Rebel McKenzie (15 page)

Rudy jumped up and down like his pants were on fire. “Oh, boy! I want a strawberry sundae.”

A vanilla twist cone dipped in chocolate sure would hit the spot for me.

Lacey Jane hurried down the walk, carrying our plastic dress bags like a banner. “Rebel, you forgot your dress!”

“We're going to Kline's to celebrate the return of Doublewide and my first
A
,” Lynette told her. “Come with us. My treat. Do you need to call your father at work?”

“No. As long as I'm with a responsible adult, I can go places.”

Lynette peeled off her smock and flung it in the car. It landed on the package panel in the back. “Let me put on some shorts first.”

Ten minutes later, we all piled in the car.

“Lacey Jane, sit with me,” Rudy begged.

I could tell by the way Lacey Jane was scrunched all the way over by the other window she'd rather I was sitting in the back with her.

Soon we were cruising down the road, windows open, radio blaring, eager to knock the temperature down a degree or two with Kline's famous frozen custard.

K
line's Tastee Freez was on the other side of Red Onion, on Dogtown Road. “Is there a real Dogtown?” Rudy asked Lacey Jane. “Do dogs live there?”

“Do frogs live in Frog Level?” From the sharpness in her voice, I knew she didn't want Rudy pestering her the whole way.

I was more interested in the blue-and-white-striped box on the seat between me and Lynette. “What's this? A present?”

“Sort of. You have to give it back,” Lynette said.

“It's not a present if I have to give it back.” I thumbed one corner of the lid. “No peeking.” A sign caught my attention. 1800 ray of hope lane.

The address of Red Onion Prison, where my convict friend Skeeter was paying his debt to society. As we passed the turnoff in a cloud of dust, I stared down the road. Pretty red flowers bordered a long, serious wire fence with a coil of barbed wire rimming the top. I'm glad they made the place homey.

I wondered if Skeeter would track me down for that twenty-dollar bet after he was sprung. Another reason I needed to win the pageant prize money. You don't want to be owing an ex-con.

It was probably only ten minutes but seemed like forever until I spotted the Tastee Freez sign, shaped like a giant soft-serve cone. Lynette parked in the gravel lot and we bailed out.

Rudy clutched the ledge of the walk-up window, sputtering, “I want—I want—I want—Mama…I want a strawberry sundae, only without—” Sometimes the kid was so wound up, he didn't make sense.

“I know,” Lynette said patiently, taking her wallet from her purse. “Without strawberries.”

“If you don't like strawberries, how come you're getting a strawberry sundae?” I asked him.

“Because I like pink ice cream.”

Like Rudy, I knew what I wanted right away, but we had to wait while Lynette and Lacey Jane compared and discussed each item on the menu like we were at the last dinner on the
Titanic
.

“I didn't have lunch today,” Lynette said. “A chili dog and a chocolate milk shake sounds good to me. Make up your mind yet, Lacey Jane?”

“I'd like a pineapple sundae with wet nuts.” She glanced at Lynette. “If that's okay. Wet nuts are extra.”

“No problem.” Lynette placed our orders. “We'll eat at the picnic table under the tree over there.”

Lacey Jane pulled a wad of napkins from the dispenser, then covered the top of the picnic table. “I don't like eating where birds have pooped.”

“Who does?” I said.

When our orders were ready, I wrapped a bunch of napkins around my cone. The trick about the dipped twist cone was that the second you bit into that thin chocolate shell, the frozen custard inside melted like it was sitting on a radiator. For the next ten minutes I was in a licking race to keep an ice cream river from dribbling over my fingers.

Lynette wolfed her chili dog down in three bites, then sucked on the milk shake straw till her cheeks hollowed. Lacey Jane, who looked like an X-ray, scraped the plastic spoon at the bottom of her sundae cup before the rest of us had hardly started. Of course Rudy inspected every spoonful of his sundae to make sure no speck of strawberry had sneaked through. We would be there till the Tastee Freez closed.

“Okay, I'm done,” I said to Lynette. “Now, show me the sort-of present.”

