Notorious, p.8
Notorious, page 8
Anyway, just because he’s grounded doesn’t mean I can’t give him a piece of my mind. I found him when he was laid up with TB, and I can find him now.
When I head over to his house, Barney Two following me like a bad smell, I half expect to find Keenan on the lawn chair in the backyard like before. But this time I have to go ring the bell.
When he finally answers the door, he looks so overjoyed to see me that I’m almost glad to see him too.
“Hiya, Barney Two!” He drops to his knees, rolls the little dog over, and rubs his furry stomach enthusiastically.
It bugs me. “I’m here too, or has the TB morphed into a weird vision thing where you can’t see Canadians? Passing out near a lighthouse does strange things to people.”
At the icy sarcasm in my voice, Barney Two twists away from Keenan and pops back upright, looking abashed.
Keenan gets to his feet. “Hi, ZeeBee,” he says sheepishly. “Come on in.”
I step inside, Barney Two slipping in behind me. I’m secretly rooting for the dog to make a mess in the living room. That would be a more perfect statement of what I’m feeling than anything I could put into words. But I know he won’t. He’s too well behaved. If it was the real Barney, Keenan’s father would have to throw away this house and get a new one.
“Good news,” I tell Keenan. “My dad convinced Canada to drop the charges against you.”
He turns pale. “Charges?”
“You know, breaking and entering, trashing a historic landmark, face-planting in a public forest, being too stupid to listen to advice.”
Keenan’s famous brow arches. “What advice?”
“I told you about Ronnie and those idiots. And what did you go and do? Become best buddies with them.”
He looks mystified. “You told me you and Ronnie didn’t get along. What does that have to do with me?”
“They stranded you out there, didn’t they?” I challenge. “Your ‘friends’ took off and left you to face the rap.”
“It wasn’t like that,” he says earnestly. “There was a rush to get out of the lighthouse when we spotted someone coming. I slipped on the ladder, and by the time I made it through the door, everybody was gone.”
“And when you were running from my dad like a common criminal, did you have a chance to think that I wouldn’t have done that to you?” I persist.
He’s still confused. “How could you do anything? You weren’t there. You weren’t even invited to—” Sudden understanding. “Is that what this is about? That I got invited to Ronnie’s and you didn’t?”
I don’t answer. I stare at him intently. They say that Tommy-Gun Ferguson had a look like this—right before he iced you.
“ZeeBee, come on,” he argues. “I was going to see if you could come with me, but I didn’t know how welcome I’d be myself. I’ve only just met these kids. I promise I’ll ask about you if I ever get invited to anything else.”
I’m ticked off already, but that really puts me over the top. “I don’t need your help with my social life, thanks very much!” And I wheel away from him.
“ZeeBee, wait—” he pleads.
Too late. I storm out of the house and start down the walk, turning only when I hear the door open again behind me. “This better be good!” I blare.
“You forgot your dog,” he says apologetically.
Barney Two comes bounding up, his liquid eyes full of devotion. It makes me even madder. On the other hand, at least he’s choosing me over Keenan, which shows a certain amount of good judgment. That’s more than I can say for the kids on this island.
I’m still fuming when I cross back into Canada and start up the street to our house. I decide to enter through the back door. If I go in the front, my mother will see how upset I am. That’s not a conversation I’m in the mood to have.
I slip in through the side gate, and I’m almost at the back when I freeze in front of a small flowerbed up against the foundation. There, in the flattened earth, are two boot prints.
My eyes narrow. That flowerbed is directly in front of the narrow window that opens into our basement. Someone stood there and spied into our house!
My heartbeat ramps up a little. I’ve heard voices in the night, footsteps, the opening and closing of car doors. Once, I’m pretty sure I even saw a flashlight beam in our backyard. Mum and Dad always convinced me that I’m overdramatic, and I must be dreaming. But this is hard physical evidence. This time nobody can say I’m imagining things.
I run into the house. “Dad! Come quick! You’ve got to see this!”
