The Hero Next Door Read online

  “Will you be staying here?” I ask.

  “If my friend’s okay with it, yeah. But I can’t let Buddy go. I’ll have to find a way to keep him. He’s all I got,” Grace replies.

  Amma and I exchange a look, but she quickly turns her face and stares at the small Ganesha idol that’s stuck on the dashboard. I wish we also could find a way to keep Duke.

  Grace gives me her other packet of potato chips. “A small gift for you to remember me.”

  I hold the packet in one hand and ruffle Buddy’s fur with the other. He jumps up and gives me a slurpy kiss. His drool is all over me, and I giggle.

  Grace thanks Amma and squeezes my shoulder. “Give your pup a cuddle for me, okay, kiddo?”

  I nod, remembering Duke’s sweet smile.

  After Grace leaves, Amma checks the phone. Joe has sent a video of Duke chasing a rabbit in his yard. We laugh at his goofiness. Then she starts driving again.

  I need a plan. I have to convince Amma to go back to Seattle for Duke.

  “You know what I’d do when we see Duke again?”

  “Yeah?” Amma asks.

  “I’d give him a squishy hug. He’d pounce on me, lick my chin, and his tail would go round and round. ‘Hi, Dukey! I got you a cookie.’ That’s what I’d say to him.”

  Amma laughs. “Because there are three simple ways to gain his love—give food, show food, have food.”

  “How much farther?” I ask.

  She says, “I’ll look at the map. But you know what? I need a break from the driving. Let’s take a walk. I saw an exit sign for a lake. It’s nearby.”

  I grin. Amma and I often used to take the lake trail by our house. Duke would play with his dog pals there.

  But today, when we reach the lake, the water is not calm. The wind is strong. The waves remind me of Appa’s anger. And the whole time, I feel sorry about Duke.

  We sit on a bench under the cloudy sky, watching dog walkers pass by. I clear my throat. It’s cold and my teeth are chattering, but I seize the moment anyway.

  I hold Amma’s hand. I have to say it without making her cry. “I know we just got away from Appa, and you may not want to return. But Duke…he’s my best friend, Amma. We both need him.” I get down on my knees. “Please, Amma. Could we go back for him?”

  Amma taps my shoulder and shakes her head. “Oh, Sangeetha.”

  I look up at her eyes. I don’t say anything.

  I wait.

  She sighs and pauses for a moment.

  I still don’t say anything. I want to understand how she feels more than what she thinks.

  Amma goes down on her knees, too, and hugs me tight. “Okay,” she says. “You are right, kanna. We cannot go away like this. Seeing Grace, it just reminded me of you and Duke. He’s family. He needs you as much as I do.”

  Tears stream down my cheeks. “Are we going back to Seattle, then?”

  Amma wipes my face. She takes my chin in her palm and smiles. “We’ll need to make sure your father doesn’t spot us. Let’s go get Duke. There’s no such thing as too much love when it comes to him. No matter what, Duke will go with us wherever we go from here.”

  The sun shines through the clouds and glimmers over the waves hitting the shoreline. Amma takes out her phone and snaps a picture of the pink lemonade sky. “The scenery is gorgeous, isn’t it?”

  Amma’s words are a balm to my ears. “Couldn’t be better. I am so happy we are going back to Seattle, Amma.” My voices cracks as I hold her hand. “I am so happy we’re going back for Duke.”

  The Save

  Joseph Bruchac

  Oren shifted the stick from one hand to the other. Usually that was no big deal. Right now it felt heavy as a sledgehammer. Even with the mask on his face, his padding, and his gloves, he was feeling naked. The goal behind him was the standard six feet by six feet, but it seemed as big as a barn door now that he was the one guarding it.

  In front of him in their various positions ranged nine other Onondaga boys on their team. Paul Hemlock, who had the wingspan of an eagle and who was even taller than their coach, was to his right. Paul’s face, as usual, looked serious, even though he was always the first to crack a joke after the game was over. To Oren’s far left was Billy Crouse, who was always grinning. He was much faster than he looked and their best defender. Perry Elm, the third defender and closest, turned to look over his shoulder at Oren.