Lynette went back to the car to fetch the box. “Since you won't let me do your hair for the pageant, I borrowed this for you.”

She lifted the lid, revealing a hairy dark brown thing. At first I thought she'd stuffed Doublewide in the box. Gently, Lynette took the wig off its plastic stand and held up this marvel for us to admire. A bushel of teased hair rose from nose-grazing bangs and fell in a tangle of wild curls.

“One hundred percent human hair. None of your slick synthetic Dynel.” She stroked the wig. “The hair came from women in southern Italy. They have wonderful, thick hair.”

“Can I put it on?” Rudy said, reaching for the bangs with a sticky hand.

Lynette swung it out of his reach. “Sugar-pop, this isn't a play wig. And it's not even mine. It belongs to the beauty school. Miss Dot told us it cost one hundred and fifty dollars. I don't
dare
let anything happen to it.”

“Don't worry. I'm not wearing that moth-eaten bath mat for one second,” I said firmly.

“Just try it on,” Lynette wheedled.

“Yeah, Rebel, try it on,” said Lacey Jane. “Let's see how you look.”

I sat on the picnic table bench, stiff as a statue, while Lynette pulled my ponytail up, then slid the wig over my head. The net cap the hair was sewed to itched something fierce. Plus, it was too big.

“It's slipping off,” I said.

“Wait. Let me fix the hook thingies in the back.” Lynette shoved my head forward and fiddled with something at my neck. Suddenly my ears felt like they were being cut off.

“Too tight!”

Lynette pushed out her bottom lip in concentration as she finger-fluffed the hair around my shoulders. “Rebel, you have to pay a price for beauty.”

Lacey Jane snickered, but Rudy said, “Rebel, that's the way you should wear your hair when you're—”

“Never mind!” I knew he wanted me to wear this wig with the dress he'd picked for when I'm laid out in my casket.

“There! You look very grown-up.” Lynette dug in her purse for a mirror. “What do you think?”

I parted the long bangs and peered at my reflection. It looked like a woolly mammoth was crouched on my head. “You've
got
to be kidding. Get me out of this contraption!” I tugged at the bangs.

“Careful!” Lynette unhooked the cap and took the wig off of me with a sigh. “All right. If you won't let me fix your hair, at least let me do your makeup.”

Even though I thought I looked fine the way I was, my face would be stacked against Bambi's glamour-puss. Maybe I should accept Lynette's help. “Okay.”

Lacey Jane picked at the edge of the splintered picnic table, staying out of our conversation, but clearly listening.

“Would you like me to do your makeup, too?” Lynette asked her.

Lacey Jane's sallow face lit up. “Can I wear green eye shadow?”

“We'll see. Rudy, you don't have to finish your sundae if you don't want to. I bet you're tired. It's been a long day.” Lynette dumped our trash while Lacey Jane and I stripped the napkins off the table and tossed them in the wire can.

Lynette came back and studied the wig in its box. Then she put it on her own head. “I miss being a brunette. Maybe I'll dye my hair back.”

The sun had dipped behind the hills but it wasn't a bit cooler. A chorus of locusts shrilled from the trees.
Ree-ree-ree-ree-REE.

“Summer's half over,” Lynette said as we climbed in The Clunker.

My stomach did a little flip. August was almost here! In two days—two!—the pageant prize money would be mine.

I squeezed my eyes shut as Lynette put the car in gear and backed out of the parking lot. I pictured the cool blue mountains around Saltville. No sleepwalking and sleep-singing nephews, no barrette-wearing bullies, no prissy little Kissy dogs, no lost cats or sisters studying about acne, no
Bambi
…just me and a bunch of long-dead animals.

“C'n we go down the Bump Road?” Rudy asked.

I half turned in my seat. “How do you know about the Bump Road?”

“Mama drived me down it. It made my stomach fly up.”

Lynette grinned at him in the rearview mirror. “That's right, buddy.”

“What's the Bump Road?” Lacey Jane asked.

“A back road between Red Onion to Grandview Estates,” Lynette replied. “We call it the Bump Road because there's a hill—”

“And if you speed up, the car sails over the hill and makes your stomach feel like it's floating,” I said. “But how come you know about it?”

