7
I studied myself in the mirror of the bathroom at McDonald’s. My hair hung in greasy clumps on my forehead. Creases from the crumpled-up clothes I had slept on were still etched in the side of my face. I rubbed my hands together under the water and ran my wet fingers through my hair. Then I used paper towels to scrub my face and arms. The rough brown paper left my skin red and scratched.
We’d spent the weekend in that old house and I was beginning to think I’d rather sleep in the car again. Mama had got some stuff at a yard sale to try to make things better. A plastic raft for us to take turns sleeping on. A radio that ran on batteries. An alarm clock. Stuff like that. She even got a great big artificial plant with red and purple flowers. She had wiped the dust off the leaves with her shirttail and set it up on top of the wood stove. I guess she thought that plant would make me glad to be there, but it didn’t. If things didn’t change soon, I was going to have to go back to my dog-stealing plans. That’s all there was to it.
The bathroom door opened and Mama stuck her head inside.
“We got to go, Georgina,” she said. “I can’t be late for work again.”
I followed her out to the car. I couldn’t help but notice how her blue jeans hung all baggy, dragging on the asphalt parking lot as she walked. I guess she was getting skinnier.
She had on her green Handy Pantry T-shirt. Her long fingers clutched a cup of coffee that sent trails of steam into the early morning air.
“I’ll drop y’all off at the corner,” she said, climbing into the car. “Then go on up yonder to the bus stop, okay?”
“Okay.” I got into the backseat beside Toby and propped my feet on top of my bag of stuff. Mama had told us not to leave our things in that nasty ole house, “just in case.” When I’d asked “Just in case what?” she had flapped her hand at me and told me to stop asking so many questions.
“After school,” she said, “you and Toby wait in the car while I work at the cleaners, then we’ll go on back to the house after that, okay?”
I stuffed my notebook into my backpack. Today was the day we were supposed to bring in our science projects. I didn’t have mine, but I didn’t even care. I’d tell Mr. White my project got lost or stolen or something.
“Okay, Georgina?” Mama said, craning her neck to look at me in the rearview mirror.
“I guess.” I stared out the window.
“What’s the matter?”
I shrugged. “Nothing.”
“Come on and tell me, Georgina,” she said. “What’s the matter?”
I felt a wave of mad sweep over me. “Everything!” I hollered. “Okay? Everything’s the matter.”
I kept my head turned toward the window, but I could feel her eyes on me.
“Give me a break, okay?” she yelled into the mirror. “You’re just making this harder on everybody, Miss Glum and Angry. What would you like me to do, rob a bank?”
Toby giggled and I shot him a look that wiped the grin right off his face.
“Maybe you could act like a mother,” I said.
Mama slammed on the brakes and whipped around to glare at me.
“Just what is that supposed to mean?” she said.
“Mothers are supposed to take care of their kids,” I said. “Not let them sleep in creepy old houses and wash up in the bathroom at McDonald’s.”
Mama pressed her lips together and I could tell she was thinking hard about what to say. But then she just sighed and turned back around.
We rode in silence the rest of the way. When we got to the corner near the bus stop, I got out and slammed the door. Hard.
“Look after Toby, okay, Georgina,” Mama called after me.
“Yeah,” I said. “Whatever.”
“Was he mad?” Luanne asked me as we headed toward the bus.
“Naw.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Well, I mean, nothing much.” I didn’t look at Luanne ’cause I knew she would know I was lying. Mr. White had said plenty. He’d said how he couldn’t understand my bad attitude lately. And he was so disappointed in my lack of effort recently. And then he had to go and ask me if everything was all right at home.
I had kept my eyes on the Styrofoam planets dangling from a coat hanger behind him. Somebody’s stupid science project.
“Yessir,” I said. “Everything’s fine.”
Then he had given me another envelope with Mr. and Mrs. Hayes written on it. Would I be sure and have my parents call him, he had said.
And if he didn’t hear from them, he was going to have to talk to the principal about the problem. Did I understand, he had said.
“Yessir,” I told him. What I didn’t tell him was that my daddy was long gone and my mama couldn’t even get us a place to live and my things got thrown out with the garbage. I didn’t tell him that my best friend didn’t even like me anymore and now she had a new friend. All I said to him was “Yessir.”
I stuffed the envelope way down inside my backpack and left quick as I could.
On the bus, Luanne and I took our regular seats, and then Liza Thomas got on and stopped beside us.
“Are you going to Girl Scouts today?” she asked Luanne. She had on a red T-shirt with sparkly gold glitter spelling out Cool Chick.
“Yeah, are you?” Luanne said.
“Yeah.” Liza flicked her ponytail behind her shoulder. “I’ll see you there, okay?”
“Okay.”