  “No worries,” Perry said. “We got this. No one’s getting past us.”

  Oren nodded. He was actually on the same field with these guys, in a real game. His heart should have been pumping with excitement. He’d finally been given the opportunity to play the position he’d practiced for so very long. Instead, what he felt inside his chest seemed like a lump of lead.

  Why am I so upset?

  Nothing was at stake now. They were ahead 14–2. Only two minutes left. No way we can lose. No way. He mouthed those words for the fourth or maybe the fifth time. No way we can lose. No way. That was why he, the third-string goalkeeper, had been given a chance.

  A chance to look like a bum.

  The team they were playing, the Buffalo Bulls, actually wasn’t that bad. His own guys were so far ahead because they had gone on a mad scoring streak. Although, to be honest, his team also was winning because they were a whole lot better. After all, the Bulls weren’t buffalos at all. They were just city kids.

  He’d bet none of them had ever set foot on a lacrosse field before they hit middle school. How many of them had held their first stick before they could even walk? How many of them had a grandfather like his who was a legend and an All-American? And not one of those kids on the visiting team was Indian.

  While we invented the game. We are the Iroquois.

  We are the Iroquois,

  we’re proud, we are strong

  That’s how Joanne Shenandoah sang it on his mom’s favorite CD. How it sounded on the playlist on Oren’s own iPhone. It was sort of a corny song, but it usually inspired him way more than Jay-Z’s latest rap.

  Iroquois. We’re Iroquois. And everybody on our team is head and shoulders above these guys.

  Except me.

  For some reason, even though he was trying to concentrate, his mind wandered back to when they were showing those Buffalo kids around. Maybe because he was a third-stringer, he’d been one of the members of his team delegated to be a tour guide. A way to make him feel more useful, he guessed.

  He almost laughed remembering the reactions of those city boys when they were given the short tour of the Rez before the game. The best moment came when they were taken up onto the hill to see the tribal buffalo herd grazing on the yellow autumn grass in the wide field.

  “Wow,” one of the kids said, a stocky boy who turned out to be their overmatched goal tender. “Those are real!”

  “Realer buffalos than we are,” said the kid who’d been standing next to Oren. He was tall and lanky. Rajat was his name, the only name Oren seemed to remember from among them. There was a sort of British accent in the precise English he spoke. Oren had liked him for his politeness. Then he liked him even more for the sense of humor he showed again when he leaned over toward Oren and said, “I, too, am Indian. But of another sort entirely—transposed, you might say.” He flipped one hand over the other. “American Indian. Indian American.”

  A third kid, whose hair was cut so short it looked like a newly mowed lawn, reached out to pluck one of the heavy braided-steel cables strung between the iron girders that served as posts for the fence around the field. “Do they ever get out of there?” he said. He sounded nervous.

  “Yup,” said Bill Jimmerson, the keeper of the herd, who was leading this part of the tour. “But only when they want to.”

  That was when the buffalo everyone on the Rez called Big Guy, the largest male in the herd, decided to sh
ow his sense of humor. He spun around and charged—hooves pounding like a powwow drum—straight at the gathered crowd, nostrils flaring, head down. His snorting was loud as a trumpet as he thudded toward them.

  To their credit, not all of the Buffalo Bulls and their various coaches and chaperones ran or tripped over their own feet as they tried to flee.

  As usual, Big Guy stopped inches away from the fence, his hooves throwing up clods of dirt and brown grass as he skidded to a halt. Then he lowered his head so that Bill Jimmerson could reach through the fence to scratch behind his horns.

  “I believe,” said Rajat, who’d remained next to Oren, “that this one does not wish to get out yet.”

  The visiting lacrosse kids recovered quickly.

