A Million Ways Home Read online

  “Do you need anything else while I’m here?” Miss Austin asked. “Oh, wait, I nearly forgot.” She dug in her purse and pulled out a cell phone. “Is this yours?”

  My mouth dropped open. “My phone! How did you get it?”

  “I’m not sure. It was lying on my desk with a little note with your name written on it.”

  “No kidding?” I wondered if Trey had anything to do with it. He would’ve had to go directly to the center after he left me with Marti. But I didn’t really care. I was just so happy to have it back.

  “Anything else you need before I run?”

  “Can I go home to get some more clothes and stuff? I’ve had the same two pair of jeans for ten days.”

  “Of course. I’ll try to get you over there soon, promise.” She rolled her eyes at Marti and reached to open the door. “It’s been crazy lately. I used to have ten or twelve children on my caseload, but now it averages nineteen or twenty. I swear, sometimes I don’t have time to eat.”

  Marti watched Miss Austin head down the steps. “Thanks for bringing Poppy’s things by,” she said, offering a final wave before she closed the door. Then she turned to me and put a fingertip on her chin. “From the looks of that woman, I’d say she finds plenty of time to eat.”

  I burst out laughing. Marti gave me a dismayed look and hid her face in her hands. “Oh, Lord, did I just say that? And here I told you I wasn’t a blabbermouth.” She checked her watch. “Would you do me a favor, Poppy? Take a glass of lemonade out to Lizzie?”

  My grin faded. I’d forgotten all about the girl. “Uh … she didn’t seem too friendly.”

  “Don’t take it personally. She’s really not a bad kid, just a little mixed-up right now.” She gave me a reassuring smile. “You don’t have to talk for an hour, just offer her some lemonade.”

  “Okay, then,” I said.

  I followed Marti into the kitchen and waited for her to fill two glasses with lemonade and ice cubes. “Okay, one for you and one for Lizzie.” She pointed to a sliding door. “Here, I’ll get the door for you.”

  I stepped out onto a wooden deck overlooking a backyard brimming with flowers and shrubs. Lizzie knelt beside a ceramic bathtub planted with papery red poppies. I took a deep breath for courage and forced myself to walk over to her.

  There was a smudge of dirt across her chin. I tried not to focus on it as I held out a glass. “Here. Marti thought you might want this.”

  She hesitated a second and then reached for it. “Okay.”

  Her shoulder-length hair and square-cut bangs made her look just like Cleopatra, but it was the pink highlights that were really impressive. “Cool hair.”

  She gave me an intense look, as if trying to determine if I was making fun of her. Then her face relaxed a bit. “If I could just convince my mom of that.”

  I wanted to leave, but the scissors and sandwich baggie in her hand got my curiosity up. “What are you doing?”

  “Cutting off seed pods. Lame, huh?”

  Harvey appeared at my side. I crouched down and laid my cheek against his wide head, thankful for the distraction. “Do you go to Whitmore Middle School? I’ve never seen you around.”

  Lizzie anchored her glass of lemonade against a paving stone and went back to snipping seed pods. “I used to go to the Meadow Creek charter school, but then a couple of months ago my mom got this wonderful, lame idea to homeschool me.”

  “How come?”

  “ ’Cause I’m a bad kid.”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

  She gave a long-suffering sigh, and I expected her to tell me to get lost. But instead, she set the scissors down and picked up her lemonade again. “Okay, I’ll do you a favor and give you the thirty-second version. I got caught spray-painting the federal building because my friend Tanya is a really lousy lookout. So me and her and my best friend, Brett, got sentenced to three hundred hours of community service.”

  “The federal building? Wow, you guys are” — I wanted to say pretty stupid, but caught myself in time — “pretty brave.”

  She smiled. “Yeah, it was awesome until we got caught.”

  “What did you paint on it?”

  “Pete for president.”

  “Who’s Pete?”

  “Just this guy in my class that I kinda liked.”

  I thought about Luke again. He’d called me at home once. It was only to ask about a history assignment, but I’d still gotten nervous and laughed. But he hadn’t acted upset. He’d laughed, too. “So what do you have to do for your community service?”