I could feel my jealousy churning around inside. Girl Scouts. I could just see Luanne and Liza there, side by side, working on their outdoor cooking badge or maybe planning a visit to the nursing home. I had to drop out of Girl Scouts so I could take care of Toby after school. Besides, I couldn’t pay the dues or go on the trip to Six Flags or anything.
When we got off the bus, Liza waved at us out the window. Luanne waved back, but I didn’t. Toby trotted along behind us.
“Wanna come over to my house before Girl Scouts?” Luanne said.
I wanted to say yes more than anything. I wanted to go over to the Godfreys’ and lie on Luanne’s soft pink carpet, eating graham crackers and working on one of my Girl Scout badges.
“I can’t,” I said. And that was all.
Me and Toby went on down the hill to where Mama was waiting for us in the car. I hated looking at that beat-up old car with bags of stuff all piled up on the seats. Black smoke puffed out of the tailpipe and the engine made a rattly sound.
“Hey, y’all,” Mama called through the open window. “Look what I got.” She waved a giant bag of M&M’s at us.
“Hot dang!” Toby hollered, racing to the car.
I yanked the door open, tossed my backpack inside, and climbed in. Toby was already ripping the candy bag open.
“I don’t want any,” I said. Then I took my social studies book out of my backpack and pretended to read Chapter 21 like I was supposed to.
Mama turned around in the front seat. “Georgina,” she said. “Please stop making this worse than it already is.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes you are.” She got up on her knees and leaned over the seat to put her face down close to mine. “It won’t be much longer now, I promise,” she said.
“How much longer?”
Mama sighed. “A few more days maybe,” she said.
A few more days? She might as well have said “forever.”
I felt the tears running down my face and then Mama’s warm hand on my cheek.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she said. “I swear, every night I pray for a miracle but I reckon nobody’s listening.”
“What kind of miracle?” I said. My voice sounded small and pitiful.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Anything. Money, mostly.”
I nodded.
Okay, that does it, I said to myself. I was going to have to steal that dog, after all. I had to. It was the only way we were ever going to get ourselves out of this mess and live like normal people again.
So when Mama parked the car and kissed us goodbye, I pulled out my purple notebook and read through all my dog-stealing notes. I put a little checkmark beside the things I had already done. When I got to the part about finding a place to hide the dog, I thumped my pencil against my knee and thought real hard. Where in the world could I hide a dog? In the woods somewhere, maybe? Or over behind the Elks Lodge? Maybe in that old chicken coop out there by Hiram Foley’s place?
I closed my notebook and stared out the window at the folks sitting in front of the Dairy Queen across the street.
Stealing a dog had seemed so easy when I’d first thought of it. Now it seemed like the hardest thing I’d ever done.
“Georgina?”
Toby’s voice interrupted my thoughts.
“What?”
“Are we still gonna steal that dog?” he said.
“Yes,” I said. “We are.”
“When?”
“Soon.” I pushed my notebook down under the clothes in my trash bag.
That night it was my turn to sleep on the plastic raft. Strips of moonlight poured through the cracks in the plywood that covered the windows, and danced across the dusty wooden floor. I tried to make myself stop thinking so I could go to sleep, but my mind just wouldn’t turn off. I went through my plan over and over, imagining myself with that little dog, Willy. Picturing myself running with him in my arms. Seeing myself hiding him someplace. But where?
I threw the beach towel off of me and tiptoed over to the corner of the room where my stuff was. I took out my notebook and sat down in a beam of moonlight so I could see. I turned to Step 3 of How to Steal a Dog. I wrote April 12. Then, under the part that said: 3. Figure out where you are going to hide the dog, I wrote:
a. The place where you hide the dog has to be close enough so you can go visit him.
b. The place has to be somewhere that nobody goes to or else they will see the dog and maybe turn him loose or call the dog pound or something.
c. Try to find a place that is a nice place for a dog to be.
d. Try to find a place that has a roof because what if it rains?
I tried to think of some more stuff, but I guess I was too tired. My mind was finally starting to slow down and stop thinking. So I wrote: Now you are almost ready to steal a dog, and put my notebook away.
I tiptoed back over to my raft bed. I pulled the beach towel up under my chin, closed my eyes, and slept a deep, dreamless sleep like I used to when I had a bed.
But I bet if I’d known what was going to happen the next day, I never would have slept that good.
8
I stared down at my desk, and in my head I begged Mr. White not to call on me. “Georgina?” he said. “How about reading us your report on volcanoes?”
I looked at the paper in my hand. I had made my writing real big so I could fill up a whole page like we were supposed to. Everybody else had used their computers or gone to the library, but not me. All I could do was sit in that nasty house making stuff up.
With my face burning, I read my report about how volcanoes are like mountains with a hole in the middle and then fire comes out and hot lava runs down the side. My whole report lasted about two seconds and then it was over and everybody laughed. I was sure I could hear Luanne and Liza laughing louder than anybody else.