He’s upstairs, listening to ship transmissions on the St. Clair River. He does that before going on duty. I drag him out to the flowerbed.
“You’re not going to tell me I dreamed this!” I exclaim triumphantly.
He shrugs. “I have a pair of boots with treads like that.”
“And did you stand right there, staring into the basement?” I demand.
“No, but I turned over the earth in that flowerbed. Who remembers how my feet were set when I stopped to blow my nose? You know my allergies.”
I can’t win. It’s all Barney Two’s fault. If the real Barney was still around, we wouldn’t be arguing over boot prints. We’d be getting their owner down from the tree he climbed to avoid being chomped to death.
So I drop it. But when Dad goes to work, I find those boots he’s talking about and take them out to the flowerbed. He’s right—the treads are a perfect match.
Frowning, I take the pair and place them inside the impressions in the earth.
Maybe it’s just me, but those prints look like they were made by boots that are a little bigger than my father’s.
11
Keenan
My fist makes a loud slapping sound as it slams into the kickboxing pad.
“Anyway, the good news is my tuberculosis didn’t come back,” I say, panting a little.
“Keep working!” Bryce orders. “No excuses!”
I hit it again. Wham!
“Combo!” he barks.
Both fists. Wham! Wham!
“Doing fine,” he reports.
“Last week I was doing amazing,” I remind him.
He shrugs. “A little setback. So what?”
“Little setback,” I repeat. “Have you ever fainted? Your whole life stops and you’re waking up in the middle of it.”
“Once.” The trainer blocks another blow. “After my first triathlon. I didn’t hydrate properly.”
I grin. “No excuses.”
“Smart guy,” he snorts. “Kick!”
I raise my knee and snap my lower leg into the pad. Not bad!
“Again!”
With a rush of misplaced confidence, I aim my foot at a spot at the center of Bryce’s chest. Luckily, Bryce sees it coming. He drops the pads and gets his arms under me before I land on my head.
“There’s a gap between what we think we can do and what we really can,” he lectures. “With me, it’s making French toast without burning it.”
“I really thought I could land it this time,” I pant.
“And you will,” he promises, “when you’re ready. And on that day, I’ll have you over for the best French toast you’ve ever tasted.”
I can’t quite explain it, but landing that kick would prove that I’m still the old me. Who knows? It might even mean that it’s time for me to go back to Mom, Klaus, and my friends in Shanghai.
“We’re running late today,” Bryce says. “Here’s my four o’clock.” He introduces me to a middle-aged man with a shaved head and a neat beard and mustache. “Peter Tolenski, meet Keenan Cardinal. He’s the kid I was telling you about.”
“Don’t believe him about the French toast,” Mr. Tolenski advises me. “Pure motivational drivel.”
“Peter rents a house on the Canadian side,” Bryce explains. “He’s been working on a book about Centerlight’s history during Prohibition.”
“Cool,” I say without much enthusiasm. The topic makes me think of ZeeBee and puts a bad taste in my mouth. I know she’s mad about Saturday, but she really, truly seems to hate me now. She doesn’t answer calls or texts, and I can’t keep sending them forever because it’s so expensive. My emails get ignored. And I can’t go find her, because I’m still grounded for another week. I’m down to two destinations: school and the gym.
“You’re the boy with the tae kwon do kick,” the writer concludes.
“So far, I’m the boy without the tae kwon do kick,” I correct him ruefully.
Mr. Tolenski gestures toward Bryce. “I’ve experienced his French toast,” he confides to me. “Overrated.”
“Keep talking, old man,” Bryce warns. “I’ll have you doing squat-thrusts all afternoon.”
It’s like a comedy routine as they go back and forth at each other. I’m smiling as I step out of Island Fitness.
The bellow comes at top volume, shouted from about three inches behind my left ear. “Boo!”
I practically hit the moon. And when I come back down again, Ronnie and Joey are standing on the sidewalk, grinning at me with pride, as if they’ve just accomplished something wonderful.