  “I’ve been doing most of it at the animal shelter because that’s where my mom works. It was better than picking up garbage on the side of the road or pulling weeds at the community garden.”

  “That’s your punishment? Dogs are awesome.”

  She rolled her eyes. “They eat, poop, shed, and drool. Pretty nasty if you ask me.”

  I tightened a protective arm around Harvey. “Yeah, well, people do most of that stuff, too. But dogs love you no matter what. They make pretty good lookouts, too.”

  She smirked. “Good point.”

  “What do your friends have to do for their community service?”

  “Tanya’s mowing lawns and doing yard work. I dunno about Brett. She won’t answer any of my texts. I think she hates me.”

  “Oh,” I said. Her comment about texting made me think about my phone. I needed to check it out and make sure Sidney hadn’t done anything to it. I gave Harvey a final squeeze and jumped up. “Well, I gotta go. Have fun snipping.”

  She seemed a little disappointed. “Yeah, whatever.”

  I went into the bedroom and plugged in my phone. There were the three missed calls from Grandma Beth and a bunch of calls and texts sent by Sidney. At least her fun ended when the phone went dead. Jerk.

  I went out to ask Marti to help me find the number for the Huckleberry Home and then entered it into my phone. But when I tried to call Grandma Beth just to make sure the number worked, a nurse answered instead. She told me afternoon wasn’t the best time to call since many of the residents napped after lunch. She said Grandma Beth had physical therapy each morning at eight-thirty and that it would be best to call after that.

  “What does she do for physical therapy?” I asked.

  “Mobility exercises and stretching mostly.”

  I wasn’t sure what mobility exercises were, but it gave me an instant idea. “Are family members allowed to watch?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  I bounced up and down on my tiptoes. “Great. Thanks. When my grandma wakes up can you please tell her I have my cell phone back?”

  I ended the call with a grin. I’d just figured out a way to get Grandma Beth out of the old people’s home.

  A LITTLE while later, I helped Marti chop cabbage and potatoes for our supper. Both dogs were flopped in the middle of the floor, smack in the way. Country music played on the radio, and Marti hummed along. It made me think of Luke again. I knew he liked country because he had a Toby Keith world tour sticker on his notebook, and a baseball cap advertising Kat Country 96. I liked that station, too, but didn’t get to listen to it much because Grandma Beth preferred to listen to soft jazz. But after I went to bed each night, I’d turn my clock radio on low, and fall asleep to the velvety voice of Delilah Rayne counting down the top country songs. I wondered if Luke listened to the show. If I ever worked up the courage, I’d ask him.

  Trey got home in time to eat with us. We sat around Marti’s oak table, with a steaming platter of corned beef in the center and a basket of wheat rolls off to the side. I looked at the empty fourth chair and thought how perfect it would be if Grandma Beth were there. After dinner, Trey scooted back his chair and wiggled a finger at me. “Come with me,” he said. “I’ll give you a tour of my half of the duplex.”

  “Grab a sweatshirt,” Marti told me. “He keeps it like an icebox over there.”

  Trey rolled his eyes. “Sixty-eight is not an icebox, Mom. And
my electric bill’s half of yours.”

  She gave him a defiant smile and waved her hands beside her head. “You can freeze if you want, son. I’d rather be warm.”

  Thumbelina batted at my shoelace as I pushed away from the table, and I had to take a quick hop to keep from tripping. I grabbed my hoodie from the bedroom and followed Trey out into the cool evening air. It smelled like barbecue, somebody’s last-ditch effort to hang on to late summer. We walked down twenty feet of sidewalk to Trey’s door, and he flipped on the light as we stepped in. His place had the same damp, earthy smell as his jacket.

  “Hey,” I said, “isn’t that the same couch your mom has?”

  “It was a combo deal,” he said, “buy the sectional and get the sofa for free.” He grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and popped the top.

  I wandered over to look at a framed photo of a young couple. “Are these your parents?”

  “Yep. Clear back in 1976.”

  The younger Marti was thinner and had light brown hair instead of white, but her face didn’t look a whole lot different. “Your mom’s really nice.”

  “Yeah. She’s a big, sweet pushover.”

