Another Kind of Hurricane (8 page)

Margarita turned the radio down so she could hear better.

“Marco did what?” she asked into the phone. She couldn't have heard Christo right. “He scored a goal?” She couldn't believe it. How many hours had she and Christo spent in the backyard with Marco, showing him how to dribble, showing him the sweet spot on the side of his sneaker, taking turns standing in the goal as Marco shot soccer ball after soccer ball to the outside of the metal posts?

In this case it was like mother, like son. When Margarita had been five—no, maybe it was even earlier, like age four or even three—her father had taken her to the park almost every day to practice goal kicks. Margarita remembered him leaning against the white post, his hair back in a ponytail, smoking a cigarette, shaking his head, disappointed as she missed every goal.

At home, in Spain, everyone played soccer. Margarita's
father played, her older brother, even her two younger stepbrothers played. It was expected that Margarita would too. But she didn't want to. Her feet had no interest—or her feet had no skill—in kicking the ball, and her fingers always itched to fit themselves around the markers she had under her bed in her room. The ones her
abuela
had given her. She spent hours pulling the markers out of their plastic sleeve and rearranging their order.

Rainbow order—
rojo, anaranjado, amarillo, verde, azul, púrpura
.

Complementary order—
rojo y verde, anaranjado y azul, amarillo y púrpura
.

Favorite color order—
púrpura, verde, anaranjado, azul, amarillo, rojo
.

—

Margarita pulled her hand away from her ear to adjust the rearview mirror. She could barely see with all the garbage bags piled up in the back of the truck. She grinned. It felt good to be doing something useful. Taking these clothes to the kids down in New Orleans. Almost a year in Vermont now, and she was still trying to find a teaching job. She put the phone back to her ear. She had missed some of what Christo had said.

“Yes, I promise. I'll let you know when I get there. I love you and Marco too,” she said. “Oh, and tell Marco I challenge
him to kick a goal past me when I get home.” She clicked off her phone.

Margarita stretched her neck from one side to the other and saw a small green car pass her on the left. Two little kids were in the backseat, their heads close together, hunched over something, maybe playing a game. She checked the truck clock. 6:14 p.m. She decided she'd drive as far as she could. Until she began to experience that almost-asleep feeling. The truck driver at the Williston Police Department had left her with that one piece of advice.

“Stop driving as soon as you feel your eyelids get heavy. Even if it's for a half second. Those half seconds can turn into seconds, and then those seconds can turn into sleep really fast,” he had said.

Margarita turned the radio back up. She tapped her thumb on the edge of the steering wheel. Right now she felt wide awake. And she felt other things too. Happy to be on the way to New Orleans. Proud of Marco. Lonely for her papa. Itchy to do something with her fingers.

And then out of the blue, she said, “Jacks!” and took her hands off the steering wheel for half a second—no worry of falling asleep—and snapped her fingers.

All of a sudden she had a vision of her
abuelo
playing jacks with her great-uncles in front of his house—she hadn't
thought of that since she was a little girl—and she wished her papa were alive. Why hadn't they ever played? It was a family game that he'd liked, but she could have used her hands instead of her feet. It wasn't something Papa had thought was silly, like art.

Margarita would play jacks with Marco, then. In honor of Papa. She'd buy a bag of jacks and a few rubber balls, maybe rainbow-colored balls—
rojo, anaranjado, amarillo, verde, azul, púrpura
—and teach Marco how to play when she got home.

“I think I might have kneaded the bread too much,” said Zavion.

Night was hard.

He didn't sleep much, and when he did, he had the same nightmare.

And that made the next morning hard too.

“I don't know what went wrong. I kneaded forty-five times—” He winced as he pulled on the bread. “It's too tough. I'm sorry—”

“No apologies, Zavion, honey,” said Ms. Cyn. “It's bread. It's flexible.” She chuckled. “It stretches just fine.” She pulled on a corner of the dough and let go. It snapped back.

“But it's better to knead less than knead more. I have to remember that—”

“It's all a process, Zavion. You're a good learner.”

Zavion did have to admit that even though he could do better,
he was getting the hang of this bread-making thing. It was only his second day on the job and he had made the bread by himself. It was his job now. He was putting the two loaves on the paddle when the kitchen door opened and three men—the clowns—tumbled in.