“Real mature, you guys!”
“Mature,” Joey muses, brow furrowed. “Don’t think I know that word. We need to study it in vocabulary.”
“What you really need is to stop jumping out at people and giving them heart attacks.”
“That too,” Ronnie agrees amiably. “Hey, thought you were grounded, sweetie. What are you doing in town?”
“Gym,” I reply. “Besides school, it’s the one place I’m allowed to go.”
Joey nods. “We know. We were waiting for you.”
“For what?”
“Follow us,” Ronnie orders.
“I can’t. I just said I have to go home.”
“You are going home,” he argues. “This is on the way—sort of. You’re taking the long way home.”
“Check this out.” Joey reaches into his pocket and produces a small floppy red plastic item.
“A balloon?” I ask dubiously.
Joey steps up to a drinking fountain and folds the balloon’s opening over the spout. The red plastic swells as it fills up with water.
“A beautiful thing,” Ronnie approves.
I’m genuinely interested. “What’s it for?”
“Not what,” Joey says, tying the balloon closed. “Who. I say we climb up on the roof of the hairdresser’s and drop it on the fanciest, poofiest head that comes out.”
“Nah,” Ronnie scoffs. “Let’s take it to the river and chuck it at a speedboat. We’ll get better impact if the target’s moving fast.”
“Nuh-uh.” Joey holds the water bomb away from him. “My balloon, my rules.”
Ronnie reaches for it. “But it’ll be better—”
As the two grapple for the balloon, they fumble it up into the air. It comes down between the three of us and vaporizes as it hits the pavement, drenching us from the knees down. There’s a split second of shocked silence and then the two of them dissolve into laughter.
“Very funny, you guys,” I snarl. “Now how am I going to explain that I went straight home from the gym? My dad’ll think I waded along the shore.”
That only makes them laugh harder. They stumble to a bench and collapse onto it. That does it for me. It’s impossible to stay serious when two failed water-bombers are losing their minds in front of you. I crack up too.
The mournful horn of the ferry from Corunna sounds in the distance. It sobers me instantly. I picture ZeeBee trudging onto the dock, complaining about the late boat due to mist on the river, or choppy water, or whatever. For ZeeBee, the specifics aren’t important. What matters is the complaining.
These days, her biggest complaint is me. It’s not fair. What have I ever done to her except be her friend? What is she so mad at me for? Is it because her dad had to peel me off the grass and haul me home? She knows I wasn’t the only one at the lighthouse that night.
As that thought passes through my brain, I realize that the question is the answer. I wasn’t alone that night, just like I’m not alone right now. Even though I’m new on Centerlight, I’m the one who gets invited to stuff. I’m the one with friends to sit on a bench and laugh with. And by some random quirk of borders and where she goes to school, ZeeBee isn’t. She always ends up on the outside looking in.
It’s not my fault. I haven’t done anything wrong. It’s just the way things are. But that makes it even worse, because there’s nothing I can do to fix it.
Ronnie and Joey are still cackling when a big black Mercedes squeals up to the curb and out jumps a burly middle-aged man with a buzz cut and the kind of sunglasses Secret Service guys wear.
Ronnie leaps up as if he’s been burned. “My dad! Hide the water balloon!”
The “balloon” is currently a shredded piece of plastic no larger than a wad of chewing gum, but Joey still manages to kick it under the bench to hide the evidence. Apparently, Mr. Lindahl is someone you don’t mess with.
Ronnie’s father is short and stocky, yet his clothes hang on him like they’ve been made to measure. He wears those special golf shoes with the leather fringe that hangs over the laces. It flops as he marches over.
“You promised Mom you’d sweep out the garage today. What are you doing here?”
“I’ll do it now.” Ronnie starts for the car, then turns to introduce me. “Dad, this is that new kid, Keenan.”
Mr. Lindahl gives me a quick once-over with his eyes, but doesn’t bother to say hello, goodbye, or drop dead. “Let’s go,” he urges his son.