  I thought of Grandma Beth, and it made my throat feel thick. I studied the picture again. Trey’s father stood unsmiling and stiff in his dark blue uniform, his suit jacket decorated with a bunch of stripes and ribbons and little metal symbols. He looked pretty scary. “What was your dad like?”

  Trey laced his hands behind his neck and twisted in a stretch. “Tough. Mom thought he was too hard on me.” He smiled. “I got lots of whippings when I was a kid. Most of them deserved.”

  Something about that made my mind jump back to Sidney. “Oh, hey, were you the one who got my phone back for me?”

  Trey gave me a mysterious smile. “Oh, I might’ve had something to do with it.”

  I couldn’t help but grin at all the possibilities filling my mind. “Sidney had it, didn’t she? I told you. What did you do? Did you search the room? Did you put her in handcuffs?”

  He chuckled. “No, no. We just had a nice, friendly chat in the director’s office.”

  I gave him a doubtful look. I couldn’t picture Sidney having a “friendly” conversation with anybody. “But what did you say?”

  “You got your phone, right?”

  I nodded, disappointed he wouldn’t give me more details. “Yeah. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” He opened a cabinet below the TV and pulled out a box of checkers. “You up for a game?”

  I brightened. Grandma Beth and I played checkers all the time. “Sure. Be warned, though, I’m pretty good.”

  “Oh, yeah? Prove it.”

  He moved to the sofa and swept aside a TV remote and a Tom Clancy novel from the coffee table. I sat across from him on the rug and carefully plotted my moves. But it didn’t take me long to realize I was outmatched. At least I did get to jump him twice. I even managed a double jump. Halfway through the game I went to the kitchen for a drink of water.

  “Glasses are to the left of the sink,” Trey said.

  I opened the cabinet and stared. Above the glasses and coffee mugs, three boxes of Twinkies filled the shelf. Just looking at them made my mouth water. “How come you have all these Twinkies?”

  “What’s the problem?” he said. “You have something against Twinkies?”

  “No, I love them.”

  “Have one.”

  I eagerly pulled down a box and opened it. “Grandma Beth won’t buy them for me. She says they’re just empty calories.”

  “Then in that case you better have two.”

  I laughed. “How about if I just take all three boxes over to your mom’s?”

  “You’re not big enough to take my Twinkies.”

  I grinned as I peeled back the plastic wrapper and bit into the spongy sweetness of one of the little cakes. Happy Meals one day and Twinkies the next — what would Grandma Beth think? I carried my second Twinkie out to the living room to finish our game.

  “My dad taught me to play checkers when I was six years old,” Trey told me. “He never let me win. But on my thirteenth birthday I finally beat the old man fair and square. Proudest moment of my life.”

  I considered it. I wasn’t sure what the proudest moment of my life was. Maybe when my drawing of a bulldog won first place in our school’s art contest and there’d been an article in the Spokesman-Review.

  “Want to play again?” I asked Trey when our game was over. But he glanced at his watch. “It’s quarter to nine. You better get back over to Mom’s before she thinks I kidnapped you.”

  I reluctantly stood. “Okay. Thanks for the checkers … and the Twinkies.”

  “Yep. See you tomorrow.” He walked over and opened the door for me.

  I started down the sidewalk and then turned on an afterthought. “I’m gonna walk home tomorrow morning and get my bike, okay?”

  Trey’s head whipped up. “Not alone you aren’t.”

  The hair on the back of my neck prickled. “It’s only a few blocks.”

  “Not alone, Poppy,” he repeated, his voice taking on a hard edge. “I’ll run you over there after work.”

  “You think that guy might be looking for me?”

  “Not necessarily. But I’m not willing to take that chance.”

  I swallowed. I had to fight a sudden urge to look over my shoulder. “Oh … well okay, then. I guess I won’t. Good night.”

  Trey watched until I reached Marti’s door. I paused for a few seconds. It didn’t seem right to just walk in, but it seemed funny to knock. I tapped the door a few times before slowly opening it. “Hey,” I said, “I’m back.” I expected Pringles to screech, but he was silent beneath his sheet-covered cage.