“Do they always travel together?” said Zavion.

“Yes, they seem to,” said Ms. Cyn.

“Yup, we do,” said Enzo.

“We've all got plenty of biceps—” said Tavius, flexing his arms.

“—but not enough brains,” said Skeet.

“A third each,” said Tavius. He flicked Skeet and Enzo on their foreheads. “One, two”—he tapped himself—“three.”

“Together we have a fighting chance,” said Skeet.

“Sometimes I'm not so sure about that,” said Ms. Cyn, pouring cups of coffee. “Where were you?”

“The question is—” said Enzo.

“—where are
you
?” said Tavius.

“Or
who
are you?” said Skeet. “My mother-in-law would never set even one tiny baby toe in the kitchen—” Ms. Cyn swatted Skeet with a dish towel. “Just kidding. Sort of. But not really.” She spun the towel and swatted him again. “Oooooh-wheeee! All right! We went to Diana's house.”

“The bird lady?” said Ms. Cyn.

“Yup. Birds everywhere,” said Enzo.

“And a vet is staying at her house too,” said Tavius. “She said they've rescued more than one hundred birds already.”

“Diana said she gets twenty calls a day from families who had to evacuate and leave their birds behind,” said Skeet.

“Why were you visiting Diana?” Ms. Cyn settled herself at the kitchen table and picked up her scarf and knitting needles.

“We wanted to see if we could help,” said Tavius.

“Go back into New Orleans with her,” said Enzo.

“Maybe catch some birds,” said Skeet.

“And…,” said Ms. Cyn.

“She said we'd just be in the way,” said Skeet.

“Us!” said Enzo.

“Can you believe it?” said Tavius.

“Do you want me to even answer that?” Ms. Cyn looked up from her knitting and grinned. Zavion stared at her long trail of orange scarf. “You three clowns in the way?” It was enormous now. He wondered how big the person who was getting the scarf was. Maybe it was for Enzo, Skeet, and Tavius all at once!

“You can never have too much of us!” said Skeet. He reached into the bowl at the center of the table and pulled out three apples. He tossed one to Tavius and one to Enzo. “Right, boys?”

They circled Ms. Cyn and tossed the apples to one another over her head.

“Hey, now—” she protested.

“Hush, Ms. Cyn,” said Skeet. “We got it—”

“—together—” said Tavius.

“—oooh, baby, do we ever,” finished Enzo. And as if on cue, they all spun in a circle and bit down on their apples at the same time.

Zavion couldn't help smiling.

The clowns bowed. “Thank you, thank you,” said Skeet.

“Tip jar is by the door on your way out,” said Enzo.

“Don't you let these fools steal your money, Zavion, honey,” said Ms. Cyn. She clucked her tongue and shook her head as she bent over her knitting again.

Steal
.

The word punctured the corners of Zavion's upturned mouth like a pin.

The chocolate bars bounced around in his head like those apples. He should pay back what he owed Luna Market. He knew where it was.

But how?

Mama's story came to him then. Or his question. The question he asked every time she told him the story. She'd be at the edge of his bed, pulling the blanket to his chin. He'd sit up fast, the blanket falling, his nose an inch away from her nose.

“How?” he'd demand. “How does a mountain travel from one place to another? How is that possible?”

“Zavion, honey—”

Zavion's head snapped up. He opened his eyes. He hadn't even known they were closed. Had he been talking out loud? Enzo, Skeet, and Tavius sat on the counters around the kitchen and Ms. Cyn still sat at the table, her knitting needles
click-clack
ing, her eyes shining again.

“Are you okay?” she said.

I will never be okay
, thought Zavion.

“Are you kidding?” said Enzo. “No one in this house is okay.”

“Especially you,” said Tavius, slapping Enzo on the back.

“Yeah, you never were,” said Skeet.

They laughed, and Zavion appreciated the shift of focus.

How would anything ever be okay again?

How could he pay back the market?

He didn't know, but he knew he had to figure it out. If he could just pay back the money for the chocolate bars, maybe he could make this whole hurricane mess go away.

The sound of laughter interrupted Zavion's thoughts. Ms. Cyn's head was thrown back as she laughed, her laughter like bread dough, like a mountain, rising into the air.