  “Wow,” said a thin, long-armed kid whose sweatshirt had a design of crossed sticks and the number 10. He was shaking his head and smiling as he stepped back up to the fence. “That is how to charge the goal.”

  “You bet, Masterson,” said the slightly shorter boy by his side. Like his friend, he’d stepped back a few paces but hadn’t fled for his life when Big Guy mock-charged. The shorter boy’s sweatshirt bore a large number 7.

  Number 7.

  A whistle sounded.

  Wake up!

  Oren looked up the field. The ball had been put back into play.

  There actually were a couple of pretty darn good players on that Buffalo team. Numbers 10 and 7. The two kids who’d admired Big Guy. The fastest of the three attackers. They’d scored the only goals. One each against Lee Elm, his team’s second-string goalie. Those two scores were impressive. Lee was almost as good as Phil Mohawk and would for sure be guarding the net next year after Phil graduated.

  Number 10 and Number 7. Both of them were now heading Oren’s way at a fast lope, passing the ball back and forth between them. He bet they were setting up some variation of the plays they’d scored on before.

  Be a panther in the goal.

  That was how his grandfather and namesake put it to him.

  Oren crouched. He could feel his heart beating now. It was pounding so hard it was as if an eagle were trying to fight its way out of his chest.

  Numbers 10 and 7 were crisscrossing in front of him, trying to draw him one way or the other. Oren stayed in his crouch.

  A panther. Be a panther, he thought.

  Number 10 had the ball.

  Masterson, Oren remembered. That’s his name.

  Everything was in slow motion now. Masterson was reversing his stick to make a shot over his back shoulder. Oren had seen him work that move with success twice before. The ball was about to leave the webbing just as Number 7 charged Oren.

  Oren tried to leap, lacrosse stick extended to stop the shot. But as he did so, his feet crossed and his legs tangled together, at the exact moment when Number 7 ran into him.

  Oren flipped in midair and landed flat on his belly. He couldn’t move. The wind had been knocked out of him like a piece of Bubble Wrap tromped on by a boot.

  I really am a bum was all he could think.

  He gasped, struggling to regain his breath.

  A whistle sounded.

  The game was over. People were shouting.

  “All right!”

  “What a move!”

  “Great!”

  They’re praising that goal scored while I was belly flopping, Oren thought.

  Then he realized the voices were those of his own teammates.

  And it was not just his own guys who’d been impressed. Number 10 and Number 7 were leaning down on either side of him.

  “Man,” Number 10—Masterson—said as the two Buffalo players lifted him to his feet. “That was amazing!”

  Oren looked down at the stick he was still clutching with his left hand. There, held in the webbing like an eagle’s egg in its nest, was the ball.

  Coach White was patting him on his shoulder.

  “Oren, my man, you may be Phil’s slot next season,” the coach said.

  I should tell everyone it was an accident, Oren thought.

  But he didn’t.

  * * *

  —

  My door is always open. That was what his grandfather always said to Oren.

  And it was. When Oren got to his grandfather’s cabin, the door wasn’t locked. But his grandfather wasn’t there.

  There was a note on the door.

  Gone to council meeting

  Come on in

  Foods in the fridge

  Oren pushed the door open and went straight to the fridge.

  He was sitting at the kitchen table, finishing off his fourth piece of fried chicken, when his grandfather arrived.

  “Sge:no,” his grandfather said. It was the old greeting, a word that simply meant “peace.”

  “Sge:no,” Oren replied.

  “Leave me any of that bird?” his grandfather said, chuckling as he pulled up a chair and reached for the plate.

  “Not much,” Oren admitted.

  “No problem,” his grandfather replied as he picked the meat off the one wing Oren had missed. “Plenty more at Firekeepers. Still hungry?”

  Oren nodded. These days he was always hungry. Probably because of that growth spurt his mom said he was about to have. Which would likely end up with him being taller than his uncle Lee. That growth spurt couldn’t come fast enough as far as Oren was concerned. He was tired of being half a head shorter than the other boys on the team.

