasses. “I need a pass to leave school at eleven o'clock,” she said, giving Buddy only a cursory glance. “Mom's got a doctor's appointment in Kalispell this afternoon, and I have to go along and baby-sit Junior.”

Sylvia's smile congealed. “I told your mother she can't keep taking you out of school to baby-sit, Sara.”

The girl shrugged. “You want me to bring him to school with me? He's only eight months old, and we can't leave him home alone. I gotta go unless I can keep him with me here, and Mrs. Hope didn't like it the last time. Everybody
wanted to play with him and didn't pay any attention to her.”

Sylvia appeared to grind her teeth. “Well, I'll give you the pass this time, but you tell your mother I need to talk to her about this. She'll have to make other arrangements for the baby next time.” She scribbled out a pink pass and handed it over. “Now, show Amy Kate where to go, all right?”

The girl said nothing to Buddy, who simply followed her out of the office. The hallway was full of noisy kids, laughing, yelling, and shoving. Sara led the way up the stairs, turning to the right at the top. She didn't speak until they'd reached the door of a room with a sign on it that said
MRS. HOPE.

“You the one who's been abandoned?” she asked then.

Buddy's heart was jolted. “No! My dad went away to take a new job, and something happened to him, but my brother's looking for him. I'm only staying with my aunts until they come get me.”

Sara nodded. “Everybody talks in this town, but they never get anything right. If they tell you my mom'
s got cancer, it's not so. She's getting treatment for a disease with a big, long name, but it's not cancer. She's going to get better.”

“I'm glad,” Buddy said, and she was. “My mom died in a car wreck.”

Sara opened the door to Mrs. Hope's room and moved toward the teacher's desk. She laid the pink slip in front of the middle-aged lady and said, “This is Amy Kate, but they call her Buddy.”

Buddy certainly hadn't told her that. Her ears felt hot, knowing that people were talking about her, and they were saying things that weren't true. Her dad never would have abandoned her and Bart.

“Hello, Buddy,” Mrs. Hope said.

Several kids snickered, and one boy even asked under his breath, “What kind of name is that for a girl?” Buddy felt the heat creep up her neck, flooding her face.

Mrs. Hope was scowling at the pink slip. “Again? Sara, how do you expect to keep up your grades if you keep missing school?”

Buddy didn't listen to their conversation.
She was acutely aware of the other kids, already in their seats, watching her. Two girls sitting next to each other leaned toward the middle of the aisle, putting their hands over their mouths as they whispered and laughed.

At what, she wondered? Her name? Her red face? Her haircut, or her clothes?

What if Bart and Dad didn't come for her soon? She'd have to stay here, going to this school, with these kids whose eyes appraised her hair and her clothes and everything about her. They probably all believed that she'd been abandoned. The heat spread from her ears to her cheeks, and she was helpless to control it.

“Class,” Mrs. Hope announced, “this is Amy Kate, but she likes to be called Buddy.”

Buddy wanted to speak out and deny that, to tell them to call her by her real name, but her tongue seemed to be stuck to the roof of her mouth. She couldn't make a sound.

“Maybe she'll tell us, when we get better acquainted, how she came by that nickname. There's an empty seat in the second row, there, beside Elinor. Just take that desk.”

Buddy slid into the designated seat, which felt strange, as if it didn't fit her. She resented having to be here, when she was only going to be in town for a few more days. Surely she'd hear from Bart soon, and she'd have gone through all of this for nothing.

Dad had said that if this job worked out, they might be moving, and then she and Bart would both have to enroll in new schools, but that would be different. They'd be in a town where they were going to stay, where she'd have time to make friends.

None of these kids looked like friends. They were examining her as if she were a new variety of beetle in a glass jar.

The girl across the aisle—Elinor?—asked abruptly, “Who cut your hair?”

Immediately Buddy stiffened defensively. Did that mean the girl thought it was awful, or did she like it? She swallowed. “My aunt,” she admitted.

“Hmm. I thought maybe it was one of those fancy stylists, like the models have. It makes you look kind of . . . exotic.”

Exotic? That was good, wasn't it? Tentatively,
relaxing a little, Buddy smiled, and Elinor smiled back.