Henry sat at the top of the driveway and threw a rubber ball for Brae, who raced down the hill chasing it. How could Mom have done that? How could he have let it happen? How could the marble be gone?

Before that night on the mountain, Henry and Wayne had rules for exchanging the marble. They weren't official or anything. They weren't written down and hung up in their bedrooms. But they were rules that they just
knew
, and they seemed to work.

The marble worked.

Henry's football team rarely lost a game, and when they did it was because of Nopie and his stupid butterfingers. Apple pie fingers. And Wayne's soccer and baseball teams never lost. There was something about accepting the marble, and then holding it, feeling its smooth circle go round and round and round that inspired a sense of invincibility in Henry. He didn't
even have to think about feeling invincible. It wasn't a thought. It just
was
. It was hope and bravery and confidence all rolled together just like he rolled the marble in his hand.

It was true that he found the marble the day he and Mom moved into their house. After he had picked his room, he found it on the windowsill. And it was also true that he met Wayne that same afternoon. Everyone knew those parts of the story. What they didn't know was the first part. The part about Henry getting up early in the morning, that morning he and Mom moved, and Henry feeling so heavy with sadness that he laid himself down in the driveway in front of the car and wouldn't get up. Not for breakfast, his last scrambled-egg breakfast in the only house he had ever known, not to play in the tree house his father had built, and not even when Mom finally got into the car and turned it on. She had to lift him up kicking and screaming, hold him back against the seat of the car with her elbow while she wrestled with his seat belt. She surprised him with a bag of cheese puffs for the ride, but even his favorite food didn't make him feel better.

Henry remembered believing it was the end of the world. What did he know? He was only four years old. He also remembered grabbing onto one idea and squeezing it until it was blue. If there was a sign at the new house, then he knew he would live beyond that last day in the old brown house.

So he had walked upstairs, picked his new room, and there it had been. Right on the windowsill.

The marble.

And now it was gone.

The thought made Henry want to lie down again, this time in front of the car or pickup or eighteen-wheeler or whatever had driven off with the marble. He lay down in his driveway instead, beside Brae, who was chewing on the rubber ball.

“What am I going to do?” he asked Brae. Brae leaned in to sniff Henry's nose. “Do you smell an idea?” said Henry, rubbing Brae under the chin. “ 'Cause I don't feel anything cooking in here—” He tapped the side of his head. Cooking made Henry think of Nopie and his stupid apple pie, and he said, “Stupid!” out loud and then he said, “Oh, not you, Brae! Never you! You're the smartest dog-cow I know—” He sat up, took the ball, put his hands inside his sweatshirt pocket. “Which hand?” he said. Brae sniffed Henry again, this time around his pocket, and nudged Henry's left hand. “Right!” Henry said. “You're right every time!” He threw the ball again and watched Brae as he raced down the driveway.

Suddenly, his brain was racing too.

Suddenly, his brain was an oven and he was cooking up an idea fast.

If Brae could chase a ball, why couldn't Henry chase a marble?

The marble was in New Orleans.

Jake was going to New Orleans.

Henry could hitch a ride with Jake and find his marble.

This was a triple-decker cake of an idea!

Brae loped back up the driveway and dropped the ball at Henry's feet. He licked Henry. “Do I taste sweet, Brae?” said Henry. “Cake sweet?”

And right there at the top of the driveway, under Mount Mansfield, Henry felt the heat of a tiny bit of hope.

“I'll ask Mom if I can go,” said Henry. “She'll let me go.” He paused. “No, she won't. Shoot.” He paused again. The heat-spark flickered dramatically. Hope, no hope, hope, no hope. “What am I going to do, Brae? I need to get that marble. But how? What would Wayne do?” Brae stared into Henry's eyes. “You've got the answer, don't you? What is it?” Henry stood up fast, almost knocking Brae in the nose. “Right! He'd sneak onto the truck! That's what he'd do. And that's what I'm gonna do.” He took a deep breath. “Who am I kidding? I can't sneak onto Jake's truck.” He looked into Brae's eyes again. “Okay, yeah, you're right. I'm just going to have to talk to Jake. I'm going to have to get Jake to convince Mom that I can go.”

With that, Henry turned up the heat on his cake, on his triple-decker, perfect cake of an idea.