“Rebel, Daddy drove me on the Bump Road long before you were even thought of. Who do you think named it?”

We sailed along the narrow road, churning up red dust. Queen Anne's lace and blue-flowered chicory brushed the sides of the car. I reached out the window and grabbed a handful of leaves.

With one arm out the window and the other over the top of the steering wheel, Lynette settled back, the wind blowing her Italian-hair curls every which way.

“One time,” she said, “Daddy took us on this road. We had just come back from Wells' Market. I had a little bag of Planters salted peanuts and an RC Cola.”

“Don't tell me,” I broke in. “You choked on the peanuts.”

“Worse. Just as Daddy speeded up the hill, I dropped all the peanuts in the RC. When we went over the hill, I took a slug. Whoosh!” She waved her hands wildly. “RC flew up my nose and went all over the place!”

We all giggled.

“What did Mama and Daddy do?” I asked.

“Nothing. I had to wash the car when we got back home.”

Rudy leaned forward. “Mama had the funnest times!”

“It wasn't much fun cleaning up gummy RC all over the floor and windows and seat cushion.” Lynette peered through the windshield. “Okay, everybody. There's the hill. Sit back, Rudy-pie.”

“This is gonna be so fun!” Rudy said, clutching Lacey Jane's shoulder.

She pushed him away. “Get over on your side.”

Lynette's foot mashed the gas pedal. The Clunker zoomed up the steep hill like it had wings.

“Over the top!” she sang. “Hold on to your hats, everybody!”

The Clunker soared over the hill. Just as I felt my stomach elevator up like it always did, something solid and dark launched from the backseat and landed in Lynette's lap.

She screamed and jammed on the brakes. We hit the bottom of the hill with a sickening scrape of the front bumper and us pinned against our seat belts. For a split instant no one said anything.

Then Rudy let out a wail. “Mama's been kilt!”

I stared at Lynette. She was most definitely alive, but her blond hair was flat as a johnnycake. The large brown object in her lap stared at her in surprise.

“Doublewide!” we both cried at once.

“That stupid cat!” Lynette said.

“Mama!” Rudy sobbed. “She's dead!”

I spun around and got on my knees so I could see in the backseat. Lacey Jane wrapped her arms around Rudy.

“No, she's not,” she said soothingly. “Your mama's fine. See?”

“But her head fell off!”

Lynette hands flew to her pasted-down hair. “Oh, my God, the wig!” She shoved Doublewide at me, then jumped out of the car and opened the back door on Rudy's side.

“Oh, Rudy-puppy,” she said, picking up the wig, which had tumbled over Rudy's feet. “The dumb ol' wig fell off. I'm okay! Oh, my poor baby.” She smothered him with kisses. “And look, Doublewide stowed away. Didn't he give us all a scare!”

“He must have gotten in the car and gone to sleep under your smock,” I said. “And when we went over the hill, he woke up.”

“That cat is more trouble than you can shake a stick at,” Lynette said, getting back in the car. “Everybody ready to go home? I know I am.”

“You want to sit up front?” I asked Rudy. “I'll change places.”

“No,” he whimpered. “I want to stay here with Lacey Jane.”

I glanced back. Rudy nestled against Lacey Jane, who still had one arm curled protectively around him.

“Don't worry, Rudy,” she murmured. “Nobody's gonna bother you.”

I turned around and faced front. When I left in August, I wouldn't have to worry about Lacey Jane picking on Rudy anymore. And I wouldn't have to feel guilty about Rudy. He probably wouldn't miss me much. Maybe not at all.

Instead of feeling relieved, I sulked. Rudy sure took to Lacey Jane quick.

Doublewide purred and “mixed biscuits” on my legs the rest of the way home. I scratched his chin and watched the summer darkness rush past.

Personality Profile–Aries (March 21–April 21)

Born under a fire sign, you are a force to be reckoned with. You are confident and have the internal resources to deal with new ideas and situations. Forthcoming and direct, you are also competitive, opinionated, and territorial about possessions. You are curious but easily bored and often leave projects unfinished.