  “Ready?” his grandfather said, standing up and gesturing with his chin at the door.

  “Born ready,” Oren replied.

  The two of them set off walking.

  It wasn’t that far to Firekeepers. No more than a mile. It was the restaurant where everyone on the Rez liked to eat, even if the four-lane road that had been cut a generation ago through their community was only two hundred yards from the parking lot. After all, it was Indian-owned and served fry bread almost as good as his mom made.

  They sat at their usual table. So usual that the waitress—one of the teenage Thompson twins who looked so alike Oren could never tell them apart—brought out the plate of fry bread, two bowls of buffalo chili, and two glasses of water without their having to order.

  “Anything else?” Mary or Margie said, wiping her hands on her apron.

  “Nope,” his grandfather said. “Nya:weh.”

  “Nya:weh,” Oren said, echoing his grandfather’s thanks.

  The fry bread and chili vanished about as fast as a gray squirrel scooting around a tree trunk. They sat there for a while in companionable silence.

  “Wish I could have been at the game today rather than that council meeting,” his grandfather finally said, looking out the open window to their right, where one of the Jemison boys was trying to start his stubborn three-wheeler. “Heard you made a great play.”

  Oren shook his head. He’d hoped his grandfather hadn’t heard about it. But he should have known. News of anything you did—whether good or bad—traveled around the Rez at warp speed.

  “No,” Oren said.

  His grandfather didn’t say anything. He just looked at Oren, raising an eyebrow.

  Oren took a deep breath. Then he explained it all, how it had been nothing more than a happy accident. How he felt like a fraud. How he didn’t deserve any praise at all.

  His grandfather just listened. Then he waved at the waitress behind the counter.

  “Hey, Margie,” he said. “Got any of that herbal tea?”

  “Coming up, Big O,” she replied.

  His grandfather smiled at Oren. “Know how to tell them apart?”

  Oren shook his head.

  “Mary is the one with the beauty mark on her right cheek. Margie’s is on the left and half an inch higher.”

  His grandfather sipped hi
s tea. Outside in the parking lot the Jemison boy was banging the motor of his ATV with a wrench.

  Oren waited. There was no point in trying to rush his grandfather. He watched as the old man finished his tea, sighed, and then lifted his right hand to rub his chin.

  “What was it you intended to do other than stop that shot?” he said. “And what did you end up doing?”

  “Gramps, all it was,” Oren said, “was dumb luck.”

  His grandfather shook his head. “I think it was more than that. I’ve watched you practice. You have good reflexes. Sometimes we can do things that surprise even ourselves. Plus, what’s wrong with luck? If I had to choose, my goal would be to have somebody on my team who’s lucky any day of the week.”

  Oren stood up. He wasn’t sure why, maybe just that it was hard for him to sit and listen to his grandfather’s words trying to convince him he wasn’t the loser he knew himself to be.

  What happened next was hard for even Oren to explain. Just that there was a loud bang and a spurt of fire from the Jemison boy’s ATV, followed by something whizzing through the air toward them. And that somehow Oren found himself flying—like a big cat—right over the table, knocking his grandfather to the floor as a shard of sharp metal spun over their heads.

  “Gramps,” Oren said, jumping to his feet and looking down at his grandfather lying on his back. “Are you okay?”

  His grandfather smiled up at him. “Better than I would have been if that hit me,” he said, looking toward where the piece of metal was buried in the restaurant wall.

  Suddenly there were people all around them.

  “You see what that boy did?”

  “I never saw the like.”

  His grandfather held out a hand and let Oren help him up.

  “Well,” he chuckled, “nya:weh, Grandson. Thank you! Remember what I said about you having good reflexes? No way are you going to feel bad about this save.”

  “I guess so.” Oren grinned.

  Los Abuelos, Two Bright Minds

  Juana Medina

  There’s nothing I love more than having onces with my abuelos. While they drink coffee and eat achiras, I drink chocolate milk and eat calados with butter and honey.