With an embarrassed look at Joey and me, Ronnie gets into the Mercedes. He’s so wet that he sloshes into the glove-leather bucket seat like he’s sailing down a waterslide.
The reaction from his father is explosive. “Get out of my car!” In a split second, his face is bright purple and his eyes are red-rimmed and bulging. He yanks Ronnie bodily out of the seat, sending him sprawling on the grass.
“You told me to get in!” Ronnie squeaks.
“If my leather is damaged,” his father threatens, “it’s coming out of your college account!”
Joey and I stand there, cowed. I can’t speak for Joey, but I’ve never seen anybody blow up that high that fast.
“So how am I supposed to get home?” Ronnie asks plaintively.
And just like that, Mr. Lindahl is back to normal—not nice exactly, but no longer in a towering rage. “You’ve got legs,” he replies. “Use them.” And he gets back in the car and roars away.
Ronnie shoots Joey and me a crooked grin. “What?” As if we haven’t just witnessed his father melting down like a nuclear power plant.
Joey laughs, but I can’t. It was just too awkward, bordering on scary.
My wet shoes squelch all the way home.
12
Bradley Cardinal
Keenan looks a lot like his mother, my ex-wife. They have the same fair complexion, the same blue eyes, the same medium brown hair. He’s even got that eyebrow that the two of them can raise to such dramatic effect.
I definitely saw my fair share of that when Lila and I were married. I saw it again on Skype when I told her that her son would be starting seventh grade on Centerlight, rather than going back to China. But she was good about following the doctor’s recommendation. That’s the one thing we agree on—we both want what’s best for Keenan.
“So when does Dr. Sobel think it will be okay for him to come home?” she asks me now.
I still find it amazing to Skype her. She’s sitting at a computer in her room; I’m sitting at a computer in mine. Then I remember: outside her window, that’s China—the other side of the world.
“We have to wait for his immune system to build itself back up,” I explain. “The TB is over—he’s recovered from that. But look how he crashed again after that lighthouse incident. That shouldn’t happen to a normal twelve-year-old.”
“It wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been at the lighthouse in the first place,” she reminds me.
I shrug. “The kid has to live, Lila. We can’t pack him in bubble wrap just because he’s been sick. The doctor wants to err on the side of caution, which means Keenan could be here for months.”
And she reluctantly agrees.
“It’s just hard,” she confides, “to think that he’s seven thousand miles away from me.”
“When he’s with you,” I can’t help reminding her, “he’s seven thousand miles away from me.”
I’d never wish tuberculosis on anybody. But I have to confess it’s been nice having Keenan with me, even if it’s just temporary. He was only five when his mom and I split. And within a few months of that, she got her first international school job—Brussels, I think, or was it Helsinki? I feel like I’ve missed most of his childhood, so I’m soaking it up now, since it isn’t going to last. If that means the occasional eruption of lighthouse-mania, I’ll cope. He’s a great kid. I’m lucky.
I sign off with Lila just as the doorbell rings. By the time I make it downstairs, Keenan is ushering Bryce into the living room.
It was my idea to have the trainer over for dinner. The guy lives on the island all alone, so he’s probably surviving on Taco Bell and protein shakes. But he’s been so good for Keenan that I want to encourage the friendship. I already see the physical difference in my son. He’s breathing better, moving with athletic confidence and grace, building a pair of real shoulders.
We all head out back to fire up the barbecue.
Keenan indicates the lawn chair, which is still sitting in the center of the yard. “That used to be my whole life before I started training with you,” he tells Bryce. “I spent ten hours a day in that thing, lying around like a carrot.”
“Inactivity,” Bryce clucks. “Not a fan. I’m a fan of that, though,” he adds, as I place the steaks on the hot grill.
Funny thing about Bryce. The big man communicates mostly through a series of grunts, plus a vocabulary of about twenty words. But he launches into a detailed lecture on the nutritional properties of red meat, including the number of grams of protein per ounce, when cooked medium rare, which is the way he likes it, please.