Mr. White said, “Shhhh,” and put his hand on my shoulder.
“Thank you, Georgina,” he said, and my heart swelled up with love for him. My report was nothing but great big made-up words, but he was still being nice to me. He wasn’t going to holler at me like he had hollered at Luke Ketchum.
I hadn’t been doing too good in school lately, but I still looked forward to being there. At least at school, I knew how my day was going to go. I knew we’d say the Pledge of Allegiance and then we’d raise our hands if we wanted grilled cheese instead of chicken fingers for lunch. Then we’d look up there on the chalkboard and our whole day would be written out. Math and then reading. A spelling test and then gym. No surprises.
Not like after school, when I never knew what was going to happen next. It seemed like something new was always coming my way, and most times it wasn’t good. Like that very day of my volcano report, when me and Toby got back to the car and Mama was sitting there all red-faced and crying.
Toby lunged right through the open window and hugged her so hard I thought she was gonna choke. She peeled his arms from around her neck and said, “Y’all get in the car.”
I got in my usual spot in the back, but Toby jumped in the front, pushing all the boxes and bags and things aside. He kept on saying, “What’s the matter, Mama?” but she wouldn’t answer.
Nobody said anything as we sped along the streets of Darby. Mama gripped the steering wheel with both hands, her knuckles white and her elbows locked stiff. When we stopped at a red light, she put her head down on the steering wheel. The light turned green and a big truck behind us honked but Mama didn’t even look up.
“Mama?” I said.
Nothing. The truck horn honked again and somebody yelled.
“Mama?” I said again.
The truck roared around us and the man driving it hollered and shook his fist at us.
I had a feeling something bad was about to happen. “The light’s green,” I said.
Mama lifted her head up off the steering wheel and stared out at the road. Another horn honked behind us.
“I got fired at the cleaners,” she said. “Can you believe that?”
“How come?” I said.
Mama breathed out a big whoosh. “Who knows,” she said, “’Cause I was late once or twice, I reckon. Or ‘cause I don’t use that pressing machine fast enough. Or maybe just ’cause I’m alive.”
She didn’t even turn her head when another car whipped around us, honking like crazy.
“Maybe you better get out of the road,” I said.
“Maybe I better get out of the whole dern world,” she said, and sounded so mean. She swiped at tears and wiped her nose with her hand. “Maybe I better just disappear off the face of the earth. Poof! Like that.” She snapped her fingers. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
I felt words bubbling up inside me till they came busting out.
“Yeah!” I hollered. “That would be nice.”
I kicked the back of the seat and made Mama’s head jerk but she kept staring straight ahead.
“Why don’t you disappear, and then me and Toby can do what we want to. Right, Toby?” I poked the back of Toby’s head, but he just rocked back and forth, sniffling.
Another car horn honked, and Mama sat up straight like she had just woke up. She brushed the hair out of her eyes and started driving again.
Nobody said anything as we turned down the dirt and gravel road that led to the house. The car squeaked and bounced and rattled. When we stopped, Mama turned off the engine and the car gave one last little shudder.
We gathered our things and made our way through the prickly bushes to the front porch. And then we all three stopped dead in our tracks and stared at that old house. Boards had been nailed in a giant X over the front door. Someone had written on the boards in great big letters, “This is private property! Keep out!” They had added about a million exclamation points, so it looked like this:
THIS IS PRIVATE PROPERTY! KEEP OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mama dropped her stuff right off the porch and into the bushes. Blankets and pillows and everything. Then she sat down on the rickety steps and hollered out a bunch of cuss words that echoed through the woods.
Toby got all blubbery, but I just stood there looking at that boarded-up door. I was surprised how bad I felt, seeing as how I hated that house. But I guess it had been better than the car, after all.
I watched the back of Mama’s head and I could almost see her sadness swirling around her.
“It’s a good thing you made us take our stuff out of there every day,” I said.
She just stared out at the woods. Toby was whimpering and pulling the blankets up out of the bushes.
“That would have been awful if our stuff was locked up in there,” I said.
Mama kept staring out into the woods.
“I guess Beverly Jenkins was wrong about this house,” I said. “I guess the owner doesn’t want us here, after all.”
Mama turned her head slowly and looked at me and her face didn’t show anything. Not mad. Not sad. Not anything. Then she stood up and gathered the rest of the blankets and stuff.
“Come on, y’all,” she said.
Me and Toby followed her out to the car and climbed in.
As we made our way back up the gravel road toward the highway, I hummed a little bit, trying to clear the heavy air in the car.
“Georgina, please,” Mama said. So I hushed up.
I stared out at the world passing by my window and I made up my mind. I was definitely gonna steal that dog.