That was the only friendly overture, though. The teacher was kindly, but clearly too busy to spend much time on a new student. Not that Buddy wanted her attention. She remembered what Max had said about the way Mrs. Hope knew everything about everybody and didn't hesitate to talk about it.

It was nearing the noon hour when an older student opened the door to the classroom. She conveyed a note to the front of the room, and Mrs. Hope paused in her explanation of a difficult math problem to read it, then looked directly at Buddy. “Amy Kate,” she said, not using the nickname this time, “you're to go to the office immediately.”

Of course Buddy hadn't done anything wrong. She couldn't have. But her heart raced as if she were guilty of
something.

Awkwardly, Buddy stood up and moved toward the door. Once more everyone in the room was staring at her. The student messenger handed her one of the pink slips that gave permission to leave the classroom, and Buddy
followed her out into the hallway. “Is something wrong?” she asked the older girl.

“I think your aunt is here to get you. I don't know why,” the girl said.

Buddy didn't know whether to be excited or apprehensive. Was it about Dad, and Bart? Or had something happened to Grandpa?

Addie was standing in the lower hallway at the door to the office. She didn't waste any time. “Your brother's waiting for you to call him back,” she said. “He's found Dan.”

Buddy's fingers trembled as she dialed the number Cassie had written down. She could hardly breathe waiting for Bart to pick up at the other end.

“Buddy?” her brother's voice asked over the line.

“Yes! Is Dad okay?”

“Well, he's alive. Maybe not okay.” Buddy's heart did a flip-flop, and she missed a few words. “He's in a hospital now, and the doctors are still evaluating him. I didn't want to wait until they finish that before I told you. It's an incredible story—I won't try to tell it all over the phone. He was conscious, though, when we found him. He knew who I was, and asked about you.”

Buddy had to sit down because her legs refused to hold her up. Cassie and Addie and
Grandpa were all standing around, staring at her.

“Dad's hurt, he's in a hospital,” she told them, eyes suddenly brimming.

“Oh, Buddy,” Cassie said, putting a hand on her arm.

Addie didn't say anything, but her knuckles were white where she gripped the back of another chair, waiting.

“Listen, I'm going to get something to eat,” Bart was saying in her ear. “As soon as I get a full report, I'll call you back. I'll probably come get you and bring you here, because Dad's going to be stuck here for a few days, anyway. Okay?”

“Okay!” Buddy agreed tremulously. “I'll be right here when you call back. Can't you just tell me what happened to him?”

“He and Rich went over a cliff along Highway 101, and nobody was even looking for them there until I came along. The trucking company apparently was convinced they'd hijacked the load and peddled it somewhere, then hidden the rig back in one of those canyons where nobody'd find it for a long time.
Rich is here in the hospital, too, with a broken leg and a dislocated shoulder. I called his mom. Somebody wants to use this phone, and I don't know any more, anyway. I'll call you back, Buddy.”

A click severed the connection, and she was unable to keep the tears from running down her face as she looked at her aunts and Grandpa. “He went over a cliff. The man with him was hurt, too. Bart's going to call back as soon as the doctors can tell him anything,” she said. “But they're both alive, even if they're hurt.”

“Praise the Lord,” Grandpa said. For once, his mind seemed perfectly clear. “I never believed that Dan would abandon his children. He was the best salesman I ever had. He never shirked his responsibilities. I like that in a man.” He looked suddenly at Addie. “You held it against him, Sister, that he married your little sister instead of you. But he never promised to marry you, did he, girl?”

Addie loosened her grip on the table. “No, he didn't.” Her face flamed bright pink, then faded out until she was very pale. “But we
were good friends. He
would
have asked me if EllaBelle hadn't come home from college and stolen him away from me. Everybody in town expected us to get married. Pastor even asked me when we were going to set the date.”

Now twin spots of pink appeared in her cheeks. “It was so humiliating. Dan and I had run around together that whole winter, after he went to work for you in the store. We liked all the same things, read the same books, enjoyed the same music. I knew he was going to propose to me. And then
she
came home, and he couldn't see anybody but her.”