  Marti looked up from the kitchen table, a pencil poking out from above her ear. “Well, there you are. Have a nice time?”

  “Yeah. We played checkers and had Twinkies.”

  She laughed. “That sounds just like a man, now doesn’t it?”

  I thought about it. I didn’t know very many men. I liked my science teacher, Mr. Harrison. And the pharmacist at the drugstore, Mr. Cunningham, always took time to talk with me when Grandma Beth bought her medicine. The only other man I saw pretty often was Larry, the handyman at our apartment, who always walked around in paint-spattered coveralls. None of them were anything like Trey.

  “I’ve set some things in the bathroom for you,” Marti said. “A new toothbrush and paste, and some lotion in case you need them. And since I’m a night owl, I tend to sleep late in the morning, so if you’re up before me, you help yourself to breakfast. Do you like blueberry bagels? Or there’s toast. Or hard-boiled eggs in the fridge. Whatever you can find. I mean it now, promise me you won’t be shy.”

  “Okay, promise. Thank you. Good night.”

  I crawled into bed and pulled the covers up. The sheet smelled faintly of vanilla, and I held it close to my nose and worried over Trey’s warning not to go to home by myself. It’s not that I wasn’t scared of the suspect, because I was. But the idea of Grandma Beth and I never being together again scared me a lot more. And if I didn’t learn to help her myself, who knew how long she’d have to stay in the nursing home, or how long I’d be stuck at the center. And anything was better than being stuck at the center.

  I wondered just how late in the morning Marti liked to sleep. Maybe I could make it to the Huckleberry Home and back before she ever missed me.

  The next morning, the stink of burnt coffee that often woke me at the center was missing. I looked over toward Sidney’s bed, and instead of smelly clothes and candy wrappers, I saw glowing sunshine and soft beige carpet. I didn’t have to wait in line to use the toilet, or eat runny eggs for breakfast, or listen to any little kids cry. All I had to do was get to the Huckleberry Home on time.

  I pushed back the covers and reached for my cell phone — 7:15. That gave me an hour and fifteen minutes before Grandma Beth’s physical therapy. I quietly dressed in jeans and a polo shirt, and
pulled my hoodie over my head. Then I tiptoed out to the kitchen, gulped down a glass of orange juice and half a bagel, and scribbled a note I hoped Marti would never read.

  Didn’t want to wake you. Decided to go visit Grandma Beth for a while this morning. Don’t worry, I know the way. I’ll be back before long.

  — Poppy

  I propped it up against the sugar bowl, offered my bagel crumbs to Harvey, and peeked out the front door. Trey’s Pontiac was gone. Good. I took a careful look around the neighborhood. Things seemed peaceful and quiet … almost too quiet, and a ripple of fear worked its way through my stomach. I studied the houses across the street — their garages and cars and boats, the shoulder-high row of evergreen shrubs lining the sidewalk. What if the suspect from the gas station was looking for me? There were so many places he could hide. A strong urge to stay tugged me back into the kitchen. But then I thought of Grandma Beth and felt an even stronger urge to go. Harvey watched me from near the table, and I wished I could take him with me. But I knew I didn’t dare without asking Marti, and besides, once I got my bike what would I do with him then?

  I tied my hair back in a ponytail and flipped up my hood, then quietly closed the door behind me and started down the sidewalk. The smoky scent of somebody’s wood stove filled my nose and made me think about winter. The last two winters had been disappointing, with endless gray days and not a single snow day off school. We were overdue for a good-sledding winter. Manito Park had a great sledding slope. A little short, but not so steep it killed you to walk back up. Grandma Beth refused to sled, but there were usually a few kids I knew from school.

  The crisp, sweet notes of a chickadee made me look up to the trees as I trotted along, but I couldn’t spot him through all the orange and yellow leaves.

  In only a few minutes I started to recognize all the houses in the neighborhood, and it seemed weird to be staying so near to home without actually being home. I rounded the corner of West Twenty-First and South Howard, and there it was: our apartment building — its warm red bricks solid and welcoming. The bird feeder dangled empty from the lowest branch of the weeping willow, and I grabbed it off its nail as I passed.